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7703	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK SECOND. INITIAL CHAPTER. INFORMING THE READER HOW THIS WORK CAME TO HAVE INITIAL CHAPTERS. "There can't be a doubt," said my father, "that to each of the main divisions of your work--whether you call them Books or Parts--you should prefix an Initial or Introductory Chapter." PISISTRATUS.--"Can't be a doubt, sir? Why so?" MR. CAXTON.--"Fielding lays it down as an indispensable rule, which he supports by his example; and Fielding was an artistical writer, and knew what he was about." PISISTRATUS.--"Do you remember any of his reasons, sir?" MR. CAXTON.--"Why, indeed, Fielding says, very justly, that he is not bound to assign any reason; but he does assign a good many, here and there,--to find which I refer you to 'Tom Jones.' I will only observe, that one of his reasons, which is unanswerable, runs to the effect that thus, in every Part or Book, the reader has the advantage of beginning at the fourth or fifth page instead of the first,--'a matter by no means of trivial consequence,' saith Fielding, 'to persons who read books with no other view than to say they have read them,--a more general motive to reading than is commonly imagined; and from which not only law books and good books, but the pages of Homer and Virgil, Swift and Cervantes, have been often turned Over.' There," cried my father, triumphantly, "I will lay a shilling to twopence that I have quoted the very words." MRS. CANTON.--"Dear me, that only means skipping; I don't see any great advantage in writing a chapter, merely for people to skip it." PISISTRATUS.--"Neither do I!" MR. CANTON (dogmatically).--"It is the repose in the picture,--Fielding calls it 'contrast.'--(Still more dogmatically.)--I say there can't be a doubt about it. Besides" added my father after a pause,--"besides, this usage gives you opportunities to explain what has gone before, or to prepare for what's coming; or, since Fielding contends, with great truth, that some learning is necessary for this kind of historical composition, it allows you, naturally and easily, the introduction of light and pleasant ornaments of that nature. At each flight in the terrace you may give the eye the relief of an urn or a statue. Moreover, when so inclined, you create proper pausing-places for reflection; and complete by a separate, yet harmonious ethical department, the design of a work, which is but a mere Mother Goose's tale if it does not embrace a general view of the thoughts and actions of mankind." PISISTRATUS.--"But then, in these initial chapters, the author thrusts himself forward; and just when you want to get on with the /dramatis personae/, you find yourself face to face with the poet himself." MR. CANTON.--"Pooh! you can contrive to prevent that! Imitate the chorus of the Greek stage, who fill up the intervals between the action by saying what the author would otherwise say in his own person." PISISTRATUS (slyly).--"That's a good idea, sir,--and I have a chorus, and a choregus too, already in my eye." MR. CANTON (unsuspectingly).--"Aha! you are not so dull a fellow as you would make yourself out to be; and, even if an author did thrust himself forward, what objection is there to that? It is a mere affectation to suppose that a book can come into the world without an author. Every child has a father,--one father at least,--as the great Conde says very well in his poem." PISISTRATUS.--"The great Conde a poet! I never heard that before." MR. CANTON.--"I don't say he was a poet, but he sent a poem to Madame de Montansier. Envious critics think that he must have paid somebody else to write it; but there is no reason why a great captain should not write a poem,--I don't say a good poem, but a poem. I wonder, Roland, if the duke ever tried his hand at 'Stanzas to Mary,' or 'Lines to a Sleeping Babe.'" CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Austin, I'm ashamed of you. Of course the duke could write poetry if he pleased,--something, I dare say, in the way of the great Conde; that is, something warlike and heroic, I'll be bound. Let's hear!" MR. CAXTON (reciting).-- "Telle est du Ciel la loi severe Qu'il faut qu'un enfant ait un pere; On dit meme quelquefois Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois." ["That each child has a father Is Nature's decree; But, to judge by a rumour, Some children have three."] CAPTAIN ROLAND (greatly disgusted).--"Conde write such stuff!--I don't believe it." PISISTRATUS.--"I do, and accept the quotations; you and Roland shall be joint fathers to my child as well as myself. "'Tel enfant en a jusqu'a trois.'" MR. CAXTON (solemnly).--"I refuse the proffered paternity; but so far as administering a little wholesome castigation now and then, I have no objection to join in the discharge of a father's duty." PISISTRATUS.--"Agreed. Have you anything to say against the infant hitherto?" MR. CAXTON.--"He is in long clothes at present; let us wait till he can walk." BLANCHE.--"But pray whom do you mean for a hero? And is Miss Jemima your heroine?" CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"There is some mystery about the--" PISISTRATUS (hastily).-"Hush, Uncle: no letting the cat out of the bag yet. Listen, all of you! I left Frank Hazeldean on his way to the Casino." CHAPTER II. "It is a sweet pretty place," thought Frank, as he opened the gate which led across the fields to the Casino, that smiled down upon him with its plaster pilasters. "I wonder, though, that my father, who is so particular in general, suffers the carriage-road to be so full of holes and weeds. Mounseer does not receive many visits, I take it." But when Frank got into the ground immediately before the house, he saw no cause of complaint as to want of order and repair. Nothing could be kept more neatly. Frank was ashamed of the dint made by the pony's hoofs on the smooth gravel: he dismounted, tied the animal to the wicket, and went on foot towards the glass door in front. He rang the bell once, twice, but nobody came, for the old woman-servant, who was hard of hearing, was far away in the yard, searching for any eggs which the hen might have scandalously hidden for culinary purposes; and Jackeymo was fishing for the sticklebacks and minnows which were, when caught, to assist the eggs, when found, in keeping together the bodies and souls of himself and his master. The old woman had been lately put upon board wages. Lucky old woman! Frank rang a third time, and with the impetuosity of his age. A face peeped from the belvidere on the terrace. "Diavolo!" said Dr. Riccabocca to himself. "Young cocks crow hard on their own dunghill; it must be a cock of a high race to crow so loud at another's." Therewith he shambled out of the summer-house, and appeared suddenly before Frank, in a very wizard-like dressing-robe of black serge, a red cap on his head, and a cloud of smoke coming rapidly from his lips, as a final consolatory whiff, before he removed the pipe from them. Frank had indeed seen the doctor before, but never in so scholastic a costume, and he was a little startled by the apparition at his elbow, as he turned round. "Signorino," said the Italian, taking off his cap with his usual urbanity, "pardon the negligence of my people; I am too happy to receive your commands in person." "Dr. Rickeybockey?" stammered Frank, much confused by this polite address, and the low, yet stately, bow with which it was accompanied. "I--I have a note from the Hall. Mamma--that is, my mother--and aunt Jemima beg their best compliments, and hope you will come, sir." The doctor took the note with another bow, and, opening the glass door, invited Frank to enter. The young gentleman, with a schoolboy's usual bluntness, was about to say that he was in a hurry, and had rather not; but Dr. Riccabocca's grand manner awed him, while a glimpse of the hall excited his curiosity, so he silently obeyed the invitation. The hall, which was of an octagon shape, had been originally panelled off into compartments, and in these the Italian had painted landscapes, rich with the warm sunny light of his native climate. Frank was no judge of the art displayed; but he was greatly struck with the scenes depicted: they were all views of some lake, real or imaginary; in all, dark-blue shining waters reflected dark-blue placid skies. In one, a flight of steps ascended to the lake, and a gay group was seen feasting on the margin; in another, sunset threw its rose-hues over a vast villa or palace, backed by Alpine hills, and flanked by long arcades of vines, while pleasure-boats skimmed over the waves below. In short, throughout all the eight compartments, the scene, though it differed in details, preserved the same general character, as if illustrating some favourite locality. The Italian did not, however, evince any desire to do the honours of his own art, but, preceding Frank across the hall, opened the door of his usual sitting-room, and requested him to enter. Frank did so rather reluctantly, and seated himself with unwonted bashfulness on the edge of a chair. But here new specimens of the doctor's handicraft soon riveted attention. The room had been originally papered, but Riccabocca had stretched canvas over the walls, and painted thereon sundry satirical devices, each separated from the other by scroll-works of fantastic arabesques. Here a Cupid was trundling a wheelbarrow full of hearts, which he appeared to be selling to an ugly old fellow, with a money-bag in his hand--probably Plutus. There Diogenes might be seen walking through a market-place, with his lantern in his hand, in search of an honest man, whilst the children jeered at him, and the curs snapped at his heels. In another place a lion was seen half dressed in a fox's hide, while a wolf in a sheep's mask was conversing very amicably with a young lamb. Here again might be seen the geese stretching out their necks from the Roman Capitol in full cackle, while the stout invaders were beheld in the distance, running off as hard as they could. In short, in all these quaint entablatures some pithy sarcasm was symbolically conveyed; only over the mantel piece was the design graver and more touching. It was the figure of a man in a pilgrim's garb, chained to the earth by small but innumerable ligaments, while a phantom likeness of himself, his shadow, was seen hastening down what seemed an interminable vista; and underneath were written the pathetic words of Horace-- "Patriae quis exul Se quoque fugit?" ["What exile from his country can also fly from himself?"] The furniture of the room was extremely simple, and somewhat scanty; yet it was arranged so as to impart an air of taste and elegance to the room. Even a few plaster busts and statues, though bought but of some humble itinerant, had their classical effect, glistening from out stands of flowers that were grouped around them, or backed by graceful screen-works formed from twisted osiers, which, by the simple contrivance of trays at the bottom filled with earth, served for living parasitical plants, with gay flowers contrasting thick ivy leaves, and gave to the whole room the aspect of a bower. "May I ask your permission?" said the Italian, with his finger on the seal of the letter. "Oh, yes," said Frank, with naivete. Riccabocca broke the seal, and a slight smile stole over his countenance. Then he turned a little aside from Frank, shaded his face with his hand, and seemed to muse. "Mrs. Hazeldean," said he, at last, "does me very great honour. I hardly recognize her handwriting, or I should have been more impatient to open the letter." The dark eyes were lifted over the spectacles and went right into Frank's unprotected and undiplomatic heart. The doctor raised the note, and pointed to the characters with his forefinger. "Cousin Jemima's hand," said Frank, as directly as if the question had been put to him. The Italian smiled. "Mr. Hazeldean has company staying with him?" "No; that is, only Barney,--the captain. There's seldom much company before the shooting season," added Frank, with a slight sigh; "and then, you know, the holidays are over. For my part, I think we ought to break up a month later." The doctor seemed reassured by the first sentence in Frank's reply, and, seating himself at the table, wrote his answer,--not hastily, as we English write, but with care and precision, like one accustomed to weigh the nature of words,--in that stiff Italian hand, which allows the writer so much time to think while he forms his letters. He did not, therefore, reply at once to Frank's remark about the holidays, but was silent till he had concluded his note, read it three times over, sealed it by the taper he slowly lighted, and then, giving it to Frank, he said, "For your sake, young gentleman, I regret that your holidays are so early; for mine, I must rejoice, since I accept the kind invitation you have rendered doubly gratifying by bringing it yourself." "Deuce take the fellow and his fine speeches! One don't know which way to look," thought English Frank. The Italian smiled again, as if this time he had read the boy's heart, without need of those piercing black eyes, and said, less ceremoniously than before, "You don't care much for compliments, young gentleman?" "No, I don't indeed," said Frank, heartily. "So much the better for you, since your way in the world is made: it would be so much the worse if you had to make it!" Frank looked puzzled: the thought was too deep for him, so he turned to the pictures. "Those are very funny," said he; "they seem capitally done. Who did 'em?" "Signoriuo Hazeldean, you are giving me what you refused yourself." "Eh?" said Frank, inquiringly. "Compliments!" "Oh--I--no; but they are well done: are n't they, sir?"-- "Not particularly: you speak to the artist." "What! you painted them?" "Yes." "And the pictures in the hall?" "Those too." "Taken from nature, eh?" "Nature," said the Italian, sententiously, perhaps evasively, "lets nothing be taken from her." "Oh!" said Frank, puzzled again. "Well, I must wish you good morning, sir; I am very glad you are coming." "Without compliment?" "Without compliment." "A rivedersi--good-by for the present, my young signorino. This way," observing Frank make a bolt towards the wrong door. "Can I offer you a glass of wine?--it is pure, of our own making." "No, thank you, indeed, sir," cried Frank, suddenly recollecting his father's admonition. "Good-by, don't trouble yourself, sir; I know any way now." But the bland Italian followed his guest to the wicket, where Frank had left the pony. The young gentleman, afraid lest so courteous a host should hold the stirrup for him, twitched off the bridle, and mounted in haste, not even staying to ask if the Italian could put him in the way to Rood Hall, of which way he was profoundly ignorant. The Italian's eye followed the boy as he rode up the ascent in the lane, and the doctor sighed heavily. "The wiser we grow," said he to himself, "the more we regret the age of our follies: it is better to gallop with a light heart up the stony hill than sit in the summer-house and cry 'How true!' to the stony truths of Machiavelli!" With that he turned back into the belvidere; but he could not resume his studies. He remained some minutes gazing on the prospect, till the prospect reminded him of the fields which Jackeymo was bent on his hiring, and the fields reminded him of Lenny Fairfield. He returned to the house, and in a few moments re-emerged in his out-of-door trim, with cloak and umbrella, re-lighted his pipe, and strolled towards Hazeldean village. Meanwhile Frank, after cantering on for some distance, stopped at a cottage, and there learned that there was a short cut across the fields to Rood Hall, by which he could save nearly three miles. Frank, however, missed the short cut, and came out into the high road; a turnpike-keeper, after first taking his toll, put him back again into the short cut; and finally, he got into some green lanes, where a dilapidated finger-post directed him to Rood. Late at noon, having ridden fifteen miles in the desire to reduce ten to seven, he came suddenly upon a wild and primitive piece of ground, that seemed half chase, half common, with crazy tumbledown cottages of villanous aspect scattered about in odd nooks and corners. Idle, dirty children were making mud-pies on the road; slovenly-looking women were plaiting straw at the threshold; a large but forlorn and decayed church, that seemed to say that the generation which saw it built was more pious than the generation which now resorted to it, stood boldly and nakedly out by the roadside. "Is this the village of Rood?" asked Frank of a stout young man breaking stones on the road--sad sign that no better labour could be found for him! The man sullenly nodded, and continued his work. "And where's the Hall-- Mr. Leslie's?" The man looked up in stolid surprise, and this time touched his hat. "Be you going there?" "Yes, if I can find out where it is." "I'll show your honour," said the boor, alertly. Frank reined in the pony, and the man walked by his side. Frank was much of his father's son, despite the difference of age, and that more fastidious change of manner which characterizes each succeeding race in the progress of civilization. Despite all his Eton finery, he was familiar with peasants, and had the quick eye of one country-born as to country matters. "You don't seem very well off in this village, my man?" said he, knowingly. "Noa; there be a deal of distress here in the winter time, and summer too, for that matter; and the parish ben't much help to a single man." "But surely the farmers want work here as well as elsewhere?" "'Deed, and there ben't much farming work here,--most o' the parish be all wild ground loike." "The poor have a right of common, I suppose," said Frank, surveying a large assortment of vagabond birds and quadrupeds. "Yes; neighbour Timmins keeps his geese on the common, and some has a cow, and them be neighbour Jowlas's pigs. I don't know if there's a right, loike; but the folks at the Hall does all they can to help us, and that ben't much: they ben't as rich as some folks; but," added the peasant, proudly, "they be as good blood as any in the shire." "I 'm glad to see you like them, at all events." "Oh, yes, I likes them well eno'; mayhap you are at school with the young gentleman?" "Yes," said Frank. "Ah, I heard the clergyman say as how Master Randal was a mighty clever lad, and would get rich some day. I 'se sure I wish he would, for a poor squire makes a poor parish. There's the Hall, sir." CHAPTER III. Frank looked right ahead, and saw a square house that, in spite of modern sash windows, was evidently of remote antiquity. A high conical roof; a stack of tall quaint chimney-pots of red-baked clay (like those at Sutton Place in Surrey) dominating over isolated vulgar smoke-conductors, of the ignoble fashion of present times; a dilapidated groin-work, encasing within a Tudor arch a door of the comfortable date of George III., and the peculiarly dingy and weather-stained appearance of the small finely- finished bricks, of which the habitation was built,--all showed the abode of former generations adapted with tasteless irreverence to the habits of descendants unenlightened by Pugin, or indifferent to the poetry of the past. The house had emerged suddenly upon Frank out of the gloomy waste land, for it was placed in a hollow, and sheltered from sight by a disorderly group of ragged, dismal, valetudinarian fir-trees, until an abrupt turn of the road cleared that screen, and left the desolate abode bare to the discontented eye. Frank dismounted; the man held his pony; and after smoothing his cravat, the smart Etonian sauntered up to the door, and startled the solitude of the place with a loud peal from the modern brass knocker,--a knock which instantly brought forth an astonished starling who had built under the eaves of the gable roof, and called up a cloud of sparrows, tomtits, and yellow-hammers, who had been regaling themselves amongst the litter of a slovenly farmyard that lay in full sight to the right of the house, fenced off by a primitive paintless wooden rail. In process of time a sow, accompanied by a thriving and inquisitive family, strolled up to the gate of the fence, and, leaning her nose on the lower bar of the gate, contemplated the visitor with much curiosity and some suspicion. While Frank is still without, impatiently swingeing his white trousers with his whip, we will steal a hurried glance towards the respective members of the family within. Mr. Leslie, the paterfamilias, is in a little room called his "study," to which he regularly retires every morning after breakfast, rarely reappearing till one o'clock, which is his unfashionable hour for dinner. In what mysterious occupations Mr. Leslie passes those hours no one ever formed a conjecture. At the present moment he is seated before a little rickety bureau, one leg of which being shorter than the other is propped up by sundry old letters and scraps of newspapers; and the bureau is open, and reveals a great number of pigeonholes and divisions, filled with various odds and ends, the collection of many years. In some of these compartments are bundles of letters, very yellow, and tied in packets with faded tape; in another, all by itself, is a fragment of plum-pudding stone, which Mr. Leslie has picked up in his walks, and considered a rare mineral. It is neatly labelled, "Found in Hollow Lane, May 21st, 1804, by Maunder Slugge Leslie, Esq." The next division holds several bits of iron in the shape of nails, fragments of horse-shoes, etc., which Mr. Leslie has also met with in his rambles, and, according to a harmless popular superstition, deemed it highly unlucky not to pick up, and, once picked up, no less unlucky to throw away. Item, in the adjoining pigeon-hole, a goodly collection of pebbles with holes in them, preserved for the same reason, in company with a crooked sixpence; item, neatly arranged in fanciful mosaics, several periwinkles, Blackamoor's teeth (I mean the shell so called), and other specimens of the conchiferous ingenuity of Nature, partly inherited from some ancestral spinster, partly amassed by Mr. Leslie himself in a youthful excursion to the seaside. There were the farm-bailiff's accounts, several files of bills, an old stirrup, three sets of knee and shoe buckles which had belonged to Mr. Leslie's father, a few seals tied together by a shoe-string, a shagreen toothpick case, a tortoise shell magnifying-glass to read with, his eldest son's first copybooks, his second son's ditto, his daughter's ditto, and a lock of his wife's hair arranged in a true lover's knot, framed and glazed. There were also a small mousetrap; a, patent corkscrew too good to be used in common; fragments of a silver teaspoon, that had, by natural decay, arrived at a dissolution of its parts; a small brown holland bag, containing halfpence of various dates, as far back as Queen Anne, accompanied by two French /sous/ and a German /silber gros/,--the which miscellany Mr. Leslie magniloquently called "his coins," and had left in his will as a family heirloom. There were many other curiosities of congenial nature and equal value--/quae nunc describere longum est/. Mr. Leslie was engaged at this time in what is termed "putting things to rights,"--an occupation he performed with exemplary care once a week. This was his day; and he had just counted his coins, and was slowly tying them up again in the brown holland bag, when Frank's knock reached his ears. Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie paused, shook his head as if incredulously, and was about to resume his occupation, when he was seized with a fit of yawning which prevented the bag being tied for full two minutes. While such the employment of the study, let us turn to the recreations in the drawing-room, or rather parlour. A drawing-room there was on the first floor, with a charming look-out, not on the dreary fir-trees, but on the romantic undulating forest-land; but the drawing-room had not been used since the death of the last Mrs. Leslie. It was deemed too good to sit in, except when there was company: there never being company, it was never sat in. Indeed, now the paper was falling off the walls with the damp, and the rats, mice, and moths--those /"edaces rerum"/--had eaten, between them, most of the chair-bottoms and a considerable part of the floor. Therefore, the parlour was the sole general sitting-room; and being breakfasted in, dined, and supped in, and, after supper, smoked in by Mr. Leslie to the accompaniment of rum-and-water, it is impossible to deny that it had what is called "a smell,"--a comfortable, wholesome family smell, speaking of numbers, meals, and miscellaneous social habitation. There were two windows: one looked full on the fir-trees; the other on the farmyard, with the pigsty closing the view. Near the fir-tree window sat Mrs. Leslie; before her, on a high stool, was a basket of the children's clothes that wanted mending. A work-table of rosewood inlaid with brass, which had been a wedding-present, and was a costly thing originally, but in that peculiar taste which is vulgarly called "Brummagem," stood at hand: the brass had started in several places, and occasionally made great havoc in the children's fingers and in Mrs. Leslie's gown; in fact it was the liveliest piece of furniture in the house, thanks to the petulant brasswork, and could not have been more mischievous if it had been a monkey. Upon the work-table lay a housewife and thimble, and scissors, and skeins of worsted and thread, and little scraps of linen and cloth for patches. But Mrs. Leslie was not actually working,--she was preparing to work; she had been preparing to work for the last hour and a half. Upon her lap she supported a novel, by a lady who wrote much for a former generation, under the name of "Mrs. Bridget Blue Mantle." She had a small needle in her left hand, and a very thick piece of thread in her right; occasionally she applied the end of the said thread to her lips, and then--her eyes fixed on the novel--made a blind, vacillating attack at the eye of the needle. But a camel would have gone through it with quite as much ease. Nor did the novel alone engage Mrs. Leslie's attention, for ever and anon she interrupted herself to scold the children, to inquire "what o'clock it was;" to observe that "Sarah would never suit;" and to wonder "why Mr. Leslie would not see that the work-table was mended." Mrs. Leslie has been rather a pretty woman. In spite of a dress at once slatternly and economical, she has still the air of a lady,--rather too much so, the hard duties of her situation considered. She is proud of the antiquity of her family on both sides; her mother was of the venerable stock of the Daudlers of Daudle Place, a race that existed before the Conquest. Indeed, one has only to read our earliest chronicles, and to glance over some of those long-winded moralizing poems which delighted the thanes and ealdermen of old, in order to see that the Daudles must have been a very influential family before William the First turned the country topsy-turvy. While the mother's race was thus indubitably Saxon, the father's had not only the name but the peculiar idiosyncrasy of the Normans, and went far to establish that crotchet of the brilliant author of "Sybil; or, The Two Nations," as to the continued distinction between the conquering and conquered populations. Mrs. Leslie's father boasted the name of Montfichet,--doubtless of the same kith and kin as those great barons of Alontfichet, who once owned such broad lands and such turbulent castles. A high-nosed, thin, nervous, excitable progeny, those same Montfydgets, as the most troublesome Norman could pretend to be. This fusion of race was notable to the most ordinary physiognomist in the physique and in the morale of Mrs. Leslie. She had the speculative blue eye of the Saxon, and the passionate high nose of the Norman; she had the musing do- nothingness of the Daudlers, and the reckless have-at-every-thingness of the Montfydgets. At Mrs. Leslie's feet, a little girl with her hair about her ears (and beautiful hair it was too) was amusing herself with a broken-nosed doll. At the far end of the room, before a high desk, sat Frank's Eton schoolfellow, the eldest son. A minute or two before Frank's alarum had disturbed the tranquillity of the household, he had raised his eyes from the books on the desk to glance at a very tattered copy of the Greek Testament, in which his brother Oliver had found a difficulty that he came to Randal to solve. As the young Etonian's face was turned to the light, your first impression on seeing it would have been melancholy, but respectful, interest,--for the face had already lost the joyous character of youth; there was a wrinkle between the brows; and the lines that speak of fatigue were already visible under the eyes and about the mouth; the complexion was sallow, the lips were pale. Years of study had already sown in the delicate organization the seeds of many an infirmity and many a pain; but if your look had rested longer on that countenance, gradually your compassion might have given place to some feeling uneasy and sinister,--a feeling akin to fear. There was in the whole expression so much of cold calm force, that it belied the debility of the frame. You saw there the evidence of a mind that was cultivated, and you felt that in that cultivation there was something formidable. A notable contrast to this countenance, prematurely worn and eminently intelligent, was the round healthy face of Oliver, with slow blue eyes fixed hard on the penetrating orbs of his brother, as if trying with might and main to catch from them a gleam of that knowledge with which they shone clear and frigid as a star. At Frank's knock, Oliver's slow blue eyes sparkled into animation, and he sprang from his brother's side. The little girl flung back the hair from her face, and stared at her mother with a look which spoke wonder and fright. The young student knit his brows, and then turned wearily back to the books on his desk. "Dear me," cried Mrs. Leslie, "who can that possibly be? Oliver, come from the window, sir, this instant: you will be seen! Juliet, run, ring the bell; no, go to the head of the kitchen stairs, and call out to Jenny 'Not at home.' Not at home, on any account," repeated Mrs. Leslie, nervously, for the Montfydget blood was now in full flow. In another minute or so, Frank's loud boyish voice was distinctly heard at the outer door. Randal slightly started. "Frank Hazeldean's voice," said he; "I should like to see him, Mother." "See him," repeated Mrs. Leslie, in amaze; "see him! and the room in this state!" Randal might have replied that the room was in no worse state than usual; but he said nothing. A slight flush came and went over his pale face; and then he leaned his check on his hand, and compressed his lips firmly. The outer door closed with a sullen, inhospitable jar, and a slip-shod female servant entered with a card between her finger and thumb. "Who is that for?--give it to me. Jenny," cried Mrs. Leslie. But Jenny shook her head, laid the card on the desk beside Randal, and vanished without saying a word. "Oh, look, Randal, look up," cried Oliver, who had again rushed to the window; "such a pretty gray pony!" Randal did look up; nay, he went deliberately to the window, and gazed a moment on the high-mettled pony and the well-dressed, spirited rider. In that moment changes passed over Randal's countenance more rapidly than clouds over the sky in a gusty day. Now envy and discontent, with the curled lip and the gloomy scowl; now hope and proud self-esteem, with the clearing brow and the lofty smile; and then again all became cold, firm, and close, as he walked back to his books, seated himself resolutely, and said, half aloud,--"Well, KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!" CHAPTER IV. Mrs. Leslie came up in fidget and in fuss; she leaned over Randal's shoulder and read the card. Written in pen and ink, with an attempt at imitation of printed Roman character, there appeared first "MR. FRANK HAZELDEAN;" but just over these letters, and scribbled hastily and less legibly in pencil, was,-- "DEAR LESLIE,--Sorry you were out; come and see us,--do!" "You will go, Randal?" said Mrs. Leslie, after a pause. "I am not sure." "Yes, you can go; you have clothes like a gentleman; you can go anywhere, not like those children;" and Mrs. Leslie glanced almost spitefully at poor Oliver's coarse threadbare jacket, and little Juliet's torn frock. "What I have I owe at present to Mr. Egerton, and I should consult his wishes; he is not on good terms with these Hazeldeans." Then turning towards his brother, who looked mortified, he added, with a strange sort of haughty kindness, "What I may have hereafter, Oliver, I shall owe to myself; and then if I rise, I will raise my family." "Dear Randal," said Mrs. Leslie, fondly kissing him on the forehead, "what a good heart you have!" "No, Mother; my books don't tell me that it is a good heart that gets on in the world: it is a hard head," replied Randal, with a rude and scornful candour. "But I can read no more just now: come out, Oliver." So saying, he slid from his mother's hand and left the room. When Oliver joined him, Randal was already on the common; and, without seeming to notice his brother, he continued to walk quickly, and with long strides, in profound silence. At length he paused under the shade of an old oak, that, too old to be of value save for firewood, had escaped the axe. The tree stood on a knoll, and the spot commanded a view of the decayed house, the dilapidated church, the dreary village. "Oliver," said Randal, between his teeth, so that his voice had the sound of a hiss, "it was under this tree that I first resolved to--" He paused. "What, Randal?" "Read hard: knowledge is power!" "But you are so fond of reading." "I!" cried Randal. "Do you think, when Wolsey and Thomas-a-Becket became priests, they were fond of telling their beads and pattering Aves? I fond of reading!" Oliver stared; the historical allusions were beyond his comprehension. "You know," continued Randal, "that we Leslies were not always the beggarly poor gentlemen we are now. You know that there is a man who lives in Grosvenor Square, and is very rich,--very. His riches come to him from a Leslie; that man is my patron, Oliver, and he--is very good to me." Randal's smile was withering as he spoke. "Come on," he said, after a pause,--"come on." Again the walk was quick, and the brothers were silent. They came at length to a little shallow brook, across which some large stones had been placed at short intervals, so that the boys walked over the ford dryshod. "Will you pull down that bough, Oliver?" said Randal, abruptly, pointing to a tree. Oliver obeyed mechanically; and Randal, stripping the leaves and snapping off the twigs, left a fork at the end; with this he began to remove the stepping-stones. "What are you about, Randal?" asked Oliver, wonderingly. "We are on the other side of the brook now, and we shall not come back this way. We don't want the stepping-stones any more!---away with them!" CHAPTER V. The morning after this visit of Frank Hazeldean's to Rood Hall, the Right Honourable Audley Egerton, member of parliament, privy councillor, and minister of a high department in the State,--just below the rank of the cabinet,--was seated in his library, awaiting the delivery of the post, before he walked down to his office. In the mean while he sipped his tea, and glanced over the newspapers with that quick and half-disdainful eye with which your practical man in public life is wont to regard the abuse or the eulogium of the Fourth Estate. There is very little likeness between Mr. Egerton and his half-brother; none, indeed, except that they are both of tall stature, and strong, sinewy, English build. But even in this last they do not resemble each other; for the squire's athletic shape is already beginning to expand into that portly embonpoint which seems the natural development of contented men as they approach middle life. Audley, on the contrary, is inclined to be spare; and his figure, though the muscles are as firm as iron, has enough of the slender to satisfy metropolitan ideas of elegance. His dress, his look, his /tout ensemble/, are those of the London man. In the first, there is more attention to fashion than is usual amongst the busy members of the House of Commons; but then Audley Egerton has always been something more than a mere busy member of the House of Commons. He has always been a person of mark in the best society; and one secret of his success in life has been his high reputation as "a gentleman." As he now bends over the journals, there is an air of distinction in the turn of the well-shaped head, with the dark brown hair,--dark in spite of a reddish tinge,--cut close behind, and worn away a little towards the crown, so as to give an additional height to a commanding forehead. His profile is very handsome, and of that kind of beauty which imposes on men if it pleases women; and is, therefore, unlike that of your mere pretty fellows, a positive advantage in public life. It is a profile with large features clearly cut, masculine, and somewhat severe. The expression of his face is not open, like the squire's, nor has it the cold closeness which accompanies the intellectual character of young Leslie's; but it is reserved and dignified, and significant of self-control, as should be the physiognomy of a man accustomed to think before he speaks. When you look at him, you are not surprised to learn that he is not a florid orator nor a smart debater,--he is a, "weighty speaker." He is fairly read, but without any great range either of ornamental scholarship or constitutional lore. He has not much humour; but he has that kind of wit which is essential to grave and serious irony. He has not much imagination, nor remarkable subtlety in reasoning; but if he does not dazzle he does not bore,--he is too much of the man of the world for that. He is considered to have sound sense and accurate judgment. Withal, as he now lays aside the journals, and his face relaxes its austerer lines, you will not be astonished to hear that he is a man who is said to have been greatly beloved by women, and still to exercise much influence in drawing-rooms and boudoirs. At least, no one was surprised when the great heiress, Clementina Leslie, kinswoman and ward to Lord Lansmere,--a young lady who had refused three earls and the heir apparent to a dukedom,--was declared by her dearest friends to be dying of love for Audley Egerton. It had been the natural wish of the Lansmeres that this lady should marry their son, Lord L'Estrange. But that young gentleman, whose opinions on matrimony partook of the eccentricity of his general character, could never be induced to propose, and had, according to the /on-dits/ of town, been the principal party to make up the match between Clementina and his friend Audley; for the match required making- up, despite the predilections of the young heiress. Mr. Egerton had had scruples of delicacy. He avowed, for the first time, that his fortune was much less than had been generally supposed, and he did not like the idea of owing all to a wife, however highly be might esteem and admire her. Now, Lord L'Estrange (not long after the election at Lansmere, which had given to Audley his first seat in parliament) had suddenly exchanged from the battalion of the Guards to which be belonged, and which was detained at home, into a cavalry regiment on active service in the Peninsula. Nevertheless, even abroad, and amidst the distractions of war, his interest in all that could forward Egerton's career was unabated; and by letters to his father and to his cousin Clementina, he assisted in the negotiations for the marriage between Miss Leslie and his friend; and before the year in which Audley was returned for Lansmere had expired, the young senator received the hand of the great heiress. The settlement of her fortune, which was chiefly in the Funds, had been unusually advantageous to the husband; for though the capital was tied up so long as both survived, for the benefit of any children they might have, yet in the event of one of the parties dying without issue by the marriage, the whole passed without limitation to the survivor. Miss Leslie, in spite of all remonstrance from her own legal adviser, had settled this clause with Egerton's confidential solicitor, one Mr. Levy, of whom we shall see more hereafter; and Egerton was to be kept in ignorance of it till after the marriage. If in this Miss Leslie showed a generous trust in Mr. Egerton, she still inflicted no positive wrong on her relations, for she had none sufficiently near to her to warrant their claim to the succession. Her nearest kinsman, and therefore her natural heir, was Harley L'Estrange; and if he was contented, no one had a right to complain. The tie of blood between herself and the Leslies of Rood Hall was, as we shall see presently, extremely distant. It was not till after his marriage that Mr. Egerton took an active part in the business of the House of Commons. He was then at the most advantageous starting-point for the career of ambition. His words on the state of the country took importance from his stake in it. His talents found accessories in the opulence of Grosvenor Square, the dignity of a princely establishment, the respectability of one firmly settled in life, the reputation of a fortune in reality very large, and which was magnified by popular report into the revenues of a Croesus. Audley Egerton succeeded in parliament beyond the early expectations formed of him. He took, from the first, that station in the House which it requires tact to establish, and great knowledge of the world to free from the charge of impracticability and crotchet, but which, once established, is peculiarly imposing from the rarity of its independence; that is to say, the station of the moderate man who belongs sufficiently to a party to obtain its support, but is yet sufficiently disengaged from a party to make his vote and word, on certain questions, matter of anxiety and speculation. Professing Toryism (the word Conservative, which would have suited him better, was not then known), he separated himself from the country party, and always avowed great respect for the opinions of the large towns. The epithet given to the views of Audley Egerton was "enlightened." Never too much in advance of the passion of the day, yet never behind its movement, he had that shrewd calculation of odds which a consummate mastery of the world sometimes bestows upon politicians,--perceived the chances for and against a certain question being carried within a certain time, and nicked the question between wind and water. He was so good a barometer of that changeful weather called Public Opinion, that he might have had a hand in the "Times" newspaper. He soon quarrelled, and purposely, with his Lansmere constituents; nor had he ever revisited that borough,--perhaps because it was associated with unpleasant reminiscences in the shape of the squire's epistolary trimmer, and in that of his own effigies which his agricultural constituents had burned in the corn- market. But the speeches that produced such indignation at Lansmere had delighted one of the greatest of our commercial towns, which at the next general election honoured him with its representation. In those days, before the Reform Bill, great commercial towns chose men of high mark for their member; and a proud station it was for him who was delegated to speak the voice of the princely merchants of England. Mrs. Egerton survived her marriage but a few years. She left no children; two had been born, but died in their first infancy. The property of the wife, therefore, passed without control or limit to the husband. Whatever might have been the grief of the widower, he disdained to betray it to the world. Indeed, Audley Egerton was a man who had early taught himself to conceal emotion. He buried himself in the country, none knew where, for some months. When he returned, there was a deep wrinkle on his brow,--but no change in his habits and avocations, except that, shortly afterwards, he accepted office, and thus became more busy than ever. Mr. Egerton had always been lavish and magnificent in money spatters. A rich man in public life has many claims on his fortune, and no one yielded to those claims with in air so regal as Audley Egerton. But amongst his many liberal actions, there was none which seemed more worthy of panegyric than the generous favour he extended to the son of his wife's poor and distant kinsfolk, the Leslies of Rood Hall. Some four generations back, there had lived a certain Squire Leslie, a man of large acres and active mind. He had cause to be displeased with his elder son, and though he did not disinherit him, he left half his property to a younger. The younger had capacity and spirit, which justified the parental provision. He increased his fortune; lifted himself into notice and consideration by public services and a noble alliance. His descendants followed his example, and took rank among the first commoners in England, till the last male, dying, left his sole heiress and representative in one daughter, Clementina, afterwards married to Mr. Egerton. Meanwhile the elder son of the fore-mentioned squire had muddled and sotted away much of his share in the Leslie property; and, by low habits and mean society, lowered in repute his representation of the name. His successors imitated him, till nothing was left to Randal's father, Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie, but the decayed house, which was what the Germans call the /stamm schloss/, or "stem hall," of the race, and the wretched lands immediately around it. Still, though all intercourse between the two branches of the family had ceased, the younger had always felt a respect for the elder, as the head of the House. And it was supposed that, on her death-bed, Mrs. Egerton had recommended her impoverished namesakes and kindred to the care of her husband; for when he returned to town, after Mrs. Egerton's death, Audley had sent to Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie the sum of L5000, which he said his wife, leaving no written will, had orally bequeathed as a legacy to that gentleman; and he requested permission to charge himself with the education of the eldest son. Mr. Maunder Slugge Leslie might have done great things for his little property with those L5000, or even kept in the three-per-cents the interest would have afforded a material addition to his comforts. But a neighbouring solicitor, having caught scent of the legacy, hunted it down into his own hands, on pretence of having found a capital investment in a canal; and when the solicitor had got possession of the L5000, he went off with them to America. Meanwhile Randal, placed by Mr. Egerton at an excellent preparatory school, at first gave no signs of industry or talent; but just before he left it, there came to the school, as classical tutor, an ambitious young Oxford man; and his zeal--for he was a capital teacher--produced a great effect generally on the pupils, and especially on Randal Leslie. He talked to them much in private on the advantages of learning, and shortly afterwards he exhibited those advantages in his own person; for, having edited a Greek play with much subtle scholarship, his college, which some slight irregularities of his had displeased, recalled him to its venerable bosom by the presentation of a fellowship. After this he took orders, became a college tutor, distinguished himself yet more by a treatise on the Greek accent, got a capital living, and was considered on the high road to a bishopric. This young man, then, communicated to Randal the thirst for knowledge; and when the boy went afterwards to Eton, he applied with such earnestness and resolve that his fame soon reached the ears of Audley; and that person, who had the sympathy for talent, and yet more for purpose, which often characterizes ambitious men, went to Eton to see him. From that time Audley evinced great and almost fatherly interest in the brilliant Etonian; and Randal always spent with him some days in each vacation. I have said that Egerton's conduct with respect to this boy was more praiseworthy than most of those generous actions for which he was renowned, since to this the world gave no applause. What a man does within the range of his family connections does not carry with it that eclat which invests a munificence exhibited on public occasions. Either people care nothing about it, or tacitly suppose it to be but his duty. It was true, too, as the squire had observed, that Randal Leslie was even less distantly related to the Hazeldeans than to Mrs. Egerton, since Randal's grandfather had actually married a Miss Hazeldean (the highest worldly connection that branch of the family had formed since the great split I have commemorated). But Audley Egerton never appeared aware of that fact. As he was not himself descended from the Hazeldeans, he did not trouble himself about their genealogy; and he took care to impress it upon the Leslies that his generosity on their behalf was solely to be ascribed to his respect for his wife's memory and kindred. Still the squire had felt as if his "distant brother" implied a rebuke on his own neglect of these poor Leslies, by the liberality Audley evinced towards them; and this had made him doubly sore when the name of Randal Leslie was mentioned. But the fact really was, that the Leslies of Rood had so shrunk out of all notice that the squire had actually forgotten their existence, until Randal became thus indebted to his brother; and then he felt a pang of remorse that any one save himself, the head of the Hazeldeans, should lend a helping hand to the grandson of a Hazeldean. But having thus, somewhat too tediously, explained the position of Audley Egerton, whether in the world or in relation to his young protege, I may now permit him to receive and to read his letters. CHAPTER VI. Mr. Egerton glanced over the pile of letters placed beside him, and first he tore up some, scarcely read, and threw them into the waste-basket. Public men have such odd, out-of-the-way letters, that their waste- baskets are never empty,--letters from amateur financiers proposing new ways to pay off the National Debt; letters from America (never free!) asking for autographs; letters from fond mothers in country villages, recommending some miracle of a son for a place in the king's service; letters from free-thinkers in reproof of bigotry; letters from bigots in reproof of free-thinking; letters signed Brutus Redivivus, containing the agreeable information that the writer has a dagger for tyrants, if the Danish claims are not forthwith adjusted; letters signed Matilda or Caroline, stating that Caroline or Matilda has seen the public man's portrait at the Exhibition, and that a heart sensible to its attractions may be found at No. -- Piccadilly; letters from beggars, impostors, monomaniacs, speculators, jobbers,--all food for the waste-basket. From the correspondence thus winnowed, Mr. Egerton first selected those on business, which he put methodically together in one division of his pocket-book; and secondly, those of a private nature, which he as carefully put into another. Of these last there were but three,--one from his steward, one from Harley L'Estrange, one from Randal Leslie. It was his custom to answer his correspondence at his office; and to his office, a few minutes afterwards, he slowly took his way. Many a passenger turned back to look again at the firm figure, which, despite the hot summer day, was buttoned up to the throat; and the black frock- coat thus worn well became the erect air and the deep, full chest of the handsome senator. When he entered Parliament Street, Audley Egerton was joined by one of his colleagues, also on his way to the cares of office. After a few observations on the last debate this gentleman said,-- "By the way, can you dine with me next Saturday, to meet Lansmere? He comes up to town to vote for us on Monday." "I had asked some people to dine with me," answered Egerton, "but I will put them off. I see Lord Lansmere too seldom to miss any occasion to meet a man whom I respect so much." "So seldom! True, he is very little in town; but why don't you go and see him in the country? Good shooting,--pleasant, old-fashioned house." "My dear Westbourne, his house is 'nimium vicina Cremonae,' close to a borough in which I have been burned in effigy." "Ha! ha! yes, I remember you first came into parliament for that snug little place; but Lansmere himself never found fault with your votes, did he?" "He behaved very handsomely, and said he had not presumed to consider me his mouthpiece; and then, too, I am so intimate with L'Estrange." "Is that queer fellow ever coming back to England?" "He comes, generally, every year, for a few days, just to see his father and mother, and then returns to the Continent." "I never meet him." "He comes in September or October, when you, of course, are not in town, and it is in town that the Lansmeres meet him." "Why does he not go to them?" "A man in England but once a year, and for a few days, has so much to do in London, I suppose." "Is he as amusing as ever?" Egerton nodded. "So distinguished as he might be!" remarked Lord Westbourne. "So distinguished as he is!" said Egerton, formally; "an officer selected for praise, even in such fields as Quatre Bras and Waterloo; a scholar, too, of the finest taste; and as an accomplished gentleman matchless!" "I like to hear one man praise another so warmly in these ill-natured days," answered Lord Westbourne. "But still, though L'Estrange is doubtless all you say, don't you think he rather wastes his life living abroad?" "And trying to be happy, Westbourne? Are you sure it is not we who waste our lives? But I can't stay to hear your answer. Here we are at the door of my prison." "On Saturday, then?" "On Saturday. Good day." For the next hour or more, Mr. Egerton was engaged on the affairs of the State. He then snatched an interval of leisure (while awaiting a report, which he had instructed a clerk to make him), in order to reply to his letters. Those on public business were soon despatched; and throwing his replies aside to be sealed by a subordinate hand, he drew out the letters which he had put apart as private. He attended first to that of his steward: the steward's letter was long, the reply was contained in three lines. Pitt himself was scarcely more negligent of his private interests and concerns than Audley Egerton; yet, withal, Audley Egerton was said by his enemies to be an egotist. The next letter he wrote was to Randal, and that, though longer, was far from prolix: it ran thus:-- DEAR MR. LESLIE,--I appreciate your delicacy in consulting me whether you should accept Frank Hazeldean's invitation to call at the Hall. Since you are asked, I can see no objection to it. I should be sorry if you appeared to force yourself there; and for the rest, as a general rule, I think a young man who has his own way to make in life had better avoid all intimacy with those of his own age who have no kindred objects nor congenial pursuits. As soon as this visit is paid, I wish you to come to London. The report I receive of your progress at Eton renders it unnecessary, in my judgment, that you should return there. If your father has no objection, I propose that you should go to Oxford at the ensuing term. Meanwhile, I have engaged a gentleman, who is a fellow of Balliol, to read with you. He is of opinion, judging only by your high repute at Eton, that you may at once obtain a scholarship in that college. If you do so, I shall look upon your career in life as assured. Your affectionate friend, and sincere well-wisher, A. E. The reader will remark that in this letter there is a certain tone of formality. Mr. Egerton does not call his protege "Dear Randal," as would seem natural, but coldly and stiffly, "Dear Mr. Leslie." He hints, also, that the boy has his own way to make in life. Is this meant to guard against too sanguine notions of inheritance, which his generosity may have excited? The letter to Lord L'Estrange was of a very different kind from the others. It was long, and full of such little scraps of news and gossip as may interest friends in a foreign land; it was written gayly, and as with a wish to cheer his friend; you could see that it was a reply to a melancholy letter; and in the whole tone and spirit there was an affection, even to tenderness, of which those who most liked Audley Egerton would have scarcely supposed him capable. Yet, notwithstanding, there was a kind of constraint in the letter, which perhaps only the fine tact of a woman would detect. It had not that abandon, that hearty self- outpouring, which you might expect would characterize the letters of two such friends, who had been boys at school together, and which did breathe indeed in all the abrupt rambling sentences of his correspondent. But where was the evidence of the constraint? Egerton is off-hand enough where his pen runs glibly through paragraphs that relate to others; it is simply that he says nothing about himself,--that he avoids all reference to the inner world of sentiment and feeling! But perhaps, after all, the man has no sentiment and feeling! How can you expect that a steady personage in practical life, whose mornings are spent in Downing Street, and whose nights are consumed in watching Government bills through a committee, can write in the same style as an idle dreamer amidst the pines of Ravenna, or on the banks of Como? Audley had just finished this epistle, such as it was, when the attendant in waiting announced the arrival of a deputation from a provincial trading town, the members of which deputation he had appointed to meet at two o'clock. There was no office in London at which deputations were kept waiting less than at that over which Mr. Egerton presided. The deputation entered,--some score or so of middle-aged, comfortable- looking persons, who, nevertheless, had their grievance, and considered their own interest, and those of the country, menaced by a certain clause in a bill brought in by Mr. Egerton. The mayor of the town was the chief spokesman, and he spoke well,--but in a style to which the dignified official was not accustomed. It was a slap-dash style,--unceremonious, free and easy,--an American style. And, indeed, there was something altogether in the appearance and bearing of the mayor which savoured of residence in the Great Republic. He was a very handsome man, but with a look sharp and domineering,--the look of a man who did not care a straw for president or monarch, and who enjoyed the liberty to speak his mind and "wallop his own nigger!" His fellow-burghers evidently regarded him with great respect; and Mr. Egerton had penetration enough to perceive that Mr. Mayor must be a rich man, as well as an eloquent one, to have overcome those impressions of soreness or jealousy which his tone was calculated to create in the self- love of his equals. Mr. Egerton was far too wise to be easily offended by mere manner; and though he stared somewhat haughtily when he found his observations actually pooh-poohed, he was not above being convinced. There was much sense and much justice in Mr. Mayor's arguments, and the statesman civilly promised to take them into full consideration. He then bowed out the deputation; but scarcely had the door closed before it opened again, and Mr. Mayor presented himself alone, saying aloud to his companions in the passage, "I forgot something I had to say to Mr. Egerton; wait below for me." "Well, Mr. Mayor," said Audley, pointing to a seat, "what else would you suggest?" The mayor looked round to see that the door was closed; and then, drawing his chair close to Mr. Egerton's, laid his forefinger on that gentleman's arm, and said, "I think I speak to a man of the world, sir?" Mr. Egerton bowed, and made no reply by word, but he gently removed his arm from the touch of the forefinger. MR. MAYOR.---"You observe, sir, that I did not ask the members whom we return to parliament to accompany us. Do better without 'em. You know they are both in Opposition,--out-and-outers." MR. EGERTON.--"It is a misfortune which the Government cannot remember when the question is whether the trade of the town itself is to be served or injured." MR. MAYOR.---"Well, I guess you speak handsome, sir. But you'd be glad to have two members to support ministers after the next election." MR. EGERTON (smiling).--"Unquestionably, Mr. Mayor." MR. MAYOR.--"And I can do it, Mr. Egerton. I may say I have the town in my pocket; so I ought,--I spend a great deal of money in it. Now, you see, Mr. Egerton, I have passed a part of my life in a land of liberty-- the United States--and I come to the point when I speak to a man of the world. I'm a man of the world myself, sir. And so, if the Government will do something for me, why, I'll do something for the Government. Two votes for a free and independent town like ours,--that's something, isn't it?" MR. EGERTON (taken by surprise).--"Really, I--" MR. MAYOR (advancing his chair still nearer, and interrupting the official).--"No nonsense, you see, on one side or the other. The fact is, that I've taken it into my head that I should like to be knighted. You may well look surprised, Mr. Egerton,--trumpery thing enough, I dare say; still, every man has his weakness, and I should like to be Sir Richard. Well, if you can get me made Sir Richard, you may just name your two members for the next election,--that is, if they belong to your own set, enlightened men, up to the times. That's speaking fair and manful, is n't it?" MR. EGERTON (drawing himself up).--"I am at a loss to guess why you should select me, sir, for this very extraordinary proposition." MR. MAYOR (nodding good-humouredly).--"Why, you see, I don't go along with the Government; you're the best of the bunch. And may be you'd like to strengthen your own party. This is quite between you and me, you understand; honour's a jewel!" MR. EGERTON (with great gravity).--"Sir, I am obliged by your good opinion; but I agree with my colleagues in all the great questions that affect the government of the country, and--" MR. MAYOR (interrupting him).--"Ah, of course, you must say so; very right. But I guess things would go differently if you were Prime Minister. However, I have another reason for speaking to you about my little job. You see you were member for Lansmere once, and I think you only came in by a majority of two, eh?" MR. EGERTON.--"I know nothing of the particulars of that election; I was not present." MR. MAYOR.--"No; but luckily for you, two relations of mine were, and they voted for you. Two votes, and you came in by two. Since then, you have got into very snug quarters here, and I think we have a claim on you--" MR. EGERTON.--"Sir, I acknowledge no such claim; I was and am a stranger to Lansmere; and if the electors did me the honour to return me to parliament, it was in compliment rather to--" MR. MAYOR (again interrupting the official).--"Rather to Lord Lansmere, you were going to say; unconstitutional doctrine that, I fancy. Peer of the realm. But never mind, I know the world; and I'd ask Lord Lansmere to do my affair for me, only he is a pompous sort of man; might be qualmish: antiquated notions. Not up to snuff like you and me." MR. EGERTON (in great disgust, and settling his papers before him).-- "Sir, it is not in my department to recommend to his Majesty candidates for the honour of knighthood, and it is still less in my department to make bargains for seats in parliament." MR. MAYOR.--"Oh, if that's the case, you'll excuse me; I don't know much of the etiquette in these matters. But I thought that if I put two seats in your hands for your own friends, you might contrive to take the affair into your department, whatever it was. But since you say you agree with your colleagues, perhaps it comes to the same thing. Now, you must not suppose I want to sell the town, and that I can change and chop my politics for my own purpose. No such thing! I don't like the sitting members; I'm all for progressing, but they go too much ahead for me; and since the Government is disposed to move a little, why, I'd as lief support them as not. But, in common gratitude, you see," added the mayor, coaxingly, "I ought to be knighted! I can keep up the dignity, and do credit to his Majesty." MR. EGERTON (without looking up from his papers).--"I can only refer you, sir, to the proper quarter." MR. MAYOR (impatiently).--"Proper quarter! Well, since there is so much humbug in this old country of ours, that one must go through all the forms and get at the job regularly, just tell me whom I ought to go to." MR. EGERTON (beginning to be amused as well as indignant).--"If you want a knighthood, Mr. Mayor, you must ask the Prime Minister; if you want to give the Government information relative to seats in parliament, you must introduce yourself to Mr. ------, the Secretary of the Treasury." MR. MAYOR.--"And if I go to the last chap, what do you think he'll say?" MR. EGERTON (the amusement preponderating over the indignation).--"He will say, I suppose, that you must not put the thing in the light in which you have put it to me; that the Government will be very proud to have the confidence of yourself and your brother electors; and that a gentleman like you, in the proud position of mayor, may well hope to be knighted on some fitting occasion; but that you must not talk about the knighthood just at present, and must confine yourself to converting the unfortunate political opinions of the town." MR. MAYOR.--"Well, I guess that chap there would want to do me! Not quite so green, Mr. Egerton. Perhaps I'd better go at once to the fountain-head. How d' ye think the Premier would take it?" MR. EGERTON (the indignation preponderating over the amusement).-- "Probably just as I am about to do." Mr. Egerton rang the bell; the attendant appeared. "Show Mr. Mayor the way out," said the minister. The mayor turned round sharply, and his face was purple. He walked straight to the door; but suffering the attendant to precede him along the corridor, he came back with a rapid stride, and clenching his hands, and with a voice thick with passion, cried, "Some day or other I will make you smart for this, as sure as my name's Dick Avenel!" "Avenel!" repeated Egerton, recoiling,--"Avenel!" But the mayor was gone. Audley fell into a deep and musing revery, which seemed gloomy, and lasted till the attendant announced that the horses were at the door. He then looked up, still abstractedly, and saw his letter to Harley L'Estrange open on the table. He drew it towards him, and wrote, "A man has just left me, who calls himself Aven--" In the middle of the name his pen stopped. "No, no," muttered the writer, "what folly to reopen the old wounds there!" and he carefully erased the words. Audley Egerton did not ride in the Park that day, as was his wont, but dismissed his groom; and, turning his horse's head towards Westminster Bridge, took his solitary way into the country. He rode at first slowly, as if in thought; then fast, as if trying to escape from thought. He was later than usual at the House that evening, and he looked pale and fatigued. But he had to speak, and he spoke well. CHAPTER VII. In spite of all his Machiavellian wisdom, Dr. Riccabocca had been foiled in his attempt to seduce Leonard Fairfield into his service, even though he succeeded in partially winning over the widow to his views. For to her he represented the worldly advantages of the thing. Lenny would learn to be fit for more than a day-labourer; he would learn gardening, in all its branches,--rise some day to be a head gardener. "And," said Riccabocca, "I will take care of his book-learning, and teach him whatever he has a head for." "He has a head for everything," said the widow. "Then," said the wise man, "everything shall go into it." The widow was certainly dazzled; for, as we have seen, she highly prized scholarly distinction, and she knew that the parson looked upon Riccabocca as a wondrous learned man. But still Riccabocca was said to be a Papist, and suspected to be a conjuror. Her scruples on both these points, the Italian, who was an adept in the art of talking over the fair sex, would no doubt have dissipated, if there had been any use in it; but Lenny put a dead stop to all negotiations. He had taken a mortal dislike to Riccabocca: he was very much frightened by him,--and the spectacles, the pipe, the cloak, the long hair, and the red umbrella; and said so sturdily, in reply to every overture, "Please, sir, I'd rather not; I'd rather stay along with Mother," that Riccabocca was forced to suspend all further experiments in his Machiavellian diplomacy. He was not at all cast down, however, by his first failure; on the contrary, he was one of those men whom opposition stimulates; and what before had been but a suggestion of prudence, became an object of desire. Plenty of other lads might no doubt be had on as reasonable terms as Lenny Fairfield; but the moment Lenny presumed to baffle the Italian's designs upon him, the special acquisition, of Lenny became of paramount importance in the eyes of Signor Riccabocca. Jackeymo, however, lost all his interest in the traps, snares, and gins which his master proposed to lay for Leonard Fairfield, in the more immediate surprise that awaited him on learning that Dr. Riccabocca had accepted an invitation to pass a few days at the Hall. "There will be no one there but the family," said Riccabocca. "Poor Giacomo, a little chat in the servants' hall will do you good; and the squire's beef is more nourishing, after all, than the sticklebacks and minnows. It will lengthen your life." "The padrone jests," said Jackeymo, statelily; "as if any one could starve in his service." "Um," said Riccabocca. "At least, faithful friend, you have tried that experiment as far as human nature will permit;" and he extended his hand to his fellow-exile with that familiarity which exists between servant and master in the usages of the Continent. Jackeymo bent low, and a tear fell upon the hand he kissed. "Cospetto!" said Dr. Riccabocca, "a thousand mock pearls do not make up the cost of a single true one! The tears of women--we know their worth; but the tears of an honest man---Fie, Giacomo!--at least I can never repay you this! Go and see to our wardrobe." So far as his master's wardrobe was concerned, that order was pleasing to Jackeymo; for the doctor had in his drawers suits which Jackeymo pronounced to be as good as new, though many a long year had passed since they left the tailor's hands. But when Jackeymo came to examine the state of his own clothing department, his face grew considerably longer. It was not that he was without other clothes than those on his back,-- quantity was there, but the quality! Mournfully he gazed on two suits, complete in three separate members of which man's raiments are composed: the one suit extended at length upon his bed, like a veteran stretched by pious hands after death; the other brought piecemeal to the invidious light,--the torso placed upon a chair, the limbs dangling down from Jackeymo's melancholy arm. No bodies long exposed at the Morgue could evince less sign of resuscitation than those respectable defuncts! For, indeed, Jackeymo had been less thrifty of his apparel, more /profusus sui/, than his master. In the earliest days of their exile, he preserved the decorous habit of dressing for dinner,--it was a respect due to the padrone,--and that habit had lasted till the two habits on which it necessarily depended had evinced the first symptoms of decay; then the evening clothes had been taken into morning wear, in which hard service they had breathed their last. The doctor, notwithstanding his general philosophical abstraction from such household details, had more than once said, rather in pity to Jackeymo than with an eye to that respectability which the costume of the servant reflects on the dignity of the master, "Giacomo, thou wantest clothes; fit thyself out of mine!" And Jackeymo had bowed his gratitude, as if the donation had been accepted; but the fact was that that same fitting out was easier said than done. For though-thanks to an existence mainly upon sticklebacks and minnows--both Jackeymo and Riccabocca had arrived at that state which the longevity of misers proves to be most healthful to the human frame,-- namely, skin and bone,--yet the bones contained in the skin of Riccabocca all took longitudinal directions; while those in the skin of Jackeymo spread out latitudinally. And you might as well have made the bark of a Lombardy poplar serve for the trunk of some dwarfed and pollarded oak--in whose hollow the Babes of the Wood could have slept at their ease--as have fitted out Jackeymo from the garb of Riccabocca. Moreover, if the skill of the tailor could have accomplished that undertaking, the faithful Jackeymo would never have had the heart to avail himself of the generosity of his master. He had a sort of religious sentiment, too, about those vestments of the padrone. The ancients, we know, when escaping from shipwreck, suspended in the votive temple the garments in which they had struggled through the wave. Jackeymo looked on those relics of the past with a kindred superstition. "This coat the padrone wore on such an occasion. I remember the very evening the padrone last put on those pantaloons!" And coat and pantaloons were tenderly dusted, and carefully restored to their sacred rest. But now, after all, what was to be done? Jackeymo was much too proud to exhibit his person to the eyes of the squire's butler in habiliments discreditable to himself and the padrone. In the midst of his perplexity the bell rang, and he went down into the parlour. Riccabocca was standing on the hearth under his symbolical representation of the "Patriae Exul." "Giacomo," quoth he, "I have been thinking that thou hast never done what I told thee, and fitted thyself out from my superfluities. But we are going now into the great world: visiting once begun, Heaven knows where it may stop. Go to the nearest town and get thyself clothes. Things are dear in England. Will this suffice?" And Riccabocca extended a five- pound note. Jackeymo, we have seen, was more familiar with his master than we formal English permit our domestics to be with us; but in his familiarity he was usually respectful. This time, however, respect deserted him. "The padrone is mad!" he exclaimed; "he would fling away his whole fortune if I would let him. Five pounds English, or a hundred and twenty-six pounds Milanese! Santa Maria! unnatural father! And what is to become of the poor signorina? Is this the way you are to marry her in the foreign land?" "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, bowing his head to the storm, "the signorina to-morrow; to-day the honour of the House. Thy small-clothes, Giacomo,-- miserable man, thy small-clothes!" "It is just," said Jackeymo, recovering himself, and with humility; "and the padrone does right to blame me, but not in so cruel a way. It is just,--the padrone lodges and boards me, and gives me handsome wages, and he has a right to expect that I should not go in this figure." "For the board and the lodgment, good," said Riccabocca. For the handsome wages, they are the visions of thy fancy!" "They are no such thing," said Jackeymo, "they are only in arrear. As if the padrone could not pay them some day or other; as if I was demeaning myself by serving a master who did not intend to pay his servants! And can't I wait? Have I not my savings too? But be cheered, be cheered; you shall be contented with me. I have two beautiful suits still. I was arranging them when you rang for me. You shall see, you shall see." And Jackeymo hurried from the room, hurried back into his own chamber, unlocked a little trunk which he kept at his bed-head, tossed out a variety of small articles, and from the deepest depth extracted a leathern purse. He emptied the contents on the bed. They were chiefly Italian coins, some five-franc pieces, a silver medallion inclosing a little image of his patron saint,--San Giacomo,--one solid English guinea, and somewhat more than a pound's worth in English silver. Jackeymo put back the foreign coins, saying prudently, "One will lose on them here;" he seized the English coins, and counted them out. "But are you enough, you rascals?" quoth he, angrily, giving them a good shake. His eye caught sight of the medallion,--he paused; and after eying the tiny representation of the saint with great deliberation, he added, in a sentence which he must have picked up from the proverbial aphorisms of his master,-- "What's the difference between the enemy who does not hurt me, and the friend who does not serve me? Monsignore San Giacomo, my patron saint, you are of very little use to me in the leathern bag; but if you help me to get into a new pair of small-clothes on this important occasion, you will be a friend indeed. /Alla bisogna, Monsignore./" Then, gravely kissing the medallion, he thrust it into one pocket, the coins into the other, made up a bundle of the two defunct suits, and muttering to himself, "Beast, miser, that I am, to disgrace the padrone with all these savings in his service!" ran downstairs into his pantry, caught up his hat and stick, and in a few moments more was seen trudging off to the neighbouring town of L--------. Apparently the poor Italian succeeded, for he came back that evening in time to prepare the thin gruel which made his master's supper, with a suit of black,--a little threadbare, but still highly respectable,--two shirt fronts, and two white cravats. But out of all this finery, Jackeymo held the small-clothes in especial veneration; for as they had cost exactly what the medallion had sold for, so it seemed to him that San Giacomo had heard his prayer in that quarter to which he had more exclusively directed the saint's direction. The other habiliments came to him in the merely human process of sale and barter; the small-clothes were the personal gratuity of San Giacomo! CHAPTER VIII. Life has been subjected to many ingenious comparisons; and if we do not understand it any better, it is not for want of what is called "reasoning by illustration." Amongst other resemblances, there are moments when, to a quiet contemplator, it suggests the image of one of those rotatory entertainments commonly seen in fairs, and known by the name of "whirligigs," or "roundabouts," in which each participator of the pastime, seated on his hobby, is always apparently in the act of pursuing some one before him, while he is pursued by some one behind. Man, and woman too, are naturally animals of chase; the greatest still find something to follow, and there is no one too humble not to be an object of prey to another. Thus, confining our view to the village of Hazeldean, we behold in this whirligig Dr. Riccabocca spurring his hobby after Lenny Fairfield; and Miss Jemima, on her decorous side-saddle, whipping after Dr. Riccabocca. Why, with so long and intimate a conviction of the villany of our sex, Miss Jemima should resolve upon giving the male animal one more chance of redeeming itself in her eyes, I leave to the explanation of those gentlemen who profess to find "their only books in woman's looks." Perhaps it might be from the over- tenderness and clemency of Miss Jemima's nature; perhaps it might be that as yet she had only experienced the villany of man born and reared in these cold northern climates, and in the land of Petrarch and Romeo, of the citron and myrtle, there was reason to expect that the native monster would be more amenable to gentle influences, less obstinately hardened in his iniquities. Without entering further into these hypotheses, it is sufficient to say that, on Signor Riccabocca's appearance in the drawing- room at Hazeldean, Miss Jemima felt more than ever rejoiced that she had relaxed in his favour her general hostility to men. In truth, though Frank saw something quizzical in the old-fashioned and outlandish cut of the Italian's sober dress; in his long hair, and the /chapeau bras/, over which he bowed so gracefully, and then pressed it, as if to his heart, before tucking it under his arm, after the fashion in which the gizzard reposes under the wing of a roasted pullet,--yet it was impossible that even Frank could deny to Riccabocca that praise which is due to the air and manner of an unmistakable gentleman. And certainly as, after dinner, conversation grew more familiar, and the parson and Mrs. Dale, who had been invited to meet their friend, did their best to draw him out, his talk, though sometimes a little too wise for his listeners, became eminently animated and agreeable. It was the conversation of a man who, besides the knowledge which is acquired from books and life, had studied the art which becomes a gentleman,--that of pleasing in polite society. The result was that all were charmed with him; and that even Captain Barnabas postponed the whist-table for a full hour after the usual time. The doctor did not play; he thus became the property of the two ladies, Miss Jemima and Mrs. Dale. Seated between the two, in the place rightfully appertaining to Flimsey, who this time was fairly dislodged, to her great wonder and discontent, the doctor was the emblem of true Domestic Felicity, placed between Friendship and Love. Friendship, as became her, worked quietly at the embroidered pocket- handkerchief and left Love to more animated operations. "You must be very lonely at the Casino," said Love, in a sympathizing tone. "Madam," replied Riccabocca, gallantly, "I shall think so when I leave you." Friendship cast a sly glance at Love; Love blushed, or looked down on the carpet,--which comes to the same thing. "Yet," began Love again,--"yet solitude to a feeling heart--" Riccabocca thought of the note of invitation, and involuntarily buttoned his coat, as if to protect the individual organ thus alarmingly referred to. "Solitude to a feeling heart has its charms. It is so hard even for us poor ignorant women to find a congenial companion--but for YOU!" Love stopped short, as if it had said too much, and smelt confusedly at its bouquet. Dr. Riccabocca cautiously lowered his spectacles, and darted one glance which, with the rapidity and comprehensiveness of lightning, seemed to envelop and take in, as it were, the whole inventory of Miss Jemima's personal attractions. Now Miss Jemima, as I have before observed, had a mild and pensive expression of countenance; and she would have been positively pretty had the mildness looked a little more alert, and the pensiveness somewhat less lackadaisical. In fact, though Miss Jemima was constitutionally mild, she was not /de natura/ pensive; she had too much of the Hazeldean blood in her veins for that sullen and viscid humour called melancholy, and therefore this assumption of pensiveness really spoiled her character of features, which only wanted to be lighted up by a cheerful smile to be extremely prepossessing. The same remark might apply to the figure, which--thanks to the same pensiveness--lost all the undulating grace which movement and animation bestow on the fluent curves of the feminine form. The figure was a good figure, examined in detail, --a little thin, perhaps, but by no means emaciated, with just and elegant proportions, and naturally light and flexible. But the same unfortunate pensiveness gave to the whole a character of inertness and languor; and when Miss Jemima reclined on the sofa, so complete seemed the relaxation of nerve and muscle that you would have thought she had lost the use of her limbs. Over her face and form, thus defrauded of the charms Providence had bestowed on them, Dr. Riccabocca's eye glanced rapidly; and then moving nearer to Mrs. Dale--"Defend me" (he stopped a moment, and added) "from the charge of not being able to appreciate congenial companionship." "Oh, I did not say that!" cried Miss Jemima. "Pardon me," said the Italian, "if I am so dull as to misunderstand you. One may well lose one's head, at least, in such a neighbourhood as this." He rose as he spoke, and bent over Frank's shoulder to examine some views of Italy, which Miss Jemima (with what, if wholly unselfish, would have been an attention truly delicate) had extracted from the library in order to gratify the guest. "Most interesting creature, indeed," sighed Miss Jemima, but too--too flattering." "Tell me," said Mrs. Dale, gravely, "do you think, love, that you could put off the end of the world a little longer, or must we make haste in order to be in time?" "How wicked you are!" said Miss Jemima, turning aside. Some few minutes afterwards, Mrs. Dale contrived it so that Dr. Riccabocca and herself were in a farther corner of the room, looking at a picture said to be by Wouvermans. MRS. DALE.--"She is very amiable, Jemima, is she not?" RICCABOCCA.--"Exceedingly so. Very fine battle-piece!" MRS. DALE.--"So kind-hearted." RICCABOCCA.--"All ladies are. How naturally that warrior makes his desperate cut at the runaway!" MRS. DALE.--"She is not what is called regularly handsome, but she has something very winning." RICCABOCCA (with a smile).--"So winning, that it is strange she is not won. That gray mare in the foreground stands out very boldly!" MRS. DALE (distrusting the smile of Riccabocca, and throwing in a more effective grape-charge).--"Not won yet; and it is strange! she will have a very pretty fortune." RICCABOCCA.--"Ah!" MRS. DALE. "Six thousand pounds, I dare say,--certainly four." RICCABOCCA (suppressing a sigh, and with his wonted address).--"If Mrs. Dale were still single, she would never need a friend to say what her portion might be; but Miss Jemima is so good that I am quite sure it is not Miss Jemima's fault that she is still--Miss Jemima!" The foreigner slipped away as he spoke, and sat himself down beside the whist-players. Mrs. Dale was disappointed, but certainly not offended. It would be such a good thing for both," muttered she, almost inaudibly. "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he was undressing that night in the large, comfortable, well-carpeted English bedroom, with that great English four- posted bed in the recess which seems made to shame folks out of single blessedness, "Giacomo, I have had this evening the offer of probably L6000, certainly of four thousand." "Cosa meravigliosa!"--["Miraculous thing."]--exclaimed Jackeymo, and he crossed himself with great fervour. "Six thousand pounds English! why, that must be a hundred thousand--blockhead that I am!--more than L150,000 Milanese!" And Jackeymo, who was considerably enlivened by the squire's ale, commenced a series of gesticulations and capers, in the midst of which he stopped and cried, "But not for nothing?" "Nothing! no!" "These mercenary English! the Government wants to bribe you?" "That's not it." "The priests want you to turn heretic?" "Worse than that!" said the philosopher. "Worse than that! O Padrone! for shame!" "Don't be a fool, but pull off my pantaloons--they want me never to wear THESE again!" "Never to wear what?" exclaimed Jackeymo, staring outright at his master's long legs in their linen drawers,--"never to wear--" "The breeches," said Riccabocca, laconically. "The barbarians!" faltered Jackeymo. "My nightcap! and never to have any comfort in this," said Riccabocca, drawing on the cotton head-gear; "and never to have any sound sleep in that," pointing to the four-posted bed; "and to be a bondsman and a slave," continued Riccabocca, waxing wroth; "and to be wheedled and purred at, and pawed and clawed, and scolded and fondled, and blinded and deafened, and bridled and saddled--bedevilled and--married!" "Married!" said Jackeymo, more dispassionately--"that's very bad, certainly; but more than a hundred and fifty thousand lire, and perhaps a pretty young lady, and--" "Pretty young lady!" growled Riccabocca, jumping into bed and drawing the clothes fiercely over him. "Put out the candle, and get along with you, --do, you villanous old incendiary!" CHAPTER IX. It was not many days since the resurrection of those ill-omened stocks, and it was evident already, to an ordinary observer, that something wrong had got into the village. The peasants wore a sullen expression of countenance; when the squire passed, they took off their hats with more than ordinary formality, but they did not return the same broad smile to his quick, hearty "Good-day, my man." The women peered at him from the threshold or the casement, but did not, as was their wont (as least the wont of the prettiest), take occasion to come out to catch his passing compliment on their own good looks, or their tidy cottages. And the children, who used to play after work on the site of the old stocks, now shunned the place, and, indeed, seemed to cease play altogether. On the other hand, no man likes to build, or rebuild, a great public work for nothing. Now that the squire had resuscitated the stocks, and made them so exceedingly handsome, it was natural that he should wish to put somebody into them. Moreover, his pride and self-esteem had been wounded by the parson's opposition; and it would be a justification to his own forethought, and a triumph over the parson's understanding, if he could satisfactorily and practically establish a proof that the stocks had not been repaired before they were wanted. Therefore, unconsciously to himself, there was something about the squire more burly and authoritative and menacing than heretofore. Old Gaffer Solomons observed, "that they had better moind well what they were about, for that the squire had a wicked look in the tail of his eye,--just as the dun bull had afore it tossed neighbour Barnes's little boy." For two or three days these mute signs of something brewing in the atmosphere had been rather noticeable than noticed, without any positive overt act of tyranny on the one hand or rebellion on the other. But on the very Saturday night in which Dr. Riccabocca was installed in the four-posted bed in the chintz chamber, the threatened revolution commenced. In the dead of that night personal outrage was committed on the stocks. And on the Sunday morning, Mr. Stirn, who was the earliest riser in the parish, perceived, in going to the farmyard, that the knob of the column that flanked the board had been feloniously broken off; that the four holes were bunged up with mud; and that some jacobinical villain had carved, on the very centre of the flourish or scroll-work, "Dam the stoks!" Mr. Stirn was much too vigilant a right-hand man, much too zealous a friend of law and order, not to regard such proceedings with horror and alarm. And when the squire came into his dressing-room at half-past seven, his butler (who fulfilled also the duties of valet) informed him, with a mysterious air, that Mr. Stirn had something "very partikler to communicate about a most howdacious midnight 'spiracy and 'sault." The squire stared, and bade Mr. Stirn be admitted. "Well?" cried the squire, suspending the operation of stropping his razor. Mr. Stirn groaned. "Well, man, what now?" "I never knowed such a thing in this here parish afore," began Mr. Stirn; "and I can only 'count for it by s'posing that them foreign Papishers have been semminating--" "Been what?" "Semminating--" "Disseminating, you blockhead,--disseminating what?" "Damn the stocks," began Mr. Stirn, plunging right /in medias res/, and by a fine use of one of the noblest figures in rhetoric. "Mr. Stirn!" cried the squire, reddening, "did you say, 'Damn the stocks'?--damn my new handsome pair of stocks!" "Lord forbid, sir; that's what they say: that's what they have digged on it with knives and daggers, and they have stuffed mud in its four holes, and broken the capital of the elewation." The squire took the napkin off his shoulder, laid down strop and razor; he seated himself in his armchair majestically, crossed his legs, and, in a voice that affected tranquillity, said,-- "Compose yourself, Stirn; you have a deposition to make, touching an assault upon--can I trust my senses?--upon my new stocks. Compose yourself; be calm. Now! What the devil is come to the parish?" "Ah, sir, what indeed?" replied Mr. Stirn: and then laying the forefinger of the right hand on the palm of the left he narrated the case. "And whom do you suspect? Be calm now; don't speak in a passion. You are a witness, sir,--a dispassionate, unprejudiced witness. Zounds and fury! this is the most insolent, unprovoked, diabolical--but whom do you suspect, I say?" Stirn twirled his hat, elevated his eyebrows, jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and whispered, "I hear as how the two Papishers slept at your honour's last night." "What, dolt! do you suppose Dr. Rickeybockey got out of his warm bed to bung up the holes in my new stocks?" "Noa; he's too cunning to do it himself, but he may have been semminating. He's mighty thick with Parson Dale, and your honour knows as how the parson set his face agin the stocks. Wait a bit, sir,--don't fly at me yet. There be a boy in this here parish--" "A boy! ah, fool, now you are nearer the mark. The parson write 'Damn the stocks,' indeed! What boy do you mean?" "And that boy be cockered up much by Mr. Dale; and the Papisher went and sat with him and his mother a whole hour t' other day; and that boy is as deep as a well; and I seed him lurking about the place, and hiding hisself under the tree the day the stocks was put up,--and that 'ere boy is Lenny Fairfield." "Whew," said the squire, whistling, "you have not your usual senses about you to-day, man. Lenny Fairfield,--pattern boy of the village. Hold your tongue. I dare say it is not done by any one in the parish, after all: some good-for-nothing vagrant--that cursed tinker, who goes about with a very vicious donkey,--a donkey that I caught picking thistles out of the very eyes of the old stocks! Shows how the tinker brings up his donkeys! Well, keep a sharp look-out. To-day is Sunday; worst day of the week, I'm sorry and ashamed to say, for rows and depredations. Between the services, and after evening church, there are always idle fellows from all the neighbouring country about, as you know too well. Depend on it, the real culprits will be found gathering round the stocks, and will betray themselves; have your eyes, ears, and wits about you, and I've no doubt we shall come to the rights of the matter before the day's out. And if we do," added the squire, "we'll make an example of the ruffian!" "In course," said Stirn: "and if we don't find him we must make an example all the same. That's what it is, sir. That's why the stocks ben't respected; they has not had an example yet,--we wants an example." "On my word I believe that's very true; and we'll clap in the first idle fellow you catch in anything wrong, and keep him there for two hours at least." "With the biggest pleasure, your honour,--that's what it is." And Mr. Stirn having now got what he considered a complete and unconditional authority over all the legs and wrists of Hazeldean parish, /quoad/ the stocks, took his departure. CHAPTER X. "Randal," said Mrs. Leslie on this memorable Sunday,--"Randal, do you think of going to Mr. Hazeldean's?" "Yes, ma'am," answered Randal. "Mr. Egerton does not object to it; and as I do not return to Eton, I may have no other opportunity of seeing Frank for some time. I ought not to fail in respect to Mr. Egerton's natural heir." "Gracious me!" cried Mrs. Leslie, who, like many women of her cast and kind, had a sort of worldliness in her notions, which she never evinced in her conduct,--"gracious me! natural heir to the old Leslie property!" "He is Mr. Egerton's nephew, and," added Randal, ingenuously letting out his thoughts, "I am no relation to Mr. Egerton at all." "But," said poor Mrs. Leslie, with tears in her eyes, "it would be a shame in the man, after paying your schooling and sending you to Oxford, and having you to stay with him in the holidays, if he did not mean anything by it." "Anything, Mother, yes,--but not the thing you suppose. No matter. It is enough that he has armed me for life, and I shall use the weapons as seems to me best." Here the dialogue was suspended by the entrance of the other members of the family, dressed for church. "It can't be time for church! No, it can't," exclaimed Mrs. Leslie. She was never in time for anything, "Last bell ringing," said Mr. Leslie, who, though a slow man, was methodical and punctual. Mrs. Leslie made a frantic rush at the door, the Montfydget blood being now in a blaze, dashed up the stairs, burst into her room, tore her best bonnet from the peg, snatched her newest shawl from the drawers, crushed the bonnet on her head, flung the shawl on her shoulders, thrust a desperate pin into its folds, in order to conceal a buttonless yawn in the body of her gown, and then flew back like a whirlwind. Meanwhile the family were already out of doors, in waiting; and just as the bell ceased, the procession moved from the shabby house to the dilapidated church. The church was a large one, but the congregation was small, and so was the income of the parson. It was a lay rectory, and the great tithes had belonged to the Leslies, but they had been long since sold. The vicarage, still in their gift, might be worth a little more than L100 a year. The present incumbent had nothing else to live upon. He was a good man, and not originally a stupid one; but penury and the anxious cares for wife and family, combined with what may be called solitary confinement for the cultivated mind, when, amidst the two-legged creatures round, it sees no other cultivated mind with which it can exchange one extra-parochial thought, had lulled him into a lazy mournfulness, which at times was very like imbecility. His income allowed him to do no good to the parish, whether in work, trade, or charity; and thus he had no moral weight with the parishioners beyond the example of his sinless life, and such negative effect as might be produced by his slumberous exhortations. Therefore his parishioners troubled him very little; and but for the influence which, in hours of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised over the most tractable,--that is, the children and the aged,--not half-a-dozen persons would have known or cared whether he shut up his church or not. But our family were seated in state in their old seignorial pew, and Mr. Dumdrum, with a nasal twang, went lugubriously through the prayers; and the old people who could sin no more, and the children who had not yet learned to sin, croaked forth responses that might have come from the choral frogs in Aristophanes; and there was a long sermon a propos to nothing which could possibly interest the congregation,--being, in fact, some controversial homily which Mr. Dumdrum had composed and preached years before. And when this discourse was over, there was a loud universal grunt, as if of relief and thanksgiving, and a great clatter of shoes, and the old hobbled, and the young scrambled, to the church door. Immediately after church, the Leslie family dined; and as soon as dinner was over, Randal set out on his foot journey to Hazeldean Hall. Delicate and even feeble though his frame, he had the energy and quickness of movement which belongs to nervous temperaments; and he tasked the slow stride of a peasant, whom he took to serve him as a guide for the first two or three miles. Though Randal had not the gracious open manner with the poor which Frank inherited from his father, he was still (despite many a secret hypocritical vice at war with the character of a gentleman) gentleman enough to have no churlish pride to his inferiors. He talked little, but he suffered his guide to talk; and the boor, who was the same whom Frank had accosted, indulged in eulogistic comments on that young gentleman's pony, from which he diverged into some compliments on the young gentleman himself. Randal drew his hat over his brows. There is a wonderful tact and fine breeding in your agricultural peasant; and though Tom Stowell was but a brutish specimen of the class, he suddenly perceived that he was giving pain. He paused, scratched his head, and, glancing affectionately towards his companion, exclaimed,-- "But I shall live to see you on a handsomer beastis than that little pony, Master Randal; and sure I ought, for you be as good a gentleman as any in the land." "Thank you," said Randal. "But I like walking better than riding,--I am more used to it." "Well, and you walk bra'ly,--there ben't a better walker in the county. And very pleasant it is walking; and 't is a pretty country afore you, all the way to the Hall." Randal strode on, as if impatient of these attempts to flatter or to soothe; and coming at length into a broader lane, said, "I think I can find my way now. Many thanks to you, Tom;" and he forced a shilling into Tom's horny palm. The man took it reluctantly, and a tear started to his eye. He felt more grateful for that shilling than he had for Frank's liberal half-crown; and he thought of the poor fallen family, and forgot his own dire wrestle with the wolf at his door. He stayed lingering in the lane till the figure of Randal was out of sight, and then returned slowly. Young Leslie continued to walk on at a quick pace. With all his intellectual culture and his restless aspirations, his breast afforded him no thought so generous, no sentiment so poetic, as those with which the unlettered clown crept slouchingly homeward. As Randal gained a point where several lanes met on a broad piece of waste land, he began to feel tired, and his step slackened. Just then a gig emerged from one of these byroads, and took the same direction as the pedestrian. The road was rough and hilly, and the driver proceeded at a foot's pace; so that the gig and the pedestrian went pretty well abreast. "You seem tired, sir," said the driver, a stout young farmer of the higher class of tenants, and he looked down compassionately on the boy's pale countenance and weary stride. "Perhaps we are going the same way, and I can give you a lift?" It was Randal's habitual policy to make use of every advantage proffered to him, and he accepted the proposal frankly enough to please the honest farmer. "A nice day, sir," said the latter, as Randal sat by his side. "Have you come far?" "From Rood Hall." "Oh, you be young Squire Leslie," said the farmer, more respectfully, and lifting his hat. "Yes, my name is Leslie. You know Rood, then?" "I was brought up on your father's land, sir. You may have heard of Farmer Bruce?" RANDAL.--"I remember, when I was a little boy, a Mr. Bruce who rented, I believe, the best part of our land, and who used to bring us cakes when he called to see my father. He is a relation of yours?" FARMER BRUCE.--"He was my uncle. He is dead now, poor man." RANDAL.-"Dead! I am grieved to hear it. He was very kind to us children. But it is long since he left my father's farm." FARMER BRUCE (apologetically).--"I am sure he was very sorry to go. But, you see, he had an unexpected legacy--" RANDAL.--"And retired from business?" FARMER BRUCE.--"No. But, having capital, he could afford to pay a good rent for a real good farm." RANDAL (bitterly).--"All capital seems to fly from the lands of Rood. And whose farm did he take?" FARMER BRUCE.--" He took Hawleigh, under Squire Hazeldean. I rent it now. We've laid out a power o' money on it. But I don't complain. It pays well." RANDAL.--"Would the money have paid as well sunk on my father's land?" FARMER BRUCE.---"Perhaps it might, in the long run. But then, sir, we wanted new premises,--barns and cattlesheds, and a deal more,--which the landlord should do; but it is not every landlord as can afford that. Squire Hazeldean's a rich man." RANDAL.---"Ay!" The road now became pretty good, and the farmer put his horse into a brisk trot. "But which way be you going, sir? I don't care for a few miles more or less, if I can be of service." "I am going to Hazeldean," said Randal, rousing himself from a revery. "Don't let me take you out of your way." "O, Hawleigh Farm is on the other side of the village, so it be quite my way, sir." The farmer, then, who was really a smart young fellow,--one of that race which the application of capital to land has produced, and which, in point of education and refinement, are at least on a par with the squires of a former generation,--began to talk about his handsome horse, about horses in general, about hunting and coursing: he handled all these subjects with spirit, yet with modesty. Randal pulled his hat still lower down over his brows, and did not interrupt him till they passed the Casino, when, struck by the classic air of the place, and catching a scent from the orange-trees, the boy asked abruptly, "Whose house is that?" "Oh, it belongs to Squire Hazeldean, but it is let or lent to a foreign mounseer. They say he is quite the gentleman, but uncommonly poor." "Poor," said Randal, turning back to gaze on the trim garden, the neat terrace, the pretty belvidere, and (the door of the house being open) catching a glimpse of the painted hall within,--"poor? The place seems well kept. What do you call poor, Mr. Bruce?" The farmer laughed. "Well, that's a home question, sir. But I believe the mounseer is as poor as a man can be who makes no debts and does not actually starve." "As poor as my father?" asked Randal, openly and abruptly. "Lord, sir! your father be a very rich man compared to him." Randal continued to gaze, and his mind's eye conjured up the contrast of his slovenly shabby home, with all its neglected appurtenances. No trim garden at Rood Hall, no scent from odorous orange blossoms. Here poverty at least was elegant,--there, how squalid! He did not comprehend at how cheap a rate the luxury of the Beautiful can be effected. They now approached the extremity of the squire's park pales; and Randal, seeing a little gate, bade the farmer stop his gig, and descended. The boy plunged amidst the thick oak groves; the farmer went his way blithely, and his mellow merry whistle came to Randal's moody ear as he glided quick under the shadow of the trees. He arrived at the Hall to find that all the family were at church; and, according to the patriarchal custom, the churchgoing family embraced nearly all the servants. It was therefore an old invalid housemaid who opened the door to him. She was rather deaf, and seemed so stupid that Randal did not ask leave to enter and wait for Frank's return. He therefore said briefly that he would just stroll on the lawn, and call again when church was over. The old woman stared, and strove to hear him; meanwhile Randal turned round abruptly, and sauntered towards the garden side of the handsome old house. There was enough to attract any eye in the smooth greensward of the spacious lawn, in the numerous parterres of variegated flowers, in the venerable grandeur of the two mighty cedars, which threw their still shadows over the grass, and in the picturesque building, with its projecting mullions and heavy gables; yet I fear that it was with no poet's nor painter's eye that this young old man gazed on the scene before him. He beheld the evidence of wealth--and the envy of wealth jaundiced his soul. Folding his arms on his breast, he stood a while, looking all around him, with closed lips and lowering brow; then he walked slowly on, his eyes fixed on the ground, and muttered to himself,-- "The heir to this property is little better than a dunce; and they tell me I have talents and learning, and I have taken to my heart the maxim, 'Knowledge is power.' And yet, with all my struggles, will knowledge ever place me on the same level as that on which this dunce is born? I don't wonder that the poor should hate the rich. But of all the poor, who should hate the rich like the pauper gentleman? I suppose Audley Egerton means me to come into parliament, and be a Tory like himself? What! keep things as they are! No; for me not even Democracy, unless there first come Revolution. I understand the cry of a Marat,--'More blood!' Marat had lived as a poor man, and cultivated science--in the sight of a prince's palace." He turned sharply round, and glared vindictively on the poor old Hall, which, though a very comfortable habitation, was certainly no palace; and, with his arms still folded on his breast, he walked backward, as if not to lose the view, nor the chain of ideas it conjured up. "But," he continued to soliloquize,--"but of revolution there is no chance. Yet the same wit and will that would thrive in revolutions should thrive in this commonplace life. Knowledge is power. Well, then, shall I have no power to oust this blockhead? Oust him--what from? His father's halls? Well, but if he were dead, who would be the heir of Hazeldean? Have I not heard my mother say that I am as near in blood to this squire as any one, if he had no children? Oh, but the boy's life is worth ten of mine! Oust him from what? At least from the thoughts of his Uncle Egerton,--an uncle who has never even seen him! That, at least, is more feasible. 'Make my way in life,' sayest thou, Audley Egerton? Ay,--and to the fortune thou hast robbed from my ancestors. Simulation! simulation! Lord Bacon allows simulation. Lord Bacon practised it, and--" Here the soliloquy came to a sudden end; for as, rapt in his thoughts, the boy had continued to walk backwards, he had come to the verge where the lawn slided off into the ditch of the ha-ha; and just as he was fortifying himself by the precept and practice of my Lord Bacon, the ground went from under him, and--slap into the ditch went Randal Leslie! It so happened that the squire, whose active genius was always at some repair or improvement, had been but a few days before widening and sloping off the ditch just in that part, so that the earth was fresh and damp, and not yet either turfed or flattened down. Thus when Randal, recovering his first surprise and shock, rose to his feet, he found his clothes covered with mud; while the rudeness of the fall was evinced by the fantastic and extraordinary appearance of his hat, which, hollowed here, bulging there, and crushed out of all recognition generally, was as little like the hat of a decorous, hard-reading young gentleman--protege of the dignified Mr. Audley Egerton--as any hat picked out of a kennel after some drunken brawl possibly could be. Randal was dizzy and stunned and bruised, and it was some moments before he took heed of his raiment. When he did so his spleen was greatly aggravated. He was still boy enough not to like the idea of presenting himself to the unknown squire and the dandy Frank in such a trim: he resolved incontinently to regain the lane and return home, without accomplishing the object of his journey; and seeing the footpath right before him, which led to a gate that he conceived would admit him into the highway sooner than the path by which he had come, he took it at once. It is surprising how little we human creatures heed the warnings of our good genius. I have no doubt that some benignant power had precipitated Randal Leslie into the ditch, as a significant hint of the fate of all who choose what is, nowadays; by no means an uncommon step in the march of intellect,--namely, the walking backwards, in order to gratify a vindictive view of one's neighbour's property! I suspect that, before this century is out, many a fine fellow will thus have found his ha-ha, and scrambled out of the ditch with a much shabbier coat than he had on when he fell into it. But Randal did not thank his good genius for giving him a premonitory tumble,--and I never yet knew a man who did! CHAPTER, XI. The squire was greatly ruffled at breakfast that morning. He was too much of an Englishman to bear insult patiently, and he considered that he had been personally insulted in the outrage offered to his recent donation to the parish. His feelings, too, were hurt as well as his pride. There was something so ungrateful in the whole thing, just after he had taken so much pains, not only in the resuscitation but the embellishment of the stocks. It was not, however, so rare an occurrence for the squire to be ruffled as to create any remark. Riccabocca, indeed, as a stranger, and Mrs. Hazeldean, as a wife, had the quick tact to perceive that the host was glum and the husband snappish; but the one was too discreet, and the other too sensible, to chafe the new sore, whatever it might be, and shortly after breakfast the squire retired into his study, and absented himself from morning service. In his delightful "Life of Oliver Goldsmith," Mr. Forster takes care to touch our hearts by introducing his hero's excuse for not entering the priesthood. "He did not feel himself good enough." Thy Vicar of Wakefield, poor Goldsmith, was an excellent substitute for thee; and Dr. Primrose, at least, will be good enough for the world until Miss Jemima's fears are realized. Now, Squire Hazeldean had a tenderness of conscience much less reasonable than Goldsmith's. There were occasionally days in which he did not feel good enough--I don't say for a priest, but even for one of the congregation,-- "days in which," said the squire in his own blunt way, "as I have never in my life met a worse devil than a devil of a temper, I'll not carry mine into the family pew. He sha'n't be growling out hypocritical responses from my poor grandmother's prayer-book." So the squire and his demon stayed at home. But the demon was generally cast out before the day was over: and on this occasion, when the bell rang for afternoon service, it may be presumed that the squire had reasoned or fretted himself into a proper state of mind; for he was then seen sallying forth from the porch of his hall, arm-in-arm with his wife, and at the head of his household. The second service was (as is commonly the case in rural districts) more numerously attended than the first one; and it was our parson's wont to devote to this service his most effective discourse. Parson Dale, though a very fair scholar, had neither the deep theology nor the archaeological learning that distinguish the rising generation of the clergy. I much doubt if he could have passed what would now be called a creditable examination in the Fathers; and as for all the nice formalities in the rubric, he would never have been the man to divide a congregation or puzzle a bishop. Neither was Parson Dale very erudite in ecclesiastical architecture. He did not much care whether all the details in the church were purely Gothic or not; crockets and finials, round arch and pointed arch, were matters, I fear, on which he had never troubled his head. But one secret Parson Dale did possess, which is perhaps of equal importance with those subtler mysteries,--he knew how to fill his church! Even at morning service no pews were empty, and at evening service the church overflowed. Parson Dale, too, may be considered nowadays to hold but a mean idea of the spiritual authority of the Church. He had never been known to dispute on its exact bearing with the State,--whether it was incorporated with the State or above the State, whether it was antecedent to the Papacy or formed from the Papacy, etc. According to his favourite maxim, "Quieta non movere,"--["Not to disturb things that are quiet."]--I have no doubt that he would have thought that the less discussion is provoked upon such matters the better for both Church and laity. Nor had he ever been known to regret the disuse of the ancient custom of excommunication, nor any other diminution of the powers of the priesthood, whether minatory or militant; yet for all this, Parson Dale had a great notion of the sacred privilege of a minister of the gospel,--to advise, to deter, to persuade, to reprove. And it was for the evening service that he prepared those sermons which may be called "sermons that preach at you." He preferred the evening for that salutary discipline, not only because the congregation was more numerous, but also because, being a shrewd man in his own innocent way, he knew that people bear better to be preached at after dinner than before; that you arrive more insinuatingly at the heart when the stomach is at peace. There was a genial kindness in Parson Dale's way of preaching at you. It was done in so imperceptible, fatherly, a manner that you never felt offended. He did it, too, with so much art that nobody but your own guilty self knew that you were the sinner he was exhorting. Yet he did not spare rich nor poor: he preached at the squire, and that great fat farmer, Mr. Bullock, the churchwarden, as boldly as at Hodge the ploughman and Scrub the hedger. As for Mr. Stirn, he had preached at him more often than at any one in the parish; but Stirn, though he had the sense to know it, never had the grace to reform. There was, too, in Parson Dale's sermons something of that boldness of illustration which would have been scholarly if he had not made it familiar, and which is found in the discourses of our elder divines. Like them, he did not scruple now and then to introduce an anecdote from history, or borrow an allusion from some non-scriptural author, in order to enliven the attention of his audience, or render an argument more plain. And the good man had an object in this, a little distinct from, though wholly subordinate to, the main purpose of his discourse. He was a friend to knowledge,--but to knowledge accompanied by religion; and sometimes his references to sources not within the ordinary reading of his congregation would spirit up some farmer's son, with an evening's leisure on his hands, to ask the parson for further explanation, and so to be lured on to a little solid or graceful instruction, under a safe guide. Now, on the present occasion, the parson, who had always his eye and heart on his flock, and who had seen with great grief the realization of his fears at the revival of the stocks; seen that a spirit of discontent was already at work amongst the peasants, and that magisterial and inquisitorial designs were darkening the natural benevolence of the squire,--seen, in short, the signs of a breach between classes, and the precursors of the ever inflammable feud between the rich and the poor, meditated nothing less than a great Political Sermon,--a sermon that should extract from the roots of social truths a healing virtue for the wound that lay sore, but latent, in the breast of his parish of Hazeldean. And thus ran-- THE POLITICAL SERMON OF PARSON DALE. CHAPTER XII. For every man shall bear his own burden.--Gal. vi. 5. "BRETHREN! every man has his burden. If God designed our lives to end at the grave, may we not believe that He would have freed an existence so brief from the cares and sorrows to which, since the beginning of the world, mankind has been subjected? Suppose that I am a kind father, and have a child whom I dearly love, but I know by a divine revelation that he will die at the age of eight years, surely I should not vex his infancy by needless preparations for the duties of life? If I am a rich man, I should not send him from the caresses of his mother to the stern discipline of school. If I am a poor man, I should not take him with me to hedge and dig, to scorch in the sun, to freeze in the winter's cold: why inflict hardships on his childhood for the purpose of fitting him for manhood, when I know that he is doomed not to grow into man? But if, on the other hand, I believe my child is reserved for a more durable existence, then should I not, out of the very love I bear to him, prepare his childhood for the struggle of life, according to that station in which he is born, giving many a toil, many a pain, to the infant, in order to rear and strengthen him for his duties as man? So it is with our Father that is in heaven. Viewing this life as our infancy and the next as our spiritual maturity, where 'in the ages to come He may show the exceeding riches of His grace,' it is in His tenderness, as in His wisdom; to permit the toil and the pain which, in tasking the powers and developing the virtue of the soul, prepare it for 'the earnest of our inheritance.' Hence it is that every man has his burden. Brethren, if you believe that God is good, yea, but as tender as a human father, you will know that your troubles in life are a proof that you are reared for an eternity. But each man thinks his own burden the hardest to bear: the poor-man groans under his poverty, the rich man under the cares that multiply with wealth. For so far from wealth freeing us from trouble, all the wise men who have written in all ages have repeated, with one voice, the words of the wisest, 'When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?' And this is literally true, my brethren: for, let a man be as rich as was the great King Solomon himself, unless he lock up all his gold in a chest, it must go abroad to be divided amongst others; yea, though, like Solomon, he make him great works,--though he build houses and plant vineyards, and make him gardens and orchards,--still the gold that he spends feeds but the mouths he employs; and Solomon himself could not eat with a better relish than the poorest mason who builded the house, or the humblest labourer who planted the vineyard. Therefore 'when goods increase, they are increased that eat them.' And this, my brethren, may teach us toleration and compassion for the rich. We share their riches, whether they will or not; we do not share their cares. The profane history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk-maid singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only less than that of the inspired writers, represents the man who, by force--and wit, had risen to be a king sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his subjects,--all bearing out the words of the son of David, 'The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.' "Amongst my brethren now present there is, doubtless, some one who has been poor, and by honest industry has made himself comparatively rich. Let his heart answer me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired? Has he not both vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which he knew not when he went forth to his labour, and took no heed of the morrow? But it is right, my brethren, that to every station there should be its care, to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condition, and (to use the language of the world) 'seek to rise in life,' their most valuable energies would never be aroused; and we should not witness that spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in,--namely, the successful struggle of manly labour against adverse fortune,--a struggle in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands. It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are now as common to us as air and sunshine have come from that law of our nature which makes us aspire towards indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labours of the last, and in free countries often lifts the child of the labourer to a place amongst the rulers of the land. Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is the creator of the arts. If there had been no poverty, and no sense of poverty, where would have been that which we call the wealth of a country? Subtract from civilization all that has been produced by the poor, and what remains?--the state of the savage. Where you now see labourer and prince, you would see equality indeed,--the equality of wild men. No; not even equality there! for there brute force becomes lordship, and woe to the weak! Where you now see some in frieze, some in purple, you would see nakedness in all. Where stands the palace and the cot, you would behold but mud huts and caves. As far as the peasant excels the king among savages, so far does the society exalted and enriched by the struggles of labour excel the state in which Poverty feels no disparity, and Toil sighs for no ease. On the other hand, if the rich were perfectly contented with their wealth, their hearts would become hardened in the sensual enjoyments it procures. It is that feeling, by Divine Wisdom implanted in the soul, that there is vanity and vexation of spirit in the things of Mammon, which still leaves the rich man sensitive to the instincts of Heaven, and teaches him to seek for happiness in those beneficent virtues which distribute his wealth to the profit of others. If you could exclude the air from the rays of the fire, the fire itself would soon languish and die in the midst of its fuel; and so a man's joy in his wealth is kept alive by the air which it warms; and if pent within itself, is extinguished. "And this, my brethren, leads me to another view of the vast subject opened to us by the words of the apostle, 'Every man shall bear his own burden.' The worldly conditions of life are unequal. Why are they unequal? O my brethren, do you not perceive? Think you that, if it had been better for our spiritual probation that there should be neither great nor lowly, rich nor poor, Providence would not so have ordered the dispensations of the world, and so, by its mysterious but merciful agencies, have influenced the framework and foundations of society? But if from the remotest period of human annals, and in all the numberless experiments of government which the wit of man has devised, still this inequality is ever found to exist, may we not suspect that there is something in the very principles of our nature to which that inequality is necessary and essential? Ask why this inequality? Why?--as well ask why life is the sphere of duty and the nursery of virtues! For if all men were equal, if there were no suffering and no ease, no poverty and no wealth, would you not sweep with one blow the half, at least, of human virtues from the world? If there were no penury and no pain, what would become of fortitude; what of patience; what of resignation? If there were no greatness and no wealth, what would become of benevolence, of charity, of the blessed human pity, of temperance in the midst of luxury, of justice in the exercise of power? Carry the question further; grant all conditions the same,--no reverse, no rise, and no fall, nothing to hope for, nothing to fear,--what a moral death you would at once inflict upon all the energies of the soul, and what a link between the Heart of Man and the Providence of God would be snapped asunder! If we could annihilate evil, we should annihilate hope; and hope, my brethren, is the avenue to faith. If there be 'a time to weep and a time to laugh,' it is that he who mourns may turn to eternity for comfort, and he who rejoices may bless God for the happy hour. Ah, my brethren, were it possible to annihilate the inequalities of human life, it would be the banishment of our worthiest virtues, the torpor of our spiritual nature, the palsy of our mental faculties. The moral world, like the world without us, derives its health and its beauty from diversity and contrast. "'Every man shall bear his own burden.' True; but now turn to an earlier verse in the same chapter,--'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Yes, while Heaven ordains to each his peculiar suffering, it connects the family of man into one household, by that feeling which, more perhaps than any other, distinguishes us from the brute creation,--I mean the feeling to which we give the name of sympathy,--the feeling for each other! The herd of deer shun the stag that is marked by the gunner; the flock heedeth not the sheep that creeps into the shade to die; but man has sorrow and joy not in himself alone, but in the joy and sorrow of those around him. He who feels only for himself abjures his very nature as man; for do we not say of one who has no tenderness for mankind that he is inhuman; and do we not call him who sorrows with the sorrowful humane? "Now, brethren, that which especially marked the divine mission of our Lord is the direct appeal to this sympathy which distinguishes us from the brute. He seizes, not upon some faculty of genii given but to few, but upon that ready impulse of heart which is given to us all; and in saying, 'Love one another,' 'Bear ye one another's burdens,' he elevates the most delightful of our emotions into the most sacred of His laws. The lawyer asks our Lord, 'Who is my neighbour?' Our Lord replies by the parable of the good Samaritan. The priest and the Levite saw the wounded man that fell among the thieves and passed by on the other side. That priest might have been austere in his doctrine, that Levite might have been learned in the law; but neither to the learning of the Levite nor to the doctrine of the priest does our Saviour even deign to allude. He cites but the action of the Samaritan, and saith to the lawyer, 'Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy unto him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.' "O shallowness of human judgments! It was enough to be born a Samaritan in order to be rejected by the priest, and despised by the Levite. Yet now, what to us the priest and the Levite, of God's chosen race though they were? They passed from the hearts of men when they passed the sufferer by the wayside; while this loathed Samaritan, half thrust from the pale of the Hebrew, becomes of our family, of our kindred; a brother amongst the brotherhood of Love, so long as Mercy and Affliction shall meet in the common thoroughfare of Life! "'Bear ye one another's burdens and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Think not, O my brethren, that this applies only to almsgiving, to that relief of distress which is commonly called charity, to the obvious duty of devoting from our superfluities something that we scarcely miss to the wants of a starving brother. No. I appeal to the poorest amongst ye, if the worst burdens are those of the body,--if the kind word and the tender thought have not often lightened your hearts more than bread bestowed with a grudge, and charity that humbles you by a frown. Sympathy is a beneficence at the command of us all,--yea, of the pauper as of the king; and sympathy is Christ's wealth. Sympathy is brotherhood. The rich are told to have charity for the poor, and the poor are enjoined to respect their superiors. Good: I say not to the contrary. But I say also to the poor, '/In your turn have charity for the rich/;' and I say to the rich, '/In your turn respect the poor/.' "'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.' Thou, O poor man, envy not nor grudge thy brother his larger portion of worldly goods. Believe that he hath his sorrows and crosses like thyself, and perhaps, as more delicately nurtured, he feels them more; nay, hath he not temptations so great that our Lord hath exclaimed, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven'? And what are temptations but trials; what are trials but perils and sorrows? Think not that you can bestow no charity on the rich man, even while you take your sustenance from his hands. A heathen writer, often cited by the earliest preachers of the gospel, hath truly said, 'Wherever there is room for a man there is place for a benefit.' "And I ask any rich brother amongst you, when he hath gone forth to survey his barns and his granaries, his gardens and orchards, if suddenly in the vain pride of his heart, he sees the scowl on the brow of the labourer,--if he deems himself hated in the midst of his wealth, if he feels that his least faults are treasured up against him with the hardness of malice, and his plainest benefits received with the ingratitude of envy,--I ask, I say, any rich man, whether straightway all pleasure in his worldly possessions does not fade from his heart, and whether he does not feel what a wealth of gladness it is in the power of the poor man to bestow! For all these things of Mammon pass away; but there is in the smile of him whom we have served a something that we may take with us into heaven. If, then, ye bear one another's burdens, they who are poor will have mercy on the errors and compassion for the griefs of the rich. To all men it was said--yes, to Lazarus as to Dives--'Judge not, that ye be not judged.' But think not, O rich man, that we preach only to the poor. If it be their duty not to grudge thee thy substance, it is thine to do all that may sweeten their labour. Remember that when our Lord said, 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven,' He replied also to them who asked, 'Who then can be saved?' 'The things which are impossible with men are possible with God,' that is, man left to his own temptations would fail; but, strengthened by God, he shall be saved. If thy riches are the tests of thy trial, so may they also be the instruments of thy virtues. Prove by thy riches that thou art compassionate and tender, temperate and benign, and thy riches themselves may become the evidence at once of thy faith and of thy works. "We have constantly on our lips the simple precept, 'Do unto others as you would be done by.' Why do we fail so often in the practice? Because we neglect to cultivate that SYMPATHY which nature implants as an instinct, and the Saviour exalts as a command. If thou wouldst do unto thy neighbour as thou wouldst be done by, ponder well how thy neighbour will regard the action thou art about to do to him. Put thyself into his place. If thou art strong and he is weak, descend from thy strength and enter into his weakness; lay aside thy burden for the while, and buckle on his own; let thy sight see as through his eyes, thy heart beat as in his bosom. Do this, and thou wilt often confess that what had seemed just to thy power will seem harsh to his weakness. For 'as a zealous man hath not done his duty when he calls his brother drunkard and beast,' even so an administrator of the law mistakes his object if he writes on the grand column of society only warnings that irritate the bold and terrify the timid; and a man will be no more in love with law than with virtue, 'if he be forced to it with rudeness and incivilities.' If, then, ye would bear the burden of the lowly, O ye great, feel not only for them, but with! Watch that your pride does not chafe them, your power does not wantonly gall. Your worldly inferior is of the class from which the Apostles were chosen, amidst which the Lord of Creation descended from a throne above the seraphs." The parson here paused a moment, and his eye glanced towards the pew near the pulpit, where sat the magnate of Hazeldean. The squire was leaning his chin thoughtfully on his hand, his brow inclined downwards, and the natural glow of his complexion much heightened. "But," resumed the parson, softly, without turning to his book, and rather as if prompted by the suggestion of the moment--"but he who has cultivated sympathy commits not these errors, or, if committing them, hastens to retract. So natural is sympathy to the good man that he obeys it mechanically when he suffers his heart to be the monitor of his conscience. In this sympathy, behold the bond between rich and poor! By this sympathy, whatever our varying worldly lots, they become what they were meant to be,--exercises for the virtues more peculiar to each; and thus, if in the body each man bear his own burden, yet in the fellowship of the soul all have common relief in bearing the burdens of each other. This is the law of Christ,--fulfil it, O my flock!" Here the parson closed his sermon, and the congregation bowed their heads. 
7704	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK THIRD. INITIAL CHAPTER. SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE CALLED "MY NOVEL." "I am not displeased with your novel, so far as it has gone," said my father, graciously; "though as for the Sermon--" Here I trembled; but the ladies, Heaven bless them! had taken Parson Dale under their special protection; and observing that my father was puckering up his brows critically, they rushed forward boldly in defence of The Sermon, and Mr. Caxton was forced to beat a retreat. However, like a skilful general, he renewed the assault upon outposts less gallantly guarded. But as it is not my business to betray my weak points, I leave it to the ingenuity of cavillers to discover the places at which the Author of "Human Error" directed his great guns. "But," said the captain, "you are a lad of too much spirit, Pisistratus, to keep us always in the obscure country quarters of Hazeldean,--you will march us out into open service before you have done with us?" PISISTRATUS (magisterially, for he has been somewhat nettled by Mr. Caxton's remarks, and he puts on an air of dignity in order to awe away minor assailants).--"Yes, Captain Roland; not yet a while, but all in good time. I have not stinted myself in canvas, and behind my foreground of the Hall and the Parsonage I propose hereafter to open some lengthened perspective of the varieties of English life--" MR. CAXTON.--"Hum!" BLANCHE (putting her hand on my father's lip).--"We shall know better the design, perhaps, when we know the title. Pray, Mr. Author, what is the title?" MY MOTHER (with more animation than usual).--"Ay, Sisty, the title!" PISISTRATUS (startled).--"The title! By the soul of Cervantes! I have never yet thought of a title!" CAPTAIN ROLAND (solemnly).--"There is a great deal in a good title. As a novel reader, I know that by experience." MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly; there is not a catchpenny in the world but what goes down, if the title be apt and seductive. Witness 'Old Parr's Life Pills.' Sell by the thousand, Sir, when my 'Pills for Weak Stomachs,' which I believe to be just the same compound, never paid for the advertising." MR. CAXTON.--"Parr's Life Pills! a fine stroke of genius. It is not every one who has a weak stomach, or time to attend to it if he have. But who would not swallow a pill to live to a hundred and fifty-two?" PISISTRATUS (stirring the fire in great excitement).--"My title! my title!--what shall be my title?" MR. CAXTON (thrusting his hand into his waistcoat, and in his most didactic of tones).--"From a remote period, the choice of a title has perplexed the scribbling portion of mankind. We may guess how their invention has been racked by the strange contortions it has produced. To begin with the Hebrews. 'The Lips of the Sleeping' (Labia Dormientium)-- what book did you suppose that title to designate?--A Catalogue of Rabbinical Writers! Again, imagine some young lady of old captivated by the sentimental title of 'The Pomegranate with its Flower,' and opening on a Treatise on the Jewish Ceremonials! Let us turn to the Romans. Aulus Gellius commences his pleasant gossipping 'Noctes' with a list of the titles in fashion in his day. For instance, 'The Muses' and 'The Veil,' 'The Cornucopia,' 'The Beehive,' and 'The Meadow.' Some titles, indeed, were more truculent, and promised food to those who love to sup upon horrors,--such as 'The Torch,' 'The Poniard,' 'The Stiletto'--" PISISTRATUS (impatiently).--"Yes, sir, but to come to My Novel." MR. CAXTON (unheeding the interruption).--"You see you have a fine choice here, and of a nature pleasing, and not unfamiliar, to a classical reader; or you may borrow a hint from the early dramatic writers." PISISTRATUS (more hopefully).--"Ay, there is something in the Drama akin to the Novel. Now, perhaps, I may catch an idea." MR. CAXTON.--"For instance, the author of the 'Curiosities of Literature' (from whom, by the way, I am plagiarizing much of the information I bestow upon you) tells us of a Spanish gentleman who wrote a Comedy, by which he intended to serve what he took for Moral Philosophy." PISISTRATUS (eagerly).--"Well, sir?" MR. CAXTON.---"And called it 'The Pain of the Sleep of the World.'" PISISTRATUS.--"Very comic, indeed, sir." MR. CAXTON.--"Grave things were then called Comedies, as old things are now called Novels. Then there are all the titles of early Romance itself at your disposal,--'Theagenes and Chariclea' or 'The Ass' of Longus, or 'The Golden Ass' of Apuleius, or the titles of Gothic Romance, such as 'The most elegant, delicious, mellifluous, and delightful History of Perceforest, King of Great Britain.'" And therewith my father ran over a list of names as long as the Directory, and about as amusing. "Well, to my taste," said my mother, "the novels I used to read when a girl (for I have not read many since, I am ashamed to say)--" MR. CAXTON.--"No, you need not be at all ashamed of it, Kitty." MY MOTHER (proceeding).--"Were much more inviting than any you mention, Austin." THE CAPTAIN.--"True." MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly. Nothing like them nowadays!" MY MOTHER.--"'Says she to her Neighbour, What?'" THE CAPTAIN.--"'The Unknown, or the Northern Gallery'--" MR. SQUILLS.--"'There is a Secret; Find it out!'" PISISTRATUS (pushed to the verge of human endurance, and upsetting tongs, poker, and fire-shovel).--" What nonsense you are talking, all of you! For Heaven's sake consider what an important matter we are called upon to decide. It is not now the titles of those very respectable works which issued from the Minerva Press that I ask you to remember,--it is to invent a title for mine,--My Novel!" MR. CAXTON (clapping his hands gently).--"Excellent! capital! Nothing can be better; simple, natural, pertinent, concise--" PISISTRATUS.--"What is it, sir, what is it? Have you really thought of a title to My Novel?" MR. CAXTON.--"You have hit it yourself,--'My Novel.' It is your Novel; people will know it is your Novel. Turn and twist the English language as you will, be as allegorical as Hebrew, Greek, Roman, Fabulist, or Puritan, still, after all, it is your Novel, and nothing more nor less than your Novel." PISISTRATUS (thoughtfully, and sounding the words various ways).--"'My Novel!'--um-um! 'My Novel!' rather bold--and curt, eh?" MR. CAXTON.--"Add what you say you intend it to depict,--Varieties in English Life." MY MOTHER.--"'My Novel; or, Varieties in English Life'--I don't think it sounds amiss. What say you, Roland? Would it attract you in a catalogue?" My uncle hesitates, when Mr. Caxton exclaims imperiously.--"The thing is settled! Don't disturb Camarina." SQUILLS.--"If it be not too great a liberty, pray who or what is Camarina?" MR. CAXTON.--"Camarina, Mr. Squills, was a lake, apt to be low, and then liable to be muddy; and 'Don't disturb Camarina' was a Greek proverb derived from an oracle of Apollo; and from that Greek proverb, no doubt, comes the origin of the injunction, 'Quieta non movere,' which became the favourite maxim of Sir Robert Walpole and Parson Dale. The Greek line, Mr. Squills" (here my father's memory began to warm), "is preserved by Stephanus Byzantinus, 'De Urbibus,' [Greek proverb] Zenobius explains it in his proverbs; Suidas repeats Zenobius; Lucian alludes to it; so does Virgil in the Third Book of the AEneid; and Silius Italicus imitates Virgil,-- "'Et cui non licitum fatis Camarina moveri.' "Parson Dale, as a clergyman and a scholar, had, no doubt, these authorities at his fingers' end. And I wonder he did not quote them," quoth my father; "but to be sure he is represented as a mild man, and so might not wish to humble the squire over-much in the presence of his family. Meanwhile, My Novel is My Novel; and now that, that matter is settled, perhaps the tongs, poker, and shovel may be picked up, the children may go to bed, Blanche and Kitty may speculate apart upon the future dignities of the Neogilos,--taking care, nevertheless, to finish the new pinbefores he requires for the present; Roland may cast up his account book, Mr. Squills have his brandy and water, and all the world be comfortable, each in his own way. Blanche, come away from the screen, get me my slippers, and leave Pisistratus to himself. [Greek line]--don't disturb Camarina. You see, my dear," added my father kindly, as, after settling himself into his slippers, he detained Blanche's hand in his own,--"you see, my dear, every house has its Camarina. Alan, who is a lazy animal, is quite content to let it alone; but woman, being the more active, bustling, curious creature, is always for giving it a sly stir." BLANCHE (with female dignity).--"I assure you, that if Pisistratus had not called me, I should not have--" MR. CAXTON (interrupting her, without lifting his eyes from the book he had already taken).--"Certainly you would not. I am now in the midst of the great Oxford Controversy. [The same Greek proverb]--don't disturb Camarina." A dead silence for half-an-hour, at the end of which-- PISISTRATUS (from behind the screen).--"Blanche, my dear, I want to consult you." Blanche does not stir. PISISTRATUS.--"Blanche, I say." Blanche glances in triumph towards Mr. Caxton. MR. CAXTON (laying down his theological tract, and rubbing his spectacles mournfully).--"I hear him, child; I hear him. I retract my vindication of man. Oracles warn in vain: so long as there is a woman on the other side of the screen, it is all up with Camarina." CHAPTER II. It is greatly to be regretted that Mr. Stirn was not present at the parson's Discourse; but that valuable functionary was far otherwise engaged,--indeed, during the summer months he was rarely seen at the afternoon service. Not that he cared for being preached at,--not he; Mr. Stirn would have snapped his fingers at the thunders of the Vatican. But the fact was, that Mr. Stirn chose to do a great deal of gratuitous business upon the day of rest. The squire allowed all persons who chose to walk about the park on a Sunday; and many came from a distance to stroll by the lake, or recline under the elms. These visitors were objects of great suspicion, nay, of positive annoyance, to Mr. Stirn-- and, indeed, not altogether without reason, for we English have a natural love of liberty, which we are even more apt to display in the grounds of other people than in those which we cultivate ourselves. Sometimes, to his inexpressible and fierce satisfaction, Mr. Stirn fell upon a knot of boys pelting the swans; sometimes he missed a young sapling, and found it in felonious hands, converted into a walking-stick; sometimes he caught a hulking fellow scrambling up the ha-ha to gather a nosegay for his sweetheart from one of poor Mrs. Hazeldean's pet parterres; not infrequently, indeed, when all the family were fairly at church, some curious impertinents forced or sneaked their way into the gardens, in order to peep in at the windows. For these, and various other offences of like magnitude, Mr. Stirn had long, but vainly, sought to induce the squire to withdraw a permission so villanously abused. But though there were times when Mr. Hazeldean grunted and growled, and swore "that he would shut up the park, and fill it [illegally] with mantraps and spring- guns," his anger always evaporated in words. The park was still open to all the world on a Sunday; and that blessed day was therefore converted into a day of travail and wrath to Mr. Stirn. But it was from the last chime of the afternoon-service bell until dusk that the spirit of this vigilant functionary was most perturbed; for, amidst the flocks that gathered from the little hamlets round to the voice of the pastor, there were always some stray sheep, or rather climbing, desultory, vagabond goats, who struck off in all perverse directions, as if for the special purpose of distracting the energetic watchfulness of Mr. Stirn. As soon as church was over, if the day were fine, the whole park became a scene animated with red cloaks or lively shawls, Sunday waistcoats and hats stuck full of wildflowers--which last Mr. Stirn often stoutly maintained to be Mrs. Hazeldean's newest geraniums. Now, on this Sunday, especially, there was an imperative call upon an extra exertion of vigilance on the part of the superintendent,--he had not only to detect ordinary depredators and trespassers; but, first, to discover the authors of the conspiracy against the stocks; and, secondly, to "make an example." He had begun his rounds, therefore, from the early morning; and just as the afternoon bell was sounding its final peal, he emerged upon the village green from a hedgerow, behind which he had been at watch to observe who had the most suspiciously gathered round the stocks. At that moment the place was deserted. At a distance, the superintendent saw the fast disappearing forms of some belated groups hastening towards the church; in front, the stocks stood staring at him mournfully from its four great eyes, which had been cleansed from the mud, but still looked bleared and stained with the inarks of the recent outrage. Here Mr. Stirn paused, took off his hat, and wiped his brows. "If I had sum 'un to watch here," thought he, "while I takes a turn by the water-side, p'r'aps summat might come out; p'r'aps them as did it ben't gone to church, but will come sneaking round to look on their willany! as they says murderers are always led back to the place where they ha' left the body. But in this here willage there ben't a man, woman, or child as has any consarn for squire or parish, barring myself." It was just as he arrived at that misanthropical conclusion that Mr. Stirn beheld Leonard Fairfield walking very fast from his own home. The superintendent clapped on his hat, and stuck his right arm akimbo. "Hollo, you, sir," said he, as Lenny now came in hearing, "where be you going at that rate?" "Please, sir, I be going to church." "Stop, sir,--stop, Master Lenny. Going to church!---why, the bell's done; and you knows the parson is very angry at them as comes in late, disturbing the congregation. You can't go to church now!" "Please, sir--" "I says you can't go to church now. You must learn to think a little of others, lad. You sees how I sweats to serve the squire! and you must serve him too. Why, your mother's got the house and premishes almost rent-free; you ought to have a grateful heart, Leonard Fairfield, and feel for his honour! Poor man! his heart is well-nigh bruk, I am sure, with the goings on." Leonard opened his innocent blue eyes, while Mr. Stirn dolorously wiped his own. "Look at that 'ere dumb cretur," said Stirn, suddenly, pointing to the stocks,--" look at it. If it could speak, what would it say, Leonard Fairfield? Answer me that! 'Damn the stocks,' indeed!" "It was very bad in them to write such naughty words," said Lenny, gravely. "Mother was quite shocked when she heard of it this morning." MR. STIRN.--"I dare say she was, considering what she pays for the premishes;" (insinuatingly) "you does not know who did it,--eh, Lenny?" LENNY.--"No, sir; indeed I does not!" MR. STIRN.--"Well, you see, you can't go to church,--prayers half over by this time. You recollex that I put them stocks under your 'sponsibility,' and see the way you's done your duty by 'em! I've half a mind to--" Mr. Stirn cast his eyes on the eyes of the stocks. "Please, sir," began Lenny again, rather frightened. "No, I won't please; it ben't pleasing at all. But I forgives you this time, only keep a sharp lookout, lad, in future. Now you must stay here --no, there--under the hedge, and you watches if any persons comes to loiter about, or looks at the stocks, or laughs to hisself, while I go my rounds. I shall be back either afore church is over or just arter; so you stay till I comes, and give me your report. Be sharp, boy, or it will be worse for you and your mother; I can let the premishes for L4 a year more to-morrow." Concluding with that somewhat menacing and very significant remark, and not staying for an answer, Mr. Stirn waved his hand and walked off. Poor Lenny remained by the stocks, very much dejected, and greatly disliking the neighbourhood to which the was consigned. At length he slowly crept off to the hedge, and sat himself down in the place of espionage pointed out to him. Now, philosophers tell us that what is called the point of honour is a barbarous feudal prejudice. Amongst the higher classes, wherein those feudal prejudices may be supposed to prevail, Lenny Fairfield's occupation would not have been considered peculiarly honourable; neither would it have seemed so to the more turbulent spirits among the humbler orders, who have a point of honour of their own, which consists in the adherence to each other in defiance of all lawful authority. But to Lenny Fairfield, brought up much apart from other boys, and with a profound and grateful reverence for the squire instilled into all his habits of thought, notions of honour bounded themselves to simple honesty and straightforward truth; and as he cherished an unquestioning awe of order and constitutional authority, so it did not appear to him that there was anything derogatory and debasing in being thus set to watch for an offender. On the contrary, as he began to reconcile himself to the loss of the church service, and to enjoy the cool of the summer shade and the occasional chirp of the birds, he got to look on the bright side of the commission to which he was deputed. In youth, at least, everything has its bright side,--even the appointment of Protector to the Parish Stocks. For the stocks itself Leonard had no affection, it is true; but he had no sympathy with its aggressors, and he could well conceive that the squire would be very much hurt at the revolutionary event of the night. "So," thought poor Leonard in his simple heart,--"so, if I can serve his honour, by keeping off mischievous boys, or letting him know who did the thing, I'm sure it would be a proud day for Mother." Then he began to consider that, however ungraciously Mr. Stirn had bestowed on him the appointment, still it was a compliment to him,--showed trust and confidence in him, picked him out from his contemporaries as the sober, moral, pattern boy; and Lenny had a great deal of pride in him, especially in matters of repute and character. All these things considered, I say, Leonard Fairfield reclined on his lurking-place, if not with positive delight and intoxicating rapture, at least with tolerable content and some complacency. Mr. Stirn might have been gone a quarter of an hour, when a boy came through a little gate in the park, just opposite to Lenny's retreat in the hedge, and, as if fatigued with walking, or oppressed by the heat of the day, paused on the green for a moment or so, and then advanced under the shade of the great tree which overhung the stocks. Lenny pricked up his ears, and peeped out jealously. He had never seen the boy before: it was a strange face to him. Leonard Fairfield was not fond of strangers; moreover, he had a vague belief that strangers were at the bottom of that desecration of the stocks. The boy, then, was a stranger; but what was his rank? Was he of that grade in society in which the natural offences are or are not consonant to, or harmonious with, outrages upon stocks? On that Lenny Fairfield did not feel quite assured. According to all the experience of the villager, the boy was not dressed like a young gentleman. Leonard's notions of such aristocratic costume were naturally fashioned upon the model of Frank Hazeldean. They represented to him a dazzling vision of snow-white trousers and beautiful blue coats and incomparable cravats. Now the dress of this stranger, though not that of a peasant or of a farmer, did not in any way correspond with Lenny's notion of the costume of a young gentleman. It looked to him highly disreputable: the coat was covered with mud, and the hat was all manner of shapes, with a gap between the side and crown. Lenny was puzzled, till it suddenly occurred to him that the gate through which the boy had passed was in the direct path across the park from a small town, the inhabitants of which were in very bad odour at the Hall, --they had immemorially furnished the most daring poachers to the preserves, the most troublesome trespassers on the park, the most unprincipled orchard robbers, and the most disputatious asserters of various problematical rights of way, which, according to the Town, were public, and, according to the Hall, had been private since the Conquest. It was true that the same path led also directly from the squire's house, but it was not probable that the wearer of attire so equivocal had been visiting there. All things considered, Lenny had no doubt in his mind but that the stranger was a shop-boy or 'prentice from the town of Thorndyke; and the notorious repute of that town, coupled with this presumption, made it probable that Lenny now saw before him one of the midnight desecrators of the stocks. As if to confirm the suspicion, which passed through Lenny's mind with a rapidity wholly disproportionate to the number of lines it costs me to convey it, the boy, now standing right before the stocks, bent down and read that pithy anathema with which it was defaced. And having read it, he repeated it aloud, and Lenny actually saw him smile,--such a smile! so disagreeable and sinister! Lenny had never before seen the smile sardonic. But what were Lenny's pious horror and dismay when this ominous stranger fairly seated himself on the stocks, rested his heels profanely on the lids of two of the four round eyes, and taking out a pencil and a pocket- book, began to write. Was this audacious Unknown taking an inventory of the church and the Hall for the purposes of conflagration? He looked at one and at the other, with a strange fixed stare as he wrote,--not keeping his eyes on the paper, as Lenny had been taught to do when he sat down to his copy-book. The fact is, that Randal Leslie was tired and faint, and he felt the shock of his fall the more, after the few paces he had walked, so that he was glad to rest himself a few moments; and he took that opportunity to write a line to Frank, to excuse himself for not calling again, intending to tear the leaf on which he wrote out of his pocket-book and leave it at the first cottage he passed, with instructions to take it to the Hall. While Randal was thus innocently engaged, Lenny came up to him, with the firm and measured pace of one who has resolved, cost what it may, to do his duty. And as Lenny, though brave, was not ferocious, so the anger he felt and the suspicions he entertained only exhibited themselves in the following solemn appeal to the offender's sense of propriety,--"Ben't you ashamed of yourself? Sitting on the squire's new stocks! Do get up, and go along with you!" Randal turned round sharply; and though, at any other moment, he would have had sense enough to extricate himself very easily from his false position, yet /Nemo mortalium, etc/. No one is always wise. And Randal was in an exceedingly bad humour. The affability towards his inferiors, for which I lately praised him, was entirely lost in the contempt for impertinent snobs natural to an insulted Etonian. Therefore, eying Lenny with great disdain, Randal answered briefly,-- "You are an insolent young blackguard." So curt a rejoinder made Lenny's blood fly to his face. Persuaded before that the intruder was some lawless apprentice or shop-lad, he was now more confirmed in that judgment, not only by language so uncivil, but by the truculent glance which accompanied it, and which certainly did not derive any imposing dignity from the mutilated, rakish, hang-dog, ruinous hat, under which it shot its sullen and menacing fire. Of all the various articles of which our male attire is composed, there is perhaps not one which has so much character and expression as the top covering. A neat, well-brushed, short-napped, gentlemanlike hat, put on with a certain air, gives a distinction and respectability to the whole exterior; whereas, a broken, squashed, higgledy-piggledy sort of a hat, such as Randal Leslie had on, would go far towards transforming the stateliest gentleman who ever walked down St. James's Street into the ideal of a ruffianly scamp. Now, it is well known that there is nothing more antipathetic to your peasant-boy than a shop-boy. Even on grand political occasions, the rural working-class can rarely be coaxed into sympathy with the trading town class. Your true English peasant is always an aristocrat. Moreover, and irrespectively of this immemorial grudge of class, there is something peculiarly hostile in the relationship between boy and boy when their backs are once up, and they are alone on a quiet bit of green,-- something of the game-cock feeling; something that tends to keep alive, in the population of this island (otherwise so lamblike and peaceful), the martial propensity to double the thumb tightly over the four fingers, and make what is called "a fist of it." Dangerous symptoms of these mingled and aggressive sentiments were visible in Lenny Fairfield at the words and the look of the unprepossessing stranger. And the stranger seemed aware of them; for his pale face grew more pale, and his sullen eye more fixed and more vigilant. "You get off them stocks," said Lenny, disdaining to reply to the coarse expressions bestowed on him; and, suiting the action to the word, he gave the intruder what he meant for a shove, but what Randal took for a blow. The Etonian sprang up, and the quickness of his movement, aided but by a slight touch of his hand, made Lenny lose his balance, and sent him neck- and-crop over the stocks. Burning with rage, the young villager rose alertly, and, flying at Randal, struck out right and left. CHAPTER III. Aid me, O ye Nine! whom the incomparable Persius satirized his contemporaries for invoking, and then, all of a sudden, invoked on his own behalf,--aid me to describe that famous battle by the stocks, and in defence of the stocks, which was waged by the two representatives of Saxon and Norman England. Here, sober support of law and duty and delegated trust,--/pro aris et focis/; there, haughty invasion and bellicose spirit of knighthood and that respect for name and person which we call "honour." Here, too, hardy physical force,--there, skilful discipline. Here--The Nine are as deaf as a post, and as cold as a stone! Plague take the jades! I can do better without them. Randal was a year or two older than Lenny, but he was not so tall nor so strong, nor even so active; and after the first blind rush, when the two boys paused, and drew back to breathe, Lenny, eying the slight form and hueless cheek of his opponent, and seeing blood trickling from Randal's lip, was seized with an instantaneous and generous remorse. "It was not fair," he thought, "to fight one whom he could beat so easily." So, retreating still farther, and letting his arms fall to his side, he said mildly, "There, let's have no more of it; but go home and be good." Randal Leslie had no remarkable degree of that constitutional quality called physical courage; but he had some of those moral qualities which supply its place. He was proud, he was vindictive, he had high self- esteem, he had the destructive organ more than the combative,--what had once provoked his wrath it became his instinct to sweep away. Therefore, though all his nerves were quivering, and hot tears were in his eyes, he approached Lenny with the sternness of a gladiator, and said between his teeth, which he set hard, choking back the sob of rage and pain,-- "You have struck me--and you shall not stir from this ground till I have made you repent it. Put up your hands,--defend yourself." Lenny mechanically obeyed; and he had good need of the admonition; for if before he had had the advantage, now that Randal had recovered the surprise to his nerves, the battle was not to the strong. Though Leslie had not been a fighting boy at Eton, still his temper had involved him in some conflicts when he was in the lower forms, and he had learned something of the art as well as the practice in pugilism,--an excellent thing too, I am barbarous enough to believe, and which I hope will never quite die out of our public schools. Ah, many a young duke has been a better fellow for life from a fair set-to with a trader's son; and many a trader's son has learned to look a lord more manfully in the face on the hustings, from the recollection of the sound thrashing he once gave to some little Lord Leopold Dawdle. So Randal now brought his experience and art to bear; put aside those heavy roundabout blows, and darted in his own, quick and sharp, supplying to the natural feebleness of his arm the due momentum of pugilistic mechanics. Ay, and the arm, too, was no longer so feeble; for strange is the strength that comes from passion and pluck! Poor Lenny, who had never fought before, was bewildered; his sensations grew so entangled that he could never recall them distinctly; he had a dim reminiscence of some breathless impotent rush, of a sudden blindness followed by quick flashes of intolerable light, of a deadly faintness, from which he was roused by sharp pangs--here--there--everywhere; and then all he could remember was, that he was lying on the ground, huddled up and panting hard, while his adversary bent over him with a countenance as dark and livid as Lara himself might have bent over the fallen Otho. For Randal Leslie was not one who, by impulse and nature, subscribed to the noble English maxim, "Never hit a foe when he is down;" and it cost him a strong, if brief, self-struggle not to set his heel on that prostrate form. It was the mind, not the heart, that subdued the savage within him, as muttering something inwardly--certainly not Christian forgiveness--the victor turned gloomily away. CHAPTER IV. Just at that precise moment, who should appear but Mr. Stirn! For, in fact, being extremely anxious to get Lenny into disgrace, he had hoped that he should have found the young villager had shirked the commission intrusted to him; and the right-hand man had slily come back to see if that amiable expectation were realized. He now beheld Lenny rising with some difficulty, still panting hard, and with hysterical sounds akin to what is vulgarly called blubbering, his fine new waistcoat sprinkled with his own blood, which flowed from his nose,--nose that seemed to Lenny Fairfield's feelings to be a nose no more, but a swollen, gigantic, mountainous Slawkenbergian excrescence; in fact, he felt all nose! Turning aghast from this spectacle, Mr. Stirn surveyed, with no more respect than Lenny had manifested, the stranger boy, who had again seated himself on the stocks (whether to recover his breath, or whether to show that his victory was consummated, and that he was in his rights of possession). "Hollo," said Mr. Stirn, "what is all this? What's the matter, Lenny, you blockhead?" "He will sit there," answered Lenny, in broken gasps, "and he has beat me because I would not let him; but I doesn't mind that," added the villager, trying hard to suppress his tears, "and I am ready again for him--that I am." "And what do you do lollopoping there on them blessed stocks?" "Looking at the landscape; out of my light, man!" This tone instantly inspired Mr. Stirn with misgivings: it was a tone so disrespectful to him that he was seized with involuntary respect; who but a gentleman could speak so to Mr. Stirn? "And may I ask who you be?" said Stirn, falteringly, and half inclined to touch his hat. "What Is your name, pray? What's your bizness?" "My name is Randal Leslie, and my business was to visit your master's family,--that is, if you are, as I guess from your manner, Mr. Hazeldean's ploughman!" So saying, Randal rose; and moving on a few paces, turned, and throwing half-a-crown on the road, said to Lenny, "Let that pay you for your bruises, and remember another time how you speak to a gentleman. As for you, fellow,"--and he pointed his scornful hand towards Mr. Stirn, who, with his mouth open, and his hat now fairly off, stood bowing to the earth,--"as for you, give my compliments to Mr. Hazeldean, and say that when he does us the honour to visit us at Rood Hall, I trust that the manners of our villagers will make him ashamed of Hazeldean." Oh, my poor Squire! Rood Hall ashamed of Hazeldean! If that message had been delivered to you, you would never have looked up again! With those bitter words, Randal swung himself over the stile that led into the parson's glebe, and left Lenny Fairfield still feeling his nose, and Mr. Stirn still bowing to the earth. CHAPTER V. Randal Leslie had a very long walk home; he was bruised and sore from head to foot, and his mind was still more sore and more bruised than his body. But if Randal Leslie had rested himself in the squire's gardens, without walking backwards and indulging in speculations suggested by Marat, and warranted by my Lord Bacon, he would have passed a most agreeable evening, and really availed himself of the squire's wealth by going home in the squire's carriage. But because he chose to take so intellectual a view of property, he tumbled into a ditch; because he tumbled into a ditch, he spoiled his clothes; because he spoiled his clothes, he gave up his visit; because he gave up his visit, he got into the village green, and sat on the stocks with a hat that gave him the air of a fugitive from the treadmill; because he sat on the stocks--with that hat, and a cross face under it--he had been forced into the most discreditable squabble with a clodhopper, and was now limping home, at war with gods and men; ergo (this is a moral that will bear repetition), --ergo, when you walk in a rich man's grounds, be contented to enjoy what is yours, namely, the prospect,--I dare say you will enjoy it more than he does! CHAPTER VI. If, in the simplicity of his heart and the crudity of his experience, Lenny Fairfield had conceived it probable that Mr. Stirn would address to him some words in approbation of his gallantry and in sympathy for his bruises, he soon found himself wofully mistaken. That truly great man, worthy prime minister of Hazeldean, might perhaps pardon a dereliction from his orders, if such dereliction proved advantageous to the interests of the service, or redounded to the credit of the chief; but he was inexorable to that worst of diplomatic offences,--an ill-timed, stupid, over-zealous obedience to orders, which, if it established the devotion of the employee, got the employer into what is popularly called a scrape! And though, by those unversed in the intricacies of the human heart, and unacquainted with the especial hearts of prime ministers and right-hand men, it might have seemed natural that Mr. Stirn, as he stood still, hat in hand, in the middle of the road, stung, humbled, and exasperated by the mortification he had received from the lips of Randal Leslie, would have felt that that young gentleman was the proper object of his resentment, yet such a breach of all the etiquette of diplomatic life as resentment towards a superior power was the last idea that would have suggested itself to the profound intellect of the premier of Hazeldean. Still, as rage, like steam, must escape somewhere, Mr. Stirn, on feeling --as he afterwards expressed it to his wife--that his "buzzom was a burstin'," turned with the natural instinct of self-preservation to the safety-valve provided for the explosion; and the vapours within him rushed into vent upon Lenny Fairfield. He clapped his hat on his head fiercely, and thus relieved his "buzzom." "You young willain! you howdaeious wiper! and so all this blessed Sabbath afternoon, when you ought to have been in church on your marrow-bones, a praying for your betters, you has been a fitting with a young gentleman, and a wisiter to your master, on the wery place of the parridge hinstitution that you was to guard and pertect; and a bloodying it all over, I declares, with your blaggard little nose!" Thus saying, and as if to mend the matter, Mr. Stirn aimed an additional stroke at the offending member; but Lenny mechanically putting up both arms to defend his face, Mr. Stirn struck his knuckles against the large brass buttons that adorned the cuff of the boy's coat-sleeve,--an incident which considerably aggravated his indignation. And Lenny, whose spirit was fairly roused at what the narrowness of his education conceived to be a signal injustice, placing the trunk of the tree between Mr. Stirn and himself, began that task of self-justification which it was equally impolitic to conceive and imprudent to execute, since, in such a case, to justify was to recriminate. "I wonder at you, Master Stirn,--if Mother could hear you! You know it was you who would not let me go to church; it was you who told me to--" "Fit a young gentleman, and break the Sabbath," said Mr. Stirn, interrupting him with a withering sneer. "Oh, yes! I told you to disgrace his honour the squire, and me, and the parridge, and bring us all into trouble. But the squire told me to make an example, and I will!" With those words, quick as lightning flashed upon Mr. Stirn's mind the luminous idea of setting Lenny in the very stocks which he had too faithfully guarded. Eureka! the "example" was before him! Here he could gratify his long grudge against the pattern boy; here, by such a selection of the very best lad in the parish, he could strike terror into the worst; here he could appease the offended dignity of Randal Leslie; here was a practical apology to the squire for the affront put upon his young visitor; here, too, there was prompt obedience to the squire's own wish that the stocks should be provided as soon as possible with a tenant. Suiting the action to the thought, Mr. Stirn made a rapid plunge at his victim, caught him by the skirt of his jacket; and in a few seconds more, the jaws of the stocks had opened, and Lenny Fairfield was thrust therein,--a sad spectacle of the reverses of fortune. This done, and while the boy was too astounded, too stupefied, by the suddenness of the calamity, for the resistance he might otherwise have made,--nay, for more than a few inaudible words,--Mr. Stirn hurried from the spot, but not without first picking up and pocketing the half-crown designed for Lenny, and which, so great had been his first emotions, he had hitherto even almost forgotten. He then made his way towards the church, with the intention to place himself close by the door, catch the squire as he came out, whisper to him what had passed, and lead him, with the whole congregation at his heels, to gaze upon the sacrifice offered up to the joint powers of Nemesis and Themis. CHAPTER VII. Unaffectedly I say it--upon the honour of a gentleman, and the reputation of an author,--unaffectedly I say it, no words of mine can do justice to the sensations experienced by Lenny Fairfield, as be sat alone in that place of penance. He felt no more the physical pain of his bruises; the anguish of his mind stifled and overbore all corporeal suffering,--an anguish as great as the childish breast is capable of holding. For first and deepest of all, and earliest felt, was the burning sense of injustice. He had, it might be with erring judgment, but with all honesty, earnestness, and zeal, executed the commission entrusted to him; he had stood forth manfully in discharge of his duty; he had fought for it, suffered for it, bled for it. This was his reward! Now in Lenny's mind there was pre-eminently that quality which distinguishes the Anglo Saxon race,--the sense of justice. It was perhaps the strongest principle in his moral constitution; and the principle had never lost its virgin bloom and freshness by any of the minor acts of oppression and iniquity which boys of higher birth often suffer from harsh parents, or in tyrannical schools. So that it was for the first time that that iron entered into his soul, and with it came its attendant feeling,--the wrathful, galling sense of impotence. He had been wronged, and he had no means to right himself. Then came another sensation, if not so deep, yet more smarting and envenomed for the time,--shame! He, the good boy of all good boys; he, the pattern of the school, and the pride of the parson; he, whom the squire, in sight of all his contemporaries, had often singled out to slap on the back, and the grand squire's lady to pat on the head, with a smiling gratulation on his young and fair repute; he, who had already learned so dearly to prize the sweets of an honourable name,--he to be made, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye, a mark for opprobrium, a butt of scorn, a jeer, and a byword! The streams of his life were poisoned at the fountain. And then came a tenderer thought of his mother! of the shock this would be to her,--she who had already begun to look up to him as her stay and support; he bowed his head, and the tears, long suppressed, rolled down. Then he wrestled and struggled, and strove to wrench his limbs from that hateful bondage,--for he heard steps approaching. And he began to picture to himself the arrival of all the villagers from church, the sad gaze of the parson, the bent brow of the squire, the idle, ill-suppressed titter of all the boys, jealous of his unspotted character,--character of which the original whiteness could never, never be restored! He would always be the boy who had sat in the stocks! And the words uttered by the squire came back on his soul, like the voice of conscience in the ears of some doomed Macbeth: "A sad disgrace, Lenny,--you'll never be in such a quandary." "Quandary"--the word was unfamiliar to him; it must mean something awfully discreditable. The poor boy could have prayed for the earth to swallow him. CHAPTER VIII. "Kettles and frying-pans! what has us here?" cried the tinker. This time Mr. Sprott was without his donkey; for it being Sunday, it is presumed that the donkey was enjoying his Sabbath on the common. The tinker was in his Sunday's best, clean and smart, about to take his lounge in the park. Lenny Fairfield made no answer to the appeal. "You in the wood, my baby! Well, that's the last sight I should ha' thought to see. But we all lives to larn," added the tinker, sententiously. "Who gave you them leggins? Can't you speak, lad?" "Nick Stirn." "Nick Stirn! Ay, I'd ha' ta'en my davy on that: and cos vy?" "'Cause I did as he told me, and fought a boy as was trespassing on these very stocks; and he beat me--but I don't care for that; and that boy was a young gentleman, and going to visit the squire; and so Nick Stirn--" Lenny stopped short, choked by rage and humiliation. "Augh," said the tinker, starting, "you fit with a young gentleman, did you? Sorry to hear you confess that, my lad! Sit there and be thankful you ha' got off so cheap. 'T is salt and battery to fit with your betters, and a Lunnon justice o' peace would have given you two months o' the treadmill. "But vy should you fit cos he trespassed on the stocks? It ben't your natural side for fitting, I takes it." Lenny murmured something not very distinguishable about serving the squire, and doing as he was bid. "Oh, I sees, Lenny," interrupted the tinker, in a tone of great contempt, "you be one of those who would rayther 'unt with the 'ounds than run with the 'are! You be's the good pattern boy, and would peach agin your own border to curry favour with the grand folks. Fie, lad! you be sarved right; stick by your border, then you'll be 'spected when you gets into trouble, and not be 'varsally 'spised,--as you'll be arter church-time! Vell, I can't be seen 'sorting with you, now you are in this d'rogotary fix; it might hurt my c'r'acter, both with them as built the stocks and them as wants to pull 'em down. Old kettles to mend! Vy, you makes me forgit the Sabbath! Sarvent, my lad, and wish you well out of it; 'specks to your mother, and say we can deal for the pan and shovel all the same for your misfortin." The tinker went his way. Lenny's eye followed him with the sullenness of despair. The tinker, like all the tribe of human comforters, had only watered the brambles to invigorate the prick of the horns. Yes, if Lenny had been caught breaking the stocks, some at least would have pitied him; but to be incarcerated for defending them! You might as well have expected that the widows and orphans of the Reign of Terror would have pitied Dr. Guillotin when he slid through the grooves of his own deadly machine. And even the tinker, itinerant, ragamuffin vagabond as he was, felt ashamed to be found with the pattern boy! Lenny's head sank again on his breast heavily, as if it had been of lead. Some few minutes thus passed, when the unhappy prisoner became aware of the presence of another spectator to his shame; he heard no step, but he saw a shadow thrown over the sward. He held his breath, and would not look up, with some vague idea that if he refused to see he might escape being seen. CHAPTER IX. "/Per Bacco/!" said Dr. Riccabocca, putting his hand on Lenny's shoulder, and bending down to look into his face,--"/per Bacco/! my young friend, do you sit here from choice or necessity?" Lenny slightly shuddered, and winced under the touch of one whom he had hitherto regarded with a sort of superstitious abhorrence. "I fear," resumed Riccabocca, after waiting in vain for an answer to his question, "that though the situation is charming, you did not select it yourself. What is this?"--and the irony of the tone vanished--"what is this, my poor boy? You have been bleeding, and I see that those tears which you try to check come from a deep well. Tell me, /povero fanciullo mio/" (the sweet Italian vowels, though Lenny did not understand them, sounded softly and soothingly),--"tell me, my child, how all this happened. Perhaps I can help you; we have all erred,--we should all help each other." Lenny's heart, that just before had seemed bound in brass, found itself a way as the Italian spoke thus kindly, and the tears rushed down; but he again stopped them, and gulped out sturdily,-- "I have not done no wrong; it ben't my fault,--and 't is that which kills me!" concluded Lenny, with a burst of energy. "You have not done wrong? Then," said the philosopher, drawing out his pocket-handkerchief with great composure, and spreading it on the ground,--"then I may sit beside you. I could only stoop pityingly over sin, but I can lie down on equal terms with misfortune." Lenny Fairfield did not quite comprehend the words, but enough of their general meaning was apparent to make him cast a grateful glance on the Italian. Riccabocca resumed, as he adjusted the pocket-handkerchief, "I have a right to your confidence, my child, for I have been afflicted in my day; yet I too say with thee, 'I have not done wrong.' /Cospetto/!" (and here the doctor seated himself deliberately, resting one arm on the side column of the stocks, in familiar contact with the captive's shoulder, while his eye wandered over the lovely scene around)-- "/Cospetto/! my prison, if they had caught me, would not have had so fair a look-out as this. But, to be sure, it is all one; there are no ugly loves, and no handsome prisons." With that sententious maxim, which, indeed, he uttered in his native Italian, Riccabocca turned round and renewed his soothing invitations to confidence. A friend in need is a friend indeed, even if he come in the guise of a Papist and wizard. All Lenny's ancient dislike to the foreigner had gone, and he told him his little tale. Dr. Riccabocca was much too shrewd a man not to see exactly the motives which had induced Mr. Stirn to incarcerate his agent (barring only that of personal grudge, to which Lenny's account gave him no clew). That a man high in office should make a scapegoat of his own watch-dog for an unlucky snap, or even an indiscreet bark, was nothing strange to the wisdom of the student of Machiavelli. However, he set himself to the task of consolation with equal philosophy and tenderness. He began by reminding, or rather informing, Leonard Fairfield of all the instances of illustrious men afflicted by the injustice of others that occurred to his own excellent memory. He told him how the great Epictetus, when in slavery, had a master whose favourite amusement was pinching his leg, which, as the amusement ended in breaking that limb, was worse than the stocks. He also told him the anecdote of Lenny's own gallant countryman, Admiral Byng, whose execution gave rise to Voltaire's celebrated witticism, "En Angleterre on tue un admiral pour encourager les autres." ["In England they execute one admiral in order to encourage the others."] Many other illustrations, still more pertinent to the case in point, his erudition supplied from the stores of history. But on seeing that Lenny did not seem in the slightest degree consoled by these memorable examples, he shifted his ground, and reducing his logic to the strict /argumentum ad rem/, began to prove, first, that there was no disgrace at all in Lenny's present position, that every equitable person would recognize the tyranny of Stirn and the innocence of its victim; secondly, that if even here he were mistaken, for public opinion was not always righteous, what was public opinion after all?--"A breath, a puff," cried Dr. Riccabocca, "a thing without matter,--without length, breadth, or substance,--a shadow, a goblin of our own creating. A man's own conscience is his sole tribunal, and he should care no more for that phantom 'opinion' than he should fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the churchyard at dark." Now, as Lenny did very much fear meeting a ghost if he crossed the churchyard at dark, the simile spoiled the argument, and he shook his head very mournfully. Dr. Riccabocca, was about to enter into a third course of reasoning, which, had it come to an end, would doubtless have settled the matter, and reconciled Lenny to sitting in the stocks till doomsday, when the captive, with the quick ear and eye of terror and calamity, became conscious that church was over, that the congregation in a few seconds more would be flocking thitherwards. He saw visionary hats and bonnets through the trees, which Riccabocca saw not, despite all the excellence of his spectacles; heard phantasmal rustlings and murmurings which Riccabocca heard not, despite all that theoretical experience in plots, stratagems, and treasons, which should have made the Italian's ear as fine as a conspirator's or a mole's. And with another violent but vain effort at escape, the prisoner exclaimed,-- "Oh, if I could but get out before they come! Let me out, let me out! Oh, kind sir, have pity,--let me out!" "Diavolo!" said the philosopher, startled, "I wonder that I never thought of that before. After all, I believe he has hit the right nail on the head," and, looking close, he perceived that though the partition of wood had hitched firmly into a sort of spring-clasp, which defied Lenny's unaided struggles, still it was not locked (for, indeed, the padlock and key were snug in the justice-room of the squire, who never dreamed that his orders would be executed so literally and summarily as to dispense with all formal appeal to himself). As soon as Dr. Riccabocca made that discovery, it occurred to him that all the wisdom of all the schools that ever existed can't reconcile man or boy to a bad position--the moment there is a fair opportunity of letting him out of it. Accordingly, without more ado, he lifted up the creaking board, and Lenny Fairfield darted forth like a bird from a cage, halted a moment as if for breath, or in joy; and then, taking at once to his heels, fled, as a hare to its form, fast to his mother's home. Dr. Riccabocca dropped the yawning wood into its place, picked up his handkerchief and restored it to his pocket; and then, with some curiosity, began to examine the nature of that place of duress which had caused so much painful emotion to its rescued victim. "Man is a very irrational animal at best," quoth the sage, soliloquizing, "and is frightened by strange buggaboos! 'T is but a piece of wood! how little it really injures! And, after all, the holes are but rests to the legs, and keep the feet out of the dirt. And this green bank to sit upon, under the shade of the elm-tree-verily the position must be more pleasant than otherwise! I've a; great mind--" Here the doctor looked around, and seeing the coast still clear, the oddest notion imaginable took possession of him; yet, not indeed a notion so odd, considered philosophically,--for all philosophy is based on practical experiment,-- and Dr. Riccabocca felt an irresistible desire practically to experience what manner of thing that punishment of the stocks really was. "I can but try! only for a moment," said he apologetically to his own expostulating sense of dignity. "I have time to do it, before any one comes." He lifted up the partition again: but stocks are built on the true principle of English law, and don't easily allow a man to criminate himself,--it was hard to get into them without the help of a friend. However, as we before noticed, obstacles only whetted Dr. Riccabocca's invention. He looked round, and saw a withered bit of stick under the tree; this he inserted in the division of the stocks, somewhat in the manner in which boys place a stick under a sieve for the purpose of ensnaring sparrows; the fatal wood thus propped, Dr. Riceabocca sat gravely down on the bank, and thrust his feet through the apertures. "Nothing in it!" cried he, triumphantly, after a moment's deliberation. "The evil is only in idea. Such is the boasted reason of mortals!" With that reflection, nevertheless, he was about to withdraw his feet from their voluntary dilemma, when the crazy stick suddenly gave way and the partition fell back into its clasp. Dr. Riceabocca was fairly caught,-- "Facilis descensus--sed revocare gradum!" True, his hands were at liberty, but his legs were so long that, being thus fixed, they kept the hands from the rescue; and as Dr. Riccabocca's form was by no means supple, and the twin parts of the wood stuck together with that firmness of adhesion which things newly painted possess, so, after some vain twists and contortions, in which he succeeded at length (not without a stretch of the sinews that made them crack again) in finding the clasp and breaking his nails thereon, the victim of his own rash experiment resigned himself to his fate. Dr. Riceabocca was one of those men who never do things by halves. When I say he resigned himself, I mean not only Christian but philosophical resignation. The position was not quite so pleasant as, theoretically, he had deemed it; but he resolved to make himself as comfortable as he could. At first, as is natural in all troubles to men who have grown familiar with that odoriferous comforter which Sir Walter Raleigh is said first to have bestowed upon the Caucasian races, the doctor made use of his hands to extract from his pocket his pipe, match-box, and tobacco-pouch. After a few whiffs he would have been quite reconciled to his situation, but for the discovery that the sun had shifted its place in the heavens, and was no longer shaded from his face by the elm-tree. The doctor again looked round, and perceived that his red silk umbrella, which he had laid aside when he had seated himself by Lenny, was within arm's reach. Possessing himself of this treasure, he soon expanded its friendly folds. And thus, doubly fortified within and without, under shade of the umbrella, and his pipe composedly between his lips, Dr. Riceabocca gazed on his own incarcerated legs, even with complacency. "'He who can despise all things,'" said he, in one of his native proverbs, "'possesses all things!'--if one despises freedom, one is free! This seat is as soft as a sofa! I am not sure," he resumed, soliloquizing, after a pause,--"I am not sure that there is not something more witty than manly and philosophical in that national proverb of mine which I quoted to the fanciullo, 'that there are no handsome prisons'! Did not the son of that celebrated Frenchman, surnamed Bras de Fer, write a book not only to prove that adversities are more necessary than prosperities, but that among all adversities a prison is the most pleasant and profitable? But is not this condition of mine, voluntarily and experimentally incurred, a type of my life? Is it the first time that I have thrust myself into a hobble? And if in a hobble of mine own choosing, why should I blame the gods?" Upon this, Dr. Riceabocca fell into a train of musing so remote from time and place, that in a few minutes he no more remembered that he was in the parish stocks than a lover remembers that flesh is grass, a miser that mammon is perishable, a philosopher that wisdom is vanity. Dr. Riccabocca was in the clouds. CHAPTER X. The dullest dog that ever wrote a novel (and, /entre nous/, reader)--but let it go no further,--we have a good many dogs among the fraternity that are not Munitos might have seen with half an eye that the parson's discourse had produced a very genial and humanizing effect upon his audience. [Munito was the name of a dog famous for his learning (a Porson of a dog) at the date of my childhood. There are no such dogs nowadays.] When all was over, and the congregation stood up to let Mr. Hazeldean and his family walk first down the aisle (for that was the custom at Hazeldean), moistened eyes glanced at the squire's sun-burned manly face, with a kindness that bespoke revived memory of many a generous benefit and ready service. The head might be wrong now and then,--the heart was in the right place after all. And the lady leaning on his arm came in for a large share of that gracious good feeling. True, she now and then gave a little offence when the cottages were not so clean as she fancied they ought to be,--and poor folks don't like a liberty taken with their houses any more than the rich do; true that she was not quite so popular with the women as the squire was, for, if the husband went too often to the ale-house, she always laid the fault on the wife, and said, "No man would go out of doors for his comforts, if he had a smiling face and a clean hearth at his home;" whereas the squire maintained the more gallant opinion that "If Gill was a shrew, it was because Jack did not, as in duty bound, stop her mouth with a kiss!" Still, notwithstanding these more obnoxious notions on her part, and a certain awe inspired by the stiff silk gown and the handsome aquiline nose, it was impossible, especially in the softened tempers of that Sunday afternoon, not to associate the honest, comely, beaming countenance of Mrs. Hazeldean with comfortable recollections of soups, jellies, and wine in sickness, loaves and blankets in winter, cheering words and ready visits in every little distress, and pretexts afforded by improvement in the grounds and gardens (improvements which, as the squire, who preferred productive labour, justly complained, "would never finish") for little timely jobs of work to some veteran grandsire, who still liked to earn a penny, or some ruddy urchin in a family that "came too fast." Nor was Frank, as he walked a little behind, in the whitest of trousers and the stiffest of neckcloths,--with a look of suppressed roguery in his bright hazel eye, that contrasted his assumed stateliness of mien,--without his portion of the silent blessing. Not that he had done anything yet to deserve it; but we all give youth so large a credit in the future. As for Miss Jemima, her trifling foibles only rose from too soft and feminine a susceptibility, too ivy-like a yearning for some masculine oak whereon to entwine her tendrils; and so little confined to self was the natural lovingness of her disposition, that she had helped many a village lass to find a husband, by the bribe of a marriage gift from her own privy purse; notwithstanding the assurances with which she accompanied the marriage gift,--namely, that "the bridegroom would turn out like the rest of his ungrateful sex; but that it was a comfort to think that it would be all one in the approaching crash!" So that she had her warm partisans, especially amongst the young; while the slim captain, on whose arm she rested her forefinger, was at least a civil-spoken gentleman, who had never done any harm, and who would doubtless do a deal of good if he belonged to the parish. Nay, even the fat footman who came last, with the family Prayer-book, had his due share in the general association of neighbourly kindness between hall and hamlet. Few were there present to whom he had not extended the right-hand of fellowship with a full horn of October in the clasp of it; and he was a Hazeldean man, too, born and bred, as two-thirds of the squire's household (now letting themselves out from their large pew under the gallery) were. On his part, too, you could see that the squire "was moved withal," and a little humbled moreover. Instead of walking erect, and taking bow and courtesy as a matter of course, and of no meaning, he hung his head somewhat, and there was a slight blush on his cheek; and as he glanced upward and round him--shyly, as it were--and his eye met those friendly looks, it returned them with an earnestness that had in it something touching as well as cordial,--an eye that said, as well as eye could say, "I don't quite deserve it, I fear, neighbours; but I thank you for your good-will with my whole heart." And so readily was that glance of the eye understood, that I think, if that scene had taken place out of doors instead of in the church, there would have been a hurrah as the squire passed out of sight. Scarcely had Mr. Hazeldean got clear of the churchyard, ere Mr. Stirn was whispering in his ear. As Stirn whispered, the squire's face grew long, and his colour rose. The congregation, now flocking out of the church, exchanged looks with each other; that ominous conjunction between squire and man chilled back all the effects of the parson's sermon. The squire struck his cane violently into the ground. "I would rather you had told me Black Bess had got the glanders. A young gentleman, coming to visit my son, struck and insulted in Hazeldean; a young gentleman,-- 's death, sir, a relation--his grandmother was a Hazeldean. I do believe Jemima's right, and the world's coming to an end! But Leonard Fairfield in the stocks! What will the parson say? and after such a sermon! 'Rich man, respect the poor!' And the good widow too; and poor Mark, who almost died in my arms! Stirn, you have a heart of stone! You confounded, lawless, merciless miscreant, who the deuce gave you the right to imprison man or boy in my parish of Hazeldean without trial, sentence, or warrant? Run and let the boy out before any one sees him: run, or I shall--" The squire elevated the cane, and his eyes shot fire. Mr. Stirn did not run, but he walked off very fast. The squire drew back a few paces, and again took his wife's arm. "Just wait a bit for the parson, while I talk to the congregation. I want to stop 'em all, if I can, from going into the village; but how?" Frank heard, and replied readily,--"Give 'em some beer, sir." "Beer! on a Sunday! For shame, Frank!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean. "Hold your tongue, Harry. Thank you, Frank," said the squire, and his brow grew as clear as the blue sky above him. I doubt if Riccabocca could have got him out of his dilemma with the same ease as Frank had done. "Halt there, my men,--lads and lasses too,--there, halt a bit. Mrs. Fairfield, do you hear?--halt. I think his reverence has given us a capital sermon. Go up to the Great House all of you, and drink a glass to his health. Frank, go with them, and tell Spruce to tap one of the casks kept for the haymakers. Harry" (this in a whisper), "catch the parson, and tell him to come to me instantly." "My dear Hazeldean, what has happened? You are mad." "Don't bother; do what I tell you." "But where is the parson to find you?" "Where? gadzooks, Mrs. H.,--at the stocks, to be sure!" CHAPTER XI. Dr. Riccabocca, awakened out of his revery by the sound of footsteps, was still so little sensible of the indignity of his position, that he enjoyed exceedingly, and with all the malice of his natural humour, the astonishment and stupor manifested by Stirn, when that functionary beheld the extraordinary substitute which fate and philosophy had found for Lenny Fairfield. Instead of the weeping, crushed, broken-hearted captive whom he had reluctantly come to deliver, he stared speechless and aghast upon the grotesque but tranquil figure of the doctor enjoying his pipe, and cooling himself under his umbrella, with a sangfroid that was truly appalling and diabolical. Indeed, considering that Stirn always suspected the Papisher of having had a hand in the whole of that black and midnight business, in which the stocks had been broken, bunged up, and consigned to perdition, and that the Papisher had the evil reputation of dabbling in the Black Art, the hocus-pocus way in which the Lenny he had incarcerated was transformed into the doctor he found, conjoined with the peculiarly strange eldrich and Mephistophelean physiognomy and person of Riccabocca, could not but strike a thrill of superstitious dismay into the breast of the parochial tyrant; while to his first confused and stammered exclamations and interrogatories, Riccabocca replied with so tragic an air, such ominous shakes of the head, such mysterious equivocating, long-worded sentences, that Stirn every moment felt more and more convinced that the boy had sold himself to the Powers of Darkness, and that he himself, prematurely and in the flesh, stood face to face with the Arch-Enemy. Mr. Stirn had not yet recovered his wonted intelligence, which, to do him justice, was usually prompt enough, when the squire, followed hard by the parson, arrived at the spot. Indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean's report of the squire's urgent message, disturbed manner, and most unparalleled invitation to the parishioners, had given wings to Parson Dale's ordinarily slow and sedate movements. And while the squire, sharing Stirn's amazement, beheld indeed a great pair of feet projecting from the stocks, and saw behind them the grave face of Dr. Riccabocca under the majestic shade of the umbrella, but not a vestige of the only being his mind could identify with the tenancy of the stocks, Mr. Dale, catching him by the arm, and panting hard, exclaimed with a petulance he had never before been known to display,--except at the whisttable,-- "Mr. Hazeldean, Mr. Hazeldean, I am scandalized,--I am shocked at you. I can bear a great deal from you, sir, as I ought to do; but to ask my whole congregation, the moment after divine service, to go up and guzzle ale at the Hall, and drink my health, as if a clergyman's sermon had been a speech at a cattle-fair! I am ashamed of you, and of the parish! What on earth has come to you all?" "That's the very question I wish to Heaven I could answer," groaned the squire, quite mildly and pathetically,--"What on earth has come to us all? Ask Stirn:" (then bursting out) "Stirn, you infernal rascal, don't you hear? What on earth has come to us all?" "The Papisher is at the bottom of it, sir," said Stirn, provoked out of all temper. "I does my duty, but I is but a mortal man, arter all." "A mortal fiddlestick! Where's Leonard Fairfield, I say?" "Him knows best," answered Stirn, retreating mechanically for safety's sake behind the parson, and pointing to Dr. Riccabocca. Hitherto, though both the squire and parson had indeed recognized the Italian, they had merely supposed him to be seated on the bank. It never entered into their heads that so respectable and dignified a man could by any possibility be an inmate, compelled or voluntary, of the parish stocks. No, not even though, as I before said, the squire had seen, just under his nose, a very long pair of soles inserted in the apertures, that sight had only confused and bewildered him, unaccompanied, as it ought to have been, with the trunk and face of Lenny Fairfield. Those soles seemed to him optical delusions, phantoms of the overheated brain; but now, catching hold of Stirn, while the parson in equal astonishment caught hold of him, the squire faltered out, "Well, this beats cock-fighting! The man's as mad as a March hare, and has taken Dr. Rickeybockey for Little Lenny!" "Perhaps," said the doctor, breaking silence with a bland smile, and attempting an inclination of the head as courteous as his position would permit,--"perhaps, if it be quite the same to you, before you proceed to explanations, you will just help me out of the stocks." The parson, despite his perplexity and anger, could not repress a smile, as he approached his learned friend, and bent down for the purpose of extricating him. "Lord love your reverence, you'd better not!" cried Mr. Stirn. "Don't be tempted,--he only wants to get you into is claws. I would not go a near him for all the--" The speech was interrupted by Dr. Riccabocca himself, who now, thanks to the parson, had risen into his full height, and half a head taller than all present--even than the tall squire--approached Mr. Stirn, with a gracious wave of the hand. Mr. Stirn retreated rapidly towards the hedge, amidst the brambles of which he plunged himself incontinently. "I guess whom you take me for, Mr. Stirn," said the Italian, lifting his hat with his characteristic politeness. "It is certainly a great honour; but you will know better one of these days, when the gentleman in question admits you to a personal interview in another--and a hotter world." CHAPTER XII. "But how on earth did you get into my new stocks?" asked the squire, scratching his head. "My dear sir, Pliny the elder got into the crater of Mount Etna." "Did he, and what for?" "To try what it was like, I suppose," answered Riccabocca. The squire burst out a laughing. "And so you got into the stocks to try what it was like. Well, I can't wonder,--it is a very handsome pair of stocks," continued the squire, with a loving look at the object of his praise. "Nobody need be ashamed of being seen in those stocks,--I'should not mind it myself." "We had better move on," said the parson, dryly, "or we shall have the whole village here presently, gazing on the lord of the manor in the same predicament as that from which we have just extricated the doctor. Now, pray, what is the matter with Lenny Fairfield? I can't understand a word of what has passed. You don't mean to say that good Lenny Fairfield (who was absent from church, by the by) can have done anything to get into disgrace?" "Yes, he has though," cried the squire. "Stirn, I say, Stirn!" But Stirn had forced his way through the hedge and vanished. Thus left to his own powers of narrative at secondhand, Mr. Hazeldean now told all he had to communicate,--the assault upon Randal Leslie, and the prompt punishment inflicted by Stirn; his own indignation at the affront to his young kinsman, and his good-natured merciful desire to save the culprit from public humiliation. The parson, mollified towards the rude and hasty invention of the beer- drinking, took the squire by the hand. "Ah, Mr. Hazeldean, forgive me," he said repentantly; "I ought to have known at once that it was only some ebullition of your heart that could stifle your sense of decorum. But this is a sad story about Lenny brawling and fighting on the Sabbath-day. So unlike him, too. I don't know what to make of it." "Like or unlike," said the squire, "it has been a gross insult to young Leslie, and looks all the worse because I and Audley are not just the best friends in the world. I can't think what it is," continued Mr. Hazeldean, musingly; "but it seems that there must be always some association of fighting connected with that prim half-brother of mine. There was I, son of his own mother,--who might have been shot through the lungs, only the ball lodged in the shoulder! and now his wife's kinsman-- my kinsman, too--grandmother a Hazeldean,--a hard-reading, sober lad, as I am given to understand, can't set his foot into the quietest parish in the three kingdoms, but what the mildest boy that ever was seen makes a rush at him like a mad bull. It is FATALITY!" cried the squire, solemnly. "Ancient legend records similar instances of fatality in certain houses," observed Riccabocca. "There was the House of Pelops, and Polynices and Eteocles, the sons of OEdipus." "Pshaw!" said the parson; "but what's to be done?" "Done?" said the squire; "why, reparation must be made to young Leslie. And though I wished to spare Lenny, the young ruffian, a public disgrace --for your sake, Parson Dale, and Mrs. Fairfield's--yet a good caning in private--" "Stop, sir!" said Riccabocca, mildly, "and hear me." The Italian then, with much feeling and considerable tact, pleaded the cause of his poor protege, and explained how Lenny's error arose only from mistaken zeal for the squire's service, and in the execution of the orders received from Mr. Stirn. "That alters the matter," said the squire, softened; "and all that is necessary now will be for him to make a proper apology to my kinsman." "Yes, that is just," rejoined the parson; "but I still don't learn how he got out of the stocks." Riccabocca then resumed his tale; and, after confessing his own principal share in Lenny's escape, drew a moving picture of the boy's shame and honest mortification. "Let us march against Philip!" cried the Athenians when they heard Demosthenes-- "Let us go at once and comfort the child!" cried the parson, before Riccabocca could finish. With that benevolent intention all three quickened their pace, and soon arrived at the widow's cottage. But Lenny had caught sight of their approach through the window; and not doubting that, in spite of Riccabocca's intercession, the parson was come to upbraid and the squire to re-imprison, he darted out by the back way, got amongst the woods, and lay there perdu all the evening. Nay, it was not till after dark that his mother--who sat wringing her hands in the little kitchen, and trying in vain to listen to the parson and Mrs. Dale, who (after sending in search of the fugitive) had kindly come to console the mother--heard a timid knock at the door and a nervous fumble at the latch. She started up, opened the door, and Lenny sprang to her bosom, and there buried his face, sobbing aloud. "No harm, my boy," said the parson, tenderly; "you have nothing to fear, --all is explained and forgiven." Lenny looked up, and the veins on his forehead were much swollen. "Sir," said he, sturdily, "I don't want to be forgiven,--I ain't done no wrong. And--I've been disgraced--and I won't go to school, never no more." "Hush, Carry!" said the parson to his wife, who with the usual liveliness of her little temper, was about to expostulate. "Good-night, Mrs. Fairfield. I shall come and talk to you to-morrow, Lenny; by that time you will think better of it." The parson then conducted his wife home, and went up to the Hall to report Lenny's safe return; for the squire was very uneasy about him, and had even in person shared the search. As soon as he heard Lenny was safe--"Well," said the squire," let him go the first thing in the morning to Rood Hall, to ask Master Leslie's pardon, and all will be right and smooth again." "A young villain!" cried Frank, with his cheeks the colour of scarlet; "to strike a gentleman and an Etonian, who had just been to call on me! But I wonder Randal let him off so well,--any other boy in the sixth form would have killed him!" "Frank," said the parson, sternly, "if we all had our deserts, what should be done to him who not only lets the sun go down on his own wrath, but strives with uncharitable breath to fan the dying embers of another's?" The clergyman here turned away from Frank, who bit his lip, and seemed abashed, while even his mother said not a word in his exculpation; for when the parson did reprove in that stern tone, the majesty of the Hall stood awed before the rebuke of the Church. Catching Riccabocca's inquisitive eye, Mr. Dale drew aside the philosopher, and whispered to him his fears that it would be a very hard matter to induce Lenny to beg Randal Leslie's pardon, and that the proud stomach of the pattern-boy would not digest the stocks with as much ease as a long regimen of philosophy had enabled the sage to do. This conference Miss Jemima soon interrupted by a direct appeal to the doctor respecting the number of years (even without any previous and more violent incident) that the world could possibly withstand its own wear and tear. "Ma'am," said the doctor, reluctantly summoned away to look at a passage in some prophetic periodical upon that interesting subject,--"ma'am, it is very hard that you should make one remember the end of the world, since, in conversing with you, one's natural temptation is to forget its existence." Miss Jemima's cheeks were suffused with a deeper scarlet than Frank's had been a few minutes before. Certainly that deceitful, heartless compliment justified all her contempt for the male sex; and yet--such is human blindness--it went far to redeem all mankind in her credulous and too confiding soul. "He is about to propose," sighed Miss Jemima. "Giacomo," said Riccabocca, as he drew on his nightcap, and stepped majestically into the four-posted bed, "I think we shall get that boy for the garden now!" Thus each spurred his hobby, or drove her car, round the Hazeldean whirligig. CHAPTER XIII. Whatever, may be the ultimate success of Miss Jemima Hazeldean's designs upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the parson's, charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was bid, he owed an agonizing defeat and a shameful incarceration; and, to Mrs. Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was it without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his lessons at school,--nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though sullenly; and the parson thought it better to temporize as to the more unpalatable demand. Unluckily, Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though Stirn at first kept his own counsel the tinker blabbed the whole affair. And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all attempt to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then Stirn told his story, as the tinker had told his own; both tales were very unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern-boy had broken the Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain; the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out the misdemeanours of his equals therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both capacities of degraded pattern-boy and baffled spy, could expect no mercy,--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other. It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster and under the eye of Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the moment those checks were removed, popular persecution bcgan. Some pointed and mowed at him, some cursed him for a sneak, and all shunned his society; voices were heard in the hedgerows, as he passed through the village at dusk, "Who was put into the stocks?--baa!" "Who got a bloody nob for playing spy to Nick Stirn?--baa!" To resist this species of aggression would have been a vain attempt for a wiser head and a colder temper than our poor pattern-boy's. He took his resolution at once, and his mother approved it; and the second or third day after Dr. Riccabocca's return to the Casino, Lenny Fairfield presented himself on the terrace with a little bundle in his hand. "Please, sir," said he to the doctor, who was sitting cross-legged on the balustrade, with his red silk umbrella over his head,--"please, sir, if you'll be good enough to take me now, and give me any hole to sleep in, I'll work for your honour night and day; and as for wages, Mother says, 'just suit yourself, sir.'" "My child," said the doctor, taking Lenny by the hand, and looking at him with the sagacious eye of a wizard, "I knew you would come! and Giacomo is already prepared for you! As to wages, we'll talk of them by and by." Lenny being thus settled, his mother looked for some evenings on the vacant chair, where he had so long sat in the place of her beloved Mark; and the chair seemed so comfortless and desolate, thus left all to itself, that she could bear it no longer. Indeed the village had grown as distasteful to her as to Lenny,--perhaps more so; and one morning she hailed the steward as he was trotting his hog-maued cob beside the door, and bade him tell the squire that "she would take it very kind if he would let her off the six months' notice for the land and premises she held; there were plenty to step into the place at a much better rent." "You're a fool," said the good-natured steward; "and I'm very glad you did not speak to that fellow Stirn instead of to me. You've been doing extremely well here, and have the place, I may say, for nothing." "Nothin' as to rent, sir, but a great deal as to feelin'," said the widow. "And now Lenny has gone to work with the foreign gentleman, I should like to go and live near him." "Ah, yes, I heard Lenny had taken himself off to the Casino, more fool he; but, bless your heart, 't is no distance,--two miles or so. Can't he come home every night after work?" "No, sir," exclaimed the widow, almost fiercely; "he sha'n't come home here, to be called bad names and jeered at!--he whom my dead good man was so fond and proud of. No, sir; we poor folks have our feelings, as I said to Mrs. Dale, and as I will say to the squire hisself. Not that I don't thank him for all favours,--he be a good gentleman if let alone; but he says he won't come near us till Lenny goes and axes pardin. Pardin for what, I should like to know? Poor lamb! I wish you could ha' seen his nose, sir,--as big as your two fists. Ax pardin! if the squire had had such a nose as that, I don't think it's pardin he'd been ha' axing. But I let the passion get the better of me,--I humbly beg you'll excuse it, sir. I'm no schollard, as poor Mark was, and Lenny would have been, if the Lord had not visited us otherways. Therefore just get the squire to let me go as soon as may be; and as for the bit o' hay and what's on the grounds and orchard, the new comer will no doubt settle that." The steward, finding no eloquence of his could induce the widow to relinquish her resolution, took her message to the squire. Mr. Hazeldean, who was indeed really offended at the boy's obstinate refusal to make the /amende honorable/ to Randal Leslie, at first only bestowed a hearty curse or two on the pride and ingratitude both of mother and son. It may be supposed, however, that his second thoughts were more gentle, since that evening, though he did not go himself to the widow, he sent his "Harry." Now, though Harry was sometimes austere and brusque enough on her own account, and in such business as might especially be transacted between herself and the cottagers, yet she never appeared as the delegate of her lord except in the capacity of a herald of peace and mediating angel. It was with good heart, too, that she undertook this mission, since, as we have seen, both mother and son were great favourites of hers. She entered the cottage with the friendliest beam in her bright blue eye, and it was with the softest tone of her frank cordial voice that she accosted the widow. But she was no more successful than the steward had been. The truth is, that I don't believe the haughtiest duke in the three kingdoms is really so proud as your plain English rural peasant, nor half so hard to propitiate and deal with when his sense of dignity is ruffled. Nor are there many of my own literary brethren (thin-skinned creatures though we are) so sensitively alive to the Public Opinion, wisely despised by Dr. Riccabocca, as that same peasant. He can endure a good deal of contumely sometimes, it is true, from his superiors (though, thank Heaven! that he rarely meets with unjustly); but to be looked down upon and mocked and pointed at by his own equals--his own little world--cuts him to the soul. And if you can succeed in breaking this pride and destroying this sensitiveness, then he is a lost being. He can never recover his self-esteem, and you have chucked him half-way--a stolid, inert, sullen victim--to the perdition of the prison or the convict-ship. Of this stuff was the nature both of the widow and her son. Had the honey of Plato flowed from the tongue of Mrs. Hazeldean, it could not have turned into sweetness the bitter spirit upon which it descended. But Mrs. Hazeldean, though an excellent woman, was rather a bluff, plain- spoken one; and after all she had some little feeling for the son of a gentleman, and a decayed, fallen gentleman, who, even by Lenny's account, had been assailed without any intelligible provocation; nor could she, with her strong common-sense, attach all the importance which Mrs. Fairfield did to the unmannerly impertinence of a few young cubs, which she said truly, "would soon die away if no notice was taken of it." The widow's mind was made up, and Mrs. Hazeldean departed,--with much chagrin and some displeasure. Mrs. Fairfield, however, tacitly understood that the request she had made was granted, and early one morning her door was found locked, the key left at a neighbour's to be given to the steward; and, on further inquiry, it was ascertained that her furniture and effects had been removed by the errand cart in the dead of the night. Lenny had succeeded in finding a cottage on the road-side, not far from the Casino; and there, with a joyous face, he waited to welcome his mother to breakfast, and show how he had spent the night in arranging her furniture. "Parson!" cried the squire, when all this news came upon him, as he was walking arm in arm with Mr. Dale to inspect some proposed improvement in the Almshouse, "this is all your fault. Why did you not go and talk to that brute of a boy and that dolt of a woman? You've got 'soft sawder enough,' as Frank calls it in his new-fashioned slang." "As if I had not talked myself hoarse to both!" said the parson, in a tone of reproachful surprise at the accusation. "But it was in vain! O Squire, if you had taken my advice about the stocks,--'quieta non movere'!" "Bother!" said the squire. "I suppose I am to be held up as a tyrant, a Nero, a Richard the Third, or a Grand Inquisitor, merely for having things smart and tidy! Stocks indeed! Your friend Rickeybockey said he was never more comfortable in his life,--quite enjoyed sitting there. And what did not hurt Rickeybockey's dignity (a very gentlemanlike man he is, when he pleases) ought to be no such great matter to Master Leonard Fairfield. But 't is no use talking! What's to be done now? The woman must not starve; and I'm sure she can't live out of Rickeybockey's wages to Lenny,--by the way, I hope he don't board the boy upon his and Jackeymo's leavings: I hear they dine upon newts and sticklebacks, faugh! I'll tell you what, Parson, now I think of it, at the back of the cottage which she has taken there are some fields of capital land just vacant. Rickeybockey wants to have 'em, and sounded me as to the rent when he was at the Hall. I only half promised him the refusal. And he must give up four or five acres of the best land round the cottage to the widow--just enough for her to manage--and she can keep a dairy. If she want capital, I'll lend her some in your name,--only don't tell Stirn; and as for the rent--we'll talk of that when we see how she gets on, thankless, obstinate jade that she is! You see," added the squire, as if he felt there was some apology due for this generosity to an object whom he professed to consider so ungrateful, "her husband was a faithful servant, and so--I wish you would not stand there staring me out of countenance, but go down to the woman at once, or Stirn will have let the land to Rickeybockey, as sure as a gun. And hark ye, Dale, perhaps you can contrive, if the woman is so cursedly stiffbacked, not to say the land is mine, or that it is any favour I want to do her--or, in short, manage it as you can for the best." Still even this charitable message failed. The widow knew that the land was the squire's, and worth a good L3 an acre. "She thanked him humbly for that and all favours; but she could not afford to buy cows, and she did not wish to be beholden to any one for her living. And Lenny was well off at Mr. Rickeybockey's, and coming on wonderfully in the garden way, and she did not doubt she could get some washing; at all events, her haystack would bring in a good bit of money, and she should do nicely, thank their honours." Nothing further could be done in the direct way, but the remark about the washing suggested some mode of indirectly benefiting the widow; and a little time afterwards, the sole laundress in that immediate neighbourhood happening to die, a hint from the squire obtained from the landlady of the inn opposite the Casino such custom as she had to bestow, which at times was not inconsiderable. And what with Lenny's wages (whatever that mysterious item might be), the mother and son contrived to live without exhibiting any of those physical signs of fast and abstinence which Riccabocca and his valet gratuitously afforded to the student in animal anatomy. CHAPTER XIV. Of all the wares and commodities in exchange and barter, wherein so mainly consists the civilization of our modern world, there is not one which is so carefully weighed, so accurately measured, so plumbed and gauged, so doled and scraped, so poured out in minima and balanced with scruples,--as that necessary of social commerce called "an apology"! If the chemists were half so careful in vending their poisons, there would be a notable diminution in the yearly average of victims to arsenic and oxalic acid. But, alas! in the matter of apology, it is not from the excess of the dose, but the timid, niggardly, miserly manner in which it is dispensed, that poor Humanity is hurried off to the Styx! How many times does a life depend on the exact proportions of an apology! Is it a hairbreadth too short to cover the scratch for which you want it? Make your will,--you are a dead man! A life do I say?--a hecatomb of lives! How many wars would have been prevented, how many thrones would be standing, dynasties flourishing, commonwealths brawling round a /bema/, or fitting out galleys for corn and cotton, if an inch or two more of apology had been added to the proffered ell! But then that plaguy, jealous, suspicious, old vinegar-faced Honour, and her partner Pride--as penny-wise and pound-foolish a she-skinflint as herself--have the monopoly of the article. And what with the time they lose in adjusting their spectacles, hunting in the precise shelf for the precise quality demanded, then (quality found) the haggling as to quantum,--considering whether it should be Apothecary's weight or Avoirdupois, or English measure or Flemish,--and, finally, the hullabuloo they make if the customer is not perfectly satisfied with the monstrous little he gets for his money, I don't wonder, for my part, how one loses temper and patience, and sends Pride, Honour, and Apology all to the devil. Aristophanes, in his comedy of "Peace," insinuates a beautiful allegory by only suffering that goddess, though in fact she is his heroine, to appear as a mute. She takes care never to open her lips. The shrewd Greek knew very well that she would cease to be Peace, if she once began to chatter. Wherefore, O reader, if ever you find your pump under the iron heel of another man's boot, Heaven grant that you may hold your tongue, and not make things past all endurance and forgiveness by bawling out for an apology! CHAPTER XV. But the squire and his son, Frank, were large-hearted generous creatures in the article of apology, as in all things less skimpingly dealt out. And seeing that Leonard Fairfield would offer no plaster to Randal Leslie, they made amends for his stinginess by their own prodigality. The squire accompanied his son to Rood Hall, and none of the family choosing to be at home, the squire in his own hand, and from his own head, indited and composed an epistle which might have satisfied all the wounds which the dignity of the Leslies had ever received. This letter of apology ended with a hearty request that Randal would come and spend a few days with his son. Frank's epistle was to the same purport, only more Etonian and less legible. It was some days before Randal's replies to these epistles were received. The replies bore the address of a village near London; and stated that the writer was now reading with a tutor preparatory to entrance to Oxford, and could not, therefore, accept the invitation extended to him. For the rest, Randal expressed himself with good sense, though not with much generosity. He excused his participation in the vulgarity of such a conflict by a bitter, but short allusion to the obstinacy and ignorance of the village boor; and did not do what you, my kind reader, certainly would have done under similar circumstances,--namely, intercede in behalf of a brave and unfortunate antagonist. Most of us like a foe better after we have fought him,--that is, if we are the conquering party; this was not the case with Randal Leslie. There, so far as the Etonian was concerned, the matter rested. And the squire, irritated that he could not repair whatever wrong that young gentleman had sustained, no longer felt a pang of regret as he passed by Mrs. Fairfield's deserted cottage. CHAPTER XVl. Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with which he was treated. Riccabocca, who valued himself on penetrating into character, had from the first seen that much stuff of no common quality and texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the English village boy. On further acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that required but development and direction. He ascertained that the pattern- boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something more than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension. Lenny had a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of birth and circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius which converts disadvantages themselves into stimulants. Still, with the germs of good qualities lay the embryos of those which, difficult to separate, and hard to destroy, often mar the produce of the soil. With a remarkable and generous pride in self-repute, there was some stubbornness; with great sensibility to kindness, there was also strong reluctance to forgive affront. This mixed nature in an uncultivated peasant's breast interested Riccabocca, who, though long secluded from the commerce of mankind, still looked upon man as the most various and entertaining volume which philosophical research can explore. He soon accustomed the boy to the tone of a conversation generally subtle and suggestive; and Lenny's language and ideas became insensibly less rustic and more refined. Then Riccabocca selected from his library, small as it was, books that, though elementary, were of a higher cast than Lenny could have found within his reach at Hazeldean. Riccabocca knew the English language well,--better in grammar, construction, and genius than many a not ill-educated Englishman; for he had studied it with the minuteness with which a scholar studies a dead language, and amidst his collection he had many of the books which had formerly served him for that purpose. These were the first works he lent to Lenny. Meanwhile Jackeymo imparted to the boy many secrets in practical gardening and minute husbandry, for at that day farming in England (some favoured counties and estates excepted) was far below the nicety to which the art has been immemorially carried in the north of Italy,--where, indeed, you may travel for miles and miles as through a series of market-gardens; so that, all these things considered, Leonard Fairfield might be said to have made a change for the better. Yet, in truth, and looking below the surface, that might be fair matter of doubt. For the same reason which had induced the boy to fly his native village, he no longer repaired to the church of Hazeldean. The old intimate intercourse between him and the parson became necessarily suspended, or bounded to an occasional kindly visit from the latter,-- visits which grew more rare and less familiar, as he found his former pupil in no want of his services, and wholly deaf to his mild entreaties to forget and forgive the past, and come at least to his old seat in the parish church. Lenny still went to church,--a church a long way off in another parish,--but the sermons did not do him the same good as Parson Dale's had done; and the clergyman, who had his own flock to attend to, did not condescend, as Parson Dale would have done, to explain what seemed obscure, and enforce what was profitable, in private talk, with that stray lamb from another's fold. Now I question much if all Dr. Riccabocca's maxims, though they were often very moral and generally very wise, served to expand the peasant boy's native good qualities, and correct his bad, half so well as the few simple words, not at all indebted to Machiavelli, which Leonard had once reverently listened to when he stood by Mark's elbow-chair, yielded up for the moment to the good parson, worthy to sit in it; for Mr. Dale had a heart in which all the fatherless of the parish found their place. Nor was this loss of tender, intimate, spiritual lore so counterbalanced by the greater facilities for purely intellectual instruction as modern enlightenment might presume. For, without disputing the advantage of knowledge in a general way, knowledge, in itself, is not friendly to content. Its tendency, of course, is to increase the desires, to dissatisfy us with what is, in order to urge progress to what may be; and in that progress, what unnoticed martyrs among the many must fall baffled and crushed by the way! To how large a number will be given desires they will never realize, dissatisfaction of the lot from which they will never rise! Allons! one is viewing the dark side of the question. It is all the fault of that confounded Riccabocca, who has already caused Lenny Fairfield to lean gloomily on his spade, and, after looking round and seeing no one near him, groan out querulously,--"And am I born to dig a potato ground?" Pardieu, my friend Lenny, if you live to be seventy, and ride in your carriage, and by the help of a dinner-pill digest a spoonful of curry, you may sigh to think what a relish there was in potatoes, roasted in ashes after you had digged them out of that ground with your own stout young hands. Dig on, Lenny Fairfield, dig on! Dr. Riccabocca will tell you that there was once an illustrious personage--[The Emperor Diocletian]--who made experience of two very different occupations,--one was ruling men, the other was planting cabbages; he thought planting cabbages much the pleasanter of the two! CHAPTER XVIL Dr. Riccabocca had secured Lenny Fairfield, and might therefore be considered to have ridden his hobby in the great whirligig with adroitness and success. But Miss Jemima was still driving round in her car, handling the reins, and flourishing the whip, without apparently having got an inch nearer to the flying form of Dr. Riccabocca. Indeed, that excellent and only too susceptible spinster, with all her experience of the villany of man, had never conceived the wretch to be so thoroughly beyond the reach of redemption as when Dr. Riccabocca took his leave, and once more interred himself amidst the solitudes of the Casino, and without having made any formal renunciation of his criminal celibacy. For some days she shut herself up in her own chamber, and brooded with more than her usual gloomy satisfaction on the certainty of the approaching crash. Indeed, many signs of that universal calamity, which, while the visit of Riccabocca lasted, she had permitted herself to consider ambiguous, now became luminously apparent. Even the newspaper, which during that credulous and happy period had given half a column to Births and Marriages, now bore an ominously long catalogue of Deaths; so that it seemed as if the whole population had lost heart, and had no chance of repairing its daily losses. The leading article spoke, with the obscurity of a Pythian, of an impending CRISIS. Monstrous turnips sprouted out from the paragraphs devoted to General News. Cows bore calves with two heads, whales were stranded in the Humber, showers of frogs descended in the High Street of Cheltenham. All these symptoms of the world's decrepitude and consummation, which by the side of the fascinating Riccabocca might admit of some doubt as to their origin and cause, now, conjoined with the worst of all, namely, the frightfully progressive wickedness of man,--left to Miss Jemima no ray of hope save that afforded by the reflection that she could contemplate the wreck of matter without a single sentiment of regret. Mrs. Dale, however, by no means shared the despondency of her fair friend, and having gained access to Miss Jemima's chamber, succeeded, though not without difficulty, in her kindly attempts to cheer the drooping spirits of that female misanthropist. Nor, in her benevolent desire to speed the car of Miss Jemima to its hymeneal goal, was Mrs. Dale so cruel towards her male friend, Dr. Riccabocca, as she seemed to her husband. For Mrs. Dale was a woman of shrewdness and penetration, as most quick-tempered women are; and she knew that Miss Jemima was one of those excellent young ladies who are likely to value a husband in proportion to the difficulty of obtaining him. In fact, my readers of both sexes must often have met, in the course of their experience, with that peculiar sort of feminine disposition, which requires the warmth of the conjugal hearth to develop all its native good qualities; nor is it to be blamed overmuch if, innocently aware of this tendency in its nature, it turns towards what is best fitted for its growth and improvement, by laws akin to those which make the sunflower turn to the sun, or the willow to the stream. Ladies of this disposition, permanently thwarted in their affectionate bias, gradually languish away into intellectual inanition, or sprout out into those abnormal eccentricities which are classed under the general name of "oddity" or "character." But once admitted to their proper soil, it is astonishing what healthful improvement takes place,--how the poor heart, before starved and stinted of nourishment, throws out its suckers, and bursts into bloom and fruit. And thus many a belle from whom the beaux have stood aloof, only because the puppies think she could be had for the asking, they see afterwards settled down into true wife and fond mother, with amaze at their former disparagement, and a sigh at their blind hardness of heart. In all probability Mrs. Dale took this view of the subject; and certainly, in addition to all the hitherto dormant virtues which would be awakened in Miss Jemima when fairly Mrs. Riccabocca, she counted somewhat upon the mere worldly advantage which such a match would bestow upon the exile. So respectable a connection with one of the oldest, wealthiest, and most popular families in the shire would in itself give him a position not to be despised by a poor stranger in the land; and though the interest of Miss Jemima's dowry might not be much, regarded in the light of English pounds (not Milanese lire), still it would suffice to prevent that gradual process of dematerialization which the lengthened diet upon minnows and sticklebacks had already made apparent in the fine and slow-evanishing form of the philosopher. Like all persons convinced of the expediency of a thing, Mrs. Dale saw nothing wanting but opportunities to insure its success. And that these might be forthcoming she not only renewed with greater frequency, and more urgent instance than ever, her friendly invitations to Riccabocca to drink tea and spend the evening, but she so artfully chafed the squire on his sore point of hospitality, that the doctor received weekly a pressing solicitation to dine and sleep at the Hall. At first the Italian pished and grunted, and said /Cospetto/, and /Per Bacco/, and /Diavolo/, and tried to creep out of so much proffered courtesy. But like all single gentlemen, he was a little under the tyrannical influence of his faithful servant; and Jackeymo, though he could bear starving as well as his master when necessary, still, when he had the option, preferred roast beef and plum-pudding. Moreover, that vain and incautious confidence of Riccabocca touching the vast sum at his command, and with no heavier drawback than that of so amiable a lady as Miss Jemima--who had already shown him (Jackeymo) many little delicate attentions--had greatly whetted the cupidity which was in the servant's Italian nature,--a cupidity the more keen because, long debarred its legitimate exercise on his own mercenary interests, he carried it all to the account of his master's! Thus tempted by his enemy and betrayed by his servant, the unfortunate Riccabocca fell, though with eyes not unblinded, into the hospitable snares extended for the destruction of his--celibacy! He went often to the Parsonage, often to the Hall, and by degrees the sweets of the social domestic life, long denied him, began to exercise their enervating charm upon the stoicism of our poor exile. Frank had now returned to Eton. An unexpected invitation had carried off Captain Higginbotham to pass a few weeks at Bath with a distant relation, who had lately returned from India, and who, as rich as Creesus, felt so estranged and solitary in his native isle that, when the captain "claimed kindred there," to his own amaze "he had his claims allowed;" while a very protracted sitting of parliament still delayed in London the squire's habitual visitors during the later summer; so that--a chasm thus made in his society-- Mr. Hazeldean welcomed with no hollow cordiality the diversion or distraction he found in the foreigner's companionship. Thus, with pleasure to all parties, and strong hopes to the two female conspirators, the intimacy between the Casino and Hall rapidly thickened; but still not a word resembling a distinct proposal did Dr. Riccabocca breathe. And still, if such an idea obtruded itself on his mind, it was chased therefrom with so determined a Diavolo that perhaps, if not the end of the world, at least the end of Miss Jemima's tenure in it, might have approached and seen her still Miss Jemima, but for a certain letter with a foreign postmark that reached the doctor one Tuesday morning. CHAPTER XVIII. The servant saw that something had gone wrong, and, under pretence of syringing the orange-trees, he lingered near his master, and peered through the sunny leaves upon Riccabocca's melancholy brows. The doctor sighed heavily. Nor did he, as was his wont after some such sigh, mechanically take up that dear comforter the pipe. But though the tobacco-pouch lay by his side on the balustrade, and the pipe stood against the wall between his knees, childlike lifting up its lips to the customary caress, he heeded neither the one nor the other, but laid the letter silently on his lap, and fixed his eyes upon the ground. "It must be bad news indeed!" thought Jackeymo, and desisted from his work. Approaching his master, he took up the pipe and the tobacco-pouch, and filled the bowl slowly, glancing all the while towards that dark musing face on which, when abandoned by the expression of intellectual vivacity or the exquisite smile of Italian courtesy, the deep downward lines revealed the characters of sorrow. Jackeymo did not venture to speak; but the continued silence of his master disturbed him much. He laid that peculiar tinder which your smokers use upon the steel, and struck the spark,--still not a word, nor did Riccabocca stretch forth his hand. "I never knew him in this taking before," thought Jackeymo; and delicately he insinuated the neck of the pipe into the nerveless fingers of the band that lay supine on those quiet knees. The pipe fell to the ground. Jackeymo crossed himself, and began praying to his sainted namesake with great fervour. The doctor rose slowly, and as if with effort; he walked once or twice to and fro the terrace; and then he halted abruptly and said,-- "Friend!" "Blessed Monsignore San Giacomo, I knew thou wouldst hear me!" cried the servant; and he raised his master's hand to his lips, then abruptly turned away and wiped his eyes. "Friend," repeated Riccabocca, and this time with a tremulous emphasis, and in the softest tone of a voice never wholly without the music of the sweet South, "I would talk to thee of my child." CHAPTER XIX. "The letter, then, relates to the signorina. She is well?" "Yes, she is well now. She is in our native Italy." Jackeymo raised his eyes involuntarily towards the orange-trees, and the morning breeze swept by and bore to him the odour of their blossoms. "Those are sweet even here, with care," said he, pointing to the trees. "I think I have said that before to the padrone." But Riccabocca was now looking again at the letter, and did not notice either the gesture or the remark of his servant. "My aunt is no more!" said he, after a pause. "We will pray for her soul!" answered Jackeymo, solemnly. "But she was very old, and had been a long time ailing. Let it not grieve the padrone too keenly: at that age, and with those infirmities, death comes as a friend." "Peace be to her dust!" returned the Italian. "If she had her faults, be they now forgotten forever; and in the hour of my danger and distress she sheltered my infant! That shelter is destroyed. This letter is from the priest, her confessor. And the home of which my child is bereaved falls to the inheritance of my enemy." "Traitor!" muttered Jackeymo; and his right hand seemed to feel for the weapon which the Italians of lower rank often openly wear in their girdles. "The priest," resumed Riccabocca, calmly, "has rightly judged in removing my child as a guest from the house in which that traitor enters as lord." "And where is the signorina?" "With the poor priest. See, Giacomo, here, here--this is her handwriting at the end of the letter,--the first lines she ever yet traced to me." Jackeymo took off his hat, and looked reverently on the large characters of a child's writing. But large as they were, they seemed indistinct, for the paper was blistered with the child's tears; and on the place where they had not fallen, there was a round fresh moist stain of the tear that had dropped from the lids of the father. Riccabocca renewed, "The priest recommends a convent." "To the devil with the priest!" cried the servant; then crossing himself rapidly, he added, "I did not mean that, Monsignore San Giacomo,--forgive me! But your Excellency does not think of making a nun of his only child!" [The title of Excellency does not, in Italian, necessarily express any exalted rank, but is often given by servants to their masters.] "And yet why not?" said Riccabocca, mournfully; "what can I give her in the world? Is the land of the stranger a better refuge than the home of peace in her native clime?" "In the land of the stranger beats her father's heart!" "And if that beat were stilled, what then? Ill fares the life that a single death can bereave of all. In a convent at least (and the priest's influence can obtain her that asylum amongst her equals and amidst her sex) she is safe from trial and from penury--to her grave!" "Penury! Just see how rich we shall be when we take those fields at Michaelmas." "/Pazzie/!"--[Follies]--said Riccabocca, listlessly. "Are these suns more serene than ours, or the soil more fertile? Yet in our own Italy, saith the proverb, 'He who sows land reaps more care than corn.' It were different," continued the father, after a pause, and in a more resolute tone, "if I had some independence, however small, to count on,--nay, if among all my tribe of dainty relatives there were but one female who would accompany Violante to the exile's hearth,--Ishmael had his Hagar. But how can we two rough-bearded men provide for all the nameless wants and cares of a frail female child? And she has been so delicately reared,--the woman-child needs the fostering hand and tender eye of a woman." "And with a word," said Jackeymo, resolutely, "the padrone might secure to his child all that he needs to save her from the sepulchre of a convent; and ere the autumn leaves fall, she might be sitting on his knee. Padrone, do not think that you can conceal from me the truth, that you love your child better than all things in the world,--now the Patria is as dead to you as the dust of your fathers,--and your heart-strings would crack with the effort to tear her from them, and consign her to a convent. Padrone, never again to hear her voice, never again to see her face! Those little arms that twined round your neck that dark night, when we fled fast for life and freedom, and you said, as you felt their clasp, 'Friend, all is not yet lost.'" "Giacomo!" exclaimed the father, reproachfully, and his voice seemed to choke him. Riccabocca turned away, and walked restlessly to and fro the terrace; then, lifting his arms with a wild gesture, as he still continued his long irregular strides, he muttered, "Yes, Heaven is my witness that I could have borne reverse and banishment without a murmur, had I permitted myself that young partner in exile and privation. Heaven is my witness that, if I hesitate now, it is because I would not listen to my own selfish heart. Yet never, never to see her again,--my child! And it was but as the infant that I beheld her! O friend, friend!" (and, stopping short with a burst of uncontrollable emotion, he bowed his head upon his servant's shoulder), "thou knowest what I have endured and suffered at my hearth, as in my country; the wrong, the perfidy, the-- the--" His voice again failed him; be clung to his servant's breast, and his whole frame shook. "But your child, the innocent one--think now only of her!" faltered Giacomo, struggling with his own sobs. "True, only of her," replied the exile, raising his face, "only of her. Put aside thy thoughts for thyself, friend,--counsel me. If I were to send for Violante, and if, transplanted to these keen airs, she drooped and died--Look, look, the priest says that she needs such tender care; or if I myself were summoned from the world, to leave her in it alone, friendless, homeless, breadless perhaps, at the age of woman's sharpest trial against temptation, would she not live to mourn the cruel egotism that closed on her infant innocence the gates of the House of God?" Jackeymo was appalled by this appeal; and indeed Riccabocca had never before thus reverently spoken of the cloister. In his hours of philosophy, he was wont to sneer at monks and nuns, priesthood and superstition. But now, in that hour of emotion, the Old Religion reclaimed her empire; and the sceptical world-wise man, thinking only of his child, spoke and felt with a child's simple faith. CHAPTER XX. "But again I say," murmured Jackeymo, scarce audibly, and after a long silence, "if the padrone would make up his mind--to marry!" He expected that his master would start up in his customary indignation at such a suggestion,--nay, he might not have been sorry so to have changed the current of feeling; but the poor Italian only winced slightly, and mildly withdrawing himself from his servant's supporting arm, again paced the terrace, but this time quietly and in silence. A quarter of an hour thus passed. "Give me the pipe," said Dr. Riccabocca, passing into the belvidere. Jackeymo again struck the spark, and, wonderfully relieved at the padrone's return to the habitual adviser, mentally besought his sainted namesake to bestow a double portion of soothing wisdom on the benignant influences of the weed. CHAPTER XXI. Dr. Riccabocca had been some little time in the solitude of the belvidere, when Lenny Fairfield, not knowing that his employer was therein, entered to lay down a book which the doctor had lent him, with injunctions to leave it on a certain table when done with. Riccabocca looked up at the sound of the young peasant's step. "I beg your honour's pardon, I did not know--" "Never mind: lay the book there. I wish to speak with you. You look well, my child: this air agrees with you as well as that of Hazeldean?" "Oh, yes, Sir!" "Yet it is higher ground,--more exposed?" "That can hardly be, sir," said Lenny; "there are many plants grow here which don't flourish at the squire's. The hill yonder keeps off the east wind, and the place lays to the south." "Lies, not lays, Lenny. What are the principal complaints in these parts?" "Eh, sir?" "I mean what maladies, what diseases?" "I never heard tell of any, sir, except the rheumatism." "No low fevers, no consumption?" "Never heard of them, sir." Riccabocca drew a long breath, as if relieved. "That seems a very kind family at the Hall." "I have nothing to say against it," answered Lenny, bluntly. "I have not been treated justly. But as that book says, sir, 'It is not every one who comes into the world with a silver spoon in his mouth.'" Little thought the doctor that those wise maxims may leave sore thoughts behind them! He was too occupied with the subject most at his own heart to think then of what was in Lenny Fairfield's. "Yes; a kind, English domestic family. Did you see much of Miss Hazeldean?" "Not so much as of the Lady." "Is she liked in the village, think you?" "Miss Jemima? Yes. She never did harm. Her little dog bit me once,-- she did not ask me to beg its pardon, she asked mine! She's a very nice young lady; the girls say she is very affable; and," added Lenny, with a smile, "there are always more weddings going on when she is down at the Hall." "Oh!" said Riccabocca. Then, after a long whiff, "Did you ever see her play with the little children? Is she fond of children, do you think?" "Lord, sir, you guess everything! She's never so pleased as when she's playing with the babies." "Humph!" grunted Riccabocca. "Babies! well, that's woman-like. I don't mean exactly babies, but when they're older,--little girls?" "Indeed, Sir, I dare say; but," said Lenny, primly, "I never as yet kept company with the little girls." "Quite right, Lenny; be equally discreet all your life. Mrs. Dale is very intimate with Miss Hazeldean,--more than with the squire's lady. Why is that, think you?" "Well, sir," said Leonard, shrewdly, "Mrs. Dale has her little tempers, though she's a very good lady; and Madame Hazeldean is rather high, and has a spirit. But Miss Jemima is so soft: any one could live with Miss Jemima, as Joe and the servants say at the Hall." "Indeed! get my hat out of the parlour, and--just bring a clothes-brush, Lenny. A fine sunny day for a walk." After this most mean and dishonourable inquisition into the character and popular repute of Miss Hazeldean, Signor Riccabocca seemed as much cheered up and elated as if he had committed some very noble action; and he walked forth in the direction of the Hall with a far lighter and livelier step than that with which he had paced the terrace. "Monsignore San Giacomo, by thy help and the pipe's, the padrone shall have his child!" muttered the servant, looking up from the garden. CHAPTER XXII. Yet Dr. Riccabocca was not rash. The man who wants his wedding-garment to fit him must allow plenty of time for the measure. But from that day, the Italian notably changed his manner towards Miss Hazeldean. He ceased that profusion of compliment in which he had hitherto carried off in safety all serious meaning. For indeed the doctor considered that compliments to a single gentleman were what the inky liquid it dispenses is to the cuttle-fish, that by obscuring the water sails away from its enemy. Neither did he, as before, avoid prolonged conversations with the young lady, and contrive to escape from all solitary rambles by her side. On the contrary, he now sought every occasion to be in her society; and entirely dropping the language of gallantry, he assumed something of the earnest tone of friendship. He bent down his intellect to examine and plumb her own. To use a very homely simile, he blew away that froth which there is on the surface of mere acquaintanceships, especially with the opposite sex; and which, while it lasts, scarce allows you to distinguish between small beer and double X. Apparently Dr. Riccabocca was satisfied with his scrutiny,--at all events under that froth there was no taste of bitter. The Italian might not find any great strength of intellect in Miss Jemima, but he found that, disentangled from many little whims and foibles,--which he had himself the sense to perceive were harmless enough if they lasted, and not so absolutely constitutional but what they might be removed by a tender hand,--Miss Hazeldean had quite enough sense to comprehend the plain duties of married life; and if the sense could fail, it found a substitute in good old homely English principles, and the instincts of amiable, kindly feelings. I know not how it is, but your very clever man never seems to care so much as your less gifted mortals for cleverness in his helpmate. Your scholars and poets and ministers of state are more often than not found assorted with exceedingly humdrum, good sort of women, and apparently like them all the better for their deficiencies. Just see how happily Racine lived with his wife, and what an angel he thought her, and yet she had never read his plays. Certainly Goethe never troubled the lady who called him "Mr. Privy Councillor" with whims about "monads," and speculations on colour, nor those stiff metaphysical problems on which one breaks one's shins in the Second Past of the "Faust." Probably it may be that such great geniuses--knowing that, as compared with themselves, there is little difference between your clever woman and your humdrum woman--merge at once all minor distinctions, relinquish all attempts at sympathy in hard intellectual pursuits, and are quite satisfied to establish that tie which, after all, best resists wear and tear,--namely, the tough household bond between one human heart and another. At all events, this, I suspect, was the reasoning of Dr. Riccabocca, when one morning, after a long walk with Miss Hazeldean, he muttered to himself,-- "Duro con duro Non fete mai buon muro,"-- which may bear the paraphrase, "Bricks without mortar would make a very bad wall." There was quite enough in Miss Jemima's disposition to make excellent mortar: the doctor took the bricks to himself. When his examination was concluded, our philosopher symbolically evinced the result he had arrived at by a very simple proceeding on his part, which would have puzzled you greatly if you had not paused, and meditated thereon, till you saw all that it implied. /Dr. Riccabocca, took of his spectacles!/ He wiped them carefully, put them into their shagreen case, and locked them in his bureau,--that is to say, he left off wearing his spectacles. You will observe that there was a wonderful depth of meaning in that critical symptom, whether it be regarded as a sign outward, positive, and explicit, or a sign metaphysical, mystical, and esoteric. For, as to the last, it denoted that the task of the spectacles was over; that, when a philosopher has made up his mind to marry, it is better henceforth to be shortsighted--nay, even somewhat purblind--than to be always scrutinizing the domestic felicity, to which he is about to resign himself, through a pair of cold, unillusory barnacles. As for the things beyond the hearth, if he cannot see without spectacles, is he not about to ally to his own defective vision a good sharp pair of eyes, never at fault where his interests are concerned? On the other hand, regarded positively, categorically, and explicitly, Dr. Roccabocca, by laying aside those spectacles, signified that he was about to commence that happy initiation of courtship when every man, be he ever so much a philosopher, wishes to look as young and as handsome as time and nature will allow. Vain task to speed the soft language of the eyes through the medium of those glassy interpreters! I remember, for my own part, that once, on a visit to the town of Adelaide, I--Pisistratus Caxton--was in great danger of falling in love,--with a young lady, too, who would have brought me a very good fortune,--when she suddenly produced from her reticule a very neat pair of No. 4, set in tortoiseshell, and fixing upon me their Gorgon gaze, froze the astonished Cupid into stone! And I hold it a great proof of the wisdom of Riccabocca, and of his vast experience in mankind, that he was not above the consideration of what your pseudo-sages would have regarded as foppish and ridiculous trifles. It argued all the better for that happiness which is our being's end and aim that in condescending to play the lover, he put those unbecoming petrifiers under lock and key. And certainly, now the spectacles were abandoned, it was impossible to deny that the Italian had remarkably handsome eyes. Even through the spectacles, or lifted a little above them, they were always bright and expressive; but without those adjuncts, the blaze was softer and more tempered: they had that look which the French call veloute, or velvety; and he appeared altogether ten years younger. If our Ulysses, thus rejuvenated by his Minerva, has not fully made up his mind to make a Penelope of Miss Jemima, all I can say is, that he is worse than Polyphemus, who was only an Anthropophagos,-- He preys upon the weaker sex, and is a Gynopophagite! CHAPTER XXIII. "And you commission me, then, to speak to our dear Jemima?" said Mrs. Dale, joyfully, and without any bitterness whatever in that "dear." DR. RICCABOCCA.--"Nay, before speaking to Miss Hazeldean, it would surely be proper to know how far my addresses would be acceptable to the family." MRS. DALE.--"Ah!" DR. RICCAROCCA.--"The squire is of course the head of the family." MRS. DALE (absent and distraite).--"The squire--yes, very true--quite proper." (Then, looking up, and with naivete) "Can you believe me? I never thought of the squire. And he is such an odd man, and has so many English prejudices, that really--dear me, how vexatious that it should never once have occurred to me that Mr. Hazeldean had a voice in the matter! Indeed, the relationship is so distant, it is not like being her father; and Jemima is of age, and can do as she pleases; and--but, as you say, it is quite proper that he should be consulted as the head of the family." DR. RICCASOCCA.--"And you think that the Squire of Hazeldean might reject my alliance! Pshaw! that's a grand word indeed,--I mean, that he might object very reasonably to his cousin's marriage with a foreigner, of whom he can know nothing, except that which in all countries is disreputable, and is said in this to be criminal,--poverty." MRS. DALE (kindly)--"You misjudge us poor English people, and you wrong the squire, Heaven bless him! for we were poor enough when he singled out my husband from a hundred for the minister of his parish, for his neighbour and his friend. I will speak to him fearlessly--" DR. RICCABOCCA.---"And frankly. And now I have used that word, let me go on with the confession which your kindly readiness, my fair friend, somewhat interrupted. I said that if I might presume to think my addresses would be acceptable to Miss Hazeldean and her family, I was too sensible of her amiable qualities not to--not to--" MRS. DALE (with demure archness).--"Not to be the happiest of men,-- that's the customary English phrase, Doctor." RICCABOCCA (gallantly).--"There cannot be a better. But," continued he, seriously, "I wish it first to be understood that I have--been married before!" MRS. DALE (astonished).--"Married before!" RICCABOCCA.--"And that I have an only child, dear to me,--inexpressibly dear. That child, a daughter, has hitherto lived abroad; circumstances now render it desirable that she should make her home with me; and I own fairly that nothing has so attached me to Miss Hazeldean, nor so induced my desire for our matrimonial connection, as my belief that she has the heart and the temper to become a kind mother to my little one." MRS. DALE (with feeling and warmth).--"You judge her rightly there." RICCABOCCA.--"Now, in pecuniary matters, as you may conjecture from my mode of life, I have nothing to offer to Miss Hazeldean correspondent with her own fortune, whatever that may be!" MRS. DALE.--"That difficulty is obviated by settling Miss Hazeldean's fortune on herself, which is customary in such cases." Dr. Riccabocca's face lengthened. "And my child, then?" said he, feelingly. There was something in that appeal so alien from all sordid and merely personal mercenary motives, that Mrs. Dale could not have had the heart to make the very rational suggestion, "But that child is not Jemima's, and you may have children by her." She was touched, and replied hesitatingly, "But from what you and Jemima may jointly possess you can save something annually,--you can insure your life for your child. We did so when our poor child whom we lost was born" (the tears rushed into Mrs. Dale's eyes); "and I fear that Charles still insures his life for my sake, though Heaven knows that--that--" The tears burst out. That little heart, quick and petulant though it was, had not a fibre of the elastic muscular tissues which are mercifully bestowed on the hearts of predestined widows. Dr. Riccabocca could not pursue the subject of life insurances further. But the idea--which had never occurred to the foreigner before, though so familiar with us English people when only possessed of a life income--pleased him greatly. I will do him the justice to say that he preferred it to the thought of actually appropriating to himself and to his child a portion of Miss Hazeldean's dower. Shortly afterwards he took his leave, and Mrs. Dale hastened to seek her husband in his study, inform him of the success of her matrimonial scheme, and consult him as to the chance of the squire's acquiescence therein. "You see," said she, hesitatingly, "though the squire might be glad to see Jemima married to some Englishman, yet if he asks who and what is this Dr. Riccabocca, how am I to answer him?" "You should have thought of that before," said Mr. Dale, with unwonted asperity; "and, indeed, if I had ever believed anything serious could come out of what seemed to me so absurd, I should long since have requested you not to interfere in such matters. Good heavens!" continued the parson, changing colour, "if we should have assisted, underhand as it were, to introduce into the family of a man to whom we owe so much a connection that he would dislike, how base we should be, how ungrateful!" Poor Mrs. Dale was frightened by this speech, and still more by her husband's consternation and displeasure. To do Mrs. Dale justice, whenever her mild partner was really either grieved or offended, her little temper vanished,--she became as meek as a lamb. As soon as she recovered the first shock she experienced, she hastened to dissipate the parson's apprehensions. She assured him that she was convinced that, if the squire disapproved of Riccabocca's pretensions, the Italian would withdraw them at once, and Miss Hazeldean would never know of his proposals. Therefore, in that case, no harm would be done. This assurance, coinciding with Mr. Dale's convictions as to Riccabocca's scruples on the point of honour, tended much to compose the good man; and if he did not, as my reader of the gentler sex would expect from him, feel alarm lest Miss Jemima's affections should have been irretrievably engaged, and her happiness thus put in jeopardy by the squire's refusal, it was not that the parson wanted tenderness of heart, but experience in womankind; and he believed, very erroneously, that Miss Jemima Hazeldean was not one upon whom a disappointment of that kind would produce a lasting impression. Therefore Mr. Dale, after a pause of consideration, said kindly,-- "Well, don't vex yourself,--and I was to blame quite as much as you. But, indeed, I should have thought it easier for the squire to have transplanted one of his tall cedars into his kitchen-garden than for you to inveigle Dr. Riccabocca into matrimonial intentions. But a man who could voluntarily put himself into the parish stocks for the sake of experiment must be capable of anything! However, I think it better that I, rather than yourself, should speak to the squire, and I will go at once." CHAPTER XXIV. The parson put on the shovel-hat, which--conjoined with other details in his dress peculiarly clerical, and already, even then, beginning to be out of fashion with Churchmen--had served to fix upon him emphatically the dignified but antiquated style and cognomen of "Parson;" and took his way towards the Home Farm, at which he expected to find the squire. But he had scarcely entered upon the village green when he beheld Mr. Hazeldean, leaning both hands on his stick, and gazing intently upon the parish stocks. Now, sorry am I to say that, ever since the Hegira of Lenny and his mother, the Anti-Stockian and Revolutionary spirit in Hazeldean, which the memorable homily of our parson had a while averted or suspended, had broken forth afresh. For though while Lenny was present to be mowed and jeered at, there had been no pity for him, yet no sooner was he removed from the scene of trial than a universal compassion for the barbarous usage he had received produced what is called "the reaction of public opinion." Not that those who had mowed and jeered repented them of their mockery, or considered themselves in the slightest degree the cause of his expatriation. No; they, with the rest of the villagers, laid all the blame upon the stocks. It was not to be expected that a lad of such exemplary character could be thrust into that place of ignominy, and not be sensible to the affront. And who, in the whole village, was safe, if such goings-on and puttings-in were to be tolerated in silence, and at the expense of the very best and quietest lad the village had ever known? Thus, a few days after the widow's departure, the stocks was again the object of midnight desecration: it was bedaubed and bescratched, it was hacked and hewed, it was scrawled over with pithy lamentations for Lenny, and laconic execrations on tyrants. Night after night new inscriptions appeared, testifying the sarcastic wit and the vindictive sentiment of the parish. And perhaps the stocks was only spared from axe and bonfire by the convenience it afforded to the malice of the disaffected: it became the Pasquin of Hazeldean. As disaffection naturally produces a correspondent vigour in authority, so affairs had been lately administered with greater severity than had been hitherto wont in the easy rule of the squire and his predecessors. Suspected persons were naturally marked out by Mr. Stirn, and reported to his employer, who, too proud or too pained to charge them openly with ingratitude, at first only passed them by in his walks with a silent and stiff inclination of his head; and afterwards, gradually yielding to the baleful influence of Stirn, the squire grumbled forth "that he did not see why he should be always putting himself out of his way to show kindness to those who made such a return. There ought to be a difference between the good and the bad." Encouraged by this admission, Stirn had conducted himself towards the suspected parties, and their whole kith and kin, with the iron-handed justice that belonged to his character. For some, habitual donations of milk from the dairy and vegetables from the gardens were surlily suspended; others were informed that their pigs were always trespassing on the woods in search of acorns, or that they were violating the Game Laws in keeping lurchers. A beer-house, popular in the neighbourhood, but of late resorted to over-much by the grievance- mongers (and no wonder, since they had become the popular party), was threatened with an application to the magistrates for the withdrawal of its license. Sundry old women, whose grandsons were notoriously ill- disposed towards the stocks, were interdicted from gathering dead sticks under the avenues, on pretence that they broke down the live boughs; and, what was more obnoxious to the younger members of the parish than most other retaliatory measures, three chestnut-trees, one walnut, and two cherry-trees, standing at the bottom of the Park, and which had, from time immemorial, been given up to the youth of Hazeldean, were now solemnly placed under the general defence of "private property." And the crier had announced that, henceforth, all depredators on the fruit trees in Copse Hollow would be punished with the utmost rigour of the law. Stirn, indeed, recommended much more stringent proceedings than all these indications of a change of policy, which, he averred, would soon bring the parish to its senses,--such as discontinuing many little jobs of unprofitable work that employed the surplus labour of the village. But there the squire, falling into the department and under the benigner influence of his Harry, was as yet not properly hardened. When it came to a question that affected the absolute quantity of loaves to be consumed by the graceless mouths that fed upon him, the milk of human kindness--with which Providence has so bountifully supplied that class of the mammalia called the "Bucolic," and of which our squire had an extra "yield"--burst forth, and washed away all the indignation of the harsher Adam. Still your policy of half-measures, which irritates without crushing its victims, which flaps an exasperated wasp-nest with a silk pocket- handkerchief, instead of blowing it up with a match and train, is rarely successful; and after three or four other and much guiltier victims than Lenny had been incarcerated in the stocks, the parish of Hazeldean was ripe for any enormity. Pestilent Jacobinical tracts, conceived and composed in the sinks of manufacturing towns, found their way into the popular beer-house,--Heaven knows how, though the tinker was suspected of being the disseminator by all but Stirn, who still, in a whisper, accused the Papishers. And, finally, there appeared amongst the other graphic embellishments which the poor stocks had received, the rude gravure of a gentleman in a broad-brimmed hat and top-boots, suspended from a gibbet, with the inscription beneath, "A warnin to hall tirans--mind your hi!--- sighnde Captin sTraw." It was upon this significant and emblematic portraiture that the squire was gazing when the parson joined him. "Well, Parson," said Mr. Hazeldean, with a smile which he meant to be pleasant and easy, but which was exceedingly bitter and grim, "I wish you joy of your flock,--you see they have just hanged me in effigy!" The parson stared, and though greatly shocked, smothered his emotion; and attempted, with the wisdom of the serpent and the mildness of the dove, to find another original for the effigy. "It is very bad," quoth he, "but not so bad as all that, Squire; that's not the shape of your bat. It is evidently meant for Mr. Stirn." "Do you think so?" said the squire, softened. "Yet the top-boots--Stirn never wears top-boots." "No more do you, except in the hunting-field. If you look again, those are not tops, they are leggings,--Stirn wears leggings. Besides, that flourish, which is meant for a nose, is a kind of hook, like Stirn's; whereas your nose--though by no means a snub--rather turns up than not, as the Apollo's does, according to the plaster cast in Riccabocca's parlour." "Poor Stirn!" said the squire, in a tone that evinced complacency, not unmingled with compassion, "that's what a man gets in this world by being a faithful servant, and doing his duty with zeal for his employer. But you see things have come to a strange pass, and the question now is, what course to pursue. The miscreants hitherto have defied all vigilance, and Stirn recommends the employment of a regular nightwatch, with a lanthorn and bludgeon." "That may protect the stocks certainly; but will it keep those detestable tracts out of the beer-house?" "We shall shut the beer-house up the next sessions." "The tracts will break out elsewhere,--the humour's in the blood!" "I've half a mind to run off to Brighton or Leamingtongood hunting at Leamington--for a year, just to let the rogues see how they can get on without me!" The squire's lip trembled. "My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the parson, taking his friend's hand, "I don't want to parade my superior wisdom; but, if you had taken my advice, 'quieta non movere!' Was there ever a parish so peaceable as this, or a country gentleman so beloved as you were, before you undertook the task which has dethroned kings and ruined States,--that of wantonly meddling with antiquity, whether for the purpose of uncalled-for repairs, or the revival of obsolete uses." At this rebuke, the squire did not manifest his constitutional tendencies to choler; but he replied almost meekly, "If it were to do again, faith, I would leave the parish to the enjoyment of the shabbiest pair of stocks that ever disgraced a village. Certainly I meant it for the best,--an ornament to the green; however, now the stocks is rebuilt, the stocks must be supported. Will Hazeldean is not the man to give way to a set of thankless rapscallions." "I think," said the parson, "that you will allow that the House of Tudor, whatever its faults, was a determined, resolute dynasty enough,--high- hearted and strong-headed. A Tudor would never have fallen into the same calamities as the poor Stuart did!" "What the plague has the House of Tudor got to do with my stocks?" "A great deal. Henry VIII. found a subsidy so unpopular that he gave it up; and the people, in return, allowed him to cut off as many heads as he pleased, besides those in his own family. Good Queen Bess, who, I know, is your idol in history--" "To be sure!--she knighted my ancestor at Tilbury Fort." "Good Queen Bess struggled hard to maintain a certain monopoly; she saw it would not do, and she surrendered it with that frank heartiness which becomes a sovereign, and makes surrender a grace." "Ha! and you would have me give up the stocks?" "I would much rather the stocks had remained as it was before you touched it; but, as it is, if you could find a good plausible pretext--and there is an excellent one at hand,--the sternest kings open prisons, and grant favours, upon joyful occasions. Now a marriage in the royal family is of course a joyful occasion! and so it should be in that of the King of Hazeldean." Admire that artful turn in the parson's eloquence!---it was worthy of Riccabocca himself. Indeed, Mr. Dale had profited much by his companionship with that Machiavellian intellect. "A marriage,--yes; but Frank has only just got into coattails!" "I did not allude to Frank, but to your cousin Jemima!" CHAPTER XXV. The squire staggered as if the breath had been knocked out of him, and, for want of a better seat, sat down on the stocks. All the female heads in the neighbouring cottages peered, themselves unseen, through the casements. What could the squire be about? What new mischief did he meditate? Did he mean to fortify the stocks? Old Gaffer Solomons, who had an indefinite idea of the lawful power of squires, and who had been for the last ten minutes at watch on his threshold, shook his head and said, "Them as a cut out the mon a hanging, as a put it in the squire's head!" "Put what?" asked his grand-daughter. "The gallus!" answered Solomons,--"he be a going to have it hung from the great elfin-tree. And the parson, good mon, is a quoting Scripter agin it; you see he's a taking off his gloves, and a putting his two han's together, as he do when he pray for the sick, Jeany." That description of the parson's mien and manner, which with his usual niceness of observation, Gaffer Solomons thus sketched off, will convey to you some idea of the earnestness with which the parson pleaded the cause he had undertaken to advocate. He dwelt much upon the sense of propriety which the foreigner had evinced in requesting that the squire might be consulted before any formal communication to his cousin; and he repeated Mrs. Dale's assurance, that such were Riccabocca's high standard of honour and belief in the sacred rights of hospitality, that, if the squire withheld his consent to his proposals, the parson was convinced that the Italian would instantly retract them. Now, considering that Miss Hazeldean was, to say the least, come to years of discretion, and the squire had long since placed her property entirely at her own disposal, Mr. Hazeldean was forced to acquiesce in the parson's corollary remark, "That this was a delicacy which could not be expected from every English pretender to the lady's hand." Seeing that he had so far cleared the ground, the parson went on to intimate, though with great tact, that since Miss Jemima would probably marry sooner or later (and, indeed, that the squire could not wish to prevent her), it might be better for all parties concerned that it should be with some one who, though a foreigner, was settled in the neighbourhood, and of whose character what was known was certainly favourable, rather than run the hazard of her being married for her money by some adventurer, or Irish fortune-hunter, at the watering-places she yearly visited. Then he touched lightly on Riccabocca's agreeable and companionable qualities; and concluded with a skilful peroration upon the excellent occasion the wedding would afford to reconcile Hall and parish, by making a voluntary holocaust of the stocks. As he concluded, the squire's brow, before thoughtful, though not sullen, cleared up benignly. To say truth, the squire was dying to get rid of the stocks, if he could but do so handsomely and with dignity; and had all the stars in the astrological horoscope conjoined together to give Miss Jemima "assurance of a husband," they could not so have served her with the squire as that conjunction between the altar and the stocks which the parson had effected! Accordingly, when Mr. Dale had come to an end, the squire replied, with great placidity and good sense, "That Mr. Rickeybockey had behaved very much like a gentleman, and that he was very much obliged to him; that he [the squire] had no right to interfere in the matter, further than with his advice; that Jemima was old enough to choose for herself, and that, as the parson had implied, after all she might go farther and fare worse,--indeed, the farther she went (that is, the longer she waited) the worse she was likely to fare. I own, for my part," continued the squire, "that though I like Rickeybockey very much, I never suspected that Jemima was caught with his long face; but there's no accounting for tastes. My Harry, indeed, was more shrewd, and gave me many a hint, for which I only laughed at her. Still I ought to have thought it looked queer when Mounseer took to disguising himself by leaving off his glasses, ha, ha! I wonder what Harry will say; let's go and talk to her." The parson, rejoiced at this easy way of taking the matter, hooked his arm into the squire's, and they walked amicably towards the Hall. But on coming first into the gardens they found Mrs. Hazeldean herself, clipping dead leaves or fading flowers from her rose-trees. The squire stole slyly behind her, and startled her in her turn by putting his arm round her waist, and saluting her smooth cheek with one of his hearty kisses; which, by the way, from some association of ideas, was a conjugal freedom that he usually indulged whenever a wedding was going on in the village. "Fie, William!" said Mrs. Hazeldean, coyly, and blushing as she saw the parson. "Well, who's going to be married now?" "Lord! was there ever such a woman?--she's guessed it!" cried the squire, in great admiration. "Tell her all about it, Parson." The parson obeyed. Mrs. Hazeldean, as the reader may suppose, showed much less surprise than her husband had done; but she took the news graciously, and made much the same answer as that which had occurred to the squire, only with somewhat more qualification and reserve. "Signor Riccabocca had behaved very handsomely; and though a daughter of the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean might expect a much better marriage in a worldly point of view, yet as the lady in question had deferred finding one so long, it would be equally idle and impertinent now to quarrel with her choice,--if indeed she should decide on accepting Signor Riccabocca. As for fortune, that was a consideration for the two contracting parties. Still, it ought, to be pointed out to Miss Jemima that the interest of her fortune would afford but a very small income. That Dr. Riccabocca was a widower was another matter for deliberation; and it seemed rather suspicious that he should have been hitherto so close upon all matters connected with his former life. Certainly his manners were in his favour, and as long as he was merely an acquaintance, and at most a tenant, no one had a right to institute inquiries of a strictly private nature; but that, when he was about to marry a Hazeldean of Hazeldean, it became the squire at least to know a little more about him,--who and what he was. Why did he leave his own country? English people went abroad to save: no foreigner would choose England as a country in which to save money! She supposed that a foreign doctor was no very great things; probably he had been a professor in some Italian university. At all events, if the squire interfered at all, it was on such points that he should request information." "My clear madam," said the parson, "what you say is extremely just. As to the causes which have induced our friend to expatriate himself, I think we need not look far for them. He is evidently one of the many Italian refugees whom political disturbances have driven to a land of which it is the boast to receive all exiles of whatever party. For his respectability of birth and family he certainly ought to obtain some vouchers. And if that be the only objection, I trust we may soon congratulate Miss Hazeldean on a marriage with a man who, though certainly very poor, has borne privations without a murmur; has preferred all hardship to debt; has scorned to attempt betraying the young lady into any clandestine connection; who, in short, has shown himself so upright and honest, that I hope my dear Mr. Hazeldean will forgive him if he is only a doctor--probably of Laws--and not, as most foreigners pretend to be, a marquis or a baron at least." "As to that," cried the squire, "It is the best thing I know about Rickeybockey that he don't attempt to humbug us by any such foreign trumpery. Thank Heaven, the Hazeldeans of Hazeldean were never tuft- hunters and title-mongers; and if I never ran after an English lord, I should certainly be devilishly ashamed of a brother-in-law whom I was forced to call markee or count! I should feel sure he was a courier, or runaway valley-de-sham. Turn up your nose at a doctor, indeed, Harry!--pshaw, good English style that! Doctor! my aunt married a Doctor of Divinity--excellent man--wore a wig and was made a dean! So long as Rickeybockey is not a doctor of physic, I don't care a button. If he's that, indeed, it would be suspicious; because, you see, those foreign doctors of physic are quacks, and tell fortunes, and go about on a stage with a Merry-Andrew." "Lord! Hazeldean, where on earth did you pick up that idea?" said Harry, laughing. "Pick it up!--why, I saw a fellow myself at the cattle fair last year-- when I was buying short-horns--with a red waistcoat and a cocked hat, a little like the parson's shovel. He called himself Dr. Phoscophornio, and sold pills. The Merry-Andrew was the funniest creature, in salmon- coloured tights, turned head over heels, and said he came from Timbuctoo. No, no: if Rickeybockey's a physic Doctor, we shall have Jemima in a pink tinsel dress tramping about the country in a caravan!" At this notion both the squire and his wife laughed so heartily that the parson felt the thing was settled, and slipped away, with the intention of making his report to Riccabocca. CHAPTER XXVI. It was with a slight disturbance of his ordinary suave and well-bred equanimity that the Italian received the information that he need apprehend no obstacle to his suit from the insular prejudices or the worldly views of the lady's family. Not that he was mean and cowardly enough to recoil from the near and unclouded prospect of that felicity which he had left off his glasses to behold with unblinking, naked eyes, --no, there his mind was made up; but he had met in life with much that inclines a man towards misanthropy, and he was touched not only by the interest in his welfare testified by a heretical priest, but by the generosity with which he was admitted into a well-born and wealthy family, despite his notorious poverty and his foreign descent. He conceded the propriety of the only stipulation, which was conveyed to him by the parson with all the delicacy that became one long professionally habituated to deal with the subtler susceptibilities of mankind,--namely, that, amongst Riccabocca's friends or kindred, some person should be found whose report would confirm the persuasion of his respectability entertained by his neighbours,--he assented, I say, to the propriety of this condition; but it was not with alacrity and eagerness. His brow became clouded. The parson hastened to assure him that the squire was not a man /qui stupet in titulis/,--["Who was besotted with titles."]-- that he neither expected nor desired to find an origin and rank for his brother-in-law above that decent mediocrity of condition to which it was evident from Riccabocca's breeding and accomplishments he could easily establish his claim. "And though," said he, smiling, "the squire is a warm politician in his own country, and would never see his sister again, I fear, if she married some convicted enemy of our happy constitution, yet for foreign politics he does not care a straw; so that if, as I suspect, your exile arises from some quarrel with your government,-- which, being foreign, he takes for granted must be insupportable,--he would but consider you as he would a Saxon who fled from the iron hand of William the Conqueror, or a Lancastrian expelled by the Yorkists in our Wars of the Roses." The Italian smiled. "Mr. Hazeldean shall be satisfied," said he, simply. "I see, by the squire's newspaper, that an English gentleman who knew me in my own country has just arrived in London. I will write to him for a testimonial, at least to my probity and character. Probably he may be known to you by name,--nay, he must be, for he was a distinguished officer in the late war. I allude to Lord L'Estrange." The parson started. "You know Lord L'Estrange?--profligate, bad man, I fear." "Profligate! bad!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "Well, calumnious as the world is, I should never have thought that such expressions would be applied to one who, though I knew him but little,--knew him chiefly by the service he once rendered to me,--first taught me to love and revere the English name!" "He may be changed since--" the parson paused. "Since when?" asked Riccabocca, with evident curiosity. Mr. Dale seemed embarrassed. "Excuse me," said he, "it is many years ago; and in short the opinion I then formed of the nobleman you named was based upon circumstances which I cannot communicate." The punctilious Italian bowed in silence, but he still looked as if he should have liked to prosecute inquiry. After a pause he said, "Whatever your impression respecting Lord L'Estrange, there is nothing, I suppose, which would lead you to doubt his honour, or reject his testimonial in my favour?" "According to fashionable morality," said Mr. Dale, rather precisely, "I know of nothing that could induce me to suppose that Lord L'Estrange would not, in this instance, speak the truth. And he has unquestionably a high reputation as a soldier, and a considerable position in the world." Therewith the parson took his leave. A few days afterwards, Dr. Riccabocca inclosed to the squire, in a blank envelope, a letter he had received from Harley L'Estrange. It was evidently intended for the squire's eye, and to serve as a voucher for the Italian's respectability; but this object was fulfilled, not in the coarse form of a direct testimonial, but with a tact and delicacy which seemed to show more than the fine breeding to be expected from one in Lord L'Estrange's station. It evinced that most exquisite of all politeness which comes from the heart; a certain tone of affectionate respect (which even the homely sense of the squire felt, intuitively, proved far more in favour of Riccabocca than the most elaborate certificate of his qualities and antecedents) pervaded the whole, and would have sufficed in itself to remove all scruples from a mind much more suspicious and exacting than that of the Squire of Hazeldean. But, to and behold! an obstacle now occurred to the parson, of which he ought to have thought long before,-- namely, the Papistical religion of the Italian. Dr. Riccabocca was professedly a Roman Catholic. He so little obtruded that fact--and, indeed, had assented so readily to any animadversions upon the superstition and priestcraft which, according to Protestants, are the essential characteristics of Papistical communities--that it was not till the hymeneal torch, which brings all faults to light, was fairly illumined for the altar, that the remembrance of a faith so cast into the shade burst upon the conscience of the parson. The first idea that then occurred to him was the proper and professional one,--namely, the conversion of Dr. Riccabocca. He hastened to his study, took down from his shelves long neglected volumes of controversial divinity, armed himself with an arsenal of authorities, arguments, and texts; then, seizing the shovel-hat, posted off to the Casino. CHAPTER XXVII. The parson burst upon the philosopher like an avalanche! He was so full of his subject that he could not let it out in prudent driblets. No, he went souse upon the astounded Riccabocca-- "Tremendo Jupiter ipse rueus tumultu." The sage--shrinking deeper into his armchair, and drawing his dressing- robe more closely round him--suffered the parson to talk for three quarters of an hour, till indeed he had thoroughly proved his case; and, like Brutus, "paused for a reply." Then said Riccabocca mildly: "In much of what you have urged so ably, and so suddenly, I am inclined to agree. But base is the man who formally forswears the creed he has inherited from his fathers, and professed since the cradle up to years of maturity, when the change presents itself in the guise of a bribe; when, for such is human nature, he can hardly distinguish or disentangle the appeal to his reason from the lure to his interests,--here a text, and there a dowry!--here Protestantism, there Jemima! Own, my friend, that the soberest casuist would see double under the inebriating effects produced by so mixing his polemical liquors. Appeal, my good Mr. Dale, from Philip drunken to Philip sober! --from Riccabocca intoxicated with the assurance of your excellent lady, that he is about to be 'the happiest of men,' to Riccabocca accustomed to his happiness, and carrying it off with the seasoned equability of one grown familiar with stimulants,--in a word, appeal from Riccabocca the wooer to Riccabocca the spouse. I may be convertible, but conversion is a slow progress; courtship should be a quick one,--ask Miss Jemima. /Finalmente/, marry me first, and convert me afterwards!" "You take this too jestingly," began the parson; "and I don't see why, with your excellent understanding, truths so plain and obvious should not strike you at once." "Truths," interrupted Riccabocca, profoundly, "are the slowest growing things in the world! It took fifteen hundred years from the date of the Christian era to produce your own Luther, and then he flung his Bible at Satan (I have seen the mark made by the book on the wall of his prison in Germany), besides running off with a nun, which no Protestant clergyman would think it proper and right to do nowadays." Then he added, with seriousness, "Look you, my dear sir, I should lose my own esteem if I were even to listen to you now with becoming attention,--now, I say, when you hint that the creed I have professed may be in the way of my advantage. If so, I must keep the creed and resign the advantage. But if, as I trust not only as a Christian but a man of honour, you will defer this discussion, I will promise to listen to you hereafter; and though, to say truth, I believe that you will not convert me, I will promise you faithfully never to interfere with my wife's religion." "And any children you may have?" "Children!" said Dr. Riccabocca, recoiling; "you are not contented with firing your pocket-pistol right in my face! you must also pepper me all over with small shot. Children! well, if they are girls, let them follow the faith of their mother; and if boys, while in childhood, let them be contented with learning to be Christians; and when they grow into men, let them choose for themselves which is the best form for the practice of the great principles which all sects have in common." "But," began Mr. Dale again, pulling a large book from his pocket. Dr. Riccabocca flung open the window, and jumped out of it. It was the rapidest and most dastardly flight you could possibly conceive; but it was a great compliment to the argumentative powers of the parson, and he felt it as such. Nevertheless, Mr. Dale thought it right to have a long conversation, both with the squire and Miss Jemima herself, upon the subject which his intended convert had so ignominiously escaped. The squire, though a great foe to Popery, politically considered, had also quite as great a hatred to renegades and apostates. And in his heart he would have despised Riccabocca if he could have thrown off his religion as easily as he had done his spectacles. Therefore he said simply, "Well, it is certainly a great pity that Rickeybockey is not of the Church of England; though, I take it, that would be unreasonable to expect in a man born and bred under the nose of the Inquisition" (the squire firmly believed that the Inquisition was in full force in all the Italian States, with whips, racks, and thumbscrews; and, indeed, his chief information of Italy was gathered from a perusal he had given in early youth to "The One-Handed Monk"); "but I think he speaks very fairly, on the whole, as to his wife and children. And the thing's gone too far now to retract. It's all your fault for not thinking of it before; and I've now just made up my mind as to the course to pursue respecting the d---d stocks!" As for Miss Jemima, the parson left her with a pious thanksgiving that Riccabocca at least was a Christian, and not a Pagan, Mahometan, or Jew! CHAPTER XXVIII. There is that in a wedding which appeals to a universal sympathy. No other event in the lives of their superiors in rank creates an equal sensation amongst the humbler classes. From the moment the news that Miss Jemima was to be married had spread throughout the village, all the old affection for the squire and his House burst forth the stronger for its temporary suspension. Who could think of the stocks in such a season? The stocks were swept out of fashion,--hunted from remembrance as completely as the question of Repeal or the thought of Rebellion from the warm Irish heart, when the fair young face of the Royal Wife beamed on the sister isle. Again cordial courtesies were dropped at the thresholds by which the squire passed to his own farm; again the sunburned brows uncovered--no more with sullen ceremony--were smoothed into cheerful gladness at his nod. Nay, the little ones began again to assemble at their ancient rendezvous by the stocks, as if either familiarized with the phenomenon, or convinced that, in the general sentiment of good-will, its powers of evil were annulled. The squire tasted once more the sweets of the only popularity which is much worth having, and the loss of which a wise man would reasonably deplore,--namely, the popularity which arises from a persuasion of our goodness, and a reluctance to recall our faults. Like all blessings, the more sensibly felt from previous interruption, the squire enjoyed this restored popularity with an exhilarated sense of existence; his stout heart beat more vigorously; his stalwart step trod more lightly; his comely English face looked comelier and more English than ever,--you would have been a merrier man for a week to have come within hearing of his jovial laugh. He felt grateful to Jemima and to Riccabocca as the special agents of Providence in this general /integratio amoris/. To have looked at him, you would suppose that it was the squire who was going to be married a second time to his Harry! One may well conceive that such would have been an inauspicious moment for Parson Dale's theological scruples to have stopped that marriage, chilled all the sunshine it diffused over the village, seen himself surrounded again by long sulky visages,--I verily believe, though a better friend of Church and State never stood on a hustings, that, rather than court such a revulsion, the squire would have found jesuitical excuses for the marriage if Riccabocca had been discovered to be the Pope in disguise! As for the stocks, its fate was now irrevocably sealed. In short, the marriage was concluded,--first privately, according to the bridegrooms creed, by a Roman Catholic clergyman, who lived in a town some miles off, and next publicly in the village church of Hazeldean. It was the heartiest rural wedding! Village girls strewed flowers on the way; a booth was placed amidst the prettiest scenery of the Park on the margin of the lake--for there was to be a dance later in the day. Even Mr. Stirn--no, Mr. Stirn was not present; so much happiness would have been the death of him! And the Papisher too, who had conjured Lenny out of the stocks nay, who had himself sat in the stocks for the very purpose of bringing them into contempt,--the Papisher! he had a lief Miss Jemima had married the devil! Indeed he was persuaded that, in point of fact, it was all one and the same. Therefore Mr. Stirn had asked leave to go and attend his uncle the pawnbroker, about to undergo a torturing operation for the stone! Frank was there, summoned from Eton for the occasion--having grown two inches taller since he left--for the one inch of which nature was to be thanked, for the other a new pair of resplendent Wellingtons. But the boy's joy was less apparent than that of others. For Jemima, was a special favourite with him, as she would have been with all boys,--for she was always kind and gentle, and made him many pretty presents whenever she came from the watering-places; and Frank knew that he should miss her sadly, and thought she had made a very queer choice. Captain Higginbotham had been invited; but to the astonishment of Jemima, he had replied to the invitation by a letter to herself, marked "private and confidential." "She must have long known," said the letter, "of his devoted attachment to her! motives of delicacy, arising from the narrowness of his income and the magnanimity of his sentiments, had alone prevented his formal proposals; but now that he was informed (he could scarcely believe his senses or command his passions) that her relations wished to force her into a BARBAROUS marriage with a foreigner of MOST FORBIDDING APPEARANCE, and most abject circumstances, he lost not a moment in laying at her feet his own hand and fortune. And he did this the more confidently, inasmuch as he could not but be aware of Miss Jemima's SECRET feelings towards him, while he was proud and happy to say, that his dear and distinguished cousin, Mr. Sharpe Currie, had honoured him with a warmth of regard which justified the most brilliant EXPECTATIONS,--likely to be soon realized, as his eminent relative had contracted a very bad liver complaint in the service of his country, and could not last long!" In all the years they had known each other, Miss Jemima, strange as it may appear, had never once suspected the captain of any other feelings to her than those of a brother. To say that she was not gratified by learning her mistake would be to say that she was more than woman. Indeed, it must have been a source of no ignoble triumph to think that she could prove her disinterested affection to her dear Riccabocca by a prompt rejection of this more brilliant offer. She couched the rejection, it is true, in the most soothing terms. But the captain evidently considered himself ill used; he did not reply to the letter, and did not come to the wedding. To let the reader into a secret, never known to Miss Jemima, Captain Higginbotham was much less influenced by Cupid than by Plutus in the offer he had made. The captain was one of that class of gentlemen who read their accounts by those corpse-lights, or will-o'-the-wisps, called expectations. Ever since the squire's grandfather had left him--then in short clothes--a legacy of L500, the captain had peopled the future with expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man talks of shares in a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little,--be now up and now down,--but it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that he should be a millionnaire one of these days. Now, though Miss Jemima was a good fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good round sum in the ghostly books of the captain. She was an expectation to the full amount of her L4000, seeing that Frank was an only child, and it would be carrying coals to Newcastle to leave him anything. Rather than see so considerable a cipher suddenly sponged out of his visionary ledger, rather than so much money should vanish clean out of the family, Captain Higginbotham had taken what he conceived, if a desperate, at least a certain, step for the preservation of his property. If the golden horn could not be had without the heifer, why, he must take the heifer into the bargain. He had never formed to himself an idea that a heifer so gentle would toss and fling him over. The blow was stunning. But no one compassionates the misfortunes of the covetous, though few perhaps are in greater need of compassion. And leaving poor Captain Higginbotham to retrieve his illusory fortunes as he best may among "the expectations" which gathered round the form of Mr. Sharpe Currie, who was the crossest old tyrant imaginable, and never allowed at his table any dishes not compounded with rice, which played Old Nick with the captain's constitutional functions, I return to the wedding at Hazeldean, just in time to see the bridegroom--who looked singularly well on the occasion-- hand the bride (who, between sunshiny tears and affectionate smiles, was really a very interesting and even a pretty bride, as brides go) into a carriage which the squire had presented to them, and depart on the orthodox nuptial excursion amidst the blessings of the assembled crowd. It may be thought strange by the unreflective that these rural spectators should so have approved and blessed the marriage of a Hazeldean of Hazeldean with a poor, outlandish, long-haired foreigner; but besides that Riccabocca, after all, had become one of the neighbourhood, and was proverbially "a civil-spoken gentleman," it is generally noticeable that on wedding occasions the bride so monopolizes interest, curiosity, and admiration that the bridegroom himself goes for little or nothing. He is merely the passive agent in the affair,--the unregarded cause of the general satisfaction. It was not Riccabocca himself that they approved and blessed,--it was the gentleman in the white waistcoat who had made Miss Jemima Madam Rickeybockey! Leaning on his wife's arm (for it was a habit of the squire to lean on his wife's arm rather than she on his, when he was specially pleased; and there was something touching in the sight of that strong sturdy frame thus insensibly, in hours of happiness, seeking dependence on the frail arm of woman),--leaning, I say, on his wife's arm, the squire, about the hour of sunset, walked down to the booth by the lake. All the parish-young and old, man, woman, and childwere assembled there, and their faces seemed to bear one family likeness, in the common emotion which animated all, as they turned to his frank, fatherly smile. Squire Hazeldean stood at the head of the long table: he filled a horn with ale from the brimming tankard beside him. Then he looked round, and lifted his hand to request silence; and ascending the chair, rose in full view of all. Every one felt that the squire was about to make a speech, and the earnestness of the attention was proportioned to the rarity of the event; for (though he was not unpractised in the oratory of the hustings) only thrice before had the squire made what could fairly be called "a speech" to the villagers of Hazeldean,--once on a kindred festive occasion, when he had presented to them his bride; once in a contested election for the shire, in which he took more than ordinary interest, and was not quite so sober as he ought to have been; once in a time of great agricultural distress, when in spite of reduction of rents, the farmers had been compelled to discard a large number of their customary labourers, and when the squire had said, "I have given up keeping the hounds because I want to make a fine piece of water (that was the origin of the lake), and to drain all the low lands round the Park. Let every man who wants work come to me!" And that sad year the parish rates of Hazeldean were not a penny the heavier. Now, for the fourth time, the squire rose, and thus he spoke,--at his right hand, Harry; at his left, Frank; at the bottom of the table, as vice-president, Parson Dale, his little wife behind him, only obscurely seen. She cried readily, and her handkerchief was already before her eyes. CHAPTER XXIX. THE SQUIRE'S SPEECH. "Friends and neighbours, I thank you kindly for coming round me this day, and for showing so much interest in me and mine. My cousin was not born amongst you as I was, but you have known her from a child. It is a familiar face, and one that never frowned, which you will miss at your cottage doors, as I and mine will miss it long in the old Hall--" Here there was a sob from some of the women, and nothing was seen of Mrs. Dale but the white handkerchief. The squire himself paused, and brushed away a tear with the back of his hand. Then he resumed, with a sudden change of voice that was electrical,-- "For we none of us prize a blessing till we have lost it! Now, friends and neighbours, a little time ago, it seemed as if some ill-will had crept into the village,--ill-will between you and me, neighbours!--why, that is not like Hazeldean!" The audience hung their heads! You never saw people look so thoroughly ashamed of themselves. The squire proceeded,-- "I don't say it was all your fault; perhaps it was mine." "Noa, noa, noa," burst forth in a general chorus. "Nay, friends," continued the squire, humbly, and in one of those illustrative aphorisms which, if less subtle than Riccabocca's, were more within reach of the popular comprehension,--"nay, we are all human, and every man has his hobby; sometimes he breaks in the hobby, and sometimes the hobby, if it is very hard in the mouth, breaks in him. One man's hobby has an ill habit of always stopping at the public house! [Laughter.] Another man's hobby refuses to stir a peg beyond the door where some buxom lass patted its neck the week before,--a hobby I rode pretty often when I went courting my good wife here! [Much laughter and applause.] Others have a lazy hobby that there's no getting on; others, a runaway hobby that there's no stopping: but to cut the matter short, my favourite hobby, as you well know, is always trotted out to any place on my property which seems to want the eye and hand of the master. I hate," cried the squire, warming, "to see things neglected and decayed, and going to the dogs! This land we live in is a good mother to us, and we can't do too much for her. It is very true, neighbours, that I owe her a good many acres, and ought to speak well of her; but what then? I live amongst you, and what I take from the rent with one hand, I divide amongst you with the other. [Low but assenting murmurs.] Now the more I improve my property, the more mouths it feeds. My great-grandfather kept a Field-book in which were entered not only the names of all the farmers and the quantity of land they held, but the average number of the labourers each employed. My grandfather and father followed his example: I have done the same. I find, neighbours, that our rents have doubled since my great-grandfather began to make the book. Ay,--but there are more than four times the number of labourers employed on the estate, and at much better wages too! Well, my men, that says a great deal in favour of improving property, and not letting it go to the dogs. [Applause.] And therefore, neighbours, you will kindly excuse my bobby: it carries grist to your mill. [Reiterated applause.] Well, but you will say, 'What's the squire driving at?' Why this, my friends: There was only one worn-out, dilapidated, tumble-down thing in the parish of Hazeldean, and it became an eyesore to me; so I saddled my hobby, and rode at it. Oh, ho! you know what I mean now! Yes, but, neighbours, you need not have taken it so to heart. That was a scurvy trick of some of you to hang me in effigy, as they call it." "It warn't you," cried a voice in the crowd, "it war Nick Stirn." The squire recognized the voice of the tinker; but though he now guessed at the ringleader, on that day of general amnesty he had the prudence and magnanimity not to say, "Stand forth, Sprott: thou art the man." Yet his gallant English spirit would not suffer him to come off at the expense of his servant. "If it was Nick Stirn you meant," said he, gravely, "more shame for you. It showed some pluck to hang the master; but to hang the poor servant, who only thought to do his duty, careless of what ill-will it brought upon him, was a shabby trick,--so little like the lads of Hazeldean, that I suspect the man who taught it to them was never born in the parish. But let bygones be bygones. One thing is clear,--you don't take kindly to my new pair of stocks! The stocks has been a stumbling-block and a grievance, and there's no denying that we went on very pleasantly without it. I may also say that, in spite of it, we have been coming together again lately. And I can't tell you what good it did me to see your children playing again on the green, and your honest faces, in spite of the stocks, and those diabolical tracts you've been reading lately, lighted up at the thought that something pleasant was going on at the Hall. Do you know, neighbours, you put me in mind of an old story which, besides applying to the parish, all who are married, and all who intend to marry, will do well to recollect. A worthy couple, named John and Joan, had lived happily together many a long year, till one unlucky day they bought a new bolster. Joan said the bolster was too hard, and John that it was too soft. So, of course, they quarrelled. After sulking all day, they agreed to put the bolster between them at night." (Roars of laughter amongst the men; the women did not know which way to look, except, indeed, Mrs. Hazeldean, who, though she was more than usually rosy, maintained her innocent genial smile, as much as to say, "There is no harm in the squire's jests.") The orator resumed, "After they had thus lain apart for a little time, very silent and sullen, John sneezed. 'God bless you!' says Joan, over the bolster. 'Did you say God bless me?' cries John, 'then here goes the bolster!'" Prolonged laughter and tumultuous applause. "Friends and neighbours," said the squire, when silence was restored, and lifting the horn of ale, "I have the pleasure to inform you that I have. ordered the stocks to be taken down, and made into a bench for the chimney-nook of our old friend Gaffer Solomons yonder. But mind me, lads, if ever you make the parish regret the loss of the stocks, and the overseers come to me with long faces, and say, 'The stocks must be rebuilded,' why--" Here from all the youth of the village rose so deprecating a clamour, that the squire would have been the most burgling orator in the world, if he said a word further on the subject. He elevated the horn over his head--"Why, that's my old Hazeldean again! Health and long life to you all!" The tinker had sneaked out of the assembly, and did not show his face in the village for the next six months. And as to those poisonous tracts, in spite of their salubrious labels, "The Poor Man's Friend," or "The Rights of Labour," you could no more have found one of them lurking in the drawers of the kitchen dressers in Hazeldean than you would have found the deadly nightshade on the flower-stands in the drawing-room of the Hall. As for the revolutionary beerhouse, there was no need to apply to the magistrates to shut it up,--it shut itself up before the week was out. O young head of the great House of Hapsburg, what a Hazeldean you might have made of Hungary! What a "Moriamur pro rege nostro!" would have rung in your infant reign,--if you had made such a speech as the squire's! 
7706	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK FIFTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. CONTAINING MR. CAXTON's UNAVAILING CAUTION NOT TO BE DULL. "I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be dull?" "Heaven forbid, sir! What could make you ask such a question? Intend! No! if I am dull it is from innocence." "A very long discourse upon knowledge!" said my father; "very long! I should cut it out." I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a Vandal. "Cut it out!" "Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically. "Action! But a novel is not a drama." "No; it is a great deal longer,--twenty times as long, I dare say," replied Mr. Caxton, with a sigh. "Well, sir, well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do with the subject, is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop the action,--only explains and elucidates the action. And I am astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge--" "There, there!" cried my father, deprecatingly. "I yield, I yield! What better could I expect when I set up for a critic? What author ever lived that did not fly into a passion, even with his own father, if his father presumed to say, 'Cut out'!" MRS. CAXTON.--"My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your--" PISISTRATUS (hastily).--"Advice for the future, certainly. I will quicken the action, and--" "Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal account-book. "We have lost L200 by our barley!" Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair Shadowland." CHAPTER II. "HALT, cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the chaise. "Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh? Take time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew forth a book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his companion, and gradually recognized a family likeness to poor John, in whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common share of physical beauty were still evident. And, with that quick link in ideas which mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student at once conjectured that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the discretion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his own time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the new thoughts produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr. Richard read with notable quickness,--sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his penknife, sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes skipping whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the volume, flung it aside, lighted his cigar, and began to talk. He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rearing, and especially to the mode by which he had acquired his education; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly. Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead brethren who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new; to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world. He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas,--a common mistake,--and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day. Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to Leonard, and taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an absorbed train of thought, part pecuniary, part ambitious. Leonard found the book interesting: it was one of the numerous works, half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the working classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last. "Dull stuff! theory! claptrap!" said Richard, rousing himself from his revery at last; "it can't interest you." "All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially; for it relates to the working class, and I am one of them." "You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard, good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory,--only ten hours a day-- pooh! and so lose two hours to the nation! Labour is wealth; and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a day, we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilization is to proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a bed doing nothing, all night, sir." Then, with a complacent tone, "We shall get to the twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we sha'n't flog the Europeans as we do now." On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance with Mr. Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest of the journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the journey in postchaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and incessant orders to the post-boys to make the best of the way. "Slow country this in spite of all its brag," said he,--"very slow. Time is money--they know that in the States; for why? they are all men of business there. Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy, idle lords and dukes and baronets seem to think 'time is pleasure.'" Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy, cavalier air was abandoned. He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had been luxuriously dangling, pulled down his waistcoat, buckled more tightly his stock; it was clear that he was resuming the decorous dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard divined at once that they were nearing their journey's end. Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their hats. Richard returned the salutation with a nod,--a nod less gracious than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before a small lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried the post- boy, and cracked his whip. Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little building. "Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy!" During this soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the door, slapped the children as, catching sight of the chaise, they ran towards the house, opened the gates, and dropping a courtesy to the ground, seemed to wish that she could drop into it altogether; so frightened and so trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful face which the master now put out of the window. "Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have those horrid, disreputable cubs of yours playing just before my lodge gates?" "Please, sir--" "Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time I saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck and crop--" "Oh, please, sir--" "You leave my lodge next Saturday! drive on, boy. The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy. The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads, and through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the signs of a master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered the squire's model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had seen; for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the minute scale of market-gardening than what can fairly be called husbandry. But the squire's farm was degraded by many old-fashioned notions, and concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be found in model farms nowadays,--large tangled hedgerows, which, though they constitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn and harbouring the birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits and blocking out the sun. These and such like blots on a gentleman-farmer's agriculture, common- sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges were clipped and narrowed into their proper destination of mere boundaries. Not a blade of wheat withered under the cold shade of a tree; not a yard of land lay waste; not a weed was to be seen, not a thistle to waft its baleful seed through the air: some young plantations were placed, not where the artist would put them, but just where the farmer wanted a fence from the wind. Was there no beauty in this? Yes, there was beauty of its kind,--beauty at once recognizable to the initiated, beauty of use and profit, beauty that could bear a monstrous high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which thrilled through the heart of Richard Avenel. "This IS farming!" said the villager. "Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humour vanishing. "You should have seen the land when I bought it. But we new men, as they call us (damn their impertinence!) are the new blood of this country." Richard Avenel never said anything more true. Long may the new blood circulate through the veins of the mighty giantess; but let the grand heart be the same as it has beat for proud ages. The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and the house came into gradual view,--a house with a portico, all the offices carefully thrust out of sight. The postboy dismounted and rang the bell. "I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," said Mr. Richard, well-nigh in the very words of Louis XIV. But the fear was not realized,--the door opened; a well-fed servant out of livery presented himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile on his face, but he opened the chaise-door with demure and taciturn respect. "Where's George? Why does he not come to the door?" asked Richard; descending from the chaise slowly, and leaning on the servant's outstretched arm with as much precaution as if he had had the gout. Fortunately, George here came into sight, settling himself hastily into his livery coat. "See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he paid the postboy. Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square white house. "Handsome elevation--classical, I take it, eh?" said Richard, joining him. "But you should see the offices." He then, with familiar kindness, took Leonard by the arm, and drew him within. He showed him the hall, with a carved mahogany stand for hats; he showed him the drawing-room, and pointed out all its beauties; though it was summer, the drawing-room looked cold, as will look rooms newly furnished, with walls newly papered, in houses newly built. The furniture was handsome, and suited to the rank of a rich trader. There was no pretence about it, and therefore no vulgarity, which is more than can be said for the houses of many an Honourable Mrs. Somebody in Mayfair, with rooms twelve feet square, ebokeful of buhl, that would have had its proper place in the Tuileries. Then Richard showed him the library, with mahogany book- cases, and plate glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely bound. Your new men are much better friends to living authors than your old families who live in the country, and at most subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took him up-stairs, and led him through the bedrooms,--all very clean and comfortable, and with every modern convenience; and pausing in a very pretty single gentleman's chamber, said, "This is your den. And now, can you guess who I am?" "No one but my uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard. But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was extremely disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped that he should be taken for a lord at least, forgetful of all that he had said in disparagement of lords. "Fish!" said he at last, biting his lip, "so you don't think that I look like a gentleman? Come, now, speak honestly." Leonard, wonderingly, saw he had given pain, and with the good breeding which comes instinctively from good nature, replied, "I judge you by your heart, sir, and your likeness to my grandfather,--otherwise I should never have presumed to fancy we could be relations." "Hum!" answered Richard. "You can just wash your hands, and then come down to dinner; you will hear the gong in ten ininutes. There's the bell,--ring for what you want." With that, he turned on his heel; and descending the stairs, gave a look into the dining-room, and admired the plated salver on the sideboard, and the king's pattern spoons and silver on the table. Then he walked to the looking-glass over the mantelpiece; and, wishing to survey the whole effect of his form, mounted a chair. He was just getting into an attitude which he thought imposing, when the butler entered, and, being London bred, had the discretion to try to escape unseen; but Richard caught sight of him in the looking-glass, and coloured up to the temples. "Jarvis," said he, mildly, "Jarvis, put me in mind to have these inexpressibles altered." CHAPTER III. /A propos/ of the inexpressibles, Mr. Richard did not forget to provide his nephew with a much larger wardrobe than could have been thrust into Dr. Riccabocca's knapsack. There was a very good tailor in the town, and the clothes were very well made. And, but for an air more ingenuous, and a cheek that, despite study and night vigils, retained much of the sunburned bloom of the rustic, Leonard Fairfield might now have almost passed, without disparaging comment, by the bow-window at White's. Richard burst into an immoderate fit of laughter when he first saw the watch which the poor Italian had bestowed upon Leonard; but to atone for the laughter, he made him a present of a very pretty substitute, and bade him "lock up his turnip." Leonard was more hurt by the jeer at his old patron's gift than pleased by his uncle's. But Richard Avenel had no conception of sentiment. It was not for many days that Leonard could reconcile himself to his uncle's manner. Not that the peasant could pretend to judge of its mere conventional defects; but there is an ill breeding to which, whatever our rank and nurture, we are almost equally sensitive,--the ill breeding that comes from want of consideration for others. Now, the squire was as homely in his way as Richard Avenel, but the squire's bluntness rarely hurt the feelings; and when it did so, the squire perceived and hastened to repair his blunder. But Mr. Richard, whether kind or cross, was always wounding you in some little delicate fibre,--not from malice, but from the absence of any little delicate fibres of his own. He was really, in many respects, a most excellent man, and certainly a very valuable citizen--; but his merits wanted the fine tints and fluent curves that constitute beauty of character. He was honest, but sharp in his practice, and with a keen eye to his interests. He was just, but as a matter of business. He made no allowances, and did not leave to his justice the large margin of tenderness and mercy. He was generous, but rather from an idea of what was due to himself than with much thought of the pleasure he gave to others; and he even regarded generosity as a capital put out to interest. He expected a great deal of gratitude in return, and, when he obliged a man, considered that he had bought a slave. Every needy voter knew where to come, if he wanted relief or a loan; but woe to him if he had ventured to express hesitation when Mr. Avenel told him how he must vote. In this town Richard had settled after his return from America, in which country he had enriched himself,--first, by spirit and industry, lastly, by bold speculation and good luck. He invested his fortune in business, --became a partner in a large brewery, soon bought out his associates, and then took a principal share in a flourishing corn-mill. He prospered rapidly,--bought a property of some two or three hundred acres, built a house, and resolved to enjoy himself, and make a figure. He had now become the leading man of the town, and the boast to Audley Egerton that he could return one of the members, perhaps both, was by no means an exaggerated estimate of his power. Nor was his proposition, according to his own views, so unprincipled as it appeared to the statesman. He had taken a great dislike to both the sitting members,--a dislike natural to a sensible man of moderate politics, who had something to lose. For Mr. Slappe, the active member, who was head-over-ears in debt, was one of the furious democrats--rare before the Reform Bill,--and whose opinions were held dangerous even by the mass of a Liberal constituency; while Mr. Sleekie, the gentleman member who laid by L5000 every year from his dividends in the Funds, was one of those men whom Richard justly pronounced to be "humbugs,"--men who curry favour with the extreme party by voting for measures sure not to be carried; while if there was the least probability of coming to a decision that would lower the money market. Mr. Sleekie was seized with a well-timed influenza. Those politicians are common enough now. Propose to march to the Millennium, and they are your men. Ask them to march a quarter of a mile, and they fall to feeling their pockets, and trembling for fear of the footpads. They are never so joyful as when there is no chance of a victory. Did they beat the minister, they would be carried out of the House in a fit. Richard Avenel--despising both these gentlemen, and not taking kindly to the Whigs since the great Whig leaders were lords--had looked with a friendly eye to the government as it then existed, and especially to Audley Egerton, the enlightened representative of commerce. But in giving Audley and his colleagues the benefit of his influence, through conscience, he thought it all fair and right to have a quid pro quo, and, as he had so frankly confessed, it was his whim to rise up "Sir Richard." For this worthy citizen abused the aristocracy much on the same principle as the fair Olivia depreciated Squire Thornhill,--he had a sneaking affection for what he abused. The society of Screwstown was, like most provincial capitals, composed of two classes,--the commercial and the exclusive. These last dwelt chiefly apart, around the ruins of an old abbey; they affected its antiquity in their pedigrees, and had much of its ruin in their finances. Widows of rural thanes in the neighbourhood, genteel spinsters, officers retired on half-pay, younger sons of rich squires, who had now become old bachelors,--in short, a very respectable, proud, aristocratic set, who thought more of themselves than do all the Gowers and Howards, Courtenays and Seymours, put together. It had early been the ambition of Richard Avenel to be admitted into this sublime coterie; and, strange to say, he had partially succeeded. He was never more happy than when he was asked to their card-parties, and never more unhappy than when he was actually there. Various circumstances combined to raise Mr. Avenel into this elevated society. First, he was unmarried, still very handsome, and in that society there was a large proportion of unwedded females. Secondly, he was the only rich trader in Screwstown who kept a good cook, and professed to give dinners, and the half-pay captains and colonels swallowed the host for the sake of the venison. Thirdly, and principally, all these exclusives abhorred the two sitting members, and "idem nolle idem velle de republica, ea firma amicitia est;" that is, congeniality in politics pieces porcelain and crockery together better than the best diamond cement. The sturdy Richard Avenel, who valued himself on American independence, held these ladies and gentlemen in an awe that was truly Brahminical. Whether it was that, in England, all notions, even of liberty, are mixed up historically, traditionally, socially, with that fine and subtle element of aristocracy which, like the press, is the air we breathe; or whether Richard imagined that he really became magnetically imbued with the virtues of these silver pennies and gold seven-shilling pieces, distinct from the vulgar coinage in popular use, it is hard to say. But the truth must be told,--Richard Avenel was a notable tuft-hunter. He had a great longing to marry out of this society; but he had not yet seen any one sufficiently high-born and high-bred to satisfy his aspirations. In the meanwhile, he had convinced himself that his way would be smooth could he offer to make his ultimate choice "My Lady;" and he felt that it would be a proud hour in his life when he could walk before stiff Colonel Pompley to the sound of "Sir Richard." Still, however disappointed at the ill-success of his bluff diplomacy with Mr. Egerton, and however yet cherishing the most vindictive resentment against that individual, he did not, as many would have done, throw up his political convictions out of personal spite. He reserved his private grudge for some special occasion, and continued still to support the Administration, and to hate one of the ministers. But, duly to appreciate the value of Richard Avenel, and in just counterpoise to all his foibles, one ought to have seen what he had effected for the town. Well might he boast of "new blood;" he had done as much for the town as he had for his fields. His energy, his quick comprehension of public utility, backed by his wealth and bold, bullying, imperious character, had sped the work of civilization as if with the celerity and force of a steam-engine. If the town were so well paved and so well lighted, if half-a-dozen squalid lanes had been transformed into a stately street, if half the town no longer depended on tanks for their water, if the poor-rates were reduced one-third, praise to the brisk new blood which Richard Avenel had infused into vestry and corporation. And his example itself was so contagious! "There was not a plate-glass window in the town when I came into it," said Richard Avenel; "and now look down the High Street!" He took the credit to himself, and justly; for though his own business did not require windows of plate-glass, he had awakened the spirit of enterprise which adorns a whole city. Mr. Avenel did not present Leonard to his friends for more than a fortnight. He allowed him to wear off his rust. He then gave a grand dinner, at which his nephew was formally introduced, and, to his great wrath and disappointment, never opened his lips. How could he, poor youth, when Miss Clarina Mowbray only talked upon high life, till proud Colonel Pompley went in state through the history of the Siege of Seringapatam? CHAPTER IV. While Leonard accustoms himself gradually to the splendours that surround him, and often turns with a sigh to the remembrance of his mother's cottage and the sparkling fount in the Italian's flowery garden, we will make with thee, O reader, a rapid flight to the metropolis, and drop ourselves amidst the gay groups that loiter along the dusty ground or loll over the roadside palings of Hyde Park. The season is still at its height; but the short day of fashionable London life, which commences two hours after noon, is in its decline. The crowd in Rotten Row begins to thin. Near the statue of Achilles, and apart from all other loungers, a gentleman, with one hand thrust into his waistcoat, and the other resting on his cane, gazed listlessly on the horsemen and carriages in the brilliant ring. He was still in the prime of life, at the age when man is usually the most social,--when the acquaintances of youth have ripened into friendships, and a personage of some rank and fortune has become a well-known feature in the mobile face of society. But though, when his contemporaries were boys scarce at college, this gentleman had blazed foremost amongst the princes of fashion, and though he had all the qualities of nature and circumstance which either retain fashion to the last, or exchange its false celebrity for a graver repute, he stood as a stranger in that throng of his countrymen. Beauties whirled by to the toilet, statesmen passed on to the senate, dandies took flight to the clubs; and neither nods, nor becks, nor wreathed smiles said to the solitary spectator, "Follow us,-- thou art one of our set." Now and then some middle-aged beau, nearing the post of the loiterer, turned round to look again; but the second glance seemed to dissipate the recognition of the first, and the beau silently continued his way. "By the tomb of my fathers!" said the solitary to himself, "I know now what a dead man might feel if he came to life again, and took a peep at the living." Time passed on,--the evening shades descended fast. Our stranger in London had well-nigh the Park to himself. He seemed to breathe more freely as he saw that the space was so clear. "There's oxygen in the atmosphere now," said he, half aloud; "and I can walk without breathing in the gaseous fumes of the multitude. Oh, those chemists--what dolts they are! They tell us that crowds taint the air, but they never guess why! Pah, it is not the lungs that poison the element,--it is the reek of bad hearts. When a periwigpated fellow breathes on me, I swallow a mouthful of care. Allons! my friend Nero; now for a stroll." He touched with his cane a large Newfoundland dog, who lay stretched near his feet, and dog and man went slow through the growing twilight, and over the brown dry turf. At length our solitary paused, and threw himself on a bench under a tree. "Half-past eight!" said he, looking at his watch, "one may smoke one's cigar without shocking the world." He took out his cigar-case, struck a light, and in another moment reclined at length on the bench, seemed absorbed in regarding the smoke, that scarce coloured ere it vanished into air. "It is the most barefaced lie in the world, my Nero," said he, addressing his dog, "this boasted liberty of man! Now, here am I, a free-born Englishman, a citizen of the world, caring--I often say to myself--caring not a jot for Kaiser or Mob; and yet I no more dare smoke this cigar in the Park at half-past six, when all the world is abroad, than I dare pick my Lord Chancellor's pocket, or hit the Archbishop of Canterbury a thump on the nose. Yet no law in England forbids me my cigar, Nero! What is law at half-past eight was not crime at six and a half! Britannia says, 'Man, thou art free, and she lies like a commonplace woman. O Nero, Nero! you enviable dog! you serve but from liking. No thought of the world costs you one wag of the tail. Your big heart and true instinct suffice you for reason and law. You would want nothing to your felicity, if in these moments of ennui you would but smoke a cigar. Try it, Nero! --try it!" And, rising from his incumbent posture, he sought to force the end of the weed between the teeth of the dog. While thus gravely engaged, two figures had approached the place. The one was a man who seemed weak and sickly. His threadbare coat was buttoned to the chin, but hung large on his shrunken breast. The other was a girl, who might be from twelve to fourteen, on whose arm he leaned heavily. Her cheek was wan, and there was a patient, sad look on her face, which seemed so settled that you would think she could never have known the mirthfulness of childhood. "Pray rest here, Papa," said the child, softly; and she pointed to the bench, without taking heed of its pre-occupant, who now, indeed, confined to one corner of the seat, was almost hidden by the shadow of the tree. The man sat down, with a feeble sigh, and then, observing the stranger, raised his hat, and said, in that tone of voice which betrays the usages of polished society, "Forgive me if I intrude on you, sir." The stranger looked up from his dog, and seeing that the girl was standing, rose at once, as if to make room for her on the bench. But still the girl did not heed him. She hung over her father, and wiped his brow tenderly with a little kerchief which she took from her own neck for the purpose. Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some unwieldy curvets and gambols, to vent the excitement into which he had been thrown; and now returning, approached the bench with a low growl of surprise, and sniffed at the intruders of his master's privacy. "Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear him," he added, addressing himself to the girl. But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in a voice rather of anguish than alarm, "He has fainted! Father! Father!" The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, and loosened the poor man's stiff military stock. While thus charitably engaged, the moon broke out, and the light fell full on the pale, careworn face of the unconscious sufferer. "This face seems not unfamiliar to me, though sadly changed," said the stranger to himself; and bending towards the girl, who had sunk on her knees, and was chafing her father's hand, he asked, "My child, what is your father's name?" The child continued her task, too absorbed to answer. The stranger put his hand on her shoulder, and repeated the question. "Digby," answered the child, almost unconsciously; and as she spoke the man's senses began to return. In a few minutes more he had sufficiently recovered to falter forth his thanks to the stranger. But the last took his hand, and said, in a voice at once tremulous and soothing, "Is it possible that I see once more an old brother in arms? Algernon Digby, I do not forget you; but it seems England has forgotten." A hectic flush spread over the soldier's face, and he looked away from the speaker as he answered,-- "My name is Digby, it is true, sir; but I do not think we have met before. Come, Helen, I am well now,--we will go home." "Try and play with that great dog, my child," said the stranger,--"I want to talk with your father." The child bowed her submissive head, and moved away; but she did not play with the dog. "I must reintroduce myself formally, I see," quoth the stranger. "You were in the same regiment with myself, and my name is L'Estrange." "My Lord," said the soldier, rising, "forgive me that--" "I don't think that it was the fashion to call me 'my lord' at the mess- table. Come, what has happened to you?--on half-pay?" Mr. Digby shook his head mournfully. "Digby, old fellow, can you lend me L100?" said Lord L'Estrange, clapping his ci-devant brother-officer on the shoulder, and in a tone of voice that seemed like a boy's, so impudent was it, and devil-me-Garish. "No! Well, that's lucky, for I can lend it to you." Mr. Digby burst into tears. Lord L'Estrange did not seem to observe the emotion, but went on carelessly,-- "Perhaps you don't know that, besides being heir to a father who is not only very rich, but very liberal, I inherited, on coming of age, from a maternal relation, a fortune so large that it would bore me to death if I were obliged to live up to it. But in the days of our old acquaintance, I fear we were both sad extravagant fellows, and I dare say I borrowed of you pretty freely." "Me! Oh, Lord L'Estrange!" "You have married since then, and reformed, I suppose. Tell me, old friend, all about it." Mr. Digby, who by this time had succeeded in restoring some calm to his shattered nerves, now rose, and said in brief sentences, but clear, firm tones,-- "My Lord, it is idle to talk of me,--useless to help me. I am fast dying. But my child there, my only child" (he paused for an instant, and went on rapidly). "I have relations in a distant county, if I could but get to them; I think they would, at least, provide for her. This has been for weeks my hope, my dream, my prayer. I cannot afford the journey except by your help. I have begged without shame for myself; shall I be ashamed, then, to beg for her?" "Digby," said L'Estrange, with some grave alteration of manner, "talk neither of dying nor begging. You were nearer death when the balls whistled round you at Waterloo. If soldier meets soldier and says 'Friend, thy purse,' it is not begging, but brotherhood. Ashamed! By the soul of Belisarius! if I needed money, I would stand at a crossing with my Waterloo medal over my breast, and say to each sleek citizen I had helped to save from the sword of the Frenchman, 'It is your shame if I starve.' Now, lean upon me; I see you should be at home: which way?" The poor soldier pointed his hand towards Oxford Street, and reluctantly accepted the proffered arm. "And when you return from your relations, you will call on me? What-- hesitate? Come, promise." "I will." "On your honour." "If I live, on my honour." "I am staying at present at Knightsbridge, with my father; but you will always hear of my address at No.--, Grosvenor Square, Mr. Egerton's. So you have a long journey before you?" "Very long." "Do not fatigue yourself,--travel slowly. Ho, you foolish child! I see you are jealous of me. Your father has another arm to spare you." Thus talking, and getting but short answers, Lord L'Estrange continued to exhibit those whimsical peculiarities of character, which had obtained for him the repute of heartlessness in the world. Perhaps the reader may think the world was not in the right; but if ever the world does judge rightly of the character of a man who does not live for the world nor talk of the world nor feel with the world, it will be centuries after the soul of Harley L'Estrange has done with this planet. CHAPTER V. Lord L'Estrange parted company with Mr. Digby at the entrance of Oxford Street. The father and child there took a cabriolet. Mr. Digby directed the driver to go down the Edgware Road. He refused to tell L'Estrange his address, and this with such evident pain, from the sores of pride, that L'Estrange could not press the point. Reminding the soldier of his promise to call, Harley thrust a pocket-book into his hand, and walked off hastily towards Grosvenor Square. He reached Audley Egerton's door just as that gentleman was getting out of his carriage; and the two friends entered the house together. "Does the nation take a nap to-night?" asked L'Estrange. "Poor old lady! She hears so much of her affairs, that she may well boast of her constitution: it must be of iron." "The House is still sitting," answered Audley, seriously, and with small heed of his friend's witticism. "But it is not a Government motion, and the division will be late, so I came home; and if I had not found you here, I should have gone into the Park to look for you." "Yes; one always knows where to find me at this hour, nine o'clock P.M., cigar, Hyde Park. There is not a man in England so regular in his habits." Here the friends reached a drawing-room in which the member of parliament seldom sat, for his private apartments were all on the ground-floor. "But it is the strangest whim of yours, Harley," said he. "What?" To affect detestation of ground-floors." "Affect! O sophisticated man, of the earth, earthy! Affect!--nothing less natural to the human soul than a ground-floor. We are quite far enough from Heaven, mount as many stairs as we will, without grovelling by preference." "According to that symbolical view of the case," said Audley, "you should lodge in an attic." "So I would, but that I abhor new slippers. As for hairbrushes, I am indifferent." "What have slippers and hair-brushes to do with attics?" "Try! Make your bed in an attic, and the next morning you will have neither slippers nor hair-brushes!" "What shall I have done with them?" "Shied them at the cats!" "What odd things you say, Harley!" "Odd! By Apollo and his nine spinsters! there is no human being who has so little imagination as a distinguished member of parliament. Answer me this, thou solemn Right Honourable,--Hast thou climbed to the heights of august contemplation? Hast thou gazed on the stars with the rapt eye of song? Hast thou dreamed of a love known to the angels, or sought to seize in the Infinite the mystery of life?" "Not I indeed, my poor Harley." "Then no wonder, poor Audley, that you cannot conjecture why he who makes his bed in an attic, disturbed by base catterwauls, shies his slippers at cats. Bring a chair into the balcony. Nero spoiled my cigar to-night. I am going to smoke now. You never smoke. You can look on the shrubs in the square." Audley slightly shrugged his shoulders, but he followed his friend's counsel and example, and brought his chair into the balcony. Nero came too, but at sight and smell of the cigar prudently retreated, and took refuge under the table. "Audley Egerton, I want something from Government." "I am delighted to hear it." "There was a cornet in my regiment, who would have done better not to have come into it. We were, for the most part of us, puppies and fops." "You all fought well, however." "Puppies and fops do fight well. Vanity and valour generally go together. CAesar, who scratched his head with due care of his scanty curls, and even in dying thought of the folds in his toga; Walter Raleigh, who could not walk twenty yards because of the gems in his shoes; Alcibiades, who lounged into the Agora with doves in his bosom, and an apple in his hand; Murat, bedizened in gold lace and furs; and Demetrius, the City-Taker, who made himself up like a French marquise, were all pretty good fellows at fighting. A slovenly hero like Cromwell is a paradox in nature, and a marvel in history. But to return to my cornet. We were rich; he was poor. When the pot of clay swims down the stream with the brass-pots, it is sure of a smash. Men said Digby was stingy; I saw he was extravagant. But every one, I fear, would be rather thought stingy than poor. /Bref/--I left the army, and saw him no more till to-night. There was never shabby poor gentleman on the stage more awfully shabby, more pathetically gentleman. But, look ye, this man has fought for England. It was no child's play at Waterloo, let me tell you, Mr. Egerton; and, but for such men, you would be at best a /sous prefet/, and your parliament a Provincial Assembly. You must do something for Digby. What shall it be?" "Why, really, my dear Harley, this man was no great friend of yours, eh?" "If he were, he would not want the Government to help him,--he would not be ashamed of taking money from me." "That is all very fine, Harley; but there are so many poor officers, and so little to give. It is the most difficult thing in the world that which you ask me. Indeed, I know nothing can be done: he has his half- pay?" "I think not; or, if he has it, no doubt it all goes on his debts. That's nothing to us: the man and his child are starving." "But if it is his own fault,--if he has been imprudent?" "Ah, well, well; where the devil is Nero?" "I am so sorry I can't oblige you. If it were anything else--" "There is something else. My valet--I can't turn him adrift-excellent fellow, but gets drunk now and then. Will you find him a place in the Stamp Office?" "With pleasure." "No, now I think of it, the man knows my ways: I must keep him. But my old wine-merchant--civil man, never dunned--is a bankrupt. I am under great obligations to him, and he has a very pretty daughter. Do you think you could thrust him into some small place in the Colonies, or make him a King's Messenger, or something of the sort?" "If you very much wish it, no doubt I can." "My dear Audley, I am but feeling my way: the fact is, I want something for myself." "Ah, that indeed gives me pleasure!" cried Egerton, with animation. "The mission to Florence will soon be vacant,--I know it privately. The place would quite suit me. Pleasant city; the best figs in Italy; very little to do. You could sound Lord on the subject." "I will answer beforehand. Lord--would be enchanted to secure to the public service a man so accomplished as yourself, and the son of a peer like Lord Lansmere." Harley L'Estrange sprang to his feet, and flung his cigar in the face of a stately policeman who was looking up at the balcony. "Infamous and bloodless official!" cried Harley L'Estrange; "so you could provide for a pimple-nosed lackey, for a wine-merchant who has been poisoning the king's subjects with white lead,--or sloe-juice,--for an idle sybarite, who would complain of a crumpled rose-leaf; and nothing, in all the vast patronage of England, for a broken-down soldier, whose dauntless breast was her rampart?" "Harley," said the member of parliament, with his calm, sensible smile, "this would be a very good claptrap at a small theatre; but there is nothing in which parliament demands such rigid economy as the military branch of the public service; and no man for whom it is so hard to effect what we must plainly call a job as a subaltern officer who has done nothing more than his duty,--and all military men do that. Still, as you take it so earnestly, I will use what interest I can at the War Office, and get him, perhaps, the mastership of a barrack." "You had better; for, if you do not, I swear I will turn Radical, and come down to your own city to oppose you, with Hunt and Cobbett to canvass for me." "I should be very glad to see you come into parliament, even as a Radical, and at my expense," said Audley, with great kindness; "but the air is growing cold, and you are not accustomed to our climate. Nay, if you are too poetic for catarrhs and rheums, I'm not,--come in." CHAPTER VI. Lord L'Estrange threw himself on a sofa, and leaned his cheek on his hand thoughtfully. Audley Egerton sat near him, with his arms folded, and gazed on his friend's face with a soft expression of aspect, which was very unusual to the firm outline of his handsome features. The two men were as dissimilar in person as the reader will have divined that they were in character. All about Egerton was so rigid, all about L'Estrange so easy. In every posture of Harley's there was the unconscious grace of a child. The very fashion of his garments showed his abhorrence of restraint. His clothes were wide and loose; his neckcloth, tied carelessly, left his throat half bare. You could see that he had lived much in warm and southern lands, and contracted a contempt for conventionalities; there was as little in his dress as in his talk of the formal precision of the North. He was three or four years younger than Audley, but he looked at least twelve years younger. In fact, he was one of those men to whom old age seems impossible; voice, look, figure, had all the charm of youth: and perhaps it was from this gracious youthfulness--at all events, it was characteristic of the kind of love he inspired--that neither his parents, nor the few friends admitted into his intimacy, ever called him, in their habitual intercourse, by the name of his title. He was not L'Estrange with them, he was Harley; and by that familiar baptismal I will usually designate him. He was not one of those men whom author or reader wish to view at a distance, and remember as "my Lord"--it was so rarely that he remembered it himself. For the rest, it had been said of him by a shrewd wit, "He is so natural that every one calls him affected." Harley L'Estrange was not so critically handsome as Audley Egerton; to a commonplace observer, he was only rather good- looking than otherwise. But women said that he had "a beautiful countenance," and they were not wrong. He wore his hair, which was of a fair chestnut, long, and in loose curls; and instead of the Englishman's whiskers, indulged in the foreigner's mustache. His complexion was delicate, though not effeminate: it was rather the delicacy of a student than of a woman. But in his clear gray eye there was a wonderful vigour of life. A skilful physiologist, looking only into that eye, would have recognized rare stamina of constitution,--a nature so rich that, while easily disturbed, it would require all the effects of time, or all the fell combinations of passion and grief, to exhaust it. Even now, though so thoughtful, and even so sad, the rays of that eye were as concentrated and steadfast as the light of the diamond. "You were only, then, in jest," said Audley, after a long silence, "when you spoke of this mission to Florence. You have still no idea of entering into public life?" "None." "I had hoped better things when I got your promise to pass one season in London; but, indeed, you have kept your promise to the ear to break it to the spirit. I could not presuppose that you would shun all society, and be as much of a hermit here as under the vines of Como." "I have sat in the Strangers' Gallery, and heard your great speakers; I have been in the pit of the opera, and seen your fine ladies; I have walked your streets; I have lounged in your parks, and I say that I can't fall in love with a faded dowager, because she fills up her wrinkles with rouge." "Of what dowager do you speak?" asked the matter-of-fact Audley. "She has a great many titles. Some people call her Fashion, you busy men, Politics: it is all one,--tricked out and artificial. I mean London Life. No, I can't fall in love with her, fawning old harridan!" "I wish you could fall in love with something." "I wish I could, with all my heart." "But you are so /blaze/." "On the contrary, I am so fresh. Look out of the window--what do you see?" "Nothing!" "Nothing?" "Nothing but houses and dusty lilacs, my coachman dozing on his box, and two women in pattens crossing the kennel." "I see not those where I lie on the sofa. I see but the stars. And I feel for them as I did when I was a schoolboy at Eton. It is you who are /blaze/, not I. Enough of this. You do not forget my commission with respect to the exile who has married into your brother's family?" "No; but here you set me a task more difficult than that of saddling your cornet on the War Office." "I know it is difficult, for the counter influence is vigilant and strong; but, on the other hand, the enemy is so damnable a traitor that one must have the Fates and the household gods on one's side." "Nevertheless," said the practical Audley, bending over a book on the table; "I think that the best plan would be to attempt a compromise with the traitor." "To judge of others by myself," answered Harley, with spirit, "it were less bitter to put up with wrong than to palter with it for compensation. And such wrong! Compromise with the open foe--that maybe done with honour; but with the perjured friend--that were to forgive the perjury!" "You are too vindictive," said Egerton; "there may be excuses for the friend, which palliate even--" "Hush! Audley, hush! or I shall think the world has indeed corrupted you. Excuse for the friend who deceives, who betrays! No, such is the true outlaw of Humanity; and the Furies surround him even while he sleeps in the temple." The man of the world lifted his eyes slowly on the animated face of one still natural enough for the passions. He then once more returned to his book, and said, after a pause, "It is time you should marry, Harley." "No," answered L'Estrange, with a smile at this sudden turn in the conversation, "not time yet; for my chief objection to that change in life is, that the women nowadays are too old for me, or I am too young for them. A few, indeed, are so infantine that one is ashamed to be their toy; but most are so knowing that one is afraid to be their dupe. The first, if they condescend to love you, love you as the biggest doll they have yet dandled, and for a doll's good qualities,--your pretty blue eyes and your exquisite millinery. The last, if they prudently accept you, do so on algebraical principles; you are but the X or the Y that represents a certain aggregate of goods matrimonial,--pedigree, title, rent-roll, diamonds, pin-money, opera-box. They cast you up with the help of mamma, and you wake some morning to find that plus wife minus affection equals--the Devil!" "Nonsense," said Audley, with his quiet, grave laugh. "I grant that it is often the misfortune of a man in your station to be married rather for what he has than for what he is; but you are tolerably penetrating, and not likely to be deceived in the character of the woman you court." "Of the woman I court?--No! But of the woman I marry, very likely indeed! Woman is a changeable thing, as our Virgil informed us at school; but her change par excellence is from the fairy you woo to the brownie you wed. It is not that she has been a hypocrite,--it is that she is a transmigration. You marry a girl for her accomplishments. She paints charmingly, or plays like Saint Cecilia. Clap a ring on her finger, and she never draws again,--except perhaps your caricature on the back of a letter,--and never opens a piano after the honeymoon. You marry her for her sweet temper; and next year, her nerves are so shattered that you can't contradict her but you are whirled into a storm of hysterics. You marry her because she declares she hates balls and likes quiet; and ten to one but what she becomes a patroness at Almack's, or a lady-in-waiting." "Yet most men marry, and most men survive the operation." "If it were only necessary to live, that would be a consolatory and encouraging reflection. But to live with peace, to live with dignity, to live with freedom, to live in harmony with your thoughts, your habits, your aspirations--and this in the perpetual companionship of a person to whom you have given the power to wound your peace, to assail your dignity, to cripple your freedom, to jar on each thought and each habit, and bring you down to the meanest details of earth, when you invite her, poor soul, to soar to the spheres--that makes the To Be or Not To Be, which is the question." "If I were you, Harley, I would do as I have heard the author of 'Sandford and Merton' did,--choose out a child and educate her yourself, after your own heart." "You have hit it," answered Harley, seriously. "That has long been my idea,--a very vague one, I confess. But I fear I shall be an old man before I find even the child." "Ah!" he continued, yet more earnestly, while the whole character of his varying countenance changed again,--"ah, if indeed I could discover what I seek,--one who, with the heart of a child, has the mind of a woman; one who beholds in nature the variety, the charm, the never feverish, ever healthful excitement that others vainly seek in the bastard sentimentalities of a life false with artificial forms; one who can comprehend, as by intuition, the rich poetry with which creation is clothed,--poetry so clear to the child when enraptured with the flower, or when wondering at the star! If on me such exquisite companionship were bestowed--why, then--" He paused, sighed deeply, and, covering his face with his hand, resumed, in faltering accents,-- "But once--but once only, did such vision of the Beautiful made Human rise before me,--rise amidst 'golden exhalations of the dawn.' It beggared my life in vanishing. You know only--you only--how--how--" He bowed his head, and the tears forced themselves through his clenched fingers. "So long ago!" said Audley, sharing his friend's emotion. "Years so long and so weary, yet still thus tenacious of a mere boyish memory!" "Away with it, then!" cried Harley, springing to his feet, and with a laugh of strange merriment. "Your carriage still waits: set me home before you go to the House." Then laying his hand lightly on his friend's shoulder, he said, "Is it for you, Audley Egerton, to speak sneeringly of boyish memories? What else is it that binds us together? What else warms my heart when I meet you? What else draws your thoughts from blue-books and beer-bills to waste them on a vagrant like me? Shake hands. Oh, friend of my boyhood! recollect the oars that we plied and the bats that we wielded in the old time, or the murmured talk on the moss-grown bank, as we sat together, building in the summer air castles mightier than Windsor. Ah, they are strong ties, those boyish memories believe me! I remember, as if it were yesterday, my translation of that lovely passage in Persius, beginning-- let me see--ah! "'Quum primum pavido custos mihi purpura cernet,'-- that passage on friendship which gushes out so livingly from the stern heart of the satirist. And when old--complimented me on my verses, my eye sought yours. Verily, I now say as then,-- "'Nescio quod, certe est quod me tibi temperet astrum.'" ["What was the star I know not, but certainly some star it was that attuned me unto thee."] Audley turned away his head as he returned the grasp of his friend's hand; and while Harley, with his light elastic footstep, descended the stairs, Egerton lingered behind, and there was no trace of the worldly man upon his countenance when he took his place in the carriage by his companion's side. Two hours afterwards, weary cries of "Question, question!" "Divide, divide!" sank into reluctant silence as Audley Egerton rose to conclude the debate,--the man of men to speak late at night, and to impatient benches: a man who would be heard; whom a Bedlam broke loose would not have roared down; with a voice clear and sound as a bell, and a form as firmly set on the ground as a church-tower. And while, on the dullest of dull questions, Audley Egerton thus, not too lively himself, enforced attention, where was Harley L'Estrange? Standing alone by the river at Richmond, and murmuring low fantastic thoughts as he gazed on the moonlit tide. When Audley left him at home he had joined his parents, made them gay with his careless gayety, seen the old-fashioned folks retire to rest, and then--while they, perhaps, deemed him once more the hero of ball- rooms and the cynosure of clubs--he drove slowly through the soft summer night, amidst the perfumes of many a garden and many a gleaming chestnut grove, with no other aim before him than to reach the loveliest margin of England's loveliest river, at the hour when the moon was fullest and the song of the nightingale most sweet. And so eccentric a humourist was this man, that I believe, as he there loitered,--no one near to cry "How affected!" or "How romantic!"--he enjoyed himself more than if he had been exchanging the politest "how-d'ye-dos" in the hottest of London drawing-rooms, or betting his hundreds on the odd trick, with Lord de R------ for his partner. CHAPTER VII. Leonard had been about six weeks with his uncle, and those weeks were well spent. Mr. Richard had taken him to his counting-house, and initiated him into business and the mysteries of double entry; and in return for the young man's readiness and zeal in matters which the acute trader instinctively felt were not exactly to his tastes, Richard engaged the best master the town afforded to read with his nephew in the evening. This gentleman was the head usher of a large school, who had his hours to himself after eight o'clock, and was pleased to vary the dull routine of enforced lessons by instructions to a pupil who took delightedly even to the Latin grammar. Leonard made rapid strides, and learned more in those six weeks than many a cleverish boy does in twice as many months. These hours which Leonard devoted to study Richard usually spent from home,-- sometimes at the houses of his grand acquaintances in the Abbey Gardens, sometimes in the Reading-Room appropriated to those aristocrats. If he stayed at home, it was in company with his head clerk, and for the purpose of checking his account-books, or looking over the names of doubtful electors. Leonard had naturally wished to communicate his altered prospects to his old friends, that they, in turn, might rejoice his mother with such good tidings. But he had not been two days in the house before Richard had strictly forbidden all such correspondence. "Look you," said he, "at present we are on an experiment,--we must see if we like each other. Suppose we don't, you will only have raised expectations in your mother which must end in bitter disappointment; and suppose we do, it will be time enough to write when something definite is settled." "But my mother will be so anxious--" "Make your mind easy on that score. I will write regularly to Mr. Dale, and he can tell her that you are well and thriving. No more words, my man,--when I say a thing, I say it." Then, observing that Leonard looked blank and dissatisfied, Richard added, with a good-humoured smile, "I have my reasons for all this--you shall know them later. And I tell you what: if you do as I bid you, it is my intention to settle something handsome on your mother; but if you don't, devil a penny she'll get from me." With that Richard turned on his heel, and in a few moments his voice was heard loud in objurgation with some of his people. About the fourth week of Leonard's residence at Mr. Avenel's, his host began to evince a certain change of manner. He was no longer quite so cordial with Leonard, nor did he take the same interest in his progress. About the same period he was frequently caught by the London butler before the looking-glass. He had always been a smart man in his dress, but he was now more particular. He would spoil three white cravats when he went out of an evening, before he could satisfy himself as to the tie. He also bought a 'Peerage,' and it became his favourite study at odd quarters of an hour. All these symptoms proceeded from a cause, and that cause was--woman. CHAPTER VIII. The first people at Screwstown were indisputably the Pompleys. Colonel Pompley was grand, but Mrs. Pompley was grander. The colonel was stately in right of his military rank and his services in India; Mrs. Pompley was majestic in right of her connections. Indeed, Colonel Pompley himself would have been crushed under the weight of the dignities which his lady heaped upon him, if he had not been enabled to prop his position with a "connection" of his own. He would never have held his own, nor been permitted to have an independent opinion on matters aristocratic, but for the well-sounding name of his relations, "the Digbies." Perhaps on the principle that obscurity increases the natural size of objects and is an element of the sublime, the colonel did not too accurately define his relations "the Digbies:" he let it be casually understood that they were the Digbies to be found in Debrett. But if some indiscreet Vulgarian (a favourite word with both the Pompleys) asked point-blank if he meant "my Lord Digby," the colonel, with a lofty air, answered, "The elder branch, sir." No one at Screwstown had ever seen these Digbies: they lay amidst the Far, the Recondite,--even to the wife of Colonel Pompley's bosom. Now and then, when the colonel referred to the lapse of years, and the uncertainty of human affections, he would say, "When young Digby and I were boys together," and then add with a sigh, "but we shall never meet again in this world. His family interests secured him a valuable appointment in a distant part of the British dominions." Mrs. Pompley was always rather cowed by the Digbies. She could not be sceptical as to this connection, for the colonel's mother was certainly a Digby, and the colonel impaled the Digby arms. /En revanche/, as the French say, for these marital connections, Mrs. Pompley had her own favourite affinity, which she specially selected from all others when she most desired to produce effect; nay, even upon ordinary occasions the name rose spontaneously to her lips,--the name of the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Was the fashion of a gown or cap admired, her cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had just sent to her the pattern from Paris. Was it a question whether the Ministry would stand, Mrs. M'Catchley was in the secret, but Mrs. Pompley had been requested not to say. Did it freeze, "My cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had written word that the icebergs at the Pole were supposed to be coming this way." Did the sun glow with more than usual fervour, Mrs. M'Catchley had informed her "that it was Sir Henry Halford's decided opinion that it was on account of the cholera." The good people knew all that was doing at London, at court, in this world--nay, almost in the other--through the medium of the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Mrs. M'Catchley was, moreover, the most elegant of women, the wittiest creature, the dearest. King George the Fourth had presumed to admire Mrs. M'Catehley; but Mrs. M'Catchley, though no prude, let him see that she was proof against the corruptions of a throne. So long had the ears of Mrs. Pompley's friends been filled with the renown of Mrs. M'Catchley, that at last Mrs. M'Catchley was secretly supposed to be a myth, a creature of the elements, a poetic fiction of Mrs. Pompley's. Richard Avenel, however, though by no means a credulous man, was an implicit believer in Mrs. M'Catchley. He had learned that she was a widow, and honourable by birth, and honourable by marriage, living on her handsome jointure, and refusing offers every day that she so lived. Somehow or other, whenever Richard Avenel thought of a wife, he thought of the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Perhaps that romantic attachment to the fair invisible preserved him heart-whole amongst the temptations of Screwstown. Suddenly, to the astonishment of the Abbey Gardens, Mrs. M'Catchley proved her identity, and arrived at Colonel Pompley's in a handsome travelling-carriage, attended by her maid and footman. She had come to stay some weeks; a tea-party was given in her honour. Mr. Avenel and his nephew were invited. Colonel Pompley, who kept his head clear in the midst of the greatest excitement, had a desire to get from the Corporation a lease of a piece of ground adjoining his garden, and he no sooner saw Richard Avenel enter than he caught him by the button, and drew him into a quiet corner, in order to secure his interest. Leonard, meanwhile, was borne on by the stream, till his progress was arrested by a sofa-table at which sat Mrs. M'Catchley herself, with Mrs. Pompley by her side. For on this great occasion the hostess had abandoned her proper post at the entrance, and, whether to show her respect to Mrs. M'Catchley, or to show Mrs. M'Catchley her well-bred contempt for the people of Screwstown, remained in state by her friend, honouring only the elite of the town with introductions to the illustrious visitor. Mrs. M'Catchley was a very fine woman,--a woman who justified Mrs. Pompley's pride in her. Her cheek-bones were rather high, it is true. but that proved the purity of her Caledonian descent; for the rest, she had a brilliant complexion, heightened by a /soupcon/ of rouge, good eyes and teeth, a showy figure, and all the ladies of Screwstown pronounced her dress to be perfect. She might have arrived at that age at which one intends to stop for the next ten years, but even a Frenchman would not have called her passee,--that is, for a widow. For a spinster it would have been different. Looking round her with a glass, which Mrs. Pompley was in the habit of declaring that "Mrs. M'Catchley used like an angel," this lady suddenly perceived Leonard Fairfield; and his quiet, simple, thoughtful air and look so contrasted with the stiff beaux to whom she had been presented, that, experienced in fashion as so fine a personage must be supposed to be, she was nevertheless deceived into whispering to Mrs. Pompley, "That young man has really an /air distingue/; who is he?" "Oh," said Mrs. Pompley, in unaffected surprise, "that is the nephew of the rich Vulgarian I was telling you of this morning." "Ah! and you say that he is Mr. Arundel's heir?" "Avenel--not Arundel--my sweet friend." "Avenel is not a bad name," said Mrs. M'Catchley. "But is the uncle really so rich?" "The colonel was trying this very day to guess what he is worth; but he says it is impossible to guess it." "And the young man is his heir?" "It is thought so; and reading for College, I hear. They say he is clever." "Present him, my love; I like clever people," said Mrs. M'Catchley, falling back languidly. About ten minutes afterwards, Richard Avenel having effected his escape from the colonel, and his gaze being attracted towards the sofa-table by the buzz of the admiring crowd, beheld his nephew in animated conversation with the long cherished idol of his dreams. A fierce pang of jealousy shot through his breast. His nephew had never looked so handsome and so intelligent; in fact, poor Leonard had never before been drawn out by a woman of the world, who had learned how to make the most of what little she knew. And as jealousy operates like a pair of bellows on incipient flames, so, at first sight of the smile which the fair widow bestowed upon Leonard, the heart of Mr. Avenel felt in a blaze. He approached with a step less assured than usual, and, overhearing Leonard's talk, marvelled much at the boy's audacity. Mrs. M'Catchley had been speaking of Scotland and the Waverley Novels, about which Leonard knew nothing. But he knew Burns, and on Burns he grew artlessly eloquent. Burns the poet and peasant--Leonard might well be eloquent on him. Mrs. M'Catchley was amused and pleased with his freshness and naivete, so unlike anything she had ever heard or seen, and she drew him on and on till Leonard fell to quoting. And Richard heard, with less respect for the sentiment than might be supposed, that "Rank is but the guinea's stamp, The man's the gowd for a' that." "Well!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel. "Pretty piece of politeness to tell that to a lady like the Honourable Mrs. M'Catch ley! You'll excuse him, ma'am." "Sir!" said Mrs. M'Catchley, startled, and lifting her glass. Leonard, rather confused, rose and offered his chair to Richard, who dropped into it. The lady, without waiting for formal introduction, guessed that she saw the rich uncle. "Such a sweet poet-Burns!" said she, dropping her glass. "And it is so refreshing to find so much youthful enthusiasm," she added, pointing her fan towards Leonard, who was receding fast among the crowd. "Well, he is youthful, my nephew,--rather green!" "Don't say green!" said Mrs. M'Catchley. Richard blushed scarlet. He was afraid he had committed himself to some expression low and shocking. The lady resumed, "Say unsophisticated." "A tarnation long word," thought Richard; but he prudently bowed and held his tongue. "Young men nowadays," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, resettling herself on the sofa, "affect to be so old. They don't dance, and they don't read, and they don't talk much! and a great many of them wear /toupets/ before they are two-and-twenty!" Richard mechanically passed his hand through his thick curls. But he was still mute; he was still ruefully chewing the cud of the epithet "green." What occult horrid meaning did the word convey to ears polite? Why should he not say "green"? "A very fine young man your nephew, sir," resumed Mrs. M' Catchley. Richard grunted. "And seems full of talent. Not yet at the University? Will he go to Oxford or Cambridge?" "I have not made up my mind yet if I shall send him to the University at all." "A young man of his expectations!" exclaimed Mrs. M'Catchley, artfully. "Expectations!" repeated Richard, firing up. "Has he been talking to you of his expectations?" "No, indeed, sir. But the nephew of the rich Mr. Avenel! Ah, one hears a great deal, you know, of rich people; it is the penalty of wealth, Mr. Avenel!" Richard was very much flattered. His crest rose. "And they say," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, dropping out her words very slowly, as she adjusted her blonde scarf, "that Mr. Avenel has resolved not to marry." "The devil they do, ma'am!" bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then, ashamed of his /lapsus linguae/, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of indignant fire. Mrs. M'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard turned abruptly, and she withdrew her eyes modestly, and raised the fan. "She's a real beauty," said Richard, between his teeth. The fan fluttered. Five minutes afterwards, the widow and the bachelor seemed so much at their ease that Mrs. Pompley, who had been forced to leave her friend, in order to receive the dean's lady, could scarcely believe her eyes when she returned to the sofa. Now, it was from that evening that Mr. Richard Avenel exhibited the change of mood which I have described; and from that evening he abstained from taking Leonard with him to any of the parties in the Abbey Gardens. CHAPTER IX. Some days after this memorable /soiree/, Colonel Pompley sat alone in his study (which opened pleasantly on an old-fashioned garden), absorbed in the house bills. For Colonel Pompley did not leave that domestic care to his lady,--perhaps she was too grand for it. Colonel Pompley with his own sonorous voice ordered the joints, and with his own heroic hands dispensed the stores. In justice to the colonel, I must add--at whatever risk of offence to the fair sex--that there was not a house at Screwstown so well managed as the Pompleys'; none which so successfully achieved the difficult art of uniting economy with show. I should despair of conveying to you an idea of the extent to which Colonel Pompley made his income go. It was but seven hundred a year; and many a family contrived to do less upon three thousand. To be sure, the Pompleys had no children to sponge upon them. What they had they spent all on themselves. Neither, if the Pompleys never exceeded their income, did they pretend to live much within it. The two ends of the year met at Christmas,--just met, and no more. Colonel Pompley sat at his desk. He was in his well-brushed blue coat, buttoned across his breast, his gray trousers fitted tight to his limbs, and fastened under his boots with a link chain. He saved a great deal of money in straps. No one ever saw Colonel Pompley in dressing-gown and slippers. He and his house were alike in order--always fit to be seen "From morn to noon, from noon to dewy eve." The colonel was a short compact man, inclined to be stout,--with a very red face, that seemed not only shaved, but rasped. He wore his hair cropped close, except just in front, where it formed what the hairdresser called a feather, but it seemed a feather of iron, so stiff and so strong was it. Firmness and precision were emphatically marked on the colonel's countenance. There was a resolute strain on his features, as if he was always employed in making the two ends meet! So he sat before his house-book, with his steel-pen in his hand, and making crosses here and notes of interrogation there. "Mrs. M'Catchley's maid," said the colonel to himself, "must be put upon rations. The tea that she drinks! Good heavens!--tea again!" There was a modest ring at the outer door. "Too early for a visitor!" thought the colonel. "Perhaps it is the water-rates." The neat man-servant--never seen beyond the offices, save in /grande tenue/, plushed and powdered-entered and bowed. "A gentleman, sir, wishes to see you." "A gentleman," repeated the colonel, glancing towards the clock. "Are you sure it is a gentleman?" The man hesitated. "Why, sir, I ben't exactly sure; but he speaks like a gentleman. He do say he comes from London to see you, sir." A long and interesting correspondence was then being held between the colonel and one of his wife's trustees touching the investment of Mrs. Pompley's fortune. It might be the trustee,--nay, it must be. The trustee had talked of running down to see him. "Let him come in," said the colonel, "and when I ring--sandwiches and sherry." "Beef, sir?" "Ham." The colonel put aside his house-book, and wiped his pen. In another minute the door opened and the servant announced-- "MR. DIGBY." The colonel's face fell, and he staggered back. The door closed, and Mr. Digby stood in the middle of the room, leaning on the great writing-table for support. The poor soldier looked sicklier and shabbier, and nearer the end of all things in life and fortune, than when Lord L'Estrange had thrust the pocket-book into his hands. But still the servant showed knowledge of the world in calling him gentleman; there was no other word to apply to him. "Sir," began Colonel Pompley, recovering himself, and with great solemnity, "I did not expect this pleasure." The poor visitor stared round him dizzily, and sank into a chair, breathing hard. The colonel looked as a man only looks upon a poor relation, and buttoned up first one trouser pocket and then the other. "I thought you were in Canada," said the colonel, at last. Mr. Digby had now got breath to speak, and he said meekly, "The climate would have killed my child, and it is two years since I returned." "You ought to have found a very good place in England to make it worth your while to leave Canada." "She could not have lived through another winter in Canada,--the doctor said so." "Pooh," quoth the colonel. Mr. Digby drew a long breath. "I would not come to you, Colonel Pompley, while you could think that I came as a beggar for myself." The colonel's brow relaxed. "A very honourable sentiment, Mr. Digby." "No: I have gone through a great deal; but you see, Colonel," added the poor relation, with a faint smile, "the campaign is well-nigh over, and peace is at hand." The colonel seemed touched. "Don't talk so, Digby,--I don't like it. You are younger than I am-- nothing more disagreeable than these gloomy views of things. You have got enough to live upon, you say,--at least so I understand you. I am very glad to hear it; and, indeed, I could not assist you--so many claims on me. So it is all very well, Digby." "Oh, Colonel Pompley," cried the soldier, clasping his hands, and with feverish energy, "I am a suppliant, not for myself, but my child! I have but one,--only one, a girl. She has been so good to me! She will cost you little. Take her when I die; promise her a shelter, a home. I ask no more. You are my nearest relative. I have no other to look to. You have no children of your own. She will be a blessing to you, as she has been all upon earth to me!" If Colonel Pompley's face was red in ordinary hours, no epithet sufficiently rubicund or sanguineous can express its colour at this appeal. "The man's mad," he said, at last, with a tone of astonishment that almost concealed his wrath,--"stark mad! I take his child!--lodge and board a great, positive, hungry child! Why, sir, many and many a time have I said to Mrs. Pompley, ''T is a mercy we have no children. We could never live in this style if we had children,--never make both ends meet.' Child--the most expensive, ravenous, ruinous thing in the world-- a child." "She has been accustomed to starve," said Mr. Digby, plaintively. "Oh, Colonel, let me see your wife. Her heart I can touch,--she is a woman." Unlucky father! A more untoward, unseasonable request the Fates could not have put into his lips. Mrs. Pompley see the Digbies! Mrs. Pompley learn the condition of the colonel's grand connections! The colonel would never have been his own man again. At the bare idea, he felt as if he could have sunk into the earth with shame. In his alarm he made a stride to the door, with the intention of locking it. Good heavens, if Mrs. Pompley should come in! And the man, too, had been announced by name. Mrs. Pompley might have learned already that a Digby was with her husband,--she might be actually dressing to receive him worthily; there was not a moment to lose. The colonel exploded. "Sir, I wonder at your impudence. See Mrs. Pompley! Hush, sir, hush!--hold your tongue. I have disowned your connection. I will not have my wife--a woman, sir, of the first family --disgraced by it. Yes; you need not fire up. John Pompley is not a man to be bullied in his own house. I say disgraced. Did not you run into debt, and spend your fortune? Did not you marry a low creature,--a vulgarian, a tradesman's daughter?---and your poor father such a respectable man,--a benefited clergyman! Did not you sell your commission? Heaven knows what became of the money! Did not you turn (I shudder to say it) a common stage-player, sir? And then, when you were on your last legs, did I not give you L200 out of my own purse to go to Canada? And now here you are again,--and ask me, with a coolness that--that takes away my breath--takes away-my breath, sir--to provide for the child you have thought proper to have,--a child whose connections on the mother's side are of the most abject and discreditable condition. Leave my house, leave it! good heavens, sir, not that way!--this." And the colonel opened the glass-door that led into the garden. "I will let you out this way. If Mrs. Pompley should see you!" And with that thought the colonel absolutely hooked his arm into his poor relation's, and hurried him into the garden. Mr. Digby said not a word, but he struggled ineffectually to escape from the colonel's arm; and his colour went and came, came and went, with a quickness that showed that in those shrunken veins there were still some drops of a soldier's blood. But the colonel had now reached a little postern-door in the garden-wall. He opened the latch, and thrust out his poor cousin. Then looking down the lane, which was long, straight, and narrow, and seeing it was quite solitary, his eye fell upon the forlorn man, and remorse shot through his heart. For a moment the hardest of all kinds of avarice, that of the genteel, relaxed its gripe. For a moment the most intolerant of all forms of pride, that which is based upon false pretences, hushed its voice, and the colonel hastily drew out his purse. "There," said he, "that is all I can do for you. Do leave the town as quick as you can, and don't mention your name to any one. Your father was such a respectable man,--beneficed clergyman!" "And paid for your commission, Mr. Pompley. My name! I am not ashamed of it. But do not fear I shall claim your relationship. No; I am ashamed of you!" The poor cousin put aside the purse, still stretched towards him, with a scornful hand, and walked firmly down the lane. Colonel Pompley stood irresolute. At that moment a window in his house was thrown open. He heard the noise, turned round, and saw his wife looking out. Colonel Pompley sneaked back through the shrubbery, hiding himself amongst the trees. CHAPTER X. "Ill-luck is a /betise/," said the great Cardinal Richelieu; and in the long run, I fear, his Eminence was right. If you could drop Dick Avenel and Mr. Digby in the middle of Oxford Street,--Dick in a fustian jacket, Digby in a suit of superfine; Dick with five shillings in his pocket, Digby with L1000,--and if, at the end of ten years, you looked up your two men, Dick would be on his road to a fortune, Digby--what we have seen him! Yet Digby had no vice; he did not drink nor gamble. What was he, then? Helpless. He had been an only son,--a spoiled child, brought up as "a gentleman;" that is, as a man who was not expected to be able to turn his hand to anything. He entered, as we have seen, a very expensive regiment, wherein he found himself, at his father's death, with L4000 and the incapacity to say "No." Not naturally extravagant, but without an idea of the value of money,--the easiest, gentlest, best-tempered man whom example ever led astray. This part of his career comprised a very common history,--the poor man living on equal terms with the rich. Debt; recourse to usurers; bills signed sometimes for others, renewed at twenty per cent; the L4000 melted like snow; pathetic appeal to relations; relations have children of their own; small help given grudgingly, eked out by much advice, and coupled with conditions. Amongst the conditions there was a very proper and prudent one,--exchange into a less expensive regiment. Exchange effected; peace; obscure country quarters; ennui, flute-playing, and idleness. Mr. Digby had no resources on a rainy day --except flute-playing; pretty girl of inferior rank; all the officers after her; Digby smitten; pretty girl very virtuous; Digby forms honourable intentions; excellent sentiments; imprudent marriage. Digby falls in life; colonel's lady will not associate with Mrs. Digby; Digby cut by his whole kith and kin; many disagreeable circumstances in regimental life; Digby sells out; love in a cottage; execution in ditto. Digby had been much applauded as an amateur actor; thinks of the stage; genteel comedy,--a gentlemanlike profession. Tries in a provincial town, under another name; unhappily succeeds; life of an actor; hand-to-mouth life; illness; chest affected; Digby's voice becomes hoarse and feeble; not aware of it; attributes failing success to ignorant provincial public; appears in London; is hissed; returns to the provinces; sinks into very small parts; prison; despair; wife dies; appeal again to relations; a subscription made to get rid of him; send him out of the country; place in Canada,--superintendent to an estate, L150 a year; pursued by ill-luck; never before fit for business, not fit now; honest as the day, but keeps slovenly accounts; child cannot bear the winter of Canada; Digby wrapped up in the child; return home; mysterious life for two years; child patient, thoughtful, loving; has learned to work; manages for father; often supports him; constitution rapidly breaking; thought of what will become of his child,--worst disease of all. Poor Digby! never did a base, cruel, unkind thing in his life; and here he is, walking down the lane from Colonel Pompley's house! Now, if Digby had but learned a little of the world's cunning, I think he would have succeeded even with Colonel Pompley. Had he spent the L100 received from Lord L'Estrange with a view to effect; had he bestowed a fitting wardrobe on himself and his pretty Helen; had he stopped at the last stage, taken thence a smart chaise and pair, and presented himself at Colonel Pompley's in a way that would not have discredited the colonel's connection, and then, instead of praying for home and shelter, asked the colonel to become guardian to his child in case of his death, I have a strong notion that the colonel, in spite of his avarice, would have stretched both ends so as to take in Helen Digby. But our poor friend had no such arts. Indeed, of the L100 he had already very little left, for before leaving town he had committed what Sheridan considered the extreme of extravagance,--frittered away his money in paying his debts; and as for dressing up Helen and himself--if that thought had ever occurred to him, he would have rejected it as foolish. He would have thought that the more he showed his poverty, the more he would be pitied,--the worst mistake a poor cousin can commit. According to Theophrastus, the partridge of Paphlagonia has two hearts: so have most men; it is the common mistake of the unlucky to knock at the wrong one. CHAPTER XI. Mr. Digby entered the room of the inn in which he had left Helen. She was seated by the window, and looking out wistfully on the narrow street, perhaps at the children at play. There had never been a playtime for Helen Digby. She sprang forward as her father came in. His coming was her holiday. "We must go back to London," said Mr. Digby, sinking helplessly on the chair. Then with his sort of sickly smile,--for he was bland even to his child,--"Will you kindly inquire when the first coach leaves?" All the active cares of their careful life devolved upon that quiet child. She kissed her father, placed before him a cough mixture which he had brought from London, and went out silently to make the necessary inquiries, and prepare for the journey back. At eight o'clock the father and child were seated in the night-coach, with one other passenger,--a man muffled up to the chin. After the first mile the man let down one of the windows. Though it was summer the air was chill and raw. Digby shivered and coughed. Helen placed her hand on the window, and, leaning towards the passenger, whispered softly. "Eh!" said the passenger, "draw up the window? You have got your own window; this is mine. Oxygen, young lady," he added solemnly, "oxygen is the breath of life. Cott, child!" he continued with suppressed choler, and a Welsh pronunciation, "Cott! let us breathe and live." Helen was frightened, and recoiled. Her father, who had not heard, or had not heeded, this colloquy, retreated into the corner, put up the collar of his coat, and coughed again. "It is cold, my dear," said he, languidly, to Helen. The passenger caught the word, and replied indignantly, but as if soliloquizing,-- "Cold-ugh! I do believe the English are the stuffiest people! Look at their four-post beds--all the curtains drawn, shutters closed, board before the chimney--not a house with a ventilator! Cold-ugh!" The window next Mr. Digby did not fit well into its frame. "There is a sad draught," said the invalid. Helen instantly occupied herself in stopping up the chinks of the window with her handkerchief. Mr. Digby glanced ruefully at the other window. The look, which was very eloquent, aroused yet more the traveller's spleen. "Pleasant!" said he. "Cott! I suppose you will ask me to go outside next! But people who travel in a coach should know the law of a coach. I don't interfere with your window; you have no business to interfere with mine." "Sir, I did not speak," said Mr. Digby, meekly. "But Miss here did." "Ah, sir!" said Helen, plaintively, "if you knew how Papa suffers!" And her hand again moved towards the obnoxious window. "No, my dear; the gentleman is in his right," said Mr. Digby; and, bowing with his wonted suavity, he added, "Excuse her, sir. She thinks a great deal too much of me." The passenger said nothing, and Helen nestled closer to her father, and strove to screen him from the air. The passenger moved uneasily. "Well," said he, with a sort of snort, "air is air, and right is right: but here goes--" and he hastily drew up the window. Helen turned her face full towards the passenger with a grateful expression, visible even in the dim light. "You are very kind, sir," said poor Mr. Digby; "I am ashamed to--" his cough choked the rest of the sentence. The passenger, who was a plethoric, sanguineous man, felt as if he were stifling. But he took off his wrappers, and resigned the oxygen like a hero. Presently he drew nearer to the sufferer, and laid hand on his wrist. "You are feverish, I fear. I am a medical man. St!--one--two. Cott! you should not travel; you are not fit for it!" Mr. Digby shook his head; he was too feeble to reply. The passenger thrust his hand into his coat-pocket, and drew out what seemed a cigar-case, but what, in fact, was a leathern repertory, containing a variety of minute phials. From one of these phials he extracted two tiny globules. "There," said he, "open your mouth, put those on the tip of your tongue. They will lower the pulse, check the fever. Be better presently, but should not travel, want rest; you should be in bed. Aconite! Henbane! hum! Your papa is of fair complexion,--a timid character, I should say;--a horror of work, perhaps. Eh, child?" "Sir!" faltered Helen, astonished and alarmed. Was the man a conjuror? "A case for phosphor!" cried the passenger: "that fool Browne would have said arsenic. Don't be persuaded to take arsenic!" "Arsenic, sir!" echoed the mild Digby. "No: however unfortunate a man may be, I think, sir, that suicide is--tempting, perhaps, but highly criminal." "Suicide," said the passenger, tranquilly,--"suicide is my hobby! You have no symptom of that kind, you say?" "Good heavens! No, sir." "If ever you feel violently impelled to drown yourself, take pulsatilla; but if you feel a preference towards blowing out your brains, accompanied with weight in the limbs, loss of appetite, dry cough, and bad corns, /sulphuret of antimony/. Don't forget." Though poor Mr. Digby confusedly thought that the gentleman was out of his mind, yet he tried politely to say "that he was much obliged, and would be sure to remember; "but his tongue failed him, and his own ideas grew perplexed. His head fell back heavily, and he sank into a silence which seemed that of sleep. The traveller looked hard at Helen, as she gently drew her father's head on her shoulder, and there pillowed it with a tenderness which was more that of a mother than child. "Moral affections, soft, compassionate!--a good child and would go well with--/pulsatilla/." Helen held up her finger, and glanced from her father to the traveller, and then to her father again. "Certainly,--pulsatilla!" muttered the homoeopathist, and ensconcing himself in his own corner, he also sought to sleep. But after vain efforts, accompanied by restless gestures and movements, he suddenly started up, and again extracted his phial-book. "What the deuce are they to me?" he muttered. "Morbid sensibility of character--coffee? No!--accompanied by vivacity and violence--nux!" He brought his book to the window, contrived to read the label on a pigmy bottle. "Nux! that's it," he said,--and he swallowed a globule! "Now," quoth he, after a pause, "I don't care a straw for the misfortunes of other people; nay, I have half a mind to let down the window." Helen looked up. "But I'll not," he added resolutely; and this time he fell fairly asleep. CHAPTER XII. The coach stopped at eleven o'clock to allow the passengers to sup. The homoeopathist woke up, got out, gave himself a shake, and inhaled the fresh air into his vigorous lungs with an evident sensation of delight. He then turned and looked into the coach. "Let your father get out, my dear," said he, with a tone more gentle than usual. "I should like to see him indoors,--perhaps I can do him good." But what was Helen's terror when she found that her father did not stir! He was in a deep swoon, and still quite insensible when they lifted him from the carriage. When he recovered his senses his cough returned, and the effort brought up blood. It was impossible for him to proceed farther. The homoeopathist assisted to undress and put him into bed. And having administered another of his mysterious globules, he inquired of the landlady how far it was to the nearest doctor,--for the inn stood by itself in a small hamlet. There was the parish apothecary three miles off. But on hearing that the gentlefolks employed Dr. Dosewell, and it was a good seven miles to his house, the homoeopathist fetched a deep breath. The coach only stopped a quarter of an hour. "Cott!" said he, angrily, to himself, "the nux was a failure. My sensibility is chronic. I must go through a long course to get rid of it. Hollo, guard! get out my carpet-bag. I sha'n't go on to-night." And the good man after a very slight supper went upstairs again to the sufferer. "Shall I send for Dr. Dosewell, sir?" asked the landlady, stopping him at the door. "Hum! At what hour to-morrow does the next coach to London pass?" "Not before eight, sir." "Well, send for the doctor to be here at seven. That leaves us at least some hours free from allopathy and murder," grunted the disciple of Hahnemann, as he entered the room. Whether it was the globule that the homoeopathist had administered, or the effect of nature, aided by repose, that checked the effusion of blood, and restored some temporary strength to the poor sufferer, is more than it becomes one not of the Faculty to opine. But certainly Mr. Digby seemed better, and he gradually fell into a profound sleep, but not till the doctor had put his ear to his chest, tapped it with his hand, and asked several questions; after which the homoeopathist retired into a corner of the room, and leaning his face on his hand seemed to meditate. From his thoughts he was disturbed by a gentle touch. Helen was kneeling at his feet. "Is he very ill, very?" said she; and her fond wistful eyes were fixed on the physician's with all the earnestness of despair. "Your father is very ill," replied the doctor, after a short pause. "He cannot move hence for some days at least. I am going to London; shall I call on your relations, and tell some of them to join you?" "No, thank you, sir," answered Helen, colouring. "But do not fear; I can nurse Papa. I think he has been worse before,--that is, he has complained more." The homeeopathist rose, and took two strides across the room; then he paused by the bed, and listened to the breathing of the sleeping man. He stole back to the child, who was still kneeling, took her in his arms and kissed her. "Tamn it," said he, angrily, and putting her down, "go to bed now,--you are not wanted any more." "Please, sir," said Helen, "I cannot leave him so. If he wakes he would miss me." The doctor's hand trembled; he had recourse to his globules. "Anxiety--grief suppressed," muttered he. "Don't you want to cry, my dear? Cry,--do!" "I can't," murmured Helen. "Pulsatilla!" said the doctor, almost with triumph. "I said so from the first. Open your mouth--here! Goodnight. My room is opposite,--No. 6; call me if he wakes." CHAPTER XIII. At seven o'clock Dr. Dosewell arrived, and was shown into the room of the homoeopathist, who, already up and dressed, had visited his patient. "My name is Morgan," said the homoeopathist; "I am a physician. I leave in your hands a patient whom, I fear, neither I nor you can restore. Come and look at him." The two doctors went into the sick-room. Mr. Digby was very feeble, but he had recovered his consciousness, and inclined his head courteously. "I am sorry to cause so much trouble," said he. The homoeopathist drew away Helen; the allopathist seated himself by the bedside and put his questions, felt the pulse, sounded the lungs, and looked at the tongue of the patient. Helen's eye was fixed on the strange doctor, and her colour rose, and her eye sparkled when he got up cheerfully, and said in a pleasant voice, "You may have a little tea." "Tea!" growled the homceopathist,--"barbarian!" "He is better, then, sir?" said Helen, creeping to the allopathist. "Oh, yes, my dear,--certainly; and we shall do very well, I hope." The two doctors then withdrew. "Last about a week!" said Dr. Dosewell, smiling pleasantly, and showing a very white set of teeth. "I should have said a month; but our systems are different," replied Dr. Morgan, dryly. DR. DOSEWELL (courteously).--"We country doctors bow to our metropolitan superiors; what would you advise? You would venture, perhaps, the experiment of bleeding." DR. MORGAN (spluttering and growling Welsh, which he never did but in excitement).--"Pleed! Cott in heaven! do you think I am a putcher,--an executioner? Pleed! Never." DR. DOSEWELL.--"I don't find it answer, myself, when both lungs are gone! But perhaps you are for inhaling?" DR. MORGAN.--"Fiddledee!" DR. DOSEWELL (with some displeasure).--"What would you advise, then, in order to prolong our patient's life for a month?" DR. MORGAN.--"Give him Rhus!" DR. DOSEWELL.--"Rhus, sir! Rhus! I don't know that medicine. Rhus!" Dr. MORGAN.--"Rhus Toxicodendron." The length of the last word excited Dr. Dosewell's respect. A word of five syllables,--that was something like! He bowed deferentially, but still looked puzzled. At last he said, smiling frankly, "You great London practitioners have so many new medicines: may I ask what Rhus toxico--toxico--" "Dendron." "Is?" "The juice of the upas,--vulgarly called the poison-tree." Dr. Dosewell started. "Upas--poison-tree--little birds that come under the shade fall down dead! You give upas juice in these desperate cases: what's the dose?" Dr. Morgan grinned maliciously, and produced a globule the size of a small pin's head. Dr. Dosewell recoiled in disgust. "Oh!" said he, very coldly, and assuming at once an air of superb superiority, "I see, a homoeopathist, sir!" "A homoeopathist." "Um!" "Um!" "A strange system, Dr. Morgan," said Dr. Dosewell, recovering his cheerful smile, but with a curl of contempt in it, "and would soon do for the druggists." "Serve 'em right. The druggists soon do for the patients." "Sir!" "Sir!" DR. DOSEWELL (with dignity).---"You don't know, perhaps, Dr. Morgan, that I am an apothecary as well as a surgeon. In fact," he added, with a certain grand humility, "I have not yet taken a diploma, and am but doctor by courtesy." DR. MORGAN.--"All one, sir! Doctor signs the death-warrant, 'pothecary does the deed!" DR. DOSEWELL (with a withering sneer).--"Certainly we don't profess to keep a dying man alive upon the juice of the deadly upas-tree." DR. MORGAN (complacently).--"Of course you don't. There are no poisons with us. That's just the difference between you and me, Dr. Dosewell." DR. DOSEWELL (pointing to the homceopathist's travelling pharmacopoeia, and with affected candour).--"Indeed, I have always said that if you can do no good, you can do no harm, with your infinitesimals." DR. MORGAN, who had been obtuse to the insinuation of poisoning, fires up violently at the charge of doing no harm. "You know nothing about it! I could kill quite as many people as you, if I chose it; but I don't choose." DR. DOSEWELL (shrugging his shoulders).--"Sir Sir! It is no use arguing; the thing's against common-sense. In short, it is my firm belief that it is--is a complete--" DR. MORGAN.--"A complete what?" DR. DOSEWELL (provoked to the utmost).--"Humbug!" DR. MORGAN.--"Humbug! Cott in heaven! You old--" DR. DOSEWELL.--"Old what, sir?" DR. MORGAN (at home in a series of alliteral vowels, which none but a Cymbrian could have uttered without gasping).--"Old allopathical anthropophagite!" DR. DOSEWELL (starting up, seizing by the back the chair on which he had sat, and bringing it down violently on its four legs).--"Sir!" DR. MORGAN (imitating the action with his own chair).--"Sir!" DR. DOSEWELL.--"You're abusive." DR. MORGAN.--"You're impertinent." DR. DOSEWELL.--" Sir!" DR. MORGAN.--"Sir!" The two rivals confronted each other. They were both athletic men, and fiery men. Dr. Dosewell was the taller, but Dr. Morgan was the stouter. Dr. Dosewell on the mother's side was Irish; but Dr. Morgan on both sides was Welsh. All things considered, I would have backed Dr. Morgan if it had come to blows. But, luckily for the honour of science, here the chambermaid knocked at the door, and said, "The coach is coming, sir." Dr. Morgan recovered his temper and his manners at that announcement. "Dr. Dosewell," said he, "I have been too hot,--I apologize." "Dr. Morgan," answered the allopathist, "I forgot myself. Your hand, sir." DR. MORGAN.--"We are both devoted to humanity, though with different opinions. We should respect each other." DR. DOSEWELL.--"Where look for liberality, if men of science are illiberal to their brethren?" DR. MORGAN (aside).--"The old hypocrite! He would pound me in a mortar if the law would let him." DR. DOSEWELL (aside).--"The wretched charlatan! I should like to pound him in a mortar." DR. MORGAN.--"Good-by, my esteemed and worthy brother." DR. DOSEWELL.--"My excellent friend, good-by." DR. MORGAN (returning in haste).--"I forgot. I don't think our poor patient is very rich. I confide him to your disinterested benevolence." (Hurries away.) DR. DOSEWELL (in a rage).--"Seven miles at six o'clock in the morning, and perhaps done out of my fee! Quack! Villain!" Meanwhile, Dr. Morgan had returned to the sick-room. "I must wish you farewell," said he to poor Mr. Digby, who was languidly sipping his tea. "But you are in the hands of a--of a--gentleman in the profession." "You have been too kind,--I am shocked," said Mr. Digby. "Helen, where's my purse?" Dr. Morgan paused. He paused, first, because it must be owned that his practice was restricted, and a fee gratified the vanity natural to unappreciated talent, and had the charm of novelty, which is sweet to human nature itself. Secondly, he was a man-- "Who knew his rights; and, knowing, dared maintain." He had resigned a coach fare, stayed a night, and thought he had relieved his patient. He had a right to his fee. On the other hand, he paused, because, though he had small practice, he was tolerably well off, and did not care for money in itself, and he suspected his patient to be no Croesus. Meanwhile the purse was in Helen's hand. He took it from her, and saw but a few sovereigns within the well-worn network. He drew the child a little aside. "Answer me, my dear, frankly,--is your papa rich?--" And he glanced at the shabby clothes strewed on the chair and Helen's faded frock. "Alas, no!" said Helen, hanging her head. "Is that all you have?" "All." "I am ashamed to offer you two guineas," said Mr. Digby's hollow voice from the bed. "And I should be still more ashamed to take them. Good by, sir. Come here, my child. Keep your money, and don't waste it on the other doctor more than you can help. His medicines can do your father no good. But I suppose you must have some. He's no physician, therefore there's no fee. He'll send a bill,--it can't be much. You understand. And now, God bless you." Dr. Morgan was off. But, as he paid the landlady his bill, he said considerately, "The poor people upstairs can pay you, but not that doctor,--and he's of no use. Be kind to the little girl, and get the doctor to tell his patient (quietly of course) to write to his friends-- soon--you understand. Somebody must take charge of the poor child. And stop--hold your hand; take care--these globules for the little girl when her father dies,"--here the doctor muttered to himself, "grief,--aconite, and if she cries too much afterwards, these--(don't mistake). Tears,-- caustic!" "Come, sir," cried the coachman. "Coming; tears,--caustic," repeated the homoeopathist, pulling out his handkerchief and his phial-book together as he got into the coach; and he hastily swallowed his antilachrymal. CHAPTER XIV. Richard Avenel was in a state of great nervous excitement. He proposed to give an entertainment of a kind wholly new to the experience of Screwstown. Mrs. M'Catchley had described with much eloquence the /Dejeunes dansants/ of her fashionable friends residing in the elegant suburbs of Wimbledon and Fulham. She declared that nothing was so agreeable. She had even said point-blank to Mr. Avenel, "Why don't you give a /Dejeune dansant/?" And, therewith, a /Dejeune dansant/ Mr. Avenel resolved to give. The day was fixed, and Mr. Avenel entered into all the requisite preparations, with the energy of a man and the providence of a woman. One morning as he stood musing on the lawn, irresolute as to the best site for the tents, Leonard came up to him with an open letter in his hand. "My dear uncle," said he, softly. "Ha!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel, with a start. "Ha-well, what now?" "I have just received a letter from Mr. Dale. He tells me that my poor mother is very restless and uneasy, because he cannot assure her that he has heard from me; and his letter requires an answer. Indeed I shall seem very ungrateful to him--to all--if I do not write." Richard Avenel's brows met. He uttered an impatient "Pish!" and turned away. Then coming back, he fixed his clear hawk-like eye on Leonard's ingenuous countenance, linked his arm into his nephew's, and drew him into the shrubbery. "Well, Leonard," said he, after a pause, "it is time that I should give you some idea of my plans with regard to you. You have seen my manner of living--some difference from what you ever saw before, I calculate! Now I have given you, what no one gave me, a lift in the world; and where I place you, there you must help yourself." "Such is my duty and my desire," said Leonard, heartily. "Good. You are a clever lad, and a genteel lad, and will do me credit. I have had doubts of what is best for you. At one time I thought of sending you to college. That, I know; is Mr. Dale's wish; perhaps it is your own. But I have given up that idea; I have something better for you. You have a clear head for business, and are a capital arithmetician. I think of bringing you up to superintend my business; by and by I will adinit you into partnership; and before you are thirty you will be a rich man. Come, does that suit you?" "My dear uncle," said Leonard, frankly, but much touched by this generosity, "it is not for me to have a choice. I should have preferred going to college, because there I might gain independence for myself and cease to be a burden on you. Moreover, my heart moves me to studies more congenial with the college than the counting-house. But all this is nothing compared with my wish to be of use to you, and to prove in any way, however feebly, my gratitude for all your kindness." "You're a good, grateful, sensible lad," exclaimed Richard, heartily; "and believe me, though I'm a rough diamond, I have your true interest at heart. You can be of use to me, and in being so you will best serve yourself. To tell you the truth, I have some idea of changing my condition. There's a lady of fashion and quality who, I think, may condescend to become Mrs. Avenel; and if so, I shall probably reside a great part of the year in London. I don't want to give up my business. No other investment will yield the same interest. But you can soon learn to superintend it for me, as some day or other I may retire, and then you can step in. Once a member of our great commercial class, and with your talents you may be anything,--member of parliament, and after that, minister of State, for what I know. And my wife--hem! that is to be--has great connections, and you shall marry well; and--oh, the Avenels will hold their heads with the highest, after all! Damn the aristocracy! we clever fellows will be the aristocrats, eh?" Richard rubbed his hands. Certainly, as we have seen, Leonard, especially in his earlier steps to knowledge, had repined at his position in the many degrees of life; certainly he was still ambitious; certainly he could not now have returned contentedly to the humble occupation he had left; and woe to the young man who does not hear with a quickened pulse and brightening eye words that promise independence, and flatter with the hope of distinction. Still, it was with all the reaction of chill and mournful disappointment that Leonard, a few hours after this dialogue with his uncle, found himself alone in the fields, and pondering over the prospects before him. He had set his heart upon completing his intellectual education, upon developing those powers within him which yearned for an arena of literature, and revolted from the routine of trade. But to his credit be it said, that he vigorously resisted this natural disappointment, and by degrees schooled himself to look cheerfully on the path imposed on his duty, and sanctioned by the manly sense that was at the core of his character. I believe that this self-conquest showed that the boy had true genius. The false genius would have written sonnets and despaired. But still, Richard Avenel left his nephew sadly perplexed as to the knotty question from which their talk on the future had diverged,-- namely, should he write to the parson, and assure the fears of his mother? How do so without Richard's consent, when Richard had on a former occasion so imperiously declared that, if he did, it would lose his mother all that Richard intended to settle on her? While he was debating this matter with his conscience, leaning against a stile that interrupted a path to the town, Leonard Fairfield was startled by an exclamation. He looked up, and beheld Mr. Sprott the tinker. CHAPTER XV. The tinker, blacker and grimmer than ever, stared hard at the altered person of his old acquaintance, and extended his sable fingers, as if inclined to convince himself by the sense of touch that it was Leonard in the flesh that he beheld, under vestments so marvellously elegant and preternaturally spruce. Leonard shrank mechanically from the contact, while in great surprise he faltered,-- "You here, Mr. Sprott! What could bring you so far from home?" "'Ome!" echoed the tinker, "I 'as no 'ome! or rather, d' ye see, Muster Fairfilt, I makes myself at 'ome verever I goes! Lor' love ye! I ben't settled on no parridge. I wanders here and I vanders there, and that's my 'ome verever I can mend my kettles and sell my tracks!" So saying, the tinker slid his panniers on the ground, gave a grunt of release and satisfaction, and seated himself with great composure on the stile from which Leonard had retreated. "But, dash my wig," resumed Mr. Sprott, as he once more surveyed Leonard, "vy, you bees a rale gentleman, now, surely! Vot's the dodge, eh?" "Dodge!" repeated Leonard, mechanically, "I don't understand you." Then, thinking that it was neither necessary nor expedient to keep up his acquaintance with Mr. Sprott, nor prudent to expose himself to the battery of questions which he foresaw that further parley would bring upon him, he extended a crown-piece to the tinker; and saying, with a half-smile, "You must excuse me for leaving you--I have business in the town; and do me the favour to accept this trifle," he walked briskly off. The tinker looked long at the crown-piece, and then sliding it into his pocket, said to himself,-- "Ho, 'ush-money! No go, my swell cove." After venting that brief soliloquy he sat silent a little while, till Leonard was nearly out of sight; then rose, resumed his fardel, and creeping quick along the hedgerows, followed Leonard towards the town. Just in the last field, as he looked over the hedge, he saw Leonard accosted by a gentleman of comely mien and important swagger. That gentleman soon left the young man, and came, whistling loud, up the path, and straight towards the tinker. Mr. Sprott looked round, but the hedge was too neat to allow of a good hiding-place, so he put a bold front on it, and stepped forth like a man. But, alas for him! before he got into the public path, the proprietor of the land, Mr. Richard Avenel (for the gentleman was no less a personage), had spied out the trespasser, and called to him with a "Hillo, fellow," that bespoke all the dignity of a man who owns acres, and all the wrath of a man who beholds those acres impudently invaded. The tinker stopped, and Mr. Avenel stalked up to him. "What the devil are you doing on my property, lurking by my hedge? I suspect you are an incendiary!" "I be a tinker," quoth Mr. Sprott, not louting low, for a sturdy republican was Mr. Sprott, but, like a lord of human kind,-- "Pride in his port, defiance in his eye." Mr. Avenel's fingers itched to knock the tinker's villanous hat off his jacobinical head, but he repressed the undignified impulse by thrusting both hands deep into his trousers' pockets. "A tinker!" he cried,--"that's a vagrant; and I'm a magistrate, and I've a great mind to send you to the treadmill,--that I have. What do you do here, I say? You have not answered my question." "What does I do 'ere?" said Mr. Sprott. "Vy, you had better ax my crakter of the young gent I saw you talking with just now; he knows me." "What! my nephew knows you?" "W-hew," whistled the tinker, "your nephew is it, sir? I have a great respek for your family. I 've knowed Mrs. Fairfilt the vashervoman this many a year. I 'umbly ax your pardon." And he took off his hat this time. Mr. Avenel turned red and white in a breath. He growled out something inaudible, turned on his heel, and strode off. The tinker watched him as he had watched Leonard, and then dogged the uncle as he had dogged the nephew. I don't presume to say that there was cause and effect in what happened that night, but it was what is called "a curious coincidence" that that night one of Richard Avenel's ricks was set on fire, and that that day he had called Mr. Sprott an incendiary. Mr. Sprott was a man of a very high spirit, and did not forgive an insult easily. His nature was inflammatory, and so was that of the lucifers which he always carried about him, with his tracts and glue-pots. The next morning there was an inquiry made for the tinker, but he had disappeared from the neighbourhood. CHAPTER XVI. It was a fortunate thing that the dejeune dansant so absorbed Mr. Richard Avenel's thoughts that even the conflagration of his rick could not scare away the graceful and poetic images connected with that pastoral festivity. He was even loose and careless in the questions he put to Leonard about the tinker; nor did he send justice in pursuit of that itinerant trader; for, to say truth, Richard Avenel was a man accustomed to make enemies amongst the lower orders; and though he suspected Mr. Sprott of destroying his rick, yet, when he once set about suspecting, he found he had quite as good cause to suspect fifty other persons. How on earth could a man puzzle himself about ricks and tinkers when all his cares and energies were devoted to a /dejeune dansant/? It was a maxim of Richard Avenel's, as it ought to be of every clever man, "to do one thing at a time;" and therefore he postponed all other considerations till the /dejeune dansant/ was fairly done with. Amongst these considerations was the letter which Leonard wished to write to the parson. "Wait a bit, and we will both write!" said Richard, good- humouredly, "the moment the dijeune dansant is over!" It must be owned that this fete was no ordinary provincial ceremonial. Richard Avenel was a man to do a thing well when he set about it,-- "He soused the cabbage with a bounteous heart." By little and little his first notions had expanded, till what had been meant to be only neat and elegant now embraced the costly and magnificent. Artificers accustomed to /dejeunes dansants/ came all the way from London to assist, to direct, to create. Hungarian singers and Tyrolese singers and Swiss peasant-women, who were to chant the /Ranz des Vaches/, and milk cows or make syllabubs, were engaged. The great marquee was decorated as a Gothic banquet-hall; the breakfast itself was to consist of "all the delicacies of the season." In short, as Richard Avenel said to himself, "It is a thing once in a way; a thing on which I don't object to spend money, provided that the thing is--the thing!" It had been a matter of grave meditation how to make the society worthy of the revel; for Richard Avenel was not contented with the mere aristocracy of the town,--his ambition had grown with his expenses. "Since it will cost so much," said he, "I may as well come it strong, and get in the county." True, that he was personally acquainted with very few of what are called county families. But still, when a man makes himself a mark in a large town, and can return one of the members whom that town sends to parliament; and when, moreover, that man proposes to give some superb and original entertainment, in which the old can eat and the young can dance, there is no county in the island that has not families enow who will be delighted by an invitation from THAT MAN. And so Richard, finding that, as the thing got talked of, the dean's lady, and Mrs. Pompley, and various other great personages, took the liberty to suggest that Squire this, and Sir somebody that, would be so pleased if they were asked, fairly took the bull by the horns, and sent out his cards to Park, Hall, and Rectory, within a circumference of twelve miles. He met with but few refusals, and he now counted upon five hundred guests. "In for a penny in for a pound," said Mr. Richard Avenel. "I wonder what Mrs. M'Catchley will say?" Indeed, if the whole truth must be known,-- Mr. Richard Avenel not only gave that /dejeune dansant/ in honour of Mrs. M'Catchley, but he had fixed in his heart of hearts upon that occasion (when surrounded by all his splendour, and assisted by the seductive arts of Terpsichore and Bacchus) to whisper to Mrs. M'Catchley those soft words which--but why not here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his own idiomatic and unsophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then," said Mr. Avenel to himself, "I shall pop the question!" CHAPTER XVII. The Great Day arrived at last; and Mr. Richard Avenel, from his dressing- room window, looked on the scene below as Hannibal or Napoleon looked from the Alps on Italy. It was a scene to gratify the thought of conquest, and reward the labours of ambition. Placed on a little eminence stood the singers from the mountains of the Tyrol, their high- crowned hats and filigree buttons and gay sashes gleaming in the sun. Just seen from his place of watch, though concealed from the casual eye, the Hungarian musicians lay in ambush amidst a little belt of laurels and American shrubs. Far to the right lay what had once been called /horresco referens/ the duckpond, where--"Dulce sonant tenui gutture carmen aves." But the ruthless ingenuity of the head-artificer had converted the duck-pond into a Swiss lake, despite grievous wrong and sorrow to the /assuetum innocuumque genus/,--the familiar and harmless inhabitants, who had been all expatriated and banished from their native waves. Large poles twisted with fir branches, stuck thickly around the lake, gave to the waters the becoming Helvetian gloom. And here, beside three cows all bedecked with ribbons, stood the Swiss maidens destined to startle the shades with the /Ranz des Vaches/. To the left, full upon the sward, which it almost entirely covered, stretched the great Gothic marquee, divided into two grand sections,--one for the dancing, one for the dejeune. The day was propitious,--not a cloud in the sky. The musicians were already tuning their instruments; figures of waiters hired of Gunter-- trim and decorous, in black trousers and white waistcoats--passed to and fro the space between the house and marquee. Richard looked and looked; and as he looked he drew mechanically his razor across the strop; and when he had looked his fill, he turned reluctantly to the glass and shaved! All that blessed morning he had been too busy, till then, to think of shaving. There is a vast deal of character in the way that a man performs that operation of shaving! You should have seen Richard Avenel shave! You could have judged at once how he would shave his neighbours, when you saw the celerity, the completeness with which he shaved himself,--a forestroke and a backstroke, and /tondenti barba cadebat/. Cheek and chin were as smooth as glass. You would have buttoned up your pockets instinctively if you had seen him. But the rest of Mr. Avenel's toilet was not completed with correspondent despatch. On his bed, and on his chairs, and on his sofa, and on his drawers, lay trousers and vests and cravats enough to distract the choice of a Stoic. And first one pair of trousers was tried on, and then another--and one waistcoat, and then a second, and then a third. Gradually that chef-d'oeuvre of civilization--a man dressed--grew into development and form; and, finally, Mr. Richard Avenel emerged into the light of day. He had been lucky in his costume,--he felt it. It might not suit every one in colour or cut, but it suited him. And this was his garb. On such occasion, what epic poet would not describe the robe and tunic of a hero? His surtout--in modern phrase his frockcoat--was blue, a rich blue, a blue that the royal brothers of George the Fourth were wont to favour. And the surtout, single-breasted, was thrown open gallantly; and in the second button-hole thereof was a moss-rose. The vest was white, and the trousers a pearl gray, with what tailors style "a handsome fall over the boot." A blue and white silk cravat, tied loose and debonair; an ample field of shirt front, with plain gold studs; a pair of lemon-coloured kid gloves, and a white hat, placed somewhat too knowingly on one side, complete the description, and "give the world assurance of the man." And, with his light, firm, well-shaped figure, his clear complexion, his keen, bright eye, and features that bespoke the courage, precision, and alertness of his character,--that is to say, features bold, not large, well-defined, and regular,--you might walk long through town or country before you would see a handsomer specimen of humanity than our friend Richard Avenel. Handsome, and feeling that he was handsome; rich, and feeling that he was rich; lord of the fete, and feeling that he was lord of the fete, Richard Avenel stepped out upon his lawn. And now the dust began to rise along the road, and carriages and gigs and chaises and flies might be seen at near intervals and in quick procession. People came pretty much about the same time-as they do in the country--Heaven reward them for it! Richard Avenel was not quite at his ease at first in receiving his guests, especially those whom he did not know by sight. But when the dancing began, and he had secured the fair hand of Mrs. M'Catchley for the initiary quadrille, his courage and presence of mind returned to him; and, seeing that many people whom he had not received at all seemed to enjoy themselves very much, he gave up the attempt to receive those who came after,--and that was a great relief to all parties. Meanwhile Leonard looked on the animated scene with a silent melancholy, which he in vain endeavoured to shake off,--a melancholy more common amongst very young men in such scenes than we are apt to suppose. Somehow or other, the pleasure was not congenial to him; he had no Mrs. M'Catchley to endear it; he knew very few people, he was shy, he felt his position with his uncle was equivocal, he had not the habit of society, he heard, incidentally, many an ill-natured remark upon his uncle and the entertainment, he felt indignant and mortified. He had been a great deal happier eating his radishes and reading his book by the little fountain in Riccabocca's garden. He retired to a quiet part of the grounds, seated himself under a tree, leaned his cheek on his hand, and mused. He was soon far away;--happy age, when, whatever the present, the future seems so fair and so infinite! But now the dejeune had succeeded the earlier dances; and, as champagne flowed royally, it is astonishing how the entertainment brightened. The sun was beginning to slope towards the west, when, during a temporary cessation of the dance, all the guests had assembled in such space as the tent left on the lawn, or thickly filled the walks immediately adjoining it. The gay dresses of the ladies, the joyous laughter heard everywhere, and the brilliant sunlight over all, conveyed even to Leonard the notion, not of mere hypocritical pleasure, but actual healthful happiness. He was attracted from his revery, and timidly mingled with the groups. But Richard Avenel, with the fair Mrs. M'Catchley--her complexion more vivid, and her eyes more dazzling, and her step more elastic than usual--had turned from the gayety just as Leonard had turned towards it, and was now on the very spot (remote, obscure, shaded by the few trees above five years old that Mr. Avenel's property boasted) which the young dreamer had deserted. And then! Ah, then! moment so meet for the sweet question of questions, place so appropriate for the delicate, bashful, murmured popping thereof!---suddenly from the sward before, from the groups beyond, there floated to the ears of Richard Avenel an indescribable, mingled, ominous sound,--a sound as of a general titter, a horrid, malignant, but low cachinnation. And Mrs. M'Catchley, stretching forth her parasol, exclaimed, "Dear me, Mr. Avenel, what can they be all crowding there for?" There are certain sounds and certain sights--the one indistinct, the other vaguely conjecturable--which, nevertheless, we know, by an instinct, bode some diabolical agency at work in our affairs. And if any man gives an entertainment, and hears afar a general, ill-suppressed, derisive titter, and sees all his guests hurrying towards one spot, I defy him to remain unmoved and uninquisitive. I defy him still more to take that precise occasion (however much he may have before designed it) to drop gracefully on his right knee before the handsomest Mrs. M'Catchley in the universe, and--pop the question! Richard Avenel blurted out something very like an oath; and, half guessing that something must have happened that it would not be pleasing to bring immediately under the notice of Mrs. M'Catchley, he said hastily, "Excuse me. I'll just go and see what is the matter; pray, stay till I come back." With that he sprang forward; in a minute he was in the midst of the group, that parted aside with the most obliging complacency to make way for him. "But what's the matter?" he asked impatiently, yet fearfully. Not a voice answered. He strode on, and beheld his nephew in the arms of a woman! "God bless my soul!" said Richard Avenel. CHAPTER XVIII. And such a woman! She had on a cotton gown,--very neat, I dare say, for an under-housemaid; and such thick shoes! She had on a little black straw bonnet; and a kerchief, that might have cost tenpence, pinned across her waist instead of a shawl; and she looked altogether-respectable, no doubt, but exceedingly dusty! And she was hanging upon Leonard's neck, and scolding, and caressing, and crying very loud. "God bless my soul!" said Mr. Richard Avenel. And as he uttered that innocent self-benediction, the woman hastily turned round, and darting from Leonard, threw herself right upon Richard Avenel--burying under her embrace blue-coat, moss rose, white waistcoat and all--with a vehement sob and a loud exclamation! "Oh! brother Dick!--dear, dear brother Dick! And I lives to see thee agin!" And then came two such kisses--you might have heard them a mile off! The situation of brother Dick was appalling; and the crowd, that had before only tittered politely, could not now resist the effect of this sudden embrace. There was a general explosion! It was a roar! That roar would have killed a weak man; but it sounded to the strong heart of Richard Avenel like the defiance of a foe, and it plucked forth in an instant from all conventional let and barrier the native spirit of the Anglo-Saxon. He lifted abruptly his handsome masculine head, and looked round the ring of his ill-bred visitors with a haughty stare of rebuke and surprise. "Ladies and gentlemen," then said he, very coolly, "I don't see what there is to laugh at! A brother and sister meet after many years' separation, and the sister cries, poor thing. For my part I think it very natural that she should cry; but not that you should laugh!" In an instant the whole shame was removed from Richard Avenel, and rested in full weight upon the bystanders. It is impossible to say how foolish and sheepish they all looked, nor how slinkingly each tried to creep off. Richard Avenel seized his advantage with the promptitude of a man who had got on in America, and was, therefore, accustomed to make the best of things. He drew Mrs. Fairfield's arm in his, and led her into the house; but when he had got her safe into his parlour--Leonard following all the time--and the door was closed upon those three, then Richard Avenel's ire burst forth. "You impudent, ungrateful, audacious--drab!" Yes, drab was the word. I am shocked to say it, but the duties of a historian are stern: and the word was drab. "Drab!" faltered poor Jane Fairfield; and she clutched hold of Leonard to save herself from falling. "Sir!" cried Leonard, fiercely. You might as well have cried "sir" to a mountain torrent. Richard hurried on, for he was furious. "You nasty, dirty, dusty dowdy! How dare you come here to disgrace me in my own house and premises, after my sending you L50! To take the very time, too, when--when Richard gasped for breath; and the laugh of his guests rang in his ears, and got into his chest, and choked him. Jane Fairfield drew herself up, and her tears were dried. "I did not come to disgrace you! I came to see my boy, and--" "Ha!" interrupted Richard, "to see him." He turned to Leonard: "You have written to this woman, then?" "No, sir, I have not." "I believe you lie." "He does not lie; and he is as good as yourself, and better, Richard Avenel," exclaimed Mrs. Fairfield; "and I won't stand here and hear him insulted,--that's what I won't. And as for your L50, there are forty- five of it; and I'll work my fingers to the bone till I pay back the other five. And don't be afeard I shall disgrace you, for I'll never look on your face agin; and you're a wicked, bad man,--that's what you are!" The poor woman's voice was so raised and so shrill, that any other and more remorseful feeling which Richard might have conceived was drowned in his apprehensions that she would be overheard by his servants or his guests,--a masculine apprehension, with which females rarely sympathize; which, on the contrary, they are inclined to consider a mean and cowardly terror on the part of their male oppressors. "Hush! hold your infernal squall,--do'." said Mr. Avenel, in a tone that he meant to be soothing. "There--sit down--and don't stir till I come back again, and can talk to you calmly. Leonard, follow me, and help to explain things to our guests." Leonard stood still, but shook his head slightly. "What do you mean, sir?" said Richard Avenel, in a very portentous growl. "Shaking your head at me? Do you intend to disobey me? You had better take care!" Leonard's front rose; he drew one arm round his mother, and thus he spoke, "Sir, you have been kind to me, and generous, and that thought alone silenced my indignation when I heard you address such language to my mother; for I felt that, if I spoke, I should say too much. Now I speak, and it is to say, shortly, that--" "Hush, boy," said poor Mrs. Fairfield, frightened; "don't mind me. I did not come to make mischief, and ruin your prospex. I'll go!" "Will you ask her pardon, Mr. Avenel?" said Leonard, firmly; and he advanced towards his uncle. Richard, naturally hot and intolerant of contradiction, was then excited, not only by the angry emotions, which, it must be owned, a man so mortified, and in the very flush of triumph, might well experience, but by much more wine than he was in the habit of drinking; and when Leonard approached him, he misinterpreted the movement into one of menace and aggression. He lifted his arm: "Come a step nearer," said he, between his teeth, "and I'll knock you down." Leonard advanced the forbidden step; but as Richard caught his eye, there was something in that eye-- not defying, not threatening, but bold and dauntless--which Richard recognized and respected, for that something spoke the Freeman. The uncle's arm mechanically fell to his side. "You cannot strike me, Mr. Avenel," said Leonard, "for you are aware that I could not strike again my mother's brother. As her son, I once more say to you,--ask her pardon." "Ten thousand devils! Are you mad?--or do you want to drive me mad? You insolent beggar, fed and clothed by my charity! Ask her pardon!-- what for? That she has made me the object of jeer and ridicule with that d---d cotton gown and those double-d---d thick shoes--I vow and protest they've got nails in them! Hark ye, sir, I've been insulted by her, but I'm not to be bullied by you. Come with me instantly, or I discard you; not a shilling of mine shall you have as long as I live. Take your choice: be a peasant, a labourer, or--" "A base renegade to natural affection, a degraded beggar indeed!" cried Leonard, his breast heaving, and his cheeks in a glow. "Mother, Mother, come away. Never fear,--I have strength and youth, and we will work together as before." But poor Mrs. Fairfield, overcome by her excitement, had sunk down into Richard's own handsome morocco leather easy-chair, and could neither speak nor stir. "Confound you both!" muttered Richard. "You can't be seen creeping out of my house now. Keep her here, you young viper, you; keep her till I come back; and then, if you choose to go, go and be--" Not finishing his sentence, Mr. Avenel hurried out of the room, and locked the door, putting the key into his pocket. He paused for a moment in the hall, in order to collect his thoughts, drew three or four deep breaths, gave himself a great shake, and, resolved to be faithful to his principle of doing one thing at a time, shook off in that shake all disturbing recollection of his mutinous captives. Stern as Achilles when he appeared to the Trojans, Richard Avenel stalked back to his lawn. CHAPTER XIX. Brief as had been his absence, the host could see that, in the interval, a great and notable change had come over the spirit of his company. Some of those who lived in the town were evidently preparing to return home on foot; those who lived at a distance, and whose carriages (having been sent away, and ordered to return at a fixed hour) had not yet arrived, were gathered together in small knots and groups; all looked sullen and displeased, and all instinctively turned from their host as he passed them by. They felt they had been lectured, and they were more put out than Richard himself. They did not know if they might not be lectured again. This vulgar man, of what might he not be capable? Richard's shrewd sense comprehended in an instant all the difficulties of his position; but he walked on deliberately and directly towards Mrs. M'Catchley, who was standing near the grand marquee with the Pompleys and the dean's lady. As those personages saw him make thus boldly towards them, there was a flutter. "Hang the fellow!" said the colonel, intrenching himself in his stock, "he is coming here. Low and shocking --what shall we do? Let us stroll on." But Richard threw himself in the way of the retreat. "Mrs. M'Catchley," said he, very gravely, and offering her his arm, "allow me three words with you." The poor widow looked very much discomposed. Mrs. Pompley pulled her by the sleeve. Richard still stood gazing into her face, with his arm extended. She hesitated a minute, and then took the arm. "Monstrous impudent!" cried the colonel. "Let Mrs. M'Catchley alone, my dear," responded Mrs. Pompley; "she will know how to give him a lesson." "Madam," said Richard, as soon as he and his companion were out of hearing, "I rely on you to do me a favour." "On me?" "On you, and you alone. You have influence with all those people, and a word from you will effect what I desire. Mrs. M'Catchley," added Richard, with a solemnity that was actually imposing, "I flatter myself that you have some friendship for me, which is more than I can say of any other soul in these grounds; will you do me this favour, ay or no?" "What is it, Mr. Avenel?" asked Mrs. M'Catchley, much disturbed, and somewhat softened,--for she was by no means a woman without feeling; indeed, she considered herself nervous. "Get all your friends--all the company, in short-to come back into the tent for refreshments, for anything. I want to say a few words to them." "Bless me! Mr. Avenel--a few words!" cried the widow, "but that's just what they're all afraid of. You must pardon me, but you really can't ask people to a /dejeune dansant/, and then--scold 'em!" "I'm not going to scold them," said Air. Avenel, very seriously,--"upon my honour, I'm not. I'm going to make all right, and I even hope afterwards that the dancing may go on--and that you will honour me again with your hand. I leave you to your task; and believe me, I'm not an ungrateful man." He spoke, and bowed--not without some dignity--and vanished within the breakfast division of the marquee. There he busied himself in re-collecting the waiters, and directing them to re-arrange the mangled remains of the table as they best could. Mrs. M'Catchley, whose curiosity and interest were aroused, executed her commission with all the ability and tact of a woman of the world, and in less than a quarter of an hour the marquee was filled, the corks flew, the champagne bounced and sparkled, people drank in silence, munched fruits and cakes, kept up their courage with the conscious sense of numbers, and felt a great desire to know what was coming. Mr. Avenel, at the head of the table, suddenly rose. "Ladies and Gentlemen," said he, "I have taken the liberty to invite you once more into this tent, in order to ask you to sympathize with me upon an occasion which took us all a little by surprise to-day. "Of course, you all know I am a new man,--the maker of my own fortunes." A great many heads bowed involuntarily. The words were said manfully, and there was a general feeling of respect. "Probably, too," resumed Mr. Avenel, "you may know that I am the son of very honest tradespeople. I say honest, and they are not ashamed of me; I say tradespeople, and I'm not ashamed of them. My sister married and settled at a distance. I took her son to educate and bring up. But I did not tell her where he was, nor even that I had returned from America; I wished to choose my own time for that, when I could give her the surprise, not only of a rich brother, but of a son whom I intended to make a gentleman, so far as manners and education can make one. Well, the poor dear woman has found me out sooner than I expected, and turned the tables on me by giving me a surprise of her own invention. Pray, forgive the confusion this little family-scene has created; and though I own it was very laughable at the moment, and I was wrong to say otherwise, yet I am sure I don't judge ill of your good hearts, when I ask you to think what brother and sister must feel who parted from each other when they were boy and girl. To me" (and Richard gave a great gulp, for he felt that a great gulp alone could swallow the abominable lie he was about to utter)--"to me this has been a very happy occasion! I'm a plain man: no one can take ill what I've said. And wishing that you may be all as happy in your family as I am in mine--humble though it be--I beg to drink your very good healths!" There was a universal applause when Richard sat down; and so well in his plain way had he looked the thing, and done the thing, that at least half of those present--who till then had certainly disliked and half despised him--suddenly felt that they were proud of his acquaintance. For however aristocratic this country of ours may be, and however especially aristocratic be the genteeler classes in provincial towns and coteries, there is nothing which English folks, from the highest to the lowest, in their hearts so respect as a man who has risen from nothing, and owns it frankly. Sir Compton Delaval, an old baronet, with a pedigree as long as a Welshman's, who had been reluctantly decoyed to the feast by his three unmarried daughters--not one of whom, however, had hitherto condescended even to bow to the host--now rose. It was his right,--he was the first person there in rank and station. "Ladies and Gentlemen," quoth Sir Compton Delaval, "I am sure that I express the feelings of all present when I say that we have heard with great delight and admiration the words addressed to us by our excellent host. [Applause.] And if any of us, in what--Mr. Avenel describes justly as the surprise of the moment, were betrayed into an unseemly merriment at--at--[the dean's lady whispered 'some of the']--some of the --some of the--" repeated Sir Compton, puzzled, and coming to a deadlock ["holiest sentiments," whispered the dean's lady]--"ay, some of the holiest sentiments in our nature, I beg him to accept our sincerest apologies. I can only say, for my part, that I am proud to rank Mr. Avenel amongst the gentlemen of the county" (here Sir Compton gave a sounding thump on the table), "and to thank him for one of the most brilliant entertainments it has ever been my lot to witness. If he won his fortune honestly, he knows how to spend it nobly." Whiz went a fresh bottle of champagne. "I am not accustomed to public speaking, but I could not repress my sentiments. And I've now only to propose to you the health of our host. Richard Avenel, Esquire; and to couple with that the health of his-- very interesting sister, and long life to them both." The sentence was half drowned in enthusiastic plaudits, and in three cheers for Richard Avenel, Esquire, and his very interesting sister. "I'm a cursed humbug," thought Richard Avenel, as he wiped his forehead; "but the world is such a humbug!" Then he glanced towards Mrs. M'Catehley and, to his great satisfaction, saw Mrs. M'Catchley with her handkerchief before her eyes. Truth must be told; although the fair widow might certainly have contemplated the probability of accepting Mr. Avenel as a husband, she had never before felt the least bit in love with him; and now she did. There is something in courage and candour--in a word, in manliness--that all women, the most worldly, do admire in men; and Richard Avenel, humbug though his conscience said he was, seemed to Mrs. M'Catchley like a hero. The host saw his triumph. "Now for another dance!" said he, gayly; and he was about to offer his hand to Mrs. M'Catchley, when Sir Compton Delaval seizing it, and giving it a hearty shake, cried, "You have not yet danced with my eldest daughter; so if you'll not ask her, why, I must offer her to you as your partner. Here, Sarah." Miss Sarah Delaval, who was five feet eight, and as stately as she was tall, bowed her head graciously; and Mr. Avenel, before he knew where he was, found her leaning on his arm. But as he passed into the next division of the tent, he had to run the gauntlet of all the gentlemen, who thronged round to shake hands with him. Their warm English hearts could not be satisfied till they had so repaired the sin of their previous haughtiness and mockery. Richard Avenel might then have safely introduced his sister--gown, kerchief, thick shoes, and all--to the crowd; but he had no such thought. He thanked Heaven devoutly that she was safely under lock and key. It was not till the third dance that he could secure Mrs. M'Catchley's hand, and then it was twilight. The carriages were at the door, but no one yet thought of going. People were really enjoying themselves. Mr. Avenel had had time, in the interim, to mature all his plans for completing and consummating that triumph which his tact and pluck had drawn from his momentary disgrace. Excited as he was with wine, and suppressed passion, he had yet the sense to feel that, when all the halo that now surrounded him had evaporated, and Mrs. M'Catchley was redelivered up to the Pompleys, whom he felt to be the last persons his interest could desire for her advisers, the thought of his low relations would return with calm reflection. Now was the time. The iron was hot, now was the time to strike it, and forge the enduring chain. As he led Mrs. M'Catchley after the dance, into the lawn, he therefore said tenderly,-- "How shall I thank you for the favour you have done me?" "Oh!" said Mrs. M'Catchley, warmly, "It was no favour, and I am so glad--" She stopped. "You're not ashamed of me, then, in spite of what has happened?" "Ashamed of you! Why, I should be so proud of you, if I were--" "Finish the sentence and say--'your wife!'--there, it is out. My dear madam, I am rich, as you know; I love you very heartily. With your help, I think I can make a figure in a larger world than this: and that, whatever my father, my grandson at least will be--but it is time enough to speak of him. What say you?--you--turn away. I'll not tease you, --it is not my way. I said before, ay or no; and your kindness so emboldens me that I say it again, ay or no?" "But you take me so unawares--so--so--Lord! my dear Mr. Avenel; you are so hasty--I--I--" And the widow actually blushed, and was genuinely bashful. "Those horrid Pompleys!" thought Richard, as he saw the colonel bustling up with Mrs. M'Catchley's cloak on his arm. "I press for your answer," continued the suitor, speaking very fast. "I shall leave this place to- morrow, if you will not give it." "Leave this place--leave me?" "Then you will be mine?" "Ah, Mr. Avenel!" said the widow, languidly, and leaving her hand in his, "who can resist you?" Up came Colonel Pompley; Richard took the shawl: "No hurry for that now, Colonel,--Mrs. M'Catchley feels already at home here." Ten minutes afterwards, Richard Avenel so contrived that it was known by the whole company that their host was accepted by the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. And every one said, "He is a very clever man and a very good fellow," except the Pompleys--and the Pompleys were frantic. Mr. Richard Avenel had forced his way into the aristocracy of the country; the husband of an Honourable, connected with peers! "He will stand for our city--Vulgarian!" cried the colonel. "And his wife will walk out before me," cried the colonel's lady,--"nasty woman!" And she burst into tears. The guests were gone; and Richard had now leisure to consider what course to pursue with regard to his sister and her son. His victory over his guests had in much softened his heart towards his relations; but he still felt bitterly aggrieved at Mrs. Fairfield's unseasonable intrusion, and his pride was greatly chafed by the boldness of Leonard. He had no idea of any man whom he had served, or meant to serve, having a will of his own, having a single thought in opposition to his pleasure. He began, too, to feel that words had passed between him and Leonard which could not be well forgotten by either, and would render their close connection less pleasant than heretofore. He, the great Richard Avenel, beg pardon of Mrs. Fairfield, the washerwoman! No; she and Leonard must beg his. "That must be the first step," said Richard Avenel; "and I suppose they have come to their senses." With that expectation, he unlocked the door of his parlour, and found himself in complete solitude. The moon, lately risen, shone full into the room, and lit up every corner. He stared round bewildered,--the birds had flown. "Did they go through the keyhole?" said Air. Avenel. "Ha! I see! the window is open!" The window reached to the ground. Mr. Avenel, in his excitement, had forgotten that easy mode of egress. "Well," said he, throwing himself into his easy-chair, "I suppose I shall soon hear from them: they'll be wanting my money fast enough, I fancy." His eye caught sight of a letter, unsealed, lying on the table. He opened it, and saw bank-notes to the amount of L50,--the widow's forty-five country notes, and a new note, Bank of England, that he had lately given to Leonard. With the money were these lines, written in Leonard's bold, clear writing, though a word or two here and there showed that the hand had trembled,-- I thank you for all you have done to one whom you regarded as the object of charity. My mother and I forgive what has passed. I depart with her. You bade me make my choice, and I have made it. LEONARD FAIRFIELD. The paper dropped from Richard's hand, and he remained mute and remorseful for a moment. He soon felt, however, that he had no help for it but working himself up into a rage. "Of all people in the world," cried Richard, stamping his foot on the floor, "there are none so disagreeable, insolent, and ungrateful as poor relations. I wash my hands of them!" 
7705	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK FOURTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. COMPRISING MR. CAXTON'S OPINIONS ON THE MATRIMONIAL STATE, SUPPORTED BY LEARNED AUTHORITIES. "It was no bad idea of yours, Pisistratus," said my father, graciously, "to depict the heightened affections and the serious intention of Signor Riccabocca by a single stroke,-- /He left of his spectacles!/ Good." "Yet," quoth my uncle, "I think Shakspeare represents a lover as falling into slovenly habits, neglecting his person, and suffering his hose to be ungartered, rather than paying that attention to his outer man which induces Signor Riccabocca to leave off his spectacles, and look as handsome as nature will permit him." "There are different degrees and many phases of the passion," replied my father. "Shakspeare is speaking of an ill-treated, pining, woe-begone lover, much aggrieved by the cruelty of his mistress,--a lover who has found it of no avail to smarten himself up, and has fallen despondently into the opposite extreme. Whereas Signor Riccabocca has nothing to complain of in the barbarity of Miss Jemima." "Indeed he has not!" cried Blanche, tossing her head,--"forward creature!" "Yes, my dear," said my mother, trying her best to look stately, "I am decidedly of opinion that, in that respect, Pisistratus has lowered the dignity of the sex. Not intentionally," added my mother, mildly, and afraid she had said something too bitter; "but it is very hard for a man to describe us women." The captain nodded approvingly; Mr. Squills smiled; my father quietly resumed the thread of his discourse. "To continue," quoth he. "Riccabocca has no reason to despair of success in his suit, nor any object in moving his mistress to compassion. He may, therefore, very properly tie up his garters and leave off his spectacles. What do you say, Mr. Squills?--for, after all, since love- making cannot fail to be a great constitutional derangement, the experience of a medical man must be the best to consult." "Mr. Caxton," replied Squills, obviously flattered, "you are quite right: when a man makes love, the organs of self-esteem and desire of applause are greatly stimulated, and therefore, of course, he sets himself off to the best advantage. It is only, as you observe, when, like Shakspeare's lover, he has given up making love as a bad job, and has received that severe hit on the ganglions which the cruelty of a mistress inflicts, that he neglects his personal appearance: he neglects it, not because he is in love, but because his nervous system is depressed. That was the cause, if you remember, with poor Major Prim. He wore his wig all awry when Susan Smart jilted him; but I set it right for him." "By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting him a new sweetheart?" asked my uncle. "Pooh!" answered Squills, "by quinine and cold bathing." "We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that, as a general rule, the process of courtship tends to the spruceness, and even foppery, of the individual engaged in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily proved somewhere. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion that the lady at least ought to continue those cares of her person even after marriage. There is extant, in Sahagun's 'History of New Spain,' the advice of an Aztec or Mexican mother to her daughter, in which she says, 'That your husband may not take you in dislike, adorn yourself, wash yourself, and let your garments be clean.' It is true that the good lady adds, 'Do it in moderation; since if every day you are washing yourself and your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate; and particular people will call you--TAPETZON TINEMAXOCH!' What those words precisely mean," added my father, modestly, "I cannot say, since I never had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language,--but something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt." "I dare say a philosopher like Signor Riccabocca," said my uncle, "was not himself very /tapetzon tine/--what d' ye call it?--and a good healthy English wife, that poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him." "Roland," said my father, "you don't like foreigners; a respectable prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has been trying his best to hew them in pieces and blow them up into splinters. But you don't like philosophers either,--and for that dislike you have no equally good reason." "I only implied that they are not much addicted to soap and water," said my uncle. "A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have been very great beaux. Aristotle was a notorious fop. Buffon put on his best laced ruffles when he sat down to write, which implies that he washed his hands first. Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and Horace--who, in his own way, was as good a philosopher as any the Romans produced--takes care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper little gentleman he was. But I don't think you ever read the 'Apology' of Apuleius?" "Not I; what is it about?" asked the captain. "About a great many things. It is that Sage's vindication from several malignant charges,--amongst others, and principally indeed, that of being much too refined and effeminate for a philosopher. Nothing can exceed the rhetorical skill with which he excuses himself for using--tooth- powder. 'Ought a philosopher,' he exclaims, 'to allow anything unclean about him, especially in the mouth,--the mouth, which is the vestibule of the soul, the gate of discourse, the portico of thought! Ah, but AEmilianus [the accuser of Apuleius] never opens his mouth but for slander and calumny,--tooth-powder would indeed be unbecoming to him! Or, if he use any, it will not be my good Arabian tooth powder, but charcoal and cinders. Ay, his teeth should be as foul as his language! And yet even the crocodile likes to have his teeth cleaned; insects get into them, and, horrible reptile though he be, he opens his jaws inoffensively to a faithful dentistical bird, who volunteers his beak for a toothpick.'" My father was now warm in the subject he had started, and soared miles away from Riccabocca and "My Novel." "And observe," he exclaimed,-- "observe with what gravity this eminent Platonist pleads guilty to the charge of having a mirror. 'Why, what,' he exclaims, 'more worthy of the regards of a human creature than his own image' /nihil respectabilius homini quam formam suam/! Is not that one of our children the most dear to us who is called 'the picture of his father'? But take what pains you will with a picture, it can never be so like you as the face in your mirror! Think it discreditable to look with proper attention on one's self in the glass! Did not Socrates recommend such attention to his disciples,--did he not make a great moral agent of the speculum? The handsome, in admiring their beauty therein, were admonished that handsome is who handsome does; and the more the ugly stared at themselves, the more they became naturally anxious to hide the disgrace of their features in the loveliness of their merits. Was not Demosthenes always at his speculum? Did he not rehearse his causes before it as before a master in the art? He learned his eloquence from Plato, his dialectics from Eubulides; but as for his delivery--there, he came to the mirror! "Therefore," concluded Mr. Caxton, returning unexpectedly to the subject,--"therefore, it is no reason to suppose that Dr. Riccabocca is averse to cleanliness and decent care of the person because he is a philosopher; and, all things considered, he never showed himself more a philosopher than when he left off his spectacles and looked his best." "Well," said my mother, kindly, "I only hope it may turn out happily. But I should have been better pleased if Pisistratus had not made Dr. Riccabocca so reluctant a wooer." "Very true," said the captain; "the Italian does not shine as a lover. Throw a little more fire into him, Pisistratus,--something gallant and chivalrous." "Fire! gallantry! chivalry!" cried my father, who had taken Riccabocca under his special protection; "why, don't you see that the man is described as a philosopher?--and I should like to know when a philosopher ever plunged into matrimony without considerable misgivings and cold shivers! Indeed, it seems that--perhaps before he was a philosopher-- Riccabocca had tried the experiment, and knew what it was. Why, even that plain-speaking, sensible, practical man, Metellus Numidicus, who was not even a philosopher, but only a Roman censor, thus expressed himself in an exhortation to the people to perpetrate matrimony: 'If, O Quirites, we could do without wives, we should all dispense with that subject of care /ea molestia careremus/; but since nature has so managed it that we cannot live with women comfortably, nor without them at all, let us rather provide for the human race than our own temporary felicity.'" Here the ladies set up such a cry of indignation, that both Roland and myself endeavoured to appease their wrath by hasty assurances that we utterly repudiated the damnable doctrine of Metellus Numidicus. My father, wholly unmoved, as soon as a sullen silence was established, recommenced. "Do not think, ladies," said he, "that you were without advocates at that day: there were many Romans gallant enough to blame the censor for a mode of expressing himself which they held to be equally impolite and injudicious. 'Surely,' said they, with some plausibility, if Numidicus wished men to marry, he need not have referred so peremptorily to the disquietudes of the connection, and thus have made them more inclined to turn away from matrimony than give them a relish for it.' But against these critics one honest man (whose name of Titus Castricius should not be forgotten by posterity) maintained that Metellus Numidicus could not have spoken more properly; 'For remark,' said he, 'that Metellus was a censor, not a rhetorician. It becomes rhetoricians to adorn and disguise and make the best of things; but Metellus, /sanctus vir/,--a holy and blameless man, grave and sincere to wit, and addressing the Roman people in the solemn capacity of Censor,--was bound to speak the plain truth, especially as he was treating of a subject on which the observation of every day, and the experience of every life, could not leave the least doubt upon the mind of his audience.' Still, Riccabocca, having decided to marry, has no doubt prepared himself to bear all the concomitant evils--as becomes a professed sage; and I own I admire the art with which Pisistratus has drawn the kind of woman most likely to suit a philosopher--" Pisistratus bows, and looks round complacently; but recoils from two very peevish and discontented faces feminine. MR. CAXTON (completing his sentence).--"Not only as regards mildness of temper and other household qualifications, but as regards the very person of the object of his choice. For you evidently remember, Pisistratus, the reply of Bias, when asked his opinion on marriage: [Long sentence in Greek]" Pisistratus tries to look as if he had the opinion of Bias by heart, and nods acquiescingly. MR. CAXTON.--"That is, my dears, 'The woman you would marry is either handsome or ugly: if handsome, she is koine,--namely, you don't have her to yourself; if ugly, she is /poine/,--that is, a fury.' But, as it is observed in Aulus Gellius (whence I borrow this citation), there is a wide interval between handsome and ugly. And thus Ennius, in his tragedy of 'Menalippus,' uses an admirable expression to designate women of the proper degree of matrimonial comeliness, such as a philosopher would select. He calls this degree /stata forma/,--a rational, mediocre sort of beauty, which is not liable to be either /koine/ or /poine/. And Favorinus, who was a remarkably sensible man, and came from Provence--the male inhabitants of which district have always valued themselves on their knowledge of love and ladies--calls this said /stata forma/ the beauty of wives,--the uxorial beauty. Ennius says that women of a /stata forma/ are almost always safe and modest. Now, Jemima, you observe, is described as possessing this /stata forma/; and it is the nicety of your observation in this respect, which I like the most in the whole of your description of a philosopher's matrimonial courtship, Pisistratus (excepting only the stroke of the spectacles), for it shows that you had properly considered the opinion of Bias, and mastered all the counter logic suggested in Book v., chapter xi., of Aulus Gellius." "For all that," said Blanche, half archly, half demurely, with a smile in the eye and a pout of the lip, "I don't remember that Pisistratus, in the days when he wished to be most complimentary, ever assured me that I had a /stata forma/,--a rational, mediocre sort of beauty." "And I think," observed my uncle, "that when he comes to his real heroine, whoever she may be, he will not trouble his head much about either Bias or Aulus Gellius." CHAPTER II. Matrimony is certainly a great change in life. One is astonished not to find a notable alteration in one's friend, even if he or she have been only wedded a week. In the instance of Dr. and Mrs. Riccabocca the change was peculiarly visible. To speak first of the lady, as in chivalry bound, Mrs. Riccabocca had entirely renounced that melancholy which had characterized Miss Jemima; she became even sprightly and gay, and looked all the better and prettier for the alteration. She did not scruple to confess honestly to Mrs. Dale that she was now of opinion that the world was very far from approaching its end. But, in the meanwhile, she did not neglect the duty which the belief she had abandoned serves to inculcate,--"She set her house in order." The cold and penurious elegance that had characterized the Casino disappeared like enchantment, --that is, the elegance remained, but the cold and penury fled before the smile of woman. Like Puss-in-Boots, after the nuptials of his master, Jackeymo only now caught minnows and sticklebacks for his own amusement. Jackeymo looked much plumper, and so did Riccabocca. In a word, the fair Jemima became an excellent wife. Riccabocca secretly thought her extravagant, but, like a wise man, declined to look at the house bills, and ate his joint in unreproachful silence. Indeed there was so much unaffected kindness in the nature of Mrs. Riccabocca--beneath the quiet of her manner there beat so genially the heart of the Hazeldeans--that she fairly justified the favourable anticipations of Mrs. Dale. And though the doctor did not noisily boast of his felicity, nor, as some new married folks do, thrust it insultingly under the /nimis unctis naribus/,--the turned-up noses of your surly old married folks,--nor force it gaudily and glaringly on the envious eyes of the single, you might still see that he was a more cheerful and light- hearted man than before. His smile was less ironical, his politeness less distant. He did not study Machiavelli so intensely,--and he did not return to the spectacles; which last was an excellent sign. Moreover, the humanizing influence of the tidy English wife might be seen in the improvement of his outward or artificial man. His clothes seemed to fit him better; indeed, the clothes were new. Mrs. Dale no longer remarked that the buttons were off the wristbands, which was a great satisfaction to her. But the sage still remained faithful to the pipe, the cloak, and the red silk umbrella. Mrs. Riccabocca had (to her credit be it spoken) used all becoming and wife-like arts against these three remnants of the old bachelor, Adam, but in vain. "/Anima mia/," [Soul of mine]--said the doctor, tenderly, "I hold the cloak, the umbrella, and the pipe as the sole relics that remain to me of my native country. Respect and spare them." Mrs. Riccabocca was touched, and had the good sense to perceive that man, let him be ever so much married, retains certain signs of his ancient independence,--certain tokens of his old identity, which a wife, the most despotic, will do well to concede. She conceded the cloak, she submitted to the umbrella, she overcame her abhorrence of the pipe. After all, considering the natural villany of our sex, she confessed to herself that she might have been worse off. But through all the calm and cheerfulness of Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently perceptible; it commenced after the second week of marriage; it went on increasing, till one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his terrace, gazing down upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed, lo, a stage-coach stopped! The doctor made a bound, and put both hands to his heart as if he had been shot; he then leaped over the balustrade, and his wife from her window beheld him flying down the hill, with his long hair streaming in the wind, till the trees hid him from her sight. "Ah," thought she, with a natural pang of conjugal jealousy, "henceforth I am only second in his home. He has gone to welcome his child!" And at that reflection Mrs. Riccabocca shed tears. But so naturally amiable was she, that she hastened to curb her emotion, and efface as well as she could the trace of a stepmother's grief. When this was done, and a silent, self-rebuking prayer murmured over, the good woman descended the stairs with alacrity, and summoning up her best smiles, emerged on the terrace. She was repaid; for scarcely had she come into the open air, when two little arms were thrown around her, and the sweetest voice that ever came from a child's lips sighed out in broken English, "Good mamma, love me a little." "Love you? with my whole heart!" cried the stepmother, with all a mother's honest passion. And she clasped the child to her breast. "God bless you, my wife!" said Riccabocca, in a husky tone. "Please take this too," added Jackeymo, in Italian, as well as his sobs would let him, and he broke off a great bough full of blossoms from his favourite orange-tree, and thrust it into his mistress's hand. She had not the slightest notion what he meant by it! CHAPTER III. Violante was indeed a bewitching child,--a child to whom I defy Mrs. Caudle herself (immortal Mrs. Caudle!) to have been a harsh stepmother. Look at her now, as released from those kindly arms, she stands, still clinging with one hand to her new mamma, and holding out the other to Riccabocca, with those large dark eyes swimming in happy tears. What a lovely smile! what an ingenuous, candid brow! She looks delicate, she evidently requires care, she wants the mother. And rare is the woman who would not love her the better for that! Still, what an innocent, infantine bloom in those clear, smooth cheeks! and in that slight frame, what exquisite natural grace! "And this, I suppose, is your nurse, darling?" said Mrs. Riccabocca, observing a dark, foreign-looking woman, dressed very strangely, without cap or bonnet, but a great silver arrow stuck in her hair, and a filigree chain or necklace resting upon her kerchief. "Ah, good Annetta," said Violante, in Italian. "Papa, she says she is to go back; but she is not to go back, is she?" Riccabocca, who had scarcely before noticed the woman, started at that question, exchanged a rapid glance with Jackeymo, and then, muttering some inaudible excuse, approached the nurse, and, beckoning her to follow him, went away into the grounds. He did not return for more than an hour, nor did the woman then accompany him home. He said briefly to his wife that the nurse was obliged to return at once to Italy, and that she would stay in the village to catch the mail; that indeed she would be of no use in their establishment, as she could not speak a word of English; that he was sadly afraid Violante would pine for her. And Violante did pine at first. But still, to a child it is so great a thing to find a parent, to be at home, that, tender and grateful as Violante was, she could not be inconsolable while her father was there to comfort. For the first few days, Riccabocca scarcely permitted any one to be with his daughter but himself. He would not even leave her alone with his Jemima. They walked out together,--sat together for hours in the belvidere. Then by degrees he began to resign her more and more to Jemima's care and tuition, especially in English, of which language at present she spoke only a few sentences (previously, perhaps, learned by heart) so as to be clearly intelligible. CHAPTER IV. There was one person in the establishment of Dr. Riccabocca who was satisfied neither with the marriage of his master nor the arrival of Violante,--and that was our friend Lenny Fairfield. Previous to the all- absorbing duties of courtship, the young peasant had secured a very large share of Riccabocca's attention. The sage had felt interest in the growth of this rude intelligence struggling up to light. But what with the wooing and what with the wedding, Lenny Fairfield had sunk very much out of his artificial position as pupil into his natural station of under-gardener. And on the arrival of Violante, he saw, with natural bitterness, that he was clean forgotten, not only by Riccabocca, but almost by Jackeymo. It was true that the master still lent him books, and the servant still gave him lectures on horticulture. But Riccabocca had no time nor inclination now to amuse himself with enlightening that tumult of conjecture which the books created. And if Jackeymo had been covetous of those mines of gold buried beneath the acres now fairly taken from the squire (and good-naturedly added rent-free, as an aid to Jemima's dower), before the advent of the young lady whose future dowry the produce was to swell, now that she was actually under the eyes of the faithful servant, such a stimulus was given to his industry that he could think of nothing else but the land, and the revolution he designed to effect in its natural English crops. The garden, save only the orangetrees, was abandoned entirely to Lenny, and additional labourers were called in for the field work. Jackeymo had discovered that one part of the soil was suited to lavender, that another would grow camomile. He had in his heart apportioned a beautiful field of rich loam to flax; but against the growth of flax the squire set his face obstinately. That most lucrative, perhaps, of all crops when soil and skill suit, was formerly attempted in England much more commonly than it is now, since you will find few old leases do not contain a clause prohibitory of flax as an impoverishment of the land. And though Jackeymo learnedly endeavoured to prove to the squire that the flax itself contained particles which, if returned to the soil, repaid all that the crop took away, Mr. Hazeldean had his old-fashioned prejudices on the matter, which were insuperable. "My forefathers," quoth he, "did not put that clause in their leases without good cause; and as the Casino lands are entailed on Frank, I have no right to gratify your foreign whims at his expense." To make up for the loss of the flax, Jackeymo resolved to convert a very nice bit of pasture into orchard ground, which he calculated would bring in L10 net per acre by the time Miss Violante was marriageable. At this the squire pished a little; but as it was quite clear that the land would be all the more valuable hereafter for the fruit-trees, he consented to permit the "grass-land" to be thus partially broken up. All these changes left poor Lenny Fairfield very much to himself,--at a time when the new and strange devices which the initiation into book knowledge creates made it most desirable that he should have the constant guidance of a superior mind. One evening after his work, as Lenny was returning to his mother's cottage, very sullen and very moody, he suddenly came in contact with Sprott the tinker. CHAPTER V. The tinker was seated under a hedge, hammering away at an old kettle, with a little fire burning in front of him, and the donkey hard by, indulging in a placid doze. Mr. Sprott looked up as Lenny passed, nodded kindly, and said,-- "Good evenin', Lenny: glad to hear you be so 'spectably sitivated with Mounseer." "Ay," answered Lenny, with a leaven of rancour in his recollections, "you're not ashamed to speak to me now that I am not in disgrace. But it was in disgrace, when it wasn't my fault, that the real gentleman was most kind to me." "Ar-r, Lenny," said the tinker, with a prolonged rattle in that said Ar-r, which was not without great significance. "But you sees the real gentleman, who han't got his bread to get, can hafford to 'spise his c'racter in the world. A poor tinker must be timbersome and nice in his 'sociations. But sit down here a bit, Lenny; I've summat to say to ye!" "To me?" "To ye. Give the neddy a shove out i' the vay, and sit down, I say." Lenny rather reluctantly, and somewhat superciliously, accepted this invitation. "I hears," said the tinker, in a voice made rather indistinct by a couple of nails, which he had inserted between his teeth,--"I hears as how you be unkimmon fond of reading. I ha' sum nice cheap books in my bag yonder,--sum as low as a penny." "I should like to see them," said Lenny, his eyes sparkling. The tinker rose, opened one of the panniers on the ass's back, took out a bag, which he placed before Lenny, and told him to suit himself. The young peasant desired no better. He spread all the contents of the bag on the sward, and a motley collection of food for the mind was there,-- food and poison, /serpentes avibus/ good and evil. Here Milton's Paradise Lost, there "The Age of Reason;" here Methodist Tracts, there "True Principles of Socialism,"--Treatises on Useful Knowledge by sound learning actuated by pure benevolence, Appeals to Operatives by the shallowest reasoners, instigated by the same ambition that had moved Eratosthenes to the conflagration of a temple; works of fiction admirable as "Robinson Crusoe," or innocent as "The Old English Baron," beside coarse translations of such garbage as had rotted away the youth of France under Louis Quinze. This miscellany was an epitome, in short, of the mixed World of Books, of that vast city of the Press, with its palaces and hovels, its aqueducts and sewers, which opens all alike to the naked eye and the curious mind of him to whom you say, in the tinker's careless phrase, "Suit yourself." But it is not the first impulse of a nature healthful and still pure to settle in the hovel and lose itself amidst the sewers; and Lenny Fairfield turned innocently over the bad books, and selecting two or three of the best, brought them to the tinker, and asked the price. "Why," said Mr. Sprott, putting on his spectacles, "you has taken the werry dearest: them 'ere be much cheaper, and more hinterestin'." "But I don't fancy them," answered Lenny; "I don't understand what they are about, and this seems to tell one how the steam-engine is made, and has nice plates; and this is 'Robinson Crusoe,' which Parson Dale once said he would give me--I'd rather buy it out of my own money." "Well, please yourself," quoth the tinker; "you shall have the books for four bob, and you can pay me next month." "Four bobs, four shillings? it is a great sum," said Lenny; "but I will lay by, as you are kind enough to trust me: good-evening, Mr. Sprott." "Stay a bit," said the tinker; "I'll just throw you these two little tracts into the bargain; they be only a shilling a dozen, so 't is but tuppence,--and ven you has read those, vy, you'll be a regular customer." The tinker tossed to Lenny Nos. 1 and 2 of "Appeals to Operatives," and the peasant took them up gratefully. The young knowledge-seeker went his way across the green fields, and under the still autumn foliage of the hedgerows. He looked first at one book, then at another; he did not know on which to settle. The tinker rose, and made a fire with leaves and furze and sticks, some dry and some green. Lenny has now opened No. 1 of the tracts: they are the shortest to read, and don't require so much effort of the mind as the explanation of the steam-engine. The tinker has set on his grimy glue-pot, and the glue simmers. CHAPTER VI. As Violante became more familiar with her new home, and those around her became more familiar with Violante, she was remarked for a certain stateliness of manner and bearing, which, had it been less evidently natural and inborn, would have seemed misplaced in the daughter of a forlorn exile, and would have been rare at so early an age among children of the loftiest pretensions. It was with the air of a little princess that she presented her tiny hand to a friendly pressure, or submitted her calm clear cheek to a presuming kiss. Yet withal she was so graceful, and her very stateliness was so pretty and captivating, that she was not the less loved for all her grand airs. And, indeed, she deserved to be loved; for though she was certainly prouder than Mr. Dale could approve of, her pride was devoid of egotism,--and that is a pride by no means common. She had an intuitive forethought for others: you could see that she was capable of that grand woman-heroism, abnegation of self; and though she was an original child, and often grave and musing, with a tinge of melancholy, sweet, but deep in her character, still she was not above the happy genial merriment of childhood,--only her silver laugh was more attuned, and her gestures more composed, than those of children habituated to many play-fellows usually are. Mrs. Hazeldean liked her best when she was grave, and said "she would become a very sensible woman." Mrs. Dale liked her best when she was gay, and said "she was born to make many a heart ache;" for which Mrs. Dale was properly reproved by the parson. Mrs. Hazeldean gave her a little set of garden tools; Mrs. Dale a picture-book and a beautiful doll. For a long time the book and the doll had the preference. But Mrs. Hazeldean having observed to Riccabocca that the poor child looked pale, and ought to be a good deal in the open air, the wise father ingeniously pretended to Violante that Mrs. Riccabocca had taken a great fancy to the picture- book, and that he should be very glad to have the doll, upon which Violante hastened to give them both away, and was never so happy as when Mamma (as she called Mrs. Riccabocca) was admiring the picture-book, and Riccabocca with austere gravity dandled the doll. Then Riccabocca assured her that she could be of great use to him in the garden; and Violante instantly put into movement her spade, hoe, and wheelbarrow. This last occupation brought her into immediate contact with Mr. Leonard Fairfield; and that personage one morning, to his great horror, found Miss Violante had nearly exterminated a whole celery-bed, which she had ignorantly conceived to be a crop of weeds. Lenny was extremely angry. He snatched away the hoe, and said angrily, "You must not do that, Miss. I'll tell your papa if you--" Violante drew herself up, and never having been so spoken to before, at least since her arrival in England, there was something comic in the surprise of her large eyes, as well as something tragic in the dignity of her offended mien. "It is very naughty of you, Miss," continued Leonard, in a milder tone, for he was both softened by the eyes and awed by the mien, "and I trust you will not do it again." "Non capisco," murmured Violante, and the dark eyes filled with tears. At that moment up came Jackeymo: and Violante, pointing to Leonard, said, with an effort not to betray her emotion, "Il fanciullo e molto grossolano."--["He is a very rude boy."] Jackeymo turned to Leonard with the look of an enraged tiger. "How you dare, scum of de earth that you are," cried he, "how you dare make cry the signorina?" And his English not supplying familiar vituperatives sufficiently, he poured out upon Lenny such a profusion of Italian abuse, that the boy turned red and white, in a breath, with rage and perplexity. Violante took instant compassion upon the victim she had made, and with true feminine caprice now began to scold Jackeymo for his anger, and, finally approaching Leonard, laid her hand on his arm, and said with a kindness at once childlike and queenly, and in the prettiest imaginable mixture of imperfect English and soft Italian, to which I cannot pretend to do justice, and shall therefore translate: "Don't mind him. I dare say it was all my fault, only I did not understand you: are not these things weeds?" "No, my darling signorina," said Jackeymo in Italian, looking ruefully at the celery-bed, "they are not weeds, and they sell very well at this time of the year. But still, if it amuses you to pluck them up, I should like to see who's to prevent it." Lenny walked away. He had been called "the scum of the earth,"--by a foreigner too! He had again been ill-treated for doing what he conceived his duty. He was again feeling the distinction between rich and poor, and he now fancied that that distinction involved deadly warfare, for he had read from beginning to end those two damnable tracts which the tinker had presented to him. But in the midst of all the angry disturbance of his mind, he felt the soft touch of the infant's hand, the soothing influence of her conciliating words, and he was half ashamed that he had spoken so roughly to a child. Still, not trusting himself to speak, he walked away, and sat down at a distance: "I don't see," thought he, "why there should be rich and poor, master and servant." Lenny, be it remembered, had not heard the Parson's Political Sermon. An hour after, having composed himself, Lenny returned to his work. Jackeymo was no longer in the garden: he had gone to the fields; but Riccabocca was standing by the celerybed, and holding the red silk umbrella over Violante as she sat on the ground, looking up at her father with those eyes already so full of intelligence and love and soul. "Lenny," said Riccabocca, "my young lady has been telling me that she has been very naughty, and Giacomo very unjust to you. Forgive them both." Lenny's sullenness melted in an instant: the reminiscences of tracts Nos. 1 and 2,-- "Like the baseless fabric of a vision, Left not a wreck behind." He raised eyes swimming with all his native goodness towards the wise man, and dropped them gratefully on the infant peace-maker. Then he turned away his head and fairly wept. The parson was right: "O ye poor, have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the poor." CHAPTER VII. Now from that day the humble Lenny and the regal Violante became great friends. With what pride he taught her to distinguish between celery and weeds,--and how proud too was she when she learned that she was useful! There is not a greater pleasure you can give children, especially female children, than to make them feel they are already of value in the world, and serviceable as well as protected. Weeks and months rolled away, and Lenny still read, not only the books lent him by the doctor, but those he bought of Mr. Sprott. As for the bombs and shells against religion which the tinker carried in his bag, Lenny was not induced to blow himself up with them. He had been reared from his cradle in simple love and reverence for the Divine Father, and the tender Saviour, whose life beyond all records of human goodness, whose death beyond all epics of mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to supplicate the Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later life may be entangled amidst the thorns of some desolate pyrrhonism, can ever hear reviled and scoffed without a shock to the conscience and a revolt of the heart. As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald profanity on which the tinker put his black finger made Lenny's blood run cold. Safe, too, was the peasant boy from any temptation in works of a gross and licentious nature, not only because of the happy ignorance of his rural life, but because of a more enduring safeguard,--genius! Genius, that, manly, robust, healthful as it be, is long before it lose its instinctive Dorian modesty; shamefaced, because so susceptible to glory,--genius, that loves indeed to dream, but on the violet bank, not the dunghill. Wherefore, even in the error of the senses, it seeks to escape from the sensual into worlds of fancy, subtle and refined. But apart from the passions, true genius is the most practical of all human gifts. Like the Apollo, whom the Greek worshipped as its type, even Arcady is its exile, not its home. Soon weary of the dalliance of Tempe, it ascends to its mission,--the Archer of the silver bow, the guide of the car of light. Speaking more plainly, genius is the enthusiasm for self-improvement; it ceases or sleeps the moment it desists from seeking some object which it believes of value, and by that object it insensibly connects its self- improvement with the positive advance of the world. At present Lenny's genius had no bias that was not to the Positive and Useful. It took the direction natural to its sphere, and the wants therein,--namely, to the arts which we call mechanical. He wanted to know about steam-engines and Artesian wells; and to know about them it was necessary to know something of mechanics and hydrostatics; so he bought popular elementary works on those mystic sciences, and set all the powers of his mind at work on experiments. Noble and generous spirits are ye, who, with small care for fame, and little reward from pelf, have opened to the intellects of the poor the portals of wisdom! I honour and revere ye; only do not think ye have done all that is needful. Consider, I pray ye, whether so good a choice from the tinker's bag would have been made by a boy whom religion had not scared from the Pestilent, and genius had not led to the self-improving. And Lenny did not wholly escape from the mephitic portions of the motley elements from which his awakening mind drew its nurture. Think not it was all pure oxygen that the panting lip drew in. No; there were still those inflammatory tracts. Political I do not like to call them, for politics means the art of government, and the tracts I speak of assailed all government which mankind has hitherto recognized. Sad rubbish, perhaps, were such tracts to you, O sound thinker, in your easy-chair! or to you, practised statesman, at your post on the Treasury Bench; to you, calm dignitary of a learned Church; or to you, my lord judge, who may often have sent from your bar to the dire Orcus of Norfolk's Isle the ghosts of men whom that rubbish, falling simultaneously on the bumps of acquisitiveness and combativeness, hath untimely slain! Sad rubbish to you! But seems it such rubbish to the poor man, to whom it promises a paradise on the easy terms of upsetting a world? For, ye see, those "Appeals to Operatives" represent that same world-upsetting as the simplest thing imaginable,--a sort of two-and-two-make-four proposition. The poor have only got to set their strong hands to the axle, and heave- a-boy! and hurrah for the topsy-turvy! Then just to put a little wholesome rage into the heave-a-hoy! it is so facile to accompany the eloquence of "Appeals" with a kind of stir-the-bile-up statistics,-- "Abuses of the aristocracy," "Jobs of the Priesthood," "Expenses of the Army kept up for Peers' younger sons," "Wars contracted for the villanous purpose of raising the rents of the landowners,"--all arithmetically dished up, and seasoned with tales of every gentleman who has committed a misdeed, every clergyman who has dishonoured his cloth; as if such instances were fair specimens of average gentlemen and ministers of religion! All this, passionately advanced (and, observe, never answered, for that literature admits no controversialists, and the writer has it all his own way), may be rubbish; but it is out of such rubbish that operatives build barricades for attack, and legislators prisons for defence. Our poor friend Lenny drew plenty of this stuff from the tinker's bag. He thought it very clever and very eloquent; and he supposed the statistics were as true as mathematical demonstrations. A famous knowledge-diffuser is looking over my shoulder, and tells me, "Increase education, and cheapen good books, and all this rubbish will disappear!" Sir, I don't believe a word of it. If you printed Ricardo and Adam Smith at a farthing a volume, I still believe that they would be as little read by the operatives as they are nowadays by a very large proportion of highly-cultivated men. I still believe that, while the press works, attacks on the rich and propositions for heave-a-hoys will always form a popular portion of the Literature of Labour. There's Lenny Fairfield reading a treatise on hydraulics, and constructing a model for a fountain into the bargain; but that does not prevent his acquiescence in any proposition for getting rid of a National Debt, which he certainly never agreed to pay, and which he is told makes sugar and tea so shamefully dear. No. I tell you what does a little counteract those eloquent incentives to break his own head against the strong walls of the Social System,--it is, that he has two eyes in that head which are not always employed in reading. And having been told in print that masters are tyrants, parsons hypocrites or drones in the hive, and landowners vampires and bloodsuckers, he looks out into the little world around him, and, first, he is compelled to acknowledge that his master is not a tyrant (perhaps because he is a foreigner and a philosopher, and, for what I and Lenny know, a republican). But then Parson Dale, though High Church to the marrow, is neither hypocrite nor drone. He has a very good living, it is true,--much better than he ought to have, according to the "political" opinions of those tracts! but Lenny is obliged to confess that if Parson Dale were a penny the poorer, he would do a pennyworth's less good; and comparing one parish with another, such as Rood Hall and Hazeldean, he is dimly aware that there is no greater CIVILIZER than a parson tolerably well off. Then, too, Squire Hazeldean, though as arrant a Tory as ever stood upon shoe-leather, is certainly not a vampire nor blood sucker. He does not feed on the public; a great many of the public feed upon him: and, therefore, his practical experience a little staggers and perplexes Lenny Fairfield as to the gospel accuracy of his theoretical dogmas. Masters, parsons, and landowners! having, at the risk of all popularity, just given a /coup de patte/ to certain sages extremely the fashion at present, I am not going to let you off without an admonitory flea in the ear. Don't suppose that any mere scribbling and typework will suffice to answer the scribbling and typework set at work to demolish you,--write down that rubbish you can't; live it down you may. If you are rich, like Squire Hazeldean, do good with your money; if you are poor, like Signor Riccabocca, do good with your kindness. See! there is Lenny now receiving his week's wages; and though Lenny knows that he can get higher wages in the very next parish, his blue eyes are sparkling with gratitude, not at the chink of the money, but at the poor exile's friendly talk on things apart from all service; while Violante is descending the steps from the terrace, charged by her mother- in-law with a little basket of sago, and such-like delicacies, for Mrs. Fairfield, who has been ailing the last few days. Lenny will see the tinker as he goes home, and he will buy a most Demosthenean "Appeal,"--a tract of tracts, upon the propriety of Strikes and the Avarice of Masters. But, somehow or other, I think a few words from Signor Riccabocca, that did not cost the signor a farthing, and the sight of his mother's smile at the contents of the basket, which cost very little, will serve to neutralize the effects of that "Appeal" much more efficaciously than the best article a Brougham or a Mill could write on the subject. CHAPTER VIII. Spring had come again; and one beautiful May day, Leonard Fairfield sat beside the little fountain which he had now actually constructed in the garden. The butterflies were hovering over the belt of flowers which he had placed around his fountain, and the birds were singing overhead. Leonard Fairfield was resting from his day's work, to enjoy his abstemious dinner, beside the cool play of the sparkling waters, and, with the yet keener appetite of knowledge, he devoured his book as he munched his crusts. A penny tract is the shoeing-horn of literature! it draws on a great many books, and some too tight to be very useful in walking. The penny tract quotes a celebrated writer--you long to read him; it props a startling assertion by a grave authority--you long to refer to it. During the nights of the past winter, Leonard's intelligence had made vast progress; he had taught himself more than the elements of mechanics, and put to practice the principles he had acquired not only in the hydraulical achievement of the fountain, nor in the still more notable application of science, commenced on the stream in which Jackeymo had fished for minnows, and which Lenny had diverted to the purpose of irrigating two fields, but in various ingenious contrivances for the facilitation or abridgment of labour, which had excited great wonder and praise in the neighbourhood. On the other hand, those rabid little tracts, which dealt so summarily with the destinies of the human race, even when his growing reason and the perusal of works more classical or more logical had led him to perceive that they were illiterate, and to suspect that they jumped from premises to conclusions with a celerity very different from the careful ratiocination of mechanical science, had still, in the citations and references wherewith they abounded, lured him on to philosophers more specious and more perilous. Out of the tinker's bag he had drawn a translation of Condorcet's "Progress of Man" and another of Rousseau's "Social Contract." Works so eloquent had induced him to select from the tracts in the tinker's miscellany those which abounded most in professions of philanthropy, and predictions of some coming Golden Age, to which old Saturn's was a joke,--tracts so mild and mother- like in their language, that it required a much more practical experience than Lenny's to perceive that you would have to pass a river of blood before you had the slightest chance of setting foot on the flowery banks on which they invited you to repose; tracts which rouged poor Christianity on the cheeks, clapped a crown of innocent daffodillies on her head, and set her to dancing a /pas de zephyr/ in the pastoral ballet in which Saint-Simon pipes to the flock he shears; or having first laid it down as a preliminary axiom that-- "The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself,-- Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve," substituted in place thereof M. Fourier's symmetrical phalanstere, or Mr. Owen's architectural parallelogram. It was with some such tract that Lenny was seasoning his crusts and his radishes, when Riccabocca, bending his long dark face over the student's shoulder, said abruptly,-- "/Diavolo/, my friend! what on earth have you got there? Just let me look at it, will you?" Leonard rose respectfully, and coloured deeply as he surrendered the tract to Riccabocca. The wise man read the first page attentively, the second more cursorily, and only ran his eye over the rest. He had gone through too vast a range of problems political, not to have passed over that venerable /Pons Asinorum/ of Socialism, on which Fouriers and Saint-Simons sit straddling, and cry aloud that they have arrived at the last boundary of knowledge! "All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca, irreverently; "but the hills stand still, and this--there it goes!" and the sage pointed to a cloud emitted from his pipe. "Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on Optical Delusions? No! Well, I'll lend it to you. You will find therein a story of a lady who always saw a black cat on her hearth-rug. The black cat existed only in her fancy, but the hallucination was natural and reasonable,--eh, what do you think?" "Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's meaning, "I don't exactly see that it was natural and reasonable." "Foolish boy, yes! because black cats are things possible and known. But who ever saw upon earth a community of men such as sit on the hearth- rugs of Messrs. Owen and Fourier? If the lady's hallucination was not reasonable, what is his who believes in such visions as these?" Leonard bit his lip. "My dear boy," cried Riccabocca, kindly, "the only thing sure and tangible to which these writers would lead you lies at the first step, and that is what is commonly called a Revolution. Now, I know what that is. I have gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an attempt at one." Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look of profound respect and great curiosity. "Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the boy gazed exchanged its usual grotesque and sardonic expression for one animated, noble, and heroic. "Yes, not a revolution for chimeras, but for that cause which the coldest allow to be good, and which, when successful, all time approves as divine,--the redemption of our native soil from the rule of the foreigner! I have shared in such an attempt. And," continued the Italian, mournfully, "recalling now all the evil passions it arouses, all the ties it dissolves, all the blood that it commands to flow, all the healthful industry it arrests, all the madmen that it arms, all the victims that it dupes, I question whether one man really honest, pure, and humane, who has once gone through such an ordeal, would ever hazard it again, unless he was assured that the victory was certain,--ay, and the object for which he fights not to be wrested from his hands amidst the uproar of the elements that the battle has released." The Italian paused, shaded his brow with his hand, and remained long silent. Then, gradually resuming his ordinary tone, he continued,-- "Revolutions that have no definite objects made clear by the positive experience of history; revolutions, in a word, that aim less at substituting one law or one dynasty for another, than at changing the whole scheme of society, have been little attempted by real statesmen. Even Lycurgus is proved to be a myth who never existed. Such organic changes are but in the day-dreams of philosophers who lived apart from the actual world, and whose opinions (though generally they were very benevolent, good sort of men, and wrote in an elegant poetical style) one would no more take on a plain matter of life, than one would look upon Virgil's Eclogues as a faithful picture of the ordinary pains and pleasures of the peasants who tend our sheep. Read them as you would read poets, and they are delightful. But attempt to shape the world according to the poetry, and fit yourself for a madhouse. The farther off the age is from the realization of such projects, the more these poor philosophers have indulged them. Thus, it was amidst the saddest corruption of court manners that it became the fashion in Paris to sit for one's picture with a crook in one's hand, as Alexis or Daphne. Just as liberty was fast dying out of Greece, and the successors of Alexander were founding their monarchies, and Rome was growing up to crush in its iron grasp all States save its own, Plato withdraws his eyes from the world, to open them in his dreamy "Atlantis." Just in the grimmest period of English history, with the axe hanging over his head, Sir Thomas More gives you his "Utopia." Just when the world is to be the theatre of a new Sesostris, the sages of France tell you that the age is too enlightened for war, that man is henceforth to be governed by pure reason, and live in a paradise. Very pretty reading all this to a man like me, Lenny, who can admire and smile at it. But to you, to the man who has to work for his living, to the man who thinks it would be so much more pleasant to live at his ease in a phalanstere than to work eight or ten hours a day; to the man of talent and action and industry, whose future is invested in that tranquillity and order of a State in which talent and action and industry are a certain capital,--why, Messrs. Coutts, the great bankers, had better encourage a theory to upset the system of banking! Whatever disturbs society, yea, even by a causeless panic, much more by an actual struggle, falls first upon the market of labour, and thence affects prejudicially every department of intelligence. In such times the arts are arrested; literature is neglected; people are too busy to read anything save appeals to their passions. And capital, shaken in its sense of security, no longer ventures boldly through the land, calling forth all the energies of toil and enterprise, and extending to every workman his reward. Now, Lenny, take this piece of advice. You are young, clever, and aspiring: men rarely succeed in changing the world; but a man seldom fails of success if he lets the world alone, and resolves to make the best of it. You are in the midst of the great crisis of your life; it is the struggle between the new desires knowledge excites, and that sense of poverty which those desires convert either into hope and emulation, or into envy and despair. I grant that it is an up-hill work that lies before you; but don't you think it is always easier to climb a mountain than it is to level it? These books call on you to level the mountain; and that mountain is the property of other people, subdivided amongst a great many proprietors, and protected by law. At the first stroke of the pickaxe, it is ten to one but what you are taken up for a trespass. But the path up the mountain is a right of way uncontested. You may be safe at the summit, before (even if the owners are fools enough to let you) you could have levelled a yard. Cospetto!" quoth the doctor, "it is more than two thousand years ago since poor Plato began to level it, and the mountain is as high as ever!" Thus saying, Riccabocca came to the end of his pipe, and stalking thoughtfully away, he left Leonard Fairfield trying to extract light from the smoke. CHAPTER IX. Shortly after this discourse of Riccabocca's, an incident occurred to Leonard that served to carry his mind into new directions. One evening, when his mother was out, he was at work on a new mechanical contrivance, and had the misfortune to break one of the instruments which he employed. Now it will be remembered that his father had been the squire's head carpenter: the widow had carefully hoarded the tools of his craft, which had belonged to her poor Mark; and though she occasionally lent them to Leonard, she would not give them up to his service. Amongst these Leonard knew that he should find the one that he wanted; and being much interested in his contrivance, he could not wait till his mother's return. The tools, with other little relies of the lost, were kept in a large trunk in Mrs. Fairfield's sleepingroom; the trunk was not locked, and Leonard went to it with out ceremony or scruple. In rummaging for the instrument his eye fell upon a bundle of manuscripts; and he suddenly recollected that when he was a mere child, and before he much knew the difference between verse and prose, his mother had pointed to these manuscripts, and said, "One day or other, when you can read nicely, I'll let you look at these, Lenny. My poor Mark wrote such verses--ah, he was a schollard!" Leonard, reasonably enough, thought that the time had now arrived when he was worthy the privilege of reading the paternal effusions, and he took forth the manuscripts with a keen but melancholy interest. He recognized his father's handwriting, which he had often seen before in account-books and memoranda, and read eagerly some trifling poems, which did not show much genius, nor much mastery of language and rhythm,--such poems, in short, as a self-educated man, with poetic taste and feeling rather than poetic inspiration or artistic culture, might compose with credit, but not for fame. But suddenly, as he turned over these "Occasional Pieces," Leonard came to others in a different handwriting,--a woman's handwriting, small and fine and exquisitely formed. He had scarcely read six lines of these last, before his attention was irresistibly chained. They were of a different order of merit from poor Mark's; they bore the unmistakable stamp of genius. Like the poetry of women in general, they were devoted to personal feeling,--they were not the mirror of a world, but reflections of a solitary heart. Yet this is the kind of poetry most pleasing to the young. And the verses in question had another attraction for Leonard: they seemed to express some struggle akin to his own,--some complaint against the actual condition of the writer's life, some sweet melodious murmurs at fortune. For the rest, they were characterized by a vein of sentiment so elevated, that, if written by a man, it would have run into exaggeration; written by a woman, the romance was carried off by so many genuine revelations of sincere, deep, pathetic feeling, that it was always natural, though true to a nature for which you would not augur happiness. Leonard was still absorbed in the perusal of these poems when Mrs. Fairfield entered the room. "What have you been about, Lenny,--searching in my box?" "I came to look for my father's bag of tools, Mother, and I found these papers, which you said I might read some day." "I does n't wonder you did not hear me when I came in," said the widow, sighing. "I used to sit still for the hour together, when my poor Mark read his poems to me. There was such a pretty one about the 'Peasant's Fireside,' Lenny,--have you got hold of that?" "Yes, dear mother; and I remarked the allusion to you: it brought tears to my eyes. But these verses are not my father's; whose are they? They seem in a woman's handwriting." Mrs. Fairfield looked, changed colour, grew faint and seated herself. "Poor, poor Nora!" said she, falteringly. "I did not know as they were there; Mark kep' 'em; they got among his--" LEONARD.--"Who was Nora?" MRS. FAIRFIELD.--"Who?--child--who? Nora was--was my own--own sister." LEONARD (in great amaze, contrasting his ideal of the writer of these musical lines, in that graceful hand, with his homely uneducated mother, who could neither read nor write).--"Your sister! is it possible! My aunt, then. How comes it you never spoke of her before? Oh, you should be so proud of her, Mother!" MRS. FAIRFIELD (clasping her hands).--"We were proud of her, all of us,-- father, mother, all! She was so beautiful and so good, and not proud she! though she looked like the first lady in the land. Oh, Nora, Nora!" LEONARD (after a pause).--"But she must have been highly educated?" MRS. FAIRFIELD.--"'Deed she was!" LEONARD.--"How was that?" MRS. FAIRFIELD (rocking herself to and fro in her chair).--"Oh, my Lady was her godmother,--Lady Lansmere I mean,--and took a fancy to her when she was that high, and had her to stay at the Park, and wait on her Ladyship; and then she put her to school, and Nora was so clever that nothing would do but she must go to London as a governess. But don't talk of it, boy! don't talk of it!" LEONARD.--"Why not, Mother? What has become of her; where is she?" MRS. FAIRFIELD (bursting into a paroxysm of tears).--"In her grave,--in her cold grave! Dead, dead!" Leonard was inexpressibly grieved and shocked. It is the attribute of the poet to seem always living, always a friend. Leonard felt as if some one very dear had been suddenly torn from his heart. He tried to console his mother; but her emotion was contagious, and he wept with her. "And how long has she been dead?" he asked at last, in mournful accents. "Many's the long year, many; but," added Mrs. Fairfield, rising, and putting her tremulous hand on Leonard's shoulder, "you'll just never talk to me about her; I can't bear it, it breaks my heart. I can bear better to talk of Mark; come downstairs,--come." "May I not keep these verses, Mother? Do let me." "Well, well, those bits o' paper be all she left behind her,--yes, keep them, but put back Mark's. Are they all here,--sure?" And the widow, though she could not read her husband's verses, looked jealously at the manuscripts written in his irregular, large scrawl, and, smoothing them carefully, replaced them in the trunk, and resettled over them some sprigs of lavender, which Leonard had unwittingly disturbed. "But," said Leonard, as his eye again rested on the beautiful handwriting of his lost aunt,--"but you called her Nora--I see she signs herself L." "Leonora was her name. I said she was my Lady's god-child. We call her Nora for short--" "Leonora--and I am Leonard--is that how I came by the name?" "Yes, yes; do hold your tongue, boy," sobbed poor Mrs. Fairfield; and she could not be soothed nor coaxed into continuing or renewing a subject which was evidently associated with insupportable pain. CHAPTER X. It is difficult to exaggerate the effect that this discovery produced on Leonard's train of thought. Some one belonging to his own humble race had, then, preceded him in his struggling flight towards the loftier regions of Intelligence and Desire. It was like the mariner amidst unknown seas, who finds carved upon some desert isle a familiar household name. And this creature of genius and of sorrow-whose existence he had only learned by her song, and whose death created, in the simple heart of her sister, so passionate a grief, after the lapse of so many years--supplied to the romance awaking in his young heart the ideal which it unconsciously sought. He was pleased to hear that she had been beautiful and good. He paused from his books to muse on her, and picture her image to his fancy. That there was some mystery in her fate was evident to him; and while that conviction deepened his interest, the mystery itself by degrees took a charm which he was not anxious to dispel. He resigned himself to Mrs. Fairfield's obstinate silence. He was contented to rank the dead amongst those holy and ineffable images which we do not seek to unveil. Youth and Fancy have many secret hoards of idea which they do not desire to impart, even to those most in their confidence. I doubt the depth of feeling in any man who has not certain recesses in his soul into which none may enter. Hitherto, as I have said, the talents of Leonard Fairfield had been more turned to things positive than to the ideal,--to science and investigation of fact than to poetry, and that airier truth in which poetry has its element. He had read our greater poets, indeed, but without thought of imitating; and rather from the general curiosity to inspect all celebrated monuments of the human mind than from that especial predilection for verse which is too common in childhood and youth to be any sure sign of a poet. But now these melodies, unknown to all the world beside, rang in his ear, mingled with his thoughts,--set, as it were, his whole life to music. He read poetry with a different sentiment,--it seemed to him that he had discovered its secret. And so reading, the passion seized him, and "the numbers came." To many minds, at the commencement of our grave and earnest pilgrimage, I am Vandal enough to think that the indulgence of poetic taste and revery does great and lasting harm; that it serves to enervate the character, give false ideas of life, impart the semblance of drudgery to the noble toils and duties of the active man. All poetry would not do this,--not, for instance, the Classical, in its diviner masters; not the poetry of Homer, of Virgil, of Sophocles; not, perhaps, even that of the indolent Horace. But the poetry which youth usually loves and appreciates the best--the poetry of mere sentiment--does so in minds already over-predisposed to the sentimental, and which require bracing to grow into healthful manhood. On the other hand, even this latter kind of poetry, which is peculiarly modern, does suit many minds of another mould,--minds which our modern life, with its hard positive forms, tends to produce. And as in certain climates plants and herbs, peculiarly adapted as antidotes to those diseases most prevalent in the atmosphere, are profusely sown, as it were, by the benignant providence of Nature, so it may be that the softer and more romantic species of poetry, which comes forth in harsh, money- making, unromantic times, is intended as curatives and counter-poisons. The world is so much with us, nowadays, that we need have something that prates to us, albeit even in too fine a euphuism, of the moon and stars. Certes, to Leonard Fairfield, at that period of his intellectual life, the softness of our Helicon descended as healing dews. In his turbulent and unsettled ambition, in his vague grapple with the giant forms of political truths, in his bias towards the application of science to immediate practical purposes, this lovely vision of the Muse came in the white robe of the Peacemaker; and with upraised hand pointing to serene skies, she opened to him fair glimpses of the Beautiful, which is given to Peasant as to Prince,--showed to him that on the surface of earth there is something nobler than fortune, that he who can view the world as a poet is always at soul a king; while to practical purpose itself, that larger and more profound invention, which poetry stimulates, supplied the grand design and the subtle view,--leading him beyond the mere ingenuity of the mechanic, and habituating him to regard the inert force of the matter at his command with the ambition of the Discoverer. But, above all, the discontent that was within him finding a vent, not in deliberate war upon this actual world, but through the purifying channels of song, in the vent itself it evaporated, it was lost. By accustoming ourselves to survey all things with the spirit that retains and reproduces them only in their lovelier or grander aspects, a vast philosophy of toleration for what we before gazed on with scorn or hate insensibly grows upon us. Leonard looked into his heart after the Enchantress had breathed upon it; and through the mists of the fleeting and tender melancholy which betrayed where she had been, he beheld a new sun of delight and joy dawning over the landscape of human life. Thus, though she was dead and gone from his actual knowledge, this mysterious kinswoman--"a voice, and nothing more"--had spoken to him, soothed, elevated, cheered, attuned each discord into harmony; and if now permitted from some serener sphere to behold the life that her soul thus strangely influenced, verily with yet holier joy the saving and lovely spirit might have glided onward in the Eternal Progress. We call the large majority of human lives obscure. Presumptuous that we are! How know we what lives a single thought retained from the dust of nameless graves may have lighted to renown? CHAPTER XI. It was about a year after Leonard's discovery of the family manuscripts that Parson Dale borrowed the quietest pad-mare in the squire's stables, and set out on an equestrian excursion. He said that he was bound on business connected with his old parishioners of Lansmere; for, as it has been incidentzlly implied in a previous chapter, he had been connected with that borough town (and, I may here add, in the capacity of curate) before he had been inducted into the living of Hazeldean. It was so rarely that the parson stirred from home, that this journey to a town more than twenty miles off was regarded as a most daring adventure, both at the Hall and at the Parsonage. Mrs. Dale could not sleep the whole previous night with thinking of it; and though she had naturally one of her worst nervous headaches on the eventful morn, she yet suffered no hands less thoughtful than her own to pack up the saddle- bags which the parson had borrowed along with the pad. Nay, so distrustful was she of the possibility of the good man's exerting the slightest common-sense in her absence, that she kept him close at her side while she was engaged in that same operation of packing-up,--showing him the exact spot in which the clean shirt was put; and how nicely the old slippers were packed up in one of his own sermons. She implored him not to mistake the sandwiches for his shaving-soap, and made him observe how carefully she had provided against such confusion, by placing them as far apart from each other as the nature of saddle-bags will admit. The poor parson--who was really by no means an absent man, but as little likely to shave himself with sandwiches and lunch upon soap as the most commonplace mortal may be--listened with conjugal patience, and thought that man never had such a wife before; nor was it without tears in his own eyes that he tore himself from the farewell embrace of his weeping Carry. I confess, however, that it was with some apprehension that he set his foot in the stirrup, and trusted his person to the mercies of an unfamiliar animal. For, whatever might be Mr. Dale's minor accomplishments as man and parson, horsemanship was not his forte. Indeed, I doubt if he had taken the reins in his hand more than twice since he had been married. The squire's surly old groom, Mat, was in attendance with the pad; and, to the parson's gentle inquiry whether Mat was quite sure that the pad was quite safe, replied laconically, "Oi, oi; give her her head." "Give her her head!" repeated Mr. Dale, rather amazed, for he had not the slightest intention of taking away that part of the beast's frame, so essential to its vital economy,--"give her her head!" "Oi, oi; and don't jerk her up like that, or she'll fall a doincing on her hind-legs." The parson instantly slackened the reins; and Mrs. Dale--who had tarried behind to control her tears--now running to the door for "more last words," he waved his hand with courageous amenity, and ambled forth into the lane. Our equestrian was absorbed at first in studying the idiosyncrasies of the pad-mare, and trying thereby to arrive at some notion of her general character: guessing, for instance, why she raised one ear and laid down the other; why she kept bearing so close to the left that she brushed his leg against the hedge; and why, when she arrived at a little side-gate in the fields, which led towards the home-farm, she came to a full stop, and fell to rubbing her nose against the rail,--an occupation from which the parson, finding all civil remonstrances in vain, at length diverted her by a timorous application of the whip. This crisis on the road fairly passed, the pad seemed to comprehend that she had a journey before her, and giving a petulant whisk of her tail, quickened her amble into a short trot, which soon brought the parson into the high road, and nearly opposite the Casino. Here, sitting on the gate which led to his abode, and shaded by his umbrella, he beheld Dr. Riccabocca. The Italian lifted his eyes from the book he was reading, and stared hard at the parson; and he--not venturing to withdraw his whole attention from the pad (who, indeed, set up both her ears at the apparition of Riccabocca, and evinced symptoms of that surprise and superstitious repugnance at unknown objects which goes by the name of "shying")--looked askance at Riccabocca. "Don't stir, please," said the parson, "or I fear you'll alarm the creature; it seems a nervous, timid thing;--soho, gently, gently." And he fell to patting the mare with great unction. The pad, thus encouraged, overcame her first natural astonishment at the sight of Riccabocca and the red umbrella; and having before been at the Casino on sundry occasions, and sagaciously preferring places within the range of her experience to bourns neither cognate nor conjecturable, she moved gravely up towards the gate on which the Italian sat; and, after eying him a moment,--as much as to say, "I wish you would get off,"--came to a deadlock. "Well," said Riccabocca, "since your horse seems more disposed to be polite to me than yourself, Mr. Dale, I take the opportunity of your present involuntary pause to congratulate you on your elevation in life, and to breathe a friendly prayer that pride may not have a fall!" "Tut," said the parson, affecting an easy air, though still contemplating the pad, who appeared to have fallen into a quiet doze, "it is true that I have not ridden much of late years, and the squire's horses are very high-fed and spirited; but there is no more harm in them than their master when one once knows their ways." "'Chi va piano va sano, E chi va sano va lontano,'" said Riccabocca, pointing to the saddle-bags. "You go slowly, therefore safely; and he who goes safely may go far. You seem prepared for a journey?" "I am," said the parson; "and on a matter that concerns you a little." "Me!" exclaimed Riccabocca,--"concerns me!" "Yes, so far as the chance of depriving you of a servant whom you like and esteem affects you." "Oh," said Riccabocca, "I understand: you have hinted to me very often that I or Knowledge, or both together, have unfitted Leonard Fairfield for service." "I did not say that exactly; I said that you have fitted him for something higher than service. But do not repeat this to him. And I cannot yet say more to you, for I am very doubtful as to the success of my mission; and it will not do to unsettle poor Leonard until we are sure that we can improve his condition." "Of that you can never be sure," quoth the wise man, shaking his head; "and I can't say that I am unselfish enough not to bear you a grudge for seeking to decoy away from me an invaluable servant,--faithful, steady, intelligent, and (added Riccabocca, warming as he approached the climacteric adjective) "exceedingly cheap! Nevertheless go, and Heaven speed you. I am not an Alexander, to stand between man and the sun." "You are a noble, great-hearted creature, Signor Riccabocca, in spite of your cold-blooded proverbs and villanous books." The parson, as he said this, brought down the whiphand with so indiscreet an enthusiasm on the pad's shoulder, that the poor beast, startled out of her innocent doze, made a bolt forward, which nearly precipitated Riccabocca from his seat on the stile, and then turning round--as the parson tugged desperately at the rein--caught the bit between her teeth, and set off at a canter. The parson lost both his stirrups; and when he regained them (as the pad slackened her pace), and had time to breathe and look about him, Riccabocca and the Casino were both out of sight. "Certainly," quoth Parson Dale, as he resettled himself with great complacency, and a conscious triumph that he was still on the pad's back,--"certainly it is true 'that the noblest conquest ever made by man was that of the horse:' a fine creature it is,--a very fine creature,-- and uncommonly difficult to sit on, especially without stirrups." Firmly in his stirrups the parson planted his feet; and the heart within him was very proud. CHAPTER XII. The borough town of Lansmere was situated in the county adjoining that which contained the village of Hazeldean. Late at noon the parson crossed the little stream which divided the two shires, and came to an inn, which was placed at an angle, where the great main road branched off into two directions, the one leading towards Lansmere, the other going more direct to London. At this inn the pad stopped, and put down both ears with the air of a pad who has made up her mind to bait. And the parson himself, feeling very warm and somewhat sore, said to the pad, benignly, "It is just,--thou shalt have corn and water!" Dismounting, therefore, and finding himself very stiff as soon as he reached /terra firma/, the parson consigned the pad to the hostler, and walked into the sanded parlour of the inn, to repose himself on a very hard Windsor chair. He had been alone rather more than half-an-hour, reading a county newspaper which smelled much of tobacco, and trying to keep off the flies that gathered round him in swarms, as if they had never before seen a parson, and were anxious to ascertain how the flesh of him tasted,--when a stagecoach stopped at the inn. A traveller got out with his carpetbag in his hand, and was shown into the sanded parlour. The parson rose politely, and made a bow. The traveller touched his hat, without taking it off, looked at Mr. Dale from top to toe, then walked to the window, and whistled a lively, impatient tune, then strode towards the fireplace and rang the bell; then stared again at the parson; and that gentleman having courteously laid down the newspaper, the traveller seized it, threw himself into a chair, flung one of his legs over the table, tossed the other up on the mantelpiece, and began reading the paper, while he tilted the chair on its hind-legs with so daring a disregard to the ordinary position of chairs and their occupants, that the shuddering parson expected every moment to see him come down on the back of his skull. Moved, therefore, to compassion, Mr. Dale said mildly,--"Those chairs are very treacherous, sir. I'm afraid you'll be down." "Eh," said the traveller, looking up much astonished. "Eh, down?--oh, you're satirical, sir." "Satirical, sir? upon my word, no!" exclaimed the parson, earnestly. "I think every freeborn man has a right to sit as he pleases in his own house," resumed the traveller, with warmth; "and an inn is his own house, I guess, so long as he pays his score. Betty, my dear." For the chambermaid had now replied to the bell. "I han't Betty, sir; do you want she?" "No, Sally; cold brandy and water--and a biscuit." "I han't Sally, either," muttered the chambermaid; but the traveller, turning round, showed so smart a neckcloth and so comely a face, that she smiled, coloured, and went her way. The traveller now rose, and flung down the paper. He took out a penknife, and began paring his nails. Suddenly desisting from this elegant occupation, his eye caught sight of the parson's shovel-hat, which lay on a chair in the corner. "You're a clergyman, I reckon, sir," said the traveller, with a slight sneer. Again Mr. Dale bowed,--bowed in part deprecatingly, in part with dignity. It was a bow that said, "No offence, sir, but I am a clergyman, and I'm not ashamed of it." "Going far?" asked the traveller. PARSON.--"Not very." TRAVELLER.--"In a chaise or fly? If so, and we are going the same way, halves." PARSON.--"Halves?" TRAVELLER.--"Yes, I'll pay half the damage, pikes inclusive." PARSON.--"You are very good, sir. But" (spoken with pride) "I am on horseback." TRAVELLER.--"On horseback! Well, I should not have guessed that! You don't look like it. Where did you say you were going?" "I did not say where I was going, sir," said the parson, dryly, for he was much offended at that vague and ungrammatical remark applicable to his horsemanship, that "he did not look like it." "Close!" said the traveller, laughing; "an old traveller, I reckon." The parson made no reply, but he took up his shovel-hat, and, with a bow more majestic than the previous one, walked out to see if his pad had finished her corn. The animal had indeed finished all the corn afforded to her, which was not much, and in a few minutes more Mr. Dale resumed his journey. He had performed about three miles, when the sound of wheels behind him made him turn his head; and he perceived a chaise driven very fast, while out of the windows thereof dangled strangely a pair of human legs. The pad began to curvet as the post-horses rattled behind, and the parson had only an indistinct vision of a human face supplanting those human legs. The traveller peered out at him as he whirled by,--saw Mr. Dale tossed up and down on the saddle, and cried out, "How's the leather?" "Leather!" soliloquized the parson, as the pad recomposed herself, "what does he mean by that? Leather! a very vulgar man. But I got rid of him cleverly." Mr. Dale arrived without further adventure at Lansmere. He put up at the principal inn, refreshed himself by a general ablution, and sat down with good appetite to his beefsteak and pint of port. The parson was a better judge of the physiognomy of man than that of the horse; and after a satisfactory glance at the civil smirking landlord, who removed the cover and set on the wine, he ventured on an attempt at conversation. "Is my Lord at the Park?" LANDLORD (still more civilly than before).--"No, sir, his Lordship and my Lady have gone to town to meet Lord L'Estrange!" "Lord L'Estrange! He is in England, then?" "Why, so I heard," replied the landlord, "but we never see him here now. I remember him a very pretty young man. Every one was fond of him and proud of him. But what pranks be did play when he was a lad! We hoped he would come in for our boro' some of these days, but he has taken to foren parts,--more 's the pity. I am a reg'lar Blue, sir, as I ought to be. The Blue candidate always does me the honour to come to the Lansmere Arms. 'T is only the low party puts up with the Boar," added the landlord, with a look of ineffable disgust. "I hope you like the wine, sir?" "Very good, and seems old." "Bottled these eighteen years, sir. I had in the cask for the great election of Dashmore and Egerton. I have little left of it, and I never give it but to old friends like,--for, I think, Sir, though you be grown stout, and look more grand, I may say that I've had the pleasure of seeing you before." "That's true, I dare say, though I fear I was never a very good customer." "Ah, it is Mr. Dale, then! I thought so when you came into the hall. I hope your lady is quite well, and the squire too; fine pleasant-spoken gentleman; no fault of his if Mr. Egerton went wrong. Well, we have never seen him--I mean Mr. Egerton--since that time. I don't wonder he stays away; but my Lord's son, who was brought up here, it an't nat'ral like that he should turn his back on us!" Mr. Dale made no reply, and the landlord was about to retire, when the parson, pouring out another glass of the port, said, "There must be great changes in the parish. Is Mr. Morgan, the medical man, still here?" "No, indeed! he took out his 'ploma after you left, and became a real doctor; and a pretty practice he had too, when he took, all of a sudden, to some new-fangled way of physicking,--I think they calls it homy- something." "Homoeopathy?" "That's it; something against all reason: and so he lost his practice here and went up to Lunnun. I've not heard of him since." "Do the Avenels still reside in their old house?" "Oh, yes!--and are pretty well off, I hear say. John is always poorly, though he still goes now and then to the Odd Fellows, and takes his glass; but his wife comes and fetches him away before he can do himself any harm." "Mrs. Avenel is the same as ever?" "She holds her head higher, I think," said the landlord, smiling. "She was always--not exactly proud like, but what I calls Bumptious." "I never heard that word before," said the parson, laying down his knife and fork. "Bumptious indeed, though I believe it is not in the dictionary, has crept into familiar parlance, especially amongst young folks at school and college." "Bumptious is bumptious, and gumptious is Bumptious," said the landlord, delighted to puzzle a parson. "Now the town beadle is bumptious, and Mrs. Avenel is Bumptious." "She is a very respectable woman," said Mr. Dale, somewhat rebukingly. "In course, sir, all gumptious folks are; they value themselves on their respectability, and looks down on their neighbours." PARSON (still philologically occupied).--"Gumptious--gumptious. I think I remember the substantive at school,--not that my master taught it to me. 'Gumption'--it means cleverness." LANDLORD (doggedly).--"There's gumption and Bumptious! Gumption is knowing; but when I say that sum 'un is gumptious, I mean--though that's more vulgar like--sum 'un who does not think small beer of hisself. You take me, sir?" "I think I do," said the parson, half smiling. "I believe the Avenels have only two of their children alive still,--their daughter who married Mark Fairfield, and a son who went off to America?" "Ah, but he made his fortune there and has come back." "Indeed! I'm very glad to hear it. He has settled at Lansmere?" "No, Sir. I hear as he's bought a property a long way off. But he comes to see his parents pretty often--so John tells me--but I can't say that I ever see him. I fancy Dick does n't like to be seen by folks who remember him playing in the kennel." "Not unnatural," said the parson, indulgently; "but he visits his parents; he is a good son at all events, then?" "I've nothing to say against him. Dick was a wild chap before he took himself off. I never thought he would make his fortune; but the Avenels are a clever set. Do you remember poor Nora--the Rose of Lansmere, as they called her? Ah, no, I think she went up to Lunnun afore your time, sir." "Humph!" said the parson, dryly. "Well, I think you may take away now. It will be dark soon, and I'll just stroll out and look about me." "There's a nice tart coming, sir." "Thank you, I've dined." The parson put on his hat and sallied forth into the streets. He eyed the houses on either hand with that melancholy and wistful interest with which, in middle life, men revisit scenes familiar to them in youth,-- surprised to find either so little change or so much, and recalling, by fits and snatches, old associations and past emotions. The long High Street which he threaded now began to change its bustling character, and slide, as it were gradually, into the high road of a suburb. On the left, the houses gave way to the moss-grown pales of Lansmere Park; to the right, though houses still remained, they were separated from each other by gardens, and took the pleasing appearance of villas,--such villas as retired tradesmen or their widows, old maids, and half-pay officers select for the evening of their days. Mr. Dale looked at these villas with the deliberate attention of a man awakening his power of memory, and at last stopped before one, almost the last on the road, and which faced the broad patch of sward that lay before the lodge of Lansmere Park. An old pollard-oak stood near it, and from the oak there came a low discordant sound; it was the hungry cry of young ravens, awaiting the belated return of the parent bird! Mr. Dale put his hand to his brow, paused a moment, and then, with a hurried step, passed through the little garden, and knocked at the door. A light was burning in the parlour, and Mr. Dale's eye caught through the window a vague outline of three forms. There was an evident bustle within at the sound of the knock. One of the forms rose and disappeared. A very prim, neat, middle-aged maid-servant now appeared at the threshold, and austerely inquired the visitor's business. "I want to see Mr. or Mrs. Avenel. Say that I have come many miles to see them; and take in this card." The maid-servant took the card, and half closed the door. At least three minutes elapsed before she reappeared. "Missis says it's late, sir; but walk in." The parson accepted the not very gracious invitation, stepped across the little hall, and entered the parlour. Old John Avenel, a mild-looking man, who seemed slightly paralytic, rose slowly from his armchair. Mrs. Avenel, in an awfully stiff, clean, Calvinistical cap, and a gray dress, every fold of which bespoke respectability and staid repute, stood erect on the floor, and fixing on the parson a cold and cautious eye, said,-- "You do the like of us great honour, Mr. Dale; take a chair. You call upon business?" "Of which I apprised Mr. Avenel by letter." "My husband is very poorly." "A poor creature!" said John, feebly, and as if in compassion of himself. "I can't get about as I used to do. But it ben't near election time, be it, sir?" "No, John," said Mrs. Avenel, placing her husband's arm within her own. "You must lie down a bit, while I talk to the gentleman." "I'm a real good Blue," said poor John; "but I ain't quite the man I was;" and leaning heavily on his wife, he left the room, turning round at the threshold, and saying, with great urbanity, "Anything to oblige, sir!" Mr. Dale was much touched. He had remembered John Avenel the comeliest, the most active, and the most cheerful man in Lansmere; great at glee club and cricket (though then somewhat stricken in years), greater in vestries; reputed greatest in elections. "Last scene of all," murmured the parson; "and oh, well, turning from the poet, may we cry with the disbelieving philosopher, 'Poor, poor humanity!'" In a few minutes Mrs. Avenel returned. She took a chair at some distance from the parson's, and resting one hand on the elbow of the chair, while with the other she stiffly smoothed the stiff gown, she said,-- "Now, sir." That "Now, sir," had in its sound something sinister and warlike. This the shrewd parson recognized with his usual tact. He edged his chair nearer to Mrs. Avenel, and placing his hand on hers,-- "Yes, now then, and as friend to friend." CHAPTER XIII. Mr. Dale had been more than a quarter of an hour conversing with Mrs. Avenel, and had seemingly made little progress in the object of his diplomatic mission, for now, slowly drawing on his gloves, he said,-- "I grieve to think, Mrs. Avenel, that you should have so hardened your heart--yes, you must pardon me,--it is my vocation to speak stern truths. You cannot say that I have not kept faith with you, but I must now invite you to remember that I specially reserved to myself the right of exercising a discretion to act as I judged best for the child's interest on any future occasion; and it was upon this understanding that you gave me the promise, which you would now evade, of providing for him when he came to manhood." "I say I will provide for him. I say that you may 'prentice him in any distant town, and by and by we will stock a shop for him. What would you have more, sir, from folks like us, who have kept shop ourselves? It ain't reasonable what you ask, sir." "My dear friend," said the parson, "what I ask of you at present is but to see him, to receive him kindly, to listen to his conversation, to judge for yourselves. We can have but a common object,--that your grandson should succeed in life, and do you credit. Now, I doubt very much whether we can effect this by making him a small shopkeeper." "And has Jane Fairfield, who married a common carpenter, brought him up to despise small shopkeepers?" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, angrily. "Heaven forbid! Some of the first men in England have been the sons of small shopkeepers. But is it a crime in them, or in their parents, if their talents have lifted them into such rank or renown as the haughtiest duke might envy? England were not England if a man must rest where his father began." "Good!" said, or rather grunted, an approving voice, but neither Mrs. Avenel nor the parson heard it. "All very fine," said Mrs. Avenel, bluntly. "But to send a boy like that to the University--where's the money to come from?" "My dear Mrs. Avenel," said the parson, coaxingly, "the cost need not be great at a small college at Cambridge; and if you will pay half the expense, I will pay the other half. I have no children of my own, and can afford it." "That's very handsome in you, sir," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat touched, yet still not graciously. "But the money is not the only point." "Once at Cambridge," continued Mr. Dale, speaking rapidly, "at Cambridge, where the studies are mathematical,--that is, of a nature for which he has shown so great an aptitude,--and I have no doubt he will distinguish himself; if he does, he will obtain, on leaving, what is called a fellowship,--that is, a collegiate dignity accompanied by an income on which he could maintain himself until he made his way in life. Come, Mrs. Avenel, you are well off; you have no relations nearer to you in want of your aid. Your son, I hear, has been very fortunate." "Sir," said--Mrs. Avenel, interrupting the parson, "it is not because my son Richard is an honour to us, and is a good son, and has made his fortin, that we are to rob him of what we have to leave, and give it to a boy whom we know nothing about, and who, in spite of what you say, can't bring upon us any credit at all." "Why? I don't see that." "Why!" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel, fiercely,--"why! you, know why. No, I don't want him to rise in life: I don't want folks to be speiring and asking about him. I think it is a very wicked thing to have put fine notions in his head, and I am sure my daughter Fairfield could not have done it herself. And now, to ask me to rob Richard, and bring out a great boy--who's been a gardener or ploughman, or suchlike--to disgrace a gentleman who keeps his carriage, as my son Richard does--I would have you to know, sir. No! I won't do it, and there's an end of the matter." During the last two or three minutes, and just before that approving "good" had responded to the parson's popular sentiment, a door communicating with an inner room had been gently opened, and stood ajar; but this incident neither party had even noticed. But now the door was thrown boldly open, and the traveller whom the parson had met at the inn walked up to Mr. Dale, and said, "No! that's not the end of the matter. You say the boy's a 'cute, clever lad?" "Richard, have you been listening?" exclaimed Mrs. Avenel. "Well, I guess, yes,--the last few minutes." "And what have you heard?" "Why, that this reverend gentleman thinks so highly of my sister Fairfield's boy that he offers to pay half of his keep at college. Sir, I'm very much obliged to you, and there's my hand if you'll take it." The parson jumped up, overjoyed, and, with a triumphant glance towards Mrs. Avenel, shook hands heartily with Mr. Richard. "Now," said the latter, "just put on your hat, sir, and take a stroll with me, and we'll discuss the thing businesslike. Women don't understand business: never talk to women on business." With these words, Mr. Richard drew out a cigar-case, selected a cigar, which he applied to the candle, and walked into the hall. Mrs. Avenel caught hold of the parson. "Sir, you'll be on your guard with Richard. Remember your promise." "He does not know all, then?" "He? No! And you see he did not overhear more than what he says. I'm sure you're a gentleman, and won't go against your word." "My word was conditional; but I will promise you never to break the silence without more reason than I think there is here for it. Indeed, Mr. Richard Avenel seems to save all necessity for that." "Are you coming, sir?" cried Richard, as he opened the street-door. CHAPTER XIV. The parson joined Mr. Richard Avenel on the road. It was a fine night, and the moon clear and shining. "So, then," said Mr. Richard, thoughtfully, "poor Jane, who was always the drudge of the family, has contrived to bring up her son well; and the boy is really what you say, eh,--could make a figure at college?" "I am sure of it," said the parson, hooking himself on to the arm which Mr. Avenel proffered. "I should like to see him," said Richard. "Has he any manner? Is he genteel, or a mere country lout?" "Indeed, he speaks with so much propriety, and has so much modest dignity about him, that there's many a rich gentleman who would be proud of such a son." "It is odd," observed Richard, "what a difference there is in families. There's Jane, now, who can't read nor write, and was just fit to be a workman's wife, had not a thought above her station; and when I think of my poor sister Nora--you would not believe it, sir, but she was the most elegant creature in the world,--yes, even as a child (she was but a child when I went off to America). And often, as I was getting on in life, often I used to say to myself, 'My little Nora shall be a lady after all.' Poor thing--but she died young." Richard's voice grew husky. The parson kindly pressed the arm on which he leaned, and said, after a pause,-- "Nothing refines us like education, sir. I believe your sister Nora had received much instruction, and had the talents to profit by it: it is the same with your nephew." "I'll see him," said Richard, stamping his foot firmly on the ground, "and if I like him, I'll be as good as a father to him. Look you, Mr.-- what's your name, sir?" "Dale." "Mr. Dale, look you, I'm a single man. Perhaps I may marry some day; perhaps I sha' n't. I'm not going to throw myself away. If I can get a lady of quality, why--but that's neither here nor there; meanwhile I should be glad of a nephew whom I need not be ashamed of. You see, sir, I am a new man, the builder of my own fortunes; and though I have picked up a little education--I don't well know how,--as I scramble on still, now I come back to the old country, I'm well aware that I 'm not exactly a match for those d---d aristocrats; don't show so well in a drawing-room as I could wish. I could be a parliament man if I liked, but I might make a goose of myself; so, all things considered, if I can get a sort of junior partner to do the polite work, and show off the goods, I think the house of Avenel & Co. might become a pretty considerable honour to the Britishers. You understand me, sir?" "Oh, very well," answered Mr. Dale, smiling, though rather gravely. "Now," continued the New Man, I'm not ashamed to have risen in life by my own merits; and I don't disguise what I've been. And, when I'm in my own grand house, I'm fond of saying, 'I landed at New York with L10 in my purse, and here I am!' But it would not do to have the old folks with me. People take you with all your faults if you're rich; but they won't swallow your family into the bargain. So if I don't have at my house my own father and mother, whom I love dearly, and should like to see sitting at table, with my servants behind their chairs, I could still less have sister Jane. I recollect her very well, but she can't have got genteeler as she's grown older. Therefore I beg you'll not set her on coming after me! it would not do by any manner of means. Don't say a word about me to her. But send the boy down here to his grandfather, and I'll see him quietly, you understand." "Yes, but it will be hard to separate her from the boy." "Stuff! all boys are separated from their parents when they go into the world. So that's settled. Now, just tell me. I know the old folks always snubbed Jane,--that is, Mother did. My poor dear father never snubbed any of us. Perhaps Mother has not behaved altogether well to Jane. But we must not blame her for that; you see this is how it happened. There were a good many of us, while Father and Mother kept shop in the High Street, so we were all to be provided for anyhow; and Jane, being very useful and handy at work, got a place when she was a little girl, and had no time for learning. Afterwards my father made a lucky hit, in getting my Lord Lansmere's custom after an election, in which he did a great deal for the Blues (for he was a famous electioneerer, my poor father). My Lady stood godmother to Nora; and then all my brothers, and two of my sisters, died off, and Father retired from business; and when he took Jane from service, she was so common-like that Mother could not help contrasting her with Nora. You see Jane was their child when they were poor little shop-people, with their heads scarce above water; and Nora was their child when they were well off, and had retired from trade, and lived genteel: so that makes a great difference. And Mother did not quite look on her as on her own child. But it was Jane's own fault: for Mother would have made it up with her if she had married the son of our neighbour the great linen-draper, as she might have done; but she would take Mark Fairfield, a common carpenter. Parents like best those of their children who succeed best in life. Natural. Why, they did not care for me till I came back the man I am. But to return to Jane: I'm afraid they've neglected her. How is she off?" "She earns her livelihood, and is poor, but contented." "Ah, just be good enough to give her this" (and Richard took a bank-note of L50 from his pocket-book). "You can say the old folks sent it to her; or that it is a present from Dick, without telling her he has come back from America." "My dear sir," said the parson, "I am more and more thankful to have made your acquaintance. This is a very liberal gift of yours; but your best plan will be to send it through your mother. For, though I don't want to betray any confidence you place in me, I should not know what to answer if Mrs. Fairfield began to question me about her brother. I never had but one secret to keep, and I hope I shall never have another. A secret is very like a lie!" "You had a secret then?" said Richard, as he took back the bank-note. He had learned, perhaps in America, to be a very inquisitive man. He added point-blank, "Pray, what was it?" "Why, what it would not be if I told you," said the parson, with a forced laugh,--"a secret!" "Well, I guess we're in a land of liberty. Do as you like. Now, I dare say you think me a very odd fellow to come out of my shell to you in this off-hand way; but I liked the look of you, even when we were at the inn together. And just now I was uncommonly pleased to find that, though you are a parson, you don't want to keep a man's nose down to a shopboard, if he has anything in him. You're not one of the aristocrats--" "Indeed," said the parson, with imprudent warmth, "it is not the character of the aristocracy of this country to keep people down. They make way amongst themselves for any man, whatever his birth, who has the talent and energy to aspire to their level. That's the especial boast of the British constitution, sir!" "Oh, you think so, do you?" said Mr. Richard, looking sourly at the parson. "I dare say those are the opinions in which you have brought up the lad. Just keep him yourself and let the aristocracy provide for him!" The parson's generous and patriotic warmth evaporated at once, at this sudden inlet of cold air into the conversation. He perceived that he had made a terrible blunder; and as it was not his business at that moment to vindicate the British constitution, but to serve Leonard Fairfield, he abandoned the cause of the aristocracy with the most poltroon and scandalous abruptness. Catching at the arm which Mr. Avenel had withdrawn from him, he exclaimed,-- "Indeed, sir, you are mistaken; I have never attempted to influence your nephew's political opinions. On the contrary, if, at his age, he can be said to have formed any opinions, I am greatly afraid--that is, I think his opinions are by no means sound--that is, constitutional. I mean, I mean--" And the poor parson, anxious to select a word that would not offend his listener, stopped short in lamentable confusion of idea. Mr. Avenel enjoyed his distress for a moment, with a saturnine smile, and then said,-- "Well, I calculate he's a Radical. Natural enough, if he has not got a sixpence to lose--all come right by and by. I'm not a Radical,--at least not a Destructive--much too clever a man for that, I hope. But I wish to see things very different from what they are. Don't fancy that I want the common people, who've got nothing, to pretend to dictate to their betters, because I hate to see a parcel of fellows who are called lords and squires trying to rule the roast. I think, sir, that it is men like me who ought to be at the top of the tree! and that's the long and the short of it. What do you say?" "I've not the least objection," said the crestfallen parson, basely. But, to do him justice, I must add that he did not the least know what he was saying! CHAPTER XV. Unconscious of the change in his fate which the diplomacy of the parson sought to effect, Leonard Fairfield was enjoying the first virgin sweetness of fame; for the principal town in his neighbourhood had followed the then growing fashion of the age, and set up a Mechanics' Institute, and some worthy persons interested in the formation of that provincial Athenaeum had offered a prize for the best Essay on the Diffusion of Knowledge,--a very trite subject, on which persons seem to think they can never say too much, and on which there is, nevertheless, a great deal yet to be said. This prize Leonard Fairfield had recently won. His Essay had been publicly complimented by a full meeting of the Institute; it had been printed at the expense of the Society, and had been rewarded by a silver medal,--delineative of Apollo crowning Merit (poor Merit had not a rag to his back; but Merit, left only to the care of Apollo, never is too good a customer to the tailor!) And the County Gazette had declared that Britain had produced another prodigy in the person of Dr. Riccabocca's self-educated gardener. Attention was now directed to Leonard's mechanical contrivances. The squire, ever eagerly bent on improvements, had brought an engineer to inspect the lad's system of irrigation, and the engineer had been greatly struck by the simple means by which a very considerable technical difficulty had been overcome. The neighbouring farmers now called Leonard "Mr. Fairfield," and invited him on equal terms to their houses. Mr. Stirn had met him on the high road, touched his hat, and hoped that "he bore no malice." All this, I say, was the first sweetness of fame; and if Leonard Fairfield comes to be a great man, he will never find such sweets in the after fruit. It was this success which had determined the parson on the step which he had just taken, and which he had long before anxiously meditated. For, during the last year or so, he had renewed his old intimacy with the widow and the boy; and he had noticed, with great hope and great fear, the rapid growth of an intellect, which now stood out from the lowly circumstances that surrounded it in bold and unharmonizing relief. It was the evening after his return home that the parson strolled up to the Casino. He put Leonard Fairfield's Prize Essay in his pocket; for he felt that he could not let the young man go forth into the world without a preparatory lecture, and he intended to scourge poor Merit with the very laurel wreath which it had received from Apollo. But in this he wanted Riccabocca's assistance; or rather he feared that, if he did not get the philosopher on his side, the philosopher might undo all the work of the parson. CHAPTER XVI. A sweet sound came through the orange boughs, and floated to the ears of the parson, as he wound slowly up the gentle ascent,--so sweet, so silvery, he paused in delight--unaware, wretched man! that he was thereby conniving at Papistical errors. Soft it came and sweet; softer and sweeter,--"Ave Maria!" Violante was chanting the evening hymn to the Virgin Mother. The parson at last distinguished the sense of the words, and shook his head with the pious shake of an orthodox Protestant. He broke from the spell resolutely, and walked on with a sturdy step. Gaining the terrace, he found the little family seated under an awning,-- Mrs. Riccabocca knitting; the signor with his arms folded on his breast: the book he had been reading a few moments before had fallen on the ground, and his dark eyes were soft and dreamy. Violante had finished her hymn, and seated herself on the ground between the two, pillowing her head on her stepmother's lap, but with her hand resting on her father's knee, and her gaze fixed fondly on his face. "Good-evening," said Mr. Dale. Violante stole up to him, and, pulling him so as to bring his ear nearer to her lip, whispered, "Talk to Papa, do,--and cheerfully; he is sad." She escaped from him as she said this, and appeared to busy herself with watering the flowers arranged on stands round the awning. But she kept her swimming lustrous eyes wistfully on her father. "How fares it with you, my dear friend?" said the parson, kindly, as he rested his hand on the Italian's shoulder. "You must not let him get out of spirits, Mrs. Riccabocca." "I am very ungrateful to her if I ever am so," said the poor Italian, with all his natural gallantry. Many a good wife, who thinks it is a reproach to her if her husband is ever "out of spirits," might have turned peevishly from that speech, more elegant than sincere, and so have made bad worse; but Mrs. Riccabocca took her husband's proffered hand affectionately, and said with great /naivete/,-- "You see I am so stupid, Mr. Dale; I never knew I was so stupid till I married. But I am very glad you are come. You can get on some learned subject together, and then he will not miss so much his--" "His what?" asked Riccabocca, inquisitively. "His country. Do you think that I cannot sometimes read your thoughts?" "Very often. But you did not read them just then. The tongue touches where the tooth aches, but the best dentist cannot guess at the tooth unless one open one's mouth.--Basta! Can we offer you some wine of our own making, Mr. Dale?--it is pure." "I 'd rather have some tea," quoth the parson, hastily. Mrs. Riccabocca, too pleased to be in her natural element of domestic use, hurried into the house to prepare our national beverage. And the parson, sliding into her chair, said,-- "But you are dejected then? Fie! If there's a virtue in the world at which we should always aim, it is cheerfulness." "I don't dispute it," said Riccabocca, with a heavy sigh. "But though it is said by some Greek, who, I think, is quoted by your favourite Seneca, that a wise man carries his country with him at the soles of his feet, he can't carry also the sunshine over his head." "I tell you what it is," said the parson, bluntly; "you would have a much keener sense of happiness if you had much less esteem for philosophy." "/Cospetto!/" said the doctor, rousing himself. "Just explain, will you?" "Does not the search after wisdom induce desires not satisfied in this small circle to which your life is confined? It is not so much your country for which you yearn, as it is for space to your intellect, employment for your thoughts, career for your aspirations." "You have guessed at the tooth which aches," said Riccabocca, with admiration. "Easy to do that," answered the parson. "Our wisdom teeth come last and give us the most pain; and if you would just starve the mind a little, and nourish the heart more, you would be less of a philosopher and more of a--" The parson had the word "Christian" at the tip of his tongue; he suppressed a word that, so spoken, would have been exceedingly irritating, and substituted, with elegant antithesis, "and more of a happy man!" "I do all I can with my heart," quoth the doctor. "Not you! For a man with such a heart as yours should never feel the want of the sunshine. My friend, we live in an age of over mental cultivation. We neglect too much the simple healthful outer life, in which there is so much positive joy. In turning to the world within us, we grow blind to this beautiful world without; in studying ourselves as men, we almost forget to look up to heaven, and warm to the smile of God." The philosopher mechanically shrugged his shoulders, as he always did when another man moralized,--especially if the moralizer were a priest; but there was no irony in his smile, as he answered thoughtfully,-- "There is some truth in what you say. I own that we live too much as if we were all brain. Knowledge has its penalties and pains, as well as its prizes." "That is just what I want you to say to Leonard." "How have you settled the object of your journey?" "I will tell you as we walk down to him after tea. At present, I am rather too much occupied with you." "Me? The tree is formed--try only to bend the young twig!" "Trees are trees, and twigs twigs," said the parson, dogmatically; "but man is always growing till he falls into the grave. I think I have heard you say that you once had a narrow escape of a prison?" "Very narrow." "Just suppose that you were now in that prison, and that a fairy conjured up the prospect of this quiet home in a safe land; that you saw the orange-trees in flower, felt the evening breeze on your cheek; beheld your child gay or sad, as you smiled or knit your brow; that within this phantom home was a woman, not, indeed, all your young romance might have dreamed of, but faithful and true, every beat of her heart all your own, --would you not cry from the depth of your dungeon, 'O fairy! such a change were a paradise!' Ungrateful man! you want interchange for your mind, and your heart should suffice for all!" Riccabocca was touched and silent. "Come hither, my child," said Mr. Dale, turning round to Violante, who stood still among the flowers, out of hearing, but with watchful eyes. "Come hither," he said, opening his arms. Violante bounded forward, and nestled to the good man's heart. "Tell me, Violante, when you are alone in the fields or the garden, and have left your father looking pleased and serene, so that you have no care for him at your heart,--tell me, Violante, though you are all alone, with the flowers below, and the birds singing overhead, do you feel that life itself is happiness or sorrow?" "Happiness!" answered Violante, half shutting her eyes, and in a measured voice. "Can you explain what kind of happiness it is?" "Oh, no, impossible! and it is never the same. Sometimes it is so still --so still, and sometimes so joyous, that I long for wings to fly up to God, and thank Him!" "O friend," said the parson, "this is the true sympathy between life and nature, and thus we should feel ever, did we take more care to preserve the health and innocence of a child. We are told that we must become as children to enter into the kingdom of Heaven; methinks we should also become as children to know what delight there is in our heritage of earth!" CHAPTER XVII. The maid-servant (for Jackeymo was in the fields) brought the table under the awning, and with the English luxury of tea, there were other drinks as cheap and as grateful on summer evenings,--drinks which Jackeymo had retained and taught from the customs of the South,--unebriate liquors, pressed from cooling fruits, sweetened with honey, and deliciously iced: ice should cost nothing in a country in which one is frozen up half the year! And Jackeymo, too, had added to our good, solid, heavy English bread preparations of wheat much lighter, and more propitious to digestion,--with those crisp grissins, which seem to enjoy being eaten, they make so pleasant a noise between one's teeth. The parson esteemed it a little treat to drink tea with the Riccaboccas. There was something of elegance and grace in that homely meal at the poor exile's table, which pleased the eye as well as taste. And the very utensils, plain Wedgwood though they were, had a classical simplicity, which made Mrs. Hazeldean's old India delf, and Mrs. Dale's best Worcester china, look tawdry and barbarous in comparison. For it was Flaxman who gave designs to Wedgwood, and the most truly refined of all our manufactures in porcelain (if we do not look to the mere material) is in the reach of the most thrifty. The little banquet was at first rather a silent one; but Riccabocca threw off his gloom, and became gay and animated. Then poor Mrs. Riccabocca smiled, and pressed the grissins; and Violante, forgetting all her stateliness, laughed and played tricks on the parson, stealing away his cup of warm tea when his head was turned, and substituting iced cherry- juice. Then the parson got up and ran after Violante, making angry faces, and Violante dodged beautifully, till the parson, fairly tired out, was too glad to cry "Peace," and come back to the cherry-juice. Thus time rolled on, till they heard afar the stroke of the distant church-clock, and Mr. Dale started up and cried, "But we shall be too late for Leonard. Come, naughty little girl, get your father his hat." "And umbrella!" said Riccabocca, looking up at the cloudless, moonlit sky. "Umbrella against the stars?" asked the parson, laughing. "The stars are no friends of mine," said Riccabocca, "and one never knows what may happen!" The philosopher and the parson walked on amicably. "You have done me good," said Riccabocca, "but I hope I am not always so unreasonably melancholic as you seem to suspect. The evenings will sometimes appear long, and dull too, to a man whose thoughts on the past are almost his sole companions." "Sole companions?--your child?" "She is so young." "Your wife?" "She is so--" the bland Italian appeared to check some disparaging adjective, and mildly added, "so good, I allow; but you must own that she and I cannot have much in common." "I own nothing of the sort. You have your house and your interests, your happiness and your lives, in common. We men are so exacting, we expect to find ideal nymphs and goddesses when we condescend to marry a mortal; and if we did, our chickens would be boiled to rags, and our mutton come up as cold as a stone." "Per Bacco, you are an oracle," said Riccabocca, laughing. "But I am not so sceptical as you are. I honour the fair sex too much. There are a great many women who realize the ideal of men, to be found in--the poets!" "There's my dear Mrs. Dale," resumed the parson, not heeding the sarcastic compliment to the sex, but sinking his voice into a whisper, and looking round cautiously,--"there's my dear Mrs. Dale, the best woman in the world,--an angel I would say, if the word were not profane; BUT--" "What's the BUT?" asked the doctor, demurely. "BUT I too might say that 'she and I have not much in common,' if I were only to compare mind to mind, and when my poor Carry says something less profound than Madame de Stael might have said, smile on her in contempt from the elevation of logic and Latin. Yet when I remember all the little sorrows and joys that we have shared together, and feel how solitary I should have been without her--oh, then, I am instantly aware that there is between us in common something infinitely closer and better than if the same course of study had given us the same equality of ideas; and I was forced to brace myself for a combat of intellect, as I am when I fall in with a tiresome sage like yourself. I don't pretend to say that Mrs. Riccabocca is a Mrs. Dale," added the parson, with lofty candour,--"there is but one Mrs. Dale in the world; but still, you have drawn a prize in the wheel matrimonial! Think of Socrates, and yet he was content even with his--Xantippe!" Dr. Riccabocca called to mind Mrs. Dale's "little tempers," and inly rejoiced that no second Mrs. Dale had existed to fall to his own lot. His placid Jemima gained by the contrast. Nevertheless he had the ill grace to reply, "Socrates was a man beyond all imitation!--Yet I believe that even he spent very few of his evenings at home. But /revenons a nos moutons/, we are nearly at Mrs. Fairfield's cottage, and you have not yet told me what you have settled as to Leonard." The parson halted, took Riccabocca by the button, and informed him, in very few words, that Leonard was to go to Lansmere to see some relations there, who had the fortune, if they had the will, to give full career to his abilities. "The great thing, in the mean while," said the parson, "would be to enlighten him a little as to what he calls--enlightenment." "Ah!" said Riccabocca, diverted, and rubbing his hands, "I shall listen with interest to what you say on that subject." "And must aid me: for the first step in this modern march of enlightenment is to leave the poor parson behind; and if one calls out 'Hold! and look at the sign-post,' the traveller hurries on the faster, saying to himself, 'Pooh, pooh!--that is only the cry of the parson!' But my gentleman, when he doubts me, will listen to you,--you're a philosopher!" "We philosophers are of some use now and then, even to parsons!" "If you were not so conceited a set of deluded poor creatures already, I would say 'Yes,'" replied the parson, generously; and, taking hold of Riccabocca's umbrella, he applied the brass handle thereof, by way of a knocker, to the cottage door. CHAPTER XVIII. Certainly it is a glorious fever,--that desire To Know! And there are few sights in the moral world more sublime than that which many a garret might afford, if Asmodeus would bare the roofs to our survey,--namely, a brave, patient, earnest human being toiling his own arduous way, athwart the iron walls of penury, into the magnificent Infinite, which is luminous with starry souls. So there sits Leonard the Self-taught in the little cottage alone: for, though scarcely past the hour in which great folks dine, it is the hour in which small folks go to bed, and Mrs. Fairfield has retired to rest, while Leonard has settled to his books. He had placed his table under the lattice, and from time to time he looked up and enjoyed the stillness of the moon. Well for him that, in reparation for those hours stolen from night, the hardy physical labour commenced with dawn. Students would not be the sad dyspeptics they are, if they worked as many hours in the open air as my scholar-peasant. But even in him you could see that the mind had begun a little to affect the frame. They who task the intellect must pay the penalty with the body. Ill, believe me, would this work-day world get on if all within it were hard-reading, studious animals, playing the deuce with the ganglionic apparatus. Leonard started as he heard the knock at the door; the parson's well- known voice reassured him. In some surprise he admitted his visitors. "We are come to talk to you, Leonard," said Mr. Dale; "but I fear we shall disturb Mrs. Fairfield." "Oh, no, sir! the door to the staircase is shut, and she sleeps soundly." "Why, this is a French book! Do you read French, Leonard?" asked Riccabocca. "I have not found French difficult, sir. Once over the grammar, and the language is so clear; it seems the very language for reasoning." "True. Voltaire said justly, 'Whatever is obscure is not French,'" observed Riccabocca. "I wish I could say the same of English," muttered the parson. "But what is this,--Latin too?--Virgil?" "Yes, sir. But I find I make little way there without a master. I fear I must give it up" (and Leonard sighed). The two gentlemen exchanged looks, and seated themselves. The young peasant remained standing modestly, and in his air and mien there was something that touched the heart while it pleased the eye. He was no longer the timid boy who had shrunk from the frown of Mr. Stirn, nor that rude personation of simple physical strength, roused to undisciplined bravery, which had received its downfall on the village green of Hazeldean. The power of thought was on his brow,--somewhat unquiet still, but mild and earnest. The features had attained that refinement which is often attributed to race, but comes, in truth, from elegance of idea, whether caught from our parents or learned from books. In his rich brown hair, thrown carelessly from his temples, and curling almost to the shoulders; in his large blue eye, which was deepened to the hue of the violet by the long dark lash; in that firmness of lip, which comes from the grapple with difficulties, there was considerable beauty, but no longer the beauty of the mere peasant. And yet there was still about the whole countenance that expression of goodness and purity which a painter would give to his ideal of the peasant lover,--such as Tasso would have placed in the "Aminta," or Fletcher have admitted to the side of the Faithful Shepherdess. "You must draw a chair here, and sit down between us, Leonard," said the parson. "If any one," said Riccabocca, "has a right to sit, it is the one who is to hear the sermon; and if any one ought to stand, it is the one who is about to preach it." "Don't be frightened, Leonard," said the parson, graciously; "it is only a criticism, not a sermon;" and he pulled out Leonard's Prize Essay. CHAPTER XIX. PARSON.--"You take for your motto this aphorism, 'Knowledge is Power.' --BACON." RICCABOCCA.--"Bacon make such an aphorism! The last man in the world to have said anything so pert and so shallow!" LEONARD (astonished).--"Do you mean to say, sir, that that aphorism is not in Lord Bacon? Why, I have seen it quoted as his in almost every newspaper, and in almost every speech in favour of popular education." RICCABOCCA.--"Then that should be a warning to you never again to fall into the error of the would-be scholar,-- [This aphorism has been probably assigned to Lord Bacon upon the mere authority of the index to his works. It is the aphorism of the index-maker, certainly not of the great master of inductive philosophy. Bacon has, it is true, repeatedly dwelt on the power of knowledge, but with so many explanations and distinctions that nothing could be more unjust to his general meaning than the attempt to cramp into a sentence what it costs him a volume to define. Thus, if on one page he appears to confound knowledge with power, in another he sets them in the strongest antithesis to each other; as follows "Adeo signanter Deus opera potentix et sapientive discriminavit." But it would be as unfair to Bacon to convert into an aphorism the sentence that discriminates between knowledge and power as it is to convert into an aphorism any sentence that confounds them.] namely, quote second-hand. Lord Bacon wrote a great book to show in what knowledge is power, how that power should be defined, in what it might be mistaken. And, pray, do you think so sensible a man ever would have taken the trouble to write a great book upon the subject, if he could have packed up all he had to say into the portable dogma, 'Knowledge is power'? Pooh! no such aphorism is to be found in Bacon from the first page of his writings to the last." PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I supposed it was Lord Bacon's, and I am very glad to hear that the aphorism has not the sanction of his authority." LEONARD (recovering his surprise).--"But why so?" PARSON.--"Because it either says a great deal too much, or just--nothing at all." LEONARD.--"At least, sir, it seems to me undeniable." PARSON.--"Well, grant that it is undeniable. Does it prove much in favour of knowledge? Pray, is not ignorance power too?" RICCABOCCA.--"And a power that has had much the best end of the quarter- staff." PARSON.--"All evil is power, and does its power make it anything the better?" RICCABOCCA.--"Fanaticism is power,--and a power that has often swept away knowledge like a whirlwind. The Mussulman burns the library of a world, and forces the Koran and the sword from the schools of Byzantium to the colleges of Hindostan." PARSON (bearing on with a new column of illustration).--"Hunger is power. The barbarians, starved out of their forests by their own swarming population, swept into Italy and annihilated letters. The Romans, however degraded, had more knowledge at least than the Gaul and the Visigoth." RICCABOCCA (bringing up the reserve).--"And even in Greece, when Greek met Greek, the Athenians--our masters in all knowledge--were beat by the Spartans, who held learning in contempt." PARSON.--"Wherefore you see, Leonard, that though knowledge be power, it is only one of the powers of the world; that there are others as strong, and often much stronger; and the assertion either means but a barren truism, not worth so frequent a repetition, or it means something that you would find it very difficult to prove." LEONARD.---"One nation may be beaten by another that has more physical strength and more military discipline; which last, permit me to say, sir, is a species of knowledge--" RICCABOCCA.--"Yes; but your knowledge-mongers at present call upon us to discard military discipline, and the qualities that produce it, from the list of the useful arts. And in your own Essay, you insist upon knowledge as the great disbander of armies, and the foe of all military discipline!" PARSON.--"Let the young man proceed. Nations, you say, may be beaten by other nations less learned and civilized?" LEONARD.--"But knowledge elevates a class. I invite the members of my own humble order to knowledge, because knowledge will lift them into power." RICCABOCCA.--"What do you say to that, Mr. Dale?" PARSON.--"In the first place, is it true that the class which has the most knowledge gets the most power? I suppose philosophers, like my friend Dr. Riccabocca, think they have the most knowledge. And pray, in what age have philosophers governed the world? Are they not always grumbling that nobody attends to them?" RICCABOCCA.--"Per Bacco, if people had attended to us, it would have been a droll sort of world by this time!" PARSON.--"Very likely. But, as a general rule, those have the most knowledge who give themselves up to it the most. Let us put out of the question philosophers (who are often but ingenious lunatics), and speak only of erudite scholars, men of letters and practical science, professors, tutors, and fellows of colleges. I fancy any member of parliament would tell us that there is no class of men which has less actual influence on public affairs. These scholars have more knowledge than manufacturers and shipowners, squires and farmers; but do you find that they have more power over the Government and the votes of the House of Parliament?" "They ought to have," said Leonard. "Ought they?" said the parson; "we'll consider that later. Meanwhile, you must not escape from your own proposition, which is, that knowledge is power,--not that it ought to be. Now, even granting your corollary, that the power of a class is therefore proportioned to its knowledge, pray, do you suppose that while your order, the operatives, are instructing themselves, all the rest of the community are to be at a standstill? Diffuse knowledge as you may, you will never produce equality of knowledge. Those who have most leisure, application, and aptitude for learning will still know the most. Nay, by a very natural law, the more general the appetite for knowledge, the more the increased competition will favour those most adapted to excel by circumstance and nature. At this day, there is a vast increase of knowledge spread over all society, compared with that in the Middle Ages; but is there not a still greater distinction between the highly educated gentleman and the intelligent mechanic, than there was then between the baron who could not sign his name and the churl at the plough; between the accomplished statesman, versed in all historical lore, and the voter whose politics are formed by his newspaper, than there was between the legislator who passed laws against witches and the burgher who defended his guild from some feudal aggression; between the enlightened scholar and the dunce of to-day, than there was between the monkish alchemist and the blockhead of yesterday? Peasant, voter, and dunce of this century are no doubt wiser than the churl, burgher, and blockhead of the twelfth. But the gentleman, statesman, and scholar of the present age are at least quite as favourable a contrast to the alchemist, witch-burner, and baron of old. As the progress of enlightenment has done hitherto, so will it ever do. "Knowledge is like capital: the more there is in a country, the greater the disparities in wealth between one man and another. Therefore, if the working class increase in knowledge, so do the other classes; and if the working class rise peaceably and legitimately into power, it is not in proportion to their own knowledge alone, but rather according as it seems to the knowledge of the other orders of the community, that such augmentation of proportional power is just and safe and wise." Placed between the parson and the philosopher, Leonard felt that his position was not favourable to the display of his forces. Insensibly he edged his chair somewhat away, and said mournfully,-- "Then, according to you, the reign of knowledge would be no great advance in the aggregate freedom and welfare of man?" PARSON.--"Let us define. By knowledge, do you mean intellectual cultivation; by the reign of knowledge, the ascendency of the most cultivated minds?" LEONARD (after a pause).--"Yes." RICCABOCCA.--"Oh, indiscreet young man! that is an unfortunate concession of yours; for the ascendency of the most cultivated minds would be a terrible oligarchy!" PARSON.--"Perfectly true; and we now reply to your assertion that men who, by profession, have most learning, ought to have more influence than squires and merchants, farmers and mechanics. Observe, all the knowledge that we mortals can acquire is not knowledge positive and perfect, but knowledge comparative, and subject to the errors and passions of humanity. And suppose that you could establish, as the sole regulators of affairs, those who had the most mental cultivation, do you think they would not like that power well enough to take all means which their superior intelligence could devise to keep it to themselves? The experiment was tried of old by the priests of Egypt; and in the empire of China, at this day, the aristocracy are elected from those who have most distinguished themselves in learned colleges. If I may call myself a member of that body, 'the people,' I would rather be an Englishman, however much displeased with dull ministers and blundering parliaments, than I would be a Chinese under the rule of the picked sages of the Celestial Empire. Happily, therefore, my dear Leonard, nations are governed by many things besides what is commonly called knowledge; and the greatest practical ministers, who, like Themistocles, have made small States great, and the most dominant races, who, like the Romans, have stretched their rule from a village half over the universe, have been distinguished by various qualities which a philosopher would sneer at, and a knowledge-monger would call 'sad prejudices' and 'lamentable errors of reason.'" LEONARD (bitterly).--"Sir, you make use of knowledge itself to argue against knowledge." PARSON.--"I make use of the little I know to prove the foolishness of idolatry. I do not argue against knowledge; I argue against knowledge- worship. For here, I see in your Essay, that you are not contented with raising human knowledge into something like divine omnipotence,--you must also confound her with virtue. According to you, it is but to diffuse the intelligence of the few among the many, and all at which we preachers aim is accomplished. Nay, more; for, whereas we humble preachers have never presumed to say, with the heathen Stoic, that even virtue is sure of happiness below (though it be the best road to it), you tell us plainly that this knowledge of yours gives not only the virtue of a saint, but bestows the bliss of a god. Before the steps of your idol, the evils of life disappear. To hear you, one has but 'to know,' in order to be exempt from the sins and sorrows of the ignorant. Has it ever been so? Grant that you diffuse amongst the many all the knowledge ever attained by the few. Have the wise few been so unerring and so happy? You supposed that your motto was accurately cited from Bacon. What was Bacon himself? The poet tells you "'The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind!' "Can you hope to bestow upon the vast mass of your order the luminous intelligence of this 'Lord Chancellor of Nature'? Grant that you do so, and what guarantee have you for the virtue and the happiness which you assume as the concomitants of the gift? See Bacon himself: what black ingratitude! what miserable self-seeking! what truckling servility! what abject and pitiful spirit! So far from intellectual knowledge, in its highest form and type, insuring virtue and bliss, it is by no means uncommon to find great mental cultivation combined with great moral corruption." (Aside to Riccabocca.--"Push on, will you?") RICCASOCCA.--"A combination remarkable in eras as in individuals. Petronius shows us a state of morals at which a commonplace devil would blush, in the midst of a society more intellectually cultivated than certainly was that which produced Regulus or the Horatii. And the most learned eras in modern Italy were precisely those which brought the vices into the most ghastly refinement." LEONARD (rising in great agitation, and clasping his hands).--"I cannot contend with you, who produce against information so slender and crude as mine the stores which have been locked from my reach; but I feel that there must be another side to this shield,--a shield that you will not even allow to be silver. And, oh, if you thus speak of knowledge, why have you encouraged me to know?" CHAPTER XX. "Ah, my son!" said the parson, "if I wished to prove the value of religion, would you think I served it much if I took as my motto, 'Religion is power'? Would not that be a base and sordid view of its advantages? And would you not say, He who regards religion as a power intends to abuse it as a priestcraft?" "Well put!" said Riccabocca. "Wait a moment--let me think! Ah, I see, Sir!" said Leonard. PARSON.--"If the cause be holy, do not weigh it in the scales of the market; if its objects be peaceful, do not seek to arm it with the weapons of strife; if it is to be the cement of society, do not vaunt it as the triumph of class against class." LEONARD (ingenuously).--"You correct me nobly, sir. Knowledge is power, but not in the sense in which I have interpreted the saying." PARSON.--"Knowledge is one of the powers in the moral world, but one that, in its immediate result, is not always of the most worldly advantage to the possessor. It is one of the slowest, because one of the most durable, of agencies. It may take a thousand years for a thought to come into power; and the thinker who originated it might have died in rags or in chains." RICCABOCCA.--"Our Italian proverb saith that 'the teacher is like the candle, which lights others in consuming itself.'" PARSON.--"Therefore he who has the true ambition of knowledge should entertain it for the power of his idea, not for the power it may bestow on himself: it should be lodged in the conscience, and, like the conscience, look for no certain reward on this side the grave. And since knowledge is compatible with good and with evil, would not it be better to say, 'Knowledge is a trust'?" "You are right, sir," said Leonard, cheerfully; "pray proceed." PARSON.--"You ask me why we encourage you to KNOW. First, because (as you say yourself in your Essay) knowledge, irrespective of gain, is in itself a delight, and ought to be something far more. Like liberty, like religion, it may be abused; but I have no more right to say that the poor shall be ignorant than I have to say that the rich only shall be free, and that the clergy alone shall learn the truths of redemption. You truly observe in your treatise that knowledge opens to us other excitements than those of the senses, and another life than that of the moment. The difference between us is this,--that you forget that the same refinement which brings us new pleasures exposes us to new pains; the horny hand of the peasant feels not the nettles which sting the fine skin of the scholar. You forget also, that whatever widens the sphere of the desires opens to them also new temptations. Vanity, the desire of applause, pride, the sense of superiority, gnawing discontent where that superiority is not recognized, morbid susceptibility, which comes with all new feelings, the underrating of simple pleasures apart from the intellectual, the chase of the imagination, often unduly stimulated, for things unattainable below,--all these are surely amongst the first temptations that beset the entrance into knowledge." Leonard shaded his face with his hand. "Hence," continued the parson, benignantly,--"hence, so far from considering that we do all that is needful to accomplish ourselves as men, when we cultivate only the intellect, we should remember that we thereby continually increase the range of our desires, and therefore of our temptations; and we should endeavour, simultaneously, to cultivate both those affections of the heart which prove the ignorant to be God's children no less than the wise, and those moral qualities which have made men great and good when reading and writing were scarcely known: to wit, --patience and fortitude under poverty and distress; humility and beneficence amidst grandeur and wealth, and, in counteraction to that egotism which all superiority, mental or worldly, is apt to inspire, Justice, the father of all the more solid virtues, softened by Charity, which is their loving mother. Thus accompanied, knowledge indeed becomes the magnificent crown of humanity,--not the imperious despot, but the checked and tempered sovereign of the soul." The parson paused, and Leonard, coming near him, timidly took his hand, with a child's affectionate and grateful impulse. RICCAROCCA.--"And if, Leonard, you are not satisfied with our parson's excellent definitions, you have only to read what Lord Bacon himself has said upon the true ends of knowledge to comprehend at once how angry the poor great man, whom Mr. Dale treats so harshly, would have been with those who have stinted his elaborate distinctions and provident cautions into that coxcombical little aphorism, and then misconstrued all he designed to prove in favour of the commandment, and authority of learning. For," added the sage, looking up as a man does when he is tasking his memory, "I think it is thus that after saying the greatest error of all is the mistaking or misplacing the end of knowledge, and denouncing the various objects for which it is vulgarly sought,--I think it is thus that Lord Bacon proceeds: 'Knowledge is not a shop for profit or sale, but a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate.'" ["But the greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession"--[that is, for most of those objects which are meant by the ordinary titers of the saying, "Knowledge is power"]--"and seldom sincerely to give a true account of these gifts of reason to the benefit and use of men, as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a terrace for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down, with a fair prospect; or a tower of state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground for strife and contention; or a shop for profit or sale,--and not a rich storehouse for the glory of the Creator, and the relief of men's estate."--Advancement of Learning, Book I.] PARSON (remorsefully).--"Are those Lord Bacon's words? I am very sorry I spoke so uncharitably of his life. I must examine it again. I may find excuses for it now that I could not when I first formed my judgment. I was then a raw lad at Oxford. But I see, Leonard, there is still something on your mind." LEONARD.--"It is true, sir: I would but ask whether it is not by knowledge that we arrive at the qualities and virtues you so well describe, but which you seem to consider as coming to us through channels apart from knowledge?" PARSON.--"If you mean by the word 'knowledge' something very different from what you express in your Essay--and which those contending for mental instruction, irrespective of religion and ethics, appear also to convey by the word--you are right; but, remember, we have already agreed that by the word' knowledge' we mean culture purely intellectual." LEONARD.--"That is true,--we so understood it." PARSON.--"Thus, when this great Lord Bacon erred, you may say that he erred from want of knowledge,--the knowledge which moralists and preachers would convey. But Lord Bacon had read all that moralists and preachers could say on such matters; and he certainly did not err from want of intellectual cultivation. Let me here, my child, invite you to observe, that He who knew most of our human hearts and our immortal destinies did not insist on this intellectual culture as essential to the virtues that form our well-being here, and conduce to our salvation hereafter. Had it been essential, the All-wise One would not have selected humble fishermen for the teachers of His doctrine, instead of culling His disciples from Roman portico or Athenian academe. And this, which distinguishes so remarkably the Gospel from the ethics of heathen philosophy, wherein knowledge is declared to be necessary to virtue, is a proof how slight was the heathen sage's insight into the nature of mankind, when compared with the Saviour's; for hard indeed would it be to men, whether high or low, rich or poor, if science and learning, or contemplative philosophy, were the sole avenues to peace and redemption; since, in this state of ordeal requiring active duties, very few in any age, whether they be high or low, rich or poor, ever are or can be devoted to pursuits merely mental. Christ does not represent Heaven as a college for the learned. Therefore the rules of the Celestial Legislator are rendered clear to the simplest understanding as to the deepest." RICCABOCCA.---"And that which Plato and Zeno, Pythagoras and Socrates could not do, was done by men whose ignorance would have been a by-word in the schools of the Greek. The gods of the vulgar were dethroned; the face of the world was changed! This thought may make us allow, indeed, that there are agencies more powerful than mere knowledge, and ask, after all, what is the mission which knowledge should achieve?" PARSON.--"The Sacred Book tells us even that; for after establishing the truth that, for the multitude, knowledge is not essential to happiness and good, it accords still to knowledge its sublime part in the revelation prepared and announced. When an instrument of more than ordinary intelligence was required for a purpose divine; when the Gospel, recorded by the simple, was to be explained by the acute, enforced by the energetic, carried home to the doubts of the Gentile, the Supreme Will joined to the zeal of the earlier apostles the learning and genius of Saint Paul,--not holier than the others, calling himself the least, yet labouring more abundantly than they all, making himself all things unto all men, so that some might be saved. The ignorant may be saved no less surely than the wise; but here comes the wise man who helps to save. And how the fulness and animation of this grand Presence, of this indomitable Energy, seem to vivify the toil, and to speed the work! 'In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils amongst false brethren.' Behold, my son! does not Heaven here seem to reveal the true type of Knowledge,--a sleepless activity, a pervading agency, a dauntless heroism, an all-supporting faith?--a power, a power indeed; a power apart from the aggrandizement of self; a power that brings to him who owns and transmits it but 'weariness and painfulness; in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness,'--but a power distinct from the mere circumstance of the man, rushing from him as rays from the sun; borne through the air, and clothing it with light, piercing under earth, and calling forth the harvest. Worship not knowledge, worship not the sun, O my child! Let the sun but proclaim the Creator; let the knowledge but illumine the worship!" The good man, overcome by his own earnestness, paused; his head drooped on the young student's breast, and all three were long silent. CHAPTER XXI. Whatever ridicule may be thrown upon Mr. Dale's dissertations by the wit of the enlightened, they had a considerable, and I think a beneficial, effect upon Leonard Fairfield,--an effect which may perhaps create less surprise, when the reader remembers that Leonard was unaccustomed to argument, and still retained many of the prejudices natural to his rustic breeding. Nay, he actually thought it possible that, as both Riccabocca and Mr. Dale were more than double his age, and had had opportunities not only of reading twice as many books, but of gathering up experience in wider ranges of life,--he actually, I say, thought it possible that they might be better acquainted with the properties and distinctions of knowledge than himself. At all events, the parson's words were so far well-timed, that they produced in Leonard very much of that state of mind which Mr. Dale desired to effect, before communicating to him the startling intelligence that he was to visit relations whom he had never seen, of whom he had heard but little, and that it was at least possible that the result of that visit might be to open to him greater facilities for instruction, and a higher degree in life. Without some such preparation, I fear that Leonard would have gone forth into the world with an exaggerated notion of his own acquirements, and with a notion yet more exaggerated as to the kind of power that such knowledge as he possessed would obtain for itself. As it was, when Mr. Dale broke to him the news of the experimental journey before him, cautioning him against being over sanguine, Leonard received the intelligence with a serious meekness, and thoughts that were nobly solemn. When the door closed on his visitors, he remained for some moments motionless, and in deep meditation; then he unclosed the door and stole forth. The night was already far advanced, the heavens were luminous with all the host of stars. "I think," said the student, referring, in later life, to that crisis in his destiny,--"I think it was then, as I stood alone, yet surrounded by worlds so numberless, that I first felt the distinction between mind and soul." "Tell me," said Riccabocca, as he parted company with Mr. Dale, "whether you would have given to Frank Hazeldean, on entering life, the same lecture on the limits and ends of knowledge which you have bestowed on Leonard Fairfield?" "My friend," quoth the parson, with a touch of human conceit, "I have ridden on horseback, and I know that some horses should be guided by the bridle, and some should be urged by the spur." "/Cospetto!/" said Riccabocca, "you contrive to put every experience of yours to some use,--even your journey on Mr. Hazeldean's pad. And I now see why, in this little world of a village, you have picked up so general an acquaintance with life." "Did you ever read White's' Natural History of Selborne'?" "No." "Do so, and you will find that you need not go far to learn the habits of birds, and know the difference between a swallow and a swift. Learn the difference in a village, and you know the difference wherever swallows and swifts skim the air." "Swallows and swifts!--true; but men--" "Are with us all the year round,--which is more than we can say of swallows and swifts." "Mr. Dale," said Riccabocca, taking off his hat with great formality, "if ever again I find myself in a dilemma, I will come to you instead of to Machiavelli." "Ah!" cried the parson, "if I could but have a calm hour's talk with you on the errors of the Papal relig--" Riccabocca was off like a shot. CHAPTER XXII. The next day Mr. Dale had a long conversation with Mrs. Fairfield. At first he found some difficulty in getting over her pride, and inducing her to accept overtures from parents who had so long slighted both Leonard and herself. And it would have been in vain to have put before the good woman the worldly advantages which such overtures implied. But when Mr. Dale said, almost sternly, "Your parents are old, your father infirm; their least wish should be as binding to you as their command," the widow bowed her head, and said,-- "God bless them, sir, I was very sinful 'Honour your father and mother.' I'm no schollard, but I know the Commandments. Let Lenny go. But he'll soon forget me, and mayhap he'll learn to be ashamed of me." "There I will trust him," said the parson; and he contrived easily to reassure and soothe her. It was not till all this was settled that Mr. Dale drew forth an unsealed letter, which Mr. Richard Avenel, taking his hint, had given to him, as from Leonard's grandparents, and said, "This is for you, and it contains an inclosure of some value." "Will you read it, sir? As I said before, I'm no schollard." "But Leonard is, and he will read it to you." When Leonard returned home that evening, Mrs. Fairfield showed him the letter. It ran thus:-- DEAR JANE,--Mr. Dale will tell you that we wish Leonard to come to us. We are glad to hear you are well. We forward, by Mr. Dale, a bank-note for L50, which comes from Richard, your brother. So no more at present from your affectionate parents, JOHN AND MARGARET AVENEL. The letter was in a stiff female scrawl, and Leonard observed that two or three mistakes in spelling had been corrected, either in another pen or in a different hand. "Dear brother Dick, how good in him!" cried the widow. When I saw there was money, I thought it must be him. How I should like to see Dick again! But I s'pose he's still in Amerikay. Well, well, this will buy clothes for you." "No; you must keep it all, Mother, and put it in the Savings Bank." "I 'm not quite so silly as that," cried Mrs. Fairfield, with contempt; and she put the L50 into a cracked teapot. "It must not stay there when I 'm gone. You may be robbed, Mother." "Dear me, dear me, that's true. What shall I do with it? What do I want with it, too? Dear me! I wish they hadn't sent it. I sha' n't sleep in peace. You must e'en put it in your own pouch, and button it up tight, boy." Lenny smiled, and took the note; but he took it to Mr. Dale, and begged him to put it into the Savings Bank for his mother. The day following he went to take leave of his master, of Jackeymo, of the fountain, the garden. But after he had gone through the first of these adieus with Jackeymo--who, poor man, indulged in all the lively gesticulations of grief which make half the eloquence of his countrymen, and then, absolutely blubbering, hurried away--Leonard himself was so affected that he could not proceed at once to the house, but stood beside the fountain, trying hard to keep back his tears. "You, Leonard--and you are going!" said a soft voice; and the tears fell faster than ever, for he recognized the voice of Violante. "Do not cry," continued the child, with a kind of tender gravity. "You are going, but Papa says it would be selfish in us to grieve, for it is for your good; and we should be glad. But I am selfish, Leonard, and I do grieve. I shall miss you sadly." "You, young lady,--you miss me?" "Yes; but I do not cry, Leonard, for I envy you, and I wish I were a boy: I wish I could do as you." The girl clasped her hands, and reared her slight form, with a kind of passionate dignity. "Do as me, and part from all those you love!" "But to serve those you love. One day you will come back to your mother's cottage, and say, 'I have conquered fortune.' Oh that I could go forth and return, as you will! But my father has no country, and his only child is a useless girl." As Violante spoke, Leonard had dried his tears: her emotion distracted him from his own. "Oh," continued Violante, again raising her head loftily, "what it is to be a man! A woman sighs, 'I wish,' but a man should say, 'I will.'" Occasionally before Leonard had noted fitful flashes of a nature grand and heroic in the Italian child, especially of late,--flashes the more remarkable from the contrast to a form most exquisitely feminine, and to a sweetness of temper which made even her pride gentle. But now it seemed as if the child spoke with the command of a queen,--almost with the inspiration of a Muse. A strange and new sense of courage entered within him. "May I remember these words!" he murmured, half audibly. The girl turned and surveyed him with eyes brighter for their moisture. She then extended her hand to him, with a quick movement, and as he bent over it, with a grace taught to him by genuine emotion, she said, "And if you do, then, girl and child as I am, I shall think I have aided a brave heart in the great strife for honour!" She lingered a moment, smiled as if to herself, and then, gliding away, was lost amongst the trees. After a long pause, in which Leonard recovered slowly from the surprise and agitation into which Violante had thrown his spirits--previously excited as they were--he went, murmuring to himself, towards the house. But Riccabocca was from home. Leonard turned mechanically to the terrace, and busied himself with the flowers; but the dark eyes of Violante shone on his thoughts, and her voice rang in his ear. At length Riccabocca appeared on the road, attended by a labourer, who carried something indistinct under his arm. The Italian beckoned to Leonard to follow him into the parlour, and after conversing with him kindly, and at some length, and packing up, as it were, a considerable provision of wisdom in the portable shape of aphorisms and proverbs, the sage left him alone for a few moments. Riccabocca then returned with his wife, and bearing a small knapsack:-- "It is not much we can do for you, Leonard, and money is the worst gift in the world for a keepsake; but my wife and I have put our heads together to furnish you with a little outfit. Giacomo, who was in our secret, assures us that the clothes will fit; and stole, I fancy, a coat of yours, to have the right measure. Put them on when you go to your relations: it is astonishing what a difference it makes in the ideas people form of us, according as our coats are cut one way or another. I should not be presentable in London thus; and nothing is more true than that a tailor is often the making of a man." "The shirts, too, are very good holland," said Mrs. Riccabocca, about to open the knapsack. "Never mind details, my dear," cried the wise man; "shirts are comprehended in the general principle of clothes. And, Leonard, as a remembrance somewhat more personal, accept this, which I have worn many a year when time was a thing of importance to me, and nobler fates than mine hung on a moment. We missed the moment, or abused it; and here I am a waif on a foreign shore. Methinks I have done with Time." The exile, as he thus spoke, placed in Leonard's reluctant hands a watch that would have delighted an antiquary, and shocked a dandy. It was exceedingly thick, having an outer case of enamel and an inner one of gold. The hands and the figures of the hours had originally been formed of brilliants; but the brilliants had long since vanished. Still, even thus bereft, the watch was much more in character with the giver than the receiver, and was as little suited to Leonard as would have been the red silk umbrella. "It is old-fashioned," said Mrs. Riccabocca; "but it goes better than any clock in the county. I really think it will last to the end of the world." "/Carissima mia!/" cried the doctor, "I thought I had convinced you that the world is by no means come to its last legs." "Oh, I did not mean anything, Alphonso," said Mrs. Riccabocca, colouring. "And that is all we do mean when we talk about that of which we can know nothing," said the doctor, less gallantly than usual, for he resented that epithet of "old-fashioned," as applied to the watch. Leonard, we see, had been silent all this time; he could not speak,-- literally and truly, he could not speak. How he got out of his embarrassment and how he got out of the room, he never explained to my satisfaction. But a few minutes afterwards, he was seen hurrying down the road very briskly. Riccabocca and his wife stood at the window gazing after him. "There is a depth in that boy's heart," said the sage, "which might float an argosy." "Poor dear boy! I think we have put everything into the knapsack that he can possibly want," said good Mrs. Riccabocca, musingly. THE DOCTOR (continuing his soliloquy).--"They are strong, but they are not immediately apparent." MRS. RICCABOCCA (resuming hers).--"They are at the bottom of the knapsack." THE DOCTOR.--"They will stand long wear and tear." MRS. RICCABOCCA.--"A year, at least, with proper care at the wash." THE DOCTOR (startled).--"Care at the wash! What on earth are you talking of, ma'am?" MRS. RICCABOCCA (mildly).--"The shirts, to be sure, my love! And you?" THE DOCTOR (with a heavy sigh).--"The feelings, ma'am!" Then, after a pause, taking his wife's hand affectionately, "But you did quite right to think of the shirts: Mr. Dale said very truly--" MRS. RICCABOCCA.--"What?" THE DOCTOR.--"That there was a great deal in common between us--even when I think of feelings, and you but of--shirts!" CHAPTER XXIII. Mr. and Mrs. Avenel sat within the parlour, Mr. Richard stood on the hearthrug, whistling "Yankee Doodle." "The parson writes word that the lad will come to-day," said Richard, suddenly; "let me see the letter,-- ay, to-day. If he took the coach as far as -------, he might walk the rest of the way in two or three hours. He should be pretty nearly here. I have a great mind to go and meet him: it will save his asking questions, and hearing about me. I can clear the town by the back way, and get out at the high road." "You'll not know him from any one else," said Mrs. Avenel. "Well, that is a good one! Not know an Avenel! We've all the same cut of the jib,--have we not, Father?" Poor John laughed heartily, till the tears rolled down his cheeks. "We were always a well-favoured fam'ly," said John, recomposing himself. "There was Luke, but he's gone; and Harry, but he's dead too; and Dick, but he's in Amerikay--no, he's here; and my darling Nora, but--" "Hush!" interrupted Mrs. Avenel; "hush, John!" The old man stared at her, and then put his tremulous hand to his brow. "And Nora's gone too!" said he, in a voice of profound woe. Both hands then fell on his knees, and his head drooped on his breast. Mrs. Avenel rose, kissed her husband on the forehead, and walked away to the window. Richard took up his hat and brushed the nap carefully with his handkerchief; but his lips quivered. "I 'm going," said he, abruptly. "Now mind, Mother, not a word about uncle Richard yet; we must first see how we like each other, and--[in a whisper] you'll try and get that into my poor father's head?" "Ay, Richard," said Mrs. Avenel, quietly. Richard put on his hat and went out by the back way. He stole along the fields that skirted the town, and had only once to cross the street before he got into the high road. He walked on till he came to the first milestone. There he seated himself, lighted his cigar, and awaited his nephew. It was now nearly the hour of sunset, and the road before him lay westward. Richard, from time to time, looked along the road, shading his eyes with his hand; and at length, just as the disk of the sun had half sunk down the horizon, a solitary figure came up the way. It emerged suddenly from the turn in the road; the reddening beams coloured all the atmosphere around it. Solitary and silent it came as from a Land of Light. CHAPTER XXIV. "You have been walking far, young man?" said Richard Avenel. "No, sir, not very. That is Lansmere before me, is it not?" "Yes, it is Lansmere; you stop there, I guess?" Leonard made a sign in the affirmative, and walked on a few paces; then, seeing the stranger who had accosted him still by his side, he said,-- "If you know the town, sir, perhaps you will have the goodness to tell me whereabouts Mr. Avenel lives?" "I can put you into a straight cut across the fields, that will bring you just behind the house." "You are very kind, but it will take you out of your way." "No, it is in my way. So you are going to Mr. Avenel's?--a good old gentleman." "I've always heard so; and Mrs. Avenel--" "A particular superior woman," said Richard. "Any one else to ask after?--I know the family well." "No, thank you, sir." "They have a son, I believe; but he's in America, is he not?" "I believe he is, sir." "I see the parson has kept faith with me muttered Richard." "If you can tell me anything about HIM," said Leonard, "I should be very glad." "Why so, young man? Perhaps he is hanged by this time." "Hanged!" "He was a sad dog, I am told." "Then you have been told very falsely," said Leonard, colouring. "A sad wild dog; his parents were so glad when he cut and run,--went off to the States. They say he made money; but, if so, he neglected his relations shamefully." "Sir," said Leonard, "you are wholly misinformed. He has been most generous to a relation who had little claim on him: and I never heard his name mentioned but with love and praise." Richard instantly fell to whistling "Yankee Doodle," and walked on several paces without saying a word. He then made a slight apology for his impertinence, hoped no offence, and, with his usual bold but astute style of talk, contrived to bring out something of his companion's mind. He was evidently struck with the clearness and propriety with which Leonard expressed himself, raised his eyebrows in surprise more than once, and looked him full in the face with an attentive and pleased survey. Leonard had put on the new clothes with which Riccabocca and his wife had provided him. They were those appropriate to a young country tradesman in good circumstances; but as Leonard did not think about the clothes, so he had unconsciously something of the ease of the gentleman. They now came into the fields. Leonard paused before a slip of ground sown with rye. "I should have thought grass-land would have answered better so near a town," said he. "No doubt it would," answered Richard; "but they are sadly behind-hand in these parts. You see the great park yonder, on the other side of the road? That would answer better for rye than grass; but then, what would become of my Lord's deer? The aristocracy eat us up, young man." "But the aristocracy did not sow this piece with rye, I suppose?" said Leonard, smiling. "And what do you conclude from that?" "Let every man look to his own ground," said Leonard, with a cleverness of repartee caught from Dr. Riccabocca. "'Cute lad you are," said Richard; "and we'll talk more of these matters another time." They now came within sight of Mr. Avenel's house. "You can get through the gap in the hedge, by the old pollard-oak," said Richard; "and come round by the front of the house. Why, you're not afraid, are you?" "I am a stranger." "Shall I introduce you? I told you that I knew the old couple." "Oh, no, sir! I would rather meet them alone." "Go; and--wait a bit-hark ye, young man, Mrs. Avenel is a cold-mannered woman; but don't be abashed by that." Leonard thanked the good-natured stranger, crossed the field, passed the gap, and paused a moment under the stinted shade of the old hollow-hearted oak. The ravens were returning to their nests. At the sight of a human form under the tree they wheeled round and watched him afar. From the thick of the boughs, the young ravens sent their hoarse low cry. CHAPTER XXV. The young man entered the neat, prim, formal parlour. "You are welcome!" said Mrs. Avenel, in a firm voice. "The gentleman is heartily welcome," cried poor John. "It is your grandson, Leonard Fairfield," said Mrs. Avenel. But John, who had risen with knocking knees, gazed hard at Leonard, and then fell on his breast, sobbing aloud, "Nora's eyes!--he has a blink in his eye like Nora's." Mrs. Avenel approached with a steady step, and drew away the old man tenderly. "He is a poor creature," she whispered to Leonard; "you excite him. Come away, I will show you your room." Leonard followed her up the stairs, and came into a room neatly and even prettily furnished. The carpet and curtains were faded by the sun, and of old-fashioned pattern; there was a look about the room as if it had been long disused. Mrs. Avenel sank down on the first chair on entering. Leonard drew his arm round her waist affectionately: "I fear that I have put you out sadly, my dear grandmother." Mrs. Avenel glided hastily from his arm, and her countenance worked much, every nerve in it twitching, as it were; then, placing her hand on his locks, she said with passion, "God bless you, my grandson," and left the room. Leonard dropped his knapsack on the floor, and looked around him wistfully. The room seemed as if it had once been occupied by a female. There was a work-box on the chest of drawers, and over it hanging shelves for books, suspended by ribbons that had once been blue, with silk and fringe appended to each shelf, and knots and tassels here and there,--the taste of a woman, or rather of a girl, who seeks to give a grace to the commonest things around her. With the mechanical habit of a student, Leonard took down one or two of the volumes still left on the shelves. He found Spenser's "Faerie Queene," Racine in French, Tasso in Italian; and on the fly-leaf of each volume, in the exquisite handwriting familiar to his memory, the name "Leonora." He kissed the books, and replaced them with a feeling akin both to tenderness and awe. He had not been alone in his room more than a quarter of an hour before the maid-servant knocked at his door and summoned him to tea. Poor John had recovered his spirits, and his wife sat by his side, holding his hand in hers. Poor John was even gay. He asked many questions about his daughter Jane, and did not wait for the answers. Then he spoke about the squire, whom he confounded with Audley Egerton, and talked of elections and the Blue party, and hoped Leonard would always be a good Blue; and then he fell to his tea and toast, and said no more. Mrs. Avenel spoke little, but she eyed Leonard askant, as it were, from time to time; and, after each glance, the nerves of the poor severe face twitched again. A little after nine o'clock, Mrs. Avenel lighted a candle, and placing it in Leonard's hand, said, "You must be tired,--you know your own room now. Good-night." Leonard took the light, and, as was his wont with his mother, kissed Mrs. Avenel on the cheek. Then he took John's hand and kissed him too. The old man was half asleep, and murmured dreamily, "That's Nora." Leonard had retired to his room about half an hour, when Richard Avenel entered the house softly, and joined his parents. "Well, Mother?" said he. "Well, Richard, you have seen him?" "And like him. Do you know he has a great look of poor Nora?---more like her than Jane." "Yes; he is handsomer than Jane ever was, but more like your father than any one. John was so comely. You take to the boy, then?" "Ay, that I do. Just tell him in the morning that he is to go with a gentleman who will be his friend, and don't say more. The chaise shall be at the door after breakfast. Let him get into it: I shall wait for him out of the town. What's the room you gave him?" "The room you would not take." "The room in which Nora slept? Oh, no! I could not have slept a wink there. What a charm there was in that girl! how we all loved her! But she was too beautiful and good for us,--too good to live!" "None of us are too good," said Mrs. Avenel, with great austerity, "and I beg you will not talk in that way. Goodnight,--I must get your poor father to bed." When Leonard opened his eyes the next morning, they rested on the face of Mrs. Avenel, which was bending over his pillow. But it was long before he could recognize that countenance, so changed was its expression,--so tender, so mother-like. Nay, the face of his own mother had never seemed to him so soft with a mother's passion. "Ah!" he murmured, half rising, and flinging his young arms round her neck. Mrs. Avenel, this time taken by surprise, warmly returned the embrace; she clasped him to her breast, she kissed him again and again. At length, with a quick start, she escaped, and walked up and down the room, pressing her hands tightly together. When she halted, her face had recovered its usual severity and cold precision. "It is time for you to rise, Leonard," said she. "You will leave us to-day. A gentleman has promised to take charge of you, and do for you more than we can. A chaise will be at the door soon,--make haste." John was absent from the breakfast-table. His wife said that he never rose till late, and must not be disturbed. The meal was scarcely over before a chaise and pair came to the door. "You must not keep the chaise waiting,--the gentleman is very punctual." "But he is not come." "No; he has walked on before, and will get in after you are out of the town." "What is his name, and why should he care for me, Grandmother?" "He will tell you himself. Be quick." "But you will bless me again, Grandmother? I love you already." "I do bless you," said Mrs. Avenel, firmly. "Be honest and good, and beware of the first false step." She pressed his hand with a convulsive grasp, and led him to the outer door. The postboy clanked his whip, the chaise rattled off. Leonard put his head out of the window to catch a last glimpse of the old woman; but the boughs of the pollard-oak, and its gnarled decaying trunk, hid her from his eye, and look as he would, till the road turned, he saw but the melancholy tree. 
21109	----	Big Game A Story for Girls By Mrs George de Horne Vaizey ________________________________________________________________________ A charming little book. The son of the family aspires to be a poet, much to his father's annoyance: he ought to have a proper job in the family firm. His sister hits on a plan to get his work published, which would be a step in the right direction, one that might help to change the father's mind. She discovers that the editor of a poetry magazine always takes a holiday in a very remote hotel in the Scottish highlands, so she books a holiday for them in the same hotel. The woman who runs the hotel hates women guests, and isn't very polite to most people, but they manage to charm her, and get her on their side, until one Sunday they make the fatal mistake of going to the wrong church. That eventually passes over. Meanwhile Margot, the heroine, has been wooing the poetry editor. They go fishing together, and one day they go for a long walk in which the weather turns nasty. Margot catches pneumonia and is very ill. They get back to their homes in London. Margot's lover turns out not to have been the poetry editor after all, yet somehow young Ron finds that one of his poems has been published. How this happens is revealed in the last chapter. An average length book, probably more for girls than for boys. N.H. ________________________________________________________________________ BIG GAME A STORY FOR GIRLS BY MRS GEORGE DE HORNE VAIZEY CHAPTER ONE. PLANS. It was the old story of woman comforting man in his affliction; the trouble in this instance appearing in the shape of a long blue envelope addressed to himself in his own handwriting. Poor young poet! He had no more appetite for eggs and bacon that morning; he pushed aside even his coffee, and buried his head in his hands. "Back again!" he groaned. "Always back, and back, and back, and these are my last verses: the best I have written. I felt sure that these would have been taken!" "So they will be, some day," comforted the woman. "You have only to be patient and go on trying. I'll re-type the first and last pages, and iron out the dog's ears, and we will send it off on a fresh journey. Why don't you try the _Pinnacle Magazine_? There ought to be a chance there. They published some awful bosh last month." The poet was roused to a passing indignation. "As feeble as mine, I suppose! Oh, well, if even you turn against me, it is time I gave up the struggle." "Even you" was not in this instance a wife, but "only a sister," so instead of falling on her accuser's neck with explanations and caresses, she helped herself to a second cup of coffee, and replied coolly-- "Silly thing! You know quite well that I do nothing of the sort, so don't be high-falutin. I should not encourage you to waste time if I did not know that you were going to succeed in the end. I don't think; I _know_!" "How?" queried the poet. "How?" He had heard the reason a dozen times before, but he longed to hear it again. He lifted his face from his hands--an ideal face for a poet; clean-cut, sensitive, with deep-set eyes, curved lips, and a finely-modelled chin. "How do you know?" "I feel!" replied the critic simply. "Of course, I am prejudiced in favour of your work; but that would not make it haunt me as if it were my own. I can see your faults; you are horribly uneven. There are lines here and there which make me cold; lines which are put in for the sake of the rhyme, and nothing more; but there are other bits,"--the girl's eyes turned towards the window, and gazed dreamily into space--"which sing in my heart! When it is fine, when it is dark, when I am glad, when I am in trouble, why do your lines come unconsciously into my mind, as if they expressed my own feelings better than I can do it myself? That's not rhyme--that's poetry! It is the real thing; not pretence." A glad smile passed over the boy's face; he stretched out his hand towards the neglected cup, and quaffed coffee and hope in one reviving draught. "But no one seems to want poetry nowadays!" "True! I think you may have to wait until you have made a name in the other direction. Why not try fiction? Your prose is excellent, almost as good as your verse." "Can't think of a plot!" "Bah! you are behind the times, my dear! You don't need a plot. Begin in the middle, meander back to the beginning, and end in the thick of the strife. Then every one wonders and raves, and the public--`mostly fools!'--think it must be clever, because they don't understand what it's about." "Like the lady and the tiger,--which came out first?" "Ah! if you could think of anything as baffling as that, your future would be made. Write a novel, Ron, and take me for the heroine. You might have a poet, too, and introduce some of your own love-songs. I'd coach you in the feminine parts, and you could give me a royalty on the sales." But Ronald shook his head. "I might try short stories, perhaps--I've thought of that--but not a novel. It's too big a venture; and we can't spare the time. There are only four months left, and unless I make some money soon, father will insist upon that hateful partnership." The girl left her seat and strolled over to the window. She was strikingly like her brother in appearance, but a saucy imp of humour lurked in the corners of her curving lips, and danced in her big brown eyes. Margot Vane at twenty-two made a delightful picture of youth and happiness, and radiant, unbroken health. Her slight figure was upright as a dart; her cheeks were smooth and fresh as a petal of a rose; her hair was thick and luxuriant, and she bore herself with the jaunty, self-confident gait of one whose lines have been cast in pleasant places, and who is well satisfied of her own ability to keep them pleasant to the end. "Anything may happen in four months--and everything!" she cried cheerily. "I don't say that you will have made your name by September, but if you have drawn a reasonable amount of blood-money, father will have to be satisfied. It is in the bond! Work away, and don't worry. You are improving all the time, and spring is coming, when even ordinary people like myself feel inspired. We will stick to the ordinary methods yet awhile, but if matters get desperate, we will resort to strategy. I've several lovely plans simmering in my brain!" The boy looked up eagerly. "Strategy! Plans! What plans? What can we possibly do out of the ordinary course?" But Margot only laughed mischievously, and refused to be drawn. The cruel parent in the case of Ronald Vane was exemplified by an exceedingly worthy and kind-hearted gentleman, who followed the profession of underwriter at Lloyd's. His family had consisted of three daughters before Ronald appeared to gratify a long ambition. Now, Mr Vane was a widower, and his son engrossed a large share in his affections, being at once his pride, his hope, and his despair. The lad was a good lad; upright, honourable, and clean-living; everything, in fact, that a father could wish, if only,--but that "if" was the mischief! It was hard lines on a steady-going City man, who was famed for his level-headed sobriety, to possess a son who eschewed fact in favour of fancy, and preferred rather to roam the countryside composing rhymes and couplets, than to step into a junior partnership in an established and prosperous firm. It is part of an Englishman's creed to appreciate the great singers of his race,--Shakespeare, Milton, Tennyson, not to mention a dozen lesser fry; but, strange to say, though he feels a due pride in the row of poets on his library shelves, he yet regards a poet by his own fireside as a humiliation and an offence. A budding painter, a sculptor, a musician, may be the boast of a proud family circle, but to give a youth the reputation of writing verses is at once to call down upon his head a storm of ridicule and patronising disdain! He is credited with being effeminate, sentimental, and feeble-minded; his failure is taken as a preordained fact; he becomes a butt and a jest. Mr Vane profoundly hoped that none of the underwriters at Lloyd's would hear of Ronald's scribbling. It would handicap the boy in his future work, and make it harder for him to get rid of his "slips"! No one could guess from the lad's appearances that there was anything wrong,-- that was one comfort! He kept his hair well cropped, and wore as high and glossy collars as any fellow in his right mind. "You don't know when you are well off!" cried the irate father. "How many thousands would be thankful to be in your shoes, with a place kept warm to step into, and an income assured from the start! I am not asking you to sit mewed up at a desk all day. If you want to use your gift of words, you couldn't have a better chance than as a writer at Lloyd's. There's scope for imagination too,--judiciously applied! And you would have your evenings _free_ for scribbling, if you haven't had enough of it in the daytime." Ronald's reply dealt at length with the subject of environment, and his father was given to understand that the conditions in which his life was spent were mean, sordid, demoralising; fatal to all that was true and beautiful. The lad also gave it as his opinion that, so far from regarding money as a worthy object for a life's ambition, the true lover of Nature would be cumbered by the possession of more than was absolutely necessary for food and clothing. And as for neglecting a God-given gift-- "What authority have you for asking me to believe that the gift exists at all, except in your own imagination? Tell me that, if you please!" cried the father. "You spend a small income in stamps and paper, but so far as I know no human creature can be induced to publish your God-given rhymes!" At this point matters became decidedly strained, and a serious quarrel might have developed, had it not been for the diplomatic intervention of Margot, the youngest and fairest of Mr Vane's three daughters. Margot pinched her father's ears and kissed him on the end of his nose, a form of caress which he seemed to find extremely soothing. "He is only twenty-one, darling," she said, referring to the turbulent heir. "You ought to be thankful that he has such good tastes, instead of drinking and gambling, like some other young men. Really and truly I believe he is a genius, but even if he is not, there is nothing to be gained by using force. Ron has a very strong will--you have yourself, you know, dear, only of course in your case it is guided by judgment and common sense--and you will never drive him into doing a thing against his will. Now just suppose you let him go his own way for a time! Six months or a year can't matter so very much out of a lifetime, and you will never regret erring on the side of kindness." "Since when, may I ask, have you set yourself up as your father's mentor?" cried that gentleman with a growl; but he was softening obviously, and Margot knew as much, and pinched his nose for a change. "You must try to remember how you felt yourself when you were young. If you wanted a thing, how _badly_ you wanted it, and how _soon_, and how terribly cruel every one seemed who interfered! Give Ron a chance, like the dear old sportsman as you are, before you tie him down for life! It's a pity I'm not a boy--I should have loved to be at Lloyd's. Even now--if I went round with the slips, and coaxed the underwriters, don't you think it might be a striking and lucrative innovation?" Mr Vane laughed at that, and reflected with pride that not a man in the room could boast such a taking little witch for his daughter. Then he grew grave, and returned to the subject in hand. "In what way do you propose that I shall give the boy a chance?" "Continue his allowance for a year, and let him give himself up to his work! If at the end of the year he has made no headway, it should be an understanding that he joins you in business without any more fuss; but if he _has_ received real encouragement,--if even one or two editors have accepted his verses, and think well of them--" "Yes? What then?" "Then you must consider that Ron has proved his point! It is really a stiff test, for it takes mediocre people far longer than a year to make a footing on the literary ladder. You would then have to continue his allowance, and try to be thankful that you are the father of a poet, instead of a clerk!" Mr Vane growled again, and, what was worse, sighed into the bargain, a sigh of real heartache and disappointment. "I have looked forward for twenty years to the time when my son should be old enough to help me! I have slaved all my life to keep a place for him, and now he despises me for my pains! And you will want to be off with him, I suppose, rambling about the country while he writes his rhymes. I shall have to say good-bye to the pair of you! It doesn't matter how dull or lonely the poor old father may be." Margot looked at him with a reproving eye. "That's not true, and you know it isn't! I love you best of any one on earth, and I am only talking to you for your own good. I'd like to stay in the country with Ronald in summer, for he does so hate the town, but I'll strike a bargain with you, too! Last year I spent three months in visiting friends. This year I'll refuse all invitations, so that you shan't be deprived of any more of my valuable society." "And why should you give up your pleasures, pray? Why are you so precious anxious to be with the boy? Are you going to aid and abet him in his efforts?" "Yes, I am!" answered Margot bravely. "He has his life to live, and I want him to spend it in his own way. If he becomes a great writer, I'll be prouder of him than if he were the greatest millionaire on earth. I'll move heaven and earth to help him, and if he fails I'll move them again to make him a good underwriter! So now you know!" Mr Vane chewed his moustache, disconsolately resigned. "Ah well! the partnership will have to go to a stranger, I suppose. I can't get on much longer without help. I hoped it might be one of my own kith and kin, but--" "Don't be in a hurry, dear. I may fall in love with a pauper, and then you can have a son-in-law to help you, instead of a son." Mr Vane pushed her away with an impatient hand. "No more son-in-laws, thank you! One is about as many as I can tackle at a time. Edith has been at me again with a sheaf of bills--" His eldest daughter's husband had recently failed in business, in consequence of which he himself was at present supporting a second establishment. He sighed, and reflected that it was a thankless task to rear a family. The infantine troubles of teething, whooping-cough, and scarlatina were trifles as compared with the later annoyance and difficulties of dealing with striplings who had the audacity to imagine themselves grown-up, and competent to have a say in their own lives! If things turned out well, they took the credit to themselves! If ill, then papa had to pay the bills! Mr Vane was convinced that he was an ill-used and much-to-be-pitied martyr. CHAPTER TWO. THE SISTERS. Mr Vane's house overlooked Regent's Park, and formed the corner house of a white terrace boasting Grecian pillars and a railed-in stretch of grass in front of the windows. The rooms were large and handsome, and of that severe, box-like outline which are the despair of the modern upholsterer. The drawing-room boasted half a dozen windows, four in front, and two at the side, and as regards furnishings was a curious graft of modern art upon an Early Victoria stock. Logically the combination was an anachronism; in effect it was charming and harmonious, for the changes had been made with the utmost caution, in consideration of the feelings of the head of the household. Mr Vane's argument was that he preferred solid old-fashioned furniture to modern gimcracks, and had no wish to conform to artistic fads, and his daughters dutifully agreed, and--disobeyed! Their mode of procedure was to withdraw one article at a time, and to wait until the parental eye had become accustomed to the gap before venturing on a second confiscation. On the rare occasions when the abduction was discovered, it was easy to fall back upon the well-worn domestic justification, "Oh, that's been gone a _long_ time!" when, in justice to one's own power of observation, the matter must be allowed to drop. The eldest daughter of the household had married five years before the date at which this narrative opens, and during that period had enjoyed the happiness of a true and enduring devotion, and the troubles inseparable from a constant financial struggle, ending with bankruptcy, and a retreat from a tastefully furnished villa at Surbiton to a dreary lodging in Oxford Terrace. Poor Edith had lost much of her beauty and light-hearted gaiety as a result of anxiety and the constant care of two delicate children; but never in the blackest moment of her trouble had she wished herself unwed, or been willing to change places with any woman who had not the felicity of being John Martin's wife. Trouble had drawn Jack and herself more closely together; she was in arms in a passion of indignation against that world which judged a man by the standpoint of success or failure, and lay in readiness to heave another stone at the fallen. At nightfall she watched for his coming to judge of the day's doings by the expression of his face, before it lit up with the dear welcoming smile. At sight of the weary lines, strength came to her, as though she could move mountains on his behalf. As they sat together on the horsehair sofa, his tired head resting on her shoulder, the strain and the burden fell from them both, and they knew themselves millionaires of blessings. The second daughter of the Vane household was a very different character from her sensitive and highly-strung sister. The fairies who had attended her christening, and bequeathed upon the infant the gifts of industry, common sense, and propriety, forgot to bestow at the same time that most valuable of all qualities,--the power to awaken love! Her relatives loved Agnes--"Of course," they would have said; but when "of course" is added in this connection, it is sadly eloquent! The poor whom she visited were basely ungrateful for her doles, and when she approached empty-handed, took the occasion to pay a visit to a neighbour's back yard, leaving her to flay her knuckles on an unresponsive door. Agnes had many acquaintances, but no friends, and none of the young men who frequented the house had exhibited even a passing inclination to pay her attention. Edith had been a belle in her day; while as for Margot, every masculine creature gravitated towards her as needles to a magnet. Among various proposals of marriage had been one from so solid and eligible a _parti_, that even the doting father had laid aside his grudge, and turned into special pleader. He had advanced one by one the different claims to consideration possessed by the said suitor, and to every argument Margot had meekly agreed, until the moment arrived at which she was naturally expected to say "Yes" to the concluding exhortation, when she said "No" with much fervour, and stuck to it to the end of the chapter. Pressed for reasons for her obstinacy, she could advance none more satisfying than that "she did not like the shape of his ears"! but the worthy man was rejected nevertheless, and took a voyage to the Cape to blow away his disappointment. No man crossed as much as a road for the sake of Agnes Vane! It was a tragedy, because this incapacity of her nature by no means prohibited the usual feminine desire for appreciation. Agnes could not understand why she was invariably passed over in favour of her sisters, and why even her father was more influenced by the will-o'-the-wisp Margot than by her own staid maxims. Agnes could not understand many things. In this obtuseness, perhaps, and in a deadly lack of humour lay the secret of her limitations. On the morning after the conversation between the brother and sister recorded in the last chapter the young poet paced his attic sitting- room, wrestling with lines that halted, and others which were palpably artificial. Margot's accusations had gone home, and instead of indulging in fresh flights, he resolved to correct certain errors in the lines now on hand until the verses should be polished to a flawless whole. Any one who has any experience with the pen understands the difficulty of such a task, and the almost hopeless puzzle of changing a stone in the mosaic without disturbing the whole. The infinite capacity for taking pains is not by any means a satisfying definition of genius, but it is certainly one great secret of success. Ronald's awkward couplet gave him employment for the rest of the morning, and lunch-time found him still dissatisfied. An adjective avoided his quest--the right adjective; the one and only word which expressed the precise shade of meaning desired. From the recesses of his brain it peeped at him, now advancing so near that it was almost within grasp, anon retreating to a shadowy distance. There was no help for it but to wait for the moment when, tired of its game of hide-and- seek, it would choose the most unexpected and inappropriate moment to peer boldly forward, and make its curtsy. Meantime Margot had dusted the china in the drawing-room, watered the plants, put in an hour's practising, and done a _few_ odds and ends of mending; in a word, had gone through the programme which comprises the duties of a well-to-do modern maiden, and by half-past eleven was stepping out of the door, arrayed in a pretty spring dress, and her third best hat. She crept quietly along the hall, treading with the cautious steps of one who wishes to escape observation; but her precautions were in vain, for just as she was passing the door of the morning-room it was thrown open from within, and Agnes appeared upon the threshold--Agnes neat and trim in her morning gown of serviceable fawn alpaca, her hands full of tradesmen's books, on her face an expression of acute disapproval. "Going out, Margot? So early? It's not long past eleven o'clock!" "I know?" "Where are you going?" "Don't know!" "If you are passing down Edgware Road--" "I'm not!" The front door closed with a bang, leaving Agnes discomfited on the mat. There was no denying that at times Margot was distinctly difficult in her dealings with her elder sister. She herself was aware of the fact, and repented ardently after each fresh offence, but alas! without reformation. "We don't fit. We never shall, if we live together a hundred years. Edgware Road, indeed, on a morning like this, when you can hear the spring a-calling, and it's a sin and a shame to live in a city at all! If I had told her I was going into the Park, she would have offered stale bread for the ducks!" Margot laughed derisively as she crossed the road in the direction of the Park, and passing in through a narrow gateway, struck boldly across a wide avenue between stretches of grass where the wind and sun had full play, and she could be as much alone as possible, within the precincts of the great city. In spite of her light and easy manner, the problem of her brother's future weighed heavily upon the girl's mind. The eleventh hour approached, and nothing more definite had been achieved in the way of encouragement than an occasional written line at the end of the printed rejections: "Pleased to see future verses," "Unsuitable; but shall be glad to consider other poems." Even the optimism of two-and-twenty recognised that such straws as these could not weigh against the hard- headed logic of a business man! It was in the last degree unlikely that Ronald would make any striking success in literature in the time still remaining under the terms of the agreement, unless--as she herself had hinted--desperate measures were adopted to meet desperate needs. A scheme was hatching in Margot's brain,--daring, uncertain; such a scheme as no one but a young and self- confident girl could have conceived, but holding nevertheless the possibilities of success. She wanted to think it out, and movement in the fresh air gave freedom to her thoughts. Really it was simple enough,--requiring only a little trouble, a little engineering, a little harmless diplomacy. Ronald was a mere babe where such things were concerned, but he would be obedient and do as he was told, and for the rest, Margot was confident of her own powers. The speculative frown gave way to a smile; she laughed, a gleeful, girlish laugh, and tossed her head, unconsciously acting a little duologue, with nods and frowns and upward languishing glance. All things seem easy to sweet and twenty, when the sun shines, and the scent of spring is in the air. The completed scheme stood out clear and distinct in Margot's mind. Only one small clue was lacking, and that she was even now on the way to discover! CHAPTER THREE. A TONIC. Margot wandered about the Park so lost in her own thoughts that she was dismayed to find that it was already one o'clock, when warned by the departing stream of nursemaids that it must be approaching luncheon hour she at last consulted her watch. Half an hour's walk, cold cutlets and an irate Agnes, were prospects which did not smile upon her; it seemed infinitely more agreeable to turn in an opposite direction, and make as quickly as possible for Oxford Terrace, where she would be certain of a welcome from poor sad Edith, who was probably even now lunching on bread and cheese and anxiety, while her two sturdy infants tucked into nourishing beefsteak. Edith was one of those dear things who did not preach if you were late, but was content to give you what she had, without apologising. Margot trotted briskly past Dorset Square, took a short cut behind the Great Central Hotel, and emerged into the dreary stretch of Marylebone Road. Even in the spring sunshine it looked dull and depressing, with the gloomy hospital abutting at the corner, the flights of dull red flats on the right. A block of flats--in appearance the most depressing--in reality the most interesting of buildings! Inside those walls a hundred different households lived, and moved, and had their being. Every experience of life and death, of joy and grief, was acted on that stage, the innumerable curtains of which were so discreetly drawn. Margot scanned the several rows of windows with a curious interest. To-day new silk _brise-bise_ appeared on the second floor, and a glimpse of a branching palm. Possibly some young bride had found her new home in this dull labyrinth, and it was still beautiful in her sight! Alas, poor bird, to be condemned to build in such a nest! Those curtains to the right were shockingly dirty, showing that some over-tired housewife had retired discomfited from the struggle against London grime. Up on the sixth floor there was a welcome splash of colour in the shape of Turkey red curtains, and a bank of scarlet geranium. Margot had decided long since that this flat must belong to an art student to whom colour was a necessity of life; who toiled up the weary length of stairs on her return from the day's work, tasting in advance the welcome of the cosy room. She herself never forgot to look up at that window, or to send a mental message of sympathy and cheer to its unknown occupant. Oxford Terrace looked quite cheerful in comparison with the surrounding roads,--and almost countrified into the bargain, now that the beech trees were bursting into leaf. Margot passed by two or three blocks, then mounting the steps at the corner of a new terrace, walked along within the railed-in strip of lawn until she reached a house in the middle of the row. A peep between draped Nottingham lace curtains showed a luncheon table placed against the wall, after the cheerful fashion of furnished apartments, when one room does duty for three, at which sat two little sailor-suited lads and a pale mother, smiling bravely at their sallies. Margot felt the quick contraction of the heart which she experienced afresh at every sight of Edith's changed face, but next moment she whistled softly in the familiar key, and saw the light flash back. Edith sprang to the door, and appeared flushed and smiling. "Margot, how sweet of you! I _am_ glad! Have you had lunch?" "No. Give me anything you have. I'm awfully late. Bread and jam will do splendidly. Halloa, youngsters, how are you? We'll defer kisses, I think, till you are past the sticky stage. I've been prowling about the Park for the last two hours enjoying the spring breezes, and working out problems, and suddenly discovered it was too late to go home." She sank down on a seat by the table, shaking her head in response to an anxious glance. "No, not my own affairs, dear; only Ron's! Can't the boys run away now, and let us have a chat? I know you have had enough of them by your face, and I've such a lot to say. Don't grumble, boys! Be good, and you shall be happy, and your aunt will take you to the Zoo. Yes, I promise! The very first afternoon that the sun shines; but first I shall ask mother if you have deserved it by doing what you are told." "Run upstairs, dears, and wash, and put on your boots before Esther comes," said Mrs Martin fondly; and the boys obeyed, with a lingering obedience which was plainly due rather to bribery than training. The elder of the two was a sturdy, plain-featured lad, uninteresting except to the parental eye; the younger a beauty, a bewitching, plump, curly-headed cherub of four years, with widely-opened grey eyes and a Cupid's bow of a mouth. Margot let Jim pass by with a nod, but her hand stretched out involuntarily to stroke Pat's cheek, and ruffle his curly pow. Edith smiled in sympathetic understanding, but even as she smiled she turned her head over her shoulder to speak a parting word to the older lad. "Good-bye, darling! We'll have a lovely game after tea!" Then the door shut, and she turned to her sister with a sigh. "Poor Jim! everybody overlooks him to fuss over Pat, and it is hard lines. Children feel these things much more than grown-up people realise. I heard yells resounding from their bedroom one day last year, and flew upstairs to see what was wrong. There was Pat on the floor, with Jim kneeling on his chest, with his fingers twined in his hair, which he was literally dragging out by the roots. He was put to bed for being cruel to his little brother, but when I went to talk quietly to him afterwards, he sobbed so pitifully, and said, `I only wanted some of his curls to put on, to make people love me too!' Poor wee man! You know what a silly way people have of saying, `Will you give me one of your curls?' and poor Jim had grown tired of walking beside the pram, and having no notice taken of him. I vowed that from that day if I showed the least preference to either of the boys it should be to Jim. The world will be kind to Pat; he will never need friends." "No, Pat is all right. He has the `come-hither eye,' as his mother had before him!" "And his aunt!" Margot chuckled complacently. "Well! it's a valuable thing to possess. I find it most useful in my various plights. They are dear naughty boys, both of them, and I always love them, but rather less than usual when I see you looking so worn out. You have enough strain on you without turning nursemaid into the bargain." Mrs Martin sighed, and knitted her delicate brows. "I do feel such a wicked wretch, but one of the hardest bits of life at the present is being shut up with the boys in one room all day long. They are very good, poor dears, but when one is racked with anxiety, it is a strain to play wild Indians and polar bears for hours at a stretch. We do some lessons now, and that's a help--and Jack insisted that I should engage this girl to take them out in the afternoon. I must be a wretched mother, for I am thankful every day afresh to hear the door bang behind them, and to know that I am free until tea-time." "Nonsense! Don't be artificial, Edie! You know that you are nothing of the sort, and that it's perfectly natural to be glad of a quiet hour. You are a marvel of patience. I should snap their heads off if I had them all day, packed up in this little room. What have you had for lunch? No meat? And you look so white and spent. How wicked of you!" "Oh, Margot," sighed the other pathetically, "it's not food that I need! What good can food do when one is racked with anxiety? It's my mind that is ill, not my body. We can't pay our way even with the rent of the house coming in, unless Jack gets something to do very soon, and I am such a stupid, useless thing that I can do nothing to help." "Except to give up your house, and your servants, and turn yourself into nurse, and seamstress, and tailor, and dressmaker, rolled into one; and live in an uproar all day long, and be a perfect angel of sympathy every night--that's all!--and try to do it on bread and cheese into the bargain! There must be something inherently mean in women, to skimp themselves as they do. You'd never find a man who would grudge tenpence for a chop, however hard up he might be, but a woman spends twopence on lunch, and a sovereign on tonics! Darling, will it comfort you most if I sympathise, or encourage? I know there are moods when it's pure aggravation to be cheerful!" Edith sighed and smiled at one and the same moment. "I don't know! I'd like to hear a little of both, I think, just to see what sort of a case you could make out." "Very well, then, so you shall, but first I'll make you comfy. Which is the least lumpy chair which this beautiful room possesses? Sit down then, and put up your feet while I enjoy my lunch. I do love damson jam! I shall finish the pot before I'm satisfied... Well, to take the worst things first, I do sympathise with you about the table linen! One clean cloth a week, I suppose? It must be quite a chronicle of the boys' exploits! I should live on cold meat, so that they couldn't spill he gravy. And the spoons. They feel gritty, don't they? What is it exactly that they are made of? Poor old, dainty Edie! I know you hate it, and the idea that aliens are usurping your own treasures. Stupid people like Agnes would say that these are only pin-pricks, which we should not deign to notice, but sensible people like you and me know that constant little pricks take more out of one than the big stabs. If the wall-paper had not been so hideous, your anxieties would have seemed lighter, but it's difficult to bear things cheerfully against a background of drab roses. Here's an idea now! If all else fails, start a cheerful lodging-house. You'd make a fortune, and be a philanthropist to boot... This _is_ good jam! I shall have to hide the stones, for the sake of decency.--I know you think fifty times more of Jack than of yourself. It's hard luck to feel that all his hard work ends in this, and men hate failure. They have the responsibility, poor things, and it must be tragic to feel that through their mistakes, or rashness, or incapacity, as the case may be, they have brought hard times upon their wives. I expect Jack feels the table cloth even more than you do! You smart, but you don't feel, `This is my fault!'" "It isn't Jack's fault," interrupted Jack's wife quickly. "He never speculated, nor shirked work, nor did anything but his best. It was that hateful war, and the upset of the market, and--" "Call it misfortune, then; in any case the fact remains that he is the bread-winner, and has failed to provide--cake! We are not satisfied with dry bread nowadays. You are always sure of that from father, if from no one else." "But I loathe taking it! And I would sooner live in one room than go home again, as some people do. When one marries one loses one's place in the old home, and it is never given back. Father loves me, but he would feel it a humiliation to have me back on his hands. Agnes would resent my presence, and so would you. Yes, you would! Not consciously, perhaps, but in a hundred side-issues. We should take up your spare rooms, and prevent visitors, and upset the maids. If you ran into debt, father would pay your debts as a matter of course, but he grudges paying mine, because they are partly Jack's." "Yes, I understand. It must be hateful for you, dear. I suppose no man wishes to pay out more money than he need, especially when he has worked hard to make it, as the pater has done; but if you take him the right way he is a marvel of goodness.--This year--next year--sometime-- never;--I'm going to be married next year! Just what I had decided myself... I must begin to pick up bargains at the sales." Margot rose from her seat, flicking the crumbs off her lap with a fine disregard of the flower-wreathed carpet, and came over to a seat beside her sister. "Now, shall I change briefs, and expatiate on the other side of the question? ... Why, Edie, every bit of this trouble depends on your attitude towards it, and on nothing else. You are all well; you are young; you adore each other; you have done nothing dishonourable; you have been able to pay your debts--what does the rest matter? Jack has had a big disappointment. Very well, but what's the use of crying over spilt milk? Get a fresh jug, and try for cream next time! The children are too young to suffer, and think it's fine fun to have no nursery, and live near Edgware Road. If you and Jack could just manage to think the same, you might turn it all into a picnic and a joke. Jack is strong and clever and industrious, and you have a rich father; humanly speaking, you will never want. Take it with a smile, dear! If you will smile, so will Jack. If you push things to the end, it rests with you, for he won't fret if he sees you happy. He _does_ love you, Edie! I'm not sentimental, but I think it must be just the most beautiful thing in the world to be loved like that. I should like some one to look at me as he does at you, with his eyes lighting up with that deep, bright glow. I'd live in an attic with my Jack, and ask for nothing more!" The elder woman smiled--a smile eloquent of a sadder, maturer wisdom. She adored her husband, and gloried in the knowledge of his love of herself, but she knew that attics are not conducive to the continuance of devotion. Love is a delicate plant, which needs care and nourishment and discreet sheltering, if it is to remain perennially in bloom. The smile lingered on her lips, however; she rested her head against the cushions of her chair and cried gratefully-- "Oh, Margot, you do comfort me! You are so nice and human. Do you really, truly think I am taking things too seriously? Do you think I am depressing Jack? Wouldn't he think me heartless if I seemed bright and happy?" "Try it and see! You can decide according to the effect produced, but first you must have a tonic, to brace you for the effort. I've a new prescription, and we are going to Edgware Road to get it this very hour." "Quinine, I suppose. Esther and the boys can get it at the chemist's, but really it will do roe no good." "I'm sure it wouldn't. Mine is a hundred times more powerful." "Iron? I can't take it. It gives me headaches." "It isn't iron. Mine won't give you a headache, unless the pins get twisted. It's a finer specific for low spirits feminine, than any stupid drugs. A new hat!" Edith stared, and laughed, and laughed again. "You silly girl! What nonsense! I don't need a hat." "That's nonsense if you like! It depresses me to see you going about in that dowdy thing, and it must be a martyrdom for you to wear it every day. Come out and buy a straw shape for something and `eleven-three'," (it's always "eleven-three" in Edgware Road), "and I'll trim it with some of your scraps. You have such nice scraps. Then we'll have tea, and you shall walk part of the way home with me, and meet Jack, and smile at him and look pretty, and watch him perk up to match. What do you say?" Edith lifted her eyes with a smile which brought back the youth and beauty to her face. "I say, thank you!" she said simply. "You are a regular missionary, Margot. You spend your life making other people happy." "Goodness!" cried Margot, aghast. "Do I? How proper it sounds! You just repeat that to Agnes, and see what she says. You'll hear a different story, I can tell you!" CHAPTER FOUR. MARGOT'S SCHEME. The sisters repaired to Edgware Road, and after much searching finally ran to earth a desirable hat for at least the odd farthing less than it would have cost round the corner in Oxford Street. This saving would have existed only in imagination to the ordinary customer, who is presented with a paper of nail-like pins, a rusty bodkin, or a highly- superfluous button-hook as a substitute for lawful change; but Margot took a mischievous delight in collecting farthings and paying down the exact sum in establishments devoted to eleven-threes, to the disgust of the young ladies who supplied her demands. The hat was carried home in true Bohemian fashion, encased in a huge paper bag, and a happy hour ensued, when the contents of the scrap-box were scattered over the bed, and a dozen different effects studied in turn. Edith sat on a chair before the glass with the skeleton frame perched on her head at the accepted fashionable angle, criticising fresh draperies and arrangement of flowers, and from time to time uttering sharp exclamations of pain as Margot's actions led to an injudicious use of the dagger-like pins. Her delicate finely-cut face and misty hair made her a delightful model, and she smiled back at the face in the mirror, reflecting that if you happened to be a pauper, it was at least satisfactory to be a pretty one, and that to possess long, curling eyelashes was a distinct compensation in life. Margot draped an old lace veil over the hard brim, caught it together at the back with a paste button, and pinned a cluster of brown roses beneath the brim, with just one pink one among the number, to give the _cachet_ to the whole. "There's Bond Street for you!" she cried triumphantly; and Edith flushed with pleasure, and wriggled round and round to admire herself from different points of view. "It _is_ a tonic!" she declared gratefully. "You are a born milliner, Margot. It will be a pleasure to go out in this hat, and I shall feel quite nice and conceited again. It's so long since I've felt conceited! I'm ever and ever so much obliged. Can you stay on a little longer, dear, or are you in a hurry to get back?" "No! I shall get a scolding anyway, so I might as well have all the fling I can get. I'll have tea with you and the boys, and a little private chat with Jack afterwards. You won't mind leaving us alone for a few minutes? It's something about Ron, but I won't promise not to get in a little flirtation on my own account." Jack's wife laughed happily. "Flirt away--it will cheer him up! I'll put the boys to bed, and give you a fine opportunity. Here they come, back from their walk. I must hurry, dear, and cut bread and butter. I'll carry down the hat, and put it on when Jack comes in." Aunt Margot's appearance at tea was hailed with a somewhat qualified approval. "You must talk to _us_, mother," Jim said sternly; "talk properly, not only, `Yes, dear,' `No, dear,' like you do sometimes, and then go on speaking to her about what we can't understand. She's had you all afternoon!" "So I have, Jim. It's your turn now. What do you want to say?" Jim immediately lapsed into silence. Having gained his point, he had no remark to offer, but Pat lifted his curly head and asked eagerly-- "Muzzer, shall I ever grow up to be a king?" "No, my son; little boys like you are never kings." "Not if I'm very good, and do what I'm told?" "No, dear, not even then. No one can be a king unless his father is a king, too, or some very, very great man. What has put that in your head, I wonder? Why do you want to be a king?" Pat widened his clear grey eyes; the afternoon sunshine shone on his ruffled head, turning his curls to gold, until he looked like some exquisite cherub, too good and beautiful for this wicked world. "'Cause if I was a king I could take people prisoners and cut off their heads, and stick them upon posts," he said sweetly; his mother and aunt exchanged horrified glances. Pat alternated between moods of angelic tenderness, when every tiger was a "good, _good_ tiger," and naughty children "never did it any more," and a condition of frank cannibalism, when he literally wallowed in atrocities. His mother forbode to lecture, but judiciously turned the conversation. "Kings can do much nicer things than that, Patsy boy. Our kind King Edward doesn't like cutting off heads a bit. He is always trying to prevent men from fighting with each other." "Is he?" "Yes, he is. People call him the Peace-maker, because he prevents so many wars." "_Bother_ him!" cried Pat fervently. Margot giggled helplessly. Mrs Martin stared fixedly out of the window, and Jim in his turn took up the ball of conversation. "Mummie, will you die before me?" "I can't tell, dear; nobody knows." "Will daddy die before me?" "Probably he will." "May I have his penknife when he's dead?" "I think it's about time to cut up that lovely new cake!" cried Margot, saving the situation with admirable promptitude. "We bought it for you this afternoon, and it tastes of chocolate, and all sorts of good things." The bait was successful, and a silence followed, eloquent of intense enjoyment; then the table was cleared and various games were played, in the midst of which Jack's whistle sounded from without, and his wife and sons rushed to meet him. They looked a typical family group as they re- entered the room, Edith happily hanging on to his arm, the boys prancing round his feet, and the onlooker felt a little pang of loneliness at the sight. John Martin was a tall, well-made man, with a clean-shaven face and deep-set grey eyes. He was pale and lined, and a nervous twitching of the eyelids testified to the strain through which he had passed, but it was a strong face and a pleasant face, and, when he looked at his wife, a face of indescribable tenderness. At the moment he was smiling, for it was always a pleasure to see his pretty sister-in-law, and to-night Edith's anxious looks had departed, and she skipped by his side as eager and excited as the boys themselves. "Dad, dad, has there been any more 'splosions?" "Hasn't there been no fearful doings on in the world, daddy?" "Jack! Jack! I've got a new tonic. It has done me such a lot of good!" Jack turned from one to the other. "No, boys, no,--no more accidents to-day! What is it, darling? You look radiant. What is the joke?" "Look out of the window for a minute! Margot, you talk to him, and don't let him look round." Edith pinned on the new hat before the mirror, carefully adjusting the angles, and pulling out her cloudy hair to fill in the necessary spaces. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled; it was no longer the worn white wife, but a pretty, coquettish girl, who danced up to Jack's side with saucy, uplifted head. "There! What do you think of that?" The answer of the glowing eyes was more eloquent than words. Jack whistled softly beneath his breath, walking slowly round and round to take in the whole effect. "I say, that _is_ fetching! That's something like a hat you wore the summer we were engaged. You don't look a day older. Where did you run that to earth, darling?" "Can't you see Bond Street in every curve? I should have thought it was self-evident. Margot said I was shabby, and that a new hat would do me good, so we went out and bought it. Do you think I am extravagant? It's better to spend on this than on medicine, and three guineas isn't expensive for real lace, is it?" She peered in her husband's face with simulated anxiety, but his smile breathed pleasure unqualified. "I'm delighted that you have bought something at last! You have not spent a penny on yourself for goodness knows how long." "Goose!" cried Edith. "He has swallowed it at a gulp. Three guineas, indeed--as if I dare! Four and eleven-pence three-farthings in Edgware Road, and my old lace veil, and one of the paste buttons you gave me at Christmas, and some roses off last year's hat, and Margot's clever fingers, and my--pretty face! Do you think I am pretty still?" "I should rather think I do!" Jack framed his wife's face in his hands, stooping to kiss the soft flushed cheeks as fondly as he had done in the time of that other lace-wreathed hat six years before. Pat and Jim returned to their dominoes, bored by such foolish proceedings on the part of their parents, while Margot covered her face with her hands, with ostentatious propriety. "This is no place for me! Consider my feelings, Jack. I'm like a story I once read in an old volume of _Good Words_, `Lovely yet Unloved!' When you have quite finished love-making, I want a private chat with you, while Edie puts the boys to bed. They will hate me for suggesting such a thing, but it is already past their hour, and I must have ten minutes' talk on a point of life and death!" "Come away, boys; we are not wanted here. Daddy will come upstairs and see you again before you go to sleep." Mother and sons departed together, and Jack Martin sat down on the corner of the sofa and leant his head on his hand. With his wife's departure the light went out of his face, but he smiled at his sister- in-law with an air of affectionate _camaraderie_. "You are a little brick, Margot! You have done Edie a world of good. What can I do for you in return? I am at your service." Margot pulled forward the chair that her sister had chosen as the least lumpy which the room afforded, and seated herself before him, returning his glance with an odd mixture of mischief and embarrassment. "It's about Ron. The year of probation is nearly over." "I know it." "Two months more will decide whether he is to be a broker or a poet. It will mean death to Ronald to be sent into the City." "You are wrong there. If he is a poet, no amount of brokering will alter the fact, any more than it will change the colour of his eyes or hair. It is bound to come out sooner or later. You will probably think me a brute, if I suggest that a little discipline and knowledge of the world might improve the value of his writings." "Yes, I will! What does a poet want with a knowledge of the world, in the common, sordid sense? Let him keep his mind unsullied, and be an inspiration to others. When we were children, we used to keep birds in the nursery, in a very fine cage with golden bars, and we fed them with every bird delicacy we could find. They lived for a little time, and tried to sing, poor brave things! We threw away the cage in a fury, after finding one soft dead thing after another lying huddled up in a corner. No one shall cage Ronald, if I can prevent it! It's no use pretending to be cold-blooded and middle-aged, Jack, for I know you are with us at heart. This means every bit as much to Ron as your business troubles do to you." Jack drew in his breath with a wince of pain. "Well, what is it you wish me to do? I am afraid I have very little influence in the literary world, and I have always heard that introductions do more harm than good. An editor would soon ruin his paper if he accepted all the manuscripts pressed upon him by admiring relatives." "But you see I don't ask you for an introduction. It's just a piece of information I want, which I can't get for myself. You know the _Loadstar Magazine_?" "Certainly I do." "Well, the _Loadstar_ is--the _Loadstar_! The summit of Ron's ambition. It's the magazine of all others which he likes and admires, and the editor is known to be a man of great power and discernment. It is said that if he has the will, he can do more than any man in London to help on young writers. It is useless sending manuscripts, for he refuses to consider unsolicited poetical contributions. He shuts himself up in a fastness in Fleet Street, and the door thereof is guarded with dragons with lying tongues. I know! I have made it my business to inquire, but I feel convinced that if he once gave Ron a fair reading, he would acknowledge his gifts. There is no hope of approaching him direct, but I intend to get hold of him all the same." Jack Martin looked up at that, his thin face twitching into a smile. "You little baggage! and you expect me to help you. I must hear some more about this before I involve myself any further. What mischief are you up to now?" "Dear Jack, what can I do; a little girl like me?" cried Miss Margot, mightily meek all of a sudden, as she realised that she had ventured a step too far. "I wouldn't for the whole world get you into trouble. It's just a little, simple thing that I want you to find out from some one in the office." "I don't know any one in the office." "But you could find out some one who did? For instance, you know that Mr Oliver who illustrates? I've seen his things in the _Loadstar_. You could ask him in a casual, off-hand manner without ever mentioning our name." "What could I ask him?" "Such a nice, simple little question! Just the name of the place where the editor proposes to spend this summer holiday, and the date on which he will start." Jack stared in amazement, but the meekest, most demure of maidens confronted him from the opposite chair, with eyes so translucently candid, lips so guilelessly sweet, that it seemed incredible that any hidden mischief could lurk behind the innocent question. Nevertheless seven years' intimacy with Miss Margot made Jack Martin suspicious of mischief. "What do you know about this editor man? Have you seen him anywhere? He is handsome, I suppose, and a bachelor?" "You're a wretch!" retorted Miss Margot. "I don't know the man from Adam, and he may be a Methuselah for all I care; but if possible I want it to happen that Ron and I chance to be staying in the same place, in the same house, or hotel, or _pension_, whichever it may be, when he goes away for his yearly rest. We are going to the country in any case--why should we not be guided by the choice of those older and wiser than ourselves? Why should we not meet the one of all others we are most anxious to know?" "Just so! and having done so, you will confide in the editor that Ronald is an embryo Poet Laureate, and try to enlist his kind sympathy and assistance!" Margot smiled; a smile of lofty superiority. "No, indeed! I know rather better than that! He will be out on a holiday, poor man, and won't want to be troubled with literary aspirants. He has enough of them all the year round. We'll never mention poetry, but we will try to get to know _him_, and to make him like us so much that he will want to see more of us when we return to town. No one can live in the same house with Ron, and have an opportunity of talking to him day by day, without feeling that he is different from other boys, and alone together in the country one can never tell what may happen. Opportunities may arise, too; opportunities for help and service. We would be on the look-out for them, and would try by every means in our power to forge the first link in the chain. Don't look so solemn, old Jack, it's all perfectly innocent! You can trust me to do nothing you would disapprove." "I believe I can. You are a madcap, Margot, but you are a good girl. I'm not afraid of you, but I imagine that the editor will be a match for a dozen youngsters like you and Ron, and will soon see through your little scheme. However, I'll do what I can. In big offices holiday arrangements have to be made a good while ahead, so it ought not to be difficult to get the information you want. Now I must be off upstairs to see the boys before they get into bed. Shall I see you again when I come down?" "No, indeed! I've played truant since half-past eleven, so I shall have to hang about the end of the terrace until father appears, and go in under his wing, to escape a scolding from Agnes. I had arranged to pay calls with her this afternoon. I wonder how it is that my memory is so dreadfully uncertain about things I don't want to do! Good-bye then, Jack, and a hundred thanks. Posterity will thank you for your help." Jack Martin laughed and shrugged his shoulders. He had a man's typical disbelief in the ability of his wife's relatives. CHAPTER FIVE. AN EXPLOSION. Relationships were somewhat strained in the Vane household during the next few weeks, the two elder members being banded together in an unusual partnership to bring about the confusion of the younger. "I can't understand what you are making such a fuss about. You'll have to give in, in the end. You a poet, indeed! What next? If you would come down to breakfast in time, and give over burning the gas till one o'clock in the morning, it would be more to the point than writing silly verses. I'd be ashamed to waste my time scribbling nonsense all day long!" So cried Agnes, in Martha-like irritation, and Ronald turned his eyes upon her with that deep, dreamy gaze which only added fuel to the flame. He was not angry with Agnes, who, as she herself truly said, "did not understand." Out of the storm of her anger an inspiration had fluttered towards him, like a crystal out of the surf. "The Worker and the Dreamer"--he would make a poem out of that idea! Already the wonderful inner vision pictured the scene--the poet sitting idle on the hillside, the man of toil labouring in the heat and glare of the fields, casting glances of scorn and impatience at the inert form. The lines began to take shape in his brain. "...And the worker worked from the misty dawn, Till the east was golden and red; But the dreamer's dream which he thought to scorn, Lived on when they both were dead..." "I asked him three times over if he would have another cup of coffee, and he stared at me as if he were daft! I believe he _is_ half daft at times, and he will grow worse and worse, if Margot encourages him like this!" Agnes announced to her father, on his weary return from City. It was one of Agnes's exemplary habits to refuse all invitations which could prevent her being at home to welcome her father every afternoon, and assist him to tea and scones, accompanied by a minute _resume_ of the bad news of the day. What the housemaid had broken; what the cat had spilt; the parlourmaid's impertinences; the dressmaker's delinquencies; Ronald's vapourings; the new and unabashed transgressions of Margot--each in its turn was dropped into the tired man's cup with the lumps of sugar, and stirred round with the cream. There was no escaping the ordeal. On the hottest day of summer there was the boiling tea, with the hot muffins, and the rich, indigestible cake, exactly as they had appeared amidst the ice and snows of January; and the accompanied recital hardly varied more. It was a positive relief to hear that the chimney had smoked, or the parrot had had a fit. Once a year Agnes departed on a holiday, handing over the keys to Margot, who meekly promised to follow in her footsteps; and then, heigho! for a fortnight of Bohemia, with every arrangement upside down, and appearing vastly improved by the change of position. Instead of tea in the drawing-room, two easy-chairs on the balcony overlooking the Park; cool iced drinks sipped through straws, and luscious dishes of fruit. Instead of Agnes, stiff and starched and tailor-made, a radiant vision in muslin and laces, with a ruffled golden head, and distracting little feet peeping out from beneath the frills. "Isn't this fun?" cried the vision. "Don't you feel quite frivolous and Continental? Let's pretend we are a newly-married couple, and you adore me, and can't deny a thing I ask! There was a blouse in Bond Street this morning... Sweetest darling, wouldn't you like me to buy it to- morrow, and show me off in it to your friends? I told them to send it home on approval. I knew you couldn't bear to see your little girl unhappy for the sake of four miserable guineas!" This sort of treatment was very agreeable to a worn-out City man, and as a pure matter of bargaining, the blouse was a cheap price to pay for the refreshment of that cool, restful hour, and the pretty chatter which smoothed the tired lines out of his face, and made him laugh and feel young again. Another night Mr Vane would be decoyed to a rendezvous at Earl's Court, when Margot would wear the blouse, and insist upon turning round the pearl band on her third finger, so as to imitate a wedding-ring, looking at him in languishing fashion across the table the while, to the delight of fellow-diners and his own mingled horror and amusement. Then they would wander about beneath the glimmer of the fairy-lights, listening to the band, as veritable a pair of lovers as any among the throng. As summer approached, Mr Vane's thoughts turned to these happy occasions, and it strengthened his indignation against his son to realise that this year a cloud had arisen between himself and his dearest daughter. Margot had openly ranked herself against him, which was a bitter pill to swallow, and, so far from showing an inclination to repent as the prescribed time drew to a close, the conspirators appeared only to be the more determined. Long envelopes were continually being dispatched to the post, to appear with astonishing dispatch on the family breakfast-table. The pale, wrought look on Ronald's face as he caught sight of them against the white cloth! No parent's heart could fail to be wrung for the lad's misery; but the futility of it added to the inward exasperation. Thousands of men walking the streets of London vainly seeking for work, while this misguided youth scorned a safe and secure position! The pent-up irritation exploded one Sunday evening, when the presence of Edith and her husband recalled the consciousness of yet another disappointment. Mr Vane had made his own way, and, after the manner of successful men, had little sympathy with failure. The presence of the two pale, dejected-looking young men filled him with impatient wrath. At the supper-table he was morose and irritable, until a chance remark set the fuse ablaze. "Yes, yes! You all imagine yourselves so clever nowadays that you can afford to despise the experience of men who knew the world before you were born! I can see you look at each other as I speak! I'm not blind! I'm an out-of-date old fogey who doesn't know what he is talking about, and hasn't even the culture to appreciate his own children. Because one has composed a bundle of rhymes that no one will publish, he must needs assume an attitude of forbearance with the man who supplies the bread and butter! I've never been accustomed to regard failure as an instance of superiority, but no doubt I am wrong--no doubt I am behind the times--no doubt you are all condemning me in your minds as a blundering old ignoramus! A father is nothing but a nuisance who must be tolerated for the sake of what can be got out of him." He looked round the table with his tired, angry eyes. Jack Martin sat with bent head and lips pressed tightly together, repressing himself for his wife's sake. Edith struggled against tears. Agnes served the salad dressing and grunted approval. Margot, usually so pert and ready of retort, stared at the cloth with a frown of strained distress. Only Ronald faced him with steady eyes. "That is not true, father, and you know it yourself!" "I know nothing, it appears! That's just what I say. Why don't you undertake my education? You never show me your work; you take the advice of a child like Margot, and leave me out in the cold, and then expect me to have faith enough to believe you a genius without a word of proof. You want to become known to the public? Very well, bring down some of that precious poetry and read it aloud to us now! You can't say then that I haven't given you a chance!" It was a frightful prospect! The criticism of the family is always an ordeal to the budding author, and the moment was painfully unpropitious. It would have been as easy for a bird to sing in the presence of the fowler. Ronald turned white to the lips, but his reply came as unwavering as the last. "Do you think you would care to hear even the finest poetry in the world read aloud to-night? Mine is very far from the best. I will read it to you if you wish, but you must give me a happier opportunity." Agnes laughed shortly. "Shilly-shally! I can't understand what opportunity you want. If it's good, it can't be spoilt by being read one day instead of another; if it's bad, it won't be improved by waiting. This is cherry-pie, and there is some tipsy cake. Edith, which will you have?" Edith would have neither. She was still trembling with wounded indignation against her father for that cruel hit at her husband. She sat pale and silent, vowing never to enter the house again until Jack's fortunes were restored; never to accept another penny from her father's hands. She was comparatively little interested in the discussion about poetry. Ron was a dear boy; she would be sorry if he were disappointed, but Jack was her life, and Jack was working for bread! If she had followed the moment's impulse, she would have risen and left the room, and though better counsel prevailed, she could not control the spice of temper which made the cherry-pie abhorrent. Jack, as a man, saw no reason why he should deny himself the mitigations of the situation; he helped himself to cream and sifted sugar with leisurely satisfaction, and sensibly softened in spirit. After all, there was a measure of truth in what the old man said, and his bark was worse than his bite. If his own boy, Pat, took it into his head to go off on some scatter-brain prank when he came of age, it would be a big trouble, or if later on he came a cropper in business-- Jack waited for a convenient pause, and then deftly turned the conversation to politics, and by the time that cheese was on the table, he and his father-in-law were discussing the mysteries of the last Education Bill with the satisfaction of men who hold similar views on the inanities of the opposite party. Later on they bade each other a friendly good-night; but Edith went straight from the bedroom to the street, and clung tightly to her husband's arm as they walked along the pavement opposite the Park, enjoying the quiet before entering the busy streets. "We'll never come again!" she cried tremulously. "We'll stay at home, and have a supper of bread and cheese and love with it! You shan't be taunted and sneered at by any man on earth, if he were twenty times my father! What an angel you were, Jack, to keep quiet, and then talk as if nothing had happened! I was choking with rage!" "Poor darling!" said Jack Martin tenderly. "You take things too much to heart. It's rough on you, but you must remember that it's rough on the old man too. You are his eldest child, and the beauty of the family. He hoped great things for you, and it is wormwood and gall to his proud spirit to see you struggling along in cheap lodgings. We can't wonder if he explodes occasionally. It's wonderful that he is as civil to me as he is; he has put me down as a hopeless blunderer!" There was a touch of bitterness in the speaker's voice, for all his brave assumption of composure, and his wife winced at the sound. She clung more tightly to his arm, and raised her face to his with eager comfort. "Don't mind what he says! Don't mind what any one says. I believe in you. I trust you! The good times will come back again, dear, and we will be happier than ever, because we shall know how to appreciate them. Even if we were always poor, I'd rather have you for my husband than the greatest millionaire in the world!" "Thank God for my wife!" said Jack Martin solemnly. CHAPTER SIX. A MANAGING WOMAN. Meanwhile Ronald and Margot were holding a conclave on the third floor. "I must get away from home at once!" cried the lad feverishly. "I can't write in this atmosphere of antagonism. I breathe it in the air. It poisons everything I do. If I am to have only three more months of liberty, I must spend them in my own way, in the country with you, Margot, away from all this fret and turmoil. It's my last chance. I might as well throw up the sponge at once, if we are to stay here." "Yes, we must go away; for father's sake as well as our own," replied Margot slowly. She leant her head against the back of her chair, and pushed the hair from her brow. Without the smile and the sparkle she was astonishingly like her brother,--both had oval faces, well-marked eyebrows, flexible scarlet lips, and hazel eyes, but the girl's chin was made in a firmer mould, and the expression of dreamy abstraction which characterised the boy's face was on hers replaced by animation and alertness. "Father will be miserable to-night because he flared out at supper; but he'll flare again unless we put him out of temptation. He likes his own way as much as we like ours, and it's so difficult for parents to realise that their children are grown-up. We seem silly babies in his eyes, and he longs to be able to shut us up in the nursery until we are sorry, as he used to do in the old days. As for our own plans, Ron, they are all settled. I was just waiting for a quiet opportunity to tell you. I have been busy planning and scheming for some time back, but it was only to-night that my clue arrived. Jack, my emissary, slipped it into my hand after supper. Read that!" She held out a half sheet of paper with an air of triumph, on which were scribbled the following lines:-- "Name, Elgood. Great walker, climber, etcetera. Goes every June with brother to small lonely inn (Nag's Head)--Glenaire--six miles' drive from S--, Perthshire. Scenery fine, but wild; accommodation limited; landlady refuses lady visitors, which fact is supposed to be one of the chief attractions; Elgood reported to be tough nut to crack; chief object of holiday, quiet and seclusion; probably dates two or three weeks from June 15." Ronald read, and lifted a bewildered face. "What does it all mean? How do this man's plans affect ours? I don't understand what you are driving at, Margot, but I should love to go to Scotland! The mountains in the dawning, and the shadows at night, and the dark green of the firs against the blue of the heather--oh, wouldn't it be life to see it all again, after this terrible brick city! How clever of you to think of Scotland!" "My dear boy, if it had been Southend it would have been all the same. We are going where Mr Elgood goes, for Mr Elgood, you must know, is the editor of _The Loadstar_--the man of all others who could give you a helping hand. Now, Ron, I am quite prepared for you to be shocked, but I know that you will agree in the end, so please give in as quickly as possible, and don't make a fuss. You have been sending unknown poems to unknown editors for the last two years, with practically no result. It's not the fault of your poems--of that I am convinced. In ten years' time every one will rave about them, but you can't afford to wait ten years, or even ten months. Our only hope is to interest some big literary light, whose verdict can't be ignored, and persuade him to plead your cause, or at least to give you such encouragement as will satisfy father that you are not deluded by your own conceit. I've thought and thought, and lain awake thinking, till I feel quite tired out, and then at last I hit on this plan,--to find out where Mr Elgood is going for his holidays, and go to the same place, so that he can't help getting to know us, whatever he may wish. Ordinary methods are useless at this stage of affairs. We must try a desperate remedy for a desperate situation!" "I'm sure I am willing. I would try any crazy plan that had a possibility of success for the next three months. But yours isn't possible. The landlady won't take ladies. That's an unsurmountable objection at the start." But Margot only preened her head with a smile of undaunted self- confidence. "She'll take _me_!" she declared complacently. "She can't refuse me shelter for a night at least, after such a long, tiring journey, and I'll be such a perfect dear, that after twenty-four hours she wouldn't be bribed to do without me! You can leave Mrs McNab to me, Ron. I'll manage her. Very well then, there we shall be, away from the madding crowd, shut up in that lonely Highland glen, in the quaint little inn; two nice, amiable, attractive young people with nothing to do but make ourselves amiable and useful to our companions. Mr Elgood can't be young; he is certainly middle-aged, perhaps quite old; he will be very tired after his year's work, and perhaps even ill. Very well then, we will wait upon him and save him trouble! You shall bicycle to the village for his tobacco and papers, and I'll read aloud and bring him cups of tea. We won't worry him, but we'll be there all the time, waiting and watching for an opportunity. One never knows what may happen in the country. He might slip into the river some day, and you could drag him out. Ronald, wouldn't it be perfectly lovely if you could save his life!" The two youthful faces confronted each other breathlessly for a moment, and then simultaneously boy and girl burst into a peal of laughter. They laughed and laughed again, till the tear-drops shone on Margot's lashes, and Ronald's pale face was flushed with colour. "You silly girl! What nonsense you talk! I'm afraid Mr Elgood won't give me a chance of rescuing him. He won't want to be bothered with literary aspirants on his summer holiday, and he will guess that I want his help--" "He mustn't guess anything of the kind until the end of the time. You must even never mention the word poetry. It would neither be fair to him, nor wise for ourselves. What we have to do is to make ourselves so charming and interesting that at the end of the three weeks he will want to help us as much as we want to be helped. I understand how to manage old gentlemen I've had experience, you see, in rather a difficult school. Poor father! I must run down to comfort him before I go to bed. I feel sure he is sitting in the library, puffing away at his pipe, and feeling absolutely retched. He always does after he has been cross." Ronald's face hardened with youthful disapproval. "Why should you pity him? It's his own fault." "That makes it all the harder, for he has remorse to trouble him, as well as disappointment. You must not be hard on the pater, Ron. Remember he has looked forward to having you with him in business ever since you were born, and it is awfully hard on him to be disappointed just when he is beginning to feel old and tired, and would be glad of a son's help. It is not easy to give up the dream of twenty years!" Ronald felt conscience-stricken. He knew in his own heart that he would find it next to impossible to relinquish his own dawning ambitions, and the thought silenced his complaints. He looked at his sister and smiled his peculiarly sweet smile. "You have a wide heart, Margot. It can sympathise with both plaintiff and defendant at the same time." "Why, of course!" asserted Margot easily. "I love them both, you see, and that makes things easy. Go to bed, dear boy, and dream of Glenaire! Your chance is coming at the eleventh hour." The light flashed in the lad's eyes as he bent his head for the good- night kiss--a light of hope and expectation, which was his sister's best reward. Ron had worked, fretted, and worried of late, and his health itself might break down under the strain, for his constitution was not strong. During one long, anxious year there had been fear of lung trouble, and mental agitation of any kind told quickly upon him. Margot's thoughts flew longingly to the northern glen where the wind blew fresh and cool over the heather, with never a taint of smoke and grime to mar its God- given purity. All that would be medicine indeed, after the year's confinement in the murky city! Ron would lift up his head again, like a plant refreshed with dew; body and mind alike would then expand in jubilant freedom. Margot crept down the darkened staircase, treading with precaution as she passed her sister's room. The hall beneath was in utter darkness, for it was against Agnes's economical instincts to leave a light burning after eleven o'clock, even for the convenience of the master of the house. When Mr Vane demurred, she pointed out that it was the easiest thing in the world for him to put a match to the candle which was left waiting for his use, and that each electric light cost--she had worked it all out, and mentioned a definite and substantial sum which would be wasted by the end of the year if the light were allowed to burn in hall or staircase while he enjoyed his nightly read and smoke. "Would you wish this money to be wasted?" she asked calmly; and thus questioned, there was no alternative but to reply in the negative. It would never do for the head of the house to pose as an advocate of extravagance; but all the same he was irritated by the necessity, and with Agnes for enforcing it. Margot turned the handle of the door and stood upon the threshold looking across the room. It was as she had imagined. On the big leather chair beside the tireless grate sat Mr Vane, one hand supporting the pipe at which he was drearily puffing from time to time, the other hanging limp and idle by his side. Close at hand stood his writing-table, the nearer corner piled high with books, papers, and reviews, but to-night they had remained undisturbed. The inner tragedy of the man's own life had precluded interest in outside happenings. He wanted his wife! That was the incessant cry of his heart, which, diminished somewhat by the passage of the years, awoke to fresh intensity at each new crisis of life! The one love of his youth and his manhood; the dearest, wisest, truest friend that was ever sent by God to be the helpmeet of man--why had she been taken from him just when he needed her most, when the children were growing up, and her son, the longed-for Benjamin, was at his most susceptible age? It was a mystery which could never be solved this side of the grave. As a Christian Mr Vane hung fast to the belief that love and wisdom were behind the cloud; but, though his friends commented on his bravery and composure, no one but himself knew at what a cost his courage was sustained. Every now and then, when the longing was like an ache in his soul, and when he felt weary and dispirited, and irritated by the self-will of the children who were children no longer, then, alas! he was apt to forget himself, and to utter bitter, hasty words which would have grieved _her_ ears, if she had been near to listen. After each of these outbreaks he suffered tortures of remorse and loneliness, realising that by his own deed he had alienated his children; grieving because they did not, could not understand! Except, perhaps, Margot! Margot, the third little daughter, whose coming in the place of the much-desired boy had been a keen disappointment to both parents. The mother had been doubly tender to the child, as if to compensate for that passing pang; but Mr Vane recalled with contrition that he himself had remained indifferent and neglectful until two or three years later, when at last Ronald had made his tardy appearance. Then ensued constant visits to the nursery, to examine the progress of the son and heir; and after the daily questioning and inspection it was impossible to resist bestowing some little attention on the bewitching curly-headed, chubby-cheeked little damsel who clung to his trouser leg, and raised entreating eyes from the altitude of his knee. Mr Vane felt guiltily conscious of having neglected this child, and now in the content of gratified ambition he proceeded to make good that neglect by petting her to her heart's desire, until as time went on it became an open question whether his daily visits were not paid even more to the girl than to the boy. Ronald remained his father's pride, but Margot was his joy, his pet,--in years to come his comfort and companion. There was more of the dead mother in this last daughter than in either of the elder sisters; she had her mother's gift of insight and understanding. This was not the first time of many that she had crept downstairs after the household was in bed, to play David to his Saul, and to-night, as he turned his eyes to the doorway and recognised her slight figure, it was not surprise which he felt, but rather a shamed and uneasy embarrassment. "Margot! It's very late! Why are you not in bed?" She shut the door and crossed the room to his side. "I wanted to talk to you!" "To remonstrate, I suppose, for what I said at supper! You and Ron are angry, no doubt, and feel yourselves badly used. You have come to fight his battles, as usual." "No. I don't want to fight at all. Just to talk to you a little while, and say I'm sorry." She seated herself on the arm of his chair as she spoke, and leant her shoulder carelessly against his; but he edged away, still sore and suspicious. "Sorry for what?" "For you! Because _you're_ sorry. Because I knew you'd be sitting alone, doing nothing else but being sorry. So I came down to put my arms round your dear old neck, and kiss your dear old head, and tell you that I love you. Badly!" Yes! Margot understood. In just such pretty simple words would his own Margaret have chased away the black spirit years ago. Mr Vane puffed at his pipe, staring fixedly across the room, to conceal the sudden moistening of his eyes, but his figure sank back into its old place, no longer repulsing the caress. "It's a hard task for a lonely man to manage a family of children. He gets all the kicks, and none of the thanks!" "That's exaggeration, dear--which you are always protesting against in others. We are tiresome and self-willed, but we know very well how much we owe to you, and your care for us. It hurts us as much as it hurts you when we disagree; but we've got to live our own lives, father!" "And you imagine that you know better how to set about it than a man who has lived more than twice as long, and has had ten times the experience?" Margot hesitated. "In a way--no; in a way--_yes_! We know ourselves, daddy, as even you cannot do, and it is impossible for one person, however kind and wise he may be, to lay down the law as to what is to be the object of other lives. We all have our own ambitions; what could satisfy one, would leave another empty and aching. Agnes, for instance, and me! How different we are! Her idea of happiness would be a house worked by machinery, where every hour the same things happened at precisely the same moment, and there were never any cataracts and breaks, and nobody ever came down late to breakfast. _I_ should like to have breakfast in bed, and a new excitement every single day! We are not all cut out of one pattern, and we are not children any longer, dear. Sometimes you forget that. When _you_ were twenty-three, you were married, and had a home of your own." "Ron is not twenty-one." "When you were twenty-one, did you want your own way, or were you willing for other people to decide for you?" Mr Vane sighed, and moved his head impatiently. "Here we are back again at the same old argument! It's waste of time, Margot. I can't alter my ideas, but I'll try to keep a tighter rein over myself for the next few months. We mustn't have any more scenes like to-night." "No." Margot spoke as gravely as himself. "We mustn't, daddy, for your sake as well as ours, and therefore I think it wise to remove the cause of your irritation. You said we might go away to the country together, Ron and I, and we have decided on Scotland--on a glen in Perthshire, six miles from the nearest station, where the landlady of a quaint little inn takes in a few boarders. It will be very primitive, I expect, and we shall live on cream and porridge and mountain air, and grow brown and bonnie, and study Nature as we have never had a chance of doing before. Six miles from a station, daddy! There's seclusion, if you like!" Mr Vane knitted his brow, uncertain whether to approve or object. "How did you come to hear of this place, if it is so out of the world?" "Jack heard of some people who like it so much that they have gone back again and again." Margot paused for a moment, and then added resolutely, "They go to fish. Probably they will be there again this summer. They are two brothers--one of them is quite old. I don't know anything about the other. Of course, wherever we stay we shall meet other people--but you don't mind that, do you, dear? You can trust us not to associate with any one who is not what you would approve?" "Oh yes. I am not afraid of you in that way, and Ron is sensible enough where you are concerned. He'll take care of you. I wouldn't allow you to stay at a big hotel without Agnes or some older woman, but you are welcome to your little inn, if it takes your fancy. If it rains all day, in Highland fashion, Ronald may discover that there are compensations even in Regent's Park. How soon are you off?" "The middle of June, if all's well, and we'll stay on as long as we are happy and enjoying ourselves. Then there will be your holiday to consider, dear. I thought it would be such a good idea if you took Jack with you, while I went to the seaside with Edith and the boys. Jack and you agree so well, and have so many tastes in common. You would make splendid _compagnons de voyage_!" Mr Vane drew back in his chair to stare at her beneath frowning brows. "If there is one thing in this world more objectionable than another, it's a managing woman!" he cried emphatically. "Don't you develop into one, Margot, if you wish to keep any influence over me. I've seen danger signals once or twice lately, and I tell you plainly--I won't stand it! Be satisfied with what you have gained, and carry Ron away to your Highland glen, but leave my holiday alone, if you please. I'm quite capable of choosing a companion for myself if I need one." "Yes, dear," said Margot meekly; but her smile showed no sign of contrition. She had heard this terrible indictment times without number, but as yet there had come no waning of her influence. As she felt her way carefully up the dark staircase a few minutes later, she smiled to herself with complacent satisfaction; for not only had the Scotch trip received the parental sanction, but the first step was taken towards securing a holiday for poor tired Jack. Mr Vane might protest, but the idea once suggested would take root in his mind, and by the time that it developed into action he would imagine that it was entirely his own inspiration. What did it matter? For Jack's sake even more than his own it was better that he should be so deluded; and Margot was happily above the littleness of desiring to monopolise the credit for her ideas. So long as a point was gained, she was more than content to remain inconspicuously in the background. CHAPTER SEVEN. PREPARATIONS. Every one said that it would rain. It was most depressing. You had only to mention that you intended to spend your summer holiday in a Highland glen, to set the torrent of warning in full flow. "It will rain all the time.--It always rains in Scotland... You will be soaked... You will be starved... You will feel as if you have gone back to winter. You will miss all the summer in the South... You will get rheumatism... You will be bored to death." On and on it went, each newcomer adding volume to the chorus, until it became quite difficult to remember that one was starting on a pleasure trip, and not on a perilous Arctic exploration. "Take plenty of wraps!" urged the wise ones. "Don't imagine that you will be able to wear pretty white things, as you do at home. Take old things that don't matter, for no one will see you, and you will never want to wear them again. You will shiver round the fire in the evenings. Be sure to take rugs. You won't have half enough blankets on the bed. I was in the Highlands for a month two years ago, and we had one fine day!" "Well!" queried Margot of this last Job's comforter, "and what was _that_ like? Were you glad that you were there for that one day at least?" The speaker paused, and over her face there passed a wave of illuminating recollection. She was a prosaic, middle-aged woman, but for the moment she looked young,--young and ardent. "Ah!" she sighed. "That day! It was wonderful; I shall never forget it. We went to bed cold and tired, looking forward to another dark, depressing morning, and woke in a dazzle of sunlight, to see the mountains outlined against a blue sky. We ran out into the road, and held out our hands to the sun, and the wind blew towards us, the soft, wet, heathery wind, and it tasted like--_nectar_! We could not go indoors. We walked about all day, and laughed, and sang. We walked miles. It seemed as if we could not tire. I--I think we were `fey.'" She paused again, and the light flickered out, leaving her cold and prosaic once more. "The rest of the time was most unfortunate. I contracted a severe chill, and my sister-in-law had rheumatism in her ankles. Now, my dear, be sure to take good strong boots--" Margot and Ronald listened politely to all the good advice which was lavished upon them, but, after the manner of youth, felt convinced that in their case precautions were needless. It was going to be fine. If it had been wet in previous years, all the more reason why this coming summer should be warm and dry. The sun was going to shine; the clouds were going to roll away; Mr Elgood was going to fall in love with Ron at first sight, and prove himself all that was wise, and kind, and helpful. Delightful optimism of youth, which is worth more than all the wisdom of maturer years! Margot set about her preparations unhampered by the financial troubles which befall less fortunate girls. Her father was lavishly generous to his favourite daughter, supplementing her dress allowance by constant gifts. It was one of his greatest pleasures in life to see his pretty Margot prettily attired, a pleasure in which the young lady herself fully concurred. She had too much good taste to transport all the frills and fripperies of London to a Highland glen; but, on the other hand, she set her face firmly against the mustard-coloured tweeds affected by so many women for country wear, choosing instead a soft dull blue, a hundred times more becoming. For headgear there was a little cap of the same material, with a quill feather stuck jauntily through a fold at the side, while neat, strong little boots and a pair of doeskin gloves gave a delightfully business-like air to the costume. In the rug-strap was a capacious golf cloak, displaying a bright plaid lining. This was waiting in readiness for the six-mile drive at the end of the journey, and inside the large dress-box was a selection of well-chosen garments--a white serge coat and skirt for bright weather; cottons and lawns for the warm days that must surely come; a velveteen dress for chilly evenings, blouses galore, and even a fur-lined cloak. Margot felt a thrill of wondering satisfaction in her own prudence, as she packed this latter garment, on a hot June day, with the scent of roses filling the room from the vase on the toilet table. She packed sketching materials also, plenty of fancy-work destined to provide presents for the coming Christmas, a selection of sixpenny novels, and one or two pet classics from her own library, which travelled about with her wherever she went. Ronald's preparations were more easy, for surely no stock-in-trade is so simple as that of an author! His favourite stylographic pen, his favourite note-book, and that was an end of it so far as work was concerned. He took his half-plate camera with him, however; and the two handsome free-wheel bicycles were carefully swathed for the journey. "I can't understand why you couldn't be content to go to some nice south-country place, instead of travelling to the other end of the country in this dusty weather," Agnes opined, as she assiduously fixed the label to every separate piece of the luggage which was piled together in the hall. "It's so foolish to waste time and money when there are nice places at hand. Now, there's Cromer--" "You don't get heather-clad mountains at Cromer, Agnes, and we shan't have promenades at Glenaire, nor bands, nor crowds of fashionable people quizzing each other all day long. We prefer the real, true, genuine country." "Oh, well, you'll be tired of it soon enough! Margot will hate it. We shall have you hurrying back at the end of a fortnight, bored to death. I don't think that lock of yours is quite safe, Margot. I shouldn't wonder if you found some things missing when you arrive. The guards have a splendid chance on these all-night journeys," prophesied Agnes cheerfully. She stared in surprise when Margot burst into a peal of laughter, and repeated, "Poor old Agnes!" as if she, secure and comfortable at home, were the one to be pitied, instead of the careless travellers into the unknown! The sisters kissed each other in perfunctory manner, Ron shook hands, and nodded vaguely in response to half a dozen injunctions and reminders; then the travellers took their places in the cab, bending forward to wave their adieux, looking extraordinarily alike the while-- young and eager and handsome, with the light of the summer sun reflected in their happy eyes. Agnes felt a little chill as she shut the door and walked back into the quiet house. All the morning she had looked forward to the hours of peace and quietness which would follow the departure of the two children of the household; but now that the time had arrived she was conscious of an unwonted feeling of depression. The sound of that last pitying, "Poor old Agnes!" rang in her ears. Why "poor"? Why should Margot speak of her as some one to be pitied? As her father's eldest unmarried daughter and the mistress of the house, she was surely a person to be approved and envied. And yet, recalling those two vivid, radiant faces, Agnes dimly felt that there was something in life which Margot and Ron had found, and she herself had missed. "I don't understand!" she repeated to herself with wrinkled brows. A vague depression hung over her spirits; she thought uneasily of her years, and wondered if she were growing old, unconscious of the fact that she had never yet succeeded in being young. CHAPTER EIGHT. GLENAIRE. Margot and Ronald slept through their long journey with the fortitude of youth, enjoyed a delicious breakfast at Perth, took train again for a couple of hours, and finally set out on the last and most enjoyable stage of their journey--the six-mile drive to the head of Glenaire. The first portion of the road gave little promise of beauty, but with every mile that was traversed the scenery began to assume a wilder and a sterner aspect. The mountains were high and bare, with few trees upon their banks, except here and there a patch of dark green firs. When the sun retired behind a cloud they looked somewhat grim and forbidding, but as it emerged from the shelter they became in a moment a soft, blooming purple; a wonder of beauty against the high, blue sky. In the valley were rolling plains of meadowland, of richest, most verdant green, with here and there a blaze of golden gorse or of thickly-growing rushes, to mark the presence of hidden water. At long intervals was seen a little white cottage, set back from the road, where some lonely shepherd tended his sheep; and, at the sound of wheels, little linty-headed children would rush out to the gate, and stand gazing at the strangers with big round eyes, which looked light against the tan of their faces. What a life for young and old to live all the year round, looking out on the grim bare hills; alone with God and Nature, and the dumb, patient animals! Day after day alone, in a little niche between grey rocks; alone in the summer-time, when the winds blew soft, and the buttercups made splashes of gold across the green; alone in the winter, when the mountains seemed to shut out the light, and the snow lay deep on the ground. Margot looked with a shudder at the tall poles set here and there along the road. She had inquired as to their purpose, and had been informed that they were so placed to act as landmarks; for when the drifts lay deep, the ends of the poles served to point out the direction of the road, whereas without their aid the traveller would of a certainty be lost on the moors. Poor little linty-locked ones, imprisoned in the tiny cot in those bitter days! Margot's thoughts flew homeward, to the well-kept roads near her own home; to the grumbling and indignation of the family, if perchance a recent fall of snow had not been swept away as speedily as might be: "The road was thick with mud. Impossible to cross without splashing one's shoes. The snow was left to melt on the pavement--disgraceful!" The Southerner railed at the discomfort of a greasy roadway; the Northerner was thankful to escape death by the aid of a warning pole! Suddenly and unexpectedly the road took a quick swerve to the right, and lo, a narrow glen leading apparently into the very heart of the mountains. Glenaire village at last! A little group of cottages, two whitewashed kirks, a schoolhouse, a post office, a crowded emporium where everything was to be purchased, from a bale of wincey to a red herring or a coil of rope; a baker's shop, sending forth a warm and appetising odour; a smithy, through the open door of which came out a glare of heat, astonishingly welcome after the long, chill drive; bare-footed children playing at tares by the wayside; an old man in a plaid, smoking a pipe and turning on the new arrivals a kindly, weather-beaten face,--these were the impressions left on Margot's mind as the horses put on an extra spurt, knowing full well that rest and food were near at hand. After the little group of houses there came another stretch of road for perhaps three-quarters of a mile; a road which wound along between moorland on the right, and on the left a straggling tarn, thickly surrounded by rushes. The cone-shaped mountain at the head of the glen towered ever nearer and nearer, until it seemed as if it must be impossible to drive a hundred yards farther. Seen in the broad light of a summer afternoon it was wonderfully beautiful; but it was a wild and lonesome spot, and, given cloud or rain, its very grandeur and isolation would increase the sense of gloom. Margot had time to shiver at an imaginary picture before an exclamation from Ron attracted her attention. There it stood! the little white inn, nestled beneath the shelter of a rock, so near to the head of the glen that the road came to an abrupt ending but a few yards farther on. A door in the middle; two small-paned windows on either side; a row of five windows overhead; to the right a garden stocked with vegetables and a tangle of bright-coloured flowers; to the left the stable-yard. This was the Nag's Head, and in the doorway stood the redoubtable Mrs McNab herself, staring with steely eyes at the daring feminine intruder. The one overpowering impression made by Mrs McNab was cleanliness! She was so obtrusively, aggressively, immaculately clean, that the like of her had never before dazzled the eyes of the benighted Southern visitors. Her lilac print gown was glossy from the press of the iron; the hands folded across the snowy apron were puffed and lined from recent parboiling; her face shone like a mirror from a generous use of good yellow soap. White stockings showed above her black felt slippers; her hair--red streaked with grey--was plastered down on each side of her head, and, for greater security, tied with a broad black ribbon. A stiff white collar was fastened by a slab of pebble rimmed in silver, which proudly imagined itself to be an ornamental brooch. There was not a single feminine curve in her body; stiff and square she stood, like a sentinel on guard, her lips pressed into a thin line; in her eyes a smouldering flame. Margot took her in, with one swift comprehensive glance, as the driver reined up his tired horses before the door. A temper; a quick temper, a temper easily provoked, but a kindly woman nevertheless. No country bumpkin, but a shrewd, capable business woman, with two light blue eyes fixed stolidly on the main chance; a woman, moreover, blessed with a sense of humour; else why those deep lines stretching from nose to chin; that radiating nest of wrinkles round the eyes? Margot's courage revived at the sight. She sprang down lightly from her perch and advanced towards the house, smiling in her most fascinating manner. "How do you do, Mrs McNab? We have arrived, you see. So glad to be here at last!" The mistress of the inn stared into her face, stolidly unmoved. "It was two brithers I was expecting. I'm no caring for leddies!" "You like gentlemen better? Oh, so do I--_Much_!" cried Margot with a gush. "But they need us to look after them, don't they? My brother is not at all strong. The drive has been delightful, but rather cold, all the same. I am afraid he may be chilled." She stretched out a little ungloved hand, and laid it lightly on the hard red fist. "Feel! We _should_ love some tea!" Mrs McNab looked down at the delicate little hand, up into the pleading eyes, and over her set square face there passed a contortion,--there is really no other word to describe it,--a contortion of unwilling amusement. The chin dropped, the lips twitched, the red lines which did duty for eyebrows wrinkled towards the nose. Similarly affected, an Irishwoman would have invoked all the saints in her calendar, and rained welcomes and blessings in a breath; an Englishwoman would have smiled a gracious welcome; but Mrs McNab drew away from the beguiling touch, turned a broad back on her guests, and with a curt "Come yer ways!" led the way into the house. Behind her back Margot beamed and grimaced triumphantly to her confederate. Victory was in the air! Mrs McNab could not refuse to grant a night's shelter to a tired and chilly traveller, and by to- morrow--Margot smiled to herself, recalling the contortion of the dour Scotch face,--by to-morrow she was complacently satisfied that Mrs McNab would no longer wish to be rid of her unexpected guest! CHAPTER NINE. THE BROTHERS ELGOOD. Inside the inn a mingling of odours greeted the nostrils. Furniture polish, soft soap, various whiffs from the bar, which by good fortune opened into the stable-yard, and was distinct from the house itself; a sweet, heavy odour of milk from the dairy; a smell of musk from the plants ranged along the window-sills. In the dining-room the tablecloth was laid, with a large home-cured ham in the place of honour. The floor was covered with oilcloth; the furniture was covered with horsehair. On the mantelpiece stood two large specimens of granite, and a last year's almanac. Red rep curtains were draped across the window, so as to conceal all the view except a glimpse of the road. The walls were hung with a fearsome paper, in which bouquets of deep blue flowers were grouped on a background of lozenges of an orange hue. Over the mantelpiece hung a coloured print of Queen Victoria; over the sideboard a print entitled "Deerstalking," representing two Highlanders in plaids and bonnets standing over the prostrate form of a "monarch of the waste." In the corner by the window were massed together quite an imposing collection of "burial cards," memorialising McNab connections dead and gone, all framed to match in black bands with silver beadings. Anything less homelike and inviting can hardly be imagined to welcome tired travellers at the end of a long and chilly journey. Margot shivered as she crossed the portals, and rubbed her hands together in disconsolate fashion, even her cheery optimism failing at the sight. "It's so--_slippery_!" was the mental comment. "What an appalling room to sit in! What must it be like in bad weather! And no fire! We'd die of cold if we sat here all the evening. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll hug my hot bottle. What a mercy I remembered to bring it!" Mrs McNab was speaking in hard, aloof accents, after the manner of one who, having been interrupted in her work by unwelcome intruders, is still determined to perform her duty toward them, as a matter of distasteful necessity. Shades of the obsequious landladies of the South! The tired guests quailed before the severity of this Northern welcome. "If it's tea you're wanting, the kettle's on the hob. It will be waiting for you before ye're ready for it. Ye'll be wanting a wash, I'm thinking." It was a statement, not a question, and, in response to it, brother and sister meekly ascended the staircase to the rooms allotted to their use in the front of the house--two whitewashed cribs, provided with nothing which was not absolutely necessary; a small, white-covered bed; a wooden chest of drawers, made to do duty for a dressing-table also, by the presence of a small mirror set fair and square in the middle of a coarse-grained mat; a few pegs on the wall, a deal washstand, and a couple of chairs--that was all; but everything was exquisitely clean and orderly, and what did one want with luxurious upholstery when a peep through the open windows revealed a view which sent the blood racing through the veins in very ecstasy of delight? Purple mountains and a blue sky; golden yellow of gorse--a silver sheet of water, reflecting the dark fringe of the pines--it was wonderfully, incredibly beautiful in the clear afternoon light. Margot thrust her head out of the window, forgetful of cold and fatigue. What joy to think of waking up every morning for a month to a scene like this! Thirty mornings, and on every one of them the sun would shine, and the air blow clear and sweet. She would put on her thick, nailed boots, and clamber up the glen, to see what lay at the other side of the pass; she would take her sketching materials, and sit on that sunny knoll, trying to make some sort of a picture to send home to the poor father in his smoky prison-house. On hot days she would wade in the cool grey tarn... The little maid was knocking at the door, and announcing that tea was ready, while Margot was still weaving her rose-coloured dreams. It was a cold douche in more ways than one, to return to the depressing atmosphere of the dining-room, but the meal itself was tempting and plentiful. Scones and toast, eggs and strawberry-jam, besides the solid flank of ham, and, better than all, plenty of delicious cream and fresh butter. Margot poured out tea for herself and Ron, and, taking the hot-water-jug on her knee, warmed her numbed hands on it as she ate. For the first five or ten minutes no time was wasted in talking; then, the first pangs of hunger being appeased, the two young people began to compare impressions. "Do you suppose this is the only sitting-room? Do you suppose we shall have to sit here in the evenings and when it rains? Fancy a long wet day, Ron, shining on horsehair chairs, with your feet on an oil-clothed floor, gazing at funeral cards! I should go to bed!" "It wouldn't be a bad idea. Rest cure, you know! If we are very energetic in fine weather, we may be glad of a rest; but there _is_ another room. I caught sight of a sanctuary filled with woollen mats and wax flowers, with a real live piano in the corner. `The best parlour,' I should say, and the pride of Mrs McNab's heart. I don't know if she will allow you to enter." "She will; but she won't have a fire. It has been spring-cleaned, and has a waterfall of green paper in the grate--I can see it all!" Margot declared, with a shudder. She hugged the hot-water-jug still closer, and shivered expressively. "I shall be obliged to raid the kitchen-- there's nothing else for it!" "You daren't!" Margot laughed derisively, but her answer was checked by the sudden appearance of a man's figure pacing slowly past the window. Brother and sister sprang from their chairs, with a simultaneous impulse, rushed across the room, and crouched behind the moreen curtains. "Is it?" they queried breathlessly of each other--"Mr Elgood? Can it be?" If it were Mr Elgood, he was certainly not imposing, so far as looks were concerned. A dumpy little man, of forty years or more, dressed in a baggy suit of grey tweed, with carpet slippers on his dumpy little feet. He had evidently started out of the inn to enjoy a smoke in the open air, sublimely unconscious of the scrutiny that was levelled upon him the while. His uncovered head showed a large bald patch, his face was round and of a cherubic serenity. "I could twist him round like a teetotum!" whispered Margot, holding up a pert first finger and peering complacently. "He looks terribly commonplace!" sighed Ronald disconsolately. "Not in the least the sort of man I expected." Together they peered and peeped, ducking behind the curtains as the stranger approached, and gazing out again the moment his back was turned. Every now and then he halted in his promenade, stuck his hands inside his baggy pockets, and tilted slowly to and fro on the points of his carpeted toes. Anon he took his pipe from his mouth, and blew out big whiffs of smoke, glancing around the while with an expression of beatific contentment. The whole appearance of the man was an embodiment of the holiday spirit, the unrestrained enjoyment of one who has escaped from work, and sees before him a pageant of golden idle hours. Margot and Ronald smiled in sympathy even as they looked. He was a plain little man, a fat little man, a middle-aged little man, but they recognised in him the spirit of abiding youth, and recognising, felt their hearts warm towards him. "He is nice, Ron, after all! I like him!" "So do I. A capital chap. But he can't possibly be Elgood of the _Loadstar_." Even as he spoke the last word the door was thrown suddenly open, and Mrs McNab entered, carrying a plate of hot scones. She stopped short to stare in surprise, while the two new arrivals hurried back to the table, obviously discomposed at being discovered playing the part of Peeping Tom. Seated once more before the tea-tray, Margot made an effort at composure; decided that honesty was the best policy, and said in her most charming manner-- "We were looking at the gentleman who is walking up and down! Another of your guests, I suppose? It is interesting to see people who are staying in the same house." Mrs McNab planted the scones in the centre of the table, and gathered together the soiled plates with a wooden stolidity. To all appearances she might not have heard a word that had been said. Margot seized the hot-water-jug, and shivered ostentatiously, trusting to pity to prevail where guile had failed; and sure enough the pale blue eye turned on her like a flash of steel. "What's ailing ye with the water-jug?" "I'm ailing myself!" returned Margot meekly. "So cold! I can't get warm. Tired out after the long journey." She tried her best to look delicate and fragile, but the healthy bloom on her cheeks contradicted her words, and the landlady's reply showed no softening of heart. "Cramped, more like! Better go ye're ways for a guid sharp trot, to bring the blood back to your veins. Ye'll be in time for the afternoon's post; but unless ye're expecting news of your own, ye needna fash for the rest. Mr Elgood's gane to fetch them." "Mr Elgood?" Information had come at last, and in the most unexpected fashion. "The gentleman we have been watching?" The thin lips lifted with a suspicion of scorn. "Oh, him! That's just the brither. The real Mr Elgood's away till the village. You passed it on the road." She disappeared into the "lobby," and brother and sister nodded at each other solemnly, the while they munched the hot buttered scones. "We'll go! As soon as we have finished. I long to see what he is like. I'm glad it is not--" Margot nodded towards the window, and Ron assented with a lofty superiority-- "Yes--he is not the type! A good sort, no doubt, but hardly an intellectual leader. One could not imagine him writing those grand articles." "He may be useful, though, for he looks a friendly little soul, and if we get intimate with him we must know his brother, too... These scones are the most delectable things! Do you think She will be shocked if we eat them all? I feel a conviction that I shall get into the way of calling her `She'--with a capital S. `She who must be obeyed!' I thought She would be softened by the sight of me hugging the jug, and offer to light a fire at once; but not a bit of it! Her cure was much more drastic. I'll accept it this time, as it suits my purpose, but when to-morrow comes,--we'll see!" Margot nodded her head meaningly, pushed her chair back from the table, and picked up the golf cape which lay over the back of a chair. "After all, I believe `She' is right! It will do us good to have a scamper, and the unpacking can wait until the light goes." She peered discreetly through the window, and held up a detaining hand. "Wait a moment until the `Brither' has turned back towards the village. Then we'll sally out of the door and meet him face to face." Ron picked up his grey cap,--a coat he disdained, though he also was far from warm,--and followed his sister into the bare entrance-hall, with its pungent mingling of odours. From the back of the house could be heard the jangling of milk-pails, and a feminine voice raised in shrill invective; but no one was in sight, and the conspirators emerged unseen from the door of the inn, and turned to the left, endeavouring somewhat unsuccessfully to appear unconscious of the approaching figure. "Good afternoon! Good afternoon!" cried the stranger, in a full genial voice. "Good afternoon!" cried the confederates, in eager response; then they passed by, and were conscious, by the cessation of the crunching footsteps, that the "Brither" had halted to look after them as they went. "He likes our looks! He is going to be friendly... I don't wonder!" soliloquised Margot, looking with fond eyes at the tall figure of the youth by her side; at the clean-cut, sensitive face beneath the deerstalker cap. "He was pleased to see us. All men admire Margot," said Ron to himself, noting with an artist's appreciation the picture made by the graceful figure of the girl, with her vivid, healthful colouring, the little cap set jauntily on her chestnut locks, the breeze showing glimpses of the bright tartan lining of her cloak. Starting under such promising auspices, brother and sister merrily continued their way along the winding road which skirted the border of the tarn. Fresh from London smoke and grime, the clear mountain air tasted almost incredibly pure and fresh. One wanted to open the mouth wide and drink it in in deep gulps; to send it down to the poor clogged lungs,--most marvellous and reviving of tonics! "It makes me feel--_clean_!" gasped Margot, at the end of a deep respiration, and Ron's eyes lighted with the inward glow which showed that imagination was perfecting the idea. Margot loved to watch the lad at moments like these, when he strode along, forgetful of her presence, oblivious of everything but his own thoughts; his face set, save for those glowing eyes, and now and then an involuntary twitch of the lips. In her own poor way she could grasp the trend of his mind, could toil after him as he flew. That word "clean" had suggested wonderful thoughts. God's wind, blowing fresh over the ageless hills, untainted by the soil of the city; the wind of the moorland and the heights! Must not a man's soul perforce be clean who lived alone in the solitude with God? Dare he remain alone in that awful companionship with a taint upon his life?... Ronald dreamt, and Margot pondered, making no excuses for the silence which is a sign of truest understanding, until the scattered village came in sight, and curiosity awakened once more. "Why did they have two churches, I wonder? There can't be enough people to fill even one, and every one is Presbyterian in the Highlands. Why don't they all meet together?" cried Margot, in her ignorance. At the door of the outlying cottages the fair-haired matrons stood to stare at the new arrivals. They all seemed fresh and rosy, and of an exquisite cleanliness; they each bore a linty-haired infant in their arms, or held by the hand a toddling mite of two or three summers; but they made no sign of welcome, and, when Margot smiled and nodded in her friendly fashion, either retreated hastily into the shadow, or responded in a manner painfully suggestive of Mrs McNab's contortion. Then came the scattered shops; the baker's, the draper's, (fancy being condemned to purchase your whole wardrobe in that dreary little cell!) the grocer and general emporium in the middle of the row; last of all, the post office and stationer's shop combined. Brother and sister cast a swift glance down the road, but there was no male figure in sight which could by any possibility belong to a visitor from the South. "You go in, and I'll mount guard at the door. Buy some postcards to send home!" suggested Ron; and, nothing loath, Margot entered the little shop, glancing round with a curious air. There was no other customer but herself; but a queer little figure of a man stood behind the counter, sorting packets of stationery. He turned his head at her approach, and displayed a face thickly powdered with freckles of extraordinary size and darkness. Margot was irresistibly reminded of an advertisement of "The Spotted Man," which she had once seen in a travelling circus, and had some ado to restrain a start of surprise. The eyes looking out between the hairless lids, looked like nothing so much as a pair of larger and more animated freckles, and the hair was of the same washed--out brown. Whether the curious-looking specimen was fourteen or forty was at first sight a problem to decide, but a closer inspection proved the latter age to be the more likely, and when Margot smiled and wished him a cheery good afternoon, he responded with unusual cordiality for an inhabitant of the glen. "Good efternoun to ye, mem! What may ye be seeking, the day?" Margot took refuge in the picture postcards, which afforded a good excuse for deliberation. The great object was to dally in the post office as long as possible, in the hope of meeting the real Mr Elgood; and to this end she turned over several packets of views, making the while many inquiries; and the spotted man was delighted to expatiate on the beauties of his native land, the more so, as, presumably, it was not often that so lavish a purchaser came his way. They were in the middle of the fourth packet of views, and the selected pile of cards had reached quite a formidable height, when a familiar whistle from the doorway started Margot into vivid attention, and a minute later a tall dark man stepped hastily into the shop. What a marvellous thing is family likeness! In height, in complexion, and feature alike this man appeared diametrically the opposite of the stout little person encountered outside the inn; yet in his thin, cadaverous face there was an intangible something which marked him out as a child of the same parents. The brother on whom Margot was now gazing was considerably the younger of the two, and might have been handsome, given a trifle more flesh and animation. As it was, he looked gaunt and livid, and his shoulders were rounded, as with much stooping over a scholar's desk. "A fine big bundle for ye the day, Mister Elgood! I'm thinking the whole of London is coming down upon ye," the postmaster declared affably, as he handed over a formidable packet of letters. Envelopes white and envelopes blue, long manuscript envelopes, which Margot recognised with a reminiscent pang; rolled-up bundles of papers. The stranger took them over with a thin hand, thrust them into the pockets of his coat, with a muttered word of acknowledgment, and turned back to the door. Now for the first time Margot stood directly in his path, and waited with a thrill of curiosity and excitement to see whether he would echo his brother's welcome. In this Highland glen the ordinary forms and ceremonies of society were hopelessly out of place, and it seemed as if perforce there must be an atmosphere of _camaraderie_ between the few visitors whom Fate had thrown together in the spirit of holiday-making. Margot's prettiest smile and bow were in waiting to greet the faintest flicker of animation on the grave, dark face, but it did not come. Mr Elgood's deep-set eyes stared at her with an unseeing gaze--stared as it were straight through her, without being conscious of her presence. She might have been a chair, a table, a post of wood by the wayside, for all the notice bestowed upon her by the man whose favour she had travelled some hundreds of miles to obtain. Another moment and he had left the shop, leaving Margot to draw out her purse and pay for her purchases in a tingling of pique and disappointment. "That gentleman will be staying up at the Nag's Head with yourself," vouchsafed the spotted postmaster affably. "A fine gentleman--a ferry fine gentleman! They say he will be a ferry great man up in London. I suppose you will be hearing of his name?" Margot's response was somewhat depressed in tone. "Yes. She had heard of Mr Elgood... She would take four, not five, postcards of the Nag's Head. No; there was nothing else she was needing. The two penny packets of notepaper were certainly very cheap, the coloured tints and scalloped borders quite wonderful to behold; but she did not require any to-day, thank you. Perhaps another time. Good morning!" Outside in the road Ronald was pacing up and down, twirling his stick, and looking bright and animated. He came hurrying back to meet Margot, hardly waiting to reach her side before breaking into speech. "Well--well! You saw him? Did you notice the shape of his head? You can see it all in his face--the force and the insight, the imagination. The face of a scholar, and the body of a sportsman, A magnificent combination! Did you notice his walk?" "Oh, I noticed him well enough. I noticed all there was to see. I have no complaints to make about his appearance." "What have you to complain of then? What has gone wrong?" "He never noticed me!" Ron laughed; a loud boyish laugh of amusement! "Poor old Margot! That was it, was it? An unforgivable offence. He lives up in the clouds, my dear; compared with him, you and I are miserable little earth-worms crawling about the ground. It will take some time before he is even aware of our presence. We will have to make friends with the brother, and trust by degrees to make him conscious of our existence. It's worth waiting for!" Ronald was plainly afire with enthusiastic admiration of his hero; but for once Margot refused to be infected. "I'm not a worm!" she murmured resentfully. "Worm, indeed! I'm every bit as good as he!" For twenty yards she walked on in silence, tilting her chin in petulant scorn. Then-- "Do you remember the old story of Johnny-head-in-air, Ron?" she asked mischievously. "He had a fall. A fall and a dousing! If he isn't very careful, the same sad fate may await your wonderful Mr Elgood!" CHAPTER TEN. AN EXCELLENT BEGINNING. Dinner was served at seven o'clock at the Nag's Head, and was a substantial meal, consisting of spiced salt beef, gooseberry pie, and cheese. Mrs McNab carved the joint at the sideboard, and directed the movements of the maid by a series of glares which appeared to be fraught with wondrous significance. "Brither Elgood" took the head of the table, and beamed upon his companions with cherubic good-nature, while his brother sat on his left, immersed in thought and his dinner. An elderly man with a strong Glasgow accent came next, accompanied by a homely, kindly-looking wife. (Margot sighed with relief to find that after all she was not the only lady of the company). Across from them sat a bowed old man, wearing a clerical collar with his tweed coat, and a thin, weedy-looking youth, evidently his son. An eminently staid and respectable company, but hardly of thrilling interest! Ronald's handsome, clear-cut face stood out like a cameo among them, while Margot's fluffy net blouse looked a garment of superfine smartness. There was no opportunity of talking to either of the brothers Elgood, separated as they were by the length of the table. The clergyman, Mr Moffat, remarked that it had been a fine day, an ex- ceptionally fine day! Mrs Macalister, the Glasgow lady, handed the mustard with the suggestion that it was always an improvement to a boiled round; but with these thrilling exceptions the newcomers were left to their own devices. Conversation even among the older residents was spasmodic and intermittent, and in no sense could the meal be termed sociable or cheerful. As soon as it was over "the real Mr Elgood" darted upstairs to his own room, the remaining gentlemen strolled out of doors to smoke their pipes, and Mrs Macalister escorted Margot to the best parlour across the landing. It was a chill, yet fusty little apartment, the shrine of the accumulated treasures of Mrs McNab's lifetime. Time was when she had been cook to a family in Edinburgh, before McNab won her reluctant consent to matrimony. Photographs of different members of "The Family" were displayed in plush frames on the mantelpiece, table, and piano-top. Mr Moncrieff in Sheriff's attire, "The Mistress" in black satin; Master Percy in cap and gown, Miss Isabel reclining in a hammock, Master Bunting and Miss Poppet in various stages of development. There was also a framed picture of "The House"; a tambourine painted with purple iris by Miss Isabel's own hands; an old bannerette in cross-stitch pendent from the mantelpiece, a collection of paper mats, shaded from orange to white, the glass-covered vase of wax flowers which had attracted Ron's notice, one or two cheap china vases, a pot of musk placed diametrically in the centre of a wicker table, a sofa, and two "occasional chairs" gorgeously upholstered in red satin and green plush. Mrs Macalister seated herself in the larger of the chairs, Margot took possession of the smaller, and heroically stifled a yawn. Another evening she would wrap herself in her golf cape and go out into the clear cool evening air; but now at last fatigue overpowered her; fatigue and a little chill of disappointment and doubt. How would it be possible to become intimate with a man who sat at the opposite end of the table, shut himself in his own room, and was apparently oblivious of his surroundings? With characteristic recklessness Margot had put on her very prettiest blouse, hoping to make a good impression on this first evening, but for all the attention it had received it might as well have been black delaine! She sighed and yawned again, whereupon Mrs Macalister manifested a kindly concern. "You're tired out, poor lassie! Ye've had a weary journey of it. From London, I believe? I have a daughter married in Notting Hill. Will that be anywhere near where you stay? I'm hoping she'll be up to visit us in the New Year, and bring the baby with her. I have five children. The eldest girl is settled in Glasgow. I say, that's something to be thankful for, to have a married daughter near by. There was a young lawyer paying her attention who's away to the Cape. If it had been him, I'd have broken my heart! It's bad enough to have Lizzie in London, where, if the worst comes to the worst, ye can get to her for thirty- three shillings, but I couldn't bear one of my girls to go abroad..." "But the men have to go--it's their duty to the Empire; and somebody must marry the poor things," Margot declared, still stifling yawns, but roused to a sleepy interest in Lizzie and her sisters. She foresaw that Mrs Macalister would need but the slightest encouragement to divulge her entire family history, and wondered whether time would prove her to be more of a solace or a bore. As a rule, she herself preferred to monopolise the larger share of a conversation, but to-night she was too tired to do more than offer the necessary remarks by the way. "Oh ay, that's right enough. I don't object to their marrying, so long as it isn't one of my girls. I sent Isabel off on a visit to a school friend when young Bailey began to grow particular. A mother can manage these things, if she's any gumption, without letting the young people suspect that there is any interference. They like their own way, young people do, and Isabel is obstinate, like her father. Mr Macalister can be led, but he'll never be driven. Ye have to ca' canny to get the better of him." Margot murmured a few words of polite but somewhat vague import, being rather puzzled to decide in what light she was expected to view Mr Macalister's characteristics. It occurred to her that as the good lady was determined to talk, the conversation might be carefully directed into more interesting channels, and valuable information gleaned concerning the other guests of the house. "Have you been staying here long? Are you going to make a long visit?" she inquired; whereupon her companion began again with increased vigour. "We've been a matter of a week, and as for the future, it just depends! Mr Macalister's been failing for the past year. He's just unduly set on his business, and his nerves," (she pronounced it "nearves") "are in a terrible condition. The doctor warned him he would have a collapse if he didn't get a rest at once. `Take him away where he can't get letters and telegrams every hour of the day,' he told me. `Take him to the quietest place you can find, and keep him there as long as ye can!' So here we are; but how long he'll put up with it, is past my knowledge. He begins to weary already, and of course no man will ever believe that any one else will take his place. They're conceited creatures, my dear. Mr Macalister--" "It is nice for him having so many companions. I suppose you know the other visitors quite well?" Margot felt that for one evening she had heard as much as she cared for about Mr Macalister, and headed the subject in the desired direction with unflinching determination. "The Mr Elgood who took the head of the table seems very agreeable." "Oh ay, he's a friendly wee body!" Mrs Macalister allowed, patronisingly. "There's no harm in him, nor in his brother neither, though he keeps himself to himself, and is always busy with his fishing, or writing, or what not. My husband went fishing with him one day, but they didn't seem to hit it exactly. Mr Macalister is very genial-like when he's in health, and he can't do with any one who's stand-off. He always says--" "But Mrs McNab seems to prefer the younger brother. He must be nice, or she would not like him so much," interrupted Margot once more; and Mrs Macalister smiled with unruffled good-humour. "Oh ay, they're just two dour, silent bodies who understand each other and each other's ways. He goes and has a crack with her now and then, and I've even heard them laugh,"--her voice took an awed and incredulous tone--"but at the table he never raises his voice. Mr Macalister says he is very close. He couldn't get anything out of him at all, and all his friends say Mr Macalister ought to have been a lawyer, for he's just wonderful for getting to the bottom of things. Of course when a man's run down, he isna at his best. Ye can't judge him, as I say, as you can when he's in his usual--" Margot groaned in spirit! To keep Mr Macalister out of the conversation was evidently a hopeless feat. She saw before her a long succession of interviews when she would sit caged up in this little room, listening to the expressions of his virtues and failings! To- night she felt a moral conviction that she would soon fall asleep under the strain, and making an excuse of writing home, escaped to her own room, scribbled a few words on the back of a postcard, wrapped herself in her golf cape, and went out into the road in search of Ron. It was still broad daylight, but now the sky was grey and colourless, and the mountains had ceased to smile. Like grim watching sentinels they stood on either side, closing in the Glen in a solitude that was almost awesome to behold. It seemed impossible to believe that twenty- four hours earlier one had been in the great city, and had considered Regent's Park countrified! Margot hurried forward to meet Ron, who was strolling along by himself, the other men of the party being out of sight. He looked at her with some anxiety, as she approached, and asked an eager question-- "What's the matter? Aren't you well? I thought you were not coming out. You look quite white!" "I'm cold and tired, and--scarey! The beauty seems to have disappeared, and it's all so grim and grey. I made an excuse and came out to you with a card to post--but we needn't take it to-night, it's too far to the village." "Nonsense! the walk is just what you need. You are tired with sitting still, and a sharp trot will warm you up, and help you to sleep. Come along. I'll give you a start to the bend of the road, and race you to the nearest tree." Margot was not in the least in the mood for running races, but as a means of getting warm it was not to be despised, so she started promptly, running with swift, easy steps, and gradually quickening pace, as Ron gained upon her from the rear. She had not been educated at a girls' public school and been captain of the sports committee for nothing, and, given a short handicap, could often come off best. As the following footsteps grew nearer and nearer she spurted bravely forward, the ends of her cape streaming wildly in the breeze, her uncovered hair ruffled into curling ends. The tree was but a few yards distant; she was laughing and panting, dodging from right and left, to prevent Ron from passing by from behind, when round a bend in the road a figure appeared directly in her path, the figure of Brither Elgood himself, his round eyes bulging with surprise and curiosity. He came to an abrupt standstill in the middle of the road, and the racers followed his example, looking, if the truth were told, a trifle abashed to be discovered in so childish an amusement. "Halloa! What is the matter? Is the Inn on fire?" Margot laughed merrily. The voice, the tone, the manner, were those of a friend of a lifetime, rather than an acquaintance of an hour. It was impossible to answer formally; moreover, the humour of the idea made its appeal. "No, indeed! On ice, more likely! We were so cold that a race seemed the only chance of getting warm! I hope we didn't startle you too much!" "I like being startled," returned Mr Elgood complacently. He stood still, swinging his cane, looking from brother to sister with bright, approving eyes. "I was afraid you were feeling tired after your journey, but evidently you have not yet reached the age of fatigue. That's right! Thats quite right! I am glad that you have joined us at the Nag's Head. We are a respectable and harmonious party, but we need life--young life! We may weary _you_, but you will refresh and enliven us. In the name of our little company, I welcome you to the Glen?" "Thank you, sir," said Ron simply, while Margot, as usual, hastened to amplify his words. "I hope we shall be friends. I hope we shall all be friends. I was dreadfully tired really, but I felt worse staying in the house, and in that little parlour after dinner I nearly fell asleep." Mr Elgood's eyes lit up with a flash of humour. "But when a man's out of health you canna judge him! When he's in his usual, Mr Macalister's a verra interesting character!" he said solemnly. Then, meeting Margot's start and smile, he began to laugh again, and to shake in his happy, jelly-like fashion. "Ah--ha, I know! I guessed what was in store for you, as I saw you led away. She's a good woman that; a good, kind, womanly woman. Her devotion does her credit. When you and I get a wife, sir, we shall do well if we find one half so loyal and devoted." He looked at Ron as he spoke, bringing his eyebrows together in a quick, scrutinising glance; but Ron's face was blank and unresponsive. Enshrined in his heart was a dim figure, half goddess, half fairy, a creature of thistledown, of snow, of blossom tossed before the wind; a lovely illusive vision who in due time was to appear and complete his life. It was a violation of the shrine to suggest a Mrs Macalister! He stood still, his brows knitted, his lips pressed together in a thin, warning line. Margot was impatient at his lack of response, but all the same he looked wonderfully handsome and interesting, and she could see that Mr Elgood regarded him with awakened interest, conscious that here was a character cut out of a pattern of its own, not made in the same mould as the vast majority of his fellows. They turned and walked together along the winding road. Evidently friendship progressed quickly in this quiet glen, and guests living beneath the same roof accepted each other in simple, natural fashion, as members of a common household. Margot felt a sense of protection in the presence of this little man, so much older than herself, so friendly, so absolutely unsentimental in manner. His head was on a level with her own, and she read a frank admiration in his eyes, but it was an admiration of which Agnes herself could not have disapproved. He was the kind of man one would have chosen for an uncle--an indulgent bachelor uncle with plenty of money, and a partiality for standing treat! "Tell me about the people in the Inn! I am always so interested in people!" she cried eagerly. "My brother likes other things better-- books and pictures and mountains--but I like the living things best. I know a good deal about Mr Macalister's health, and about Lizzie, and Isabel, and their husbands and babies, and their lovers before they were married. They come from Glasgow--and the old clergyman is Scotch too, I suppose. Is every one Scotch except ourselves and you? We come from London--" Mr Elgood's face shadowed quickly. "Yes! but don't mention it. Never mention it!" he cried quickly. "I live there, too, or as nearly live as is possible in the surroundings. Now for three or four weeks I've escaped, and my one endeavour is to forget that such a place exists. I ask every one as a favour never to mention as much as the name in my hearing. You'll remember, won't you, and be good enough to indulge me? For the moment Miss--Miss Vane, I am a Heelander, born and bred, a strapping young chieftain of five-and- twenty. The Elgood of Elgood, an it please you, in bonnet and kilt, and my foot is on my native heather!" He tilted his cap on one side, and threw a swagger into his walk, cleverly remindful of the swirl of tartan skirts, then turning upon Margot, queried quickly-- "Why do you laugh? It's rude to laugh! Is it so impossible to think of me in the character?" "I laugh because I'm pleased," Margot answered, truthfully enough. "I do love to pretend! Let's bury London and our lives there, and pretend that we are _all_ Highlanders! We will be your guests up in your mountain fastness, and you will take us about, and show us the scenes of your historic feuds with neighbouring clans, and we will swear to help you, if any new trouble should arise!" "Right oh!" cried Mr Elgood, laughing. "I shall be only too proud. I'm a sociable beggar--during holiday time--and want to do nothing but smoke and talk. To talk nonsense, of course. Nothing dull or improving." He cast a sudden, suspicious look at the girl's face. "You are not clever by any chance, are you? I can't stand cleverness in the country." Margot laughed gaily. "I think I am--rather!" she declared audaciously. "I couldn't confess to being stupid, even to please a Highland chief, but it's in a very feminine way. I don't know anything about politics or science, and I've forgotten almost all that I learnt at school, but I take an interest in things, and understand people pretty well. I am generally clever enough to get my own way!" She laughed again, remembering the purpose of the moment, and its close connection with this newly-made acquaintance. Instinctively she turned towards Ron, and the two pairs of brown eyes met, and flashed a message of mischief, affection, and secret understanding--a glance which made the watcher sigh with a sudden realisation of his own lost youth, his bald head, and increasing bulk. They were only a pair of children, these newcomers; kindly, affectionate, light-hearted children, whose companionship would be a tonic to a lonely, tired man. The broad cherubic countenance showed a passing shadow of wistfulness, as he slacked his pace and said in hesitating tones-- "I am afraid I have tacked myself on to you, without waiting for an invitation. I will say good evening now, unless I can act as guide, or help you in any way. Have you any special object in your walk?" "Only the post office in the village. Do please come with us if you will! We should be delighted to have you!" cried Margot eagerly; and Ron looked down into the little man's face with his beautiful dreamy eyes, and said simply, "Please come, sir," with a sincerity which there was no denying. Mr Elgood beamed with satisfaction. "Come awa, then, ma bonnie men!" he cried jauntily, and waved his stick in the air. For the very first evening Margot could not help thinking that they had made an excellent beginning! CHAPTER ELEVEN. AN AWKWARD MEETING. Being a prudent damsel, and wise in her day and generation, Margot set before herself the subjugation of Mrs McNab as her first duty in Glenaire. To this end she repaired to her bedroom after breakfast on the morning after her arrival, made her bed, carefully put away every article of clothing, and tidied the oddments on the dressing-table; went through the same performance in Ron's little crib adjoining her own, and sailed downstairs in a glow of virtuous satisfaction. Mrs McNab had apparently only one maid to help her to attend to her eight guests and to keep the inn in its present condition of immaculate order and cleanliness, though a shaggy-headed man--presumably the master of the house--could be seen through the staircase window, meekly brushing boots, and cleaning knives in a corner of the flagged yard. He had a small, wizened face, to which the unkempt hair, tufted eyebrows, and straggling whiskers gave a strong resemblance to a Skye terrier dog. Margot watched him now and then for a minute or two as she passed up and down, and heard him speaking once or twice, but he "had the Gaelic," and the sing-song voice and mysterious words sounded weirdly in her ears. Sometimes, as he put the final polish on the boots, he would break into song,--a strange, tuneless song which quavered up and down, and ended on long-sustained notes. Once even she saw the slippered feet move in jaunty dance-step to and fro, but at the sound of a clatter of saucepans from the kitchen close at hand he retired into his corner, and polished with redoubled energy. Mrs McNab evidently kept her husband in order, even as she did her house! Elspeth, the maid, was a girl of eighteen or twenty, with a thin figure encased in a lavender print gown, and flaxen hair pulled so tightly back from her forehead that her eyebrows seemed to be permanently elevated by the process. Her face shone from the effects of constant soaping, and was absolutely void of expression. From morn till night she rushed breathlessly from one duty to another, rated continuously by Mrs McNab's strident voice, with never so much as a bleat of protest. When waiting at table, she snored loudly from nervousness, and the big red fist trembled as she carried the dishes to and fro, but her face remained blankly expressionless as before. Margot smiled at her radiantly every time that they met, and mentally decided to bequeath to her half her own wardrobe before leaving the Glen. In comparison with such a lot of drudgery, her own life seemed inexcusably idle and self- indulgent! It took a considerable amount of courage to beard in her own den a woman of whom the members of her own household stood in such evident awe, but there was at least no nervousness apparent in Margot's manner as she tapped at the kitchen door at eleven o'clock that first morning, and thrust her pretty face round the opening to request permission to enter. Mrs McNab had descended from her work upstairs, and surely her heart must be softened by the spectacle of those two immaculately tidy rooms! "Mrs McNab, I'm cold! May I come in and warm myself by your fire?" The mistress of the inn turned a stonily surprised face from the table, before which she stood chopping suet with a short-handled knife; she did not suspend her work, but simply heightened her voice to make it heard above the harsh, monotonous noise. "Cold, are ye? Havers! It's a fine June day. There's no call for any one to feel cold, if they don't sit about idling away their time. Put on yer cloak, and go a turn down the Glen!" Margot suppressed a thrill of indignation at that accusation of idleness. Had she not made two whole beds, and even stooped to pick stray pins off the carpet? She pushed the door open and walked boldly forward. "I'll go out as soon as I'm warm. If I caught a chill, I should give a lot of trouble, and you have enough to do without fussing over me. I know you would be a good nurse, Mrs McNab--good housekeepers always are. I know without being told that you have a cupboard chock full of medicines and mixtures, and plasters and liniments, and neat little rolls of lint and oilskins. Is it this one?" She laid her hand on a closed door, drawing the while nearer and nearer to the fire. "What a perfectly beautiful oak chest! That's genuine! One can see it at a glance. The lovely elbow-grease polish can never be imitated. So different from the faked-up, over-carved things glittering with varnish that one sees so often nowadays. What a shame to keep it hidden away in the kitchen!" Mrs McNab pounded stolidly away at the suet. "I dinna ken where the shame can be!" she responded drily. "It's my own chest, and my mither's before me, and it's a pity if I mayna keep it where it pleases meself. There's no call that I know of to turn out my things, so that ither folks can have the fun of staring at them!" Mrs McNab's manner was certainly the reverse of gracious, but, remembering the momentary softening of the grim face which she had witnessed the night before, Margot was determined not to be easily discouraged. Having gone so far, one could not retreat without irrevocably burning one's boats. Now or never victory must be wrested from the enemy! With a charming little air of domesticity she seated herself upon the polished fender-stool at the side of the open grate, catching up her skirt so that it should not be caught by the blaze, and smiling across the room in her most confiding fashion. "Please let me stay, Mrs McNab! It's such a lovely cosy kitchen, and my brother is out, and I feel so lost! Couldn't I do something to help? Are those gooseberries in that basket? Do they need picking? I can't cook, but I can pick gooseberries with any man living. Do let me! You said I was idling away my time. Give me a chance to work!" Mrs McNab grunted sourly. "There's no call for you to do anything of the sort. I never was one to take work upon myself that I couldna perform. The girl would have picked them before now, if she didna go about making more work than she gets through. She can do them when she gets downstairs!" Poor, struggling, machine-like Elspeth! Margot felt a pang of pity for her unappreciated efforts, and the determination to spare her one task at least brought with it renewed courage. "Let me do them as a pleasure to myself! I should feel so proud when the pie came to table, if I had helped to prepare it, and it would be an excuse to sit by this lovely fire. Please?" "Kitchen work is no for the likes of you. Ye wouldna like it if ye soiled yer fine new gown!" "If I asked you very nicely, perhaps you would lend me an apron!" Mrs McNab threw down her chopper, and turned to wipe her hands on a roller towel. Perhaps she had come to the conclusion that as a pure saving of time it would be wise to give in without further demur; perhaps the twinkling appeal of the brown eyes touched a vulnerable spot in her heart; perhaps the service itself was of some value at the moment. Margot did not concern herself as to causes, but was content to realise that she had won the victory. She meekly allowed herself to be tied into a coarse white apron, and set to work on the big basket of berries with nimble fingers. Picking gooseberries is not a task which requires much skill or experience; perhaps quickness is the criterion by which it can best be tested, and Mrs McNab's sharp glances soon discovered that her new apprentice was no laggard at the work. The little green balls fell from Margot's fingers into the basin with quite extraordinary quickness. She kept her eyes on her work, but her tongue wagged. Margot talked, and Mrs McNab grunted, but the grunts grew ever softer and less repellent. The first attempt at a joke was met with a sniff of disdain, but a second effort produced a dry cackle, and that was a triumph indeed! When the suet had been reduced to shreds, there was bread to sift, and eggs to beat; and then Mrs McNab washed her hands and dropped her working apron preparatory to going upstairs to see after "the girl." She made no demur at leaving Margot alone in the kitchen, for, having undertaken a task, she was plainly expected to carry it through. It was astonishing how much fruit one basket could hold! One wide- lipped basin had already been filled, and another pressed into the service, yet even a vigorous tilt to the side failed to show any signs of the bottom of the basket. Margot had achieved her double purpose of warming herself and breaking the ice of her hostess's reserve, and now was in a fidget to be off to join Ron on the hillside; but the fear of Mrs McNab was strong upon her, and she dare not move until her task was complete. There she sat upon the low fender-stool, the big white apron concealing the blue tweed dress, her pretty, flushed face bent over her work, to all appearances the most industrious of Cinderellas, while the pendulum of the old oak clock clicked noisily to and fro, and through the open door came a whiff of clean cool air, laden with the scent of flowers and sweet-briar, with the pungent aromatic odour of growing herbs, with the heavy sweetness of the dairy. Margot thought with a shudder of the gloomy underground regions in Regent's Park, where the servants of the house spent the greater part of their lives. In her own future spells of authority she determined to be very, very indulgent to pleas for "outings"; nay, even to make it a matter of duty to plan days of sunshine and liberty for the patient, uncomplaining workers. The sun was beginning to peep forth from behind the clouds, and its rays dancing across the kitchen floor were an almost irresistible temptation to one newly escaped from town. Margot gave the basket an impatient shake, and, as another means to the desired end, popped a couple of berries into her mouth. So sweet did they taste, so fresh and ripe, that another two soon followed suit, and henceforth she ate as steadily as she worked. There could be no hesitation in so doing, for in fruit- picking it is an unwritten law that the worker is free to take his toll. It was while Margot's hand was raised to her mouth for the eighth or ninth time that a footstep sounded on the flagged floor of the scullery behind her back, and a man's voice and laugh startled her into vivid attention. In both was a note which immediately recalled her companion of the night before,--the cheery, warm-hearted pseudo-chieftain of the Glen--yet in both rang a difference which told that the newcomer was not he, but probably one closely connected by birth and association. _The_ Mr Elgood; the Editor; the all-powerful dispenser of Ronald's fortunes! Margot felt convinced that it could be no one else, and experienced a moment of keen anticipation, followed by a shock of disgust, as she grasped the meaning of his words. "Ah-ha! So I've caught you pilfering again. What will Mrs McNab say when she finds all her good fruit disappearing like this? You'll have to bribe me not to carry tales. Better turn me into a confederate--eh? Are they ripe?" A long thin hand descended over Margot's shoulder, the fingers deliberately feeling after the plumpest and yellowest of the berries. _He had mistaken her for Elspeth_! Stupefaction mingled with wrath,--_Elspeth_! A vision of the square-built, flat-headed, hopelessly graceless figure rose before Margot's outraged vision, and resentment lighted into a blaze. Could any apron in the world be large enough to cause a resemblance between two such diametrically different figures! Margot appreciated her own beauty in an honest, unaffected fashion, as one of the good gifts which had been showered upon her, and for the moment the sense of injury eclipsed that of embarrassment. With an impetuous movement she turned her face over her shoulder--that vivid pink and white face which made such a startling contrast to Elspeth's stolidity--and stared with widely-opened hazel eyes into that other pair of eyes so near her own. It was the younger Mr Elgood sure enough,--but seen close at hand, with that mischievous smile curling his lips, he had an extraordinary youthful and boyish appearance. Margot received an instantaneous impression of kindliness and strength, of a glinting sense of humour, before the change came. Such a change! If she had been a wild animal prepared to spring, horror and dismay could not have been more eloquently depicted upon his face. The eyes widened, the features stiffened into a mask, the outstretched hand fell limply to his side. He opened his lips to say something, several things, but the words were unintelligible; a mere broken stammer of apology, as he wheeled round and walked hastily from the room. The door slammed behind him; she heard his footsteps over the flagged hall. Poor Margot! Never before in her life had she so keenly desired to make a good impression; never had she so signally failed. It was indeed an unpromising beginning to the campaign! CHAPTER TWELVE. A MOORLAND WALK. A second time that day Margot came into close contact with Mr George Elgood. She was strolling slowly up and down the road with "the Chieftain," waiting for Ron to make his appearance before starting for a ramble over the countryside, when through the doorway of the inn out dashed the "Editor," making in the same direction, in the headlong, unseeing fashion which was plainly a characteristic. When about twenty yards distant, he lifted his eyes from the ground, became suddenly conscious of the two figures slowly strolling towards him, stopped short in the middle of the path, and, wheeling round, darted quickly in the opposite direction. The cut was too glaring to be ignored. Margot's cheeks flamed with annoyance, which the sound of a low chuckle by her side did not help to subdue. She reared her little head to its haughtiest angle, and spoke in frosty accents. "I am afraid I am in the way. Pray don't let me interfere with your plans. Won't you join your brother before he goes too far? He is walking very fast--" There was a note of satire in the last words which made the Chieftain chuckle once more. "Not I," he replied easily. "I can have his society any time I like. Yours is infinitely more refreshing. Keeps up a pretty good pace, don't he? Scared, you know. Scared to death! Running to cover like a frightened hare!" "Scared of what?" "Of you?" Margot had known the answer to the question before she had put it, but, woman-like, was none the less affronted. Accustomed to be sought after and admired by mankind in general, it was a disagreeable experience to find herself repelled by the man of all others whom she was most anxious to ingratiate. Her face stiffened, and her rounded little chin projected itself proudly, the while her companion looked on with twinkling amusement. "That makes you feel pretty mad, don't it?" he inquired genially. "You are not accustomed to that sort of treatment. Most of 'em run the other way, don't they? I should, in their place! But you mustn't be hard on old George. When I said `you,' I used the word as a plural, not as applying with any special significance to your charming self. It is womankind as a whole which he finds terrifying. Run a mile any day rather than meet a woman face to face! You must not imagine that there is anything unusual in his avoidance of yourself. It's always the same tale." Margot paused a moment, to reflect dismally that in this case there was small hope for the fulfilment of her scheme, then ventured the natural feminine question-- "Has he been crossed in love?" "Who? George?" George's brother appeared to find something mysteriously ludicrous in the suggestion, for he shook with delighted laughter. "Rather not! Never had enough to do with a woman to give himself a chance. He's an old hermit of a bachelor, Miss Vane, absorbed in his work, and becoming more of a slave to it every year of his life. Even on a holiday he can't take it easy like other folks. He has some writing on hand just now--a paper of sorts which he has undertaken to have ready by a certain time, and it appears to his benighted intellect that a holiday is an excellent opportunity of getting it through. Mad, you see; stark, staring mad, but an excellent fellow all the same. One of the very best. I have a large experience of men, but I've never met one to compare with him for all-round goodness and simplicity of heart. We all have our failings, and there are worse things than a little shyness and reserve. If he avoids you like the plague, try to pity him for the loss it entails upon himself, and take no offence! As I said before, it's not a personal matter. He knows that you are a stranger and a woman, but I don't suppose he has the most glimmering idea of what you are really like!" "Oh yes, he has. I was sitting in the kitchen this morning, and he came and spoke to me under the impression that I was Elspeth! The impression lasted until he got quite near. I was wearing an apron, but still,--I wasn't pleased! When he saw my face instead of hers, he fled for his life. But he _did_ see it! He knows quite well what I am like." "And in the depths of your little girl heart you think he is a strange fellow, not to want to see you again! You can't understand why he should go out of his way to be kind to Elspeth, and avoid some one infinitely more attractive. Don't be offended, but that's a wrong view to take of the case. In my brother's eyes Elspeth is more attractive than yourself, for she is poor, you see, and ugly, and leads a life of all work and no play. He might be able to do her a good turn. Besides, he has known her for several years, and has had time to become reconciled to her existence, so to speak. Custom goes a long way with shy people. George would rather beard a den of lions than face the company in the inn parlour on a wet evening, but he is a welcome guest in the kitchen, and Mrs McNab adores him to the extent of submitting to muddy boots without a murmur. He cracks jokes with her in a free-and- easy manner which strikes awe into the heart of tremblers like myself. It's my first visit to the Nag's Head, and I'm still in the stage of abject submission. She's a wonderful woman!" Margot smiled with returning composure. She divined her companion's desire to change the subject of conversation, and was quite willing to further his efforts. What she had already heard concerning George Elgood supplied ample food for meditation. Viewed in dispassionate light, it was not wholly disconcerting, for if the citadel could but once be stormed, there seemed a certainty of gaining sympathy and consideration. She must be content to wait in patience, until the hermit had become reconciled to her existence; but Ron, as a fellow-man, could venture on advances on his own account. She must talk to Ron in private, and try to instil into him some of her own energy and enterprise. He was a dear, wonderful fellow, but absolutely wanting in initiative. Poets, she supposed, were always dreamy, impracticable creatures, unfitted to attend to practical interests, and dependent upon the good offices of some adoring woman working meekly in the background. Her eyes brightened eloquently as she watched her brother's approach along the winding path. What a handsome young figure of manhood he made in his Norfolk jacket and knickerbockers, the close-fitting deerstalker cap showing the light chestnut hair, from which no barber's shears could succeed in banishing the natural kink and curl. No one would suspect, to look at him, that he cherished poetical ambitions! Margot was English enough to be thankful for this fact, illogical as it may appear. She was proud to realise that he looked a thorough sportsman, and in absolute harmony with his surroundings, and instinctively her pride and affection voiced themselves in words. The Chieftain might not be the rose, but he was at least near the rose, and it would be well to enlist his interest as well as that of his brother. "Doesn't he look splendid?" Mr Elgood started, and for a moment his round face expressed the blankest bewilderment, then his eyes lit upon Ron, and comprehension dawned. "Ah, yes," he returned indifferently, "nice-looking lad! Pity he hasn't more to say for himself. What's he supposed to do? Business or profession?" "It's not decided. He has not long come down from Cambridge. He is quiet, but he is very clever, all the same. Much cleverer than most boys of his age." "Humph!" The Chieftain's tone was distinctly sceptical. "Yes! Good degree?" Margot's colour heightened in embarrassment. "Nothing special. Only a pass. It isn't in _that_ way that his cleverness shows." "Just so! Just so! I've met men like that before. Well, don't spoil him, that's all. Worship him in your heart, but not to his face. Looks to me as if he needed hardening up. A bit moony and sentimental. What? Don't mind my saying so, do you?" "Not a bit!" returned Margot proudly; but she cared horribly, all the same, and for the moment her liking for her companion suffered a distinct eclipse. "I know him, you see, and understand him as no stranger can do. He needs appreciation, for he is too apt to lose faith in himself, and he is not sentimental at all. He has plenty of sentiment, but that's a different thing!" "Yes--Um!" responded the Chieftain mischievously, his little eyes twinkling with amusement as they scanned the girl's flushed, injured face. "Quite so! Sorry I spoke. He is, without doubt, an unusually gifted young man." He bowed towards Margot, with an inference too transparent to be mistaken, and at which she was obliged to laugh, despite herself. Ronald joined them at this moment, and looked from one to the other with his big, dreamy eyes. Margot was irritated to see that he looked even more absent-minded than usual, just when she was anxious that he should show to most advantage. He asked no questions in words, however, but Mr Elgood hastened to reply to the unspoken query in his eyes. "Your sister and I have been having an argument. I don't know how it came about. Hate arguments myself, especially on a holiday. Besides, it's a waste of time. Whoever knew any one converted by an argument? Each one goes away more satisfied than ever that he is in the right, and that his opponent is talking rubbish; present company excluded, of course. So far as I can remember, we were discussing cleverness. If you were asked for a definition of a clever man, what would you say? How would you describe him?" Ronald stood in the centre of the road, his hands clasped behind his back, his brows knitted in thought. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred would have answered such a question off-hand with a few light words; Ron bent the weight of his mind to it, with whole-hearted earnestness. "Cleverness!" he repeated slowly. "It's a poor word! There's no depth in it. When a man is called clever, it means, I think, more an ability to display a superficial knowledge than any real, stored-up wisdom. It may even be a double-edged compliment!" "Scored!" cried the Chieftain gaily, as he waved his stick in the air, and led the way forward with a jaunty tread. "Proposed, seconded, and carried that cleverness is a delusion to be sedulously avoided! Just what I always said. I've known clever people in my day--squillions of them, and, my hat! how stupid they were! That little lass dabbling in the lake is wiser than the whole crowd." He pointed to a fair-haired child wading by the side of the tarn. "The spirit of childhood--that's what we want! the spirit of joy in present blessings, and untroubled trust for the future. That little lass has a life of hardship and toil ahead--but what does she care? The sun shines to-day, and the funny wee mannie fra the inn is going to gie her a bawbee for goodies. It's a bad habit which he has fallen into; a shocking bad habit, but he canna cure himself of it." He threw a penny to the smiling, expectant child, then turning sharply to the left, led the way across the low-lying ground towards the base of the nearest hill. Margot noticed that, as he went, he turned from time to time quick, scrutinising glances at Ron's face, as though trying to satisfy a doubt, and classify him in his own mind. Evidently the lad's serious, somewhat pedantic manner of replying had invested him with a new interest, but when he spoke again it was only in reference to the afternoon's expedition itself. "I am not going to take you far," he announced. "I object to walking, on principle. What I maintain is, that we were never intended to walk! If we had been, we should have had four legs, instead of two. I never walk if I can possibly induce something else to carry me. And climbing is another mistake. What is it that one admires about mountains? Their height and grandeur! Very well, then, where is the point of vantage from which to view them? The base, of course. Climb up to the top, and you lose the whole effect, to say nothing of chucking away your valuable breath. See that little path winding up the slope? That leads to the moors, and when you are once on the moors you can walk about on the level all day long, if you are so disposed, and the air goes to the head of even a lazy old fellow like myself, and makes me quite gay and frisky. You two youngsters can go on ahead and engage in light conversation, while I puff along in the rear. At my age and bulk even the most witty conversation palls when climbing a hillside. When you get to the end of the footpath sit down and wait till I arrive, and take no notice of me till I get my wind. Then we'll start fair. Off with you!" Margot ran forward, laughing, and she and Ron were soon scrambling up the hillside, side by side. "That's a good fellow. I like him! He will be very interesting when one gets beneath the surface," pronounced the boy thoughtfully. Margot nodded emphatically. "I'm going to love him! I feel it in my bones, and he is going to love me too, but unfortunately he's the wrong man. He says that his brother hates women, and will do all he can to avoid me, so you must take things into your own hands, Ron! I can't help you, so you must help yourself. You will have to cultivate his acquaintance, and get him to take you about, and talk to him, and try to get intimate. You will, won't you? Promise me that you will!" She looked with anxiety into the lad's face as she spoke, for previous experience had proved that Ron possessed the full share of those failings which are most characteristic of his temperament: a sudden cooling of interest at critical moments; a shirking of responsibility, an inclination to drift. It was a part of the artistic nature, which had an irritating effect on more practical mortals. Now, as she feared, he remained as placidly unmoved by the intelligence as if it had no bearing whatever on his own prospects. "Oh, all right. I'll see! You can't rush things, if a fellow keeps out of your way. Our opening will come in time, if we leave it to chance and don't worry. I believe I am going to do really good work here, Margot! I had an idea last night, after you had gone to bed, and I was watching the stars through the pines. I won't read it to you yet, for it wants working up, but it's good--I am sure it is good! And that little stream along from the house; I found a song motif in that,--`_Clear babbling over amber bed_!' How's that for a word- picture? Shows the whole thing, doesn't it? The crystal clearness of the water; the music of its flow, the curious golden colour of the rocks. I'm always pleased when I can hit off a description in a line. I'm glad we came, Margot! There's inspiration in this place." But for once Margot refused to be sympathetic. "You did not come for inspiration, you came for a definite, practical purpose; and if you write a hundred poems, it won't make up for neglecting it. Now, Ron, wake up! I shall be angry with you if you don't do all you can for yourself. Promise me that you will try!" "All right! All right! Do let us be happy while we have the chance, Margot. We had enough worry at home, and this place is perfect. Let us be wise children, and take no thought for the morrow. What would Elgood think of you, beginning to worry about the future, the moment his back was turned? She was a pretty illustration, wasn't she?--that little bare-headed child. Did you notice her hair? Almost white against the russet of her skin." Margot grunted unsympathetically. She was out of breath with scrambling up the hillside, a trifle out of temper also, and consequently not in the mood to enthuse over artistic contrasts. She did not speak again until the summit was reached, and she threw herself on the ground to rest, and wait the arrival of the Chieftain. His gasps and grunts could already be heard in the distance, for, notwithstanding his various handicaps, he was surprisingly nimble, and in a few moments a round scarlet face hove into sight, and a round grey body rolled over on the ground by her side. "Piff! piff! whew-w! Don't look at me, please--I don't like--being stared at by ladies--when my--complexion is flushed!" he gasped brokenly, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief. "Every time--I--come up here--I vow I'll--never come again; but when _I'm_ once up, I--never want to go down!" He flourished his handkerchief to the left, pointing out the wide moorland, beautiful in colouring with its bright rank greens, and the bloomy purple of heather undulating gently up and down like the waves of an inland sea. The pure rarefied air fanned the heated faces of the climbers, and with every moment seemed to instil fresh life and vigour. It was easy to believe that, once started, one would wander on and on over this wonderful moorland, feeling no fatigue, possessed with the desire to go farther and farther, to see what surprise lay beyond the next hillock. After all, it was Mr Elgood who made the first start. One moment he lay still, puffing and blowing, bemoaning past youth, and bewailing loss of strength; the next, like an indiarubber ball, he had bounced to his feet, and was strutting forward, waving his short arms in the air, the white silk handkerchief streaming behind him like a flag. "_Allons, mes enfants_! No lolling allowed on the moors. Keep your eye on that green peak to the right, and make for it as straight as a die. A few hundred yards away is a cottage where, if we are very polite and ask prettily, the guid-wife will give us a cup of buttermilk, the Gaelic substitute for afternoon tea. In a certain spot, which shall be nameless, I should as soon think of drinking poison in glassfuls, but after a stretch on the moors it tastes like nectar! Take my word for it, and try!" That was the first walk which Ron and Margot had ever taken over a Scotch moor, and to the last day of their lives they remembered it with joy. The air went to their heads so that they grew "fey," and sang, and laughed, and teased each other like a couple of merry-hearted children, while the Chieftain was the biggest child of the three. At times he declared that he was tired out and must turn back, but hardly were the words out of his mouth, than, lo, he was dancing an impromptu hornpipe with astonishing nimbleness and dexterity! He took a lively interest in all that his companions did and said, and did not hesitate to put question after question in order to arrive at a fuller understanding of any case in point; but London, and all that took place in London, remained a forbidden topic. He was the Elgood of Elgood, and they were "his bonnie men," and life outside the Highlands had ceased to exist. Margot was delighted that the little man should have a chance of seeing Ronald in one of his lightest, most boyish moods, for from the expression of his face she feared that he had not so far previously been favourably impressed by the lad's personality. Now it was impossible not to admire and laugh as Ron played imaginary bagpipes on the end of his walking-stick, or droned out lugubrious ballads in imitation of a strolling minstrel who had visited the inn the night before. The ballad dramatised the circumstances of the moment: the perilous ascent, the wandering of three strangers across the moor, the flowing bowl which was to refresh and strengthen them for the return journey. Ron's knowledge of the native dialect was so slight that he fell back upon the more stately phraseology of the early English poets, introducing a strange Scotch term now and again with irresistibly comic effect. The two listeners cheered him on with bursts of delighted laughter, while at an unexpected clever turn, or apt stringing together of words, the Chieftain would clap his hands and caper with delight. "Good! good!" he would cry. "Neat! neat!" while his twinkling eyes surveyed the boy with increasing respect. "Do you often improvise?" he asked, when the ballad came to an end, and when Ron replied truthfully enough in the negative, "Well, I have heard many fellows do it worse!" was his flattering comment. Margot had expected more, and felt that more was deserved, for the ballad had been quite a brilliant effort to be rattled off on the spur of the moment, but she could only hope that, in conclave with his brother, the Chieftain might be more enthusiastic, and manage to impress upon that absent-minded genius that the boy was worthy of his notice and study. In due time--a very short time, as it appeared--the cottage was reached owned by the "guid-wife," who was ready to give--not sell--draughts of buttermilk to the passers-by. Margot was a little chary of the first taste, but the keen moorland air had done its work, and she too found it as nectar to the palate. The guid-wife "had no English," but the two women conversed eloquently with the language of the eyes, concerning the sleeping baby in its cradle, and the toddling urchins around the door. Here in the solitude this brave woman of the people reared her family, made their garments, tended them when they were sick, cooked for them, baked for them, washed for them, mended for them, and kept the three- roomed cot as exquisitely clean as hands could make it. The girl who dusted the drawing-room and arranged a few vases of flowers as her duty in life, gazed at her with awe, and felt ashamed of her own idle existence! The buttermilk quaffed, Mr Elgood led the way to a thick patch of heather some few hundred yards nearer home, came to a standstill, and, spreading his handkerchief under his head, lay down with great deliberation and crossed his arms in beatific content. "Now, if you want to discover what comfort means, find a soft patch for yourselves, and take a nap before we start for home. No upholsterer on earth ever manufactured a mattress to equal a bed of heather. If you don't want to sleep, kindly keep your distance, and enjoy yourselves with discretion, for if I'm awakened in the middle of my siesta, nothing short of murder will appease me!" He shut his eyes even as he spoke, and composed himself with a sigh of content. Margot, nothing loath, took off her cap, and, spreading her cape over the bushes, nestled contentedly into its folds. Ron scorned the idea of sleep, but as he was curious to test the comforts of the heather, down he lay in his turn; and so soft, so springy, so eminently luxurious did the new bed appear, that he felt no desire to rise. Presently his eyes dropped, rose heavily once or twice, and rose no more. Margot's head burrowed more deeply into her cape. Deep regular snores sounded from the bush where Mr Elgood reposed. All three were fast asleep! The sun shone on them; the hum of a thousand insects rose from the grass; high in the air a lark trilled his triumphant song. It was rest indeed to sleep and dream in such surroundings! CHAPTER THIRTEEN. THE TRUE CHURCH. Life flowed on very quietly and uneventfully at the Nag's Head during the next few days. The clergyman and his son were determined walkers, who set out each morning on a new expedition over the countryside, and at the evening dinner boasted of the number of miles they had traversed. What they had seen appeared to be of secondary importance, and they were correspondingly depressed or elated according as they had fallen short of, or surpassed previous records of distance. Mr Macalister sat in the garden, reading day-old editions of the "_Glasga He-rald_" from the front page to the last, while his wife made pilgrimages to the village shop to buy infinitesimal articles of drapery, and exchange details of domestic history with the good lady in charge of the emporium. Mr George Elgood went out fishing in a river two or three miles distant, accompanied sometimes by his brother, but for the most part by himself. He also sat at his bedroom window, writing by the hour together, and always and at all times he avoided his fellow-guests with a quiet persistence which could not be gainsaid. By the time that Margot had been in the inn for four days, he had advanced to the point of bidding her good-night and good morning, staring steadily at a point about a yard above her head, while on one historic occasion he even brought himself to remark that it was a fine day. Once also, looking up suddenly at dinner, she met his eyes fixed upon her with an expression of intent scrutiny; but he turned aside in evident perturbation at being discovered, and though the little puss thereafter wore her prettiest dresses, and took special pains with the arrangement of her hair, the incident was never repeated. Goaded thereto by his sister's entreaties, Ronald had proposed himself as the companion of a morning's fishing expedition, but he returned home bored and irritated, and could not be persuaded to repeat the experiment. As Mr Elgood had left him at one point in the stream, and himself repaired to another some two hundred yards distant, the opportunities for conversation had been limited, while not even a twitch of the line had rewarded his amateur efforts. Margot coaxed, reasoned, and finally stormed, but to no avail. In a quiet, amiable fashion, Ronald could be as obstinate as a mule, and he was plainly determined to go his own way. The sun shone; the surroundings were magnificent; he was free from the jarring dissensions of home; in easy, light-hearted manner he was content to live for the moment, and shut his eyes to troubles ahead. "Remember what the Chieftain said to as the first day we were here!" he protested vigorously. "We ought to cultivate the spirit of children; to rejoice in the present, and trust for the future; whereas you want me to begin worrying the very first thing. I do call it stupid of you, Margot!" "But, my dear boy--remember September! September is coming, and if you don't bestir yourself to take advantage of this last chance, you will be bemoaning your hard fate, and calling out that your life is ruined! Do, for goodness' sake, descend from the clouds and be practical for once! I'd help you if I could, but how can I, when the man refuses even to look at me?" Margot's voice took a plaintive tone as she uttered those last words. She was so unaccustomed to be ignored, that the editor's avoidance rankled in her mind. She found her thoughts persistently returning to him in every period of leisure; when he was near, she was acutely conscious of his presence; when he was absent, her mind followed after him, wondering where he was, what he was doing, and of what he was thinking. Having once seen a glimpse of the real man when, in the character of Elspeth, she had looked into his face, sparkling with youth, kindliness, and humour, she understood that the abstracted figure which sat at the table at meal-times was but the shell of the real George Elgood, and that, if the barriers of shyness and reserve could once be overcome, he would prove an even more fascinating companion than his brother. The desire to know him grew daily in intensity, while, unconsciously to herself, the personal element slowly predominated the thought of Ron and Ron's future. Now, as the brother and sister argued together, they were hurrying along by the edge of the tarn on their way to service at the kirk, for this was Sunday morning, the fifth day after their arrival at the Glen. Ron, as usual, had been late in starting, and before the village was reached his watch showed that it was already five minutes past the time when service began. They had been sternly directed by Mrs McNab to go to the kirk at the far end of the village, and inquire for the inn pew, but as it would take several minutes longer to traverse the length of the straggling street, Margot suggested that it would be wise to attend the nearer of the two churches. "There can be no difference. They are both Presbyterian," quoth she, in her ignorance; so in they went, to be met in the doorway by an elder in his Sabbath "blacks," his solemn face surrounded by a fringe of sandy whisker. The pews were very narrow and very high, shut in a box-like seclusion by wooden doors; the minister, in his pulpit, was just giving out the number of the psalm, and the precentor, after tapping his tuning-fork and holding it to his ear, burst forth into wailing notes of surprising strength and volume. Margot rose automatically to her feet, to subside in confusion, as the seated congregation gazed at her in stolid rebuke. In this kirk it was the custom to sit while singing, and stand during prayers--a seemly and decorous habit which benighted Southerners had difficulty in understanding. The singing of the metrical psalm sounded strangely in unaccustomed ears. Of melody there seemed little or none. The notes ascended and fell, and quavered into odd, unexpected trills and shakes, but it was sung with an earnestness and an intensity which could not fail to be impressive. The women, clean and tidy in their Sabbath bravery, sat with eyes fixed unwaveringly on their books; the children piped lustily by their sides; at the door of the pews the heads of the different families peered over their spectacles at the printed words, their solemn, whiskered faces drawn out to abnormal length. In a corner by himself sat a weather-beaten old shepherd, singing with closed eyes, his shaggy head waving to and fro in time with the strain. Up in this lonesome glen those words had been his stay and comfort during a life of hardship. Like David of old, he had sung them on the mountainside, and they had been as a guide unto his feet, a lamp unto his eyes. He needed no book and no spectacles to enable him to join his note to the strain. Margot looked at him with a thrill of understanding and reverence. A saint of God, a lowly dweller on earth, for whom was waiting one of the "higher" places in the kingdom of heaven. The sermon was long and rambling, and somewhat difficult for Southern ears to follow; there was a solemn collection taken in small boxes secured to long wooden handles, thrust in turns down the various pews with somewhat comical effect; then the service was over, and Margot and Ron came out into the village street, to find themselves face to face with a stream of worshippers who were returning from the farther kirk. Foremost among the number was Mrs McNab, large and imposing to behold in her Sabbath best, with her small husband ambling meekly by her side. Margot smiled at her in friendly fashion, and was dismayed to receive in return a glare of incredulous anger. What had she done to offend? She could not imagine what was wrong, and continued to stare blankly after the unbending figure, until presently her eye encountered another well- known face bent upon her with a smile. The Chieftain and his brother were close behind; so close that even the Editor's shyness could not attempt an escape. In another moment they were walking together, Margot between the two men, Ron on the outside, a few paces apart from the rest. Margot glanced from one to the other with puzzled eyes. The Chieftain beamed upon her frankly. The Editor looked, and looked away, knitting his brows in embarrassment. "What have I done?" she cried eagerly. "Why is Mrs McNab so cross? All was peace and joy when we left the inn. I had done my very best to help her, and now--you saw how she scowled! How can I possibly have offended her in this short time?" The Chieftain chuckled softly. "A good deal, I'm afraid! I'm sorry for you, after all your efforts at conciliation. It's bad luck that you should have stumbled upon an unforgivable offence. I'm afraid that there is no doubt that you will be turned out of the inn, neck and crop. Not to-day, perhaps, as she won't send out the trap, but certainly to-morrow morning." "I shan't go!" protested Margot defiantly. If eviction had been probable, she did not believe that the Chieftain would have taken it in so unperturbed a fashion; but it was evident that she had committed some offence, and that he was aware of its nature. "But what have I done?" she continued urgently. "That's what I want to discover. There can't be any harm in going to church!" "Oh, can't there, just? That's the whole crux of the matter. You went to the wrong church!" There was a pause of stunned surprise while Margot gasped, and Ron's sleepy eyes brightened with curiosity. "The wrong church! How can that be? They are both Scotch Presbyterians? There is no difference between them?" "Only this difference, that the members of one kirk are hardly on speaking terms with the members of the other! That their leaders are at law together in the Courts, and that feeling runs so high, even in this sleepy hollow, that Mrs McNab, being a Free, refuses to sell milk to the `Wees,' and is shamed to the heart to think that a guest living under her house-roof should have condescended to attend their service. It will be all over the Glen this afternoon that the bonny lady fra the inn chose to give her offering of siller to the `Wees,' and they will bear themselves haughtily in consequence. Mrs McNab feels that she has been humiliated the day in the eyes of the neighbourhood. No wonder she looks coldly upon you!" Margot flushed with resentment and indignation, but before she could speak Ron burst into impetuous speech. "They quarrel? Up here? A handful of men and women among the great mountains? How can they do it? How can they harbour ill-feeling? "And what can they quarrel about? There must be such tiny, trivial differences. I am thankful I am not a Dissenter!" cried Margot proudly. "There are so many sects that one gets muddled among them all, and even in the same one it appears that there are differences! I am thankful that I belong to the Church." The Chieftain looked at her quietly. "To which Church?" "The Church of England, of course." "Oh!" He elevated his light eyebrows expressively. "Because its members have no quarrels with one another?" Margot frowned uneasily. "Oh, well--I suppose they have. But at the worst there are two parties, as compared to a dozen. You cannot deny that we are more united?" "I should not boast too much about the unity of a Church in which civil war is permanently in progress; and what about charity and humility of mind? Suppose now, suppose for a moment that a family of strangers come to live in the house next your own in town, and you discover among other things that they are Dissenters. How does it influence your attitude towards them?" He thrust his ruddy face nearer, staring fixedly into hers. "Answer me that! Feel just the same? Exactly the same? No cooling off in the intention to call? _Quite_ sure you never used the expression, `only Dissenters!' and passed by on the other side?" Margot's cheeks blazed. Her lids dropped, and the corners of her mouth drooped in self-conscious shame. There was a moment's silence, then a low murmur sounded on her ear, and, looking up quickly, she saw the Editor's dark face turned upon his brother, with reproach written large in frowning brow and flashing eye. He was taking up the cudgels in her defence; reproaching his own brother for forcing her into an awkward position. Margot's heart gave a leap of joy at the discovery; in the flash of an eye her mood, her outlook on life, the very scene itself, seemed transfused with new radiance and joy. The sun seemed to peep out through the grey clouds, the underlying anxiety and worry of the past days took to itself wings, and disappeared. Her brown eyes thanked him with a glance more eloquent than she was aware; she laughed softly, and her laugh was sweet as a chime of bells. "Yes, I have! I confess it. I've been narrow-minded and uncharitable, and a snob into the bargain. I've no right to throw stones... What Church do you belong to, Mr Elgood?" The little man stood still in the middle of the road, throwing out his arms on either side, with a gesture wonderfully eloquent. His round, chubby face shone with earnestness and exaltation. "To the Church of Christ! The Church of loyalty, and obedience, and love towards the brethren! To the Church of Christ, wherever I find it! When will Christians learn to remember the points on which they agree, rather than those on which they differ? The questions of form and ceremony; of Church government and ritual; how small they are, how unutterably trivial, compared to the great facts of the Fatherhood of God, and the sacrifice of Christ! Did the Power who made every one of us with different faces and different forms, expect us all to think mathematically alike? I cannot believe it! It is our duty to trust in God and love our brethren; to live together in peace, seeing the best in each other, acknowledging the best, thinking no evil! To see men who make a profession of religion quarrelling and persecuting each other for trivial differences, is a ghastly spectacle--a ghastly spectacle!" He walked on, swinging his short arms to and fro, then suddenly looked up with a keen glance into Ron's eager face. There were no traces of dreaminess in the brown eyes at this moment; the dilated pupil gave to them an appearance of extraordinary depth and intensity; it was easy to see that the lad had been swept off his feet by the rugged force of the speaker's words, and was kindled into a like enthusiasm. Lads of nineteen and twenty make it so much a matter of principle to suppress all exhibition of feeling, that it is almost startling to come across one who is not ashamed to betray a little human emotion. Mr Elgood evidently found it so, for he continued to cast those quick peering glances until the inn was reached, and the little party separated, to prepare for the midday dinner. Margot walked slowly up the steep staircase leading to her room, and sat herself down on the bed to think out the problem. More and more did she long to pierce through the armour by which the strange, silent man was enveloped; but how was it to be done? Opportunities were few and far between, and now, for the first time in her life, confidence in her own powers deserted her, and she was overcome by a strange new feeling of humility and doubt. Who and what was she, that such a man should stoop to accept her friendship; poor, unlettered girl that she was, while he was acknowledged as one of the leading intellects of the day? Yet deep in her heart the thought lingered that between this man and herself existed a certain affinity, which, given an opportunity, might bridge over greater gaps than that of intellect and learning. How was that opportunity to be gained? She might be willing to sacrifice much to attain it, but there was one thing that could never be thrown on one side--her natural maidenly pride and dignity! Not even for Ron's sake could she bring herself to make advances to a man who, so far from exhibiting any desire for her company, had gone markedly out of his way to avoid it. Ron himself was useless in such circumstances, a creature of moods, living for the moment only, content to forget the future in the enjoyment of present good. To drive him into the Editor's company against his will could do no good, since he would certainly reveal himself in his worst light, and in aggravating, topsy-turvy fashion he had taken a violent fancy for the wrong brother. The Chieftain's geniality and candour, his boy-like lightness of heart on the one hand, his passion for right on the other, were fast developing a species of hero-worship in the lad's mind. Margot foresaw that, as time passed by, the two would grow closer together, and that any chance of intimacy with the other brother would retreat helplessly into the background. Unless--! Her face flamed as a possible solution of the difficulty darted suddenly into her mind. Could she? Dared she risk it? Yes, she could. It would be difficult, but she could bring herself to face it, if after a few days' consideration it still seemed the only way out of the difficulty. Margot rose from the bed, and began quietly to prepare for dinner. Her face looked grave and anxious, but it had lost its troubled, fretted expression. She had made up her mind what to do, and with the decision came rest and ease of mind. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. MUSIC HATH CHARMS. For the next two days it rained incessantly, and Margot sat in the little parlour of the inn talking to Mrs Macalister, or rather listening while Mrs Macalister talked, and playing draughts with Mr Macalister, who had relapsed into hopeless gloom of mind, and was with difficulty prevented from rushing home by the first train. "The doctor said we were to keep him from the office for a good month at least, and there's not three weeks of the time gone by. If he goes back now, what will be the use of spending all this money on travelling and keep, and what not? It will be all clean waste," sighed the poor dame sadly. "He's a bit fratchety and irritable, I'm free to admit, but you should not judge a man when his nerves are upset. There's not a better man on earth than Mr Macalister when he has his health. It's dull for a man-body to be shut up in an inn, without the comforts of home, and feeling all the time that there's money going out. It is different when he can be out and about with his fishing and what not.--If you could just manage to amuse him a bit, like a good lassie!..." The good lassie nodded reassuringly into the troubled, kindly face. "I'll do my best. I have an old father of my own, who has nerves too, and I am used to amusing him. I'll take Mr Macalister in hand till the weather clears." It was not a congenial task, for, truth to tell, Mr Macalister was not a beguiling object, with his lugubrious face, lack-lustre eyes, and sandy, outstanding whiskers; nor did he in the first instance betray any gratitude for the attention bestowed upon him. A stolid glance over his spectacles was his first response to Margot's overtures; his next, a series of grunts and sniffs, and when at last he condescended to words it was invariably to deride or throw doubt on her statements. "Tut, nonsense! Who told you that? I would think so, indeed!" followed by another and more determined retreat behind the _Glasgow Herald_. In the corner of the room Mrs Macalister sat meekly knitting, never venturing a look upwards so long as her spouse was in view, but urging Margot onward by nods and winks and noiseless mouthings, the moment that she was safe from observation. It had its comic side, but it was also somewhat pathetic. These two good commonplace souls had travelled through life together side by side for over thirty years, and, despite age, infirmity, and "nearves", were still lovers at heart. Before the wife's eyes the figure of "Mr Macalister" loomed so large that it blocked out the entire world; to him, even in this hour of depression, "the wife" was the one supreme authority. Fortunately for herself and her friends, Margot was gifted with sufficient insight to grasp the poetry behind the prose, and it gave her patience to persevere. Solution came at last, in the shape of the wheezy old piano in the corner, opened in a moment of aimless wandering to and fro. Margot was no great performer, but what she could play she played by heart, and Nature had provided her with a sweet, thrush-like voice, with that true musical thrill which no teaching can impart. At the first few bars of a Chopin nocturne Mr Macalister's newspaper wavered, and fell to his knee. Margot heard the rustle of it, slid gradually into a simpler melody, and was conscious of a heavy hand waving steadily to and fro. "Ha-ha!" murmured Mr Macalister, at the end of the strain. "Hum-hum! The piano wants tuning, I'm thinking!" It was foreign to his nature to express any gratification, but that he had deigned to speak at all was a distinct advance, and equal to a whole volume of compliments from another man. "Maybe," he added, after a pause, "if ye were to sing us a ballad it would be less obsearved!" So Margot sang, and, finding a book of Scotch selections, could gratify the old man by selecting his favourite airs, and providing him with an excuse to hum a gentle accompaniment. Music, it appeared, was Mr Macalister's passion in life. As a young man he had been quite a celebrated performer at Penny Readings and Church Soirees, and had been told by a lady who had heard Sims Reeves that she preferred his rendering of "Tom Bowling" to that of the famous tenor. This anecdote was proudly related by his wife, and though Mr Macalister cried, "Hoots!" and rustled his paper in protest, it was easy to see that he was gratified by the remembrance. Margot essayed one Scotch air after another, and was instructed in the proper pronunciation of the words; feigning, it is to be feared, an extra amount of incapacity to pronounce the soft "ch," for the sake of giving her patient a better opportunity of displaying his superior adroitness. Comparatively speaking, Mr Macalister became quite genial and agreeable in the course of that musical hour, and when Margot finished her performance by singing "The Oak and the Ash," he waxed, for him, positively enthusiastic. "It's a small organ," he pronounced judicially, "a ve-ry small organ. Ye would make a poor show on a concert platform, but for all that, I'm not saying that it might not have been worse. Ye can keep in tune, and that's a mearcy!" "Indeed, Alexander, I call it a bonnie voice! There's no call for squallings and squakings in a bit of a room like this. I love to hear a lassie's voice sound sweet and clear, and happy like herself, and that's just the truth about Miss Vane's singing. Thank ye, my dear. It's been a treat to hear you." The broad, beaming smile, the sly little nod behind Mr Macalister's back, proclaiming triumph and delighted gratitude--these sent Margot up to her room heartened and revived in spirits, for there is nothing on earth so invigorating as to feel that we have helped a fellow-creature. The sunshine came back to her own heart, even as it was slowly breaking its way through the clouds overhead. She thrust her head out of the window, and opening her mouth, drank in great gulps of the fresh damp air, so sweet and reviving after the mouldy atmosphere of "the parlour." Over the mountain tops in the direction from which the wind was blowing the clouds were slowly drifting aside, leaving broader and broader patches of blue. Blue! After the long grey hours of rain and mist. The rapture of it was almost beyond belief! A few minutes more, and the glen would be alight with sunshine. She would put on boots, cap, and cape, and hurry out to enjoy every moment that remained. The strong-soled little boots were lifted from their corner behind the door, and down sat Margot on the floor, school-girl fashion, and began to thread the laces in and out, and tie them securely into place. Then the deerstalker cap was pinned on top of the chestnut locks, and the straps of the grey cape crossed over the white flannel blouse. Now she was ready, and the sunshine was already calling to her from without, dancing across the floor, and bringing a delicious warmth into the atmosphere. Margot threw open the door and was about to descend the narrow staircase, when she stopped short, arrested by an unexpected sound. Some one was singing softly in a room near at hand, repeating the refrain of the ballad which she had taken last on her list. The deep bass tones lingered softly on the words-- "And the lad who marries me, Must carry me hame to my North Coun-tree!" George Elgood was echoing her song in the seclusion of his own room! He had been indoors all the time, then, listening to her while she sang! Margot's cheeks grew hot with embarrassment, yet in the repeated strain there was a suggestion of appreciation, of lingering enjoyment which did away with the idea of adverse criticism. "Oh, the Oak and the Ash,"--the strain seemed to swell in volume, growing ever nearer and nearer. "And the lad who marries me--" The door flew open, and they stood facing one another, each framed as in a picture in the lintel of the doorways, divided only by a few yards of boarded passage. The strain came to an abrupt conclusion, frozen upon his lips by the shock of surprise and embarrassment. For the third time in their short acquaintance Margot looked straight into his eyes; for the third time recognised in their depths something that in mysterious fashion seemed to respond to a want in her own nature; for the third time saw the lids drop, heard an unintelligible murmur of apology, and watched a hasty retreat. For a moment Margot stood motionless, an expression of wounded pride clouding the young rounded face, then very slowly descended the staircase, traversed the length of the "lobby," and stood outside the door, looking anxiously to right and left. There he was, a strong, well-built figure in knickerbockers and Norfolk coat striding rapidly up the hill path to the right,--trying, no doubt, to put as much distance as possible between himself and the objectionable girl who seemed ever to be appearing when she was not wanted. For a long minute Margot stood gazing miserably ahead, then turning resolutely to the left, came face to face with the Chieftain returning from the village with his pockets bulging with papers. His sudden appearance at this moment of depression had a peculiar significance to the girl's mind. Doubt crystallised into resolution; with a rapid beating of the heart she determined to grasp her courage in both hands, and boldly make the plunge which she had been meditating for some days past. CHAPTER FIFTEEN. REVELATIONS. At sight of Margot the Chieftain first beamed delight, and then screwed his chubby face into an expression of concern. "Halloa! What's up? You look pretty middling doleful!" cried he, casting an eloquent glance towards the inn windows, then lowering his voice to a stage whisper, "Macalisteritis, eh? Too much stuffy parlour and domestic reminiscences? Never mind! Pack clouds away, and welcome day! The sun is shining, and I have a packet of bull's eyes for you in one pocket and a budget of letters in another. No, you don't! Not one single one of them to read in the house--come and sit on a stone by the tarn, and we'll suck peppermints and read 'em together. Wonderful how much better you'll feel when you've had a good blow of fresh air. I was prancing mad when I went out this afternoon, but now--a child might play with me!" He threw out his short arms with his favourite sweeping gesture, his coat flapped to and fro in the breeze, he stepped out with such a jaunty tread on his short broad feet, that at sight of him Margot's depression vanished like smoke, and she trotted along by his side with willing footsteps. "That's better! That's better! Never saw you look melancholy before, and never want to again... `Shocking disappearance of dimples! A young lady robbed of her treasures! Thief still at large! Consternation in the neighbourhood!' Eh! How's that? Young women who have been endowed with dimples should never indulge in low spirits. It's a criminal offence against their neighbours. Where's your brother?" Margot laughed at the suddenness of the question. It was one of the Chieftain's peculiarities to leap upon one like this, taking one unawares, and surprising thereby involuntary revelations. "I don't know," she answered truthfully. "Over the hills and far away, I suppose--studying them in a new aspect. He loved them yesterday in the rain; to-day he felt sure that it would clear, and he wanted to see the mists rise. He does so intensely love studying Nature." "Humph?" Margot looked at him sharply, her head involuntarily assuming a defensive tilt. "What does `Humph' mean, pray?" "Just exactly and precisely what it says!" "It doesn't sound at all flattering or nice." "Probably not. It wasn't intended to be." "Mr Elgood, how can you! What can you have to say about Ron that isn't to his credit? I thought you liked him! I thought you admired him! You must see--you _must_--that he is different from other boys of his age. So much more clever, and thoughtful, and appreciative!" "That's where the pity comes in! It's pitiful to see a lad like that mooning away his time, when he ought to be busy at football or cricket, or playing tricks on his betters. What business has he to appreciate Nature? Tell me that! At twenty--is it, or only nineteen?--he ought to be too much engrossed in exercising his muscles, and letting off steam generally, to bother his head about effects of sun and mist. Sun and mist, indeed! A good wholesome ordinary English lad doesn't care a toss about sun or mist, except as they help or hinder his enjoyment of sport!" "Ronald is not an `ordinary English boy'!" "Hoity-toity! Now she's offended!" The Chieftain looked at his companion's flushed cheeks with twinkling eyes, not one whit daunted by her airs of dignified displeasure. "Don't want me to say what isn't true, do you? He's a nice lad--a very nice lad, and a clever one into the bargain, though by no means the paragon you think him. That's why I'm sorry to see him frittering away his youth, instead of making hay while the sun shines. He'll be old soon enough. Wake up some fine morning to find himself with a bald head and stiff joints. Then he'll be sorry! Wouldn't bother my head about him if I didn't like the lad. Have a peppermint? It will soothe your feelings." The parcel of round black bull's eyes was held towards Margot in ingratiating fashion. It was impossible to refuse, impossible to cherish angry feelings, impossible to do anything but laugh and be happy in the presence of this kindest and most cheery of men. Margot took the peppermint, and sucked it with frank enjoyment the while she sat by the tarn reading her letters. Having received nothing from home for several days, the same post had now brought letters from her father, Edith, and Agnes, to say nothing of illustrated missives from the two small nephews. Mr Vane's note was short, and more an echo of her own last letter than a record of his own doings. "Glad to know that you like your surroundings--pleased to hear that the weather keeps fine--hope you will enjoy your excursion," etcetera, etcetera. Just at the end came a few sentences which to the reader's quick wits were full of hidden meaning. "Agnes is taking the opportunity of your absence to organise a second spring cleaning. It seems only the other day since we were upset before. I dined at the club last night. It is difficult to know what to do with oneself on these long light evenings.--I would run away over Sunday, if I could think of any place I cared to go to... Town seems very empty." "Poor dear darling!" murmured Margot sympathetically, at which the Chieftain lifted his eyes to flash upon her a glance of twinkling amusement. He made no spoken comment, however, but returned to the perusal of his own correspondence, while Margot broke open the envelope of Agnes's letter. Two sheets of handwriting, with immense spaces between both words and lines--"My dear Margot," as a beginning--"Your affectionate sister, Agnes Mary Vane," as a conclusion. Thrilling information to the effect that the charwoman was coming on Friday. Complaints of the late arrival of the sweep. Information requested concerning a missing mat which was required to complete a set. Mild disapproval of the Nag's Head Inn. "I cannot understand what you find to rave about in such quarters." A sigh of impatience and resignation was the tribute paid to this letter, and then Margot settled herself more comfortably on the stone, and prepared to enjoy a treat--a real heart-to-heart talk with her beloved eldest sister. Edith had the gift of sympathy. Just as Agnes never understood, Edith always seemed able to put herself in another's place, and enter into that person's joys and griefs. She herself might be sad and downcast, but in her darkest hour she could always rejoice in another's good fortune, and forget her own woes in eager interest and sympathy. Now, sitting alone in the dreary lodging-house sitting-room in Oxford Terrace, she was able mentally to project herself into the far-off Highland glen, and to feel an ungrudging joy in the pleasure of others. Never a hint of "How I envy you! How I wish I were there!" Not a mention of "I" in obtruding, shadow-like fashion from first to last, but instead, tender little anecdotes about the boys; motherly solicitude for their benefit, and humble asking of advice from one younger and less experienced than herself; an outpouring of tenderness for her husband, and of a beautiful and unbroken trust and belief, which failure was powerless to shake. "Jack is working like a slave trying to build up the ruins of the old business. It is difficult, discouraging work, and so far the results are practically nil, but they will come. Something will come! More and more I feel the conviction in my heart that all this trouble and upheaval have been because God has some better thing in store for us both. We have only to wait and be patient, and the way will open.--I don't want to be rich, only just to have enough money to live simply and quietly. We are so rich in each other's companionship that we can afford to do without luxuries. Last night we had a dinner of herbs-- literally herbs--a vegetarian feast costing about sixpence halfpenny, but with such lots of love to sweeten it, and afterwards we went out for a stroll into the Park, and I wore the hat you trimmed, and Jack made love to me. We _were_ happy! I saw people looking at us with envious eyes. They thought we were a pair of lovers building castles in the air, instead of an old married couple with two bouncing boys, having the workhouse in much nearer proximity than any castle--but they were right to envy us all the same. We have the best thing!" The letter dropped on to Margot's knee, and she sat silent, gazing before her with shining eyes, her face softened into a beautiful tenderness of expression. For some time she was unconscious that her companion had returned his own letters to his coat pocket, and was lying along the ground, his head resting upon his hand, watching her with a very intent scrutiny; but when at last her eyes were unconsciously drawn towards him, she spoke at once, as if answering an unspoken question. "What a wonderful thing love is!" The Chieftain's light eyebrows were elevated in interrogation. "In connection with the `dear darling' previously mentioned, if one may ask?" "That was my father. I love him dearly, but just now I was thinking of the other sort of love. This letter is from my eldest sister. She was a beautiful girl, and could have married half a dozen rich men if she had wished, but she chose the poorest of them all, a dear, good, splendid man, who has been persistently unsuccessful all the way through. Everything--financially speaking, I mean,--has been against him. They have had continual anxiety and curtailment, until at last they have had to let their pretty house and go into dingy lodgings. My father is very down on Jack. He is a successful man himself, and don't you think it needs a very fine nature to keep up faith in a person who seems persistently to fail? But my sister never doubts. She loves her husband more, and idealises him more, than on the day they were married." "And you call that man unsuccessful?" Margot hardly recognised the low, earnest tones: her quick glance downward surprised a spasm of pain on the chubby face, which she had always associated with unruffled complacency. It appeared that here also lay a hidden trouble, a secret grief carefully concealed from the world. "Isn't that rather a misuse of the word? A man who has gained and kept such a love can never be called a failure by any one who understands the true proportions of life. With all his monetary losses he is rich... And she is rich also... Richer than she knows." Margot's hand closed impulsively on Edith's letter and held it towards him. "Yes, you are right. Read that, and you will see how right you are. There are no secrets in it--its just a word-photograph of Edith herself, and I'd like you to see her, as you understand so well. She's my dearest sister, whom I admire more than anybody in the world." Mr Elgood took the letter without a word, and read over its contents slowly once, and then, even more slowly, a second time. When at last he had finished he still held the sheet in his hands, smoothing it out with gentle, reverent fingers. "Yes!" he said slowly. "I can see her. She is a beautiful creature. I should like to know her in the flesh. You must introduce us to one another some day. I haven't come across too many women like that in my life. It would be an honour to know her, to help her, if that were possible." He sighed, and stretching out his hand laid the letter on Margot's knee. "You are right, Miss Bright Eyes, love is a wonderful thing!" Margot glanced at him with involuntary, girlish curiosity, the inevitable question springing to her lips before Prudence had time to order silence. "Do you--have you--did you ever--" The Chieftain laughed softly. "Have I ever been in love, you would ask! What do you take me for, pray? Am I such a blind, cold-hearted clod that I could go through the world for forty-five years and keep my heart untouched? Of course I have loved. I do love! It was once and for ever with me--" "But you are not--" "Married? No! She died long ago; but even if she had lived she was not for me. She would have been the wife of another man; a good fellow; I think she would have been happy. As it is, we remember her together. She was a bright, sunshiny creature who carried happiness with her wherever she went... To have known her is the comfort of our lives--not the grief. We have lived through the deep waters, and can now rejoice in her gain... Do you know there is something about yourself which has reminded me of her several times! That is one reason why I like being with you, and am interested in your life. I should like you to think of me as a friend, and come to me for help if you were ever in need of anything that I could give." The colour rushed into Margot's cheeks, and her heart beat with suffocating quickness. Here was the opportunity for which she had longed, offered to her without any preliminary effort or contriving on her own part! The place, the time, the person were all in readiness, waiting for her convenience. If through cowardice or wavering she allowed the moment to pass, she could never again hope for another such opening. Already the Chieftain was watching her with surprise and curiosity, the softness of the last few minutes giving place to the usual alert good-humour. "Hey? Well! What is it? What's the trouble? Out with it! Anything I can do?" "Mr Elgood," said Margot faintly, "you are very good, very kind; I am most grateful to you. I hope you _will_ help me, but first there is something I must say... I--I have been deceiving you from the beginning!" "What's that?" The Chieftain sat up suddenly and stared at her beneath frowning brows. "Deceiving me? _You_? I don't believe a word of it! What is there to deceive me about, pray? You are not masquerading under a false name, I suppose? Not married, for instance, and passing yourself off as single for some silly school-girl freak?" "Oh no! Oh no! Everything that I have told you about myself is true, absolutely true." "I knew it. You are not the sort that could act a lie. What's all the fuss about, then?" "What I have told you is true, but--but--I have not told you _all_!" "I should think not, indeed! Who expected that you should? I am not at all sure that I care to hear it." "Oh, but--I want to tell you!" The Chieftain chuckled with amusement. He was evidently comfortably convinced of the non-importance of the forthcoming revelations, and Margot's courage suffered another ebb as she returned his unsuspicious glance. "I--we--we knew that you were staying at the Nag's Head!" The Chieftain cocked a surprised eyebrow, startled but unresentful. "You knew that we were here, before you arrived, and met us in the flesh? Is that so? I wonder how you heard! I make it a rule to keep my holiday plans as secret as possible, for the very good reason that a holiday _is_ a holiday, and one wants a change of companionship as well as scene. How in the world did you hear that we were bound for Glenaire? I'm curious!" Margot's eyelids fell guiltily, but Nature had generously endowed these same lids with long black lashes, the points of which curled up in a manner distractingly apparent when shown in contrast with a flushed pink cheek; so it happened that instead of being hardened by the sight, the Chieftain drew a few inches nearer, and smiled with genial approval. "Well, out with it! _How_ did you hear?" "I--asked!" "Asked?" The brow became a network of astonished wrinkling. "You asked? Whom did you ask? And why? What did you know about us, to give you interest in our comings or goings? This grows curiouser and curiouser! I imagined that we were as absolute strangers to you as you were to us." "It--it--there was the magazine--it was because of the magazine." "Oh, indeed! You knew the name through the magazine! I understand!" The Chieftain straightened himself, and the laugh died out of his eyes. For the first time in the history of their short acquaintance Margot saw his face set in firm, hard lines, the business face which had been left at home, together with the black coats and silk hats of City wear, and seeing it, trembled with fear. But it was too late to retreat; for better or worse she was bound to go forward and complete her half- finished revelations. "I wanted to get to know your brother, because he is the editor of the _Loadstar_, and I had heard people say that he was the most powerful literary man in London; that if he chose to take up any one who was beginning to write he could do more to help than any one else. We know no literary people at home, and I wanted to. Badly!" "I see! Just so. Written a novel, and want help to get it into print," returned the Chieftain slowly. He had drawn down his lips into an expression of preternatural gravity, but the hard look had disappeared. The murder was out, and he was not angry; he might pretend to be, but Margot was too sharp-witted to be frightened by a pretence. She drew a sigh of relief as she replied-- "No, indeed. Couldn't to save my life. It's--Ron! I was thinking of him, not of myself. He is a poet!" The Chieftain groaned aloud, as if in pain. "Oh, I know you won't believe it, but he is! He writes wonderful poems. Not rhymes, but poems; beautiful poems that live in your mind. He will be another Tennyson or Browning when he is a little older." The Chieftain groaned again, a trifle more loudly than before. "It's true! It really is true. You must have seen yourself that he is different from other boys of his age. You heard him reeling off those impromptu lines the other day, and said how clever they were! I have seen you looking at his face when he has been thinking out some idea. I knew what he was doing, and you didn't; but you guessed that he was different from ordinary people." "I saw that he was mooning about something, and wondered if he was right in the head! If he'd been my boy, I should have taken care to keep his nose so close to the grindstone that he would have no time to moon! Poet, indeed! Didn't you tell me that your father was a successful business man? What is he about, to countenance such nonsense?" "He doesn't!" replied Margot sadly. "No one does but me, and that's why I had to act. Father agrees with you. He doesn't care for books, and looks down upon literary men as poor, effeminate sort of creatures, who know nothing of the world. He is ashamed that his only son writes verses. Ron detests the idea of business, but he has had to promise father that he would go into his office if at the end of a year he had had no encouragement to persevere in literature. But how is a young unknown poet to make himself known? The magazines announce that they can accept no unsolicited poetical contributions; the publishers laugh at the idea of bringing out a book by a man of whom no one has heard. A boy might be a second Shakespeare, but no one would believe in him until they had first broken his heart by their ridicule and unbelief. The year is out in September, so matters were getting desperate, when at last I--thought of this plan! I felt sure that if a man who was a real judge of literary power met Ron face to face, and got to know him, he would realise his gifts, and be willing to give him a chance. It was no use trying in London in the midst of the full pressure of work, but in the country everything is different. I knew a man who knew a man in the office of the _Loadstar_, and asked him to find out your brother's plans--" As she was speaking Margot was conscious of a succession of stifled chuckles which her companion vainly tried to suppress. The Chieftain's amusement had evidently overmastered his threatened displeasure, and when at length she paused, he burst into an irresistible guffaw of laughter, rubbed his hands together, and cried gleefully-- "Stalked him! Stalked him! Poor old George! Big game, and no mistake. Ran him to earth... Eh, what? Bravo, bravo, Miss Bright Eyes! You are a first-class conspirator." He laughed again and again, with ever-increasing merriment, laughed till his eyes disappeared in wrinkles of fat, till the tears streamed helplessly down his cheeks. His portly form shook with the violence of his merriment; he kicked the air with his short, fat feet. Margot stared at this strange exhibition in an amazement, which gradually changed into annoyance and outraged dignity; so that when at last the Chieftain sat up to mop his eyes with a large silk pocket- handkerchief, he beheld a very dignified young lady sitting by his side in a position of poker-like rigidity, with her head tilted to an expressive angle. "Sorry!" he panted hastily. "Sorry I smiled. A compliment, you know, if you look at it in the right light. It's such an uncommonly good idea, and so original. `The Stalking of the Editor'--eh? Well, now that you have made such a rattling good beginning, why don't you go on and prosper? Here you are; there he is; the field is your own. Why don't you go in and win?" Margot's face fell, and her haughty airs vanished, as she turned towards him a pair of widely-opened eyes, eloquent with plaintive surprise. "But I can't! How can I, when he runs away the moment I appear? I made Ron go fishing with him one day, but he went off and left him alone, and now it's no use persuading any more. Ron says it is only waste of time! As for me, I have hardly spoken a word to him all this time, though I feel that if I did really know him, I--" she hesitated, knitting her brows, and pursing her soft red lips--"I could make him understand! I decided at last to confide in you, because you have been so kind and friendly to us from the first that I felt sure you would be willing to help. You will, won't you? Even if personally you don't approve of a literary career, will you give Ron a chance of living his life in his own way? If your brother approved of his writings, and helped him to a beginning, even the very smallest beginning, father would be satisfied that he was not wasting his time." The Chieftain clasped his hands around his knees, and sat staring at her with thoughtful gaze. His eyes rested upon the clear childlike eyes, the sweet lips, the broad, honest brow, as though studying them in a new light, and with regard to some problem suddenly presented to the mind. Whatever was the question waiting to be decided, the answer was self- evidently favourable, for his eyes lightened, he stretched out an impetuous hand, and laid it upon her arm. "Right!" he cried heartily. "Right! I'll help you! The lad's a good lad, and a clever lad; but what I do will be for your sake, not his! You are a dear girl! The dearest girl I have ever met--save one! For the sake of the bit of her that lives again in you, I am at your service. You shall have your chance. From to-day forward I will see to it that George makes a member of our party wherever we go. He has done enough writing; it is time that he began to play. Make him play, Miss Vane! He has been old all his life; teach him to be young! He is the best fellow in the world, but he is fast asleep. Wake him up! There is just one condition, and that is, that you leave your brother and his scribblings alone for the time being! Don't mention them, or any question of the sort, but be content just to show yourself to George, your own bright, natural girl-self, as you have shown it to me. Learn to know one another, and forget all about the boy. His turn will come later on! You promise?" "Ye-es!" faltered Margot shyly. "Yes, I do; but you must promise too-- that you will, that you won't, won't let your brother think--" The Chieftain touched her arm once more, with a gesture of kindly reassurement. "Don't you worry, little girl! He shall have no thoughts about you that are not altogether chivalrous and true. It's not you who are going to move in this matter, remember! You've given it over into my hands; it is I who am to pull the strings. No, you needn't thank me. It strikes me that we are going to work out pretty even over this business. If you want help for your brother, I need it just as badly for mine. I have realised for a long time that he needed a medicine which no doctor could supply." He looked into her face with a sudden radiant smile. "It strikes me I might have searched a very long time before finding any one so eminently fitted to undertake his cure!" CHAPTER SIXTEEN. RASPBERRY-PICKING. Margot awoke the next morning with the pleasant feeling that something was going to happen, and as she dressed, curiosity added an additional savour to the anticipation. What would happen? How would the Chieftain set to work? Would the Editor consider himself a victim, or yield readily to the temptation? Certainly he had so far manifested no anxiety to enjoy her society, had, indeed, seemed to avoid her at all points; and yet, and yet-- Margot possessed her full share of a woman's divination, and, despite appearances, the inward conviction lingered that if the first natural shyness could be overcome, he would soon become reconciled to her companionship, and might even--she blushed at her own audacity!--_enjoy_ the change from his usual solitude. Like a true daughter of Eve, Margot did her best to help on this happy _denouement_ by taking special pains with her toilette, putting on one of her prettiest washing frocks, and coiling her chestnut locks in the most becoming fashion, and the consciousness of looking her best sent her down to breakfast in the happiest of spirits. Other countries may carry off the palm for the cooking of the more elaborate meals of the day, but surely no breakfast can touch that served in a well-ordered Scottish household. The smoothly boiled porridge, with its accompaniment of thick yellow cream; the new-laid eggs; the grilled trout, fresh from the stream; the freshly baked "baps" and "scones," the crisp rolls of oatcake; and last, but not least, the delectable, home-made marmalade, which is as much a part of the meal as the coffee itself. He must be difficult to please who does not appreciate such a meal as Mrs McNab served each morning to her guests in the dining-room of the Nag's Head! It was when Margot had reached the marmalade stage, and George Elgood, a persistent late-comer, was setting to work on his ham and eggs, that the Chieftain fired the first gun of the assault. "When are you going to invite us all to come up and have tea with you in your fairy dell, George?" he demanded suddenly. "What do you think of this fellow, Mrs Macalister, finding a veritable little heaven below, and keeping it to himself all this time? There's an easy ascent by the head of the glen for those who object to the steeper climb; there's shade, and water and everything that the most exacting person could want for an ideal picnic. To be in the country on a day like this, and not to go for a picnic seems to me a deliberate waste of opportunity, What about this afternoon, eh? That will suit you as well as any other time, I presume?" To say that the Editor appeared surprised by this sudden threatening of his solitude, would be to state the case too mildly. He looked absolutely stunned with astonishment, and his predicament was all the more enhanced by the fact that already murmurs of assent and anticipation welcomed the idea from his neighbours to right and to left. He stared incredulously into his brother's face, wrinkled his brow, and stammered out a laboured excuse. "I'm afraid I-- The dell is in no sense my property--No doubt it would make a capital site for a picnic, but I--I have no right to pose as host!" "Rubbish, my boy! You are not going to get out of it so easily as that. We expect you to act as master of the ceremonies, and show us the beauties you have kept to yourself so long. Yes, and to catch some trout for us, too! What do you say to that, Mrs Macalister? How does freshly grilled trout strike you as an accessory to a picnic? We'll have two fires, with the kettle on one, and the gridiron on the other, and Mrs McNab will send up a hamper of good things to complete the feast. We'll leave George to manage that, as he knows how to get round her; only do the thing well when you are about it; that's all I have to say! We shall bring rattling big appetites, shan't we, Miss Vane?" Margot's glance passed by his to dwell with remorseful commiseration on the Editor's perturbed face. This was her own doing; a direct consequence of her appeal of the day before! The expression of the brown eyes was wonderfully eloquent, and meeting them the Editor bestirred himself to smile back a grateful recognition. By this time, however, the murmur had grown into definite speech; Mrs Macalister was stating at length her life's experience as to picnics, and laying down the law as to what was necessary for their success; the clergyman and his son were debating how to reach the dell from the farthest point of the day's expedition; Mr Macalister was slowly repeating-- "Trout! Grilled trout! It's a strange-like idea to have fish at a picnic!" It was plainly too late in the day for the Editor to refuse an invitation which had already been practically accepted! With a better grace than might have been expected he resigned himself to his fate, and the smile which he sent round the table was very charming in its shy cordiality. "I shall be delighted if you will honour me by coming so far; and no doubt with Mrs McNab's help I shall be able to provide refreshments. Shall we say half-past four?" "Four o'clock would be better. We want plenty of time to linger over tea, and ramble about afterwards," said the Chieftain firmly; and there being no dissent from this amendment, the Editor nodded assent, and, gathering his papers in his hand, hurried out of the room. Margot followed on the first opportunity. She felt the eyes of the Chieftain fixed on her face from across the room, and could imagine the twinkle of humorous meaning with which they would be alight but she felt too self-conscious and ill at ease to respond. Like a frightened little rabbit she scuttled upstairs to her own room and remained there, busying herself with odd pieces of work until the inmates of the inn had taken themselves off for their morning's excursions, and quiet reigned throughout the house. Then, and not till then, she opened her door and peered cautiously at that other door across the landing. It was closely shut, and taking for granted that within its portals the bewildered scholar was making the most of his free hours, Margot crept quietly down the staircase, and turned to the right towards the kitchen. It occurred to her that she might be able to help Mrs McNab in her preparations for the afternoon, and by doing so relieve the pangs of her own conscience. All this work, and worry, and bewilderment, on her account--as a response to her appeal! She blushed guiltily, hardly knowing whether to feel more gratified or annoyed with the Chieftain for so speedy a demonstration of his power; dreading the moment when they should meet again, and she must perforce brave the mischievous messages of his eyes. The kitchen door was closely shut. Mrs McNab was too capable a housewife to allow the noise and odour of culinary preparations to invade the rest of the house; but by this time Margot was sure of her welcome, for scarcely a day had passed by that she had not offered her services, and been condescendingly permitted to shell peas, stone fruit, or whip up snowy masses of cream. Mrs McNab always accorded permission with the air of an empress conferring an order upon some humble suppliant, but none the less Margot felt assured that she appreciated the help, and would have missed it, had it not been forthcoming. This morning she tapped on the door, opened it, and thrust her head round the corner, to behold a tableau which remained fixed irrevocably in heart and memory. In the middle of the floor stood the mistress of the inn, arms akimbo, engaged in laying down the law in characteristic, downright fashion to some one who sat perched upon the dresser with hands thrust deep into knickerbocker pockets, and feet in rough climbing boots swinging nonchalantly to and fro; some one with a bright, almost boyish face alight with fun, laughter, and defiance. For the second time Margot beheld the real George Elgood denuded of his mask of shyness and reserve, and thrilled at the recognition. This sunny, stone-flagged kitchen seemed fated to be the scene of unexpected meetings! She would have retreated in haste, but at the sound of her entrance Mr Elgood jumped hastily to the floor, and Mrs McNab authoritatively waved her forward. "Here she is to speak for herself! Come yer ways, Miss Vane. I was saying to Mr Elgood that maybe he'd listen to your advice, as he willna tak' mine. You're a leddy, and ken how such things should be done, and if there's any call to waste the morning, and run into daft-like expense, when everything a reasonable body need want is lying ready to hand--" Margot looked from one to the other in bewilderment, her spirits rising with the discovery that for the first time in their short acquaintance the Editor met her glance with an expression of relief rather than of dread. He was smiling still, and the boyish look lingered on his face, making him appear an absolutely different creature from the grave, formidable hermit to whom she was accustomed. Margot's eyes danced, and she answered as naturally as if she had been speaking to Ron himself. "I don't know in the least what I am giving an opinion about--but I am not a `reasonable body,' and as a rule the result of `daft-like expense' is very nice! I'm afraid that isn't what you wanted me to say, Mrs McNab, but I must be honest. Perhaps I may feel differently when I know what I am talking about." "Your picnic!" cried Mrs McNab. "My picnic!" corrected the Editor. "I never gave a picnic before, and I'm weighed down by responsibility. My brother refuses to help me, and Mrs McNab is a Spartan, and nips my suggestions in the bud. She thinks we ought to be satisfied with bread and butter; I want cakes and fruit; I want her to bake, and she says she has no time to bake; I want to send over to Rew on the chance of getting strawberries; she says she has no one to send. If you agree with me, Miss Vane, perhaps she will make time; I know by experience that she is always better than her word!" Mrs McNab sniffed ironically. "There's scones for ye, and good fresh butter--what do ye want forbye? Ye'd get nae mair if ye were at hame, and it's not going to kill ye, walking a couple of miles. I've something else to do on a Thursday morning than waste my time messing over things that aren't needed." Mr Elgood leant against the dresser, and surveyed her more in sorrow than in anger. "Now what have you to do?" he demanded. "It's absurd to pretend that there is anything to clean, because you never give a thing a chance to become dirty. There is cold meat for lunch, as you yourself informed me, so there's no cooking on hand. This house goes by machinery, with Elspeth to stoke up the motive power. What can be left for you? I can't think of a single thing." "Maybe not. A man-body never kens what goes on under his nose, though he'd be keen enough to find out if anything went wrong. It's the day I clean my candlesticks and brasses. They don't go on shining by themselves, whatever ye may think." "Candlesticks and brasses!" George Elgood repeated the words with gloomy emphasis, fixing the speaker with reproachful eyes. "Candlesticks and brasses! And you put such things as those before _me_, and the first--one of the first, favours I have ever asked! ... A big plum cake, with almonds at the top, and a round of shortbread; it seems to me a most moderate request. There's not a soul in the inn who will notice a shade of extra polish on the candlesticks to-night, but they will all bear me a lifelong grudge if I don't give them enough to eat. Have you ever been to a picnic where you were expected to be satisfied with bread and butter, Miss Vane?" Margot's shake of the head was tragic in its solemnity. "Never! and I don't intend to begin. I know where we can get some fruit, at any rate, for I heard the woman at the grocer's shop saying that she had raspberries to sell. That is far easier than sending over to Rew, and I'd be delighted to take a basket and bring back all I can get. While Mrs McNab makes the cakes!" Mrs McNab sniffed again, but vouchsafed no further answer. Mr Elgood's face brightened, and he cried eagerly-- "That is kind of you! Raspberries are very nearly as good as strawberries, and it would be splendid to get them so near at hand. I-- er--" he frowned, with a momentary return to his old embarrassment--"I will come too, and carry the basket, for we must hope to have a fairly heavy load." Margot could hardly believe in the reality of this sudden change of position, as she set out for the village ten minutes later, with George Elgood by her side. He carried the basket lent by Mrs McNab, and swung along with big easy strides, while she trotted by his side, a pretty girlish figure in her cool white frock. It was left to her to do the greatest share of the talking; but one reassuring fact was quickly discovered, namely, that her companion's shyness seemed to consist mainly in the dread of breaking strange ground, for once the first plunge over he showed none of the expected embarrassment or distress. If he could not be called talkative, he was at least an appreciative listener; not a single point of her conversation missed its due share of interest; while his deep, quiet laugh proved an incentive to fresh flights of fancy. For a whole ten days had Margot been waiting for her opportunity, and now that it had come she was keen to turn it to the best possible advantage. Had the Chieftain been at hand to watch her with his quizzical glance, she might have been tongue-tied and ill at ease; even Ronald's presence would have brought with it a feeling of self-consciousness; but in the kindly solitude of the mountain road she could be herself, without thought of any one but her companion. Remembering the warning which she had received, she kept the conversation on strictly impersonal topics, avoiding even the mention of Ron's name, but never had ordinary topics seemed so interesting, or the way to the village so extraordinarily quickly traversed! Inside the fusty grocer's shop the good Mrs Forsyth manifested none of a Southerner's delight at the advent of a customer for her superfluous fruit; she appeared, indeed, to receive Margot's first inquiry in a somewhat flisty and off-hand manner, as though advantage were being taken of a careless word, which she had not expected to have taken in serious earnest. George Elgood, distinctly rebuffed, muttered unintelligible words of apology, but already Margot was beginning to understand the dour Northern manner, and pressed the attack with undiminished eagerness. Thus coerced, Mrs Forsyth was forced to acknowledge that she wouldna deny that she had raspberries in the garden; and that it seemed a pity they should waste, as she hadna the time to "presarve." There was no telling--maybe when the children came hame from school in the afternoon they wouldna be above picking a basketful, and taking it down to the inn. "But we want them now! We want as many as you can possibly spare, but we must have them to take back with us now!" "And who's to pick them for ye, I would ask?" demanded Mrs Forsyth with scathing directness. "I've the shop to mind, and the dinner to cook; it's not likely I can be out picking fruit at the same time, and there's not anither soul in the house forbye mysel! I'm thinking you'll have to wait, or do without!" "We could pick them ourselves!" pleaded the Editor eagerly. "You would have no trouble except to measure the fruit after it is gathered, and tell us what we owe! I don't care how much I pay. I want some fruit this morning, and if I can't get it from you I shall have to drive over to Rew. That would cost five or six shillings for the trap alone, so you see I shall get off well, even if you charge me twice the usual price." But here again the benighted Southerner found himself brought up sharply against an unexpected phase of Scottish character, for Mrs Forsyth was distinctly on her high horse at the thought of being offered more than her due. She had her price; a fair-like price, she informed him loftily, and she stuck to it. She wasna the woman to make differences between one person and anither. Justice was justice, and she would like to meet the man who could say she had ever stooped to accept a bribe. So on and so on, while once again George Elgood hung his head abashed, and glanced in distress at his companion. In the delight afforded by that appeal Margot felt equal to dealing with ten Mrs Forsyths, each equally unreasonable and "kamstary." "We will leave the price to you; we will leave everything to you!" she cried gaily. "I know it's asking a great deal to be allowed to come into your garden and pick for ourselves, but we are rather in a difficulty, for this gentleman is giving a picnic this afternoon, and Mrs McNab has no fruit to give us. It would be a favour not only to us, but to the whole party if you would say Yes. _Please_!" The way in which Margot said "Please!" with head on one side, and upraised, beseeching _eyes_, was one of the most fatal of her blandishments. Even the redoubtable Mrs McNab had succumbed at the sight, and in her turn Mrs Forsyth also was overcome. She made no further objections, but led the way through the house into a long stretch of vegetable garden, the end portion of which was thickly planted with raspberry bushes. "Help yourself!" she said briefly. "You're welcome to all that's fit to eat." So the two who had been strangers, and had suddenly developed into a kind of partnership of aim, set to work to fill the basket, which for better convenience was slung over a branch of one of the bushes. The sun shone down on them; the life-giving breeze blew round them; they were alone together among the flowers and the scented herbs. They worked side by side, laughing over their efforts, comparing their takings, gloating over the quickly-filling basket like a couple of children recognising each other as playmates, and disdaining the ordinary preliminaries of acquaintanceship. "It's so kind of you to help me!" said the man. "It's so kind of you to let me!" returned the maid. "I--I have noticed that you seem always to be helping people." "I didn't think you noticed anything at all!" He had not intended to say so much. She did not stop to consider what she was implying. Both blushed, relapsed into silence, and picked fruit assiduously for several moments, before beginning again-- "I am afraid this picnic will be a great bore to you." "Indeed, I think it is going to be a pleasure. I should have thought of it before, but that sort of thing does not come easily to me. I have lived too much alone!" "You have your work--you have been absorbed in your work." "Have I? I'm afraid that is not altogether true!" Margot glanced up surprised, met the dark eyes fixed full upon her, and looked hurriedly away. "I have been finding it increasingly difficult to be absorbed," he continued dreamily. "I have heard you all laughing and talking together downstairs, and my thoughts have wandered. Once you sang... Do you remember that wet afternoon when you sang? I did not seem able to write at all that afternoon." The basket was full of fruit by now; Margot lifted it by one handle; George Elgood lifted it by the other. They walked down the sunlit garden into the house. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. TROUT FISHING. There was a short, somewhat embarrassed silence while Margot kept her eyes fixed on the scene of the late meal, the two smouldering fires, the piled-up hampers and baskets, and the Editor drummed with his fingers, and chewed his moustache. "Er--" he began haltingly at last. "How do you think it has gone?" "You mean the--" "Picnic! Yes. My first entertainment. I feel responsible. Think they enjoyed it at all?" "I'm sure of it. Immensely! They thawed wonderfully. Think of the duet! To hear Mr Macalister singing was a revelation. It has been a delightful change from the ordinary routine. And the trout! The trout was a huge success. How amiable of it to let itself be caught so conveniently!" The Editor smiled, with the conscious pride of the experienced fisherman. "There was not much `let' about it. He led me a pretty dance before he gave up the struggle, but I was on my mettle, and bound to win. Do you know anything about fishing, Miss Vane?" "I?" Margot laughed happily. "Just as much as I have gleaned from watching little boys fish for minnows in Regent's Park! I don't think I have ever particularly wanted to know more. It seems so dull to stand waiting for hours for what may never come, not daring to speak, in case you may scare it away! What do you think about all the time?" He turned and looked at her at that, his lips twitching with amusement. Seated on the ground as they were, the two faces were very near together, and each regarded the other with the feeling of advancing a step further in the history of their acquaintance. "He really _is_ young!" decided Margot, with a sigh of relief. "It's only the frown and the stoop and the eyeglasses which make him look as if he were old." George Elgood looked into the pink and white face, and his thoughts turned instinctively to a bush of briar roses which he had seen and admired earlier in the day. So fresh, and fair, and innocent! Were all young girls so fragrant and flower-like as this? Then he thought of the little prickles which had stung his hand as he had picked a bud from the same bush for his buttonhole, and smiled with latent mischief. After all, the remembrance did not lessen the likeness. Miss Margot looked as if she might--under provocation--display a prickle or two of her own! "What do I think about?" he repeated slowly. "That is rather a difficult question to answer; but this good little river, I am thankful to say, does not leave one much time for thought. There's a little channel just beyond the bridge that is a favourite place for sea trout. Would you like to see it?" "Might I? Really? Oh, please!" cried Margot, all in a breath. Her very prettiest "please," accompanied by a quick rise to her feet which emphasised the eagerness of her words. George Elgood lost no time in following her example, and together they walked briskly away towards the head of the dell; that is to say, in the opposite direction to that taken by the other members of the party. George Elgood had picked up his fishing-tackle as he went--by an almost unconscious impulse, as it seemed--and unconsciously his conversation drifted to the all-absorbing topic. "If we take a sharp cut across this hill--I'll give you a hand down the steep bits!--we hit the river at the best spot. You have been grumbling at the wet weather, but you will see the good effects of rain, from a fisherman's point of view. The river is full from bank to bank, rushing down to the sea. It is a fine sight, a river in flood! I don't know anything in Nature which gives the same impression of power and joy. That's where Norway has the pull. Her mountains can't compare with the Swiss giants, but everywhere there is a glorious wealth of water. No calm sleeping lakes, but leaping cataracts of rivers filling whole valleys, as my little stream here fills its small banks; roaring and dashing, and sparkling in the sun. Norway is perfection, from a fisherman's point of view; but there is plenty of sport to be found nearer home. I have had no cause to complain for the last fortnight. This way--to the right! It's just a little rough going at first, but it cuts off a good mile. You are sure you don't mind?" Margot's laugh rang out jubilantly. She scrambled up the steep mountain path with nimble feet, easily out-distancing her guide, until the hilltop was reached, and she stood silhouetted against the sky, while the wind blew out her white skirts, and loosened curling tendrils of hair. Below could be traced the course of the river, winding in and out in deep curves, and growing ever broader and fuller with every mile it traversed. The sunlight which played on it, making it look like a silver ribbon, played also on the yellow gorse and purple heather; on the long grey stretch of country in the distance; on that softer blue plain joining the skyline, which was the sea itself. A breath of salt seemed to mingle with the aromatic odour of the heather, adding tenfold to its exhilaration. As Margot stood holding on to her hat, and waiting for her companion's approach, she felt such a glorious sense of youth and well-being, such an assurance of happiness to come, as is seldom given to mortals to enjoy. It was written in her face, her radiant, lovely young face, and the light in the eyes which she turned upon him made the shy scholar catch his breath. "You did that well! Magnificently well!" he cried approvingly. "But you must take the descent carefully, please. There are one or two sudden dips which might be awkward if you were not prepared. I know them all. Shall I,--would you,--will you take my hand?" "Thank you!" said Margot, and laid her hand in his with an acceptance as simple as if he had been her own brother. It was a very pretty little hand, in which its owner felt a justifiable pride, and it lay like a white snowflake in the strong brown palm stretched out to meet it. For just a moment George Elgood kept his fingers straight and unclasped, while he gazed downward at it with kindling eyes, then they closed in a tight, protecting clasp, and together they began the descent. For the most part it was easy enough, but the awkward places came so often and unexpectedly that it did not seem worth while to unloose that grasp until the bottom was safely reached. Margot had a dream-like sensation of having wandered along for hours, but in reality it was a bare ten minutes before she and her guide were standing on level ground by the side of the rushing river. "Thank you! That was a great help," she said quietly. George Elgood, with a sudden access of shyness, made no reply, but busied himself with preparation. "I'll just make another cast, to show you how one sets to work. I take a pretty big fly--the trout like that. These are the flies--all sizes, as you see. I am rather proud of them, for I make them myself in the winter months, when one can enjoy only the pleasures of anticipation. It's a good occupation for a leisure hour." "You make them yourself!" Margot repeated incredulously, stretching out her hand to receive one of the hairy morsels on her palm, and bending over it in unaffected admiration. "But how clever of you! How can you have the patience? It must be dreadfully finicky work!" "It is a trifle `finicky,' no doubt!" He laughed over the repetition of the word. "But it's a refreshing change to work with one's hands sometimes, instead of one's brain. Now shall I give you your first lesson in the art? Don't imagine for a moment that fishing means standing still for the hour together, with nothing more exciting than the pulling-in of your fish the moment he bites. That's the idea of the outsider who does not know what adventure he is losing, what hope and suspense, what glorious triumph! Like most things, it's the struggle that's the glory of the thing, not the prize. Shall I soak this cast for you, and give you your first lesson?" "Oh, please! I'd love it! It would be too kind of you!" cried Margot eagerly. She had not the faintest idea what "soaking a cast" might mean, and listened in bewilderment to a score of unfamiliar expressions; but it is safe to affirm that she would have assented with equal fervour to almost any proposition which her companion made. There and then followed the first lesson on the seemingly easy, but in reality difficult, task of "casting," the Editor illustrating his lesson by easy, graceful throws, which Margot tried in vain to imitate. She grew impatient, stamping her feet, and frowning fiercely with her dark eyebrows, while he looked on with the amused indulgence which one accords to a child. "Are you always in such a hurry to accomplish a thing at once?" "Yes, always! It's only when you don't care that you can afford to wait." "It sometimes saves time in the end to make haste slowly!" "Oh, don't confound me with proverbs!" cried Margot, turning a flushed, petulant face at him over her shoulder. "I know I am impetuous and imprudent, but--the horrid thing _will_ twist up! Don't you think I might have a demonstration this time? Let me watch, and pick up hints. I'm sure I should learn more quickly that way, and it would be less boring for you. Please!" At that he took the rod, nothing loth, and Margot seated herself on the ground, a trifle short of breath after her exertions, and not at all sorry to have the chance of looking on while some one else did the work. She was intently conscious of her companion's presence, but he seemed to forget all about her, as wading slightly forward into the stream he cast his fly in slow, unerring circuit. How big he looked, how strong and masterful; how graceful were the lines of his tall lean figure! From where she sat Margot could see the dark profile beneath the deerstalker cap, the long straight nose, the firmly-closed lips, the steady eyes. It was the face of a man whom above all things one could trust. "A poor dumb body," Mrs Macalister had dubbed him, scornfully; but Margot had discovered that he was by no means dumb, and that once the first barriers were broken, he could talk with the best, and bring into his conversation the added eloquence of expression. She recalled the lighting of his absorbed eyes as he had looked down at her own white hand, and flushed at the remembrance. Margot had often pitied the wives and sisters of enthusiastic fishermen who had perforce to sit mum-chance in the background, but to-day she was conscious of no dissatisfaction with her own position. She possessed her full share of the girl's gift of building castles, and it would not be safe to say how high the airy structure had risen before suddenly the rod bent, and the Editor's intent face lit up with elation. The fish was hooked; it now remained to "play" with him, in professional parlance, till he could be landed with credit to himself and his captor. For the next half-hour Margot was keenly, vividly interested in studying the tactics of the game. The reel screamed out, as the captive made a gallant dash for liberty; the Editor splashed after him, running hastily by the side of the river, now reeling in his line, now allowing it full play; and at the distance of a few yards she ran with him, now holding her breath with suspense, now clasping her hands in triumph, until at last, his struggles over, the captive floated heavily upon the stream. It was the end for which she had longed throughout thirty of the most exciting moments that she had ever known; but now that victory was secured, woman--like she began to feel remorse. "Oh, is it dead? Have you killed it? But it's horrid, you know--quite horrible! A big strong man like you, and that poor little fish--" "Not little at all! It's a good six-pounder," protested the fisherman, quick to defend his sport against depreciation. "No--he's not dead yet, but he soon will be. I will just--" "Wait! Wait! Let me get out of the way." Margot flew with her fingers in her ears, then pulled them out to cry--"Is it done? Is it over? Can I come back?" "Yes; it is all right. I've put him in my bag. You will appreciate him better in his table guise. I'll take him back as a peace-offering to Mrs McNab, for her own evening meal. We have already had our share at the pic--" Suddenly his hands fell to his sides, he straightened himself, and turned his eyes upon her, filled with puzzle and dismay. "The pic--" "--Nic!" concluded Margot faintly. Rosy red were her cheeks; a weight as of lead pressed on her eyelids, dragging them down, down, beneath his gaze. "I--I--_forgot_! We were to have gone to find them! Do you suppose they are--hiding still?" He laughed at that, though in somewhat discomfited fashion. "Rather not! Given us up long ago. It must be getting on for an hour. I can't think how I came to forget--" Margot glanced at him shyly beneath her curling lashes. "It was the fish! A fisherman can't be expected to remember anything when he is landing a trout!" she suggested soothingly. Nevertheless she remembered with a thrill of joy that his forgetfulness had dated back to a time when there had been no fish in prospect. "Do you suppose they have gone home?" "We will go and see. From that mound over there we can overlook the path to the inn. Perhaps we had better keep a little in the background! It would be as well that they should not see us, if they happened to look up--" If it were possible to feel a degree hotter, Margot felt it at that moment, as she followed George Elgood up the little hillock to the right, and, pausing just short of the top, peered stealthily around. A simultaneous exclamation broke from both lips; simultaneously they drew back, and crouched on their knees to peer over the heather. There they went!--straggling in a row in the direction of the inn, the party of revellers who had been so basely deserted. First, the clergyman, with his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent in thought; a pensive reveller, this, already beginning to repent a heavy, indigestible meal; next, Mrs Macalister, holding her skirts in characteristic fashion well up in front and sweeping the ground behind; a pace or two in the rear, her spouse, showing depression and weariness in every line of his body. Yet farther along the two young men carrying the empty hampers; last of all, at quite a little distance from the rest, the figure of the Chieftain stepping out with a tread even more conspicuously jaunty than usual, his hands thrust deep into his pockets, his head turned from side to side, as if curiously scanning the hillsides. At one and the same moment Margot and the Editor ducked their heads, and scrambled backwards for a distance of two or three yards. There was a moment's silence, then instinctively their eyes met. Margot pressed her lips tightly together, George Elgood frowned, but it was all in vain; no power on earth could prevent the mischievous dimples from dipping in her cheeks; no effort could hide the twinkle in his eyes--they buried their heads in their hands, and shook with laughter! When at last composure was regained, George Elgood pulled his watch from his pocket, glanced at the time, and cried eagerly-- "There is still an hour before we need be back for dinner. As well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. Let us go back to the river, and try our luck once more!" CHAPTER NINETEEN. A TELEGRAM. It was a very shamefaced Margot who made her appearance at the dinner- table that evening; but, to her unspeakable relief, she found that there was no cause for embarrassment. Instead of the meaning glances and joking remarks which she had dreaded, she was greeted with the ordinary kindly prosaic welcome, and not even Mrs Macalister herself ventured an innuendo. The Chieftain was the only one who alluded to the non- appearance of the searchers, and the manner in which he did so was a triumph of the commonplace. "Muddled up that hide-and-seek finely, didn't we?" he cried cheerily. "Afraid you had all your trouble for nothing. I happened to catch a glimpse of you heading off in the wrong direction, so turned into `It' myself, and rooted them all out of their lairs. Then we played some sensible, middle-aged, sitting-down games, and strolled home in time for a siesta before dinner. Very good picnic, I call it. Great success! We'll have another, one of these fine days." "'Deed yes, and we will!" assented Mrs Macalister genially. "It stirs a body up to have an outing now and then. I was thinking, why shouldn't we drive over to B-- and see the old castle and all the sights? I've been hankering to go ever since we arrived; but it mounts up when you drive about by yourselves. If we shared two carriages between us, it would make all the difference, and it seems foolish-like to be in a neighbourhood and not see what there is to be seen. You can get carriages from Rew, they tell me, if you order them a day or two before." To the amazement of the company, it was George Elgood of all others who hastened to second the proposal. "A capital idea!" he cried. "B-- is one of the finest old ruins in Scotland. Of course we must go; it would be worse than foolish to go home without seeing it. I have been before, so I could act as guide, and those who possess cameras had better take them also, as the place is rich in subjects." The clergyman and his son pricked up their ears at this, photography being with them only a degree less absorbing a pastime than that of walking; Ron awoke suddenly to the remembrance that his half-plate camera had never been unpacked since his arrival; and the three vied with each other in asking questions about the proposed excursion, and in urging that a date should be fixed. Before the meal had come to a conclusion, plans were mapped out, and a division of labour made, by which one person was held responsible for the hiring of carriages, another for the promised food, while George Elgood was left to arrange the plan of campaign. "We are a happy family, we are, we are, we are!" hummed the Chieftain, under his breath, as he cast a twinkling glance across the table to where Margot sat, as demure to outward seeming as she was excited at heart. "Why do you avoid me?" he demanded of her plumply, the next morning, when, after several unsuccessful attempts, he ran her to earth by the side of the tarn. "Scurry out of my way like a frightened bunny whenever I come along. Won't do, you know! Not going to trouble myself to do you good turns, if you round on me afterwards, and avoid me as if I were the plague. What's it all about?" "Nothing," stammered Margot confusedly. "I only felt rather-- You _do_ tease, you know, and your eyes twinkle so mischievously that I felt that discretion was the better part of valour." "Well, don't do it again then, that's all, or I may turn rusty and upset the apple-cart. No reason that I know of why I should be ostracised, because I try to help my fellow-creatures. What are you doing over here? Reading? What a waste of time! Much better come and chuck stones into the lake with me." Margot's brown eyes widened in reproof. "Don't you like books?" "Hate the sight of 'em! Especially on a holiday. Never want to see as much as a line of print from the time I leave home to the time I return. Especially,"--his eyes twinkled in the mischievous manner to which exception had just been taken--"especially poetry! Don't mind my saying so, do you?" "Not a bit," returned Margot promptly, tossing her first stone into the lake with a vehemence which held more than a suspicion of temper. "Of course I never--one would never--_expect_ you to like it. It would be the last thing one would expect--" "Too fat?" She blushed at that, and had the grace to look a trifle distressed. "Oh, not that altogether. It's a `_Je ne sais quoi_,' don't you know. One could tell at a glance that you were not a literary man." The Chieftain chuckled, bent down to gather a handful of stones, and raised a red smiling face to hers. "Well, well, we can't all be geniuses, you know! One in a glen is about as much as you can expect to meet in these hard times. But I can chuck stones with the best of 'em. That one was a good dozen yards beyond your last throw. Put your back into it, and see what you can do. It's a capital way of letting off steam." Margot was tempted to protest against the accusation, but reflection prompted silence, since after all she _was_ cross, and there was no denying it. She took the little man's advice, and "let off steam" by the vigour and determination with which she hurled pebbles into the lake, making them skim along the surface in professional manner for an ever longer and longer space before finally disappearing from sight. The Chieftain cheered her on with example and precept, and, as usual, irritation died a speedy death in the presence of his bright, cheery personality. While they were still laughing and cheering each other on to fresh exploits, a lad from the post office passed along the road, and the Chieftain wheeled round to call out the usual question-- "Anything for me? Is the post in already?" The lad shook his head. He was a red-headed sociable-looking creature who seemed only too glad to enliven his walk by a chat _en route_. His teeth showed in a cheerful smile as he replied-- "The post willna be here for an hour or mair. It's just a telegram!" A telegram! It said much for the peaceful seclusion of the Glen that the very sound of the word brought a chill of apprehension to the listening ears. No one received telegrams at the Nag's Head. One and all the visitors had sojourned thither with the aim of getting away as far as possible from the world of telegrams, and electric trams, and tube railways, and all the nerve-shattering inventions of modern life. Their ambition was to outlive the sense of hurry; to forget that such a thing as hurry existed, and browse along in peaceful uninterrupted ease. To-day, however, in that far-away world beyond the heather-clad mountains something must have happened of such importance to some member of the little party that it could not wait for the leisurely medium of the post, but for good or ill had demanded instant attention. Margot and the Chieftain stood in silence for a moment before he asked the second question. "Who is it for?--What's the name?" "Macalister!" The name was pronounced with the lengthy drawl to which the hearers were growing familiar. They looked at each other with sighs of relief, followed swiftly by contrition. "I hope nothing is wrong! I hope it's not bad news. Poor Mr Macalister's `nearves'!" "No, no! Nothing of the sort. Why imagine evil? Always look at the bright side as long as you can. Take for granted that it is good news, splendid news--the news he would like most to hear. Cut along, laddie! People pay for telegrams with the intention of getting them to their destination as quickly as possible. We'll defer the pleasure of a conversation to our next merry meeting." The red-headed one grinned complacently and continued on his way, whistling as he went. There was about him no suggestion of a harbinger of bad tidings; the sun shone from a cloudless sky, and awoke sparkling reflections in the water; the scene was one of unbroken peace and happiness, and yet, and yet,--some shadow seemed to have fallen on Margot's soul, so that she could no longer take any interest in the mere throwing of stones. Her heart followed the footsteps of the messenger down the winding path, and stood still as he entered the inn. "What is it, little girl? You look as if you had seen a ghost!" The Chieftain stood observing her with an expression of kindly concern, for the pretty face had turned white beneath its tan, and the brown eyes were wide and tense, as if beholding something hidden from ordinary gaze. She gazed fixedly, not back in his face, but past him down the lane towards the inn. "I'm--afraid! I _feel_ it is not good news. It means trouble--big trouble! It is hanging over me like a cloud!" He looked at her swiftly, and his face changed. "Come then," he said quietly, "we will go back. If it is trouble, we may be able to help. I never ignore presentiments; they are sent to us all from time to time, and if we are faithful we obey them, like a summons. One came to me years ago. It was late at night, and I was just off to bed, when suddenly it came--the remembrance of a friend far off; the insistent remembrance; the certainty that he needed me, and that I must hasten to help. By all the laws of common sense I should have shrugged my shoulders and gone to sleep; but what are we, to judge by our own poor knowledge the great unknown forces of God? I went out there and then, caught a midnight train, and was at his house by seven in the morning. His wife met me on the stair and said, `How did you know?' ... He lay dying in his bed, and all that night he had been calling for me. There was something I could do for him, better than any one else. He wished to place it in my hands before he went, and God had mercifully provided the opportunity. Never say that anything is impossible in this world, little girl! According to your faith so shall it be unto you." Margot did not answer except by a faint, strained smile. Her eyes were fixed upon the doorway of the inn, waiting for the reappearance of the messenger, but he did not come, and the delay lent weight to her apprehension. They spoke no more, but walked silently side by side, until they drew near to the inn, when suddenly the silence of the Glen was broken by a strange, unaccustomed sound. What was it? Whence did it come? From some animal surely; some animal in pain or fear, piteously making known its needs! It could not be the moan of human woe! Yet even as she passionately denied the thought, Margot recognised in her heart that it was true, and darting quickly forward made her way into the inn parlour. The messenger still stood outside the door, waiting in stolid patience for instructions, and by his side was Mrs McNab, wiping floury hands in her apron, in evident perturbation of spirit. On the plush-bedecked sofa in the corner of the parlour the half- inanimate form of Mrs Macalister swayed helplessly to and fro, while on either side stood two men--her husband and George Elgood--looking on in helpless, masculine fashion. Her cap had fallen back from her head, her ruddy face was bleached to a livid grey, from her lips came from time to time that pitiful, hopeless wail. At first it seemed to have no definite sound, but as one listened it took to itself words,--always the same words, repeated again and again-- "My lassie! My Lizzie! Oh, my lassie!" "Nay, dearie, nay! You mustna give way. She's better off. You must be strong. We'll bear it together." It was Mr Macalister who spoke; but Margot hardly recognised the voice, hardly recognised the face, which, for all its pallor and quiver of pain, was yet strong and calm. All trace of the peevish discontent that had hung like a cloud over the man had vanished like a mist; his bowed back seemed to have straightened itself and grown erect; the whining voice was composed and full of courage. He had forgotten his nerves in the presence of a great calamity; nay, more than that--he had forgotten himself; his one care and anxiety was for his wife! The tears smarted in Margot's eyes; she ran forward, dropped on her knees before the chair, and clasped her strong young arms round the swaying figure, steadying it with loving, gentle pressure. The wan eyes stared at her unrecognisingly for a moment, then, at the sight of her girlish beauty, old memories returned, and the tears began to rain. "Lizzie's gone! Lizzie's gone! I'll never see her again. All in a moment, and me so far away. My little Lizzie!... I canna bear it!..." "She never suffered, mother. She knew nothing about it. It's better for her than a long, painful illness. You must be thankful for her sake." Mr Macalister looked down at Margot, and bravely essayed an explanation. "It was an accident. We've just heard. Instantaneous, they say. The mother's sore upset, but she's a brave woman. She'll bear it bravely for all our sakes. We'll need to get back to Glasgow." "Yes. I'll help! I'll pack for her. Don't trouble about anything. I'll see that it is all right. You'll let me help you, dear, won't you?" Margot put up a tender hand, to straighten the cap on the poor, dishevelled head; and something in the simple, daughterly action seemed to reach the poor woman's heart, and bring with it the first touch of calmness. She sat up and looked blankly from side to side. "I--I'm sorry! I shouldna give way. I never lost a child before, you see, and Lizzie was such a one for her mother. I wrote to her only last night. She leaves two bairnies of her own, but they are so young. They'll never remember her!" The pitiful trembling began again, whereupon George Elgood's hand held out a glass of water, and Margot took it from him to lift it to the quivering lips. "They will need you all the more, and you must be strong for their sakes. That's what she would wish, isn't it?" "Yes, yes. I must take care of the children. And Fred--poor Fred! but he hasn't loved her as I have done for nearly thirty years. Father, when can we get back?" "I'll see, my dearie. I'll see! Leave all to me. I'll settle it all, and this good lassie will pack your things. Ye need trouble for nothing, my lass,--ye need trouble for nothing." He laid his broad hand on his wife's shoulder with a gesture infinitely tender, then turned and went stumbling out of the room, while Margot's eyes met the tear-drenched ones above her with a flash of enthusiasm. "He is--_splendid_!" Even at that moment Mrs Macalister showed a faint kindling of response. "Didn't I tell ye? When a man's out of health ye canna judge. When he's in his usual, there's no one to touch Mr Macalister." With an instinctive movement Margot turned her head upward till her eyes met those of George Elgood, and exchanged a flash of mutual understanding. It heartened her like a drink of water in a thirsty land, for underlying the pity and the kindliness she recognised something else; something that existed for herself alone, and which seemed to bring with it an electric thrill of happiness. Outside in the "lobby" the Chieftain was looking up trains in his own _Bradshaw_, and arranging with Mrs McNab for the long drive to the station, while Mr Macalister was writing out a return message with trembling fingers. "Come upstairs with me, dear!" said Margot gently. "You shall lie on the bed while I do the packing. It's a long journey, and you must be as fresh as possible when you arrive. They will be waiting for you, you know, and expecting you to comfort them. You have told me how they all rely upon you. You wouldn't like to fail just when they need you most!" Mrs Macalister raised herself feebly from her chair, but her poor face quivered helplessly. "I'm a broken reed for any one to lean on. I can only remember that Lizzie's gone. There's no strength left in me. She was the flower of the flock. And me so far away!" For the next hour the poor woman lay on the bed in her room, now sobbing in helpless paroxysms of grief, now relating pitiful, commonplace anecdotes of the dead daughter so dearly beloved, a dazed helpless creature, unable to do a hand's turn for herself, while her husband crept in and out, quiet, resourceful, comforting, full of unselfish compassion. Margot had hard work to keep back her own tears, as he clumsily pressed his own services upon her, picking up odd garments, folding them carefully in the wrong way, and rummaging awkwardly through the drawers. The trap was to be ready to start by twelve o'clock, and ten minutes before the time Margot carried a sponge and basin of water to the bedside, bathed the poor, tear-stained face, brushed the straggling locks of grey hair, and helped to fasten bonnet and cloak. It was pathetic to see the helplessness into which grief had stricken this capable, bustling woman. She lifted her chin, to allow the strings of her bonnet to be tied by Margot's hands, and sat meekly while the "dolman" was hooked. It was like dressing a big docile baby; like a child, too, the manner in which she clung to her husband's arm down the narrow stair. Mrs McNab was standing below in the lobby, her hard face flushed to an unnatural red. She held a basket in her hand filled with dainty paper packages containing fruit, sandwiches, and cakes. Unable to voice her sympathy, she had put it into deeds, striving to ensure some comfort for the long journey ahead. Mrs Macalister smiled a pitiful travesty of a smile in acknowledgment, and her friends pressed her hand, mercifully refraining from speech. When it came to parting from Margot, however, that was a different matter. Mrs Macalister stooped from the seat of the trap to kiss the girl's cheek once and again. "You're a guid lassie," she said, trembling. "I would have been lost without you! The Lord bless you, my dear!" "Ay! and she _shall_ be blessed!" added Mr Macalister's voice, deeply. Margot thrilled at the sound of those words, and stood back on the path watching the departing wheels through a mist of tears. They had gone, those two good, loving, simple creatures, and in all likelihood she would never see them again; for a moment their lives had touched, but the currents had swept them apart; they were as ships that had passed in the night. To the end of time, however, she must be the better for the meeting, for in their need they had leant upon her, and she had been able to help. They had blessed her in patriarchal fashion, and the sound of their words still rang in her ears-- "The Lord bless you!" "Ay! and she _shall_ be blessed?" CHAPTER TWENTY. CRITICISM. Out of sympathy and respect for Mr and Mrs Macalister, nothing more was said about the next picnic party for several days after their tragic departure from the Glen, but the intervening time was, to Margot at least, full of interest and excitement. One morning, for instance, as she strolled from the breakfast-room to the road, as was the easy custom of the hour, a hurried step followed in the same direction, and George Elgood, staring hard in an opposite direction, advanced an opinion that one lesson in fishing was mere waste of time, whereas two, or perhaps three, might possibly convey some real knowledge of the art. Er--did Miss Vane feel inclined to pay another visit to the river? Miss Vane, poking the gravel with the points of her shoes, was--er--yes! quite inclined, if Mr Elgood was sure she would not interrupt his sport Mr Elgood, with equal eagerness and incoherence, assured Miss Vane that she would do nothing of the kind, and hurried back to the inn, murmuring vaguely concerning eleven o'clock. In the quiet of the riverside, however, he regained his self-possession, and once more proved himself to be the most interesting of companions, the most patient of instructors. Margot thought fishing a delightful and absorbing pursuit, which was the more remarkable as she was rather stupid than otherwise in mastering the initial movements. Mr Elgood encouraged her, however, by saying that some of the cleverest "rods" of his acquaintance had been the slowest in picking up the knack. The great thing was to have plenty of practice! She ought to come up every morning for as much time as she could spare; meantime, as she had been standing so long, would she not like to sit down, and rest awhile before walking home? Then they sat down side by side on the grassy bank, and talked together as a man and a maid love to talk in the summer of their youth, exchanging innocent confidences, comparing thoughts and opinions, marvelling that they are so much alike. Margot faithfully observed her promise to make no references to her ambitions on her brother's behalf, and, truth to tell, her silence involved little effort, for she was guiltily conscious of being so much engrossed in her own affairs that even Ron's ambitions had faded into the background. As for the lad himself, he was happy enough, wandering about by himself studying "effects" to transcribe to paper, or scouring the countryside with the Chieftain, whom he frankly adored, despite the many exceedingly plain-spoken criticisms and exhortations received from his lips. "Your sister has been telling me about that rhyming craze of yours," the little man said suddenly one day. "Likewise about her own very pretty little scheme for the subjugation of my brother. Told you that she'd told me, eh? Expect she did! She is pleased to believe she is a designing little adventuress, whereas as a matter of fact she's as clear as crystal, and any one with half an eye could see through her schemes. Well! I laid down the law that neither she nor you are to worry my brother about business matters during his holiday, for, to tell you the truth, he has had his full share of worry of late. But what about me? I'm a plain, common-sense, steady-going old fellow, who might perhaps be able to give you a word or two of advice! What's all this nonsense about throwing aside a post that's waiting for you, and which means an income for life, in order to live in an attic, and scribble verses for magazines? If you knew the world, young man, you would understand that you are blessedly well off, to have your way made smooth, and would not be in such a hurry to meet disappointments half way. They will come soon enough! At the best of it, you will have a hard row to hoe. Why make it worse?" Ronald flushed in sensitive fashion, but there was no hint of offence in his manner, as he replied-- "It is hardly a question of an attic, sir. My father would not disinherit me because I preferred literature to business. I might have a pittance instead of a fortune, but I should not have to fear want. And why should I not live my own life? If I am bound to meet troubles, surely it is only right to provide what compensations I can, and my best compensation would be congenial work! I don't want to be rich. Let some other fellow take the post, and get his happiness out of it; it would be slavery to me." "Humph! No boy likes the idea of putting his nose to the grindstone. They all kick a bit at the thought of an office desk, but nine out of ten enjoy the life when they get into the swing. It's a great secret of happiness in this world, to be kept so busy that we have not time to think of ourselves. We need work for its own sake, even more than for what it brings; but our work must be worthy. There's no real success away from that... About those verses now! It's a pleasant occupation for you to sling them together--I haven't a word to say against it as a recreation--but that's a different thing from serious work. There's only one thing which justifies a man in cutting himself adrift from the world, in opposition to the wishes of those who have his interests most at heart, and that is, a strong and solemn conviction of a special mission in life. Very well then! If you agree so far, let us proceed to consider the mission of a poet. There's only one justification for his existence--only one thing that distinguishes him from the professional rhymester whom nobody wants, and who is the bane and terror of society, and that is--_that he has something to say_! Now take your own case--a lad without as much as a moustache on his face; the son of a rich father, who has lain soft all his life, and had the bumps rolled flat before him. What do you imagine that you are going to teach the world? Do you fondly believe that you have anything to say that has not been said before, and a thousand times better into the bargain?" Ronald looked up and gazed dreamily ahead. He had taken off his cap, as his custom was in these moorland tramps, which were becoming of daily occurrence, and his hair was ruffled on his forehead, giving an air of even more than ordinary youth to his face. The hazel eyes were dark, and the curved lips trembled with emotion; he was searching his soul for the reply to a question on which more than life seemed to depend, and while he gazed at the purple mountains with unseeing eyes the Chieftain gazed at his illumined face, and felt that he had received his answer. The words of Wordsworth's immortal ode rushed into his brain, and he recognised that this ignorant lad possessed a knowledge which was hidden from the world. Heaven, with its clouds of glory, lay close around him, ignorant of worldly wisdom though he might be. God forbid that the one should ever be exchanged for the other! The Chieftain was answered, but like Ron he remained silent. They walked on over the short, springy grass, breathed the clear, fresh breeze, and thought their own thoughts. It was not until nearly a mile had been traversed that Ron turned his head and said simply, as if answering a question put but a moment before-- "I sing, because I must! It is my life. I have not thought of other people, except in so far as their approval would justify me in my father's eyes. You could no doubt judge better than I if what I have to say has value or not. Will you read some of my lines?" A curious sound broke from the Chieftain's lips, a sound something between a groan and a laugh. He frowned, pursed his lips, swung his short arms vigorously to and fro, shook his head with an air of determined opposition, then suddenly softened into a smile. "It's a strange world, my masters! A strange world! You never know your luck! In the middle of my holiday, and a Scotch moor into the bargain! I'll try Timbuctoo another year! Nothing else for it. Where does my brain-rest come in, I want to know! You and your verses--be plagued to the pair of you! Got some about you now, I suppose? Hand them over, then,--the first that come to the surface--and let me get through with it as soon as possible!" He plumped down on the grass as he spoke, took out a large bandana handkerchief and mopped his brow with an air of resignation, while Ronald fumbled awkwardly in his pocket. "I have several pencil copies. I think you can make them out. This is the latest. A Madrigal--`To my Lady.'" "Love-song?" "Yes." "Ever been in love?" "No." "What a pity when charming--poets--sing of things they don't understand! Well, well, hand it over! I'll bear it as bravely as I may--" Ron winced, and bit his lower lip. It was agony to sit by and watch the cool, supercilious expression on the critic's face, the indifferent flick of the fingers with which the sheet was closed and returned. "Anything more?" "You don't care for that one?" "Pretty platitudes! Read them before a score of times--and somewhat more happily expressed. If I were a poet--which I'm not, thank goodness!--I could turn 'em out by the score. Ten shillings each, reduction upon taking a dozen. Suitable for amateur tenors, or the fashion-magazines. Alterations made if required... Anything else in the lucky bag?" "There's my note-book. They are all in there--the new ones, I mean, written since I came up here. You can read which you please." Ron took the precious leather book from his pocket, and handed it over with an effort as painful as that of submitting a live nerve to the dentist's tool. As he sat on the ground beside his critic he dug his heels into the grass, and the knuckles of his clenched hands showed white through the tan. The beginning had not been propitious, and he knew well that no consideration for his feelings would seal the lips of this most honest of critics. For a few moments he had not courage to look at his companion's face, but even without that eloquent guide it was easy to follow his impressions. A grunt, a groan, a long incredulous whistle, a sharp intake of breath-- these were but too readily translated as adverse criticisms, but between these explosions came intervals of silence less easy to explain. Ron deliberately rolled over on his side, turning his back on his companion, thereby making it impossible to see his face. Those who have never trusted their inmost thoughts to paper can hardly imagine the acute suffering of the moment when they are submitted to the cold criticism of an outsider. Life and death themselves seemed to hang in the balance for the young poet during the half-hour when he lay on the heather listening to each sound and movement of his critic. At the end of half an hour the interruption came. A yawn, a groan, the pressure of a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Now then, wake up, over there! Time to move on!" Awake! As if it were possible that he could be asleep! Never in his life had he been more acutely, painfully conscious of his surroundings. Ron rose to his feet, casting the while a tense glance at his companion's face. What verdict would he see written on eye and mouth as the result of that half-hour's study? He met a smile of bland good- humour; the cheery, carelessly complacent smile of the breakfast-table, the smoke-room, the after-dinner game; with not one trace of emotion, of kindled feeling, or even ordinary appreciation! The black note-book was tossed into his hands, as carelessly as if it had been a ball; even a commonplace word of comment was denied. It was a bitter moment, but, to the lad's credit be it said, he met it bravely. A gulp to a tiresome lump in the throat, a slight quivering of the sensitive lips, and he was master of himself again, hastily stuffing the precious note-book out of sight, and striving to display the right amount of interest in his companion's conversation. It was not until the inn was within sight that Mr Elgood made the slightest allusion to the verses which he had read. "Ah--about those rhymes!" he began casually. "Don't take yourself too seriously, you know. It's a strange thing that young people constitute themselves the pessimists of the world, while the old ones, who know what real trouble is, are left to do the optimism by themselves. If you are bound to sing, sing cheerfully! Try to forget that `sad' rhymes with `glad,' and don't feel it necessary to end in the minor key. That rhyming business has a lot to answer for. I like you best when you are content to be your natural, cheerful self!" "You think, then--you do think--some of them a little good?" Ron's wistful voice would have melted a heart of stone. The Chieftain laid a hand on his arm with a very kindly pressure. "There are some of 'em," he said cheerfully, "which are a lot better than others. I'm not partial to amateur verses myself, but I don't mind telling you for your comfort that I've seen worse, before now-- considerably worse!" Poor Ron! It was bitter comfort. In the blessed privacy of his own room he sat himself down to read over the pages of the little black book with painful criticism, asking himself miserably if it were really true that they were feeble amateur efforts, tinged with pretence and unreality. Here and there a flush and a wince proved that the accusation had gone home, when a vigorous pencil mark on the side of the page marked the necessity for correction, but on the whole he could honestly refute the charge; could declare, with the bold yet humble conviction of the true craftsman, that it was good work; work well done; work worth doing! The dreamy brown eyes sent out a flash of determination. "I _can_!" said Ron to himself. "And I _will_!" CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. A MOUNTAIN MIST. Three days later a wagonette was chartered from Rew, to drive the diminished party to the scene of the haunted castle. Margot felt rather shy in the position of the only lady, but a mild proposition that she should stay at home had been so vigorously vetoed that she had nothing more to say. "If one clergyman, plus one brother, plus one bald-headed veteran, aren't sufficient chaperons for one small girl, things are coming to a pretty pass indeed!" protested the Chieftain vigorously. "If you stay at home, we _all_ stay, so that's settled, and the disappointment and upset will be on your head. Why all this fuss, I should like to know? One might think you were shy." Margot pouted, and wriggled her shoulders inside her white blouse. "I _am_ shy!" "You are, are you? Hadn't noticed it before. Of whom, if one may ask?" She turned at that, and walked back to the inn, nose in air, but thereafter there were no more demurs. It was indeed a very decorous little party which sat in two rows of three, facing each other in the wagonette during the eight-mile drive. The clergyman and the Chieftain, with Margot between them; and opposite, the three dreamers: the Editor, Ron, and young Mr Menzies,--each apparently too much immersed in his own thoughts to care for conversation. Margot was quite thankful when the drive came to an end, outside castle walls, grim and grey, but imposing as ever, though they were in reality but a shell, surrounding a plot of innocent green grass. There were isolated towers still standing, however, approached by winding stone stairways, and short lengths of walks along the ramparts, and quaint little barred windows through which one could view the surrounding country. When Margot thrust her pretty laughing face through one of these latter to greet her friends below, every photographer among them insisted upon snap-shotting her then and there, and for a good half-hour she was kept busy, posing in various attitudes, to give the desired touch of life to the pictures. Photography over, the next duties were to partake of lunch and to wander round the small, and it must be confessed somewhat uninteresting little village; then,--since the return home counted as one of the chief attractions in the programme--the little party broke up into two, the clergyman and his son preferring the longer route, round by the roads, the other four to take the short--cut across the moors. A five-mile walk across the moors! Given health, settled skies, and congenial society, it would be difficult to name a more exhilarating occupation for a summer afternoon; but, truth to tell, the weather had taken a decided turn for the worse since midday, and it needed some optimism to set forth on a long exposed walk. The subject had been discussed at lunch with special reference to Margot, as the only lady of the party; but, as she aptly observed, she was bound to get back somehow, and, as a choice of evils, preferred to walk through rain, rather than sit still to be soaked through and through on the seat of the wagonette. It was therefore decided to make an early start, and allow no loitering by the way; but when the village had been left about a mile behind an unexpected delay occurred. The Chieftain thrust his hands into his pockets, and stopped short in the middle of the road, with an expression of dismay. "Eh, what! Here's a fine kettle of fish! Where's my bunch of keys? They were here as safe as houses, a few minutes back. I was jingling tunes on them as we passed the school. You heard me jingling 'em! Dropped them on the road, I suppose, and walked on like a blind bat. Serves me right to have to turn back to find 'em. Can't lose my keys, you know. Got to find them somehow, or there'll be the mischief to pay. You'll have to go on, George, and take Miss Vane with you. There's no time for conundrums, if you want to get home dry." He looked towards Ron with questioning eyebrows. "Feel inclined to keep me company? I don't fancy that walk by my lonesome." "Of course I do. I should not think of leaving you behind by yourself, sir," returned Ron eagerly. "We can't have far to go, and we can soon catch up the others, if we make a sprint for it. Go on, Margot. We'll be after you in no time." In the circumstances there was nothing else to be done, nor indeed, after a long morning spent in wandering about as a party, was Margot inclined to quarrel with the fate which provided an interesting _tete-a- tete_ for the walk home. She contented herself with expressing profuse sympathy for the Chieftain's loss, and with prophesying cheerfully that the keys were certain to be found, then promptly dismissed the subject from her mind, and gave herself up to the enjoyment of the moment. "I really think we are wise not to wait about," George Elgood said, in accents of self-vindication, as they moved on together. "The glass is high, but I don't like the look of things, all the same, and for your sake shall be glad when we are nearer home. Are you pretty warmly dressed, if the rain should come on?" "Don't I look it? I couldn't possibly have anything more suitable than this tweed coat and skirt. It doesn't matter how wet it gets. It won't spoil." "I was thinking about your own comfort, not of the clothes. You never carry an umbrella with you, I notice!" "I can't be bothered! Showers are such an everyday occurrence up here, that one would be doing nothing else. I rather like the feel of the rain on my face, and besides,"--she laughed mischievously, "it's good for the complexion!" "Is that so?" he asked gravely, his dark eyes dwelling on the soft, rounded cheeks, which grew a shade more pink beneath his gaze. Suddenly his lips twitched, with the one-sided, humorous smile which brought the youth into his face. "I don't think the need in that direction is so pressing that it could not be postponed with advantage, for to-day at least. Do you mind walking fairly quickly? I shall feel more comfortable when we are nearer home." Margot was serenely indifferent whether it rained or not, but none the less she appreciated the Editor's care for her welfare, which showed itself in a dozen little graceful acts during the first part of their walk. For one unaccustomed to women's society he was marvellously observant, and Margot felt a sweeter satisfaction in being so protected than in all her former independence. They climbed the hillside which led to the moor and set out radiantly to traverse the grey expanse; grey and cheerless to-day in very deed, with a thick, blanket-like dampness in the atmosphere of which dwellers in southern climes are happily ignorant. George Elgood turned up the collar of his coat, and Margot thrust her hands into her pockets, shivering slightly the while, but neither made any complaint in words. As usual, it was left to Margot to do most of the talking; but though her companion's responses were short, they were yet so sympathetic and appreciative, that there was never any difficulty in finding a fresh subject. Like most couples with whom friendship is fast making way for a warmer emotion, personal topics were the most appreciated, and what was happening in the world--the discoveries of science, the works of the great writers--palled in interest before sentences beginning with, "I think," and, "Do you think?" "I wish--" "Have you ever wished--?" They looked at each other as they spoke, with bright, questioning glances, which seemed ever to hail some precious new discovery of mind, drawing them closer and closer together. The hour of enchantment had come, when they moved in a world of their own, unconscious of external accidents. The moisture hung in dewdrops on the Editor's cap, Margot's hair curled damply on her forehead; but they felt neither cold nor discomfort. It was unusually dark for the time of day, and had grown mysteriously darker during the last half-hour; but visitors to the Highlands become philosophically resigned to sudden and unpleasant atmospheric changes, and fall into the way of ignoring them as far as possible. It was only when they reached a point in the moor from whence the ground sloped sharply downward towards the Glen that they awoke to the consciousness of danger, for instead of a rolling stretch of green surrounded by purple hills, they seemed to be looking down into a cauldron of floating mist and steam, blocking out the view, confusing the eyes, and slowly but surely concealing the familiar landmarks. Margot and the Editor stopped short with simultaneous exclamations of dismay, then wheeled quickly round, to see what lay behind. Here indeed the fog was much less dense, but the distance was already obliterated, while long, smoke-like tendrils of mist were closing in on every hand. The signs which they had noted had portended something worse than rain; something which the dwellers in moorland regions learn to fear and dread above all other phenomena,--a mountain mist! George Elgood's face was eloquent with self-reproach. "This is my fault! Where were my eyes, that I did not see what was happening? The darkness should have warned me long ago. I am horribly ashamed of myself, Miss Vane!" "You needn't be. It's as much my fault as yours. I did notice the damp on my face, but I thought it was rain. What are we to do?" It was a simple question, but terribly difficult to answer. With every moment those rolling masses of mist settled down more densely over the hillsides. To walk forward was to walk blindfold over a treacherous country; to return seemed hardly more propitious, though as a choice of evils it was the one to be preferred. "We must go back. We can't have come more than two or three miles. We must get back, and drive round by the road. Probably we shall meet Geoffrey and your brother _en route_!" Even as he spoke the Editor turned and led the way towards the little village which had been left behind less than an hour before. There was no time to waste, for the darkness was increasing, and the clammy dankness of the air struck to the very marrow. "I shall never forgive myself if you suffer through this. It was my business to look after you. There's only this slight excuse--that we were mounting towards the highest part of the moor, which was naturally the clearest. The mist seems to have gathered from all around." Margaret looked and shivered, but hastened to appease his anxiety. "I think we _did_ notice, but as we were expecting rain, a little mistiness was natural. We could not tell that it was going to spread like this. Never mind! It will be quite an adventure to brag about when we are back in town. `Lost on the Scotch moors! Tourists disappear in a mist!' It would make a thrilling headline, wouldn't it?" She laughed as she spoke, but the laugh had rather a forced tone. Suddenly she became conscious that she was tired and chilled, that her coat was soaked, and her boots heavy with damp. Though only a few paces away, the figure of her companion was wreathed with tendrils of mist; they were floating round her also; blinding her eyes, catching her breath, sending fresh shivers down her back. A pang of fear shot through her at the thought of what might lie ahead. Like two grey ghosts they struggled onward through the gloom. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. LOST ON THE MOOR. George Elgood's haste to reach the end of the moor gave wings to his feet, so that Margot had much ado to keep pace. Contrary to expectation, the fog did not lessen as they advanced, but closed in upon them thicker and thicker, so that the ground beneath their feet became invisible, and progress was broken by sundry trips and stumbles over projecting mounds of heather. The air seemed to reek with moisture, and a deadly feeling of oppression, almost of suffocation, affected the lungs, as the curling wreath of mist closed overhead. Half an hour earlier Margot had felt that any sort of adventure (if experienced in George Elgood's company) must of necessity be enjoyable, but during that swift silent retreat she was conscious of a dawning of something perilously like fear. Her breath came in quickened pants, she kept her eyes fixed in a straining eagerness on the tall figure looming darkly ahead. If she once lost sight of him, what would become of her? It made her shudder to think of being left alone upon that shrouded moor! Every now and then as he walked, the Editor gave voice to a loud "coo- ee," in hope that the echoes might reach the ears of his brother and Ronald, who should by now be approaching in the same direction; but no reply floated back to his anxious ears. "Perhaps they have gone round by the road," he suggested tentatively. "If they were some time in following, they may have seen the fog, and come to the conclusion that discretion was the better part of valour." "Ron wouldn't go another way if he thought I was in danger! He promised father to take care of me. I know he will come." "Then we are bound to meet; unless--" George Elgood stopped short hurriedly. It was not for him to open his companion's eyes to the fact that the direction which they were taking had become a matter of speculation, as one after another the familiar landmarks faded from view. The two brothers might pass by within a few yards, or their paths might diverge by miles, but in either case they would be equally invisible. The only hope was to go on sending out the familiar cry, which would at once prove their identity. "Not that we should be any better off with them than without!" he told himself dolefully. Margot did not ask for a completion of the unfinished sentence, perhaps because she guessed only too truly its import. A few steps farther on her foot came in contact with a stone hidden beneath a clump of furze; she stumbled, tried in vain to recover herself, and fell forward on her knees. The shock and the severe pricking which ensued forced a cry of dismay, and the Editor turned back hurriedly, and uttered a startled inquiry. "Miss Vane, where are you?" "I'm here!" replied a doleful voice, and a dark form stirred at his feet. "I--_fell_! On a horrid bush! My hands are full of prickles." "I'll light a match while you get them out. It's my fault. I might have guessed what would happen. I'd like to kick myself for being so thoughtless." "Please don't! We don't want any more tribulations. I--I'm quite all right!" cried Margot, with tremulous bravery. The flicker of a match showed a pale face, and two little hands grimed with dust and earth. She brushed them hastily together, and peered up into his face. "It's pretty thick, isn't it?" "Abominably thick! I have heard of the sudden way in which these mountain mists come on, but I've never been in one before. I could kick myself once more for not having noticed it sooner. I suppose I was too much absorbed in our conversation." The match died out, and there was a moment's silence, in which Margot seemed to hear the beating of her own heart. Then in the darkness a hand lifted hers, and placed it against an arm which felt reassuringly solid. "You must let me help you along. A moor is not the easiest place in the world to cross in the dark. You won't mind my shouts? I want to let the other fellows know where we are, if they are within hearing." "Oh, I don't mind. I'll shout, too! They must be near. It seems ridiculous that we can't see each other." But still no answering cry came back, and Margot's sense of comfort in the supporting arm gradually gave place to a revival of her first dread. She shivered, and swallowed a lump in her throat before daring a fateful question. "Mr Elgood, do you know--have you the faintest idea where we are going?" His arm tightened over her hand, but he made no attempt at prevarication. "No, I haven't! For the last five or ten minutes it has been purely guess-work." "We may be going in the wrong direction, or round and round in a circle!" "We may--I am afraid it is more than probable. I have been thinking that it might be better to stay where we are. We can't have strayed very far out of the course as yet, but--" Again he stopped, and this time Margot completed the sentence. "I know! It's not safe to wander about when we can't see what is ahead. I've been thinking the same thing. We had better sit down and wait. They will come to look for us. I'm sure they will come, and there's a cottage somewhere near, where we have been for milk. That's another chance. If we keep calling the people, they may hear us." "Oh yes, yes! Some one will hear, or the mist will rise as suddenly as it fell. It will be only for a short time," returned the Editor sturdily. "Now look here--the ground is soaking--you can't possibly sit on it without something underneath. If you could spare your cape it would serve us both as a rug, and I'm going to wrap you up in my coat." He loosened his arm, as if to take off the said coat forthwith, but Margot's fingers tightened their grasp in very determined fashion. "You are not! I won't wear it. I absolutely refuse to do any such thing. How can you suggest such a horridly selfish arrangement--I to wear your coat, while you sit shivering in shirt-sleeves? Never! I'd rather freeze!" "Put it the other way. Am I, a man, to hug my coat, and let a girl sit on the soaking grass? How do you suppose I should feel? I'd rather freeze, too!" Margot gave a quavering little laugh. "It seems to me we have a pretty good chance of doing it--coat or no coat. If I am a girl, I'm a healthy one, and I must take my chance. Did you happen to put your newspaper in your pocket this morning? That would be better than nothing." "Of course I did! That will do capitally. What a blessing you thought of it! There! Sit down quickly, and I'll pull a bit down under your feet. Can't I wrap that cape more tightly round you? And the hood? Hadn't you better have the hood up?" "Yes, please! I had forgotten the hood. That will be cosy!" Margot's cold cheeks flamed with sudden colour as she felt the touch of careful fingers settling the hood round head and face, and fumbling for the hook under the chin. At that moment at least cold was not the predominant sensation! There was a short silence while the Editor seated himself by her side, and felt in his pockets. "You won't mind if I smoke?" "I shall like it, especially if you have fusees. I love the smell of fusees! You don't ask me to have a cigarette, I notice, and yet it is fashionable for girls to smoke nowadays. How did you know that I didn't?" "I _did_ know! I can hardly tell why, but I am thankful for it, all the same. I am too old-fashioned to care for smoking women. A girl loses her charm when she apes a man's habits." "Yes. I agree. I am sorry I am not a man, but as I'm a girl I prefer to be a real one, and have my clothes smelling sweet and violety, instead of like a fusty railway carriage. But men seem to find smoke soothing at times. I wish I had a feminine equivalent of it just now. It's a little bit frightening to sit still and stare into this blank white wall. Couldn't you tell me something interesting to pass the time?" "It's a little difficult to be `interesting' to order. What particular kind of narrative would distract you best?" "Oh--something about yourself. Something you have done, or felt, or planned for another day. I'm so interested in people!" returned Margot, wrapping the folds of her cloak more closely round her, and slipping her hands deep down into the inside pockets. "Have you had any thrilling experiences or adventures that you don't mind speaking about? The more thrilling the better, please, for my feet _are_ so cold!" She shivered, in involuntary childish fashion, and George Elgood sighed profoundly. "This is about the biggest adventure I've had. I was once snowed up for a night in a rest-house on one of the Swiss mountains, but we had every ordinary comfort, and knew exactly where we were, so that it didn't amount to much, after all. I was going up with my guide, and met another party of two brothers and a sister coming down, and we all took shelter together, while one of the guides returned to the village, to let the people in the hotel know of our safety. When the door was open the prospect was sufficiently eerie, but we made a fire and brewed tea, and passed the time pleasantly enough. The worst part of it was that I had to give up the ascent next day, as there was too much snow to make it prudent to go on." "Oh! Yes! Was she pretty?" She felt, rather than saw, his start of surprise. "Who?" "The sister. You said there was a girl in the other party." "I'm _sure_ I don't know! I didn't notice." "Don't you care how people look?" "It doesn't interest me, unless I am already attracted in other ways. At least--" he hesitated conscientiously. "I _used_ not to be. I think I am growing more noticing. Geoff always said I needed to be awakened to the claims of beauty. I understand now that it may be a great additional charm." How did he understand? Who or what had increased his power of observation? Margot hoped that she knew; longed to be certain, yet dreaded the definite information. In a little flurry of nervousness she began to talk volubly on her own account, hoping thereby to ward off embarrassing explanations. "I seem fated to come in for adventures. I went over to Norway one summer, and the engines broke down half-way across the North Sea, and at the same time all the electric lights went out. It was terribly rough, and we rolled for a couple of hours--the longest hours I have ever known! The partitions of the cabins did not quite reach to the roof, and you could hear the different conversations going on all round. In a dreary kind of way I realised that they were very funny, and that I should laugh over them another day. Quite near us were two jolly English schoolboys, who kept ordering meals all the next day, and shouting out details to a poor sister who was lying terribly ill in the next cabin `Monica, we are having bacon! Have a bit of bread soaked in fat?' Then Monica would groan--a heartrending groan, and they would start afresh. `Buck up, Monica--try a muffin!' At lunch-time they pressed roast beef and Yorkshire pudding upon her, and she groaned louder than ever. She _was_ ill, poor girl. In Norway there was an alarm of fire in one of those terrible wooden hotels, and we all jumped on each other's balconies to get to the outside staircases. It was soon extinguished, but it was a very bad scare. And now this is the third. Mr Elgood, do coo-ee again! Ron must be looking for me, unless he is lost himself." The Editor put his hands to his mouth and sent forth a succession of long-drawn-out calls, which seemed as though they must surely be heard for miles around, but in the silence which followed no note of reply could be heard. In the face of such continued disappointment, Margot had not the courage to go on making conversation, but relapsed into a dreary silence, which was broken only by the gentle puff-puff of the Editor's pipe. In the darkness and silence neither took note of time, or realised how it sped along. Only by physical sensations could it be checked, but gradually these became disagreeably pressing. Margot's feet were like ice, her fingers so cold as to be almost powerless; but as the minutes passed slowly by the active discomfort was replaced by a feeling of drowsy indifference. She seemed to have been sitting for years staring into a blank white wall, and had no longer any desire to move from her position. It was easier to sit still, and wait upon Fate. Beneath the veil of darkness her head drooped forward, and she swayed gently from side to side. For some time these movements were so slight as to pass unnoticed by her companion, but as the drowsiness increased the muscles seemed to lose control, the swayings became momentarily more pronounced, until she tilted violently over, to recover herself with a jerk and a groan. Then indeed George Elgood was startled into anxious attention. "What is it? What is the matter? Are you in pain?" The inarticulate murmur which did duty for reply seemed only to whet anxiety still further. "Miss Vane, are you ill? For pity's sake tell me what is wrong!" Another murmur sounded faintly in his ear, followed by an incoherent--"I'm only--asleep! So--very--tired!" With a sharp exclamation the Editor leapt upwards, and the drowsy Margot felt herself suddenly hoisted to her feet by a pair of strong arms. The arms retained their hold of her even after she was erect, shaking her to and fro with almost painful energy. "But you _must_ not sleep! Margot, Margot, awake! I can't let you sleep. It is the worst thing you could do. Speak to me, Margot. Tell me you understand. Margot! Darling! Oh, do rouse yourself, and try to understand!" Margot never forgot that moment, or the wonder of it. She seemed to herself to be wandering in a strange country, far, far away from the solid tangible earth--a land of darkness and dreams, of strange, numbing unreality. Her eyes were open, yet saw nothing: impalpable chains fettered her limbs, so that they grew stiff and refused to move; an icy coldness crept around her heart. Hearing, like the other senses, was dulled, yet through the throbbing silence a sound had penetrated, bringing with it a thrill of returning life. Some one had called "_Margot_" in a tone she had never heard before. Some one had said, "_Darling_!" Back through the fast-closing mists of unconsciousness Margot's soul struggled to meet her mate. Her fingers tightened feebly on his, and her cold lips breathed a reply. "Yes--I am here! Do you want me?" Something like a sob sounded in the Editor's throat. "Do I want you? My little Margot! Did I ever want anything before? Come, I will warm your little cold hands. I will lead you every step of the way. You can't sit here any longer to perish of cold. We will walk on, and ask God to guide our feet. Lean on me. Don't be afraid!" Then the dream became a moving one, in which she was borne forward encircled by protecting arms; on and on; unceasingly onward, with ever- increasing difficulty and pain. George Elgood never knew whether he hit, as he supposed, a straight road forward, or wandered aimlessly over the same ground. His one care was to support his companion, and to test each footstep before he took it; for the rest, he had put himself in God's hands, with a simple faith which expected a reply; and when at last the light of the cottage windows shone feebly through the mist his thankfulness was as great as his relief. As for Margot, she was too completely exhausted to realise relief; she knew only a shrinking from the light, from the strange watching face; a deathly sensation as of falling from a towering height, before darkness and oblivion overpowered her, and she lay stretched unconscious upon the bed. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. PARTINGS. It was six days later when Margot opened her eyes, and found herself lying on the little white bed in the bedroom of the Nag's Head, with some one by the window whose profile as outlined against the light seemed strangely and sweetly familiar. She stared dumbly, with a confused wonder in her brain. _Edith_? It could not possibly be Edith! What should bring Edith up to Glenaire in this sudden and unexpected fashion? And why was she herself so weak and languid that to speak and ask the question seemed an almost impossible exertion? What had happened? Was she only dreaming that her head ached, and her hands seemed too heavy to move, and that Edith sat by the window near a table covered with medicine bottles and glasses? Margot blinked her eyes, and stared curiously around. No! it was no dream; she was certainly awake, and through the dull torpor of her brain a remembrance began slowly to work. Something had happened! She had been tired and cold; oh, cold, cold, cold; so cold that it had seemed impossible to live. She had wandered on and on, through an eternity of darkness, which had ended in the blackness of night. Her head throbbed with the effort of thinking; she shut her eyes and lay quietly, waiting upon remembrance. Suddenly it came. A faint flush of colour showed itself in the white cheek, and a tingle of warmth ran through the veins. She remembered now upon whose arm she had hung, whose voice it was which had cheered her onward; in trembling, incredulous fashion she remembered what that voice had said! A faint exclamation sounded through the stillness, whereupon Edith looked round quickly, and hurried to the bedside. "Margot! My darling! Do you know me at last?" Margot smiled wanly. The smooth rounded face had fallen away sadly in that week of fever and unconsciousness, and a little hand was pushed feebly forward. "Of course. I'm so glad! Edie, have I been ill?" "Yes, darling; but you are better now. After a few days' rest you will be well again. You must not be nervous about your dear self." "And you came?" "Yes, darling; Ron telegraphed, and father and I came up at once. Agnes is taking care of the boys." "So kind! I remember--it was the mist. Was--Ron--safe?" "Yes, darling, quite safe. He and Mr Elgood arrived at the cottage very soon after you, and were so thankful to find you there." "Is--is _everybody_ well?" Again that faint flush showed on the cheeks; but Edie was mercifully blind, and answered with direct simplicity-- "Every one, dear, and you are going to be quite well, too. You must not talk any more just now, for you are rather a weak little girl still. Drink this cup of milk, and roll over, and have another nap. It is good to see you sleeping quietly and peacefully again. There! Shut your eyes, like a good girl!" Then once more Margot floated off into unconsciousness; but this time it was the blessed, health-restoring unconsciousness of sleep, such sleep as she had not known for days past, and from which she awoke with rested body and clearer brain. When the dear father came in to kiss and greet her, a thin white hand crept up to stroke his hair, and pull his ear in the way he loved, whereupon he blinked away tears of thankfulness, and essayed to be fierce and reproachful. "So you couldn't be satisfied until you had dragged the whole family after you, to the ends of the earth! There's no pleasing some people. This is my reward for being such a fool as to think you could take care of yourself!" "Ducky Doodles!" murmured Margot fondly. As of yore, she manifested not the faintest alarm at his pretence of severity, but twitched his ear with complacent composure, and once more Mr Vane blinked and swallowed a lump in his throat. There had been hours during those last days when he had feared that he might never again hear himself called "Ducky Doodles," and what a sad grey world that would have meant! Then came Ron, a little embarrassed, as was natural in a lad of his years, but truly loving and tender all the same, and Margot's brown _eyes_ searched his face with wistful questioning. There was so much that she wanted to ask and to hear, and concerning which no one had as yet vouchsafed information. Ron could tell her all that was to be told, which it was impossible to pass another night without knowing, yet there he sat, sublimely unconscious that she wanted to be assured of anything but his own safety. With the energy of despair, Margot forced herself to put a question. "How are all--the others?" "The Elgoods? They are all right. Awfully worried about you, you know, and that sort of thing. Afraid the governor might think they were to blame. The idea of your going down with pneumonia, and frightening us all into fits! I thought you were too healthy to be bowled over so soon, but a London life doesn't fit one for exposure. The governor was furious with me for bringing you to the North." But for once Margot was not interested in her father's feelings. She turned her head on the pillow and put yet another question. "They did not catch colds, too?" "Oh, colds!" Ron laughed lightly. "Of course, we all had colds; what else could you expect? We were lucky to get off so easily. The Elgoods put off leaving until you were safely round the corner, but they are off first thing to-morrow." At this there was a quick rustle of the bedclothes. "Going? _Where_?" asked a startled voice, in which sounded an uncontrollable quiver of apprehension. "Not away for altogether?" "Yes! Their time was up three days ago. It is awfully decent of them to have stayed on for so long. We shall meet in town, I suppose; but your Editor man is no use to me, Margot. That little scheme has fallen flat. From first to last he has never troubled to show the faintest interest in my existence, and has avoided the governor all he knew. The Chieftain is worth a dozen of him. He has kept the whole thing going this last week, amused the governor, looked after Edith, been a perfect brick to me. I'm glad we came, if it were only for the sake of making his acquaintance, for he is the grandest man I've ever known; but your scheme has failed, old girl." From Margot's expression it would appear that everything on earth had failed. Her face looked as white as the pillow against which she rested, and her eyes were tragic in her despairing sadness. Ron bestirred himself to comfort her, full of gratitude for so heartfelt an interest. "Never mind! You did your best, and it's nobody's fault that he turned out such a Diogenes. The governor has been awfully decent since he came up, and I don't despair of getting the time extended. He is much more amenable, apart from Agnes, and I fancy the Chieftain puts in a good word for me now and then--not on the score of literature, of course--but after they have been talking together, the governor always seems to look upon me with more--more _respect_, don't you know, and less as if I were a hopeless failure, of whom he was more or less ashamed. That's a gain in itself, isn't it?" "'Um!" assented Margot vaguely. "I suppose they drive over to catch the evening express? Did he--they--say anything about me?" Ron started in surprise. "My dear girl, we have talked of nothing else _but_ you, for the last week! Pulse, temperature, sleep; sleep, temperature, pulse; every hour the same old tale. You have given us all a rare old fright; but thank goodness you are on the mend at last. The doctor says it is only a matter of time." "Did--they--send any message?" "No! Edie said you were not to be excited. Awfully sorry to miss saying good-bye, and that sort of thing, but hope to meet you another day in town." Margot shut her eyes, and the line of curling lashes looked astonishingly black against her cheek. "I see. Very kind! I'm--tired, Ron. I can't talk any more." Ron rose from his seat with, it must be confessed, a sigh of relief. He was ill at ease in the atmosphere of the sick-room, and hardly recognised his jaunty, self-confident companion in this wan and languid invalid. He dropped a light kiss on Margot's forehead, and hurried downstairs, to be encountered on the threshold of the inn by George Elgood, who for once seemed anxious to enter into conversation. "You have been to see your sister. Did she--er--was she well enough to send any message before we go?" "Oh, she's all right--quite quiet and sensible again, but doesn't bother herself much about what is going on. I told her you were off, but she didn't seem to take much notice. Expect she's so jolly thankful to feel comfortable again that she doesn't care for anything else." "Er--quite so, quite so!" repeated the Editor hastily; and Ron passed on his way, satisfied that he had been all that was tactful and considerate, and serenely unconscious that he had eclipsed the sun of that summer's day for two anxious hearts! There was little sleep for poor Margot that night, and in the morning Edith noticed with alarm the flushed cheeks and shining eyes which seemed to predict a return of the feverish symptoms. She drew down the blind and seated herself by the bedside, determined to guard the door and allow no visitors. The child had evidently had too much excitement the day before, and must now be kept absolutely quiet. But Margot tossed and fidgeted, and threw the clothes restlessly about, refusing to shut her eyes, and allow herself to be tucked up, as the elder sister lovingly advised. Her eyes were strained, and every now and then she lifted her head from the pillow with an anxious, listening movement. At last it came, the sound for which she had been waiting--the rumble of wheels, the clatter of horses' hoofs, the grunts and groans of the ostler as he lifted the heavy bags to their place. Margot's brown eyes looked up with a piteous entreaty. "They are going! You must be quick, Edie. Run down quickly and say good-bye!" "It isn't necessary, dear. I saw them before coming upstairs. Ron is there, and father." "But you must! I want you to go. Quickly, before it is too late. Edie, you _must_!" There was no denying so vehement a command. Edith turned silently away, confirmed in a growing suspicion, and yearning tenderly over the little sister's suffering. It was the younger brother, of course!--the tall, silent man, whose lips had been so dumb, whose eyes so eloquent, during the critical days of Margot's illness, and who had been the girl's companion on the misty moor. What had happened during those hours of suspense and danger? What barriers had been swept aside; what new vistas opened? Edith's own love was too sweet and sacred a thing to allow her to pry and question into the heart-secrets of another, as is the objectionable fashion of many so-called friends, but with her keen woman-senses she took in George Elgood's every word, look, and movement during the brief parting scene. He stood aside, leaving his brother to utter the conventional farewells; his lips were set, and his brows drawn together; but ever and anon, as if against his will, his eyes shot anxious glances towards the window of the room where Margot lay. Edith moved a few steps nearer, to give the chance of a few quiet words, if it was in his heart to speak, but none came. A moment later he had swung himself up beside his brother on the high seat of the cart, and the wheels were beginning to move. Edith went slowly back to her post, dreading to meet the gaze of those dear brown eyes, which had lost their sparkle, and become so pathetic in their dumb questioning. She had no reassuring message to give, and could only affect a confidence which she was far from feeling. "Well, dear, they are off, but it is not good-bye--only _au revoir_, as you are sure to meet again in town before long. Mr Elgood asked permission to call upon me in town. Nice little man! He has been so wonderfully kind and considerate. I can't think why he should trouble himself so much for a complete stranger. The tall one looked sorry to go! He kept looking up at your window. He has a fine face--strong and clever. He must be an interesting companion." Margot did not answer; but five minutes later she asked to have the curtain drawn, as the light hurt her eyes. They had a somewhat red and inflamed appearance for the rest of the day; but when Mr Vane commented on the fact, the dear, wise Edie assured him that it was a common phenomenon after illness, and laid a supply of fresh handkerchiefs on the bed--table in such a quiet and unobtrusive fashion, that they might have grown there of their own accord. "Some day," thought Margot dismally to herself, "some day I shall laugh over this!" For the present, however, her sense of humour was strangely blunted, and the handkerchiefs were needed for a very different purpose. CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. A PROUD MOMENT. Margot's recovery was somewhat tedious, so that it was quite three weeks after the departure of the brothers Elgood before she was strong enough to face the journey home. In the meantime Edith remained in charge as nurse, while Mr Vane and Ron varied the monotony of life in the Glen by making short excursions of two or three days' duration to places of interest in the neighbourhood. Notwithstanding the unchanged position of affairs, they appeared to be on unusually good terms, a fact which would have delighted Margot if she had been in her usual health and spirits; but she had become of late so languid and preoccupied as to appear almost unconscious of her surroundings. Once a day she did, indeed, rouse herself sufficiently to show some interest in passing events, that is to say, when the post arrived in the morning; but the revival was but momentary, and on each occasion was followed by a still deeper depression. The elder sister was very tender during those days of waiting; very tactful and patient with little outbursts of temper and unreasonable changes of mind. She knew that it was not so much physical as mental suffering which was retarding the girl's progress, and yearned over her with a sympathy that was almost maternal in its depth. The little sister had proved herself such a true friend during the trials of the last few years, that she would have gone through fire and water to save her from pain; but there are some things which even the most devoted relative cannot do. Edith could not, for instance, write to George Elgood and question him concerning his silence: could not ask how it came to pass that while his brother had written to Margot, to Ronald, even to herself, he remained silent, content to send commonplace messages through a third person. As for Margot herself, she never mentioned the younger of the two brothers, but was always ready to talk about the elder, and seemed unaffectedly pleased at her sister's appreciation of the kindly, genial little man. "But why was he so sweet to me?" Edith would ask, with puzzled wonderment. "From the moment I arrived he seemed to be on the outlook to see how he could help. And he took an interest in Jack, and asked all about him and his affairs. The astonishing thing is that I told him, too! Though he was a stranger, his interest was so _real_ and deep that I could confide in him more easily than in many old friends. Had you been talking about us to him, by any chance?" Margot turned her head on the pillow, and stared out of the window to the ridge of hills against the skyline. Her cheeks had sunk, making the brown eyes appear pathetically large and worn. There was a listlessness in her expression which was strangely different from the vivacious, self-confident Margot of a few weeks ago. "Yes, I spoke about you one day. He liked you, because you were so fond of Jack. He was in love himself, and the girl died, but he loves her still, just the same. He tries to help other girls for her sake. He said he wanted to know you. If it were ever in his power to help you and Jack, he would do it; but sometimes no one can help. It makes things worse when they try. You might just as well give up at once." "Margot! What heresy, dear! From you, too, who are always preaching courage and perseverance! That's pneumonia croaking, not the gallant little champion of the family! What would Ron and I have done without you this last year, I should like to know? Isn't it nice to see father and the boy on such good terms? I believe that also is in a great degree due to Mr Elgood's influence. The pater told me that he congratulated him on having such a son, and seemed to think Ron quite unusually gifted. It is wonderful how much one man thinks of another man's judgment! We have said the same thing for years past, and it has had no effect; but when a calm, level-headed man of business drops a word, it is accepted as gospel. You will be happy, won't you, darling, if Ron's future is harmoniously arranged?" "Ron will be happy!" said Margot shortly. At the moment it seemed to her as if such good fortune could never again be her own. She must always be miserable, since George Elgood cared so little for her that he could disappear into space and leave her without a word. Formal messages sent through another person did not count, when one recalled the tone of the voice which had said, "_Margot_!" and blushed at the remembrance of that other word which had followed. Sometimes, during those long days of convalescence, Margot almost came to the conclusion that what she had heard had been the effect of imagination only; as unreal and dream-like as the other events of that fateful afternoon. At other times, as if in contradiction of these theories, every intonation of the Editor's voice would ring in her ears, and once again she would flush and tremble with happiness. At last the day arrived when the return to town need no longer be delayed. Mr Vane was anxious to return to his work, Edith to her husband and children; and the doctor pronounced Margot strong enough to bear the journey in the comfortable invalid carriage which had been provided. Preparations were therefore made for an early start, and poor Elspeth made happy by such a wholesale legacy of garments as composed a very trousseau in the estimation of the Glen. No one was bold enough to offer a gift to Mrs McNab, but when the last moment arrived Margot lifted her white face with lips slightly pursed, like a child asking for a kiss. As on the occasion of her first appearance, a contortion of suppressed emotion passed over the dour Scotch face, and something suspiciously like moisture trembled in the cold eyes. "When ye come back again, come back twa!" was the enigmatical sentence with which the landlady made her adieu, and a faint colour flickered in Margot's cheek as she pondered over its significance. The journey home was broken by a night spent in Perth, and London was reached on the afternoon of a warm July day. The trees in the Park looked grey with dust, the air felt close and heavy after the exhilaration of the mountain breezes to which the travellers had become accustomed; even the house itself had a heavy, stuffy smell, despite the immaculate cleanliness of its _regime_. Jack Martin was waiting to take his wife back to Oxford Terrace, the children having already preceded her, and Margot felt a sinking of loneliness at being left to Agnes's tender mercies. "Dear me, child, what a wreck you look! Your Highland holiday has been a fine upset for us all. What did I tell you before you started? Perhaps another time you may condescend to listen to what I say!" Such was the ingratiating welcome bestowed upon the weary girl on her arrival; yet when Margot turned aside in silence, and made no response to the accompanying kiss of welcome, Agnes felt hurt and aggrieved. From morning to night she had bustled about the house, assuring herself that everything was in apple-pie order; arranging flowers, putting out treasures of fancy-work, providing comforts for the invalid. "And she never notices, nor says one word of thanks. I can't understand Margot!" said poor Agnes to herself for the hundredth time, as she seated herself at the head of the table for dinner. "Are there any letters for me, Agnes?" queried Margot anxiously. "One or two, I believe, and a paper or something of the sort. You can see them after dinner." "I want them now!" said Margot obstinately. She pushed back her chair from the table, and walked across the room to the desk where newly- arrived letters were laid out to await the coming of their owners. Three white envelopes lay there, and a rolled-up magazine, all addressed to herself. She flushed expectantly as she bent to examine the different handwritings. Two were uninterestingly familiar, belonging to faithful girl friends who had hastened to welcome her home; the third was unmistakably a man's hand,--small and compact, the letters fine, and accurately formed. A blessed intuition told Margot that her waiting was at an end, and that this was the message for which she had longed ever since her return to consciousness. With a swift movement she slipped the envelope into her pocket, to be opened later on in the privacy of her room, and returned to the table, bearing the other communications in her hand. "I should have thought that after six weeks' absence from home you might have been willing to talk to _me_, instead of wanting to read letters at your very first meal!" said Agnes severely; and Margot laughed in good- natured assent. "I won't open them! It was only curiosity to see what they were. I'll talk as much as you like, Aggie dear." It was, all of a sudden, so easy to be amiable and unselfish! The nervous irritation which had made it difficult to be patient, even with dear, tactful Edie during the last weeks, had taken wing and departed with the first sight of that square white envelope. The light came back to Margot's eyes; she held her head erect, the very hollows in her cheeks seemed miraculously to disappear, and to be replaced by the old dimpling smile. Mr Vane and Ron exchanged glances of delight at the marvellous manner in which their invalid had stood the journey home. The letters and parcel lay unnoticed on the table until the conclusion of the meal, but as Margot picked them up preparatory to carrying them upstairs to her own room, she gave a sudden start of astonishment. "Ron, it's the _Loadstar_! Some one has sent me a copy of the _Loadstar_. From the office, I think, for the name is printed on the cover. Who could it be?" "The Editor, of course--as a mark of attention on your return home. Lazy beggar! It was easier than writing a letter," laughed Ron easily, stretching out his hand as he spoke to take forcible possession, for the magazine was of more interest to himself than to Margot, and he felt that a new copy was just what was needed to occupy the hours before bedtime. Margot made no demur, but stood watching quietly while Ron tore off the wrapper, and flattened the curled paper. She was not in a reading mood, but the suggestion that George Elgood might have sent the magazine made it precious in her sight, and she waited anxiously for its return. "It's mine, Ron. It was sent to me! I want to take it upstairs." "Let me look at the index first, to see who is writing this month! You don't generally care for such stiff reading; I say, there's a fine collection of names! It's stronger than ever this month. I don't believe there is another paper in the world which has such splendid fellows for contribu--" Ron stopped short, his voice failing suddenly in the middle of the word. His jaw dropped, and a wave of colour surged in his cheeks. "It--it can't be!" he gasped incredulously. "It _can't_! There must be another man of the same name. It can't possibly be meant for _me_!..." "What? What? Let me see? What are you talking about?" cried Margot, peering eagerly over his shoulder, while Ron pointed with a trembling finger to the end of the table of contents. Somehow the words seemed to be printed in a larger type than the rest. They grew larger and larger until they seemed to fill the whole page--"_Solitude. A Fragment. By Ronald Vane_!" "Oh, Ron, it is!" shrieked Margot, in happy excitement. "It _is_ you, and no one else! I _told_ you it was beautiful when you read it to me that day in the Glen! Oh, when did you send it to him?" "Never! I never so much as mentioned my verses in his hearing. That was part of the bargain--that we should not worry him on his holiday. Margot, it was you! You are only pretending that you know nothing about it. It must be your doing." "Indeed it isn't! I never even spoke of you to him." Margot had the grace to blush at the confession; but by this time Ron had turned over the pages until he had come to the one on which his own words faced him in the beautiful distinct typing of the magazine, and the rapture of the moment precluded every other sentiment. He did not hear what Margot said, so absorbed was he in re-reading the lines in their delightful new setting. "It _is_ good; but it is only a fragment. It isn't finished. Why was this chosen, instead of one of the others?" "I told you you would ruin it if you made it longer. It is perfect as it is, and anything more would be padding. It is a little gem, worthy even of a place in the _Loadstar_. Father, do you hear? Do you understand? Look at your son's name among all those great men! Aren't you glad? Aren't you _proud_! Aren't you going to congratulate us _both_?" Mr Vane growled a little, for the sake of appearances; but though his eyebrows frowned, the corners of his lips relaxed in a manner distinctly complacent. Even recognising as he did the herald of defeat, it was impossible to resist a thrill of pride as his eye glanced down the imposing list of names held open for his inspection. A great scientist; a great statesman; a leading author; an astronomer known throughout the world; a soldier veteran, and near the end that other name, so dearly familiar--the name of his own son! The voice in which he spoke was gruff with emotion. "Humph! You are in good company, at least. Let me see the verses themselves. There must be something in them, I suppose, but I am no judge of these things." CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE. "IN CORN." Meantime Margot had returned to the far end of the room, and adroitly slipped the third letter out of her pocket, feeling that it would be selfish to delay reading the contents, as they must certainly cast some light upon the present situation. Her heart sank a little as she recognised that the attention was less personal than she had imagined, but even so, it was to herself that the magazine had been directed, and that was an evidence of the fact that in publishing the poem her pleasure had been considered even more than Ronald's advancement. She tore open the stiff white envelope and read as follows:-- "Dear Miss Vane,-- "I hear that you are to arrive home this afternoon, and intend to take the liberty of calling upon you after dinner, in the hope that you may be able to give me a few minutes of uninterrupted conversation on a subject of great importance. If you are too much fatigued after your journey, pray have no scruples in refusing me admission, in which case I shall take an early opportunity of calling again; but after the strain of the past few weeks I do not find myself able to wait longer than is absolutely necessary for an interview. "Yours faithfully,-- "George Elgood." "Is that from Elgood? What does he say? What does he say? Let us see what he says!" petitioned Ron eagerly; but Margot returned the letter to her pocket, resolutely ignoring his outstretched hand. "He gives no explanation, but he is coming to-night. Coming to call after dinner, and he asks me to see him alone, so I'll find out all about it, and tell you afterwards." "Alone!" Ron's face was eloquent with surprise, disappointment, and a dawning suspicion. "Why alone? It's more my affair than yours. I _must_ thank him before he goes." "I'll send for you, then. I suppose he wants to explain to me first. I'll be sure to send for you!" reiterated Margot hurriedly, as she disappeared through the doorway. Her first impulse was, girl-like, to make for her own room, to give those final touches to hair and dress, which are so all-important in effect, and that done, to sit alone, listening for the expected knock at the door, the sound of footsteps ascending to the drawing-room. To meet George Elgood here! To see his tall dark figure outlined against the familiar background of home,-- Margot gasped at the thought, and felt her heart leap painfully at every fresh sound. The postman, the parcels delivery, a van from the Stores, had all claimed the tribute of a blush, a gasp, and a fresh rush to the glass, before at last slow footsteps were heard mounting the stairs, and Mary's voice at the door announced, "A gentleman to see you, Miss Margot!" and in another minute, as it seemed, she was facing George Elgood across the length of the drawing-room. The roles of invalid and anxious inquirer seemed for the moment to be reversed, for while she was pink and smiling, he was grave and of a ghastly pallor. Nervous also; for the first words of greeting were an unintelligible murmur, and they seated themselves in an embarrassed silence. "You--er--you received my letter?" "Yes!" Margot gazed at the tips of her dainty slippers, and smiled softly to herself. In the interval which had passed since they last met, the Editor had evidently suffered a relapse into his old shyness and reserve. She had guessed as much from the somewhat stilted phraseology of his letter, and was prepared to reassure him by her own outspoken gratitude. "Yes; I was so pleased!" He gave a little start of astonishment, and stared at her with bright, incredulous eyes. "Pleased? You mean it? You did not think it a liberty--" "Indeed I did not. I guessed what you had to tell me, and it made me so happy." He leaned forward impetuously, the blood flushing his cheeks. "You had guessed before? You knew it was coming?" "Not exactly, but I hoped--" "_Hoped_!--Margot, is it possible that you have cared, too? It seems too wonderful to be true.--I never dreamt of such amazing happiness. At the best it seemed possible that you would be willing to give me a hearing. I did not dare to write, but this time of waiting has seemed as if it would never end..." As he began to speak Margot faced him with candid eyes, but at the sound of his voice, and at sight of the answering flash of his eyes, her lids quivered and fell, and she shrank back against the cushions of her chair. Astonishment overwhelmed her; but the relief, the thankfulness, the rapture of the moment obliterated everything else. She gave a strangled sob of emotion and said faintly-- "It--it has seemed long to me, too!" At that he was on his knees before her, clasping her hands and gazing at her with an expression of rapturous relief. "Oh, Margot, my darling, was it because I was not there? Have you missed me? Not as I have missed you--that is not possible, but enough to remember me sometimes, and to be glad to meet again. Have you thought of me at all, Margot?" "I--I have thought of nothing else!" sighed Margot. She was generous with her assurance, knowing the nature of the man with whom she had to deal, and her reward was the sight of the illumined face turned upon her. There, in a corner of a modern drawing-room, with a glimpse of a London street between the curtain folds, Margot and George Elgood found the Eden which is discovered afresh by all true lovers. Such moments are too sacred for intrusion; they live enshrined in memory until the end of life. It was not until a considerable time had flown by that Margot recalled the events of the earlier evening, and with them still another claim held by her lover upon her gratitude and devotion. Drawing back, so as to lift her charming face to his--a rosy, sparkling face, unrecognisable as the same white and weary visage of a few hours back, she laid her hand on his, and said sweetly-- "We went off at a tangent, didn't we? I don't know how we went off, and forgot the real business of the evening; but I never finished thanking you! You must think me terribly ungrateful!" George Elgood regarded her with puzzled, adoring eyes. "I haven't the least idea what you are talking about, but what does it matter? What does anything matter, except that we love each other, and are the happiest creatures on earth? Business, indeed! Why need we trouble ourselves to talk about business? Margot, do you know that you have a dimple in the middle of your cheek? The most beautiful dimple in the world!" Margot shook her head at him with a pretence of disapproval, smiling the while, so as to show off the dimple to the best advantage. "You mustn't make me conceited. I am vain enough already to know that you love me, and have taken so much trouble to please me. It _was_ kind of you!" "What was kind, sweetheart? There is no kindness in loving you. I had no choice in the matter, for I simply could not help myself!" "Ah, but you know what I mean! You have given me my two greatest desires! I can't tell you how happy I was when I saw it." He stared at her for a moment, then smiled complacently. "You mean--my note?" "No, I didn't mean your note. Not this time. I meant the magazine!" "Magazine!" The accent of bewilderment was unmistakably genuine, and Margot hastened to explain still further. "The new number of the _Loadstar_ with Ron's poem in it!" "Ron's poem!" The note of bewilderment was accentuated to one of positive incredulity. "A poem by your brother in the _Loadstar_! I did not know that he wrote at all." Now it was Margot's turn to stare and frown. "You didn't know! But you _must_ have known. How else could it get in? You must have given permission." "My sweetheart, what have I to do with the _Loadstar_, or any other magazine? What has my permission to do with it?" "Everything in the world! Oh, I know exactly what has happened. Your brother has told you about Ron, and showed you his verses, and you put them in for his sake--_and mine_! Because you knew I should be pleased, and because they are good too, and you were glad to help him. He is longing to come in to thank you himself. We shall both thank you all our lives!" George Elgood's face of stupefaction was a sight to behold. His forehead was corrugated with lines of bewilderment; he stared at her in blankest dismay. "What _are_ you talking about, sweetheart? What does it all mean? Your brother has no need to thank me for any success which he has gained. I should have been only too delighted to help him in any way that was in my power, but I have no influence with the _Loadstar Magazine_." "No influence! How can that be when you are the Editor?" "I am the _What_?" "Editor! You have every influence. You _are_ the magazine!" George Elgood rose to his feet with a gesture of strongest astonishment. "I the Editor of a magazine! My dearest little girl, what are you dreaming about? There never was a man less suited to the position. I know nothing whatever of magazines--of any sort of literature. I am in corn!" A corn merchant! Margot's brain reeled. She lay back in her chair, staring at him with wide, stunned eyes, too utterly prostrated by surprise to be capable of speech! CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR. Could it be believed that it was the _Chieftain_ who was the Editor, after all! That short, fat, undignified, commonplace little man! "Not in the least the type,"--so Ron had pronounced, in his youthful arrogance, "No one would ever suspect _you_ of being literary!" so saucy Margot had declared to his face. She blushed at the remembrance of the words, blushed afresh, as, one after another, a dozen memories rushed through her brain. That afternoon by the tarn, for example, when she had summoned courage to confess her scheme, and he had lain prone on the grass, helpless and shaken with laughter! No wonder that he had laughed! but oh, the wickedness, the duplicity of the wretch, to breathe no word of her mistake, but promptly set to work to weave a fresh plot on his own account! This was the reason why he had extracted a promise that George was not to be told of Ron's ambition during his holiday, feigning an anxiety for his brother's peace of mind, which he was in reality doing his best to destroy! This was the explanation of everything that had seemed mysterious and contradictory. He had been laughing in his sleeve all the time he had pretended to help! George Elgood listened with a mingling of amaze, amusement, and tenderness to the hidden history of the weeks at Glenaire. Being in the frame of mind when everything that Margot did seemed perfect in his eyes, he felt nothing but admiration for her efforts on her brother's behalf. It was an ingenious, unselfish little scheme, and the manner in which she had laid it bare to the person most concerned was delightfully unsophisticated. He laughed at her tenderly, stroking her soft, pretty hair with his big man's hand, the while he explained that he was a business man pure and simple, and had made no excursions whatever into literature; that the "writing" with which he had been occupied was connected with proposed changes in his firm, and a report of a technical character. Margot flamed with indignation, but before the angry words had time to form themselves on her lips, the thought occurred that after all the help vouchsafed to her had been no pretence, but a very substantial reality. Ron's foot _had_ been placed on the first rung of the ladder, while as for herself, what greater good could she have found to desire than that which, through the Chieftain's machinations, had already come to pass? She lifted her face to meet the anxious, adoring gaze bent upon her, and cried hurriedly-- "He--he meant it all the time! He _meant_ it to happen!" "Meant what, darling?" "_This_!" Margot waved her hand with a gesture sufficiently expressive, whereat her lover laughed happily. "Bless him! of course he did. He has been badgering me for years past to look out for a wife; and when we met you he was clever enough to realise that you were the one woman to fill the post. If he had said as much to me at that stage of affairs, I should have packed up and made off within the hour; if he had said it to you, you would have felt it incumbent upon you to do the same. Instead, he let you go on in your illusion, while he designed the means of throwing us into each other's society. Good old Geoff! I'm not at all angry with him. Are you?" Margot considered the point, her head tilted to a thoughtful angle. "I'm--not--sure! I think I am, just a little bit, for I hate to be taken in. He was laughing at me all the time." "But after all, he has done what you wished! I envy him for being able to give you such pleasure; but perhaps I may be able to do as much in another way. Geoff tells me that Mr Martin has had financial troubles, and there is nothing I would not do to help any one who belongs to you. I'm out of my depths in poetry, but in business matters I can count, and in this case I shall not be satisfied until I _do_." Margot drew a long breath of contentment. "Oh, if Jack is happy, and Ron is successful, and I have--_You_!--there will be nothing left to wish for in all the world. Poor Ron! he is waiting eagerly to come in to thank you for publishing his verse, and wondering why in the world you wanted to see me alone. Don't you think you ought just to read it, to be able to say it is nice?" "No, I don't! You are all the poetry I can attend to to-night, and for goodness' sake keep him away; I shall have to interview your father later on, but after waiting all these weeks I must have you to myself a little longer." "Oh, I won't send for him. I don't want him a bit," cried Margot naively, "but he will come!" And he did! Waiting downstairs in the study, an hour seemed an absurd length of time, and when no summons came Ron determined to take the law in his own hands and join the conference. The tableau which was revealed to him on opening the drawing-room door struck him dumb with amazement, and the explanations which ensued appeared still more extraordinary. George Elgood speedily beat a retreat to the study, where Mr Vane listened to his request with quiet resignation. Elderly, grey-haired fathers have a way of seeing more than their children suspect, and Margot's father had recognised certain well-known signs in the manner in which he had been questioned concerning his daughter's progress during those anxious days at Glenaire. His heart sank as he listened to the lover's protestations, but he told himself that he ought to be thankful to know that his little Margot had chosen a man of unblemished character, who was of an age to appreciate his responsibility, possessed an income sufficient to keep her in comfort, and, last but not least, a home within easy distance of his own. Late that evening, when her lover had taken his departure, Margot stole down to the study and sat silently for a time on her old perch on the arm of her father's chair, with her head resting lovingly against his own. He was thankful to feel her dear presence, and to know that she wished to be near him on this night of all others, but his heart was too full to speak, and it was she who at last spoke the first words. "I never knew," she said softly, "I never knew that it was possible to be as happy as this. It's so wonderful! One can't realise it all. Father dear, I've been thinking of you! ... I never realised before what it meant to you when mother died--all that you lost! You have been good, and brave, and unselfish, dear, and we must have tried you sorely many times. We didn't understand, but I understand a little bit now, daddy, and it makes me love you more. You'll remember, won't you, that this is going to draw us closer together, not separate us one little bit? You'll be _sure_ to remember?" "Bless you, dear!" he said, and stroked her hand with tender fingers. "It is sweet to hear you say so, at least. I'm glad you are going to be happy, and if I am to give you away at all, I am glad it is to a strong, sensible man whom I can trust and respect; but it will be a sad day for me when you leave the old home, Margot." Margot purred over him with tenderest affection. "How I wish Agnes would marry!" "What has that to do with it, pray?" "Then you could live with me, of course! I should love it," said Margot warmly; and though her father had no intention of accepting such an invitation, it remained through life a solace to him to remember that it had been in the girl's heart to wish it. Next morning at twelve o'clock a daintily attired damsel ascended a dusty staircase in Fleet Street and desired to see the Editor in his den. The dragon who guarded the fastness inquired of her if she had an appointment, and, unsoftened by the charm of her appearance, volunteered the information that Mr Elgood would see no stray callers. "He will see _me_!" returned Margot arrogantly; and she was right, for, to the surprise of the messenger, the sight of the little printed card was followed by an order to "Show the lady in at once." A moment later Margot made her first entrance into an Editor's den, and round the corner of a big desk caught a glimpse of a decorous, black- coated figure whom at first sight it was difficult to associate with the light-hearted Chieftain of Glenaire. As they confronted each other, however, the round face twinkled into a smile, which served as fuel to the girl's indignation. She stopped short, ostentatiously disregarding the outstretched hand, drew her brows together, and proclaimed haughtily-- "I have come to let you know that you are found out. I know all about it now. You have been laughing at me all the time?" "Well,--very nearly!" he assented smilingly. "You are such a nice little girl to laugh at, you see, and it was an uncommonly good joke! Do you remember the day when you confided to me solemnly that you had journeyed to Scotland on purpose to stalk me, and run me to earth? You'd have been a bit embarrassed if I'd told you the truth then and there, wouldn't you now? And besides--I see quite enough of literary aspirants all the year round. It was a bit hard to be hunted down on one's holidays. I felt bound to prevaricate, for the sake of my own peace. Then again there was George! Where would George have come in? If I had confessed my identity, should I have been kept awake, as I was last night, listening to his rhapsodies by the hour together? By the way, we are going to be near relatives. Don't you want to shake hands?" "I'm very angry indeed!" maintained Margot stubbornly--nevertheless her hand was in his, and her fingers involuntarily returned his pressure. "Are you--_glad_! Do you think I shall--do? Does he seem _really_ happy?" "Ah, my dear!" he sighed, and over the plump features there passed once more the expression of infinite longing which Margot had seen once before, when, in a moment of confidence, he had spoken of his dead love. "Ah, my dear, how happy he is! There is no word to express such happiness! George has not frittered away his affections on a number of silly flirtations--his heart is whole, and it is wholly yours. Do you owe me no thanks for bringing you together? You wanted to help your brother; I wanted to help mine; so we are equally guilty or praiseworthy, as the case may be. For myself I am very well satisfied with the result?" Margot blushed, and cast down her eyes. "I'm satisfied, too!" she said shyly. "Much more than satisfied--and Ron is enraptured. Have you seen him? He said he was coming to see you first thing this morning!" "Have I seen him, indeed? I should think I had! I thought I should never get rid of the boy. I told him straight that the magazine comes first to me, and that not even a prospective sister-in-law--with dimples!--could induce me to accept a line for publication otherwise than on its own merits. But the boy has power. I can't tell yet how far it may go, but it's worth encouraging. When he gave me his manuscript book to read I was struck by one fragment, and wrote it out in shorthand, to publish as a surprise to you both. I like the lad, and will be glad to help him so far as it is in my power. I can give him a small post in this office, where at least he will be in the atmosphere; but after that his future rests with himself. What he writes that is worth publishing, I will publish, but it will be judged on its merits alone, and without any remembrance of his private associations. He will have his chance!" He put out his hands and held her gently by the elbows, smiling at her the while with the kindliest of smiles. "Now are you satisfied, little girl? From the moment that you looked at me with _her_ eyes, and asked my help, I have had no better wish than to give it. I did not set about it quite in your own way, perhaps, but the end is the same. Don't trouble any more about the lad, but let me smooth the way with your father, while you devote yourself to George. His happiness is in your hands. Be good to him! He looks upon you as an angel from heaven! Be an angel for his sake! He sees in you everything that is good, and pure, and womanly. Be what he believes! Humanly speaking, his life is yours, and these little hands will draw him more strongly than any power in the world. It's a big responsibility, little girl, but I am not afraid! I know a good woman when I see one, and can trust George to your care. You will be very happy. I wonder if in the midst of your happiness you will sometimes remember--a lonely man?" Margot twisted herself quickly from his grasp, and her arms stretched out and encircled his neck. She did not speak, but her lips, pressed against his cheek, gave an assurance more eloquent than words. THE END. 
5166	----	THE POETASTER OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT By Ben Jonson INTRODUCTION THE greatest of English dramatists except Shakespeare, the first literary dictator and poet-laureate, a writer of verse, prose, satire, and criticism who most potently of all the men of his time affected the subsequent course of English letters: such was Ben Jonson, and as such his strong personality assumes an interest to us almost unparalleled, at least in his age. Ben Jonson came of the stock that was centuries after to give to the world Thomas Carlyle; for Jonson's grandfather was of Annandale, over the Solway, whence he migrated to England. Jonson's father lost his estate under Queen Mary, "having been cast into prison and forfeited." He entered the church, but died a month before his illustrious son was born, leaving his widow and child in poverty. Jonson's birthplace was Westminster, and the time of his birth early in 1573. He was thus nearly ten years Shakespeare's junior, and less well off, if a trifle better born. But Jonson did not profit even by this slight advantage. His mother married beneath her, a wright or bricklayer, and Jonson was for a time apprenticed to the trade. As a youth he attracted the attention of the famous antiquary, William Camden, then usher at Westminster School, and there the poet laid the solid foundations of his classical learning. Jonson always held Camden in veneration, acknowledging that to him he owed, "All that I am in arts, all that I know:" and dedicating his first dramatic success, "Every Man in His Humour," to him. It is doubtful whether Jonson ever went to either university, though Fuller says that he was "statutably admitted into St. John's College, Cambridge." He tells us that he took no degree, but was later "Master of Arts in both the universities, by their favour, not his study." When a mere youth Jonson enlisted as a soldier trailing his pike in Flanders in the protracted wars of William the Silent against the Spanish. Jonson was a large and raw-boned lad; he became by his own account in time exceedingly bulky. In chat with his friend William Drummond of Hawthornden, Jonson told how "in his service in the Low Countries he had, in the face of both the camps, killed an enemy, and taken 'opima spolia' from him;" and how "since his coming to England, being appealed to the fields, he had killed his adversary which had hurt him in the arm and whose sword was ten inches longer than his." Jonson's reach may have made up for the lack of his sword; certainly his prowess lost nothing in the telling. Obviously Jonson was brave, combative, and not averse to talking of himself and his doings. In 1592, Jonson returned from abroad penniless. Soon after he married, almost as early and quite as imprudently as Shakespeare. He told Drummond curtly that "his wife was a shrew, yet honest"; for some years he lived apart from her in the household of Lord Albany. Yet two touching epitaphs among Jonson's 'Epigrams', "On my first daughter," and "On my first son," attest the warmth of the poet's family affections. The daughter died in infancy, the son of the plague; another son grew up to manhood little credit to his father whom he survived. We know nothing beyond this of Jonson's domestic life. How soon Jonson drifted into what we now call grandly "the theatrical profession" we do not know. In 1593 Marlowe made his tragic exit from life, and Greene, Shakespeare's other rival on the popular stage, had preceded Marlowe in an equally miserable death the year before. Shakespeare already had the running to himself. Jonson appears first in the employment of Philip Henslowe, the exploiter of several troupes of players, manager, and father-in-law of the famous actor, Edward Alleyn. From entries in 'Henslowe's Diary', a species of theatrical account book which has been handed down to us, we know that Jonson was connected with the Admiral's men; for he borrowed £4 of Henslowe, July 28, 1597, paying back 3s. 9d. on the same day on account of his "share" (in what is not altogether clear); while later, on December 3, of the same year, Henslowe advanced 20s. to him "upon a book which he showed the plot unto the company which he promised to deliver unto the company at Christmas next." In the next August Jonson was in collaboration with Chettle and Porter in a play called "Hot Anger Soon Cold." All this points to an association with Henslowe of some duration, as no mere tyro would be thus paid in advance upon mere promise. From allusions in Dekker's play, "Satiromastix," it appears that Jonson, like Shakespeare, began life as an actor, and that he "ambled in a leather pitch by a play-wagon" taking at one time the part of Hieronimo in Kyd's famous play, "The Spanish Tragedy." By the beginning of 1598, Jonson, though still in needy circumstances, had begun to receive recognition. Francis Meres--well known for his "Comparative Discourse of our English Poets with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets," printed in 1598, and for his mention therein of a dozen plays of Shakespeare by title--accords to Ben Jonson a place as one of "our best in tragedy," a matter of some surprise, as no known tragedy of Jonson from so early a date has come down to us. That Jonson was at work on tragedy, however, is proved by the entries in Henslowe of at least three tragedies, now lost, in which he had a hand. These are "Page of Plymouth," "King Robert II. of Scotland," and "Richard Crookback." But all of these came later, on his return to Henslowe, and range from August 1599 to June 1602. Returning to the autumn of 1598, an event now happened to sever for a time Jonson's relations with Henslowe. In a letter to Alleyn, dated September 26 of that year, Henslowe writes: "I have lost one of my company that hurteth me greatly; that is Gabriel [Spencer], for he is slain in Hogsden fields by the hands of Benjamin Jonson, bricklayer." The last word is perhaps Henslowe's thrust at Jonson in his displeasure rather than a designation of his actual continuance at his trade up to this time. It is fair to Jonson to remark however, that his adversary appears to have been a notorious fire-eater who had shortly before killed one Feeke in a similar squabble. Duelling was a frequent occurrence of the time among gentlemen and the nobility; it was an imprudent breach of the peace on the part of a player. This duel is the one which Jonson described years after to Drummond, and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter "T," for Tyburn, on his left thumb. While in jail Jonson became a Roman Catholic; but he returned to the faith of the Church of England a dozen years later. On his release, in disgrace with Henslowe and his former associates, Jonson offered his services as a playwright to Henslowe's rivals, the Lord Chamberlain's company, in which Shakespeare was a prominent shareholder. A tradition of long standing, though not susceptible of proof in a court of law, narrates that Jonson had submitted the manuscript of "Every Man in His Humour" to the Chamberlain's men and had received from the company a refusal; that Shakespeare called him back, read the play himself, and at once accepted it. Whether this story is true or not, certain it is that "Every Man in His Humour" was accepted by Shakespeare's company and acted for the first time in 1598, with Shakespeare taking a part. The evidence of this is contained in the list of actors prefixed to the comedy in the folio of Jonson's works, 1616. But it is a mistake to infer, because Shakespeare's name stands first in the list of actors and the elder Kno'well first in the 'dramatis personae', that Shakespeare took that particular part. The order of a list of Elizabethan players was generally that of their importance or priority as shareholders in the company and seldom if ever corresponded to the list of characters. "Every Man in His Humour" was an immediate success, and with it Jonson's reputation as one of the leading dramatists of his time was established once and for all. This could have been by no means Jonson's earliest comedy, and we have just learned that he was already reputed one of "our best in tragedy." Indeed, one of Jonson's extant comedies, "The Case is Altered," but one never claimed by him or published as his, must certainly have preceded "Every Man in His Humour" on the stage. The former play may be described as a comedy modelled on the Latin plays of Plautus. (It combines, in fact, situations derived from the "Captivi" and the "Aulularia" of that dramatist). But the pretty story of the beggar-maiden, Rachel, and her suitors, Jonson found, not among the classics, but in the ideals of romantic love which Shakespeare had already popularised on the stage. Jonson never again produced so fresh and lovable a feminine personage as Rachel, although in other respects "The Case is Altered" is not a conspicuous play, and, save for the satirising of Antony Munday in the person of Antonio Balladino and Gabriel Harvey as well, is perhaps the least characteristic of the comedies of Jonson. "Every Man in His Humour," probably first acted late in the summer of 1598 and at the Curtain, is commonly regarded as an epoch-making play; and this view is not unjustified. As to plot, it tells little more than how an intercepted letter enabled a father to follow his supposedly studious son to London, and there observe his life with the gallants of the time. The real quality of this comedy is in its personages and in the theory upon which they are conceived. Ben Jonson had theories about poetry and the drama, and he was neither chary in talking of them nor in experimenting with them in his plays. This makes Jonson, like Dryden in his time, and Wordsworth much later, an author to reckon with; particularly when we remember that many of Jonson's notions came for a time definitely to prevail and to modify the whole trend of English poetry. First of all Jonson was a classicist, that is, he believed in restraint and precedent in art in opposition to the prevalent ungoverned and irresponsible Renaissance spirit. Jonson believed that there was a professional way of doing things which might be reached by a study of the best examples, and he found these examples for the most part among the ancients. To confine our attention to the drama, Jonson objected to the amateurishness and haphazard nature of many contemporary plays, and set himself to do something different; and the first and most striking thing that he evolved was his conception and practice of the comedy of humours. As Jonson has been much misrepresented in this matter, let us quote his own words as to "humour." A humour, according to Jonson, was a bias of disposition, a warp, so to speak, in character by which "Some one peculiar quality Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw All his affects, his spirits, and his powers, In their confluctions, all to run one way." But continuing, Jonson is careful to add: "But that a rook by wearing a pied feather, The cable hat-band, or the three-piled ruff, A yard of shoe-tie, or the Switzers knot On his French garters, should affect a humour! O, it is more than most ridiculous." Jonson's comedy of humours, in a word, conceived of stage personages on the basis of a ruling trait or passion (a notable simplification of actual life be it observed in passing); and, placing these typified traits in juxtaposition in their conflict and contrast, struck the spark of comedy. Downright, as his name indicates, is "a plain squire"; Bobadill's humour is that of the braggart who is incidentally, and with delightfully comic effect, a coward; Brainworm's humour is the finding out of things to the end of fooling everybody: of course he is fooled in the end himself. But it was not Jonson's theories alone that made the success of "Every Man in His Humour." The play is admirably written and each character is vividly conceived, and with a firm touch based on observation of the men of the London of the day. Jonson was neither in this, his first great comedy (nor in any other play that he wrote), a supine classicist, urging that English drama return to a slavish adherence to classical conditions. He says as to the laws of the old comedy (meaning by "laws," such matters as the unities of time and place and the use of chorus): "I see not then, but we should enjoy the same licence, or free power to illustrate and heighten our invention as they [the ancients] did; and not be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a few, who are nothing but form, would thrust upon us." "Every Man in His Humour" is written in prose, a novel practice which Jonson had of his predecessor in comedy, John Lyly. Even the word "humour" seems to have been employed in the Jonsonian sense by Chapman before Jonson's use of it. Indeed, the comedy of humours itself is only a heightened variety of the comedy of manners which represents life, viewed at a satirical angle, and is the oldest and most persistent species of comedy in the language. None the less, Jonson's comedy merited its immediate success and marked out a definite course in which comedy long continued to run. To mention only Shakespeare's Falstaff and his rout, Bardolph, Pistol, Dame Quickly, and the rest, whether in "Henry IV." or in "The Merry Wives of Windsor," all are conceived in the spirit of humours. So are the captains, Welsh, Scotch, and Irish of "Henry V.," and Malvolio especially later; though Shakespeare never employed the method of humours for an important personage. It was not Jonson's fault that many of his successors did precisely the thing that he had reprobated, that is, degrade "the humour: into an oddity of speech, an eccentricity of manner, of dress, or cut of beard. There was an anonymous play called "Every Woman in Her Humour." Chapman wrote "A Humourous Day's Mirth," Day, "Humour Out of Breath," Fletcher later, "The Humourous Lieutenant," and Jonson, besides "Every Man Out of His Humour," returned to the title in closing the cycle of his comedies in "The Magnetic Lady or Humours Reconciled." With the performance of "Every Man Out of His Humour" in 1599, by Shakespeare's company once more at the Globe, we turn a new page in Jonson's career. Despite his many real virtues, if there is one feature more than any other that distinguishes Jonson, it is his arrogance; and to this may be added his self-righteousness, especially under criticism or satire. "Every Man Out of His Humour" is the first of three "comical satires" which Jonson contributed to what Dekker called the 'poetomachia' or war of the theatres as recent critics have named it. This play as a fabric of plot is a very slight affair; but as a satirical picture of the manners of the time, proceeding by means of vivid caricature, couched in witty and brilliant dialogue and sustained by that righteous indignation which must lie at the heart of all true satire--as a realisation, in short, of the classical ideal of comedy--there had been nothing like Jonson's comedy since the days of Aristophanes. "Every Man in His Humour," like the two plays that follow it, contains two kinds of attack, the critical or generally satiric, levelled at abuses and corruptions in the abstract; and the personal, in which specific application is made of all this in the lampooning of poets and others, Jonson's contemporaries. The method of personal attack by actual caricature of a person on the stage is almost as old as the drama. Aristophanes so lampooned Euripides in "The Acharnians" and Socrates in "The Clouds," to mention no other examples; and in English drama this kind of thing is alluded to again and again. What Jonson really did, was to raise the dramatic lampoon to an art, and make out of a casual burlesque and bit of mimicry a dramatic satire of literary pretensions and permanency. With the arrogant attitude mentioned above and his uncommon eloquence in scorn, vituperation, and invective, it is no wonder that Jonson soon involved himself in literary and even personal quarrels with his fellow-authors. The circumstances of the origin of this 'poetomachia' are far from clear, and those who have written on the topic, except of late, have not helped to make them clearer. The origin of the "war" has been referred to satirical references, apparently to Jonson, contained in "The Scourge of Villainy," a satire in regular form after the manner of the ancients by John Marston, a fellow playwright, subsequent friend and collaborator of Jonson's. On the other hand, epigrams of Jonson have been discovered (49, 68, and 100) variously charging "playwright" (reasonably identified with Marston) with scurrility, cowardice, and plagiarism; though the dates of the epigrams cannot be ascertained with certainty. Jonson's own statement of the matter to Drummond runs: "He had many quarrels with Marston, beat him, and took his pistol from him, wrote his 'Poetaster' on him; the beginning[s] of them were that Marston represented him on the stage."* [footnote] *The best account of this whole subject is to be found in the edition of 'Poetaster' and 'Satiromastrix' by J. H. Penniman in 'Belles Lettres Series' shortly to appear. See also his earlier work, 'The War of the Theatres', 1892, and the excellent contributions to the subject by H. C. Hart in 'Notes and Queries', and in his edition of Jonson, 1906. Here at least we are on certain ground; and the principals of the quarrel are known. "Histriomastix," a play revised by Marston in 1598, has been regarded as the one in which Jonson was thus "represented on the stage"; although the personage in question, Chrisogonus, a poet, satirist, and translator, poor but proud, and contemptuous of the common herd, seems rather a complimentary portrait of Jonson than a caricature. As to the personages actually ridiculed in "Every Man Out of His Humour," Carlo Buffone was formerly thought certainly to be Marston, as he was described as "a public scurrilous, and profane jester," and elsewhere as the grand scourge or second untruss [that is, satirist], of the time" (Joseph Hall being by his own boast the first, and Marston's work being entitled "The Scourge of Villainy"). Apparently we must now prefer for Carlo a notorious character named Charles Chester, of whom gossipy and inaccurate Aubrey relates that he was "a bold impertinent fellow...a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drum in a room. So one time at a tavern Sir Walter Raleigh beats him and seals up his mouth (that is his upper and nether beard) with hard wax. From him Ben Jonson takes his Carlo Buffone ['i.e.', jester] in 'Every Man in His Humour' ['sic']." Is it conceivable that after all Jonson was ridiculing Marston, and that the point of the satire consisted in an intentional confusion of "the grand scourge or second untruss" with "the scurrilous and profane" Chester? We have digressed into detail in this particular case to exemplify the difficulties of criticism in its attempts to identify the allusions in these forgotten quarrels. We are on sounder ground of fact in recording other manifestations of Jonson's enmity. In "The Case is Altered" there is clear ridicule in the character Antonio Balladino of Anthony Munday, pageant-poet of the city, translator of romances and playwright as well. In "Every Man in His Humour" there is certainly a caricature of Samuel Daniel, accepted poet of the court, sonneteer, and companion of men of fashion. These men held recognised positions to which Jonson felt his talents better entitled him; they were hence to him his natural enemies. It seems almost certain that he pursued both in the personages of his satire through "Every Man Out of His Humour," and "Cynthia's Revels," Daniel under the characters Fastidious Brisk and Hedon, Munday as Puntarvolo and Amorphus; but in these last we venture on quagmire once more. Jonson's literary rivalry of Daniel is traceable again and again, in the entertainments that welcomed King James on his way to London, in the masques at court, and in the pastoral drama. As to Jonson's personal ambitions with respect to these two men, it is notable that he became, not pageant-poet, but chronologer to the City of London; and that, on the accession of the new king, he came soon to triumph over Daniel as the accepted entertainer of royalty. "Cynthia's Revels," the second "comical satire," was acted in 1600, and, as a play, is even more lengthy, elaborate, and impossible than "Every Man Out of His Humour." Here personal satire seems to have absorbed everything, and while much of the caricature is admirable, especially in the detail of witty and trenchantly satirical dialogue, the central idea of a fountain of self-love is not very well carried out, and the persons revert at times to abstractions, the action to allegory. It adds to our wonder that this difficult drama should have been acted by the Children of Queen Elizabeth's Chapel, among them Nathaniel Field with whom Jonson read Horace and Martial, and whom he taught later how to make plays. Another of these precocious little actors was Salathiel Pavy, who died before he was thirteen, already famed for taking the parts of old men. Him Jonson immortalised in one of the sweetest of his epitaphs. An interesting sidelight is this on the character of this redoubtable and rugged satirist, that he should thus have befriended and tenderly remembered these little theatrical waifs, some of whom (as we know) had been literally kidnapped to be pressed into the service of the theatre and whipped to the conning of their difficult parts. To the caricature of Daniel and Munday in "Cynthia's Revels" must be added Anaides (impudence), here assuredly Marston, and Asotus (the prodigal), interpreted as Lodge or, more perilously, Raleigh. Crites, like Asper-Macilente in "Every Man Out of His Humour," is Jonson's self-complaisant portrait of himself, the just, wholly admirable, and judicious scholar, holding his head high above the pack of the yelping curs of envy and detraction, but careless of their puny attacks on his perfections with only too mindful a neglect. The third and last of the "comical satires" is "Poetaster," acted, once more, by the Children of the Chapel in 1601, and Jonson's only avowed contribution to the fray. According to the author's own account, this play was written in fifteen weeks on a report that his enemies had entrusted to Dekker the preparation of "Satiromastix, the Untrussing of the Humorous Poet," a dramatic attack upon himself. In this attempt to forestall his enemies Jonson succeeded, and "Poetaster" was an immediate and deserved success. While hardly more closely knit in structure than its earlier companion pieces, "Poetaster" is planned to lead up to the ludicrous final scene in which, after a device borrowed from the "Lexiphanes" of Lucian, the offending poetaster, Marston-Crispinus, is made to throw up the difficult words with which he had overburdened his stomach as well as overlarded his vocabulary. In the end Crispinus with his fellow, Dekker-Demetrius, is bound over to keep the peace and never thenceforward "malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus [Jonson] or any other eminent man transcending you in merit." One of the most diverting personages in Jonson's comedy is Captain Tucca. "His peculiarity" has been well described by Ward as "a buoyant blackguardism which recovers itself instantaneously from the most complete exposure, and a picturesqueness of speech like that of a walking dictionary of slang." It was this character, Captain Tucca, that Dekker hit upon in his reply, "Satiromastix," and he amplified him, turning his abusive vocabulary back upon Jonson and adding "An immodesty to his dialogue that did not enter into Jonson's conception." It has been held, altogether plausibly, that when Dekker was engaged professionally, so to speak, to write a dramatic reply to Jonson, he was at work on a species of chronicle history, dealing with the story of Walter Terill in the reign of William Rufus. This he hurriedly adapted to include the satirical characters suggested by "Poetaster," and fashioned to convey the satire of his reply. The absurdity of placing Horace in the court of a Norman king is the result. But Dekker's play is not without its palpable hits at the arrogance, the literary pride, and self-righteousness of Jonson-Horace, whose "ningle" or pal, the absurd Asinius Bubo, has recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had attacked lawyers and soldiers in "Poetaster," nothing came of this complaint. It may be suspected that much of this furious clatter and give-and-take was pure playing to the gallery. The town was agog with the strife, and on no less an authority than Shakespeare ("Hamlet," ii. 2), we learn that the children's company (acting the plays of Jonson) did "so berattle the common stages...that many, wearing rapiers, are afraid of goose-quills, and dare scarce come thither." Several other plays have been thought to bear a greater or less part in the war of the theatres. Among them the most important is a college play, entitled "The Return from Parnassus," dating 1601-02. In it a much-quoted passage makes Burbage, as a character, declare: "Why here's our fellow Shakespeare puts them all down; aye and Ben Jonson, too. O that Ben Jonson is a pestilent fellow; he brought up Horace, giving the poets a pill, but our fellow Shakespeare hath given him a purge that made him bewray his credit." Was Shakespeare then concerned in this war of the stages? And what could have been the nature of this "purge"? Among several suggestions, "Troilus and Cressida" has been thought by some to be the play in which Shakespeare thus "put down" his friend, Jonson. A wiser interpretation finds the "purge" in "Satiromastix," which, though not written by Shakespeare, was staged by his company, and therefore with his approval and under his direction as one of the leaders of that company. The last years of the reign of Elizabeth thus saw Jonson recognised as a dramatist second only to Shakespeare, and not second even to him as a dramatic satirist. But Jonson now turned his talents to new fields. Plays on subjects derived from classical story and myth had held the stage from the beginning of the drama, so that Shakespeare was making no new departure when he wrote his "Julius Caesar" about 1600. Therefore when Jonson staged "Sejanus," three years later and with Shakespeare's company once more, he was only following in the elder dramatist's footsteps. But Jonson's idea of a play on classical history, on the one hand, and Shakespeare's and the elder popular dramatists, on the other, were very different. Heywood some years before had put five straggling plays on the stage in quick succession, all derived from stories in Ovid and dramatised with little taste or discrimination. Shakespeare had a finer conception of form, but even he was contented to take all his ancient history from North's translation of Plutarch and dramatise his subject without further inquiry. Jonson was a scholar and a classical antiquarian. He reprobated this slipshod amateurishness, and wrote his "Sejanus" like a scholar, reading Tacitus, Suetonius, and other authorities, to be certain of his facts, his setting, and his atmosphere, and somewhat pedantically noting his authorities in the margin when he came to print. "Sejanus" is a tragedy of genuine dramatic power in which is told with discriminating taste the story of the haughty favourite of Tiberius with his tragical overthrow. Our drama presents no truer nor more painstaking representation of ancient Roman life than may be found in Jonson's "Sejanus" and "Catiline his Conspiracy," which followed in 1611. A passage in the address of the former play to the reader, in which Jonson refers to a collaboration in an earlier version, has led to the surmise that Shakespeare may have been that "worthier pen." There is no evidence to determine the matter. In 1605, we find Jonson in active collaboration with Chapman and Marston in the admirable comedy of London life entitled "Eastward Hoe." In the previous year, Marston had dedicated his "Malcontent," in terms of fervid admiration, to Jonson; so that the wounds of the war of the theatres must have been long since healed. Between Jonson and Chapman there was the kinship of similar scholarly ideals. The two continued friends throughout life. "Eastward Hoe" achieved the extraordinary popularity represented in a demand for three issues in one year. But this was not due entirely to the merits of the play. In its earliest version a passage which an irritable courtier conceived to be derogatory to his nation, the Scots, sent both Chapman and Jonson to jail; but the matter was soon patched up, for by this time Jonson had influence at court. With the accession of King James, Jonson began his long and successful career as a writer of masques. He wrote more masques than all his competitors together, and they are of an extraordinary variety and poetic excellence. Jonson did not invent the masque; for such premeditated devices to set and frame, so to speak, a court ball had been known and practised in varying degrees of elaboration long before his time. But Jonson gave dramatic value to the masque, especially in his invention of the antimasque, a comedy or farcical element of relief, entrusted to professional players or dancers. He enhanced, as well, the beauty and dignity of those portions of the masque in which noble lords and ladies took their parts to create, by their gorgeous costumes and artistic grouping and evolutions, a sumptuous show. On the mechanical and scenic side Jonson had an inventive and ingenious partner in Inigo Jones, the royal architect, who more than any one man raised the standard of stage representation in the England of his day. Jonson continued active in the service of the court in the writing of masques and other entertainments far into the reign of King Charles; but, towards the end, a quarrel with Jones embittered his life, and the two testy old men appear to have become not only a constant irritation to each other, but intolerable bores at court. In "Hymenaei," "The Masque of Queens," "Love Freed from Ignorance," "Lovers made Men," "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," and many more will be found Jonson's aptitude, his taste, his poetry and inventiveness in these by-forms of the drama; while in "The Masque of Christmas," and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" especially, is discoverable that power of broad comedy which, at court as well as in the city, was not the least element of Jonson's contemporary popularity. But Jonson had by no means given up the popular stage when he turned to the amusement of King James. In 1605 "Volpone" was produced, "The Silent Woman" in 1609, "The Alchemist" in the following year. These comedies, with "Bartholomew Fair," 1614, represent Jonson at his height, and for constructive cleverness, character successfully conceived in the manner of caricature, wit and brilliancy of dialogue, they stand alone in English drama. "Volpone, or the Fox," is, in a sense, a transition play from the dramatic satires of the war of the theatres to the purer comedy represented in the plays named above. Its subject is a struggle of wit applied to chicanery; for among its 'dramatis personae', from the villainous Fox himself, his rascally servant Mosca, Voltore (the vulture), Corbaccio and Corvino (the big and the little raven), to Sir Politic Would-be and the rest, there is scarcely a virtuous character in the play. Question has been raised as to whether a story so forbidding can be considered a comedy, for, although the plot ends in the discomfiture and imprisonment of the most vicious, it involves no moral catastrophe. But Jonson was on sound historical ground, for "Volpone" is conceived far more logically on the lines of the ancients' theory of comedy than was ever the romantic drama of Shakespeare, however repulsive we may find a philosophy of life that facilely divides the world into the rogues and their dupes, and, identifying brains with roguery and innocence with folly, admires the former while inconsistently punishing them. "The Silent Woman" is a gigantic farce of the most ingenious construction. The whole comedy hinges on a huge joke, played by a heartless nephew on his misanthropic uncle, who is induced to take to himself a wife, young, fair, and warranted silent, but who, in the end, turns out neither silent nor a woman at all. In "The Alchemist," again, we have the utmost cleverness in construction, the whole fabric building climax on climax, witty, ingenious, and so plausibly presented that we forget its departures from the possibilities of life. In "The Alchemist" Jonson represented, none the less to the life, certain sharpers of the metropolis, revelling in their shrewdness and rascality and in the variety of the stupidity and wickedness of their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," less clear cut, less definite, and less structurally worthy of praise than its three predecessors, but full of the keenest and cleverest of satire and inventive to a degree beyond any English comedy save some other of Jonson's own. It is in "Bartholomew Fair" that we are presented to the immortal caricature of the Puritan, Zeal-in-the-Land Busy, and the Littlewits that group about him, and it is in this extraordinary comedy that the humour of Jonson, always open to this danger, loosens into the Rabelaisian mode that so delighted King James in "The Gipsies Metamorphosed." Another comedy of less merit is "The Devil is an Ass," acted in 1616. It was the failure of this play that caused Jonson to give over writing for the public stage for a period of nearly ten years. "Volpone" was laid as to scene in Venice. Whether because of the success of "Eastward Hoe" or for other reasons, the other three comedies declare in the words of the prologue to "The Alchemist": "Our scene is London, 'cause we would make known No country's mirth is better than our own." Indeed Jonson went further when he came to revise his plays for collected publication in his folio of 1616, he transferred the scene of "Every Man in His Humou r" from Florence to London also, converting Signior Lorenzo di Pazzi to Old Kno'well, Prospero to Master Welborn, and Hesperida to Dame Kitely "dwelling i' the Old Jewry." In his comedies of London life, despite his trend towards caricature, Jonson has shown himself a genuine realist, drawing from the life about him with an experience and insight rare in any generation. A happy comparison has been suggested between Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens. Both were men of the people, lowly born and hardly bred. Each knew the London of his time as few men knew it; and each represented it intimately and in elaborate detail. Both men were at heart moralists, seeking the truth by the exaggerated methods of humour and caricature; perverse, even wrong-headed at times, but possessed of a true pathos and largeness of heart, and when all has been said--though the Elizabethan ran to satire, the Victorian to sentimentality--leaving the world better for the art that they practised in it. In 1616, the year of the death of Shakespeare, Jonson collected his plays, his poetry, and his masques for publication in a collective edition. This was an unusual thing at the time and had been attempted by no dramatist before Jonson. This volume published, in a carefully revised text, all the plays thus far mentioned, excepting "The Case is Altered," which Jonson did not acknowledge, "Bartholomew Fair," and "The Devil is an Ass," which was written too late. It included likewise a book of some hundred and thirty odd 'Epigrams', in which form of brief and pungent writing Jonson was an acknowledged master; "The Forest," a smaller collection of lyric and occasional verse and some ten 'Masques' and 'Entertainments'. In this same year Jonson was made poet laureate with a pension of one hundred marks a year. This, with his fees and returns from several noblemen, and the small earnings of his plays must have formed the bulk of his income. The poet appears to have done certain literary hack-work for others, as, for example, parts of the Punic Wars contributed to Raleigh's 'History of the World'. We know from a story, little to the credit of either, that Jonson accompanied Raleigh's son abroad in the capacity of a tutor. In 1618 Jonson was granted the reversion of the office of Master of the Revels, a post for which he was peculiarly fitted; but he did not live to enjoy its perquisites. Jonson was honoured with degrees by both universities, though when and under what circumstances is not known. It has been said that he narrowly escaped the honour of knighthood, which the satirists of the day averred King James was wont to lavish with an indiscriminate hand. Worse men were made knights in his day than worthy Ben Jonson. From 1616 to the close of the reign of King James, Jonson produced nothing for the stage. But he "prosecuted" what he calls "his wonted studies" with such assiduity that he became in reality, as by report, one of the most learned men of his time. Jonson's theory of authorship involved a wide acquaintance with books and "an ability," as he put it, "to convert the substance or riches of another poet to his own use." Accordingly Jonson read not only the Greek and Latin classics down to the lesser writers, but he acquainted himself especially with the Latin writings of his learned contemporaries, their prose as well as their poetry, their antiquities and curious lore as well as their more solid learning. Though a poor man, Jonson was an indefatigable collector of books. He told Drummond that "the Earl of Pembroke sent him £20 every first day of the new year to buy new books." Unhappily, in 1623, his library was destroyed by fire, an accident serio-comically described in his witty poem, "An Execration upon Vulcan." Yet even now a book turns up from time to time in which is inscribed, in fair large Italian lettering, the name, Ben Jonson. With respect to Jonson's use of his material, Dryden said memorably of him: "[He] was not only a professed imitator of Horace, but a learned plagiary of all the others; you track him everywhere in their snow. ... But he has done his robberies so openly that one sees he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch, and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." And yet it is but fair to say that Jonson prided himself, and justly, on his originality. In "Catiline," he not only uses Sallust's account of the conspiracy, but he models some of the speeches of Cicero on the Roman orator's actual words. In "Poetaster," he lifts a whole satire out of Horace and dramatises it effectively for his purposes. The sophist Libanius suggests the situation of "The Silent Woman"; a Latin comedy of Giordano Bruno, "Il Candelaio," the relation of the dupes and the sharpers in "The Alchemist," the "Mostellaria" of Plautus, its admirable opening scene. But Jonson commonly bettered his sources, and putting the stamp of his sovereignty on whatever bullion he borrowed made it thenceforward to all time current and his own. The lyric and especially the occasional poetry of Jonson has a peculiar merit. His theory demanded design and the perfection of literary finish. He was furthest from the rhapsodist and the careless singer of an idle day; and he believed that Apollo could only be worthily served in singing robes and laurel crowned. And yet many of Jonson's lyrics will live as long as the language. Who does not know "Queen and huntress, chaste and fair." "Drink to me only with thine eyes," or "Still to be neat, still to be dressed"? Beautiful in form, deft and graceful in expression, with not a word too much or one that bears not its part in the total effect, there is yet about the lyrics of Jonson a certain stiffness and formality, a suspicion that they were not quite spontaneous and unbidden, but that they were carved, so to speak, with disproportionate labour by a potent man of letters whose habitual thought is on greater things. It is for these reasons that Jonson is even better in the epigram and in occasional verse where rhetorical finish and pointed wit less interfere with the spontaneity and emotion which we usually associate with lyrical poetry. There are no such epitaphs as Ben Jonson's, witness the charming ones on his own children, on Salathiel Pavy, the child-actor, and many more; and this even though the rigid law of mine and thine must now restore to William Browne of Tavistock the famous lines beginning: "Underneath this sable hearse." Jonson is unsurpassed, too, in the difficult poetry of compliment, seldom falling into fulsome praise and disproportionate similitude, yet showing again and again a generous appreciation of worth in others, a discriminating taste and a generous personal regard. There was no man in England of his rank so well known and universally beloved as Ben Jonson. The list of his friends, of those to whom he had written verses, and those who had written verses to him, includes the name of every man of prominence in the England of King James. And the tone of many of these productions discloses an affectionate familiarity that speaks for the amiable personality and sound worth of the laureate. In 1619, growing unwieldy through inactivity, Jonson hit upon the heroic remedy of a journey afoot to Scotland. On his way thither and back he was hospitably received at the houses of many friends and by those to whom his friends had recommended him. When he arrived in Edinburgh, the burgesses met to grant him the freedom of the city, and Drummond, foremost of Scottish poets, was proud to entertain him for weeks as his guest at Hawthornden. Some of the noblest of Jonson's poems were inspired by friendship. Such is the fine "Ode to the memory of Sir Lucius Cary and Sir Henry Moryson," and that admirable piece of critical insight and filial affection, prefixed to the first Shakespeare folio, "To the memory of my beloved master, William Shakespeare, and what he hath left us." to mention only these. Nor can the earlier "Epode," beginning "Not to know vice at all," be matched in stately gravity and gnomic wisdom in its own wise and stately age. But if Jonson had deserted the stage after the publication of his folio and up to the end of the reign of King James, he was far from inactive; for year after year his inexhaustible inventiveness continued to contribute to the masquing and entertainment at court. In "The Golden Age Restored," Pallas turns from the Iron Age with its attendant evils into statues which sink out of sight; in "Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue," Atlas figures represented as an old man, his shoulders covered with snow, and Comus, "the god of cheer or the belly," is one of the characters, a circumstance which an imaginative boy of ten, named John Milton, was not to forget. "Pan's Anniversary," late in the reign of James, proclaimed that Jonson had not yet forgotten how to write exquisite lyrics, and "The Gipsies Metamorphosed" displayed the old drollery and broad humorous stroke still unimpaired and unmatchable. These, too, and the earlier years of Charles were the days of the Apollo Room of the Devil Tavern where Jonson presided, the absolute monarch of English literary Bohemia. We hear of a room blazoned about with Jonson's own judicious 'Leges Convivales' in letters of gold, of a company made up of the choicest spirits of the time, devotedly attached to their veteran dictator, his reminiscences, opinions, affections, and enmities. And we hear, too, of valorous potations; but in the words of Herrick addressed to his master, Jonson, at the Devil Tavern, as at the Dog, the Triple Tun, and at the Mermaid, "We such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad, And yet each verse of thine Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine." But the patronage of the court failed in the days of King Charles, though Jonson was not without royal favours; and the old poet returned to the stage, producing, between 1625 and 1633, "The Staple of News," "The New Inn," "The Magnetic Lady," and "The Tale of a Tub," the last doubtless revised from a much earlier comedy. None of these plays met with any marked success, although the scathing generalisation of Dryden that designated them "Jonson's dotages" is unfair to their genuine merits. Thus the idea of an office for the gathering, proper dressing, and promulgation of news (wild flight of the fancy in its time) was an excellent subject for satire on the existing absurdities among the newsmongers; although as much can hardly be said for "The Magnetic Lady," who, in her bounty, draws to her personages of differing humours to reconcile them in the end according to the alternative title, or "Humours Reconciled." These last plays of the old dramatist revert to caricature and the hard lines of allegory; the moralist is more than ever present, the satire degenerates into personal lampoon, especially of his sometime friend, Inigo Jones, who appears unworthily to have used his influence at court against the broken-down old poet. And now disease claimed Jonson, and he was bedridden for months. He had succeeded Middleton in 1628 as Chronologer to the City of London, but lost the post for not fulfilling its duties. King Charles befriended him, and even commissioned him to write still for the entertainment of the court; and he was not without the sustaining hand of noble patrons and devoted friends among the younger poets who were proud to be "sealed of the tribe of Ben." Jonson died, August 6, 1637, and a second folio of his works, which he had been some time gathering, was printed in 1640, bearing in its various parts dates ranging from 1630 to 1642. It included all the plays mentioned in the foregoing paragraphs, excepting "The Case is Altered;" the masques, some fifteen, that date between 1617 and 1630; another collection of lyrics and occasional poetry called "Underwoods, including some further entertainments; a translation of "Horace's Art of Poetry" (also published in a vicesimo quarto in 1640), and certain fragments and ingatherings which the poet would hardly have included himself. These last comprise the fragment (less than seventy lines) of a tragedy called "Mortimer his Fall," and three acts of a pastoral drama of much beauty and poetic spirit, "The Sad Shepherd." There is also the exceedingly interesting 'English Grammar' "made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use," in Latin and English; and 'Timber, or discoveries' "made upon men and matter as they have flowed out of his daily reading, or had their reflux to his peculiar notion of the times." The 'Discoveries', as it is usually called, is a commonplace book such as many literary men have kept, in which their reading was chronicled, passages that took their fancy translated or transcribed, and their passing opinions noted. Many passage of Jonson's 'Discoveries' are literal translations from the authors he chanced to be reading, with the reference, noted or not, as the accident of the moment prescribed. At times he follows the line of Macchiavelli's argument as to the nature and conduct of princes; at others he clarifies his own conception of poetry and poets by recourse to Aristotle. He finds a choice paragraph on eloquence in Seneca the elder and applies it to his own recollection of Bacon's power as an orator; and another on facile and ready genius, and translates it, adapting it to his recollection of his fellow-playwright, Shakespeare. To call such passages--which Jonson never intended for publication--plagiarism, is to obscure the significance of words. To disparage his memory by citing them is a preposterous use of scholarship. Jonson's prose, both in his dramas, in the descriptive comments of his masques, and in the 'Discoveries', is characterised by clarity and vigorous directness, nor is it wanting in a fine sense of form or in the subtler graces of diction. When Jonson died there was a project for a handsome monument to his memory. But the Civil War was at hand, and the project failed. A memorial, not insufficient, was carved on the stone covering his grave in one of the aisles of Westminster Abbey: "O rare Ben Jonson." FELIX E. SCHELLING. THE COLLEGE, PHILADELPHIA, U.S.A. The following is a complete list of his published works:-- DRAMAS. -- Every Man in his Humour, 4to, 1601; The Case is Altered, 4to, 1609; Every Man out of his Humour, 4to, 1600; Cynthia's Revels, 4to, 1601; Poetaster, 4to, 1602; Sejanus, 4to, 1605; Eastward Ho (with Chapman and Marston), 4to, 1605; Volpone, 4to, 1607; Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, 4to, 1609 (?), fol., 1616; The Alchemist, 4to, 1612; Catiline, his Conspiracy, 4to, 1611; Bartholomew Fayre, 4to, 1614 (?), fol., 1631; The Divell is an Asse, fol., 1631; The Staple of Newes, fol., 1631; The New Sun, 8vo, 1631, fol., 1692; The Magnetic Lady, or Humours Reconcild, fol., 1640; A Tale of a Tub, fol., 1640; The Sad Shepherd, or a Tale of Robin Hood, fol., 1641; Mortimer his Fall (fragment), fol., 1640. To Jonson have also been attributed additions to Kyd's Jeronymo, and collaboration in The Widow with Fletcher and Middleton, and in the Bloody Brother with Fletcher. POEMS. -- Epigrams, The Forrest, Underwoods, published in fols., 1616, 1640; Selections: Execration against Vulcan, and Epigrams, 1640; G. Hor. Flaccus his art of Poetry, Englished by Ben Jonson, 1640; Leges Convivialis, fol., 1692. Other minor poems first appeared in Gifford's edition of Works. PROSE. -- Timber, or Discoveries made upon Men and Matter, fol., 1641; The English Grammar, made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of Strangers, fol., 1640. Masques and Entertainments were published in the early folios. WORKS. -- Fol., 1616, vol. 2, 1640 (1631-41); fol., 1692, 1716-19, 1729; edited by P. Whalley, 7 vols., 1756; by Gifford (with Memoir), 9 vols., 1816, 1846; re-edited by F. Cunningham, 3 vols., 1871; in 9 vols., 1875; by Barry Cornwall (with Memoir), 1838; by B. Nicholson (Mermaid Series), with Introduction by C. H. Herford, 1893, etc.; Nine Plays, 1904; ed. H. C. Hart (Standard Library), 1906, etc; Plays and Poems, with Introduction by H. Morley (Universal Library), 1885; Plays (7) and Poems (Newnes), 1905; Poems, with Memoir by H. Bennett (Carlton Classics), 1907; Masques and Entertainments, ed. by H. Morley, 1890. SELECTIONS. -- J. A. Symonds, with Biographical and Critical Essay, (Canterbury Poets), 1886; Grosart, Brave Translunary Things, 1895; Arber, Jonson Anthology, 1901; Underwoods, Cambridge University Press, 1905; Lyrics (Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher), the Chap Books, No. 4, 1906; Songs (from Plays, Masques, etc.), with earliest known setting, Eragny Press, 1906. LIFE. -- See Memoirs affixed to Works; J. A. Symonds (English Worthies), 1886; Notes of Ben Jonson Conversations with Drummond of Hawthornden; Shakespeare Society, 1842; ed. with Introduction and Notes by P. Sidney, 1906; Swinburne, A Study of Ben Jonson, 1889. ***** THE POETASTER: OR, HIS ARRAIGNMENT TO THE VIRTUOUS, AND MY WORTHY FRIEND MR. RICHARD MARTIN SIR,--A thankful man owes a courtesy ever; the unthankful but when he needs it. To make mine own mark appear, and shew by which of these seals I am known, I send you this piece of what may live of mine; for whose innocence, as for the author's, you were once a noble and timely undertaker, to the greatest justice of this kingdom. Enjoy now the delight of your goodness, which is, to see that prosper you preserved, and posterity to owe the reading of that, without offence, to your name, which so much ignorance and malice of the times then conspired to have supprest. Your true lover, BEN JONSON. DRAMATIS PERSONAE AUGUSTUS CAESAR. HERMOGENES TIGELLIUS. MACAENUES. DEMETRIUS FANNIUS. MARC. OVID. ALBIUS. COR. GALLUS. MINOS. SEX. PROPERTIUS. HISTRIO. FUS. ARISTIUS. AESOP. PUB. OVID. PYRGI. VIRGIL. Lictors, Equitis, etc. Horace. TREBATIUS. JULIA. ASINIUS LUPUS. CYTHERIS. PANTILIUS TUCCA. PLAUTIA. LUSCUS. CHLOE. RUF. LAB. CRISPINUS. Maids. SCENE,-Rome After the second sounding. ENVY arises in the midst of the stage. Light, I salute thee, but with wounded nerves, Wishing the golden splendor pitchy darkness. What's here? THE ARRAIGNMENT! ay; this, this is it, That our sunk eyes have waked for all this while: Here will be subject for my snakes and me. Cling to my neck and wrists, my loving worms, And cast you round in soft and amorous folds, Till I do bid uncurl; then, break your knots, Shoot out yourselves at length, as your forced stings Would hide themselves within his maliced sides, To whom I shall apply you. Stay! the shine Of this assembly here offends my sight; I'll darken that first, and outface their grace. Wonder not, if I stare: these fifteen weeks, So long as since the plot was but an embrion, Have I, with burning lights mixt vigilant thoughts, In expectation of this hated play, To which at last I am arrived as Prologue. Nor would I you should look for other looks, Gesture, or compliment from me, than what The infected bulk of Envy can afford: For I am risse here with a covetous hope, To blast your pleasures and destroy your sports, With wrestings, comments, applications, Spy-like suggestions, privy whisperings, And thousand such promoting sleights as these. Mark how I will begin: The scene is, ha! Rome? Rome? and Rome? Crack, eye-strings, and your balls Drop into earth; let me be ever blind. I am prevented; all my hopes are crost, Check'd, and abated; fie, a freezing sweat Flows forth at all my pores, my entrails burn: What should I do? Rome! Rome! O my vext soul, How might I force this to the present state? Are there no players here? no poet apes, That come with basilisk' s eyes, whose forked tongues Are steeped in venom, as their hearts in gall? Either of these would help me; they could wrest, Pervert, and poison all they hear or see, With senseless glosses, and allusions. Now, if you be good devils, fly me not. You know what dear and ample faculties I have endowed you with: I'll lend you more. Here, take my snakes among you, come and eat, And while the squeez'd juice flows in your black jaws, Help me to damn the author. Spit it forth Upon his lines, and shew your rusty teeth At every word, or accent: or else choose Out of my longest vipers, to stick down In your deep throats; and let the heads come forth At your rank mouths; that he may see you arm'd With triple malice, to hiss, sting, and tear. His work and him; to forge, and then declaim, Traduce, corrupt, apply, inform, suggest; O, these are gifts wherein your souls are blest. What? Do you hide yourselves? will none appear? None answer? what, doth this calm troop affright you? Nay, then I do despair; down, sink again: This travail is all lost with my dead hopes. If in such bosoms spite have left to dwell, Envy is not on earth, nor scarce in hell. [Descends slowly. The third sounding. [As she disappears, enter PROLOGUE hastily, in armour. Stay, monster, ere thou sink-thus on thy head Set we our bolder foot; with which we tread Thy malice into earth: so Spite should die, Despised and scorn'd by noble industry. If any muse why I salute the stage, An armed Prologue; know, 'tis a dangerous age: Wherein who writes, had need present his scenes Forty-fold proof against the conjuring means Of base detractors, and illiterate apes, That fill up rooms in fair and formal shapes. 'Gainst these, have we put on this forced defence: Whereof the allegory and hid sense Is, that a well erected confidence Can fright their pride, and laugh their folly hence. Here now, put case our author should, once more, Swear that his play were good; he doth implore, You would not argue him of arrogance: Howe'er that common spawn of ignorance, Our fry of writers, may beslime his fame, And give his action that adulterate name. Such full-blown vanity he more doth loth, Than base dejection; there's a mean 'twixt both, Which with a constant firmness he pursues, As one that knows the strength of his own Muse. And this he hopes all free souls will allow: Others that take it with a rugged brow, Their moods he rather pities than envies: His mind it is above their injuries. ACT I SCENE 1--Scene draws, and discovers OVID in his study. Ovid. Then, when this body falls in funeral fire, My name shall live, and my best part aspire. It shall go so. [Enter Luscus, with a gown and cap. LUSC. Young master, master Ovid, do you hear? Gods a'me! away with your songs and sonnets and on with your gown and cap quickly: here, here, your father will be a man of this room presently. Come, nay, nay, nay, nay, be brief. These verses too, a poison on 'em! I cannot abide them, they make me ready to cast, by the banks of Helicon! Nay, look, what a rascally untoward thing this poetry is; I could tear them now. Ovid. Give me; how near is my father? Lusc. Heart a'man: get a law book in your hand, I will not answer you else. [Ovid puts on his cap and gown ]. Why so! now there's some formality in you. By Jove, and three or four of the gods more, I am right of mine old master's humour for that; this villainous poetry will undo you, by the welkin. Ovid. What, hast thou buskins on, Luscus, that thou swearest so tragically and high? Lusc. No, but I have boots on, sir, and so has your father too by this time; for he call'd for them ere I came from the lodging. Ovid. Why, was he no readier? Lusc. O no; and there was the mad skeldering captain, with the velvet arms, ready to lay hold on him as he comes down: he that presses every man he meets, with an oath to lend him money, and cries, Thou must do't, old boy, as thou art a man, a man of worship. Ovid. Who, Pantilius Tucca? Lus. Ay, he; and I met little master Lupus, the tribune, going thither too. Ovid. Nay, an he be under their arrest, I may with safety enough read over my elegy before he come. Lus. Gods a'me! what will you do? why, young master, you are not Castalian mad, lunatic, frantic, desperate, ha! Ovid. What ailest thou, Luscus? Lus. God be with you, sir; I'll leave you to your poetical fancies, and furies. I'll not be guilty, I. [Exit. Ovid. Be not, good ignorance. I'm glad th'art gone; For thus alone, our ear shall better judge The hasty errors of our morning muse. Envy, why twit'st thou me my time's spent ill, And call'st my verse, fruits of an idle quill? Or that, unlike the line from whence I sprung, War's dusty honours I pursue not young? Or that I study not the tedious laws, And prostitute my voice in every cause? Thy scope is mortal; mine eternal fame, Which through the world shall ever chaunt my name. Homer will live whilst Tenedos stands, and Ide, Or, to the sea, fleet Simois doth slide: And so shall Hesiod too, while vines do bear, Or crooked sickles crop the ripen'd ear. Callimachus, though in invention low, Shall still be sung, since he in art doth flow. No loss shall come to Sophocles' proud vein; With sun and moon, Aratus shall remain. While slaves be false, fathers hard, and bawds be whorish Whilst harlots flatter, shall Menander flourish. Ennius, though rude, and Accius's high-rear'd strain, A fresh applause in every age shall gain, Of Varro's name, what ear shall not be told, Of Jason's Argo and the fleece of gold? Then shall Lucretius' lofty numbers die, When earth and seas in fire and flame shall fry. Tityrus, Tillage, AEnee shall be read, Whilst Rome of all the conquered world is head! Till Cupid's fires be out, and his bow broken, Thy verses, neat Tibullus, shall be spoken. Our Gallus shall be known from east to west; So shall Lycoris, whom he now loves best. The suffering plough-share or the flint may wear; But heavenly Poesy no death can fear. Kings shall give place to it, and kingly shows, The banks o'er which gold-bearing Tagus flows. Kneel hinds to trash: me let bright Phoebus swell With cups full flowing from the Muses' well. Frost-fearing myrtle shall impale my head, And of sad lovers I be often read. Envy the living, not the dead, doth bite! For after death all men receive their right. Then, when this body falls in funeral fire, My name shall live, and my best part aspire. Enter OVID senior, followed by Luscus, Tucca, and Lupus. Ovid se. Your name shall live, indeed, sir! you say true: but how infamously, how scorn'd and contemn'd in the eyes and ears of the best and gravest Romans, that you think not on; you never so much as dream of that. Are these the fruits of all my travail and expenses? Is this the scope and aim of thy studies? Are these the hopeful courses, wherewith I have so long flattered my expectation from thee? Verses! Poetry! Ovid, whom I thought to see the pleader, become Ovid the play-maker! Ovid ju. No, sir. Ovid se. Yes, sir; I hear of a tragedy of yours coming forth for the common players there, call'd Medea. By my household gods, if I come to the acting of it, I'll add one tragic part more than is yet expected to it: believe me, when I promise it. What! shall I have my son a stager now? an enghle for players? a gull, a rook, a shot-clog, to make suppers, and be laugh'd at? Publius, I will set thee on the funeral pile first. Ovid ju. Sir, I beseech you to have patience. Lus. Nay, this 'tis to have your ears damn'd up to good counsel. I did augur all this to him beforehand, without poring into an ox's paunch for the matter, and yet he would not be scrupulous. Tuc. How now, goodman slave! what, rowly-powly? all rivals, rascal? Why, my master of worship, dost hear? are these thy best projects? is this thy designs and thy discipline, to suffer knaves to be competitors with commanders and gentlemen? Are we parallels, rascal, are we parallels? Ovid se. Sirrah, go get my horses ready. You'll still be prating. Tuc. Do, you perpetual stinkard, do, go; talk to tapsters and ostlers, you slave; they are in your element, go; here be the emperor's captains, you raggamuffin rascal, and not your comrades. [Exit Luscus. Lup. Indeed. Marcus Ovid, these players are an idle generation, and do much harm in a state, corrupt young gentry very much, I know it; I have not been a tribune thus long and observed nothing: besides, they will rob us, us, that are magistrates, of our respect, bring us upon their stages, and make us ridiculous to the plebeians; they will play you or me, the wisest men they can come by still, only to bring us in contempt with the vulgar, and make us cheap. Tur. Thou art in the right, my venerable cropshin, they will indeed; the tongue of the oracle never twang'd truer. Your courtier cannot kiss his mistress's slippers in quiet for them; nor your white innocent gallant pawn his revelling suit to make his punk a supper. An honest decayed commander cannot skelder, cheat, nor be seen in a bawdy-house, but he shall be straight in one of their wormwood comedies. They are grown licentious, the rogues; libertines, flat libertines. They forget they are in the statute, the rascals; they are blazon'd there; there they are trick'd, they and their pedigrees; they need no other heralds, I wiss. Ovid se. Methinks, if nothing else, yet this alone, the very reading of the public edicts, should fright thee from commerce with them, and give thee distaste enough of their actions. But this betrays what a student you are, this argues your proficiency in the law! Ovid ju. They wrong me, sir, and do abuse you more, That blow your ears with these untrue reports. I am not known unto the open stage, Nor do I traffic in their theatres: Indeed, I do acknowledge, at request Of some near friends, and honourable Romans, I have begun a poem of that nature. Ovid se. You have, sir, a poem! and where is it? That's the law you study. Ovid ju. Cornelius Gallus borrowed it to read. Ovid se. Cornelius Gallus! there's another gallant too hath drunk of the same poison, and Tibullus and Propertius. But these are gentlemen of means and revenues now. Thou art a younger brother, and hast nothing but they bare exhibition; which I protest shall be bare indeed, if thou forsake not these unprofitable by-courses, and that timely too. Name me a profest poet, that his poetry did ever afford him so much as a competency. Ay, your god of poets there, whom all of you admire and reverence so much, Homer, he whose worm-eaten statue must not be spewed against, but with hallow'd lips and groveling adoration, what was he? what was he? Tuc. Marry, I'll tell thee, old swaggerer; he was a poor blind, rhyming rascal, that lived obscurely up and down in booths and tap-houses, and scarce ever made a good meal in his sleep, the whoreson hungry beggar. Ovid se. He says well:--nay, I know this nettles you now; but answer me, is it not true? You'll tell me his name shall live; and that now being dead his works have eternised him, and made him divine: but could this divinity feed him while he lived? could his name feast him? Tuc. Or purchase him a senator's revenue, could it? Ovid se. Ay, or give him place in the commonwealth? worship, or attendants? make him be carried in his litter? Tuc. Thou speakest sentences, old Bias. Lup. All this the law will do, young sir, if you'll follow it. Ovid se. If he be mine, he shall follow and observe what I will apt him to, or I profess here openly and utterly to disclaim him. Ovid ju. Sir, let me crave you will forego these moods; I will be any thing, or study any thing; I'll prove the unfashion'd body of the law Pure elegance, and make her rugged'st strains Run smoothly as Propertius' elegies Ovid se. Propertius' elegies? good! Lup. Nay, you take him too quickly, Marcus Ovid se. Why, he cannot speak, he cannot think out of poetry; he is bewitch'd with it. Lup. Come, do not misprise him. Ovid se. Misprise! ay, marry, I would have him use some such words now; they have some touch, some taste of the law. He should make himself a style out of these, and let his Propertius' elegies go by. Lup. Indeed, young Publius, he that will now hit the mark, must shoot through the law; we have no other planet reigns, and in that sphere you may sit and sing with angels. Why, the law makes a man happy, without respecting any other merit; a simple scholar, or none at all, may be a lawyer. Tuc. He tells thee true, my noble neophyte; my little gram maticaster, he does: it shall never put thee to thy mathematics, metaphysics, philosophy, and I know not what supposed Suficiencies; if thou canst but have the patience to plod enough, talk, and make a noise enough, be impudent enough, and 'tis enough. Lup. Three books will furnish you. Tuc. And the less art the better: besides, when it shall be in the power of thy chevril conscience, to do right or wrong at thy pleasure, my pretty Alcibiades. Lup. Ay, and to have better men than himself, by many thousand degrees, to observe him, and stand bare. Tuc. True, and he to carry himself proud and stately, and have the law on his side for't, old boy. Ovid se. Well, the day grows old, gentlemen, and I must leave you. Publius, if thou wilt hold my favour, abandon these idle, fruitless studies, that so bewitched thee. Send Janus home his back face again, and look only forward to the law: intend that. I will I allow thee what shall suit thee in the rank of gentlemen, and maintain thy society with the best; and under these conditions I leave thee. My blessings light upon thee, if thou respect them; if not, mine eyes may drop for thee, but thine own heart will ache for itself; and so farewell! What, are my horses come? Lus. Yes, sir, they are at the gate Without. Ovid se. That's well.--Asinius Lupus, a word. Captain, I shall take my leave of you? Tuc. No, my little old boy, dispatch with Cothurnus there: I'll attend thee, I-- Lus. To borrow some ten drachms: I know his project. [Aside. Ovid se. Sir, you shall make me beholding to you. Now, captain Tucca, what say you? Tuc. Why, what should say, or what can I say, my flower O' the order? Should I say thou art rich, or that thou art honourable, or wise, or valiant, or learned, or liberal? why, thou art all these, and thou knowest it, my noble Lucullus, thou knowest it. Come, be not ashamed of thy virtues, old stump: honour's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times. Thou art the man of war's Mecaenas, old boy. Why shouldst not thou be graced then by them, as well as he is by his poets? [Enter PYRGUS and whispers TUCCA. How now, my carrier, what news? Lus. The boy has stayed within for his cue this half-hour. [Aside. Tuc. Come, do not whisper to me, but speak it out: what; it is no treason against the state I hope, is it? Lus. Yes, against the state of my master's purse. [Aside, and exit. Pyr. [aloud.] Sir, Agrippa desires you to forbear him till the next week; his mules are not yet come up. Tuc. His mules! now the bots, the spavin, and the glanders, and some dozen diseases more, light on him and his mules! What, have they the yellows, his mules, that they come no faster? or are they foundered, ha? his mules have the staggers belike, have they? Pyr. O no, sir;--then your tongue might be suspected for one of his mules. [Aside. Tuc He owes me almost a talent, and he thinks to bear it away with his mules, does he? Sirrah, you nut cracker. Go your ways to him again, and tell him I must have money, I: I cannot eat stones and turfs, say. What, will he clem me and my followers? ask him an he will clem me; do, go. He would have me fry my jerkin, would he? Away, setter, away. Yet, stay, my little tumbler, this old boy shall supply now. I will not trouble him, I cannot be importunate, I; I cannot be impudent. Pyr. Alas, sir, no; you are the most maidenly blushing creature upon the earth. [Aside Tuc. Dost thou hear, my little six and fifty, or thereabouts? thou art not to learn the humours and tricks of that old bald cheater, Time; thou hast not this chain for nothing. Men of worth have their chimeras, as well as other creatures; and they do see monsters sometimes, they do, they do, brave boy. Pyr. Better cheap than he shall see you, I warrant him. [Aside. Tuc. Thou must let me have six-six drachma, I mean, old boy: thou shalt do it; I tell thee, old boy, thou shalt, and in private too,--dost thou see?--Go, walk off: [to the Boy]-There, there. Six is the sum. Thy son's a gallant spark and must not be put out of a sudden. Come hither, Callimachus; thy father tells me thou art too poetical, boy: thou must not be so; thou must leave them, young novice, thou must; they are a sort of poor starved rascals, that are ever wrap'd up in foul linen; and can boast of nothing but a lean visage, peering out of a seam-rent suit, the very emblems of beggary. No, dost hear, turn lawyer, thou shalt be my solicitor.--- 'Tis right, old boy, is't? Ovid Sr. You were best tell it, captain. Tuc. No; fare thou well, mine honest horseman; and thou, old beaver. [To Lupus]-Pray thee, Roman, when thou comest to town, see me at my lodging, visit me sometimes? thou shalt be welcome. old boy. Do not balk me, good swaggerer. Jove keep thy chain from pawning; go thy ways, if thou lack money I'll lend thee some; I'll leave thee to thy horse now. Adieu... Ovid Sr. Farewell, good captain. Tuc. Boy, you can have but half a share now, boy [Exit, followed by Pyrgus. Ovid Sr. 'Tis a strange boldness that accompanies this fellow. Come. Ovid ju. I'll give attendance on you to your horse, sir, please you. Ovid se. No; keep your chamber, and fall to your studies; do so: The gods of Rome bless thee! [Exit with Lupus. Ovid ju. And give me stomach to digest this law: That should have follow'd sure, had I been he. O, sacred Poesy, thou spirit of arts, The soul of science, and the queen of souls; What profane violence, almost sacrilege, Hath here been offered thy divinities! That thine own guiltless poverty should arm Prodigious ignorance to wound thee thus! For thence is all their force of argument, Drawn forth against thee; or, from the abuse Of thy great powers in adulterate brains: When, would men learn but to distinguish spirits And set true difference 'twixt those jaded wits That run a broken pace for common hire, And the high raptures of a happy muse, Borne on the wings of her immortal thought, That kicks at earth with a disdainful heel, And beats at heaven gates with her bright hoofs; They would not then, with such distorted faces, And desperate censures, stab at Poesy. They would admire bright knowledge, and their minds Should ne'er descend on so unworthy objects As gold, or titles; they would dread far more To be thought ignorant, than be known poor. The time was once, when wit drown'd wealth; but now, Your only barbarism is t'have wit, and want. No matter now in virtue who excels, He that hath coin, hath all perfection else. Tib. [within.] Ovid! Ovid. Who's there? Come in. Enter Tibullus. Tib. Good morrow, lawyer. Ovid. Good morrow, dear Tibullus; welcome: sit down. Tib. Not I. What, so hard at it? Let's see, what's here? Numa in decimo nono. I Nay, I will see it Ovid. Prithee away Tib. If thrice in field a man vanquish his foe, 'Tis after in his choice to serve or no. How, now, Ovid! Law cases in verse? Ovid. In truth, I know not; they run from my pen unwittingly if they be verse. What's the news abroad? Tib. Off with this. gown; I come to have thee walk. Ovid. No, good Tibullus, I'm not now in case. Pray let me alone. Tib. How! Not in case? Slight, thou'rt in too much case, by all this law. Ovid. Troth, if I live, I will new dress the law In sprightly Poesy's habiliments. Tib. The hell thou wilt! What! turn law into verse Thy father has school'd thee, I see. Here, read that same; There's subject for you; and, if I mistake not, A supersedeas to your melancholy. Ovid. How! subscribed Julia! O my life, my heaven! Tib. Is the mood changed? Ovid. Music of wit! note for th' harmonious spheres! Celestial accents, how you ravish me! Tib. What is it, Ovid? Ovid. That I must meet my Julia, the princess Julia. Tib. Where? Ovid. Why, at--- Heart, I've forgot; my passion so transports me. Tib. I'll save your pains: it is at Albius' house, The jeweller's, where the fair Lycoris lies. Ovid. Who? Cytheris, Cornelius Gallus' love? Tib. Ay, he'll be there too, and my Plautia. Ovid. And why not your Delia? Tib. Yes, and your Corinna. Ovid. True; but, my sweet Tibullus, keep that secret I would not, for all Rome, it should be thought I veil bright Julia underneath that name: Julia, the gem and jewel of my soul, That takes her honours from the golden sky, As beauty doth all lustre from her eye. The air respires the pure Elysian sweets In which she breathes, and from her looks descend The glories of the summer. Heaven she is, Praised in herself above all praise; and he Which hears her speak, would swear the tuneful orbs Turn'd in his zenith only. Tib. Publius, thou'lt lose thyself. Ovid. O, in no labyrinth can I safelier err, Than when I lose myself in praising her. Hence, law, and welcome Muses, though not rich, Yet are you pleasing: let's be reconciled, And new made one. Henceforth, I promise faith And all my serious hours to spend with you; With you, whose music striketh on my heart, And with bewitching tones steals forth my spirit, In Julia's name; fair Julia: Julia's love Shall be a law, and that sweet law I'll study, The law and art of sacred Julia's love: All other objects will but abjects prove. Tib. Come, we shall have thee as passionate as Propertius, anon. Ovid. O, how does my Sextus? Tib. Faith, full of sorrow for his Cynthia's death. Ovid. What, still? Tib. Still, and still more, his griefs do grow upon him As do his hours. Never did I know An understanding spirit so take to heart The common work of Fate. Ovid. O, my Tibullus, Let us not blame him; for against such chances The heartiest strife of virtue is not proof. We may read constancy and fortitude. To other souls; but had ourselves been struck With the like planet, had our loves, like his, Been ravish'd from us by injurious death, And in the height and heat of our best days, It would have crack'd our sinews, shrunk our veins, And made our very heart-strings jar, like his. Come, let's go take him forth, and prove if mirth Or company will but abate his passion. Tib. Content, and I implore the gods it may. [Exeunt. ACT II SCENE I. A Room in ALBIUS'S House. Enter ALBIUS and CRISPINUS. Alb. Master Crispinus, you are welcome: pray use a stool, sir. Your cousin Cytheris will come down presently. We are so busy for the receiving of these courtiers here, that I can scarce be a minute with myself, for thinking of them: Pray you sit, sir; pray you sit, sir. Crisp. I am very well, sir. Never trust me, but your are most delicately seated here, full of sweet delight and blandishment! an excellent air, an excellent air! Alb. Ay, sir, 'tis a pretty air. These courtiers run in my mind still; I must look out. For Jupiter's sake, sit, sir; or please you walk into the garden? There's a garden on the back-side. Crisp. I am most strenuously well, I thank you, sir. Alb. Much good do you, sir. [Enter CHLOE, with two Maids. Chloe. Come, bring those perfumes forward a little, and strew some roses and violets here: Fie! here be rooms savour the most pitifully rank that ever I felt. I cry the gods mercy, [sees Albius] my husband's in the wind of us! Alb. Why, this is good, excellent, excellent! well said, my sweet Chloe; trim up your house most obsequiously. Chloe. For Vulcan's sake, breathe somewhere else; in troth you overcome our perfumes exceedingly; you are too predominant. Alb. Hear but my opinion, sweet wife. Chloe. A pin for your pinion! In sincerity, if you be thus fulsome to me in every thing, I'll be divorced. Gods my body! you know what you were before I married you; I was a gentlewoman born, I; I lost all my friends to be a citizen's wife, because I heard, indeed, they kept their wives as fine as ladies; and that we might rule our husbands like ladies, and do what we listed; do you think I would have married you else? Alb. I acknowledge, sweet wife:--She speaks the best of any woman in Italy, and moves as mightily; which makes me, I had rather she should make bumps on my head, as big as my two fingers, than I would offend her--But, sweet wife-- Chloe. Yet again! Is it not grace enough for you, that I call you husband, and you call me wife; but you must still be poking me, against my will, to things? Alb. But you know, wife. here are the greatest ladies, and gallantest gentlemen of Rome, to be entertained in our house now; and I would fain advise thee to entertain them in the best sort, i'faith, wife. Chloe. In sincerity, did you ever hear a man talk so idly? You would seem to be master! you would have your spoke in my cart! you would advise me to entertain ladies and gentlemen! Because you can marshal your pack-needles, horse-combs, hobby-horses, and wall-candlesticks in your warehouse better than I, therefore you can tell how to entertain ladies and gentlefolks better than I? Alb. O, my sweet wife, upbraid me not with that; gain savours sweetly from any thing; he that respects to get, must relish all commodities alike, and admit no difference between oade and frankincense, or the most precious balsamum and a tar-barrel. Chloe. Marry, foh! you sell snuffers too, if you be remember'd; but I pray you let me buy them out of your hand; for, I tell you true, I take it highly in snuff, to learn how to entertain gentlefolks of you, at these years, i'faith. Alas, man, there was not a gentleman came to your house in your t'other wife's time, I hope! nor a lady, nor music, nor masques! Nor you nor your house were so much as spoken of, before I disbased myself, from my hood and my farthingal, to these bum-rowls and your whale-bone bodice. Alb. Look here, my sweet wife; I am mum, my dear mummia, my balsamum, my spermaceti, and my very city of---She has the most best, true, feminine wit in Rome! Cris. I have heard so, sir; and do most vehemently desire to participate the knowledge of her fair features. Alb. Ah, peace; you shall hear more anon: be not seen yet, I pray you; not yet: observe. [Exit. Chloe. 'Sbody! give husbands the head a little more, and they'll be nothing but head shortly: What's he there? 1 Maid. I know not, forsooth. 2 Maid. Who would you speak with, sir? Cris. I would speak with my cousin Cytheris. 2 Maid. He is one, forsooth, would speak with his cousin Cytheris. Chloe. Is she your cousin, sir? Cris. [coming forward.] Yes, in truth, forsooth, for fault of a better. Chloe. She is a gentlewoman. Cris. Or else she should not be my cousin, I assure you. Chloe. Are you a gentleman born? Cris. That I am, lady; you shall see mine arms, if it please you. Chloe. No, your legs do sufficiently shew you are a gentleman born, sir; for a man borne upon little legs, is always a gentleman born. Cris. Yet, I pray you, vouchsafe the sight of my arms, mistress; for I bear them about me, to have them seen: My name is Crispinus or Crispinas indeed; which is well expressed in my arms; a face crying in chief; and beneath it a bloody toe, between three thorns pungent. Chloe. Then you are welcome, sir: now you are a gentleman born, I can find in my heart to welcome you; for I am a gentlewoman born too, and will bear my head high enough, though 'twere my fortune to marry a tradesman. Cris. No doubt of that, sweet feature; your carriage shews it in any man's eye, that is carried upon you with judgment. [Re-enter ALBIUS. Alb. Dear wife, be not angry. Chloe. Gods my passion! Alb. Hear me but one thing; let not your maids set cushions in the parlour windows, nor in the dining-chamber windows; nor upon stools, in either of them, in any case; for 'tis tavern-like: but lay them one upon another, in some out-room or corner of the dining-chamber. Chloe. Go, go; meddle with your bed-chamber only; or rather, with your bed in your chamber only; or rather with your wife in your bed only; or on my faith I'll not be pleased with you only. Alb. Look here, my dear wife, entertain that gentleman kindly, I prithee--mum. [Exit. Chloe. Go, I need your instructions indeed! anger me no more, I advise you. Citi-sin, quotha! she's a wise gentlewoman, i'faith, will marry herself to the sin of the city. Alb. [re-entering.] But this time, and no more, by heav'n, wife: hang no pictures in the hall, nor in the dining-chamber, in any case; But in the gallery only; for 'tis not courtly else, O' my word, wife. Chloe. 'Sprecious, never have done! Alb. Wife-- [Exit. Chloe. Do I not bear a reasonable corrigible hand over him,, Crispinus? Cris. By this hand, lady, you hold a most sweet hand over him. Alb. [re-entering.] And then, for the great gilt andirons-- Chloe. Again! Would the andirons were in your great guts for me! Alb. I do vanish, wife. [Exit. Chloe. How shall I do, master Crispinus? here will be all the bravest ladies in court presently to see your cousin Cytheris: O the gods! how might I behave myself now, as to entertain them most courtly? Cris. Marry, lady, if you will entertain them most courtly, you must do thus: as soon as ever your maid or your man brings you word they are come, you must say, A pox on 'em I what do they here? And yet, when they come, speak them as fair, and give them the kindest welcome in words that can be.... Chloe. Is that the fashion of courtiers, Crispinus? Cris. I assure you it is, lady; I have observed it. Chloe. For your pox, sir, it is easily hit on; but it is not so easy to speak fair after, methinks. Alb. [re-entering.] O, wife, the coaches are come, on my word; a number of coaches and courtiers. Chloe. A pox on them! what do they here? Alb. How now, wife! would'st thou not have them come? Chloe. Come! Come, you are a fool, you.--He knows not the trick on't. Call Cytheris, I pray you: and, good master Crispinus, you can observe, you say; let me entreat you for all the ladies' behaviours, jewels, jests, and attires, that you marking, as well as I, we may put both our marks together, when they are gone, and confer of them. Cris. I warrant you, sweet lady; let me alone to observe till I turn myself to nothing but observation.-- [Enter CYTHERIS. Good morrow, cousin Cytheris. Cyth. Welcome, kind cousin. What! are they come? Alb. Ay, your friend Cornelius Gallus, Ovid, Tibullus, Propertius, with Julia, the emperor's daughter, and the lady Plautia, are 'lighted at the door; and with them Hermogenes Tigellius, the excellent musician. Cyth. Come, let us go meet them, Chloe. Chloe. Observe, Crispinus. Crisp. At a hail's breadth, lady, I warrant you. [As they are going out, enter CORNELIUS GALLUS, OVID, TIBULLUS, PROPERTIUS, HERMOGENES, JULIA, and PLAUTIA. Gal. Health to the lovely Chloe! you must pardon me, mistress, that I prefer this fair gentlewoman. Cyth. I pardon and praise you for it, sir; and I beseech your excellence, receive her beauties into your knowledge and favour. Jul. Cytheris, she hath favour and behaviour, that commands as much of me: and, sweet Chloe, know I do exceedingly love you, and that I will approve in any grace my father the emperor may shew you. Is this your husband? Alb. For fault of a better, if it please your highness. Chloe. Gods my life, how he shames me! Cyth. Not a whit, Chloe, they all think you politic and witty; wise women choose not husbands for the eye, merit, or birth, but wealth and sovereignty. Ovid. Sir, we all come to gratulate, for the good report of you. Tib. And would be glad to deserve your love, sir. Alb. My wife will answer you all, gentlemen; I'll come to you again presently. [Exit. Plau. You have chosen you a most fair companion here, Cytheris, and a very fair house. Cyth. To both which, you and all my friends are very welcome, Plautia. Chloe. With all my heart, I assure your ladyship. Plau. Thanks, sweet mistress Chloe. Jul. You must needs come to court, lady, i'faith, and there be sure your welcome shall be as great to us. Ovid. She will deserve it, madam; I see, even in her looks, gentry, and general worthiness. Tib. I have not seen a more certain character of an excellent disposition. Alb. [re-entering.] Wife! Chloe. O, they do so commend me here, the courtiers! what's the matter now? Alb. For the banquet, sweet wife. Chloe. Yes; and I must needs come to court, and be welcome, the princess says. [Exit with Albius. Gal. Ovid and Tibullus, you may be bold to welcome your mistress here. Ovid. We find it so, sir. Tib. And thank Cornelius Gallus. Ovid. Nay, my sweet Sextus, in faith thou art not sociable. Prop. In faith I am not, Publius; nor I cannot. Sick minds are like sick men that burn with fevers, Who when they drink, please but a present taste, And after bear a more impatient fit. Pray let me leave you; I offend you all, And myself most. Gal. Stay, sweet Propertius. Tib. You yield too much unto your griefs and fate, Which never hurts, but when we say it hurts us. Prop. O peace, Tibullus; your philosophy Lends you too rough a hand to search my wounds. Speak they of griefs, that know to sigh and grieve: The free and unconstrained spirit feels No weight of my oppression. [Exit. Ovid. Worthy Roman! Methinks I taste his misery, and could Sit down, and chide at his malignant stars. Jul. Methinks I love him, that he loves so truly. Cyth. This is the perfect'st love, lives after death. Gal. Such is the constant ground of virtue still. Plau. It puts on an inseparable face. [re-enter CHLOE. Chloe. Have you mark'd every thing, Crispinus? Cris. Every thing, I warrant you. Chloe. What gentlemen are these? do you know them? Cris. Ay, they are poets, lady. Chloe. Poets! they did not talk of me since I went, did they? Cris. O yes, and extolled your perfections to the heavens. Chloe. Now in sincerity they be the finest kind of men that ever I knew: Poets! Could not one get the emperor to make my husband a poet, think you? Cris. No, lady, 'tis love and beauty make poets: and since you like poets so well, your love and beauties shall make me a poet. Chloe. What! shall they? and such a one as these? Cris. Ay, and a better than these: I would be sorry else. Chloe. And shall your looks change, and your hair change, and all, like these? Cris. Why, a man may be a poet, and yet not change his hair, lady. Chloe. Well, we shall see your cunning: yet, if you can change your hair, I pray do. [Re-enter Albius. Alb. Ladies, and lordlings, there's a slight banquet stays within for you; please you draw near, and accost it. Jul. We thank you, good Albius: but when shall we see those excellent jewels you are commended to have? Alb. At your ladyship's service.--I got that speech by seeing a play last day, and it did me some grace now: I see, 'tis good to collect sometimes; I'll frequent these plays more than I have done, now I come to be familiar with courtiers. [Aside. Gal. Why, how now, Hermogenes? what ailest thou, trow? Her, A little melancholy; let me alone, prithee. Gal. Melancholy I how so? Her. With riding: a plague on all coaches for me! Chloe. Is that hard-favour'd gentleman a poet too, Cytheris? Cyth. No, this is Hermogenes: as humorous as a poet, though: he is a musician. Chloe. A musician! then he can sing. Cyth. That he can, excellently; did you never hear him? Chloe. O no: will he be entreated, think you? Cyth. I know not.--Friend, mistress Chloe would fain hear Hermogenes sing: are you interested in him? Gal. No doubt, his own humanity will command him so far, to the satisfaction of so fair a beauty; but rather than fail, we'll all be suitors to him. Her. 'Cannot sing. Gal. Prithee, Hermogenes. Her. 'Cannot sing. Gal. For honour of this gentlewoman, to whose house I know thou mayest be ever welcome. Chloe. That he shall, in truth, sir, if he can sing. Ovid. What's that? Gal. This gentlewoman is wooing Hermogenes for a song. Ovid. A song! come, he shall not deny her. Hermogenes! Her. 'Cannot sing. Gal. No, the ladies must do it; he stays but to have their thanks acknowledged as a debt to his cunning. Jul. That shall not want; ourself will be the first shall promise to pay him more than thanks, upon a favour so worthily vouchsafed. Her. Thank you, madam; but 'will not sing. Tib. Tut, the only way to win him, is to abstain from entreating him. Cris: Do you love singing, lady? Chloe. O, passingly. Cris. Entreat the ladies to entreat me to sing then, I beseech you. Chloe. I beseech your grace, entreat this gentleman to sing. Jul. That we will, Chloe; can he sing excellently? Chloe. I think so, madam; for he entreated me to entreat you to entreat him to sing. Cris. Heaven and earth! would you tell that? Jul. Good, sir, let's entreat you to use your voice. Cris. Alas, madam, I cannot, in truth. Fla. The gentleman is modest: I warrant you he sings excellently. Ovid. Hermogenes, clear your throat: I see by him, here's a gentleman will worthily challenge you. Cris. Not I, sir, I'll challenge no man. Tib. That's your modesty, sir; but we, out of an assurance of your excellency, challenge him in your behalf. Cris. I thank you, gentlemen, I'll do my best. Her. Let that best be good, sir, you were best. Gal. O, this contention is excellent! What is't you sing, sir? Cris. If I freely may discover, sir; I'll sing that. Ovid. One of your own compositions, Hermogenes. He offers you vantage enough. Cris. Nay, truly, gentlemen, I'll challenge no man.--I can sing but one staff of the ditty neither. Gal. The better: Hermogenes himself will be entreated to sing the other. CRISPINUS sings. If I freely may discover What would please me in my lover, I would have her fair and witty, Savouring more of court than city; A little proud, but full of pity: Light and humorous in her toying, Oft building hopes, and soon destroying, Long, but sweet in the enjoying; Neither too easy nor too hard: All extremes I would have barr'd. Gal. Believe me, sir, you sing most excellently. Ovid. If there were a praise above excellence, the gentleman highly deserves it. Her. Sir, all this doth not yet make me envy you; for I know I sing better than you. Tib. Attend Hermogenes, now. HERMOGENES, accompanied. She should be allow'd her passions, So they were but used as fashions; Sometimes froward, and then frowning, Sometimes sickish and then swowning, Every fit with change still crowning. Purely jealous I would have her, Then only constant when I crave her: 'Tis a virtue should not save her. Thus, nor her delicates would cloy me, Neither her peevishness annoy me. Jill. Nay, Hermogenes, your merit hath long since been 'both known and admired of us. Her. You shall hear me sing another. Now will I begin. Gal. We shall do this gentleman's banquet too much wrong, that stays for us, ladies. Jul. 'Tis true; and well thought on, Cornelius Gallus. Her. Why, 'tis but a short air, 'twill be done presently, pray stay: strike, music. Ovid. No, good Hermogenes; we'll end this difference within. Jul. 'Tis the common disease of all your musicians, that they know no mean. to be entreated either to begin or end. Alb. Please you lead the way, gentles. All. Thanks, good Albius. [Exeunt all but Albius. Alb. O, what a charm of thanks was here put upon me! O Jove, what a setting forth it is to a man to have many courtiers come to his house! Sweetly was it said of a good old housekeeper, I had, rather want meat, than want guests, especially, if they be courtly guests. For, never trust me, if one of their good legs made in a house be not worth all the good cheer a man can make them. He that would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife! he that would have a fine wife, let him come to me. [Re-enter CRISPINUS. Cris. By your kind leave, master Albius. Alb. What, you are not gone, master Crispinus? Cris. Yes, faith, I have a design draws me hence: pray, sir, fashion me an excuse to the ladies. Alb. Will you not stay and see the jewels, sir? I pray you stay. Cris. Not for a million, sir, now. Let it suffice, I must relinquish; and so, in a word, please you to expiate this compliment. Alb. Mum. [Exit. Cris. I'll presently go and enghle some broker for a poet's gown, and bespeak a garland: and then, jeweller, look to your best jewel, i'faith. [Exit. ACT III SCENE I.-The Via Sacra (or Holy Street). Enter HORACE, CRISPINUS following. Hor. Umph! yes, I will begin an ode so; and it shall be to Mecaenas. Oris.'Slid, yonder's Horace! they say he's an excellent poet: Mecaenas loves him. I'll fall into his acquaintance, if I can; I think he be composing as he goes in the street! ha! 'tis a good humour, if he be: I'll compose too. Hor. Swell me a bowl with lus'y wine, Till I may see the plump Lyoeus swim Above the brim: I drink as I would write, In flowing measure fill'd with flame and sprite. Cris. Sweet Horace, Minerva and the Muses stand auspicious to thy designs! How farest thou, sweet man? frolic? rich? gallant? ha! Hor. Not greatly gallant, Sir; like my fortunes, well: I am bold to take my leave, Sir; you'll nought else, Sir, would you? Cris. Troth, no, but I could wish thou didst know us, Horace; we are a scholar, I assure thee. Hor. A scholar, Sir! I shall be covetous of your fair knowledge. Cris. Gramercy, good Horace. Nay, we are new turn'd poet too, which is more; and a satirist too, which is more than that: I write just in thy vein, I. I am for your odes, or your sermons, or any thing indeed; we are a gentleman besides; our name is Rufus Laberius Crispinus; we are a pretty Stoic too. Hor. To the proportion of your beard, I think it, sir. Cris. By Phoebus, here's a most neat, fine street, is't not? I protest to thee, I am enamoured of this street now, more than of half the streets of Rome again; 'tis so polite and terse! there's the front of a building now! I study architecture too: if ever I should build, I'd have a house just of that prospective. Hor. Doubtless, this gallant's tongue has a good turn, when he sleeps. [Aside. Cris. I do make verses, when I come in such a street as this: O, your city ladies, you shall have them sit in every shop like the Muses--offering you the Castalian dews, and the Thespian liquors, to as many as have but the sweet grace and audacity to sip of their lips. Did you never hear any of my verses? Bor. No, sir;---but I am in some fear I must now. [Aside. Cris. I'll tell thee some, if I can but recover them, I composed even now of a dressing I saw a jeweller's wife wear, who indeed was a jewel herself: I prefer that kind of tire now; what's thy opinion, Horace? Hor. With your silver bodkin, it does well, sir. Cris. I cannot tell; but it stirs me more than all your court-curls, or your spangles, or your tricks: I affect not these high gable-ends, these Tuscan tops, nor your coronets, nor your arches, nor your pyramids; give me a fine, sweet-little delicate dressing with a bodkin, as you say; and a mushroom for all your other ornatures! Hor. Is it not possible to make an escape from him? [Aside. Cris. I have remitted my verses all this while; I think I have forgot them. Hor. Here's he could wish you had else. [Aside. Chris. Pray Jove I can entreat them of my memory! Hor. You put your memory to too much trouble, sir. Cris. No, sweet Horace, we must not have thee think so. Hor. I cry you mercy; then they are my ears That must be tortured: well, you must have patience, ears. Cris. Pray thee, Horace, observe. Hor. Yes, sir; your satin sleeve begins to fret at the rug that is underneath it, I do observe: and your ample velvet bases are not without evident stains of a hot disposition naturally. Cris. O--I'll dye them into another colour, at pleasure: How many yards of velvet dost thou think they contain? Hor. 'Heart! I have put him now in a fresh way To vex me more:---faith, sir, your mercer's book Will tell you With more patience than I can:--- For I am crost, and so's not that, I think. Cris. 'Slight, these verses have lost me again! I shall not invite them to mind, now. Hor. Rack not your thoughts, good sir; rather defer it To a new time; I'll meet you at your lodging, Or where you please: 'till then, Jove keep you, sir! Cris. Nay, gentle Horace, stay; I have it now. Hor. Yes, sir. Apollo, Hermes, Jupiter, Look down upon me. [Aside. Cris. Rich was thy hap; sweet dainty cap, There to be placed; Where thy smooth black, sleek white may smack, And both be graced. White is there usurp'd for her brow; her forehead: and then sleek, as the parallel to smooth, that went before. A kind of paranomasie, or agnomination: do you conceive, sir? Hor. Excellent. Troth, sir, I must be abrupt, and leave you. Cris. Why, what haste hast thou? prithee, stay a little; thou shalt not go yet, by Phoebus. Hor. I shall not! what remedy? fie, how I sweat with suffering! Cris. And then Hor. Pray, sir, give me leave to wipe my face a little. Cris. Yes, do, good Horace. Hor. Thank you, sir. Death! I must crave his leave to p--, anon;. Or that I may go hence with half my teeth: I am in some such fear. This tyranny Is strange, to take mine ears up by commission, (Whether I will or no,) and make them stalls To his lewd solecisms, and worded trash. Happy thou, bold Bolanus, now I say; Whose freedom, and impatience of this fellow, Would, long ere this, have call'd him fool, and fool, And rank and tedious fool! and have flung jests As hard as stones, till thou hadst pelted him Out of the place; whilst my tame modesty Suffers my wit be made a solemn ass, To bear his fopperies--- [Aside. Cris. Horace, thou art miserably affected to be gone, I see. But--prithee let's prove to enjoy thee a while. Thou hast no business, I assure me. Whither is thy journey directed, ha? Hor. Sir, I am going to visit a friend that's sick. Cris A friend! what is he; do not I know him? Hor. No, sir, you do not know him; and 'tis not the worse for him. Cris. What's his name 1 where is he lodged? Hor. Where I shall be fearful to draw you out of your way, sir; a great way hence; pray, sir, let's part. Cris. Nay, but where is't? I prithee say. Hor. On the far side of all Tyber yonder, by Caesar's gardens. Cris. O, that's my course directly; I am for you. Come, go; why stand'st thou? Hor. Yes, sir: marry, the plague is in that part of the city; I had almost forgot to tell you, sir. Cris. Foh! it is no matter, I fear no pestilence; I have not offended Phoebus. Hor. I have, it seems, or else this heavy scourge Could ne'er have lighted on me. Cris. Come along. Hor. I am to go down some half mile this way, sir, first, to speak with his physician; and from thence to his apothecary, where I shall stay the mixing of divers drugs. Cris. Why, it's all one, I have nothing to do, and I love not to be idle; I'll bear thee company. How call'st thou the apothecary? Hor. O that I knew a name would fright him now!--- Sir, Rhadamanthus, Rhadamanthus, sir. There's one so called, is a just judge in hell, And doth inflict strange vengeance on all those That here on earth torment poor patient spirits. Cris. He dwells at the Three Furies, by Janus's temple. Hor. Your pothecary does, sir. Cris. Heart, I owe him money for sweetmeats, and he has laid to arrest me, I hear: but Hor: Sir, I have made a most solemn vow, I will never bail any man. Oris. Well then, I'll swear, and speak him fair, if the worst come. But his name is Minos, not Rhadamanthus, Horace. Hor. That may be, sir, I but guess'd at his name by his sign. But your Minos is a judge too, sir. Cris I protest to thee, Horace, (do but taste me once,) if I do know myself, and mine own virtues truly, thou wilt not make that esteem of Varius, or Virgil, or Tibullus, or any of 'em indeed, as now in thy ignorance thou dost; which I am content to forgive: I would fain see which of these could pen more verses in a day, or with more facility, than I; or that could court his mistress, kiss her hand, make better sport with her fan or her dog Hor. I cannot bail you yet, sir. Cris. Or that could move his body more gracefully, or dance better; you should see me, were it not in the street Hor. Nor yet. Cris. Why, I have been a reveller, and at my cloth of silver suit and my long stocking, in my time, and will be again Hor. If you may be trusted, sir. Cris. And then, for my singing, Hermogenes himself envies me, that is your only master of music you have in Rome. Hor. Is your mother living, sir? Cris. Ay! convert thy thoughts to somewhat else, I pray thee. Hor. You have much of the mother in you, sir: Your father is dead? Cris. Ay, I thank Jove, and my grandfather too, and all my kinsfolks, and well composed in their urns. Hor. The more their happiness, that rest in peace, Free from the abundant torture of thy tongue: Would I were with them too! Cris. What's that, Horace? Hor. I now remember me, sir, of a sad fate A cunning woman, one Sabella, sung, When in her urn she cast my destiny, I being but a child. Cris. What was it, I pray thee? Hor. She told me I should surely never perish By famine, poison, or the enemy's sword; The hectic fever, cough, or pleurisy, Should never hurt me, nor the tardy gout: But in my time, I should be once surprised By a strong tedious talker, that should vex And almost bring me to consumption: Therefore, if I were wise, she warn'd me shun All such long-winded monsters as my bane; For if I could but 'scape that one discourser, I might no doubt prove an old aged man.-- By your leave, Sir. [Going. Cris. Tut, tut; abandon this idle humour, 'tis nothing but melancholy. 'Fore Jove, now I think on't, I am to appear in court here, to answer to one that has me in suit: sweet Horace, go with me, this is my hour; if I neglect it, the law proceeds against me. Thou art familiar with these things; prithee, if thou lov'st me, go. Hor. Now, let me die, sir, if I know your laws, Or have the power to stand still half so long In their loud courts, as while a case is argued. Besides, you know, sir, where I am to go. And the necessity--- Cris. 'Tis true. Hor. I hope the hour of my release be come: he will, upon this consideration, discharge me, sure. Cris. Troth, I am doubtful what I may best do, whether to leave thee or my affairs, Horace. Hor. O Jupiter! me, sir, me, by any means; I beseech you, me, sir. Cris. No, faith, I'll venture those now; thou shalt see I love thee--some, Horace. Hor. Nay, then I am desperate: I follow you, sir. 'Tis hard contending with a man that overcomes thus. Cris. And how deals Mecaenas with thee? liberally, ha? is he open handed? bountiful? Hor. He's still himself, sir. Cris. Troth, Horace, thou art exceeding happy in thy friends and acquaintance; they are all most choice spirits, and of the first rank of Romans: I do not know that poet, I protest, has used his fortune more prosperously than thou hast. If thou wouldst bring me known to Mecaenas, I should second thy desert well; thou shouldst find a good sure assistant of me, one that would speak all good of thee in thy absence, and be content with the next place, not envying thy reputation with thy patron. Let me not live, but I think thou and I, in a small time, should lift them all out of favour, both Virgil, Varius, and the best of them, and enjoy him wholly to ourselves. Hor. Gods, you do know it, I can hold no longer; This brize has prick'd my patience. Sir, your silkness Clearly mistakes Mecaenas and his house, To think there breathes a spirit beneath his roof, Subject unto those poor affections Of undermining envy and detraction, Moods only proper to base grovelling minds. That place is not in Rome, I dare affirm, More pure or free from such low common evils. There's no man griev'd, that this is thought more rich, Or this more learned; each man hath his place, And to his merit his reward of grace, Which, with a mutual love, they all embrace. Cris. You report a wonder: 'tis scarce credible, this. Hor. l am no torturer to enforce you to believe it; but it is so Cris. Why, this inflames me with a more ardent desire to be his, than before; but I doubt I shall find the entrance to his familiarity somewhat more than difficult, Horace. Hor. Tut, you'll conquer him, as you have done me; there's no standing out against you, sir, I see that: either your importunity, or the intimation of your good parts, or Cris. Nay, I'll bribe his porter, and the grooms of his chamber; make his doors open to me that way first, and then I'll observe my times. Say he should extrude me his house to-day, shall I there- fore desist, or let fall my suit to-morrow? No; I'll attend him, follow him, meet him in the street, the highways, run by his coach, never leave him. What! man hath nothing given him in this life without much labour Hor. And impudence. Archer of heaven, Phoebus, take thy bow, And with a full-drawn shaft nail to the earth This Python, that I may yet run hence and live: Or, brawny Hercules, do thou come down, And, tho' thou mak'st it up thy thirteenth labour, Rescue me from this hydra of discourse here. [Enter FUSCUS ARISTIUS. Ari. Horace, well met. Hor. O welcome, my reliever; Aristius, as thou lov'st me, ransom me. Ari. What ail'st thou, man? Hor. 'Death, I am seized on here By a land remora; I cannot stir, Nor move, but as he pleases. Cris. Wilt thou go, Horace? Hor. Heart! he cleaves to me like Alcides' shirt, Tearing my flesh and sinews: O, I've been vex'd And tortured with him beyond forty fevers. For Jove's sake, find some means to take me from him. Ari. Yes, I will;--but I'll go first and tell Mecaenas. [Aside. Cris. Come, shall we go? Ari. The jest will make his eyes run, i'faith. [Aside. Hor. Nay, Aristius! Ari. Farewell, Horace. [Going. Hor. 'Death! will he leave me? Fuscus Aristius! do you hear? Gods of Rome! You said you had somewhat to say to me in private. Ari. Ay, but I see you are now employed with that gentleman; 'twere offence to trouble you; I'll take some fitter opportunity: farewell. [Exit. Hor. Mischief and torment! O my soul and heart, How are you cramp'd with anguish! Death itself Brings not the like convulsions, O, this day! That ever I should view thy tedious face.--- Cris. Horace, what passion, what humour is this? Hor. Away, good prodigy, afflict me not. A friend, and mock me thus! Never was man So left under the axe.--- [Enter Minos with two Lictors. How now? Min. That's he in the embroidered hat, there, with the ash-colour'd feather: his name is Laberius Crispinus. Lict. Laberius Crispinus, I arrest you in the emperor's name. Cris. Me, sir! do you arrest me? Lice. Ay, sir, at the suit of master Minos the apothecary. [Exit hastily. Hor. Thanks, great Apollo, I will not slip thy favour offered me in my escape, for my fortunes. Cris. Master Minos! I know no master Minos. Where's Horace? Horace! Horace! Min. Sir, do not you know me? Cris. O yes, I know you, master Minos; cry you mercy. But Horace? God's me, is he gone? Min. Ay, and so would you too, if you knew how.--Officer, look to him. Cris. Do you hear, master Minos? pray let us be used like a man of our own fashion. By Janus and Jupiter, I meant to have paid you next week every drachm. Seek not to eclipse my reputation thus vulgarly. Min. Sir, your oaths cannot serve you; you know I have forborne you long. Cris. I am conscious of it, sir. Nay, I beseech you, gentlemen, do not exhale me thus, remember 'tis but for sweetmeats-- Lict. Sweet meat must have sour sauce, sir. Come along. Cris. Sweet master Minos, I am forfeited to eternal disgrace, if you do not commiserate. Good officer, be not so officious. Enter TUCCA and Pyrgi. Tuc. Why, how now, my good brace of bloodhounds, whither do you drag the gentleman? You mongrels, you curs, you ban-dogs! we are captain Tucca that talk to you, you inhuman pilchers. Min. Sir, he is their prisoner. Tuc. Their pestilence! What are you, sir? Min. A citizen of Rome, sir. Tuc. Then you are not far distant from a fool, sir. Min. A pothecary, sir. Tuc. I knew thou wast not a physician: foh! out of my nostrils, thou stink'st of lotium and the syringe; away, quack-salver!-- Follower, my sword. [Aside. I Pyr. Here, noble leader; you'll do no harm with it, I'll trust you. Tuc. Do you hear, you goodman, slave? Hook, ram, rogue, catchpole, loose the gentleman, or by my velvet arms-- [Strikes up his heels, and seizes his sword. Lict. What will you do, sir? Tuc. Kiss thy hand, my honourable active varlet, and embrace thee thus. 1 Pyr. O patient metamorphosis! Tuc. My sword, my tall rascal. Lict. Nay, soft, sir; some wiser than some. Tuc. What! and a wit too? By Pluto, thou must be cherish'd, slave; here's three drachms for thee; hold. 2 Pyr. There's half his lendings gone. Tuc. Give me. Lict. No, sir, your first word shall stand; I'll hold all. Tuc. Nay, but rogue-- Lict. You would make a rescue of our prisoner, sir, you. Tuc. I a rescue! A way, inhuman varlet. Come, come, I never relish above one jest at most; do not disgust me, Sirrah; do not, rogue! I tell thee, rogue, do not. Lict. How, sir! rogue? Tuc. Ay; why, thou art not angry, rascal, art thou? Lict. I cannot tell, sir; I am little better upon these terms. Tuc. Ha, gods and fiends! why, dost hear, rogue, thou? give me thy hand; I say unto thee, thy hand, rogue. What, dost not thou know me? not me, rogue? not captain Tucca, rogue? Min. Come, pray surrender the gentleman his sword, officer; we'll have no fighting here. Tuc. What's thy name? Min. Minos, an't please you. Tuc. Minos! Come hither, Minos; thou art a wise fellow, it seems; let me talk with thee. Cris. Was ever wretch so wretched as unfortunate I! Tuc. Thou art one of the centumviri, old boy, art not? Min. No indeed, master captain. Tuc. Go to, thou shalt be then; I'll have thee one. Minos. Take my sword from these rascals, dost thou see! go, do it; I cannot attempt with patience. What does this gentleman owe thee, little Minos? Min. Fourscore sesterties, sir. Tuc. What, no more! Come, thou shalt release him. Minos: what, I'll be his bail, thou shalt take my word, old boy, and cashier these furies: thou shalt do't, I say, thou shalt, little Minos, thou shalt. Cris. Yes; and as I am a gentleman and a reveller, I'll make a piece of poetry, and absolve all, within these five days. Tuc. Come, Minos is not to learn how to use a gentleman of quality, I know.--My sword: If he pay thee not, I will, and I must, old boy. Thou shalt be my pothecary too. Hast good eringos, Minos. Min. The best in Rome, sir. Tuc. Go to, then--Vermin, know the house. 1 Pyr. I warrant you, colonel. Tuc. For this gentleman, Minos-- Min. I'll take your word, captain. Tuc. Thou hast it. My sword. Min. Yes, sir: But you must discharge the arrest, master Crispinus. Tuc. How, Minos! Look in the gentleman's face, and but read his silence. Pay, pay; 'tis honour, Minos. Cris. By Jove, sweet captain, you do most infinitely endear and oblige me to you. Tuc. Tut, I cannot compliment, by Mars; but, Jupiter love me, as I love good words and good clothes, and there's an end. Thou shalt give my boy that girdle and hangers, when thou hast worn them a little more. Cris. O Jupiter! captain, he shall have them now, presently:-- Please you to be acceptive, young gentleman. 1 Pyr. Yes, sir, fear not; I shall accept; I have a pretty foolish humour of taking, if you knew all. [Aside. Tuc. Not now, you shall not take, boy. Cris. By my truth and earnest, but he shall, captain, by your leave. Tuc. Nay, an he swear by his truth and earnest, take it, boy: do not make a gentleman forsworn. Lict. Well, sir, there's your sword; but thank master Minos; you had not carried it as you do else. Tuc. Minos is just, and you are knaves, and Lict. What say you, sir? Tuc. Pass on, my good scoundrel, pass on, I honour thee: [Exeunt Lictors.] But that I hate to have action with such base rogues as these, you should have seen me unrip their noses now, and have sent them to the next barber's to stitching; for do you see---I am a man of humour, and I do love the varlets, the honest varlets, they have wit and valour, and are indeed good profitable,--errant rogues, as any live in an empire. Dost thou hear, poetaster? [To Crispinus.] Second me. Stand up, Minos, close, gather, yet, so! Sir, (thou shalt have a quarter-share, be resolute) you shall, at my request, take Minos by the hand here, little Minos, I will have it so; all friends, and a health; be not inexorable. And thou shalt impart the wine, old boy, thou shalt do it, little Minos, thou shalt; make us pay it in our physic. What! we must live, and honour the gods sometimes; now Bacchus, now Comus, now Priapus; every god a little. [Histrio passes by.] What's he that stalks by there, boy, Pyrgus? You were best let him pass, Sirrah; do, ferret, let him pass, do 2 Pyr. 'Tis a player, sir. Tuc. A player! call him, call the lousy slave hither; what, will he sail by and not once strike, or vail to a man of war? ha!-Do you hear, you player, rogue, stalker, come back here! [Enter Histrio. No respect to men of worship, you slave! what, you are proud, you rascal, are you proud, ha? you grow rich, do you, and purchase, you twopenny tear-mouth? you have FORTUNE, and the good year on your side, you stinkard, you have, you have! Hist. Nay, 'sweet captain, be confined to some reason; I protest I saw you not, sir. Tuc. You did not? where was your sight, OEdipus? you walk with hare's eyes, do you? I'll have them glazed, rogue; an you say the word, they shall be glazed for you: come we must have you turn fiddler again, slave, get a base viol at your back, and march in a tawny coat, with one sleeve, to Goose-fair; then you'll know us, you'll see us then, you will, gulch, you will. Then, Will't please your worship to have any music, captain? Hist. Nay, good captain. Tuc. What, do you laugh, Howleglas! death, you perstemptuous varlet, I am none of your fellows; I have commanded a hundred and fifty such rogues, I, 2 Pyr. Ay, and most of that hundred and fifty have been leaders of a legion. [Aside. Hist. If I have exhibited wrong, I'll tender satisfaction, captain. Tuc. Say'st thou so, honest vermin! Give me thy hand; thou shalt make us a supper one of these nights. Hist. When you please, by Jove, captain, most willingly. us. Dost thou swear! To-morrow then; say and hold, slave. There are some of you players honest gentlemen-like scoundrels, and suspected to have some wit, as well as your poets, both at drinking and breaking of jests, and are companions for gallants. A man may skelder ye, now and then, of half a dozen shillings, or so. Dost thou not know that Pantalabus there? Hist. No, I assure you, captain. Tuc. Go; and be acquainted with him then; he is a gentleman, parcel poet, you slave; his father was a man of worship, I tell thee. Go, he pens high, lofty, in a new stalking strain, bigger than half the rhymers in the town again; he was born to fill thy mouth, Minotaurus, he was, he will teach thee to tear and rand. Rascal, to him, cherish his muse, go; thou hast forty-forty shillings, I mean, stinkard; give him in earnest, do, he shall write for thee, slave! If he pen for thee once, thou shalt not need to travel with thy pumps full of gravel any more, after a blind jade and a hamper, and stalk upon boards and barrel heads to an old crack'd trumpet. Hist. Troth, I think I have not so much about me, captain. Tuc. It's no matter; give him what thou hast, stiff-toe, I'll give my word for the rest; though it lack a shilling or two, it skills not: go, thou art an honest shifter; I'll have the statute repeal'd for thee.--Minos, I must tell thee, Minos, thou hast dejected yon gentleman's spirit exceedingly; dost observe, dost note, little Minos? Min. Yes, sir. Tuc. Go to then, raise, recover, do; suffer him not to droop in prospect of a player, a rogue, a stager: put twenty into his hand--twenty sesterces I mean,--and let nobody see; go, do it--the work shall commend itself; ye Minos, I'll pay. Min. Yes, forsooth, captain. 2 Pyr. Do not we serve a notable shark? [Aside. Tuc. And what new matters have you now afoot, sirrah, ha? I would fain come with my cockatrice one day, and see a play, if I knew when there were a good bawdy one; but they say you have nothing but HUMOURS, REVELS, and SATIRES, that gird and f--t at the time, you slave. Hist. No, I assure you, captain, not we. They are on the other side of Tyber: we have as much ribaldry in our plays as can be, as you would wish, captain: all the sinners in the suburbs come and applaud our action daily. Tuc. I hear you'll bring me o' the stage there; you'll play me, they say; I shall be presented by a sort of copper-laced scoundrels of you: life of Pluto! an you stage me, stinkard, your mansions shall sweat for't, your tabernacles, varlets, your Globes, and your Triumphs. Hist. Not we, by Phoebus, captain; do not do us imputation without desert. Tuc. I will not, my good twopenny rascal; reach me thy neuf. Dost hear? what wilt thou give me a week for my brace of beagles here, my little point-trussers? you shall have them act among ye.--I Sirrah, you, pronounce.--Thou shalt hear him speak in King Darius' doleful strain. 1 Pyr. O doleful days! O direful deadly dump! O wicked world, and worldly wickedness! How can I hold my fist from crying, thump, In rue of this right rascal wretchedness! Tuc. In an amorous vein now, sirrah: peace! 1 Pyr. O, she is wilder, and more hard, withal, Than beast, or bird, or tree, or stony wall. Yet might she love me, to uprear her state: Ay, but perhaps she hopes some nobler mate. Yet might she love me, to content her fire: Ay, but her reason masters her desire. Yet might she love me as her beauty's thrall: Ay, but I fear she cannot love at all. Tuc. Now, the horrible, fierce soldier, you, sirrah. 2 Pyr. What! will I brave thee? ay, and beard thee too; A Roman spirit scorns to bear a brain So full of base pusillanimity. Hist. Excellent! Tuc. Nay, thou shalt see that shall ravish thee anon; prick up thine ears, stinkard.--The ghost, boys! 1 Pyr. Vindicate! 2 Pyr. Timoria! 1 Pyr. Vindicta! 2 Pyr. Timoria! 1 Pyr. Veni! 2 Pyr. Veni! Tuc. Now thunder, sirrah, you, the rumbling player. 2 Pyr. Ay, but somebody must cry, Murder! then, in a small voice. Tuc. Your fellow-sharer there shall do't: Cry, sirrah, cry. 1 Pyr. Murder, murder! 2 Pyr. Who calls out murder? lady, was it you? Hist. O, admirable good, I protest. Tuc. Sirrah, boy, brace your drum a little straiter, and do the t'other fellow there, he in the--what sha' call him--and yet stay too. 2 Pyr. Nay, an thou dalliest, then I am thy foe, And fear shall force what friendship cannot win; Thy death shall bury what thy life conceals. Villain! thou diest for more respecting her--- 1 Pyr. O stay, my lord. 2 Pyr. Than me: Yet speak the truth, and I will guerdon thee; But if thou dally once again, thou diest. Tuc. Enough of this, boy. 2 Pyr. Why, then lament therefore: d--n'd be thy guts Unto king Pluto's Hell, and princely Erebus; For sparrows must have food--- Hist. Pray, sweet captain, let one of them do a little of a lady. Tuc. O! he will make thee eternally enamour'd of him, there: do, sirrah, do; 'twill allay your fellow's fury a little. 1 Pyr. Master, mock on; the scorn thou givest me, Pray Jove some lady may return on thee. 2 Pyr. Now you shall see me do the Moor: master, lend me your scarf a little. Tuc. Here, 'tis at thy service, boy. 2 Pyr. You, master Minos, hark hither a little [Exit with Minos, to make himself ready. Tuc. How dost like him? art not rapt, art not tickled now? dost not applaud, rascal? dost not applaud? Hist. Yes: what will you ask for them a week, captain? Tuc. No, you mangonising slave, I will not part from them; you'll sell them for enghles, you: let's have good cheer tomorrow night at supper, stalker, and then we'll talk; good capon and plover, do you hear, sirrah? and do not bring your eating player with you there; I cannot away with him: he will eat a leg of mutton while I am in my porridge, the lean Polyphagus, his belly is like Barathrum; he looks like a midwife in man's apparel, the slave: nor the villanous out-of-tune fiddler, AEnobarbus, bring not him. What hast thou there? six and thirty, ha? Hist. No, here's all I have, captain, some five and twenty: pray, sir, will you present and accommodate it unto the gentleman? for mine own part, I am a mere stranger to his humour; besides, I have some business invites me hence, with master Asinius Lupus, the tribune. Tuc. Well, go thy ways, pursue thy projects, let me alone with this design; my Poetaster shall make thee a play, and thou shalt be a man of good parts in it. But stay, let me see; do not bring your AEsop, your politician, unless you can ram up his mouth with cloves; the slave smells ranker than some sixteen dunghills, and is seventeen times more rotten. Marry, you may bring Frisker, my zany; he's a good skipping swaggerer; and your fat fool there, my mango, bring him too; but let him not beg rapiers nor scarfs, in his over-familiar playing face, nor roar out his barren bold jests with a tormenting laughter, between drunk and dry. Do you hear, stiff-toe? give him warning, admonition, to forsake his saucy glavering grace, and his goggle eye; it does not become him, sirrah: tell him so. I have stood up and defended you, I, to gentlemen, when you have been said to prey upon puisnes, and honest citizens, for socks or buskins; or when they have call'd you usurers or brokers, or said you were able to help to a piece of flesh--I have sworn, I did not think so, nor that you were the common retreats for punks decayed in their practice; I cannot believe it of you. Hist. Thank you, captain. Jupiter and the rest of the gods confine your modern delights without disgust. Tuc. Stay, thou shalt see the Moor ere thou goest. [Enter DEMETRIUS at a distance. What's he with the half arms there, that salutes us out of his cloak, like a motion, ha? Hist. O, sir, his doublet's a little decayed; he is otherwise a very simple honest fellow, sir, one Demetrius, a dresser of plays about the town here; we have hired him to abuse Horace, and bring him in, in a play, with all his gallants, as Tibullus, Mecaenas, Cornelius Gallus, and the rest. Tuc. And why so, stinkard? Hist. O, it will get us a huge deal of money, captain, and we have need on't; for this winter has made us all poorer than so many starved snakes: nobody comes at us, not a gentleman, nor a-- Tuc. But you know nothing by him, do you, to make a play of? Hist. Faith, not much, captain; but our author will devise that that shall serve in some sort. Tuc. Why, my Parnassus here shall help him, if thou wilt. Can thy author do it impudently enough? Hist. O, I warrant you, captain, and spitefully enough too; he has one of tho most overflowing rank wits in Rome; he will slander any man that breathes, if he disgust him. Tuc. I'll know the poor, egregious, nitty rascal; an he have these commendable qualities, I'll cherish him--stay, here comes the Tartar--I'll make a gathering for him, I, a purse, and put the poor slave in fresh rags; tell him so to comfort him.-- [Demetrius comes forward. Be-enter Minos, with 2 Pyrgus on his shoulders, and stalks backward and forward, as the boy acts. Well said, boy. 2 Pyr. Where art thou, boy? where is Calipolis? Fight earthquakes in the entrails of the earth, And eastern whirlwinds in the hellish shades; Some foul contagion of the infected heavens Blast all the trees, and in their cursed tops The dismal night raven and tragic owl Breed and become forerunners of my fall! Tuc. Well, now fare thee well, my honest penny-biter: commend me to seven shares and a half, and remember to-morrow.--If you lack a service, you shall play in my name, rascals; but you shall buy your own cloth, and I'll have two shares for my countenance. Let thy author stay with me. [Exit Histrio. Dem. Yes, sir. Tuc. 'Twas well done, little Minos, thou didst stalk well: forgive me that I said thou stunk'st; Minos; 'twas the savour of a poet I met sweating in the street, hangs yet in my nostrils. Cris. Who, Horace? Tuc. Ay, he; dost thou know him? Cris. O, he forsook me most barbarously, I protest. Tuc. Hang him, fusty satyr, he smells all goat; he carries a ram under his arm-holes, the slave: I am the worse when I see him.-- Did not Minos impart? [Aside to Crispinus. Cris. Yes, here are twenty drachms he did convey. Tuc. Well said, keep them, we'll share anon; come, little Minos. Cris. Faith, captain, I'll be bold to shew you a mistress of mine, a jeweller's wife, a gallant, as we go along. Tuc. There spoke my genius. Minos, some of thy eringos, little Minos; send. Come hither, Parnassus, I must have thee familiar with my little locust here; 'tis a good vermin, they say.-- [Horace and Trebatius pass over the stage.] See, here's Horace, and old Trebatius, the great lawyer, in his company; let's avoid him now, he is too well seconded. [Exeunt. ACT IV SCENE I.-A Room in ALBIUS'S House. enter CHLOE, CYTHERIS, and Attendants. Chloe. But, sweet lady, say; am I well enough attired for the court, in sadness? Cyth. Well enough! excellent well, sweet mistress Chloe; this strait-bodied city attire, I can tell you, will stir a courtier's blood, more than the finest loose sacks the ladies use to be put in; and then you are as well jewell'd as any of them; your ruff and linen about you is much more pure than theirs; and for your beauty, I can tell you, there's many of them would defy the painter, if they could change with you. Marry, the worst is, you must look to be envied, and endure a few court-frumps for it. Chloe. O Jove, madam, I shall buy them too cheap!--Give me my muff, and my dog there.-And will the ladies be any thing familiar with me, think you? Cyth. O Juno! why you shall see them flock about you with their puff-wings, and ask you where you bought your lawn, and what you paid for it? who starches you? and entreat you to help 'em to some pure laundresses out of the city. Chloe. O Cupid!--Give me my fan, and my mask too.--And will the lords, and the poets there, use one well too, lady? Cyth. Doubt not of that; you shall have kisses from them, go pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, upon your lips, as thick as stones out of slings at the assault of a city. And then your ears will be so furr'd with the breath of their compliments, that you cannot catch cold of your head, if you would, in three winters after. Chloe. Thank you, sweet lady. O heaven! and how must one behave herself amongst 'em? You know all. Cyth. Faith, impudently enough, mistress Chloe, and well enough. Carry not too much under thought betwixt yourself and them; nor your city-mannerly word, forsooth, use it not too often in any case; but plain, Ay, madam, and no, madam: nor never say, your lordship, nor your honour; but, you, and you, my lord, and my lady: the other they count too simple and minsitive. And though they desire to kiss heaven with their titles, yet they will count them fools that give them too humbly. Chloe. O intolerable, Jupiter! by my troth, lady, I would not for a world but you had lain in my house; and, i'faith, you shall not pay a farthing for your board, nor your chambers. Cyth. O, sweet mistress Chloe! Chloe. I'faith you shall not, lady; nay, good lady, do not offer it. [Enter GALLUS and TIBULLUS. Gal. Come, where be these ladies? By your leave, bright stars, this gentleman and I are come to man you to court; where your late kind entertainment is now to be requited with a heavenly banquet. Cyth. A heavenly banquet; Gallus! Gal. No less, my dear Cytheris. Tib. That were not strange, lady, if the epithet were only given for the company invited thither; your self, and this fair gentle-woman. Chloe. Are we invited to court, sir? Tib. You are, lady, by the great princess Julia; who longs to greet you with any favours that may worthily make you an often courtier. Chloe. In sincerity, I thank her, sir. You have a coach, have you not? Tib. The princess hath sent her own, lady. Chloe. O Venus! that's well: I do long to ride in a coach most vehemently. Cyth. But, sweet Gallus, pray you resolve me why you give that heavenly praise to this earthly banquet? Gal. Because, Cytheris, it must be celebrated by the heavenly powers: all the gods and goddesses will be there; to two of which you two must be exalted. Chloe. A pretty fiction, in truth. Cyth. A fiction, indeed, Chloe, and fit for the fit of a poet. Gal. Why, Cytheris, may not poets (from whose divine spirits all the honours of the gods have been deduced) entreat so much honour of the gods, to have their divine presence at a poetical banquet? Cyth. Suppose that no fiction; yet, where are your habilities to make us two goddesses at your feast? Gal. Who knows not, Cytheris, that the sacred breath of a true poet can blow any virtuous humanity up to deity? Tib. To tell you the female truth, which is the simple truth, ladies; and to shew that poets, in spite of the world, are able to deify themselves; at this banquet, to which you are invited, we intend to assume the figures of the gods; and to give our several loves the forms of goddesses. Ovid will be Jupiter; the princess Julia, Juno; Gallus here, Apollo; you, Cytheris, Pallas; I will be Bacchus; and my love Plautia, Ceres: and to install you and your husband, fair Chloe, in honours equal with ours, you shall be a goddess, and your husband a god. Chloe. A god!--O my gods! Tib. A god, but a lame god, lady; for he shall be Vulcan, and you Venus: and this will make our banquet no less than heavenly. Chloe. In sincerity, it will be sugared. Good Jove, what a pretty foolish thing it is to be a poet! but, hark you, sweet Cytheris, could they not possibly leave out my husband? methinks a body's husband does not so well at court; a body's friend, or so--but, husband! 'tis like your clog to your marmoset, for all the world, and the heavens. Cyth. Tut, never fear, Chloe! your husband will be left without in the lobby, or the great chamber, when you shall be put in, i'the closet, by this lord, and by that lady. Chloe. Nay, then I am certified; he shall go. [Enter HORACE. Gal. Horace! welcome. Hor. Gentlemen, hear you the news? Tib. What news, my Quintus! Hor. Our melancholic friend, Propertius, Hath closed himself up in his Cynthia's tomb; And will by no entreaties be drawn thence. [Enter Albius, introducing CRISPINUS and DEMETRIUS, followed by Tucca. Alb. Nay, good Master Crispinus, pray you bring near the gentleman. [Going Hor. Crispinus! Hide me, good Gallus; Tibullus, shelter me. Cris. Make your approach, sweet captain. Tib. What means this, Horace? Hor. I am surprised again; farewell. Gal. Stay, Horace. [Exit hastily. Tib 'Slight, I hold my life This same is he met him in Holy-street. Hor. What, and be tired on by yond' vulture! No: Phoebus defend me! Gal. Troth, 'tis like enough.--This act of Propertius relisheth very strange with me. Tuc. By thy leave, my neat scoundrel: what, is this the mad boy you talk'd on? Cris. Ay, this is master Albius, captain. Tuc. Give me thy hand, Agamemnon; we hear abroad thou art the Hector of citizens: What sayest thou? are we welcome to thee, noble Neoptolemus? Alb. Welcome, captain, by Jove and all the gods in the Capitol-- Tuc. No more, we conceive thee. Which of these is thy wedlock, Menelaus? thy Helen, thy Lucrece? that we may do her honour, mad boy. Cris. She in the little fine dressing, sir, is my mistress. Alb. For fault of a better, sir. Tuc. A better! profane rascal: I cry thee mercy, my good scroyle, was't thou? Alb. No harm, captain. Tuc. She is a Venus, a Vesta, a Melpomene: come hither, Penelope; what's thy name, Iris? Chloe. My name is Chloe, sir; I am a gentlewoman. Tuc. Thou art in merit to be an empress, Chloe, for an eye and a lip; thou hast an emperor's nose: kiss me again: 'tis a virtuous punk; so! Before Jove, the gods were a sort of goslings, when they suffered so sweet a breath to perfume the bed of a stinkard: thou hadst ill fortune, Thisbe; the Fates were infatuate, they were, punk, they were. Chloe. That's sure, sir: let me crave your name, I pray you, sir. Tuc. I am known by the name of Captain Tucca, punk; the noble Roman, punk: a gentleman, and a commander, punk. [Walks aside. Chloe. In good time: a gentleman, and a commander! that's as good as a poet, methinks. Cris. A pretty instrument! It's my cousin Cytheris' viol this, is it not? Cyth. Nay, play, cousin; it wants but such a voice and hand to grace it, as yours is. Cris. Alas, cousin, you are merrily inspired. Cyth. Pray you play, if you love me. Cris. Yes, cousin; you know I do not hate you. Tib. A most subtile wench! how she hath baited him with a viol yonder, for a song! Cris. Cousin, 'pray you call mistress Chloe! she shall hear an essay of my poetry. Tuc. I'll call her.--Come hither, cockatrice: here's one will set thee up, my sweet punk, set thee up. Chloe. Are you a poet so soon, sir? CRlSPINUS plays and sings. Love is blind, and a wanton; In the whole world, there is scant one ----Such another: No, not his mother. He hath pluck'd her doves and sparrows, To feather his sharp arrows, And alone prevaileth, While sick Venus waileth. But if Cypris once recover The wag; it shall behove her To look better to him: Or she will undo him. Alb. Wife, mum. Alb. O, most odoriferous music! Tuc. Aha, stinkard! Another Orpheus, you slave, another Orpheus! an Arion riding on the back of a dolphin, rascal! Gal. Have you a copy of this ditty, sir? Cris. Master Albius has. Alb. Ay, but in truth they are my Wife's verses; I must not shew them. Tuc. Shew them, bankrupt, shew them; they have salt in them, and will brook the air, stinkard. Gal. How! To his bright mistress Canidia! Cris. Ay, sir, that's but a borrowed name; as Ovid's Corinna, or Propertius his Cynthia, or your Nemesis, or Delia, Tibullus. Gal. It's the name of Horace his witch, as I remember. Tib. Why, the ditty's all borrowed; 'tis Horace's: hang him, plagiary! Tut. How! he borrow of Horace? he shall pawn himself to ten brokers first. Do you hear, Poetasters? I know you to be men of worship--He shall write with Horace, for a talent! and let Mecaenas and his whole college of critics take his part: thou shalt do't, young Phoebus; thou shalt, Phaeton, thou shalt. Dem. Alas, sir, Horace! he is a mere sponge; nothing but Humours and observation; he goes up and down sucking from every society, and when he comes home squeezes himself dry again. I know him, I. Tuc. Thou say'st true, my poor poetical fury, he will pen all he knows. A sharp thorny-tooth, a satirical rascal, By him; he carries hay in his horn: he will sooner lose his best friend, than his least jest. What he once drops upon paper, against a man, lives eternally to upbraid him in the mouth of every slave, tankard-bearer, or waterman; not a bawd, or a boy that comes from the bake-house, but shall point at him: 'tis all dog, and scorpion; he carries poison in his teeth, and a sting in his tail. Fough! body of Jove! I'll have the slave whipt one of these days for his Satires and his Humours, by one cashier'd clerk or another. Cris. We'll undertake him, captain. Dem. Ay, and tickle him i'faith, for his arrogancy and his impudence, in commending his own things; and for his translating, I can trace him, i'faith. O, he is the most open fellow living; I had as lieve as a new suit I were at it. Tuc. Say no more then, but do it; 'tis the only way to get thee a new suit; sting him, my little neufts; I'll give you instructions: I'll be your intelligencer; we'll all join, and hang upon him like so many horse-leeches, the players and all. We shall sup together, soon; and then we'll conspire, i'faith. Gal. O that Horace had stayed still here! Tib. So would not I; for both these would have turn'd Pythagoreans then. Gal. What, mute? Tib. Ay, as fishes, i'faith: come, ladies, shall we go? Cyth. We wait you, sir. But mistress Chloe asks, if you have not a god to spare for this gentleman. Gal. Who, captain Tucca? Cyth. Ay, he. Gal. Yes, if we can invite him along, he shall be Mars. Chloe. Has Mars any thing to do with Venus? Tib. O, most of all, lady. Chloe. Nay, then I pray let him be invited: And what shall Crispinus be? Tib. Mercury, mistress Chloe. Chloe. Mercury! that's a poet, is it? Gal. No, lady, but somewhat inclining that way; he is a herald at arms. Chloe. A herald at arms! good; and Mercury! pretty: he has to do with Venus too? Tib. A little with her face, lady; or so. Chloe. 'Tis very well; pray let us go, I long to be at it. Cyth. Gentlemen, shall we pray your companies along? Cris. You shall not only pray, but prevail, lady.--Come, sweet captain. Tuc. Yes, I follow: but thou must not talk of this now, my little bankrupt. Alb. Captain, look here, mum. Dem. I'll go write, sir. [Exeunt. SCENE II.-A Room in Lupus's House. Enter Lupus, HISTRIO, and Lictors. Tuc. Do, do: stay, there's a drachm to purchase ginger-bread for thy muse. Lup. Come, let us talk here; here we may be private; shut the door, lictor. You are a player, you say. Hist. Ay, an't please your worship. Lup. Good; and how are you able to give this intelligence? Hist. Marry, sir, they directed a letter to me and my fellow-- sharers. Lup. Speak lower, you are not now in your theatre, stager:--my sword, knave. They directed a letter to you, and your fellow-sharers: forward. Hist. Yes, sir, to hire some of our properties; as a sceptre and crown for Jove; and a caduceus for Mercury; and a petasus-- [Reenter Lictor. Lup. Caduceus and petasus! let me see your letter. This is a conjuration: a conspiracy, this. Quickly, on with my buskins: I'll act a tragedy, i'faith. Will nothing but our gods serve these poets to profane? dispatch! Player, I thank thee. The emperor shall take knowledge of thy good service. [A knocking within.] Who's there now? Look, knave. [Exit Lictor.] A crown and a sceptre! this is good rebellion, now. Lic. 'Tis your pothecary, sir, master Minos. Lup. What tell'st thou me of pothecaries, knave! Tell him, I have affairs of state in hand; I can talk to no apothecaries now. Heart of me! Stay the pothecary there. [Walks in a musing posture.] You shall see, I have fish'd out a cunning piece of plot now: they have had some intelligence, that their project is discover'd, and now have they dealt with my apothecary, to poison me; 'tis so; knowing that I meant to take physic to-day: as sure as death, 'tis there. Jupiter, I thank thee, that thou hast. yet made me so much of a politician. [Enter Minos. You are welcome, sir; take the potion from him there; I have an antidote more than you wot of, sir; throw it on the ground there: so! Now fetch in the dog; and yet we cannot tarry to try experiments now: arrest him; you shall go with me, sir; I'll tickle you, pothecary; I'll give you a glister, i'faith. Have I the letter? ay, 'tis here.--Come, your fasces, lictors: the half pikes and the Halberds, take them down from the Lares there. Player, assist me. [As they are going out, enter MECAENAS and HORACE. Mec. Whither now, Asinius Lupus, with this armory? Lup. I cannot talk now; I charge you assist me: treason! treason! Hor. How! treason? Lup. Ay: if you love the emperor, and the state, follow me. [Exeunt. SCENE III.-An Apartment in the Palace. Enter OVID, JULIA, GALLUS, CYTHERIS, TIBULLUS, PLAUTIA, ALBIUS, CHLOE, TUCCA, CRISPINUS, HERMOGENES, PYRGUS, characteristically habited, as gods and goddesses. Ovid. Gods and goddesses, take your several seats. Now, Mercury, move your caduceus, and, in Jupiter's name, command silence. Cris. In the name of Jupiter, silence. Her. The crier of the court hath too clarified a voice. Gal. Peace, Momus. Ovid. Oh, he is the god of reprehension; let him alone: 'tis his office. Mercury, go forward, and proclaim, after Phoebus, our high pleasure, to all the deities that shall partake this high banquet. Cris. Yes, sir. Gal. The great god, Jupiter,--[Here, and at every break in the line, Crispinus repeats aloud the words of Gallus.]--Of his licentious goodness,--Willing to make this feast no fast--From any manner of pleasure;--Nor to bind any god or goddess--To be any thing the more god or goddess, for their names:--He gives them all free license--To speak no wiser than persons of baser titles;--And to be nothing better, than common men, or women.--And therefore no god--Shall need to keep himself more strictly to his goddess--Than any man does to his wife:--Nor any goddess--Shall need to keep herself more strictly to her god--Than any woman does to her husband.--But, since it is no part of wisdom,--In these days, to come into bonds;--It shall be lawful for every lover--To break loving oaths,--To change their lovers, and make love to others,--As the heat of every one's blood,--And the spirit of our nectar, shall inspire.--And Jupiter save Jupiter! Tib. So; now we may play the fools by authority. Her. To play the fool by authority is wisdom. Jul. Away with your mattery sentences, Momus; they are too grave and wise for this meeting. Ovid. Mercury, give our jester a stool, let him sit by; and reach him one of our cates. Tuc. Dost hear, mad Jupiter? we'll have it enacted, he that speaks the first wise word, shall be made cuckold. What say'st thou? Is it not a good motion? Ovid. Deities, are you all agreed? All, Agreed, great Jupiter. Alb. I have read in a book, that to play the fool wisely, is high wisdom. Gal. How now, Vulcan! will you be the first wizard? Ovid. Take his wife, Mars, and make him cuckold quickly. Tuc. Come, cockatrice. Chloe. No, let me alone with him, Jupiter: I'll make you take heed, sir, while you live again; if there be twelve in a company, that you be not the wisest of 'em. Alb. No more; I will not indeed, wife, hereafter; I'll be here: mum. Ovid. Fill us a bowl of nectar, Ganymede: we will drink to our daughter Venus. Gal. Look to your wife, Vulcan: Jupiter begins to court her. Tib. Nay, let Mars look to it: Vulcan must do as Venus does, bear. Tuc. Sirrah, boy; catamite: Look you play Ganymede well now, you slave. Do not spill your nectar; carry your cup even: so! You should have rubbed your face with whites of eggs, you rascal; till your brows had shone like our sooty brother's here, as sleek as a horn-book: or have steept your lips in wine, till you made them so plump, that Juno might have been jealous of them. Punk, kiss me, punk. Ovid. Here, daughter Venus, I drink to thee. Chloe. Thank you, good father Jupiter. Tuc. Why, mother Juno! gods and fiends! what, wilt thou suffer this ocular temptation? Tib. Mars is enraged, he looks big, and begins to stut for anger. Her. Well played, captain Mars. Tuc. Well said, minstrel Momus: I must put you in, must I? when will you be in good fooling of yourself, fidler, never? Her. O, 'tis our fashion to be silent, when there is a better fool in place ever. Tuc. Thank you, rascal. Ovid. Fill to our daughter Venus, Ganymede, who fills her father with affection. Jul. Wilt thou be ranging, Jupiter, before my face? Ovid. Why not, Juno? why should Jupiter stand in awe of thy face, Juno? Jul. Because it is thy wife's face, Jupiter. Ovid. What, shall a husband be afraid of his wife's face? will she paint it so horribly? we are a king, cotquean; and we will reign in our pleasures; and we will cudgel thee to death, if thou find fault with us. Jul. I will find fault with thee, king cuckold-maker: What, shall the king of gods turn the king of good-fellows, and have no fellow in wickedness? This makes our poets, that know our profaneness, live as profane as we: By my godhead, Jupiter, 1 will join with all the other gods here, bind thee hand and foot, throw thee down into the earth and make a poor poet of thee, if thou abuse me thus. Gal. A good smart-tongued goddess, a right Juno! Ovid. Juno, we will cudgel thee, Juno: we told thee so yesterday, when thou wert jealous of us for Thetis. Pyr. Nay, to-day she had me in inquisition too. Tuc. Well said, my fine Phrygian fry; inform, inform. Give me some wine, king of heralds, I may drink to my cockatrice. Ovid. No more, Ganymede; we will cudgel thee, Juno; by Styx we will. Jul. Ay, 'tis well; gods may grow impudent in iniquity, and they must not be told of it Ovid. Yea, we will knock our chin against our breast, and shake thee out of Olympus into an oyster-boat, for thy scolding. Jul. Your nose is not long enough to do it, Jupiter, if all thy strumpets thou hast among the stars took thy part. And there is never a star in thy forehead but shall be a horn, if thou persist to abuse me. Cris. A good jest, i'faith. Ovid. We tell thee thou angerest us, cotquean; and we will thunder thee in pieces for thy cotqueanity. Cris. Another good jest. Alb. O, my hammers and my Cyclops! This boy fills not wine enough to make us kind enough to one another. Tuc. Nor thou hast not collied thy face enough, stinkard. Alb. I'll ply the table with nectar, and make them friends. Her. Heaven is like to have but a lame skinker, then. Alb. Wine and good livers make true lovers: I'll sentence them together. Here, father, here, mother, for shame, drink yourselves drunk, and forget this dissension; you two should cling together before our faces, and give us example of unity. Gal O, excellently spoken, Vulcan, on the sudden! Tib. Jupiter may do well to prefer his tongue to some office for his eloquence. Tuc. His tongue shall be gentleman-usher to his wit, and still go before it. Alb. An excellent fit office! Cris. Ay, and an excellent good jest besides. Her. What, have you hired Mercury to cry your jests you make? Ovid. Momus, you are envious. Tuc. Why, ay, you whoreson blockhead, 'tis your only block of wit in fashion now-a-days, to applaud other folks' jests. Her. True; with those that are not artificers themselves. Vulcan, you nod, and the mirth of the jest droops. Pyr. He has filled nectar so long, till his brain swims in it. Gal. What, do we nod, fellow-gods! Sound music, and let us startle our spirits with a song. Tuc. Do, Apollo, thou art a good musician. Gal. What says Jupiter? Ovid. Ha! ha! Gal. A song. Ovid. Why, do, do, sing. Pla. Bacchus, what say you? Tib. Ceres? Pla. But, to this song? Tib. Sing, for my part. Jul. Your belly weighs down your head, Bacchus; here's a song toward. Tib. Begin, Vulcan. Alb. What else, what else? Tuc. Say, Jupiter Ovid. Mercury--- Cris. Ay, say, say. [Music Alb. Wake! our mirth begins to die; Quicken it with tunes and wine. Raise your notes; you're out; fie, fie! This drowsiness is an ill sign. We banish him the quire of gods, That droops agen: Then all are men, For here's not one but nods. Ovid. I like not this sudden and general heaviness amongst our godheads; 'tis somewhat ominous. Apollo, command us louder music, and let Mercury and Momus contend to please and revive our senses. [Music Herm. Then, in a free and lofty strain. Our broken tunes we thus repair; Cris. And we answer them again, Running division on the panting air; Ambo. To celebrate this, feast of sense, As free from scandal as offence. Herm. Here is beauty for the eye, Cris. For the ear sweet melody. Herm. Ambrosiac odours, for the smell, Cris. Delicious nectar, for the taste; Ambo. For the touch, a lady's waist; Which doth all the rest excel. Ovid. Ay, this has waked us. Mercury, our herald; go from ourself, the great god Jupiter, to the great emperor Augustus Caesar, and command him from us, of whose bounty he hath received the sirname of Augustus, that, for a thank-offering to our beneficence, he presently sacrifice, as a dish to this banquet, his beautiful and wanton daughter Julia: she's a curst quean, tell him, and plays the scold behind his back; therefore let her be sacrificed. Command him this, Mercury, in our high name of Jupiter Altitonans. Jul. Stay, feather-footed Mercury, and tell Augustus, from us, the great Juno Saturnia; if he think it hard to do as Jupiter hath commanded him, and sacrifice his daughter, that he had better do so ten times, than suffer her to love the well-nosed poet, Ovid; whom he shall do well to whip or cause to be whipped, about the capitol, for soothing her in her follies. [ Enter AUGUSTUS CAESAR, MECAENAS, HORACE, LUPUS, HISTRIO, MINUS, and Lictors. Caes. What sight is this? Mecaenas! Horace! say? Have we our senses? do we hear and see? Or are these but imaginary objects Drawn by our phantasy! Why speak you not? Let us do sacrifice. Are they the gods? [Ovid and the rest kneel. Reverence, amaze, and fury fight in me. What, do they kneel! Nay, then I see 'tis true I thought impossible: O, impious sight! Let me divert mine eyes; the very thought Everts my soul with passion: Look not, man, There is a panther, whose unnatural eyes Will strike thee dead: turn, then, and die on her With her own death. [Offers to kill his daughter. Mec. Hor. What means imperial Caesar? Caes. What would you have me let the strumpet live That, for this pageant, earns so many deaths? Tuc. Boy, slink, boy. [Exeunt Tucca and Pyrgus. Pyr. Pray Jupiter we be not followed by the scent, master. Caes. Say, sir, what are you? Alb. I play Vulcan, sir. Caes. But what are you, sir? Alb. Your citizen and jeweller, sir. Caes. And what are you, dame? Chloe. I play Venus, forsooth. Caes. I ask not what you play, but what you are. Chloe. Your citizen and jeweller's wife, sir. Caes. And you, good sir? [Exit. Caes. O, that profaned name!--- And are these seemly company for thee, [To Julia. Degenerate monster? All the rest I know, And hate all knowledge for their hateful sakes. Are you, that first the deities inspired With skill of their high natures and their powers, The first abusers of their useful light; Profaning thus their dignities in their forms, And making them, like you, but counterfeits? O, who shall follow Virtue and embrace her, When her false bosom is found nought but air? And yet of those embraces centaurs spring, That war with human peace, and poison men.--- Who shall, with greater comforts comprehend Her unseen being and her excellence; When you, that teach, and should eternise her, Live as she were no law unto your lives, Nor lived herself, but with your idle breaths? If you think gods but feign'd, and virtue painted, Know we sustain an actual residence, And with the title of an emperor, Retain his spirit and imperial power; By which, in imposition too remiss, Licentious Naso, for thy violent wrong, In soothing the declined affections Of our base daughter, we exile thy feet From all approach to our imperial court, On pain of death; and thy misgotten love Commit to patronage of iron doors; Since her soft-hearted sire cannot contain her. Cris. Your gentleman parcel-poet, sir. Mec. O, good my lord, forgive! be like the gods. Hor. Let royal bounty, Caesar, mediate. Caes. There is no bounty to be shew'd to such As have no real goodness: bounty is A spice of virtue; and what virtuous act Can take effect on them, that have no power Of equal habitude to apprehend it, But live in worship of that idol, vice, As if there were no virtue, but in shade Of strong imagination, merely enforced? This shews their knowledge is mere ignorance, Their far-fetch'd dignity of soul a fancy, And all their square pretext of gravity A mere vain-glory; hence, away with them! I will prefer for knowledge, none but such As rule their lives by it, and can becalm All sea of Humour with the marble trident Of their strong spirits: others fight below With gnats and shadows; others nothing know. [Exeunt. SCENE V.-A Street before the Palace. Enter TUCCA, CRISPINUS, and PYRGUS. Tuc. What's become of my little punk, Venus, and the poultfoot stinkard, her husband, ha? Cris. O; they are rid home in the coach, as fast as the wheels can run. Tuc. God Jupiter is banished, I hear, and his cockatrice Juno lock'd up. 'Heart, an all the poetry in Parnassus get me to be a player again, I'll sell 'em my share for a sesterce. But this is Humours, Horace, that goat-footed envious slave; he's turn'd fawn now; an informer, the rogue! 'tis he has betray'd us all. Did you not see him with the emperor crouching? Cris. Yes. Tuc. Well, follow me. Thou shalt libel, and I'll cudgel the rascal. Boy, provide me a truncheon. Revenge shall gratulate him, tam Marti, quam Mercurio. Pyr. Ay, but master, take heed how you give this out; Horace is a man of the sword. Cris. 'Tis true, in troth; they say he's valiant. [Horace passes over the stage. Tuc. Valiant? so is mine a--. Gods and fiends! I'll blow him into air when I meet him next: he dares not fight with a puck-fist. Pyr. Master, he comes! Tuc. Where? Jupiter save thee, my good poet, my noble prophet, my little fat Horace.--I scorn to beat the rogue in the court; and I saluted him thus fair, because he should suspect nothing, the rascal. Come, we'll go see how far forward our journeyman is toward the untrussing of him. [Exeunt. SCENE VI. Enter HORACE, MECAENAS, LUPUS, HISTRIO, and Lictors. Cris. Do you hear, captain? I'll write nothing in it but innocence, because I may swear I am innocent. Hor. Nay, why pursue you not the emperor for your reward now, Lupus? Mec. Stay, Asinius; You and your stager, and your band of lictors: I hope your service merits more respect, Than thus, without a thanks, to be sent hence. His. Well, well, jest on, jest on. Hor. Thou base, unworthy groom! Lup. Ay, ay, 'tis good. Hor. Was this the treason, this the dangerous plot, Thy clamorous tongue so bellow'd through the court? Hadst thou no other project to encrease Thy grace with Caesar, but this wolfish train, To prey upon the life of innocent mirth And harmless pleasures, bred of noble wit? Away! I loath thy presence; such as thou, They are the moths and scarabs of a state, The bane of empires, and the dregs of courts; Who, to endear themselves to an employment, Care not whose fame they blast, whose life they endanger; And, under a disguised and cobweb mask Of love unto their sovereign, vomit forth Their own prodigious malice; and pretending To be the props and columns of their safety, The guards unto his person and his peace. Disturb it most, with their false, lapwing-cries. Lup. Good! Caesar shall know of this, believe it! Mec. Caesar doth know it, wolf, and to his knowledge, He will, I hope, reward your base endeavours. Princes that will but hear, or give access To such officious spies, can ne'er be safe: They take in poison with an open ear, And, free from danger, become slaves to fear. [Exeunt. SCENE VII.-An open Space before the Palace. Enter OVID. Banish'd the court! Let me be banish'd life, Since the chief end of life is there concluded: Within the court is all the kingdom bounded, And as her sacred sphere doth comprehend Ten thousand times so much, as so much place In any part of all the empire else; So every body, moving in her sphere, Contains ten thousand times as much in him, As any other her choice orb excludes. As in a circle, a magician then Is safe against the spirit he excites; But, out of it, is subject to his rage, And loseth all the virtue of his art: So I, exiled the circle of the court, Lose all the good gifts that in it I 'joy'd. No virtue current is, but with her stamp, And no vice vicious, blanch'd with her white hand. The court's the abstract of all Rome's desert, And my dear Julia the abstract of the court. Methinks, now I come near her, I respire Some air of that late comfort I received; And while the evening, with her modest veil, Gives leave to such poor shadows as myself To steal abroad, I, like a heartless ghost, Without the living body of my love, Will here walk and attend her: for I know Not far from hence she is imprisoned, And hopes, of her strict guardian, to bribe So much admittance, as to speak to me, And cheer my fainting spirits with her breath. Julia. [appears above at her chamber window.] Ovid? my love? Ovid. Here, heavenly Julia. Jul. Here! and not here! O, how that word doth play With both our fortunes, differing, like ourselves, Both one; and yet divided, as opposed! I high, thou low: O, this our plight of place Doubly presents the two lets of our love, Local and ceremonial height, and lowness: Both ways, I am too high, and thou too low, Our minds are even yet; O, why should our bodies, That are their slaves, be so without their rule? I'll cast myself down to thee; if I die, I'll ever live with thee: no height of birth, Of place, of duty, or of cruel power, Shall keep me from thee; should my father lock This body up within a tomb of brass, Yet I'll be with thee. If the forms I hold Now in my soul, be made one substance with it; That soul immortal, and the same 'tis now; Death cannot raze the affects she now retaineth: And then, may she be any where she will. The souls of parents rule not children's souls, When death sets both in their dissolv'd estates; Then is no child nor father; then eternity Frees all from any temporal respect. I come, my Ovid; take me in thine arms, And let me breathe my soul into thy breast. Ovid. O stay, my love; the hopes thou dost conceive Of thy quick death, and of thy future life, Are not authentical. Thou choosest death, So thou might'st 'joy thy love in the other life: But know, my princely love, when thou art dead, Thou only must survive in perfect soul; And in the soul are no affections. We pour out our affections with our blood, And, with our blood's affections, fade our loves. No life hath love in such sweet state as this; No essence is so dear to moody sense As flesh and blood, whose quintessence is sense. Beauty, composed of blood and flesh, moves more, And is more plausible to blood and flesh, Than spiritual beauty can be to the spirit. Such apprehension as we have in dreams, When, sleep, the bond of senses, locks them up, Such shall we have, when death destroys them quite. If love be then thy object, change not life; Live high and happy still: I still below, Close with my fortunes, in thy height shall joy. Jul. Ay me, that virtue, whose brave eagle's wings, With every stroke blow stairs in burning heaven, Should, like a swallow, preying towards storms, Fly close to earth, and with an eager plume, Pursue those objects which none else can see, But seem to all the world the empty air! Thus thou, poor Ovid, and all virtuous men, Must prey, like swallows, on invisible food, Pursuing flies, or nothing: and thus love. And every worldly fancy, is transposed By worldly tyranny to what plight it list. O father, since thou gav'st me not my mind, Strive not to rule it; take but what thou gav'st To thy disposure: thy affections Rule not in me; I must bear all my griefs, Let me use all my pleasures; virtuous love Was never scandal to a goddess' state.-- But he's inflexible! and, my dear love, Thy life may chance be shorten'd by the length Of my unwilling speeches to depart. Farewell, sweet life; though thou be yet exiled The officious court, enjoy me amply still: My soul, in this my breath, enters thine ears, And on this turret's floor Will I lie dead, Till we may meet again: In this proud height, I kneel beneath thee in my prostrate love, And kiss the happy sands that kiss thy feet. Great Jove submits a sceptre to a cell, And lovers, ere they part, will meet in hell. Ovid. Farewell all company, and, if l could, All light with thee! hell's shade should hide my brows, Till thy dear beauty's beams redeem'd my vows. [Going Jul. Ovid, my love; alas! may we not stay. A little longer, think'st thou, undiscern'd? Ovid. For thine own good, fair goddess, do not stay. Who would engage a firmament of fires Shining in thee, for me, a falling star? Be gone, sweet life-blood; if I should discern Thyself but touch'd for my sake, I should die. Jul. I will begone, then; and not heaven itself Shall draw me back. [Going. Ovid. Yet, Julia, if thou Wilt, A little longer stay. Jul. I am content. Ovid. O, mighty Ovid! what the sway of heaven Could not retire, my breath hath turned back. Jul. Who shall go first, my love? my passionate eyes Will not endure to see thee turn from me. Ovid. If thou go first, my soul Will follow thee. Jul. Then we must stay. Ovid. Ay me, there is no stay In amorous pleasures; if both stay, both die. I hear thy father; hence, my deity. [Julia retires from the window. Fear forgeth sounds in my deluded ears; I did not hear him; I am mad with love. There is no spirit under heaven, that works With such illusion; yet such witchcraft kill me, Ere a sound mind, without it, save my life! Here, on my knees, I worship the blest place That held my goddess; and the loving air, That closed her body in his silken arms. Vain Ovid! kneel not to the place, nor air; She's in thy heart; rise then, and worship there. The truest wisdom silly men can have, Is dotage on the follies of their flesh. [Exit. ACT V SCENE I.-An Apartment in the Palace. Enter CAESAR, MECAENAS, GALLUS, TIBULLUS, HORACE, and Equites Romani. Caes. We, that have conquer'd still, to save the conquer'd, And loved to make inflictions fear'd, not felt; Grieved to reprove, and joyful to reward; More proud of reconcilement than revenge; Resume into the late state of our love, Worthy Cornelius Gallus, and Tibullus: You both are gentlemen: and, you, Cornelius, A soldier of renown, and the first provost That ever let our Roman eagles fly On swarthy AEgypt, quarried with her spoils. Yet (not to bear cold forms, nor men's out-terms, Without the inward fires, and lives of men) You both have virtues shining through your shapes; To shew, your titles are not writ on posts, Or hollow statues which the best men are, Without Promethean stuffings reach'd from heaven! Sweet poesy's sacred garlands crown your gentry: Which is, of all the faculties on earth, The most abstract and perfect; if she be True-born, and nursed with all the sciences. She can so mould Rome, and her monuments, Within the liquid marble of her lines, That they shall stand fresh and miraculous, Even when they mix with innovating dust; In her sweet streams shall our brave Roman spirits Chase, and swim after death, with their choice deeds Shining on their white shoulders; and therein Shall Tyber, and our famous rivers fall With such attraction, that the ambitious line Of the round world shall to her centre shrink, To hear their music: and, for these high parts, Caesar shall reverence the Pierian arts. Mec. Your majesty's high grace to poesy, Shall stand 'gainst all the dull detractions Of leaden souls; who, for the vain assumings Of some, quite worthless of her sovereign wreaths, Contain her worthiest prophets in contempt. Gal. Happy is Rome of all earth's other states, To have so true and great a president, For her inferior spirits to imitate, As Caesar is; who addeth to the sun Influence and lustre; in increasing thus His inspirations, kindling fire in us. Hor. Phoebus himself shall kneel at Caesar's shrine, And deck it with bay garlands dew'd with wine, To quit the worship Caesar does to him: Where other princes, hoisted to their thrones By Fortune's passionate and disorder'd power, Sit in their height, like clouds before the sun, Hindering his comforts; and, by their excess Of cold in virtue, and cross heat in vice, Thunder and tempest on those learned heads, Whom Caesar with such honour doth advance. Tib. All human business fortune doth command Without all order; and with her blind hand, She, blind, bestows blind gifts, that still have nurst, They see not who, nor how, but still, the worst. Caes. Caesar, for his rule, and for so much stuff As Fortune puts in his hand, shall dispose it, As if his hand had eyes and soul in it, With worth and judgment. Hands, that part with gifts Or will restrain their use, without desert, Or with a misery numb'd to virtue's right, Work, as they had no soul to govern them, And quite reject her; severing their estates From human order. Whosoever can, And will not cherish virtue, is no man. [Enter some of the Equestrian Order. Eques. Virgil is now at hand, imperial Caesar. Caes. Rome's honour is at hand then. Fetch a chair, And set it on our right hand, where 'tis fit Rome's honour and our own should ever sit. Now he is come out of Campania, I doubt not he hath finish'd all his AEneids. Which, like another soul, I long to enjoy. What think you three of Virgil, gentlemen, That are of his profession, though rank'd higher; Or, Horace, what say'st thou, that art the poorest, And likeliest to envy, or to detract Hor. Caesar speaks after common men in this, To make a difference of me for my poorness; As if the filth of poverty sunk as deep Into a knowing spirit, as the bane Of riches doth into an ignorant soul. No, Caesar, they be pathless, moorish minds That being once made rotten with the dung Of damned riches, ever after sink Beneath the steps of any villainy. But knowledge is the nectar that keeps sweet A perfect soul, even in this grave of sin; And for my soul, it is as free as Caesar's, For what 1 know is due I'll give to all. He that detracts or envies virtuous merit, Is still the covetous and the ignorant spirit. Caes. Thanks, Horace, for thy free and wholesome sharpness, Which pleaseth Caesar more than servile fawns. A flatter'd prince soon turns the prince of fools. And for thy sake, we'll put no difference more Between the great and good for being poor. Say then, loved Horace, thy true thought of Virgil. Hor. I judge him of a rectified spirit, By many revolutions of discourse, (In his bright reason's influence,) refined From all the tartarous moods of common men; Bearing the nature and similitude Of a right heavenly body; most severe In fashion and collection of himself; And, then, as clear and confident as Jove. Gal. And yet so chaste and tender is his ear, In suffering any syllable to pass, That he thinks may become the honour'd name Of issue to his so examined self, That all the lasting fruits of his full merit, In his own poems, he doth still distaste; And if his mind's piece, which he strove to paint, Could not with fleshly pencils have her right. Tib. But to approve his works of sovereign worth, This observation, methinks, more than serves, And is not vulgar. That which he hath writ Is with such judgment labour'd, and distill'd Through all the needful uses of our lives, That could a man remember but his lines, He should not touch at any serious point, But he might breathe his spirit out of him. Caes. You mean, he might repeat part of his works, As fit for any conference he can use? Tib. True, royal Caesar. Caes. Worthily observed; And a most worthy virtue in his works. What thinks material Horace of his learning? Hor. His learning savours not the school-like gloss, That most consists in echoing words and terms, And soonest wins a man an empty name; Nor any long or far-fetch'd circumstance Wrapp'd in the curious generalities of arts; But a direct and analytic sum Of all the worth and first effects of arts. And for his poesy, 'tis so ramm'd with life, That it shall gather strength of life, with being, And live hereafter more admired than now. Caes. This one consent in all your dooms of him, And mutual loves of all your several merits, Argues a truth of merit in you all.--- [Enter VIRGIL. See, here comes Virgil; we will rise and greet him. Welcome to Caesar, Virgil! Caesar and Virgil Shall differ but in sound; to Caesar, Virgil, Of his expressed greatness, shall be made A second sirname, and to Virgil, Caesar. Where are thy famous AEneids? do us grace To let us see, and surfeit on their sight. Virg. Worthless they are of Caesar's gracious eyes, If they were perfect; much more with their wants, Which are yet more than my time could supply. And, could great Caesar's expectation Be satisfied with any other service, I would not shew them. Caes. Virgil is too modest; Or seeks, in vain, to make our longings more: Shew them, sweet Virgil. Virg. Then, in such due fear As fits presenters of great works to Caesar, I humbly shew them. Caes. Let us now behold A human soul made visible in life; And more refulgent in a senseless paper Than in the sensual complement of kings. Read, read thyself, dear Virgil; let not me Profane one accent with an untuned tongue: Best matter, badly shewn, shews worse than bad. See then this chair, of purpose set for thee To read thy poem in; refuse it not. Virtue, without presumption, place may take Above best kings, whom only she should make. Virg. It will be thought a thing ridiculous To present eyes, and to all future times A gross untruth, that any poet, void Of birth, or wealth, or temporal dignity, Should, with decorum, transcend Caesar's chair. Poor virtue raised, high birth and wealth set under, Crosseth heaven's courses, and makes worldlings wonder. Caes. The course of heaven, and fate itself, in this, Will Ceasar cross; much more all worldly custom. Hor. Custom, in course of honour, ever errs; And they are best whom fortune least prefers. Caes. Horace hath but more strictly spoke our thoughts. The vast rude swing of general confluence Is, in particular ends, exempt from sense: And therefore reason (which in right should be The special rector of all harmony) Shall shew we are a man distinct by it, From those, whom custom rapteth in her press. Ascend then, Virgil; and where first by chance We here have turn'd thy book, do thou first read. Virg. Great Caesar hath his will; I will ascend. 'Twere simple injury to his free hand, That sweeps the cobwebs from unused virtue, And makes her shine proportion'd to her worth, To be more nice to entertain his grace, Than he is choice, and liberal to afford it. Caes. Gentlemen of our chamber, guard the doors, And let none enter; [Exeunt Equites.] peace. Begin, good Virgil. Virg. Meanwhile the skies 'gan thunder, and in tail Of that, fell pouring storms of sleet and hail: The Tyrian lords and Trojan youth, each where With Venus' Dardane nephew, now, in fear, Seek out for several shelter through the plain, Whilst floods come rolling from the hills amain. Dido a cave, the Trojan prince the same Lighted upon. There earth and heaven's great dame, That hath the charge of marriage, first gave sign Unto his contract; fire and air did shine, As guilty of the match; and from the hill The nymphs with shriekings do the region fill. Here first began their bane; this day was ground Of all their ills; for now, nor rumour's sound, Nor nice respect of state, moves Dido ought; Her love no longer now by stealth is sought: She calls this wedlock, and with that fair name Covers her fault. Forthwith the bruit and fame, Through all the greatest Lybian towns is gone; Fame, a fleet evil, than which is swifter none, That moving grows, and flying gathers strength, Little at first, and fearful; but at length She dares attempt the skies, and stalking proud With feet on ground, her head doth pierce a cloud! This child, our parent earth, stirr'd up with spite Of all the gods, brought forth; and, as some write, She was last sister of that giant race That thought to scale Jove' s court; right swift of pace, And swifter far of wing; a monster vast, And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed On her huge corps, so many waking eyes Stick underneath; and, which may stranger rise In the report, as many tongues she bears, As many mouths, as many listening ears. Nightly, in midst of all the heaven, she flies, And through the earth's dark shadow shrieking cries, Nor do her eyes once bend to taste sweet sleep; By day on tops of houses she doth keep, Or on high towers; and doth thence affright Cities and towns of most conspicuous site: As covetous she is of tales and lies, As prodigal of truth: this monster-- Lup. [within.] Come, follow me, assist me, second me! Where'! the emperor? 1 Eques. [within.] Sir, you must pardon us. 2 Eques. [within.] Caesar is private now; you may not enter. Tuc. [within.] Not enter! Charge them upon their allegiance, cropshin. 1 Eques. [within.] We have a charge to the contrary, sir. Lup. [within.] I pronounce you all traitors, horrible traitors: What! do you know my affairs? I have matter of danger and state to impart to Caesar. Caes. What noise is there? who's that names Caesar? Lup. [within.] A friend to Caesar. One that, for Caesar's good, would speak with Caesar. Caes. Who is it? look, Cornelius. 1 Eques. [within.] Asinius Lupus. Caes. O, bid the turbulent informer hence; We have no vacant ear now, to receive The unseason'd fruits of his officious tongue. Mec. You must avoid him there. Lup. [within.] I conjure thee, as thou art. Caesar, or respectest thine own safety, or the safety of the state, Caesar, hear me, speak with me, Caesar; 'tis no common business I come about, but such, as being neglected, may concern the life of Caesar. Caes. The life of Caesar! Let him enter. Virgil, keep thy seat. Enter Lupus, Tucca, and Lictors. Eques. [within.] Bear back, there: whither will you? keep back! Tuc. By thy leave, goodman usher: mend thy peruke; so. Lup. Lay hold on Horace there; and on Mecaenas, lictors. Romans, offer no rescue, upon your allegiance: read, royal Caesar. [Gives a paper.] I'll tickle you, Satyr. Tuc. He will, Humours, he will; he will squeeze you, poet puck-fist. Lup. I'll lop you off for an unprofitable branch, you satirical varlet. Tuc. Ay, and Epaminondas your patron here, with his flagon chain; come, resign: [takes off Mecaenas' chain,] though 'twere your great grandfather's, the law has made it mine now, sir. Look to him, my party-coloured rascals; look to him. Caes. What is this, Asinius Lupus? I understand it not. Lup. Not understand it! A libel, Caesar; a dangerous, seditious libel; a libel in picture. Caes. A libel! Lup. Ay, I found it in this Horace his study, in Mecaenas his house, here; I challenge the penalty of the laws against them. Tuc. Ay, and remember to beg their land betimes; before some of these hungry court-hounds scent it out. Caes. Shew it to Horace: ask him if he know it. Lup. Know it! his hand is at it, Caesar. Caes. Then 'tis no libel. Hor. It is the imperfect body of an emblem, Caesar, I began for Mecaenas. Lup. An emblem! right: that's Greek for a libel. Do but mark how confident he is. Hor. A just man cannot fear, thou foolish tribune; Not, though the malice of traducing tongues, The open vastness of a tyrant's ear, The senseless rigour of the wrested laws, Or the red eyes of strain'd authority, Should, in a point, meet all to take his life: His innocence is armour 'gainst all these. Lup. Innocence! O impudence! let me see, let me see! Is not here an eagle! and is not that eagle meant by Caesar, ha? Does not Caesar give the eagle? answer me; what sayest thou? Tuc. Hast thou any evasion, stinkard? Lup. Now he's turn'd dumb. I'll tickle you, Satyr. Hor. Pish: ha, ha! Lup. Dost thou pish me? Give me my long sword. Hor. With reverence to great Caesar, worthy Romans, Observe but this ridiculous commenter; The soul 'to my device was in this distich: Thus oft, the base and ravenous multitude Survive, to share the spoils of fortitude. Which in this body I have figured here, A vulture-- Lup. A vulture! Ay, now, 'tis a vulture. O abominable! monstrous! monstrous! has not your vulture a beak? has it not legs, and talons, and wings, and feathers? Tuc. Touch him, old buskins. Hor. And therefore must it be an eagle? Mec. Respect him not, good Horace: say your device. Hor. A vulture and a wolf Lup. A wolf! good: that's I; I am the wolf: my name's Lupus; I am meant by the wolf. On, on; a vulture and a wolf Hor. Preying upon the carcass of an ass-- Lup. An ass! good still: that's I too; I am the ass. You mean me by the ass. Mec. Prithee, leave braying then. Hor. If you will needs take it, I cannot with modesty give it from you. Mec. But, by that beast, the old Egyptians Were wont to figure, in their hieroglyphics, Patience, frugality, and fortitude; For none of which we can suspect you, tribune. Caes. Who was it, Lupus, that inform'd you first, This should be meant by us? Or was't your comment? Lup. No, Caesar; a player gave me the first light of it indeed. Tuc. Ay, an honest sycophant-like slave, and a politician besides Caes. Where is that player? Tuc. He is without here. Caes. Call him in. Tuc. Call in the player there: master AEsop, call him. Equites. [within.] Player! where is the player? bear back: none but the player enter. [Enter AESOP, followed by CRISPINUS and DEMETRIUS. Tuc. Yes, this gentleman and his Achates must. Cris. Pray you, master usher:--we'll stand close, here. Tuc. 'Tis a gentleman of quality, this; though he be somewhat out of clothes, I tell ye.--Come, AEsop, hast a bay-leaf in thy mouth? Well said; be not out, stinkard. Thou shalt have a monopoly of playing confirm'd to thee, and thy covey, under the emperor's broad seal, for this service. Caes. Is this he? Lup. Ay, Caesar, this is he. Caes. Let him be whipped. Lictors, go take him hence. And, Lupus, for your fierce credulity, One fit him with a pair of larger ears: 'Tis Caesar's doom, and must not be revoked. We hate to have our court and peace disturb'd With these quotidian clamours. See it done. Lup. Caesar! [Exeunt some of the Lictors, with Lupus and AEsop Caes. Gag him, [that] we may have his silence. Virg. Caesar hath done like Caesar. Fair and just Is his award, against these brainless creatures. 'Tis not the wholesome sharp morality, Or modest anger of a satiric spirit, That hurts or wounds the body of the state; But the sinister application Of the malicious, ignorant, and base Interpreter; who will distort, and strain The general scope and purpose of an author To his particular and private spleen. Caes. We know it, our dear Virgil, and esteem it A most dishonest practice in that man, Will seem too witty in another's work. What would Cornelius Gallus, and Tibullus? [They whisper Caesar. Tuc. [to Mecaenas.] Nay, but as thou art a man, dost hear! a man of worship and honourable: hold, here, take thy chain again. Resume, mad Mecoenas. What! dost thou think I meant to have kept it, old boy? no: I did it but to fright thee, I, to try how thou would'st take it. What! will I turn shark upon my friends, or my friends' friends? I scorn it with my three souls. Come, I love bully Horace as well as thou dost, I: 'tis an honest hieroglyphic. Give me thy wrist, Helicon. Dost thou think I'll second e'er a rhinoceros of them all, against thee, ha? or thy noble Hippocrene, here? I'll turn stager first, and be whipt too: dost thou see, bully? Caes. You have your will of Caesar: use it, Romans. Virgil shall be your praetor: and ourself Will here sit by, spectator of your sports; And think it no impeach of royalty. Our ear is now too much profaned, grave Maro, With these distastes, to take thy sacred lines; Put up thy book, till both the time and we Be fitted with more hallow'd circumstance For the receiving of so divine a work. Proceed with your design. Mec. Gal. Tib. Thanks to great Caesar. Gal. Tibullus, draw you the indictment then, whilst Horace arrests them on the statute of Calumny. Mecaenas and I will take our places here. Lictors, assist him. Hor. I am the worst accuser under heaven. Gal. Tut, you must do it; 'twill be noble mirth. Hor. I take no knowledge that they do malign me. Tib. Ay, but the world takes knowledge. Hor. Would the world knew How heartily I wish a fool should hate me! Tuc. Body of Jupiter! what! will they arraign my brisk Poetaster and his poor journeyman, ha? Would I were abroad skeldering for, a drachm, so I were out of this labyrinth again! I do feel myself turn stinkard already: but I must set the best face I have upon't now. [Aside.]--Well said, my divine, deft Horace, bring the whoreson detracting slaves to the bar, do; make them hold up their spread golls: I'll give in evidence for thee, if thou wilt. Take courage, Crlspinus; would thy man had a clean band! Cris. What must we do, captain? Tuc. Thou shalt see anon: do not make division with thy legs so. Caes. What's he. Horace? Hor. I only know him for a motion, Caesar. Tuc. I am one of thy commanders, Caesar; a man of service and action: my name is Pantilius Tucca; I have served in thy wars against Mark Antony, I. Caes. Do you know him, Cornelius? Gal. He's one that hath had the mustering, or convoy of a company now and then: I never noted him by any other employment. Caes. We will observe him better. Tib. Lictor, proclaim silence in the court. Lict. In the name of Caesar, silence! Tib. Let the parties, the accuser and the accused, present themselves. Lict. The accuser and the accused, present yourselves in court. Cris. Dem. Here. Virg. Read the indictment. Tib. Rufus Laberius Crispinus, and Demetrius Fannius, hold up your hands. You are, before this time, jointly and severally indicted, and here presently to be arraigned upon the statute of calumny, or Lex Remmia, the one by the name of Rufus Laberius Crispinus, alias Cri-spinus, poetaster and plagiary, the other by the name of Demetrius Fannius, play-dresser and plagiary. That you (not having the fear of Phoebus, or his shafts, before your eyes) contrary to the peace of our liege lord, Augustus Caesar, his crown and dignity, and against the form of a statute, in that case made and provided, have moat ignorantly, foolishly, and, more like yourselves, maliciously, gone about to deprave, and calumniate the person and writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, here present, poet, and priest to the Muses, and to that end have mutually conspired and plotted, at sundry times, as by several means, and in sundry places, for the better accomplishing your base and envious purpose, taxing him falsely, of self-love, arrogancy, impudence, railing, filching by translation, etc. Of all which calumnies, and every of them, in manner and form aforesaid, what answer you! Are you guilty, or not guilty? Tuc. Not guilty, say. Cris. Dem. Not guilty. Tib. How will you be tried? [Aside to Crispinus. Tuc. By the Roman Gods, and the noblest Romans. Cris. Dem. By the Roman gods, and the noblest Romans. Virg. Here sits Mecaenas, and Cornelius Gallus, are you contented to be tried by these? [Aside. Tuc. Ay, so the noble captain may be joined with them in commission, say. Cris. Dem. Ay, so the noble captain may be joined with them in commission. Virg. What says the plaintiff? Hor. I am content. Virg. Captain, then take your place. Tuc. alas, my worshipful praetor! 'tis more of thy gentleness than of my deserving, I wusse. But since it hath pleased the court to make choice of my wisdom and gravity, come, my calumnious varlets; let's hear you talk for yourselves, now, an hour or two. What can you say? Make a noise. Act, act! Virg. Stay, turn, and take an oath first. You shall swear, By thunder-darting Jove, the king of gods, And by the genius of Augustus Caesar; By your own white and uncorrupted souls, And the deep reverence of our Roman justice; To judge this case, with truth and equity: As bound by your religion, and your laws. Now read the evidence: but first demand Of either prisoner, if that writ be theirs. [Gives him two papers. Tib. Shew this unto Crispinus. Is it yours? Tuc. Say, ay. [Aside.]--What! dost thou stand upon it, pimp! Do not deny thine own Minerva, thy Pallas, the issue of thy brain. Oris. Yes it is mine. Tib. Shew that unto Demetrius. Is it yours? Dem. It is. Tuc. There's a father will not deny his own bastard now, I warrant thee. Virg. Read them aloud. Tib. Ramp up my genius, be not retrograde; But boldly nominate a spade a spade What, shall thy lubrical and glibbery muse Live, as she were defunct, like punk in stews! Tuc. Excellent! Alas! that were no modern consequence, To have cothurnal buskins frighted hence. No, teach thy Incubus to poetise; And throw abroad thy spurious snotteries, Upon that puft-up lump of balmy froth. Tuc. Ah, Ah! Or clumsy chilblain'd judgment; that with oath Magnificates his merit; and beapawls The conscious time, with humorous foam and brawls, As if his organons of sense would crack The sinews of my patience. Break his back, O poets all and some! for now we list Of strenuous vengeance to clutch the fist. CRISPINUS. Tuc. Ay, marry, this was written like a Hercules in poetry, now. Caes. Excellently well threaten'd! Virg. And as strangely worded, Caesar. Caes. We observe it. Virg. The other now. Tuc. This is a fellow of a good prodigal tongue too, this will do well. Tib. Our Muse is in mind for th' untrussing a poet, I slip by his name, for most men do know it: A critic, that all the world bescumbers With satirical humours and lyrical numbers: Tuc. Art thou there, boy? And for the most part, himself doth advance With much self-love, and more arrogance. Tuc. Good again! And, but that I would not be thought a prater, I could tell you he were a translator. I know the authors from whence he has stole, And could trace him too, but that I understand them not full and whole. Tuc. That line is broke loose from all his fellows: chain him up shorter, do. The best note I can give you to know him by, Is, that he keeps gallants' company; Whom I could wish, in time should him fear, Lest after they buy repentance too dear. DEME. FANNIUS. Tuc. Well said! This carries palm with it. Hor. And why, thou motley gull, why should they fear! When hast thou known us wrong or tax a friend? I dare thy malice to betray it. Speak. Now thou curl'st up, thou poor and nasty snake, And shrink'st thy poisonous head into thy bosom: Out, viper! thou that eat'st thy parents, hence! Rather, such speckled creatures, as thyself, Should be eschew'd, and shunn'd; such as will bite And gnaw their absent friends, not cure their fame; Catch at the loosest laughters, and affect To be thought jesters; such as can devise Things never seen, or head, t'impair men's names, And gratify their credulous adversaries; Will carry tales, do basest offices, Cherish divided fires, and still encrease New flames, out of old embers; will reveal Each secret that's committed to their trust: These be black slaves; Romans, take heed of these. Tuc. Thou twang'st right, little Horace: they be indeed a couple of chap-fall'n curs. Come, we of the bench, let's rise to the urn, and condemn them quickly. Virg. Before you go together, worthy Romans, We are to tender our opinion; And give you those instructions, that may add Unto your even judgment in the cause: Which thus we do commence. First, you must know, That where there is a true and perfect merit, There can be no dejection; and the scorn Of humble baseness, oftentimes so works In a high soul, upon the grosser spirit, That to his bleared and offended sense, There seems a hideous fault blazed in the object; When only the disease is in his eyes. Here-hence it comes our Horace now stands tax'd Of impudence, self-love, and arrogance, By those who share no merit in themselves; And therefore think his portion is as small. For they, from their own guilt, assure their souls, If they should confidently praise their works, In them it would appear inflation: Which, in a full and well digested man, Cannot receive that foul abusive name, But the fair title of erection. And, for his true use of translating men, It still hath been a work of as much palm, In clearest judgments, as to invent or make, His sharpness,---that is most excusable; As being forced out of a suffering virtue, Oppressed with the license of the time:--- And howsoever fools or jerking pedants, Players, or suchlike buffoon barking wits, May with their beggarly and barren trash Tickle base vulgar ears, in their despite; This, like Jove's thunder, shall their pride control, "The honest satire hath the happiest soul." Now, Romans, you have heard our thoughts; withdraw when you please. Tib. Remove the accused from the bar. Tuc. Who holds the urn to us, ha? Fear nothing, I'll quit you, mine honest pitiful stinkards; I'll do't. Cris. Captain, you shall eternally girt me to you, as I am generous. Tuc. Go to. Caes. Tibullus, let there be a case of vizards privately provided; we have found a subject to bestow them on. Tib. It shall be done, Caesar. Caes. Here be words, Horace, able to bastinado a man's ears. Hor. Ay. Please it, great Caesar, I have pills about me, Mixt with the whitest kind of hellebore, Would give him a light vomit, that should purge His brain and stomach of those tumorous heats: Might I have leave to minister unto him. Caes. O, be his AEsculapius, gentle Horace! You shall have leave, and he shall be your patient. Virgil, Use your authority, command him forth. Virg. Caesar is careful of your health, Crispinus; And hath himself chose a physician To minister unto you: take his pills. Hor. They are somewhat bitter, sir, but very wholesome. Take yet another; so: stand by, they'll work anon. Tib. Romans, return to your several seats: lictors, bring forward the urn; and set the accused to the bar. Tuc. Quickly, you whoreson egregious varlets; come forward. What! shall we sit all day upon you? You make no more haste now, than a beggar upon pattens; or a physician to a patient that has no money, you pilchers. Tib. Rufus Laberius Crispinus, and Demetrius Fannius, hold up your hands. You have, according to the Roman custom, put yourselves upon trial to the urn, for divers and sundry calumnies, whereof you have, before this time, been indicted, and are now presently arraigned: prepare yourselves to hearken to the verdict of your tryers. Caius Cilnius Mecaenas pronounceth you, by this hand-writing, guilty. Cornelius Gallus, guilty. Pantilius Tucca-- Tuc. Parcel-guilty, I. Dem. He means himself; for it was he indeed Suborn'd us to the calumny. Tuc. I, you whoreson cantharides! was it I? Dem. I appeal to your conscience, captain. Tib. Then you confess it now? Dem. I do, and crave the mercy of the court. Tib. What saith Crispinus? Cris. O, the captain, the captain--- Bor. My physic begins to work with my patient, I see. Virg. Captain, stand forth and answer. Tuc. Hold thy peace, poet praetor: I appeal from thee to Caesar, I. Do me right, royal Caesar. Caes. Marry, and I will, sir.---Lictors, gag him; do. And put a case of vizards o'er his head, That he may look bifronted, as he speaks. Tuc. Gods and fiends! Caesar! thou wilt not, Caesar, wilt thou? Away, you whoreson vultures; away. You think I am a dead corps now, because Caesar is disposed to jest with a man of mark, or so. Hold your hook'd talons out of my flesh, you inhuman harpies. Go to, do't. What! will the royal Augustus cast away a gentleman of worship, a captain and a commander, for a couple of condemn'd caitiff calumnious cargos? Caes. Dispatch, lictors. Tuc. Caesar! [The vizards are put upon him. Caes. Forward, Tibullus. Virg. Demand what cause they had to malign Horace. Dem. In troth, no great cause, not I, I must confess; but that he kept better company, for the most part, than I; and that better men loved him than loved me; and that his writings thrived better than mine, and were better liked and graced: nothing else. Virg. Thus envious souls repine at others' good. Hor. If this be all, faith, I forgive thee freely. Envy me still, so long as Virgil loves me, Gallus, Tibullus, and the best-best Caesar, My dear Mecaenas; while these, with many more, Whose names I wisely slip, shall think me worthy Their honour'd and adored society, And read and love, prove and applaud my poems; I would not wish but such as you should spite them. Cris. O--! Tib. How now, Crispinus? C Cris. O, I am sick--! Hor. A bason, a bason, quickly; our physic works. Faint not, man. Cris. O------retrograde------reciprocal------incubus. Caes. What's that, Horace? Hor. Retrograde, reciprocal, and incubus, are come up. Gal. Thanks be to Jupiter! Cris. O------glibbery------lubrical------defunct------O------! Hor. Well said; here's some store. Virg. What are they? Hor. Glibbery, lubrical, and defunct. Gal. O, they came up easy. Cris. O------O------! Tib. What's that? Hor. Nothing yet. Cris. Magnificate------ Mec. Magnificate! That came up somewhat hard. Hor. Ay. What cheer, Crispinus? Cris. O! I shall cast up my------spurious------snotteries------ Hor. Good. Again. Oris. Chilblain'd------O------O------clumsie------ Hor. That clumsie stuck terribly. Mec. What's all that, Horace? Hor. Spurious, snotteries, chilblain'd, clumsie. Tib. O Jupiter! Gal. Who would have thought there should have been such a deal of filth in a poet? Cris. O------balmy froth------ Caes. What's that? Cris.------Puffie------inflate------turgidious-------ventosity. Hor. Balmy, froth, puffie, inflate, turgidous, and ventosity are come up. Tib. O terrible windy words. Gal. A sign of a windy brain. Cris. O------oblatrant------furibund------fatuate------strenuous--- Hor. Here's a deal; oblatrant, furibund, fatuate, strenuous. Caes. Now all's come up, I trow. What a tumult he had in his belly? Hor. No, there's the often conscious damp behind still. Cris. O------conscious------damp. Hor. It is come up, thanks to Apollo and AEsculapius: another; you were best take a pill more. Cris. O, no; O------O------O------O------O! Hor. Force yourself then a little with your finger. Cris. O------O------prorumped. Tib. Prorumped I What a noise it made! as if his spirit would have prorumpt with it. Cris. O------O------O! Virg. Help him, it sticks strangely, whatever it is. Cris. O------clutcht Hor. Now it is come; clutcht. Caes. Clutcht! it is well that's come up; it had but a narrow passage. Cris. O------! Virg. Again! hold him, hold his head there. Cris. Snarling gusts------quaking custard. Hor. How now, Crispinus? Cris. O------obstupefact. Tib. Nay, that are all we, I assure you. Hor. How do you feel yourself? Cris. Pretty and well, I thank you. Virg. These pills can but restore him for a time, Not cure him quite of such a malady, Caught by so many surfeits, which have fill'd His blood and brain thus full of crudities: 'Tis necessary therefore he observe A strict and wholesome diet. Look you take Each morning of old Cato's principles A good draught next your heart; that walk upon, Till it be well digested: then come home, And taste a piece of Terence, suck his phrase Instead of liquorice; and, at any hand, Shun Plautus and old Ennius: they are meats Too harsh for a weak stomach. Use to read (But not without a tutor) the best Greeks, As Orpheus, Musaeus, Pindarus, Hesiod, Callimachus, and Theocrite, High Homer; but beware of Lycophron, He is too dark and dangerous a dish. You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms, To stuff out a peculiar dialect; But let your matter run before your words. And if at any time you chance to meet Some Gallo-Belgic phrase; you shall not straight. Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment, But let it pass; and do not think yourself Much damnified, if you do leave it out, When nor your understanding, nor the sense Could well receive it. This fair abstinence, In time, will render you more sound and clear: And this have I prescribed to you, in place Of a strict sentence; which till he perform, Attire him in that robe. And henceforth learn To bear yourself more humbly; not to swell, Or breathe your insolent and idle spite On him whose laughter can your worst affright. Tib. Take him away. Cris. Jupiter guard Caesar! Virg. And for a week or two see him lock'd up In some dark place, removed from company; He will talk idly else after his physic. Now to you, sir. [to Demetrius.] The extremity of law Awards you to be branded in the front, For this your calumny: but since it pleaseth Horace, the party wrong'd, t' intreat of Caesar A mitigation of that juster doom, With Caesar's tongue thus we pronounce your sentence. Demetrius Fannius, thou shalt here put on That coat and cap, and henceforth think thyself No other than they make thee; vow to wear them In every fair and generous assembly, Till the best sort of minds shall take to knowledge As well thy satisfaction, as thy wrongs. Hor. Only, grave praetor, here, in open court, I crave the oath for good behaviour May be administer'd unto them both. Virg. Horace, it shall: Tibullus, give it them. Tib. Rufus Laberius Crispinus, and Demetrius Fannius, lay your hands on your hearts. You shall here solemnly attest and swear, that never, after this instant, either at booksellers' stalls, in taverns, two-penny rooms, tyring-houses, noblemen's butteries, puisents chambers, (the best and farthest places where you are admitted to come,) you shall once offer or dare (thereby to endear yourself the more to any player, enghle, or guilty gull in your company) to malign, traduce, or detract the person or writings of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, or any other eminent men, transcending you in merit, whom your envy shall find cause to work upon, either for that, or for keeping himself in better acquaintance, or enjoying better friends, or if, transported by any sudden and desperate resolution, you do, that then you shall not under the batoon, or in the next presence, being an honourable assembly of his favourers, be brought as voluntary gentlemen to undertake the for-swearing of it. Neither shall you, at any time, ambitiously affecting the title of the Untrussers or Whippers of the age, suffer the itch of writing to over-run your performance in libel, upon pain of being taken up for lepers in wit, and, losing both your time and your papers, be irrecoverably forfeited to the hospital of fools. So help you our Roman gods and the Genius of great Caesar. Virg. So! now dissolve the court. Bor. Tib. Gal. Mec. And thanks to Caesar, That thus hath exercised his patience. Caes. We have, indeed, you worthiest friends of Caesar. It is the bane and torment of our ears, To hear the discords of those jangling rhymers, That with their bad and scandalous practices Bring all true arts and learning in contempt. But let not your high thoughts descend so low As these despised objects; let them fall, With their flat grovelling souls: be you yourselves; And as with our best favours you stand crown'd, So let your mutual loves be still renown'd. Envy will dwell where there is want of merit, Though the deserving man should crack his spirit. Blush, folly, blush; here's none that fears The wagging of an ass's ears, Although a wolfish case he wears. Detraction is but baseness' varlet; And apes are apes, though clothed in scarlet. [Exeunt. Rumpatur, quisquis rumpitur invidi! "Here, reader, in place of the epilogue, was meant to thee an apology from the author, with his reasons for the publishing of this book: but, since he is no less restrained than thou deprived of it by authority, he prays thee to think charitably of what thou hast read. till thou mayest hear him speak what he hath written." HORACE AND TREBATIUS. A DIALOGUE. Sat. 1. Lib. 2. Hor. There are to whom I seem excessive sour, And past a satire's law t' extend my power: Others, that think whatever I have writ Wants pith and matter to eternise it; And that they could, in one day's light, disclose A thousand verses, such as I compose. What shall I do, Trebatius? say. Treb. Surcease. Hor. And shall my muse admit no more increase? Treb. So I advise. Hor. An ill death let me die, If 'twere not best; but sleep avoids mine eye, And I use these, lest nights should tedious seem. Treb. Rather, contend to sleep, and live like them, That, holding golden sleep in special price, Rubb'd with sweet oils, swim silver Tyber thrice, And every even with neat wine steeped be: Or, if such love of writing ravish thee, Then dare to sing unconquer'd Caesar's deeds; Who cheers such actions with abundant meeds. Hor. That, father, I desire; but, when I try, I feel defects in every faculty: Nor is't a labour fit for every pen, To paint the horrid troops of armed men, The lances burst, in Gallia's slaughter'd forces; Or wounded Parthians, tumbled from their horses: Great Caesar's wars cannot be fought with words. Treb. Yet, what his virtue in his peace affords, His fortitude and justice thou canst shew As wise Lucilius honour'd Scipio. Hor. Of that, my powers shall suffer no neglect, When such slight labours may aspire respect: But, if I watch not a most chosen time, The humble words of Flaccus cannot climb Th' attentive ear of Caesar; nor must I With less observance shun gross flattery: For he, reposed safe in his own merit, Spurns back the gloses of a fawning spirit. Treb. But how much better would such accents sound Than with a sad and serious verse to wound Pantolabus, railing in his saucy jests, Or Nomentanus spent in riotous feasts? In satires, each man, though untouch'd, complains As he were hurt; and hates such biting strains. Hor. What shall I do? Milonius shakes his heels In ceaseless dances, when his brain once feels The stirring fervour of the wine ascend; And that his eyes false numbers apprehend. Castor his horse, Pollux loves handy-fights; A thousand heads, a thousand choice delights. My pleasure is in feet my words to close, As, both our better, old Lucilius does: He, as his trusty friends, his books did trust With all his secrets; nor, in things unjust, Or actions lawful, ran to other men: So that the old man's life described, was seen As in a votive table in his lines: And to his steps my genius inclines; Lucanian, or Apulian, I know not whether, For the Venusian colony ploughs either; Sent thither, when the Sabines were forced thence, As old Fame sings, to give the place defence 'Gainst such as, seeing it empty, might make road Upon the empire; or there fix abode: Whether the Apulian borderer it were, Or the Lucanian violence they fear.--- But this my style no living man shall touch, If first I be not forced by base reproach; But like a sheathed sword it shall defend My innocent life; for why should I contend To draw it out, when no malicious thief Robs my good name, the treasure of my life? O Jupiter, let it with rust be eaten, Before it touch, or insolently threaten The life of any with the least disease; So much I love, and woo a general peace. But, he that wrongs me, better, I proclaim, He never had assay'd to touch my fame. For he shall weep, and walk with every tongue Throughout the city, infamously sung. Servius the praetor threats the laws, and urn, If any at his deeds repine or spurn; The witch Canidia, that Albutius got, Denounceth witchcraft, where she loveth not; Thurius the judge, doth thunder worlds of ill, To such as strive with his judicial will. All men affright their foes in what they may, Nature commands it, and men must obey. Observe with me: The wolf his tooth doth use, The bull his horn; and who doth this infuse, But nature? There's luxurious Scaeva; trust His long-lived mother with him; his so just And scrupulous right-hand no mischief will; No more than with his heel a wolf will kill, Or ox with jaw: marry, let him alone With temper'd poison to remove the croan. But briefly, if to age I destined be, Or that quick death's black wings environ me; If rich, or poor; at Rome; or fate command I shall be banished to some other land; What hue soever my whole state shall bear, I will write satires still, in spite of fear. Treb. Horace, I fear thou draw'st no lasting breath; And that some great man's friend will be thy death. Hor. What! when the man that first did satirise Durst pull the skin over the ears of vice, And make who stood in outward fashion clear, Give place, as foul within; shall I forbear? Did Laelius, or the man so great with fame, That from sack'd Carthage fetch'd his worthy name, Storm that Lucilius did Metellus pierce, Or bury Lupus quick in famous verse? Rulers and subjects, by whole tribes he checkt, But virtue and her friends did still protect: And when from sight, or from the judgment-seat, The virtuous Scipio and wise Laelius met, Unbraced, with him in all light sports they shared, Till their most frugal suppers were prepared. Whate'er I am, though both for wealth and wit Beneath Lucilius I am pleased to sit; Yet Envy, spite of her empoison'd breast, Shall say, I lived in grace here with the best; And seeking in weak trash to make her wound, Shall find me solid, and her teeth unsound: 'Less learn'd Trebatius' censure disagree. Treb. No, Horace, I of force must yield to thee; Only take heed, as being advised by me, Lest thou incur some danger: better pause, Than rue thy ignorance of the sacred laws; There's justice, and great action may be sued 'Gainst such as wrong men's fames with verses lewd. Hor. Ay, with lewd verses, such as libels be, And aim'd at persons of good quality: I reverence and adore that just decree. But if they shall be sharp, yet modest rhymes, That spare men's persons, and but tax their crimes, Such shall in open court find current pass, Were Caesar judge, and with the maker's grace. Treb. Nay, I'll add more; if thou thyself, being clear, Shall tax in person a man fit to bear Shame and reproach, his suit shall quickly be Dissolved in laughter, and thou thence set free. TO THE READER If, by looking on what is past, thou hast deserved that name, I am willing thou should'st yet know more, by that which follows, an APOLOGETICAL DIALOGUE; which was only once spoken upon the stage and all the answer I ever gave to sundry impotent libels then cast out (and some yet remaining) against me, and this play. Wherein I take no pleasure to revive the times; but that posterity may make a difference between their manners that provoked me then, and mine that neglected them ever, For, in these strifes, and on such persons, were as wretched to affect a victory, as it is unhappy to be committed with them. Non annorum canities est laudanda, sed morum. SCENE, The Author's Lodgings. Enter NASUTUS and POLYPOSUS. Nas. I pray You let' s go see him, how he looks After these libels. Pol. O vex'd, vex'd, I warrant you. Nas. Do you think so? I should be sorry for him, If I found that. Pol. O, they are such bitter things, He cannot choose. Nas. But, is he guilty of them? Pol. Fuh! that's no matter. Nas. No! Pol. No. Here's his lodging. We'll steal upon him: or let's listen; stay. He has a humour oft to talk t' himself. Nas. They are your manners lead me, not mine own. [They come forward; the scene opens, and discovers the Author in his study. Aut. The fates have not spun him the coarsest thread, That (free from knots of perturbation) Doth yet so live, although but to himself, As he can safely scorn the tongues of slaves, And neglect fortune, more than she can him. It is the happiest thing this, not to be Within the reach of malice; it provides A man so well, to laugh off injuries; And never sends him farther for his vengeance, Than the vex'd bosom of his enemy. I, now, but think how poor their spite sets off, Who, after all their waste of sulphurous terms, And burst-out thunder of their charged mouths, Have nothing left but the unsavoury smoke Of their black vomit, to upbraid themselves: Whilst I, at whom they shot, sit here shot-free, And as unhurt of envy, as unhit. [Pol. and Nas. discover themselves. Pol. Ay, but the multitude they think not so, sir, They think you hit, and hurt: and dare give out, Your silence argues it in not rejoining To this or that late libel. Aut. 'Las, good rout! I can afford them leave to err so still; And like the barking students of Bears-college, To swallow up the garbage of the time With greedy gullets, whilst myself sit by, Pleased, and yet tortured, with their beastly feeding. 'Tis a sweet madness runs along with them, To think, all that are aim'd at still are struck: Then, where the shaft still lights, make that the mark: And so each fear or fever-shaken fool May challenge Teucer's hand in archery. Good troth, if I knew any man so vile, To act the crimes these Whippers reprehend, Or what their servile apes gesticulate, I should not then much muse their shreds were liked; Since ill men have a lust t' hear others' sins, All good men have a zeal to hear sin shamed. But when it is all excrement they vent, Base filth and offal; or thefts, notable As ocean-piracies, or highway-stands; And not a crime there tax'd, but is their own, Or what their own foul thoughts suggested to them; And that, in all their heat of taxing others, Not one of them but lives himself, if known, Improbior satiram scribente cinaedo What should I say more, than turn stone with wonder! Nas. I never saw this play bred all this tumult: What was there in it could so deeply offend And stir so many hornets? Aut. Shall I tell you? Nas. Yea, and ingeniously. Aut. Then, by the hope Which I prefer unto all other objects, I can profess, I never writ that piece More innocent or empty of offence. Some salt it had, but neither tooth nor gall, Nor was there in it any circumstance Which. in the setting down, I could suspect Might be perverted by an enemy's tongue; Only it had the fault to be call'd mine; That was the crime. Pol. No! why, they say you tax'd The law and lawyers, captains and the players, By their particular names. Aut. It is not so. I used no name. My books have still been taught To spare the persons, and to speak the vices. These are mere slanders, and enforced by such As have no safer ways to men's disgraces. But their own lies and loss of honesty: Fellows of practised and most laxative tongues, Whose empty and eager bellies, in the year, Compel their brains to many desperate shifts, (I spare to name them, for their wretchedness Fury itself would pardon). These, or such, Whether of malice, or of ignorance, Or itch t' have me their adversary, I know not, Or all these mixt; but sure I am, three years They did provoke me with their petulant styles On every stage: and I at last unwilling, But weary, I confess, of so much trouble, Thought I would try if shame could win upon 'em,' And therefore chose Augustus Caesar's times, When wit and area were at their height in Rome, To shew that Virgil, Horace, and the rest Of those great master-spirits, did not want Detractors then, or practicers against them: And by this line, although no parallel, I hoped at last they would sit down and blush; But nothing I could find more contrary. And though the impudence of flies be great, Yet this hath so provok'd the angry wasps, Or, as you said, of the next nest, the hornets, That they fly buzzing, mad, about my nostrils, And, like so many screaming grasshoppers Held by the wings, fill every ear with noise. And what? those former calumnies you mention'd. First, of the law: indeed I brought in Ovid Chid by his angry father for neglecting The study of their laws for poetry: And I am warranted by his own words: Saepe pater dixit, studium quid inutile tentas! Maeonides nullas ipse reliquit opes. And in far harsher terms elsewhere, as these: Non me verbosas leges ediscere, non me Ingrato voces prostituisse foro. But how this should relate unto our laws, Or the just ministers, with least abuse, I reverence both too much to understand! Then, for the captain, I will only speak An epigram I here have made: it is UNTO TRUE SOLDIERS. That's the lemma: mark it. Strength of my country, whilst I bring to view Such: as are miss-call'd captains, and wrong you, And your high names; I do desire, that thence, Be nor put on you, nor you take offence: I swear by your true friend, my muse, I love Your great profession which I once did prove; And did not shame it with my actions then, No more than I dare now do with my pen. He that not trusts me, having vowed thus much, But's angry for the captain, still: is such. Now for the players, it is true, I tax'd them, And yet but some; and those so sparingly, As all the rest might have sat still unquestion'd, Had they but had the wit or conscience To think well of themselves. But impotent, they Thought each man's vice belong'd to their whole tribe; And much good do't them! What they have done 'gainst me, I am not moved with: if it gave them meat, Or got them clothes, 'tis well; that was their end. Only amongst them, I am sorry for Some better natures, by the rest so drawn, To run in that vile line. Pol. And is this all! Will you not answer then the libels? Aut. No. Pol. Nor the Untrussers? Aut. Neither. Pol. Y'are undone then. Aut. With whom? Pol. The world. Aut. The bawd! Pol. It will be taken To be stupidity or tameness in you. Aut. But they that have incensed me, can in soul Acquit me of that guilt. They know I dare To spurn or baffle them, or squirt their eyes With ink or urine; or I could do worse, Arm'd with Archilochus' fury, write Iambics, Should make the desperate lashers hang themselves; Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats In drumming tunes. Or, living, I could stamp Their foreheads with those deep and public brands, That the whole company of barber-surgeon a Should not take off with all their art and plasters. And these my prints should last, still to be read In their pale fronts; when, what they write 'gainst me Shall, like a figure drawn in water, fleet, And the poor wretched papers be employed To clothe tobacco, or some cheaper drug: This I could do, and make them infamous. But, to what end? when their own deeds have mark'd 'em; And that I know, within his guilty breast Each slanderer bears a whip that shall torment him Worse than a million of these temporal plagues: Which to pursue, were but a feminine humour, And far beneath the dignity of man. Nas. 'Tis true; for to revenge their injuries, Were to confess you felt them. Let them go, And use the treasure of the fool, their tongues, Who makes his gain, by speaking worst of beat. Pol. O, but they lay particular imputations-- Aut. As what? Pol. That all your writing is mere railing. Aut. Ha? If all the salt in the old comedy Should be so censured, or the sharper wit Of the bold satire termed scolding rage, What age could then compare with those for buffoons? What should be said of Aristophanes, Persius, or Juvenal, whose names we now So glorify in schools, at least pretend it?--- Have they no other? Pol. Yes; they say you are slow, And scarce bring forth a play a year. Aut. 'Tis true. I would they could not say that I did that! There' s all the joy that I take in their trade, Unless such scribes as these might be proscribed Th' abused theatres. They would think it strange, now, A man should take but colts-foot for one day, And, between whiles, spit out a better poem Than e'er the master of art, or giver of wit, Their belly, made. Yet, this is possible, If a free mind had but the patience, To think so much together and so vile. But that these base and beggarly conceits Should carry it, by the multitude of voices, Against the most abstracted work, opposed To the stuff'd nostrils of the drunken rout! O, this would make a learn'd and liberal soul To rive his stained quill up to the back, And damn his long-watch'd labours to the fire, Things that were born when none but the still night And his dumb candle, saw his pinching throes, Were not his own free merit a more crown Unto his travails than their reeling claps. This 'tis that strikes me silent, seals my lips, And apts me rather to sleep out my time, Than I would waste it in contemned strifes With these vile Ibides, these unclean birds, That make their mouths their clysters, and still purge From their hot entrails. But I leave the monsters To their own fate. And, since the Comic Muse Hath proved so ominous to me, I will try If TRAGEDY have a more kind aspect; Her favours in my next I will pursue, Where, if I prove the pleasure but of one, So he judicious be, he shall be alone A theatre unto me; Once I'll say To strike the ear of time in those fresh strains, As shall, beside the cunning of their ground, Give cause to some of wonder, some despite, And more despair, to imitate their sound. I, that spend half my nights, and all my days, Here in a cell, to get a dark paleface, To come forth worth the ivy or the bays, And in this age can hope no other grace--- Leave me! There's something come into my thought, That must and shall be sung high and aloof, Safe from the wolfs black jaw, and the dun ass's hoof Nas. I reverence these raptures, and obey them. [The scene closes--- GLOSSARY ABATE, cast down, subdue. ABHORRING, repugnant (to), at variance. ABJECT, base, degraded thing, outcast. ABRASE, smooth, blank. ABSOLUTE(LY), faultless(ly). ABSTRACTED, abstract, abstruse. ABUSE, deceive, insult, dishonour, make ill use of. ACATER, caterer. ACATES, cates. ACCEPTIVE, willing, ready to accept, receive. ACCOMMODATE, fit, befitting. (The word was a fashionable one and used on all occasions. See "Henry IV.," pt. 2, iii. 4). ACCOST, draw near, approach. ACKNOWN, confessedly acquainted with. ACME, full maturity. ADALANTADO, lord deputy or governor of a Spanish province. ADJECTION, addition. ADMIRATION, astonishment. ADMIRE, wonder, wonder at. ADROP, philosopher's stone, or substance from which obtained. ADSCRIVE, subscribe. ADULTERATE, spurious, counterfeit. ADVANCE, lift. ADVERTISE, inform, give intelligence. ADVERTISED, "be--," be it known to you. ADVERTISEMENT, intelligence. ADVISE, consider, bethink oneself, deliberate. ADVISED, informed, aware; "are you--?" have you found that out? AFFECT, love, like; aim at; move. AFFECTED, disposed; beloved. AFFECTIONATE, obstinate; prejudiced. AFFECTS, affections. AFFRONT, "give the--," face. AFFY, have confidence in; betroth. AFTER, after the manner of. AGAIN, AGAINST, in anticipation of. AGGRAVATE, increase, magnify, enlarge upon. AGNOMINATION. See Paranomasie. AIERY, nest, brood. AIM, guess. ALL HID, children's cry at hide-and-seek. ALL-TO, completely, entirely ("all-to-be-laden"). ALLOWANCE, approbation, recognition. ALMA-CANTARAS (astronomy), parallels of altitude. ALMAIN, name of a dance. ALMUTEN, planet of chief influence in the horoscope. ALONE, unequalled, without peer. ALUDELS, subliming pots. AMAZED, confused, perplexed. AMBER, AMBRE, ambergris. AMBREE, MARY, a woman noted for her valour at the siege of Ghent, 1458. AMES-ACE, lowest throw at dice. AMPHIBOLIES, ambiguities. AMUSED, bewildered, amazed. AN, if. ANATOMY, skeleton, or dissected body. ANDIRONS, fire-dogs. ANGEL, gold coin worth 10 shillings, stamped with the figure of the archangel Michael. ANNESH CLEARE, spring known as Agnes le Clare. ANSWER, return hit in fencing. ANTIC, ANTIQUE, clown, buffoon. ANTIC, like a buffoon. ANTIPERISTASIS, an opposition which enhances the quality it opposes. APOZEM, decoction. APPERIL, peril. APPLE-JOHN, APPLE-SQUIRE, pimp, pander. APPLY, attach. APPREHEND, take into custody. APPREHENSIVE, quick of perception; able to perceive and appreciate. APPROVE, prove, confirm. APT, suit, adapt; train, prepare; dispose, incline. APT(LY), suitable(y), opportune(ly). APTITUDE, suitableness. ARBOR, "make the--," cut up the game (Gifford). ARCHES, Court of Arches. ARCHIE, Archibald Armstrong, jester to James I. and Charles I. ARGAILE, argol, crust or sediment in wine casks. ARGENT-VIVE, quicksilver. ARGUMENT, plot of a drama; theme, subject; matter in question; token, proof. ARRIDE, please. ARSEDINE, mixture of copper and zinc, used as an imitation of gold-leaf. ARTHUR, PRINCE, reference to an archery show by a society who assumed arms, etc., of Arthur's knights. ARTICLE, item. ARTIFICIALLY, artfully. ASCENSION, evaporation, distillation. ASPIRE, try to reach, obtain, long for. ASSALTO (Italian), assault. ASSAY, draw a knife along the belly of the deer, a ceremony of the hunting-field. ASSOIL, solve. ASSURE, secure possession or reversion of. ATHANOR, a digesting furnace, calculated to keep up a constant heat. ATONE, reconcile. ATTACH, attack, seize. AUDACIOUS, having spirit and confidence. AUTHENTIC(AL), of authority, authorised, trustworthy, genuine. AVISEMENT, reflection, consideration. AVOID, begone! get rid of. AWAY WITH, endure. AZOCH, Mercurius Philosophorum. BABION, baboon. BABY, doll. BACK-SIDE, back premises. BAFFLE, treat with contempt. BAGATINE, Italian coin, worth about the third of a farthing. BAIARD, horse of magic powers known to old romance. BALDRICK, belt worn across the breast to support bugle, etc. BALE (of dice), pair. BALK, overlook, pass by, avoid. BALLACE, ballast. BALLOO, game at ball. BALNEUM (BAIN MARIE), a vessel for holding hot water in which other vessels are stood for heating. BANBURY, "brother of--," Puritan. BANDOG, dog tied or chained up. BANE, woe, ruin. BANQUET, a light repast; dessert. BARB, to clip gold. BARBEL, fresh-water fish. BARE, meer; bareheaded; it was "a particular mark of state and grandeur for the coachman to be uncovered" (Gifford). BARLEY-BREAK, game somewhat similar to base. BASE, game of prisoner's base. BASES, richly embroidered skirt reaching to the knees, or lower. BASILISK, fabulous reptile, believed to slay with its eye. BASKET, used for the broken provision collected for prisoners. BASON, basons, etc., were beaten by the attendant mob when bad characters were "carted." BATE, be reduced; abate, reduce. BATOON, baton, stick. BATTEN, feed, grow fat. BAWSON, badger. BEADSMAN, prayer-man, one engaged to pray for another. BEAGLE, small hound; fig. spy. BEAR IN HAND, keep in suspense, deceive with false hopes. BEARWARD, bear leader. BEDPHERE. See Phere. BEDSTAFF, (?) wooden pin in the side of the bedstead for supporting the bedclothes (Johnson); one of the sticks or "laths"; a stick used in making a bed. BEETLE, heavy mallet. BEG, "I'd--him," the custody of minors and idiots was begged for; likewise property fallen forfeit to the Crown ("your house had been begged"). BELL-MAN, night watchman. BENJAMIN, an aromatic gum. BERLINA, pillory. BESCUMBER, defile. BESLAVE, beslabber. BESOGNO, beggar. BESPAWLE, bespatter. BETHLEHEM GABOR, Transylvanian hero, proclaimed King of Hungary. BEVER, drinking. BEVIS, SIR, knight of romance whose horse was equally celebrated. BEWRAY, reveal, make known. BEZANT, heraldic term: small gold circle. BEZOAR'S STONE, a remedy known by this name was a supposed antidote to poison. BID-STAND, highwayman. BIGGIN, cap, similar to that worn by the Beguines; nightcap. BILIVE (belive), with haste. BILK, nothing, empty talk. BILL, kind of pike. BILLET, wood cut for fuel, stick. BIRDING, thieving. BLACK SANCTUS, burlesque hymn, any unholy riot. BLANK, originally a small French coin. BLANK, white. BLANKET, toss in a blanket. BLAZE, outburst of violence. BLAZE, (her.) blazon; publish abroad. BLAZON, armorial bearings; fig. all that pertains to good birth and breeding. BLIN, "withouten--," without ceasing. BLOW, puff up. BLUE, colour of servants' livery, hence "--order," "--waiters." BLUSHET, blushing one. BOB, jest, taunt. BOB, beat, thump. BODGE, measure. BODKIN, dagger, or other short, pointed weapon; long pin with which the women fastened up their hair. BOLT, roll (of material). BOLT, dislodge, rout out; sift (boulting-tub). BOLT'S-HEAD, long, straight-necked vessel for distillation. BOMBARD SLOPS, padded, puffed-out breeches. BONA ROBA, "good, wholesome, plum-cheeked wench" (Johnson) --not always used in compliment. BONNY-CLABBER, sour butter-milk. BOOKHOLDER, prompter. BOOT, "to--," into the bargain; "no--," of no avail. BORACHIO, bottle made of skin. BORDELLO, brothel. BORNE IT, conducted, carried it through. BOTTLE (of hay), bundle, truss. BOTTOM, skein or ball of thread; vessel. BOURD, jest. BOVOLI, snails or cockles dressed in the Italian manner (Gifford). BOW-POT, flower vase or pot. BOYS, "terrible--," "angry--," roystering young bucks. (See Nares). BRABBLES (BRABBLESH), brawls. BRACH, bitch. BRADAMANTE, a heroine in "Orlando Furioso." BRADLEY, ARTHUR OF, a lively character commemorated in ballads. BRAKE, frame for confining a horse's feet while being shod, or strong curb or bridle; trap. BRANCHED, with "detached sleeve ornaments, projecting from the shoulders of the gown" (Gifford). BRANDISH, flourish of weapon. BRASH, brace. BRAVE, bravado, braggart speech. BRAVE (adv.), gaily, finely (apparelled). BRAVERIES, gallants. BRAVERY, extravagant gaiety of apparel. BRAVO, bravado, swaggerer. BRAZEN-HEAD, speaking head made by Roger Bacon. BREATHE, pause for relaxation; exercise. BREATH UPON, speak dispraisingly of. BREND, burn. BRIDE-ALE, wedding feast. BRIEF, abstract; (mus.) breve. BRISK, smartly dressed. BRIZE, breese, gadfly. BROAD-SEAL, state seal. BROCK, badger (term of contempt). BROKE, transact business as a broker. BROOK, endure, put up with. BROUGHTON, HUGH, an English divine and Hebrew scholar. BRUIT, rumour. BUCK, wash. BUCKLE, bend. BUFF, leather made of buffalo skin, used for military and serjeants' coats, etc. BUFO, black tincture. BUGLE, long-shaped bead. BULLED, (?) bolled, swelled. BULLIONS, trunk hose. BULLY, term of familiar endearment. BUNGY, Friar Bungay, who had a familiar in the shape of a dog. BURDEN, refrain, chorus. BURGONET, closely-fitting helmet with visor. BURGULLION, braggadocio. BURN, mark wooden measures ("--ing of cans"). BURROUGH, pledge, security. BUSKIN, half-boot, foot gear reaching high up the leg. BUTT-SHAFT, barbless arrow for shooting at butts. BUTTER, NATHANIEL ("Staple of News"), a compiler of general news. (See Cunningham). BUTTERY-HATCH, half-door shutting off the buttery, where provisions and liquors were stored. BUY, "he bought me," formerly the guardianship of wards could be bought. BUZ, exclamation to enjoin silence. BUZZARD, simpleton. BY AND BY, at once. BY(E), "on the __," incidentally, as of minor or secondary importance; at the side. BY-CHOP, by-blow, bastard. CADUCEUS, Mercury's wand. CALIVER, light kind of musket. CALLET, woman of ill repute. CALLOT, coif worn on the wigs of our judges or serjeants-at-law (Gifford). CALVERED, crimped, or sliced and pickled. (See Nares). CAMOUCCIO, wretch, knave. CAMUSED, flat. CAN, knows. CANDLE-RENT, rent from house property. CANDLE-WASTER, one who studies late. CANTER, sturdy beggar. CAP OF MAINTENCE, an insignia of dignity, a cap of state borne before kings at their coronation; also an heraldic term. CAPABLE, able to comprehend, fit to receive instruction, impression. CAPANEUS, one of the "Seven against Thebes." CARACT, carat, unit of weight for precious stones, etc.; value, worth. CARANZA, Spanish author of a book on duelling. CARCANET, jewelled ornament for the neck. CARE, take care; object. CAROSH, coach, carriage. CARPET, table-cover. CARRIAGE, bearing, behaviour. CARWHITCHET, quip, pun. CASAMATE, casemate, fortress. CASE, a pair. CASE, "in--," in condition. CASSOCK, soldier's loose overcoat. CAST, flight of hawks, couple. CAST, throw dice; vomit; forecast, calculate. CAST, cashiered. CASTING-GLASS, bottle for sprinkling perfume. CASTRIL, kestrel, falcon. CAT, structure used in sieges. CATAMITE, old form of "ganymede." CATASTROPHE, conclusion. CATCHPOLE, sheriff's officer. CATES, dainties, provisions. CATSO, rogue, cheat. CAUTELOUS, crafty, artful. CENSURE, criticism; sentence. CENSURE, criticise; pass sentence, doom. CERUSE, cosmetic containing white lead. CESS, assess. CHANGE, "hunt--," follow a fresh scent. CHAPMAN, retail dealer. CHARACTER, handwriting. CHARGE, expense. CHARM, subdue with magic, lay a spell on, silence. CHARMING, exercising magic power. CHARTEL, challenge. CHEAP, bargain, market. CHEAR, CHEER, comfort, encouragement; food, entertainment. CHECK AT, aim reproof at. CHEQUIN, gold Italian coin. CHEVRIL, from kidskin, which is elastic and pliable. CHIAUS, Turkish envoy; used for a cheat, swindler. CHILDERMASS DAY, Innocents' Day. CHOKE-BAIL, action which does not allow of bail. CHRYSOPOEIA, alchemy. CHRYSOSPERM, ways of producing gold. CIBATION, adding fresh substances to supply the waste of evaporation. CIMICI, bugs. CINOPER, cinnabar. CIOPPINI, chopine, lady's high shoe. CIRCLING BOY, "a species of roarer; one who in some way drew a man into a snare, to cheat or rob him" (Nares). CIRCUMSTANCE, circumlocution, beating about the bush; ceremony, everything pertaining to a certain condition; detail, particular. CITRONISE, turn citron colour. CITTERN, kind of guitar. CITY-WIRES, woman of fashion, who made use of wires for hair and dress. CIVIL, legal. CLAP, clack, chatter. CLAPPER-DUDGEON, downright beggar. CLAPS HIS DISH, a clap, or clack, dish (dish with a movable lid) was carried by beggars and lepers to show that the vessel was empty, and to give sound of their approach. CLARIDIANA, heroine of an old romance. CLARISSIMO, Venetian noble. CLEM, starve. CLICKET, latch. CLIM O' THE CLOUGHS, etc., wordy heroes of romance. CLIMATE, country. CLOSE, secret, private; secretive. CLOSENESS, secrecy. CLOTH, arras, hangings. CLOUT, mark shot at, bull's eye. CLOWN, countryman, clodhopper. COACH-LEAVES, folding blinds. COALS, "bear no--," submit to no affront. COAT-ARMOUR, coat of arms. COAT-CARD, court-card. COB-HERRING, HERRING-COB, a young herring. COB-SWAN, male swan. COCK-A-HOOP, denoting unstinted jollity; thought to be derived from turning on the tap that all might drink to the full of the flowing liquor. COCKATRICE, reptile supposed to be produced from a cock's egg and to kill by its eye--used as a term of reproach for a woman. COCK-BRAINED, giddy, wild. COCKER, pamper. COCKSCOMB, fool's cap. COCKSTONE, stone said to be found in a cock's gizzard, and to possess particular virtues. CODLING, softening by boiling. COFFIN, raised crust of a pie. COG, cheat, wheedle. COIL, turmoil, confusion, ado. COKELY, master of a puppet-show (Whalley). COKES, fool, gull. COLD-CONCEITED, having cold opinion of, coldly affected towards. COLE-HARBOUR, a retreat for people of all sorts. COLLECTION, composure; deduction. COLLOP, small slice, piece of flesh. COLLY, blacken. COLOUR, pretext. COLOURS, "fear no--," no enemy (quibble). COLSTAFF, cowlstaff, pole for carrying a cowl=tub. COME ABOUT, charge, turn round. COMFORTABLE BREAD, spiced gingerbread. COMING, forward, ready to respond, complaisant. COMMENT, commentary; "sometime it is taken for a lie or fayned tale" (Bullokar, 1616). COMMODITY, "current for--," allusion to practice of money-lenders, who forced the borrower to take part of the loan in the shape of worthless goods on which the latter had to make money if he could. COMMUNICATE, share. COMPASS, "in--," within the range, sphere. COMPLEMENT, completion, completement; anything required for the perfecting or carrying out of a person or affair; accomplishment. COMPLEXION, natural disposition, constitution. COMPLIMENT, See Complement. COMPLIMENTARIES, masters of accomplishments. COMPOSITION, constitution; agreement, contract. COMPOSURE, composition. COMPTER, COUNTER, debtors' prison. CONCEALMENT, a certain amount of church property had been retained at the dissolution of the monasteries; Elizabeth sent commissioners to search it out, and the courtiers begged for it. CONCEIT, idea, fancy, witty invention, conception, opinion. CONCEIT, apprehend. CONCEITED, fancifully, ingeniously devised or conceived; possessed of intelligence, witty, ingenious (hence well conceited, etc.); disposed to joke; of opinion, possessed of an idea. CONCEIVE, understand. CONCENT, harmony, agreement. CONCLUDE, infer, prove. CONCOCT, assimilate, digest. CONDEN'T, probably conducted. CONDUCT, escort, conductor. CONEY-CATCH, cheat. CONFECT, sweetmeat. CONFER, compare. CONGIES, bows. CONNIVE, give a look, wink, of secret intelligence. CONSORT, company, concert. CONSTANCY, fidelity, ardour, persistence. CONSTANT, confirmed, persistent, faithful. CONSTANTLY, firmly, persistently. CONTEND, strive. CONTINENT, holding together. CONTROL (the point), bear or beat down. CONVENT, assembly, meeting. CONVERT, turn (oneself). CONVEY, transmit from one to another. CONVINCE, evince, prove; overcome, overpower; convict. COP, head, top; tuft on head of birds; "a cop" may have reference to one or other meaning; Gifford and others interpret as "conical, terminating in a point." COPE-MAN, chapman. COPESMATE, companion. COPY (Lat. copia), abundance, copiousness. CORN ("powder--"), grain. COROLLARY, finishing part or touch. CORSIVE, corrosive. CORTINE, curtain, (arch.) wall between two towers, etc. CORYAT, famous for his travels, published as "Coryat's Crudities." COSSET, pet lamb, pet. COSTARD, head. COSTARD-MONGER, apple-seller, coster-monger. COSTS, ribs. COTE, hut. COTHURNAL, from "cothurnus," a particular boot worn by actors in Greek tragedy. COTQUEAN, hussy. COUNSEL, secret. COUNTENANCE, means necessary for support; credit, standing. COUNTER. See Compter. COUNTER, pieces of metal or ivory for calculating at play. COUNTER, "hunt--," follow scent in reverse direction. COUNTERFEIT, false coin. COUNTERPANE, one part or counterpart of a deed or indenture. COUNTERPOINT, opposite, contrary point. COURT-DISH, a kind of drinking-cup (Halliwell); N.E.D. quotes from Bp. Goodman's "Court of James I.": "The king...caused his carver to cut him out a court-dish, that is, something of every dish, which he sent him as part of his reversion," but this does not sound like short allowance or small receptacle. COURT-DOR, fool. COURTEAU, curtal, small horse with docked tail. COURTSHIP, courtliness. COVETISE, avarice. COWSHARD, cow dung. COXCOMB, fool's cap, fool. COY, shrink; disdain. COYSTREL, low varlet. COZEN, cheat. CRACK, lively young rogue, wag. CRACK, crack up, boast; come to grief. CRAMBE, game of crambo, in which the players find rhymes for a given word. CRANCH, craunch. CRANION, spider-like; also fairy appellation for a fly (Gifford, who refers to lines in Drayton's "Nimphidia"). CRIMP, game at cards. CRINCLE, draw back, turn aside. CRISPED, with curled or waved hair. CROP, gather, reap. CROPSHIRE, a kind of herring. (See N.E.D.) CROSS, any piece of money, many coins being stamped with a cross. CROSS AND PILE, heads and tails. CROSSLET, crucible. CROWD, fiddle. CRUDITIES, undigested matter. CRUMP, curl up. CRUSADO, Portuguese gold coin, marked with a cross. CRY ("he that cried Italian"), "speak in a musical cadence," intone, or declaim (?); cry up. CUCKING-STOOL, used for the ducking of scolds, etc. CUCURBITE, a gourd-shaped vessel used for distillation. CUERPO, "in--," in undress. CULLICE, broth. CULLION, base fellow, coward. CULLISEN, badge worn on their arm by servants. CULVERIN, kind of cannon. CUNNING, skill. CUNNING, skilful. CUNNING-MAN, fortune-teller. CURE, care for. CURIOUS(LY), scrupulous, particular; elaborate, elegant(ly), dainty(ly) (hence "in curious"). CURST, shrewish, mischievous. CURTAL, dog with docked tail, of inferior sort. CUSTARD, "quaking--," "--politic," reference to a large custard which formed part of a city feast and afforded huge entertainment, for the fool jumped into it, and other like tricks were played. (See "All's Well, etc." ii. 5, 40.) CUTWORK, embroidery, open-work. CYPRES (CYPRUS) (quibble), cypress (or cyprus) being a transparent material, and when black used for mourning. DAGGER ("--frumety"), name of tavern. DARGISON, apparently some person known in ballad or tale. DAUPHIN MY BOY, refrain of old comic song. DAW, daunt. DEAD LIFT, desperate emergency. DEAR, applied to that which in any way touches us nearly. DECLINE, turn off from; turn away, aside. DEFALK, deduct, abate. DEFEND, forbid. DEGENEROUS, degenerate. DEGREES, steps. DELATE, accuse. DEMI-CULVERIN, cannon carrying a ball of about ten pounds. DENIER, the smallest possible coin, being the twelfth part of a sou. DEPART, part with. DEPENDANCE, ground of quarrel in duello language. DESERT, reward. DESIGNMENT, design. DESPERATE, rash, reckless. DETECT, allow to be detected, betray, inform against. DETERMINE, terminate. DETRACT, draw back, refuse. DEVICE, masque, show; a thing moved by wires, etc., puppet. DEVISE, exact in every particular. DEVISED, invented. DIAPASM, powdered aromatic herbs, made into balls of perfumed paste. (See Pomander.) DIBBLE, (?) moustache (N.E.D.); (?) dagger (Cunningham). DIFFUSED, disordered, scattered, irregular. DIGHT, dressed. DILDO, refrain of popular songs; vague term of low meaning. DIMBLE, dingle, ravine. DIMENSUM, stated allowance. DISBASE, debase. DISCERN, distinguish, show a difference between. DISCHARGE, settle for. DISCIPLINE, reformation; ecclesiastical system. DISCLAIM, renounce all part in. DISCOURSE, process of reasoning, reasoning faculty. DISCOURTSHIP, discourtesy. DISCOVER, betray, reveal; display. DISFAVOUR, disfigure. DISPARAGEMENT, legal term applied to the unfitness in any way of a marriage arranged for in the case of wards. DISPENSE WITH, grant dispensation for. DISPLAY, extend. DIS'PLE, discipline, teach by the whip. DISPOSED, inclined to merriment. DISPOSURE, disposal. DISPRISE, depreciate. DISPUNCT, not punctilious. DISQUISITION, search. DISSOLVED, enervated by grief. DISTANCE, (?) proper measure. DISTASTE, offence, cause of offence. DISTASTE, render distasteful. DISTEMPERED, upset, out of humour. DIVISION (mus.), variation, modulation. DOG-BOLT, term of contempt. DOLE, given in dole, charity. DOLE OF FACES, distribution of grimaces. DOOM, verdict, sentence. DOP, dip, low bow. DOR, beetle, buzzing insect, drone, idler. DOR, (?) buzz; "give the--," make a fool of. DOSSER, pannier, basket. DOTES, endowments, qualities. DOTTEREL, plover; gull, fool. DOUBLE, behave deceitfully. DOXY, wench, mistress. DRACHM, Greek silver coin. DRESS, groom, curry. DRESSING, coiffure. DRIFT, intention. DRYFOOT, track by mere scent of foot. DUCKING, punishment for minor offences. DUILL, grieve. DUMPS, melancholy, originally a mournful melody. DURINDANA, Orlando's sword. DWINDLE, shrink away, be overawed. EAN, yean, bring forth young. EASINESS, readiness. EBOLITION, ebullition. EDGE, sword. EECH, eke. EGREGIOUS, eminently excellent. EKE, also, moreover. E-LA, highest note in the scale. EGGS ON THE SPIT, important business on hand. ELF-LOCK, tangled hair, supposed to be the work of elves. EMMET, ant. ENGAGE, involve. ENGHLE. See Ingle. ENGHLE, cajole; fondle. ENGIN(E), device, contrivance; agent; ingenuity, wit. ENGINER, engineer, deviser, plotter. ENGINOUS, crafty, full of devices; witty, ingenious. ENGROSS, monopolise. ENS, an existing thing, a substance. ENSIGNS, tokens, wounds. ENSURE, assure. ENTERTAIN, take into service. ENTREAT, plead. ENTREATY, entertainment. ENTRY, place where a deer has lately passed. ENVOY, denouement, conclusion. ENVY, spite, calumny, dislike, odium. EPHEMERIDES, calendars. EQUAL, just, impartial. ERECTION, elevation in esteem. ERINGO, candied root of the sea-holly, formerly used as a sweetmeat and aphrodisiac. ERRANT, arrant. ESSENTIATE, become assimilated. ESTIMATION, esteem. ESTRICH, ostrich. ETHNIC, heathen. EURIPUS, flux and reflux. EVEN, just equable. EVENT, fate, issue. EVENT(ED), issue(d). EVERT, overturn. EXACUATE, sharpen. EXAMPLESS, without example or parallel. EXCALIBUR, King Arthur's sword. EXEMPLIFY, make an example of. EXEMPT, separate, exclude. EXEQUIES, obsequies. EXHALE, drag out. EXHIBITION, allowance for keep, pocket-money. EXORBITANT, exceeding limits of propriety or law, inordinate. EXORNATION, ornament. EXPECT, wait. EXPIATE, terminate. EXPLICATE, explain, unfold. EXTEMPORAL, extempore, unpremeditated. EXTRACTION, essence. EXTRAORDINARY, employed for a special or temporary purpose. EXTRUDE, expel. EYE, "in--," in view. EYEBRIGHT, (?) a malt liquor in which the herb of this name was infused, or a person who sold the same (Gifford). EYE-TINGE, least shade or gleam. FACE, appearance. FACES ABOUT, military word of command. FACINOROUS, extremely wicked. FACKINGS, faith. FACT, deed, act, crime. FACTIOUS, seditious, belonging to a party, given to party feeling. FAECES, dregs. FAGIOLI, French beans. FAIN, forced, necessitated. FAITHFUL, believing. FALL, ruff or band turned back on the shoulders; or, veil. FALSIFY, feign (fencing term). FAME, report. FAMILIAR, attendant spirit. FANTASTICAL, capricious, whimsical. FARCE, stuff. FAR-FET. See Fet. FARTHINGAL, hooped petticoat. FAUCET, tapster. FAULT, lack; loss, break in line of scent; "for--," in default of. FAUTOR, partisan. FAYLES, old table game similar to backgammon. FEAR(ED), affright(ed). FEAT, activity, operation; deed, action. FEAT, elegant, trim. FEE, "in--" by feudal obligation. FEIZE, beat, belabour. FELLOW, term of contempt. FENNEL, emblem of flattery. FERE, companion, fellow. FERN-SEED, supposed to have power of rendering invisible. FET, fetched. FETCH, trick. FEUTERER (Fr. vautrier), dog-keeper. FEWMETS, dung. FICO, fig. FIGGUM, (?) jugglery. FIGMENT, fiction, invention. FIRK, frisk, move suddenly, or in jerks; "--up," stir up, rouse; "firks mad," suddenly behaves like a madman. FIT, pay one out, punish. FITNESS, readiness. FITTON (FITTEN), lie, invention. FIVE-AND-FIFTY, "highest number to stand on at primero" (Gifford). FLAG, to fly low and waveringly. FLAGON CHAIN, for hanging a smelling-bottle (Fr. flacon) round the neck (?). (See N.E.D.). FLAP-DRAGON, game similar to snap-dragon. FLASKET, some kind of basket. FLAW, sudden gust or squall of wind. FLAWN, custard. FLEA, catch fleas. FLEER, sneer, laugh derisively. FLESH, feed a hawk or dog with flesh to incite it to the chase; initiate in blood-shed; satiate. FLICKER-MOUSE, bat. FLIGHT, light arrow. FLITTER-MOUSE, bat. FLOUT, mock, speak and act contemptuously. FLOWERS, pulverised substance. FLY, familiar spirit. FOIL, weapon used in fencing; that which sets anything off to advantage. FOIST, cut-purse, sharper. FOND(LY), foolish(ly). FOOT-CLOTH, housings of ornamental cloth which hung down on either side a horse to the ground. FOOTING, foothold; footstep; dancing. FOPPERY, foolery. FOR, "--failing," for fear of failing. FORBEAR, bear with; abstain from. FORCE, "hunt at--," run the game down with dogs. FOREHEAD, modesty; face, assurance, effrontery. FORESLOW, delay. FORESPEAK, bewitch; foretell. FORETOP, front lock of hair which fashion required to be worn upright. FORGED, fabricated. FORM, state formally. FORMAL, shapely; normal; conventional. FORTHCOMING, produced when required. FOUNDER, disable with over-riding. FOURM, form, lair. FOX, sword. FRAIL, rush basket in which figs or raisins were packed. FRAMPULL, peevish, sour-tempered. FRAPLER, blusterer, wrangler. FRAYING, "a stag is said to fray his head when he rubs it against a tree to...cause the outward coat of the new horns to fall off" (Gifford). FREIGHT (of the gazetti), burden (of the newspapers). FREQUENT, full. FRICACE, rubbing. FRICATRICE, woman of low character. FRIPPERY, old clothes shop. FROCK, smock-frock. FROLICS, (?) humorous verses circulated at a feast (N.E.D.); couplets wrapped round sweetmeats (Cunningham). FRONTLESS, shameless. FROTED, rubbed. FRUMETY, hulled wheat boiled in milk and spiced. FRUMP, flout, sneer. FUCUS, dye. FUGEAND, (?) figent: fidgety, restless (N.E.D.). FULLAM, false dice. FULMART, polecat. FULSOME, foul, offensive. FURIBUND, raging, furious. GALLEY-FOIST, city-barge, used on Lord Mayor's Day, when he was sworn into his office at Westminster (Whalley). GALLIARD, lively dance in triple time. GAPE, be eager after. GARAGANTUA, Rabelais' giant. GARB, sheaf (Fr. gerbe); manner, fashion, behaviour. GARD, guard, trimming, gold or silver lace, or other ornament. GARDED, faced or trimmed. GARNISH, fee. GAVEL-KIND, name of a land-tenure existing chiefly in Kent; from 16th century often used to denote custom of dividing a deceased man's property equally among his sons (N.E.D.). GAZETTE, small Venetian coin worth about three-farthings. GEANCE, jaunt, errand. GEAR (GEER), stuff, matter, affair. GELID, frozen. GEMONIES, steps from which the bodies of criminals were thrown into the river. GENERAL, free, affable. GENIUS, attendant spirit. GENTRY, gentlemen; manners characteristic of gentry, good breeding. GIB-CAT, tom-cat. GIGANTOMACHIZE, start a giants' war. GIGLOT, wanton. GIMBLET, gimlet. GING, gang. GLASS ("taking in of shadows, etc."), crystal or beryl. GLEEK, card game played by three; party of three, trio; side glance. GLICK (GLEEK), jest, gibe. GLIDDER, glaze. GLORIOUSLY, of vain glory. GODWIT, bird of the snipe family. GOLD-END-MAN, a buyer of broken gold and silver. GOLL, hand. GONFALIONIER, standard-bearer, chief magistrate, etc. GOOD, sound in credit. GOOD-YEAR, good luck. GOOSE-TURD, colour of. (See Turd). GORCROW, carrion crow. GORGET, neck armour. GOSSIP, godfather. GOWKED, from "gowk," to stand staring and gaping like a fool. GRANNAM, grandam. GRASS, (?) grease, fat. GRATEFUL, agreeable, welcome. GRATIFY, give thanks to. GRATITUDE, gratuity. GRATULATE, welcome, congratulate. GRAVITY, dignity. GRAY, badger. GRICE, cub. GRIEF, grievance. GRIPE, vulture, griffin. GRIPE'S EGG, vessel in shape of. GROAT, fourpence. GROGRAN, coarse stuff made of silk and mohair, or of coarse silk. GROOM-PORTER, officer in the royal household. GROPE, handle, probe. GROUND, pit (hence "grounded judgments"). GUARD, caution, heed. GUARDANT, heraldic term: turning the head only. GUILDER, Dutch coin worth about 4d. GULES, gullet, throat; heraldic term for red. GULL, simpleton, dupe. GUST, taste. HAB NAB, by, on, chance. HABERGEON, coat of mail. HAGGARD, wild female hawk; hence coy, wild. HALBERD, combination of lance and battle-axe. HALL, "a--!" a cry to clear the room for the dancers. HANDSEL, first money taken. HANGER, loop or strap on a sword-belt from which the sword was suspended. HAP, fortune, luck. HAPPILY, haply. HAPPINESS, appropriateness, fitness. HAPPY, rich. HARBOUR, track, trace (an animal) to its shelter. HARD-FAVOURED, harsh-featured. HARPOCRATES, Horus the child, son of Osiris, figured with a finger pointing to his mouth, indicative of silence. HARRINGTON, a patent was granted to Lord H. for the coinage of tokens (q.v.). HARROT, herald. HARRY NICHOLAS, founder of a community called the "Family of Love." HAY, net for catching rabbits, etc. HAY! (Ital. hai!), you have it (a fencing term). HAY IN HIS HORN, ill-tempered person. HAZARD, game at dice; that which is staked. HEAD, "first--," young deer with antlers first sprouting; fig. a newly-ennobled man. HEADBOROUGH, constable. HEARKEN AFTER, inquire; "hearken out," find, search out. HEARTEN, encourage. HEAVEN AND HELL ("Alchemist"), names of taverns. HECTIC, fever. HEDGE IN, include. HELM, upper part of a retort. HER'NSEW, hernshaw, heron. HIERONIMO (JERONIMO), hero of Kyd's "Spanish Tragedy." HOBBY, nag. HOBBY-HORSE, imitation horse of some light material, fastened round the waist of the morrice-dancer, who imitated the movements of a skittish horse. HODDY-DODDY, fool. HOIDEN, hoyden, formerly applied to both sexes (ancient term for leveret? Gifford). HOLLAND, name of two famous chemists. HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent. HOOD-WINK'D, blindfolded. HORARY, hourly. HORN-MAD, stark mad (quibble). HORN-THUMB, cut-purses were in the habit of wearing a horn shield on the thumb. HORSE-BREAD-EATING, horses were often fed on coarse bread. HORSE-COURSER, horse-dealer. HOSPITAL, Christ's Hospital. HOWLEGLAS, Eulenspiegel, the hero of a popular German tale which relates his buffooneries and knavish tricks. HUFF, hectoring, arrogance. HUFF IT, swagger. HUISHER (Fr. huissier), usher. HUM, beer and spirits mixed together. HUMANITIAN, humanist, scholar. HUMOROUS, capricious, moody, out of humour; moist. HUMOUR, a word used in and out of season in the time of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, and ridiculed by both. HUMOURS, manners. HUMPHREY, DUKE, those who were dinnerless spent the dinner-hour in a part of St. Paul's where stood a monument said to be that of the duke's; hence "dine with Duke Humphrey," to go hungry. HURTLESS, harmless. IDLE, useless, unprofitable. ILL-AFFECTED, ill-disposed. ILL-HABITED, unhealthy. ILLUSTRATE, illuminate. IMBIBITION, saturation, steeping. IMBROCATA, fencing term: a thrust in tierce. IMPAIR, impairment. IMPART, give money. IMPARTER, any one ready to be cheated and to part with his money. IMPEACH, damage. IMPERTINENCIES, irrelevancies. IMPERTINENT(LY), irrelevant(ly), without reason or purpose. IMPOSITION, duty imposed by. IMPOTENTLY, beyond power of control. IMPRESS, money in advance. IMPULSION, incitement. IN AND IN, a game played by two or three persons with four dice. INCENSE, incite, stir up. INCERATION, act of covering with wax; or reducing a substance to softness of wax. INCH, "to their--es," according to their stature, capabilities. INCH-PIN, sweet-bread. INCONVENIENCE, inconsistency, absurdity. INCONY, delicate, rare (used as a term of affection). INCUBEE, incubus. INCUBUS, evil spirit that oppresses us in sleep, nightmare. INCURIOUS, unfastidious, uncritical. INDENT, enter into engagement. INDIFFERENT, tolerable, passable. INDIGESTED, shapeless, chaotic. INDUCE, introduce. INDUE, supply. INEXORABLE, relentless. INFANTED, born, produced. INFLAME, augment charge. INGENIOUS, used indiscriminantly for ingenuous; intelligent, talented. INGENUITY, ingenuousness. INGENUOUS, generous. INGINE. See Engin. INGINER, engineer. (See Enginer). INGLE, OR ENGHLE, bosom friend, intimate, minion. INHABITABLE, uninhabitable. INJURY, insult, affront. IN-MATE, resident, indwelling. INNATE, natural. INNOCENT, simpleton. INQUEST, jury, or other official body of inquiry. INQUISITION, inquiry. INSTANT, immediate. INSTRUMENT, legal document. INSURE, assure. INTEGRATE, complete, perfect. INTELLIGENCE, secret information, news. INTEND, note carefully, attend, give ear to, be occupied with. INTENDMENT, intention. INTENT, intention, wish. INTENTION, concentration of attention or gaze. INTENTIVE, attentive. INTERESSED, implicated. INTRUDE, bring in forcibly or without leave. INVINCIBLY, invisibly. INWARD, intimate. IRPE (uncertain), "a fantastic grimace, or contortion of the body: (Gifford)." JACK, Jack o' the clock, automaton figure that strikes the hour; Jack-a-lent, puppet thrown at in Lent. JACK, key of a virginal. JACOB'S STAFF, an instrument for taking altitudes and distances. JADE, befool. JEALOUSY, JEALOUS, suspicion, suspicious. JERKING, lashing. JEW'S TRUMP, Jew's harp. JIG, merry ballad or tune; a fanciful dialogue or light comic act introduced at the end or during an interlude of a play. JOINED (JOINT)-STOOL, folding stool. JOLL, jowl. JOLTHEAD, blockhead. JUMP, agree, tally. JUST YEAR, no one was capable of the consulship until he was forty-three. KELL, cocoon. KELLY, an alchemist. KEMB, comb. KEMIA, vessel for distillation. KIBE, chap, sore. KILDERKIN, small barrel. KILL, kiln. KIND, nature; species; "do one's--," act according to one's nature. KIRTLE, woman's gown of jacket and petticoat. KISS OR DRINK AFORE ME, "this is a familiar expression, employed when what the speaker is just about to say is anticipated by another" (Gifford). KIT, fiddle. KNACK, snap, click. KNIPPER-DOLING, a well-known Anabaptist. KNITTING CUP, marriage cup. KNOCKING, striking, weighty. KNOT, company, band; a sandpiper or robin snipe (Tringa canutus); flower-bed laid out in fanciful design. KURSINED, KYRSIN, christened. LABOURED, wrought with labour and care. LADE, load(ed). LADING, load. LAID, plotted. LANCE-KNIGHT (Lanzknecht), a German mercenary foot-soldier. LAP, fold. LAR, household god. LARD, garnish. LARGE, abundant. LARUM, alarum, call to arms. LATTICE, tavern windows were furnished with lattices of various colours. LAUNDER, to wash gold in aqua regia, so as imperceptibly to extract some of it. LAVE, ladle, bale. LAW, "give--," give a start (term of chase). LAXATIVE, loose. LAY ABOARD, run alongside generally with intent to board. LEAGUER, siege, or camp of besieging army. LEASING, lying. LEAVE, leave off, desist. LEER, leering or "empty, hence, perhaps, leer horse, a horse without a rider; leer is an adjective meaning uncontrolled, hence 'leer drunkards'" (Halliwell); according to Nares, a leer (empty) horse meant also a led horse; leeward, left. LEESE, lose. LEGS, "make--," do obeisance. LEIGER, resident representative. LEIGERITY, legerdemain. LEMMA, subject proposed, or title of the epigram. LENTER, slower. LET, hinder. LET, hindrance. LEVEL COIL, a rough game...in which one hunted another from his seat. Hence used for any noisy riot (Halliwell). LEWD, ignorant. LEYSTALLS, receptacles of filth. LIBERAL, ample. LIEGER, ledger, register. LIFT(ING), steal(ing); theft. LIGHT, alight. LIGHTLY, commonly, usually, often. LIKE, please. LIKELY, agreeable, pleasing. LIME-HOUND, leash-, blood-hound. LIMMER, vile, worthless. LIN, leave off. Line, "by--," by rule. LINSTOCK, staff to stick in the ground, with forked head to hold a lighted match for firing cannon. LIQUID, clear. LIST, listen, hark; like, please. LIVERY, legal term, delivery of the possession, etc. LOGGET, small log, stick. LOOSE, solution; upshot, issue; release of an arrow. LOSE, give over, desist from; waste. LOUTING, bowing, cringing. LUCULENT, bright of beauty. LUDGATHIANS, dealers on Ludgate Hill. LURCH, rob, cheat. LUTE, to close a vessel with some kind of cement. MACK, unmeaning expletive. MADGE-HOWLET or OWL, barn-owl. MAIM, hurt, injury. MAIN, chief concern (used as a quibble on heraldic term for "hand"). MAINPRISE, becoming surety for a prisoner so as to procure his release. MAINTENANCE, giving aid, or abetting. MAKE, mate. MAKE, MADE, acquaint with business, prepare(d), instruct(ed). MALLANDERS, disease of horses. MALT HORSE, dray horse. MAMMET, puppet. MAMMOTHREPT, spoiled child. MANAGE, control (term used for breaking-in horses); handling, administration. MANGO, slave-dealer. MANGONISE, polish up for sale. MANIPLES, bundles, handfuls. MANKIND, masculine, like a virago. MANKIND, humanity. MAPLE FACE, spotted face (N.E.D.). MARCHPANE, a confection of almonds, sugar, etc. MARK, "fly to the--," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, Bibl. Accip. Gloss. 226). MARLE, marvel. MARROW-BONE MAN, one often on his knees for prayer. MARRY! exclamation derived from the Virgin's name. MARRY GIP, "probably originated from By Mary Gipcy" = St. Mary of Egypt, (N.E.D.). MARTAGAN, Turk's cap lily. MARYHINCHCO, stringhalt. MASORETH, Masora, correct form of the scriptural text according to Hebrew tradition. MASS, abb. for master. MAUND, beg. MAUTHER, girl, maid. MEAN, moderation. MEASURE, dance, more especially a stately one. MEAT, "carry--in one's mouth," be a source of money or entertainment. MEATH, metheglin. MECHANICAL, belonging to mechanics, mean, vulgar. MEDITERRANEO, middle aisle of St. Paul's, a general resort for business and amusement. MEET WITH, even with. MELICOTTON, a late kind of peach. MENSTRUE, solvent. MERCAT, market. MERD, excrement. MERE, undiluted; absolute, unmitigated. MESS, party of four. METHEGLIN, fermented liquor, of which one ingredient was honey. METOPOSCOPY, study of physiognomy. MIDDLING GOSSIP, go-between. MIGNIARD, dainty, delicate. MILE-END, training-ground of the city. MINE-MEN, sappers. MINION, form of cannon. MINSITIVE, (?) mincing, affected (N.E.D.). MISCELLANY MADAM, "a female trader in miscellaneous articles; a dealer in trinkets or ornaments of various kinds, such as kept shops in the New Exchange" (Nares). MISCELLINE, mixed grain; medley. MISCONCEIT, misconception. MISPRISE, MISPRISION, mistake, misunderstanding. MISTAKE AWAY, carry away as if by mistake. MITHRIDATE, an antidote against poison. MOCCINIGO, small Venetian coin, worth about ninepence. MODERN, in the mode; ordinary, commonplace. MOMENT, force or influence of value. MONTANTO, upward stroke. MONTH'S MIND, violent desire. MOORISH, like a moor or waste. MORGLAY, sword of Bevis of Southampton. MORRICE-DANCE, dance on May Day, etc., in which certain personages were represented. MORTALITY, death. MORT-MAL, old sore, gangrene. MOSCADINO, confection flavoured with musk. MOTHER, Hysterica passio. MOTION, proposal, request; puppet, puppet-show; "one of the small figures on the face of a large clock which was moved by the vibration of the pendulum" (Whalley). MOTION, suggest, propose. MOTLEY, parti-coloured dress of a fool; hence used to signify pertaining to, or like, a fool. MOTTE, motto. MOURNIVAL, set of four aces or court cards in a hand; a quartette. MOW, setord hay or sheaves of grain. MUCH! expressive of irony and incredulity. MUCKINDER, handkerchief. MULE, "born to ride on--," judges or serjeants-at-law formerly rode on mules when going in state to Westminster (Whally). MULLETS, small pincers. MUM-CHANCE, game of chance, played in silence. MUN, must. MUREY, dark crimson red. MUSCOVY-GLASS, mica. MUSE, wonder. MUSICAL, in harmony. MUSS, mouse; scramble. MYROBOLANE, foreign conserve, "a dried plum, brought from the Indies." MYSTERY, art, trade, profession. NAIL, "to the--" (ad unguem), to perfection, to the very utmost. NATIVE, natural. NEAT, cattle. NEAT, smartly apparelled; unmixed; dainty. NEATLY, neatly finished. NEATNESS, elegance. NEIS, nose, scent. NEUF (NEAF, NEIF), fist. NEUFT, newt. NIAISE, foolish, inexperienced person. NICE, fastidious, trivial, finical, scrupulous. NICENESS, fastidiousness. NICK, exact amount; right moment; "set in the--," meaning uncertain. NICE, suit, fit; hit, seize the right moment, etc., exactly hit on, hit off. NOBLE, gold coin worth 6s. 8d. NOCENT, harmful. NIL, not will. NOISE, company of musicians. NOMENTACK, an Indian chief from Virginia. NONES, nonce. NOTABLE, egregious. NOTE, sign, token. NOUGHT, "be--," go to the devil, be hanged, etc. NOWT-HEAD, blockhead. NUMBER, rhythm. NUPSON, oaf, simpleton. OADE, woad. OBARNI, preparation of mead. OBJECT, oppose; expose; interpose. OBLATRANT, barking, railing. OBNOXIOUS, liable, exposed; offensive. OBSERVANCE, homage, devoted service. OBSERVANT, attentive, obsequious. OBSERVE, show deference, respect. OBSERVER, one who shows deference, or waits upon another. OBSTANCY, legal phrase, "juridical opposition." OBSTREPEROUS, clamorous, vociferous. OBSTUPEFACT, stupefied. ODLING, (?) "must have some relation to tricking and cheating" (Nares). OMINOUS, deadly, fatal. ONCE, at once; for good and all; used also for additional emphasis. ONLY, pre-eminent, special. OPEN, make public; expound. OPPILATION, obstruction. OPPONE, oppose. OPPOSITE, antagonist. OPPRESS, suppress. ORIGINOUS, native. ORT, remnant, scrap. OUT, "to be--," to have forgotten one's part; not at one with each other. OUTCRY, sale by auction. OUTRECUIDANCE, arrogance, presumption. OUTSPEAK, speak more than. OVERPARTED, given too difficult a part to play. OWLSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. OYEZ! (O YES!), hear ye! call of the public crier when about to make a proclamation. PACKING PENNY, "give a--," dismiss, send packing. PAD, highway. PAD-HORSE, road-horse. PAINED (PANED) SLOPS, full breeches made of strips of different colour and material. PAINFUL, diligent, painstaking. PAINT, blush. PALINODE, ode of recantation. PALL, weaken, dim, make stale. PALM, triumph. PAN, skirt of dress or coat. PANNEL, pad, or rough kind of saddle. PANNIER-ALLY, inhabited by tripe-sellers. PANNIER-MAN, hawker; a man employed about the inns of court to bring in provisions, set the table, etc. PANTOFLE, indoor shoe, slipper. PARAMENTOS, fine trappings. PARANOMASIE, a play upon words. PARANTORY, (?) peremptory. PARCEL, particle, fragment (used contemptuously); article. PARCEL, part, partly. PARCEL-POET, poetaster. PARERGA, subordinate matters. PARGET, to paint or plaster the face. PARLE, parley. PARLOUS, clever, shrewd. PART, apportion. PARTAKE, participate in. PARTED, endowed, talented. PARTICULAR, individual person. PARTIZAN, kind of halberd. PARTRICH, partridge. PARTS, qualities, endowments. PASH, dash, smash. PASS, care, trouble oneself. PASSADO, fencing term: a thrust. PASSAGE, game at dice. PASSINGLY, exceedingly. PASSION, effect caused by external agency. PASSION, "in--," in so melancholy a tone, so pathetically. PATOUN, (?) Fr. Paton, pellet of dough; perhaps the "moulding of the tobacco...for the pipe" (Gifford); (?) variant of Petun, South American name of tobacco. PATRICO, the recorder, priest, orator of strolling beggars or gipsies. PATTEN, shoe with wooden sole; "go--," keep step with, accompany. PAUCA VERBA, few words. PAVIN, a stately dance. PEACE, "with my master's--," by leave, favour. PECULIAR, individual, single. PEDANT, teacher of the languages. PEEL, baker's shovel. PEEP, speak in a small or shrill voice. PEEVISH(LY), foolish(ly), capricious(ly); childish(ly). PELICAN, a retort fitted with tube or tubes, for continuous distillation. PENCIL, small tuft of hair. PERDUE, soldier accustomed to hazardous service. PEREMPTORY, resolute, bold; imperious; thorough, utter, absolute(ly). PERIMETER, circumference of a figure. PERIOD, limit, end. PERK, perk up. PERPETUANA, "this seems to be that glossy kind of stuff now called everlasting, and anciently worn by serjeants and other city officers" (Gifford). PERSPECTIVE, a view, scene or scenery; an optical device which gave a distortion to the picture unless seen from a particular point; a relief, modelled to produce an optical illusion. PERSPICIL, optic glass. PERSTRINGE, criticise, censure. PERSUADE, inculcate, commend. PERSWAY, mitigate. PERTINACY, pertinacity. PESTLING, pounding, pulverising, like a pestle. PETASUS, broad-brimmed hat or winged cap worn by Mercury. PETITIONARY, supplicatory. PETRONEL, a kind of carbine or light gun carried by horsemen. PETULANT, pert, insolent. PHERE. See Fere. PHLEGMA, watery distilled liquor (old chem. "water"). PHRENETIC, madman. PICARDIL, stiff upright collar fastened on to the coat (Whalley). PICT-HATCH, disreputable quarter of London. PIECE, person, used for woman or girl; a gold coin worth in Jonson's time 20s. or 22s. PIECES OF EIGHT, Spanish coin: piastre equal to eight reals. PIED, variegated. PIE-POUDRES (Fr. pied-poudreux, dusty-foot), court held at fairs to administer justice to itinerant vendors and buyers. PILCHER, term of contempt; one who wore a buff or leather jerkin, as did the serjeants of the counter; a pilferer. PILED, pilled, peeled, bald. PILL'D, polled, fleeced. PIMLICO, "sometimes spoken of as a person--perhaps master of a house famous for a particular ale" (Gifford). PINE, afflict, distress. PINK, stab with a weapon; pierce or cut in scallops for ornament. PINNACE, a go-between in infamous sense. PISMIRE, ant. PISTOLET, gold coin, worth about 6s. PITCH, height of a bird of prey's flight. PLAGUE, punishment, torment. PLAIN, lament. PLAIN SONG, simple melody. PLAISE, plaice. PLANET, "struck with a--," planets were supposed to have powers of blasting or exercising secret influences. PLAUSIBLE, pleasing. PLAUSIBLY, approvingly. PLOT, plan. PLY, apply oneself to. POESIE, posy, motto inside a ring. POINT IN HIS DEVICE, exact in every particular. POINTS, tagged laces or cords for fastening the breeches to the doublet. POINT-TRUSSER, one who trussed (tied) his master's points (q.v.). POISE, weigh, balance. POKING-STICK, stick used for setting the plaits of ruffs. POLITIC, politician. POLITIC, judicious, prudent, political. POLITICIAN, plotter, intriguer. POLL, strip, plunder, gain by extortion. POMANDER, ball of perfume, worn or hung about the person to prevent infection, or for foppery. POMMADO, vaulting on a horse without the aid of stirrups. PONTIC, sour. POPULAR, vulgar, of the populace. POPULOUS, numerous. PORT, gate; print of a deer's foot. PORT, transport. PORTAGUE, Portuguese gold coin, worth over 3 or 4 pounds. PORTCULLIS, "--of coin," some old coins have a portcullis stamped on their reverse (Whalley). PORTENT, marvel, prodigy; sinister omen. PORTENTOUS, prophesying evil, threatening. PORTER, references appear "to allude to Parsons, the king's porter, who was...near seven feet high" (Whalley). POSSESS, inform, acquaint. POST AND PAIR, a game at cards. POSY, motto. (See Poesie). POTCH, poach. POULT-FOOT, club-foot. POUNCE, claw, talon. PRACTICE, intrigue, concerted plot. PRACTISE, plot, conspire. PRAGMATIC, an expert, agent. PRAGMATIC, officious, conceited, meddling. PRECEDENT, record of proceedings. PRECEPT, warrant, summons. PRECISIAN(ISM), Puritan(ism), preciseness. PREFER, recommend. PRESENCE, presence chamber. PRESENT(LY), immediate(ly), without delay; at the present time; actually. PRESS, force into service. PREST, ready. PRETEND, assert, allege. PREVENT, anticipate. PRICE, worth, excellence. PRICK, point, dot used in the writing of Hebrew and other languages. PRICK, prick out, mark off, select; trace, track; "--away," make off with speed. PRIMERO, game of cards. PRINCOX, pert boy. PRINT, "in--," to the letter, exactly. PRISTINATE, former. PRIVATE, private interests. PRIVATE, privy, intimate. PROCLIVE, prone to. PRODIGIOUS, monstrous, unnatural. PRODIGY, monster. PRODUCED, prolonged. PROFESS, pretend. PROJECTION, the throwing of the "powder of projection" into the crucible to turn the melted metal into gold or silver. PROLATE, pronounce drawlingly. PROPER, of good appearance, handsome; own, particular. PROPERTIES, stage necessaries. PROPERTY, duty; tool. PRORUMPED, burst out. PROTEST, vow, proclaim (an affected word of that time); formally declare non-payment, etc., of bill of exchange; fig. failure of personal credit, etc. PROVANT, soldier's allowance--hence, of common make. PROVIDE, foresee. PROVIDENCE, foresight, prudence. PUBLICATION, making a thing public of common property (N.E.D.). PUCKFIST, puff-ball; insipid, insignificant, boasting fellow. PUFF-WING, shoulder puff. PUISNE, judge of inferior rank, a junior. PULCHRITUDE, beauty. PUMP, shoe. PUNGENT, piercing. PUNTO, point, hit. PURCEPT, precept, warrant. PURE, fine, capital, excellent. PURELY, perfectly, utterly. PURL, pleat or fold of a ruff. PURSE-NET, net of which the mouth is drawn together with a string. PURSUIVANT, state messenger who summoned the persecuted seminaries; warrant officer. PURSY, PURSINESS, shortwinded(ness). PUT, make a push, exert yourself (N.E.D.). PUT OFF, excuse, shift. PUT ON, incite, encourage; proceed with, take in hand, try. QUACKSALVER, quack. QUAINT, elegant, elaborated, ingenious, clever. QUAR, quarry. QUARRIED, seized, or fed upon, as prey. QUEAN, hussy, jade. QUEASY, hazardous, delicate. QUELL, kill, destroy. QUEST, request; inquiry. QUESTION, decision by force of arms. QUESTMAN, one appointed to make official inquiry. QUIB, QUIBLIN, quibble, quip. QUICK, the living. QUIDDIT, quiddity, legal subtlety. QUIRK, clever turn or trick. QUIT, requite, repay; acquit, absolve; rid; forsake, leave. QUITTER-BONE, disease of horses. QUODLING, codling. QUOIT, throw like a quoit, chuck. QUOTE, take note, observe, write down. RACK, neck of mutton or pork (Halliwell). RAKE UP, cover over. RAMP, rear, as a lion, etc. RAPT, carry away. RAPT, enraptured. RASCAL, young or inferior deer. RASH, strike with a glancing oblique blow, as a boar with its tusk. RATSEY, GOMALIEL, a famous highwayman. RAVEN, devour. REACH, understand. REAL, regal. REBATU, ruff, turned-down collar. RECTOR, RECTRESS, director, governor. REDARGUE, confute. REDUCE, bring back. REED, rede, counsel, advice. REEL, run riot. REFEL, refute. REFORMADOES, disgraced or disbanded soldiers. REGIMENT, government. REGRESSION, return. REGULAR ("Tale of a Tub"), regular noun (quibble) (N.E.D.). RELIGION, "make--of," make a point of, scruple of. RELISH, savour. REMNANT, scrap of quotation. REMORA, species of fish. RENDER, depict, exhibit, show. REPAIR, reinstate. REPETITION, recital, narration. REREMOUSE, bat. RESIANT, resident. RESIDENCE, sediment. RESOLUTION, judgment, decision. RESOLVE, inform; assure; prepare, make up one's mind; dissolve; come to a decision, be convinced; relax, set at ease. RESPECTIVE, worthy of respect; regardful, discriminative. RESPECTIVELY, with reverence. RESPECTLESS, regardless. RESPIRE, exhale; inhale. RESPONSIBLE, correspondent. REST, musket-rest. REST, "set up one's--," venture one's all, one's last stake (from game of primero). REST, arrest. RESTIVE, RESTY, dull, inactive. RETCHLESS(NESS), reckless(ness). RETIRE, cause to retire. RETRICATO, fencing term. RETRIEVE, rediscovery of game once sprung. RETURNS, ventures sent abroad, for the safe return of which so much money is received. REVERBERATE, dissolve or blend by reflected heat. REVERSE, REVERSO, back-handed thrust, etc., in fencing. REVISE, reconsider a sentence. RHEUM, spleen, caprice. RIBIBE, abusive term for an old woman. RID, destroy, do away with. RIFLING, raffling, dicing. RING, "cracked within the--," coins so cracked were unfit for currency. RISSE, risen, rose. RIVELLED, wrinkled. ROARER, swaggerer. ROCHET, fish of the gurnet kind. ROCK, distaff. RODOMONTADO, braggadocio. ROGUE, vagrant, vagabond. RONDEL, "a round mark in the score of a public-house" (Nares); roundel. ROOK, sharper; fool, dupe. ROSAKER, similar to ratsbane. ROSA-SOLIS, a spiced spirituous liquor. ROSES, rosettes. ROUND, "gentlemen of the--," officers of inferior rank. ROUND TRUNKS, trunk hose, short loose breeches reaching almost or quite to the knees. ROUSE, carouse, bumper. ROVER, arrow used for shooting at a random mark at uncertain distance. ROWLY-POWLY, roly-poly. RUDE, RUDENESS, unpolished, rough(ness), coarse(ness). RUFFLE, flaunt, swagger. RUG, coarse frieze. RUG-GOWNS, gown made of rug. RUSH, reference to rushes with which the floors were then strewn. RUSHER, one who strewed the floor with rushes. RUSSET, homespun cloth of neutral or reddish-brown colour. SACK, loose, flowing gown. SADLY, seriously, with gravity. SAD(NESS), sober, serious(ness). SAFFI, bailiffs. ST. THOMAS A WATERINGS, place in Surrey where criminals were executed. SAKER, small piece of ordnance. SALT, leap. SALT, lascivious. SAMPSUCHINE, sweet marjoram. SARABAND, a slow dance. SATURNALS, began December 17. SAUCINESS, presumption, insolence. SAUCY, bold, impudent, wanton. SAUNA (Lat.), a gesture of contempt. SAVOUR, perceive; gratify, please; to partake of the nature. SAY, sample. SAY, assay, try. SCALD, word of contempt, implying dirt and disease. SCALLION, shalot, small onion. SCANDERBAG, "name which the Turks (in allusion to Alexander the Great) gave to the brave Castriot, chief of Albania, with whom they had continual wars. His romantic life had just been translated" (Gifford). SCAPE, escape. SCARAB, beetle. SCARTOCCIO, fold of paper, cover, cartouch, cartridge. SCONCE, head. SCOPE, aim. SCOT AND LOT, tax, contribution (formerly a parish assessment). SCOTOMY, dizziness in the head. SCOUR, purge. SCOURSE, deal, swap. SCRATCHES, disease of horses. SCROYLE, mean, rascally fellow. SCRUPLE, doubt. SEAL, put hand to the giving up of property or rights. SEALED, stamped as genuine. SEAM-RENT, ragged. SEAMING LACES, insertion or edging. SEAR UP, close by searing, burning. SEARCED, sifted. SECRETARY, able to keep a secret. SECULAR, worldly, ordinary, commonplace. SECURE, confident. SEELIE, happy, blest. SEISIN, legal term: possession. SELLARY, lewd person. SEMBLABLY, similarly. SEMINARY, a Romish priest educated in a foreign seminary. SENSELESS, insensible, without sense or feeling. SENSIBLY, perceptibly. SENSIVE, sensitive. SENSUAL, pertaining to the physical or material. SERENE, harmful dew of evening. SERICON, red tincture. SERVANT, lover. SERVICES, doughty deeds of arms. SESTERCE, Roman copper coin. SET, stake, wager. SET UP, drill. SETS, deep plaits of the ruff. SEWER, officer who served up the feast, and brought water for the hands of the guests. SHAPE, a suit by way of disguise. SHIFT, fraud, dodge. SHIFTER, cheat. SHITTLE, shuttle; "shittle-cock," shuttlecock. SHOT, tavern reckoning. SHOT-CLOG, one only tolerated because he paid the shot (reckoning) for the rest. SHOT-FREE, scot-free, not having to pay. SHOVE-GROAT, low kind of gambling amusement, perhaps somewhat of the nature of pitch and toss. SHOT-SHARKS, drawers. SHREWD, mischievous, malicious, curst. SHREWDLY, keenly, in a high degree. SHRIVE, sheriff; posts were set up before his door for proclamations, or to indicate his residence. SHROVING, Shrovetide, season of merriment. SIGILLA, seal, mark. SILENCED BRETHERN, MINISTERS, those of the Church or Nonconformists who had been silenced, deprived, etc. SILLY, simple, harmless. SIMPLE, silly, witless; plain, true. SIMPLES, herbs. SINGLE, term of chase, signifying when the hunted stag is separated from the herd, or forced to break covert. SINGLE, weak, silly. SINGLE-MONEY, small change. SINGULAR, unique, supreme. SI-QUIS, bill, advertisement. SKELDRING, getting money under false pretences; swindling. SKILL, "it--s not," matters not. SKINK(ER), pour, draw(er), tapster. SKIRT, tail. SLEEK, smooth. SLICE, fire shovel or pan (dial.). SLICK, sleek, smooth. 'SLID, 'SLIGHT, 'SPRECIOUS, irreverent oaths. SLIGHT, sleight, cunning, cleverness; trick. SLIP, counterfeit coin, bastard. SLIPPERY, polished and shining. SLOPS, large loose breeches. SLOT, print of a stag's foot. SLUR, put a slur on; cheat (by sliding a die in some way). SMELT, gull, simpleton. SNORLE, "perhaps snarl, as Puppy is addressed" (Cunningham). SNOTTERIE, filth. SNUFF, anger, resentment; "take in--," take offence at. SNUFFERS, small open silver dishes for holding snuff, or receptacle for placing snuffers in (Halliwell). SOCK, shoe worn by comic actors. SOD, seethe. SOGGY, soaked, sodden. SOIL, "take--," said of a hunted stag when he takes to the water for safety. SOL, sou. SOLDADOES, soldiers. SOLICIT, rouse, excite to action. SOOTH, flattery, cajolery. SOOTHE, flatter, humour. SOPHISTICATE, adulterate. SORT, company, party; rank, degree. SORT, suit, fit; select. SOUSE, ear. SOUSED ("Devil is an Ass"), fol. read "sou't," which Dyce interprets as "a variety of the spelling of "shu'd": to "shu" is to scare a bird away." (See his "Webster," page 350). SOWTER, cobbler. SPAGYRICA, chemistry according to the teachings of Paracelsus. SPAR, bar. SPEAK, make known, proclaim. SPECULATION, power of sight. SPED, to have fared well, prospered. SPEECE, species. SPIGHT, anger, rancour. SPINNER, spider. SPINSTRY, lewd person. SPITTLE, hospital, lazar-house. SPLEEN, considered the seat of the emotions. SPLEEN, caprice, humour, mood. SPRUNT, spruce. SPURGE, foam. SPUR-RYAL, gold coin worth 15s. SQUIRE, square, measure; "by the--," exactly. STAGGERING, wavering, hesitating. STAIN, disparagement, disgrace. STALE, decoy, or cover, stalking-horse. STALE, make cheap, common. STALK, approach stealthily or under cover. STALL, forestall. STANDARD, suit. STAPLE, market, emporium. STARK, downright. STARTING-HOLES, loopholes of escape. STATE, dignity; canopied chair of state; estate. STATUMINATE, support vines by poles or stakes; used by Pliny (Gifford). STAY, gag. STAY, await; detain. STICKLER, second or umpire. STIGMATISE, mark, brand. STILL, continual(ly), constant(ly). STINKARD, stinking fellow. STINT, stop. STIPTIC, astringent. STOCCATA, thrust in fencing. STOCK-FISH, salted and dried fish. STOMACH, pride, valour. STOMACH, resent. STOOP, swoop down as a hawk. STOP, fill, stuff. STOPPLE, stopper. STOTE, stoat, weasel. STOUP, stoop, swoop=bow. STRAIGHT, straightway. STRAMAZOUN (Ital. stramazzone), a down blow, as opposed to the thrust. STRANGE, like a stranger, unfamiliar. STRANGENESS, distance of behaviour. STREIGHTS, OR BERMUDAS, labyrinth of alleys and courts in the Strand. STRIGONIUM, Grau in Hungary, taken from the Turks in 1597. STRIKE, balance (accounts). STRINGHALT, disease of horses. STROKER, smoother, flatterer. STROOK, p.p. of "strike." STRUMMEL-PATCHED, strummel is glossed in dialect dicts. as "a long, loose and dishevelled head of hair." STUDIES, studious efforts. STYLE, title; pointed instrument used for writing on wax tablets. SUBTLE, fine, delicate, thin; smooth, soft. SUBTLETY (SUBTILITY), subtle device. SUBURB, connected with loose living. SUCCUBAE, demons in form of women. SUCK, extract money from. SUFFERANCE, suffering. SUMMED, term of falconry: with full-grown plumage. SUPER-NEGULUM, topers turned the cup bottom up when it was empty. SUPERSTITIOUS, over-scrupulous. SUPPLE, to make pliant. SURBATE, make sore with walking. SURCEASE, cease. SUR-REVERENCE, save your reverence. SURVISE, peruse. SUSCITABILITY, excitability. SUSPECT, suspicion. SUSPEND, suspect. SUSPENDED, held over for the present. SUTLER, victualler. SWAD, clown, boor. SWATH BANDS, swaddling clothes. SWINGE, beat. TABERD, emblazoned mantle or tunic worn by knights and heralds. TABLE(S), "pair of--," tablets, note-book. TABOR, small drum. TABRET, tabor. TAFFETA, silk; "tuft-taffeta," a more costly silken fabric. TAINT, "--a staff," break a lance at tilting in an unscientific or dishonourable manner. TAKE IN, capture, subdue. TAKE ME WITH YOU, let me understand you. TAKE UP, obtain on credit, borrow. TALENT, sum or weight of Greek currency. TALL, stout, brave. TANKARD-BEARERS, men employed to fetch water from the conduits. TARLETON, celebrated comedian and jester. TARTAROUS, like a Tartar. TAVERN-TOKEN, "to swallow a--," get drunk. TELL, count. TELL-TROTH, truth-teller. TEMPER, modify, soften. TENDER, show regard, care for, cherish; manifest. TENT, "take--," take heed. TERSE, swept and polished. TERTIA, "that portion of an army levied out of one particular district or division of a country" (Gifford). TESTON, tester, coin worth 6d. THIRDBOROUGH, constable. THREAD, quality. THREAVES, droves. THREE-FARTHINGS, piece of silver current under Elizabeth. THREE-PILED, of finest quality, exaggerated. THRIFTILY, carefully. THRUMS, ends of the weaver's warp; coarse yarn made from. THUMB-RING, familiar spirits were supposed capable of being carried about in various ornaments or parts of dress. TIBICINE, player on the tibia, or pipe. TICK-TACK, game similar to backgammon. TIGHTLY, promptly. TIM, (?) expressive of a climax of nonentity. TIMELESS, untimely, unseasonable. TINCTURE, an essential or spiritual principle supposed by alchemists to be transfusible into material things; an imparted characteristic or tendency. TINK, tinkle. TIPPET, "turn--," change behaviour or way of life. TIPSTAFF, staff tipped with metal. TIRE, head-dress. TIRE, feed ravenously, like a bird of prey. TITILLATION, that which tickles the senses, as a perfume. TOD, fox. TOILED, worn out, harassed. TOKEN, piece of base metal used in place of very small coin, when this was scarce. TONNELS, nostrils. TOP, "parish--," large top kept in villages for amusement and exercise in frosty weather when people were out of work. TOTER, tooter, player on a wind instrument. TOUSE, pull, rend. TOWARD, docile, apt; on the way to; as regards; present, at hand. TOY, whim; trick; term of contempt. TRACT, attraction. TRAIN, allure, entice. TRANSITORY, transmittable. TRANSLATE, transform. TRAY-TRIP, game at dice (success depended on throwing a three) (Nares). TREACHOUR (TRECHER), traitor. TREEN, wooden. TRENCHER, serving-man who carved or served food. TRENDLE-TAIL, trundle-tail, curly-tailed. TRICK (TRICKING), term of heraldry: to draw outline of coat of arms, etc., without blazoning. TRIG, a spruce, dandified man. TRILL, trickle. TRILLIBUB, tripe, any worthless, trifling thing. TRIPOLY, "come from--," able to perform feats of agility, a "jest nominal," depending on the first part of the word (Gifford). TRITE, worn, shabby. TRIVIA, three-faced goddess (Hecate). TROJAN, familiar term for an equal or inferior; thief. TROLL, sing loudly. TROMP, trump, deceive. TROPE, figure of speech. TROW, think, believe, wonder. TROWLE, troll. TROWSES, breeches, drawers. TRUCHMAN, interpreter. TRUNDLE, JOHN, well-known printer. TRUNDLE, roll, go rolling along. TRUNDLING CHEATS, term among gipsies and beggars for carts or coaches (Gifford). TRUNK, speaking-tube. TRUSS, tie the tagged laces that fastened the breeches to the doublet. TUBICINE, trumpeter. TUCKET (Ital. toccato), introductory flourish on the trumpet. TUITION, guardianship. TUMBLER, a particular kind of dog so called from the mode of his hunting. TUMBREL-SLOP, loose, baggy breeches. TURD, excrement. TUSK, gnash the teeth (Century Dict.). TWIRE, peep, twinkle. TWOPENNY ROOM, gallery. TYRING-HOUSE, attiring-room. ULENSPIEGEL. See Howleglass. UMBRATILE, like or pertaining to a shadow. UMBRE, brown dye. UNBATED, unabated. UNBORED, (?) excessively bored. UNCARNATE, not fleshly, or of flesh. UNCOUTH, strange, unusual. UNDERTAKER, "one who undertook by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one who becomes surety for. UNEQUAL, unjust. UNEXCEPTED, no objection taken at. UNFEARED, unaffrighted. UNHAPPILY, unfortunately. UNICORN'S HORN, supposed antidote to poison. UNKIND(LY), unnatural(ly). UNMANNED, untamed (term in falconry). UNQUIT, undischarged. UNREADY, undressed. UNRUDE, rude to an extreme. UNSEASONED, unseasonable, unripe. UNSEELED, a hawk's eyes were "seeled" by sewing the eyelids together with fine thread. UNTIMELY, unseasonably. UNVALUABLE, invaluable. UPBRAID, make a matter of reproach. UPSEE, heavy kind of Dutch beer (Halliwell); "--Dutch," in the Dutch fashion. UPTAILS ALL, refrain of a popular song. URGE, allege as accomplice, instigator. URSHIN, URCHIN, hedgehog. USE, interest on money; part of sermon dealing with the practical application of doctrine. USE, be in the habit of, accustomed to; put out to interest. USQUEBAUGH, whisky. USURE, usury. UTTER, put in circulation, make to pass current; put forth for sale. VAIL, bow, do homage. VAILS, tips, gratuities. VALL. See Vail. VALLIES (Fr. valise), portmanteau, bag. VAPOUR(S) (n. and v.), used affectedly, like "humour," in many senses, often very vaguely and freely ridiculed by Jonson; humour, disposition, whims, brag(ging), hector(ing), etc. VARLET, bailiff, or serjeant-at-mace. VAUT, vault. VEER (naut.), pay out. VEGETAL, vegetable; person full of life and vigour. VELLUTE, velvet. VELVET CUSTARD. Cf. "Taming of the Shrew," iv. 3, 82, "custard coffin," coffin being the raised crust over a pie. VENT, vend, sell; give outlet to; scent, snuff up. VENUE, bout (fencing term). VERDUGO (Span.), hangman, executioner. VERGE, "in the--," within a certain distance of the court. VEX, agitate, torment. VICE, the buffoon of old moralities; some kind of machinery for moving a puppet (Gifford). VIE AND REVIE, to hazard a certain sum, and to cover it with a larger one. VINCENT AGAINST YORK, two heralds-at-arms. VINDICATE, avenge. VIRGE, wand, rod. VIRGINAL, old form of piano. VIRTUE, valour. VIVELY, in lifelike manner, livelily. VIZARD, mask. VOGUE, rumour, gossip. VOICE, vote. VOID, leave, quit. VOLARY, cage, aviary. VOLLEY, "at--," "o' the volee," at random (from a term of tennis). VORLOFFE, furlough. WADLOE, keeper of the Devil Tavern, where Jonson and his friends met in the 'Apollo' room (Whalley). WAIGHTS, waits, night musicians, "band of musical watchmen" (Webster), or old form of "hautboys." WANNION, "vengeance," "plague" (Nares). WARD, a famous pirate. WARD, guard in fencing. WATCHET, pale, sky blue. WEAL, welfare. WEED, garment. WEFT, waif. WEIGHTS, "to the gold--," to every minute particular. WELKIN, sky. WELL-SPOKEN, of fair speech. WELL-TORNED, turned and polished, as on a wheel. WELT, hem, border of fur. WHER, whether. WHETSTONE, GEORGE, an author who lived 1544(?) to 1587(?). WHIFF, a smoke, or drink; "taking the--," inhaling the tobacco smoke or some such accomplishment. WHIGH-HIES, neighings, whinnyings. WHIMSY, whim, "humour." WHINILING, (?) whining, weakly. WHIT, (?) a mere jot. WHITEMEAT, food made of milk or eggs. WICKED, bad, clumsy. WICKER, pliant, agile. WILDING, esp. fruit of wild apple or crab tree (Webster). WINE, "I have the--for you," Prov.: I have the perquisites (of the office) which you are to share (Cunningham). WINNY, "same as old word "wonne," to stay, etc." (Whalley). WISE-WOMAN, fortune-teller. WISH, recommend. WISS (WUSSE), "I--," certainly, of a truth. WITHOUT, beyond. WITTY, cunning, ingenious, clever. WOOD, collection, lot. WOODCOCK, term of contempt. WOOLSACK ("--pies"), name of tavern. WORT, unfermented beer. WOUNDY, great, extreme. WREAK, revenge. WROUGHT, wrought upon. WUSSE, interjection. (See Wiss). YEANLING, lamb, kid. ZANY, an inferior clown, who attended upon the chief fool and mimicked his tricks. 
45749	----	A CHANGE OF AIR [Illustration: ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.] A CHANGE OF AIR. BY ANTHONY HOPE AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," ETC. [Illustration] NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1894 COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY HENRY HOLT & CO. THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE "ANTHONY HOPE", vii I. A MISSION TO THE HEATHEN, 1 II. THE NEW MAN AT LITTLEHILL, 7 III. DENBOROUGH DETERMINES TO CALL, 16 IV. A QUIET SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 26 V. THE NECESSARY SCAPEGOAT, 36 VI. LITTLEHILL GOES INTO SOCIETY, 47 VII. "TO A PRETTY SAINT," 57 VIII. AN INDISCREET DISCIPLE, 67 IX. DALE'S OWN OPINION, 77 X. A PREJUDICED VERDICT, 87 XI. A FABLE ABOUT BIRDS, 98 XII. A DEDICATION--AND A DESECRATION, 106 XIII. THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF GENIUS, 114 XIV. MR. DELANE LIKES THE IDEA, 123 XV. HOW IT SEEMED TO THE DOCTOR, 132 XVI. "NO MORE KINGS," 141 XVII. DALE TRIES HIS HAND AT AN ODE, 153 XVIII. DELILAH JOHNSTONE, 161 XIX. A WELL-PAID POEM, 169 XX. AN EVENING'S END, 177 XXI. "THE OTHER GIRL DID," 183 XXII. THE FITNESS OF THINGS, 191 XXIII. A MORBID SCRUPLE, 200 XXIV. THE HEROINE OF THE INCIDENT, 208 XXV. THE SCENE OF THE OUTRAGE, 219 XXVI. AGAINST HER BETTER JUDGMENT, 229 XXVII. A VILLAIN UNMASKED, 237 XXVIII. A VISION, 245 "ANTHONY HOPE." In his speech at the annual banquet of the Royal Academy in 1894, among many other good things, Mr. Andrew Lang said: "The thrifty plan of giving us sermons, politics, fiction, all in one stodgy sandwich, produces no permanent literature, produces but temporary 'tracts for the times.' Fortunately we have among us many novelists--young ones, luckily--who are true to the primitive and eternal, the Fijian canons of fiction. We have Oriental romance from the author of 'Plain Tales from the Hills.' We have the humor and tenderness--certainly not Fijian, I admit--which produces that masterpiece 'A Window in Thrums'; we have the adventurous fancy that gives us 'A Gentleman of France,' 'The Master of Ballantrae,' 'Micah Clarke,' 'The Raiders,' 'The Prisoner of Zenda.'" The last of these books was by Anthony Hope Hawkins, whom Mr. Lang thus classed among potential immortals. This romance has made him within the last three months fairly famous. Walter Besant, too, has stamped it with his high approval, and the English and American press have been unusually unanimous in their praise. Its hero is a rare and striking figure, and thoroughly represents the ideal soldier of our Anglo-Saxon race. He faces great dangers and does brave deeds, quietly and quickly. He suffers and loves deeply, but says little. In his portrayal, the possibilities of "repressed emotion" have been startlingly indicated. He appeals to Americans and English far more than the swaggering and loquacious, though more historic heroes of Dumas and his school ever can. Much curiosity has been excited regarding "Anthony Hope." The author's methods of composition and what may have suggested the very original plot are as yet unknown. Besides what we may get from his portrait, we are told that he is "a tall, thin, dark man, with a face that would be ascetic if it were not bubbling with humor." He is a lawyer, as other good romancers have been before him, and has chambers in the Middle Temple, a place made famous in fiction by Thackeray and on the stage by Pinero. His profession and politics are his chief concerns, and literature a diversion in his leisure hours. He is an extremely modest man, and in response to a request from his American publishers for autobiographical matter, gave the barest facts of his life. He expressed absolutely no opinion on literary canons or on his own work. There was, however, a rare sincerity and cordiality in his letters. Anthony Hope Hawkins was born in 1863, his father being the Rev. E. C. Hawkins of St. Brides, Fleet Street, London. He was educated at Marlborough, and at Balliol College, Oxford, of which he was a scholar. At Oxford, he was a hard worker and obtained first classes in Classical Moderations and in the School of Litteræ Humaniores, commonly known as "Greats." At this university, where he attained the degree of M. A. some eight years ago, he began to show an aptitude for public life, was a striking figure among his contemporaries, and became president of the Union. In 1892 he stood as a Liberal candidate for a seat in Parliament from the southern division of Buckinghamshire, but was defeated by Viscount Curzon. His first book, "A Man of Mark," was published in 1890, and was followed next year by "Father Stafford," an interesting study of an Anglican priest's struggles between love and sense of obligation to his vow of celibacy. The pictures of his cheerless ascetic life are marked by the sincerity conspicuous in Mr. Hawkins' later books. Some very thoughtful conversations on art and on religion are introduced. In 1892 appeared "Mr. Witt's Widow, a Frivolous Tale" of a lady who had "harmonious contrasts," such as dark eyes and golden hair. It foreshadows the power in plot-making that characterizes our author's later works. In the spring of 1893 appeared "Sport Royal," a collection of Mr. Hawkins' short stories, mostly from the _St. James' Gazette_. In "Half a Hero," published last year, there are several foreshadowings of "The Prisoner of Zenda." In both stories the scene is imaginary, but given realism by characteristics respectively of New Zealand and of Germany; in both intrigues and heroism are conspicuous, though in the latter the author did not adopt the old device of giving his hero some bad qualities to make him human. "Half a Hero" contains much firm, crisp character-drawing, and a strong love interest, but has the slight taint of the "purpose novel," already noted in Father Stafford; in this case, the discussion being politics, especially the "labor" element. Anthony Hope inherited refinement through a father in an exalted calling; he used his college advantages to the utmost, and now his interests are in living public affairs, and in his chosen calling as a lawyer, he has good opportunities to study life, and seems already to have well mastered the best elements of Anglo-Saxon character. From his work, he appears to have read widely and with a sympathetic eye for the merits of markedly diverse writers, which he seems to make his own. His style has the terseness and suggestiveness characteristic of Kipling, but without his harshness, and at times he shows a sense of beauty almost worthy of our own Hawthorne, and withal the military dash and snap of Lever. It would be strange if the foundation for the remarkably life-like colonists of "Half a Hero," and the German officers of "The Prisoner of Zenda," had had not been laid by travel and the observation of their more or less remote prototypes. "A Change of Air," while containing much of its humor and snap, furnishes a marked contrast to "The Prisoner of Zenda," and is in a more serious vein, having a strong and tragic undercurrent, and not without an element of peril. Confining its occurrences pretty severely to the possible and generally probable, it nevertheless is highly original. Dale Bannister, the wild young poet, who commences by thoroughly scandalizing Market Denborough, is a most picturesque and uncommon character. The effect of his early principles on his later life is deftly indicated. The story moves on steadily, and while it teaches a lesson of moderation and charity, it does so entirely by the acts and thoughts of the characters without any sermonizing on the part of the author. Some good authorities that have seen this book place it even above "The Prisoner of Zenda," which we probably shall see on the stage next year, as the author has a friend busily engaged on its dramatization. R. H. _July, 1894._ A CHANGE OF AIR. CHAPTER I. =A Mission to the Heathen.= When the Great King, that mirror of a majesty whereof modern times have robbed the world, recoiled aghast from the threatened indignity of having to wait, he laid his finger with a true touch on a characteristic incident of the lot of common men, from which it was seemly that the state of God's Vicegerents should be free. It was a small matter, no doubt, a thing of manners merely, and etiquette; yet manners and etiquette are first the shadowed expression of facts and then the survival of them; the reverence once paid to power, and now accorded, in a strange mixture of chivalry and calculation, to mere place whence power has fled. The day of vicegerents is gone, and the day of officers has come; and it is not unknown that officers should have to wait, or even--such is the insolence, no longer of office, but of those who give it--should altogether go without. Yet, although everybody has now to wait, everybody has not to wait the same length of time. For example, a genius needs not wait so long for what he wants as a fool--unless, as chances now and then, he be both a genius and a fool, when probably his waiting will be utterly without end. In a small flat in Chelsea, very high toward heaven, there sat one evening in the summer, two young men and a genius; and the younger of the young men, whose name was Arthur Angell, said discontentedly to the genius: "The brute only sent me ten and sixpence. What did you get for yours?" The genius blushed and murmured apologetically: "That agent chap I've sold myself to got twenty pounds for it." The second young man, who was not so young, being, in fact, well turned of thirty, and growing bald, took his pipe out of his mouth, and, pointing the stem first at the genius, then at Arthur Angell, and lastly, like a knife, at his own breast, said: "Pounds--shillings--and pence. He sent me nothing at all." A pause followed, and the genius began: "Look here, you fellows----" But Philip Hume went on: "Ten and sixpence is a good sum of money, a comfortable sum of money, and, my dear Arthur, I should say the full value of your poem. As to Dale's poem, who knows the value of Dale's poem? By what rod shall you measure----" He broke off with a laugh at Dale's gesture of protest. "I'm making the deuce of a lot of money," said Dale in an awestruck tone. "It's rolling in. I don't know what to do with it." "Littlehill will swallow it," said Philip. "You don't mean that he sticks to that idea?" exclaimed Arthur. "You don't, do you, Dale?" "I do," answered Dale. "I'm not going permanently. I'm not going to forsake our old ways or our old life. I'm not going to turn into a rich man." "I hope not, by Jove!" cried Arthur. "But I want to see the country--I've not seen it for years. And I want to see country people, and--and----" "It'll end in our losing you," prophesied Arthur gloomily. "Nonsense!" said Dale, flushing a little. "It'll end in nothing of the sort. I've only taken the house for a year." "A gentleman's residence," said Philip; "five sitting rooms, twelve bedrooms, offices, stabling, and three acres of grounds." Arthur groaned. "It sounds a villa all over," he said. "Not at all," said Dale sharply; "it's a country house." "Is there any difference?" asked Arthur scornfully. "All the difference," said Philip; "as you would know if you moved in anything approaching respectable circles." "I'm glad I don't," said Arthur. "What will respectable circles say to 'The Clarion,' eh, Dale?" "Who cares what they say?" laughed Dale. "They seem to buy it." Arthur looked at him with revengeful eye, and suddenly inquired. "What about Nellie?" "That's just the delightful part of it," answered Dale eagerly. "Nellie's been seedy ever so long, you know. She was ordered perfect rest and country air. But it didn't run to it." "It never ran to anything here," said Philip in a tone of dispassionate acquiescence in facts, "till you became famous." "Now I can help!" pursued Dale. "She and Mrs. Hodge are coming to pay me a long visit. Of course, Phil's going to be there permanently. You'll come too, Arthur?" At first Arthur Angell said he would not go near a villa; he could not breath in a villa; or sleep quiet o' nights in a villa; but presently he relented. "I can't stand it for long, though," he said. "Still, I'm glad you're going to have Nellie there. She'd have missed you awfully. When do you go?" "Actually, to-morrow. I'm not used to it yet." Arthur shook his head again, as he put on his hat. "Well, good-night," said he. "I hope it's all right." Dale waited till the door was closed behind his guest, and then laughed good-humoredly. "I like old Arthur," he said. "He's so keen and in earnest about it. But it's all bosh. What difference can it make whether I live in London or the country? And it's only for a little while." "He begins to include you in the well-to-do classes, and suspects you accordingly," replied Philip. There was a knock at the door, and a pretty girl came in. "Oh, I ran up," she said, "to ask whether this hat would do for Denshire. I don't want to disgrace you, Dale;" and she held up a hat she carried in her hand. "It would do for Paradise," said Dale. "Besides, there isn't going to be any difference at all in Denshire. We are going to be and do and dress just as we are and do and dress here. Aren't we, Phil?" "That is the scheme," said Philip. "We shall care for no one's opinion," pursued Dale, warming to his subject. "We shall be absolutely independent. We shall show them that their way of living is not the only way of living. We----" "In fact, Nellie," interrupted Philip, "we shall open their eyes considerably. So we flatter ourselves." "It's not that at all," protested Dale. "You can't help it, Dale," said Nellie, smiling brightly at him. "Of course they will open their eyes at the great Mr. Bannister. We all open our eyes at him, don't we, Mr. Hume? Well, then, the hat will do--as a week-day hat, I mean?" "A week-day hat?" repeated Philip. "Dear old phrase! It recalls one's happy church-going youth. Have you also provided a Sunday hat?" "Of course, Mr. Hume." "And, Dale, have you a Sunday coat?" Dale laughed. "It's a pretty excuse for pretty things, Phil," he said. "Let Nellie have her Sunday hat. I doubt if they'll let me into the church." Philip stretched out his hand and took up a glass of whisky and water which stood near him. "I drink to the success of the expedition!" said he. "To the success of our mission!" cried Dale gayly, raising his glass. "We will spread the light!" "Here's to Dale Bannister, apostle _in partibus_!" and Philip drank the toast. CHAPTER II. =The New Man at Littlehill.= Market Denborough is not a large town. Perhaps it is none the worse for that, and, if it be, there is compensation to be found in its picturesqueness, its antiquity, and its dignity; for there has been a town where it stands from time immemorial; it makes a great figure in county histories and local guidebooks; it is an ancient corporation, an assize town, and quarter-sessions borough. It does not grow, for country towns, dependent solely on the support of the rural districts surrounding, are not given to growing much nowadays. Moreover, the Delanes do not readily allow new houses to be built, and if a man lives in Market Denborough, he must be a roofless vagrant or a tenant of Mr. Delane. It is not the place to make a fortune; but, on the other hand, unusual recklessness is necessary to the losing of one there. If the triumphs of life are on a small scale, the struggle for existence is not very fierce, and a wise man might do worse than barter the uncertain chances and precarious joys of a larger stage, to play a modest, easy, quiet part on the little boards of Market Denborough. It must not, however, be supposed that the lion and the lamb have quite sunk their differences and lain down together at Market Denborough. There, as elsewhere, the millennium tarries, and there are not wanting fierce feuds, personal, municipal, nay, even, within the wide limits of Mr. Delane's tolerance, political. If it were not so, the Mayor would not have been happy, for the Mayor loved a fight; and Alderman Johnstone, who was a Radical, would have felt his days wasted; and the two gentlemen would not have been, as they continually were, at loggerheads concerning paving contracts and kindred subjects. There was no want of interests in life, if a man were ready to take his own part and keep a sharp eye on the doings of his neighbor. Besides, the really great events of existence happened at Market Denborough much as they do in London; people were born, and married, and died; and while that rotation is unchecked, who can be seriously at a loss for matter of thought or topic of conversation? As Mr. James Roberts, member of the Royal College of Surgeons, a thin young man, with restless eyes and tight-shut lips, walked down High Street one hot, sunny afternoon, it never entered his head that there was not enough to think about in Market Denborough. Wife and child, rent, rates and taxes, patients and prescriptions, the relation between those old enemies, incomings and outgoings, here was food enough for any man's meditations. Enough? Ay, enough and to spare of such distasteful, insipid, narrow, soul-destroying stuff. Mr., or, to give him the brevet rank all the town gave him. Dr. Roberts, hated these sordid, imperious interests that gathered round him and hemmed him in, shutting out all else--all dreams of ambition, all dear, long-harbored schemes, all burning enthusiasms, even all chance of seeking deeper knowledge and more commanding skill. Sadly and impatiently the doctor shook his head, trying to put his visions on one side, and nail his mind down to its work. His first task was to turn three hundred pounds a year into six hundred pounds. It was hard it should be so, and he chafed against necessity, forgetting, as perhaps he pardonably might, that the need was the price he paid for wife and child. Yes, it was hard; but so it was. If only more people would be--no, but if only more people who were ill would call in Dr. Roberts! Then he could keep two horses, and not have to "pad the hoof," as he phrased it to himself, about sweltering streets or dusty lanes all the long afternoon, because his one pony was tired out with carrying him in the morning to Dirkham, a village five miles off, where he was medical officer at a salary of forty pounds by the year. That was forty, and Ethel had a hundred, and the profits from his paying patients (even if you allowed for the medicine consumed by those who did not pay) were about a hundred and fifty. But then the bills---- Oh, well, he must go on. The second horse must wait, and that other dream of his, having an assistant, that must wait, too. If he had an assistant, he would have some leisure for research, for reading, for studying the political and social questions where his real and engrossing interest lay. He could then take his part in the mighty work of rousing---- Here his meditations were interrupted. He had reached, in his progress down the street, a large plate-glass-windowed shop, the shop of a chemist, and of no less a man than Mr. James Hedger, Mayor of Market Denborough. The member of the lower branch of their common art was a richer man than he who belonged to the higher, and when Mr. Hedger was playfully charged with giving the young Doctor his medicines cheap, he never denied the accusation. Anyhow, the two were good friends, and the Mayor, who was surveying his dominions from his doorstep, broke in on Dr. Roberts' train of thought with a cheerful greeting. "Have you heard the news?" he asked. "No; I've no time for the news. I always look to you for it, Mr. Mayor." "It mostly comes round to me, being a center, like," said the Mayor. "It's natural." "Well, what is it this time?" asked the Doctor, calling up a show of interest. He did not care much for Denborough news. "Littlehill's let," replied the Mayor. Littlehill, the subject of Philip Hume's half-ironical description, was a good house, standing on rising ground about half a mile outside the town. It belonged, of course, to Mr. Delane, and had stood empty for more than a year. A tenant at Littlehill meant an increase of custom for the tradespeople, and perchance for the doctors. Hence the importance of the Mayor's piece of news. "Indeed?" said Roberts. "Who's taken it?" "Not much good--a young man, a bachelor," said the Mayor, shaking his head. Bachelors do not require, or anyhow do not take, many chemist's drugs. "Still, I hear he's well off, and p'r'aps he'll have people to stop with him." "What's his name?" "Some name like Bannister. He's from London." "What's he coming here for?" asked Roberts, who, if he had been a well-to-do bachelor, would not have settled at Market Denborough. "Why shouldn't he?" retorted the Mayor, who had never lived, or thought of living, anywhere else. "Well, I shouldn't have thought he'd have found much to do. He wouldn't come in the summer for the hunting." "Hunting? Not he! He's a literary gentleman--writes poetry and what not." "Poetry? Why, it's not Dale Bannister, is it?" "Ay, that's the name." "Dale Bannister coming to Littlehill! That is an honor for the town!" "An honor? What do you mean, sir?" "Why, he's a famous man, Mr. Mayor. All London's talking of him." "I never heard his name in my life before," said the Mayor. "Oh, he's a genius. His poems are all the rage. You'll have to read them now." "He's having a lot done up there," remarked the Mayor. "Johnstone's got the job. Mr. Bannister don't know as much about Johnstone as some of us." "How should he?" said Roberts, smiling. "Johnstone's buildin' 'im a room. It'll tumble down." "Oh, come, Mr. Mayor, you're prejudiced." "No man can say that of me, sir. But I knows--I know Johnstone, Doctor. That's where it is!" "Well, I hope Johnstone's room won't fall on him. We can't spare Dale Bannister. Good-day, Mr. Mayor." "Where are you goin'?" "To Tom Steadman's." "Is he bad again?" inquired the Mayor, with interest. "Yes. He broke out last week, with the usual result." "Broke out? Yes! He had two gallons of beer and a bottle o' gin off the 'Blue Lion' in one day, the landlord told me." "They ought to go to prison for serving him." "Well, well, a man drinks or he don't," said the Mayor tolerantly; "and if he does, he'll get it some'ow. Good-day, sir." The Doctor completed his rounds, including the soothing of Tom Steadman's distempered imagination, and made his way home in quite a flutter of excitement. Hidden away in his study, underneath heavy medical works and voluminous medical journals, where the eye of patients could not reach, nor the devastations of them that tidy disturb, lay the two or three little volumes which held Dale Bannister's poems. The Doctor would not have admitted that the poems were purposely concealed, but he certainly did not display them ostentatiously, and he undoubtedly told his wife, with much decision, that he was sure they would not prove to her taste. Yet he himself almost worshiped them; all the untamed revolt, the recklessness of thought, the scorn of respectability, the scant regard to what the world called propriety, which he had nourished in his own heart in his youth, finding no expression for them, and from which the binding chains of fate seemed now forever to restrain his spirit, were in those three slim volumes. First came "The Clarion and other Poems," a very small book, published by a very small firm--published for the author, though the Doctor did not know this, and circulated at the expense of the same; then "Sluggards," from a larger firm, the source of some few guineas to Dale Bannister, of hundreds more if he had not sold his copyright; and lastly, "The Hypocrite's Heaven," quite a lengthy production, blazoning the name of the leading house of all the trade, and bearing in its train a wealth of gold, and praise, and fame for the author: yes, and of rebuke, remonstrance, blame, and hands uplifted in horror at so much vice united to so much genius. Praise and rebuke alike brought new bricks to build the pyramid of glory; and on the top of it, an object of abhorrence and of worship, stood the young poet, prodigally scattering songs, which, as one critic of position said of them, should never have been written, but being written, could never die. Certainly the coming of such a man to settle there was an event for Market Denborough; it was a glorious chance for the poet's silent, secret disciple. He would see the man; he might speak with him; if fortune willed, his name might yet be known, for no merit of his, but as that of Dale Bannister's friend. Women have very often, and the best of women most often, a provoking sedateness of mind. Mrs. Roberts had never read the poems. True, but she had, of course, read about them, and about their author, and about their certain immortality; yet she was distinctly more interested in the tidings of Tom Steadman, a wretched dipsomaniac, than in the unparalleled news about Dale Bannister. In her heart she thought the Doctor a cleverer, as she had no doubt he was a better, man than the poet, and the nearest approach she made to grasping the real significance of the situation was when she remarked: "It will be nice for him to find one man, at all events, who can appreciate him." The Doctor smiled; he was pleased--who would not be?--that his wife should think first of the pleasure Dale Bannister would find in his society. It was absurd, but it was charming of her, and as she sat on the edge of his chair, he put his arm round his waist and said: "I beat him in one thing, anyhow." "What's that, Jim?" "My wife. He has no wife like mine." "Has he a wife at all?" asked Mrs. Roberts, with increased interest. A wife was another matter. "I believe not, but if he had----" "Don't be silly. Did you leave Tom quiet?" "Hang Tom! he deserves it. And give me my tea." Then came the baby, and with it an end, for the time, of Dale Bannister. CHAPTER III. =Denborough Determines to Call.= "I will awake the world," Dale Bannister had once declared in the insolence of youth and talent and the privacy of a gathering of friends. The boast was perhaps as little absurd in his mouth as it could ever be; yet it was very absurd, for the world sleeps hard, and habit has taught it to slumber peacefully through the batterings of impatient genius at its door. At the most, it turns uneasily on its side, and, with a curse at the meddlesome fellow, snores again. So Dale Bannister did not awake the world. But, within a month of his coming to Littlehill, he performed an exploit which was, though on a smaller scale, hardly less remarkable. He electrified Market Denborough, and the shock penetrated far out into the surrounding districts of Denshire--even Denshire, which, remote from villas and season-tickets, had almost preserved pristine simplicity. Men spoke with low-voiced awe and appreciative twinkling of the eye of the "doings" at Littlehill: their wives thought that they might be better employed; and their children hung about the gates to watch the young man and his guests come out. There was disappointment when no one came to church from Littlehill; yet there would have been disappointment if anyone had: it would have jarred with the fast-growing popular conception of the household. To the strictness of Denborough morality, by which no sin was leniently judged save drunkenness, Littlehill seemed a den of jovial wickedness, and its inhabitants to reck nothing of censure, human or divine. As might be expected by all who knew him, the Mayor had no hand in this hasty and uncharitable judgment. London was no strange land to him; he went up four times a year to buy his stock; London ways were not Denshire ways, he admitted, but, for all that, they were not to be condemned offhand nor interpreted in the worst light without some pause for better knowledge. "It takes all sorts to make a world," said he, as he drank his afternoon draught at the "Delane Arms," where the civic aristocracy was wont to gather. "He's free enough and to spare with 'is money," said Alderman Johnstone, with satisfaction. "You ought to know, Johnstone," remarked the Mayor significantly. "Well, I didn't see no 'arm in him," said Mr. Maggs, the horse-dealer, a rubicund man of pleasant aspect; "and he's a rare 'un to deal with." Interest centered on Mr. Maggs. Apparently he had spoken with Dale Bannister. "He's half crazy, o' course," continued that gentleman, "but as pleasant-spoken, 'earty a young gent as I've seen." "Is he crazy?" asked the girl behind the bar. "Well, what do you say? He came down a day or two ago, 'e and 'is friend, Mr. 'Ume----" "Hume," said the Mayor, with emphasis. The Mayor, while occasionally following the worse, saw the better way. "Yes, 'Ume. Mr. Bannister wanted a 'orse. 'What's your figger, sir?' says I. He took no notice, but began looking at me with 'is eyes wide open, for all the world as if I'd never spoke. Then he says, 'I want a 'orse, broad-backed and fallen in the vale o' years.' Them was 'is very words." "You don't say?" said the girl. "I never knowed what he meant, no more than that pint-pot; but Mr. 'Ume laughed and says, 'Don't be a fool, Dale,' and told me that Mr. Bannister couldn't ride no more than a tailor--so he said--and wanted a steady, quiet 'orse. He got one from me--four-and-twenty years old, warranted not to gallop. I see 'im on her to day--and it's lucky she is quiet." "Can't he ride?" "No more than"--a fresh simile failed Mr. Maggs, and he concluded again--"that pint-pot. But Mr. 'Ume can. 'E's a nice set on a 'orse." The Mayor had been meditating. He was a little jealous of Mr. Maggs' superior intimacy with the distinguished stranger, or perhaps it was merely that he was suddenly struck with a sense of remissness in his official duties. "I think," he announced, "of callin' on him and welcomin' him to the town." There was a chorus of approbation, broken only by a sneer from Alderman Johnstone. "Ay, and take 'im a bottle of that cod-liver oil of yours at two-and-three. 'E can afford it." "Not after payin' your bill, Johnstone," retorted the Mayor, with a triumphant smile. A neat repartee maketh glad the heart of the utterer. The establishment at Littlehill and the proper course to be pursued in regard to it were also the subject of consideration in circles more genteel even than that which gathered at the "Delane Arms." At Dirkham Grange itself the topic was discussed, and Mr. Delane was torn with doubts whether his duty as landlord called upon him to make Dale Bannister's acquaintance, or his duty as custodian-general of the laws and proprieties of life in his corner of the world forbade any sanction being given to a household of which such reports were on the wing. People looked to the Squire, as he was commonly called, for guidance in social matters, and he was aware of the responsibility under which he lay. If he called at Littlehill, half the county would be likely enough to follow his example. And perhaps it might not be good for half the county to know Dale Bannister. "I must consider the matter," he said at breakfast. "Well, one does hear strange things," remarked Mrs. Delane. "And aren't his poems very odd, George?" The Squire had not accorded to the works referred to a very close study, but he answered offhand: "Yes, I hear so; not at all sound in tone. But then, my dear, poets have a standard of their own." "Of course, there was Byron," said Mrs. Delane. "And perhaps we mustn't be too hard on him," pursued the Squire. "He's a very young man, and no doubt has considerable ability." "I dare say he has never met anybody." "I'm sure, papa," interposed Miss Janet Delane, "that it would have a good effect on him to meet us." Mr. Delane smiled at his daughter. "Would you like to know him, Jan?" he asked. "Of course I should! He wouldn't be dull, at all events, like most of the men about here, Tora Smith said the Colonel meant to call." "Colonel Smith is hardly in your father's position, my dear." "Oh, since old Smith had his row with the War Office about that pension, he'll call on anybody who's for upsetting everything. It's enough for him that a man's a Radical." "Tora means to go, too," said Janet. "Poor child! It's a pity she hasn't a mother," said Mrs. Delane. "I think I shall go. We can drop him if he turns out badly." "Very well, my dear, as you think best." "I'll walk over on Sunday. I don't suppose he objects to Sunday calls." "Not on the ground that he wants to go to church, at all events," remarked Mrs. Delane. "Perhaps he goes to chapel, mamma." "Oh, no, my dear, he doesn't do that." Mrs. Delane was determined to be just. "Well, he was the son of a Dissenting minister, mamma. The _Critic_ said so." "I wonder what his father thinks of him," said the Squire, with a slight chuckle, not knowing that death had spared Dale's father all chance of trouble on his son's score. "Mrs. Roberts told me," said Janet, "that her husband had been to see him, and liked him awfully." "I think Roberts had better have waited," the Squire remarked, with a little frown. "In his position he ought to be very careful what he does." "Oh, it will be all right if you call, papa." "It would have been better if he had let me go first." Mr. Delane spoke with some severity. Apart from his position of overlord of Denborough, which, indeed, he could not but feel was precarious in these innovating days, he thought he had special claims to be consulted by the Doctor. He had taken him up; his influence had gained him his appointment at Dirkham and secured him the majority of his more wealthy _clientèle_; his good will had opened to the young unknown man the doors of the Grange, and to his wife the privilege of considerable intimacy with the Grange ladies. It was certainly a little hasty in the Doctor not to wait for a lead from the Grange, before he flung himself into Dale Bannister's arms. All these considerations were urged by Janet in her father's defense when his title to approve, disapprove, or in any way concern himself with Dr. Roberts' choice of friends and associates was vigorously questioned by Tora Smith. Colonel Smith--he had been Colonel Barrington-Smith, but he did not see now what a man wanted with two names--was, since his difference with the authorities, a very strong Radical; on principle he approved of anything of which his friends and neighbors were likely on principle to disapprove. Among other such things, he approved of Dale Bannister's views and works, and of the Doctor's indifference to Mr. Delane's opinion. And, just as Janet was more of a Tory than her father, Tora--she had been unhappily baptized in the absurd names of Victoria Regina in the loyal days before the grievance; but nothing was allowed to survive of them which could possibly be dropped--was more Radical than her father, and she ridiculed the Squire's pretensions with an extravagance which Sir Harry Fulmer, who was calling at the Smiths' when Janet came in, thought none the less charming for being very unreasonable. Sir Harry, however, suppressed his opinion on both these points--as to its being charming, because matters had not yet reached the stage when he could declare it, and as to its being unreasonable, because he was by hereditary right the head of the Liberal party in the district, and tried honestly to live up to the position by a constant sacrifice of his dearest prejudices on the altar of progress. "I suppose," he said in reply to an appeal from Tora, "that a man has a right to please himself in such things." "After all papa has done for him! Besides, Sir Harry, you know a doctor ought to be particularly careful." "What is there so dreadful about Mr. Bannister?" asked Tora. "He looks very nice." "Have you seen him, Tora?" asked Janet eagerly. "Yes; we met him riding on such a queer old horse. He looked as if he was going to tumble off every minute; he can't ride a bit. But he's awfully handsome." "What's he like?" "Oh, tall, not very broad, with beautiful eyes, and a lot of waving auburn hair; he doesn't wear it clipped like a toothbrush. And he's got a long mustache, and a straight nose, and a charming smile. Hasn't he, Sir Harry?" "I didn't notice particularly. He's not a bad-looking chap. Looks a bit soft, though." "Soft? why, he's a tremendous genius, papa says." "I didn't mean that; I mean flabby and out of training, you know." "Oh, he isn't always shooting or hunting, of course," said Tora contemptuously. "I don't suppose," remarked Janet, "that in his position of life,--well, you know, Tora, he's of quite humble birth,--he ever had the chance." "He's none the worse for that," said Sir Harry stoutly. "The worse? I think he's the better. Papa is going to ask him here." "You're quite enthusiastic, Tora." "I love to meet new people. One sees the same faces year after year in Denshire." Sir Harry felt that this remark was a little unkind. "I like old friends," he said, "better than new ones." Janet rose to go. "We must wait and hear papa's report," she said, as she took her leave. Tora Smith escorted her to the door, kissed her, and, returning, said, with a snap of her fingers: "I don't care that for 'papa's report.' Jan is really too absurd." "It's nice to see her----" "Oh, delightful. I hate dutiful people!" "You think just as much of your father." "We happen to agree in our opinions, but papa always tells me to use my own judgment. Are you going to see Mr. Bannister?" "Yes, I think so. He won't hurt me, and he may subscribe to the hunt." "No; he may even improve you." "Do I want it so badly, Miss Smith?" "Yes. You're a weak-kneed man." "Oh, I say! Look here, you must help me." "Perhaps I will, if Mr. Bannister is not too engrossing." "Now you're trying to draw me." "Was I? And yet you looked pleased. Perhaps you think it a compliment." "Isn't it one? It shows you think it worth while to----" "It shows nothing of the kind," said Tora decisively. Thus, for one reason or another, from one direction and another, there was converging on Littlehill a number of visitors. If your neighbor excites curiosity, it is a dull imagination that finds no plausible reason for satisfying it. Probably there was more in common than at first sight appeared between Mr. Delane's sense of duty, the Mayor's idea of official courtesy, Colonel Smith's contempt for narrowness of mind, Sir Harry Fulmer's care for the interests of the hunt, and Dr. Roberts' frank and undisguised eagerness to see and speak with Dale Bannister face to face. CHAPTER IV. =A Quiet Sunday Afternoon.= To dissolve public report into its component parts is never a light task. Analysis, as a rule, reveals three constituents: truth, embroidery, and mere falsehood; but the proportions vary infinitely. Denborough, which went to bed, to a man, at ten o'clock, or so soon after as it reached home from the public house, said that the people at Littlehill sat up very late; this was truth, at least relative truth, and that is all we can expect here. It said that they habitually danced and sang the night through; this was embroidery; they had once danced and sung the night through, when Dale had a party from London. It said that orgies--if the meaning of its nods, winks, and smiles may be summarized--went on at Littlehill; this was falsehood. Dale and his friends amused themselves, and it must be allowed that their enjoyment was not marred, but rather increased, by the knowledge that they did not command the respect of Denborough. They had no friends there. Why should they care for Denborough's approval? Denborough's approval was naught, whereas Denborough's disapproval ministered to the pleasure most of us feel in giving gentle shocks to our neighbors' sense of propriety. No doubt an electric eel enjoys itself. But, after all, if the mere truth must be told, they were mild sinners at Littlehill, the leading spirits, Dale and Arthur Angell, being indeed young men whose antinomianism found a harmless issue in ink, and whose lawlessness was best expressed in meter. A cynic once married his daughter to a professed atheist, on the ground that the man could not afford to be other than an exemplary husband and father. Poets are not trammeled so tight as that, for, as Mrs. Delane remarked, there was Byron, and perhaps one or two more; yet, for the most part, she who marries a poet has nothing worse than nerves to fear. But a little lawlessness will go a long way in the right place,--for example, lawn-tennis on Sunday in the suburbs,--and the Littlehill party extorted a gratifying meed of curiosity and frowns, which were not entirely undeserved by some of their doings, and were more than deserved by what was told of their doings. After luncheon on Sunday, Mr. Delane had a nap, as his commendable custom was. Then he took his hat and stick and set out for Littlehill. The Grange park stretches to the outskirts of the town, and borders in part on the grounds of Littlehill, so that the Squire had a pleasant walk under the cool shade of his own immemorial elms, and enjoyed the satisfaction of inspecting his own most excellent shorthorns. Reflecting on the elms and the shorthorns, and on the house, the acres, and the family that were his, he admitted that he had been born to advantages and opportunities such as fell to the lot of a few men; and, inspired to charity by the distant church-bell sounding over the meadows, he acknowledged a corresponding duty of lenient judgment in respect of the less fortunate. Thus he arrived at Littlehill in a tolerant temper, and contented himself with an indulgent shake of the head when he saw the gravel fresh marked with horses' hoofs. "Been riding instead of going to church, the young rascals," he said to himself, as he rang the bell. A small, shrewd-faced man opened the door and ushered Mr. Delane into the hall. Then he stopped. "If you go straight on, sir," said he, "through that baize door, and across the passage, and through the opposite door, you will find Mr. Bannister." Mr. Delane's face expressed surprise. "Mr. Bannister, sir," the man explained, "don't like visitors being announced, sir. If you would be so kind as walk in----" It was a harmless whim, and the Squire nodded assent. He passed through the baize door, crossed the passage, and paused before opening the opposite door. The sounds which came from behind it arrested his attention. To the accompaniment of a gentle drumming noise, as if of sticks or umbrellas bumped against the floor, a voice was declaiming, or rather chanting, poetry. The voice rose and fell, and Mr. Delane could not distinguish the words, until it burst forth triumphantly with the lines: "Love grows hate for love's sake, life takes death for guide; Night hath none but one red star--Tyrannicide." "Good gracious!" said Mr. Delane. The voice dropped again for a few moments, then it hurled out: "Down the way of Tsars awhile in vain deferred, Bid the Second Alexander light the Third. How for shame shall men rebuke them? how may we Blame, whose fathers died and slew, to leave us free?" The voice was interrupted and drowned by the crash of the pianoforte, struck with remorseless force, and another voice, the voice of a woman, cried, rising even above the crash: "Now, one of your own, Dale." "I think I'd better go in," thought Mr. Delane, and he knocked loudly at the door. He was bidden to enter by the former of the two voices, and, going in, found himself in a billiard room. Five or six people sat round the wall on settees, each holding a cue, with which they were still gently strumming on the floor. A stout, elderly woman was at the piano, and a young man sat cross-legged in the middle of the billiard-table, with a book in one hand and a cigar in the other. There was a good deal of tobacco smoke in the room, and Mr. Delane did not at first distinguish the faces of the company. The young man on the table uncoiled himself with great agility, jumped down, and came forward to meet the newcomer with outstretched hands. As he outstretched them, he dropped the book and the cigar to the ground on either side of him. "Ah, here you are! Delightful of you to come!" he cried. "Now, let me guess you!" "Mr. Bannister?--Have I the pleasure?" "Yes, yes. Now let's see--don't tell me your name." He drew back a step, surveyed Mr. Delane's portly figure, his dignified carriage, his plain solid watch-chain, his square-toed strong boots. "The Squire!" he exclaimed. "Mr. Delane, isn't it?" "I am Mr. Delane." "Good! You don't mind being guessed, do you? It's so much more amusing. What will you have?" "Thank you, I've lunched, Mr. Bannister." "Have you? We've just breakfasted--had a ride before, you know. But I must introduce you." He searched the floor, picked up the cigar, looked at it regretfully, and threw it out of an open window. "This," he resumed, waving his hand toward the piano, "is Mrs. Ernest Hodge. This is Miss Fane, Mrs. Hodge's daughter--no, not by a first marriage; everybody suggests that. Professional name, you know--she sings. Hodge really wouldn't do, would it, Mrs. Hodge? This is Philip Hume. This is Arthur Angell, who writes verses--like me. This is--but I expect you know these gentlemen?" Mr. Delane peered through the smoke which Philip Hume was producing from a long pipe, and to his amazement discerned three familiar faces: those of Dr. Roberts, the Mayor, and Alderman Johnstone. The Doctor was flushed and looked excited; the Mayor was a picture of dignified complacency; Johnstone appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable, for his bald head was embellished with a flowery garland. Dale saw Mr. Delane's eyes rest on this article. "We always crown anybody who adds to our knowledge," he explained. "He gets a wreath of honor. The Alderman added to our knowledge of the expense of building a room. So Miss Fane crowned him." An appreciative chuckle from the Mayor followed this explanation; he knocked the butt of his cue against the floor, and winked at Philip Hume. The last-named, seeing that Mr. Delane was somewhat surprised at the company, came up to him and said: "Come and sit down; Dale never remembers that anybody wants a seat. Here's an armchair." Mr. Delane sat down next to Miss Fane, and noticed, even in his perturbation, that his neighbor was a remarkably pretty girl, with fair hair clustering in a thick mass on the nape of her neck, and large blue eyes which left gazing on Dale Bannister when their owner turned to greet him. Mr. Delane would have enjoyed talking to her, had not his soul been vexed at the presence of the three Denborough men. One did not expect to meet the tradesmen of the town; and what business had the Doctor there? To spend Sunday in that fashion would not increase his popularity or his practice. And then that nonsense about the wreath! How undignified it was! it was even worse than yelling out Nihilistic verses by way of Sabbath amusement. "I shall get away as soon as I can," he thought, "and I shall say a word to the Doctor." He was called from his meditations by Miss Fane. She sat in a low chair with her feet on a stool, and now, tilting the chair back, she fixed her eyes on Mr. Delane, and asked: "Are you shocked?" No man likes to admit that he is shocked. "I am not, but many people would be." "I suppose you don't like meeting those men?" "Hedger is an honest man in his way of life. I have no great opinion of Johnstone." "This is your house, isn't it?" "Yes." "All the houses about here are yours, aren't they?" "Most of them are, Miss Fane." "Then you are a great man?" The question was put so simply that Mr. Delane could not suspect a sarcastic intent. "Only locally," he answered, smiling. "Have you any daughters?" she asked. "Yes; one." "What is she like?" "Fancy asking her father! I think Janet a beauty." "Fair or dark?" "Dark." "Dale likes dark girls. Tall or short?" "Tall." "Good eyes?" "I like them." "Oh, that'll do. Dale will like her;" and Miss Fane nodded reassuringly. Mr. Delane had not the heart to intimate his indifference to Dale Bannister's opinion of his daughter. "Do you know this country?" he asked, by way of conversation. "We've only been here a week, but we've ridden a good deal. We hold Dale on, you know." "You are on a visit to Mr. Bannister?" "Oh, yes, mother and I are here." Mr. Delane could not help wondering whether their presence was such a matter of course as her tone implied, but before he could probe the matter further, he heard Dale exclaim: "Oh, it's a wretched thing! Read it yourself, Roberts." "Mount him on the rostrum," cried the young man who had been presented to Mr. Delane as Arthur Angell, and who had hitherto been engaged in an animated discussion with the Doctor. Laughing, and only half resisting, the Doctor allowing himself to be hoisted on to the billiard-table, sat down, and announced in a loud voice: "'Blood for Blood': by Dale Bannister." The poem which bore this alarming title was perhaps the most outrageous of the author's works. It held up to ridicule and devoted to damnation every person and every institution which the Squire respected and worshiped. And the misguided young man declaimed it with sparkling eyes and emphasizing gestures, as though every wicked word of it were gospel. And to this man's charge were committed the wives and families of the citizens of Denborough! The Squire's self-respect demanded a protest. He rose with dignity, and went up to his host. "Good-by, Mr. Bannister." "What? you're not going yet? What? Does this stuff bore you?" "It does not bore me. But I must add--excuse an old-fashioned fellow--that it does something worse." "What? Oh, you're on the other side? Of course you are!" "Whatever side I was, I could not listen to that. As an older man, let me give you a word of advice." Dale lifted his hands in good-humored protest. "Sorry you don't like it," he said. "Shut up, Roberts! If I'd known, we wouldn't have had it. But it's true--true--true." The Doctor listened with sparkling eyes. "I must differ utterly; I must indeed. Good-by, Mr. Bannister. Hedger?" The Mayor started. "I am walking into the town. Come with me." The Mayor wavered. The Squire stood and waited for him. "I didn't think of goin' yet, Mr. Delane, sir." Dale watched the encounter with a smile. "Your wife will expect you," said the Squire. "Come along." The Mayor rose, ignoring Johnstone's grin and the amusement on the faces of the company. "I'll come and look you up," said Dale, pressing the Squire's hand warmly. "Oh, it's all right. Tastes differ. I'm not offended. I'll come some day this week." He showed them out, and, returning, said to the Doctor, "Roberts, you'll get into trouble." "Nonsense!" said the Doctor. "What business is it of his?" Dale had turned to Johnstone. "Good-by," said he abruptly. "We close at five." "I've 'ad a pleasant afternoon, sir." "It will be deducted from your bill," answered Dale. After ejecting Johnstone, he stood by the table, looking moodily at the floor. "What's the matter, Dale?" asked Miss Fane. "I suppose he thought we were beasts or lunatics." "Probably," said Philip Hume. "What then?" "Well, yes," answered Dale, smiling again. "You're quite right, Phil. What then?" CHAPTER V. =The Necessary Scapegoat.= If men never told their wives anything, the condition of society would no doubt be profoundly modified, though it is not easy to forecast the precise changes. If a guess may be hazarded, it is probable that much less good would be done, and some less evil said: the loss of matter of interest for half the world may be allowed to sway the balance in favor of the present practice--a practice so universal that Mr. Delane, the Mayor, and Alderman Johnstone, one and all, followed it by telling their wives about their Sunday afternoon at Littlehill. Dr. Roberts, it is true, gave a meager account to his wife, but the narratives of the other three amply filled the gaps he left, and, as each of them naturally dwelt on the most remarkable features of their entertainment, it may be supposed that the general impression produced in Market Denborough did not fall short of the truth in vividness of color. The facts as to what occurred have been set down without extenuation and without malice: the province of Market Denborough society was to supply the inferences arising therefrom, and this task it fulfilled with no grudging hand. Before eight-and-forty hours had passed, there were reports that the Squire had discovered a full-blown Saturnalia in process at Littlehill--and that in these scandalous proceedings the Mayor, Alderman Johnstone, and Dr. Roberts were participators. Then ensued conduct on the part of the Mayor and the Alderman deserving of unmeasured scorn. They could not deny that dreadful things had been done and said, though they had not seen the deeds nor understood the words: their denial would have had no chance of credit. They could not venture to say that Squire Delane had done anything except manfully protest. They began by accusing one another in round terms, but each found himself so vulnerable that by an unholy tacit compact they agreed to exonerate one another. The Mayor allowed that Johnstone was not conspicuous in wickedness; Johnstone admitted that the Mayor had erred, if at all, only through weakness and good-nature. Public opinion demanded a sacrifice; and the Doctor was left to satisfy it. Everybody was of one mind in holding that Dr. Roberts had disgraced himself, and nobody was surprised to hear that the Squire's phaeton had been seen standing at his door for half an hour on Wednesday morning. The Squire was within, and was understood to be giving the Doctor a piece of his mind. The Doctor was stiff-necked. "It is entirely a private matter," said he, "and no one has a right to dictate to me." "My dear Roberts, I spoke merely in your own interest. It would ruin you if it became known that you held those atrocious opinions; and become known it must, if you openly ally yourself with this young man." "I am not the servant of the people I attend. I may choose my own opinions." "Yes, and they may choose their own doctor," retorted the Squire. The two parted, almost quarreling. Perhaps they would have quite quarreled had not the Squire thought of Mrs. Roberts and the baby. He wondered that the Doctor did not think of them, too, but he seemed to Mr. Delane to be under such a spell that he thought of nothing but Dale Bannister. It was not as if Roberts were the only medical man in the place. There was young Doctor Spink--and he was a real M. D.--up the street, ready and eager to snap up stray patients. And Doctor Spink was a churchwarden. The Squire did not like him overmuch, but he found himself thinking whether it would not be well to send for him next time there was a case of illness at the Grange. The Squire meditated, while others acted. On her walk the same afternoon, Ethel Roberts heard news which perturbed her. The Vicar's wife was ill and Dr. Spink had been sent for. The Vicar was a well-to-do man. He had a large family, which yet grew. He had been a constant and a valuable client of her husband's. And now Dr. Spink was sent for. "Jim," she said, "did you know that Mrs. Gilkison was ill?" "Ill?" said the Doctor, looking up from "Sluggards." "No, I've heard nothing of it." She came and leaned over his chair. "They've sent for Dr. Spink," she said. "What?" he exclaimed, dropping his beloved volume. "Mrs. Hedger told me." "Well, they can do as they like. I suppose his 'Doctor' is the attraction." "Do you think it's that, dear?" "What else can it be?--unless it's a mere freak." "Well, Jim, I thought--I thought perhaps that the Vicar had heard about--about--Littlehill. Yes, I know it's very stupid and narrow, dear--but still----" The Doctor swore under his breath. "I can't help it if the man's an ass," he said. Ethel smiled patiently. "It's a pity to offend people, Jim, dear, isn't it?" "Are you against me too, Ethel?" "Against you? You know I never would be, but----" "Then do let us leave Denborough gossip alone. Fancy Denborough taking on itself to disapprove of Dale Bannister! It's too rich!" Ethel sighed. Denborough's disapproval was no doubt a matter of indifference to Dale Bannister: it meant loss of bread and butter to James Roberts and his house. Meanwhile Dale Bannister, all unconscious of the dread determinations of the Vicar, pursued his way in cheerful unconcern. People came and went. Arthur Angell returned to his haunts rather dissatisfied with the quiet of Littlehill, but rejoicing to have found in the Doctor one thorough-going believer. Mrs. Hodge, her daughter, and Philip Hume seemed to be permanent parts of the household. Riding was their chief amusement. They would pass down High Street, Dale on his ancient mare, with Nellie and Philip by his side, laughing and talking merrily, Dale's own voice being very audible as he pointed out, with amusement a trifle too obvious to be polite, what struck him as remarkable in Denborough ways of life. Philip, however, whom Mr. Delane had described to his wife as the only apparently sane person at Littlehill, was rather uneasy in his mind about Roberts. "You'll get that fellow disliked, Dale," he said one morning, "if you don't take care." "I? What have I to do with it?" asked Dale. "They'll think him unsafe, if they see him with you." "He needn't come unless he likes. He's not a bad fellow, only he takes everything so precious seriously." "He thinks you do, judging by your books." "Oh, I do by fits. By the way, I have a fit now! Behold, I will write! Nellie! Where's Nellie?" Nellie Fane came at his call. "Sit down just opposite me, and look at me. I am going to write. The editor of the _Cynosure_ begs for twenty lines--no more; twenty lines--fifty pounds! Now, Nellie, inspire me, and you shall have a new hat out of it. No, look at me!" Nellie sat down and gazed at him, obediently. "Two pound ten a line; not bad for a young 'un," he pursued. "They say Byron wrote on gin and water. I write on your eyes, Nellie--much better." "You're not writing at all--only talking nonsense." "I'm just beginning." "Look here, Dale, why don't you keep the Doctor----" began Philip. "Oh, hang the Doctor! I'd just got an idea. Look at me, Nellie!" Philip shrugged his shoulders, and Dr. Roberts dropped out of discussion. The twenty lines were written, though they were never considered one of his masterpieces, then Dale rose with a sigh of relief. "Now for lunch, and then I'm going to return Mr. Delane's call." "I thought we were to ride," said Nellie disappointedly. "Well, won't you come?" "Don't be absurd!" "Mightn't she come, Phil?" "Mrs. Delane has not called, has she?" inquired Philip, as though for information. "Of course I shan't go, Dale. You must go alone." "What a nuisance! I shall have to walk. I daren't trust myself to that animal alone." After luncheon he started, walking by the same way by which Mr. Delane had come. He reached the lodge of the Grange; a courtesying child held open the gate, and he passed along under the immemorial elms, returning a cheery good-day to the gardeners, who paused in their work to touch their hats with friendly deference. The deference was wrong, of course, but the friendliness pleased him, and even the deference seemed somehow in keeping with the elms and with the sturdy old red-brick mansion, with its coat of arms and defiant Norman motto over the principal door. Littlehill was a pleasant house, but it had none of the ancient dignity of Dirkham, and Dale's quick brain was suddenly struck with a new understanding of how such places bred the men they did. He had had a fancy for a stay in the country; it would amuse him, he thought, to study country life; that was the meaning of his coming to Littlehill. Well, Dirkham summed up one side of country life, and he would be glad to study it. Mr. Delane was not at home--he had gone to Petty Sessions; and Dale, with regret, for he wanted to see the inside of the house, left his name--as usual he had forgotten to bring a card--and turned away. As he turned, a pony carriage drew up and a girl jumped out. Dale drew back to let her pass, raising his hat. The servant said a word to her, and when he had gone some ten or fifteen yards, he heard his name called. "Oh, Mr. Bannister, do come in! I expect papa back every minute, and he will be so sorry to miss you. Mamma is up in London; but I hope you'll come in." Dale had no idea of refusing the invitation given so cordially. He had been sorry to go away before, and the sight of Janet Delane made him more reluctant still. He followed her into the oak-paneled hall, hung with pictures of dead Delanes and furnished with couches and easy-chairs. "Well," she said, after tea was brought, "and what do you think of us?" "I have not seen very much of you yet." "As far as you have gone? And be candid." "You are very restful." She made a little grimace. "You mean very slow?" "Indeed I don't! I think you very interesting." "You find us interesting, but slow. Yes, you meant that, Mr. Bannister, and it's not kind." "Have your revenge by telling me what you think of me." "Oh, we find you interesting, too. We're all talking about you." "And slow?" "No, certainly not slow," she said, with a smile and a glance: the glance should be described, if it were describable, but it was not. Dale, however, understood it, for he replied, laughing: "They've been prejudicing you against me." "I don't despair of you. I think you may be reformed. But I'm afraid you're very bad just now." "Why do you think that? From what your father said?" "Partly. Partly also because Colonel Smith and Tora--do you know them?--are so enthusiastic about you." "Is that a bad sign?" "Terrible. They are quite revolutionary. So are you, aren't you?" "Not in private life." "But of course," she asked, with serious eyes, "you believe what you write?" "Well, I do; but you pay writers a compliment by saying 'of course.'" "Oh, I hope not! Anything is better than insincerity." "Even my opinions?" "Yes. Opinions may be changed, but not natures, you know." She was still looking at him with serious, inquiring eyes. The eyes were very fine eyes. Perhaps that was the reason why Dale thought the last remark so excellent. He said nothing, and she went on: "People who are clever and--and great, you know, ought to be so careful that they are right, oughtn't they?" "Oh, a rhymer rhymes as the fit takes him," answered he, with affected modesty. "I wouldn't believe that of you. You wouldn't misuse your powers like that." "You have read my poetry?" "Some of it." She paused and added, with a little blush for her companion: "There was some papa would not let me read." A man may not unreasonably write what a young girl's father may very reasonably not like her to read. Nevertheless, Dale Bannister felt rather uncomfortable. "Those were the shocking political ones, I suppose?" he asked. "No; I read most of those. These were against religion and----" "Well?" "Morality, papa said," she answered, with the same grave look of inquiry. Dale rose and held out his hand, saying petulantly: "Good-by, Miss Delane. You evidently don't think me fit to enter your house." "Oh, now I have made you angry. I have no right to speak about it, and, of course, I know nothing about it. Only----" "Only what?" "Some things are right and some are wrong, aren't they?" "Oh, granted--if we could only agree which were which." "As to some we have been told. And I don't think that about you at all--I really don't. Do wait till papa comes." Dale sat down again. He had had his lecture; experience told him that a lecture from such lecturers is tolerably often followed by a petting, and the pettings were worth the lectures. In this instance he was disappointed. Janet did not pet him, though she displayed much friendliness, and he took his leave (for the Squire did not appear) feeling somewhat put out. Approbation and applause were dear to this man, who seemed to spend his energies in courting blame and distrust; whatever people thought of his writings, he wished them to be fascinated by him. He was not sure that he had fascinated Miss Delane. "I should like to see more of her," he thought. "She's rather an odd girl." CHAPTER VI. =Littlehill Goes into Society.= Mr. Delane's late return from his public duties was attributable simply to Colonel Smith's obstinacy. He and the Colonel sat together on the bench, and very grievously did they quarrel over the case of a man who had been caught in the possession of the body of a fresh-killed hare. They differed first as to the policy of the law, secondly as to its application, thirdly as to its vindication; and when the Vicar of Denborough, who was a county justice and present with them, sided with the Squire on all these points, the Colonel angrily denounced the reverend gentleman as a disgrace, not only to the judicial bench, but even to his own cloth. All this took time, as did also the Colonel's cross-examination of the constable in charge of the case, and it was evening before the dispute was ended, and a fine imposed. The Colonel paid the fine, and thus everyone, including the law and the prisoner, was in the end satisfied. Mr. Delane and the Colonel, widely and fiercely as they differed on every subject under the sun, were very good friends, and they rode home together in the dusk of a September evening, for their roads lay the same way for some distance. Presently they fell in with Sir Harry Fulmer, who had been to see Dale Bannister, and, in his absence, had spent the afternoon with Nellie Fane and Philip Hume. "Hume's quite a good fellow," he declared; "quiet, you know, and rather sarcastic, but quite a gentleman. And Miss Fane--I say, have you seen her, Colonel?" "By the way, who is Miss Fane?" asked the Squire. "Oh, she acts, or sings, or something. Awfully jolly girl, and uncommon pretty. Don't you think so, Squire?" "Yes, I did, Harry. But why is she staying there?" "Really, Delane," said the Colonel, "what possible business is that of yours?" "I've called on Bannister, and he's going to return my call. I think it's a good deal of business of mine." "Well!" exclaimed the Colonel; "for sheer uncharitableness and the thinking of all evil, give me a respectable Christian man like yourself, Delane." "Oh, it's all right," said Sir Harry cheerfully. "The old lady, Mrs. What's-her-name, is there." "I hope it is," said the Squire. "Bannister has himself to thank for any suspicions which may be aroused." "Suspicions? Bosh!" said the Colonel. "They are all coming to dine with me to-morrow. I met Bannister and asked him. He said he had friends, and I told him to bring the lot. Will you and Mrs. Delane come, Squire?" "My wife's away, thanks." "Then bring Janet." "Hum! I think I'll wait." "Oh, as you please. You'll come, Harry?" Sir Harry was delighted to come. "Tora was most anxious to know them," the Colonel continued, "and I hate ceremonious ways. There'll be nobody else, except the Doctor and his wife." "You haven't asked Hedger and Johnstone, have you?" inquired the Squire. "They're friends of Bannister's. I met them at his house." "I haven't, but I don't know why I shouldn't." "Still you won't," said Sir Harry, with a laugh. The Colonel knew that he would not, and changed the subject. * * * * * "This is a great occasion," said Philip Hume at afternoon tea next day. "To-night we are to be received into county society." "Is Colonel Smith 'county society'?" asked Nellie. "Yes. The Mayor told me so. The Colonel is a Radical, and a bad one at that, but the poor man comes of good family and is within the toils." "I expect he really likes it," said Nellie, "I should." "Are you nervous?" inquired Philip. Nellie laughed and colored. "I really am a little. I hope I shall behave properly. Mother is in a dreadful state." "Where is Mrs. Hodge?" "Putting some new lace on her gown." "And Dale?" "He's writing. Mr. Hume, has he told you anything about his visit yesterday?" "Yes. He says he met an angel." "Oh, that accounts for the title." "What title?" "Why, I went and looked over his shoulder, and saw he was beginning some verses, headed, 'To a Pretty Saint.' I always look, you know, but this time he snatched the paper away." "'To a Pretty Saint'? Dear, dear! Perhaps he meant you, Nellie." Miss Fane shook her head. "He meant Miss Delane, I'm sure," she said dolefully. "I hope Miss Smith is just exactly a county young lady--you know what I mean. I want to see one." "Do you contemplate remodeling yourself?" "I'm sure Dale will like that sort of girl." Philip looked at her sideways. He thought of telling her that "county young ladies" did not proclaim all their thoughts. But then he reflected that he would not. The Littlehill party arrived at Mount Pleasant, the Colonel's residence, in the nick of time; and Mrs. Hodge sailed in to dinner on her host's arm in high good humor. Dale, as the great man and the stranger, escorted Tora, Philip Hume Mrs. Roberts, and Sir Harry fell to Nellie's lot. Mrs. Hodge was an amusing companion. She did not dally at the outworks of acquaintance, but closed at once into intimacy, and before half an hour was gone, she found herself trying hard not to call the Colonel "my dear," and to remember to employ the usual prefixes to the names of the company. The Colonel was delighted; was he at last escaping from the stifling prison of conventionality and breathing a freer air? Unhappily, just in proportion as good cheer and good fellowship put Mrs. Hodge at her ease, and made her more and more to the Colonel's taste, her daughter's smothered uneasiness grew more intense. Nellie had borne herself with an impossible dignity and distance of manner toward Sir Harry, in the fear lest Sir Harry should find her wanting in the characteristics of good society, and her frigidity was increased by her careful watch on her mother's conduct. Sir Harry was disappointed. As he could not sit by Tora Smith, he had consoled himself with the prospect of some fun with "little Miss Fane." And little Miss Fane held him at arms'-length. He determined to try to break down her guard. "How did you manage to shock the Squire so?" he asked. "Was he shocked? I didn't know." "You were there, weren't you?" "Oh, yes. Well, I suppose it was Mr. Bannister's poetry." "Why should that shock him?" asked Sir Harry, who knew very well. "By Jove, I wish I could write some like it!" She turned to him with sudden interest. "Do you admire Dale's writings?" "Awfully," said Sir Harry. "Don't you?" "Of course _I_ do, but I didn't know whether you would. Do you know Miss Delane?" "Yes, very well." "Do you like her?" "Oh, yes. I have known her all my life, and I like her. She frightens me a little, you know." "Does she? How?" "She expects such a lot of a fellow. Have you met her?" "No. D--Mr. Bannister has. He likes her." "I expect she blew him up, didn't she?" "Oh, I shouldn't think so. Dale wouldn't like that." "Depends how it's done," observed Sir Harry. "Don't you ever blow him up?" "Of course not. I'm much too--I look up to him too much." They were interrupted by the Colonel's voice. He was saying, with much energy: "Ability we don't expect in a Government office, but honesty one might hope for." "Just what Hodge used to say of old Pratt," said Mrs. Hodge. "I beg pardon?" said the Colonel. "Pratt was his manager, you know--my husband's." "Oh, yes, of course." "Nellie, you remember your father throwing down that two pound ten on the table, and saying, 'Well, I'm----'" "No, mother, I don't. Do you think I could learn to hunt, Sir Harry?" "Of course you could, in no time." "Does Miss Delane?" "And Pratt said that if Hodge couldn't play the king at two pound ten a week,--though that's hard living, my dear,--I beg pardon--Colonel----" The Colonel bowed courteously. Nellie grew very red. "Why, bantam-cocks had risen since his day, and that was all about it." And Mrs. Hodge emptied her glass and beamed pleasantly on the company. Suddenly Dale Bannister began to laugh gently. Tora Smith turned an inquiring look in his direction. "What is it, Mr. Bannister?" "I saw your father's butler looking at my friend Mrs. Hodge." "What nonsense! Simmons is not allowed to look at anyone." "Isn't he? Why not?" "No good servant does." Dale smiled. "I know what you mean," Tora continued; "but surely while they're actually waiting, Mr. Bannister, we can't treat them quite like ourselves? At any other time, of course----" "You'd take a walk with them?" "They'd be horribly uncomfortable if I did," she answered, laughing. "That's the worst of it," said he. "Do you think us great shams?" "I have come to learn, not to criticise." "We want a leader," said Tora, with pretty earnestness. "Haven't you one?" "Sir Harry Fulmer is our leader, but we're not contented with him. He's a very mild Radical. Won't you come to our help?" "I expect I should be too extreme the other way." "Oh, I love people who are extreme--in my direction, I mean." "Well, then, try the Doctor." "Mr. Roberts? Oh, he's hardly prominent enough; we must have somebody of position. Now, what are you laughing at, Mr. Bannister?" The gentleman to whom they referred sat looking on at them with no great pleasure, though they found one another entertaining enough to prevent them noticing him. Dale Bannister said that his new friend took life seriously, and the charge was too true for the Doctor's happiness. Dale Bannister had taken hold of his imagination. He expected Dale to do all he would give his life to see done, but could not do himself. The effect of Dale was to be instantaneous, enormous, transforming Denborough and its inhabitants. He regarded the poet much as a man might look upon a benevolent volcano, did such a thing exist in the order of nature. His function was, in the Doctor's eyes, to pour forth the burning lava of truth and justice, wherewith the ignorance, prejudice, and cruelty of the present order should be consumed and smothered; let the flood be copious, scorching, and unceasing! The Doctor could do little more than hail the blessed shower and declare its virtues; but that he was ready to do at any cost. And the volcano would not act! The eruptions were sadly intermittent. The hero, instead of going forth to war, was capering nimbly in a lady's chamber, to the lascivious pleasing of a lute; that is to say, he was talking trifles to Tora Smith, with apparent enjoyment, forgetful of his mission, ignoring the powers of darkness around. No light-spreading saying, no swordflash had come from him all the evening. He was fiddling while Rome was--waiting for the burning it needed so badly. Perhaps it was a woebegone look about the Doctor that made Philip Hume take the chair next him after dinner, while Dale was, still as if in play, emitting anarchist sparks for the Colonel's entertainment. "Is it possible," asked the Doctor in low, half-angry tones, "that he thinks these people are any good--that they are sincere or thorough in the matter? He's wasting his time." "Well, well, my dear fellow, we must all dine, whatever our opinions." "Oh, yes; we must dine, while the world starves." "The bow can't be always stretched," said Philip, with a slight smile. "You don't think, Hume, do you, that he's getting any less--less in earnest, you know?" "Oh, he wrote a scorcher this very morning." "Did he? That's good news. Where is it to appear?" "I don't know. He didn't write it on commission." "His poems have such magnificent restlessness, haven't they? I can't bear to see him idle." "Poor Dale! You must give him some holidays. He likes pleasure like the rest of us." The Doctor sighed impatiently, and Philip looking at him anxiously, laid a hand on his arm. "Roberts," he said, "there is no need that you should be ground to powder." "I don't understand." "I hope you never will. Your wife doesn't look very strong. Why don't you give her a change?" "A change? How am I to afford a change? Besides, who wants a change? What change do most workers get?" "Hang most workers! Your wife wants a change." "I haven't got the money, anyhow." "Then there's an end of it." The Colonel rose, and they made for the drawing room. Philip detained his companion for a moment. "Well?" said the Doctor, feeling the touch on his arm. "For God's sake, old fellow, go slow," said Philip, pressing his arm, and looking at him with an appealing smile. CHAPTER VII. ="To a Pretty Saint."= When Mrs. Delane came back from London, she was met with a question of the precise kind on which she felt herself to be no mean authority. It was a problem of propriety, of etiquette, and of the usages of society, and Mrs. Delane attacked it with a due sense of its importance and with the pleasure of an expert. It arose out of Dale Bannister's call at the Grange. Dale had been accustomed, when a lady found favor in his eyes, to inform her of the gratifying news through the medium of a set of verses, more or less enthusiastic and rhapsodic in their nature. The impulse to follow his usual practice was strong on him after meeting Janet Delane, and issued in the composition of that poem called "To a Pretty Saint," the title of which Nellie had seen. He copied it out fair, and was about to put it in the post when a thought suddenly struck him. Miss Delane was not quite like most of his acquaintances. It was perhaps possible that she might think his action premature, or even impertinent, and that she might deem it incumbent on her to resent being called either a saint or pretty by a friend of one interview's standing. Dale was divided between his newborn doubt of his own instinct of what was permissible and his great reluctance to doom his work to suppression. He decided to consult Philip Hume, who was, as he knew, more habituated to the social atmosphere of places like Denshire. "Eh? what?" said Philip, who was busily engaged in writing a newspaper article. "Written a poem to a girl? All right. I'll listen presently." "I don't want you to listen. I want your advice as to whether to send it or not." "If you've wasted your time writing the thing,--by the way, take care the Doctor doesn't hear of it,--you may as well send it." "The question is, whether she'll be offended." "I'm glad it isn't more important, because I'm busy." "Look here! Stop that anonymous stabber of yours and listen. It's to Miss Delane." Philip stopped in the middle of a particularly vicious paragraph of the "stabber," and looked up with amusement on his face. "It's a perfectly--you know--suitable poem," pursued Dale. "The only question is, will she think it a liberty?" "Oh, send it. They like getting 'em;" and Philip took up his pen again. "You don't know the sort of girl she is." "Then what the deuce is the good of asking me? Ask Nellie." "No, I shan't," said Dale shortly. Thus thrown, by his friend's indifference, on his own judgment, Dale made up his mind to send the verses,--he could not deny himself the pleasure,--but, half alarmed at his own audacity, which feeling was a new one in him, he "hedged" by inclosing with them a letter of an apologetic character. Miss Delane was not to suppose that he took the liberty of referring to her in the terms of his title: the little copy of verses had merely been suggested by a remark she made. He had failed to find an answer on the spot. Would she pardon him for giving his answer now in this indirect way?--and so forth. The verses, with their accompanying letter, were received by Janet, and Janet had no doubt of what she did feel about them, but some considerable doubt as to what she ought to feel; so she carried them to her mother. Mrs. Delane put on her _pince-nez_ and read the documents in the case. "I'm sure he didn't mean to be--anything but what's nice, mamma," said Janet. "I dare say not, my dear. The question is, whether the young man knows his manners. Let's see." After careful perusal, during which Janet watched her mother's face with some anxiety, Mrs. Delane delivered judgment. "There's no positive harm in them," she said, "and I don't think we need take any actual steps. Still, Janet, he is evidently to be treated with discretion." "How do you mean, mamma?" "Well, he isn't in need of encouragement, is he? He's not backward in making friends." "I suppose not. May I keep them?" "Keep them? Do you want to keep them?" "Not particularly, dear," answered Janet. "I--I thought he meant me to." "No doubt. Write a civil note, dear, thank him for letting you see them, and return them inclosed." Janet was a little reluctant to part with her autograph manuscript,--not because of its pecuniary value, though that was more than a trifle, had she known, but because such things are pleasant possessions to show to envious friends,--but she did as she was told. She did not, however, feel herself bound altogether to smother her pride or to make a secret of the tribute she had received. Tora Smith heard the story with evident amusement, and, thinking that others would share her appreciation of it, relieved the somewhat uphill course of Mrs. Hodge's call by a repetition of it: whereby it happened that Nellie Fane came to know, not only that Dale had written verses to Miss Delane and sent them, but also that Miss Delane had returned the offering. She told Philip the latter fact, and the two ventured to rally the poet on the occurrence. Dale took their action very badly, and his displeasure soon reduced Nellie to apologies. Philip was less sensitive. "D. W. T., by Jove!" he remarked. "Quite like old times, Dale!" Dale muttered something about "infernal chatter." "You will soon be in a position to publish a volume of 'Rejected Addresses.'" "Not at all," said Dale. "It's simply that she didn't understand I meant her to keep them." "Oh, that's her delicate way of snubbing you, my boy." "What the deuce do you know about it, Phil? You never wrote verses in your life. Don't you agree with me, Nellie?" "Miss Smith said Miss Delane thought she had better not keep them." "I knew that girl was a gossip directly I set eyes on her." "You're naturally hurt, old fellow, but----" "Go to the deuce! Look here, I'll bet you a fiver she takes them back and keeps them." "Done!" said Philip, and Dale seized his hat. "Why does he want her to take them?" asked Nellie. "Vanity, my dear, vanity. I suppose he's accustomed to having his verses laid up in lavender. Is that what you do with yours?" "He never wrote me any," answered Nellie in a tone of superlative indifference. It being only two o'clock, Dale felt he could not yet go to the Grange. He made a detour by the town, on pretense of buying stamps; and, the stars fighting with him, outside the Mayor's shop he saw Janet talking to the Mayor himself. "Thank you, Miss Delane, miss," said the Mayor. "Mrs. Hedger is doin' nicely. She had a bit of feverishness about her, but Dr. Spink's treated her wonderful." "Dr. Spink? I thought you went to Dr. Roberts?" "I did, miss, but---- Well, things come round to me, miss, being a center like." "What things?" "Well, you may not have heard, miss, of the things that---- Good-mornin', Mr. Bannister, sir, good-mornin'. A fine day. Anything in our line, sir?" "Good-morning, Mr. Mayor," said Dale. "Ah, Miss Delane, how do you do?" His coming interrupted Janet's investigations into the affairs of the Doctor, and she took her leave of the Mayor, Dale assuming permission to walk with her. He ought to have asked, no doubt, thought Janet, but it would be making too much of it to tell him so. They had hardly started when he turned to her: "Why did you send back my verses?" "I could hardly venture to keep them, could I?" "Why not?" "On so slight an acquaintance! It was very kind of you to let me see them before they were published." "They're not going to be published." "Oh, you must publish them. They're so very pretty." "Didn't you think I meant you to keep them?" "I should have been very conceited if I had, shouldn't I?" "Well, they were for you--not to be published. If you don't like them, they'll be burned, that's all." Janet stole a glance at his face; he looked like a petulant Apollo--so she thought. "That would be a pity," she said gravely; "but I don't think I ought to keep them." "Why not?" Socrates is reported to have said that nothing is reasonable which cannot be stated in a reasonable form. Miss Janet Delane would have dissented. "Of course I like them very much. But--well, we haven't known each other very long, Mr. Bannister." "You mean it was impertinent?" "Oh, no. I thought your letter perfect--I did really. But mamma thought----" "Oh!" said Dale, with brightening face. "You would have kept them?" "That's not the question," said Janet, smiling. It was pleasant to see Apollo looking less petulant. "But what would people say if they heard I had poems of Mr. Dale Bannister's about me? I should be thought a dangerous person." "I'll write some which you would like to have." "I am sure you could, if you only would. Fancy, if you wrote really noble verses--worthy of you!" "Well, I will, if it will please you." "Nonsense, Mr. Bannister! There's no question of pleasing me: it doesn't matter--well, I mean, then, the great thing is to do justice to yourself." "I ought to have some encouragement in well-doing," said Dale plaintively. She shook her head with a smile, and he went on: "I wish you'd come to Littlehill and see the house. I've improved it tremendously." "Oh, you must invite mamma." "Would Mrs. Delane come?" This question was a little awkward, for Mrs. Delane, after cross-examining Tora Smith closely as to Mrs. Hodge and her daughter, had announced that she would not go. "A bachelor doesn't entertain ladies, does he?" "I should like to; and there are some ladies----" A sudden thought struck him, and he stopped. He looked so pointedly at Janet that, to her intense annoyance, she felt herself blushing. She made the grave mistake of changing the conversation abruptly. "How did you like the Smiths?" "Oh, pretty well." "I should have thought you would have got on tremendously well together." "Oh, I don't know. I think I like people to be one thing or the other, and the Smiths are halfway housers." "You're very ungrateful." "Oh, they only asked us as a demonstration," said Dale, who had some acuteness. Janet laughed, but her companion was moodily prodding the ground with his stick as he walked along. They reached a cottage where she had a visit to pay, and she bade him good-by. "Then you won't have the verses?" "I think not." "Very well, then, here goes;" and he took the paper out of his pocket and tore it to bits. The fragments fluttered to the ground. "How foolish!" she said. "I dare say they were worth a lot of money--but, then, you can write them out again." "Do you think I shall?" he asked, grinding the fragments into the mud. "I'm afraid you will do nothing wise," she said, giving him her hand. Yet the extravagance rather pleased her. Until Dale reached his own house it did not strike him that he had lost his bet. Philip quickly reminded him, and laughed mercilessly when a crumpled five-pound note was thrown at his head by his angry friend. "I tell you she wanted to keep them," said Dale unjustifiably. "Then why didn't she?" asked Nellie. "Mrs. Delane didn't approve of it." "I expect Mrs. Delane doesn't approve of you at all," remarked Philip. "No, nor of my friends either," answered Dale, flinging himself into a chair. "Well, my dear," said Mrs. Hodge, who sat by, "her opinion will neither make us nor mar us." "How have we had the misfortune to offend the lady?" inquired Philip. "She has never seen us." "Here's your tea, Dale," said Nellie. "Are you tired?" "Yes, a little. Thanks, Nellie." "Was she looking nice, Dale?" "I didn't see her." "I mean Miss Delane." "Oh, yes, I suppose so. I didn't look much." CHAPTER VIII. =An Indiscreet Disciple.= Summer wore away, and autumn came in brief, calm radiance, and passed; winter began to threaten. At Denborough one quiet day followed another, each one noticeable for little, but in the aggregate producing some not unimportant changes at Littlehill. Dale Bannister had begun to work hard and to work in solitude; the inspiration of Nellie's eyes seemed either unnecessary or ineffectual. Moreover, his leisure hours were now largely spent in visiting at houses in the neighborhood. He did not neglect his guests, but whenever their engagements occupied them, instead of wandering about alone or enjoying the humors of the High Street, as he had been prone to do in the early days of his sojourn, he would go over to Mount Pleasant, or to the Grange, or to Sir Harry Fulmer's, and he was becoming learned in country lore and less scornful of country ways. The Doctor was a rare visitor now, and, when he came, it generally fell to Philip Hume's lot to entertain him. Philip did his duty loyally, but it was dreary work, for Roberts' conversation, at their meetings, consisted, in the main, of diatribes against Dale Bannister. He would declare that Dale's conduct, in maintaining friendly relations with the gentry of the neighborhood, was in flagrant contradiction to the views he had proclaimed in his writings. Philip shrugged his shoulders, and said that some men were better than their writings, some worse, but no man the same as his writings; the prose must ever be allowed for: and at this the angry man often turned his back on the house with an imprecation on half-heartedness. For the rest, Philip's hands were not very full, and he and Nellie Fane found time for long expeditions together, which would have been more cheerful had it not been for Nellie's scrupulous determination to ignore the absence of the third member of the old trio. One day Philip's idle steps led him through the town on the search for matter of amusement. He was caught in a shower, and took refuge in the Mayor's shop, knowing that his Worship always had time for a gossip. He was not disappointed. The Mayor entertained him with a graphic account of the last assault on Mr. Delane's position as member for the Denborough division, and of his own recent re-election to his high office. Philip congratulated him on the latter event, and asked in curiosity: "And what are your politics, Mr. Mayor?" "I hold as a man in my position should have no politics, not party politics, Mr. Hume, sir." "Well, there's something to be said for that." "After all, we know what they are, sir. One out and the other in--that's what they are, sir." "But you said Mrs. Hedger canvassed for the Squire." "So she did, sir. Now, my daughter is on the Liberal side; she and Miss Smith used to go a-drivin' round together." "A sad division of opinion, Mr. Mayor." "Well, we can differ without disagreein', sir. Besides," he added, with something like a wink, "customers differ too." "Most true." "Business is business, sir, especially with a growin' fam'ly. I always think of my fam'ly, Mr. Hume, and how I should leave 'em if I was took--taken." "A man's first duty, Mr. Mayor." "You wouldn't catch me goin' on like this young Roberts." "Why, what's he been up to now?" asked Philip uneasily. "You aint seen the _Standard_, sir?" The Mayor, of course, meant the _East Denshire Standard_, not the London paper of the same name. "No." "Well, last week they printed the Vicar's sermon on 'The Work of Christianity in the World.' A fine sermon it was, sir. I heard it, being a Church of England man. Mrs. Hedger goes to Chapel." "'Customers differ too,'" thought Philip, smiling. "Well, as I was sayin', Jones of the _Standard_ got the Vicar to give it 'im, and it came out, with a leadin' article of Jones' crackin' it up." "But how does the Doctor----" "This week, sir," continued the Mayor, shaking an impressive forefinger, "in the _Chronicle_--that's the Liberal paper, sir--there's a letter from the Doctor--two columns--just abusin' the Church and the parsons, and the 'ole--whole thing, fit to--well, I never did!" "Hum! Rather rash, isn't it?" "Rash, Mr. Hume, sir? It's madness, that's what it is, sir. He talks about 'pestilent priests,' and I don't know what all, sir, and ends with quotin' thirty or forty lines from a poem called, I think, 'The Arch Apostates'--would that be it, sir?--by Mr. Bannister." "No! does he, by Jove?" said Philip, slapping his thigh. "And the po'try, sir, is worse than the Doctor's own stuff, sir, beggin' your pardon as a friend of Mr. Bannister." "I know the lines. They're some of the hottest he's ever done." "Mr. Bannister, of course, can afford it, sir,--his opinions are what he pleases,--but the Doctor, sir!" "So the fat's in the fire?" "Just the very worst time it could ha' come out, sir. The Guardians over at Dirkham meet to-morrow to elect their medical officer. I'm afraid as they won't re-elect Dr. Roberts, sir, and there was more than one down at the Delane Arms sayin' they'd had the last to do with him." Philip parted from his informant in much concern for Roberts, and in no small amusement at the public placarding of "The Arch Apostates." "_Surtout, point de zele_," he could imagine Dale saying to his infatuated disciple. On returning home, however, he found the poet saying much harder things of, if not to, Mr. Roberts. Dale had been calling at the Smiths'. The Colonel, while shaking his head over Roberts' impudence, had applauded his opinions, and was, above all, enchanted with the extract from Dale's poem, which he had never hitherto read. His pleasure was, as he told Dale, greatly increased by finding that the letter and the quotation had fallen like a bombshell on the Grange household. "The Squire was furious. Mrs. Delane said she had no idea you had done anything so bad as that; and little Janet sat and looked as if someone had knocked down the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was splendid! Gad, sir, you've waked 'em up." These congratulations had the effect of reducing the poet almost to a frenzy. "What business," he demanded, "has the fellow to quote me in support of his balderdash without my leave?" "My dear fellow, your works are the possession of the nation," said Philip, smiling, as he lit a cigar. "It's an infernal liberty!" fumed Dale. "You light the fire, and blame it for blazing," said Philip. "One doesn't want to shove one's views down people's throats." "Doesn't one? One used to." "I shall write and disclaim any responsibility." "For the poem?" "For its publication, of course." "That won't do you much good." The Mayor's forecast, based on a lifelong observation of his neighbors, proved only too correct. Dr. Spink entered the lists against Roberts, and was elected by every vote save one. Sir Harry Fulmer, in blind and devoted obedience to Tora Smith, voted for Roberts; the rest, headed by the Squire, installed his rival in his place; and the Squire, having sternly done his duty, sat down and wrote a long and friendly letter of remonstrance and explanation to his erring friend. As misfortune followed misfortune, the Doctor set his teeth, and dared fate to do her worst. He waited a few days, hoping to be comforted by a word of approval from his master; none came. At last he determined to seek out Dale Bannister, and was about to start when his wife came in and gave him the new issue of the _Chronicle_. Ethel Roberts was pale and weary-looking, and she glanced anxiously at her husband. "I am going up to Littlehill," he said. "Have you done your round, dear?" "My round doesn't take long nowadays. Maggs will give me fifteen pounds for the pony: you know we don't want him now." "No, Jim, and we do want fifteen pounds." "What's that?" "The _Chronicle_, dear. There's--a letter from Mr. Bannister." "Is there? Good! Let's see what Bannister has to say to these bigoted idiots." He opened the paper, and in the middle of the front page read: A DISCLAIMER FROM MR. BANNISTER. SIR: I desire to state that the use made by Mr. James Roberts of my poem in your last issue was without my authority or approbation. The poem was written some years ago, and must not be assumed to represent my present view on the subject of which it treats. I am, sir, your obedient servant, DALE BANNISTER. The Doctor stared at the letter. "Bannister--Dale Bannister wrote that!" and he flung the paper angrily on the floor. "Give me my hat." "You're not going----" "Yes, I am, Ethel. I'm going to find out what this means." "Hadn't you better wait till you're less----" "Less what, Ethel? What do you mean?" "Till the rain stops, Jim, dear; and it's just baby's time for coming down." "Hang--no, I beg your pardon, Ethel. I'm very sorry, but I must see the end of this." He rushed out, and the baby found a dull, preoccupied, almost tearful, very unamusing mother to play with that day. The Doctor marched into Dale's room with a stern look on his face. "Well, Roberts, how are you?" asked Dale, not graciously. "What does this mean, Bannister?" "It means, my dear fellow, that you took my name in vain, and I had to say so." "I'm not thinking of myself, though it would have been more friendly to write to me first." "Well, I was riled, and didn't think of that." "But do you mean to deny your own words?" "Really, Roberts, you seem to forget that I don't enjoy setting the place by the ears, although you seem to." "You wrote that poem?" "Of course I wrote the damned thing," said Dale peevishly. "And now--Bannister, you're not going to--to throw us over?" "Nonsense! I like to publish my views at my own time and place, that's all." "A man like you belongs to his followers as much as to himself." "More, it seems." The Doctor looked at him almost scornfully. Dale did not like scorn from anyone. "I was particularly anxious," he began apologetically, "not to get into a shindy here. I wanted to drop politics and so on, and be friendly----" "Do you know what you're saying, or the meanness of it?" "Meanness? What do you mean?" "You know very well. All I want to know is if you wrote this thing?" "Of course I wrote it." "And you stand to it?" "Yes. I think you ought to have asked me before you did it." "The Squire is shocked, eh?" asked the Doctor, with a sneer. "The Squire's views are nothing to me," answered Dale, flushing very red. The Doctor laughed bitterly. "Come, come, old fellow," said Dale, "don't let us quarrel." "Quarrel? Well, we won't. Only look here, Bannister." "Well?" "If you throw us over now, you'll be----" "There, don't abuse me any more." "Oh, I wasn't going to abuse you. If you leave us,--you, the leader we trusted,--where are we, where are we?" "Give me another chance," said Dale, holding out his hand. "You won't withdraw this?" "How the deuce can I now?" The Doctor shook his hand, saying: "Don't betray us, don't betray us;" and thus the very uncomfortable interview came to a desired end. That night at dinner Dale was cross and in low spirits. His friends, perceiving it, forbore to express their views as to his last public utterance, and the repast dragged its weary length along amid intermittent conversation. When the dessert was on the table, a note was brought for Dale. It was from the Squire. DEAR BANNISTER: I was very glad to see your letter in the _Chronicle_. Mrs. Delane joins me in hoping you will dine with us to-morrow _en famille_. Excuse short notice. The man waits for an answer--don't write one. Yours truly, GEORGE DELANE. "Say I'll come with great pleasure," said Dale, his face growing brighter. "Where will he go with great pleasure?" asked Philip of Nellie Fane. "Where is it, Dale?" "Oh, only to the Grange, to dinner to-morrow. I think I had better write a note, though--don't you think so, Phil? More--more attentive, you know." "Write, my son," answered Philip, and, as Dale left the room, he looked round with a smile and exclaimed, "One!" "One what, my dear?" asked Mrs. Hodge. "Piece of silver, ma'am," replied Philip. "You're sneering again," said Nellie in a warning tone. "Why shouldn't he like to dine at the Grange?" and she looked marvelously reasonable and indifferent. "I was speaking with the voice of Doctor Roberts, Nellie, that's all. For my own part, I think a dinner is one of those things one may accept even from the enemy." CHAPTER IX. =Dale's Own Opinion.= If ever our own fortune would allow us to be perfectly happy, the consumation is prevented and spoiled by the obstinately intruding unhappiness of others. The reverend person who was of opinion that the bliss of the blessed would be increased and, so to say, vivified by the sight of the tortures of the damned, finds few supporters nowadays, perhaps because our tenderer feelings shrink from such a ruthless application of the doctrine that only by contemplating the worse can we enjoy the better; perhaps also because we are not so sure as he was that we should not be the onlooked rather than the onlookers if ever his picture came to be realized. So sensitive are we to the ills that others suffer that at times we feel almost a grudge against them for their persistence--however unwilling it be--in marring our perfect contentment; surely they could let us forget them for once in a way. This last was Dale Bannister's frame of mind as he lay, idly and yet not peacefully, on his sofa next morning. This Doctor, with his unflinching logic and unrestrained zeal, was a nuisance. His devotion had not been sought, and certainly, if it entailed scenes like yesterday's, was not desired. Dale never asked him to ruin his practice, as Philip Hume said he was doing, in order to uphold Dale's principles; Dale did not want a starving family to his account, whose hungry looks should press him to a close questioning of his conscience. Any man with an ounce of common sense would understand that there was a time for everything, and a place. It was one thing to publish your views in a book, addressed to the world of thinkers and intelligent readers; it was quite another to brandish them in the face of your neighbors, and explode them, like shells, in the innocent streets of Denborough. And yet, because he recognized this obvious distinction, because he had some sense of what was suitable and reasonable, and because he refused to make enemies of people simply because they were well off, the Doctor stormed at him as if he were a traitor and a snob. And Philip Hume had taken to smiling in an aggravating way when the Grange was mentioned; and even Nellie---- But Dale, alert as he was in his present mood to discover matter of complaint, found none against Nellie, unless it might be some falling off in her old cheerfulness and buoyancy. Dale lit his pipe and set himself to consider with impartiality whether Roberts had in fact any grievance against him. He wanted to satisfy himself that there was no basis for the Doctor's indignation; his self-esteem demanded that the accusation should be disproved. But really it was too plain. What had he done? Refused to acquiesce in being made a fool of, refused to meet civility with incivility, to play the churl, to shut his eyes to intelligence and culture and attractiveness because they happened to be found among people who did not think as he did or as Roberts was pleased to think. He knew what those sneers meant, but he would go his own way. Things had come to a pretty pass if a man might not be civil and seek to avoid wholly unnecessary causes of offense without being treated as a renegade to all his convictions. That was not his idea of breadth of mind or toleration, or of good feeling either. It was simple bigotry, as narrow as--aye, narrower than--anything he at least had found on the other side. Dale disposed of this question, but he still lay on the sofa and thought. It had been a gain to him, he said to himself, to see this new side of life; the expedition to Littlehill was well justified. It is good for a man to take a flag of truce and go talk with the enemy in the gate. He may not change his own views,--Dale was conscious of no change in his,--but he comes to see how other people may hold different ones, and the reason, or anyhow the naturalness, of theirs. A man of Roberts' fierce Puritan temper could not feel nor appreciate what appealed to him so strongly in such a life as they lived, for instance, at the Grange. It had a beauty so its own, that unquestioned superiority, not grasped as a prize or valued as an opportunity, but gravely accepted as the parent of duties--the unbroken family life, grasping through many hands the torch undimmed from reverend antiquity--the very house, which seemed to enshrine honorable traditions, at which he could not bring himself to sneer. The sweetness of it all broke back baffled from the wall of the Doctor's stern conviction and iron determination. Yet how sweet it all was! And these people welcomed into their circle any man who had a claim to welcome, freely, ungrudgingly, cordially. All they asked was a little gentleness to their--he supposed they were prejudices, a little deference to their prepossessions, a little smoothing off of the rougher edges of difference. It was not much to ask. Was he churlishly to deny the small concession, to refuse to meet them any part of the way, to intrench himself in the dogmatic intolerance of his most vehement utterances, to shut his mind off from this new source of inspiration? That was what Roberts wanted. Well, then--Roberts be hanged! The course of these reflections produced in Dale a return to his usual equanimity. It was plainly impossible to please everybody. He must act as seemed right to himself, neglecting the frowns of unreasonable grumblers. No doubt Roberts was devoted to him, and Arthur Angell too. Yet Roberts abused him, and Arthur bothered him with imploring letters, which warned him against the subtle temptations of his new life. It was a curious sort of devotion which showed itself mainly in criticism and disapproval; it was very flattering of these good friends to set him on a pedestal and require him to live up to the position; only, unfortunately, the pedestal was of their choosing, not his. All he asked was to be allowed to live a quiet life and work out his own ideas in his own way. If they could not put up with that, why---- Dale refilled his pipe and opened a story by Maupassant. It may be asserted that every man is the victim of a particular sort of follies, the follies engendered by his particular sort of surroundings; they make a fool's circle within which each of us has a foot planted; for the rest, we may be, and no doubt generally are, very sensible people. If we set aside Squire Delane's special and indigenous illusions, he was very far indeed from a fool, and after dinner that evening he treated his distinguished guest with no small tact. The young man was beyond question a force; was it outside of ingenuity to turn him in a better direction? "Everybody approves of your letter," he said. "Roberts had no business to drag your name in." "Of course one is exposed to that sort of thing." "It's a penalty of greatness. But the case is peculiar when you're actually living in the place." "That's exactly what I feel. It's making me a party in a local quarrel." "That's what he wanted to do; he wanted to fight under your shield." "I didn't come here to fight at all." "I should think not; and you haven't found us thirsting for battle, have you?" "I have found a kinder welcome than I had any right to expect." "My dear fellow! Much as we differ, we're all proud of counting you as a Denshire man. And I don't suppose we shall quarrel much about Denshire affairs. Oh, I know you think the whole system of country life an iniquity. I don't go so deep myself. I say, there it is. Perhaps it might be changed, but, pending that, sensible men can work together to make the best of it. At any rate, they can avoid treading on one another's corns." "I want to avoid everybody's corns, if they'll avoid mine." "Well, we'll try. I dare say we shall pull together. At any rate, it's very pleasant dining together. Shall we go upstairs and ask Janet for a song?" Mrs. Delane had evidently caught her cue from her husband, and she treated Dale not as a sinner who repenteth,--a mode of reception which, after all, requires great tact to make it acceptable,--but as one who had never been a sinner at all. She asked Dale if he had been overwhelmed by callers. He replied that he had not suffered much in that way. "I knew it," she said. "You have frightened them, Mr. Bannister; they think you came in search of studious retirement." "Oh, I hate both study and retirement, Mrs. Delane." "Well, I shall tell people that--may I? Now, when I was at the Cransfords' yesterday,--he's our Lord Lieutenant, you know,--they were wondering whether they might call." "I am delighted to see anyone." "From the Mayor upward--or, I suppose, Hedger would think I ought to say downward. We heard what fun you made of the poor man." "Mr. Bannister will be more respectful to the Lord Lieutenant," said Janet, smiling. "I suppose I disapprove of Lord Lieutenants," remarked Dale, with a laugh. "You'll like Lady Cransford very much, and she'll like you. She gives so many balls that a bachelor household is a godsend." "Bannister hardly depends on that for a welcome, my dear," said the Squire from the hearthrug. "Now I declare, meeting him just as a friend like this, I'm always forgetting that he's a famous man." "Please go on, Mrs. Delane. It's a capital exchange. But when are you going to give me the pleasure of seeing you at Littlehill?" Mrs. Delane paused for just a second. "I should like to visit your hermit's cell. But I'm so busy just now, and I dare say you are. When your guests forsake you, perhaps we will come and relieve your solitude. Janet, will you give us some music?" Dale followed Janet to the piano, with a little frown on his brow. Why wouldn't she come now? Was it---- Janet's voice dispersed the frown and the reflection. She sang a couple of songs, choosing them out of a book. As she turned over the leaves, Dale saw that some of the airs were set to words of his own writing. When Janet came to one of these, she turned the leaf hastily. The Squire had gone out, and Mrs. Delane, with the privilege of near relationship, was absorbed in a novel. "Will you do me a great favor?" he said. "What, Mr. Bannister?" "I should like to hear you sing words of mine. See, here are two or three." She glanced through them; then she shut the book and made as though to rise. "You won't do it?" Janet blushed and looked troubled. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Bannister; but I can't sing those words. I--I don't like them." "I am sorry they are so bad," he answered in an offended tone. "Oh, of course, so far as power and--and beauty goes, everything in the book is trash compared to them. But I can't sing them." "I won't press you." "I know you are angry. Please don't be angry, Mr. Bannister. I can't do what I think wrong, can I?" "Oh, I have no right to be angry." "There, you wouldn't say that unless you were angry. People never do." "You have such a wretchedly bad opinion of me, Miss Delane." "Do you mind that?" "You know I do." "Then one would think you would try to change it." "Ah, how can I?" "Write something I should delight in singing." "If I do, may I dedicate it to you?" "I'm afraid that wouldn't be allowed." "But if it were allowed, would you allow it?" "You know how proud any girl would be of it--of course you know." "You don't do justice to my humility." "Do justice to yourself first, Mr. Bannister." "What sort of songs do you like?" "Oh, anything honest, and manly, and patriotic, and--and nice in feeling." "A catholic taste--and yet none of mine satisfy it." "I will not be quarreled with," declared Janet. "My only wish is to propitiate you." "Then you know now how to do it." It must be allowed that conversations of this nature have a pleasantness of their own, and Dale left the Grange with a delightful feeling of having been treated as he ought to be treated. He found Philip Hume writing and smoking in the study. "Well, been stroked the right way, old man?" asked Philip, throwing down his pen. Dale helped himself to whisky and soda water, without replying. "I've been having a talk with Nellie," pursued Philip. "What's wrong with Nellie?" "She's got some notion in her head that she and her mother ought to go." Dale was lighting a cigar. "Of course I told her it was all nonsense, and that you meant them to stay as long as they liked. She's got some maggot in her head about propriety--all nonsense, when her mother's here." "I don't want them to go, if they like staying," said Dale. "Well, we should be slow without Nellie, shouldn't we? You must blow her up for thinking of it. She only wants to be persuaded." "She can do as she likes." "You don't seem very enthusiastic about it, one way or the other." "Well, my dear Phil, I can't be expected to cry at the idea of little Nellie Fane leaving us." "Yet you made rather a point of her coming--but that was two months ago." "Really, you might leave Nellie and me to settle it." "What I told her was right, I suppose?" "Well, you don't suppose I wanted you to tell her to pack up?" "I don't know what you want, old man," said Philip; "and I doubt if you do." CHAPTER X. =A Prejudiced Verdict.= It has been contumeliously said by insolent Englishmen--a part of our population which may sometimes seem to foreign eyes as large as the whole--that you might put any other of the world's capitals, say Paris or New York, down in London, and your cabman would not be able to find it. However this may be,--and there is no need in this place either for assertions or admissions,--it is certain that you might unload a wagonful of talents in Piccadilly, and they would speedily be absorbed and leave little obvious trace of the new ingredient. Hence the advantage, for a man who does not dislike the _digito monstrari et dicier_ "_hic est_," of dwelling in small places, and hence, a cynic might suggest, the craving for quieter quarters displayed by some of our less conspicuous celebrities. It is better, says a certain authority, to reign in hell than serve in heaven; and a man may grow weary of walking unrecognized down the Strand, when he has only, to be the beheld of all beholders, to take up his residence in--perhaps it will be more prudent to say Market Denborough, and not point the finger of printed scorn at any better known resort. This very ungenerous explanation was the one which Miss Victoria Smith chose to adopt as accounting for Dale Bannister's coming to Littlehill. Such an idea had never crossed her mind at first, but it became evident that a man who could leave his friend in the lurch and palter with his principles, as Dale's letter to the _Chronicle_ showed him to be doing, could only be credited with any discoverable motive less bad and contemptible than the worst through mere hastiness and ill-considered good nature. For her part, she liked a man to stick to his colors and to his friends, and not be ashamed before the tea tables of Denshire. No, she had never read his poems, she had no time, but papa had, and agreed with every word of them. "Gad! does he?" said Sir Harry Fulmer, to whom these views were expressed. "Well played the Colonel!" "What do you mean?" "Well, some of them made me sit up rather," remarked Sir Harry. "Oh, anything would make you 'sit up,' as you call it. I don't consider you a Radical." "I voted for your friend the Doctor anyhow." "Yes, that was good of you. You were the only one with an elementary sense of justice." Sir Harry's sense of justice, elementary or other, had had very little to do with his vote, but he said with honest pride: "Somebody ought to stand by a fellow when he's down." "Especially when he's in the right." "Well, I don't quite see, Miss Smith, what business it was of Roberts' to cut up the Vicar's sermon. Naturally the Vicar don't like it." "So he takes his medicine from Dr. Spink!" "Rather awkward for him to have Roberts about the place." "Oh, of course you defend him." "The Vicar's a very good fellow, though he's a Tory." "You seem to think all Tories good fellows." "So they are, most of them." "I suppose you think Mr. Bannister's right too?" "I shouldn't be so down on him as you are." "You like people who lead their friends on and then forsake them?" "Bannister never asked him to write the letter." "Well, it's not my idea of friendship. I wouldn't have a friend who thought that conduct right." "Then I think it deuced wrong," said Sir Harry promptly. "It's no compliment to a woman to treat her like a baby," remarked Tora with dignity. Sir Harry perceived that it would be to his advantage to change the subject. "Are you going skating?" he asked. "There's nothing else to do in this beastly frost." "Does the ice bear?" "Yes, they're skating on the Grange lake. I met Hume, Bannister's friend, and he told me Bannister was there." "Wasn't he going? I rather like him." "No, he was walking with Miss Fane. I believe I rather put my foot in it by asking her if she wasn't going." "Why shouldn't you?" "She said she didn't know Mrs. Delane, and looked confused, don't you know." "Hasn't Mrs. Delane called?" "It seems not," said Sir Harry. "I wonder how long they are going to stay at Littlehill?" "Forever, apparently. Shall you come to the lake?" "Perhaps in the afternoon." Tora returned to the house, still wondering. She was very angry with Dale, and prepared to think no good of him. Was it possible that she and the Colonel had been hasty in stretching out the hand of welcome to Mrs. Hodge and her daughter? For all her independence, Tora liked to have Mrs. Delane's _imprimatur_ on the women of her acquaintance. She thought she would have a word with the Colonel, and went to seek him in his study. He was not there, but it chanced that there lay on the table a copy of Dale's first published volume, "The Clarion." Three-quarters of the little book were occupied with verses on matters of a more or less public description--beliefs past and future, revolutions effected and prayed for, and so forth; the leaves bore marks of use, and evidently were often turned by the Colonel. But bound up with them was a little sheaf of verses of an amatory character: where these began, the Colonel's interest appeared to cease, for the pages were uncut; he had only got as far as the title. It was not so with his daughter. Having an idle hour and some interest in the matters and affairs of love, she took a paper-knife and sat down to read. Poets are, by ancient privilege, _legibus soluti_, and Dale certainly reveled in his freedom. Still, perhaps, the verses were not in reality so very, very atrocious as they unhappily appeared to the young lady who now read them. Tora was accustomed to consider herself almost a revolutionary spirit, and her neighbors, half in earnest, half in joke, encouraged the idea; but her revolutions were to be very strictly confined, and the limits of her free-thought were marked out by most unyielding metes and bounds--bounds that stopped very short at the church door and on the domestic threshold. This frame of mind is too common to excite comment, and it had been intensified in her by the social surroundings against which she was in mock revolt. Dale's freedom knew no trammels, or had known none when he wrote "The Clarion"; nothing was sacred to him except truth, everything as nothing beside reason, reason the handmaid of passion, wherein the spirit and individuality of each man found their rightful expression. This theory, embodied in a poet's fancy and enlivened by a young man's ardor, made fine verses, but verses which startled Tora Smith. She read for half an hour, and then, flinging the book down and drawing a long breath, exclaimed: "I can believe anything of him now!" And she had had this man to dinner! And that girl! Who was that girl? The Colonel came home to luncheon in very good spirits. He had just succeeded, in the interests of freedom, in stirring up a spirit of active revolt in Alderman Johnstone. The Alderman had hitherto, like his father before him, occupied his extensive premises on a weekly tenancy; he had never been threatened with molestation or eviction; but he felt that he existed on sufferance, and the consciousness of his precarious position had been irksome to him. A moment had come when the demand for houses was slack, when two or three were empty, and when the building trade itself was nearly at a standstill. The Colonel had incited Johnstone to seize the opportunity to ask from the Squire a lease, and Johnstone had promised to take nothing less than "seven, fourteen, or twenty-one." If refused, he declared he would surrender the premises and build for himself on some land of the Colonel's just outside the town. "Delane must grant it," said the Colonel, rubbing his hands, "and then we shall have one house anyhow where our bills can be put up. Bannister will be delighted. By the way, Tora, he wants us to go in to tea to-day, after skating. I suppose you're going to skate?" "I am going to skate, but I am not going to Mr. Bannister's," said Tora coldly. "Why not?" The Colonel was told why not with explicitness and vehemence. He tugged his white whisker in some perplexity: he did not mind much about the poems, though, of course, no excess of scrupulousness could be too great in a girl like Tora; but if she were right about the other affair! That must be looked into. The Colonel was one of those people who pride themselves on tact and _savoir faire_; he aggravated this fault by believing that tact and candor could be combined in a happy union, and he determined to try the effect of the mixture on Dale Bannister. It would go hard if he did not destroy this mare's nest of Tora's. All the neighborhood was skating on the Grange lake under a winter sun, whose ruddy rays tinged the naked trees, and drew an answering glitter from the diamond-paned windows of the house. The reeds were motionless, and the graze of skaters on the ice sounded sharp in the still air, and struck the ear through the swishing of birch brooms and the shuffle of sweepers' feet. From time to time a sudden thud and a peal of laughter following told of disaster, or there grated across the lake a chair, carrying one who preferred the conquest of men to the science of equilibrium. Rosy cheeks glowed, nimble feet sped, and lissom figures swayed to and fro as they glided over the shining surface, till even the old and the stout, the cripples and the fox hunters, felt the glow of life tingling in their veins, and the beauty of the world feeding their spirits with fresh desire. "It is not all of life to live," but, at such a moment, it is the best part of it. Dale Bannister was enjoying himself; he was a good skater, and it gave him pleasure that, when people turned to look at the famous poet, they should see an athletic youth: only he wished that Janet Delane would give him an opportunity of offering his escort, and not appear so contented with the company of a tall man of military bearing, who had come down to the water with the Grange party. He was told that the newcomer was Captain Ripley, Lord Cransford's eldest son, and he did not escape without witnessing some of the nods and becks which, in the country, where everybody knows everybody, accompany the most incipient stages of a supposed love affair. Feeling, under these circumstances, a little desolate, for Philip was engrossed in figures and would not waste his time talking, he saw with pleasure Tora Smith and Sir Harry coming toward him. He went to meet them, and, at a distance of a few yards from them, slackened his pace and lifted his hat, not doubting of friendly recognition. Sir Harry returned his salute with a cheery "How are you?" but did not stop, for Tora swept on past Dale Bannister, without a glance at him. In surprise, he paused. "She must have seen me," he thought, "but why in the world----" Bent on being sure, he put himself right in her path as she completed the circle and met him again. There was no mistaking her intention; she gave him the cut direct, as clearly and as resolutely as ever it was given. Sir Harry had remonstrated in vain. In Tora's uncompromising mind impulse did not wait on counsel, and her peremptory "I have my reasons" refused all information and prevented all persuasion. He felt he had done enough for friendship when he braved her disapproval by declining to follow her example. He did not pretend to understand the ways of women, and Dale Bannister might fight his own battles. While Dale was yet standing in angry bewilderment,--for who had received him with more cordiality than she who now openly insulted him?--he saw the Colonel hobbling toward him across the slippery expanse. The Colonel fell once, and Dale heard him swear testily at the sweeper who helped him to rise. He thought it kind to meet him halfway; perhaps the Colonel would explain. The Colonel was most ready to do so; in fact, he had come for the very purpose of warning Bannister that some silly idea was afloat, which it only needed a word to scatter. "Is there?" said Dale. "Possibly that is why Miss Smith failed to see me twice just now?" "Your poems have shocked her, my boy," said the Colonel, with a knowing look--the look that represented tact and _savoir faire_. "Is that all? She takes rather severe measures, doesn't she?" "Well," answered the Colonel, with the smile which brought candor into play, "that isn't quite all." "What in the world else is there?" "You know how censorious people are, and how a girl takes alarm at the very idea of anything--you know?" Dale chafed at these diplomatic approaches. "If there's anything said against me, pray let me know." "Oh, it's nothing very definite," said the Colonel uneasily. He did not find what he had to say so simple as it had seemed. "Indefinite things are most hopeless." "Yes, yes, quite so. Well, if you really wish it--if you won't be offended. No doubt it's all a mistake." "What do they say?" "Well, we're men of the world, Bannister. The fact is, people don't quite understand your--your household." "My household It consists of myself alone and the servants." "Of course, my dear fellow, of course! I knew it was so, but I am glad to be able to say so on your own authority." The aim of speech is, after all, only to convey ideas; the Colonel had managed, however clumsily, to convey his idea. Dale frowned, and pretended to laugh. "How absurd!" he said. "I should resent it if it were not too absurd." "I'm sure, Bannister, you'll acquit me of any meddling." "Oh, yes. I'm sorry my guests have given rise, however innocently, to such talk." "It's most unfortunate. I'm sure nothing more is needed. I hope the ladies are well?" "Yes, thanks." "I don't see them here." "No, they're not here," answered Dale, frowning again. "I hope we shall see some more of them?" "You're very kind. I--I don't suppose they--will be staying much longer." As Dale made his way to the bank to take off his skates, Janet and Tora passed him together. Tora kept her eyes rigidly fixed on the chimneys of the Grange. He made no sign of expecting recognition, but Janet, as she drew near, looked at him, blushing red, and bowed and smiled. "That girl's a trump," said Dale Bannister. "She sticks to her friends." CHAPTER XI. =A Fable about Birds.= Mrs. Hodge and Nellie, being left to their own resources, had employed the afternoon in paying a visit to Ethel Roberts, and nothing was wanting to fill Dale's cup of vexation to overflowing, unless it were to have Nellie flying open-mouthed at him, as he grumblingly expressed it, with a tale of the distress in the Doctor's household. Ethel Roberts had the fortitude to bear her troubles, the added fortitude to bear them cheerfully, but not the supreme fortitude which refuses to tell a tale of woe to any ear, however sympathetic. She did not volunteer information, but she did allow it to be dragged out of her, and the barriers of her reserve broke down before Mrs. Hodge's homely consolations and Nellie's sorrowful horror. They were reduced, she admitted, in effect to living on little else than her own wretched income; the practice brought in hardly more than it took out, for, while the rich patients failed, the poor remained; the rent was overdue, bills were unpaid, and the butcher, the milkman, and the coal merchant were growing sulky. "And while," said Mrs. Hodge, "that poor young creature is pinching, and starving, and crying, the man's thinking of nothing but Nihilists and what not. I'd Nihilist him!" Dinner was served to Dale with sauce of this sort. "Can I prevent fools suffering for their folly?" he asked. "The baby looks so ill," said Nellie, "and Mrs. Roberts is worn to a shadow." "Did you see Roberts?" asked Philip. "For a minute," said Nellie, "but he was very cold and disagreeable." "Thought you were tarred with the same brush as Dale, I suppose?" "Can't you do anything for 'em, Dale?" asked Mrs. Hodge. "I can send him a check." "He'll send it back," remarked Philip. "I wish he'd get out of the place." "Yes, he might as well be miserable somewhere else, mightn't he?" Dale glared at his friend, and relapsed into silence. Nevertheless, in spite of Philip's prediction, he sat down after dinner and wrote to Roberts, saying that he had heard that he was in temporary embarrassment, and urging him to allow Dale to be his banker for the moment; this would, Dale added, be the best way of showing that he bore no malice for Dale's letter. He sent a man with the note, ordering him to wait for an answer. The answer was not long in coming; the man was back in half an hour, bringing the Doctor's reply: Three months ago I should have thought it an honor to share my last crust with you, and no shame to ask half of all you had. Now I will not touch a farthing of your money until you come back to us. If your friends pay my wife further visits, I shall be obliged if they will look somewhat less keenly at my household arrangements. JAMES ROBERTS. "There is the snub you have brought on me!" exclaimed Dale angrily, flinging the letter to Nellie. "I might have known better than to listen to your stories." "Dale, Dale, it was every word true. How selfish he is not to think of his wife!" "Many people are selfish." "Is anything the matter, Dale?" "Oh, I'm infernally worried. I never get any peace." "Hadn't you a good time skating?" "No. I'm beginning to hate this place." "Oh, Dale, I've enjoyed my visit so much!" "Very glad to hear it, I'm sure." "You must have seen it; we've stayed so long. I've often told mamma we ought to be going." Dale lit a cigarette. "Indeed we have had no mercy on you, Dale; but the country and the rest are so delightful." "Hum--in some ways." "But I must be back at work. Mamma thought next Saturday would do." "As soon as that?" said Dale, with polite surprise. "Think how long we have been here." "Oh, don't go on Saturday!" Nellie's face brightened. "Don't you want us to?" she asked, with an eager little smile. Dale was going to be kind after all. "No. Why shouldn't you stay till Monday?" The face fell, the smile disappeared; but she answered, saving her self-respect: "Saturday is more convenient for--for arriving in town. I think we had better fix Saturday, Dale." "As you like. Sorry to lose you, Nell." He sauntered off to the smoking room to join Philip. When Philip came into the drawing room half an hour later in search of a book, he found Nellie sitting before the fire. He took his stand on the hearthrug, and looked steadily down on her. "Once upon a time," he said, "there was a very beautiful bird who, as it chanced, grew up with a lot of crows. For a long while he liked the crows, and the crows liked him--very much, some of them. Both he and the crows were pleased when the eagles and all the swell birds admired him, and said nice things about him, and wanted to know him--and the crows who liked him most were most pleased. Presently he did come to know the eagles and the other swell birds, and he liked them very much, and he began to get a little tired of the old crows, and by and by he left their company a good deal. He was a polite bird and a kind bird, and never told them that he didn't want them any more. But they saw he didn't." There was a little sob from the armchair. "Whereupon some of them broke their hearts, and others--didn't. The others were wisest, Nellie." He paused, gazing down at the distressful little heap of crumpled drapery and roughened gleaming hair. "Much wisest. He was not a bad bird as birds go--but not a bird to break one's heart about, Nellie: what bird is?" There was another sob. Philip looked despairingly at the ceiling and exclaimed under his breath: "I wish to God she wouldn't cry!" He took his book from the mantelpiece where he had laid it and moved toward the door. But he came back again, unable to leave her like that, and walked restlessly about the room, stopping every now and then to stand over her, and wonder what he could do. Presently he took a feverish little hand in his, and pressed it as it lay limp there. "The old crows stood by one another, Nellie," he said, and he thought he felt a sudden grip of his hand, coming and timidly in an instant going. It seemed to comfort her to hold his hand. The sobs ceased, and presently she looked up and said, with a smile: "I always used to cry at going back to school." "Going back to work," said Philip, "is one of the few things in the world really worth crying about." "Yes, isn't it?" she said, unblushingly availing herself of the shelter of his affected cynicism. She was afraid he might go on talking about crows, a topic which had been all very well, and even a little comforting, when she was hidden among the cushions, but would not do now. "And London is so horrid in winter," she continued. "Are you going back soon?" "Oh, I shall wait a little and look after Dale." "Dale never tells one what is happening." "I'll keep you posted, in case there's a revolution in Denborough, or anything of that sort." A step was heard outside. With a sudden bound Nellie reached the piano, sat down, and began to play a lively air. Dale came in, looking suspiciously at the pair. "I thought you'd gone to bed, Nellie." "Just going. Mr. Hume and I have been talking." "About the affairs of the nation," said Philip. "But I'm off now. Good-night, Dale." Dale looked closely at her. "What are your eyes red for? Have you been crying?" "_Crying_, Dale? What nonsense! I've been roasting them before the fire, that's all; and if they are red, it's not polite to say so, is it, Mr. Hume?" "Rightly understood, criticism is a compliment, as the reviewers say when they slate you," remarked Philip. "He might not have noticed your eyes at all." "Inconceivable," said Dale politely, for he was feeling very kindly disposed to this pretty girl, who came when he wanted her, and went when--well, after a reasonably long visit. "Good-night, Dale. I'm so sorry about--Mr. Roberts, you know." Dale, having no further use for this grievance, was graciously pleased to let it be forgotten. "Oh, you couldn't know he'd be such a brute. Good-night, Nellie." The two men returned to the smoking room. Philip, looking for a piece of paper wherewith to light his pipe, happened to notice a little bundle of proof-sheets lying on the table. "Ah, the spring bubbling again?" he asked. Dale nodded. "My dear fellow, how are the rest of us to get our masterpieces noticed? You are a monopolist." "It's only a little volume." "What's it about? May I look?" "Oh, if you like," answered Dale carelessly; but he kept his eye on his friend. Philip took up the first sheet, and read the title-page; he smiled, and, turning over, came to the dedication. "You call it 'Amor Patriæ?'" "Yes. Do you like the title?" "Hum! There was no thought of pleasing me when it was christened, I presume. And you dedicate it----" "Oh, is that there?" "Yes, that's there--'_To her that shall be named hereafter._'" Dale poked the fire before he answered. "Yes," he said, "that's the dedication." "So I see. Well, I hope she'll like them. It is an enviable privilege to confer immortality." "I'll confer it on you, if you like." "Yes, do. It will be less trouble than getting it for myself." "Under the title of 'The Snarler.'" Philip stood on the hearthrug and warmed himself. "My dear Dale," he said, "I do not snarl. A wise author pleases each section of the public in turn. Hitherto you have pleased me and my kind, and Roberts and his kind, and Arthur Angell and his kind--who are, by the way, not worth pleasing, for they expect presentation copies. Now, in this new work, which is, I understand, your tribute to the nation which has the honor to bear you, you will please----" He paused. "I always write to please myself," said Dale. "Yourself," continued Philip, "this mysterious lady, and, I think we may add, the Mayor of Market Denborough." "Go to the devil!" said the poet. CHAPTER XII. =A Dedication--and a Desecration.= A few weeks later the Mayor stood at his door, one bright morning in January, holding a parley with Alderman Johnstone. "I dessay, now," said the Mayor, "that you aint been in the way of seein' the Squire lately?" "I see him last when he signed my lease," answered the Alderman, with a grim smile, "and that's a month come to-morrow." "I had a conversation with him yesterday, and after touchin' on the matter of that last pavin' contract,--he'd heard o' your son-in-law gettin' it, Johnstone,--he got talkin' about Mr. Bannister." "Aye? did he?" "And about his noo book. 'It's a blessin',' he says, 'to see a young man of such promise shakin' himself free of that pestilential trash.' He meant your opinions by that, Johnstone." "Supposing 'e did, what then? I don't label my opinions to please the customers like as some do their physic." The Mayor was not in a fighting mood; his mind was busy with speculations, and he ignored the challenge. "Queer start Mr. Bannister showin' up at the church bazaar, eh? Spent a heap o' money, too. I met Mr. Hume, and asked him about it, and he said----" "It wan't no business o' yours, didn't he?" "Mr. Hume--he's a gentleman, Johnstone," remarked the Mayor in grave rebuke. "Well, what did 'e say?" "That where the carcass was, the eagles 'ud be gathered together." Mr. Johnstone smiled a smile of pity for the Mayor's density. "Well, what do you suppose he meant?" asked the Mayor in reply to the smile. "Where the gells is, the lads is," said the Alderman, with a wink, as he passed on his way. This most natural, reasonable, and charitable explanation of Dale's conduct in identifying himself with the Vicar's pastoral labors had, oddly enough, suggested itself to no one else, unless it might be to Captain Gerard Ripley. His presence had been hailed on the one side, and anathematized on the other, as an outward sign of an inward conversion, and his lavish expenditure had been set down to a repentant spirit rather than a desire to gratify any particular stall-holder. The Vicar had just read "Amor Patriæ," and he remarked to everyone he met that the transition from an appreciation of the national greatness to an adhesion to the national church was but a short step. Unhappily, in a moment of absence, he chanced to say so to Colonel Smith, who was at the bazaar for the purpose of demonstrating his indifferent impartiality toward all religious sects. "You might as well say," answered the Colonel in scorn, "that because a man stands by the regiment he's bound to be thick with the chaplain." Captain Ripley alone, with the penetration born of jealousy, attributed Dale's presence simply and solely to the same motive as had produced his own, to wit, a desire to be where Miss Delane was. The Captain was a little sore; he had known Janet from childhood, they had exchanged many children's vows, and when he was sixteen and she thirteen she had accepted a Twelfth Night cake ring from him. The flirtation had always proceeded in its gentle, ambling course, and the Captain had returned on long leave with the idea that it was time to put the natural termination in the way of being reached. Janet disappointed him; she ridiculed his tender references to bygone days, characterizing what had passed as boy-and-girl nonsense, and perseveringly kept their intercourse on a dull level of friendliness. On the other hand, whatever might be the nature of her acquaintance with Dale Bannister, it was at least clear that it was marked by no such uneventful monotony. Sometimes she would hardly speak to him; at others she cared to speak to no one else. The Captain would have profited ill by the opportunities a residence in garrison towns offers if he had not recognized that these changeful relations were fraught with peril to his hopes. At the bazaar, for example, he was so much moved by a long conversation between Janet and Dale, which took place over the handing of a cup of tea, that he unburdened himself to his friend Sir Harry Fulmer. Now Sir Harry was in a bad temper; he had his object in attending as the Captain had, and Colonel Smith had just told him that Tora was not coming. "Who is the fellow?" demanded Captain Ripley. "Writes poetry." "I never heard of him." "I dare say not. It's not much in your line, is it?" "Well, he's a queer-looking beggar." "Think so? Now I call him a good-looking chap." "Why the deuce doesn't he get his hair cut?" "Don't know. Perhaps Janet Delane likes it long." "I hate that sort of fellow, Harry." "He's not a bad chap." "Does the Squire like him?" "I don't know, and I don't care. How beastly hot this room is! I shall go." "I say, Harry, I've only just come back, you know. Is there anything on?" "Well, if you want to take a hand, I should cut in pretty sharp," said Sir Harry, elbowing his way to the door. Captain Ripley, impatiently refusing to buy a negro doll which the Vicar's daughter pressed on his favorable notice, leaned against the wall and grimly regarded Dale Bannister. The latter was just saying: "Have you looked at the verses at all, Miss Delane?" "I have read every one, over and over. They are splendid." "Oh, I'm new to that sort of thing." "Yes, but it's so--such a joy to me to see you doing what is really worthy of you." "If there is any credit, it's yours." "Now why do you say that? It isn't true, and it just spoils it." "Spoils it?" said Dale, who thought girls liked compliments. "Yes. If you had really only done it to please--an individual, it would be worth nothing. You couldn't help doing it. I knew you couldn't." "At any rate, you must accept the responsibility of having put it into my head." "Not even that, Mr. Bannister." "Oh, but that's the meaning of the dedication." No one is quite free from guile. Janet answered: "The dedication is rather mysterious, Mr. Bannister." "I meant it to be so to all the world." "Oh, did you?" "Except you." Janet blushed and smiled. "I wonder," pursued Dale, "if I shall ever be allowed to name that lady?" "That will depend on whether she wishes it." "Of course. Do you think she will--hereafter?" "Won't you have another cup? It's only half a crown." "Yes, two more, please. Do you think she will?" "How thirsty you seem to be!" "Will she?" "Now, Mr. Bannister, I mustn't neglect all my customers. See, Mrs. Gilkison is selling nothing." "But will she?" "Certainly not--unless you go and buy something from Mrs. Gilkison." Now whether Janet were really concerned for Mrs. Gilkison, or whether she had caught sight of Captain Ripley's lowering countenance, or whether she merely desired to avoid pledging herself to Dale, it is immaterial, and also impossible to say. Dale felt himself dismissed, with the consolation of perceiving that his dedication had not been unfavorably received in the quarter to which it was addressed. Accordingly it was in a cheerful frame of mind that he set out for home, scattering most of his purchases among the children before he went. He was in a kindly mood, and when he saw James Roberts coming up High Street, he did not, as he had once or twice lately, cross the road to avoid meeting him, but held on his path, determined to offer a friendly greeting. When the Doctor came up, he stopped and took from his breast pocket the little green volume which contained Dale's latest poems. He held it up before the author's eyes. "Ah, Roberts, I see you have the new work. How do you like it?" He tried to speak easily, but the Doctor did not appear to be in a conciliatory temper. "Are these things really yours?" he asked. "Of course they are." "This wretched jingo doggerel yours?" Dale felt this unjust. The verses might not express the Doctor's views, but an immortal poet's works are not lightly to be called doggerel. "What a narrow-minded beggar you are!" he exclaimed. The Doctor answered nothing. Buttoning up his threadbare coat, so as to leave his arms free, with an effort he tore the leaves from their cover, rent them across, flung them on the road, and trod them into the mud. Then, without a word, he passed on his way, while Dale stood and stared at the dishonored wreck. "He's mad--stark mad!" he declared at last. "How ill the poor chap looks, too!" The Doctor hurried down the street, with a strange malicious smile on his face. Every now and then his hand sought his breast pocket again, and hugged a check for a hundred pounds which lay there. It was his last money in the world; when that was gone, his banking account was exhausted, and nothing remained but his wife's pittance--and nothing more was coming. Yet he had devoted that sum to a purpose, and now he stopped at Alderman Johnstone's door, and asked for the master of the house, still grimly smiling at the thought of what he was preparing for Dale Bannister, if only Johnstone would help him. Johnstone had a lease now, he was independent--if only he would help him! The Alderman listened to the plan. "It's a new trade for me," said he, with a grin. "I find the stock--I have it ready. And----" He held up the check. The Alderman's eyes glistened. "They can't touch me," he said, "and I should like to 'ave a shy at the Squire. 'Ere's my 'and upon it." A day or two afterward Dale heard that the sale of "Sluggards" was increasing by leaps and bounds. A single house had taken five hundred copies. "Amor Patriæ" had evidently given a fresh impetus to the earlier work, in spite of the remarkable difference of tone which existed between them. "It shows," said Dale complacently to Philip Hume, "that most people are not such intolerant idiots as that fellow Roberts." But what it really did show will appear in due season. Dale did not know; nor did Philip, for he said, with a fine sneer: "It shows that immorality doesn't matter if it's combined with sound political principles, old man." CHAPTER XIII. =The Responsibilities of Genius.= Dr. Spink sat in his comfortable dining room with his after-dinner glass of wine before him. The snow was falling and the rain beating against the windows, but the Doctor had finished his work, and feared only that some sudden call would compel him to face the fury of the weather again. A few months back he would have greeted any summons, however unreasonable the hour, and thought a new patient well bought at the price of a spoiled evening. But of late the world had smiled upon him, the hill which had looked so steep was proving easy to climb, and he was already considering whether he should not take a partner, to relieve him of the more irksome parts of his duty. He pulled his neatly trimmed whisker and caressed his smooth-shaven chin, as he reflected how the folly of that mad fellow, Roberts, had turned to his advantage. No man could say that he had deviated an inch from professional propriety, or pressed his advantage the least unfairly. He had merely persevered on the lines he laid down for himself on his first arrival. The success, which astonished even himself, had come to him, partly no doubt, because merit must make its way, but mainly because his rival had willfully flung away his chances, preferring--and to Dr. Spink it seemed a preference almost insane--to speak his mind, whatever it might be, rather than, like a wise man, hold his tongue and fill his pockets. So Roberts had willed, and hence the Vicarage, the Grange, and many other houses now knew his footstep no more, and Spink filled his place. As he pondered on this, Dr. Spink spared a pang of pity for his beaten competitor, wondering what in the world the man meant to live upon. The door bell rang. He heard it with a sigh--the half-pleased, half-weary, resigned sigh that a man utters when fortune gives him no rest in getting gain. A moment later he was on his way to the surgery to see a lady who would not send in her name or business. He recognized Ethel Roberts with surprise, when she raised her veil. They had known one another to bow to, but he could not imagine what brought her to his surgery. "Mrs. Roberts! Is there anything----" "Oh, Dr. Spink, you must forgive me for coming. I am in great trouble, and I thought you might help me." "Pray sit down. Is anyone ill--your little boy?" "No, he's not ill. It's--it's about my husband." "I hope Mr. Roberts is not ill?" "I don't know," she said nervously. "That's what I want to ask you. Have you seen him lately?" "No, not very; I passed him in the street the other day." "He's gone to London, suddenly, I don't know why. Oh, he's been so strange lately!" "I thought he looked worried. Tell me about it," said Dr. Spink, moved now with genuine pity for the pale haggard face before him. "Ever since--but you mustn't tell I came to you--or spoke to anybody, I mean--will you?" He reassured her, and she continued: "Ever since his quarrel with Mr. Bannister--you know about it?--there is something the matter with him. He is moody, and absent-minded, and--and hasty, and he settles to nothing. And now he is gone off like this." "Come, Mrs. Roberts, you must compose yourself. I suppose he has let these politics worry him." "He seems to care nothing for--for his home or the baby, you know; he does nothing but read, or wander up and down the room." "It sounds as if he wanted a rest and a change. You say he has gone away?" "Yes; but on business, I think." "I'm afraid I can't tell you much, unless he calls me in and lets me have a look at him." "He'll never do that!" she exclaimed, before she could stop herself. Dr. Spink took no notice of her outburst. "If he comes back no better, send me a line, Mrs. Roberts, and we'll see. And mind you let me know if you or the baby want any advice." "You're very kind, Dr. Spink. I--I'm sorry James is so----" "Oh, that's a symptom. If he gets right, he won't be like that. Your jacket's too thin for such a night. Let me send you home in the brougham." Ethel refused the offer, and started on her return, leaving Dr. Spink shaking a thoughtful head in the surgery doorway. "It really looks," he said, "as if he was a bit queer. But what can I do? Poor little woman!" And, not being able to do anything, he went back and finished his glass of port. Then, for his dinner had been postponed till late by business, and it was half-past ten, he went to bed. Ethel beat her way down the High Street against the wind and snow, shutting her eyes in face of the blinding shower, and pushing on with all her speed to rejoin her baby, whom she had left alone. When, wet and weary, she reached her door, to her surprise she saw a man waiting there. For a moment she joyously thought it was her husband, but as the man came forward to meet her, she recognized Philip Hume. "Out on such a night, Mrs. Roberts!" She murmured an excuse, and he went on: "Is the Doctor in? I came to look him up." "No, he's away in London, Mr. Hume." "In London? What for?" "I don't know." "May I come in for a moment?" asked Philip, who had been looking at her closely. "If you like," she answered in some surprise. "I'm afraid there's no fire." Philip had followed her in and seen the grate in the sitting room with no fire lighted. "No fire?" he exclaimed. "There is one in my room where baby is," she explained. "There ought to be one here too," said he. "You're looking ill." "Oh, I'm not ill, Mr. Hume--I'm not indeed." Philip had come on an errand. There are uses even in gossips, and he had had a talk with his friend the Mayor that day. "Where are the coals?" he asked. "There are some in the scuttle," she said. He looked and found a few small pieces. The fire was laid with a few more. Philip lit them and threw on all the rest. Then he went to the door, and shouted: "Wilson!" The small shrewd-faced man who waited on Dale Bannister appeared. He was pushing a wheelbarrow before him. "Wheel it into the passage," said Philip; "and then go. And, mind, not a word!" Wilson looked insulted. "I don't talk, sir," said he. Philip returned to the room. "Mrs. Roberts," he said, "listen to me. I am a friend of your husband's. Will you let me help you?" "Indeed, I need no help." "I know you are frozen," he went on; "and--where is the servant?" "She has left. I--I haven't got another yet," she faltered. "In the passage," Philip went on, "there is a wheelbarrow. It holds coals, food, and drink. It's for you." She started up. "I can't--indeed I can't! Jim wouldn't like it." "Jim be hanged! I'll settle with him. You're to take them. Do you hear?" She did not answer. He walked up to her and put a little canvas bag in her hands. "There's money. No, take it. I shall keep an account." "I really don't need it." "You do--you know you do. How much money has he left you?" She laid her hand on his arm. "He's not himself, he isn't indeed, Mr. Hume, or he wouldn't----" "No, of course he isn't. So I do what he would, if he were himself. You were going to starve." "He will be angry." "Then don't tell him. He'll never notice. Now, will he?" "He notices nothing now," she said. "And you'll take them? Come, think of what's-his-name--the baby, you know." "You're too kind to me." "Nonsense! Of course we look after you, Mrs. Roberts." "Mr. Hume, do you think--what do you think is the matter with Jim?" "Oh, I think he's an old fool, Mrs. Roberts, and you may tell him so from me. No, no, he'll be all right in a week or two. Meanwhile, we're going to make you and Tommy--oh, Johnny, is it?--comfortable." He did not leave her till she had consented to accept all he offered; then he went back to Littlehill. "I think, Dale," he said, "Roberts must be mad. He left his wife and child starving." "Did she take the things?" "Yes; I made her." "That's all right. What a strange beggar he is! He can't be quite right in his head." "Fancy that poor little woman left like that!" "Horrible!" said Dale, with a shudder. "At any rate we can prevent that. I'm so glad you thought of it." "Old Hedger told me they had ordered nothing for three days." "How the deuce does Hedger know everything?" "It's lucky he knew this, isn't it?" "By Jove, it is! Because, you know, Phil, I feel a kind of responsibility." "Nonsense, Dale! Not really?" "Oh, you needn't laugh. Of course I couldn't know the man was a sort of lunatic. One doesn't write for lunatics." "Perhaps they ought to be considered, being so numerous." "However, it's all right now. Awfully obliged to you, Phil." "I wonder if he'll come back." "Roberts? Why shouldn't he?" "I don't know, but he's quite capable of just cutting the whole concern." "I think he's capable of anything." "Except appreciating 'Amor Patriæ,' eh?" Dale, having got the Roberts family off his mind, drifted to another topic. "I say, Phil, old chap, will you stop playing the fool for once, and give me your advice?" "What about?" asked Philip, throwing himself into an armchair. "What," said Dale gravely, filling his pipe, "do you think about getting married?" "Are you thinking of it?" "Discuss marriage in the abstract." "It is a position of greater responsibility and less freedom." "Yes, I know that. But a lot depends on the girl, doesn't it?" "I expect so." "I say, Phil, what do you think of Ripley?" "He seemed a decent enough fellow." "Do you think--I mean, do you call him an attractive fellow?" "Oh, uncommonly!" "Really?" "Well, why not?" Dale fidgeted in his chair, and relit the pipe, which had gone out. He was much too perturbed to give to the filling of it the attention that operation needs. "I suppose he'll be rich, and a swell, and all that," he went on. "No doubt--but not a Victorian poet." "Don't be a fool!" "I meant it kindly. Some girls like poets." "They were awfully kind about 'Amor Patriæ' at the Grange to-night." "Oh, you've been there?" "You know I have. Ripley was there. I don't think I care much about him, Phil." "Don't you? Does he like you?" Dale laughed as he rose to go to bed. "Not much, I think," said he. Philip also, being left companionless, got up and knocked out his pipe. Then he stood looking into the dying embers for a minute or two, and thinking, as he warmed his hands with the last of the heat. "Poor little Nellie!" he said. After a pause, he said it again; and once again after that. But then, as saying it was no use at all, he sighed and went to bed. CHAPTER XIV. =Mr. Delane Likes the Idea.= On a bright morning, when February was in one of its brief moods of kindliness, Janet Delane was in the garden, and flitting from it into the hothouses in search of flowers. It was half-past eleven, and Captain Ripley had kept her gossiping long after breakfast; that was the worst of idle men staying in a house. So she hastened to and fro in a great parade of business-like activity, and, as she went, she would sing blithely and stop and smile to herself, and break into singing again, and call merrily to her dog, a rotund, slate-colored bundle of hair that waddled after her, and answered, if he were given time to get within earshot, to the name of Mop. Mop was more sedate than his mistress: she only pretended to be on business bent, while he had been dragged out to take a serious constitutional on account of his growing corpulence, and it made him sulky to be called here and beckoned there, and told there were rats, and cats, and what not--whereas in truth there was no such thing. But Janet did not mind his sulkiness; she smiled, and sang, and smiled, for she was thinking--but is nothing to be sacred from a prying race? It is no concern of anyone's what she was thinking, and no doubt she did not desire it to be known, or she would have told Captain Ripley in the course of that long gossip. The Captain stood gazing at her out of the window, with his hands in his pockets and a doleful look of bewilderment on his face. He stared out into the garden, but he was listening to Mrs. Delane, and wondering uneasily if he were really such a dolt as his hostess seemed to consider. "You know, Gerard," said Mrs. Delane in her usual tone of suave sovereignty, "that I am anxious to help you all I can. I have always looked forward to it as an event which would give us all pleasure, and I know my husband agrees with me. But really we can't do anything if you don't help yourself." The Captain gnawed his mustache and thrust his hands deeper into his pockets. "I can't make her out," said he. "I can't get any farther with her." "It's not the way to 'get farther,'" answered Mrs. Delane, marking the quotation by a delicate emphasis, "with any girl to stand on the other side of the room and scowl whenever she talks to another man." "You mean Bannister?" "I mean anybody. I don't care whether it's Mr. Bannister or not. And it's just as useless to pull a long face and look tragic whenever she makes fun of you." "She didn't use to be like that last time I was home." "My dear boy, what has that got to do with it? She was a child then." "She's always blowing me up. This morning she asked me why I didn't go to India instead of wasting my time doing nothing in London." This was certainly unfeeling conduct on Janet's part. Mrs. Delane sighed. "I don't know that I quite understand her either, Gerard. There's the Squire calling you. He's ready to ride, I expect." When Janet came, she found her mother alone. "Where's Gerard?" she asked. "He's gone for a ride." "Is he staying to-night?" "Yes; two or three days, I think." "Well, dear, I am glad we amuse him. There doesn't seem much for a man to do here, does there?" "Don't you like him to be here?" "Oh, I don't mind; only he wastes my time." "I begin to think he's wasting his own too," remarked Mrs. Delane. "Oh, he's got nothing else to do with it--or at least he does nothing else with it." "You know what I mean, Janet, dear." "I suppose I do, but how can I help it? I do all I can to show him it's no use." "You used to like him very much." "Oh, so I do now. But that's quite different." The world goes very crooked. Mrs. Delane sighed again. "It would have pleased your father very much." "I'm so sorry. But I couldn't care for a man of that sort." "What's the matter with the man, my dear?" "That's just it, mamma. Nothing--nothing bad--and nothing good. Gerard is like heaps of men I know." "I think you underrate him. His father was just the same, and he was very distinguished in the House." Janet's gesture betrayed but slight veneration for the High Court of Parliament, as she answered: "They always say that about dull people." "Well, if it's no use, the sooner the poor boy knows it the better." "I can't tell him till he asks me, can I, dear? Though I'm sure he might see it for himself." Mrs. Delane, when she made up her mind to sound her daughter's inclinations, had expected to find doubt, indecision, perhaps even an absence of any positive inclination toward Captain Ripley. She had not been prepared for Janet's unquestioning assumption that the thing was not within the range of consideration. A marriage so excellent from a material point of view, with one who enjoyed all the advantages old intimacy and liking could give, seemed to claim more than the unhesitating dismissal with which Janet relegated it to the limbo of impossibility, with never a thought for all the prospects it held out, and never a sigh for the wealth and rank it promised. Of course the Delanes needed no alliances to establish their position; still, as the Squire had no son, it would have been pleasant if his daughter had chosen a husband from the leading family in the county. The more Mrs. Delane thought, the more convinced she became that there must be a reason; and if there were, it could be looked for only in one direction. She wondered whether the Squire's _penchant_ for his gifted young neighbor was strong enough to make him welcome him as a son-in-law. Frankly, her own was not. Mr. Delane came in to luncheon, but Captain Ripley sent a message of excuse. He had ridden over to Sir Harry Fulmer's, and would spend the afternoon there. Mrs. Delane's reception of the news conveyed delicately that such conduct was only what might be expected, if one considered how Janet treated the poor fellow, but the Squire was too busy to appreciate the subtleties of his wife's demeanor. Important events were in the way to happen. Denshire, like many other counties, had recently made up its mind that it behooved it to educate itself, and a building had arisen in Denborough which was to serve as an institute of technical education, a school of agriculture, a center of learning, a home of instructive recreation, a haven for the peripatetic lecturer, and several things besides. Lord Cransford had consented to open this temple of the arts, which was now near completion, and an inauguration by him would have been suitable and proper. But the Squire had something far better to announce. The Lord Lieutenant was, next month, to be honored by a visit from a Royal Duke, and the Royal Duke had graciously consented to come over and open the Institute. It would be an occasion the like of which Denborough had seldom seen, and Lord Cransford and Mr. Delane might well be pardoned the deputy-providential air with which they went about for the few days next following on the successful completion of this delicate negotiation. "Now," said the Squire, when he had detailed the Prince's waverings and vacillations, his he-woulds and he-would-nots, and the culmination of his gracious assent, "I have a great idea, and I want you to help me, Jan." "How can I help?" asked Janet, who was already in a flutter of loyalty. "When the Duke comes, I want him to have a splendid reception." "I'm sure he will, my dear," said Mrs. Delane; "at least I hope that we are loyal." "We want," continued the Squire, "to show him all our resources." "Well, papa, that won't take him very long. There's the old Mote Hall, and the Roman pavement and----Oh, but will he come here, papa--to the Grange?" "I hope he will take luncheon here." "How delightful!" exclaimed Janet joyfully. "Goodness!" said Mrs. Delane anxiously. "But, Jan, I want to show him our poet!" "Papa! Mr. Bannister?" "Yes. I want Bannister to write a poem of welcome." "My dear," remarked Mrs. Delane, "Mr. Bannister doesn't like princes;" and she smiled satirically. "What do you say, Jan?" asked the Squire, smiling in his turn. "Oh, yes, do ask him, papa. I wish he would." "Well, will you ask him to?" "Really, George, you are the person to suggest it." "Yes, Mary. But if I fail? Now, Jan?" "Oh, don't be foolish papa. It's not likely----" "Never mind. Will you?" But Janet had, it seemed, finished her meal; at least she had left the room. Mrs. Delane looked vexed. The Squire laughed, for he was a man who enjoyed his little joke. "Poor Jan!" he said. "It's a shame to chaff her on her conquests." Mrs. Delane's fears had been confirmed by her daughter's reception of the raillery. She would have answered in the same tone, and accepted the challenge, if the banter had not hit the mark. "It's a pity," said Mrs. Delane, "to encourage her to think so much about this young Bannister." "Eh?" said the Squire, looking up from his plate. "She thinks quite enough about him already, and hears enough, too." "Well, I suppose he's something out of the common run, in Denshire at all events, and so he interests her." "She'll have nothing to say to Gerard Ripley." "What? Has he asked her?" "No; but I found out from her. He's quite indifferent to her." "I'm sorry for that, but there's time yet. I don't give up hope." "Do you think you help your wishes by asking her to use her influence to make Dale Bannister write poems?" The Squire laid down his napkin and looked at his wife. "Oh!" he said, after a pause. "Yes," said Mrs. Delane. "Are you surprised?" "Yes, I am, rather." He got up and walked about the room, jangling the money in his pocket. "We know nothing about young Bannister," he said. "Except that he's the son of a Dissenting minister and has lived with very queer people." The Squire frowned; but presently his face cleared. "I dare say we're troubling ourselves quite unnecessarily. I haven't noticed anything." "I dare say not, George," said Mrs. Delane. "Come, Mary, you know it's a weakness of yours to find out people's love affairs before they do themselves." "Very well, George," answered she in a resigned tone. "I have told you, and you will act as you think best. Only, if you wouldn't like him for a son-in-law----" "Well, my dear, you do go ahead." "Try to put him out of Janet's head, not in it;" and Mrs. Delane swept out of the room. The Squire went to his study, thinking as he went. He would have liked the Ripley connection. Lord Cransford was an old friend, and the match would have been unimpeachable. Still---- The Squire could not quite analyze his feelings, but he did feel that the idea of Dale Bannister was not altogether unattractive. By birth, of course, he was a nobody, and he had done and said, or at least said he had done, or would like to do,--for the Squire on reflection softened down his condemnation,--wild things; but he was a distinguished man, a man of brains, a force in the country. One must move with the times. Nowadays brains opened every front door, and genius was a passport everywhere. He was not sure that he disliked the idea. Women were such sticklers for old notions. Now, he had never been a--stick-in-the-mud Tory. If Dale went on improving as he was doing, the Squire would think twice before he refused him. But there! very likely it was only Mary's match-making instincts making a mountain out of a molehill. "I shall keep at Jan about that poem," he ended by saying. "It would be a fine facer for the Radicals." CHAPTER XV. =How It Seemed to the Doctor.= James Roberts made to himself some excuse of business for his sudden expedition to London, but in reality he was moved to go by the desire for sympathy. There are times and moods when a man will do many strange things, if thereby he may gain the comfort of an approving voice. It was not so much his straitened means and impoverished household, with the silent suppressed reproach of his wife's sad face, which made Denborough for the time uninhabitable to the Doctor. The selfishness engendered by his absorption in outside affairs armed him against these; he was more oppressed, and finally overcome and routed to flight, by the universal, unbroken, and unhesitating condemnation and contempt that he met with. The severe banned him as wicked, the charitable dubbed him crazy; even Johnstone, whom he had bought, gave him no sympathy. He could not share his savage sneers, or his bitter mirth, or his passionate indignation, with a man to whom the whole affair was a matter of business or of personal grudge. He felt that he must escape for a time, and seek society in which he could unbosom himself and speak from his heart without stirring horror or ridicule. Arthur Angell at least, who, in regard to Dale and Dale's views, had always been a better royalist than the King, would share his anger and appreciate his meditated revenge. The lesson he meant to give the backslider was so appropriate and of such grim humor that Arthur must be delighted with it. On Dale's departure, Arthur Angell had moved into the little flat at the top of the tall building in Chelsea, and there he cultivated the Muses with a devotion which was its own ample reward. Though to be passing rich on forty pounds a year is, with the best will, impossible in London as it is to-day, yet to be passing happy on one hundred and fifty is not beyond the range of youth and enthusiasm, when the future still provides a gorgeous setting and background, wherein the sordid details of the present are merged and lose their prominence, and all trials are but landmarks by which the hopeful grub counts his nearer approach to butterflydom. The little room, the humble chop, the occasional pit, the constant tobacco, the unending talks with fellows like-minded and like-pursed--all these had the beauty of literary tradition, and if not a guarantee, seemed at least a condition of future fame. So Arthur often said to Mrs. Hodge, who lived in the same block, a couple of floors lower down; and Mrs. Hodge heartily agreed as she instanced, in confirmation of the doctrine, how the late Mr. Hodge had once played the King at two pound ten, _consule Pratt_, and had lived to manage his own theater. This was to compare small things with great, felt Arthur, but the truth is true in whatever sphere it works. Into his happy life there broke suddenly the tempestuous form of the Denborough Doctor. He arrived with but a pound or two in his pocket with wild ideas of employment on ultra-Radical newspapers; above all, with the full load of his rage against Dale Bannister, the traitor. He strode up and down the little room, tugging his beard and fiercely denouncing the renegade, while Arthur looked at his troubled eyes and knitted brows, and wondered if his mind were not unhinged. Who could talk like that about Dale, if he were sane? Arthur would have chaffed his friend, laughed at him, ridiculed him, perhaps slyly hinted at the illicit charms of rank and wealth, for which the poet's old mistress mourned deserted. But to speak in hate and rancor! And what was he plotting? But when he heard the plot, his face cleared, and he laughed. "I think you're hard on Dale," he said; "but, after all, it will be a good joke." "Johnstone will do it," exclaimed the Doctor, pausing in his stride. "His shop window will be full of them. He'll have sandwich-men all over the place. Bannister won't be able to go out without being met by his own words--the words he denies. I'll cram them down his throat." Arthur laughed again. "It will be awkward when he's walking with old Delane." "Aye, and with that girl who's got hold of him. He shan't forget what he wrote--nor shall a soul in Denborough either. I'll make his treachery plain, if I spend my last farthing." "When are you going back?" "In a week. It will all be ready in a week. He'll know who did it. Curse him!" "My dear Doctor, aren't you a little----" "Are you like that, too?" burst out Roberts. "Have none of you any sincerity? Is it sham with all of you? You laugh as if it were a joke." "I can't be angry with old Dale. I expect he'll only laugh himself, you know. It will be good fun." Roberts looked at him in hopeless wrath. It seemed to him that these men, who wrote the words and proclaimed the truths which had turned his life and reformed his soul, were themselves but playing with what they taught. Were they only actors--or amusing themselves? "You are as bad as he is," he said angrily, and stalked out of the room. Arthur, puzzled with his unmanageable guest, went down, as he often did, to his neighbors, and laid the whole case before Mrs. Hodge and Nellie Fane. He found them both in, Nellie having just returned from an afternoon concert where she had been singing. "I believe the fellow's half mad, you know," said Arthur. "If he isn't, he ought to be ashamed of himself," said Mrs. Hodge, and she launched on a description of Mrs. Robert's pitiable state. "Well, I don't think that he's got more than five pounds in the world," responded Arthur. "And he's got no chance of making any money. Nobody dares publish what he wants to write." "He used to be pleasant at Littlehill," Nellie remarked, "when we were first there." "Yes, wasn't he? But he's gone quite wild over Dale. Do you know what his next move is?" And Arthur disclosed the Johnstone conspiracy. "It will be rather sport, won't it?" he asked. "Poor old Dale!" But no; Miss Fane did not see the "sport." She was indignant; she thought that such a trick was mean, malicious, and odious in the highest degree, and she was surprised that Arthur Angell could be amused at it. "Women never see a joke," said Arthur huffily. "Where's the joke in making Dale unhappy and--and absurd? And you call yourself his friend!" "It's only a joke. Old Dale does deserve a dig, you know." "And pray, why? You choose your friends, why mayn't he choose his? I dare say you would be glad enough to know that sort of people if you could." "Oh, come, Nellie! I'm not like that. Besides, it's not the people; it's what he's written." "I've read what he's written. It's beautiful. No, I call the whole thing horrid, and just like Dr. Roberts." "I suppose you think, just like me, too?" "If you don't write and warn Dale, I shall." "I say, you mustn't do that. I told you in confidence. Roberts will be furious." "What do I care for Dr. Roberts' fury? I shall write at once;" and she sat down at the table. Arthur glanced in despair at Mrs. Hodge, but that discreet lady was entirely hidden in the evening paper. "Well, I'll never tell you anything again, Nellie," he said. "You'll never have the chance, unless you behave something like a gentleman," retorted Nellie. Arthur banged the door as he went out, exclaiming: "Damn Roberts! What does he want to make a row for?" Meanwhile, the Doctor, who was angry enough with Arthur Angell to have rejoiced had he known that he had embroiled him in a quarter where Arthur was growing very anxious to stand well, was pacing the streets, nursing his resentment. His head ached, and fragments of what he had read, and half-forgotten conversations, mingling in his whirling brain, fretted and bewildered him. He could think of nothing but his wrongs and his revenge, returning always to hug himself on his own earnestness, and angrily to sneer at the weakness and treachery of his friends. Whatever it cost him or his, the world should see that there was one man ready to sacrifice himself for truth and right--and punish "that hound Dale Bannister." As he walked, he bought the special edition of the paper, and, in hastily glancing at it, his eye was caught by the announcement that His Royal Highness the Duke of Mercia was to visit Lord Cransford, and would open the Institute at Market Denborough. The paragraph went on to describe the preparations being made to give the Prince a loyal reception, and ended by saying that it was hoped that the eminent poet, Mr. Dale Bannister, who was resident at Denborough, would consent to write a few lines of welcome to the illustrious visitor. The writer added a word or two of good-natured banter about Mr. Bannister's appearance in a new character, and the well-known effect which the proximity of royalty was apt to have on English republicanism. "Who knows," he concluded, "that Mr. Bannister may not figure as Sir Dale before long?" The Doctor read the paragraph twice, the flush of anger reddening his pale face. Then he crumpled up the paper and flung it from him, resuming his hasty, restless walk. He could imagine the sickening scene, the rampant adulation, the blatant snobbishness. And, in the midst, a dishonored participator, the man who had been his leader, his liberator, the apostle of all he loved and lived by. Had the man been a hypocrite from the first? Impossible! No hypocrite could have written those burning lines which leaped to his memory and his lips. Or was he merely a weak fool? That could not be either. It was a barter, a deliberate barter of truth and honor against profit--as sordid a transaction as could be. He wanted a position in society, money, a rich wife, petting from great people--perhaps even, as that scribbler said, a ribbon to stick in his coat or a handle to fasten to his name. How could he? how could he? And the Doctor passed his hand across his hot, throbbing brow in the bewilderment of wrath. For an hour and more he ranged the streets aimlessly, a prey to his unreasoning fury. For this man's sake he had ruined himself; led on by this man's words, he had defied the world--his world. At all hazards he had joined the daring band. Now he was forsaken, abandoned, flung aside. He and his like had served their turn. On their backs Dale Bannister had mounted. But now he had done with them, and their lot was repudiation and disdain. Roberts could not find words for his scorn and contempt. His head racked him more and more. Connected thought seemed to become impossible; he could do nothing but repeat again and again, "The traitor! The traitor!" At last he turned home to his humble lodgings. The short hush of very early morning had fallen on the streets; he met no one, and the moon shone placidly down on the solitary figure of the maddened man, wrestling with his unconquerable rage. He could not stem it; yielding to its impulse, with quivering voice and face working with passion, he stretched his clenched fist to the sky and cried: "By God, he shall pay for it!" CHAPTER XVI. ="No More Kings."= After her father's report and the departure of Nellie Fane, Miss Tora Smith had been pleased to reconsider her judgment of Dale Bannister, and to modify it to some extent. The poems and the suspicion, taken in conjunction, each casting a lurid light on the other, had been very bad indeed; but when Tora's mind was disabused of the suspicion, she found it in her heart to pardon the poems. Although she treated Sir Harry Fulmer with scant ceremony, she had no small respect for his opinion, and when he and the Colonel coincided in the decision that Dale need not be ostracized, she did not persist against them. She was led to be more compliant by the fact that she was organizing an important Liberal gathering, and had conceived the ambition of inducing Dale to take part in the proceedings. "Fancy, if he would write us a song!" she said; "a song which we could sing in chorus. Wouldn't it be splendid?" "What would the Squire say?" asked Sir Harry. Tora smiled mischievously. "Are you," she demanded, "going to stand by and see him captured by the Grange?" "He ought to be with us, oughtn't he?" said Sir Harry. "Of course. And if our leader had an ounce of zeal----" "I'll write to him to-day," said Sir Harry. "Yes; and mind you persuade him. I shall be so amused to see what Jan Delane says, if he writes us a song." "He won't do it." "He won't, if you go in that despairing mood. Now write at once. Write as if you expected it." The outcome of this conversation, together with the idea which had struck the Squire, was, of course, that Dale received, almost by the same post, an urgent request for a militant Radical ditty, and a delicate, but very flattering, suggestion that it would be most agreeable to His Royal Highness--indeed he had hinted as much in response to Lord Cransford's question--to find the loyalty of Denborough, as it were, crystallized in one of Mr. Bannister's undying productions. For the first time in his life, Dale felt a grudge against the Muses for their endowment. Could not these people let him alone? He did not desire to put himself forward; he only asked to be let alone. It was almost as repugnant to him--at least, he thought it would be--to take part in Lord Cransford's pageant, as it certainly would be to hear the Radicals of Denborough screeching out his verses. He was a man of letters, not a politician, and he thought both requests very uncalled for. It might be that the Grange folks had some claim on him, but his acquaintance with Sir Harry Fulmer was of the slightest; and what did the man mean by talking of his "well-known views"? He was as bad as the Doctor himself. Presently Philip Hume came in, and Dale disclosed his perplexities. "I want to please people," he said, "but this is rather strong." "Write both," suggested Philip. "That will enrage both of them." "Then write neither." "Really, Phil, you might show some interest in the matter." "I am preoccupied. Have you been in the town to-day, Dale?" "No." "Then you haven't seen Johnstone's window?" "Johnstone's window? What does Johnstone want with a window?" "Put on your hat and come and see. Yes, come along. It concerns you." They walked down together in the gathering dusk of the afternoon, and when they came near Johnstone's, they saw his window lighted with a blaze of gas, and a little knot of curious people standing outside. The window was full of Dale's books, and the rows of green volumes were surmounted by a large placard--"Dale Bannister, the poet of Denborough--Works on Sale Here. Ask for 'The Clarion,' 'The Arch Apostates,' 'Blood for Blood'"; and outside, a file of men carried boards, headed, "The Rights of the People. Read Dale Bannister! No more Kings! No more Priests! Read Dale Bannister!" A curse broke from Dale. Philip smiled grimly. "Who's done this?" Dale asked. Philip pointed to a solitary figure which stood on the opposite side of the road, looking on at the spectacle. It was James Roberts, and he smiled grimly in his turn when he saw the poet and his friend. "He put Johnstone up to it," said Philip. "Johnstone told me so." Dale was aflame. He strode quickly across the road to where the Doctor stood, and said to him hotly: "This is your work, is it?" The Doctor was jaunty and cool in manner. "No, your works," he answered, with a foolish, exasperating snigger. "Aren't you pleased to see what notice they are attracting? I was afraid they were being forgotten in Denborough." "God only knows," said Dale angrily, "why you take pleasure in annoying me; but I have borne enough of your insolence." "Is it insolent to spread the sale of your books?" "You will make your jackal take those books down and stop his infernal posters, or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life." "Ah!" said Roberts, and his hand stole toward his breast-pocket. "What do you say?" "I say that if I can make a wretched snob like you unhappy, it's money well spent, and I'll see you damned before I take the books down." Dale grasped his walking-cane and took a step forward. The Doctor stood waiting for him, smiling and keeping his hand in his pocket. "Jim!" The Doctor turned and saw his wife at his side. Dale fell back, lifting his hat, at the sight of the pale distressed face and clasped hands. "Do come home, dear!" she said, with an appealing glance. Philip took Dale's arm. "Come," he said, "let's reason with Johnstone." Dale allowed himself to be led away, not knowing that death had stared him in the face; for it was a loaded revolver that Roberts let fall back into the recesses of his pocket when his wife's touch recalled for a moment his saner sense. The reasoning with Johnstone was not a success. Dale tried threats, abuse, and entreaties, all in vain. At last he condescended to bribery, and offered Johnstone twice the sum, whatever it might be, which he had received. He felt his degradation, but the annoyance was intolerable. The Alderman's attitude, on receiving this offer, was not without pathos. He lamented in himself an obstinate rectitude, which he declared had often stood in his way in business affairs. His political convictions, engaged as they were in the matter, he would have sacrificed, if the favor thereby accorded to Mr. Bannister were so great as to be measured by two hundred pounds; but he had passed his word; and he concluded by beseeching Dale not to tempt him above that which he was able. "Take it away, take it away, sir," he said when Dale held a pocketbook before his longing eyes. "It aint right, sir, it aint indeed--and me a family man." Dale began to feel the guilt of the Tempter, and fell back on an appeal to the Alderman's better feelings. This line of argument elicited only a smile. "If I won't do it for two hundred sovereigns, does it stand to reason, sir, as I should do it to obleege?" Dale left him, after a plain statement of the estimation in which he held him, and went home, yielding, only after a struggle, to Philip's representation that any attempt to bribe the sandwich-men must result in his own greater humiliation and discomfiture. Angry as Dale was, he determined not to allow this incident to turn him from the course he had marked out for himself. It confirmed his determination to have nothing to do with Sir Harry's Radical song, but it did not make him any the more inclined to appear as a eulogist of royalty. Neutrality in all political matters was his chosen course, and it appeared to him to be incomparably the wisest under all the circumstances. This view he expressed to the family at the Grange, having walked over for that purpose. He expected to meet with some opposition, but to his surprise the Squire heartily acquiesced. "After this scandalous business," he said, "you must cut the Radicals altogether. Of course, Harry Fulmer will object to it as much as we do, but he must be responsible for his followers. And I think you're quite right to let us alone, too. Why should you literary men bother with politics?" Dale was delighted at this opinion, and at Janet's concurrence with it. "Then I dare say you will be so kind as to express my feelings to Lord Cransford; if he thinks fit, he can let the Duke know them." The Squire's face expressed surprise, and his daughter's reflected it. "But, my dear fellow," said Mr. Delane, "what has Cransford's suggestion to do with politics? The throne is above politics." "Surely, Mr. Bannister," added Janet, "we are all loyal, whatever our politics? I'm sure Sir Harry himself is as loyal as papa." "Come, Bannister, you press your scruples too far. There are no politics in this." Dale was staggered, but not convinced. "I'd rather not put myself forward at all," he said. The Squire assumed an air of apologetic friendliness. "I know you'll excuse me, Bannister. I'm twice your age or more, and I--well--I haven't been so lucky as you in escaping the world of etiquette. But, my dear fellow, when the Duke sends a message--it really comes to that--it's a strongish thing to say you won't do it. Oh, of course, you can if you like--there's no beheading nowadays; but it's not very usual." "I wish Lord Cransford had never mentioned me to the Duke at all." "Perhaps it would have been wiser," the Squire conceded candidly, "but Cransford is so proud of anything that brings _kudos_ to the county, and he could no more leave you out than he could the Institute itself. Well, we mustn't force you. Think it over, think it over. I must be off. No, don't you go. Stay and have tea with the ladies;" and the Squire, who, as has been previously mentioned, was no fool, left his daughter to entertain his guest. Janet was working at a piece of embroidery, and she went on working in silence for a minute or two. Then she looked up and said: "Tora Smith was here this morning. She'll be very disappointed at your refusal to write for her meeting." "Miss Smith has no claim on me," said Dale stiffly. He had not forgotten Tora's injurious suspicions. "Besides, one doesn't do such things simply for the asking--not even if it's a lady who asks." "You know, I don't think anybody ought to ask--no, not princes; and I hope you won't do what Lord Cransford wants merely because you're asked." "Your father says I ought." "Papa wants you to do it very much." "And I should like to do what he wants." "I should like you to do what he wants, but not because he wants it," said Janet. Dale turned round to her and said abruptly: "I'll do it, if you want me to." Now this was flattering, and Janet could not deny that it gave her pleasure; but she clung to her principles. "I don't want it--in that sense," she answered. "I should be glad if it seemed to you a right thing to do; but I should be sorry if you did it, unless it did." "You will not let me do it for you?" "No," she answered, smiling. "You have no pleasure in obedience?" "Oh, well, only in willing obedience," said she, with a smile. "It would be very willing--even eager." "The motive would not be right. But how absurd! I believe----" "Well, what?" "That you mean to do it, and are trying to kill two birds with one stone." "You don't really think that, Miss Delane?" "No, of course not. Only you were becoming so serious." "May I not be serious?" "It isn't serious to offer to take important steps because it would please a girl." "Aren't you rather contradicting yourself? You called that becoming serious just now." "If I am, it is a privilege we all have." "Girls, you mean? Well, you refuse to help me?" "Entirely." "Even to counteract Miss Smith's illicit influence?" "I shall trust to your own sense of propriety." Dale walked home, grievously puzzled. A small matter may raise a great issue, and he felt, perhaps without full reason, that he was at the parting of the ways. "No more Kings! No more Priests!" Or "An Ode to H. R. H. the Duke of Mercia on his visit to Denborough"! Dale ruefully admitted that there would be ground for a charge of inconsistency. Some would talk of conversion, some of tergiversation; he could not make up his mind which accusation would be the more odious. There was clearly nothing for it but absolute neutrality; he must refuse both requests. Janet would understand why; of course she would, she must; and even if she did not, what was that to him? The throne above politics!--that must be a mere sophism; there could not be anything in that. No doubt this young Prince was not morally responsible for the evils, but he personified the system, and Dale could not bow the knee before him. If it had been possible--and as he went he began idly to frame words for an ode of welcome. An idea or two, a very happy turn, came into his head; he knew exactly the tone to take, just how far to go, just the mean that reconciles deference to independence. He had the whole thing mapped out before he recalled to himself the thought that he was not going to write at all, and as he entered his own garden he sighed at the necessary relinquishing of a stately couplet. There was no doubt that work of that class opened a new field, a hitherto virgin soil, to his genius. It was a great pity. In the garden, to his surprise, he came on Arthur Angell. "What brings you here, Arthur?" he said. "Delighted to see you, though." Arthur explained that he had run down at Nellie Fane's bidding. Nellie had written her letter of warning about the Doctor's conspiracy, but, having thus relieved her mind, had straightway forgotten all about her letter, and it had lain unposted in her pocket for a week. Then she found it, and sent Arthur off in haste to stop the mischief. "It's awfully kind of Nellie," said Dale; "but I don't suppose it would have been of any use, and anyhow it's too late now." "Yes, so Phil told me." "A dirty trick, isn't it?" "Well, I suppose it's rather rough on you," said Arthur, struggling between principles and friendship, and entirely suppressing his own privity to the said dirty trick. "You'll stay?" "I've got no clothes." "Oh, Wilson will see to that. Come in." Philip met them at the door. "I've a message for you, Dale," he said. "The Mayor has been here." "And what may the Mayor want?" "The Mayor came as an ambassador. He bore a resolution from the Town Council, a unanimous resolution (_absente_ Johnstone owing to pressure in the bookselling trade), begging you to accede to the Lord Lieutenant's request and write a poem for the Duke." "Hang the Town Council!" exclaimed Dale. "I wonder why nobody will let me alone!" Then he remembered that Miss Delane had been almost ostentatious in her determination to let him alone. If he wrote, they could not say that he had written to please her. But he was not going to write. True, it would have been a good revenge on the Doctor, and it would have pleased---- "Shall you do the ode?" asked Philip Hume. "Certainly not," answered Dale in a resolute tone. CHAPTER XVII. =Dale tries His Hand at an Ode.= Dale's preoccupations with his new friends had thrown on Philip Hume the necessity of seeking society for himself, if he did not wish to spend many solitary evenings at Littlehill. The resources of Denborough were not very great, and his dissipation generally took the form of a quiet dinner, followed by a rubber of whist, at Mount Pleasant. The Colonel and he suited one another, and, even if Philip had been less congenial in temper, the Colonel was often too hard put to it for a fourth player to be nice in scrutinizing the attractions of anyone who could be trusted to answer a call and appreciate the strategy of a long suit. Even with Philip's help the rubber was not a brilliant one; for Tora only played out of filial duty, and Sir Harry came in to join because it was better to be with Tora over a whist-table than not to be with her at all. That he thought so witnessed the intensity of his devotion, for to play whist seemed to Sir Harry to be going out of one's way to seek trouble and perplexity of mind. On the evening of Arthur Angell's arrival the usual party had dined together and set to work. Things were not going well. At dinner they had discussed the royal visit, and the Colonel had been disgusted to find that his daughter, unmindful of her, or rather his, principles, was eager to see and, if it might be, to speak with "this young whippersnapper of a Prince." The Colonel could not understand such a state of feeling, but Tora was firm. All the county would be there in new frocks; she had ordered a new frock, of which she expected great things, and she meant to be there in it; it would not do, she added, for the Duke to think that the Radicals had no pretty girls on their side. The Colonel impatiently turned to Sir Harry; but Sir Harry agreed with Tora, and even Philip Hume announced his intention of walking down High Street to see, not the Prince of course, but the people and the humors of the day. "Really, Colonel," he said, "I cannot miss the Mayor." "Are we going to have a rubber or not?" asked the Colonel with an air of patient weariness. They sat down, Sir Harry being his host's partner. Now, Sir Harry was, and felt himself to be, in high favor, owing to his sound views on the question of the day, and he was thinking of anything in the world rather than the fall of the cards. Consequently his play was marked by somewhat more than its ordinary atrociousness, and the Colonel grew redder and redder as every scheme he cherished was nipped in the bud by his partner's blunders. Tora and Philip held all the cards, and their good fortune covered Tora's deficiency in skill, and made Philip's sound game seem a brilliant one. At last the Colonel could bear it no longer. He broke up the party, and challenged Philip to a game of piquet. "At any rate, one hasn't a partner at piquet," he said. Sir Harry smiled, and followed Tora to the drawing room. With such rewards for bad play, who would play well? He sat down by her and watched her making spills. Presently he began to make spills too. Tora looked at him. Sir Harry made a very bad spill indeed, and held it up with a sigh. "That's the sort of thing," he said, "I have to light my pipe with at home!" "As you've been very good to-night," answered Tora, "I'll give you some of mine to take with you. Let me show you how to do them for yourself." Then ensued trivialities which bear happening better than they do recording--glances and touches and affectations of stupidity on one side and impatience on the other--till love's ushers, their part fulfilled, stand by to let their master speak, and the hidden seriousness, which made the trifles not trifling, leaps to sudden light. Before her lover's eager rush of words, his glorifying of her, his self-depreciation, Tora was defenseless, her raillery was gone, and she murmured nothing but: "You're _not_ stupid--you're _not_ dull. Oh, how can you!" Before he set out for home Philip Hume was privileged to hear the fortunate issue, and to wonder how much happiness two faces can manage to proclaim. Kindly as the little family party took him into their confidence, he hastened away, knowing that he had no place there. Such joys were not for him, he thought, as he walked slowly from the door, remembering how once he had challenged impossibility, and laid his love at a girl's feet; and she, too, had for a moment forgotten impossibility; and they were very happy--for a moment; then they recollected--or had it recollected for them--that they were victims of civilization. And hence an end. Philip recalled this incident as he walked. He had not thought of it for a long time, but the air of Denborough seemed so full of love and love-making that he spared a sigh or two for himself. Well born and well educated, he wrung from the world, by painful labor, some three or four hundred pounds a year. It was enough if he had not been well born or well educated; but his advantages turned to disabilities, and he saw youth going or gone, and the home and the love which had been so confidently assumed as his lot, that even as a boy he had joked and been joked about them, faded away from his picture of the future, and he was only kept from a sigh of self-pity by reminding himself of the ludicrous commonplaceness of his grievance against fate. He knew men so situated by dozens, and nobody thought them ill used. No more they were, he supposed; at least, it seemed nobody's fault, and, in view of sundry other sad things in the world, not a matter to make a fuss about. He found Dale in high spirits; for Dale had conceived a benevolent scheme, by which he was to make two of his friends happy--as happy as Tora Smith and Harry Fulmer, the news of whom he heard with the distant interest to which Tora's bygone hostility restricted him. He and Arthur Angell had dined together, smoked together, and drunk whisky and water together, and the floodgates of confidence had been opened; a thing prone to occur under such circumstances, a thing that seems then very natural, and reserves any appearance of strangeness for next morning's cold meditations. Dale had chanted Janet's charms, and Arthur had been emboldened to an antistrophe in praise of Nellie Fane. It was a revelation to Dale--a delightful revelation. It would be ideally suitable, and it was his pleasure that the happy issue should be forwarded by all legitimate means. "Arthur's going to stay," he said; "and I've written to Nellie to tell her to come down with her mother." "Ah!" "Of course, I've said nothing about Arthur. I've put it on the royal visit. She'd like to be here for that anyhow; and when she's here, Arthur must look out for himself." "Why couldn't he do it in London? They live on the same pair of stairs," objected Philip. "Oh, London! who the deuce could make love in London?" asked Dale in narrow-minded ignorance. "People's faces are always dirty in London." Philip smiled, but this new plan seemed to him a bad one. It was one of Dale's graces to be unconscious of most of his triumphs, and it had evidently never struck him that Nellie's affections would offer any obstacle to the scheme, or cause her fatally to misinterpret what the scheme was. "I don't see," said Philip, "that she is more likely to be captivated by our young friend here than in London." "My dear fellow, he's at work there, and so is she. Here they'll have nothing else to do." While Dale chattered over his great idea, Philip pondered whether to interfere or not. He was certain that Nellie had been fond, not of Arthur Angell, but of Dale himself; he feared she would think her invitation came from Dale's own heart, not in favor to a friend, and he suspected the kindness would end in pain. But, on the other hand, affections change, and there is such a thing as falling back on the good when the better is out of reach; and, finally, there is a sound general principle that where it is doubtful whether to hold one's tongue or not, one's tongue should be held. Philip held his. He shrugged his shoulders and said: "If this goes on, a bachelor won't be safe in Denborough. What have you been doing?" and he pointed at some scribbling which lay on the table. Dale flushed a little. "Oh, I've just been trying my hand at that little thing they want me to do--you know." "For the Radical meeting?" "No, no. For the Duke of Mercia's visit." "Oh! So you're going to do it?" Dale assumed a candid yet judicial air. "If I find I can say anything gracious and becoming, without going back on my principles, Phil, I think I shall. Otherwise not." "I see, old fellow. Think you will be able?" "I don't intend to budge an inch from my true position for anybody." "Don't be too hard on the Duke. He's a young man." Dale became suspicious that he was being treated with levity; he looked annoyed, and Philip hastened to add: "My dear boy, write your poem, and never mind what people tell you about your principles. Why shouldn't you write some verses to the young man?" "That's what I say," replied Dale eagerly. "It doesn't compromise me in the least. I think you're quite right, Phil." And he sat down again with a radiant expression. Philip lit his pipe, and drew his chair near the fire, listening idly to the light scratchings of the writing and the heavy scratchings of the erasures. "You seem to scratch out a lot, Dale," he remarked. "A thing's no good," said Dale, without turning round, "till you've scratched it all out twice at least." "It's a pity, then," said Philip, pulling at his pipe and looking into the fire, "that we aren't allowed to treat life like that." His words struck a chord in Dale's memory. He started up, and repeated: "The moving Finger writes, and having writ Moves on, nor all your piety nor wit Can lure it back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out a word of it." "And yet," said Philip, stretching out a hand to the flickering blaze, "we go on being pious and wise--some of us; and we go on crying--all of us." CHAPTER XVIII. =Delilah Johnstone.= When it became known to Mr. Delane that the ode of welcome would be forthcoming,--a fact which, without being definitely announced, presently made its way into general knowledge,--he felt that he owed Dale Bannister a good turn. The young man was obviously annoyed and hurt at the aspect of Alderman Johnstone's window, and the Squire could not, moreover, conceal from himself that the parade of the Alderman's sandwich-men on the day of the royal visit would detract from the unanimity of loyalty and contentment with Queen and Constitution which he felt Denborough ought to display. Finally, his wife and his daughter were so strongly of opinion that something must be done that he had no alternative but to try to do something. Intimidation had failed; the Alderman intrenched himself behind his lease; and Colonel Smith's open triumph was hardly needed to show the Squire that in this matter he had been caught napping. Bribery of a direct and pecuniary sort was apparently also of no avail, and the Squire was driven to play his last card at the cost of great violence to his own feelings. A week before the great day he sent for the Mayor and was closeted with him for half an hour. The Mayor came out from the conference with an important air, and, on his way home, stopped at Alderman Johnstone's door. The poems, placards, and posters were still prominently displayed, and over the way James Roberts, in his well-worn coat, paced up and down on his unwearying patrol. He would wait days rather than miss Dale, in case the poet might chance to pass that way. He had nothing to do, for no one sent for him now; he had no money, and could earn none; therefore his time was his own, and he chose to spend it thus, forgetting his wife and his child, forgetting even to ask how it happened that there was still food and fuel in his house, or to suspect what made him so often see Philip Hume walk past with an inquiring gaze, indifferently concealed, and so often meet Dale's servant, Wilson, carrying baskets up and down the street on his way to and from Littlehill. The Mayor went in and fell into conversation with Johnstone. He spoke of the glories of the coming day, of his own new gown, and of Mrs. Hedger's; and as he raised his voice in enthusiastic description Mrs. Johnstone stole in from the back parlor and stood within the door. The Alderman affected scorn of the whole affair, and chuckled maliciously when the Mayor referred to Dale Bannister. "Then," said the Mayor, "after the Institoot's opened, there's a grand luncheon at the Grange, with the Duke, and his Lordship, and the Squire, and all." He paused: the Alderman whistled indifferently, and his wife drew a step nearer. The Mayor proceeded, bringing his finest rhetoric into play. "The Crown," he said, "the County, and the Town will be represented." "What, are you going, Hedger?" asked the Alderman, with an incredulous laugh. "The Squire and Mrs. Delane are so good as to make a point of me and Mrs. Hedger attendin'--in state, Johnstone." "My!" said Mrs. Johnstone, moving a step within the door. "That'll be a day for Susan." "His Lordship gives Susan his arm," said the Mayor. "Aint there any more going from the town?" asked Mrs. Johnstone, while the Alderman ostentatiously occupied himself with one of his posters. "The Squire," replied the Mayor, "did want another,--there's no room but for two,--but he thinks there's no one of sufficient standin'--not as would go." "Well, I'm sure!" said Mrs. Johnstone. "You see, ma'am," pursued the Mayor, "we must consider the lady. The lady must be asked. Now would _you_ ask Mrs. Maggs, or Mrs. Jenks, or Mrs. Capper, or any o' that lot, ma'am?" "Sakes, no!" said Mrs. Johnstone scornfully. "'There is a lady,' I says to the Squire, 'as would do honor to the town, but there--the man's wrong there!'" Mrs. Johnstone came nearer still, glancing at her husband. "When I mentioned the party I was thinkin' of," the Mayor went on, "the Squire slapped his thigh, and, says he, 'The very man we want, Hedger,' he says; 'all parties ought to be represented. He's a Liberal--a prominent Liberal; so much the better. Now, won't he come?' 'Well,' says I, 'he's an obstinate man;' and Mrs. Delane says, 'You must try, Mr. Mayor. Say what pleasure it 'ud give me to see him and Mrs. Johnstone----' There, I've let it out!" A pause followed. The Mayor drew a card from his pocket. It was headed, "To have the honor of meeting H. R. H. the Duke of Mercia." The Mayor laid it on the counter. "There!" he said. "You must do as you think right, Johnstone. Of course, if you like to go on like this, worryin' the Squire's friends, why, it isn't for you to put your legs under the Squire's ma'ogany. So the Squire says. He says, 'Let him drop that nonsense, and come and be friendly--he may think what he likes.'" There was another pause. "There'll have been nothin' like it in my day," said the Mayor. "And only me and Susan from the town!" "There'll be plenty ready to go," said Johnstone. "Aye, that they will, but they won't have the askin'. Mrs. Delane says there aint a soul she'll have, except me and Susan, and you and Mrs. Johnstone. You see, ma'am, it isn't everyone who can sit down with the county." The heart of Mrs. Johnstone was alight with pride and exultation and longing. She looked at her husband and she looked at the Mayor. "You and me and the Recorder 'ud drive up in the coach," said the Mayor, with the air of one who regretfully pictures an impossible ideal; "and the ladies--Mrs. Hedger and you, ma'am--was to follow in a carriage and pair with a postilion--his Lordship 'ud send one for ye." "I'd wear my ruby velvet," murmured Mrs. Johnstone in the voice of soliloquy, "and my gold earrings." "Well, I must be goin'," said the Mayor. "It's a cryin' shame you won't come, Johnstone. What's that mad feller Roberts to you?" "A dirty villain as starves his wife!" ejaculated Mrs. Johnstone, with sudden violence. The Alderman looked up with a start. "Take a day to think it over," said the Mayor. "Take a day, ma'am;" and he disappeared with a smile on his shrewd, good-tempered face. There was silence for a moment after he went. The Alderman sat in his chair, glancing at his wife out of the corner of his eye. Mrs. Johnstone gazed fixedly at the shop-window. The Alderman looked at her again: she was, he thought (with much justice), a fine woman; she would look well in the ruby velvet and the gold earrings, and the swells would wonder where old Johnstone picked up that strapping young woman--for she was his junior by twenty years. The Alderman sighed, and looked down again at his poster. Presently Mrs. Johnstone stole quietly toward the window, the Alderman covertly watching her. When she reached it, she threw a coquettish glance over her shoulder at her elderly husband: did she not know, as well as he, that she was a fine young woman? Then she began to take Dale Bannister's books out of their place, piling them behind the counter, and to tear down the bills and placards. The Alderman sat and watched her, till she had finished her task. Then he rose and thundered: "Put them things back, Sally! Do you 'ear _me_? I aint going to be made a fool of." Probably Mrs. Johnstone was not so sure. She burst into tears and flung her arms round the Alderman's neck. "There! what's there to cry about?" said he, drawing her on to his knee. While the Mayor was still in the shop, James Roberts had gone home to his midday meal. He ate it with good appetite, not knowing who had paid for it, and not noticing his wife's terror lest he should ask her. After the meal he went to his study and read some of Dale's poetry, declaiming it loudly and with fury, while Ethel listened with the horror that had begun to gain on her increasing and increasing as she listened. She was afraid of him now--afraid most for him, but also for the child and herself; and she thanked Heaven every time he went out peacefully, and again when he came back unhurt. It was about four when the Doctor took his hat and walked down the street to resume his patrol. To his amazement, the window was bare, the books gone, the placards and posters all torn down. With an oath he rushed into the shop, and found the Alderman sitting behind a pile of volumes, on the top of which lay an envelope addressed to himself. "What's the meaning of this?" gasped the Doctor, and as he spoke the glass door which led to the parlor opened a little way. "It means, Doctor, that I've had enough of it." "Enough of it?" "Yes. Mr. Bannister aint done me any 'arm, and I'm not going to fret him any more." "You scoundrel!" shrieked the maddened man; "you thief! you took my money--you----" "There's your books, and there in the envelope you'll find your 'undred pound. Take 'em and get out." "So Bannister has been at you?" sneered Roberts. "I aint seen 'im." "Ah!" He was quiet now, the cold fit was on him. He took no notice of the books, but put the envelope in his pocket and turned to go, saying: "You think you can stop my revenge, you pitiful fool; you'll see." Johnstone gave himself a shake. "I'm well out of that," he said. "I b'lieve he's crazy. Sally, where are you?" Sally came, and no doubt the Alderman gained the reward of the righteous, in whose house there is peace. When the Squire received an acceptance of his invitation from Alderman and Mrs. Johnstone, he became more than ever convinced that every Radical was at heart a snob. Perhaps it would have been fair to remember that most of them are husbands. Be that as it may, his scheme had worked. The posters, the books, and the sandwich-men were gone. There was nothing now to remind Denborough that it harbored a revolutionist. What was more important still, there was nothing to remind Dale Bannister of the indiscretions of his past. He might now read his ode, unblushing, in High Street, and no placard would scream in ill-omened reminder: "No more Kings!" CHAPTER XIX. =A Well-Paid Poem.= Among the quieter satisfactions of life must be ranked in a high place the peace of a man who has made up his mind. He is no longer weighing perplexing possibilities, but, having chosen his path, feels that he has done all that can be done, and that this conviction will enable him to bear with patience the outcome of his determination, whatever it may be. Of course he is wrong, and if misfortune comes, his philosophy will go to the wall, but for the moment it seems as if fate cannot harm him, because he has set his course and bidden defiance to it. Dale had made up his mind to disregard cavilers, not to write the Radical ditty, to write the ode of welcome, and, lastly, to follow whither his inclination led. And, on the top of these comforting resolutions, came the removal of his thorn in the flesh--Johnstone's be-placarded shop window--and the glow of well-rewarded benevolence with which he had witnessed Nellie Fane's ill-concealed delight in her return to Littlehill and Arthur Angell's openly declared pleasure in greeting her. Dale began to think that he had too easily allowed himself to be put out, and had been false to his poetic temperament by taking trifles hardly. He was jocund as he walked, and nature responded to his mood: the sun shone bright and warm on him, and the spring air was laden with pleasant hints of coming summer. He wondered how and why, a few weeks ago, he had nearly bidden a disgusted farewell to Market Denborough. Now, when a man sets out in such a mood, being a young man, and a man, as they used to say, of sensibility, next to anything may happen. From his contented meditations on the happy arrangement he had made for his friends, Dale's thoughts traveled on to his own affairs. He was going to the Grange--he was always going to the Grange now, and he seemed always welcome there. Mrs. Delane was kind, the Squire was effusive, and Janet---- Here his thoughts became impossible to record in lowly prose. The goddess had become flesh for him; still stately and almost severe in her maiden reserve to all others, as she had once been to him, now for him she smiled and blushed, and would look, and look away, and look again, and vainly summon her tamed pride to hide what her delight proclaimed. It was sudden. Oh, yes; anything worth having was sudden, thought lucky Dale. Fame had been sudden, wealth had been sudden. Should not love be sudden too? "If I get a chance----" said Dale to himself, and he smiled and struck at the weeds with his stick, and hummed a tune. Anything might happen. The Prince was due in three days, and already flags and triumphal arches were beginning to appear. It is to be hoped that the demand for drugs was small, for Mr. Hedger was to be found everywhere but behind his own counter, and Alderman Johnstone, having once taken the plunge, was hardly less active in superintending the preparations. The men who had carried those obnoxious boards were now more worthily earning their bread by driving in posts and nailing up banners, and Dale saw that Denborough was in earnest, and meant to make the reception a notable testimony to its loyalty. He loitered to watch the stir for a little while, for it was early afternoon, and he must not arrive at the Grange too soon. Not even the ode itself, which he carried in his pocket, could excuse an intrusion on the Squire's midday repose. As he stood looking on he was accosted by Dr. Spink. "I have just been to see Roberts," he said. "Is he ill?" "Yes. His wife sent for me. As you may suppose, she would not have done so for nothing." "What's the matter?" "I don't like his state at all. He took no notice of me, but lay on his bed, muttering to himself. I think he's a little touched here;" and the doctor put a finger just under the brim of his well-brushed hat. "Poor chap!" said Dale. "I should like to go and see him." Spink discouraged any such idea. "You're the very last person he ought to see. I want him to go away." "Has he got any money?" "Yes, I think so. His wife told me he had now." "And won't he go?" "He says he must stay till after the 15th"--the 15th was the great day--"and then he will go. That's the only word I could get out of him. I told his wife to let me know at once if there was any change for the worse." "It's hard on her, poor little woman," said Dale, passing on his way. He found Tora Smith and Sir Harry at the Grange. Rather to his surprise, Tora greeted him with friendly cordiality, accepting his congratulations very pleasantly. He had expected her to show some resentment at his refusal to write a song for her, but in Tora's mind songs and poets, Liberal meetings, and even royal visits, had been, for the time at least, relegated to a distant background of entire unimportance. Captain Ripley was there also, with the ill-used air that he could not conceal, although he was conscious that it only aggravated his bad fortune. He took his leave a very few minutes after Dale arrived; for what pleasure was there in looking on while everybody purred over Dale, and told him his ode was the most magnificent tribute ever paid to a youthful Prince? Dale, in his heart, thought the same,--so does a man love what he creates,--but he bore his compliments with a graceful outward modesty. The afternoon was so unseasonably fine--such was the reason given--that Janet and he found themselves walking in the garden, she talking merrily of their preparations, he watching her fine, clear-cut profile, and, as she turned to him in talk, the gay dancing of her eyes. "Your doing it," she said, "just makes the whole thing perfect. How can we thank you enough, Mr. Bannister?" "The Captain did not seem to care about my verses," Dale remarked, with a smile. Janet blushed a little, and gave him a sudden glance--a glance that was a whole book of confidences, telling what she never could have told in words, what she never would have told at all, did not the eyes sometimes outrun their mandate and speak unbidden of the brain. Dale smiled again--this time in triumph. "You like them?" he asked softly, caressing the little words with his musical, lingering tones. "Oh, yes, yes," she said, looking at him once more for a moment, and then hastily away. "I'll write you a volume twice as good, if--I may." "Twice as good?" she echoed, with a laugh. "Now, honestly, don't you think these perfect yourself?" "They are good--better than any I wrote before"--he paused to watch her face, and went on in a lower voice: "I knew you; but I shall do better the more I know you and the better." Janet had no light answer ready now. Her heart was beating, and she had much ado not to bid him end her sweet, unbearable excitement. They had reached the end of the terrace and passed into the wood that skirted it to the west. Suddenly she made a movement as if to turn and go back. "No, no," he whispered in her ear; and, as she wavered, he caught her by the arm, and, without words of asking or of doubt, drew her to him and kissed her. "My beauty, my queen, my love!" he whispered. "You love me, you love me!" She drew back her head, straightening the white column of her neck, while her hands held his shoulders. "Ah, I would die for you!" she said. Mrs. Delane was a woman of penetration. Though Janet told her nothing of what had occurred,--for she and Dale agreed to let the matter remain a secret till the impending festivities were over,--yet Mrs. Delane saw something in her daughter's air which made her, that same evening, express to the Squire her doleful conviction that the worst had happened. "I shall say nothing to Janet," she said, "till she speaks to me. I can trust her absolutely. But I am afraid of it, George. Poor Gerard Ripley!" "My dear, I'm not going to break my heart about Gerard Ripley. I think more of Jan." "Well, of course, so do I. And I don't at all like it. He's not--well, not our _sort_, as the young people say." "Mary, you're talking slang. What's the matter with him? The match will make Jan famous." "Well, well, I don't like it, but you must have your way." "It's not my way. It's Jan's way. Is she fond of him?" "Terribly, I'm afraid, poor child!" The Squire became a little irritated at this persistently sorrowful point of view. "Really, my dear, why shouldn't she be fond of him? It's not a bad thing when people are going to marry." "I wish I'd seen it in time to stop it." "On the whole, Mary, I'm rather glad you didn't. I like the young fellow." In this state of things--with the lady eagerly consenting, and a father all but ready to urge her on--well might Captain Ripley ride recklessly home from Dirkham Grange, cursing the ways of women and the folly of men, and promising himself to go to India and there be killed, to the end that his tragic fate might bring a pang to Janet's heart in future days. Well might he discover a sudden recall, and return to his regiment, escaping the Denborough celebrations, and risking offense in exalted quarters. So he went; and nobody at Denborough thought any more about him--not even Janet, for joy swallows up pity, and the best of humanity are allowed, without reproach, to be selfish once or twice in life. That same night, at dinner at Littlehill, Nellie Fane thought Dale had never been so bright, so brilliant, or so merry. Under his leadership, the fun and mirth waxed fast and furious, till it carried away her doubts and fears, and Angell's sore wonderings why she looked always at Dale and never at him, and Philip's troubled forebodings of sorrows no friendly hand could avert. Dale's high spirits bore no check and suffered no resistance, and there was a tumult in Littlehill, such as had not been heard since its early indecorous days. Suddenly, into this scene, followed hastily by Wilson, there broke, hatless and cloakless, Ethel Roberts, her face pale and her eyes wide with fear. Running to Philip Hume, she cried: "My husband! He has gone, he has gone! We cannot find him. He has gone, and taken the pistol with him. What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?" CHAPTER XX. =An Evening's End.= The next morning, Roberts' friends held an anxious conference. The Doctor, being left alone while his wife went out on household affairs, had, it seemed, risen from bed, dressed himself, and left the house. He had taken a few pounds, part of what Johnstone had returned to him, but no luggage. Nothing was gone except his revolver, which had lain on the mantelpiece, his wife having feared to take it away. In the absence of other explanation, it seemed most probable that he had suddenly determined to return to London, and Dr. Spink thought London the best place to look for him. Accordingly, Philip Hume at once started in pursuit; for all felt, though none of them liked to express the feeling, that Roberts was not in a state in which he could safely be trusted to look after himself. His wife was helpless with grief and bewilderment, and kindly Mrs. Hodge determined to spend the day with her, and return to Littlehill only late in the evening; thus at least proper attention would be secured to the helpless child and its hardly less helpless mother. Not even these troubles could keep Dale from the Grange, and after dinner, with an apology to Nellie and Arthur, he announced his intention of strolling over to ask the Squire at what point in the proceedings his ode was to come. Nellie had a letter to write, or said she had, and Arthur Angell offered to bear Dale company part of the way, with a cigar. The two men set out together, and Arthur did not leave his friend till they were at the Grange drive. Then he sauntered back, humming snatches of song between his puffs of smoke, and rejoicing in the glory of a full moon. He had almost reached the gate of Littlehill, when, to his surprise, he saw, a few yards from him, a figure that seemed familiar. He caught sight of it only for a moment, for the trees then came between; and yet he felt almost sure that the stealthily moving form was that of James Roberts. He stood watching to see him again, but he did not; and, going into the house, he told Nellie what he thought he had seen. "Dr. Roberts going toward the Grange!" she exclaimed. "You must be mistaken." "I don't think so. It looked like him." Nellie was not inclined to think he could be right, but she agreed that Arthur had better go and tell Dr. Spink of his suspicions. Arthur went off on his errand, and she sat by the fire alone. Abandoning herself to reverie, she idly and sadly reviewed the events of the days since her return. How joyfully she had come! But it had hardly been as good as she hoped. Dale was very kind, when he was there. But why did he leave her so much--leave her to Arthur Angell? And ah, why did he go so much to the Grange? It was all far pleasanter before he came to Denborough, before he knew these great people--yes, and before this Dr. Roberts was there to worry them. The thought of Roberts carried her mind in a new direction. What a strange man he was! And his poor wife! She could not think why he had become so odd and so unfriendly. Yet it was so. He seemed absolutely to hate Dale; she had seen him look at him so fiercely. Dale had not ruined him; he had ruined himself. He was mad to blame Dale. Ah, wasn't he mad?--She sat up suddenly in her chair. What if Arthur were right? What if it were he? Why was he going to the Grange! Dale was there. What was that they said about a pistol? Ah--if---- Without another thought she rose, and as she was, in her evening dress and thin shoes, she ran out of the house and along the wooded road toward the Grange. A terrible idea was goading her on. He was mad; he hated Dale; he had a revolver with him. Oh, could she be in time? They would wonder at her. What did that matter? Her love, her lord was--or might be--in danger. She pressed on, till she panted and had to pause; then, with breath but half recovered, over rough and smooth ground, knowing no difference, she sped on her way. Dale's talk with the Squire was not long; but the Squire's daughter came to the door to bid him good-night, and was easily persuaded to walk a little way down the drive with him. She went farther than she meant, as was natural enough; for she was leaning on his arm, and he was telling her, in that caressing voice of his, that all his life and heart and brain and power were hers, and lavishing sweet words on her. "I must go back, Dale," she said. "They will wonder what has become of me." "Not yet." "Yes, I must." "Ah, my darling, how soon will it be when we need never part? How soon? I mean how long, till then! Do you love me?" "You know, Dale." "What was it you said the other day--was it only yesterday?--that you would die for me?" "Yes." "Ah, Jan, my sweetest Jan, that you should say that to me!" They said no more, but did not part yet. At last he suffered her to tear herself away. "I shall run back through the shrubbery," she whispered. "I shall wait." "Yes, wait. When I get in, I will show you a light from my window. A good-night light, Dale." She sped away down a side-path, and Dale leaned against a tree, in the moonlight, fixing his lovelorn eyes on the window. As Janet turned down her path, she rushed, in her rapid flight, against a man who stood there in lurking. Dale's side was to him, but he was watching Dale, with a sneering smile on his lips. When she saw him, she started back. In a moment he seized her shoulder with one hand, and pressed a pistol to her head. "If you make a sound, I'll kill you," he hissed. "Don't stir--don't scream." She was paralyzed with surprise and fright. It was Roberts, and--what did he mean? He pushed her slowly before him, the revolver still at her head, till they reached the drive. Dale's eyes were set on his mistress' window, and their feet made no noise on the grass-edges of the drive. Roberts gave a low laugh, and whispered in her ear. "He came to see you, did he? The traitor! Not a sound! Wait till he turns! wait till he turns! I want him to see me. When he turns, I shall shoot him." At last she understood. The madman meant to kill Dale. He would kill him, before Dale could defend himself. She must warn him--at any cost, she must warn him. If it cost her---- "Not a sound," hissed Roberts. "A sound and you are dead; your head blown to bits--blown to bits!" And again he laughed, but noiselessly. It was her life against his. Ah, she must warn him--she must cry out! But the cold barrel pressed against her temple, and the madman's voice hissed in her ear: "Blown to bits--blown to bits!" She couldn't die, she couldn't die! not like that--not blown to bits! Perhaps he would miss; Dale might escape. She couldn't die! He advanced a little nearer, keeping on the grass-edge and pushing her before him, still whispering to her death and its horrors, if she made a sound. It was too horrible; she could not bear it. Ah! he was measuring the distance. She must cry out! She opened her lips. Quick as thought, he pressed the barrel to her head. She could not, could not do it; and, with a groan, she sank, a senseless heap, on the ground at his feet. Suddenly a shot rang out, and a woman's cry. Dale started from his reverie, to see a woman a step or two from him; a woman, tottering, swaying, falling forward on her face, as he rushed to support her in his arms. There was a shout of men's voices, and, following on it, another report, and James Roberts fell beside Janet Delane, his head, as he had said, blown to bits; and two panting men, who had run all the way from Denborough, were raising Janet and looking if she were dead, and then laying her down again and turning to where Nellie Fane lay in lifeless quiet in Dale's arms. "A minute sooner and we should have been in time," said Arthur Angell to Dr. Spink, as the Doctor pushed Dale aside and knelt over Nellie. And Dale, relieved, ran at all his speed to where Janet lay and threw himself on his knees beside her. "My love, open your eyes," he cried. CHAPTER XXI. ="The Other Girl Did."= On the afternoon of the morrow, Philip Hume, who, summoned by a telegram from Dr. Spink, had come down to Denborough by the first train he could catch, put on his hat, and, lighting his pipe, took a turn up and down the road that ran by Littlehill. Since his coming he had been in the house, and the house had seemed almost to stifle him. He had a man's feeling of uselessness in the face of a sick room; he could do nothing to help Nellie Fane in her struggle for life; he only hindered the people who could do something. Nor did he succeed much better with those whose ailments were of the mind. Arthur Angell sat in one room, suspecting now that, whether Nellie lived or died, his dearest hopes were dead. Dale, in another room, strode unrestingly to and fro, waiting for Wilson to come back from the messages he kept sending him on, now upstairs to Nellie's door, now down the town to Ethel Roberts', now, and most often, to the Grange; and always Wilson, his forehead wet and his legs weary, came back and said: "Please, sir, there is no change." Once Nellie had been conscious, had asked "Is he safe?" and, receiving her answer, had closed her eyes again. Ethel Roberts was in no danger; the shock would pass. Of Janet there came no news, save that she was alone with her mother, and cried to be alone even from her mother. James Roberts, in his frenzy, had indeed wrought havoc, and Philip, as he walked and smoked, vehemently, though silently, cursed the ways of this world. Presently Mrs. Hodge came out in her bonnet. "Nellie is well looked after," she said. "I am going down to see how that poor little Roberts is." Philip did not offer to go with the good woman. He watched her heavy figure hastening down the hill, wondering that she seemed almost happy in her busy services of kindness. He could do nothing but fret, and smoke, and try to keep out of the way. A smart brougham drove up. It stopped by him, and Tora Smith jumped out. "How is she?" she cried. "Spink thinks she will pull through," answered Philip; "but of course she's in great danger still." "May I go to her?" asked Tora. "She sees no one," he replied in surprise. "Oh, I don't mean to see her. I mean to stay and help--to nurse her, you know." "It is very kind of you: she has her mother and a nurse." "Oh, won't you let me?" "It does not rest with me. But why should you?" "I--I once thought such horrid things of her. And--wasn't it splendid?" Philip looked kindly at her. "That will please her," he said, "and her friends." "Mayn't I help?" "I tell you what: poor Mrs. Roberts has no one but a hired nurse. Mrs. Hodge has run down for a minute, but of course she can't leave her daughter long." "You mean I ought to go to her?" "One can't even be kind in the way one likes best," said Philip. "Well, I will. But I should have loved to be with Miss Fane. I can't tell you how I feel about her. I think people who think evil things of other people ought to be _beaten_, Mr. Hume." "Doubtless, but justice flags. You can't expect me to beat you, Miss Smith." Tora smiled for a minute; then she wiped her eyes again, and asked gravely: "Are you never serious?" "Yes; I am serious now. Go to that poor woman; consider doing that in the light of a beating." "You'll let Miss Fane know I--I----" "Yes; and Dale. What a terrible facer for our celebrations, isn't it?" "Oh, yes. Harry has ridden over to see Lord Cransford about it. Mr. Delane wants the thing put off, if possible." "Can you put off a Prince? But I suppose he'll be only too glad not to be bored with it." "You know Janet is in a dreadful state? Poor girl! It must have been awful for her. The man had hold of her! Well, I shall go. Good-by. I shall run up here again to-morrow." The putting off of the Prince, in spite of Philip's doubt of its constitutional possibility, was managed: for the ceremony could hardly take place without Mr. Delane's presence, as he had been the inspiring force of the whole movement which had resulted in the Institute; and Mr. Delane felt it utterly out of the question for him to take any part in such festivities, in view of the dreadful occurrence in his grounds and of his daughter's serious condition. The doctors, indeed, told him that she had stood the shock remarkably well; they would not have been surprised to find her much worse. Her reason was unshaken, and, after the first night anyhow, the horror of the madman's grip and voice had left her. She did not, waking or sleeping, for she slept sometimes, dream that she was again in his hands, face to face with death; and Dr. Spink congratulated the Squire and Mrs. Delane on a good prospect of a total recovery. Yet Mrs. Delane and the Squire were not altogether comforted. For Janet lay from morning to evening on her bed, almost motionless and very quiet, whenever anyone was in the room. She asked once or twice after her fellow-sufferers, but, except for that, and answering questions, she never spoke but to say: "I think I could sleep if I were alone." Then Mrs. Delane would go away, trying to believe the excuse. There are not many of us who would feel warranted in being very hard on a man who had failed in such a trial as had befallen Janet Delane: in a woman, failure would seem little other than a necessary consequence of her sex. Death, sudden, violent, and horrible, searches the heart too closely for anyone to feel sure that his would be found sound to the core--not risk of death, for that most men will, on good cause and, even more cheerfully, in good company, meet and face. It is certainty that appalls; and it had been certain death that had awaited Janet's first cry. And yet she would not be comforted. She had stopped to think how certain it was; then she failed. The mistake was in stopping to think at all. The other girl--the girl he did not love, but who, surely, loved him with a love that was love indeed--had not stopped to think whether the bullet could or might or must hit her. She had not cared which; it had been enough for her that it might hit the man she loved, unless she stood between to stop it, and she had stood between. How could Janet excuse her cowardice by telling herself of the certainty of death, when, had she not been a coward, she would never have stayed to know whether death were certain or not? If she ever could have deluded herself like that, what the other girl did made it impossible. The other girl--so she always thought of Nellie--held up a mirror wherein Janet saw her own littleness. And yet he had loved her, not the other; her life belonged to him, the other's did not; she had proclaimed proudly, but an instant before, that she would die for him, and he had praised her for saying it. He would know now what her protestations were worth. He would be amused to think that it was not Janet Delane--the Janet who was always exhorting him to noble thoughts--who was proud in the pride of her race--not she who had dared death for him; but that other, so far beneath her, whom she had not deigned to think a rival. Ah, but why, why had she not called? Surely God would have given her one moment to be glad in, and that would have been enough. She sat up in bed, the coverings falling from her, and her black hair streaming over her white night-dress. Clasping her hands over her knees, she looked before her out of the window. She could see the tree where Dale had stood and the spot where she had fallen; she could see the fresh red gravel, put down to hide the stains, and the gardener's rake, flung down where he had used it. He must have gone to tea--gone to talk it all over with his wife and his friends, to wonder why Miss Janet had not called out, why she had left it to the other girl, why she had fainted, while the other had saved him. They would talk of "poor Miss Janet," and call the other a "rare plucked 'un"--she knew their way. Nobody would ever call her that--not her father again, who used to boast that Janet, like all his house, feared nothing but dishonor, and would make as good a soldier as the son he had longed for in vain. Her mother had come and called her "a brave girl." Why did people think there was any good in lies? She meant it kindly, but it was horrible to hear it. Lies are no use. Let them call her a coward, if they wanted to speak the truth. They all thought that. Dale thought it; Dale, who must be admiring that other girl's gallantry, and wondering why he had not loved her, instead of loving a girl who talked big, and, when danger came, fainted--and stood by to see him die. Of course he could not go on loving her after this. He would feel, everybody must feel, that he owed his life to the girl who had saved him, and must give it to her. Very likely he would come and pretend to want her still. He would think it right to do that, though it would really be kinder just to let her drop. She would understand. Nobody knew he had spoken to her; perhaps nobody need; it would not seem so bad to people who did not know she had promised to be his wife. Not that it mattered much what people thought. She knew what she was, and--she must let him go, she must let him go. And here, for the first time, she buried her head in her pillow and sobbed. Mrs. Delane came in. "Why, Janet dearest, you've nothing over you! You'll catch cold. What's the matter, darling? Are you frightened?" There it was! Everybody thought she was frightened now. "There is a message from Mr. Bannister, darling. He wants so much to see you, and the doctor thinks it would do you no harm. Do you think you could dress and see him?" "He wants to see me?" "Why, yes, dear. Of course, Jan. I know, my dear." "To leave her and come and see me?" "Miss Fane? Oh, she's going on very well. There's no reason he shouldn't come over here. You would like to see him, Jan?" "Tell him to go away--tell him to go to her--tell him to leave me alone." "But, Jan, dearest----" "Oh, mamma, mamma, do leave me alone!" Mrs. Delane went and told the messenger that Miss Delane might see no one for a day or two; she was still too agitated. Then she sought her husband and told him of their daughter's words. "She must be a little queer still," said the Squire, with anxiety. "Don't be worried, Mary. She's a strong girl, and she'll soon throw it off." But she could not throw it off--not that thought which had burned into her breast; and all night, by the light of the moon, she sat and looked at the tree and the fresh gravel, the spot where her honor and her love had called on her, and called in vain. CHAPTER XXII. =The Fitness of Things.= If anything could have consoled Market Denborough for the certain postponement and possible loss of the Duke of Mercia's visit, it would have been the cause of these calamities. Its citizens were not more hard-hearted than other people, and they bestowed much sympathy on Nellie Fane, who, out of the competitors, was easily elected the heroine of the incident; but neither were they more impervious to the charms of excitement, of gossip, and of notoriety. The reporters and the artists who had been told off to describe and depict the scene of the royal visit did not abandon their journey, but substituted sketches of the fatal spot, of the Grange, of Littlehill, and of the actors in the tragedy; while interviews with the Mayor, and anybody else who knew, or knew someone who knew about the circumstances, or professed to do either, amply supplied the place which the pageant and the speeches had been destined to fill. And if the occurrence excited such interest in the great London papers, the broadsheets and columns of the local journals were a sight to behold. The circulation of the _Standard_ went up by more than a hundred; while the _Chronicle_ announced, it must be admitted to a somewhat skeptical world, that its weekly issue had exhausted three editions, and could no longer be obtained at the booksellers' or the office. The assertion, however, being untested, passed, and everyone allowed that young Mingley's detailed account of poor Roberts' last words to Dale Bannister, before he fired, were perfect in verisimilitude, which, under the regrettable circumstance of Mingley's absence, and of no such words having been uttered, was all that could be expected. Mingley was puffed up, demanded a rise of salary, got it, and married Polly Shipwright, the young lady at the "Delane Arms." So the ill wind blew Mingley good. Yet the editor of the _Chronicle_ was not satisfied, and as a further result of Mingley's activity, he inserted an article the following week, in which he referred, with some parade of mystery, to the romantic character of the affair. It was not only in fiction, he remarked, that love had opportunities for displaying itself in heroism, nor, it was to be earnestly hoped, only in the brains of imaginative writers that affection and gratitude found themselves working together toward a joyful consummation. Denborough knew and admired its gifted fellow-townsman, and Denborough had been a witness of the grace and charm of the young lady who had shed such luster on her sex. Accordingly, Denborough waited the result with some confidence. Into this personal side of the matter the _Standard_ did not try to follow its rival. Mr. Delane controlled the _Standard_, and he forbade any such attempt, on grounds of careful generality. But the article in the _Chronicle_ was quite enough; it expressed what everyone had been thinking, and very soon the whole town was expecting to hear, simultaneously, that Nellie was out of danger, and that she had given her hand to Dale Bannister. The theory was so strongly and unhesitatingly accepted that the two or three who, mainly out of a love of paradox, put their heads on one side and asked how Miss Delane came to be out in the garden with Dale Bannister, were pooh-poohed and told that they merely showed their ignorance of the usages of society; whereupon they went home and grumbled to their wives, but were heard no more in public places. Dale Bannister flung the _Chronicle_ down on the table with a muttered oath, asking the eternally-asked, never-to-be-answered question, why people could not mind their own business--an unjust query in this case, for it is a reporter's business to mind other people's business. He had just come down from his first interview with Nellie. She was mending rapidly, and was now conscious, although any reference to the events of the fatal night was sternly forbidden; he was not even allowed to thank the friend who, happily, had only risked, not lost, her life for him. He had whispered his joy at finding her doing well, and she had pressed his hand in answer; more than that vigilant attendants prevented. Then he had come downstairs, picked up the _Chronicle_ in the hall, read the article, and gone into the smoking room, where he had found Arthur Angell sitting by the fire, his hands deep in his pockets and his shoulders up to his ears, a picture of woe. "What infernal nonsense!" said Dale, with a vexed laugh. "Do you see how this fellow disposes of us, Arthur?" "Yes, I saw," said Arthur gloomily. "I suppose they're bound to say that. The public loves romance." "I think it's very natural they should say it. Why did she follow you? Why did she risk her life? Why did she ask after you the first moment she was conscious?" "No one but me was being murdered," suggested Dale, with a rather uneasy smile. "We left her here. Why did she go out at all? But it's too plain. I saw it before I had been here a day." "Saw what, man?" asked Dale, passing by Arthur's questionable assertion. "Why, that Nellie--you know. I don't know what you feel, but I know what she feels. It's rough on me having me down----" "I never thought of such a thing," said Dale quickly. "Oh, I suppose not; though how you didn't---- I say, now, before you came to Denborough, didn't you?" "I--I don't think so. We were great friends." Arthur shook his head, and Dale poked the little bit of fire in an impatient way. "How damned crooked things go!" he said. Arthur rose and said in a decided tone: "Well, I'm out of it. She saved your life, and she's in love with you. It seems to me your duty's pretty plain. You must drop your other fancy." "My other fancy?" exclaimed Dale in horror. Lived there a man who could call his love for Janet a "fancy"? "You'd break her heart," said Arthur, who thought of no one but his lady-love in his unselfish devotion. It crossed Dale's mind to say that the situation seemed to involve the breaking of one heart at least, if Arthur were right; but he thought he had no right to speak of Janet's feelings, well as he knew them. He threw the poker down with a clang. "Take care--you'll disturb her." This annoyed Dale. "My good fellow," he remarked, "we're not all, except you, entirely indifferent whether she lives or dies. I might throw pokers about all day--and I feel inclined to--without her hearing me in the blue room." "Oh, I beg pardon," said Arthur, turning to the window and looking out. He saw a stout man coming up the hill. It was the Mayor of Denborough, and he was evidently making for Littlehill. When he was ushered into the smoking room, he explained that he had come to ask after Miss Fane's progress. "The town, Mr. Bannister, sir," he said, "is takin' a great interest in the young lady." "I am glad to say she has, we think, turned the corner," said Dale. "That's happy news for all--and you first of all, sir." The Mayor might merely have meant that Dale's feelings would be most acute, as Nellie had received her wound in his service; but there was a disconcerting twinkle in the Mayor's eye. "Mrs. Roberts," the Mayor continued, "is doin' first rate. After all, it's a riddance for her, sir. Have you any news from the Grange?" "I hear there is no change in Miss Delane. She still suffers from the shock." "Poor young lady! I hear the Captain's back at the Warren, sir." "What?" "Captain Ripley, sir. Back at home." "Oh!" The Mayor was bursting with suppressed gossip on this point also, but the atmosphere was most repressive. He looked round in despair for another opening, and his eye fell on Arthur Angell. "Seen the _Chronicle_, sir?" he asked. "That Mingley's a sharp young chap. Still I don't 'old--hold with all that talk about people. Did you say you'd seen it, sir?" "Yes, I've seen it. It's mostly lies." "He, he!" chuckled the Mayor. "You're right, sir." A long pause ensued before the Mayor very reluctantly took his hat. "I hope we shall see Miss Fane about soon, sir?" he said. "Oh, I hope so. I think so, if nothing goes wrong." "She must be proud and happy, that young lady, sir. As I said to my daughters, says I: 'Now, girls, which of you is goin' to save your young man's life?' And my wife, Mrs. Hedger, sir, she put in: 'None of you, I'll be bound, if you don't----'" The anecdote was lost, for Dale interrupted: "Let me see you as far as the gate," and pushed the Mayor's walking-stick into his hand. Having got rid of the Mayor, Dale did not hasten to return to Arthur Angell. At this moment, exasperated as he was, everything about his friend annoyed him--his devotion, his unselfishness, his readiness to accept defeat himself, his indiscreet zeal on behalf of his mistress. His despair for himself, and his exhortation to Dale, joined in manifesting that he neither possessed himself nor could understand in another what a real passion was. If he did or could, he would never have used that word "fancy." How could people speak of friendship or gratitude, or both together, as if they were, or were in themselves likely to lead to, love? You did not love a woman because you esteemed her. If you loved her, you might esteem her--or you might not; anyhow, you worshiped her. Yet these peddling Denborough folk were mapping out his course for him. And Arthur Angell croaked about broken hearts. Suddenly a happy thought struck him, a thought which went far to restore his equanimity. These people, even that excellent Arthur, spoke in ignorance. At the most, they--those who knew anything--supposed that he had a "fancy" for Janet. They had no idea that his love had been offered and accepted, that he was plighted to her by all the bonds of honor and fidelity. This exacting gratitude they harped upon might demand a change of nascent inclinations; it would not require, nor even justify, broken promises, and the flinging back of what a man had asked for and received. Dale's step grew more elastic and his face brighter as he realized that, in reality, on a sane view of the position, duty and pleasure went hand in hand, both pointing to the desired goal, uniting to free him from any such self-sacrifice as Arthur Angell had indicated. If Arthur were right about Nellie's feelings, and if he had been a free man, he might have felt some obligation on him, or at least have chosen, to make the child happy, but as it was---- "I must be just before I'm generous," he said to himself, and added, with a shamefaced laugh, "and I happen to like justice best." At this moment a servant in the Grange livery rode up, touching his hat, and handed him a note. It was from Janet, though her writing was so tremulous as to be scarcely recognizable. He tore it open and read: You can never wish to see me again, but come once more. It was not quite as bad as it seemed. J. In bewilderment he turned to the man. "Miss Delane sent this?" "Yes, sir." "Say I'll come over to the Grange to-morrow morning." The man rode off, and Dale stood, fingering and staring at his note. "What does the dear girl mean?" he asked. "What wasn't so bad? Why don't I wish to see her again? Has that ruffian driven her out of her senses?" When Dr. Spink came that evening, Dale seized the opportunity of sounding him. The Doctor laughed at the idea of any serious mental derangement. "Miss Delane's very much upset, of course, very much, but her mind is as right as yours or mine." "She's got no delusions?" "Oh, dear, no. She's nervous and over-strained, that's all. She'll be all right in a few days." "Then," said Dale to himself, as the Doctor bustled off, "all I can say is that I don't understand women." CHAPTER XXIII. =A Morbid Scruple.= Mrs. Delane had ceased to struggle against the inevitable, and she hailed her daughter's desire to see Dale Bannister as an encouraging sign of a return to a normal state of mind. Strange as Janet's demeanor had been since that fearful evening, there could not be anything seriously wrong with her when her wishes and impulses ran in so natural a channel. Mrs. Delane received Dale with an approach to enthusiasm, and sent him up to the little boudoir where Janet was with an affectionate haste which in itself almost amounted to a recognition of his position. "You must be gentle with her, please, Mr. Bannister," she said. "She wanted so much to see for herself that you were really alive that we could not refuse to allow her, but the Doctor is most strict in ordering that she should not be excited." Dale promised to be careful, and went upstairs without a word about the strange note he had received; that was a matter between Janet and himself. Janet was sitting, propped up with cushions, on a low chair, and she waved Dale to a seat near her. When, before sitting down, he came to her and kissed her, she did not repel his caress, but received it silently, again motioning him to the chair. Dale knelt down on the floor beside her. "How pale you are, poor dear!" he said. "And why do you write me such dreadful things?" "I wanted," she began in a low voice, "to tell you, Dale, that I did try, that I really did try, to call out. I did not forsake you without trying." "What do you mean, darling? How have you forsaken me?" "When he caught hold of me, there was plenty of time to call out. I might have warned you--I might have warned you. I might have done what she did. But I couldn't. I tried, but I couldn't. I was afraid. He said he would blow my head to bits. I was afraid, and I left her to save you." "My dearest girl," he said, taking her hand, "you did the only thing. If you had cried out, he would have murdered you first and me afterward; all the chambers of the revolver were loaded. I would have died a thousand times sooner than have one of your dear hairs roughened; but, as it was, your death wouldn't have saved me." She had looked at him for a moment as if with sudden hope, but, as he finished, she shook her head and said: "I didn't think anything about that. I was just afraid, and I should have let you be killed." "My sweet, who ever expected you to condemn yourself to certain death on the chance of saving me? It would be monstrous!" "She did it," said Janet in low tones. Dale paused for a minute. "She was not in his clutches," he said. "He might have missed her." "Ah, no, no!" she broke out suddenly. "You run down what she did to spare me! That's worst of all." "Why, Jan, I don't say a word against her; but there was a difference." "She thought of no difference. She only thought of you. I thought of my own life." "Thank God if you did, dearest!" "I'm glad you came. I wanted to tell you I had tried." "I need nothing to make me love you more, my beauty and delight," he said, pressing her to him. She looked at him with a sort of amazement, making a faint effort to push him away. "It was so lucky," he went on, "that I didn't see you, or I should have rushed at him, and he would most likely have killed you. As it was----" He paused, for it seemed impossible to speak of poor Nellie's hurt as a happy outcome. "Come," he resumed, "let's think no more about it. The wretched man is dead and Nellie Fane is getting better, and we--why, we, Jan, have one another." With sudden impatience she rose, unlacing his arms from about her. "Who is she?" she cried. "Who is she? Why should she give her life for you? I loved you, and I was afraid. She wasn't afraid." Dale thought that he began to understand a little better. Jealousy was a feeling he had read about, and seen, and written about. If Jan were jealous, he could undertake to reassure her. "She's a very old and good friend of mine," he said, "and it was just like her brave, unselfish way to----" "What had you done to make her love you so?" "My sweetest Jan, surely you can't think I----" "Oh, no, no, no! I don't mean that. I'm not so mean as that." Dale wondered whether this passionate disclaimer of jealousy did not come in part from self-delusion, though he saw that Janet made it in all genuineness. "You have made her love you--oh, of course you have! Why did she follow you? why did she come between you and the shot? I loved you, too, Dale. Ah! how I loved--how I thought I loved you! But her love was greater than mine." "Come, Jan, come; you exaggerate. You must be calm, dearest. Nellie and I are very fond of one another, but----" "You know she loves you--you know she loves you to death." "My darling, I don't know anything of the sort. But supposing she did--well, I am very sorry, very deeply grieved if she is unhappy; but I don't love her--or any other woman in the world but you, Jan. If she had saved my life a thousand times, it would make no difference. You, Jan, you are the breath of my life and the pulse of my blood." He spoke with passion, for he was roused to combat this strange idea that threatened all his joy. As she stood before him, in her fairness and distress, he forgot his searchings of heart, his tenderness for Nellie, everything, except that she, and she alone, was the woman to be his, and neither another nor she herself should prevent it. Looking at him, she read this, or some of it, in his eyes, for she shrank back from him, and, clasping her hands, moaned: "Don't, don't! You must go to her--you belong to her. She saved you, not I. You are hers, not mine." "Jan, this is madness! She is nothing to me; you are all the world." "You must despise me," she said in a wondering way, "and yet you say that!" "If I did despise you, still it would be true. But I worship you." "I must not! I must not! You must go to her. She saved you. Leave me, Dale, and go back. You must not come again." He burst out in wrath: "Now, by God, I will not leave you or let you go! Mine you are, and mine you shall be!" and he seized her by the wrist. She gave a startled cry that recalled him to gentleness. "Did I frighten you, my beauty? But it is so, and it must be. It is sweet of you to offer--to make much of what she did, and little of yourself. I love you more for it. But we have done with that now. Come to me, Jan." "I can't! I can't! She would always be between us; I should always see her between us. O Dale, how can you leave her?" "I have never loved her. I have never promised her," he replied sternly. "It is all a mere delusion. A man's love is not to be turned by folly like this." She answered nothing, and sank back in her chair again. "If it's jealousy," he went on, "it is unworthy of you, and an insult to me. And if it's not jealousy, it's mere madness." "Can't you understand?" she murmured. "How can I take what is hers?" "I can take what is mine, and I will. You gave yourself to me, and I will not let you go." Still she said nothing, and he tried gentleness once more. "Come, Jan, sweetest, you have made your offering--your sweet, Quixotic self-sacrifice--and it is not accepted! Say that's my want of moral altitude, if you like. So be it. I won't sacrifice myself." "It's for her to take, not for you. I offer it to her, not to you." "But I don't offer it to her. Would she care for such an offer? She may love me or not--I don't know; but if she does, she will not take my hand without my heart." "You must love her. If you could love me, how much more must you love her?" "You are mad!" he answered, almost roughly, "mad to say such a thing! I know you love me, and I will not listen to it. Do you hear? I shall come back and see you again, and I will not listen to this." She heard his imperious words with no sign but a little shiver. "There," he went on, "you are still ill. I'll come back." "No use," she murmured. "I can't, Dale." "But you will, and you shall!" he cried. "You shall see----" The door opened, and the nurse came in to forbid his further lingering. With a distant good-by, he left Janet motionless and pale, and, hastening downstairs, went to the Squire's room. "I have come," he said abruptly, "to ask your sanction to my engagement with your daughter." The Squire laid down his book. "I'm not much surprised," he said, smiling. "What does Jan say?" Dale launched out into a history of the sweet things Janet had said, and of the strange, wild things she said now. The Squire heard of the latter with raised eyebrows. "Very odd," he commented. "But it seems, my dear fellow, that, for good reasons or bad, at present she says No." "She said Yes; she can't say No now," declared Dale. "Do you consent, Mr. Delane?" "If she does, my dear fellow. But I can't help you in this matter." "I want no help. She is not in her senses now. I shall make an end of this folly. I will not have it." He went out as abruptly as he had rushed in, leaving the Squire in some perplexity. "A man of decision," he commented; "and, altogether, a couple of rather volcanic young people. They must settle it between themselves." CHAPTER XXIV. =The Heroine of the Incident.= After Dale's visit to the Grange a few days elapsed in a quiet that was far from peaceful. Dale had gone to the Grange the next day, and the day after that: the sight of Janet had been denied to him. He was told that his visit had left her very agitated and upset, and the doctor was peremptory in forbidding any repetition of it. He had sent her a note, and she had returned a verbal message by her mother that she did not feel equal to writing. Was it possible that she meant to abide by her insane resolve to break off their engagement? At Littlehill things were hardly more happy. Nellie was recovering, but very slowly, and she also remained invisible. Arthur Angell manifested all the symptoms of resentment and disappointed love, and only Philip Hume's usual placid cheerfulness redeemed the house from an atmosphere of intolerable depression. Philip had discovered a fund of amusement in the study of Mrs. Hodge. As soon as that good lady's first apprehensions were soothed, she was seized with an immense and exuberant pride in her daughter, which found expression both in her words and her bearing. Though ignorant of the historical precedent, she assumed the demeanor of a mother of the Gracchi, and pointed out to all who would listen to her--and Philip never thought of refusing her this kindness--small incidents and traits of character which had marked out Nellie from her very cradle as one of heroic mold and dauntless courage. "I should be astonished, if I did not know her mother," said Philip politely. "Ah, you must be chaffing, of course. But it's not me she takes it from. My heart goes pit-a-pat at a mouse." "Oh, then it's Mr. Hodge." "You couldn't," said Mrs. Hodge with emphasis, "catch Hodge at a loss. He was ready for anything. He'd have been proud to see Nellie to-day. Look what the papers are saying of her!" "I'm sure she deserves it all." "Aye, that she does: she deserves all Dale Bannister can do for her." Philip scented danger in this topic, and changed the subject. "When are we to see her?" he asked. "In a day or two, I expect. She's much better this morning. She's asked to see the papers, and I'm going to take her the _Chronicle_." "How delightful to read of one's heroic actions! I have never enjoyed the sensation." "Nor ever will, young man, if you spend all your time loafing," said Mrs. Hodge incisively. "Well, there must be some ordinary people," protested Philip. "The _rôle_ is unappreciated, so it's the more creditable in me to stick to it." "A parcel of nonsense! Where's that paper?" She took it, went upstairs, and gave it to Nellie. "There, read that. See what they say about you, my dearie. I'm going to see little Roberts, and I shall be back in an hour. You've got the bell by you, and the nurse'll hear you." Nellie, left alone, began to read the _Chronicle_. She read the whole account from beginning to end, the article in praise of her, and, in the later edition, the editor's romantic forecast. Then she put the papers aside, exclaiming: "Oh, if it could be true!" and lay back with closed eyes. A few days later she made her first appearance in the drawing room, where she held a little court. Her mother hung over all, anticipating far more wants than the patient was likely to feel, and by constant anxious questions almost producing the fatigue she wished to guard against. Tora Smith was there, in a state of gleeful adoration; and Arthur Angell, his sorrows temporarily laid aside, ready with a mock heroic ode; and Philip Hume, new come from Mrs. Roberts' with good news and a high eulogy on Dr. Spink's most marked and assiduous attention. "I really believe," he said, with a laugh, "that Mrs. Roberts will have another chance of being a Denborough doctor's wife, if she likes." "That would be an ideal ending," said Tora. "Therefore it will not happen," Arthur remarked. "Poets are allowed to be pessimistic," rejoined Tora. "But you're wrong, Mr. Angell. Ideal things do happen." "To Sir Harry Fulmer, for instance," put in Philip. "Nonsense, Mr. Hume! I wasn't thinking of that. Don't you agree with me, Nellie?" "Nellie has made an ideal thing happen," said Philip, and Nellie blushed. "Thanks, Phil," said Dale. "It's complimentary to describe the prolongation of my poor existence in that way." "The deed is good, however unworthy the object, Dale." Dale took Nellie's hand and patted it gently. "Good child," he said, and Nellie flushed again with an almost strange intensity of embarrassment. Tora rose abruptly, and, in spite of opposition, insisted on departure. Dale escorted her to her carriage. "I have asked Nellie to come and stay with me," said she, "as soon as she is well enough to move." "She will like that. I hope she is going?" "She said," Tora went on, speaking with emphasis, "that she would ask you." Dale made a little gesture of protest, partly against Nellie's reported saying, more against the reporter's inquiring gaze. He began to be astonished at the interest he was so unfortunate as to inspire in his affairs. "I shall advise her to go," he said. "I think a change will be good for her." "I incline to think so too," said Tora with sudden coldness; "but I thought you might not like to part with her." "Mount Pleasant is not inaccessible," responded Dale with equal coldness. Returning to the house, he found Nellie gone, the company dispersed, and Mrs. Hodge in his smoking room, apparently expecting him. "Well, mother," he said,--he had used to call her "mother" when he was always running in and out of her house in London,--"Nellie looks quite blooming." "She's mending nicely." "I hear she's to go to the Smiths'." "Well, I thought of taking her to Brighton." "Oh, it will be more amusing at the Smiths'; unless, of course, she needs the sea." "She thought, or I thought rather, that you might like to come with us for a while?" said Mrs. Hodge in a tentative tone. "I can't get away," answered Dale decisively. Nothing would have taken him away from the Grange gates. Mrs. Hodge took her courage in both hands. "Look here, Dale," she said. "You know I'm not one of those women that lay hold of a man if he as much as looks at a girl, and asks him what he means by it. That's not my way. Hodge used to say girls could take care of themselves mostly--p'r'aps he wasn't far out. But Nellie's not that sort, and her father's gone, good man, and----" and the excellent lady came to a full stop. Dale loved this honest old woman for long acquaintance' sake and much kindness. He laid his hand on her shoulder and said: "It's a sad world, mother." "The child's fond of you, Dale. She's shown that." "I'm a crossed lover too, mother. We can only weep together." "What, you mean that Grange girl?" asked Mrs. Hodge, her love for her own making her tone tart. "Yes, that Grange girl," answered Dale, with a rueful smile. "And just at present that Grange girl won't have anything to say to me." Mrs. Hodge pressed his hand and whispered: "Don't you tell Nellie what I say, but let her go, dearie, and take my girl. She's sick for you, Dale, though she'd kill me if she heard me say it." "Aye, but I'm sick for the Grange girl, mother." "You don't take it ill of me, Dale? But there! a kind word from you is more than the doctors to her. She'd say nothing of what she's done, and I say nothing, but she's a good girl, and a pretty girl." "That she is, and she deserves a better man than I am." "Well, there it is! Talking mends no holes," said Mrs. Hodge, with a heavy sigh. Then she added, in an outburst of impatience: "Why did you ever come to this miserable little place?" Dale raised inquiring hands to heaven and shrugged his shoulders. "What they call fate, mother," said he. "Come, cheer up. She'll get over this little idea. She'll be all right." "Please God," said Mrs. Hodge. "It's time for her beef-tea." The phrase Please God is as a rule expressive of the speaker's desire, but not of his expectation. So it was with Mrs. Hodge, but Dale could not bring himself to take so gloomy a view. A man's own passion assumes a most imposing appearance of permanence, but he finds it easy to look with incredulity on a like assumption in the feelings of others. He had keen sympathy for Nellie in the moment or the period of pain which seemed to lie before her, but experience told him that all probabilities were in favor of her escaping from it at no distant time. Love like his for Janet--and, till this unhappy day, he would have added, Janet's for him--was exceptional; change, recovery, oblivion--these were the rule, the happy rule whose operation smoothed love's rough ways. Nevertheless, be this wide philosophical view as just as it might, the present position came nigh to being intolerable, and it was hard to blame him if he looked forward to Nellie's departure with relief. Her presence accused him of cruelty, for it seems cruel to refuse what would give happiness, and it increased every day it continued the misunderstanding which already existed as to their future relations. Even now, in spite of Janet's protest, Dale was convinced he had detected an undercurrent of jealousy, flowing in to re-enforce the stream of that higher, but stranger and wilder, feeling which had made her drive him away. If she heard that Nellie remained at his house, and what conclusion was universally drawn from the fact, he was afraid that, when restored health carried away the morbid idea which was now most prominent, the jealousy might remain, and, if it did, Janet's proud nature was ground on which it would bear fruit bitter for him to taste. He could not and did not for a moment blame Mrs. Hodge for her action. It was the natural outcome of her love, and she had performed her difficult task, as it seemed to him, with a perfect observance of all the essential marks of good breeding, however homely her method had been. But she could not understand even his love for Janet, much less another feeling in him, which aided to make her intercession vain. For he did not deny now that, besides the joy he had in Janet as a woman merely, there was also the satisfaction he derived from the fact that she was Miss Delane of Dirkham Grange. Fools and would-be cynics might dismiss this as snobbery; but Dale told himself that he was right and wise in clinging to the place in this new world which his sojourn at Denborough had opened to him, and which a marriage with Janet would secure for him in perpetuity. Setting aside altogether questions of sentiment, he felt it useless not to recognize that, if he married Nellie Fane, he would drift back into his old world, the gates would close again, and the fresh realms of life and experience, which had delighted his taste and stimulated his genius, would be his to wander in no more. He had grown to love this world, this old world so new to him; and he loved Janet not least because all about her, her face, her speech, her motions, her every air, were redolent to him of its assured distinction and unboastful pride. Nay, even these fantastic scruples of hers were but a distortion of a noble instinct born in her blood, and witnessed to a nature and qualities that he could look for only in the shade of some such place as Dirkham Grange. He felt as if he too belonged to her race, and had been all his life an exile from his native land, whither at last a happy chance had led back his wandering feet. What would dear old Mother Hodge understand of all that? What even would Nellie herself, for all her ready sympathies? It was a feeling that, not vulgar in itself, seemed to become vulgar in the telling; and, after all, he had no need of other justification than his love and his pledged word. He looked out of the window and saw Arthur Angell walking moodily up and down. Putting on his hat, he joined him, passing his arm through his. Arthur turned to him with a petulant look. "A lot of miserables we are, old boy," said Dale, pressing the arm he held. "I am often tempted to regret, Arthur, that the state has not charged itself with the control of marriages. It would relieve us all of a large amount of trouble, and I really don't see that it would hurt anyone except novelists. I am feeling badly in need of a benevolent despotism." "I'm going back to town," Arthur announced abruptly. "I'm very sorry. But I don't know that it's any use asking you to stay. Nellie goes to the Smiths' in a day or two----" "It makes no difference to me where she goes," interrupted the unhappy young man. "I--I mean----" "I know what you mean." Philip came up, and glanced keenly at Arthur. Then he smiled good-humoredly and said: "Shall I prophesy unto you?" "No," said Arthur. "I know you're going to say it'll be all the same six months hence." "I was. I can't deny it, Arthur. You forget that I have seen you like this many times before. We may have a tragedy or we may not, Arthur, but I shall take leave to eliminate you from the cast." "I'm going to pack," said Arthur angrily, and he went into the house. "When there are real troubles about," said Philip, "it is well to clear the ground. There's not much the matter with him." "I think he feels it rather, you know." "Oh, yes; it's worth a set of verses." "I'm glad to hear it's no worse; for, to tell you the truth, Phil, there's enough to worry about without Arthur. I'm glad our party is breaking up." "Why?" "We know too much about one another to live together comfortably." "True. Shall I go?" "No," said Dale, with a smile; "you may stay and keep watch over the razors." CHAPTER XXV. =The Scene of the Outrage.= The excitement and bustle which attended and followed on the attempted murder, the suicide, the inquest, the illnesses, and the true and false reports concerning each and all of these incidents, had hardly subsided before the Mayor of Market Denborough, with the perseverance that distinguished him, began once more to give his attention to the royal visit. For reasons which will be apparent to all who study the manner in which one man becomes a knight while another remains unhonored, the Mayor was particularly anxious that the Institute should not lose the _éclat_ which the Duke of Mercia had promised to bestow on its opening, and that its opening should take place during his mayoralty. The finger of fame pointed at Mr. Maggs the horse-dealer as Mr. Hedger's successor, and the idea of the waters of the fountain of honor flowing on to the head of Maggs, instead of on to his own, spurred the Mayor to keen exertion. He had interviews with the Squire, he wrote to the Lord Lieutenant, he promoted a petition from the burgesses, and he carried a resolution in the Town Council. Mr. Delane was prevailed upon to use his influence with the Lord Lieutenant; the Lord Lieutenant could not, in view of Mr. Delane's urgent appeal, refuse to lay the question before his Royal Highness; and his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to say that he could not deny himself the pleasure of obliging Lord Cransford, knowing not that he was in fact and in truth, if it may be spoken without _lèse-majesté_, merely an instrument in the clever fingers of a gentleman who, when the Prince was writing his reply, was rolling pills in the parlor behind his shop in the town of Market Denborough. Now, Colonel Smith had never concealed his opinion that, however much evil that unhappy man James Roberts had to answer for, yet he deserved a scrap of grateful memory, inasmuch as he had by his action averted the calamity that was threatening the town, and, furthermore, robbed Dale Bannister of the chance of prostituting his genius. Accordingly, when it was announced in the _Standard_, three or four weeks after James Roberts had shot at Dale Bannister and wounded Nellie Fane, that the Duke had given a conditional promise to pay his deferred visit in June, the Colonel laid down the paper and said to the rest of the breakfast party at Mount Pleasant--and the Colonel must bear the responsibility for the terms he thought proper to employ: "That old fool Cransford has nobbled the whippersnapper again! We're to have him after all! Good Lord!" Tora at once appreciated his meaning. "Papa means the Prince is coming, Nellie!" cried she. "How splendid!" "Bannister will have a chance of blacking his boots now," pursued the Colonel, trying to impose a malignant sneer on his obstinately kindly countenance. "You are not to say such things," said Nellie emphatically. "You know you don't mean them." "Not mean them?" exclaimed the Colonel. "No. You're not horrid, and it's no use trying to make yourself horrid. Is it, Tora?" Tora's thoughts were far away. "In June," she said meditatively. "I hope it won't be the first week, or we shall have to come back early." The Colonel's face expressed concentrated scorn. "You would cut short your honeymoon in order to come back?" "Of course, dear. I wouldn't miss it. Oh, and, Nellie, I shall go in next after Lady Cransford!" This was too much for the Colonel; he said nothing himself, but his joy was great when Sir Harry pointed out that Mrs. Hedger would have official precedence over the new Lady Fulmer. The Colonel chuckled, and Tora pretended that she had remembered about Mrs. Hedger all the time. "Johnstone will probably take you in, Tora," said Sir Harry, who had lately found himself able to treat Tora with less fearful respect. "I don't care. I shall talk to the Prince. Now, Nellie, you must come down for it." Nellie would not give any promise, and Tora forbore to press her, for she confessed to herself and to Sir Harry that she did not quite understand the position of affairs. Janet Delane remained in strict seclusion; doctor's orders were alleged, but Tora was inclined to be skeptical, for she had seen Janet out driving, and reported that she looked strong and well. Dale was at Littlehill, and he was there alone, Philip having gone back to London with Arthur Angell. He often came over to Mount Pleasant, to see Nellie, no doubt; and when he came, he was most attentive and kind to her. Yet he resolutely refused to stay in the house, always returning in an hour or two to his solitary life at Littlehill. He seemed never to see Janet, and to know not much more about her than the rest of the world did. He never referred to her unquestioned, and when he spoke of Nellie's share in the scene in the garden, he appeared pointedly to avoid discussing Janet's. Tora concluded that there was some break in his relations with Janet, and, led on by her sympathies, had small difficulty in persuading herself that he was by degrees being induced by affection and gratitude to feel toward Nellie as everybody expected and wished him to feel. Only, if so, it was hard to see why Nellie's pleasure in his visits seemed mingled with a nervousness which the increased brightness of her prospects did not allay. Evidently she also was puzzled by Janet's conduct; and it was equally clear that she did not yet feel confident that Dale had renounced his fancy for Janet and given his heart to her. In after-days Dale was wont to declare that the fortnight he passed alone at Littlehill was the most miserable in his life, and people given to improving the occasion would then tell him that he had no experience of what real misery was. Yet he was very miserable. He was sore to the heart at Janet's treatment of him; she would neither see him, nor, till he absolutely insisted, write to him, and then she sent three words: "It's no use." In face of this incredible delusion of hers he felt himself helpless; and the Squire, with all the good will in the world to him, could only shrug his shoulders and say that Jan was a strange girl; while Mrs. Delane, knowing nothing of the cause of her daughter's refusal to see Dale, had once again begun to revive her old hopes, and allowed herself to hint at them to her favorite Gerard Ripley. Of course this latter fact was not known to Dale, but he was aware that Captain Ripley had called two or three times at the Grange, and had seen Janet once. The "doctor's orders" applied, it seemed, to him alone; and his bitterness of heart increased, mingling with growing impatience and resentment. Nellie could never have acted like this: she was too kind and gentle; love was real in her, a mastering power, and not itself the plaything of fantastic scruples--unless a worse thing were true, unless the scruples themselves were the screen of some unlooked-for and sudden infidelity of heart. The thought was treason, but he could not stifle it. Yet, even while it possessed him, while he told himself that he had now full right to transfer his allegiance, that no one could blame him, that every motive urged him, all the while in his inmost mind he never lost the knowledge that it was Janet he wanted; and when he came to see Nellie, he was unable, even if he had been willing--and he told himself he was--to say anything but words of friendship and thanks, unable to frame a sentence distantly approaching the phrases of love he knew she longed to hear. Matters were in this very unsatisfactory condition when Philip Hume returned to Littlehill, and straightway became the unwilling recipient of Dale's troubled confidences. A fortnight's solitude had been too much for Dale, and he poured out his perplexities, saying, with an apologetic laugh: "I'm bound to tell someone. I believe, if you hadn't come, I should have made a clean breast of it to the Mayor." "You might do worse. The Mayor is a man of sagacity. This young woman seems very unreasonable." "What young woman?" "Why, Miss Delane." "Well, Phil, you must allow for the delicacy of her----" "You called it infernal nonsense yourself just now." "I wish, Phil, you'd call at the Grange and see her, and tell me what you think about her." "I can't do any good, but I'll go, if you like." Accordingly he went, and did, as he expected, no good at all. Janet had resumed her ordinary manner, with an additional touch or two of vivacity and loquaciousness, which betrayed the uneasiness they were meant to hide. The only subjects she discussed were the last new novel and Tora Smith's wedding, and Philip took his leave, entirely unenlightened. The Squire offered to walk part of the way with him and they set out together. The Squire stopped at the scene of the disaster. Pointing with his toe to a spot by the side of the drive: "That's where that mad wretch stood, holding my poor girl," he said. Philip nodded. "And where was Dale?" he asked, for it was his first visit to the spot. The Squire was delighted to be _cicerone_. "He was standing with his back to that tree yonder, about fifteen yards off, looking due north, toward the house, thinking of a poem or some nonsense, I suppose." "I shouldn't wonder." "Well, then," pursued the Squire, "you see he was almost in a straight line with Roberts--Roberts' barrel must have pointed straight toward Denborough church spire. After the first shot Bannister sprang forward--the gravel was soft, and we saw every footprint--to where Miss Fane fell, and----" "Where did she fall?" The Squire's toe indicated a spot about three yards from the tree. "She was running up from behind Bannister, you know, and had just got across the line of fire when the bullet caught her. She fell forward on her face,--she was bound to, Spink said, from the way she was hit,--and Bannister just got his arm under her, to break her fall." "She was running toward him, I suppose, to warn him?" "To get between him and Roberts, like the noble girl she is, no doubt; but she seemed to have turned round on hearing the shot, because, to judge from the way she was lying, she was, at the moment she fell, heading almost south." "What, toward the house?" "Yes, in a slanting line, from the tree toward the house." "That's away from Bannister?" "Yes, and from Roberts too. You see, she must have turned. It was a fine thing. Well, I must get back; I'm busy with all the preparations for this affair. Good-day, Mr. Hume. Very kind of you to come and see us." "I'm so glad to find Miss Delane better." "Yes, she's better, thanks, but not herself yet, by any means. Good-day." Philip went home, lit a pipe, and drew a neat little plan of the scene which had just been so carefully described to him. By the time the drawing was made the pipe was finished, and he was obliged to light another, which he consumed while he sat gazing at his handiwork. He was still pondering over it when Dale came in, and flung himself into an armchair with a restless sigh. "What's up now?" asked Philip. "Only that I'm the most miserable dog alive. I tell you what, Phil, I'm going to settle this affair one way or the other. I won't be played with any more. I shall go up to the Grange to-morrow." "You can't--it's Fulmer's wedding." "Hang his wedding! Well, then, next day--and get a definite answer from Janet. It's too bad of her. Did you have any talk with her to-day?" "Only general conversation. She gave me no chance." "I don't understand her, but I'll have it settled. I've been at Mount Pleasant, and--by God, Phil, I can't stand the sort of anxious, beseeching way Nellie looks. I know it sounds absurd to hear a man talk like that, but it's a fact." "Then why do you go?" "Well, considering what she's done, I don't see how I can very well stay away." "Oh! No, I suppose not," said Philip, touching up his plan; "but if I were you, Dale, I should wait a bit before I bothered Miss Delane again. Give her time, man." "No, I won't. She's not treating me fairly." "What's that got to do with it? You want to marry her, don't you?" "Of course I do." "Then give her time. Give her a week at all events. You can sound her at the wedding to-morrow, but don't present your ultimatum." And Dale agreed, on much persuasion, to give her a week. "That's more sensible. And, Dale, may I ask Arthur Angell down for a day or two?" "Of course, but I don't know whether he'll come." "Oh, he'll come, fast enough." "What do you want him for?" "To consult him about a little work of mine," answered Philip, regarding his sketch critically. "Going to publish something?" "I don't know. That depends." "On the publishers? _Ça va sans dire._ But how can Arthur help you?" "He was there." "Where?" "Now, Dale, I can understand your impatience--but you must wait. If I publish it, you shall see it." "Is it my sort? Shall I like it?" "I think your feelings would be mixed," said Philip, delicately filling in Nellie Fane's figure on the ground. CHAPTER XXVI. =Against her Better Judgment.= It is never well to vie with experts in their own subjects; humiliation surely attends the audacious attempt, and a humiliation which receives and deserves no softening sympathy. Moreover, even if the technical difficulties could be overcome, the description of a wedding must be either florid or cynical, assuming impossible happiness, or insinuating improbable catastrophe. Wherefore this narrative, which abhors either of these extremes, takes leave to resume its course at the moment when Sir Harry and Lady Fulmer have been driven away for their honeymoon, and the guests at Mount Pleasant are engaged in looking at one another's presents, one another's clothes, and their own watches, while a group of men have sought retirement and cigars in the garden. The Lord Lieutenant was paying compliments of alarming elaboration and stateliness to Nellie Fane; and Janet Delane, having discharged her duty in that line with generous graciousness, was looking with despair at Captain Ripley's puzzled face and betugged mustache, and wondering why men could not or would not understand plain English, and why--why above all--they had no more sense of dignity or of timeliness than to renew useless entreaties in a roomful of people, and--to descend to the particular case--with Dale Bannister only a few yards away, paying obvious inattention to a rhapsodic bridesmaid. "Wasn't it a pretty wedding?" asked the bridesmaid. "You know I'm a stranger to Denborough, and I never knew you had so many beautiful girls. It might have been St. Peter's." "Might it?" said Dale, with an absent smile, entirely unappreciative of the compliment. He did not know what or where St. Peter's was. "Oh, it was lovely. Well, dear Tora herself is very pretty. And then, Miss Delane! I do _love_ that severe, statuesque style, don't you? How pale she is, though! she doesn't look very happy, does she? Oh, and Miss Fane! Isn't she lovely? She sings, doesn't she? I think people of that kind are so nice. Oh, and I've heard all about her. How nice it was of her to be so brave, wasn't it?" "Naturally, I think so." "Oh, of course, I forgot. It's so nice when people are good and pretty too, isn't it? After all, good looks do go for something, don't they?" and she fixed a pair of large and unnaturally innocent eyes on Dale. "You must tell me about that," he said with labored politeness. "How do you find it?" "Oh, nonsense, Mr. Bannister! But, seriously, did you ever see anything so lovely as the way Sir Harry looked at Tora when they were----" Dale had gone--without a word of excuse. He had seen Janet rise abruptly, with an impatient wave of her hand, and Captain Ripley turn on his heel and disappear into the eddying throng that was circling round the wedding presents. He darted across to Janet, and held out his hand. "I must see you here," he said, "since you will not see me at the Grange." The bridesmaid marked their greeting. She rose with offended dignity and returned to her mother. She says to this day that she has only known one poet, and he was not at all nice, and concludes, after the manner of a certain part of humanity, that none of the rest are nice either. Janet looked at Dale doubtfully, then she led the way to a little room which was free from the crowd. Then she sat down. "I'm very tired," she said, "and I want to stay here and rest. Will you let me?" "I know what you mean, Jan. How can I, when I never have a chance of saying what I want to say to you? You talk to Ripley----" "I don't comfort Gerard Ripley much." "I'm glad to hear it," said Dale heartlessly. "I'm not much troubled about him. I'm only a habit to him." "I don't care twopence about him. Jan, when is this sort of thing to end? Don't you like seeing me?" Janet had made up her mind to treat Dale at first with simple friendliness; if this recipe failed, it was to be followed by distant civility. She answered collectedly enough, in spite of a quiver in her voice: "I thought I had better not see you just now." "Why, in Heaven's name?" "I can't go through it all again. Indeed I can't, Dale." "Do you seriously expect me to be content with what you said then--to go away and never come near you again?" Dale spoke vehemently. It was obvious that the distant civility would be called into play. Perhaps silence was Janet's idea of it, for she said nothing. "Because that's what it comes to," pursued Dale. "Do you imagine, Jan, I could see you now--after it all--except as your lover? What do you want me to do?" "Miss Fane----" began Janet in a very small voice. "I'll never see Nellie Fane again if she robs me of you," Dale declared with great energy, and probably perfect, though unintentional, untruth. Janet looked up and met his eyes. Then she dropped hers, and said, in tones quite unlike those of distant civility: "I wonder how you care for such a mean-spirited creature as I am. If I told you I loved you still--how could you believe me? I told you before, and then I----" "Behaved like a sensible girl." "Oh, no, no. It was a lie when I said----" "Tell me another, then," said Dale. "I like them." Janet's resistance, like Bob Acres' courage, was oozing out of her finger tips. "I know what it will be," she faltered plaintively. "You'll always be thinking about her, and so shall I--and it will be horrible. No, I won't do it. I have some resolution, Dale; it wasn't mere nonsense. I did mean it." "Oh, no," said Dale persuasively; "you never did, Jan. You had no idea how bored you would be without me. Now, had you?" "I can never respect myself again." "It's quite unnecessary, dear; I'll do all that." "Are you really quite--quite sure, Dale, that you will never----" "Oh, hang it all!" said Dale, and he kissed her. "Dale! the door's open." Dale shut it, and the rest of the conversation became inaudible, and remains unknown. The guests had gone. Mrs. Hodge and Nellie, who were to keep the Colonel company for a little while, had walked down to Denborough to tell Mrs. Roberts all about the event of the day; and the Colonel was bustling about, getting the presents packed up, and counting, with some surprise, the empty champagne bottles. He was thus engaged when the door of the little room opened, to let Janet and Dale out. "Dear me! I thought you'd gone. Nellie asked me, and I told her so." "I am just going, Colonel Smith," said Janet. "So am I," said Dale. The Colonel watched them go together. "There's another man going to lose his daughter," he said. "By Jove, I thought it was to be Nellie Fane!" When Janet left Dale at the Grange gates, she went to her father's study. "Lord, child," said the Squire, "are you only just back?" "I stayed to see them off." "Your mother did that, and she's been back two hours. She couldn't find you." "Papa," said Janet, sitting on the arm of his chair, "I'm very much ashamed of myself." "What have you been, doing now? Ill treating that poor young man again?" "No." "He's not a bad fellow, you know, after all--honest and good--not brilliant, of course." "Not brilliant, papa?" "I don't mean he's a fool; I believe he's an efficient officer----" "Officer? Why, you're talking of Gerard!" "Of course I am." "How can you imagine I was thinking of Gerard? I meant Mr. Bannister." "Bannister? Why, you told me only the other day----" "Yes. That's why." "Why what, child?" "Why I'm ashamed." The Squire raised himself and looked severely at his daughter. "A precious fuss you've made about nothing." "I can't help it, papa. I don't want to, but he insists." "He seems to know how to manage you, which is more than I do. There, go and tell your mother. And, Jan!" "Yes." "If ever you say you won't have him again----" "Yes, papa." "By Jove, you shan't!" said the Squire with emphasis, and he added, as his daughter fled after a hasty kiss, "Perhaps that'll keep her quiet." Dale found nobody but Philip Hume to congratulate him, and Philip was, as usual now, busy over his little plan. "Oh, she's come round, has she?" he asked, with no sign of surprise. Dale said she had, and Philip meditatively took up his little plan. "Have you told Nellie?" he asked. "No. I haven't seen her." "She never knew you had asked Miss Delane before?" "No. Nobody knew but her people and you. I think she had an idea I liked Jan." "Yes, but not more?" "No. I don't think so." Philip whistled gently, and twisted the little plan in his fingers. Dale, in his good humor, said: "Why the deuce, Phil, do you go on fidgeting with that thing? You're like an old hen over an egg." "Yes; I don't know that it is any good. I think I'll destroy it." And he tore it slowly in two, and threw it in the fire. "The vindictive theory of punishment," he remarked, with apparent irrelevance, "does not commend itself to me. If no evil consequences exist to be averted, why should we punish?" and he pushed the plan farther into the blaze with the poker. "If you want to argue that sort of thing, old fellow, you must ring for Wilson. I'm going to have a try at some verses." "Going to write your own epitaph, like Swift?" Dale shook his head and smiled, with the impenetrable, hopeless happiness of successful love. CHAPTER XXVII. =A Villain Unmasked.= A few days after Dale's love affairs had begun to flow in a more peaceful channel the Mayor of Market Denborough had an interview with Mr. Philip Hume, and Philip emerged from the conversation with a smile of mingled amusement and perplexity on his face. The Mayor had been to the Grange; the Squire fully approved of the scheme; a hundred pounds was subscribed already, and another twenty or thirty expected. Philip was requested to act as an intermediary, and find out from Miss Fane what form she would prefer that the testimonial which Denborough intended to offer to her, in recognition of her signal gallantry, should take. "I wanted to wait and make it a wedding present," said the Mayor, with a wink, "but the Squire thinks we had better not wait for that." "Ah, does he?" said Philip. "Though what Mr. Bannister's waitin' for I can't see; and I said as much to Miss Janet when I met her in the garden." "What did she say?" asked Philip in some curiosity. "Well, sir, now you ask me, I don't think she said anything. She seemed a bit put-out like about something." "It couldn't have been anything you said?" "Why, no, sir. I only said as I shouldn't be slow to move if a young lady like Miss Fane was waitin' for me--and her havin' saved my life, too." "Good Lord!" "Beggin' your pardon, sir?" "Nothing, Mr. Mayor, nothing." "You'll see Miss Fane about it? She hasn't left the Colonel's." "Oh, yes, I suppose so. Yes, I'll see her." Dale had gone to London, alleging that he had shopping to do, and hardly denying that his business would lie chiefly at the jeweler's. Philip was glad that he was away, for he thus could start on his mission unquestioned. He found Nellie at home, and at once plunged into the matter. Directly Nellie understood what was proposed, she jumped up, crying: "Oh, no, they mustn't. You must stop them." "Why, it's a very natural tribute----" "I won't have it! I can't have it! You must tell them, Mr. Hume." "It'll look rather ungracious, won't it? Why shouldn't you take their present?" he asked, looking at her in a half-amused way. "Oh, no, no! You don't understand. Oh, what a wretched girl I am!" and Nellie, flinging herself in a chair, began to cry. He sat and watched her with a grim smile, which he made an effort to maintain. But the sobs were rather piteous, and the smile gradually became very mildly ferocious, and presently vanished altogether. Presently, also, Nellie stopped crying, sat up, and stared in front of her with a dazed look and parted lips. "Well?" said Philip. "I won't receive the testimonial." "Is that all you have to say?" he asked in a tone of disappointment. "Yes," she answered, plucking nervously at her handkerchief, "that's all." "No reason to give?" "Tell them that there's nothing to give me a testimonial for." "Shall I?" he asked. Nellie glanced at him with a start, but in an instant she recovered herself. "I mean that I would much rather no more fuss was made about what I did." "As you please," he said coldly. "I will tell the Mayor, and get him to stop the thing." "Is Dale at home?" she asked, as Philip rose. "He's gone to town. Do you want to see him about anything?" "No--nothing in particular--only--I haven't seen him for three or four days." "Are you staying here long?" "I am staying till Tora comes home, and then I go to her." "Well, good-by. I'll tell the Mayor." "Thank you so much. Good-by." She was quite calm again by now; her sudden fit of agitation was over, and apparently she felt nothing more than a distaste for the parade of a public presentation. So easy and natural had her bearing become that Philip Hume, as he walked away, wondered if he had been on a wrong scent after all. If so, he had behaved in a very brutal---- He broke off his thoughts abruptly, to recognize and bow to Janet Delane, who whirled by in her victoria, on the way to Mount Pleasant. She seemed to be going to pay a visit to Nellie Fane. Philip, who liked to hear how things happen, regretted that he had cut his own visit short and missed Janet's entry. Janet whirled on. Her balance of mind, delicately poised between her love and her pride, had suffered a new and severe shock from the Mayor's jocose remarks. She could not rest. She felt that she must see for herself--must see Nellie and find out why everybody thought what they did--yes, and what Nellie thought. She was full of things which she had to say to Nellie; she was prepared, if need be, again to sacrifice herself for Nellie, but the truth about it all at least she was determined to hear; on what it was, Dale's uncertain happiness again hung suspended. With her usual frankness and candor, she straightway began to tell Nellie all her story. Nellie listened in almost stony stillness. "It's so hard to speak of," said Janet, "but yet I think we must. It is wretched to let things go on like this. At least I am wretched, and I fear he is, and----" "I'm sure I am," said Nellie, with a forlorn laugh. Janet came and knelt by her and took her hands. "You too? you whom we all admire so? Oh, what a world it is! Why did I ever love him?" "Ah, you do love him?" "Yes. And why did I ever make him love me? Ah, Nellie, if only----" Nellie had sprung up. "How do you know he loves you?" she cried. "How do I know, dear? Why, he told me." "When? when?" "Why, before--the day before it all happened. But since then I have felt, and I told him, that he belonged to you--I mean, dear, that it must be you now whom he must really love, and that I----" Nellie was not listening. "He told you before?" she asked in a low voice. "Yes, the day before. But afterward----" "You were actually engaged then?" "Yes, we were." "I never knew it. I didn't know that. Oh, how wicked I have been!" "Wicked? What do you mean?" asked Janet, puzzled at her companion's strange behavior. Nellie stood silent, and Janet went on. "But I feel, I can't help feeling, that it is to you he owes his life--to you----" "Be quiet!" cried Nellie. "Are you engaged now?" "I--I don't know." "Does he still love you?" "Yes, I think so." "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you keep me in the dark? Why did you tempt me?" "Indeed, I don't understand." "I didn't know he had told you. I only thought he had a fancy---- Oh, and I loved him too! I did indeed!" "I know, dear," said Janet; "and so, when you had been so brave, and I so cowardly----" "Stop!" cried Nellie again, and as she spoke the door opened and Dale Bannister came in. He was fresh back from London, and had ridden over to see Nellie. He stood and looked in surprise from one to the other. There was evidently something more than an afternoon call going on. Nellie greeted his coming almost gladly. "Ah, you are here? Then I can tell you. I can't bear it any longer. O Dale, I didn't know you had told her. Indeed I didn't, or I would never have done it;" and, carried away by her emotion, she fell on her knees before him. "Why, Nellie, what in the world's the matter?" "I have been wicked," she went on quickly, clinging to his hand. "I have deceived you. I have told you lies. Oh, how wicked I have been!" Dale looked inquiringly at Janet, but she shook her head in bewilderment. "Well, Nellie, let's sit down quietly and hear the villainy. What is it?" She refused to let him raise her, and went on, as she was, on her knees. "I didn't mean it at first. I didn't think of it, but when I found you all thought it, and--and you were pleased, Dale, I couldn't help it." Dale saw the only chance of arriving at the truth was not to interrupt. He signed to Janet to keep silence. "I came up meaning to warn you. I was afraid for you. I saw you standing by the tree, and I was running toward you, and all of a sudden I saw him, and the pistol, and----" She paused and drooped her head. Dale pressed her hand and said: "Well, Nellie?" "I was afraid," she said, "and I turned and began to run away, and as I was running, it hit me." And, her confession ended, she sank into a little woebegone heap on the floor at his feet. Dale understood now. She had been tempted by the hope of winning his love through his gratitude, and had not refused the false glory they all thrust upon her. Now she had heard her hopes were vain, that they had been vain even before that night, and in the misery of sin, and useless sin, she lay crying at his feet, not daring to look up at him. He stood there awkwardly, as a man stands when he feels more moved than he allows himself to show. "Poor child!" he said, with a break in his voice. "Poor child!" Janet caught him by the arm. "What does she say? That she didn't save you?" she whispered eagerly. "That she was running away?" Dale nodded, and Janet fell down beside Nellie, embracing her, and saying, half laughing, half crying: "O Nellie, how sweet, how sweet of you to have been a coward too!" CHAPTER XXVIII. =A Vision.= The lawn at Dirkham Grange was a gay scene. The Institute was opened, the luncheon consumed, the Royal Duke gone, full to the last of graciousness, though the poor fellow was hungry for solitude and cigars; and now the society of the county was unbending in friendly condescension to the society of the town, and talking the whole thing over under the trees and beside the bright flower-beds. Lord Cransford, between Janet and Dale, mingled praises of the ode with congratulations on the engagement; no one would have guessed that he shared a son's disappointment. The Mayor indifferently dissembled his exultation over the whisper of a knighthood which a hint from his Royal Highness had set running through the company. Mrs. Johnstone sat placidly in an armchair, the ruby velvet spread in careful folds, while Sir Harry Fulmer paid her compliments, and wondered where his wife was, and how soon they might go; and his wife walked with the Squire, declaring in her impetuous way that Nellie Fane's deceit was the most beautiful and touching thing she had ever heard of, whereat the Squire tugged his whisker, and said that nobody was disposed to be hard on her. Mrs. Roberts had made her first public appearance, diligently attended by Dr. Spink, who said, but was disbelieved in saying, that she still needed constant care. Nellie Fane herself had been persuaded to come, on a promise that the Mayor should not be allowed to reopen the subject of the testimonial; and Arthur Angell, in whose breast hope was once more a sojourner, had led her to a retired walk, and was reading to her a set of verses, called "Love's Crime"; and Nellie shook her head, saying that there was no inducement to be good if everyone conspired to pet and pamper the wicked. Philip Hume sat alone under a spreading tree, looking on, and talking to nobody. The bustle of the morning, and the sumptuous midday meal worked together with the warm afternoon air and the distant sounds of the yeomanry band to make him a little drowsy, and he watched the people walking to and fro, and heard their chatter in a half-wakeful, half-sleeping state. And, strange as it seems in this workaday, skeptical age, he fell into a sort of trance, and visions of what should be were vouchsafed to him, and if the visions were not true, at least they had a look of truth. He saw a man, handsome still, for all that his thick hair was a little thinned by time and his waistcoat was broadening, and the man read in a mellow voice lines, which Philip did not hear very plainly, about the greatness of England, the glory of the Throne, and the calmer judgment of circling years tempering the heat of youth. Then a stately dame touched him gently on the shoulder, saying that the verses were magnificent, but the carriage waited to take him to the _levée_; and he rose to go with a smile, not seeming to notice a pale ghost, that clenched impotent shadowy hands in wrath and with a scowl shrank away. Suddenly, across this vision came the form of Mrs. Hodge, white-haired, but cheerful and buxom as of yore, and she said: "Well, Hume, she's made Arthur a happy man at last;" and the Mayor, who somehow happened to be there, wearing on his breast a large placard, inscribed "Sir James Hedger, Knight," added, quite in his old way: "We were all wrong, Mr. Hume, sir, except you, sir, beggin' your pardon." Then the Squire's voice broke in, as though in the course of an argument, and declared that it was nonsense to attribute Dale's change of views to anything except growing wisdom; and the phantom of Colonel Smith, a copy of "The Clarion" in his hand, answered: "Bosh!" And a crowd of quite indistinguishable, well-dressed shades gathered round the Colonel, and Philip heard them talking about the inevitable gravitation of culture and intelligence. But the Colonel still answered "Bosh!" and Philip did not hear the end of the matter, nor where the truth of it lay; for presently all the forms passed away, and he saw a little room, a little dingy room, and a gray-haired, slouching fellow in an old coat, smoking an old pipe and scribbling on foolscap, scribbling away far into the night, and then sitting and musing for a solitary half hour in front of his dying fire before he went to bed. There was something in this figure that made Philip curious, and he went nearer and looked. Hush! It was himself, and---- He awoke with a start. Dale was smiling down on him with his old friendly smile, and saying to Janet Delane: "We shall never let this old chap leave us for long, shall we, Jan?" THE END. _Twelfth Edition._ THE PRISONER OF ZENDA. By ANTHONY HOPE. 16mo, buckram, gilt top, with frontispiece, 75 cents. "The ingenious plot, the liveliness and spirit of the narrative, and its readable style."--_Atlantic Monthly._ "A glorious story, which cannot be too warmly recommended to all who love a tale that stirs the blood. Perhaps not the least among its many good qualities is the fact that its chivalry is of the nineteenth, not of the sixteenth century; that it is a tale of brave men and true, and of a fair woman of to-day. The Englishman who saves the king ... is as interesting a knight as was Bayard.... The story holds the reader's attention from first to last."--_Critic._ "The dash and galloping excitement of this rattling story."--_London Punch._ "A more gallant, entrancing story has seldom been written."--_Review of Reviews._ "It is not often that such a delightful novel falls into the reviewer's hands."--_London Athæneum._ "A rattling good romance."--_N. Y. Times._ "The plot is too original and audacious to be spoiled for the reader by outlining it. The author is a born story-teller, and has, moreover, a very pretty wit of his own."--_The Outlook._ "A grand story.... It is dignified, quick in action, thrilling, terrible."--_Chicago Herald._ _Second Edition._ HENRY A. BEERS'S A SUBURBAN PASTORAL And Five Other Tales of American Life, and Two Old English Legends. 16mo, buckram, gilt top, with frontispiece. 75 cents. "No collection of short stories by an American writer, lately published, has made a more entertaining book ... differ greatly from the work of any other of the many New England writers whose names come to mind ... a trifle too much of the humor of the day is their single fault."--_N. Y. Times._ "['A Suburban Pastoral'] so devoid of pretension or effort, so freshly and frankly written, so quiet in its humor, and with its suggestion of pathos so latent in the emotions it awakens ... hereafter we shall remember him among the sweetest, tenderest, and gravest of our story-tellers."--_Mail and Express._ "'A Midwinter Night's Dream' is a beautiful example of writing which is permeated with delicate fancy.... 'Split Zephyrs' discusses many of those problems which you will hear debated almost every night in June under the elms and in old college haunts."--_Life._ "A skill and delicacy worthy of Mr. Henry James."--_Kate Field's Washington._ "Marked by powerful but artistically suppressed feeling."--_Dial._ "Effective and thoroughly readable."--_Outlook._ "Its ['A Suburban Pastoral'] description is realistic, its dialogue vivacious, and its situations dramatic. 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Next come the _Ante-Bellum Letters_, which occupy about a third of the book and make an excellent foil to the more demure tales which they interrupt like a sort of vigorous interlude. The Quakeress who writes them is suddenly plunged into the comparative dissipations of Boston, into the lively society of Harvard undergraduates, and into gay raiment that distresses her; but this lively intermezzo ends with a graver strain. The figures of the great Abolitionists are faintly seen, and at the trial of a poor negro boy, who is demanded as a fugitive slave, Lucretia Mott appears and sits by the prisoner, cheering him through the long night session of the court. The frontispiece represents this scene. The book closes with a quaint old story, way back in 1815, in which a romantic French boy, escaped from jail, and a Quakeress, more beautiful than her parents care to have her, figure prominently. There is a deep note of pathos in this tale, and the good influence of the Quakers in prison reform is shown, as their brave work for abolition has been in the _Ante-Bellum Letters_. Here and there a few lines give remarkable nature-pictures, as in the following: "The midsummer heat was upon the land. The red sun set in splendor, and the blood-red moon rose as in wrath." Jerome's John Ingerfield; =The Woman of the Saeter, Silhouettes, Variety Patter=, and =The Lease of the Cross-keys=. The title-story (half the book) and the two that follow are in serious vein. With portrait of Jerome and illustrations. Small 16mo. 75 cents. "This dainty little volume, contrived to look like a tall folio in miniature ... the creepy Norwegian ghost story (_The Woman of the Saeter_) ... the vague but picturesque sketch called _Silhouettes_.... 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7708	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK SEVENTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. MR. CAXTON UPON COURAGE AND PATIENCE. "What is courage?" said my uncle Roland, rousing himself from a revery into which he had fallen, after the Sixth Book in this history had been read to our family circle. "What is courage?" he repeated more earnestly. "Is it insensibility to fear? That may be the mere accident of constitution; and if so, there is no more merit in being courageous than in being this table." "I am very glad to hear you speak thus," observed Mr. Caxton, "for I should not like to consider myself a coward; yet I am very sensible to fear in all dangers, bodily and moral." "La, Austin, how can you say so?" cried my mother, firing up; "was it not only last week that you faced the great bull that was rushing after Blanche and the children?" Blanche at that recollection stole to my father's chair, and, hanging over his shoulder, kissed his forehead. MR. CAXTON (sublimely unmoved by these flatteries).--"I don't deny that I faced the bull, but I assert that I was horribly frightened." ROLAND.--"The sense of honour which conquers fear is the true courage of chivalry: you could not run away when others were looking on,--no gentleman could." MR. CAXTON.--"Fiddledee! It was not on my gentility that I stood, Captain. I should have run fast enough, if it had done any good. I stood upon my understanding. As the bull could run faster than I could, the only chance of escape was to make the brute as frightened as myself." BLANCHE.--"Ah, you did not think of that; your only thought was to save me and the children." MR. CAXTON.--"Possibly, my dear, very possibly, I might have been afraid for you too; but I was very much afraid for myself. However, luckily I had the umbrella, and I sprang it up and spread it forth in the animal's stupid eyes, hurling at him simultaneously the biggest lines I could think of in the First Chorus of the 'Seven against Thebes.' I began with ELEDEMNAS PEDIOPLOKTUPOS; and when I came to the grand howl of [A line in Greek], the beast stood appalled as at the roar of a lion. I shall never forget his amazed snort at the Greek. Then he kicked up his hind legs, and went bolt through the gap in the hedge. Thus, armed with AEschylus and the umbrella, I remained master of the field; but" (continued Mr. Caxton ingenuously) "I should not like to go through that half-minute again." "No man would," said the captain, kindly. "I should be very sorry to face a bull myself, even with a bigger umbrella than yours, and even though I had AEschylus, and Homer to boot, at my fingers' ends." MR. CAXTON.--"You would not have minded if it had been a Frenchman with a sword in his hand?" CAPTAIN.--"Of course not. Rather liked it than otherwise," he added grimly. MR. CAXTON.--"Yet many a Spanish matador, who does n't care a button for a bull, would take to his heels at the first lunge /en carte/ from a Frenchman. Therefore, in fact, if courage be a matter of constitution, it is also a matter of custom. We face calmly the dangers we are habituated to, and recoil from those of which we have no familiar experience. I doubt if Marshal Turenue himself would have been quite at his ease on the tight-rope; and a rope-dancer, who seems disposed to scale the heavens with Titanic temerity, might possibly object to charge on a cannon." CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Still, either this is not the courage I mean, or it is another kind of it. I mean by courage that which is the especial force and dignity of the human character, without which there is no reliance on principle, no constancy in virtue,--a something," continued my uncle, gallantly, and with a half bow towards my mother, "which your sex shares with our own. When the lover, for instance, clasps the hand of his betrothed, and says, 'Wilt thou be true to me, in spite of absence and time, in spite of hazard and fortune, though my foes malign me, though thy friends may dissuade thee, and our lot in life may be rough and rude?' and when the betrothed answers, 'I will be true,' does not the lover trust to her courage as well as her love?" "Admirably put, Roland," said my father. "But a propos of what do you puzzle us with these queries on courage?" CAPTAIN ROLAND (with a slight blush).--"I was led to the inquiry (though perhaps it may be frivolous to take so much thought of what, no doubt, costs Pisistratus so little) by the last chapters in my nephew's story. I see this poor boy Leonard, alone with his fallen hopes (though very irrational they were) and his sense of shame. And I read his heart, I dare say, better than Pisistratus does, for I could feel like that boy if I had been in the same position; and conjecturing what he and thousands like him must go through, I asked myself, 'What can save him and them?' I answered, as a soldier would answer, 'Courage.' Very well. But pray; Austin, what is courage?" MR. CAXTON (prudently backing out of a reply).--"/Papae/!' Brother, since you have just complimented the ladies on that quality, you had better address your question to them." Blanche here leaned both hands on my father's chair, and said, looking down at first bashfully, but afterwards warming with the subject, "Do you not think, sir, that little Helen has already suggested, if not what is courage, what at least is the real essence of all courage that endures and conquers, that ennobles and hallows and redeems? Is it not PATIENCE, Father? And that is why we women have a courage of our own. Patience does not affect to be superior to fear, but at least it never admits despair." PISISTRATUS.--"Kiss me, my Blanche, for you have come near to the truth which perplexed the soldier and puzzled the sage." MR. CAXTON (tartly).--"If you mean me by the sage, I was not puzzled at all. Heaven knows you do right to inculcate patience,--it is a virtue very much required--in your readers. Nevertheless," added my father, softening with the enjoyment of his joke,--"nevertheless Blanche and Helen are quite right. Patience is the courage of the conqueror; it is the virtue, /par excellence/, of Man against Destiny,--of the One against the World, and of the Soul against Matter. Therefore this is the courage of the Gospel; and its importance in a social view--its importance to races and institutions--cannot be too earnestly inculcated. What is it that distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon from all other branches of the human family,--peoples deserts with his children and consigns to them the heritage of rising worlds? What but his faculty to brave, to suffer, to endure,--the patience that resists firmly and innovates slowly? Compare him with the Frenchman. The Frenchman has plenty of valour,--that there is no denying; but as for fortitude, he has not enough to cover the point of a pin. He is ready to rush out of the world if he is bitten by a flea." CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"There was a case in the papers the other day, Austin, of a Frenchman who actually did destroy himself because he was so teased by the little creatures you speak of. He left a paper on his table, saying that 'life was not worth having at the price of such torments.'" MR. CAXTON (solemnly).--"Sir, their whole political history, since the great meeting of the /Tiers Etat/, has been the history of men who would rather go to the devil than be bitten by a flea. It is the record of human impatience that seeks to force time, and expects to grow forests from the spawn of a mushroom. Wherefore, running through all extremes of constitutional experiment, when they are nearest to democracy they are next door to a despot; and all they have really done is to destroy whatever constitutes the foundation of every tolerable government. A constitutional monarchy cannot exist without aristocracy, nor a healthful republic endure with corruption of manners. The cry of equality is incompatible with civilization, which, of necessity, contrasts poverty with wealth; and, in short, whether it be an emperor or a mob I that is to rule, Force is the sole hope of order, and the government is but an army." [Published more than a year before the date of the French empire under Louis Napoleon.] "Impress, O Pisistratus! impress the value of patience as regards man and men. You touch there on the kernel of the social system,--the secret that fortifies the individual and disciplines the million. I care not, for my part, if you are tedious so long as you are earnest. Be minute and detailed. Let the real Human Life, in its war with Circumstance, stand out. Never mind if one can read you but slowly,--better chance of being less quickly forgotten. Patience, patience! By the soul of Epictetus, your readers shall set you an example." CHAPTER II. Leonard had written twice to Mrs. Fairfield, twice to Riccabocca, and once to Mr. Dale; and the poor proud boy could not bear to betray his humiliation. He wrote as with cheerful spirits,--as if perfectly satisfied with his prospects. He said that he was well employed, in the midst of books, and that he had found kind friends. Then he turned from himself to write about those whom he addressed, and the affairs and interests of the quiet world wherein they lived. He did not give his own address, nor that of Mr. Prickett. He dated his letters from a small coffee-house near the bookseller's, to which he occasionally went for his simple meals. He had a motive in this. He did not desire to be found out. Mr. Dale replied for himself and for Mrs. Fairfield, to the epistles addressed to these two. Riccabocca wrote also. Nothing could be more kind than the replies of both. They came to Leonard in a very dark period in his life, and they strengthened him in the noiseless battle with despair. If there be a good in the world that we do without knowing it, without conjecturing the effect it may have upon a human soul; it is when we show kindness to the young in the first barren footpath up the mountain of life. Leonard's face resumed its serenity in his intercourse with his employer; but he did not recover his boyish ingenuous frankness. The under- currents flowed again pure from the turbid soil and the splintered fragments uptorn from the deep; but they were still too strong and too rapid to allow transparency to the surface. And now he stood in the sublime world of books, still and earnest as a seer who invokes the dead; and thus, face to face with knowledge, hourly he discovered how little he knew. Mr. Prickett lent him such works as he selected and asked to take home with him. He spent whole nights in reading, and no longer desultorily. He read no more poetry, no more Lives of Poets. He read what poets must read if they desire to be great--/Sapere principium et fons/,--strict reasonings on the human mind; the relations between motive and conduct, thought and action; the grave and solemn truths of the past world; antiquities, history, philosophy. He was taken out of himself; he was carried along the ocean of the universe. In that ocean, O seeker, study the law of the tides; and seeing Chance nowhere, Thought presiding over all, Fate, that dread phantom, shall vanish from creation, and Providence alone be visible in heaven and on earth! CHAPTER III. There was to be a considerable book-sale at a country house one day's journey from London. Mr. Prickett meant to have attended it on his own behalf, and that of several gentlemen who had given him commissions for purchase; but on the morning fixed for his departure, he was seized with a severe return of his old foe the rheumatism. He requested Leonard to attend instead of himself. Leonard went, and was absent for the three days during which the sale lasted. He returned late in the evening, and went at once to Mr. Prickett's house. The shop was closed; he knocked at the private entrance; a strange person opened the door to him, and in reply to his question if Mr. Prickett was at home, said, with a long and funereal face, "Young man, Mr. Prickett senior is gone to his long home, but Mr. Richard Prickett will see you." At this moment a very grave-looking man, with lank hair, looked forth from the side-door communicating between the shop and the passage, and then stepped forward. "Come in, sir; you are my late uncle's assistant, Mr. Fairfield, I suppose?" "Your late uncle! Heavens, sir, do I understand aright, can Mr. Prickett be dead since I left London?" "Died, sir, suddenly, last night. It was an affection of the heart. The doctor thinks the rheumatism attacked that organ. He had small time to provide for his departure, and his account-books seem in sad disorder: I am his nephew and executor." Leonard had now--followed the nephew into the shop. There still burned the gas-lamp. The place seemed more dingy and cavernous than before. Death always makes its presence felt in the house it visits. Leonard was greatly affected,--and yet more, perhaps, by the utter want of feeling which the nephew exhibited. In fact the deceased had not been on friendly terms with this person, his nearest relative and heir-at-law, who was also a bookseller. "You were engaged but by the week, I find, young man, on reference to my late uncle's papers. He gave you L1 a week,--a monstrous sum! I shall not require your services any further. I shall move these books to my own house. You will be good enough to send me a list of those you bought at the sale, and your account of travelling expenses, etc. What may be due to you shall be sent to your address. Good-evening." Leonard went home, shocked and saddened at the sudden death of his kind employer. He did not think much of himself that night; but when he rose the next day, he suddenly felt that the world of London lay before him, without a friend, without a calling, without an occupation for bread. This time it was no fancied sorrow, no poetic dream disappointed. Before him, gaunt and palpable, stood Famine. Escape!--yes. Back to the village: his mother's cottage; the exile's garden; the radishes and the fount. Why could he not escape? Ask why civilization cannot escape its ills, and fly back to the wild and the wigwam. Leonard could not have returned to the cottage, even if the Famine that faced had already seized him with her skeleton hand. London releases not so readily her fated step-sons. CHAPTER IV. One day three persons were standing before an old bookstall in a passage leading from Oxford Street into Tottenham Court Road. Two were gentlemen; the third, of the class and appearance of those who more habitually halt at old bookstalls. "Look," said one of the gentlemen to the other, "I have discovered here what I have searched for in vain the last ten years,--the Horace of 1580, the Horace of the Forty Commentators, a perfect treasury of learning, and marked only fourteen shillings!" "Hush, Norreys," said the other, "and observe what is yet more worth your study;" and he pointed to the third bystander, whose face, sharp and attenuated, was bent with an absorbed, and, as it were, with a hungering attention over an old worm-eaten volume. "What is the book, my lord?" whispered Mr. Norreys. His companion smiled, and replied by another question, "What is the man who reads the book?" Mr. Norreys moved a few paces, and looked over the student's shoulder. "Preston's translation of Boethius's 'The Consolations of Philosophy,'" he said, coming back to his friend. "He looks as if he wanted all the consolations Philosophy can give him, poor boy." At this moment a fourth passenger paused at the bookstall, and, recognizing the pale student, placed his hand on his shoulder, and said, "Aha, young sir, we meet again. So poor Prickett is dead. But you are still haunted by associations. Books, books,--magnets to which all iron minds move insensibly. What is this? Boethius! Ah, a book written in prison, but a little time before the advent of the only philosopher who solves to the simplest understanding every mystery of life--" "And that philosopher?" "Is death!" said Mr. Burley. "How can you be dull enough to ask? Poor Boethius, rich, nobly born, a consul, his sons consuls, the world one smile to the Last Philosopher of Rome. Then suddenly, against this type of the old world's departing WISDOM stands frowning the new world's grim genius, FORCE,--Theodoric the Ostrogoth condemning Boethius the schoolman; and Boethius in his Pavian dungeon holding a dialogue with the shade of Athenian Philosophy. It is the finest picture upon which lingers the glimmering of the Western golden day, before night rushes over time." "And," said Mr. Norreys, abruptly, "Boethius comes back to us with the faint gleam of returning light, translated by Alfred the Great; and, again, as the sun of knowledge bursts forth in all its splendour by Queen Elizabeth. Boethius influences us as we stand in this passage; and that is the best of all the Consolations of Philosophy,--eh, Mr. Burley?" Mr. Burley turned and bowed. The two men looked at each other; you could not see a greater contrast,-- Mr. Burley, his gay green dress already shabby and soiled, with a rent in the skirts and his face speaking of habitual night-cups; Mr. Norreys, neat and somewhat precise in dress, with firm, lean figure, and quiet, collected, vigorous energy in his eye and aspect. "If," replied Mr. Burley, "a poor devil like me may argue with a gentleman who may command his own price with the booksellers, I should say it is no consolation at all, Mr. Norreys. And I should like to see any man of sense accept the condition of Boethius in his prison, with some strangler or headsman waiting behind the door, upon the promised proviso that he should be translated, centuries afterwards, by kings and queens, and help indirectly to influence the minds of Northern barbarians, babbling about him in an alley, jostled by passers-by who never heard the name of Boethius, and who don't care a fig for philosophy. Your servant, sir, young man, come and talk." Burley hooked his arm within Leonard's, and led the boy passively away. "That is a clever man," said Harley L'Estrange. "But I am sorry to see yon young student, with his bright earnest eyes, and his lip that has the quiver of passion and enthusiasm, leaning on the arm of a guide who seems disenchanted of all that gives purpose to learning, and links philosophy with use to the world. Who and what is this clever man whom you call Burley?" "A man who might have been famous, if he had condescended to be respectable! The boy listening to us both so attentively interested me too,--I should like to have the making of him. But I must buy this Horace." The shopman, lurking within his hole like a spider for flies, was now called out. And when Mr. Norreys had bought the Horace, and given an address where to send it, Harley asked the shopman if he knew the young man who had been reading Boethius. "Only by sight. He has come here every day the last week, and spends hours at the stall. When once he fastens on a book, he reads it through." "And never buys?" said Mr. Norreys. "Sir," said the shopman, with a good-natured smile, "they who buy seldom read. The poor boy pays me twopence a day to read as long as he pleases. I would not take it, but he is proud." "I have known men amass great learning in that way," said Mr. Norreys. "Yes, I should like to have that boy in my hands. And now, my lord, I am at your service, and we will go to the studio of your artist." The two gentlemen walked on towards one of the streets out of Fitzroy Square. In a few minutes more Harley L'Estrange was in his element, seated carelessly on a deal table smoking his cigar, and discussing art with the gusto of a man who honestly loved, and the taste of a man who thoroughly understood it. The young artist, in his dressing robe, adding slow touch upon touch, paused often to listen the better. And Henry Norrey s, enjoying the brief respite from a life of great labour, was gladly reminded of idle hours under rosy skies; for these three men had formed their friendship in Italy, where the bands of friendship are woven by the hands of the Graces. CHAPTER V. Leonard and Mr. Burley walked on into the suburbs round the north road from London, and Mr. Burley offered to find literary employment for Leonard,--an offer eagerly accepted. Then they went into a public-house by the wayside. Burley demanded a private room, called for pen, ink, and paper; and placing these implements before Leonard, said, "Write what you please, in prose, five sheets of letter-paper, twenty-two lines to a page,--neither more nor less." "I cannot write so." "Tut, 't is for bread." The boy's face crimsoned. "I must forget that," said he. "There is an arbour in the garden, under a weeping-ash," returned Burley. "Go there, and fancy yourself in Arcadia." Leonard was too pleased to obey. He found out the little arbour at one end of a deserted bowling-green. All was still,--the hedgerow shut out the sight of the inn. The sun lay warm on the grass, and glinted pleasantly through the leaves of the ash. And Leonard there wrote the first essay from his hand as Author by profession. What was it that he wrote? His dreamy impressions of London, an anathema on its streets and its hearts of stone, murmurs against poverty, dark elegies on fate? Oh, no! little knowest thou true genius, if thou askest such questions, or thinkest that there under the weeping-ash the task-work for bread was remembered; or that the sunbeam glinted but over the practical world, which, vulgar and sordid, lay around. Leonard wrote a fairy tale,--one of the loveliest you can conceive, with a delicate touch of playful humour, in a style all flowered over with happy fancies. He smiled as he wrote the last word,--he was happy. In rather more than an hour Mr. Burley came to him, and found him with that smile on his lips. Mr. Burley had a glass of brandy-and-water in his hand; it was his third. He too smiled, he too looked happy. He read the paper aloud, and well. He was very complimentary. "You will do!" said he, clapping Leonard on the back. "Perhaps some day you will catch my one-eyed perch." Then he folded up the manuscript, scribbled off a note, put the whole in one envelope, and they returned to London. Mr. Burley disappeared within a dingy office near Fleet Street, on which was inscribed, "Office of the 'Beehive,'" and soon came forth with a golden sovereign in his hand, Leonard's first-fruits. Leonard thought Peru lay before him. He accompanied Mr. Burley to that gentleman's lodging in Maida Hill. The walk had been very long; Leonard was not fatigued. He listened with a livelier attention than before to Burley's talk. And when they reached the apartments of the latter, and Mr. Burley sent to the cookshop, and their joint supper was taken out of the golden sovereign, Leonard felt proud, and for the first time for weeks he laughed the heart's laugh. The two writers grew more and more intimate and cordial. And there was a vast deal in Burley by which any young man might be made the wiser. There was no apparent evidence of poverty in the apartments,--clean, new, well-furnished; but all things in the most horrible litter,--all speaking of the huge literary sloven. For several days Leonard almost lived in those rooms. He wrote continuously, save when Burley's conversation fascinated him into idleness. Nay, it was not idleness,--his knowledge grew larger as he listened; but the cynicism of the talker began slowly to work its way. That cynicism in which there was no faith, no hope, no vivifying breath from Glory, from Religion,--the cynicism of the Epicurean, more degraded in his sty than ever was Diogenes in his tub; and yet presented with such ease and such eloquence, with such art and such mirth, so adorned with illustration and anecdote, so unconscious of debasement! Strange and dread philosophy, that made it a maxim to squander the gifts of mind on the mere care for matter, and fit the soul to live but as from day to day, with its scornful cry, "A fig for immortality and laurels!" An author for bread! Oh, miserable calling! was there something grand and holy, after all, even in Chatterton's despair? CHAPTER VI. The villanous "Beehive"! Bread was worked out of it, certainly; but fame, but hope for the future,--certainly not. Milton's Paradise Lost would have perished without a sound had it appeared in the "Beehive." Fine things were there in a fragmentary crude state, composed by Burley himself. At the end of a week they were dead and forgotten,--never read by one man of education and taste; taken simultaneously and indifferently with shallow politics and wretched essays, yet selling, perhaps, twenty or thirty thousand copies,--an immense sale; and nothing got out of them but bread and brandy! "What more would you have?" cried John Burley. "Did not stern old Sam Johnson say he could never write but from want?" "He might say it," answered Leonard; "but he never meant posterity to believe him. And he would have died of want, I suspect, rather than have written 'Rasselas' for the 'Beehive'! Want is a grand thing," continued the boy, thoughtfully,--"a parent of grand things. Necessity is strong, and should give us its own strength; but Want should shatter asunder, with its very writhings, the walls of our prison-house, and not sit contented with the allowance the jail gives us in exchange for our work." "There is no prison-house to a man who calls upon Bacchus; stay, I will translate to you Schiller's Dithyramb. 'Then see I Bacchus; then up come Cupid and Phcebus, and all the Celestials are filling my dwelling.'" Breaking into impromptu careless rhymes, Burley threw off a rude but spirited translation of that divine lyric. "O materialist!" cried the boy, with his bright eyes suffused. "Schiller calls on the gods to take him to their heaven with them; and you would debase the gods to a ginpalace." "Ho, ho!" cried Burley, with his giant laugh. "Drink, and you will understand the Dithyramb." CHAPTER VII. Suddenly one morning, as Leonard sat with Burley, a fashionable cabriolet, with a very handsome horse, stopped at the door. A loud knock, a quick step on the stairs, and Randal Leslie entered. Leonard recognized him, and started. Randal glanced at him in surprise, and then, with a tact that showed he had already learned to profit by London life, after shaking hands with Burley, approached, and said, with some successful attempt at ease, "Unless I am not mistaken, sir, we have met before. If you remember me, I hope all boyish quarrels are forgotten?" Leonard bowed, and his heart was still good enough to be softened. "Where could you two ever have met?" asked Burley. "In a village green, and in single combat," answered Randal, smiling; and he told the story of the Battle of the Stocks, with a well-bred jest on himself. Burley laughed at the story. "But," said he, when this laugh was over, "my young friend had better have remained guardian of the village stocks than come to London in search of such fortune as lies at the bottom of an inkhorn." "Ah," said Randal, with the secret contempt which men elaborately cultivated are apt to feel for those who seek to educate themselves,-- "ah, you make literature your calling, sir? At what school did you conceive a taste for letters? Not very common at our great public schools." "I am at school now for the first time," answered Leonard, dryly. "Experience is the best schoolmistress," said Burley; "and that was the maxim of Goethe, who had book-learning enough, in all conscience." Randal slightly shrugged his shoulders, and without wasting another thought on Leonard, peasant-born and self-taught, took his seat, and began to talk to Burley upon a political question, which made then the war-cry between the two great parliamentary parties. It was a subject in which Burley showed much general knowledge; and Randal, seeming to differ from him, drew forth alike his information and his argumentative powers. The conversation lasted more than an hour. "I can't quite agree with you," said Randal, taking his leave; "but you must allow me to call again,--will the same hour tomorrow suit you?" "Yes," said Burley. Away went the young man in his cabriolet. Leonard watched him from the window. For five days, consecutively, did Randal call and discuss the question in all its bearings; and Burley, after the second day, got interested in the matter, looked up his authorities, refreshed his memory, and even spent an hour or two in the Library of the British Museum. By the fifth day, Burley had really exhausted all that could well be said on his side of the question. Leonard, during these colloquies, had sat apart seemingly absorbed in reading, and secretly stung by Randal's disregard of his presence. For indeed that young man, in his superb self-esteem, and in the absorption of his ambitious projects, scarce felt even curiosity as to Leonard's rise above his earlier station, and looked on him as a mere journeyman of Burley's. But the self-taught are keen and quick observers; and Leonard had remarked that Randal seemed more as one playing a part for some private purpose, than arguing in earnest; and that, when he rose, and said, "Mr. Burley, you have convinced me," it was not with the modesty of a sincere reasoner, but the triumph of one who has gained his end. But so struck, meanwhile, was our unheeded and silent listener with Burley's power of generalization and the wide surface over which his information extended, that when Randal left the room the boy looked at the slovenly, purposeless man, and said aloud, "True; knowledge is not power." "Certainly not," said Burley, dryly,--"the weakest thing in the world." "Knowledge is power," muttered Randal Leslie, as, with a smile on his lip, he drove from the door. Not many days after this last interview there appeared a short pamphlet; anonymous, but one which made a great impression on the town. It was on the subject discussed between Randal and Burley. It was quoted at great length in the newspapers. And Burley started to his feet one morning, and exclaimed, "My own thoughts! my very words! Who the devil is this pamphleteer?" Leonard took the newspaper from Burley's hand. The most flattering encomiums preceded the extracts, and the extracts were as stereotypes of Burley's talk. "Can you doubt the author?" cried Leonard, in deep disgust and ingenuous scorn. "The young man who came to steal your brains, and turn your knowledge--" "Into power," interrupted Burley, with a laugh,--but it was a laugh of pain. "Well, this was very mean; I shall tell him so when he comes." "He will come no more," said Leonard. Nor did Randal come again. But he sent Mr. Burley a copy of the pamphlet with a polite note, saying, with candid but careless acknowledgment, that he "had profited much by Mr. Burley's hints and remarks." And now it was in all the papers that the pamphlet which had made so great a noise was by a very young man, Mr. Audley Egerton's relation. And high hopes were expressed of the future career of Mr. Randal Leslie. Burley still attempted to laugh, and still his pain was visible. Leonard most cordially despised and hated Randal Leslie, and his heart moved to Burley with noble but perilous compassion. In his desire to soothe and comfort the man whom he deemed cheated out of fame, he forgot the caution he had hitherto imposed on himself, and yielded more and more to the charm of that wasted intellect. He accompanied Burley now to the haunts to which his friend went to spend his evenings; and more and more--though gradually, and with many a recoil and self-rebuke--there crept over him the cynic's contempt for glory, and miserable philosophy of debased content. Randal had risen into grave repute upon the strength of Burley's knowledge. But, had Burley written the pamphlet, would the same repute have attended him? Certainly not. Randal Leslie brought to that knowledge qualities all his own,--a style simple, strong, and logical; a certain tone of good society, and allusions to men and to parties that showed his connection with a Cabinet minister, and proved that he had profited no less by Egerton's talk than Burley's. Had Burley written the pamphlet, it would have showed more genius, it would have had humour and wit, but have been so full of whims and quips, sins against taste, and defects in earnestness, that it would have failed to create any serious sensation. Here, then, there was something else be sides knowledge, by which knowledge became power. Knowledge must not smell of the brandy-bottle. Randal Leslie might be mean in his plagiarism, but he turned the useless into use. And so far he was original. But one's admiration, after all, rests where Leonard's rested,--with the poor, riotous, lawless, big, fallen man. Burley took himself off to the Brent, and fished again for the one-eyed perch. Leonard accompanied him. His feelings were indeed different from what they had been when he had reclined under the old tree, and talked with Helen of the future. But it was almost pathetic to see how Burley's nature seemed to alter, as he strayed along the banks of the rivulet, and discoursed of his own boyhood. The man then seemed restored to something of the innocence of the child. He cared, in truth, little for the perch, which continued intractable, but he enjoyed the air and the sky, the rustling grass and the murmuring waters. These excursions to the haunts of youth seemed to rebaptize him, and then his eloquence took a pastoral character, and Izaak Walton himself would have loved to hear him. But as he got back into the smoke of the metropolis, and the gas-lamps made him forget the ruddy sunset and the soft evening star, the gross habits reassumed their sway; and on he went with his swaggering, reckless step to the orgies in which his abused intellect flamed forth, and then sank into the socket quenched and rayless. CHAPTER VIII. Helen was seized with profound and anxious sadness. Leonard had been three or four times to see her, and each time she saw a change in him that excited all her fears. He seemed, it is true, more shrewd, more worldly-wise, more fitted, it might be, for coarse daily life; but, on the other hand, the freshness and glory of his youth were waning slowly. His aspirings drooped earthward. He had not mastered the Practical, and moulded its uses with the strong hand of the Spiritual Architect, of the Ideal Builder; the Practical was overpowering himself. She grew pale when he talked of Burley, and shuddered, poor little Helen? when she found he was daily, and almost nightly, in a companionship which, with her native honest prudence, she saw so unsuited to strengthen him in his struggles, and aid him against temptation. She almost groaned when, pressing him as to his pecuniary means, she found his old terror of debt seemed fading away, and the solid healthful principles he had taken from his village were loosening fast. Under all, it is true, there was what a wiser and older person than Helen would have hailed as the redeeming promise. But that something was grief,--a sublime grief in his own sense of falling, in his own impotence against the Fate he had provoked and coveted. The Sublimity of that grief Helen could not detect; she saw only that it was grief, and she grieved with it, letting it excuse every fault,--making her more anxious to comfort, in order that she might save. Even from the first, when Leonard had exclaimed, "Ah, Helen, why did you ever leave me?" she had revolved the idea of return to him; and when in the boy's last visit he told her that Burley, persecuted by duns, was about to fly from his present lodgings, and take his abode with Leonard, in the room she had left vacant, all doubt was over. She resolved to sacrifice the safety and shelter of the home assured her. She resolved to come back and share Leonard's penury and struggles, and save the old room, wherein she had prayed for him, from the tempter's danger ous presence. Should she burden him? No; she had assisted her father by many little female arts in needle and fancy work. She had improved herself in these during her sojourn with Miss Starke. She could bring her share to the common stock. Possessed with this idea, she determined to realize it before the day on which Leonard had told her Burley was to move his quarters. Accordingly she rose very early one morning; she wrote a pretty and grateful note to Miss Starke, who was fast asleep, left it on the table, and before any one was astir, stole from the house, her little bundle on her arm. She lingered an instant at the garden-gate, with a remorseful sentiment, --a feeling that she had ill-repaid the cold and prim protection that Miss Starke had shown her. But sisterly love carried all before it. She closed the gate with a sigh, and went on. She arrived at the lodging-house before Leonard was up, took possession of her old chamber, and presenting herself to Leonard, as he was about to go forth, said (story-teller that she was), "I am sent away, brother, and I have come to you to take care of me. Do not let us part again. But you must be very cheerful and very happy, or I shall think that I am sadly in your way." Leonard at first did look cheerful, and even happy; but then he thought of Burley, and then of his own means of supporting Helen, and was embarrassed, and began questioning her as to the possibility of reconciliation with Miss Starke. And Helen said gravely, "Impossible,-- do not ask it, and do not go near her." Then Leonard thought she had been humbled and insulted, and remembered that she was a gentleman's child, and felt for her wounded pride, he was so proud himself. Yet still he was embarrassed. "Shall I keep the purse again, Leonard?" said Helen, coaxingly. "Alas!" replied Leonard, "the purse is empty." "That is very naughty in the purse," said Helen, "since you put so much into it." "Did not you say that you made, at least, a guinea a week?" "Yes; but Burley takes the money; and then, poor fellow! as I owe all to him, I have not the heart to prevent him spending it as he likes." "Please, I wish you could settle the month's rent," said the landlady, suddenly showing herself. She said it civilly, but with firmness. Leonard coloured. "It shall be paid to-day." Then he pressed his hat on his head, and putting Helen gently aside, went forth. "Speak to me in future, kind Mrs. Smedley," said Helen, with the air of a housewife. "He is always in study, and must not be disturbed." The landlady--a good woman, though she liked her rent--smiled benignly. She was fond of Helen, whom she had known of old. "I am so glad you are come back; and perhaps now the young man will not keep such late hours. I meant to give him warning, but--" "But he will be a great man one of these days, and you must bear with him now." And Helen kissed Mrs. Smedley, and sent her away half inclined to cry. Then Helen busied herself in the rooms. She found her father's box, which had been duly forwarded. She re-examined its contents, and wept as she touched each humble and pious relic. But her father's memory itself thus seemed to give this home a sanction which the former had not; and she rose quietly and began mechanically to put things in order, sighing as she saw all so neglected, till she came to the rosetree, and that alone showed heed and care. "Dear Leonard!" she murmured, and the smile resettled on her lips. CHAPTER IX. Nothing, perhaps, could have severed Leonard from Burley but Helen's return to his care. It was impossible for him, even had there been another room in the house vacant (which there was not), to install this noisy, riotous son of the Muse by Bacchus, talking at random and smelling of spirits, in the same dwelling with an innocent, delicate, timid, female child. And Leonard could not leave her alone all the twenty-four hours. She restored a home to him and imposed its duties. He therefore told Mr. Burley that in future he should write and study in his own room, and hinted, with many a blush, and as delicately as he could, that it seemed to him that whatever he obtained from his pen ought to be halved with Burley, to whose interest he owed the employment, and from whose books or whose knowledge he took what helped to maintain it; but that the other half, if his, he could no longer afford to spend upon feasts or libations. He had another life to provide for. Burley pooh-poohed the notion of taking half his coadjutor's earning with much grandeur, but spoke very fretfully of Leonard's sober appropriation of the other half; and though a good-natured, warm-hearted man, felt extremely indignant at the sudden interposition of poor Helen. However, Leonard was firm; and then Burley grew sullen, and so they parted. But the rent was still to be paid. How? Leonard for the first time thought of the pawnbroker. He had clothes to spare, and Riccabocca's watch. No; that last he shrank from applying to such base uses. He went home at noon, and met Helen at the street-door. She too had been out, and her soft cheek was rosy red with unwonted exercise and the sense of joy. She had still preserved the few gold pieces which Leonard had taken back to her on his first visit to Miss Starke's. She had now gone out and bought wool and implements for work; and meanwhile she had paid the rent. Leonard did not object to the work, but he blushed deeply when he knew about the rent, and was very angry. He paid back to her that night what she had advanced; and Helen wept silently at his pride, and wept more when she saw the next day a woful hiatus in his wardrobe. But Leonard now worked at home, and worked resolutely; and Helen sat by his side, working too; so that next day, and the next, slipped peacefully away, and in the evening of the second he asked her to walk out in the fields. She sprang up joyously at the invitation, when bang went the door, and in reeled John Burley,--drunk,--and so drunk! CHAPTER X. And with Burley there reeled in another man,--a friend of his, a man who had been a wealthy trader and once well to do, but who, unluckily, had literary tastes, and was fond of hearing Burley talk. So, since he had known the wit, his business had fallen from him, and he had passed through the Bankrupt Court. A very shabby-looking dog he was, indeed, and his nose was redder than Burley's. John made a drunken dash at poor Helen. "So you are the Pentheus in petticoats who defies Bacchus," cried he; and therewith he roared out a verse from Euripides. Helen ran away, and Leonard interposed. "For shame, Burley!" "He's drunk," said Mr. Douce, the bankrupt trader, "very drunk; don't mind him. I say, sir, I hope we don't intrude. Sit still, Burley, sit still, and talk, do,--that's a good man. You should hear him--ta--ta-- talk, sir." Leonard meanwhile had got Helen out of the room into her own, and begged her not to be alarmed, and keep the door locked. He then returned to Burley, who had seated himself on the bed, trying wondrous hard to keep himself upright; while Mr. Douce was striving to light a short pipe that he carried in his button-hole--without having filled it-- and, naturally failing in that attempt, was now beginning to weep. Leonard was deeply shocked and revolted for Helen's sake; but it was hopeless to make Burley listen to reason. And how could the boy turn out of his room the man to whom he was under obligations? Meanwhile there smote upon Helen's shrinking ears loud jarring talk and maudlin laughter, and cracked attempts at jovial songs. Then she heard Mrs. Smedley in Leonard's room, remonstrating; and Burley's laugh was louder than before, and Mrs. Smedley, who was a meek woman, evidently got frightened, and was heard in precipitate retreat. Long and loud talk recommenced, Burley's great voice predominant, Mr. Douce chiming in with hiccoughy broken treble. Hour after hour this lasted, for want of the drink that would have brought it to a premature close. And Burley gradually began to talk himself somewhat sober. Then Mr. Douce was heard descending the stairs, and silence followed. At dawn, Leonard knocked at Helen's door. She opened it at once, for she had not gone to bed. "Helen," said he, very sadly, "you cannot continue here. I must find out some proper home for you. This man has served me when all London was friendless, and he tells me that he has nowhere else to go,--that the bailiffs are after him. He has now fallen asleep. I will go and find you some lodging close at hand, for I cannot expel him who has protected me; and yet you cannot be under the same roof with him. My own good angel, I must lose you." He did not wait for her answer, but hurried down stairs. The morning looked through the shutterless panes in Leonard's garret, and the birds began to chird from the elmtree, when Burley rose and shook himself, and stared round. He could not quite make out where he was. He got hold of the water-jug, which he emptied at three draughts, and felt greatly refreshed. He then began to reconnoitre the chamber,--looked at Leonard's manuscripts, peeped into the drawers, wondered where the devil Leonard himself had gone to, and finally amused himself by throwing down the fireirons, ringing the bell, and making all the noise he could, in the hopes of attracting the attention of somebody or other, and procuring himself his morning dram. In the midst of this charivari the door opened softly, but as if with a resolute hand, and the small quiet form of Helen stood before the threshold. Burley turned round, and the two looked at each other for some moments with silent scrutiny. BURLEY (composing his features into their most friendly expression).-- "Come hither, my dear. So you are the little girl whom I saw with Leonard on the banks of the Brent, and you have come back to live with him,--and I have come to live with him too. You shall be our little housekeeper, and I will tell you the story of Prince Pettyman, and a great many others not to be found in 'Mother Goose.' Meanwhile, my dear little girl, here's sixpence,--just run out and change this for its worth in rum." HELEN (coming slowly up to Mr. Burley, and still gazing earnestly into his face).--"Ah, sir, Leonard says you have a kind heart, and that you have served him; he cannot ask you to leave the house; and so I, who have never served him, am to go hence and live alone." BURLEY (moved).--"You go, my little lady; and why? Can we not all live together?" HELEN.--"No, sir. I left everything to come to Leonard, for we had met first at my father's grave; but you rob me of him, and I have no other friend on earth." BURLEY (discomposed).--"Explain yourself. Why must you leave him because I come?" Helen looked at Mr. Burley again, long and wistfully, but made no answer. BURLEY (with a gulp).--"Is it because he thinks I am not fit company for you?" Helen bowed her head. Burley winced, and after a moment's pause said, "He is right." HELEN (obeying the impulse of her heart, springs forward and takes Burley's hand).--"Ah, sir," she cried, "before he knew you he was so different; then he was cheerful, then, even when his first disappointment came, I grieved and wept but I felt he would conquer still, for his heart was so good and pure. Oh, sir, don't think I reproach you; but what is to become of him if--if---No, it is not for myself I speak. I know that if I was here, that if he had me to care for, he would come home early, and work patiently, and--and--that I might save him. But now when I am gone, and you live with him,--you to whom he is grateful, you whom he would follow against his own conscience (you must see that, sir), what is to become of him?" Helen's voice died in sobs. Burley took three or four long strides through the room; he was greatly agitated. "I am a demon," he murmured. "I never saw it before; but it is true, I should be this boy's ruin." Tears stood in his eyes, he paused abruptly, made a clutch at his hat, and turned to the door. Helen stopped the way, and taking him gently by the arm, said, "Oh, sir, forgive me,--I have pained you;" and looked up at him with a compassionate expression, that indeed made the child's sweet face as that of an angel. Burley bent down as if to kiss her, and then drew back, perhaps with a sentiment that his lips were not worthy to touch that innocent brow. "If I had had a sister,--a child like you, little one," he muttered, "perhaps I too might have been saved in time. Now--" "Ah, now you may stay, sir; I don't fear you any more." "No, no; you would fear me again ere night-time, and I might not be always in the right mood to listen to a voice like yours, child. Your Leonard has a noble heart and rare gifts. He should rise yet, and he shall. I will not drag him into the mire. Good-by,--you will see me no more." He broke from Helen, cleared the stairs with a bound, and was out of the house. When Leonard returned he was surprised to hear his unwelcome guest was gone,--but Helen did not venture to tell him of her interposition. She knew instinctively how such officiousness would mortify and offend the pride of man; but she never again spoke harshly of poor Burley. Leonard supposed that he should either see or hear of the humourist in the course of the day. Finding he did not, he went in search of him at his old haunts; but no trace. He inquired at the "Beehive" if they knew there of his new address, but no tidings of Burley could be obtained. As he came home disappointed and anxious, for he felt uneasy as to the disappearance of his wild friend, Mrs. Smedley met him at the door. "Please, sir, suit yourself with another lodging," said she. "I can have no such singings and shoutings going on at night in my house. And that poor little girl, too! you should be ashamed of yourself." Leonard frowned, and passed by. CHAPTER XI. Meanwhile, on leaving Helen, Burley strode on; and, as if by some better instinct, for he was unconscious of his own steps, he took his way towards the still green haunts of his youth. When he paused at length, he was already before the door of a rural cottage, standing alone in the midst of fields, with a little farmyard at the back; and far through the trees in front was caught a glimpse of the winding Brent. With this cottage Burley was familiar; it was inhabited by a good old couple who had known him from a boy. There he habitually left his rods and fishing-tackle; there, for intervals in his turbid, riotous life, he had sojourned for two or three days together, fancying the first day that the country was a heaven, and convinced before the third that it was a purgatory. An old woman, of neat and tidy exterior, came forth to greet him. "Ah, Master John," said she, clasping his nerveless hand, "well, the fields be pleasant now; I hope you are come to stay a bit? Do; it will freshen you; you lose all the fine colour you had once, in Lunnon town." "I will stay with you, my kind friend," said Burley, with unusual meekness; "I can have the old room, then?" "Oh, yes, come and look at it. I never let it now to any one but you, --never have let it since the dear beautiful lady with the angel's face went away. Poor thing, what could have become of her?" Thus speaking, while Burley listened not, the old woman drew him within the cottage, and led him up the stairs into a room that might have well become a, better house, for it was furnished with taste, and even elegance. A small cabinet pianoforte stood opposite the fireplace, and the window looked upon pleasant meads and tangled hedgerows, and the narrow windings of the blue rivulet. Burley sank down exhausted, and gazed wistfully from the casement. "You have not breakfasted?" said the hostess, anxiously. "No." "Well, the eggs are fresh laid, and you would like a rasher of bacon, Master John? And if you will have brandy in your tea, I have some that you left long ago in your own bottle." Burley shook his head. "No brandy, Mrs. Goodyer; only fresh milk. I will see whether I can yet coax Nature." Mrs. Goodyer did not know what was meant by coaxing Nature, but she said," Pray do, Master John," and vanished. That day Burley went out with his rod, and he fished hard for the one-eyed perch; but in vain. Then he roved along the stream with his hands in his pockets, whistling. He returned to the cottage at sunset, partook of the fare provided for him, abstained from the brandy, and felt dreadfully low. He called for pen, ink, and paper, and sought to write, but could not achieve two lines. He summoned Mrs. Goodyer. "Tell your husband to come and sit and talk." Up came old Jacob Goodyer, and the great wit bade him tell him all the news of the village. Jacob obeyed willingly, and Burley at last fell asleep. The next day it was much the same, only at dinner he had up the brandy-bottle, and finished it; and he did not have up Jacob, but he contrived to write. The third day it rained incessantly. "Have you no books, Mrs. Goodyer?" asked poor John Burley. "Oh, yes, some that the dear lady left behind her; and perhaps you would like to look at some papers in her own writing?" "No, not the papers,--all women scribble, and all scribble the same things. Get me the books." The books were brought up,--poetry and essays--John knew them by heart. He looked out on the rain, and at evening the rain had ceased. He rushed to his hat and fled. "Nature, Nature!" he exclaimed, when he was out in the air and hurrying by the dripping hedgerows, "you are not to be coaxed by me! I have jilted you shamefully, I own it; you are a female, and unforgiving. I don't complain. You may be very pretty, but you are the stupidest and most tire some companion that ever I met with. Thank Heaven, I am not married to you!" Thus John Burley made his way into town, and paused at the first public- house. Out of that house he came with a jovial air, and on he strode towards the heart of London. Now he is in Leicester Square, and he gazes on the foreigners who stalk that region, and hums a tune; and now from yonder alley two forms emerge, and dog his careless footsteps; now through the maze of passages towards St. Martin's he threads his path, and, anticipating an orgy as be nears his favourite haunts, jingles the silver in his pockets; and now the two forms are at his heels. "Hail to thee, O Freedom!" muttered John Burley, "thy dwelling is in cities, and thy palace is the tavern." "In the king's name," quoth a gruff voice; and John Burley feels the horrid and familiar tap on the shoulder. The two bailiffs who dogged have seized their prey. "At whose suit?" asked John Burley, falteringly. "Mr. Cox, the wine-merchant." "Cox! A man to whom I gave a check on my bankers not three months ago!" "But it war n't cashed." "What does that signify?--the intention was the same. A good heart takes the will for the deed. Cox is a monster of ingratitude, and I withdraw my custom." "Sarve him right. Would your honour like a jarvey?" "I would rather spend the money on something else," said John Burley. "Give me your arm, I am not proud. After all, thank Heaven, I shall not sleep in the country." And John Burley made a night of it in the Fleet. CHAPTER XII. Miss Starke was one of those ladies who pass their lives in the direst of all civil strife,--war with their servants. She looked upon the members of that class as the unrelenting and sleepless enemies of the unfortunate householders condemned to employ them. She thought they ate and drank to their villanous utmost, in order to ruin their benefactors; that they lived in one constant conspiracy with one another and the tradesmen, the object of which was to cheat and pilfer. Miss Starke was a miserable woman. As she had no relations or friends who cared enough for her to share her solitary struggle against her domestic foes; and her income, though easy, was an annuity that died with herself, thereby reducing various nephews, nieces, or cousins to the strict bounds of a natural affection,--that did not exist; and as she felt the want of some friendly face amidst this world of distrust and hate,--so she had tried the resource of venal companions. But the venal companions had never stayed long, either they disliked Miss Starke, or Miss Starke disliked them. Therefore the poor woman had resolved upon bringing up some little girl, whose heart, as she said to herself, would be fresh and uncorrupted, and from whom she might expect gratitude. She had been contented, on the whole, with Helen, and had meant to keep that child in her house as long as she (Miss Starke) remained upon the earth,--perhaps some thirty years longer; and then, having carefully secluded her from marriage and other friendship, to leave her nothing but the regret of having lost so kind a benefactress. Conformably with this notion, and in order to secure the affections of the child, Miss Starke had relaxed the frigid austerity natural to her manner and mode of thought, and been kind to Helen in an iron way. She had neither slapped nor pinched her, neither had she starved. She had allowed her to see Leonard, according to the agreement made with Dr. Morgan, and had laid out tenpence on cakes, besides contributing fruit from her garden for the first interview,--a hospitality she did not think it fit to renew on subsequent occasions. In return for this, she conceived she had purchased the right to Helen bodily and spiritually, and nothing could exceed her indignation when she rose one morning and found the child had gone. As it never had occurred to her to ask Leonard's address, though she suspected Helen had gone to him, she was at a loss what to do, and remained for twenty-four hours in a state of inane depression. But then she began to miss the child so much that her energies woke, and she persuaded herself that she was actuated by the purest benevolence in trying to reclaim this poor creature from the world into which Helen had thus rashly plunged. Accordingly she put an advertisement into the "Times," to the following effect, liberally imitated from one by which in former years she had recovered a favourite Blenheim:-- TWO GUINEAS' REWARD. STRAYED, from Ivy Cottage, Highgate, a Little Girl,--answers to the name of Helen; with blue eyes and brown hair; white muslin frock, and straw hat with blue ribbons. Whoever will bring the same to Ivy Cottage, shall receive the above Reward. N. B.---Nothing more will be offered. Now it so happened that Mrs. Smedley had put an advertisement in the "Times" on her own account, relative to a niece of hers who was coming from the country, and for whom she desired to find a situation. So, contrary to her usual habit, she sent for the newspaper, and close by her own advertisement, she saw Miss Starke's. It was impossible that she could mistake the description of Helen; and as this advertisement caught her eye the very day after the whole house had been disturbed and scandalized by Burley's noisy visit, and on which she had resolved to get rid of a lodger who received such visitors, the good- hearted woman was delighted to think that she could restore Helen to some safe home. While thus thinking, Helen herself entered the kitchen where Mrs. Smedley sat, and the landlady had the imprudence to point out the advertisement, and talk, as she called it, "seriously," to the little girl. Helen in vain and with tears entreated her to take no step in reply to the advertisement. Mrs. Smedley felt that it was an affair of duty, and was obdurate, and shortly afterwards put on her bonnet and left the house. Helen conjectured that she was on her way to Miss Starke's, and her whole soul was bent on flight. Leonard had gone to the office of the "Beehive" with his manuscripts; but she packed up all their joint effects, and just as she had done so, he returned. She communicated the news of the advertisement, and said she should be so miserable if compelled to go back to Miss Starke's, and implored him so pathetically to save her from such sorrow, that he at once assented to her proposal of flight. Luckily, little was owing to the landlady,--that little was left with the maid-servant; and, profiting by Mrs. Smedley's absence, they escaped without scene or conflict. Their effects were taken by Leonard to a stand of hackney vehicles, and then left at a coach-office while they went in search of lodgings. It was wise to choose an entirely new and remote district; and before night they were settled in an attic in Lambeth. CHAPTER XIII. As the reader will expect, no trace of Burley could Leonard find: the humourist had ceased to communicate with the "Beehive." But Leonard grieved for Burley's sake; and, indeed, he missed the intercourse of the large, wrong mind. But he settled down by degrees to the simple, loving society of his child companion, and in that presence grew more tranquil. The hours in the daytime that he did not pass at work, he spent as before, picking up knowledge at book-stalls; and at dusk he and Helen would stroll out,--sometimes striving to escape from the long suburb into fresh rural air; more often wandering to and fro the bridge that led to glorious Westminster--London's classic land--and watching the vague lamps reflected on the river. This haunt suited the musing, melancholy boy. He would stand long and with wistful silence by the balustrade, seating Helen thereon, that she too might look along the dark mournful waters, which, dark though they be, still have their charm of mysterious repose. As the river flowed between the world of roofs, and the roar of human passions on either side, so in those two hearts flowed Thought--and all they knew of London was its shadow. CHAPTER XIV. There appeared in the "Beehive" certain very truculent political papers, --papers very like the tracts in the tinker's bag. Leonard did not heed them much, but they made far more sensation in the public that read the "Beehive" than Leonard's papers, full of rare promise though the last were. They greatly increased the sale of the periodical in the manufacturing towns, and began to awake the drowsy vigilance of the Home Office. Suddenly a descent was made upon the "Beehive" and all its papers and plant. The editor saw himself threatened with a criminal prosecution, and the certainty of two years' imprisonment: he did not like the prospect, and disappeared. One evening, when Leonard, unconscious of these mischances, arrived at the door of the office, he found it closed. An agitated mob was before it, and a voice that was not new to his ear was haranguing the bystanders, with many imprecations against "tyrants." He looked, and, to his amaze, recognized in the orator Mr. Sprott the Tinker. The police came in numbers to disperse the crowd, and Mr. Sprott prudently vanished. Leonard learned, then, what had befallen, and again saw himself without employment and the means of bread. Slowly he walked back. "O knowledge, knowledge!---powerless, indeed!" he murmured. As he thus spoke, a handbill in large capitals met his eyes on a dead wall, "Wanted, a few smart young men for India." A crimp accosted him. "You would make a fine soldier, my man. You have stout limbs of your own." Leonard moved on. "It has come back then to this,--brute physical force after all! O Mind, despair! O Peasant, be a machine again!" He entered his attic noiselessly, and gazed upon Helen as she sat at work, straining her eyes by the open window--with tender and deep compassion. She had not heard him enter, nor was she aware of his presence. Patient and still she sat, and the small fingers plied busily. He gazed, and saw that her cheek was pale and hollow, and the hands looked so thin! His heart was deeply touched, and at that moment he had not one memory of the baffled Poet, one thought that proclaimed the Egotist. He approached her gently, laid his hand on her shoulder, "Helen, put on your shawl and bonnet, and walk out,--I have much to say." In a few moments she was ready, and they took their way to their favourite haunt upon the bridge. Pausing in one of the recesses, or nooks, Leonard then began, "Helen, we must part!" "Part?--Oh, brother!" "Listen. All work that depends on mind is over for me, nothing remains but the labour of thews and sinews. I cannot go back to my village and say to all, 'My hopes were self-conceit, and my intellect a delusion!' I cannot. Neither in this sordid city can I turn menial or porter. I might be born to that drudgery, but my mind has, it may be unhappily, raised me above my birth. What, then, shall I do? I know not yet,-- serve as a soldier, or push my way to some wilderness afar, as an emigrant, perhaps. But whatever my choice, I must henceforth be alone; I have a home no more. But there is a home for you, Helen, a very humble one (for you too, so well born), but very safe,--the roof of--of--my peasant mother. She will love you for my sake, and--and--" Helen clung to him trembling, and sobbed out, "Anything, anything you will. But I can work; I can make money, Leonard. I do, indeed, make money,--you do not know how much, but enough for us both till better times come to you. Do not let us part." "And I--a man, and born to labour--to be maintained by the work of an infant! No, Helen, do not so degrade me." She drew back as she looked on his flushed brow, bowed her head submissively, and murmured, "Pardon." "Ah," said Helen, after a, pause, "if now we could but find my poor father's friend! I never so much cared for it before." "Yes, he would surely provide for you." "For me!" repeated Helen, in a tone of soft, deep reproach, and she turned away her head to conceal her tears. "You are sure you would remember him, if we met him by chance?" "Oh, yes. He was so different from all we see in this terrible city, and his eyes were like yonder stars, so clear and so bright; yet the light seemed to come from afar off, as the light does in yours, when your thoughts are away from all things round you. And then, too, his dog, whom he called Nero--I could not forget that." "But his dog may not be always with him." "But the bright clear eyes are! Ah, now you look up to heaven, and yours seem to dream like his." Leonard did not answer, for his thoughts were indeed less on earth than struggling to pierce into that remote and mysterious heaven. Both were silent long; the crowd passed them by unheedingly. Night deepened over the river, but the reflection of the lamp-lights on its waves was more visible than that of the stars. The beams showed the darkness of the strong current; and the craft that lay eastward on the tide, with sail-less spectral masts and black dismal hulks, looked death- like in their stillness. Leonard looked down, and the thought of Chatterton's grim suicide came back to his soul; and a pale, scornful face, with luminous haunting eyes, seemed to look up from the stream, and murmur from livid lips, "Struggle no more against the tides on the surface,--all is calm and rest within the deep." Starting in terror from the gloom of his revery, the boy began to talk fast to Helen, and tried to soothe her with descriptions of the lowly home which he had offered. He spoke of the light cares which she would participate with his mother (for by that name he still called the widow), and dwelt, with an eloquence that the contrast round him made sincere and strong, on the happy rural life, the shadowy woodlands, the rippling cornfields, the solemn, lone churchspire soaring from the tranquil landscape. Flatteringly he painted the flowery terraces of the Italian exile, and the playful fountain that, even as he spoke, was flinging up its spray to the stars, through serene air untroubled by the smoke of cities, and untainted by the sinful sighs of men. He promised her the love and protection of natures akin to the happy scene: the simple, affectionate mother, the gentle pastor, the exile wise and kind, Violante, with dark eyes full of the mystic thoughts that solitude calls from childhood,-- Violante should be her companion. "And, oh!" cried Helen, "if life be thus happy there, return with me, return! return!" "Alas!" murmured the boy, "if the hammer once strike the spark from the anvil, the spark must fly upward; it cannot fall back to earth until light has left it. Upward still, Helen,--let me go upward still!" CHAPTER XV. The next morning Helen was very ill,--so ill that, shortly after rising, she was forced to creep back to bed. Her frame shivered, her eyes were heavy, her hand burned like fire. Fever had set in. Perhaps she might have caught cold on the bridge, perhaps her emotions had proved too much for her frame. Leonard, in great alarm, called in the nearest apothecary. The apothecary looked grave, and said there was danger. And danger soon declared itself,--Helen became delirious. For several days she lay in this state, be tween life and death. Leonard then felt that all the sorrows of earth are light, compared with the fear of losing what we love. How valueless the envied laurel seemed beside the dying rose! Thanks, perhaps, more to his heed and tending than to medical skill, she recovered sense at last. Immediate peril was over; but she was very weak and reduced, her ultimate recovery doubtful, convalescence, at best, likely to be very slow. But when she learned how long she had been thus ill, she looked anxiously at Leonard's face as he bent over her, and faltered forth, "Give me my work; I am strong enough for that now,--it would amuse me." Leonard burst into tears. Alas! he had no work himself; all their joint money had melted away. The apothecary was not like good Dr. Morgan; the medicines were to be paid for, and the rent. Two days before, Leonard had pawned Riccabocca's watch; and when the last shilling thus raised was gone, how should he support Helen? Nevertheless he conquered his tears, and assured her that he had employment; and that so earnestly that she believed him, and sank into soft sleep. He listened to her breathing, kissed her forehead, and left the room. He turned into his own neighbouring garret, and leaning his face on his hands, collected all his thoughts. He must be a beggar at last. He must write to Mr. Dale for money,--Mr. Dale, too, who knew the secret of his birth. He would rather have begged of a stranger; it seemed to add a new dishonour to his mother's memory for the child to beg of one who was acquainted. with her shame. Had he himself been the only one to want and to starve, he would have sunk inch by inch into the grave of famine, before he would have so subdued his pride. But Helen, there on that bed,--Helen needing, for weeks perhaps, all support, and illness making luxuries themselves like necessaries! Beg he must. And when he so resolved, had you but seen the proud, bitter soul he conquered, you would have said, "This, which he thinks is degradation,--this is heroism." Oh, strange human heart! no epic ever written achieves the Sublime and the Beautiful which are graven, unread by human eye, in thy secret leaves. Of whom else should he beg? His mother had nothing, Riccabocca was poor, and the stately Violante, who had exclaimed, "Would that I were a man! "--he could not endure the thought that she should pity him and despise. The Avenels! No,--thrice No. He drew towards him hastily ink and paper, and wrote rapid lines that were wrung from him as from the bleeding strings of life. But the hour for the post had passed, the letter must wait till the next day; and three days at least would elapse before he could receive an answer. He left the letter on the table, and, stifling as for air, went forth. He crossed the bridge, he passed on mechanically, and was borne along by a crowd pressing towards the doors of parliament. A debate that excited popular interest was fixed for that evening, and many bystanders collected in the street to see the members pass to and fro, or hear what speakers had yet risen to take part in the debate, or try to get orders for the gallery. He halted amidst these loiterers, with no interest, indeed, in common with them, but looking over their heads abstractedly towards the tall Funeral Abbey,--imperial Golgotha of Poets and Chiefs and Kings. Suddenly his attention was diverted to those around by the sound of a name, displeasingly known to him. "How are you, Randal Leslie? coming to hear the debate?" said a member, who was passing through the street. "Yes; Mr. Egerton promised to get me under the gallery. He is to speak himself to-night, and I have never heard him. As you are going into the House, will you remind him of his promise to me?" "I can't now, for he is speaking already,--and well too. I hurried from the Athenaeum, where I was dining, on purpose to be in time, as I heard that his speech was making a great effect." "This is very unlucky," said Randal. "I had no idea he would speak so early." "C----- brought him up by a direct personal attack. But follow me; perhaps I can get you into the House; and a, man like you, Leslie, from whom we expect great things some day, I can tell you, should not miss any such opportunity of knowing what this House of ours is on a field-night. Come on!" The member hurried towards the door; and as Randal followed him, a bystander cried, "That is the young man who wrote the famous pamphlet, --Egerton's relation." "Oh, indeed!" said another. "Clever man, Egerton,--I am waiting for him." "So am I" "Why, you are not a constituent, as I am." "No; but he has been very kind to my nephew, and I must thank him. You are a constituent--he is an honour to your town." "So he is: enlightened man!" "And so generous!" "Brings forward really good measures," quoth the politician. "And clever young men," said the uncle. Therewith one or two others joined in the praise of Audley Egerton, and many anecdotes of his liberality were told. Leonard listened at first listlessly, at last with thoughtful attention. He had heard Burley, too, speak highly of this generous statesman, who, without pretending to genius himself, appreciated it in others. He suddenly remembered, too, that Egerton was half-brother to the squire. Vague notions of some appeal to this eminent person, not for charity, but employment to his mind, gleamed across him,--inexperienced boy that he yet was! And while thus meditating, the door of the House opened and out came Audley Egerton himself. A partial cheering, followed by a general murmur, apprised Leonard of the presence of the popular statesman. Egerton was caught hold of by some five or six persons in succession; a shake of the hand, a nod, a brief whispered word or two, sufficed the practised member for graceful escape; and soon, free from the crowd, his tall, erect figure passed on, and turned towards the bridge. He paused at the angle and took out his watch, looking at it by the lamp-light. "Harley will be here soon," he muttered,--"he is always punctual; and now that I have spoken, I can give him an hour or so. That is well." As he replaced his watch in his pocket and re-buttoned his coat over his firm, broad chest, he lifted his eyes, and saw a young man standing before him. "Do you want me?" asked the statesman, with the direct brevity of his practical character. "Mr. Egerton," said the young man, with a voice that slightly trembled and yet was manly amidst emotion, "you have a great name, and great power; I stand here in these streets of London without a friend, and without employment. I believe that I have it in me to do some nobler work than that of bodily labour, had I but one friend,--one opening for my thoughts. And now I have said this, I scarcely know how, or why, but from despair, and the sudden impulse which that despair took from the praise that follows your success, I have nothing more to add." Audley Egerton was silent for a moment, struck by the tone and address of the stranger; but the consummate and wary man of the world, accustomed to all manner of strange applications and all varieties of imposture, quickly recovered from a passing and slight effect. "Are you a native of?" (naming the town which the statesman represented). "No, sir." "Well, young man, I am very sorry for you; but the good sense you must possess (for I judge of that by the education you have evidently received) must tell you that a public man, whatever be his patronage, has it too fully absorbed by claimants who have a right to demand it, to be able to listen to strangers." He paused a moment, and as Leonard stood silent, added with more kindness than most public men so accosted would have shown, "You say you are friendless,--poor fellow! In early life that happens to many of us, who find friends enough before the close. Be honest, and well-conducted: lean on yourself, not on strangers; work with the body if you can't with the mind; and, believe me, that advice is all I can give you, unless this trifle"--and the minister held out a crown-piece. Leonard bowed, shook his head sadly, and walked away. Egerton looked after him with a slight pang. "Pooh!" said he to himself, "there must be thousands in the same state in these streets of London. I cannot redress the necessities of civilization. Well educated! It is not from ignorance henceforth that society will suffer,--it is from over-educating the hungry thousands who, thus unfitted for manual toil, and with no career for mental, will some day or other stand like that boy in our streets, and puzzle wiser ministers than I am." As Egerton thus mused, and passed on to the bridge, a bugle-horn rang merrily from the box of a gay four-in-hand. A drag-coach with superb blood-horses rattled over the causeway, and in the driver Egerton recognized his nephew, Frank Hazeldean. The young Guardsman was returning with a lively party of men from dining at Greenwich, and the careless laughter of these children of pleasure floated far over the still river; it vexed the ear of the careworn statesman,--sad, perhaps, with all his greatness, lonely amidst all his crowd of friends. It reminded him, perhaps, of his own youth, when such parties and companionships were familiar to him, though through them all he had borne an ambitious, aspiring soul. "Le jeu vaut-il la chandelle?" said he, shrugging his shoulders. The coach rolled rapidly past Leonard, as he stood leaning against the corner of the bridge, and the mire of the kennel splashed over him from the hoofs of the fiery horses. The laughter smote on his ear more discordantly than on the minister's, but it begot no envy. "Life is a dark riddle," said he, smiting his breast. And he walked slowly on, gained the recess where he had stood several nights before with Helen, and, dizzy with want of food, and worn out for want of sleep, he sank down into the dark corner; while the river that rolled under the arch of stone muttered dirge-like in his ear,--as under the social key-stone wails and rolls on forever the mystery of Human Discontent. Take comfort, O Thinker by the stream! 'T is the river that founded and gave pomp to the city; and, without the discontent, where were progress, what were Man? Take comfort, O THINKER! wherever the stream over which thou bendest, or beside which thou sinkest, weary and desolate, frets the arch that supports thee, never dream that, by destroying the bridge, thou canst silence the moan of the wave! CHAPTER XVI. Before a table, in the apartments appropriated to him in his father's house at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L'Estrange, sorting or destroying letters and papers,--an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There are certain trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man's disposition. Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with soldier-like precision, were sundry little relics of former days, hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps endeared solely by custom; which, whether he was in Egypt, Italy, or England, always made part of the furniture of Harley's room. Even the small, old-fashioned, and somewhat inconvenient inkstand into which he dipped the pen as he labelled the letters he put aside, belonged to the writing-desk which had been his pride as a schoolboy. Even the books that lay scattered round were not new works, not those to which we turn to satisfy the curiosity of an hour, or to distract our graver thoughts; they were chiefly either Latin or Italian poets, with many a, pencil-mark on the margin; or books which, making severe demand on thought, require slow and frequent perusal, and become companions. Somehow or other, in remarking that even in dumb, inanimate things the man was averse to change, and had the habit of attaching himself to whatever was connected with old associations, you might guess that he clung with pertinacity to affections more important, and you could better comprehend the freshness of his friendship for one so dissimilar in pursuits and character as Audley Egerton. An affection once admitted into the heart of Harley L'Estrange seemed never to be questioned or reasoned with; it became tacitly fixed, as it were, into his own nature, and little less than a revolution of his whole system could dislodge or disturb it. Lord L'Estrange's hand rested now upon a letter in a stiff, legible Italian character, and instead of disposing of it at once as he had done with the rest, he spread it before him, and re-read the contents. It was a letter from Riccabocca, received a few weeks since, and ran thus:-- LETTER FROM SIGNOR RICCABOCCA TO LORD L'ESTRANGE. I thank you, my noble friend, for judging of me with faith in my honour, and respect for my reverses. No, and thrice no, to all concessions, all overtures, all treaty with Giulio Franzini. I write the name, and my emotions choke me. I must pause, and cool back into disdain. It is over. Pass from that subject. But you have alarmed me. This sister! I have not seen her since her childhood; but she was brought up under his influence, --she can but work as his agent. She wish to learn my residence! It can be but for some hostile and malignant purpose. I may trust in you, --I know that. You say I may trust equally in the discretion of your friend. Pardon me,--my confidence is not so elastic. A word may give the clew to my retreat. But, if discovered, what harm can ensue? An English roof protects me from Austrian despotism: true; but not the brazen tower of Danae could protect me from Italian craft. And, were there nothing worse, it would be intolerable to me to live under the eyes of a relentless spy. Truly saith our proverb, 'He sleeps ill for whom the enemy wakes.' Look you, my friend, I have done with my old life, --I wish to cast it from me as a snake its skin. I have denied myself all that exiles deem consolation. No pity for misfortune, no messages from sympathizing friendship, no news from a lost and bereaved country follow me to my hearth under the skies of the stranger. From all these I have voluntarily cut thyself off. I am as dead to the life I once lived as if the Styx rolled between it and me. With that sternness which is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even the consolation of your visits. I have told you fairly and simply that your presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy, and remind me only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance. You have complied on the one condition, that whenever I really want your aid I will ask it; and, meanwhile, you have generously sought to obtain me justice from the cabinets of ministers and in the courts of kings. I did not refuse your heart this luxury; for I have a child--Ah! I have taught that child already to revere your name, and in her prayers it is not forgotten. But now that you are convinced that even your zeal is unavailing, I ask you to discontinue attempts which may but bring the spy upon my track, and involve me in new misfortunes. Believe me, O brilliant Englishman, that I am satisfied and contented with my lot. I am sure it would not be for my happiness to change it, 'Chi non ha provato il male non conosce il bone.' ["One does not know when one is well off till one has known misfortune."] You ask me how I live,--I answer, /alla giornata/,--[To the day]--not for the morrow, as I did once. I have accustomed myself to the calm existence of a village. I take interest in its details. There is my wife, good creature, sitting opposite to me, never asking what I write, or to whom, but ready to throw aside her work and talk the moment the pen is out of my hand. Talk--and what about? Heaven knows! But I would rather hear that talk, though on the affairs of a hamlet, than babble again with recreant nobles and blundering professors about commonwealths and constitutions. When I want to see how little those last influence the happiness of wise men, have I not Machiavelli and Thucydides? Then, by and by, the parson will drop in, and we argue. He never knows when he is beaten, so the argument is everlasting. On fine days I ramble out by a winding rill with my Violante, or stroll to my friend the squire's, and see how healthful a thing is true pleasure; and on wet days I shut myself up, and mope, perhaps till, hark! a gentle tap at the door, and in comes Violante, with her dark eyes, that shine out through reproachful tears,-- reproachful that I should mourn alone, while she is under my roof; so she puts her arms round me, and in five minutes all is sunshine within. What care we for your English gray clouds without? Leave me, my dear Lord,--leave me to this quiet happy passage towards old age, serener than the youth that I wasted so wildly; and guard well the secret on which my happiness depends. Now to yourself, before I close. Of that same yourself you speak too little, as of me too much. But I so well comprehend the profound melancholy that lies underneath the wild and fanciful humour with which you but suggest, as in sport, what you feel so in earnest. The laborious solitude of cities weighs on you. You are flying back to the /dolce far niente/,--to friends few, but intimate; to life monotonous, but unrestrained; and even there the sense of loneliness will again seize upon you; and you do not seek, as I do, the annihilation of memory,--your dead passions are turned to ghosts that haunt you, and unfit you for the living world. I see it all,--I see it still, in your hurried fantastic lines, as I saw it when we two sat amidst the pines and beheld the blue lake stretched below, I troubled by the shadow of the Future, you disturbed by that of the Past. Well, but you say, half seriously, half in jest, "I will escape from this prison-house of memory; I will form new ties, like other men, and before it be too late; I will marry. Ay, but I must love,--there is the difficulty." Difficulty,--yes, and Heaven be thanked for it! Recall all the unhappy marriages that have come to your knowledge: pray, have not eighteen out of twenty been marriages for Love? It always has been so, and it always will; because, whenever we love deeply, we exact so much and forgive so little. Be content to find some one with whom your hearth and your honour are safe. You will grow to love what never wounds your heart, you will soon grow out of love with what must always disappoint your imagination. /Cospetto/! I wish my Jemima had a younger sister for you. Yet it was with a deep groan that I settled myself to a--Jemima. Now, I have written you a long letter, to prove how little I need of your compassion or your zeal. Once more let there be long silence between us. It is not easy for me to correspond with a man of your rank, and not incur the curious gossip of my still little pool of a world which the splash of a pebble can break into circles. I must take this over to a post-town some ten miles off, and drop it into the box by stealth. Adieu, dear and noble friend, gentlest heart and subtlest fancy that I have met in my walk through life. Adieu. Write me word when you have abandoned a day-dream and found a Jemima. ALPHONSO. P. S.--For Heaven's sake, caution and recaution your friend the minister not to drop a word to this woman that may betray my hiding-place. "Is he really happy?" murmured Harley, as he closed the letter; and he sank for a few moments into a revery. "This life in a village, this wife in a lady who puts down her work to talk about villagers--what a contrast to Audley's full existence! And I cannot envy nor comprehend either! yet my own existence--what is it?" He rose, and moved towards the window, from which a rustic stair descended to a green lawn, studded with larger trees than are often found in the grounds of a suburban residence. There were calm and coolness in the sight, and one could scarcely have supposed that London lay so near. The door opened softly, and a lady past middle age entered, and approaching Harley, as he still stood musing by the window, laid her hand on his shoulder. What character there is in a hand! Hers was a hand that Titian would have painted with elaborate care! Thin, white, and delicate, with the blue veins raised from the surface. Yet there was something more than mere patrician elegance in the form and texture. A true physiologist would have said at once, "There are intellect and pride in that hand, which seems to fix a hold where it rests; and lying so lightly, yet will not be as lightly shaken off." "Harley," said the lady--and Harley turned--"you do not deceive me by that smile," she continued sadly; "you were not smiling when I entered." "It is rarely that we smile to ourselves, my dear mother; and I have done nothing lately so foolish as to cause me to smile at myself." "My son," said Lady Lansmere, somewhat abruptly, but with great earnestness, "you come from a line of illustrious ancestors; and methinks they ask from their tombs why the last of their race has no aim and no object, no interest, no home, in the land which they served, and which rewarded them with its honours." "Mother," said the soldier, simply, "when the land was in danger I served it as my forefathers served,--and my answer would be the scars on my breast." "Is it only in danger that a country is served, only in war that duty is fulfilled? Do you think that your father, in his plain, manly life of country gentleman, does not fulfil, though perhaps too obscurely, the objects for which aristocracy is created, and wealth is bestowed?" "Doubtless he does, ma'am,--and better than his vagrant son ever can." "Yet his vagrant son has received such gifts from nature, his youth was so rich in promise, his boyhood so glowed at the dream of glory!" "Ay," said Harley, very softly, "it is possible,--and all to be buried in a single grave!" The countess started, and withdrew her hand from Harley's shoulder. Lady Lansmere's countenance was not one that much varied in expression. She had in this, as in her cast of feature, little resemblance to her son. Her features were slightly aquiline,--the eyebrows of that arch which gives a certain majesty to the aspect; the lines round the mouth were habitually rigid and compressed. Her face was that of one who had gone through great emotion and subdued it. There was something formal, and even ascetic, in the character of her beauty, which was still considerable, in her air and in her dress. She might have suggested to you the idea of some Gothic baroness of old, half chatelaine, half- abbess; you would see at a glance that she did not live in the light world around her, and disdained its fashion and its mode of thought; yet with all this rigidity it was still the face of the woman who has known human ties and human affections. And now, as she gazed long on Harley's quiet, saddened brow, it was the face of a mother. "A single grave," she said, after a long pause. "And you were then but a boy, Harley! Can such a memory influence you even to this day? It is scarcely possible: it does not seem to me within the realities of man's life,--though it might be of woman's." "I believe," said Harley, half soliloquizing, "that I have a great deal of the woman in me. Perhaps men who live much alone, and care not for men's objects, do grow tenacious of impressions, as your sex does. But oh," he cried, aloud, and with a sudden change of countenance, "oh, the hardest and the coldest man would have felt as I do, had he known HER, had he loved HER. She was like no other woman I have ever met. Bright and glorious creature of another sphere! She descended on this earth and darkened it when she passed away. It is no use striving. Mother, I have as much courage as our steel-clad fathers ever had. I have dared in battle and in deserts, against man and the wild beast, against the storm and the ocean, against the rude powers of Nature,--dangers as dread as ever pilgrim or Crusader rejoiced to brave. But courage against that one memory! no, I have none!" "Harley, Harley, you break my heart!" cried the countess, clasping her hands. "It is astonishing," continued her son, so rapt in his own thoughts that he did not, perhaps, hear her outcry. "Yea, verily, it is astonishing, that considering the thousands of women I have seen and spoken with, I never see a face like hers,--never hear a voice so sweet. And all this universe of life cannot afford me one look and one tone that can restore me to man's privilege,--love. Well, well, well, life has other things yet; Poetry and Art live still; still smiles the heaven and still wave the trees. Leave me to happiness in my own way." The countess was about to reply, when the door was thrown hastily open, and Lord Lansmere walked in. The earl was some years older than the countess, but his placid face showed less wear and tear,--a benevolent, kindly face, without any evidence of commanding intellect, but with no lack of sense in its pleasant lines; his form not tall, but upright and with an air of consequence,--a little pompous, but good-humouredly so,--the pomposity of the Grand Seigneur who has lived much in provinces, whose will has been rarely disputed, and whose importance has been so felt and acknowledged as to react insensibly on himself;--an excellent man; but when you glanced towards the high brow and dark eye of the countess, you marvelled a little how the two had come together, and, according to common report, lived so happily in the union. "Ho, ho! my dear Harley," cried Lord Lansmere, rubbing his hands with an appearance of much satisfaction, "I have just been paying a visit to the duchess." "What duchess, my dear father?" "Why, your mother's first cousin, to be sure,--the Duchess of Knaresborough, whom, to oblige me, you condescended to call upon; and delighted I am to hear that you admire Lady Mary--" She is very high bred, and rather--high-nosed," answered Harley. Then, observing that his mother looked pained, and his father disconcerted, he added seriously, "But handsome certainly." "Well, Harley," said the earl, recovering himself, "the duchess, taking advantage of our connection to speak freely, has intimated to me that Lady Mary has been no less struck with yourself; and to come to the point, since you allow that it is time you should think of marrying, I do not know a more desirable alliance. What do you say, Katherine?" "The duke is of a family that ranks in history before the Wars of the Roses," said Lady Lansmere, with an air of deference to her husband; "and there has never been one scandal in its annals, nor one blot on its scutcheon. But I am sure my dear Lord must think that the duchess should not have made the first overture,--even to a friend and a kinsman?" "Why, we are old-fashioned people," said the earl, rather embarrassed, "and the duchess is a woman of the world." "Let us hope," said the countess, mildly, "that her daughter is not." "I would not marry Lady Mary, if all the rest of the female sex were turned into apes," said Lord L'Estrange, with deliberate fervour. "Good heavens!" cried the earl, "what extraordinary language is this? And pray why, sir?" HARLEY.--"I can't say; there is no why in these cases. But, my dear father, you are not keeping faith with me." LORD LANSMERE.--"HOW?" HARLEY.--"You and my Lady, here, entreat me to marry; I promise to do my best to obey you, but on one condition, that I choose for myself, and take my time about it. Agreed on both sides. Whereon, off goes your Lordship--actually before noon, at an hour when no lady, without a shudder, could think of cold blonde and damp orange flowers--off goes your Lordship, I say, and commits poor Lady Mary and your unworthy son to a mutual admiration,--which neither of us ever felt. Pardon me, my father, but this is grave. Again let me claim your promise,--full choice for myself, and no reference to the Wars of the Roses. What War of the Roses like that between Modesty and Love upon the cheek of the virgin!" LADY LANSMERE.--"Full choice for yourself, Harley: so be it. But we, too, named a condition,--did we not, Lansmere?" THE EARL (puzzled).--"Eh, did we? Certainly we did." HARLEY.--"What was it?" LADY LANSMERE.--"The son of Lord Lansmere can only marry the daughter of a gentleman." THE EARL.---"Of course, of course." The blood rushed over Harley's fair face, and then as suddenly left it pale. He walked away to the window; his mother followed him, and again laid her hand on his shoulder. "You were cruel," said he, gently, and in a whisper, as he winced under the touch of the hand. Then turning to the earl, who was gazing at him in blank surprise,--it never occurred to Lord Lansmere that there could be a doubt of his son's marrying beneath the rank modestly stated by the countess,--Harley stretched forth his hand, and said, in his soft winning tone, "You have ever been most gracious to me, and most forbearing; it is but just that I should sacrifice the habits of an egotist, to gratify a wish which you so warmly entertain. I agree with you, too, that our race should not close in me,--Noblesse oblige. But you know I was ever romantic; and I must love where I marry; or, if not love, I must feel that my wife is worthy of all the love I could once have bestowed. Now, as to the vague word 'gentleman' that my mother employs--word that means so differently on different lips--I confess that I have a prejudice against young ladies brought up in the 'excellent foppery of the world,' as the daughters of gentlemen of our rank mostly are. I crave, therefore, the most liberal interpretation of this word 'gentleman.' And so long as there be nothing mean or sordid in the birth, habits, and education of the father of this bride to be, I trust you will both agree to demand nothing more,--neither titles nor pedigree." "Titles, no, assuredly," said Lady Lansmere; "they do not make gentlemen." "Certainly not," said the earl; "many of our best families are untitled." "Titles--no," repeated Lady Lansmere; "but ancestors yes." "Ah, my mother," said Harley, with his most sad and quiet smile, "it is fated that we shall never agree. The first of our race is ever the one we are most proud of; and pray, what ancestors had he? Beauty, virtue, modesty, intellect,--if these are not nobility enough for a man, he is a slave to the dead." With these words Harley took up his hat and made towards the door. "You said yourself, 'Noblesse oblige,'" said the countess, following him to the threshold; "we have nothing more to add." Harley slightly shrugged his shoulders, kissed his mother's hand; whistled to Nero, who started up from a doze by the window, and went his way. "Does he really go abroad next week?" said the earl. "So he says." "I am afraid there is no chance for Lady Mary," resumed Lord Lansmere, with a slight but melancholy smile. "She has not intellect enough to charm him. She is not worthy of Harley," said the proud mother. "Between you and me," rejoined the earl, rather timidly, "I don't see what good his intellect does him. He could not be more unsettled and useless if he were the merest dunce in the three kingdoms. And so ambitious as he was when a boy! Katherine, I sometimes fancy that you know what changed him." "I!" Nay, my dear Lord, it is a common change enough with the young, when of such fortunes, who find, when they enter life, that there is really little left for them to strive for. Had Harley been a poor man's son, it might have been different." "I was born to the same fortunes as Harley," said the earl, shrewdly, "and yet I flatter myself I am of some use to old England." The countess seized upon the occasion, complimented her Lord, and turned the subject. CHAPTER XVII. Harley spent his day in his usual desultory, lounging manner,--dined in his quiet corner at his favourite club. Nero, not admitted into the club, patiently waited for him outside the door. The dinner over, dog and man, equally indifferent to the crowd, sauntered down that thoroughfare which, to the few who can comprehend the Poetry of London, has associations of glory and of woe sublime as any that the ruins of the dead elder world can furnish,--thoroughfare that traverses what was once the courtyard of Whitehall, having to its left the site of the palace that lodged the royalty of Scotland; gains, through a narrow strait, that old isle of Thorney, in which Edward the Confessor received the ominous visit of the Conqueror; and, widening once more by the Abbey and the Hall of Westminster, then loses itself, like all memories of earthly grandeur, amidst humble passages and mean defiles. Thus thought Harley L'Estrange--ever less amidst the actual world around him than the images invoked by his own solitary soul-as he gained the bridge, and saw the dull, lifeless craft sleeping on the "Silent Way," once loud and glittering with the gilded barks of the antique Seignorie of England. It was on that bridge that Audley Egerton had appointed to meet L'Estrange, at an hour when he calculated he could best steal a respite from debate. For Harley, with his fastidious dislike to all the resorts of his equals, had declined to seek his friend in the crowded regions of Bellamy's. Harley's eye, as he passed along the bridge, was attracted by a still form, seated on the stones in one of the nooks, with its face covered by its hands. "If I were a sculptor," said he to himself, "I should remember that image whenever I wished to convey the idea of Despondency!" He lifted his looks and saw, a little before him in the midst of the causeway, the firm, erect figure of Audley Egerton. The moonlight was full on the bronzed countenance of the strong public man, with its lines of thought and care, and its vigorous but cold expression of intense self-control. "And looking yonder," continued Harley's soliloquy, "I should remember that form, when I wished to hew out from the granite the idea of Endurance." "So you are come, and punctually," said Egerton, linking his arm in Harley's. HARLEY--"Punctually, of course, for I respect your time, and I will not detain you long. I presume you will speak to-night?" EGERTON.--"I have spoken." HARLEY (with interest).--"And well, I hope?" EGERTON.--" With effect, I suppose, for I have been loudly cheered, which does not always happen to me." HARLEY.--"And that gave you pleasure?" EGERTON (after a moment's thought).--"No, not the least." HARLEY.--"What, then, attaches you so much to this life,--constant drudgery, constant warfare, the more pleasurable faculties dormant, all the harsher ones aroused, if even its rewards (and I take the best of those to be applause) do not please you?" EGERTON.--"What? Custom." HARLEY.--"Martyr." EGERTON.--"You say it: but turn to yourself; you have decided, then, to leave England next week?" HARLEY (moodily).---"Yes. This life in a capital, where all are so active, myself so objectless, preys on me like a low fever. Nothing here amuses me, nothing interests, nothing comforts and consoles. But I am resolved, before it be too late, to make one great struggle out of the Past, and into the natural world of men. In a word, I have resolved to marry." EGERTON.--" Whom?" HARLEY (seriously).--" Upon my life, my dear fellow, you are a great philosopher. You have hit the exact question. You see I cannot marry a dream; and where, out of dreams, shall I find this 'whom'?" EGERTON.--"You do not search for her." HARLEY. "Do we ever search for love? Does it not flash upon us when we least expect it? Is it not like the inspiration to the muse? What poet sits down and says, 'I will write a poem'? What man looks out and says, 'I will fall in love'? No! Happiness, as the great German tells us, 'falls suddenly from the bosom of the gods;' so does love." EGERTON.--"You remember the old line in Horace: 'The tide flows away while the boor sits on the margin and waits for the ford.'" HARLEV.--"An idea which incidentally dropped from you some weeks ago, and which I have before half-meditated, has since haunted me. If I could but find some child with sweet dispositions and fair intellect not yet formed, and train her up according to my ideal. I am still young enough to wait a few years. And meanwhile I shall have gained what I so sadly want,--an object in life." EGERTON.--"You are ever the child of romance. But what--" Here the minister was interrupted by a messenger from the House of Commons, whom Audley had instructed to seek him on the bridge should his presence be required. "Sir, the Opposition are taking advantage of the thinness of the House to call for a division. Mr. ----- is put up to speak for time, but they won't hear him." Egerton turned hastily to Lord L'Estrange. "You see, you must excuse me now. To-morrow I must go to Windsor for two days: but we shall meet on my return." "It does not matter," answered Harley; "I stand out of the pale of your advice, O practical man of sense. And if," added Harley, with affectionate and mournful sweetness,--"if I weary you with complaints which you cannot understand, it is only because of old schoolboy habits. I can have no trouble that I do not confide to you." Egerton's hand trembled as it pressed his friend's, and without a word, he hurried away abruptly. Harley remained motionless for some seconds, in deep and quiet revery; then he called to his dog, and turned back towards Westminster. He passed the nook in which had sat the still figure of Despondency; but the figure had now risen, and was leaning against the balustrade. The dog, who preceded his master, passed by the solitary form and sniffed it suspiciously. "Nero, sir, come here," said Harley. "Nero,"--that was the name by which Helen had said that her father's friend had called his dog; and the sound startled Leonard as he leaned, sick at heart, against the stone. He lifted his head and looked wistfully, eagerly into Harley's face. Those eyes, bright, clear, yet so strangely deep and absent, which Helen had described, met his own, and chained them. For L'Estrange halted also; the boy's countenance was not unfamiliar to him. He returned the inquiring look fixed on his own, and recognized the student by the bookstall. "The dog is quite harmless, sir," said L'Estrange, with a smile. "And you call him 'Nero'?" said Leonard, still gazing on the stranger. Harley mistook the drift of the question. "Nero, sir; but he is free from the sanguinary propensities of his Roman namesake." Harley was about to pass on, when Leonard said falteringly, "Pardon me, but can it be possible that you are one whom I have sought in vain on behalf of the child of Captain Digby?" Harley stopped short. "Digby!" he exclaimed, "where is he? He should have found me easily. I gave him an address." "Ah, Heaven be thanked!" cried Leonard. "Helen is saved--she will not die," and he burst into tears. A very few moments and a very few words sufficed to explain to Harley the state of his old fellow-soldier's orphan. And Harley himself soon stood in the young sufferer's room, supporting her burning temples on his breast, and whispering into ears that heard him as in a happy dream, "Comfort, comfort; your father yet lives in me." And then Helen, raising her eyes, said, "But Leonard is my brother--more than brother-and he needs a father's care more than I do." "Hush, hush, Helen. I need no one, nothing now!" cried Leonard, and his tears gushed over the little hand that clasped his own. CHAPTER XVIII. Harley L'Estrange was a man whom all things that belong to the romantic and poetic side of our human life deeply impressed. When he came to learn the ties between these two Children of Nature, standing side by side, alone amidst the storms of fate, his heart was more deeply moved than it had been for many years. In those dreary attics, overshadowed by the smoke and reek of the humble suburb, the workday world in its harshest and tritest forms below and around them, he recognized that divine poem which comes out from all union between the mind and the heart. Here, on the rough deal table (the ink scarcely dry), lay the writings of the young wrestler for fame and bread; there, on the other side of the partition, on that mean pallet, lay the boy's sole comforter, the all that warmed his heart with living mortal affection. On one side the wall, the world of imagination; on the other, this world of grief and of love. And in both, a spirit equally sublime,--unselfish devotion,-- "the something afar from the sphere of our sorrow." He looked round the room into which he had followed Leonard, on quitting Helen's bedside. He noted the manuscripts on the table, and pointing to them, said gently, "And these are the labours by which you supported the soldier's orphan?--soldier yourself in a hard battle!" "The battle was lost,--I could not support her," replied Leonard, mournfully. "But you did not desert her. When Pandora's box was opened, they say Hope lingered last--" "False, false," said Leonard; "a heathen's notion. There are deities that linger behind Hope,--Gratitude, Love, and Duty." "Yours is no common nature," exclaimed Harley, admiringly, "but I must sound it more deeply hereafter: at present I hasten for the physician; I shall return with him. We must move that poor child from this low close air as soon as possible. Meanwhile, let me qualify your rejection of the old fable. Wherever Gratitude, Love, and Duty remain to man, believe me that Hope is there too, though she may be often invisible, hidden behind the sheltering wings of the nobler deities." Harley said this with that wondrous smile of his, which cast a brightness over the whole room, and went away. Leonard stole softly towards the grimy window; and looking up towards the stars that shone pale over the roof-tops, he murmured, "O Thou, the All-seeing and All-merciful! how it comforts me now to think that, though my dreams of knowledge may have sometimes obscured the heavens, I never doubted that Thou wert there! as luminous and everlasting, though behind the cloud! "So, for a few minutes, he prayed silently, then passed into Helen's room, and sat beside her motionless, for she slept. She woke just as Harley returned with a physician; and then Leonard, returning to his own room, saw amongst his papers the letter he had written to Mr. Dale, and muttering, "I need not disgrace my calling,--I need not be the mendicant now"--held the letter to the flame of the candle. And while he said this, and as the burning tinder dropped on the floor, the sharp hunger, unfelt during his late anxious emotions, gnawed at his entrails. Still, even hunger could not reach that noble pride which had yielded to a sentiment nobler than itself, and he smiled as he repeated, "No mendicant!--the life that I was sworn to guard is saved. I can raise against Fate the front of Man once more." CHAPTER XIX. A few days afterwards, and Helen, removed to a pure air, and under the advice of the first physicians, was out of all danger. It was a pretty detached cottage, with its windows looking over the wild heaths of Norwood, to which Harley rode daily to watch the convalescence of his young charge: an object in life was already found. As she grew better and stronger, he coaxed her easily into talking, and listened to her with pleased surprise. The heart so infantine and the sense so womanly struck him much by its rare contrast and combination. Leonard, whom he had insisted on placing also in the cottage, had stayed there willingly till Helen's recovery was beyond question. Then he came to Lord L'Estrange, as the latter was about one day to leave the cottage, and said quietly, "Now, my Lord, that Helen is safe, and now that she will need me no more, I can no longer be a pensioner on your bounty. I return to London." "You are my visitor, not my pensioner, foolish boy," said Harley, who had already noticed the pride which spoke in that farewell; "come into the garden and let us talk." Harley seated himself on a bench on the little lawn; Nero crouched at his feet; Leonard stood beside him. "So," said Lord L'Estrange, "you would return to London? What to do?" "Fulfil my fate." "And that?" "I cannot guess. Fate is the Isis whose veil no mortal can ever raise." "You should be born for great things," said Harley, abruptly. "I am sure that you write well. I have seen that you study with passion. Better than writing and better than study, you have a noble heart, and the proud desire of independence. Let me see your manuscripts, or any copies of what you have already printed. Do not hesitate,--I ask but to be a reader. I don't pretend to be a patron: it is a word I hate." Leonard's eyes sparkled through their sudden moisture. He brought out his portfolio, placed it on the bench beside Harley, and then went softly to the farther part of the garden. Nero looked after him, and then rose and followed him slowly. The boy seated himself on the turf, and Nero rested his dull head on the loud heart of the poet. Harley took up the various papers before him, and read them through leisurely. Certainly he was no critic. He was not accustomed to analyze what pleased or displeased him; but his perceptions were quick, and his taste exquisite. As he read, his countenance, always so genuinely expressive, exhibited now doubt and now admiration. He was soon struck by the contrast, in the boy's writings, between the pieces that sported with fancy and those that grappled with thought. In the first, the young poet seemed so unconscious of his own individuality. His imagination, afar and aloft from the scenes of his suffering, ran riot amidst a paradise of happy golden creations. But in the last, the THINKER stood out alone and mournful, questioning, in troubled sorrow, the hard world on which he gazed. All in the thought was unsettled, tumultuous; all in the fancy serene and peaceful. The genius seemed divided into twain shapes,--the one bathing its wings amidst the starry dews of heaven; the other wandering, "melancholy, slow," amidst desolate and boundless sands. Harley gently laid down the paper and mused a little while. Then he rose and walked to Leonard, gazing on his countenance as he neared the boy, with a new and a deeper interest. "I have read your papers," he said, "and recognize in them two men, belonging to two worlds, essentially distinct." Leonard started, and murmured, "True, true!" "I apprehend," resumed Harley, "that one of these men must either destroy the other, or that the two must become fused and harmonized into a single existence. Get your hat, mount my groom's horse, and come with me to London; we will converse by the way. Look you, I believe you and I agree in this,--that the first object of every noble spirit is independence. It is towards this independence that I alone presume to assist you, and this is a service which the proudest man can receive without a blush." Leonard lifted his eyes towards Harley's, and those eyes swam with grateful tears; but his heart was too full to answer. "I am not one of those," said Harley, when they were on the road, "who think that because a young man writes poetry he is fit for nothing else, and that he must be a poet or a pauper. I have said that in you there seems to me to be two men,--the man of the Actual world, the man of the Ideal. To each of these men I can offer a separate career. The first is perhaps the more tempting. It is the interest of the State to draw into its service all the talent and industry it can obtain; and under his native State every citizen of a free country should be proud to take service. I have a friend who is a minister, and who is known to encourage talent,--Audley Egerton. I have but to say to him, 'There is a young man who will repay the government whatever the government bestows on him;' and you will rise to-morrow independent in means, and with fair occasions to attain to fortune and distinction. This is one offer,--what say you to it?" Leonard thought bitterly of his interview with Audley Egerton, and the minister's proffered crown-piece. He shook his head, and replied, "Oh, my Lord, how have I deserved such kindness? Do with me what you will; but if I have the option, I would rather follow my own calling. This is not the ambition that inflames me." "Hear, then, the other offer. I have a friend with whom I am less intimate than Egerton, and who has nothing in his gift to bestow. I speak of a man of letters,--Henry Norreys,--of whom you have doubtless heard, who, I should say, conceived an interest in you when be observed you reading at the bookstall. I have often heard him say that literature as a profession is misunderstood, and that rightly followed, with the same pains and the same prudence which are brought to bear on other professions, a competence at least can be always ultimately obtained. But the way may be long and tedious, and it leads to no power but over thought; it rarely attains to wealth; and though reputation may be certain, fame, such as poets dream of, is the lot of few. What say you to this course?" "My Lord, I decide," said Leonard, firmly; and then, his young face lighting up with enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Yes, if, as you say, there be two men within me, I feel that were I condemned wholly to the mechanical and practical world, one would indeed destroy the other. And the conqueror would be the ruder and the coarser. Let me pursue those ideas that, though they have but flitted across me, vague and formless, have ever soared towards the sunlight. No matter whether or not they lead to fortune or to fame,--at least they will lead me upward! Knowledge for itself I desire; what care I if it be not power!" "Enough," said Harley, with a pleased smile at his young companion's outburst. "As you decide so shall it be settled. And now permit me, if not impertinent, to ask you a few questions. Your name is Leonard Fairfield?" The boy blushed deeply, and bowed his head as if in assent. "Helen says you are self-taught; for the rest she refers me to you,-- thinking, perhaps, that I should esteem you less--rather than yet more highly--if she said you were, as I presume to conjecture, of humble birth." "My birth," said Leonard, slowly, "is very--very--humble." "The name of Fairfield is not unknown to me. There was one of that name who married into a family in Lansmere, married an Avenel," continued Harley, and his voice quivered. "You change countenance. Oh, could your mother's name have been Avenel?" "Yes," said Leonard, between his set teeth. Harley laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Then, indeed, I have a claim on you; then, indeed, we are friends. I have a right to serve any of that family." Leonard looked at him in surprise--"For," continued Harley, recovering himself, "they always served my family; and my recollections of Lansmere, though boyish, are indelible." He spurred on his horse as the words closed, and again there was a long pause; but from that time Harley always spoke to Leonard in a soft voice, and often gazed on him with earnest and kindly eyes. They reached a house in a central, though not fashionable street. A man- servant of a singularly grave and awful aspect opened the door,--a man who had lived all his life with authors. Poor fellow, he was indeed prematurely old! The care on his lip and the pomp on his brow--no mortal's pen can describe! "Is Mr. Norreys at home?" asked Harley. "He is at home--to his friends, my Lord," answered the man, majestically; and he stalked across the hall with the step of a Dangeau ushering some Montmorenci into the presence of Louis le Grand. "Stay; show this gentleman into another room. I will go first into the library; wait for me, Leonard." The man nodded, and conducted Leonard into the dining-room. Then pausing before the door of the library, and listening an instant, as if fearful to disturb some mood of inspiration, opened it very softly. To his ineffable disgust, Harley pushed before, and entered abruptly. It was a large room, lined with books from the floor to the ceiling. Books were on all the tables, books were on all the chairs. Harley seated himself on a folio of Raleigh's "History of the World," and cried, "I have brought you a treasure!" "What is it?" said Norreys, good-humouredly, looking up from his desk. "A mind!" "A mind!" echoed Norreys, vaguely. "Your own?" "Pooh! I have none,--I have only a heart and a fancy. Listen. You remember the boy we saw reading at the book stall. I have caught him for you, and you shall train him into a man. I have the warmest interest in his future, for I know some of his family, and one of that family was very dear to me. As for money, he has not a shilling, and not a shilling would he accept gratis from you or me either. But he comes with bold heart to work,--and work you must find him." Harley then rapidly told his friend of the two offers he had made to Leonard, and Leonard's choice. "This promises very well; for letters a man must have a strong vocation, as he should have for law. I will do all that you wish." Harley rose with alertness, shook Norreys cordially by the hand, hurried out of the room, and returned with Leonard. Mr. Norreys eyed the young man with attention. He was naturally rather severe than cordial in his manner to strangers,--contrasting in this, as in most things, the poor vagabond Burley; but he was a good judge of the human countenance, and he liked Leonard's. After a pause he held out his hand. "Sir," said he, "Lord L'Estrange tells me that you wish to enter literature as a calling, and no doubt to study it as an art. I may help you in this, and you meanwhile can help me. I want an amanuensis,--I offer you that place. The salary will be proportioned to the services you will render me. I have a room in my house at your disposal. When I first came up to London, I made the same choice that I hear you have done. I have no cause, even in a worldly point of view, to repent my choice. It gave me an income larger than my wants. I trace my success to these maxims, which are applicable to all professions: 1st, Never to trust to genius for what can be obtained by labour; 2dly, Never to profess to teach what we have not studied to understand; 3dly, Never to engage our word to what we do not our best to execute. "With these rules, literature--provided a man does not mistake his vocation for it, and will, under good advice, go through the preliminary discipline of natural powers, which all vocations require--is as good a calling as any other. Without them, a shoeblack's is infinitely better." "Possibly enough," muttered Harley; "but there have been great writers who observed none of your maxims." "Great writers, probably, but very unenviable men. My Lord, my Lord, don't corrupt the pupil you bring to me." Harley smiled, and took his departure, and left Genius at school with Common-Sense and Experience. CHAPTER XX. While Leonard Fairfield had been obscurely wrestling against poverty, neglect, hunger, and dread temptation, bright had been the opening day and smooth the upward path of Randal Leslie. Certainly no young man, able and ambitious, could enter life under fairer auspices; the connection and avowed favourite of a popular and energetic statesman, the brilliant writer of a political work that had lifted him at once into a station of his own, received and courted in those highest circles, to which neither rank nor fortune alone suffices for a familiar passport, --the circles above fashion itself. the circles of POWER,--with every facility of augmenting information, and learning the world betimes through the talk of its acknowledged masters,--Randal had but to move straight onward, and success was sure. But his tortuous spirit delighted in scheme and intrigue for their own sake. In scheme and intrigue he saw shorter paths to fortune, if not to fame. His besetting sin was also his besetting weakness. He did not aspire,-- he coveted. Though in a far higher social position than Frank Hazeldean, despite the worldly prospects of his old schoolfellow, he coveted the very things that kept Frank Hazeldean below him,--coveted his idle gayeties, his careless pleasures, his very waste of youth. Thus, also, Randal less aspired to Audley Egerton's repute than he coveted Audley Egerton's wealth and pomp, his princely expenditure, and his Castle Rackrent in Grosvenor Square. It was the misfortune of his birth to be so near to both these fortunes,--near to that of Leslie, as the future head of that fallen House; near even to that of Hazeldean, since, as we have seen before, if the squire had had no son, Randal's descent from the Hazeldeans suggested himself as the one on whom these broad lands should devolve. Most young men brought into intimate contact with Audley Egerton would have felt for that personage a certain loyal and admiring, if not very affectionate, respect. For there was something grand in Egerton,--something that commands and fascinates the young. His determined courage, his energetic will, his almost regal liberality, contrasting a simplicity in personal tastes and habits that was almost austere, his rare and seemingly unconscious power of charming even the women most wearied of homage, and persuading even the men most obdurate to counsel,--all served to invest the practical man with those spells which are usually confined to the ideal one. But, indeed, Audley Egerton was an Ideal,--the ideal of the Practical. Not the mere vulgar, plodding, red-tape machine of petty business, but the man of strong sense, inspired by inflexible energy and guided to definite earthly objects. In a dissolute and corrupt form of government, under a decrepit monarchy or a vitiated republic, Audley Egerton might have been a most dangerous citizen: for his ambition was so resolute, and his sight to its ends was so clear. But there is something in public life in England which compels the really ambitious man to honour, unless his eyes are jaundiced and oblique, like Randal Leslie's. It is so necessary in England to be a gentleman. And thus Egerton was emphatically considered a gentleman. Without the least pride in other matters, with little apparent sensitiveness, touch him on the point of gentleman, and no one so sensitive and so proud. As Randal saw more of him, and watched his moods with the lynx-eyes of the household spy, he could perceive that this hard mechanical man was subject to fits of melancholy, even of gloom; and though they did not last long, there was even in his habitual coldness an evidence of something compressed, latent, painful, lying deep within his memory. This would have interested the kindly feelings of a grateful heart; but Randal detected and watched it only as a clew to some secret it might profit him to gain. For Randal Leslie hated Egerton; and hated him the more because, with all his book-knowledge and his conceit in his own talents, he could not despise his patron; because he had not yet succeeded in making his patron the mere tool or stepping-stone; because he thought that Egerton's keen eye saw through his wily heart, even while, as if in profound disdain, the minister helped the protege. But this last suspicion was unsound. Egerton had not detected Leslie's corrupt and treacherous nature. He might have other reasons for keeping him at a certain distance, but he inquired too little into Randal's feelings towards himself to question the attachment, or doubt the sincerity, of one who owed to him so much. But that which more than all embittered Randal's feelings towards Egerton was the careful and deliberate frankness with which the latter had, more than once, repeated and enforced the odious announcement, that Randal had nothing to expect from the minister's WILL, nothing to expect from that wealth which glared in the hungry eyes of the pauper heir to the Leslies of Rood. To whom, then, could Egerton mean to devise his fortune? To whom but Frank Hazeldean? Yet Audley took so little notice of his nephew, seemed so indifferent to him, that that supposition, however natural, was exposed to doubt. The astuteness of Randal was perplexed. Meanwhile, however, the less he himself could rely upon Egerton for fortune, the more he revolved the possible chances of ousting Frank from the inheritance of Hazeldean,--in part, at least, if not wholly. To one less scheming, crafty, and remorseless than Randal Leslie, such a project would have seemed the wildest delusion. But there was something fearful in the manner in which this young man sought to turn knowledge into power, and make the study of all weakness in others subservient to his own ends. He wormed himself thoroughly into Frank's confidence. He learned, through Frank, all the squire's peculiarities of thought and temper, and pondered over each word in the father's letters, which the son gradually got into the habit of showing to the perfidious eyes of his friend. Randal saw that the squire had two characteristics, which are very common amongst proprietors, and which might be invoked as antagonists to his warm fatherly love. First, the squire was as fond of his estate as if it were a living thing, and part of his own flesh and blood; and in his lectures to Frank upon the sin of extravagance, the squire always let out this foible,--"What was to become of the estate if it fell into the hands of a spendthrift? No man should make ducks and drakes of Hazeldean; let Frank beware of that," etc. Secondly, the squire was not only fond of his lands, but he was jealous of them,--that jealousy which even the tenderest fathers sometimes entertain towards their natural heirs. He could not bear the notion that Frank should count on his death; and he seldom closed an admonitory letter without repeating the information that Hazeldean was not entailed; that it was his to do with as he pleased through life and in death. Indirect menace of this nature rather wounded and galled than intimidated Frank; for the young man was extremely generous and high-spirited by nature, and was always more disposed to some indiscretion after such warnings to his self-interest, as if to show that those were the last kinds of appeal likely to influence him. By the help of such insights into the character of father and son, Randal thought he saw gleams of daylight illumining his own chance to the lands of Hazeldean. Meanwhile, it appeared to him obvious that, come what might of it, his own interests could not lose, and might most probably gain, by whatever could alienate the squire from his natural heir. Accordingly, though with consummate tact, he instigated Frank towards the very excesses most calculated to irritate the squire, all the while appearing rather to give the counter advice, and never sharing in any of the follies to which he conducted his thoughtless friend. In this he worked chiefly through others, introducing Frank to every acquaintance most dangerous to youth, either from the wit that laughs at prudence, or the spurious magnificence that subsists so handsomely upon bills endorsed by friends of "great expectations." The minister and his protege were seated at breakfast, the first reading the newspaper, the last glancing over his letters; for Randal had arrived to the dignity of receiving many letters,--ay, and notes, too, three- cornered and fantastically embossed. Egerton uttered an exclamation, and laid down the newspaper. Randal looked up from his correspondence. The minister had sunk into one of his absent reveries. After a long silence, observing that Egerton did not return to the newspaper, Randal said, "Ahem, sir, I have a note from Frank Hazeldean, who wants much to see me; his father has arrived in town unexpectedly." "What brings him here?" asked Egerton, still abstractedly. "Why, it seems that he has heard some vague reports of poor Frank's extravagance, and Frank is rather afraid or ashamed to meet him." "Ay, a very great fault, extravagance in the young!--destroys independence; ruins or enslaves the future. Great fault,--very! And what does youth want that it should be extravagant? Has it not everything in itself, merely because it is? Youth is youth--what needs it more?" Egerton rose as he said this, and retired to his writing-table, and in his turn opened his correspondence. Randal took up the newspaper, and endeavoured, but in vain, to conjecture what had excited the minister's exclamations and the revery that succeeded it. Egerton suddenly and sharply turned round in his chair--"If you have done with the 'Times,' have the goodness to place it here." Randal had just obeyed, when a knock at the street-door was heard, and presently Lord L'Estrange came into the room, with somewhat a quicker step and somewhat a gayer mien than usual. Audley's hand, as if mechanically, fell upon the newspaper,--fell upon that part of the columns devoted to births, deaths, and marriages. Randal stood by, and noted; then, bowing to L'Estrange, left the room. "Audley," said L'Estrange, "I have had an adventure since I saw you,--an adventure that reopened the Past, and may influence my future." "How?" "In the first place, I have met with a relation of--of--the Avenels." "Indeed! Whom,--Richard Avenel?" "Richard--Richard--who is he? Oh, I remember, the wild lad who went off to America; but that was when I was a mere child." "That Richard Avenel is now a rich, thriving trader, and his marriage is in this newspaper,--married to an Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Well, in this country who should plume himself on birth?" "You did not say so always, Egerton," replied Harley, with a tone of mournful reproach. "And I say so now pertinently to a Mrs. M'Catchley, not to the heir of the L'Estranges. But no more of these--these Avenels." "Yes, more of them. I tell you I have met a relation of theirs--a nephew of--of--" "Of Richard Avenel's?" interrupted Egerton; and then added in the slow, deliberate, argumentative tone in which he was wont to speak in public, "Richard Avenel the trader! I saw him once,--a presuming and intolerable man!" "The nephew has not those sins. He is full of promise, of modesty, yet of pride. And his countenance--oh, Egerton, he has her eyes." Egerton made no answer, and Harley resumed, "I had thought of placing him under your care. I knew you would provide for him." "I will. Bring him hither," cried Egerton, eagerly. "All that I can do to prove my--regard for a wish of yours." Harley pressed his friend's hand warmly. "I thank you from my heart; the Audley of my boyhood speaks now. But the young man has decided otherwise; and I do not blame him. Nay, I rejoice that he chooses a career in which, if he find hardship, he may escape dependence." "And that career is--" "Letters." "Letters! Literature!" exclaimed the statesman. "Beggary! No, no, Harley, this is your absurd romance." "It will not be beggary, and it is not my romance: it is the boy's. Leave him alone, he is my care and my charge henceforth. He is of her blood, and I said that he had HER eyes." "But you are going abroad; let me know where he is; I will watch over him." "And unsettle a right ambition for a wrong one? No, you shall know nothing of him till he can proclaim himself. I think that day will come." Audley mused a moment, and then said, "Well, perhaps you are right. After all, as you say, independence is a great blessing, and my ambition has not rendered myself the better or the happier." "Yet, my poor Audley, you ask me to be ambitious." "I only wish you to be consoled," cried Egerton, with passion. "I will try to be so; and by the help of a milder remedy than yours. I said that my adventure might influence my future; it brought me acquainted not only with the young man I speak of, but the most winning, affectionate child,--a girl." "Is this child an Avenel too?" "No, she is of gentle blood,--a soldier's daughter; the daughter of that Captain Digby on whose behalf I was a petitioner to your patronage. He is dead, and in dying, my name was on his lips. He meant me, doubtless, to be the guardian to his orphan. I shall be so. I have at last an object in life." "But can you seriously mean to take this child with you abroad?" "Seriously, I do." "And lodge her in your own house?" "For a year or so, while she is yet a child. Then, as she approaches youth, I shall place her elsewhere." "You may grow to love her. Is it clear that she will love you,--not mistake gratitude for love? It is a very hazardous experiment." "So was William the Norman's,--still he was William the Conqueror. Thou biddest me move on from the Past, and be consoled, yet thou wouldst make me as inapt to progress as the mule in Slawkenbergius's tale, with thy cursed interlocutions, 'Stumbling, by Saint Nicholas, every step. Why, at this rate, we shall be all night in getting into'--HAPPINESS! Listen," continued Harley, setting off, full pelt, into one of his wild whimsical humours. "One of the sons of the prophets in Israel felling wood near the river Jordan, his hatchet forsook the helve, and fell to the bottom of the river; so he prayed to have it again (it was but a small request, mark you); and having a strong faith, he did not throw the hatchet after the helve, but the helve after the hatchet. Presently two great miracles were seen. Up springs the hatchet from the bottom of the water, and fixes itself to its old acquaintance, the helve. Now, had he wished to coach it up to heaven in a fiery chariot like Elias, be as rich as Job, strong as Samson, and beautiful as Absalom, would he have obtained the wish, do you think? In truth, my friend, I question it very much." "I can't comprehend what you mean. Sad stuff you are talking." "I cannot help that; 'Rabelais is to be blamed for it. I am quoting him, and it is to be found in his Prologue to the Chapters on the 'Moderation of Wishes.' And a propos of 'moderate wishes in point of hatchet,' I want you to understand that I ask but little from Heaven. I fling but the helve after the hatchet that has sunk into the silent stream. I want the other half of the weapon that is buried fathom deep, and for want of which the thick woods darken round me by the Sacred River, and I can catch not a glimpse of the stars." "In plain English," said Audley Egerton, "you want--" he stopped short, puzzled. "I want my purpose and my will, and my old character, and the nature God gave me. I want the half of my soul which has fallen from me. I want such love as may replace to me the vanished affections. Reason not,--I throw the helve after the hatchet." CHAPTER XXI. Randal Leslie, on leaving Audley, repaired to Frank's lodgings, and after being closeted with the young Guardsman an hour or so, took his way to Limmer's hotel, and asked for Mr. Hazeldean. He was shown into the coffee-room, while the waiter went up-stairs with his card, to see if the squire was within, and disengaged. The "Times" newspaper lay sprawling on one of the tables, and Randal, leaning over it, looked with attention into the column containing births, deaths, and marriages. But in that long and miscellaneous list he could not conjecture the name which had so excited Mr. Egerton's interest. "Vexatious!" he muttered; "there is no knowledge which has power more useful than that of the secrets of men." He turned as the waiter entered and said that Mr. Hazeldean would be glad to see him. As Randal entered the drawing-room, the squire, shaking hands with him, looked towards the door as if expecting some one else; and his honest face assumed a blank expression of disappointment, when the door closed, and he found that Randal was unaccompanied. "Well," said he, bluntly, "I thought your old schoolfellow, Frank, might have been with you." Have you not seen him yet, sir?" "No, I came to town this morning; travelled outside the mail; sent to his barracks, but the young gentleman does not sleep there, has an apartment of his own; he never told me that. We are a plain family, the Hazeldeans, young sir; and I hate being kept in the dark,--by my own son, too." Randal made no answer, but looked sorrowful. The squire, who had never before seen his kinsman, had a vague idea that it was not polite to entertain a stranger, though a connection to himself, with his family troubles, and so resumed good-naturedly, "I am very glad to make your acquaintance at last, Mr. Leslie. You know, I hope, that you have good Hazeldean blood in your veins?" RANDAL (smiling).--"I am not likely to forget that; it is the boast of our pedigree." SQUIRE (heartily).--"Shake hands again on it, my boy. You don't want a friend, since my grandee of a half-brother has taken you up; but if ever you should, Hazeldean is not very far from Rood. Can't get on with your father at all, my lad,--more 's the pity, for I think I could have given him a hint or two as to the improvement of his property. If he would plant those ugly commons--larch and fir soon come into profit, sir; and there are some low lands about Rood that would take mighty kindly to draining." RANDAL.--"My poor father lives a life so retired--and you cannot wonder at it. Fallen trees lie still, and so do fallen families." SQUIRE.--"Fallen families can get up again, which fallen trees can't." RANDAL.--"Ah, sir, it often takes the energy of generations to repair the thriftlessness and extravagance of a single owner." SQUIRE (his brow lowering).--"That's very true. Frank is d---d extravagant; treats me very coolly, too--not coming; near three o'clock. By the by, I suppose he told you where I was, otherwise how did you find me out?" RANDAL (reluctantly).--"Sir, he did; and to speak frankly, I am not surprised that he has not yet appeared." SQUIRE.--"Eh!" RANDAL.--"We have grown very intimate." SQUIRE.--"So he writes me word,--and I am glad of it. Our member, Sir John, tells me you are a very clever fellow, and a very steady one. And Frank says that he wishes he had your prudence, if he can't have your talent. He has a good heart, Frank," added the father, relentingly. "But zounds, sir, you say you are not surprised he has not come to welcome his own father!" "My dear sir," said Randal, "you wrote word to Frank that you had heard from Sir John and others of his goings-on, and that you were not satisfied with his replies to your letters." "Well." "And then you suddenly come up to town." "Well." "Well. And Frank is ashamed to meet you. For, as you say, he has been extravagant, and he has exceeded his allowance; and knowing my respect for you and my great affection for himself, he has asked me to prepare you to receive his confession and forgive him. I know I am taking a great liberty. I have no right to interfere between father and son; but pray--pray think I mean for the best." "Humph!" said the squire, recovering himself very slowly, and showing evident pain, "I knew already that Frank had spent more than he ought; but I think he should not have employed a third person to prepare me to forgive him. (Excuse me,--no offence.) And if he wanted a third person, was not there his own mother? What the devil! [firing up] am I a tyrant, a bashaw, that my own son is afraid to speak to me? 'Gad, I'll give it him!" "Pardon me, sir," said Randal, assuming at once that air of authority which superior intellect so well carries off and excuses, "but I strongly advise you not to express any anger at Frank's confidence in me. At present I have influence over him. Whatever you may think of his extravagance, I have saved him from many an indiscretion, and many a debt,--a young man will listen to one of his own age so much more readily than even to the kindest friend of graver years. Indeed, sir, I speak for your sake as well as for Frank's. Let me keep this influence over him; and don't reproach him for the confidence placed in me. Nay, let him rather think that I have softened any displeasure you might otherwise have felt." There seemed so much good sense in what Randal said, and the kindness of it seemed so disinterested, that the squire's native shrewdness was deceived. "You are a fine young fellow," said he, "and I am very much obliged to you. Well, I suppose there is no putting old heads upon young shoulders; and I promise you I'll not say an angry word to Frank. I dare say, poor boy, he is very much afflicted, and I long to shake hands with him. So, set his mind at ease." "Ah, sir," said Randal, with much apparent emotion, "your son may well love you: and it seems to be a hard matter for so kind a heart as yours to preserve the proper firmness with him." "Oh, I can be firm enough," quoth the squire,--"especially when I don't see him,--handsome dog that he is: very like his mother--don't you think so? "I never saw his mother, sir." "'Gad! Not seen my Harry? No more you have; you must come and pay us a visit. I suppose my half-brother will let you come?" "To be sure, sir. Will you not call on him while you are in town?" "Not I. He would think I expected to get something from the Government. Tell him the ministers must go on a little better, if they want my vote for their member. But go, I see you are impatient to tell Frank that all 's forgot and forgiven. Come and dine with him here at six, and let him bring his bills in his pocket. Oh, I sha'n't scold him." "Why, as to that," said Randal, smiling, "I think (forgive me still) that you should not take it too easily; just as I think that you had better not blame him for his very natural and praiseworthy shame in approaching you, so I think, also, that you should do nothing that would tend to diminish that shame,--it is such a check on him. And therefore, if you can contrive to affect to be angry with him for his extravagance, it will do good." "You speak like a book, and I'll try my best." "If you threaten, for instance, to take him out of the army, and settle him in the country, it would have a very good effect." "What! would he think it so great a punishment to come home and live with his parents?" "I don't say that; but he is naturally so fond of London. At his age, and with his large inheritance, that is natural." "Inheritance!" said the squire, moodily,--"inheritance! he is not thinking of that, I trust? Zounds, sir, I have as good a life as his own. Inheritance!--to be sure the Casino property is entailed on him; but as for the rest, sir, I am no tenant for life. I could leave the Hazeldean lands to my ploughman, if I chose it. Inheritance; indeed!" "My dear sir, I did not mean to imply that Frank would entertain the unnatural and monstrous idea of calculating on your death; and all we have to do is to get him to sow his wild oats as soon as possible,--marry and settle down into the country. For it would be a thousand pities if his town habits and tastes grew permanent,--a bad thing for the Hazeldean property, that! And," added Randal, laughing, "I feel an interest in the old place, since my grandmother comes of the stock. So, just force yourself to seem angry, and grumble a little when you pay the bills." "Ah, ah, trust me," said the squire, doggedly, and with a very altered air. "I am much obliged to you for these hints, my young kinsman." And his stout hand trembled a little as he extended it to Randal. Leaving Limmer's, Randal hastened to Frank's rooms in St. James's Street. "My dear fellow," said he, when he entered, "it is very fortunate that I persuaded you to let me break matters to your father. You might well say he was rather passionate; but I have contrived to soothe him. You need not fear that he will not pay your debts." "I never feared that," said Frank, changing colour; "I only feared his anger. But, indeed, I fear his kindness still more. What a reckless hound I have been! However, it shall be a lesson to me. And my debts once paid, I will turn as economical as yourself." "Quite right, Frank. And, indeed, I am a little afraid that, when your father knows the total, he may execute a threat that would be very unpleasant to you." "What's that?" "Make you sell out, and give up London." "The devil!" exclaimed Frank, with fervent emphasis; "that would be treating me like a child." "Why, it would make you seem rather ridiculous to your set, which is not a very rural one. And you, who like London so much, and are so much the fashion!" "Don't talk of it," cried Frank, walking to and fro the room in great disorder. "Perhaps, on the whole, it might be well not to say all you owe, at once. If you named half the sum, your father would let you off with a lecture; and really I tremble at the effect of the total." "But how shall I pay the other half?" "Oh, you must save from your allowance; it is a very liberal one; and the tradesmen are not pressing." "No; but the cursed bill-brokers--" "Always renew to a young man of your expectations. And if I get into an office, I can always help you, my dear Frank." "Ah, Randal, I am not so bad as to take advantage of your friendship," said Frank, warmly. "But it seems to me mean after all, and a sort of a lie, indeed, disguising the real state of my affairs. I should not have listened to the idea from any one else; but you are such a sensible, kind, honourable fellow." "After epithets so flattering, I shrink from the responsibility of advice. But apart from your own interests, I should be glad to save your father the pain he would feel at knowing the whole extent of the scrape you have got into. And if it entailed on you the necessity to lay by-- and give up hazard, and not be security for other men--why, it would be the best thing that could happen. Really, too, it seems hard upon Mr. Hazeldean that he should be the only sufferer, and quite just that you should bear half your own burdens." "So it is, Randal; that did not strike me before. I will take your counsel; and now I will go at once to Limmer's. My dear father! I hope he is looking well?" "Oh, very. Such a contrast to the sallow Londoners! But I think you had better not go till dinner. He has asked me to meet you at six. I will call for you a little before, and we can go together. This will prevent a good deal of /gene/ and constraint. Good-by till then. Ha! by the way, I think if I were you, I would not take the matter too seriously and penitentially. You see the best of fathers like to keep their sons under their thumb, as the saying is. And if you want at your age to preserve your independence, and not be hurried off and buried in the country, like a schoolboy in disgrace, a little manliness of bearing would not be amiss. You can think over it." The dinner at Limmer's went off very differently from what it ought to have done. Randal's words had sunk deep, and rankled sorely in the squire's mind; and that impression imparted a certain coldness to his manner which belied the hearty, forgiving, generous impulse with which he had come up to London, and which even Randal had not yet altogether whispered away. On the other hand, Frank, embarrassed both by the sense of disingenuousness, and a desire "not to take the thing too seriously," seemed to the squire ungracious and thankless. After dinner the squire began to hum and haw, and Frank to colour up and shrink. Both felt discomposed by the presence of a third person; till, with an art and address worthy of a better cause, Randal himself broke the ice, and so contrived to remove the restraint he had before imposed, that at length each was heartily glad to have matters made clear and brief by his dexterity and tact. Frank's debts were not in reality large; and when he named the half of them, looking down in shame, the squire, agreeably surprised, was about to express himself with a liberal heartiness that would have opened his son's excellent heart at once to him. But a warning look from Randal checked the impulse; and the squire thought it right, as he had promised, to affect an anger he did not feel, and let fall the unlucky threat, "that it was all very well once in a way to exceed his allowance; but if Frank did not, in future, show more sense than to be led away by a set of London sharks and coxcombs, he must cut the army, come home, and take to farming." Frank imprudently exclaimed, "Oh, sir, I have no taste for farming. And after London, at my age, the country would be so horribly dull." "Aha!" said the squire, very grimly--and he thrust back into his pocket- book some extra bank-notes which his fingers had itched to add to those he had already counted out. "The country is terribly dull, is it? Money goes there not upon follies and vices, but upon employing honest labourers, and increasing the wealth of the nation. It does not please you to spend money in that way: it is a pity you should ever be plagued with such duties." "My dear father--" "Hold your tongue, you puppy. Oh, I dare say, if you were in my shoes, you would cut down the oaks, and mortgage the property; sell it, for what I know,--all go on a cast of the dice! Aha, sir--very well, very well-- the country is horribly dull, is it? Pray stay in town." "My dear Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, blandly, and as if with the wish to turn off into a joke what threatened to be serious, "you must not interpret a hasty expression so literally. Why, you would make Frank as bad as Lord A-----, who wrote word to his steward to cut down more timber; and when the steward replied, 'There are only three sign-posts left on the whole estate,' wrote back, 'They've done growing at all events,--down with them!' You ought to know Lord A-----, sir; so witty; and--Frank's particular friend." "Your particular friend, Master Frank? Pretty friends!" and the squire buttoned up the pocket to which he had transferred his note-book, with a determined air. "But I'm his friend, too," said Randal, kindly; "and I preach to him properly, I can tell you." Then, as if delicately anxious to change the subject, he began to ask questions upon crops and the experiment of bone manure. He spoke earnestly, and with gusto, yet with the deference of one listening to a great practical authority. Randal had spent the afternoon in cramming the subject from agricultural journals and parliamentary reports; and like all practised readers, had really learned in a few hours more than many a man, unaccustomed to study, could gain from books in a year. The squire was surprised and pleased at the young scholar's information and taste for such subjects. "But, to be sure," quoth he, with an angry look at poor Frank, "you have good Hazeldean blood in you, and know a bean from a turnip." "Why, sir," said Randal, ingenuously, "I am training myself for public life; and what is a public man worth if be do not study the agriculture of his country?" "Right--what is he worth? Put that question, with my compliments, to my half-brother. What stuff he did talk, the other night, on the malt-tax, to be sure!" "Mr. Egerton has had so many other things to think of, that we must excuse his want of information upon one topic, however important. With his strong sense he must acquire that information, sooner or later; for he is fond of power; and, sir, knowledge is power!" "Very true,--very fine saying," quoth the poor squire, unsuspiciously, as Randal's eye rested on Mr. Hazeldean's open face, and then glanced towards Frank, who looked sad and bored. "Yes," repeated Randal, "knowledge is power;" and he shook his head wisely, as he passed the bottle to his host. Still, when the squire, who meant to return to the Hall next morning, took leave of Frank, his heart warmed to his son; and still more for Frank's dejected looks. It was not Randal's policy to push estrangement too far at first, and in his own presence. "Speak to poor Frank,--kindly now, sir--do;" whispered be, observing the squire's watery eyes, as he moved to the window. The squire, rejoiced to obey, thrust out his hand to his son. "My dear boy," said he, "there, don't fret--pshaw!--it was but a trifle after all. Think no more of it." Frank took the hand, and suddenly threw his arm round his father's broad shoulder. "Oh, sir, you are too good,--too good." His voice trembled so that Randal took alarm, passed by him, and touched him meaningly. The squire pressed his son to his heart,--heart so large, that it seemed to fill the whole width under his broadcloth. "My dear Frank," said he, half blubbering, "it is not the money; but, you see, it so vexes your poor mother; you must be careful in future; and, zounds, boy, it will be all yours one day; only don't calculate on it; I could not bear that, I could not, indeed." "Calculate!" cried Frank. "Oh, sir, can you think it?" "I am so delighted that I had some slight hand in your complete reconciliation with Mr. Hazeldean," said Randal, as the young men walked from the hotel. "I saw that you were disheartened, and I told him to speak to you kindly." "Did you? Ah--I am sorry he needed telling." "I know his character so well already," said Randal, "that I flatter myself I can always keep things between you as they ought to be. What an excellent man!" "The best man in the world," cried Frank, heartily; and then, as his accents drooped, "yet I have deceived him. I have a great mind to go back--" "And tell him to give you twice as much money as you bad asked for? He would think you had only seemed so affectionate in order to take him in. No, no, Frank! save, lay by, economize; and then tell him that you have paid half your own debts. Something high-minded in that." "So there is. Your heart is as good as your head. Goodnight." "Are you going home so early? Have you no engagements!" "None that I shall keep." "Good-night, then." They parted, and Randal walked into one of the fashionable clubs. He neared a table where three or four young men (younger sons, who lived in the most splendid style, Heaven knew how) were still over their wine. Leslie had little in common with these gentlemen, but he forced his nature to be agreeable to them, in consequence of a very excellent piece of worldly advice given to him by Audley Egerton. "Never let the dandies call you a prig," said the statesman. "Many a clever fellow fails through life, because the silly fellows, whom half a word well spoken could make his claqueurs, turn him into ridicule. Whatever you are, avoid the fault of most reading men: in a word, don't be a prig!" "I have just left Hazeldean," said Randal. "What a good fellow he is!" "Capital!" said the Honourable George Borrowell. "Where is he?" "Why, he is gone to his rooms. He has had a little scene with his father, a thorough, rough country squire. It would be an act of charity if you would go and keep him company, or take him with you to some place a little more lively than his own lodgings." "What! the old gentleman has been teasing him!--a horrid shame! Why, Frank is not extravagant, and he will be very rich, eh?" "An immense property," said Randal, "and not a mortgage on it: an only son," he added, turning away. Among these young gentlemen there was a kindly and most benevolent whisper, and presently they all rose, and walked away towards Frank's lodgings. "The wedge is in the tree," said Randal to himself, "and there is a gap already between the bark and the wood." CHAPTER XXII Harley L'Estrange is seated beside Helen at the lattice-window in the cottage at Norwood. The bloom of reviving health is on the child's face, and she is listening with a smile, for Harley is speaking of Leonard with praise, and of Leonard's future with hope. "And thus," he continued, "secure from his former trials, happy in his occupation, and pursuing the career he has chosen, we must be content, my dear child, to leave him." "Leave him!" exclaimed Helen, and the rose on her cheek faded. Harley was not displeased to see her emotion. He would have been disappointed in her heart if it had been less susceptible to affection. "It is hard on you, Helen," said he, "to be separated from one who has been to you as a brother. Do not hate me for doing so. But I consider myself your guardian, and your home as yet must be mine. We are going from this land of cloud and mist, going as into the world of summer. Well, that does not content you. You weep, my child; you mourn your own friend, but do not forget your father's. I am alone, and often sad, Helen; will you not comfort me? You press my hand, but you must learn to smile on me also. You are born to be the comforter. Comforters are not egotists; they are always cheerful when they console." The voice of Harley was so sweet and his words went so home to the child's heart, that she looked up and smiled in his face as he kissed her ingenuous brow. But then she thought of Leonard, and felt so solitary, so bereft, that tears burst forth again. Before these were dried, Leonard himself entered, and, obeying an irresistible impulse, she sprang to his arms, and leaning her head on his shoulder, sobbed out, "I am going from you, brother; do not grieve, do not miss me." Harley was much moved: he folded his arms, and contemplated them both silently,--and his own eyes were moist. "This heart," thought he, "will be worth the winning!" He drew aside Leonard, and whispered, "Soothe, but encourage and support her. I leave you together; come to me in the garden later." It was nearly an hour before Leonard joined Harley. "She was not weeping when you left her?" asked L'Estrange. "No; she has more fortitude than we might suppose. Heaven knows how that fortitude has supported mine. I have promised to write to her often." Harley took two strides across the lawn, and then, coming back to Leonard, said, "Keep your promise, and write often for the first year. I would then ask you to let the correspondence drop gradually." "Drop! Ah, my Lord!" "Look you, my young friend, I wish to lead this fair mind wholly from the sorrows of the past. I wish Helen to enter, not abruptly, but step by step, into a new life. You love each other now, as do two children,--as brother and sister. But later, if encouraged, would the love be the same? And is it not better for both of you that youth should open upon the world with youth's natural affections free and unforestalled?" "True! And she is so above me," said Leonard, mournfully. "No one is above him who succeeds in your ambition, Leonard. It is not that, believe me." Leonard shook his head. "Perhaps," said Harley, with a smile, "I rather feel that you are above me. For what vantage-ground is so high as youth? Perhaps I may become jealous of you. It is well that she should learn to like one who is to be henceforth her guardian and protector. Yet how can she like me as she ought, if her heart is to be full of you?" The boy bowed his head; and Harley hastened to change the subject, and speak of letters and of glory. His words were eloquent and his voice kindling; for he had been an enthusiast for fame in his boyhood, and in Leonard's his own seemed to him to revive. But the poet's heart gave back no echo,--suddenly it seemed void and desolate. Yet when Leonard walked back by the moonlight, he muttered to himself, "Strange, strange, so mere a child! this cannot be love! Still, what else to love is there left to me?" And so he paused upon the bridge where he had so often stood with Helen, and on which he had found the protector that had given to her a home, to himself a career. And life seemed very long, and fame but a dreary phantom. Courage still, Leonard! These are the sorrows of the heart that teach thee more than all the precepts of sage and critic. Another day, and Helen had left the shores of England, with her fanciful and dreaming guardian. Years will pass before our tale re-opens. Life in all the forms we have seen it travels on. And the squire farms and hunts; and the parson preaches and chides and soothes; and Riccabocca reads his Machiavelli, and sighs and smiles as he moralizes on Men and States; and Violante's dark eyes grow deeper and more spiritual in their lustre, and her beauty takes thought from solitary dreams. And Mr. Richard Avenel has his house in London, and the Honourable Mrs. Avenel her opera-box; and hard and dire is their struggle into fashion, and hotly does the new man, scorning the aristocracy, pant to become aristocrat. And Audley Egerton goes from the office to the parliament, and drudges, and debates, and helps to govern the empire in which the sun never sets. Poor sun, how tired he must be--but not more tired than the Government! And Randal Leslie has an excellent place in the bureau of a minister, and is looking to the time when he shall resign it to come into parliament, and on that large arena turn knowledge into power. And meanwhile he is much where he was with Audley Egerton; but he has established intimacy with the squire, and visited Hazeldean twice, and examined the house and the map of the property, and very nearly fallen a second time into the ha-ha, and the squire believes that Randal Leslie alone can keep Frank out of mischief, and has spoken rough words to his Harry about Frank's continued extravagance. And Frank does continue to pursue pleasure, and is very miserable, and horribly in debt. And Madame di Negra has gone from London to Paris, and taken a tour into Switzerland, and come back to London again, and has grown very intimate with Randal Leslie; and Randal has introduced Frank to her; and Frank thinks her the loveliest woman in the world, and grossly slandered by certain evil tongues. And the brother of Madame di Negra is expected in England at last; and what with his repute for beauty and for wealth, people anticipate a sensation. And Leonard, and Harley, and Helen? Patience,--they will all re-appear. 
7710	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK NINTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. ON PUBLIC LIFE. Now that I am fairly in the heart of my story, these preliminary chapters must shrink into comparatively small dimensions, and not encroach upon the space required by the various personages whose acquaintance I have picked up here and there, and who are now all crowding upon me like poor relations to whom one has unadvisedly given a general invitation, and who descend upon one simultaneously about Christmas time. Where they are to be stowed, and what is to become of them all, Heaven knows; in the mean while, the reader will have already observed that the Caxton Family themselves are turned out of their own rooms, sent a packing, in order to make way for the new comers. But to proceed: Note the heading to the present Chapter, "ON PUBLIC LIFE,"--a thesis pertinent to this portion of my narrative; and if somewhat trite in itself, the greater is the stimulus to suggest thereon some original hints for reflection. Were you ever in public life, my dear reader? I don't mean, by that question, to ask whether you were ever Lord Chancellor, Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, or even a member of the House of Commons. An author hopes to find readers far beyond that very egregious but very limited segment of the Great Circle. Were you ever a busy man in your vestry, active in a municipal corporation, one of a committee for furthering the interests of an enlightened candidate for your native burgh, town, or shire,--in a word, did you ever resign your private comforts as men in order to share the public troubles of mankind? If ever you have so far departed from the Lucretian philosophy, just look back--was it life at all that you lived? Were you an individual distinct existence,--a passenger in the railway,--or were you merely an indistinct portion of that common flaine which heated the boiler and generated the steam that set off the monster train?--very hot, very active, very useful, no doubt; but all your identity fused in flame, and all your forces vanishing in gas. And do you think the people in the railway carriages care for you? Do you think that the gentleman in the worsted wrapper is saying to his neighbour with the striped rug on his comfortable knees, "How grateful we ought to be for that fiery particle which is crackling and hissing under the boiler. It helps us on a fraction of an inch from Vauxhall to Putney!" Not a bit of it. Ten to one but he is saying, "Not sixteen miles an hour! What the deuce is the matter with the stoker?" Look at our friend Audley Egerton. You have just had a glimpse of the real being that struggles under the huge copper; you have heard the hollow sound of the rich man's coffers under the tap of Baron Levy's friendly knuckle, heard the strong man's heart give out its dull warning sound to the scientific ear of Dr. F-----. And away once more vanishes the separate existence, lost again in the flame that heats the boiler, and the smoke that curls into air from the grimy furnace. Look to it, O Public Man, whoever thou art, and whatsoever thy degree,-- see if thou canst not compound matters, so as to keep a little nook apart for thy private life; that is, for thyself! Let the Great Popkins Question not absorb wholly the individual soul of thee, as Smith or Johnson. Don't so entirely consume thyself under that insatiable boiler, that when thy poor little monad rushes out from the sooty furnace, and arrives at the stars, thou mayest find no vocation for thee there, and feel as if thou hadst nothing to do amidst the still splendours of the Infinite. I don't deny to thee the uses of "Public Life;" I grant that it is much to have helped to carry that Great Popkins Question; but Private Life, my friend, is the life of thy private soul; and there may be matters concerned with that which, on consideration, thou mayest allow cannot be wholly mixed up with the Great Popkins Question, and were not finally settled when thou didst exclaim, "I have not lived in vain,--the Popkins Question is carried at last!" Oh, immortal soul, for one quarter of an hour per diem de-Popkinize thine immortality! CHAPTER II. It had not been without much persuasion on the part of Jackeymo that Riccabocca had consented to settle himself in the house which Randal had recommended to him. Not that the exile conceived any suspicion of the young man beyond that which he might have shared with Jackeymo, namely, that Randal's interest in the father was increased by a very natural and excusable admiration of the daughter; but the Italian had the pride common to misfortune,--he did not like to be indebted to others, and he shrank from the pity of those to whom it was known that he had held a higher station in his own land. These scruples gave way to the strength of his affection for his daughter and his dread of his foe. Good men, however able and brave, who have suffered from the wicked, are apt to form exaggerated notions of the power that has prevailed against them. Jackeymo had conceived a superstitious terror of Peschiera; and Riccabocca, though by no means addicted to superstition, still had a certain creep of the flesh whenever he thought of his foe. But Riccabocca--than whom no man was more physically brave, and no man, in some respects, more morally timid--feared the count less as a foe than as a gallant. He remembered his kinsman's surpassing beauty, the power he had obtained over women. He knew him versed in every art that corrupts, and wholly void of the conscience that deters. And Riccabocca had unhappily nursed himself into so poor an estimate of the female character, that even the pure and lofty nature of Violante did not seem to him a sufficient safeguard against the craft and determination of a practised and remorseless intriguer. But of all the precautions he could take, none appeared more likely to conduce to safety than his establishing a friendly communication with one who professed to be able to get at all the count's plans and movements, and who could apprise Riccabocca at once should his retreat be discovered. "Forewarned is forearmed," said he to himself, in one of the proverbs common to all nations. However, as with his usual sagacity he came to reflect upon the alarming intelligence conveyed to him by Randal, namely, that the count sought his daughter's hand, he divined that there was some strong personal interest under such ambition; and what could be that interest save the probability of Riccabocca's ultimate admission to the Imperial grace, and the count's desire to assure himself of the heritage to an estate that he might be permitted to retain no more? Riccabocca was not indeed aware of the condition (not according to usual customs in Austria) on which the count held the forfeited domains. He knew not that they had been granted merely on pleasure; but he was too well aware of Peschiera's nature to suppose that he would woo a bride without a dower, or be moved by remorse in any overture of reconciliation. He felt assured too--and this increased all his fears--that Peschiera would never venture to seek an interview with himself; all the count's designs on Violante would be dark, secret, and clandestine. He was perplexed and tormented by the doubt whether or not to express openly to Violante his apprehensions of the nature of the danger to be apprehended. He had told her vaguely that it was for her sake that he desired secrecy and concealment. But that might mean anything: what danger to himself would not menace her? Yet to say more was so contrary to a man of his Italian notions and Machiavellian maxims! To say to a young girl, "There is a man come over to England on purpose to woo and win you. For Heaven's sake take care of him; he is diabolically handsome; he never fails where he sets his heart.--/Cospetto!/" cried the doctor, aloud, as these admonitions shaped themselves to speech in the camera obscura of his brain; "such a warning would have undone a Cornelia while she was yet an innocent spinster." No, he resolved to say nothing to Violante of the count's intention, only to keep guard, and make himself and Jackeymo all eyes and all ears. The house Randal had selected pleased Riccabocca at first glance. It stood alone, upon a little eminence; its upper windows commanded the high road. It had been a school, and was surrounded by high walls, which contained a garden and lawn sufficiently large for exercise. The garden doors were thick, fortified by strong bolts, and had a little wicket lattice, shut and opened at pleasure, from which Jackeymo could inspect all visitors before he permitted them to enter. An old female servant from the neighbourhood was cautiously hired; Riccabocca renounced his Italian name, and abjured his origin. He spoke English sufficiently well to think he could pass as an Englishman. He called himself Mr. Richmouth (a liberal translation of Riccabocca). He bought a blunderbuss, two pairs of pistols, and a huge housedog. Thus provided for, he allowed Jackeymo to write a line to Randal and communicate his arrival. Randal lost no time in calling. With his usual adaptability and his powers of dissimulation, he contrived easily to please Mrs. Riccabocca, and to increase the good opinion the exile was disposed to form of him. He engaged Violante in conversation on Italy and its poets. He promised to bring her books. He began, though more distantly than he could have desired,--for her sweet stateliness awed him,--the preliminaries of courtship. He established himself at once as a familiar guest, riding down daily in the dusk of evening, after the toils of office, and returning at night. In four or five days he thought he had made great progress with all. Riccabocca watched him narrowly, and grew absorbed in thought after every visit. At length one night, when he and Mrs. Riccabocca were alone in the drawing-room, Violante having retired to rest, he thus spoke as he filled his pipe,-- "Happy is the man who has no children! Thrice happy he who has no girls!" "My dear Alphonso!" said the wife, looking up from the waistband to which she was attaching a neat mother-o'-pearl button. She said no more; it was the sharpest rebuke she was in the custom of administering to her husband's cynical and odious observations. Riccabocca lighted his pipe with a thread paper, gave three great puffs, and resumed, "One blunderbuss, four pistols, and a house-dog called Pompey, who would have made mincemeat of Julius Caesar!" "He certainly eats a great deal, does Pompey!" said Mrs. Riccabocca, simply. "But if he relieves your mind!" "He does not relieve it in the least, ma'am," groaned Riccabocca; "and that is the point I am coming to. This is a most harassing life, and a most undignified life. And I who have only asked from Heaven dignity and repose! But if Violante were once married, I should want neither blunderbuss, pistol, nor Pompey. And it is that which would relieve my mind, cara mia,--Pompey only relieves my larder." Now Riccabocca had been more communicative to Jemima than he had been to Violante. Having once trusted her with one secret, he had every motive to trust her with another; and he had accordingly spoken out his fears of the Count di Peschiera. Therefore she answered, laying down the work, and taking her husband's hand tenderly, "Indeed, my love, since you dread so much (though I own that I must think unreasonably) this wicked, dangerous man, it would be the happiest thing in the world to see dear Violante well married; because, you see, if she is married to one person she cannot be married to another; and all fear of this count, as you say, would be at an end." "You cannot express yourself better. It is a great comfort to unbosom one's-self to a wife, after all," quoth Riccabocca. "But," said the wife, after a grateful kiss,--"but where and how can we find a husband suitable to the rank of your daughter?" "There! there! there!" cried Riccabocca, pushing back his chair to the farther end of the room, "that comes of unbosoming one's-self! Out flies one secret; it is opening the lid of Pandora's box; one is betrayed, ruined, undone!" "Why, there's not a soul that can hear us!" said Mrs. Riccabocca, soothingly. "'That's chance, ma'am! If you once contract the habit of blabbing out a secret when nobody's by, how on earth can you resist it when you have the pleasurable excitement of telling it to all the world? Vanity, vanity,-- woman's vanity! Woman never could withstand rank,--never!" The doctor went on railing for a quarter of an hour, and was very reluctantly appeased by Mrs. Riccabocca's repeated and tearful assurances that she would never even whisper to herself that her husband had ever held any other rank than that of doctor. Riccabocca, with a dubious shake of the head, renewed, "I have done with all pomp and pretension. Besides, the young man is a born gentleman: he seems in good circumstances; he has energy and latent ambition; he is akin to L'Estrange's intimate friend: he seems attached to Violante. I don't think it probable that we could do better. Nay, if Peschiera fears that I shall be restored to my country, and I learn the wherefore, and the ground to take, through this young man--why, gratitude is the first virtue of the noble!" "You speak, then, of Mr. Leslie?" "To be sure--of whom else?" Mrs. Riccabocca leaned her cheek on her hand thoughtfully. "Now you have told me that, I will observe him with different eyes." "Anima mia, I don't see how the difference of your eyes will alter the object they look upon!" grumbled Riccabocca, shaking the ashes out of his pipe. "The object alters when we see it in a different point of view!" replied Jemima, modestly. "This thread does very well when I look at it in order to sew on a button, but I should say it would never do to tie up Pompey in his Kennel." "Reasoning by illustration, upon my soul!" ejaculated Riccabocca, amazed. "And," continued Jemima, "when I am to regard one who is to constitute the happiness of that dear child, and for life, can I regard him as I would the pleasant guest of an evening? Ah, trust me, Alphonso; I don't pretend to be wise like you; but when a woman considers what a man is likely to prove to woman,--his sincerity, his honour, his heart,--oh, trust me, she is wiser than the wisest man!" Riccabocca continued to gaze on Jemima with unaffected admiration and surprise. And certainly, to use his phrase, since he had unbosomed himself to his better half, since he had confided in her, consulted with her, her sense had seemed to quicken, her whole mind to expand. "My dear," said the sage, "I vow and declare that Machiavelli was a fool to you. And I have been as dull as the chair I sit upon, to deny myself so many years the comfort and counsel of such a--But, /corpo di Bacco!/ forget all about rank; and so now to bed.--One must not holloa till one's out of the wood," muttered the ungrateful, suspicious villain, as he lighted the chamber candle. CHAPTER III. RICCABOCCA could not confine himself to the precincts within the walls to which he condemned Violante. Resuming his spectacles, and wrapped in his cloak, he occasionally sallied forth upon a kind of outwatch or reconnoitring expedition,--restricting himself, however, to the immediate neighbourhood, and never going quite out of sight of his house. His favourite walk was to the summit of a hillock overgrown with stunted bush-wood. Here he would sit himself musingly, often till the hoofs of Randal's horse rang on the winding road, as the sun set, over fading herbage, red and vaporous, in autumnal skies. Just below the hillock, and not two hundred yards from his own house, was the only other habitation in view,--a charming, thoroughly English cottage, though somewhat imitated from the Swiss, with gable ends, thatched roof, and pretty, projecting casements, opening through creepers and climbing roses. From his height he commanded the gardens of this cottage, and his eye of artist was pleased, from the first sight, with the beauty which some exquisite taste had given to the ground. Even in that cheerless season of the year, the garden wore a summer smile; the evergreens were so bright and various, and the few flow ers still left so hardy and so healthful. Facing the south, a colonnade, or covered gallery, of rustic woodwork had been formed, and creeping plants, lately set, were already beginning to clothe its columns. Opposite to this colonnade there was a fountain which reminded Riccabocca of his own at the deserted Casino. It was indeed singularly like it; the same circular shape, the same girdle of flowers around it. But the jet from it varied every day, fantastic and multiform, like the sports of a Naiad,--sometimes shooting up like a tree, sometimes shaped as a convolvulus, sometimes tossing from its silver spray a flower of vermilion, or a fruit of gold,--as if at play with its toy like a happy child. And near the fountain was a large aviary, large enough to enclose a tree. The Italian could just catch a gleam of rich colour from the wings of the birds, as they glanced to and fro within the network, and could hear their songs, contrasting the silence of the freer populace of air, whom the coming winter had already stilled. Riccabocca's eye, so alive to all aspects of beauty, luxuriated in the view of this garden. Its pleasantness had a charm that stole him from his anxious fear and melancholy memories. He never saw but two forms within the demesnes, and he could not distinguish their features. One was a woman, who seemed to him of staid manner and homely appearance: she was seen but rarely. The other a man, often pacing to and fro the colonnade, with frequent pauses before the playful fountain, or the birds that sang louder as he approached. This latter form would then disappear within a room, the glass door of which was at the extreme end of the colonnade; and if the door were left open, Riccabocca could catch a glimpse of the figure bending over a table covered with books. Always, however, before the sun set, the man would step forth more briskly, and occupy himself with the garden, often working at it with good heart, as if at a task of delight; and then, too, the woman would come out, and stand by as if talking to her companion. Riccabocca's curiosity grew aroused. He bade Jemima inquire of the old maid-servant who lived at the cottage, and heard that its owner was a Mr. Oran,--a quiet gentleman, and fond of his book. While Riccabocca thus amused himself, Randal had not been prevented, either by his official cares or his schemes on Violante's heart and fortune, from furthering the project that was to unite Frank Hazeldean and Beatrice di Negra. Indeed, as to the first, a ray of hope was sufficient to fire the ardent and unsuspecting lover. And Randal's artful misrepresentation of his conference with Mrs. Hazeldean removed all fear of parental displeasure from a mind always too disposed to give itself up to the temptation of the moment. Beatrice, though her feelings for Frank were not those of love, became more and more influenced by Randal's arguments and representations, the more especially as her brother grew morose, and even menacing, as days slipped on, and she could give no clew to the retreat of those whom he sought for. Her debts, too, were really urgent. As Randal's profound knowledge of human infirmity had shrewdly conjectured, the scruples of honour and pride, that had made her declare she would not bring to a husband her own encumbrances, began to yield to the pressure of necessity. She listened already, with but faint objections, when Randal urged her not to wait for the uncertain discovery that was to secure her dowry, but by a private marriage with Frank escape at once into freedom and security. While, though he had first held out to young Hazeldean the inducement of Beatrice's dowry as a reason of self-justification in the eyes of the squire, it was still easier to drop that inducement, which had always rather damped than fired the high spirit and generous heart of the poor Guardsman. And Randal could conscientiously say, that when he had asked the squire if he expected fortune with Frank's bride, the squire had replied, "I don't care." Thus encouraged by his friend and his own heart, and the softening manner of a woman who might have charmed many a colder, and fooled many a wiser man, Frank rapidly yielded to the snares held out for his perdition. And though as yet he honestly shrank from proposing to Beatrice or himself a marriage without the consent, and even the knowledge, of his parents, yet Randal was quite content to leave a nature, however good, so thoroughly impulsive and undisciplined, to the influences of the first strong passion it had ever known. Meanwhile, it was so easy to dissuade Frank from even giving a hint to the folks at home. "For," said the wily and able traitor, "though we may be sure of Mrs. Hazeldean's consent, and her power over your father, when the step is once taken, yet we cannot count for certain on the squire, he is so choleric and hasty. He might hurry to town, see Madame di Negra, blurt out some passionate, rude expressions, which would wake her resentment, and cause her instant rejection. And it might be too late if he repented afterwards, as he would be sure to do." Meanwhile Randal Leslie gave a dinner at the Clarendon Hotel (an extravagance most contrary to his habits), and invited Frank, Mr. Borrowell, and Baron Levy. But this house-spider, which glided with so much ease after its flies, through webs so numerous and mazy, had yet to amuse Madame di Negra with assurances that the fugitives sought for would sooner or later be discovered. Though Randal baffled and eluded her suspicion that he was already acquainted with the exiles ("the persons he had thought of were," he said, "quite different from her description;" and he even presented to her an old singing-master and a sallow-faced daughter, as the Italians who had caused his mistake), it was necessary for Beatrice to prove the sincerity of the aid she had promised to her brother, and to introduce Randal to the count. It was no less desirable to Randal to know, and even win the confidence of this man--his rival. The two met at Madame di Negra's house. There is something very strange, and almost mesmerical, in the rapport between two evil natures. Bring two honest men together, and it is ten to one if they recognize each other as honest; differences in temper, manner, even politics, may make each misjudge the other. But bring together two men unprincipled and perverted--men who, if born in a cellar, would have been food for the hulks or gallows--and they understand each other by instant sympathy. The eyes of Franzini, Count of Peschiera, and Randal Leslie no sooner met than a gleam of intelligence shot from both. They talked on indifferent subjects,--weather, gossip, politics,--what not. They bowed and they smiled; but all the while, each was watching, plumbing the other's heart, each measuring his strength with his companion; each inly saying, "This is a very remarkable rascal; am I a match for him?" It was at dinner they met; and following the English fashion, Madame di Negra left them alone with their wine. Then, for the first time, Count di Peschiera cautiously and adroitly made a covered push towards the object of the meeting. "You have never been abroad, my dear sir? You must contrive to visit me at Vienna. I grant the splendour of your London world; but, honestly speaking, it wants the freedom of ours,--a freedom which unites gayety with polish. For as your society is mixed, there are pretension and effort with those who have no right to be in it, and artificial condescension and chilling arrogance with those who have to keep their inferiors at a certain distance. With us, all being of fixed rank and acknowledged birth, familiarity is at once established. Hence," added the count, with his French lively smile,--"hence there is no place like Vienna for a young man, no place like Vienna for /bonnes fortunes/." "Those make the paradise of the idle," replied Randal, "but the purgatory of the busy. I confess frankly to you, my dear count, that I have as little of the leisure which becomes the aspirer to /bonnes fortunes/ as I have the personal graces which obtain them without an effort;" and he inclined his head as in compliment. "So," thought the count, "woman is not his weak side. What is?" "Morbleu! my dear Mr. Leslie, had I thought as you do some years since, I had saved myself from many a trouble. After all, Ambition is the best mistress to woo; for with her there is always the hope, and never the possession." "Ambition, Count," replied Randal, still guarding himself in dry sententiousness, "is the luxury of the rich, and the necessity of the poor." "Aha," thought the count, "it comes, as I anticipated from the first,-- comes to the bribe." He passed the wine to Randal, filling his own glass, and draining it carelessly; "/Sur mon ame, mon cher/," said the count, "luxury is ever pleasanter than necessity; and I am resolved at least to give Ambition a trial; je vais me refugier dans le sein du bonheur domestique,--a married life and a settled home. /Peste!/ If it were not for ambition, one would die of /ennui/. /A propos/, my dear sir, I have to thank you for promising my sister your aid in finding a near and dear kinsman of mine, who has taken refuge in your country, and hides himself even from me." "I should be most happy to assist in your search. As yet, however, I have only to regret that all my good wishes are fruitless. I should have thought, however, that a man of such rank had been easily found, even through the medium of your own ambassador." "Our own ambassador is no very warm friend of mine; and the rank would be no clew, for it is clear that my kinsman has never assumed it since he quitted his country." "He quitted it, I understand, not exactly from choice," said Randal, smiling. "Pardon my freedom and curiosity, but will you explain to me a little more than I learn from English rumour (which never accurately reports upon foreign matters still more notorious), how a person who had so much to lose, and so little to win, by revolution, could put himself into the same crazy boat with a crew of hair-brained adventurers and visionary professors." "Professors!" repeated the count; "I think you have hit on the very answer to your question; not but what men of high birth were as mad as the /canaille/. I am the more willing to gratify your curiosity, since it will perhaps serve to guide your kind search in my favour. You must know, then, that my kinsman was not born the heir to the rank he obtained. He was but a distant relation to the head of the House which he afterwards represented. Brought up in an Italian university, he was distinguished for his learning and his eccentricities. There too, I suppose, brooding over old wives' tales about freedom, and so forth, he contracted his carbonaro, chimerical notions for the independence of Italy. Suddenly, by three deaths, he was elevated, while yet young, to a station and honours which might have satisfied any man in his senses. /Que diable!/ what could the independence of Italy do for him? He and I were cousins; we had played together as boys; but our lives had been separated till his succession to rank brought us necessarily together. We became exceedingly intimate. And you may judge how I loved him," said the count, averting his eyes slightly from Randal's quiet, watchful gaze, "when I add, that I forgave him for enjoying a heritage that, but for him, had been mine." "Ah, you were next heir?" "And it is a hard trial to be very near a great fortune, and yet just to miss it." "True," cried Randal, almost impetuously. The count now raised his eyes, and again the two men looked into each other's souls. "Harder still, perhaps," resumed the count, after a short pause,--"harder still might it have been to some men to forgive the rival as well as the heir." "Rival! how?" "A lady, who had been destined by her parents to myself, though we had never, I own, been formally betrothed, became the wife of my kinsman." "Did he know of your pretensions?" "I do him the justice to say he did not. He saw and fell in love with the young lady I speak of. Her parents were dazzled. Her father sent for me. He apologized, he explained; he set before me, mildly enough, certain youthful imprudences or errors of my own, as an excuse for his change of mind; and he asked me not only to resign all hope of his daughter, but to conceal from her new suitor that I had ever ventured to hope." "And you consented?" "I consented." "That was generous. You must indeed have been much attached to your kinsman. As a lover, I cannot comprehend it; perhaps, my dear count, you may enable me to understand it better--as a man of the world." "Well," said the count, with his most roue air, "I suppose we are both men of the world?" "Both! certainly," replied Randal, just in the tone which Peachum might have used in courting the confidence of Lockit. "As a man of the world, then, I own," said the count, playing with the rings on his fingers, "that if I could not marry the lady myself (and that seemed to me clear), it was very natural that I should wish to see her married to my wealthy kinsman." "Very natural; it might bring your wealthy kinsman and yourself still closer together." "This is really a very clever fellow!" thought the count, but he made no direct reply. "/Enfin/, to cut short a long story, my cousin afterwards got entangled in attempts, the failure of which is historically known. His projects were detected, himself denounced. He fled, and the emperor, in sequestrating his estates, was pleased, with rare and singular clemency, to permit me, as his nearest kinsman, to enjoy the revenues of half those estates during the royal pleasure; nor was the other half formally confiscated. It was no doubt his Majesty's desire not to extinguish a great Italian name; and if my cousin and his child died in exile, why, of that name, I, a loyal subject of Austria,--I, Franzini, Count di Peschiera, would become the representative. Such, in a similar case, has been sometimes the Russian policy towards Polish insurgents." "I comprehend perfectly; and I can also conceive that you, in profiting so largely, though so justly, by the fall of your kinsman, may have been exposed to much unpopularity, even to painful suspicion." "/Entre nous, mon cher/, I care not a stiver for popularity; and as to suspicion, who is he that can escape from the calumny of the envious? But, unquestionably, it would be most desirable to unite the divided members of our house; and this union I can now effect by the consent of the emperor to my marriage with my kinsman's daughter. You see, therefore, why I have so great an interest in this research?" "By the marriage articles you could no doubt secure the retention of the half you hold; and if you survive your kinsman, you would enjoy the whole. A most desirable marriage; and, if made, I suppose that would suffice to obtain your cousin's amnesty and grace?" "You say it." "But even without such marriage, since the emperor's clemency has been extended to so many of the proscribed, it is perhaps probable that your cousin might be restored?" "It once seemed to me possible," said the count, reluctantly; "but since I have been in England, I think not. The recent revolution in France, the democratic spirit rising in Europe, tend to throw back the cause of a proscribed rebel. England swarms with revolutionists; my cousin's residence in this country is in itself suspicious. The suspicion is increased by his strange seclusion. There are many Italians here who would aver that they had met with him, and that he was still engaged in revolutionary projects." "Aver--untruly?" "/Ma foi/, it comes to the same thing; 'les absents ont toujours tort.' I speak to a man of the world. No; without some such guarantee for his faith as his daughter's marriage with myself would give, his recall is improbable. By the heaven above us, it shall be impossible!" The count rose as he said this,--rose as if the mask of simulation had fairly fallen from the visage of crime; rose tall and towering, a very image of masculine power and strength, beside the slight, bended form and sickly face of the intellectual schemer. And had you seen them thus confronted and contrasted, you would have felt that if ever the time should come when the interest of the one would compel him openly to denounce or boldly to expose the other, the odds were that the brilliant and audacious reprobate would master the weaker nerve but superior wit of the furtive traitor. Randal was startled; but rising also, he said carelessly, "What if this guarantee can no longer be given; what if, in despair of return, and in resignation to his altered fortunes, your cousin has already married his daughter to some English suitor?" "Ah, that would indeed be, next to my own marriage with her, the most fortunate thing that could happen to myself." "How? I don't understand!" "Why, if my cousin has so abjured his birthright, and forsworn his rank; if this heritage, which is so dangerous from its grandeur, pass, in case of his pardon, to some obscure Englishman,--a foreigner, a native of a country that has no ties with ours, a country that is the very refuge of levellers and Carbonari--/mort de ma vie!/ do you think that such would not annihilate all chance of my cousin's restoration, and be an excuse even in the eyes of Italy for formally conferring the sequestrated estates on an Italian? No; unless, indeed, the girl were to marry an Englishman of such name and birth and connection as would in themselves be a guarantee (and how in poverty is this likely?) I should go back to Vienna with a light heart, if I could say, 'My kinswoman is an Englishman's wife; shall her children be the heirs to a house so renowned for its lineage, and so formidable for its wealth?' /Parbleu!/ if my cousin were but an adventurer, or merely a professor, he had been pardoned long ago. The great enjoy the honour not to be pardoned easily." Randal fell into deep but brief thought. The count observed him, not face to face, but by the reflection of an opposite mirror. "This man knows something; this man is deliberating; this man can help me," thought the count. But Randal said nothing to confirm these hypotheses. Recovering from his abstraction, he expressed courteously his satisfaction at the count's prospects, either way. "And since, after all," he added, "you mean so well to your cousin, it occurs to me that you might discover him by a very simple English process." "How?" "Advertise that, if he will come to some place appointed, he will hear of something to his advantage." The count shook his head. "He would suspect me, and not come." "But he was intimate with you. He joined an insurrection; you were more prudent. You did not injure him, though you may have benefited yourself. Why should he shun you?" "The conspirators forgive none who do not conspire; besides, to speak frankly, he thought I injured him." "Could you not conciliate him through his wife--whom you resigned to him?" "She is dead,--died before he left the country." "Oh, that is unlucky! Still I think an advertisement might do good. Allow me to reflect on that subject. Shall we now join Madame la Marquise?" On re-entering the drawing-room, the gentlemen found Beatrice in full dress, seated by the fire, and reading so intently that she did not remark them enter. "What so interests you, /ma seuur/?--the last novel by Balzac, no doubt?" Beatrice started, and, looking up, showed eyes that were full of tears. "Oh, no! no picture of miserable, vicious, Parisian life. This is beautiful; there is soul here." Randal took up the book which the marchesa laid down; it was the same which had charmed the circle at Hazeldean, charmed the innocent and fresh-hearted, charmed now the wearied and tempted votaress of the world. "Hum," murmured Randal; "the parson was right. This is power,--a sort of a power." "How I should like to know the author! Who can he be? Can you guess?" "Not I. Some old pedant in spectacles." "I think not, I am sure not. Here beats a heart I have ever sighed to find, and never found." "Oh, /la naive enfant!/" cried the count; "comme son imagination s'egare en reves enchantes. And to think that while you talk like an Arcadian, you are dressed like a princess." "Ah, I forgot--the Austrian ambassador's. I shall not go to-night. This book unfits me for the artificial world." "Just as you will, my sister. I shall go. I dislike the man, and he me; but ceremonies before men!" "You are going to the Austrian Embassy?" said Randal. "I, too, shall be there. We shall meet." And he took his leave. "I like your young friend prodigiously," said the count, yawning. "I am sure that he knows of the lost birds, and will stand to them like a pointer, if I can but make it his interest to do so. We shall see." CHAPTER IV. Randal arrived at the ambassador's before the count, and contrived to mix with the young noblemen attached to the embassy, and to whom he was known. Standing among these was a young Austrian, on his travels, of very high birth, and with an air of noble grace that suited the ideal of the old German chivalry. Randal was presented to him, and, after some talk on general topics, observed, "By the way, Prince, there is now in London a countryman of yours, with whom you are, doubtless, familiarly acquainted,--the Count di Peschiera." "He is no countryman of mine. He is an Italian. I know him but by sight and by name," said the prince, stiffly. "He is of very ancient birth, I believe." "Unquestionably. His ancestors were gentlemen." "And very rich." "Indeed! I have understood the contrary. He enjoys, it is true, a large revenue." A young attache, less discreet than the prince; here observed, "Oh, Peschiera! poor fellow, he is too fond of play to be rich." "And there is some chance that the kinsman whose revenue he holds may obtain his pardon, and re-enter into possession of his fortunes--so I hear, at least," said Randal, artfully. "I shall be glad if it be true," said the prince, with decision; "and I speak the common sentiment at Vienna. That kinsman had a noble spirit, and was, I believe, equally duped and betrayed. Pardon me, sir; but we Austrians are not so bad as we are painted. Have you ever met in England the kinsman you speak of?" "Never, though he is supposed to reside here; and the count tells me that he has a daughter." "The count--ha! I heard something of a scheme,--a wager of that--that count's. A daughter! Poor girl! I hope she will escape his pursuit; for, no doubt, he pursues her." "Possibly she may already have married an Englishman." "I trust not," said the prince, seriously; "that might at present be a serious obstacle to her father's return." "You think so?" "There can be no doubt of it," interposed the attache, with a grand and positive air; "unless, indeed, the Englishman were of a rank equal to her own." Here there was a slight, well-bred murmur and buzz at the door, for the Count di Peschiera himself was announced; and as he entered, his presence was so striking, and his beauty so dazzling, that whatever there might be to the prejudice of his character, it seemed instantly effaced or forgotten in that irresistible admiration which it is the prerogative of personal attributes alone to create. The prince, with a slight curve of his lip at the groups that collected round the count, turned to Randal, and said, "Can you tell me if a distinguished countryman of yours is in England, Lord L'Estrange?" "No, Prince, he is not. You know him?" "Well." "He is acquainted with the count's kinsman; and perhaps from him you have learned to think so highly of that kinsman?" The prince bowed, and answered as he moved away, "When one man of high honour vouches for another, he commands the belief of all." "Certainly," soliloquized Randal, "I must not be precipitate. I was very near falling into a terrible trap. If I were to marry the girl, and only, by so doing, settle away her inheritance on Peschiera!--how hard it is to be sufficiently cautious in this world!" While thus meditating, a member of parliament tapped him on the shoulder. "Melancholy, Leslie! I lay a wager I guess your thoughts." "Guess," answered Randal. "You were thinking of the place you are so soon to lose." "Soon to lose!" "Why, if ministers go out, you could hardly keep it, I suppose." This ominous and horrid member of parliament, Squire Hazeldean's favourite county member, Sir John, was one of those legislators especially odious to officials,--an independent "large-acred" member, who would no more take office himself than he would cut down the oaks in his park, and who had no bowels of human feeling for those who had opposite tastes and less magnificent means. "Hem!" said Randal, rather surlily. "In the first place, Sir John, ministers are not going out." "Oh, yes, they will go. You know I vote with them generally, and would willingly keep them in; but they are men of honour and spirit; and if they can't carry their measures, they must resign; otherwise, by Jove, I would turn round and vote them out myself!" "I have no doubt you would, Sir John; you are quite capable of it; that rests with you and your constituents. But even if ministers did go out, I am but a poor subaltern in a public office,--I am no minister. Why should I go out too? "Why? Hang it, Leslie, you are laughing at me. A young fellow like you could never be mean enough to stay in, under the very men who drove out your friend Egerton?" "It is not usual for those in the public offices to retire with every change of government." "Certainly not; but always those who are the relations of a retiring minister; always those who have been regarded as politicians, and who mean to enter parliament, as of course you will do at the next election. But you know that as well as I do,--you who are so decided a politician, the writer of that admirable pamphlet! I should not like to tell my friend Hazeldean, who has a sincere interest in you, that you ever doubted on a question of honour as plain as your A, B, C." "Indeed, Sir John," said Randal, recovering his suavity, while he inly breathed a dire anathema on his county member, "I am so new to these things that what you say never struck me before. No doubt you must be right; at all events I cannot have a better guide and adviser than Mr. Egerton himself." SIR JOHN.--"No, certainly; perfect gentleman, Egerton! I wish we could make it up with him and Hazeldean." RANDAL (sighing).--"Ah, I wish we could!" SIR JOHN.--"And some chance of it now; for the time is coming when all true men of the old school must stick together." RANDAL.--"Wisely, admirably said, my dear Sir John. But, pardon me, I must pay my respects to the ambassador." Randal escaped, and passing on, saw the ambassador himself in the next room, conferring in a corner with Audley Egerton. The ambassador seemed very grave, Egerton calm and impenetrable, as usual. Presently the count passed by, and the ambassador bowed to him very stiffly. As Randal, some time later, was searching for his cloak below, Audley Egerton unexpectedly joined him. "Ah, Leslie," said the minister, with more kindness than usual, "if you don't think the night air too cold for you, let us walk home together. I have sent away the carriage." This condescension in his patron was so singular, that it quite startled Randal, and gave him a presentiment of some evil. When they were in the street, Egerton, after a pause, began, "My dear Mr. Leslie, it was my hope and belief that I had provided for you at least a competence; and that I might open to you, later, a career yet more brilliant. Hush! I don't doubt your gratitude; let me proceed. There is a possible chance, after certain decisions that the Government have come to, that we may be beaten in the House of Commons, and of course resign. I tell you this beforehand, for I wish you to have time to consider what, in that case, would be your best course. My power of serving you may then probably be over. It would, no doubt (seeing our close connection, and my views with regard to your future being so well known),--no doubt, be expected that you should give up the place you hold, and follow my fortunes for good or ill. But as I have no personal enemies with the opposite party, and as I have sufficient position in the world to uphold and sanction your choice, whatever it may be, if you think it more prudent to retain your place, tell me so openly, and I think I can contrive that you may do it without loss of character and credit. In that case, confine your ambition merely to rising gradually in your office, without mixing in politics. If, on the other hand, you should prefer to take your chance of my return to office, and so resign your present place; and, furthermore, should commit yourself to a policy that may then be not only in opposition but unpopular, I will do my best to introduce you into parliamentary life. I cannot say that I advise the latter." Randal felt as a man feels after a severe fall,--he was literally stunned. At length he faltered out,-- "Can you think, sir, that I should ever desert your fortunes, your party, your cause?" "My dear Leslie," replied the minister, "you are too young to have committed yourself to any men or to any party, except, indeed, in that unlucky pamphlet. This must not be an affair of sentiment, but of sense and reflection. Let us say no more on the point now; but by considering the pros and the cons, you can better judge what to do, should the time for option suddenly arrive." "But I hope that time may not come." "I hope so too, and most sincerely," said the minister, with deliberate and genuine emphasis. "What could be so bad for the country?" ejaculated Pandal. "It does not seem to me possible, in the nature of things, that you and your party should ever go out!" "And when we are once out, there will be plenty of wiseacres to say it is out of the nature of things that we should ever come in again. Here we are at the door." CHAPTER V. Randal passed a sleepless night; but, indeed, he was one of those persons who neither need, nor are accustomed to, much sleep. However, towards morning, when dreams are said to be prophetic, he fell into a most delightful slumber, a slumber peopled by visions fitted to lure on, through labyrinths of law, predestined chancellors, or wreck upon the rocks of glory the inebriate souls of youthful ensigns; dreams from which Rood Hall emerged crowned with the towers of Belvoir or Raby, and looking over subject lands and manors wrested from the nefarious usurpation of Thornhills and Hazeldeans; dreams in which Audley Egerton's gold and power, rooms in Downing Street, and saloons in Grosvenor Square, had passed away to the smiling dreamer, as the empire of Chaldaea passed to Darius the Median. Why visions so belying the gloomy and anxious thoughts that preceded them should visit the pillow of Randal Leslie, surpasses my philosophy to conjecture. He yielded, however, passively to their spell, and was startled to hear the clock strike eleven as he descended the stairs to breakfast. He was vexed at the lateness of the hour, for he had meant to have taken advantage of the unwonted softness of Egerton, and drawn therefrom some promises or proffers to cheer the prospects which the minister had so chillingly expanded before him the preceding night; and it was only at breakfast that he usually found the opportunity of private conference with his busy patron. But Audley Egerton would be sure to have sallied forth; and so he had, only Randal was surprised to hear that he had gone out in his carriage, instead of on foot, as was his habit. Randal soon despatched his solitary meal, and with a new and sudden affection for his office, thitherwards bent his way. As he passed through Piccadilly, he heard behind a voice that had lately become familiar to him, and turning round, saw Baron Levy walking side by side, though not arm-in-arm, with a gentleman almost as smart as himself, but with a jauntier step and a brisker air,--a step that, like Diomed's, as described by Shakspeare,-- "Rises on the toe; that spirit of his In aspiration lifts him from the earth." Indeed, one may judge of the spirits and disposition of a man by his ordinary gait and mien in walking. He who habitually pursues abstract thought looks down on the ground. He who is accustomed to sudden impulses, or is trying to seize upon some necessary recollection, looks up with a kind of jerk. He who is a steady, cautious, merely practical man, walks on deliberately, his eyes straight before him; and, even in his most musing moods, observes things around sufficiently to avoid a porter's knot or a butcher's tray. But the man with strong ganglions--of pushing, lively temperament, who, though practical, is yet speculative; the man who is emulous and active, and ever trying to rise in life; sanguine, alert, bold--walks with a spring, looks rather above the heads of his fellow-passengers, but with a quick, easy turn of his own, which is lightly set on his shoulders; his mouth is a little open, his eye is bright, rather restless, but penetrative, his port has something of defiance, his form is erect, but without stiffness. Such was the appearance of the baron's companion. And as Randal turned round at Levy's voice, the baron said to his companion, "A young man in the first circles--you should book him for your fair lady's parties. How d' ye do, Mr. Leslie? Let me introduce you to Mr. Richard Avenel." Then, as he hooked his arm into Randal's, he whispered, "Man of first-rate talent, monstrous rich, has two or three parliamentary seats in his pocket, wife gives parties,--her foible." "Proud to make your acquaintance, sir," said Mr. Avenel, lifting his hat. "Fine day." "Rather cold too," said Leslie, who, like all thin persons with weak digestions, was chilly by temperament; besides, lie had enough on his mind to chill his body. "So much the healthier,--braces the nerves," said Mr. Avenel; "but you young fellows relax the system by hot rooms and late hours. Fond of dancing, of course, sir?" Then, without waiting for Randal's negative, Mr. Richard continued rapidly, "Mrs. Avenel has a /soiree dansante/ on Thursday,--shall be very happy to see you in Eaton Square. Stop, I have a card;" and he drew out a dozen large invitation-cards, from which he selected one, and presented it to Randal. The baron pressed that young gentleman's arm, and Randal replied courteously that it would give him great pleasure to be introduced to Mrs. Avenel. Then, as he was not desirous to be seen under the wing of Baron Levy, like a pigeon under that of a hawk, he gently extricated himself, and pleading great haste, walked quickly on towards his office. "That young man will make a figure some day," said the baron. "I don't know any one of his age with so few prejudices. He is a connection by marriage to Audley Egerton, who--" "Audley Egerton!" exclaimed Mr. Avenel; "a d---d haughty, aristocratic, disagreeable, ungrateful fellow!" "Why, what do you know of him?" "He owed his first seat in parliament to the votes of two near relations of mine, and when I called upon him some time ago, in his office, he absolutely ordered me out of the room. Hang his impertinence; if ever I can pay him off, I guess I sha'n't fail for want of good will!" "Ordered you out of the room? That's not like Egerton, who is civil, if formal,--at least to most men. You must have offended him in his weak point." "A man whom the public pays so handsomely should have no weak point. What is Egerton's?" "Oh, he values himself on being a thorough gentleman,--a man of the nicest honour," said Levy, with a sneer. "You must have ruffled his plumes there. How was it?" "I forget," answered Mr. Avenel, who was far too well versed in the London scale of human dignities since his marriage, not to look back with a blush at his desire of knighthood. "No use bothering our heads now about the plumes of an arrogant popinjay. To return to the subject we were discussing: you must be sure to let me have this money next week." "Rely on it." "And you'll not let my bills get into the market; keep them under lock and key." "So we agreed." "It is but a temporary difficulty,--royal mourning, such nonsense; panic in trade, lest these precious ministers go out. I shall soon float over the troubled waters." "By the help of a paper boat," said the baron, laughing; and the two gentlemen shook hands and parted. CHAPTER VI. Meanwhile Audley Egerton's carriage had deposited him at the door of Lord Lansmere's house, at Knightsbridge. He asked for the countess, and was shown into the drawing-room, which was deserted. Egerton was paler than usual; and as the door opened, he wiped the unwonted moisture from his forehead, and there was a quiver on his firm lip. The countess too, on entering, showed an emotion almost equally unusual to her self-control. She pressed Audley's hand in silence, and seating herself by his side, seemed to collect her thoughts. At length she said, "It is rarely indeed that we meet, Mr. Egerton, in spite of your intimacy with Lansmere and Harley. I go so little into your world, and you will not voluntarily come to me." "Madam," replied Egerton, "I might evade your kind reproach by stating that my hours are not at my disposal; but I answer you with plain truth, --it must be painful to both of us to meet." The countess coloured and sighed, but did not dispute the assertion. Audley resumed: "And therefore, I presume that, in sending for me, you have something of moment to communicate?" "It relates to Harley," said the countess, as if in apology; "and I would take your advice." "To Harley! Speak on, I beseech you." "My son has probably told you that he has educated and reared a young girl, with the intention to make her Lady L'Estrange, and hereafter Countess of Lansmere." "Harley has no secrets from me," said Egerton, mournfully. "This young lady has arrived in England, is here, in this house." "And Harley too?" "No, she came over with Lady N------and her daughters. Harley was to follow shortly, and I expect him daily. Here is his letter. Observe, he has never yet communicated his intentions to this young person, now entrusted to my care, never spoken to her as the lover." Egerton took the letter and read it rapidly, though with attention. "True," said he, as he returned the letter: "and before he does so he wishes you to see Miss Digby and to judge of her yourself,--wishes to know if you will approve and sanction his choice." "It is on this that I would consult you: a girl without rank; the father, it is true, a gentleman, though almost equivocally one, but the mother, I know not what. And Harley, for whom I hoped an alliance with the first houses in England!" The countess pressed her hands convulsively together. EGERTON.--"He is no more a boy. His talents have been wasted, his life a wanderer's. He presents to you a chance of resettling his mind, of re-arousing his native powers, of a home besides your own. Lady Lansmere, you cannot hesitate!" LADY LANSMERE .--"I do, I do? After all that I have hoped after all that I did to prevent--" EGERTON (interrupting her).--"You owe him now an atonement; that is in your power,--it is not in mine." The countess again pressed Audley's hand, and the tears gushed from her eyes. "It shall be so. I consent, I consent. I will silence, I will crush back this proud heart. Alas! it well-nigh broke his own! I am glad you speak thus. I like to think he owes my consent to you. In that there is atonement for both." "You are too generous, madam," said Egerton, evidently moved, though still, as ever, striving to repress emotion. "And now may I see the young lady? This conference pains me; you see even my strong nerves quiver; and at this time I have much to go through,--need of all my strength and firmness." "I hear, indeed, that the Government will probably retire. But it is with honour: it will be soon called back by the voice of the nation." "Let me see the future wife of Harley L'Estrange," said Egerton, without heed of this consolatory exclamation. The countess rose and left the room. In a few minutes she returned with Helen Digby. Helen was wondrously improved from the pale, delicate child, with the soft smile and intelligent eyes, who had sat by the side of Leonard in his garret. She was about the middle beight, still slight, but beautifully formed; that exquisite roundness of proportion which conveys so well the idea of woman, in its undulating, pliant grace,--formed to embellish life, and soften away its rude angles; formed to embellish, not to protect. Her face might not have satisfied the critical eye of an artist,--it was not without defects in regularity; but its expression was eminently gentle and prepossessing; and there were few who would not have exclaimed, "What a lovely countenance!" The mildness of her brow was touched with melancholy--her childhood had left its traces on her youth. Her step was slow, and her manner shy, subdued, and timid. Audley gazed on her with earnestness as she approached him; and then coming forward, took her hand and kissed it. "I am your guardian's constant friend," said he, and he drew her gently to a seat beside him, in the recess of a window. With a quick glance of his eye towards the countess, he seemed to imply the wish to converse with Helen somewhat apart. So the countess interpreted the glance; and though she remained in the room, she seated herself at a distance, and bent over a book. It was touching to see how the austere man of business lent himself to draw forth the mind of this quiet, shrinking girl; and if you had listened, you would have comprehended how he came to possess such social influence, and how well, some time or other in the course of his life, he had learned to adapt himself to women. He spoke first of Harley L'Estrange,--spoke with tact and delicacy. Helen at first answered by monosyllables, and then, by degrees, with grateful and open affection. Audley's brow grew shaded. He then spoke of Italy; and though no man had less of the poet in his nature, yet with the dexterity of one long versed in the world, and who had been accustomed to extract evidences from characters most opposed to his own, he suggested such topics as might serve to arouse poetry in others. Helen's replies betrayed a cultivated taste, and a charming womanly mind; but they betrayed, also, one accustomed to take its colourings from another's,--to appreciate, admire, revere the Lofty and the Beautiful, but humbly and meekly. There was no vivid enthusiasm, no remark of striking originality, no flash of the self-kindling, creative faculty. Lastly, Egerton turned to England,--to the critical nature of the times, to the claims which the country possessed upon all who had the ability to serve and guide its troubled destinies. He enlarged warmly on Harley's natural talents, and rejoiced that he had returned to England, perhaps to commence some great career. Helen looked surprised, but her face caught no correspondent glow from Audley's eloquence. He rose, and an expression of disappointment passed over his grave, handsome features, and as quickly vanished. "Adieu, my dear Miss Digby; I fear I have wearied you, especially with my politics. Adieu, Lady Lansmere; no doubt I shall see Harley as soon as he returns." Then he hastened from the room, gained his carriage, and ordered the coachman to drive to Downing Street. He drew down the blinds, and leaned back. A certain languor became visible in his face, and once or twice, he mechanically put his hand to his heart. "She is good, amiable, docile,--will make an excellent wife, no doubt," said he, nuirmuringly. "But does she love Harley as he has dreamed of love? No! Has she the power and energy to arouse his faculties, and restore to the world the Harley of old? No! Meant by Heaven to be the shadow of another's sun--not herself the sun,--this child is not the one who can atone for the Past and illume the Future." CHAPTER VII. That evening Harley L'Estrange arrived at his father's house. The few years that had passed since we saw him last had made no perceptible change in his appearance. He still preserved his elastic youthfulness of form, and singular variety and play of countenance. He seemed unaffectedly rejoiced to greet his parents, and had something of the gayety and tenderness of a boy returned from school. His manner to Helen bespoke the chivalry that pervaded all the complexities and curves of his character. It was affectionate, but respectful,--hers to him, subdued, but innocently sweet and gently cordial. Harley was the chief talker. The aspect of the times was so critical that he could not avoid questions on politics; and, indeed, he showed an interest in them which he had never evinced before. Lord Lansmere was delighted. "Why, Harley, you love your country after all?" "The moment she seems in danger, yes!" replied the Patrician; and the Sybarite seemed to rise into the Athenian. Then he asked with eagerness about his old friend Audley; and, his curiosity satisfied there, he inquired the last literary news. He had heard much of a book lately published. He named the one ascribed by Parson Dale to Professor Moss; none of his listeners had read it. Harley pished at this, and accused them all of indolence and stupidity, in his own quaint, metaphorical style. Then he said, "And town gossip?" "We never hear it," said Lady Lansmere. "There is a new plough much talked of at Boodle's," said Lord Lansmere. "God speed it. But is not there a new man much talked of at White's?" "I don't belong to White's." "Nevertheless, you may have heard of him,--a foreigner, a Count di Peschiera." "Yes," said Lord Lansmere; "he was pointed out to me in the Park,--a handsome man for a foreigner; wears his hair properly cut; looks gentlemanlike and English." "Ah, ah! He is here then!" and Harley rubbed his hands. "Which road did you take? Did you pass the Simplon?" "No; I came straight from Vienna." Then, relating with lively vein his adventures by the way, he continued to delight Lord Lansmere by his gayety till the time came to retire to rest. As soon as Harley was in his own room his mother joined him. "Well," said he, "I need not ask if you like Miss Digby? Who would not?" "Harley, my own son," said the mother, bursting into tears, "be happy your own way; only be happy, that is all I ask." Harley, much affected, replied gratefully and soothingly to this fond injunction. And then gradually leading his mother on to converse of Helen, asked abruptly, "And of the chance of our happiness,--her happiness as well as mine,--what is your opinion? Speak frankly." "Of her happiness there can be no doubt," replied the mother, proudly. "Of yours, how can you ask me? Have you not decided on that yourself?" "But still it cheers and encourages one in any experiment, however well considered, to hear the approval of another. Helen has certainly a most gentle temper." "I should conjecture so. But her mind--" "Is very well stored." "She speaks so little--" "Yes. I wonder why? She's surely a woman!" "Pshaw," said the countess, smiling in spite of herself. "But tell me more of the process of your experiment. You took her as a child, and resolved to train her according to your own ideal. Was that easy?" "It seemed so. I desired to instil habits of truth: she was already by nature truthful as the day; a taste for Nature and all things natural: that seemed inborn; perceptions of Art as the interpreter of Nature: those were more difficult to teach. I think they may come. You have heard her play and sing?" "NO." "She will surprise you. She has less talent for drawing; still, all that teaching could do has been done,--in a word, she is accomplished. Temper, heart, mind,--these all are excellent." Harley stopped, and suppressed a sigh. "Certainly I ought to be very happy," said he; and he began to wind up his watch. "Of course she must love you," said the countess, after a pause. "How could she fail?" "Love me! My dear mother, that is the very question I shall have to ask." "Ask! Love is discovered by a glance; it has no need of asking." "I have never discovered it, then, I assure you. The fact is, that before her childhood was passed, I removed her, as you may suppose, from my roof. She resided with an Italian family near my usual abode. I visited her often, directed her studies, watched her improvement--" "And fell in love with her?" "Fall is such a very violent word. No; I don't remember to have had a fall. It was all a smooth inclined plane from the first step, until at last I said to myself, 'Harley L'Estrange, thy time has come. The bud has blossomed into flower. Take it to thy breast.' And myself replied to myself, meekly, 'So be it.' Then I found that Lady N-----, with her daughters, was coming to England. I asked her Ladyship to take my ward to your house. I wrote to you, and prayed your assent; and, that granted, I knew you would obtain my father's. Iam here,--you give me the approval I sought for. I will speak to Helen to-morrow. Perhaps, after all, she may reject me." "Strange, strange! you speak thus coldly, thus lightly, you, so capable of ardent love!" "Mother," said Harley, earnestly, "be satisfied! I am! Love as of old, I feel, alas! too well, can visit me never more. But gentle companionship, tender friendship, the relief and the sunlight of woman's smile, hereafter the voices of children,--music that, striking on the hearts of both parents, wakens the most lasting and the purest of all sympathies,--these are my hope. Is the hope so mean, my fond mother?" Again the countess wept, and her tears were not dried when she left the room. CHAPTER VIII. Oh, Helen, fair Helen,--type of the quiet, serene, unnoticed, deep-felt excellence of woman! Woman, less as the ideal that a poet conjures from the air, than as the companion of a poet on the earth! Woman, who, with her clear sunny vision of things actual, and the exquisite fibre of her delicate sense, supplies the deficiencies of him whose foot stumbles on the soil, because his eye is too intent upon the stars! Woman, the provident, the comforting, angel whose pinions are folded round the heart, guarding there a divine spring unmarred by the winter of the world! Helen, soft Helen, is it indeed in thee that the wild and brilliant "lord of wantonness and ease" is to find the regeneration of his life, the rebaptism of his soul? Of what avail thy meek prudent household virtues to one whom Fortune screens from rough trial; whose sorrows lie remote from thy ken; whose spirit, erratic and perturbed, now rising, now falling, needs a vision more subtle than thine to pursue, and a strength that can sustain the reason, when it droops, on the wings of enthusiasm and passion? And thou, thyself, O nature, shrinking and humble, that needest to be courted forth from the shelter, and developed under the calm and genial atmosphere of holy, happy love--can such affection as Harley L'Estrange may proffer suffice to thee? Will not the blossoms, yet folded in the petal, wither away beneath the shade that may protect them from the storm, and yet shut them from the sun? Thou who, where thou givest love, seekest, though meekly, for love in return; to be the soul's sweet necessity, the life's household partner to him who receives all thy faith and devotion,--canst thou influence the sources of joy and of sorrow in the heart that does not heave at thy name? Hast thou the charm and the force of the moon, that the tides of that wayward sea shall ebb and flow at thy will? Yet who shall say, who conjecture how near two hearts can become, when no guilt lies between them, and time brings the ties all its own? Rarest of all things on earth is the union in which both, by their contrasts, make harmonious their blending; each supplying the defects of the helpmate, and completing, by fusion, one strong human soul! Happiness enough, where even Peace does but seldom preside, when each can bring to the altar, if not the flame, still the incense. Where man's thoughts are all noble and generous, woman's feelings all gentle and pure, love may follow if it does not precede; and if not, if the roses be missed from the garland, one may sigh for the rose, but one is safe from the thorn. The morning was mild, yet somewhat overcast by the mist which announces coming winter in London, and Helen walked musingly beneath the trees that surrounded the garden of Lord Lansmere's house. Many leaves were yet left on the boughs; but they were sere and withered. And the birds chirped at times; but their note was mournful and complaining. All within this house, until Harley's arrival, had been strange and saddening to Helen's timid and subdued spirits. Lady Lansmere had received her kindly, but with a certain restraint; and the loftiness of manner, common to the countess with all but Harley, had awed and chilled the diffident orphan. Lady Lansmere's very interest in Harley's choice, her attempts to draw Helen out of her reserve, her watchful eyes whenever Helen shyly spoke or shyly moved, frightened the poor child, and made her unjust to herself. The very servants, though staid, grave, and respectful, as suited a dignified, old-fashioned household, painfully contrasted the bright welcoming smiles and free talk of Italian domestics. Her recollections of the happy, warm Continental manner, which so sets the bashful at their ease, made the stately and cold precision of all around her doubly awful and dispiriting. Lord Lansmere himself, who did not as yet know the views of Harley, and little dreamed that he was to anticipate a daughter- in-law in the ward, whom he understood Harley, in a freak of generous roinance, had adopted, was familiar and courteous, as became a host; but he looked upon Helen as a mere child, and naturally left her to the countess. The dim sense of her equivocal position, of her comparative humbleness of birth and fortunes, oppressed and pained her; and even her gratitude to Harley was made burdensome by a sentiment of helplessness. The grateful long to requite. And what could she ever do for him? Thus musing, she wandered alone through the curving walks; and this sort of mock-country landscape--London loud, and even visible, beyond the high gloomy walls, and no escape from the windows of the square formal house-- seemed a type of the prison bounds of Rank to one whose soul yearns for simple loving Nature. Helen's revery was interrupted by Nero's joyous bark. He had caught sight of her, and came bounding up, and thrust his large head into her hand. As she stooped to caress the dog, happy at his honest greeting, and tears that had been long gathering at the lids fell silently on his face (for I know nothing that more moves us to tears than the hearty kindness of a dog, when something in human beings has pained or chilled us), she heard behind the musical voice of Harley. Hastily she dried or repressed her tears, as her guardian came up, and drew her arm within his own. "I had so little of your conversation last evening, my dear ward, that I may well monopolize you now, even to the privation of Nero. And so you are once more in your native land?" Helen sighed softly. "May I not hope that you return under fairer auspices than those which your childhood knew?" Helen turned her eyes with ingenuous thankfulness to her guardian, and the memory of all she owed to him rushed upon her heart. Harley renewed, and with earnest, though melancholy sweetness, "Helen, your eyes thank me; but hear me before your words do. I deserve no thanks. I am about to make to you a strange confession of egotism and selfishness." "You!--oh, impossible!" "Judge yourself, and then decide which of us shall have cause to be grateful. Helen, when I was scarcely your age--a boy in years, but more, methinks, a man at heart, with man's strong energies and sublime aspirings, than I have ever since been--I loved, and deeply--" He paused a moment, in evident struggle. Helen listened in mute surprise, but his emotion awakened her own; her tender woman's heart yearned to console. Unconsciously her arm rested on his less lightly. "Deeply, and for sorrow. It is a long tale, that may be told hereafter. The worldly would call my love a madness. I did not reason on it then, I cannot reason on it now. Enough: death smote suddenly, terribly, and to me, mysteriously, her whom I loved. The love lived on. Fortunately, perhaps, for me, I had quick distraction, not to grief, but to its inert indulgence. I was a soldier; I joined our armies. Men called me brave. Flattery! I was a coward before the thought of life. I sought death: like sleep, it does not come at our call. Peace ensued. As when the winds fall the sails droop, so when excitement ceased, all seemed to me flat and objectless. Heavy, heavy was my heart. Perhaps grief had been less obstinate, but that I feared I had causes for self-reproach. Since then I have been a wanderer, a self-made exile. My boyhood had been ambitious,--all ambition ceased. Flames, when they reach the core of the heart, spread, and leave all in ashes. Let me be brief: I did not mean thus weakly to complain,--I to whom Heaven has given so many blessings! I felt, as it were, separated from the common objects and joys of men. I grew startled to see how, year by year, wayward humours possessed me. I resolved again to attach myself to some living heart--it was my sole chance to rekindle my own. But the one I had loved remained as my type of woman, and she was different from all I saw. Therefore I said to myself, 'I will rear from childhood some young fresh life, to grow up into my ideal.' As this thought began to haunt me, I chanced to discover you. Struck with the romance of your early life, touched by your courage, charmed by your affectionate nature, I said to myself, 'Here is what I seek.' Helen, in assuming the guardianship of your 'Life, in all the culture which I have sought to bestow on your docile childhood, I repeat, that I have been but the egotist. And now, when you have reached that age when it becomes me to speak, and you to listen; now, when you are under the sacred roof of my own mother; now I ask you, can you accept this heart, such as wasted years, and griefs too fondly nursed, have left it? Can you be, at least, my comforter? Can you aid me to regard life as a duty, and recover those aspirations which once soared from the paltry and miserable confines of our frivolous daily being? Helen, here I ask you, can you be all this, and under the name of--Wife?" It would be in vain to describe the rapid, varying, indefinable emotions that passed through the inexperienced heart of the youthful listener as Harley thus spoke. He so moved all the springs of amaze, compassion, tender respect, sympathy, child-like gratitude, that when he paused and gently took her hand, she remained bewildered, speechless, overpowered. Harley smiled as he gazed upon her blushing, downcast, expressive face. He conjectured at once that the idea of such proposals had never crossed her mind; that she had never contemplated him in the character of wooer; never even sounded her heart as to the nature of such feelings as his image had aroused. "My Helen," he resumed, with a calm pathos of voice, "there is some disparity of years between us, and perhaps I may not hope henceforth for that love which youth gives to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what you will frankly answer, Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, or under the roof of your Italian friends, any one you prefer to me?" "No, indeed, no!" murmured Helen. "How could I; who is like you?" Then, with a, sudden effort--for her innate truthfulness took alarm, and her very affection for Harley, childlike and reverent, made her tremble lest she should deceive him--she drew a little aside, and spoke thus, "Oh, my dear guardian, noblest of all human beings, at least in my eyes, forgive, forgive me, if I seem ungrateful, hesitating; but I cannot, cannot think of myself as worthy of you. I never so lifted my eyes. Your rank, your position--" "Why should they be eternally my curse? Forget them, and go on." "It is not only they," said Helen, almost sobbing, "though they are much; but I your type, your ideal!--I?--impossible! Oh, how can I ever be anything even of use, of aid, of comfort to one like you!" "You can, Helen--you can," cried Harley, charmed by such ingenuous modesty. "May I not keep this hand?" And Helen left her hand in Harley's, and turned away her face, fairly weeping. A stately step passed under the wintry trees. "My mother," said Harley L'Estrange, looking up, "I present to you my future wife." CHAPTER IX. With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L'Estrange bent his way towards Egerton's house, after his eventful interview with Helen. He had just entered one of the streets leading into Grosvenor Square, when a young man, walking quickly from the opposite direction, came full against him, and drawing back with a brief apology, recognized him, and exclaimed, "What! you in England, Lord L'Estrange! Accept my congratulations on your return. But you seem scarcely to remember me." "I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie. I remember you now by your smile; but you are of an age in which it is permitted me to say that you look older than when I saw you last." "And yet, Lord L'Estrange, it seems to me that you look younger." Indeed, this reply was so far true that there appeared less difference of years than before between Leslie and L'Estrange; for the wrinkles in the schemer's mind were visible in his visage, while Harley's dreamy worship of Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved to the votary the enduring youth of the divinities. Harley received the compliment with a supreme indifference, which might have been suitable to a Stoic, but which seemed scarcely natural to a gentleman who had just proposed to a lady many years younger than himself. Leslie renewed: "Perhaps you are on your way to Mr. Egerton's. If so, you will not find him at home; he is at his office." "Thank you. Then to his office I must re-direct my steps." "I am going to him myself," said Randal, hesitatingly. L'Estrange had no prepossessions in favour of Leslie from the little he had seen of that young gentleman; but Randal's remark was an appeal to his habitual urbanity, and he replied, with well-bred readiness, "Let us be companions so far." Randal accepted the arm proffered to him; and Lord L'Estrange, as is usual with one long absent from his native land, bore part as a questioner in the dialogue that ensued. "Egerton is always the same man, I suppose,--too busy for illness, and too firm for sorrow?" "If he ever feel either, he will never stoop to complain. But, indeed, my dear lord, I should like much to know what you think of his health." "How! You alarm me!" "Nay, I did not mean to do that; and pray do not let him know that I went so far. But I have fancied that he looks a little worn and suffering." "Poor Audley!" said L'Estrange, in a tone of deep affection. "I will sound him, and, be assured, without naming you; for I know well how little he likes to be supposed capable of human infirmity. I am obliged to you for your hint, obliged to you for your interest in one so dear to me." And Harley's voice was more cordial to Randal than it had ever been before. He then began to inquire what Randal thought of the rumours that had reached himself as to the probable defeat of the Government, and how far Audley's spirits were affected by such risks. But Randal here, seeing that Harley could communicate nothing, was reserved and guarded. "Loss of office could not, I think, affect a man like Audley," observed Lord L'Estrange. "He would be as great in opposition--perhaps greater; and as to emoluments--" "The emoluments are good," interposed Randal, with a half-sigh. "Good enough, I suppose, to pay him back about a tenth of what his place costs our magnificent friend. No, I will say one thing for English statesmen, no man amongst them ever yet was the richer for place." "And Mr. Egerton's private fortune must be large, I take for granted," said Randal, carelessly. "It ought to be, if he has time to look to it." Here they passed by the hotel in which lodged the Count di Peschiera. Randal stopped. "Will you excuse me for an instant? As we are passing this hotel, I will just leave my card here." So saying he gave his card to a waiter lounging by the door. "For the Count di Peschiera," said he, aloud. L'Estrange started; and as Randal again took his arm, said, "So that Italian lodges here; and you know him?" "I know him but slightly, as one knows any foreigner who makes a sensation." "He makes a sensation?" "Naturally; for he is handsome, witty, and said to be very rich,--that is, as long as he receives the revenues of his exiled kinsman." "I see you are well informed, Mr. Leslie. And what is supposed to bring hither the Count di Peschiera?" "I did hear something, which I did not quite understand, about a bet of his that he would marry his kinsman's daughter, and so, I conclude, secure to himself all the inheritance; and that he is therefore here to discover the kinsman and win the heiress. But probably you know the rights of the story, and can tell me what credit to give to such gossip." "I know this at least, that if he did lay such a wager, I would advise you to take any odds against him that his backers may give," said L'Estrange, dryly; and while his lip quivered with anger, his eye gleamed with arch ironical humour. "You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need such an alliance in order to regain his estates?" "Yes; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I would not bet against, when he backed his own luck as a rogue against Justice and Providence." Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his heart; but he soon recovered. "And indeed there is another vague rumour that the young lady in question is married already--to some Englishman." This time it was Harley who winced. "Good heavens! that cannot be true,--that would undo all! An Englishman just at this moment! But some Englishman of correspondent rank I trust, or at least one known for opinions opposed to what an Austrian would call Revolutionary doctrines?" "I know nothing. But it was supposed merely a private gentleman of good family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Court dictate a marriage to the daughter as a condition for grace to the father?" "No,--not that!" said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But put yourself in the position of any minister to one of the great European monarchies. Suppose a political insurgent, formidable for station and wealth, had been proscribed, much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party striving against it; and just when the minister is disposed to relent, he hears that the heiress to this wealth and this station is married to the native of a country in which sentiments friendly to the very opinions for which the insurgent was proscribed are popularly entertained, and thus that the fortune to be restored may be so employed as to disturb the national security, the existing order of things,--this, too, at the very time when a popular revolution has just occurred in France, and its effects are felt most in the very land of the exile;--suppose all this, and then say if anything could be more untoward for the hopes of the banished man, or furnish his adversaries with stronger arguments against the restoration of his fortune? But pshaw! this must be a chimera! If true, I should have known of it." [As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story, Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X. and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.] "I quite agree with your lordship,--there can be no truth in such a rumour. Some Englishman, hearing, perhaps, of the probable pardon of the exile, may have counted on an heiress, and spread the report in order to keep off other candidates. By your account, if successful in his suit, he might fail to find an heiress in the bride." "No doubt of that. Whatever might be arranged, I can't conceive that he would be allowed to get at the fortune, though it might be held in suspense for his children. But indeed it so rarely happens that an Italian girl of high name marries a foreigner that we must dismiss this notion with a smile at the long face of the hypothetical fortune-hunter. Heaven help him, if he exist!" "Amen!" echoed Randal, devoutly. "I hear that Peschiera,'s sister is returned to England. Do you know her too?" "A little." "My dear Mr. Leslie, pardon me if I take a liberty not warranted by our acquaintance. Against the lady I say nothing. Indeed, I have heard some things which appear to entitle her to compassion and respect. But as to Peschiera all who prize honour suspect him to be a knave,--I know him to be one. Now, I think that the longer we preserve that abhorrence for knavery which is the generous instinct of youth, why, the fairer will be our manhood, and the more reverend our age. You agree with me?" And Harley suddenly turning, his eyes fell like a flood of light upon Randal's pale and secret countenance. "To be sure," murmured the schemer. Harley, surveying him, mechanically recoiled, and withdrew his arm. Fortunately for Randal, who somehow or other felt himself slipped into a false position, he scarce knew how or why, he was here seized by the arm; and a clear, open, manly voice cried, "My dear fellow, how are you? I see you are engaged now; but look into my rooms when you can, in the course of the day." And with a bow of excuse for his interruption to Lord L'Estrange, the speaker was then turning away, when Harley said, "No, don't let me take you from your friend, Mr. Leslie. And you need not be in a hurry to see Egerton; for I shall claim the privilege of older friendship for the first interview." "It is Mr. Egerton's nephew Frank Hazeldan." "Pray, call him back, and present me to him. He has a face that would have gone far to reconcile Timon to Athens." Randal obeyed, and after a few kindly words to Frank, Harley insisted on leaving the two young men together, and walked on to Downing Street with a brisker step. CHAPTER X. "That Lord L'Estrange seems a very good fellow." "So-so; an effeminate humourist,--says the most absurd things, and fancies them wise. Never mind him. You wanted to speak to me, Frank?" "Yes; I am so obliged to you for introducing me to Levy. I must tell you how handsomely he has behaved." "Stop; allow me to remind you that I did not introduce you to Levy; you had met him before at Borrowell's, if I recollect right, and he dined with us at the Clarendon,--that is all I had to do with bringing you together. Indeed I rather cautioned you against him than not. Pray don't think I introduced you to a man who, however pleasant and perhaps honest, is still a money-lender. Your father would be justly angry with me if I had done so." "Oh, pooh! you are prejudiced against poor Levy. But just hear: I was sitting very ruefully, thinking over those cursed bills, and how the deuce I should renew them, when Levy walked into my rooms; and after telling me of his long friendship for my uncle Egerton and his admiration for yourself, and (give me your hand, Randal) saying how touched he felt by your kind sympathy in my troubles, he opened his pocket-book, and showed me the bills safe and sound in his own possession." "How?" "He had bought them up. 'It must be so disagreeable to me,' he said, 'to have them flying about the London moneymarket, and those Jews would be sure sooner or later to apply to my father. And now,' added Levy, 'I am in no immediate hurry for the money, and we must put the interest upon fairer terms.' In short, nothing could be more liberal than his tone. And he says, he is thinking of a way to relieve me altogether, and will call about it in a few days, when his plan is matured. After all, I must owe this to you, Randal. I dare swear you put it into his head." "Oh, no, indeed! On the contrary, I still say, Be cautious in all your dealings with Levy. I don't know, I 'm sure, what he means to propose. Have you heard from the Hall lately?" "Yes, to-day. Only think--the Riccaboccas have disappeared. My mother writes me word of it,--a very odd letter. She seems to suspect that I know where they are, and reproaches me for 'mystery'--quite enigmatical. But there is one sentence in her letter--see, here it is in the postscript--which seems to refer to Beatrice: 'I don't ask you to tell me your secrets, Frank, but Randal will no doubt have assured you that my first consideration will be for your own happiness, in any matter in which your heart is really engaged.'" "Yes," said Randal, slowly; "no doubt this refers to Beatrice; but, as I told you, your mother will not interfere one way or the other,--such interference would weaken her influence with the squire. Besides, as she said, she can't wish, you to marry a foreigner; though once married, she would--But how do you stand now with the marchesa? Has she consented to accept you?" "Not quite; indeed I have not actually proposed. Her manner, though much softened, has not so far emboldened me; and, besides, before a positive declaration, I certainly must go down to the Hall and speak at least to my mother." "You must judge for yourself, but don't do anything rash: talk first to me. Here we are at my office. Good-by; and--and pray believe that, in whatever you do with Levy, I have no hand in it." CHAPTER XI. Towards the evening, Randal was riding fast on the road to Norwood. The arrival of Harley, and the conversation that had passed between that nobleman and Randal, made the latter anxious to ascertain how far Riccabocca was likely to learn L'Estrange's return to England, and to meet with him. For he felt that, should the latter come to know that Riccabocca, in his movements, had gone by Randal's advice. Harley would find that Randal had spoken to him disingenuously; and on the other hand, Riccabocca, placed under the friendly protection of Lord L'Estrange, would no longer need Randal Leslie to defend him from the machinations of Peschiera. To a reader happily unaccustomed to dive into the deep and mazy recesses of a schemer's mind, it might seem that Randal's interest in retaining a hold over the exile's confidence would terminate with the assurances that had reached him, from more than one quarter, that Violante might cease to be an heiress if she married himself. "But perhaps," suggests some candid and youthful conjecturer,--"perhaps Randal Leslie is in love with this fair creature?" Randal in love!--no! He was too absorbed by harder passions for that blissful folly. Nor, if he could have fallen in love, was Violante the one to attract that sullen, secret heart; her instinctive nobleness, the very stateliness of her beauty, womanlike though it was, awed him. Men of that kind may love some soft slave,--they cannot lift their eyes to a queen. They may look down,--they cannot lookup. But on the one hand, Randal could not resign altogether the chance of securing a fortune that would realize his most dazzling dreams, upon the mere assurance, however probable, which had so dismayed him; and on the other hand, should he be compelled to relinquish all idea of such alliance, though he did not contemplate the base perfidy of actually assisting Peschiera's avowed designs, still, if Frank's marriage with Beatrice should absolutely depend upon her brother's obtaining the knowledge of Violante's retreat, and that marriage should be as conducive to his interests as he thought he could make it, why--he did not then push his deductions further, even to himself,--they seemed too black; but he sighed heavily, and that sigh foreboded how weak would be honour and virtue against avarice and ambition. Therefore, on all accounts, Riccabocca was one of those cards in a sequence, which so calculating a player would not throw out of his hand: it might serve for repique, at the worst it might score well in the game. Intimacy with the Italian was still part and parcel in that knowledge which was the synonym of power. While the young man was thus meditating, on his road to Norwood, Riccabocca and his Jemima were close conferring in their drawing-room. And if you could have seen them, reader, you would have been seized with equal surprise and curiosity: for some extraordinary communication had certainly passed between them. Riccabocca was evidently much agitated, and with emotions not familiar to him. The tears stood in his eyes at the same time that a smile, the reverse of cynical or sardonic, curved his lips; while his wife was leaning her head on his shoulder, her hand clasped in his, and, by the expression of her face, you might guess that he had paid her some very gratifying compliment, of a nature more genuine and sincere than those which characterized his habitual hollow and dissimulating gallantry. But just at this moment Giacomo entered, and Jemima, with her native English modesty, withdrew in haste from Riccabocca's sheltering side. "Padrone," said Giacomo, who, whatever his astonishment at the connubial position he had disturbed, was much too discreet to betray it,--"Padrone, I see the young Englishman riding towards the house, and I hope, when he arrives, you will not forget the alarming information I gave to you this morning." "Ah, ah!" said Riccabocca, his face falling. "If the signorina were but married!" "My very thought,--my constant thought!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "And you really believe the young Englishman loves her?" "Why else should he come, Excellency?" asked Giacomo, with great naivete. "Very true; why, indeed?" said Riccabocca. "Jemima, I cannot endure the terrors I suffer on that poor child's account. I will open myself frankly to Randal Leslie. And now, too, that which might have been a serious consideration, in case I return to Italy, will no longer stand in our way, Jemima." Jemima smiled faintly, and whispered something to Riccabocca, to which he replied, "Nonsense, anima mia. I know it will be,--have not a doubt of it. I tell you it is as nine to four, according to the nicest calculations. I will speak at once to Randal. He is too young, too timid to speak himself." "Certainly," interposed Giacomo; "how could he dare to speak, let him love ever so well?" Jemima shook her head. "Oh, never fear," said Riccabocca, observing this gesture; "I will give him the trial. If he entertain but mercenary views, I shall soon detect them. I know human nature pretty well, I think, my love; and, Giacomo, just get me my Machiavelli;--that's right. Now leave me, my dear; I must reflect and prepare myself." When Randal entered the house, Giacomo, with a smile of peculiar suavity, ushered him into the drawing-room. He found Riccabocca alone, and seated before the fireplace, leaning his face on his hand, with the great folio of Machiavelli lying open on the table. The Italian received him as courteously as usual; but there was in his manner a certain serious and thoughtful dignity, which was perhaps the more imposing, because but rarely assumed. After a few preliminary observations, Randal remarked that Frank Hazeldean had informed him of the curiosity which the disappearance of the Riccaboccas had excited at the Hall, and inquired carelessly if the doctor had left instructions as to the forwarding of any letters that might be directed to him at the Casino. "Letters!" said Riccabocca, simply; "I never receive any; or, at least, so rarely, that it was not worth while to take an event so little to be expected into consideration. No; if any letters do reach the Casino, there they will wait." "Then I can see no possibility of indiscretion; no chance of a clew to your address." "Nor I either." Satisfied so far, and knowing that it was not in Riecabocca's habits to read the newspapers, by which he might otherwise have learned of L'Estrange's arrival in London, Randal then proceeded to inquire, with much seeming interest, into the health of Violante,--hoped it did not suffer by confinement, etc. Riccabocca eyed him gravely while he spoke, and then suddenly rising, that air of dignity to which I have before referred became yet more striking. "My young friend," said he, "hear me attentively, and answer me frankly. I know human nature--" Here a slight smile of proud complacency passed the sage's lips, and his eye glanced towards his Machiavelli. "I know human nature,--at least I have studied it," he renewed more earnestly, and with less evident self-conceit; "and I believe that when a perfect stranger to me exhibits an interest in my affairs, which occasions him no small trouble,--an interest," continued the wise man, laying his hand on Randal's shoulder, "which scarcely a son could exceed, he must be under the influence of some strong personal motive." "Oh, sir!" cried Randal, turning a shade more pale, and with a faltering tone. Riccabocca, surveyed him with the tenderness of a superior being, and pursued his deductive theories. "In your case, what is that motive? Not political; for I conclude you share the opinions of your government, and those opinions have not favoured mine. Not that of pecuniary or ambitious calculations; for how can such calculations enlist you on behalf of a ruined exile? What remains? Why, the motive which at your age is ever the most natural and the strongest. I don't blame you. Machiavelli himself allows that such a motive has swayed the wisest minds, and overturned the most solid States. In a word, young man, you are in love, and with my daughter Violante." Randal was so startled by this direct and unexpected charge upon his own masked batteries, that he did not even attempt his defence. His head drooped on his breast, and he remained speechless. "I do not doubt," resumed the penetrating judge of human nature, "that you would have been withheld by the laudable and generous scruples which characterize your happy age, from voluntarily disclosing to me the state of your heart. You might suppose that, proud of the position I once held, or sanguine in the hope of regaining my inheritance, I might be over-ambitious in my matrimonial views for Violante; or that you, anticipating my restoration to honours and fortune, might seem actuated by the last motives which influence love and youth; and, therefore, my dear young friend, I have departed from the ordinary custom in England, and adopted a very common one in my own country. With us, a suitor seldom presents himself till he is assured of the consent of a father. I have only to say this,--if I am right, and you love my daughter, my first object in life is to see her safe and secure; and, in a word--you understand me." Now, mightily may it comfort and console us ordinary mortals, who advance no pretence to superior wisdom and ability, to see the huge mistakes made by both these very sagacious personages,--Dr. Riccabocca, valuing himself on his profound acquaintance with character, and Randal Leslie, accustomed to grope into every hole and corner of thought and action, wherefrom to extract that knowledge which is power! For whereas the sage, judging not only by his own heart in youth, but by the general influence of the master passion on the young, had ascribed to Randal sentiments wholly foreign to that able diplomatist's nature, so no sooner had Riccabocca brought his speech to a close, than Randal, judging also by his own heart, and by the general laws which influence men of the mature age and boasted worldly wisdom of the pupil of Machiavelli, instantly decided that Riccabocca presumed upon his youth and inexperience, and meant most nefariously to take him in. "The poor youth!" thought Riccabocca, "how unprepared he is for the happiness I give him!" "The cunning old Jesuit!" thought Randal; "he has certainly learned, since we met last, that he has no chance of regaining his patrimony, and so he wants to impose on me the hand of a girl without a shilling. What other motive can he possibly have? Had his daughter the remotest probability of becoming the greatest heiress in Italy, would he dream of bestowing her on me in this off-hand way? The thing stands to reason." Actuated by his resentment at the trap thus laid for him, Randal was about to disclaim altogether the disinterested and absurd affection laid to his charge, when it occurred to him that, by so doing, he might mortally offend the Italian, since the cunning never forgive those who refuse to be duped by them,--and it might still be conducive to his interest to preserve intimate and familiar terms with Riccabocca; therefore, subduing his first impulse, he exclaimed, "Oh, too generous man! pardon me if I have so long been unable to express my amaze, my gratitude; but I cannot--no, I cannot, while your prospects remain thus uncertain, avail myself of your--of your inconsiderate magnanimity. Your rare conduct can only redouble my own scruples, if you, as I firmly hope and believe, are restored to your great possessions--you would naturally look so much higher than me. Should these hopes fail, then, indeed, it may be different; yet even then, what position, what fortune, have I to offer to your daughter worthy of her?" "You are well born! all gentlemen are equals," said Riccabocca, with a sort of easy nobleness. "You have youth, information, talent,--sources of certain wealth in this happy country,--powerful connections; and, in fine, if you are satisfied with marrying for love, I shall be contented; if not, speak openly. As to the restoration to my possessions, I can scarcely think that probable while my enemy lives. And even in that case, since I saw you last, something has occurred," added Riccabocca, with a strange smile, which seemed to Randal singularly sinister and malignant, "that may remove all difficulties. Meanwhile, do not think me so extravagantly magnanimous; do not underrate the satisfaction I must feel at knowing Violante safe from the designs of Peschiera,--safe, and forever, under a husband's roof. I will tell you an Italian proverb,--it contains a truth full of wisdom and terror, "'Hai cinquanta Amici?--non basta. Hai un Nemico?--e troppo.'" ["Have you fifty friends?--it is not enough. Have you one enemy?--it is too much."] "Something has occurred!" echoed Randal, not heeding the conclusion of this speech, and scarcely hearing the proverb, which the sage delivered in his most emphatic and tragic tone. "Something has occurred! My dear friend, be plainer. What has occurred?" Riccabocca remained silent. "Something that induces you to bestow your daughter on me?" Riccabocca nodded, and emitted a low chuckle. "The very laugh of a fiend," muttered Randal. "Something that makes her not worth bestowing. He betrays himself. Cunning people always do." "Pardon me," said the Italian, at last, "if I don't answer your question; you will know later; but at present this is a family secret. And now I must turn to another and more alarming cause for my frankness to you." Here Riccabocca's face changed, and assumed an expression of mingled rage and fear. "You must know," he added, sinking his voice, "that Giacomo has seen a strange person loitering about the house, and looking up at the windows; and he has no doubt--nor have I--that this is some spy or emissary of Peschiera's." "Impossible; how could he discover you?" "I know not; but no one else has any interest in doing so. The man kept at a distance, and Giacomo could not see his face." "It may be but a mere idler. Is this all?" "No; the old woman who serves us said that she was asked at a shop 'if we were not Italians'?" "And she answered?" "'No;' but owned that 'we had a foreign servant, Giacomo.'" "I will see to this. Rely on it that if Peschiera has discovered you, I will learn it. Nay, I will hasten from you in order to commence inquiry." "I cannot detain you. May I think that we have now an interest in common?" "Oh, indeed yes; but--but--your daughter! How can I dream that one so beautiful, so peerless, will confirm the hope you have extended to me?" "The daughter of an Italian is brought up to consider that it is a father's right to dispose of her hand." "But the heart?" "/Cospetto!/" said the Italian, true to his infamous notions as to the sex, "the heart of a girl is like a convent,--the holier the cloister, the more charitable the door." CHAPTER XII. Randal had scarcely left the house before Mrs. Riccabocca, who was affectionately anxious in all that concerned Violante, rejoined her husband. "I like the young man very well," said the sage,--"very well indeed. I find him just what I expected, from my general knowledge of human nature; for as love ordinarily goes with youth, so modesty usually accompanies talent. He is young, ergo, he is in love; he has talent, ergo, he is modest, modest and ingenuous." "And you think not in any way swayed by interest in his affections?" "Quite the contrary; and to prove him the more, I have not said a word as to the worldly advantages which, in any case, would accrue to him from an alliance with my daughter. In any case: for if I regain my country, her fortune is assured; and if not, I trust" (said the poor exile, lifting his brow with stately and becoming pride) "that I am too well aware of my child's dignity, as well as my own, to ask any one to marry her to his own worldly injury." "Eh! I don't quite understand you, Alphonso. To be sure, your dear life is insured for her marriage portion; but--" "Pazzie-stuff!" said Riccabocca, petulantly; "her marriage portion would be as nothing to a young man of Randal's birth and prospects. I think not of that. But listen: I have never consented to profit by Harley L'Estrange's friendship for me; my scruples would not extend to my son- in-law. This noble friend has not only high rank, but considerable influence,--influence with the government, influence with Randal's patron, who, between ourselves, does not seem to push the young man as he might do; I judge by what Randal says. I should write, therefore, before anything was settled, to L'Estrange, and I should say to him simply, 'I never asked you to save me from penury, but I do ask you to save a daughter of my House from humiliation. I can give to her no dowry; can her husband owe to my friend that advance in an honourable career, that opening to energy and talent, which is more than a dowry to generous ambition?'" "Oh, it is in vain you would disguise your rank," cried Jemima, with enthusiasm; "it speaks in all you utter, when your passions are moved." The Italian did not seem flattered by that eulogy. "Pish," said he, "there you are! rank again!" But Jemima was right. There was something about her husband that was grandiose and princely, whenever he escaped from his accursed Machiavelli, and gave fair play to his heart. And he spent the next hour or so in thinking over all that he could do for Randal, and devising for his intended son-in-law the agreeable surprise, which Randal was at that very time racking his yet cleverer brains to disappoint. These plans conned sufficiently, Riccabocca shut up his Machiavelli, and hunted out of his scanty collection of books, Buffon on Man, and various other psychological volumes, in which he soon became deeply absorbed. Why were these works the object of the sage's study? Perhaps he will let us know soon, for it is clearly a secret known to his wife; and though she has hitherto kept one secret, that is precisely the reason why Riccabocca would not wish long to overburden her discretion with another. CHAPTER XIII. Randal reached home in time to dress for a late dinner at Baron Levy's. The baron's style of living was of that character especially affected both by the most acknowledged exquisites of that day, and, it must be owned, also, by the most egregious /parvenus/. For it is noticeable that it is your /parvenu/ who always comes nearest in fashion (so far as externals are concerned) to your genuine exquisite. It is your /parvenu/ who is most particular as to the cut of his coat, and the precision of his equipage, and the minutia, of his menage. Those between the /parvenu/ and the exquisite, who know their own consequence, and have something solid to rest upon, are slow in following all the caprices of fashion, and obtuse in observation as to those niceties which neither give them another ancestor, nor add another thousand to the account at their banker's,--as to the last, rather indeed the contrary! There was a decided elegance about the baron's house and his dinner. If he had been one of the lawful kings of the dandies, you would have cried, "What perfect taste!"--but such is human nature, that the dandies who dined with him said to each other, "He pretend to imitate D----! vulgar dog!" There was little affectation of your more showy opulence. The furniture in the rooms was apparently simple, but, in truth, costly, from its luxurious comfort; the ornaments and china scattered about the commodes were of curious rarity and great value, and the pictures on the walls were gems. At dinner, no plate was admitted on the table. The Russian fashion, then uncommon, now more prevalent, was adopted, fruit and flowers in old Sevres dishes of priceless /vertu/, and in sparkling glass of Bohemian fabric. No livery servant was permitted to wait; behind each guest stood a gentleman dressed so like the guest himself, in fine linen and simple black, that guest and lacquey seemed stereotypes from one plate. The viands were exquisite; the wine came from the cellars of deceased archbishops and ambassadors. The company was select; the party did not exceed eight. Four were the eldest sons of peers (from a baron to a duke); one was a professed wit, never to be got without a month's notice, and, where a /parvenu/ was host, a certainty of green peas and peaches-- out of season; the sixth, to Randal's astonishment, was Mr. Richard Avenel; himself and the baron made up the complement. The eldest sons recognized each other with a meaning smile; the most juvenile of them, indeed (it was his first year in London), had the grace to blush and look sheepish. The others were more hardened; but they all united in regarding with surprise both Randal and Dick Avenel. The former was known to most of them personally, and to all, by repute, as a grave, clever, promising young man, rather prudent than lavish, and never suspected to have got into a scrape. What the deuce did he do there? Mr. Avenel puzzled them yet more. A middle-aged man, said to be in business, whom they had observed "about town" (for he had a noticeable face and figure),--that is, seen riding in the Park, or lounging in the pit at the opera, but never set eyes on at a recognized club, or in the coteries of their "set;" a man whose wife gave horrid third-rate parties, that took up half a column in the "Morning Post" with a list of "The Company Present," in which a sprinkling of dowagers fading out of fashion, and a foreign title or two, made the darkness of the obscurer names doubly dark. Why this man should be asked to meet them, by Baron Levy, too--a decided tuft-hunter and would-be exclusive--called all their faculties into exercise. The wit, who, being the son of a small tradesman, but in the very best society, gave himself far greater airs than the young lords, impertinently solved the mystery. "Depend on it," whispered he to Spendquick,--"depend on it the man is the X. Y. of the 'Times' who offers to lend any sum of money from L10 to half-a-million. He's the man who has all your bills; Levy is only his jackal." "'Pon my soul," said Spendquick, rather alarmed, "if that's the case, one may as well be civil to him." "You, certainly," said the wit. "But I never have found an X. Y. who would advance me the L. s.; and therefore I shall not be more respectful to X. Y. than to any other unknown quantity." By degrees, as the wine circulated, the party grew gay and sociable. Levy was really an entertaining fellow; had all the gossip of the town at his fingers' ends; and possessed, moreover, that pleasant art of saying ill-natured things of the absent, which those present always enjoy. By degrees, too, Mr. Richard Avenel came out; and, as the whisper had circulated round the table that he was X. Y., he was listened to with a profound respect, which greatly elevated his spirits. Nay, when the wit tried once to show him up or mystify him, Dick answered with a bluff spirit, that, though very coarse, was found so humorous by Lord Spendquick and other gentlemen similarly situated in the money-market that they turned the laugh against the wit, and silenced him for the rest of the night,--a circumstance which made the party go off much more pleasantly. After dinner, the conversation, quite that of single men, easy and /debonnaire/, glanced from the turf and the ballet and the last scandal towards politics; for the times were such that politics were discussed everywhere, and three of the young lords were county members. Randal said little, but, as was his wont, listened attentively; and he was aghast to find how general was the belief that the Government was doomed. Out of regard to him, and with that delicacy of breeding which belongs to a certain society, nothing personal to Egerton was said, except by Avenel, who, however, on blurting out some rude expressions respecting that minister, was instantly checked by the baron. "Spare my friend and Mr. Leslie's near connection," said he, with a polite but grave smile. "Oh," said Avenel, "public men, whom we pay, are public property,--aren't they, my Lord?" appealing to Spendquick. "Certainly," said Spendquick, with great spirit,--" public property, or why should we pay them? There must be a very strong motive to induce us to do that! I hate paying people. In fact," he subjoined in an aside, "I never do." "However," resumed Mr. Avenel, graciously, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, Mr. Leslie. As to the feelings of our host, the baron, I calculate that they have got tolerably tough by the exercise they have gone through." "Nevertheless," said the baron, joining in the laugh which any lively saying by the supposed X. Y. was sure to excite, "nevertheless, 'love me, love my dog,'--love me, love my Egerton." Randal started, for his quick ear and subtle intelligence caught something sinister and hostile in the tone with which Levy uttered this equivocal comparison, and his eye darted towards the baron. But the baron had bent down his face, and was regaling himself upon an olive. By-and-by the party rose from table. The four young noblemen had their engagements elsewhere, and proposed to separate without re-entering the drawing-room. As, in Goethe's theory, monads which have affinities with each other are irresistibly drawn together, so these gay children of pleasure had, by a common impulse, on rising from table, moved each to each, and formed a group round the fireplace. Randal stood a little apart, musing; the wit examined the pictures through his eye-glass; and Mr. Avenel drew the baron towards the side-board, and there held him in whispered conference. This colloquy did not escape the young gentlemen round the fireplace; they glanced towards each other. "Settling the percentage on renewal," said one, sotto voce. "X. Y. does not seem such a very bad fellow," said another. "He looks rich, and talks rich," said a third. "A decided, independent way of expressing his sentiments; those moneyed men generally have." "Good heavens!" ejaculated Spendquick, who had been keeping his eye anxiously fixed on the pair, "do look; X. Y. is actually taking out his pocket-book; he is coming this way. Depend on it he has got our bills-- mine is due to-morrow!" "And mine too," said another, edging off. "Why, it is a perfect /guet- apens/." Meanwhile, breaking away from the baron, who appeared anxious to detain him, and failing in that attempt, turned aside, as if not to see Dick's movements,--a circumstance which did not escape the notice of the group, and confirmed all their suspicions,--Mr. Avenel, with a serious, thoughtful face, and a slow step, approached the group. Nor did the great Roman general more nervously "flutter the dove-cots in Corioli," than did the advance of the supposed X. Y. agitate the bosoms of Lord Spendquick and his sympathizing friends. Pocket-book in hand, and apparently feeling for something formidable within its mystic recesses, step by step came Dick Avenel towards the fireplace. The group stood still, fascinated by horror. "Hum," said Mr. Avenel, clearing his throat. "I don't like that hum at all," muttered Spendquick. "Proud to have made your acquaintance, gentlemen," said Dick, bowing. The gentlemen thus addressed bowed low in return. "My friend the baron thought this not exactly the time to--" Dick stopped a moment; you might have knocked down those four young gentlemen, though four finer specimens of humanity no aristocracy in Europe could produce, --you might have knocked them down with a feather! "But," renewed Avenel, not finishing his sentence, "I have made it a rule in life never to lose securing a good opportunity; in short, to make the most of the present moment. And," added he, with a smile which froze the blood in Lord Spendquick's veins, "the rule has made me a very warm man! Therefore, gentlemen, allow me to present you each with one of these" --every hand retreated behind the back of its well-born owner, when, to the inexpressible relief of all, Dick concluded with,--"a little soiree dansante," and extended four cards of invitation. "Most happy!" exclaimed Spendquick. "I don't dance in general; but to oblige X--I mean, to have a better acquaintance, sir, with you--I would dance on the tight-rope." There was a good-humoured, pleasant laugh at Spendquick's enthusiasm, and a general shaking of hands and pocketing of the invitation cards. "You don't look like a dancing man," said Avenel, turning to the wit, who was plump and somewhat gouty,--as wits who dine out five days in the week generally are; "but we shall have supper at one o'clock." Infinitely offended and disgusted, the wit replied dryly, "that every hour of his time was engaged for the rest of the season," and, with a stiff salutation to the baron, took his departure. The rest, in good spirits, hurried away to their respective cabriolets; and Leslie was following them into the hall, when the baron, catching hold of him, said, "Stay, I want to talk to you." CHAPTER XIV. The baron turned into his drawing-room, and Leslie followed. "Pleasant young men, those," said Levy, with a slight sneer, as he threw himself into an easy-chair and stirred the fire. "And not at all proud; but, to be sure, they are--under great obligations to me. Yes; they owe me a great deal /a propos/, I have had a long talk with Frank Hazeldean, --fine young man, remarkable capacities for business. I can arrange his affairs for him. I find, on reference to the Will Office, that you were quite right; the Casino property is entailed on Frank. He will have the fee simple. He can dispose of the reversion entirely. So that there will be no difficulty in our arrangements." "But I told you also that Frank had scruples about borrowing on the event of his father's death." "Ay, you did so. Filial affection! I never take that into account in matters of business. Such little scruples, though they are highly honourable to human nature, soon vanish before the prospect of the King's Bench. And, too, as you so judiciously remarked, our clever young friend is in love with Madame di Negra." "Did he tell you that?" "No; but Madame di Negra did!" "You know her?" "I know most people in good society, who now and then require a friend in the management of their affairs. And having made sure of the fact you stated, as to Hazeldean's contingent property (excuse my prudence), I have accommodated Madame di Negra and bought up her debts." "You have--you surprise me!" "The surprise will vanish on reflection. But you are very new to the world yet, my dear Leslie. By the way, I have had an interview with Peschiera--" "About his sister's debts?" "Partly. A man of the nicest honour is Peschiera." Aware of Levy's habit of praising people for the qualities in which, according to the judgment of less penetrating mortals, they were most deficient, Randal only smiled at this eulogy, and waited for Levy to resume. But the baron sat silent and thoughtful for a minute or two, and then wholly changed the subject. "I think your father has some property in ----shire, and you probably can give me a little information as to certain estates of a Mr. Thornhill, estates which, on examination of the title-deeds, I find once, indeed, belonged to your family." The baron glanced at a very elegant memorandum-book.--"The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, with sundry farms thereon. Mr. Thornhill wants to sell them--an old client of mine, Thornhill. He has applied to me on the matter. Do you think it an improvable property?" Randal listened with a livid cheek and a throbbing heart. We have seen that, if there was one ambitious scheme in his calculation which, though not absolutely generous and heroic, still might win its way to a certain sympathy in the undebased human mind, it was the hope to restore the fallen fortunes of his ancient house, and repossess himself of the long alienated lands that surrounded the dismal wastes of the mouldering hall. And now to hear that those lands were getting into the inexorable gripe of Levy--tears of bitterness stood in his eyes. "Thornhill," continued Levy, who watched the young man's countenance,-- "Thornhill tells me that that part of his property--the old Leslie lands --produces L2, 000 a year, and that the rental could be raised. He would take L50,000 for it, L20,000 down, and suffer the remaining L30,000 to lie on mortgage at four per cent. It seems a very good purchase. What do you say?" "Don't ask me," said Randal, stung into rare honesty; for I had hoped I might live to repossess myself of that property." "Ah, indeed! It would be a very great addition to your consequence in the world,--not from the mere size of the estate, but from its hereditary associations. And if you have any idea of the purchase, believe me, I'll not stand in your way." "How can I have any idea of it?" "But I thought you said you had." "I understood that these lands could not be sold till Mr. Thornhill's son came of age, and joined in getting rid of the entail." "Yes, so Thornhill himself supposed, till, on examining the title-deeds, I found he was under a mistake. These lands are not comprised in the settlement made by old Jasper Thornhill, which ties up the rest of the property. The title will be perfect. Thornhill wants to settle the matter at once,--losses on the turf, you understand; an immediate purchaser would get still better terms. A Sir John Spratt would give the money; but the addition of these lands would make the Spratt property of more consequence in the county than the Thornhill. So my client would rather take a few thousands less from a man who don't set up to be his rival. Balance of power in counties as well as nations." Randal was silent. "Well," said Levy, with great kindness of manner, "I see I pain you; and though I am what my very pleasant guests would call a /parvenu/, I comprehend your natural feelings as a gentleman of ancient birth. /Parvenu!/ Ah, is it not strange, Leslie, that no wealth, no fashion, no fame can wipe out that blot? They call me a /parvenu/, and borrow my money. They call our friend the wit a /parvenu/, and submit to all his insolence--if they condescend to regard his birth at all--provided they can but get him to dinner. They call the best debater in the parliament of England a /parvenu/, and will entreat him, some day or other, to be prime minister, and ask him for stars and garters. A droll world, and no wonder the /parvenus/ want to upset it." Randal had hitherto supposed that this notorious tufthunter, this dandy capitalist, this money-lender, whose whole fortune had been wrung from the wants and follies of an aristocracy, was naturally a firm supporter of things as they are--how could things be better for men like Baron Levy? But the usurer's burst of democratic spleen did not surprise his precocious and acute faculty of observation. He had before remarked, that it is the persons who fawn most upon an aristocracy, and profit the most by the fawning, who are ever at heart its bitterest disparagers. Why is this? Because one full half of democratic opinion is made up of envy; and we can only envy what is brought before our eyes, and what, while very near to us, is still unattainable. No man envies an archangel. "But," said Levy, throwing himself back in his chair, "a new order of things is commencing; we shall see. Leslie, it is lucky for you that you did not enter parliament under the government; it would be your political ruin for life." "You think, then, that the ministry really cannot last?" "Of course I do; and what is more, I think that a ministry of the same principles cannot be restored. You are a young man of talent and spirit; your birth is nothing compared to the rank of the reigning party; it would tell, to a certain degree, in a democratic one. I say, you should be more civil to Avenel; he could return you to parliament at the next election." "The next election! In six years! We have just had a general election." "There will be another before this year, or half of it, or perhaps a quarter of it, is out." "What makes you think so?" "Leslie, let there be confidence between us; we can help each other. Shall we be friends?" "With all my heart. But though you may help me, how can I help you?" "You have helped me already to Frank Hazeldean and the Casino estate. All clever men can help me. Come, then, we are friends; and what I say is secret. You ask me why I think there will be a general election so soon? I will answer you frankly. Of all the public men I ever met with, there is no one who has so clear a vision of things immediately before him as Audley Egerton." "He has that character. Not far-seeing, but clear-sighted to a certain limit." "Exactly so. No one better, therefore, knows public opinion and its immediate ebb and flow." "Granted." "Egerton, then, counts on a general election within three months, and I have lent him the money for it." "Lent him the money! Egerton borrow money of you, the rich Audley Egerton!" "Rich!" repeated Levy, in a tone impossible to describe, and accompanying the word with that movement of the middle finger and thumb, commonly called a "snap," which indicates profound contempt. He said no more. Randal sat stupefied. At length the latter muttered, "But if Egerton is really not rich; if he lose office, and without the hope of return to it--" "If so, he is ruined!" said Levy, coldly; "and therefore, from regard to you, and feeling interest in your future fate, I say, Rest no hopes of fortune or career upon Audley Egerton. Keep your place for the present, but be prepared at the next election to stand upon popular principles. Avenel shall return you to parliament; and the rest is with luck and energy. And now, I'll not detain you longer," said Levy, rising and ringing the bell. The servant entered. "Is my carriage here?" "Yes, Baron." "Can I set you down anywhere?" "No, thank you, I prefer walking." "Adieu, then. And mind you remember the /soiree dansante/ at Mrs. Avenel's." Randal mechanically shook the hand extended to him, and went down the stairs. The fresh frosty air roused his intellectual faculties, which Levy's ominous words had almost paralyzed. And the first thing the clever schemer said to himself was this, "But what can be the man's motive in what he said to me?" The next was,-- "Egerton ruined! What am I, then?" And the third was, "And that fair remnant of the old Leslie property! L20,000 down--how to get the sum? Why should Levy have spoken to me of this?" And lastly, the soliloquy rounded back--"The man's motives! His motives!" Meanwhile, the baron threw himself into his chariot--the most comfortable, easy chariot you can possibly conceive, single man's chariot, perfect taste,--no married man ever had such a chariot; and in a few minutes he was at ---------'s hotel, and in the presence of Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera. "Mon cher," said the baron, in very good French, and in a tone of the most familiar equality with the descendant of the princes and heroes of grand medimval Italy,--"/mon cher/, give me one of your excellent cigars. I think I have put all matters in train." "You have found out--" "No; not so fast yet," said the baron, lighting the cigar extended to him. "But you said that you should be perfectly contented if it only cost you L20,000 to marry off your sister (to whom that sum is legally due), and to marry yourself to the heiress." "I did, indeed." "Then I have no doubt I shall manage both objects for that sum, if Randal Leslie really knows where the young lady is, and can assist you. Most promising, able man is Randal Leslie--but innocent as a babe just born." "Ha, ha! Innocent? /Que diable!/" "Innocent as this cigar, /mon cher/,--strong certainly, but smoked very easily. /Soyez tranquille!/" CHAPTER XV. Who has not seen, who not admired, that noble picture by Daniel Maclise, which refreshes the immortal name of my ancestor Caxton! For myself, while with national pride I heard the admiring murmurs of the foreigners who grouped around it (nothing, indeed, of which our nation may be more proud had they seen in the Crystal Palace),--heard, with no less a pride in the generous nature of fellow-artists, the warm applause of living and deathless masters sanctioning the enthusiasm of the popular crowd, what struck me more than the precision of drawing, for which the artist has been always renowned, and the just, though gorgeous affluence of colour which he has more recently acquired, was the profound depth of conception, out of which this great work had so elaborately arisen. That monk, with his scowl towards the printer and his back on the Bible over which his form casts a shadow--the whole transition between the medieval Christianity of cell and cloister, and the modern Christianity that rejoices in the daylight, is depicted there, in the shadow that obscures the Book, in the scowl that is fixed upon the Book-diffuser;--that sombre, musing face of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, with the beauty of Napoleon, darkened to the expression of a Fiend, looking far and anxiously into futurity, as if foreseeing there what antagonism was about to be created to the schemes of secret crime and unrelenting force; the chivalrous head of the accomplished Rivers, seen but in profile, under his helmet, as if the age when Chivalry must defend its noble attributes in steel was already half passed away; and, not least grand of all, the rude thews and sinews of the artisan forced into service on the type, and the ray of intellect, fierce, and menacing revolutions yet to be, struggling through his rugged features, and across his low knitted brow, --all this, which showed how deeply the idea of the discovery in its good and its evil, its saving light and its perilous storms, had sunk into the artist's soul, charmed me as effecting the exact union between sentiment and execution, which is the true and rare consummation of the Ideal in Art. But observe, while in these personages of the group are depicted the deeper and graver agencies implicated in the bright but terrible invention, observe how little the light epicures of the hour heed the scowl of the monk, or the restless gesture of Richard, or the troubled gleam in the eyes of the artisan, King Edward, handsome Poco curante, delighted in the surprise of a child, with a new toy, and Clarence, with his curious, yet careless, glance,--all the while Caxton himself, calm, serene, untroubled, intent solely upon the manifestation of his discovery, and no doubt supremely indifferent whether the first proofs of it shall be dedicated to a Rivers or an Edward, a Richard or a Henry, Plantagenet or Tudor--'t is all the same to that comely, gentle-looking man. So is it ever with your Abstract Science!--not a jot cares its passionless logic for the woe or weal of a generation or two. The stream, once emerged from its source, passes on into the great Intellectual Sea, smiling over the wretch that it drowns, or under the keel of the ship which it serves as a slave. Now, when about to commence the present chapter on the Varieties of Life, this masterpiece of thoughtful art forced itself on my recollection, and illustrated what I designed to convey. In the surface of every age it is often that which but amuses for the moment the ordinary children of pleasant existence, the Edwards and the Clarences (be they kings and dukes, or simplest of simple subjects), which afterwards towers out as the great serious epoch of the time. When we look back upon human records, how the eye settles upon WRITERS as the main landmarks of the past! We talk of the age of Augustus, of Elizabeth, of Louis XIV., of Anne, as the notable eras of the world. Why? Because it is their writers who have made them so. Intervals between one age of authors and another lie unnoticed, as the flats and common lands of uncultured history. And yet, strange to say, when these authors are living amongst us, they occupy a very small portion of our thoughts, and fill up but desultory interstices in the bitumen and tufo wherefrom we build up the Babylon of our lives. So it is, and perhaps so it should be, whether it pleases the conceit of penmen or not. Life is meant to be active; and books, though they give the action to future generations, administer but to the holiday of the present. And so, with this long preface, I turn suddenly from the Randals and the Egertons, and the Levys, Avenels, and Peschieras, from the plots and passions of practical life, and drop the reader suddenly into one of those obscure retreats wherein Thought weaves, from unnoticed moments, a new link to the chain that unites the ages. Within a small room, the single window of which opened on a fanciful and fairy-like garden that has been before described, sat a young man alone. He had been writing; the ink was not dry on his manuscript, but his thoughts had been suddenly interrupted from his work, and his eyes, now lifted from the letter which had occasioned that interruption, sparkled with delight. "He will come," exclaimed the young man; "come here,--to the home which I owe to him. I have not been unworthy of his friendship. And she--" his breast heaved, but the joy faded from his face. "Oh, strange, strange, that I feel sad at the thought to see her again! See her--Ah, no! my own comforting Helen, my own Child-angel! Her I can never see again! The grown woman--that is not my Helen. And yet--and yet," he resumed after a pause, "if ever she read the pages in which thought flowed and trembled under her distant starry light, if ever she see how her image has rested with me, and feel that, while others believe that I invent, I have but remembered, will she not, for a moment, be my own Helen again? Again, in heart and in fancy, stand by my side on the desolate bridge, hand in hand, orphans both, as we stood in the days so sorrowful, yet, as I recall them, so sweet? Helen in England--it is a dream!" He rose, half-consciously, and went to the window. The fountain played merrily before his eyes, and the birds in the aviary carolled loud to his ear. "And in this house," he murmured, "I saw her last! And there, where the fountain now throws its spray on high,--there her benefactor and mine told me that I was to lose her, that I might win--fame. Alas!" At this time a woman, whose dress was somewhat above her mien and air, which, though not without a certain respectability, were very homely, entered the room; and seeing the young man standing thus thoughtful by the window, paused. She was used to his habits; and since his success in life, had learned to respect them. So she did not disturb his revery, but began softly to arrange the room, dusting, with the corner of her apron, the various articles of furniture, putting a stray chair or two in its right place, but not touching a single paper. Virtuous woman, and rare as virtuous! The young man turned at last, with a deep, yet not altogether painful sigh, "My dear mother, good day to you. Ah, you do well to make the room look its best. Happy news! I expect a visitor!" "Dear me, Leonard, will he want lunch--or what?" "Nay, I think not, Mother. It is he to whom we owe all,--'Haec otia fecit.' Pardon my Latin; it is Lord L'Estrange." The face of Mrs. Fairfield (the reader has long since divined the name) changed instantly, and betrayed a nervous twitch of all the muscles, which gave her a family likeness to old Mrs. Avenel. "Do not be alarmed, Mother. He is the kindest--" "Don't talk so; I can't bear it!" cried Mrs. Fairfield. "No wonder you are affected by the recollection of all his benefits. But when once you have seen him, you will find yourself ever after at your ease. And so, pray smile and look as good as you are; for I am proud of your open honest look when you are pleased, Mother. And he must see your heart in your face, as I do." With this, Leonard put his arm round the widow's neck and kissed her. She clung to him fondly for a moment, and he felt her tremble from head to foot. Then she broke from his embrace, and hurried out of the room. Leonard thought perhaps she had gone to improve her dress, or to carry her housewife energies to the decoration of the other rooms; for "the house" was Mrs. Fairfield's hobby and passion; and now that she worked no more, save for her amusement, it was her main occupation. The hours she contrived to spend daily in bustling about those little rooms, and leaving everything therein to all appearance precisely the same, were among the marvels in life which the genius of Leonard had never comprehended. But she was always so delighted when Mr. Norreys, or some rare visitor came, and said,--Mr. Norreys never failed to do so,-"How neatly all is kept here. What could Leonard do without you, Mrs. Fairfield?" And, to Norreys's infinite amusement, Mrs. Fairfield always returned the same answer. "'Deed, sir, and thank you kindly, but 't is my belief that the drawin'-room would be awful dusty." Once more left alone, Leonard's mind returned to the state of revery, and his face assumed the expression that had now become to it habitual. Thus seen, he was changed much since we last beheld him. His cheek was more pale and thin, his lips more firmly compressed, his eye more fixed and abstract. You could detect, if I may borrow a touching French expression, that "Sorrow had passed by there." But the melancholy on his countenance was ineffably sweet and serene, and on his ample forehead there was that power, so rarely seen in early youth,--the power that has conquered, and betrays its conquests but in calm. The period of doubt, of struggle, of defiance, was gone, perhaps forever; genius and soul were reconciled to human life. It was a face most lovable; so gentle and peaceful in its character. No want of fire; on the contrary, the fire was so clear and so steadfast, that it conveyed but the impression of light. The candour of boyhood, the simplicity of the villager, were still there,--refined by intelligence, but intelligence that seemed to have traversed through knowledge, not with the 'footstep, but the wing, unsullied by the mire, tending towards the star, seeking through the various grades of Being but the lovelier forms of truth and goodness; at home, as should be the Art that consummates the Beautiful,-- "In den heitern Regionen Wo die reinen Formen wohnen." [At home--"In the serene regions Where dwell the pure forms."] From this revery Leonard did not seek to rouse himself, till the bell at the garden gate rang loud and shrill; and then starting up and hurrying into the hall, his hand was grasped in Harley's. CHAPTER XVI. A full and happy hour passed away in Harley's questions and Leonard's answers,--the dialogue that naturally ensued between the two, on the first interview after an absence of years so eventful to the younger man. The history of Leonard during this interval was almost solely internal, the struggle of intellect with its own difficulties, the wanderings of imagination through its own adventurous worlds. The first aim of Norreys, in preparing the mind of his pupil for its vocation, had been to establish the equilibrium of its powers, to calm into harmony the elements rudely shaken by the trials and passions of the old hard outer life. The theory of Norreys was briefly this: The education of a superior human being is but the development of ideas in one for the benefit of others. To this end, attention should be directed,--1st, To the value of the ideas collected; 2dly, To their discipline; 3dly, To their expression. For the first, acquirement is necessary; for the second, discipline; for the third, art. The first comprehends knowledge purely intellectual, whether derived from observation, memory, reflection, books, or men, Aristotle or Fleet Street. The second demands training, not only intellectual, but moral; the purifying and exaltation of motives; the formation of habits; in which method is but a part of a divine and harmonious symmetry, a union of intellect and conscience. Ideas of value, stored by the first process; marshalled into force, and placed under guidance, by the second,--it is the result of the third, to place them before the world in the most attractive or commanding form. This may be done by actions no less than words; but the adaptation of means to end, the passage of ideas from the brain of one man into the lives and souls of all, no less in action than in books, requires study. Action has its art as well as literature. Here Norreys had but to deal with the calling of the scholar, the formation of the writer, and so to guide the perceptions towards those varieties in the sublime and beautiful, the just combination of which is at once CREATION. Man himself is but a combination of elements. He who combines in nature, creates in art. Such, very succinctly and inadequately expressed, was the system upon which Norreys proceeded to regulate and perfect the great native powers of his pupil; and though the reader may perhaps say that no system laid down by another can either form genius or dictate to its results, yet probably nine-tenths at least of those in whom we recognize the luminaries of our race have passed, unconsciously to themselves (for self-education is rarely conscious of its phases), through each of these processes. And no one who pauses to reflect will deny, that according to this theory, illustrated by a man of vast experience, profound knowledge, and exquisite taste, the struggles of genius would be infinitely lessened, its vision cleared and strengthened, and the distance between effort and success notably abridged. Norreys, however, was far too deep a reasoner to fall into the error of modern teachers, who suppose that education can dispense with labour. No mind becomes muscular without rude and early exercise. Labour should be strenuous, but in right directions. All that we can do for it is to save the waste of time in blundering into needless toils. The master had thus first employed his neophyte in arranging and compiling materials for a great critical work in which Norreys himself was engaged. In this stage of scholastic preparation, Leonard was necessarily led to the acquisition of languages, for which he had great aptitude; the foundations of a large and comprehensive erudition were solidly constructed. He traced by the ploughshare the walls of the destined city. Habits of accuracy and of generalization became formed insensibly; and that precious faculty which seizes, amidst accumulated materials, those that serve the object for which they are explored,--that faculty which quadruples all force, by concentrating it on one point,-- once roused into action, gave purpose to every toil and quickness to each perception. But Norreys did not confine his pupil solely to the mute world of a library; he introduced him to some of the first minds in arts, science, and letters, and active life. "These," said he, "are the living ideas of the present, out of which books for the future will be written: study them; and here, as in the volumes of the past, diligently amass and deliberately compile." By degrees Norreys led on that young ardent mind from the selection of ideas to their aesthetic analysis,--from compilation to criticism; but criticism severe, close, and logical,--a reason for each word of praise or of blame. Led in this stage of his career to examine into the laws of beauty, a new light broke upon his mind; from amidst the masses of marble he had piled around him rose the vision of the statue. And so, suddenly, one day Norreys said to him, "I need a compiler no longer,--maintain yourself by your own creations." And Leonard wrote, and a work flowered up from the seed deep buried, and the soil well cleared to the rays of the sun and the healthful influence of expanded air. That first work did not penetrate to a very wide circle of readers, not from any perceptible fault of its own--there is luck in these things; the first anonymous work of an original genius is rarely at once eminently successful. But the more experienced recognized the promise of the book. Publishers, who have an instinct in the discovery of available talent, which often forestalls the appreciation of the public, volunteered liberal offers. "Be fully successful this time," said Norreys; "think not of models nor of style. Strike at once at the common human heart,-- throw away the corks, swim out boldly. One word more,--never write a page till you have walked from your room to Temple Bar, and, mingling with men, and reading the human face, learn why great poets have mostly passed their lives in cities." Thus Leonard wrote again, and woke one morning to find himself famous. So far as the chances of all professions dependent on health will permit, present independence, and, with foresight and economy, the prospects of future competence were secured. "And, indeed," said Leonard, concluding a longer but a simpler narrative than is here told,--" indeed, there is some chance that I may obtain at once a sum that will leave me free for the rest of my life to select my own subjects, and write without care for remuneration. This is what I call the true (and, perhaps, alas! the rare) independence of him who devotes himself to letters. Norreys, having seen my boyish plan for the improvement of certain machinery in the steam engine, insisted on my giving much time to mechanics. The study that once pleased me so greatly now seemed dull; but I went into it with good heart; and the result is, that I have improved so far on my original idea, that my scheme has met the approbation of one of our most scientific engineers: and I am assured that the patent for it will be purchased of me upon terms which I am ashamed to name to you, so disproportioned do they seem to the value of so simple a discovery. Meanwhile, I am already rich enough to have realized the two dreams of my heart,--to make a home in the cottage where I had last seen you and Helen--I mean Miss Digby; and to invite to that home her who had sheltered my infancy." "Your mother, where is she? Let me see her." Leonard ran out to call the widow, but to his surprise and vexation learned that she had quitted the house before L'Estrange arrived. He came back, perplexed how to explain what seemed ungracious and ungrateful, and spoke with hesitating lip and flushed cheek of the widow's natural timidity and sense of her own homely station. "And so overpowered is she," added Leonard, "by the recollection of all that we owe to you, that she never hears your name without agitation or tears, and trembled like a leaf at the thought of seeing you." "Ha!" said Harley, with visible emotion. "Is it so?" And he bent down, shading his face with his hand. "And," he renewed, after a pause, but not looking up--"and you ascribe this fear of seeing me, this agitation at my name, solely to an exaggerated sense of--of the circumstances attending my acquaintance with yourself?" "And, perhaps, to a sort of shame that the mother of one you have made her proud of is but a peasant." "That is all?" said Harley, earnestly, now looking up and fixing eyes in which stood tears upon Leonard's ingenuous brow. "Oh, my dear Lord, what else can it be? Do not judge her harshly." L'Estrange arose abruptly, pressed Leonard's hand, muttered something not audible, and then drawing his young friend's arm in his, led him into the garden, and turned the conversation back to its former topics. Leonard's heart yearned to ask after Helen, and yet something withheld him from doing so, till, seeing Harley did not volunteer to speak of her, he could not resist his impulse. "And Helen--Miss Digby--is she much changed?" "Changed, no--yes; very much." "Very much!" Leonard sighed. "I shall see her again?" "Certainly," said Harley, in a tone of surprise. "How can you doubt it? And I reserve to you the pleasure of saying that you are renowned. You blush; well, I will say that for you. But you shall give her your books." "She has not yet read them, then?--not the last? The first was not worthy of her attention," said Leonard, disappointed. "She has only just arrived in England; and, though your books reached me in Germany, she was not then with me. When I have settled some business that will take me from town, I shall present you to her and my mother." There was a certain embarrassment in Harley's voice as he spoke; and, turning round abruptly, he exclaimed, "But you have shown poetry even here. I could not have conceived that so much beauty could be drawn from what appeared to me the most commonplace of all suburban gardens. Why, surely, where that charming fountain now plays stood the rude bench in which I read your verses." "It is true; I wished to unite all together my happiest associations. I think I told you, my Lord, in one of my letters, that I had owed a very happy, yet very struggling time in my boyhood to the singular kindness and generous instructions of a foreigner whom I served. This fountain is copied from one that I made in his garden, and by the margin of which many a summer day I have sat and dreamed of fame and knowledge." "True, you told me of that; and your foreigner will be pleased to hear of your success, and no less so of your grateful recollections. By the way, you did not mention his name." "Riccabocca." "Riccabocca! My own dear and noble friend!--is it possible? One of my reasons for returning to England is connected with him. You shall go down with me and see him. I meant to start this evening." "My dear Lord," said Leonard, "I think that you may spare yourself so long a journey. I have reason to suspect that Signor Riccabocca is my nearest neighbour. Two days ago I was in the garden, when suddenly lifting my eyes to yon hillock I perceived the form of a man seated amongst the brushwood; and though I could not see his features, there was something in the very outline of his figure and his peculiar posture, that irresistibly reminded me of Riccabocca. I hastened out of the garden and ascended the hill, but he was gone. My suspicions were so strong that I caused inquiry to be made at the different shops scattered about, and learned that a family consisting of a gentleman, his wife, and daughter had lately come to live in a house that you must have passed in your way hither, standing a little back from the road, surrounded by high walls; and though they were said to be English, yet from the description given to me of the gentleman's person by one who had noticed it, by the fact of a foreign servant in their employ, and by the very name 'Richmouth,' assigned to the newcomers, I can scarcely doubt that it is the family you seek." "And you have not called to ascertain?" "Pardon me, but the family so evidently shunning observation (no one but the master himself ever seen without the walls), the adoption of another name too, led me to infer that Signor Riccabocca has some strong motive for concealment; and now, with my improved knowledge of life, and recalling all the past, I cannot but suppose that Riccabocca was not what he appeared. Hence, I have hesitated on formally obtruding myself upon his secrets, whatever they be, and have rather watched for some chance occasion to meet him in his walks." "You did right, my dear Leonard; but my reasons for seeing my old friend forbid all scruples of delicacy, and I will go at once to his house." "You will tell me, my Lord, if I am right." "I hope to be allowed to do so. Pray, stay at home till I return. And now, ere I go, one question more: You indulge conjectures as to Riccabocca, because he has changed his name,--why have you dropped your own?" "I wished to have no name," said Leonard, colouring deeply, "but that which I could make myself." "Proud poet, this I can comprehend. But from what reason did you assume the strange and fantastic name of Oran?" The flush on Leonard's face became deeper. "My Lord," said he, in a low voice, "it is a childish fancy of mine; it is an anagram." "Ah!" "At a time when my cravings after knowledge were likely much to mislead, and perhaps undo me, I chanced on some poems that suddenly affected my whole mind, and led me up into purer air; and I was told that these poems were written in youth by one who had beauty and genius,--one who was in her grave,--a relation of my own, and her familiar name was Nora--" "Ah," again ejaculated Lord L'Estrange, and his arm pressed heavily upon Leonard's. "So, somehow or other," continued the young author, falteringly, "I wished that if ever I won to a poet's fame, it might be to my own heart, at least, associated with this name of Nora; with her whom death had robbed of the fame that she might otherwise have won; with her who--" He paused, greatly agitated. Harley was no less so. But, as if by a sudden impulse, the soldier bent down his manly head and kissed the poet's brow; then he hastened to the gate, flung himself on his horse, and rode away. CHAPTER XVII. Lord L'Estrange did not proceed at once to Riecabocca's house. He was under the influence of a remembrance too deep and too strong to yield easily to the lukewarm claim of friendship. He rode fast and far; and impossible it would be to define the feelings that passed through a mind so acutely sensitive, and so rootedly tenacious of all affections. When, recalling his duty to the Italian, he once more struck into the road to Norwood, the slow pace of his horse was significant of his own exhausted spirits; a deep dejection had succeeded to feverish excitement. "Vain task," he murmured, "to wean myself from the dead! Yet I am now betrothed to another; and she, with all her virtues, is not the one to--" He stopped short in generous self-rebuke. "Too late to think of that! Now, all that should remain to me is to insure the happiness of the life to which I have pledged my own. But--" He sighed as he so murmured. On reaching the vicinity of Riccabocca's house, he put up his horse at a little inn, and proceeded on foot across the heathland towards the dull square building, which Leonard's description had sufficed to indicate as the exile's new home. It was long before any one answered his summons at the gate. Not till he had thrice rung did he hear a heavy step on the gravel walk within; then the wicket within the gate was partially drawn aside, a dark eye gleamed out, and a voice in imperfect English asked who was there. "Lord L'Estrange; and if I am right as to the person I seek, that name will at once admit me." The door flew open as did that of the mystic cavern at the sound of "Open, Sesame;" and Giacomo, almost weeping with joyous emotion, exclaimed in Italian, "The good Lord! Holy San Giacomo! thou hast heard me at last! We are safe now." And dropping the blunderbuss with which he had taken the precaution to arm himself, he lifted Harley's hand to his lips, in the affectionate greeting familiar to his countrymen. "And the padrone?" asked Harley, as he entered the jealous precincts. "Oh, he is just gone out; but he will not be long. You will wait for him?" "Certainly. What lady is that I see at the far end of the garden?" "Bless her, it is our signorina. I will run and tell her you are come." "That I am come; but she cannot know me even by name." "Ah, Excellency, can you think so? Many and many a time has she talked to me of you, and I have heard her pray to the holy Madonna to bless you, and in a voice so sweet--" "Stay, I will present myself to her. Go into the house, and we will wait without for the padrone. Nay, I need the air, my friend." Harley, as he said this, broke from Giacomo, and approached Violante. The poor child, in her solitary walk in the obscurer parts of the dull garden, had escaped the eye of Giacomo when he had gone forth to answer the bell; and she, unconscious of the fears of which she was the object, had felt something of youthful curiosity at the summons at the gate, and the sight of a stranger in close and friendly conference with the unsocial Giacomo. As Harley now neared her with that singular grace of movement which belonged to him, a thrill shot through her heart, she knew not why. She did not recognize his likeness to the sketch taken by her father from his recollections of Harley's early youth. She did not guess who he was; and yet she felt herself colour, and, naturally fearless though she was, turned away with a vague alarm. "Pardon my want of ceremony, Signorina," said Harley, in Italian; "but I am so old a friend of your father's that I cannot feel as a stranger to yourself." Then Violante lifted to him her dark eyes so intelligent and so innocent,--eyes full of surprise, but not displeased surprise. And Harley himself stood amazed, and almost abashed, by the rich and marvellous beauty that beamed upon him. "My father's friend," she said hesitatingly, and I never to have seen you!" "Ah, Signorina," said Harley (and something of its native humour, half arch, half sad, played round his lip), "you are mistaken there; you have seen me before, and you received me much more kindly then." "Signor!" said Violante, more and more surprised, and with a yet richer colour on her cheeks. Harley, who had now recovered from the first effect of her beauty, and who regarded her as men of his years and character are apt to regard ladies in their teens, as more child than woman, suffered himself to be amused by her perplexity; for it was in his nature that the graver and more mournful he felt at heart, the more he sought to give play and whim to his spirits. "Indeed, Signorina," said he, demurely, "you insisted then on placing one of those fair hands in mine; the other (forgive me the fidelity of my recollections) was affectionately thrown around my neck." "Signor!" again exclaimed Violante; but this time there was anger in her voice as well as surprise, and nothing could be more charming than her look of pride and resentment. Harley smiled again, but with so much kindly sweetness, that the anger vanished at once, or rather Violante felt angry with herself that she was no longer angry with him. But she had looked so beautiful in her anger, that Harley wished, perhaps, to see her angry again. So, composing his lips from their propitiatory smile, he resumed gravely, "Your flatterers will tell you, Signorina, that you are much improved since then, but I liked you better as you were; not but what I hope to return some day what you then so generously pressed upon me." "Pressed upon you!---I? Signor, you are under some strange mistake." "Alas! no; but the female heart is so capricious and fickle! You pressed it upon me, I assure you. I own that I was not loath to accept it." "Pressed it! Pressed what?" "Your kiss, my child," said Harley; and then added, with a serious tenderness, "and I again say that I hope to return it some day, when I see you, by the side of father and of husband, in your native land,--the fairest bride on whom the skies of Italy ever smiled! And now, pardon a hermit and a soldier for his rude jests, and give your hand, in token of that pardon, to Harley L'Estrange." Violante, who at the first words of his address had recoiled, with a vague belief that the stranger was out of his mind, sprang forward as it closed, and in all the vivid enthusiasm of her nature pressed the hand held out to her with both her own. "Harley L'Estrange! the preserver of my father's life!" she cried; and her eyes were fixed on his with such evident gratitude and reverence, that Harley felt at once confused and delighted. She did not think at that instant of the hero of her dreams, --she thought but of him who had saved her father. But, as his eyes sank before her own, and his head, uncovered, bowed over the hand he held, she recognized the likeness to the features on which she had so often gazed. The first bloom of youth was gone, but enough of youth still remained to soften the lapse of years, and to leave to manhood the attractions which charm the eye. Instinctively she withdrew her hands from his clasp, and in her turn looked down. In this pause of embarrassment to both, Riccabocca let himself into the garden by his own latch-key, and, startled to see a man by the side of Violante, sprang forward with an abrupt and angry cry. Harley heard, and turned. As if restored to courage and self-possession by the sense of her father's presence, Violante again took the hand of the visitor. "Father," she said simply, "it is he,--he is come at last." And then, retiring a few steps, she contemplated them both; and her face was radiant with happiness, as if something, long silently missed and looked for, was as silently found, and life had no more a want, nor the heart a void. 
7702	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger "MY NOVEL." BOOK FIRST. INITIAL CHAPTER. SHOWING HOW MY NOVEL CAME TO BE WRITTEN. Scene, the hall in UNCLE ROLAND'S tower; time, niyht; season, winter. MR. CAXTON is seated before a great geographical globe, which he is turning round leisurely, and "for his own recreation," as, according to Sir Thomas Browne, a philosopher should turn round the orb of which that globe professes to be the representation and effigies. My mother having just adorned a very small frock with a very smart braid, is holding it out at arm's length, the more to admire the effect. Blanche, though leaning both hands on my mother's shoulder, is not regarding the frock, but glances towards PISISTRATUS, who, seated near the fire, leaning back in the chair, and his head bent over his breast, seems in a very bad humour. Uncle Roland, who has become a great novel-reader, is deep in the mysteries of some fascinating Third Volume. Mr. Squills has brought the "Times" in his pocket for his own special profit and delectation, and is now bending his brows over "the state of the money market," in great doubt whether railway shares can possibly fall lower,--for Mr. Squills, happy man! has large savings, and does not know what to do with his money, or, to use his own phrase, "how to buy in at the cheapest in order to sell out at the dearest." MR. CAXTON (musingly).--"It must have been a monstrous long journey. It would be somewhere hereabouts, I take it, that they would split off." MY MOTHER (mechanically, and in order to show Austin that she paid him the compliment of attending to his remarks).--"Who split off, my dear?" "Bless me, Kitty," said my father, in great admiration, "you ask just the question which it is most difficult to answer. An ingenious speculator on races contends that the Danes, whose descendants make the chief part of our northern population (and indeed, if his hypothesis could be correct, we must suppose all the ancient worshippers of Odin), are of the same origin as the Etrurians. And why, Kitty,--I just ask you, why?" My mother shook her head thoughtfully, and turned the frock to the other side of the light. "Because, forsooth," cried my father, exploding,--"because the Etrurians called their gods the 'AEsar,' and the Scandinavians called theirs the 'AEsir,' or 'Aser'! And where do you think this adventurous scholar puts their cradle?" "Cradle!" said my mother, dreamily, "it must be in the nursery." MR. CAXTON.--"Exactly,--in the nursery of the human race, just here," and my father pointed to the globe; "bounded, you see, by the river Halys, and in that region which, taking its name from Ees, or As (a word designating light or fire), has been immemorially called Asia. Now, Kitty, from Ees, or As, our ethnological speculator would derive not only Asia, the land, but AEsar, or Aser, its primitive inhabitants. Hence he supposes the origin of the Etrurians and the Scandinavians. But if we give him so much, we must give him more, and deduce from the same origin the Es of the Celt and the Ized of the Persian, and--what will be of more use to him, I dare say, poor man, than all the rest put together--the AEs of the Romans,--that is, the God of Copper-money--a very powerful household god he is to this day!" My mother looked musingly at her frock, as if she were taking my father's proposition into serious consideration. "So perhaps," resumed my father, "and not unconformably with sacred records, from one great parent horde came all those various tribes, carrying with them the name of their beloved Asia; and whether they wandered north, south, or west, exalting their own emphatic designation of 'Children of the Land of Light' into the title of gods. And to think" (added Mr. Caxton pathetically, gazing upon that speck on the globe on which his forefinger rested),--"to think how little they changed for the better when they got to the Don, or entangled their rafts amidst the icebergs of the Baltic,--so comfortably off as they were here, if they could but have stayed quiet." "And why the deuce could not they?" asked Mr. Squills. "Pressure of population, and not enough to live upon, I suppose," said my father. PISISTRATUS (sulkily).--"More probably they did away with the Corn Laws, sir." "/Papae!/" quoth my father, "that throws a new light on the subject." PISISTRATUS (full of his grievances, and not caring three straws about the origin of the Scandinavians).--"I know that if we are to lose L500 every year on a farm which we hold rent-free, and which the best judges allow to be a perfect model for the whole country, we had better make haste and turn AEsir, or Aser, or whatever you call them, and fix a settlement on the property of other nations, otherwise, I suspect, our probable settlement will be on the parish." MR. SQUILLS (who, it must be remembered, is an enthusiastic Free-trader). "You have only got to put more capital on the land." PISISTRATUS.--"Well, Mr. Squills, as you think so well of that investment, put your capital on it. I promise that you shall have every shilling of profit." MR. SQUILLS (hastily retreating behind the "Times")- "I don't think the Great Western can fall any lower, though it is hazardous; I can but venture a few hundreds--" PISISTRATUS.--"On our land, Squills?---Thank you." MR. SQUILLS.--"No, no,--anything but that; on the Great Western." Pisistratus relaxes into gloom. Blanche steals up coaxingly, and gets snubbed for her pains. A pause. MR. CAXTON.--"There are two golden rules of life; one relates to the mind, and the other to the pockets. The first is, If our thoughts get into a low, nervous, aguish condition, we should make them change the air; the second is comprised in the proverb, 'It is good to have two strings to one's bow.' Therefore, Pisistratus, I tell you what you must do,--Write a book!" PISISTRATUS.--"Write a book! Against the abolition of the Corn Laws? Faith, sir, the mischief's done! It takes a much better pen than mine to write down an act of parliament." MR. CAXTON.--"I only said, 'Write a book.' All the rest is the addition of your own headlong imagination." PISISTRATUS (with the recollection of The Great Book rising before him). --"Indeed, sir, I should think that that would just finish us!" MR. CAXTON (not seeming to heed the interruption).---"A book that will sell; a book that will prop up the fall of prices; a book that will distract your mind from its dismal apprehensions, and restore your affection to your species and your hopes in the ultimate triumph of sound principles--by the sight of a favourable balance at the end of the yearly accounts. It is astonishing what a difference that little circumstance makes in our views of things in general. I remember when the bank in which Squills had incautiously left L1000 broke, one remarkably healthy year, that he became a great alarmist, and said that the country was on the verge of ruin; whereas you see now, when, thanks to a long succession of sickly seasons, he has a surplus capital to risk in the Great Western, he is firmly persuaded that England was never in so prosperous a condition." MR. SQUILLS (rather sullenly).--"Pooh, pooh." MR. CAXTON.--"Write a book, my son,--write a book. Need I tell you that Money or Moneta, according to Hyginus, was the mother of the Muses? Write a book." BLANCHE and my MOTHER (in full chorus).--"O yes, Sisty, a book! a book! you must write a book." "I am sure," quoth my Uncle Roland, slamming down the volume he had just concluded, "he could write a devilish deal better book than this; and how I come to read such trash night after night is more than I could possibly explain to the satisfaction of any intelligent jury, if I were put into a witness-box, and examined in the mildest manner by my own counsel." MR. CAXTON.--"You see that Roland tells us exactly what sort of a book it shall be." PISISTRATUS.---"Trash, sir?" MR. CAXTON.--"No,--that is, not necessarily trash; but a book of that class which, whether trash or not, people can't help reading. Novels have become a necessity of the age. You must write a novel." PISISTRATUS (flattered, but dubious).-"A novel! But every subject on which novels can be written is preoccupied. There are novels of low life, novels of high life, military novels, naval novels, novels philosophical, novels religious, novels historical, novels descriptive of India, the Colonies, Ancient Rome, and the Egyptian Pyramids. From what bird, wild eagle, or barn-door fowl, can I "'Pluck one unwearied plume from Fancy's wing?'" MR. CAXTON (after a little thought).--"You remember the story which Trevanion (I beg his pardon, Lord Ulswater) told us the other night? That gives you something of the romance of real life for your plot, puts you chiefly among scenes with which you are familiar, and furnishes you with characters which have been very sparingly dealt with since the time of Fielding. You can give us the country Squire, as you remember him in your youth; it is a specimen of a race worth preserving, the old idiosyncrasies of which are rapidly dying off, as the railways bring Norfolk and Yorkshire within easy reach of the manners of London. You can give us the old-fashioned Parson, as in all essentials he may yet be found--but before you had to drag him out of the great Tractarian bog; and, for the rest, I really think that while, as I am told, many popular writers are doing their best, especially in France, and perhaps a little in England, to set class against class, and pick up every stone in the kennel to shy at a gentleman with a good coat on his back, something useful might be done by a few good-humoured sketches of those innocent criminals a little better off than their neighbours, whom, however we dislike them, I take it for granted we shall have to endure, in one shape or another, as long as civilization exists; and they seem, on the whole, as good in their present shape as we are likely to get, shake the dice- box of society how we will." PISISTRATUS.--"Very well said, sir; but this rural country gentleman life is not so new as you think. There's Washington Irving--" MR. CAXTON.--"Charming; but rather the manners of the last century than this. You may as well cite Addison and Sir Roger de Coverley." PISISTRATUS.--"'Tremaine' and 'De Vere.'" MR. CAXTON.--"Nothing can be more graceful, nor more unlike what I mean. The Pales and Terminus I wish you to put up in the fields are familiar images, that you may cut out of an oak tree,--not beautiful marble statues, on porphyry pedestals, twenty feet high." PISISTRATUS.--"Miss Austen; Mrs. Gore, in her masterpiece of 'Mrs. Armytage;' Mrs. Marsh, too; and then (for Scottish manners) Miss Ferrier!" MR. CAXTON (growing cross).--"Oh, if you cannot treat on bucolics but what you must hear some Virgil or other cry 'Stop thief,' you deserve to be tossed by one of your own 'short-horns.'" (Still more contemptuously)--"I am sure I don't know why we spend so much money on sending our sons to school to learn Latin, when that Anachronism of yours, Mrs. Caxton, can't even construe a line and a half of Phaedrus,-- Phaedrus, Mrs. Caxton, a book which is in Latin what Goody Two-Shoes is in the vernacular!" MRS. CAXTON (alarmed and indignant).--"Fie! Austin I I am sure you can construe Phaedrus, dear!" Pisistratus prudently preserves silence. MR. CAXTON.--"I'll try him-- "'Sua cuique quum sit animi cogitatio Colurque proprius.' "What does that mean?" PISISTRATITS (smiling)--"That every man has some colouring matter within him, to give his own tinge to--" "His own novel," interrupted my father. "/Contentus peragis!/" During the latter part of this dialogue, Blanche had sewn together three quires of the best Bath paper, and she now placed them on a little table before me, with her own inkstand and steel pen. My mother put her finger to her lip, and said, "Hush!" my father returned to the cradle of the AEsas; Captain Roland leaned his cheek on his hand, and gazed abstractedly on the fire; Mr. Squills fell into a placid doze; and, after three sighs that would have melted a heart of stone, I rushed into--MY NOVEL. CHAPTER II. "There has never been occasion to use them since I've been in the parish," said Parson Dale. "What does that prove?" quoth the squire, sharply, and looking the parson full in the face. "Prove!" repeated Mr. Dale, with a smile of benign, yet too conscious superiority, "what does experience prove?" "That your forefathers were great blockheads, and that their descendant is not a whit the wiser." "Squire," replied the parson, "although that is a melancholy conclusion, yet if you mean it to apply universally, and not to the family of the Dales in particular; it is not one which my candour as a reasoner, and my humility as a mortal, will permit me to challenge." "I defy you," said Mr. Hazeldean, triumphantly. "But to stick to the subject (which it is monstrous hard to do when one talks with a parson), I only just ask you to look yonder, and tell me on your conscience--I don't even say as a parson, but as a parishioner--whether you ever saw a more disreputable spectacle?" While he spoke, the squire, leaning heavily on the parson's left shoulder, extended his cane in a line parallel with the right eye of that disputatious ecclesiastic, so that he might guide the organ of sight to the object he had thus unflatteringly described. "I confess," said the parson, "that, regarded by the eye of the senses, it is a thing that in its best day had small pretensions to beauty, and is not elevated into the picturesque even by neglect and decay. But, my friend, regarded by the eye of the inner man,--of the rural philosopher and parochial legislator,--I say it is by neglect and decay that it is rendered a very pleasing feature in what I may call 'the moral topography of a parish.'" The squire looked at the parson as if he could have beaten him; and, indeed, regarding the object in dispute not only with the eye of the outer man, but the eye of law and order, the eye of a country gentleman and a justice of the peace, the spectacle was scandalously disreputable. It was moss-grown; it was worm-eaten; it was broken right in the middle; through its four socketless eyes, neighboured by the nettle, peered the thistle,--the thistle! a forest of thistles!--and, to complete the degradation of the whole, those thistles had attracted the donkey of an itinerant tinker; and the irreverent animal was in the very act of taking his luncheon out of the eyes and jaws of--THE PARISH STOCKS. The squire looked as if he could have beaten the parson; but as he was not without some slight command of temper, and a substitute was luckily at hand, he gulped down his resentment, and made a rush--at the donkey! Now the donkey was hampered by a rope to its fore-feet, to the which was attached a billet of wood, called technically "a clog," so that it had no fair chance of escape from the assault its sacrilegious luncheon had justly provoked. But the ass turning round with unusual nimbleness at the first stroke of the cane, the squire caught his foot in the rope, and went head over heels among the thistles. The donkey gravely bent down, and thrice smelt or sniffed its prostrate foe; then, having convinced itself that it had nothing further to apprehend for the present, and very willing to make the best of the reprieve, according to the poetical admonition, "Gather your rosebuds while you may," it cropped a thistle in full bloom, close to the ear of the squire,--so close, indeed, that the parson thought the ear was gone; and with the more probability, inasmuch as the squire, feeling the warm breath of the creature, bellowed out with all the force of lungs accustomed to give a View-hallo! "Bless me, is it gone?" said the parson, thrusting his person between the ass and the squire. "Zounds and the devil!" cried the squire, rubbing himself, as he rose to his feet. "Hush!" said the parson, gently. "What a horrible oath!" "Horrible oath! If you had my nankeens on," said the squire, still rubbing himself, "and had fallen into a thicket of thistles, with a donkey's teeth within an inch of your ear--" "It is not gone, then?" interrupted the parson. "No,--that is, I think not," said the squire, dubiously; and he clapped his hand to the organ in question. "No! it is not gone!" "Thank Heaven!" said the good clergyman, kindly. "Hum," growled the squire, who was now once more engaged in rubbing himself. "Thank Heaven indeed, when I am as full of thorns as a porcupine! I should just like to know what use thistles are in the world." "For donkeys to eat, if you will let them, Squire," answered the parson. "Ugh, you beast!" cried Mr. Hazeldean, all his wrath reawakened, whether by the reference to the donkey species, or his inability to reply to the parson, or perhaps by some sudden prick too sharp for humanity-- especially humanity in nankeens--to endure without kicking. "Ugh, you beast!" he exclaimed, shaking his cane at the donkey, which, at the interposition of the parson, had respectfully recoiled a few paces, and now stood switching its thin tail, and trying vainly to lift one of its fore-legs--for the flies teased it. "Poor thing!" said the parson, pityingly. "See, it has a raw place on the shoulder, and the flies have found out the sore." "I am devilish glad to hear it," said the squire, vindictively. "Fie, fie!" "It is very well to say 'Fie, fie.' It was not you who fell among the thistles. What 's the man about now, I wonder?" The parson had walked towards a chestnut-tree that stood on the village green; he broke off a bough, returned to the donkey, whisked away the flies, and then tenderly placed the broad leaves over the sore, as a protection from the swarms. The donkey turned round its head, and looked at him with mild wonder. "I would bet a shilling," said the parson, softly, "that this is the first act of kindness thou hast met with this many a day. And slight enough it is, Heaven knows." With that the parson put his hand into his pocket, and drew out an apple. It was a fine large rose-cheeked apple, one of the last winter's store from the celebrated tree in the parsonage garden, and he was taking it as a present to a little boy in the village who had notably distinguished himself in the Sunday-school. "Nay, in common justice, Lenny Fairfield should have the preference," muttered the parson. The ass pricked up one of its ears, and advanced its head timidly. "But Lenny Fairfield would be as much pleased with twopence; and what could twopence do to thee?" The ass's nose now touched the apple. "Take it, in the name of Charity," quoth the parson; "Justice is accustomed to be served last;" and the ass took the apple. "How had you the heart!" said the parson, pointing to the squire's cane. The ass stopped munching, and looked askant at the squire. "Pooh! eat on; he'll not beat thee now." "No," said the squire, apologetically. "But after all, he is not an ass of the parish; he is a vagrant, and he ought to be pounded. But the pound is in as bad a state as the stocks, thanks to your new-fashioned doctrines." "New-fashioned!" cried the parson, almost indignantly, for he had a great disdain of new fashions. "They are as old as Christianity; nay, as old as Paradise, which you will observe is derived from a Greek, or rather a Persian word, and means something more than 'garden,' corresponding" (pursued the parson, rather pedantically) "with the Latin--vivarium,-- namely, grove or park full of innocent dumb creatures. Depend on it, donkeys were allowed to eat thistles there." "Very possibly," said the squire, dryly. "But Hazeldeau, though a very pretty village, is not Paradise. The stocks shall be mended to-morrow,--ay, and the pound too, and the next donkey found trespassing shall go into it, as sure as my name's Hazeldean." "Then," said the parson, gravely, "I can only hope that the next parish may not follow your example; or that you and I may never be caught straying." CHAPTER III. Parson Dale and Squire Hazeldean parted company; the latter to inspect his sheep, the former to visit some of his parishioners, including Lenny Fairfield, whom the donkey had defrauded of his apple. Lenny Fairfield was sure to be in the way, for his mother rented a few acres of grass-land from the squire, and it was now hay-time. And Leonard, commonly called Lenny, was an only son, and his mother a widow. The cottage stood apart, and somewhat remote, in one of the many nooks of the long, green village lane. And a thoroughly English cottage it was, three centuries old at least; with walls of rubble let into oak frames, and duly whitewashed every summer, a thatched roof, small panes of glass, an old doorway raised from the ground by two steps. There was about this little dwelling all the homely rustic elegance which peasant life admits of; a honeysuckle was trained over the door; a few flower-pots were placed on the window-sills; the small plot of ground in front of the house was kept with great neatness, and even taste; some large rough stones on either side the little path having been formed into a sort of rockwork, with creepers that were now in flower; and the potato-ground was screened from the eye by sweet peas and lupine. Simple elegance, all this, it is true; but how well it speaks for peasant and landlord, when you see that the peasant is fond of his home, and has some spare time and heart to bestow upon mere embellishment! Such a peasant is sure to be a bad customer to the alehouse, and a safe neighbour to the squire's preserves. All honour and praise to him, except a small tax upon both, which is due to the landlord! Such sights were as pleasant to the parson as the most beautiful landscapes of Italy can be to the dilettante. He paused a moment at the wicket to look around him, and distended his nostrils voluptuously to inhale the smell of the sweet peas, mixed with that of the new-mown hay in the fields behind, which a slight breeze bore to him. He then moved on, carefully scraped his shoes, clean and well-polished as they were,-- for Mr. Dale was rather a beau in his own clerical way,--on the scraper without the door, and lifted the latch. Your virtuoso looks with artistical delight on the figure of some nymph painted on an Etruscan vase, engaged in pouring out the juice of the grape from her classic urn. And the parson felt as harmless, if not as elegant a pleasure, in contemplating Widow Fairfield brimming high a glittering can, which she designed for the refreshment of the thirsty haymakers. Mrs. Fairfield was a middle-aged, tidy woman, with that alert precision of movement which seems to come from an active, orderly mind; and as she now turned her head briskly at the sound of the parson's footstep, she showed a countenance prepossessing though not handsome,--a countenance from which a pleasant, hearty smile, breaking forth at that moment, effaced some lines that, in repose, spoke "of sorrows, but of sorrows past;" and her cheek, paler than is common to the complexions even of the fair sex, when born and bred amidst a rural population, might have favoured the guess that the earlier part of her life had been spent in the languid air and "within-doors" occupations of a town. "Never mind me," said the parson, as Mrs. Fairfield dropped her quick courtesy, and smoothed her apron; "if you are going into the hayfield, I will go with you; I have something to say to Lenny,--an excellent boy." WIDOW.--"Well, sir, and you are kind to say it,--but so he is." PARSON.--"He reads uncommonly well, he writes tolerably; he is the best lad in the whole school at his Catechism and in the Bible lessons; and I assure you, when I see his face at church, looking up so attentively, I fancy that I shall read my sermon all the better for such a listener!" WIDOW (wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron).--"'Deed, sir, when my poor Mark died, I never thought I could have lived on as I have done. But that boy is so kind and good, that when I look at him sitting there in dear Mark's chair, and remember how Mark loved him, and all he used to say to me about him, I feel somehow or other as if my good man smiled on me, and would rather I was not with him yet, till the lad had grown up, and did not want me any more." PARSON (looking away, and after a pause).--"You never hear anything of the old folks at Lansmere?" "'Deed, sir, sin' poor Mark died, they han't noticed me nor the boy; but," added the widow, with all a peasant's pride, "it isn't that I wants their money; only it's hard to feel strange like to one's own father and mother!" PARSON.--"You must excuse them. Your father, Mr. Avenel, was never quite the same man after that sad event which--but you are weeping, my friend, pardon me; your mother is a little proud; but so are you, though in another way." WIDOW.--"I proud! Lord love ye, sir, I have not a bit o' pride in me! and that's the reason they always looked down on me." PARSON.--"Your parents must be well off; and I shall apply to them in a year or two on behalf of Lenny, for they promised me to provide for him when he grew up, as they ought." WIDOW (with flashing eyes).--"I am sure, sir, I hope you will do no such thing; for I would not have Lenny beholden to them as has never given him a kind word sin' he was born!" The parson smiled gravely, and shook his head at poor Mrs. Fairfield's hasty confutation of her own self-acquittal from the charge of pride; but he saw that it was not the time or moment for effectual peace-making in the most irritable of all rancours,--namely, that nourished against one's nearest relations. He therefore dropped the subject, and said, "Well, time enough to think of Lenny's future prospects; meanwhile we are forgetting the haymakers. Come." The widow opened the back door, which led across a little apple orchard into the fields. PARSON.--"You have a pleasant place here; and I see that my friend Lenny should be in no want of apples. I had brought him one, but I have given it away on the road." WIDOW.--"Oh, sir, it is not the deed,--it is the will; as I felt when the squire, God bless him! took two pounds off the rent the year he--that is, Mark--died." PARSON.--"If Lenny continues to be such a help to you, it will not be long before the squire may put the two pounds on again." "Yes, sir," said the widow, simply; "I hope he will." "Silly woman!" muttered the parson. "That's not exactly what the schoolmistress would have said. You don't read nor write, Mrs. Fairfield; yet you express yourself with great propriety." "You know Mark was a schollard, sir, like my poor, poor sister; and though I was a sad stupid girl afore I married, I tried to take after him when we came together." CHAPTER IV. They were now in the hayfield, and a boy of about sixteen, but, like most country lads, to appearance much younger than he was, looked up from his rake, with lively blue eyes beaming forth under a profusion of brown curly hair. Leonard Fairfield was indeed a very handsome boy,--not so stout nor so ruddy as one would choose for the ideal of rustic beauty, nor yet so delicate in limb and keen in expression as are those children of cities, in whom the mind is cultivated at the expense of the body; but still he had the health of the country in his cheeks, and was not without the grace of the city in his compact figure and easy movements. There was in his physiognomy something interesting from its peculiar character of innocence and simplicity. You could see that he had been brought up by a woman, and much apart from familiar contact with other children; and such intelligence as was yet developed in him was not ripened by the jokes and cuffs of his coevals, but fostered by decorous lecturings from his elders, and good-little-boy maxims in good-little-boy books. PARSON.--"Come hither, Lenny. You know the benefit of school, I see: it can teach you nothing better than to be a support to your mother." LENNY (looking down sheepishly, and with a heightened glow over his face).--"Please, sir, that may come one of these days." PARSON.--"That's right, Lenny. Let me see! why, you must be nearly a man. How old are you?" Lenny looks up inquiringly at his mother. PARSON.--"You ought to know, Lenny: speak for yourself. Hold your tongue, Mrs. Fairfield." LENNY (twirling his hat, and in great perplexity).--"Well, and there is Flop, neighbour Dutton's old sheep-dog. He be very old now." PARSON.--"I am not asking Flop's age, but your own." LENNY.--"'Deed, sir, I have heard say as how Flop and I were pups together. That is, I--I--" For the parson is laughing, and so is Mrs. Fairfield; and the haymakers, who have stood still to listen, are laughing too. And poor Lenny has quite lost his head, and looks as if he would like to cry. PARSON (patting the curly locks, encouragingly).--"Never mind; it is not so badly answered, after all. And how old is Flop?" LENNY.--"Why, he must be fifteen year and more.." PARSON.--"How old, then, are you?" LENNY (looking up, with a beam of intelligence).--"Fifteen year and more." Widow sighs and nods her head. "That's what we call putting two and two together," said the parson. "Or, in other words," and here be raised his eyes majestically towards the haymakers--"in other words, thanks to his love for his book, simple as he stands here, Lenny Fairfield has shown himself capable of INDUCTIVE RATIOCINATION." At those words, delivered /ore rotundo/, the haymakers ceased laughing; for even in lay matters they held the parson to be an oracle, and words so long must have a great deal in them. Lenny drew up his head proudly. "You are very fond of Flop, I suppose?" "'Deed he is," said the widow, "and of all poor dumb creatures." "Very good. Suppose, my lad, that you had a fine apple, and that you met a friend who wanted it more than you, what would you do with it?" "Please you, sir, I would give him half of it." The parson's face fell. "Not the whole, Lenny?" Lenny considered. "If he was a friend, sir, he would not like me to give him all." "Upon my word, Master Leonard, you speak so well that I must e'en tell the truth. I brought you an apple, as a prize for good conduct in school. But I met by the way a poor donkey, and some one beat him for eating a thistle, so I thought I would make it up by giving him the apple. Ought I only to have given him the half?" Lenny's innocent face became all smile; his interest was aroused. "And did the donkey like the apple?" "Very much," said the parson, fumbling in his pocket; but thinking of Leonard Fairfield's years and understanding, and moreover observing, in the pride of his heart, that there were many spectators to his deed, he thought the meditated twopence not sufficient, and he generously produced a silver sixpence. "There, my man, that will pay for the half apple which you would have kept for yourself." The parson again patted the curly locks, and after a hearty word or two with the other haymakers, and a friendly "Good-day" to Mrs. Fairfield, struck into a path that led towards his own glebe. He had just crossed the stile, when he heard hasty but timorous feet behind him. He turned, and saw his friend Lenny. LENNY (half-crying, and holding out the sixpence).--"Indeed, sir, I would rather not. I would have given all to the Neddy." PARSON.--"Why, then, my man, you have a still greater right to the sixpence." LENNY.--"No, sir; 'cause you only gave it to make up for the half apple. And if I had given the whole, as I ought to have done, why, I should have had no right to the sixpence. Please, sir, don't be offended; do take it back, will you?" The parson hesitated. And the boy thrust the sixpence into his hand, as the ass had poked its nose there before in quest of the apple. "I see," said Parson Dale, soliloquizing, "that if one don't give Justice the first place at the table, all the other Virtues eat up her share." Indeed, the case was perplexing. Charity, like a forward, impudent baggage as she is, always thrusting herself in the way, and taking other people's apples to make her own little pie, had defrauded Lenny of his due; and now Susceptibility, who looks like a shy, blush-faced, awkward Virtue in her teens--but who, nevertheless, is always engaged in picking the pockets of her sisters--tried to filch from him his lawful recompense. The case was perplexing; for the parson held Susceptibility in great honour, despite her hypocritical tricks, and did not like to give her a slap in the face, which might frighten her away forever. So Mr. Dale stood irresolute, glancing from the sixpence to Lenny, and from Lenny to the sixpence. "Buon giorno, Good-day to you," said a voice behind, in an accent slightly but unmistakably foreign, and a strange-looking figure presented itself at the stile. Imagine a tall and exceedingly meagre man, dressed in a rusty suit of black,--the pantaloons tight at the calf and ankle, and there forming a loose gaiter over thick shoes, buckled high at the instep; an old cloak, lined with red, was thrown over one shoulder, though the day was sultry; a quaint, red, outlandish umbrella, with a carved brass handle, was thrust under one arm, though the sky was cloudless: a profusion of raven hair, in waving curls that seemed as fine as silk, escaped from the sides of a straw hat of prodigious brim; a complexion sallow and swarthy, and features which, though not without considerable beauty to the eye of the artist, were not only unlike what we fair, well-fed, neat-faced Englishmen are wont to consider comely, but exceedingly like what we are disposed to regard as awful and Satanic,--to wit, a long hooked nose, sunken cheeks, black eyes, whose piercing brilliancy took something wizard-like and mystical from the large spectacles through which they shone; a mouth round which played an ironical smile, and in which a physiognomist would have remarked singular shrewdness, and some closeness, complete the picture. Imagine this figure, grotesque, peregrinate, and to the eye of a peasant certainly diabolical; then perch it on the stile in the midst of those green English fields, and in sight of that primitive English village; there let it sit straddling, its long legs dangling down, a short German pipe emitting clouds from one corner of those sardonic lips, its dark eyes glaring through the spectacles full upon the parson, yet askant upon Lenny Fairfield. Lenny Fairfield looked exceedingly frightened. "Upon my word, Dr. Riccabocca," said Mr. Dale, smiling, "you come in good time to solve a very nice question in casuistry;" and herewith the parson explained the case, and put the question, "Ought Lenny Fairfield to have the sixpence, or ought he not?" "Cospetto!" said the doctor, "if the hen would but hold her tongue, nobody would know that she had laid an egg." CHAPTER V. "Granted," said the parson; "but what follows? The saying is good, but I don't see the application." "A thousand pardons!" replied Dr. Riccabocca, with all the urbanity of an Italian; "but it seems to me that if you had given the sixpence to the /fanciullo/, that is, to this good little boy, without telling him the story about the donkey, you would never have put him and yourself into this awkward dilemma." "But, my dear sir," whispered the parson, mildly, as he inclined his lips to the doctor's ear, "I should then have lost the opportunity of inculcating a moral lesson--you understand?" Dr. Riccabocca shrugged his shoulders, restored his pipe to his mouth, and took a long whiff. It was a whiff eloquent, though cynical,--a whiff peculiar to your philosophical smoker, a whiff that implied the most absolute but the most placid incredulity as to the effect of the parson's moral lesson. "Still you have not given us your decision," said the parson, after a pause. The doctor withdrew the pipe. "Cospetto!" said he,--"he who scrubs the head of an ass wastes his soap." "If you scrubbed mine fifty times over with those enigmatical proverbs of yours," said the parson, testily, "you would not make it any the wiser." "My good sir," said the doctor, bowing low from his perch on the stile, "I never presumed to say that there were more asses than one in the story; but I thought that I could not better explain my meaning, which is simply this,--you scrubbed the ass's head, and therefore you must lose the soap. Let the /fanciullo/ have the sixpence; and a great sum it is, too, for a little boy, who may spend it all as pocketmoney!" "There, Lenny, you hear?" said the parson, stretching out the sixpence. But Lenny retreated, and cast on the umpire a look of great aversion and disgust. "Please, Master Dale," said he, obstinately, "I'd rather not. "It is a matter of feeling, you see," said the parson, turning to the umpire; "and I believe the boy is right." "If it be a matter of feeling," replied Dr. Riccabocca, "there is no more to be said on it. When Feeling comes in at the door, Reason has nothing to do but to jump out of the window." "Go, my good boy," said the parson, pocketing the coin; "but, stop! give me your hand first. There--I understand you;--good-by!" Lenny's eyes glistened as the parson shook him by the hand, and, not trusting himself to speak, he walked off sturdily. The parson wiped his forehead, and sat himself down on the stile beside the Italian. The view before them was lovely, and both enjoyed it (though not equally) enough to be silent for some moments. On the other side the lane, seen between gaps in the old oaks and chestnuts that hung over the mossgrown pales of Hazeldean Park, rose gentle, verdant slopes, dotted with sheep and herds of deer. A stately avenue stretched far away to the left, and ended at the right hand within a few yards of a ha-ha that divided the park from a level sward of tableland, gay with shrubs and flower-pots, relieved by the shade of two mighty cedars. And on this platform, only seen in part, stood the squire's old-fashioned house, red-brick, with stone mullions, gable-ends, and quaint chimney-pots. On this side the road, immediately facing the two gentlemen, cottage after cottage whitely emerged from the curves in the lane, while, beyond, the ground declining gave an extensive prospect of woods and cornfields, spires and farms. Behind, from a belt of lilacs and evergreens, you caught a peep of the parsonage-house, backed by woodlands, and a little noisy rill running in front. The birds were still in the hedgerows,--only (as if from the very heart of the most distant woods), there came now and then the mellow note of the cuckoo. "Verily," said Mr. Dale, softly, "my lot has fallen on a goodly heritage." The Italian twitched his cloak over him, and sighed almost inaudibly. Perhaps he thought of his own Summer Land, and felt that, amidst all that fresh verdure of the North, there was no heritage for the stranger. However, before the parson could notice the sigh or conjecture the cause, Dr. Riccabocca's thin lips took an expression almost malignant. "Per Bacco!" said he; "in every country I observe that the rooks settle where the trees are the finest. I am sure that, when Noah first landed on Ararat, he must have found some gentleman in black already settled in the pleasantest part of the mountain, and waiting for his tenth of the cattle as they came out of the Ark." The parson fixed his meek eyes on the philosopher, and there was in them something so deprecating rather than reproachful that Dr. Riccabocca turned away his face, and refilled his pipe. Dr. Riccabocca abhorred priests; but though Parson Dale was emphatically a parson, he seemed at that moment so little of what Dr. Riccabocca understood by a priest that the Italian's heart smote him for his irreverent jest on the cloth. Luckily at this moment there was a diversion to that untoward commencement of conversation in the appearance of no less a personage than the donkey himself--I mean the donkey who ate the apple. CHAPTER VI. The tinker was a stout, swarthy fellow, jovial and musical withal, for he was singing a stave as he flourished his staff, and at the end of each refrain down came the staff on the quarters of the donkey. The tinker went behind and sang, the donkey went before and was thwacked. "Yours is a droll country," quoth Dr. Riccabocca; "in mine, it is not the ass that walks first in the procession that gets the blows." The parson jumped from the stile, and looking over the hedge that divided the field from the road--"Gently, gently," said he; "the sound of the stick spoils the singing! Oh, Mr. Sprott, Mr. Sprott! a good man is merciful to his beast." The donkey seemed to recognize the voice of its friend, for it stopped short, pricked one ear wistfully, and looked up. The tinker touched his hat, and looked up too. "Lord bless your reverence! he does not mind it,--he likes it. I vould not hurt thee; would I, Neddy?" The donkey shook his head and shivered; perhaps a fly had settled on the sore, which the chestnut leaves no longer protected. "I am sure you did not mean to hurt him, Sprott," said the parson, more politely I fear than honestly,--for he had seen enough of that cross- grained thing called the human heart, even in the little world of a country parish, to know that it requires management and coaxing and flattering, to interfere successfully between a man and his own donkey,-- "I am sure you did not mean to hurt him; but he has already got a sore on his shoulder as big as my hand, poor thing!" "Lord love 'un! yes; that was done a playing with the manger the day I gave 'un oats!" said the tinker. Dr. Riccabocca adjusted his spectacles, and surveyed the ass. The ass pricked up his other ear, and surveyed Dr. Riccabocca. In that mutual survey of physical qualifications, each being regarded according to the average symmetry of its species, it may be doubted whether the advantage was on the side of the philosopher. The parson had a great notion of the wisdom of his friend in all matters not purely ecclesiastical. "Say a good word for the donkey!" whispered he. "Sir," said the doctor, addressing Mr. Sprott, with a respectful salutation, "there's a great kettle at my house--the Casino--which wants soldering: can you recommend me a tinker?" "Why, that's all in my line," said Sprott; "and there ben't a tinker in the county that I vould recommend like myself, thof I say it." "You jest, good sir," said the doctor, smiling pleasantly. "A man who can't mend a hole in his own donkey can never demean himself by patching up my great kettle." "Lord, sir!" said the tinker, archly, "if I had known that poor Neddy had had two sitch friends in court, I'd have seen he vas a gintleman, and treated him as sitch." "/Corpo di Bacco!/" quoth the doctor, "though that jest's not new, I think the tinker comes very well out of it." "True; but the donkey!" said the parson; "I've a great mind to buy it." "Permit me to tell you an anecdote in point," said Dr. Riccabocca. "Well?" said the parson, interrogatively. "Once on a time," pursued Riccabocca, "the Emperor Adrian, going to the public baths, saw an old soldier, who had served under him, rubbing his back against the marble wall. The emperor, who was a wise, and therefore a curious, inquisitive man, sent for the soldier, and asked him why he resorted to that sort of friction. 'Because,' answered the veteran, 'I am too poor to have slaves to rub me down.' The emperor was touched, and gave him slaves and money. The next day, when Adrian went to the baths, all the old men in the city were to be seen rubbing themselves against the marble as hard as they could. The emperor sent for them, and asked them the same question which he had put to the soldier; the cunning old rogues, of course, made the same answer. 'Friends,' said Adrian, 'since there are so many of you, you will just rub one another!' Mr. Dale, if you don't want to have all the donkeys in the county with holes in their shoulders, you had better not buy the tinker's!" "It is the hardest thing in the world to do the least bit of good," groaned the parson, as he broke a twig off the hedge nervously, snapped it in two, and flung away the fragments: one of them hit the donkey on the nose. If the ass could have spoken Latin he would have said, "/Et tu, Brute!/" As it was, he hung down his ears, and walked on. "Gee hup," said the tinker, and he followed the ass. Then stopping, he looked over his shoulder, and seeing that the parson's eyes were gazing mournfully on his /protege/, "Never fear, your reverence," cried the tinker, kindly, "I'll not spite 'un." CHAPTER VII. "Four, o'clock," cried the parson, looking at his watch; "half an hour after dinner-time, and Mrs. Dale particularly begged me to be punctual, because of the fine trout the squire sent us. Will you venture on what our homely language calls 'pot-luck,' Doctor?" Now Riccabocca was a professed philosopher, and valued himself on his penetration into the motives of human conduct. And when the parson thus invited him to pot-luck, he smiled with a kind of lofty complacency; for Mrs. Dale enjoyed the reputation of having what her friends styled "her little tempers." And, as well-bred ladies rarely indulge "little tempers" in the presence of a third person not of the family, so Dr. Riccabocca instantly concluded that he was invited to stand between the pot and the luck! Nevertheless--as he was fond of trout, and a much more good-natured man than he ought to have been according to his principles-- he accepted the hospitality; but he did so with a sly look from over his spectacles, which brought a blush into the guilty cheeks of the parson. Certainly Riccabocca had for once guessed right in his estimate of human motives. The two walked on, crossed a little bridge that spanned the rill, and entered the parsonage lawn. Two dogs, that seemed to have sat on watch for their master, sprang towards him, barking; and the sound drew the notice of Mrs. Dale, who, with parasol in hand, sallied out from the sash window which opened on the lawn. Now, O reader! I know that, in thy secret heart, thou art chuckling over the want of knowledge in the sacred arcana of the domestic hearth betrayed by the author; thou art saying to thyself, "A pretty way to conciliate 'little tempers' indeed, to add to the offence of spoiling the fish the crime of bringing an unexpected friend to eat it. Pot-luck, quotha, when the pot 's boiled over this half hour!" But, to thy utter shame and confusion, O reader! learn that both the author and Parson Dale knew very well what they were about. Dr. Riccabocca was the special favourite of Mrs. Dale, and the only person in the whole county who never put her out, by dropping in. In fact, strange though it may seem at first glance, Dr. Riccabocca had that mysterious something about him, which we of his own sex can so little comprehend, but which always propitiates the other. He owed this, in part, to his own profound but hypocritical policy; for he looked upon woman as the natural enemy to man, against whom it was necessary to be always on the guard; whom it was prudent to disarm by every species of fawning servility and abject complaisance. He owed it also, in part, to the compassionate and heavenly nature of the angels whom his thoughts thus villanously traduced--for women like one whom they can pity without despising; and there was something in Signor Riccabocca's poverty, in his loneliness, in his exile, whether voluntary or compelled, that excited pity; while, despite his threadbare coat, the red umbrella, and the wild hair, he had, especially when addressing ladies, that air of gentleman and cavalier, which is or was more innate in an educated Italian, of whatever rank, than perhaps in the highest aristocracy of any other country in Europe. For, though I grant that nothing is more exquisite than the politeness of your French marquis of the old regime, nothing more frankly gracious than the cordial address of a high-bred English gentleman, nothing more kindly prepossessing than the genial good-nature of some patriarchal German, who will condescend to forget his sixteen quarterings in the pleasure of doing you a favour,--yet these specimens of the suavity of their several nations are rare; whereas blandness and polish are common attributes with your Italian. They seem to have been immemorially handed down to him, from ancestors emulating the urbanity of Caesar, and refined by the grace of Horace. "Dr. Riccabocca consents to dine with us," cried the parson, hastily. "If Madame permit?" said the Italian, bowing over the hand extended to him, which, however, he forbore to take, seeing it was already full of the watch. "I am only sorry that the trout must be quite spoiled," began Mrs. Dale, plaintively. "It is not the trout one thinks of when one dines with Mrs. Dale," said the infamous dissimulator. "But I see James coming to say that dinner is ready," observed the parson. "He said that three-quarters of an hour ago, Charles dear," retorted Mrs. Dale, taking the arm of Dr. Riccabocca. CHAPTER VIII. While the parson and his wife are entertaining their guest, I propose to regale the reader with a small treatise /a propos/ of that "Charles dear," murmured by Mrs. Dale,--a treatise expressly written for the benefit of The Domestic Circle. It is an old jest that there is not a word in the language that conveys so little endearment as the word "dear." But though the saying itself, like most truths, be trite and hackneyed, no little novelty remains to the search of the inquirer into the varieties of inimical import comprehended in that malign monosyllable. For instance, I submit to the experienced that the degree of hostility it betrays is in much proportioned to its collocation in the sentence. When, gliding indirectly through the rest of the period, it takes its stand at the close, as in that "Charles dear" of Mrs. Dale, it has spilled so much of its natural bitterness by the way that it assumes even a smile, "amara lento temperet risu." Sometimes the smile is plaintive, sometimes arch. For example:-- (Plaintive.) "I know very well that whatever I do is wrong, Charles dear." "Nay, I am very glad you amused yourself so much without me, Charles dear." "Not quite so loud! If you had but my poor head, Charles dear," etc. (Arch.) "If you could spill the ink anywhere but on the best tablecloth, Charles dear!" "But though you must always have your own way, you are not quite faultless, own, Charles dear," etc. When the enemy stops in the middle of the sentence, its venom is naturally less exhausted. For example:-- "Really, I must say, Charles dear, that you are the most fidgety person," etc. "And if the house bills were so high last week, Charles dear, I should just like to know whose fault it was--that's all." "But you know, Charles dear, that you care no more for me and the children than--" etc. But if the fatal word spring up, in its primitive freshness, at the head of the sentence, bow your head to the storm. It then assumes the majesty of "my" before it; it is generally more than simple objurgation,--it prefaces a sermon. My candour obliges me to confess that this is the mode in which the hateful monosyllable is more usually employed by the marital part of the one flesh; and has something about it of the odious assumption of the Petruchian paterfamilias--the head of the family-- boding, not perhaps "peace and love, and quiet life," but certainly "awful rule and right supremacy." For example:-- "My dear Jane, I wish you would just put by that everlasting crochet, and listen to me for a few moments," etc. "My dear Jane, I wish you would understand me for once; don't think I am angry,--no, but I am hurt! You must consider," etc. "My dear Jane, I don't know if it is your intention to ruin me; but I only wish you would do as all other women do who care three straws for their husband's property," etc. "My dear Jane, I wish you to understand that I am the last person in the world to be jealous; but I'll be d---d if that puppy, Captain Prettyman," etc. Now, few so carefully cultivate the connubial garden, as to feel much surprise at the occasional sting of a homely nettle or two; but who ever expected, before entering that garden, to find himself pricked and lacerated by an insidious exotical "dear," which he had been taught to believe only lived in a hothouse, along with myrtles and other tender and sensitive shrubs which poets appropriate to Venus? Nevertheless Parson Dale, being a patient man, and a pattern to all husbands, would have found no fault with his garden, though there had not been a single specimen of "dear,"--whether the dear /humilis/ or the dear /superba/; the dear /pallida, rubra/, or /nigra/; the dear /suavis/ or the dear /horrida/,--no, not a single "dear" in the whole horticulture of matrimony, which Mrs. Dale had not brought to perfection. But this was far from being the case; Mrs. Dale, living much in retirement, was unaware of the modern improvements, in variety of colour and sharpness of prickle, which have rewarded the persevering skill of our female florists. CHAPTER IX. In the cool of the evening Dr. Riccabocca walked home across the fields. Mr. and Mrs. Dale had accompanied him half-way, and as they now turned back to the parsonage, they looked behind to catch a glimpse of the tall, outlandish figure, winding slowly through the path amidst the waves of the green corn. "Poor man!" said Mrs. Dale, feelingly; "and the button was off his wristband! What a pity he has nobody to take care of him! He seems very domestic. Don't you think, Charles, it would be a great blessing if we could get him a good wife?" "Um," said the parson; "I doubt if he values the married state as he ought." "What do you mean, Charles? I never saw a man more polite to ladies in my life." "Yes, but--" "But what? "You are always so mysterious, Charles dear." "Mysterious! No, Carry; but if you could hear what the doctor says of the ladies sometimes." "Ay, when you men get together, my dear. I know what that means--pretty things you say of us! But you are all alike; you know you are, love!" "I am sure," said the parson, simply, "that I have good cause to speak well of the sex--when I think of you and my poor mother." Mrs. Dale, who, with all her "tempers," was an excellent woman, and loved her husband with the whole of her quick little heart, was touched. She pressed his hand, and did not call him dear all the way home. Meanwhile the Italian passed the fields, and came upon the high road about two miles from Hazeldean. On one side stood an old-fashioned solitary inn, such as English inns used to be before they became railway hotels,--square, solid, old-fashioned, looking so hospitable and comfortable, with their great signs swinging from some elm-tree in front, and the long row of stables standing a little back, with a chaise or two in the yard, and the jolly landlord talking of the crops to some stout farmer, whose rough pony halts of itself at the well-known door. Opposite this inn, on the other side of the road, stood the habitation of Dr. Riecabocca. A few years before the date of these annals, the stage-coach on its way to London from a seaport town stopped at the inn, as was its wont, for a good hour, that its passengers might dine like Christian Englishmen--not gulp down a basin of scalding soup, like everlasting heathen Yankees, with that cursed railway-whistle shrieking like a fiend in their ears! It was the best dining-place on the whole road, for the trout in the neighbouring rill were famous, and so was the mutton which came from Hazeldean Park. From the outside of the coach had descended two passengers, who, alone insensible to the attractions of mutton and trout, refused to dine,--two melancholy-looking foreigners, of whom one was Signor Riccabocca, much the same as we see him now, only that the black suit was less threadbare, the tall form less meagre, and he did not then wear spectacles; and the other was his servant. "They would walk about while the coach stopped." Now the Italian's eye had been caught by a mouldering, dismantled house on the other side the road, which nevertheless was well situated; half- way up a green hill, with its aspect due south, a little cascade falling down artificial rockwork, a terrace with a balustrade, and a few broken urns and statues before its Ionic portico, while on the roadside stood a board, with characters already half effaced, implying that the house was "To be let unfurnished, with or without land." The abode that looked so cheerless, and which had so evidently hung long on hand, was the property of Squire Hazeldean. It had been built by his grandfather on the female side,--a country gentleman who had actually been in Italy (a journey rare enough to boast of in those days), and who, on his return home, had attempted a miniature imitation of an Italian villa. He left an only daughter and sole heiress, who married Squire Hazeldean's father; and since that time, the house, abandoned by its proprietors for the larger residence of the Hazeldeans, had been uninhabited and neglected. Several tenants, indeed, had offered themselves; but your true country squire is slow in admitting upon his own property a rival neighbour. Some wanted shooting. "That," said the Hazeldeans, who were great sportsmen and strict preservers, "was quite out of the question." Others were fine folks from London. "London servants," said the Hazeldeans, who were moral and prudent people, "would corrupt their own, and bring London prices." Others, again, were retired manufacturers, at whom the Hazeldeans turned up their agricultural noses. In short, some were too grand, and others too vulgar. Some were refused because they were known so well: "Friends were best at a distance," said the Hazeldeans; others because they were not known at all: "No good comes of strangers," said the Hazeldeans. And finally, as the house fell more and more into decay, no one would take it unless it was put into thorough repair: "As if one was made of money!" said the Hazeldeans. In short, there stood the house unoccupied and ruinous; and there, on its terrace, stood the two forlorn Italians, surveying it with a smile at each other, as for the first time since they set foot in England, they recognized, in dilapidated pilasters and broken statues, in a weed-grown terrace and the remains of an orangery, something that reminded them of the land they had left behind. On returning to the inn, Dr. Riccabocca took the occasion to learn from the innkeeper (who was indeed a tenant of the squire) such particulars as he could collect; and a few days afterwards Mr. Hazeldean received a letter from a solicitor of repute in London, stating that a very respectable foreign gentleman had commissioned him to treat for Clump Lodge, otherwise called the "Casino;" that the said gentleman did not shoot, lived in great seclusion, and, having no family, did not care about the repairs of the place, provided only it were made weather- proof,--if the omission of more expensive reparations could render the rent suitable to his finances, which were very limited. The offer came at a fortunate moment, when the steward had just been representing to the squire the necessity of doing something to keep the Casino from falling into positive ruin, and the squire was cursing the fates which had put the Casino into an entail--so that he could not pull it down for the building materials. Mr. Hazeldean therefore caught at the proposal even as a fair lady, who has refused the best offers in the kingdom, catches, at last, at some battered old captain on half-pay, and replied that, as for rent, if the solicitor's client was a quiet, respectable man, he did not care for that, but that the gentleman might have it for the first year rent-free, on condition of paying the taxes, and putting the place a little in order. If they suited each other, they could then come to terms. Ten days subsequently to this gracious reply, Signor Riccabocca and his servant arrived; and, before the year's end, the squire was so contented with his tenant that he gave him a running lease of seven, fourteen, or twenty-one years, at a rent merely nominal, on condition that Signor Riccabocca would put and maintain the place in repair, barring the roof and fences, which the squire generously renewed at his own expense. It was astonishing, by little and little, what a pretty place the Italian had made of it, and, what is more astonishing, how little it had cost him. He had, indeed, painted the walls of the hall, staircase, and the rooms appropriated to himself, with his own hands. His servant had done the greater part of the upholstery. The two between them had got the garden into order. The Italians seemed to have taken a joint love to the place, and to deck it as they would have done some favourite chapel to their Madonna. It was long before the natives reconciled themselves to the odd ways of the foreign settlers. The first thing that offended them was the exceeding smallness of the household bills. Three days out of the seven, indeed, both man and master dined on nothing else but the vegetables in the garden, and the fishes in the neighbouring rill; when no trout could be caught they fried the minnows (and certainly, even in the best streams, minnows are more frequently caught than trout). The next thing which angered the natives quite as much, especially the female part of the neighbourhood, was the very sparing employment the two he creatures gave to the sex usually deemed so indispensable in household matters. At first, indeed, they had no woman-servant at all. But this created such horror that Parson Dale ventured a hint upon the matter, which Riccabocca took in very good part; and an old woman was forthwith engaged after some bargaining--at three shillings a week--to wash and scrub as much as she liked during the daytime. She always returned to her own cottage to sleep. The man-servant, who was styled in the neighbourhood "Jackeymo," did all else for his master,--smoothed his room, dusted his papers, prepared his coffee, cooked his dinner, brushed his clothes, and cleaned his pipes, of which Riccabocca had a large collection. But however close a man's character, it generally creeps out in driblets; and on many little occasions the Italian had shown acts of kindness, and, on some more rare occasions, even of generosity, which had served to silence his calumniators, and by degrees he had established a very fair reputation,-- suspected, it is true, of being a little inclined to the Black Art, and of a strange inclination to starve Jackeymo and himself, in other respects harmless enough. Signor Riccabocca had become very intimate, as we have seen, at the Parsonage. But not so at the Hall. For though the squire was inclined to be very friendly to all his neighbours, he was, like most country gentlemen, rather easily /huffed/. Riccabocca had, with great politeness, still with great obstinacy, refused Mr. Hazeldean's earlier invitations to dinner; and when the squire found that the Italian rarely declined to dine at the Parsonage, he was offended in one of his weak points,--namely, his pride in the hospitality of Hazeldean Hall,--and he ceased altogether invitations so churlishly rejected. Nevertheless, as it was impossible for the squire, however huffed, to bear malice, he now and then reminded Riccabocca of his existence by presents of game, and would have called on him more often than he did, but that Riccabocca received him with such excessive politeness that the blunt country gentleman felt shy and put out, and used to say that "to call on Rickeybockey was as bad as going to Court." But we have left Dr. Riccabocca on the high road. By this time he has ascended a narrow path that winds by the side of the cascade, he has passed a trellis-work covered with vines, from which Jackeymo has positively succeeded in making what he calls wine,--a liquid, indeed, that if the cholera had been popularly known in those days, would have soured the mildest member of the Board of Health; for Squire Hazeldean, though a robust man who daily carried off his bottle of port with impunity, having once rashly tasted it, did not recover the effect till he had had a bill from the apothecary as long as his own arm. Passing this trellis, Dr. Riccabocca entered upon the terrace, with its stone pavement as smoothed and trimmed as hands could make it. Here, on neat stands, all his favourite flowers were arranged; here four orange trees were in full blossom; here a kind of summer-house, or belvidere, built by Jackeymo and himself, made his chosen morning room from May till October; and from this belvidere there was as beautiful an expanse of prospect as if our English Nature had hospitably spread on her green board all that she had to offer as a banquet to the exile. A man without his coat, which was thrown over the balustrade, was employed in watering the flowers,--a man with movements so mechanical, with a face so rigidly grave in its tawny hues, that he seemed like an automaton made out of mahogany. "Giacomo," said Dr. Riccabocca, softly. The automaton stopped its hand, and turned its head. "Put by the watering-pot, and come hither," continued Riccabocca, in Italian; and, moving towards the balustrade, he leaned over it. Mr. Mitford, the historian, calls Jean Jacques "John James." Following that illustrious example, Giacomo shall be Anglified into Jackeymo. Jackeymo came to the balustrade also, and stood a little behind his master. "Friend," said Riccabocca, "enterprises have not always succeeded with us. Don't you think, after all, it is tempting our evil star to rent those fields from the landlord?" Jackeymo crossed himself, and made some strange movement with a little coral charm which he wore set in a ring on his finger. "If the Madonna send us luck, and we could hire a lad cheap?" said Jackeymo, doubtfully. "Piu vale un presente che dui futuri,"--["A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."]--said Riccabocca. "Chi non fa quando pub, non pub, fare quando vuole,"--["He who will not when he may, when he wills it shall have nay."]--answered Jackeymo, as sententiously as his master. "And the Padrone should think in time that he must lay by for the dower of the poor signorina." Riccabocca sighed, and made no reply. "She must be that high now!" said Jackeymo, putting his hand on some imaginary line a little above the balustrade. Riccabocca's eyes, raised over the spectacles, followed the hand. "If the Padrone could but see her here--" "I thought I did," muttered the Italian. "He would never let her go from his side till she went to a husband's," continued Jackeymo. "But this climate,--she could never stand it," said Riccabocca, drawing his cloak round him, as a north wind took him in the rear. "The orange trees blossom even here with care," said Jackeymo, turning back to draw down an awning where the orange trees faced the north. "See!" he added, as he returned with a sprig in full bud. Dr. Riccabocca bent over the blossom, and then placed it in his bosom. "The other one should be there too," said Jackeymo. "To die--as this does already!" answered Riccabocca. "Say no more." Jackeymo shrugged his shoulders; and then, glancing at his master, drew his hand over his eyes. There was a pause. Jackeymo was the first to break it. "But, whether here or there, beauty without money is the orange tree without shelter. If a lad could be got cheap, I would hire the land, and trust for the crop to the Madonna." "I think I know of such a lad," said Riccabocca, recovering himself, and with his sardonic smile once more lurking about the corners of his mouth,--"a lad made for us." "/Diavolo!/" "No, not the Diavolo! Friend, I have this day seen a boy who--refused sixpence!" "/Cosa stupenda!/" exclaimed Jackeymo, opening his eyes, and letting fall the watering-pot. "It is true, my friend." "Take him, Padrone, in Heaven's name, and the fields will grow gold." "I will think of it, for it must require management to catch such a boy," said Riccabocca. "Meanwhile, light a candle in the parlour, and bring from my bedroom that great folio of Machiavelli." CHAPTER X. In my next chapter I shall present Squire Hazeldean in patriarchal state,--not exactly under the fig-tree he has planted, but before the stocks he has reconstructed,--Squire Hazeldean and his family on the village green! The canvas is all ready for the colours. But in this chapter I must so far afford a glimpse into antecedents as to let the reader know that there is one member of the family whom he is not likely to meet at present, if ever, on the village green at Hazeldean. Our squire lost his father two years after his birth; his mother was very handsome--and so was her jointure; she married again at the expiration of her year of mourning; the object of her second choice was Colonel Egerton. In every generation of Englishmen (at least since the lively reign of Charles II.) there are a few whom some elegant Genius skims off from the milk of human nature, and reserves for the cream of society. Colonel Egerton was one of these /terque quaterque beati/, and dwelt apart on a top shelf in that delicate porcelain dish--not bestowed upon vulgar buttermilk--which persons of fashion call The Great World. Mighty was the marvel of Pall Mall, and profound was the pity of Park Lane, when this supereminent personage condescended to lower himself into a husband. But Colonel Egerton was not a mere gaudy butterfly; he had the provident instincts ascribed to the bee. Youth had passed from him, and carried off much solid property in its flight; he saw that a time was fast coming when a home, with a partner who could help to maintain it, would be conducive to his comforts, and an occasional hum-drum evening by the fireside beneficial to his health. In the midst of one season at Brighton, to which gay place he had accompanied the Prince of Wales, he saw a widow, who, though in the weeds of mourning, did not appear inconsolable. Her person pleased his taste; the accounts of her jointure satisfied his understanding; he contrived an introduction, and brought a brief wooing to a happy close. The late Mr. Hazeldean had so far anticipated the chance of the young widow's second espousals, that, in case of that event, he transferred, by his testamentary dispositions, the guardianship of his infant heir from the mother to two squires whom he had named his executors. This circumstance combined with her new ties somewhat to alienate Mrs. Hazeldean from the pledge of her former loves; and when she had borne a son to Colonel Egerton, it was upon that child that her maternal affections gradually concentrated. William Hazeldean was sent by his guardians to a large provincial academy, at which his forefathers had received their education time out of mind. At first he spent his holidays with Mrs. Egerton; but as she now resided either in London, or followed her lord to Brighton, to partake of the gayeties at the Pavilion, so as he grew older, William, who had a hearty affection for country life, and of whose bluff manners and rural breeding Mrs. Egerton (having grown exceedingly refined) was openly ashamed, asked and obtained permission to spend his vacations either with his guardians or at the old Hall. He went late to a small college at Cambridge, endowed in the fifteenth century by some ancestral Hazeldean; and left it, on coming of age, without taking a degree. A few years afterwards he married a young lady, country born and bred like himself. Meanwhile his half-brother, Audley Egerton, may be said to have begun his initiation into the /beau monde/ before he had well cast aside his coral and bells; he had been fondled in the lap of duchesses, and had galloped across the room astride on the canes of ambassadors and princes. For Colonel Egerton was not only very highly connected, not only one of the /Dii majores/ of fashion, but he had the still rarer good fortune to be an exceedingly popular man with all who knew him,--so popular, that even the fine ladies whom he had adored and abandoned forgave him for marrying out of "the set," and continued to be as friendly as if he had not married at all. People who were commonly called heartless were never weary of doing kind things to the Egertons. When the time came for Audley to leave the preparatory school at which his infancy budded forth amongst the stateliest of the little lilies of the field, and go to Eton, half the fifth and sixth forms had been canvassed to be exceedingly civil to young Egerton. The boy soon showed that he inherited his father's talent for acquiring popularity, and that to this talent he added those which put popularity to use. Without achieving any scholastic distinction, he yet contrived to establish at Eton the most desirable reputation which a boy can obtain,--namely, that among his own contemporaries, the reputation of a boy who was sure to do something when he grew to be a man. As a gentleman-commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, he continued to sustain this high expectation, though he won no prizes, and took but an ordinary degree; and at Oxford the future "something" became more defined,--it was "something in public life" that this young man was to do. While he was yet at the University, both his parents died, within a few months of each other. And when Audley Egerton came of age, he succeeded to a paternal property which was supposed to be large, and indeed had once been so; but Colonel Egerton had been too lavish a man to enrich his heir, and about L1500 a year was all that sales and mortgages left of an estate that had formerly approached a rental of L10,000. Still, Audley was considered to be opulent; and he did not dispel that favourable notion by any imprudent exhibition of parsimony. On entering the world of London, the Clubs flew open to receive him, and he woke one morning to find himself, not indeed famous--but the fashion. To this fashion he at once gave a certain gravity and value, he associated as much as possible with public men and political ladies, he succeeded in confirming the notion that he was "born to ruin or to rule the State." The dearest and most intimate friend of Audley Egerton was Lord L'Estrange, from whom he had been inseparable at Eton, and who now, if Audley Egerton was the fashion, was absolutely the rage in London. Harley, Lord L'Estrange, was the only son of the Earl of Lansmere, a nobleman of considerable wealth, and allied, by intermarriages, to the loftiest and most powerful families in England. Lord Lansmere, nevertheless, was but little known in the circles of London. He lived chiefly on his estates, occupying himself with the various duties of a great proprietor, and when he came to the metropolis, it was rather to save than to spend; so that he could afford to give his son a very ample allowance, when Harley, at the age of sixteen (having already attained to the sixth form at Eton), left school for one of the regiments of the Guards. Few knew what to make of Harley L'Estrange,--and that was, perhaps, the reason why he was so much thought of. He had been by far the most brilliant boy of his time at Eton,--not only the boast of the cricket- ground, but the marvel of the schoolroom; yet so full of whims and oddities, and seeming to achieve his triumphs with so little aid from steadfast application, that he had not left behind him the same expectations of solid eminence which his friend and senior, Audley Egerton, had excited. His eccentricities, his quaint sayings, and out- of-the-way actions, became as notable in the great world as they had been in the small one of a public school. That he was very clever there was no doubt, and that the cleverness was of a high order might be surmised, not only from the originality but the independence of his character. He dazzled the world, without seeming to care for its praise or its censure,--dazzled it, as it were, because he could not help shining. He had some strange notions, whether political or social, which rather frightened his father. According to Southey, "A man should be no more ashamed of having been a republican than of having been young." Youth and extravagant opinions naturally go together. I don't know whether Harley L'Estrange was a republican at the age of eighteen; but there was no young man in London who seemed to care less for being heir to an illustrious name and some forty or fifty thousand pounds a year. It was a vulgar fashion in that day to play the exclusive, and cut persons who wore bad neckcloths, and called themselves Smith or Johnson. Lord L'Estrange never cut any one, and it was quite enough to slight some worthy man because of his neckcloth or his birth to insure to the offender the pointed civilities of this eccentric successor to the Belforts and the Wildairs. It was the wish of his father that Harley, as soon as he came of age, should represent the borough of Lansmere (which said borough was the single plague of the earl's life). But this wish was never realized. Suddenly, when the young idol of London still wanted some two or three years of his majority, a new whim appeared to seize him. He withdrew entirely from society; he left unanswered the most pressing three- cornered notes of inquiry and invitation that ever strewed the table of a young Guardsman; he was rarely seen anywhere in his former haunts,--when seen, was either alone or with Egerton; and his gay spirits seemed wholly to have left him. A profound melancholy was written in his countenance, and breathed in the listless tones of his voice. About this time a vacancy happening to occur for the representation of Lansmere, Harley made it his special request to his father that the family interest might be given to Audley Egerton,--a request which was backed by all the influence of his lady mother, who shared in the esteem which her son felt for his friend. The earl yielded; and Egerton, accompanied by Harley, went down to Lansmere Park, which adjoined the borough, in order to be introduced to the electors. This visit made a notable epoch in the history of many personages who figure in my narrative; but at present I content myself with saying that circumstances arose which, just as the canvass for the new election commenced, caused both L'Estrange and Audley to absent themselves from the scene of action, and that the last even wrote to Lord Lansmere expressing his intention of declining to contest the borough. Fortunately for the parliamentary career of Audley Egerton, the election had become to Lord Lansmere not only a matter of public importance, but of personal feeling. He resolved that the battle should be fought out, even in the absence of the candidate, and at his own expense. Hitherto the contest for this distinguished borough had been, to use the language of Lord Lansmere, "conducted in the spirit of gentlemen,"--that is to say, the only opponents to the Lansmere interest had been found in one or the other of the two rival families in the same county; and as the earl was a hospitable, courteous man, much respected and liked by the neighbouring gentry, so the hostile candidate had always interlarded his speeches with profuse compliments to his Lordship's high character, and civil expressions as to his Lordship's candidate. But, thanks to successive elections, one of these two families had come to an end, and its actual representative was now residing within the Rules of the Bench; the head of the other family was the sitting member, and, by an amicable agreement with the Lansinere interest, he remained as neutral as it is in the power of any sitting member to be amidst the passions of an intractable committee. Accordingly it had been hoped that Egerton would come in without opposition, when, the very day on which he had abruptly left the place, a handbill, signed "Haverill Dashmore, Captain R. N., Baker Street, Portman Square," announced, in very spirited language, the intention of that gentleman "to emancipate the borough from the unconstitutional domination of an oligarchical faction, not with a view to his own political aggrandizement,--indeed at great personal inconvenience,--but actuated solely by abhorrence to tyranny, and patriotic passion for the purity of election." This announcement was followed, within two hours, by the arrival of Captain Dashmore himself, in a carriage and four, covered with yellow favours, and filled, inside and out, with harumscarum-looking friends, who had come down with him to share the canvass and partake the fun. Captain Dashmore was a thorough sailor, who had, however, conceived a disgust to the profession from the date in which a minister's nephew had been appointed to the command of a ship to which the captain considered himself unquestionably entitled. It is just to the minister to add that Captain Dashmore had shown as little regard for orders from a distance as had immortalized Nelson himself; but then the disobedience had not achieved the same redeeming success as that of Nelson, and Captain Dashmore ought to have thought himself fortunate in escaping a severer treatment than the loss of promotion. But no man knows when he is well off; and retiring on half pay, just as he came into unexpected possession of some forty or fifty thousand pounds, bequeathed by a distant relation, Captain Dashmore was seized with a vindictive desire to enter parliament, and inflict oratorical chastisement on the Administration. A very few hours sufficed to show the sea-captain to be a most capital electioneerer for a popular but not enlightened constituency. It is true that he talked the saddest nonsense ever heard from an open window; but then his jokes were so broad, his manner so hearty, his voice so big, that in those dark days, before the schoolmaster was abroad, he would have beaten your philosophical Radical and moralizing Democrat hollow. Moreover, he kissed all the women, old and young, with the zest of a sailor who has known what it is to be three years at sea without sight of a beardless lip; he threw open all the public-houses, asked a numerous committee every day to dinner, and, chucking his purse up in the air, declared "he would stick to his guns while there was a shot in the locker." Till then, there had been but little political difference between the candidate supported by Lord Lansmere's interest and the opposing parties; for country gentlemen, in those days, were pretty much of the same way of thinking, and the question had been really local,-- namely, whether the Lansmere interest should or should not prevail over that of the two squire-archical families who had alone, hitherto, ventured to oppose it. But though Captain Dashmore was really a very loyal man, and much too old a sailor to think that the State (which, according to established metaphor, is a vessel par excellence) should admit Jack upon quarterdeck, yet, what with talking against lords and aristocracy, jobs and abuses, and searching through no very refined vocabulary for the strongest epithets to apply to those irritating nouns- substantive, his bile had got the better of his understanding, and he became fuddled, as it were, by his own eloquence. Thus, though as innocent of Jacobinical designs as he was incapable of setting the Thames on fire, you would have guessed him, by his speeches, to be one of the most determined incendiaries that ever applied a match to the combustible materials of a contested election; while, being by no means accustomed to respect his adversaries, he could not have treated the Earl of Lansmere with less ceremony if his Lordship had been a Frenchman. He usually designated that respectable nobleman, who was still in the prime of life, by the title of "Old Pompous;" and the mayor, who was never seen abroad but in top-boots, and the solicitor, who was of a large build, received from his irreverent wit the joint sobriquet of "Tops and Bottoms"! Hence the election had now become, as I said before, a personal matter with my Lord, and, indeed, with the great heads of the Lansmere interest. The earl seemed to consider his very coronet at stake in the question. "The Man from Baker Street," with his preternatural audacity, appeared to him a being ominous and awful--not so much to be regarded with resentment as with superstitious terror. He felt as felt the dignified Montezuma, when that ruffianly Cortez, with his handful of Spanish rapscallions, bearded him in his own capital, and in the midst of his Mexican splendour. The gods were menaced if man could be so insolent! wherefore, said my Lord tremulously, "The Constitution is gone if the Man from Baker Street comes in for Lansmere!" But in the absence of Audley Egerton, the election looked extremely ugly, and Captain Dashmore gained ground hourly, when the Lansmere solicitor happily bethought him of a notable proxy for the missing candidate. The Squire of Hazeldean, with his young wife, had been invited by the earl in honour of Audley; and in the squire the solicitor beheld the only mortal who could cope with the sea-captain,--a man with a voice as burly and a face as bold; a man who, if permitted for the nonce by Mrs. Hazeldean, would kiss all the women no less heartily than the captain kissed them; and who was, moreover, a taller and a handsomer and a younger man,--all three great recommendations in the kissing department of a contested election. Yes, to canvass the borough, and to speak from the window, Squire Hazeldean would be even more popularly presentable than the London-bred and accomplished Audley Egerton himself. The squire, applied to and urged on all sides, at first said bluntly that he would do anything in reason to serve his brother, but that he did not like, for his own part, appearing, even in proxy, as a lord's nominee; and moreover, if he was to be sponsor for his brother, why, he must promise and vow, in his name, to be stanch and true to the land they lived by! And how could he tell that Audley, when once he got into the House, would not forget the land, and then he, William Hazeldean, would be made a liar, and look like a turncoat! But these scruples being overruled by the arguments of the gentlemen and the entreaties of the ladies, who took in the election that intense interest which those gentle creatures usually do take in all matters of strife and contest, the squire at length consented to confront the Man from Baker Street, and went accordingly into the thing with that good heart and old English spirit with which he went into everything whereon he had once made up his mind. The expectations formed of the squire's capacities for popular electioneering were fully realized. He talked quite as much nonsense as Captain Dashmore on every subject except the landed interest; there he was great, for he knew the subject well,--knew it by the instinct that comes with practice, and compared to which all your showy theories are mere cobwebs and moonshine. The agricultural outvoters--many of whom, not living under Lord Lansmere, but being small yeomen, had hitherto prided themselves on their independence, and gone against my Lord--could not in their hearts go against one who was every inch the farmer's friend. They began to share in the earl's personal interest against the Man from Baker Street; and big fellows, with legs bigger round than Captain Dashmore's tight little body, and huge whips in their hands, were soon seen entering the shops, "intimidating the electors," as Captain Dashmore indignantly declared. These new recruits made a great difference in the musterroll of the Lansmere books; and when the day for polling arrived, the result was a fair question for even betting. At the last hour, after a neck-and-neck contest, Mr. Audley Egerton beat the captain by two votes; and the names of these voters were John Avenel, resident freeman, and his son-in-law, Mark Fairfield, an outvoter, who, though a Lansmere freeman, had settled in Hazeldean, where he had obtained the situation of head carpenter on the squire's estate. These votes were unexpected; for though Mark Fairfield had come to Lansmere on purpose to support the squire's brother, and though the Avenels had been always stanch supporters of the Lansmere Blue interest, yet a severe affliction (as to the nature of which, not desiring to sadden the opening of my story, I am considerately silent) had befallen both these persons, and they had left the town on the very day after Lord L'Estrange and Mr. Egerton had quitted Lansmere Park. Whatever might have been the gratification of the squire, as a canvasser and a brother, at Mr. Egerton's triumph, it was much damped when, on leaving the dinner given in honour of the victory at the Lansmere Arms, and about, with no steady step, to enter a carriage which was to convey him to his Lordship's house, a letter was put into his hands by one of the gentlemen who had accompanied the captain to the scene of action; and the perusal of that letter, and a few whispered words from the bearer thereof, sent the squire back to Mrs. Hazeldean a much soberer man than she had ventured to hope for. The fact was, that on the day of nomination, the captain having honoured Mr. Hazeldean with many poetical and figurative appellations,--such as "Prize Ox," "Tony Lumpkin," "Blood- sucking Vampire," and "Brotherly Warming-Pan,"--the squire had retorted by a joke about "Saltwater Jack;" and the captain, who like all satirists was extremely susceptible and thin-skinned, could not consent to be called "Salt-water Jack" by a "Prize Ox" and a "Bloodsucking Vampire." The letter, therefore, now conveyed to Mr. Hazeldean by a gentleman, who, being from the Sister Country, was deemed the most fitting accomplice in the honourable destruction of a brother mortal, contained nothing more nor less than an invitation to single combat; and the bearer thereof, with the suave politeness enjoined by etiquette on such well-bred homicidal occasions, suggested the expediency of appointing the place of meeting in the neighbourhood of London, in order to prevent interference from the suspicious authorities of Lansmere. The natives of some countries--the warlike French in particular--think little of that formal operation which goes by the name of DUELLING. Indeed, they seem rather to like it than otherwise. But there is nothing your thorough-paced Englishman--a Hazeldean of Hazeldean--considers with more repugnance and aversion than that same cold-blooded ceremonial. It is not within the range of an Englishman's ordinary habits of thinking. He prefers going to law,--a much more destructive proceeding of the two. Nevertheless, if an Englishman must fight, why, he will fight. He says "It is very foolish;" he is sure "it is most unchristianlike;" he agrees with all that Philosophy, Preacher, and Press have laid down on the subject; but he makes his will, says his prayers, and goes out--like a heathen. It never, therefore, occurred to the squire to show the white feather upon this unpleasant occasion. The next day, feigning excuse to attend the sale of a hunting stud at Tattersall's, he ruefully went up to London, after taking a peculiarly affectionate leave of his wife. Indeed, the squire felt convinced that he should never return home except in a coffin. "It stands to reason," said he to himself, "that a man who has been actually paid by the King's Government for shooting people ever since he was a little boy in a midshipman's jacket, must be a dead hand at the job. I should not mind if it was with double-barrelled Mantons and small shot; but ball and pistol, they are n't human nor sportsmanlike!" However, the squire, after settling his worldly affairs, and hunting up an old college friend who undertook to be his second, proceeded to a sequestered corner of Wimbledon Common, and planted himself, not sideways, as one ought to do in such encounters (the which posture the squire swore was an unmanly way of shirking), but full front to the mouth of his adversary's pistol, with such sturdy composure that Captain Dashmore, who, though an excellent shot, was at bottom as good- natured a fellow as ever lived, testified his admiration by letting off his gallant opponent with a ball in the fleshy part of the shoulder, after which he declared himself perfectly satisfied. The parties then shook hands, mutual apologies were exchanged, and the squire, much to his astonishment to find himself still alive, was conveyed to Limmer's Hotel, where, after a considerable amount of anguish, the ball was extracted and the wound healed. Now it was all over, the squire felt very much raised in his own conceit; and when he was in a humour more than ordinarily fierce, that perilous event became a favourite allusion with him. He considered, moreover, that his brother had incurred at his hand the most lasting obligations; and that, having procured Audley's return to parliament, and defended his interests at risk of his own life, he had an absolute right to dictate to that gentleman how to vote,--upon all matters, at least, connected with the landed interest. And when, not very long after Audley took his seat in parliament (which he did not do for some months), he thought proper both to vote and to speak in a manner wholly belying the promises the squire had made on his behalf, Mr. Hazeldean wrote him such a trimmer that it could not but produce an unconciliatory reply. Shortly afterwards the squire's exasperation reached the culminating point; for, having to pass through Lansmere on a market-day, he was hooted by the very farmers whom he had induced to vote for his brother; and, justly imputing the disgrace to Audley, he never heard the name of that traitor to the land mentioned without a heightened colour and an indignant expletive. M. de Ruqueville--who was the greatest wit of his day--had, like the squire, a half-brother, with whom he was not on the best of terms, and of whom he always spoke as his "frere de loin!" Audley Egerton was thus Squire Hazeldean's "distant- brother"! Enough of these explanatory antecedents,--let us return to the stocks. CHAPTER XI. The squire's carpenters were taken from the park pales and set to work at the parish stocks. Then came the painter and coloured them a beautiful dark blue, with white border--and a white rim round the holes--with an ornamental flourish in the middle. It was the gayest public edifice in the whole village, though the village possessed no less than three other monuments of the Vitruvian genius of the Hazeldeans,--to wit, the almshouse, the school, and the parish pump. A more elegant, enticing, coquettish pair of stocks never gladdened the eye of a justice of the peace. And Squire Hazeldean's eye was gladdened. In the pride of his heart he brought all the family down to look at the stocks. The squire's family (omitting the /frere de loin/) consisted of Mrs. Hazeldean, his wife; next, of Miss Jemima Hazeldean, his first cousin; thirdly, of Mr. Francis Hazeldean, his only son; and fourthly, of Captain Barnabas Higginbotham, a distant relation,--who, indeed, strictly speaking, was not of the family, but only a visitor ten months in the year. Mrs. Hazeldean was every inch the lady,--the lady of the parish. In her comely, florid, and somewhat sunburned countenance, there was an equal expression of majesty and benevolence; she had a blue eye that invited liking, and an aquiline nose that commanded respect. Mrs. Hazeldean had no affectation of fine airs, no wish to be greater and handsomer and cleverer than she was. She knew herself, and her station, and thanked Heaven for it. There was about her speech and manner something of the shortness and bluntness which often characterizes royalty; and if the lady of a parish is not a queen in her own circle, it is never the fault of a parish. Mrs. Hazeldean dressed her part to perfection. She wore silks that seemed heirlooms,--so thick were they, so substantial and imposing; and over these, when she was in her own domain, the whitest of aprons; while at her waist was seen no fiddle-faddle /chatelaine/, with /breloques/ and trumpery, but a good honest gold watch to mark the time, and a long pair of scissors to cut off the dead leaves from her flowers,--for she was a great horticulturalist. When occasion needed, Mrs. Hazeldean could, however, lay by her more sumptuous and imperial raiment for a stout riding-habit, of blue Saxony, and canter by her husband's side to see the hounds throw off. Nay, on the days on which Mr. Hazeldean drove his famous fast-trotting cob to the market town, it was rarely that you did not see his wife on the left side of the gig. She cared as little as her lord did for wind and weather, and in the midst of some pelting shower her pleasant face peeped over the collar and capes of a stout dreadnought, expanding into smiles and bloom as some frank rose, that opens from its petals, and rejoices in the dews. It was easy to see that the worthy couple had married for love; they were as little apart as they could help it. And still, on the first of September, if the house was not full of company which demanded her cares, Mrs. Hazeldean "stepped out" over the stubbles by her husband's side, with as light a tread and as blithe an eye as when, in the first bridal year, she had enchanted the squire by her genial sympathy with his sports. So there now stands Harriet Hazeldean, one hand leaning on the squire's broad shoulder, the other thrust into her apron, and trying her best to share her husband's enthusiasm for his own public-spirited patriotism, in the renovation of the parish stocks. A little behind, with two fingers resting on the thin arm of Captain Barnabas, stood Miss Jemima, the orphan daughter of the squire's uncle, by a runaway imprudent marriage with a young lady who belonged to a family which had been at war with the Hazeldeans since the reign of Charles the First respecting a right of way to a small wood (or rather spring) of about an acre, through a piece of furze land, which was let to a brickmaker at twelve shillings a year. The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze land to the Sticktorights (an old Saxon family, if ever there was one). Every twelfth year, when the fagots and timber were felled, this feud broke out afresh; for the Sticktorights refused to the Hazeldeans the right to cart off the said fagots and timber through the only way by which a cart could possibly pass. It is just to the Hazeldeans to say that they had offered to buy the land at ten times its value. But the Sticktorights, with equal magnanimity, had declared that they would not "alienate the family property for the convenience of the best squire that ever stood upon shoe leather." Therefore, every twelfth year, there was always a great breach of the peace on the part of both Hazeldeans and Sticktorights, magistrates and deputy-lieutenants though they were. The question was fairly fought out by their respective dependants, and followed by various actions for assault and trespass. As the legal question of right was extremely obscure, it never had been properly decided; and, indeed, neither party wished it to be decided, each at heart having some doubt of the propriety of its own claim. A marriage between a younger son of the Hazeldeans and a younger daughter of the Sticktorights was viewed with equal indignation by both families; and the consequence had been that the runaway couple, unblessed and unforgiven, had scrambled through life as they could, upon the scanty pay of the husband, who was in a marching regiment, and the interest of L1000, which was the wife's fortune independent of her parents. They died and left an only daughter (upon whom the maternal L1000 had been settled), about the time that the squire came of age and into possession of his estates. And though he inherited all the ancestral hostility towards the Sticktorights, it was not in his nature to be unkind to a poor orphan, who was, after all, the child of a Hazeldean. Therefore he had educated and fostered Jemima with as much tenderness as if she had been his sister; put out her L1000 at nurse, and devoted, from the ready money which had accrued from the rents during his minority, as much as made her fortune (with her own accumulated at compound interest) no less than L4000, the ordinary marriage portion of the daughters of Hazeldean. On her coming of age, he transferred this sum to her absolute disposal, in order that she might feel herself independent, see a little more of the world than she could at Hazeldean, have candidates to choose from if she deigned to marry; or enough to live upon, if she chose to remain single. Miss Jemima had somewhat availed herself of this liberty, by occasional visits to Cheltenham and other watering-places. But her grateful affection to the squire was such that she could never bear to be long away from the Hall. And this was the more praise to her heart, inasmuch as she was far from taking kindly to the prospect of being an old maid; and there were so few bachelors in the neighbourhood of Hazeldean, that she could not but have that prospect before her eyes whenever she looked out of the Hall windows. Miss Jemima was indeed one of the most kindly and affectionate of beings feminine; and if she disliked the thought of single blessedness, it really was from those innocent and womanly instincts towards the tender charities of hearth and home, without which a lady, however otherwise estimable, is little better than a Minerva in bronze. But, whether or not, despite her fortune and her face, which last, though not strictly handsome, was pleasing, and would have been positively pretty if she had laughed more often (for when she laughed, there appeared three charming dimples, invisible when she was grave),--whether or not, I say, it was the fault of our insensibility or her own fastidiousness, Miss Jemima approached her thirtieth year, and was still Miss Jemima. Now, therefore, that beautifying laugh of hers was very rarely heard, and she had of late become confirmed in two opinions, not at all conducive to laughter. One was a conviction of the general and progressive wickedness of the male sex, and the other was a decided and lugubrious belief that the world was coming to an end. Miss Jemima was now accompanied by a small canine favourite, true Blenheim, with a snub nose. It was advanced in life, and somewhat obese. It sat on its haunches, with its tongue out of its mouth, except when it snapped at the flies. There was a strong platonic friendship between Miss Jemima and Captain Barnabas Higginbotham; for he, too, was unmarried, and he had the same ill opinion of your sex, my dear madam, that Miss Jemima had of, ours. The captain was a man of a slim and elegant figure; the less said about the face the better, a truth of which the captain himself was sensible, for it was a favourite maxim of his, "that in a man, everything is a slight, gentlemanlike figure." Captain Barnabas did not absolutely deny that the world was coming to an end, only he thought it would last his time. Quite apart from all the rest, with the /nonchalant/ survey of virgin dandyism, Francis Hazeldean looked over one of the high starched neckcloths which were then the fashion,--a handsome lad, fresh from Eton for the summer holidays, but at that ambiguous age when one disdains the sports of the boy, and has not yet arrived at the resources of the man. "I should be glad, Frank," said the squire, suddenly turning round to his son, "to see you take a little more interest in duties which, one day or other, you may be called upon to discharge. I can't bear to think that the property should fall into the hands of a fine gentleman, who will let things go to rack and ruin, instead of keeping them up as I do." And the squire pointed to the stocks. Master Frank's eye followed the direction of the cane, as well as his cravat would permit; and he said dryly,-- "Yes, sir; but how came the stocks to be so long out of repair?" "Because one can't see to everything at once," retorted the squire, tartly. "When a man has got eight thousand acres to look after, he must do a bit at a time." "Yes," said Captain Barnabas. "I know that by experience." "The deuce you do!" cried the squire, bluntly. "Experience in eight thousand acres!" "No; in my apartments in the Albany,--No. 3 A. I have had them ten years, and it was only last Christmas that I bought my Japan cat." "Dear me," said Miss Jemima; "a Japan cat! that must be very curious. What sort of a creature is it?" "Don't you know? Bless me, a thing with three legs, and holds toast! I never thought of it, I assure you, till my friend Cosey said to me one morning when he was breakfasting at my rooms, 'Higginbotham, how is it that you, who like to have things comfortable about you, don't have a cat?' 'Upon my life,' said I, 'one can't think of everything at a time,'--just like you, Squire." "Pshaw," said Mr. Hazeldean, gruffly, "not at all like me. And I'll thank you another time, Cousin Higginbotham, not to put me out when I'm speaking on matters of importance; poking your cat into my stocks! They look something like now, my stocks, don't they, Harry? I declare that the whole village seems more respectable. It is astonishing how much a little improvement adds to the--to the--" "Charm of the landscape," put in Miss Jemina, sentimentally. The squire neither accepted nor rejected the suggested termination; but leaving his sentence uncompleted, broke suddenly off with-- "And if I had listened to Parson Dale--" "You would have done a very wise thing," said a voice behind, as the parson presented himself in the rear. "Wise thing? Why, surely, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Hazeldean, with spirit, for she always resented the least contradiction to her lord and master-- perhaps as an interference with her own special right and prerogative!-- "why, surely if it is necessary to have stocks, it is necessary to repair them." "That's right! go it, Harry!" cried the squire, chuckling, and rubbing his hands as if he had been setting his terrier at the parson: "St--St-- at him! Well, Master Dale, what do you say to that?" "My dear ma'am," said the parson, replying in preference to the lady, "there are many institutions in the country which are very old, look very decayed, and don't seem of much use; but I would not pull them down for all that." "You would reform them, then," said Mrs. Hazeldean, doubtfully, and with a look at her husband, as much as to say, "He is on politics now,--that's your business." "No, I would not, ma'am," said the parson, stoutly. "What on earth would you do, then?" quoth the squire. "Just let 'em alone," said the parson. "Master Frank, there's a Latin maxim which was often put in the mouth of Sir Robert Walpole, and which they ought to put into the Eton grammar, 'Quieta non movere.' If things are quiet, let them be quiet! I would not destroy the stocks, because that might seem to the ill-disposed like a license to offend; and I would not repair the stocks, because that puts it into people's heads to get into them." The squire was a stanch politician of the old school, and be did not like to think that, in repairing the stocks, he had perhaps been conniving at revolutionary principles. "This constant desire of innovation," said Miss Jemima, suddenly mounting the more funereal of her two favourite hobbies, "is one of the great symptoms of the approaching crash. We are altering and mending and reforming, when in twenty years at the utmost the world itself may be destroyed!" The fair speaker paused, and Captain Barnabas said thoughtfully, "Twenty years!--the insurance officers rarely compute the best life at more than fourteen." He struck his hand on the stocks as he spoke, and added, with his usual consolatory conclusion, "The odds are that it will last our time, Squire." But whether Captain Barnabas meant the stocks or the world he did not clearly explain, and no one took the trouble to inquire. "Sir," said Master Frank to his father, with that furtive spirit of quizzing, which he had acquired amongst other polite accomplishments at Eton,--"sir, it is no use now considering whether the stocks should or should not have been repaired. The only question is, whom you will get to put into them." "True," said the squire, with much gravity. "Yes, there it is!" said the parson, mournfully. "If you would but learn 'non quieta movere'!" "Don't spout your Latin at me, Parson," cried the squire, angrily; "I can give you as good as you bring, any day. "'Propria quae maribus tribuuntur mascula dicas.-- As in praesenti, perfectum format in avi.' There," added the squire, turning triumphantly towards his Harry, who looked with great admiration at this unprecedented burst of learning on the part of Mr. Hazeldean,--"there, two can play at that game! And now that we have all seen the stocks, we may as well go home and drink tea. Will you come up and play a rubber, Dale? No! hang it, man, I've not offended you?--you know my ways." "That I do, and they are among the things I would not have altered," cried the parson, holding out his hand cheerfully. The squire gave it a hearty shake, and Mrs. Hazeldean hastened to do the same. "Do come; I am afraid we've been very rude: we are sad blunt folks. Do come; that's a dear good man; and of course poor Mrs. Dale too." Mrs. Hazeldean's favourite epithet for Mrs. Dale was poor, and that for reasons to be explained hereafter. "I fear my wife has got one of her bad headaches, but I will give her your kind message, and at all events you may depend upon me." "That's right," said the squire; "in half an hour, eh? How d' ye do, my little man?" as Lenny Fairfield, on his way home from some errand in the village, drew aside and pulled off his hat with both hands. "Stop; you see those stocks, eh? Tell all the bad boys in the parish to take care how they get into them--a sad disgrace--you'll never be in such a quandary?" "That at least I will answer for," said the parson. "And I too," added Mrs. Hazeldean, patting the boy's curly head. "Tell your mother I shall come and have a good chat with her to-morrow evening." And so the party passed on, and Lenny stood still on the road, staring hard at the stocks, which stared back at him from its four great eyes. Put Lenny did not remain long alone. As soon as the great folks had fairly disappeared, a large number of small folks emerged timorously from the neighbouring cottages, and approached the site of the stocks with much marvel, fear, and curiosity. In fact, the renovated appearance of this monster /a propos de bottes/, as one may say--had already excited considerable sensation among the population of Hazeldean. And even as when an unexpected owl makes his appearance in broad daylight all the little birds rise from tree and hedgerow, and cluster round their ominous enemy, so now gathered all the much-excited villagers round the intrusive and portentous phenomenon. "D' ye know what the diggins the squire did it for, Gaffer Solomons?" asked one many-childed matron, with a baby in arms, an urchin of three years old clinging fast to her petticoat, and her hand maternally holding back a more adventurous hero of six, who had a great desire to thrust his head into one of the grisly apertures. All eyes turned to a sage old man, the oracle of the village, who, leaning both hands on his crutch, shook his head bodingly. "Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some of the boys ha' been robbing the orchards." "Orchards!" cried a big lad, who seemed to think himself personally appealed to; "why, the bud's scarce off the trees yet!" "No more it ain't," said the dame with many children, and she breathed more freely. "Maw be," said Gaffer Solomons, "some o' ye has been sitting snares." "What for?" said a stout, sullen-looking young fellow, whom conscience possibly pricked to reply,--"what for, when it bean't the season? And if a poor man did find a hear in his pocket i' the haytime, I should like to know if ever a squire in the world would let 'un off with the stocks, eh?" This last question seemed a settler, and the wisdom of Gaffer Solomons went down fifty per cent in the public opinion of Hazeldean. "Maw be," said the gaffer--this time with a thrilling effect, which restored his reputation,--"maw be some o' ye ha' been getting drunk, and making beestises o' yoursel's!" There was a dead pause, for this suggestion applied too generally to be met with a solitary response. At last one of the women said, with a meaning glance at her husband, "God bless the squire; he'll make some on us happy women if that's all!" There then arose an almost unanimous murmur of approbation among the female part of the audience; and the men looked at each other, and then at the phenomenon, with a very hang-dog expression of countenance. "Or, maw be," resumed Gaffer Solomons, encouraged to a fourth suggestion by the success of its predecessor,--"maw be some o' the misseses ha' been making a rumpus, and scolding their good men. I heard say in my granfeyther's time, arter old Mother Bang nigh died o' the ducking-stool, them 'ere stocks were first made for the women, out o' compassion like! And every one knows the squire is a koind-hearted man, God bless 'un!" "God bless 'un!" cried the men, heartily; and they gathered lovingly round the phenomenon, like heathens of old round a tutelary temple. But then there rose one shrill clamour among the females as they retreated with involuntary steps towards the verge of the green, whence they glared at Solomons and the phenomenon with eyes so sparkling, and pointed at both with gestures so menacing, that Heaven only knows if a morsel of either would have remained much longer to offend the eyes of the justly- enraged matronage of Hazeldean, if fortunately Master Stirn, the squire's right-hand man, had not come up in the nick of time. Master Stirn was a formidable personage,--more formidable than the squire himself,--as, indeed, a squire's right hand is generally more formidable than the head can pretend to be. He inspired the greater awe, because, like the stocks of which he was deputed guardian, his powers were undefined and obscure, and he had no particular place in the out-of-door establishment. He was not the steward, yet he did much of what ought to be the steward's work; he was not the farm-bailiff, for the squire called himself his own farm-bailiff; nevertheless, Mr. Hazeldean sowed and ploughed, cropped and stocked, bought and sold, very much as Mr. Stirn condescended to advise. He was not the park-keeper, for he neither shot the deer nor superintended the preserves; but it was he who always found out who had broken a park pale or snared a rabbit. In short, what may be called all the harsher duties of a large landed proprietor devolved, by custom and choice, upon Mr. Stirn. If a labourer was to be discharged or a rent enforced, and the squire knew that he should be talked over, and that the steward would be as soft as himself, Mr. Stirn was sure to be the avenging messenger, to pronounce the words of fate; so that he appeared to the inhabitants of Hazeldean like the poet's /Saeva Necessitas/, a vague incarnation of remorseless power, armed with whips, nails, and wedges. The very brute creation stood in awe of Mr. Stirn. The calves knew that it was he who singled out which should be sold to the butcher, and huddled up into a corner with beating hearts at his grim footstep; the sow grunted, the duck quacked, the hen bristled her feathers and called to her chicks when Mr. Stirn drew near. Nature had set her stamp upon him. Indeed, it may be questioned whether the great M. de Chambray himself, surnamed the brave, had an aspect so awe- inspiring as that of Mr. Stirn; albeit the face of that hero was so terrible, that a man who had been his lackey, seeing his portrait after he had been dead twenty years, fell a trembling all over like a leaf! "And what the plague are you doing here?" said Mr. Stirn, as he waved and smacked a great cart-whip which he held in his hand, "making such a hullabaloo, you women, you! that I suspect the squire will be sending out to know if the village is on fire. Go home, will ye? High time indeed to have the stocks ready, when you get squalling and conspiring under the very nose of a justice of the peace, just as the French revolutioners did afore they cut off their king's head! My hair stands on end to look at ye." But already, before half this address was delivered, the crowd had dispersed in all directions,--the women still keeping together, and the men sneaking off towards the ale-house. Such was the beneficent effect of the fatal stocks on the first day of their resuscitation. However, in the break up of every crowd there must always be one who gets off the last; and it so happened that our friend Lenny Fairfield, who had mechanically approached close to the stocks, the better to hear the oracular opinions of Gaffer Solomons, had no less mechanically, on the abrupt appearance of Mr. Stirn, crept, as he hoped, out of sight behind the trunk of the elm-tree which partially shaded the stocks; and there now, as if fascinated, he still cowered, not daring to emerge in full view of Mr. Stirn, and in immediate reach of the cartwhip, when the quick eye of the right-hand man detected his retreat. "Hallo, sir--what the deuce, laying a mine to blow up the stocks! just like Guy Fox and the Gunpowder Plot, I declares! What ha' you got in your willanous little fist there?" "Nothing, sir," said Lenny, opening his palm. "Nothing--um!" said Mr. Stirn, much dissatisfied; and then, as he gazed more deliberately, recognizing the pattern boy of the village, a cloud yet darker gathered over his brow; for Mr. Stirn, who valued himself much on his learning, and who, indeed, by dint of more knowledge as well as more wit than his neighbours, had attained his present eminent station of life, was extremely anxious that his only son should also be a scholar. That wish-- "The gods dispersed in empty air." Master Stirn was a notable dunce at the parson's school, while Lenny Fairfield was the pride and boast of it; therefore Mr. Stirn was naturally, and almost justifiably, ill-disposed towards Lenny Fairfield, who had appropriated to himself the praises which Mr. Stirn had designed for his son. "Um!" said the right-hand man, glowering on Lenny malignantly, "you are the pattern boy of the village, are you? Very well, sir! then I put these here stocks under your care, and you'll keep off the other boys from sitting on 'em, and picking off the paint, and playing three-holes and chuck-farthing, as I declare they've been a doing, just in front of the elewation. Now, you knows your 'sponsibilities, little boy,--and a great honour they are too, for the like o' you. If any damage be done, it is to you I shall look; d' ye understand?--and that's what the squire says to me. So you sees what it is to be a pattern boy, Master Lenny!" With that Mr. Stirn gave a loud crack of the cart-whip, by way of military honours, over the head of the vicegerent he had thus created, and strode off to pay a visit to two young unsuspecting pups, whose ears and tails he had graciously promised their proprietors to crop that evening. Nor, albeit few charges could be more obnoxious than that of deputy-governor or /charge-d'affaires extraordinaires/ to the parish stocks, nor one more likely to render Lenny Fairfield odious to his contemporaries, ought he to have been insensible to the signal advantage of his condition over that of the two sufferers, against whose ears and tails Mr. Stirn had no special motives of resentment. To every bad there is a worse; and fortunately for little boys, and even for grown men, whom the Stirns of the world regard malignly, the majesty and law protect their ears, and the merciful forethought of nature deprived their remote ancestors of the privilege of entailing tails upon them. Had it been otherwise--considering what handles tails would have given to the oppressor, how many traps envy would have laid for them, how often they must have been scratched and mutilated by the briars of life, how many good excuses would have been found for lopping, docking, and trimming them--I fear that only the lap-dogs of Fortune would have gone to the grave tail-whole. CHAPTER XII. The card-table was set out in the drawing-room at Hazeldean Hall; though the little party were still lingering in the deep recess of the large bay window, which (in itself of dimensions that would have swallowed up a moderate-sized London parlour) held the great round tea-table, with all appliances and means to boot,--for the beautiful summer moon shed on the sward so silvery a lustre, and the trees cast so quiet a shadow, and the flowers and new-mown hay sent up so grateful a perfume, that to close the windows, draw the curtains, and call for other lights than those of heaven would have been an abuse of the prose of life which even Captain Barnabas, who regarded whist as the business of town and the holiday of the country, shrank from suggesting. Without, the scene, beheld by the clear moonlight, had the beauty peculiar to the garden-ground round those old-fashioned country residences which, though a little modernized, still preserve their original character,--the velvet lawn, studded with large plots of flowers, shaded and scented, here to the left by lilacs, laburnums, and rich syringas; there, to the right, giving glimpses, over low clipped yews, of a green bowling-alley, with the white columns of a summer-house built after the Dutch taste, in the reign of William III.; and in front stealing away under covert of those still cedars, into the wilder landscape of the well-wooded undulating park. Within, viewed by the placid glimmer of the moon, the scene was no less characteristic of the abodes of that race which has no parallel in other lands, and which, alas! is somewhat losing its native idiosyncrasies in this,--the stout country gentleman, not the fine gentleman of the country; the country gentleman somewhat softened and civilized from the mere sportsman or farmer, but still plain and homely; relinquishing the old hall for the drawing-room, and with books not three months old on his table, instead of Fox's "Martyrs" and Baker's "Chronicle," yet still retaining many a sacred old prejudice, that, like the knots in his native oak, rather adds to the ornament of the grain than takes from the strength of the tree. Opposite to the window, the high chimneypiece rose to the heavy cornice of the ceiling, with dark panels glistening against the moonlight. The broad and rather clumsy chintz sofas and settees of the reign of George III. contrasted at intervals with the tall-backed chairs of a far more distant generation, when ladies in fardingales and gentlemen in trunk- hose seem never to have indulged in horizontal positions. The walls, of shining wainscot, were thickly covered, chiefly with family pictures; though now and then some Dutch fair or battle-piece showed that a former proprietor had been less exclusive in his taste for the arts. The pianoforte stood open near the fireplace; a long dwarf bookcase at the far end added its sober smile to the room. That bookcase contained what was called "The Lady's Library,"--a collection commenced by the squire's grandmother, of pious memory, and completed by his mother, who had more taste for the lighter letters, with but little addition from the bibliomaniac tendencies of the present Mrs. Hazeldean, who, being no great reader, contented herself with subscribing to the Book Club. In this feminine Bodleian, the sermons collected by Mrs. Hazeldean, the grandmother, stood cheek-by-jowl beside the novels purchased by Mrs. Hazeldean, the mother,-- "Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho!" But, to be sure, the novels, in spite of very inflammatory titles, such as "Fatal Sensibility," "Errors of the Heart," etc., were so harmless that I doubt if the sermons could have had much to say against their next-door neighbours,--and that is all that can be expected by the best of us. A parrot dozing on his perch; some goldfish fast asleep in their glass bowl; two or three dogs on the rug, and Flimsey, Miss Jemima's spaniel, curled into a ball on the softest sofa; Mrs. Hazeldean's work- table rather in disorder, as if it had been lately used; the "St. James's Chronicle" dangling down from a little tripod near the squire's armchair; a high screen of gilt and stamped leather fencing off the card-table,--all these, dispersed about a room large enough to hold them all and not seem crowded, offered many a pleasant resting-place for the eye, when it turned from the world of nature to the home of man. But see, Captain Barnabas, fortified by his fourth cup of tea, has at length summoned courage to whisper to Mrs. Hazeldean, "Don't you think the parson will be impatient for his rubber?" Mrs. Hazeldean glanced at the parson and smiled; but she gave the signal to the captain, and the bell was rung, lights were brought in, the curtains let down; in a few moments more, the group had collected round the cardtable. The best of us are but human--that is not a new truth, I confess, but yet people forget it every day of their lives--and I dare say there are many who are charitably thinking at this very moment that my parson ought not to be playing at whist. All I can say to those rigid disciplinarians is, "Every man has his favourite sin: whist was Parson Dale's!--ladies and gentlemen, what is yours?" In truth, I must not set up my poor parson, nowadays, as a pattern parson,--it is enough to have one pattern in a village no bigger than Hazeldean, and we all know that Lenny Fairfield has bespoken that place, and got the patronage of the stocks for his emoluments! Parson Dale was ordained, not indeed so very long ago, but still at a time when Churchmen took it a great deal more easily than they do now. The elderly parson of that day played his rubber as a matter of course, the middle-aged parson was sometimes seen riding to cover (I knew a schoolmaster, a doctor of divinity, and an excellent man, whose pupils were chiefly taken from the highest families in England, who hunted regularly three times a week during the season), and the young parson would often sing a capital song--not composed by David--and join in those rotatory dances, which certainly David never danced before the ark. Does it need so long an exordium to excuse thee, poor Parson Dale, for turning up that ace of spades with so triumphant a smile at thy partner? I must own that nothing which could well add to the parson's offence was wanting. In the first place, he did not play charitably, and merely to oblige other people. He delighted in the game, he rejoiced in the game, his whole heart was in the game,--neither was he indifferent to the mammon of the thing, as a Christian pastor ought to have been. He looked very sad when he took his shillings out of his purse, and exceedingly pleased when he put the shillings that had just before belonged to other people into it. Finally, by one of those arrangements common with married people who play at the same table, 'Mr. and--Mrs. Hazeldean were invariably partners, and no two people could play worse; while Captain Barnabas, who had played at Graham's with honour and profit, necessarily became partner to Parson Dale, who himself played a good steady parsonic game. So that, in strict truth, it was hardly fair play; it was almost swindling,--the combination of these two great dons against that innocent married couple! Mr. Dale, it is true, was aware of this disproportion of force, and had often proposed either to change partners or to give odds, --propositions always scornfully scouted by the squire and his lady, so that the parson was obliged to pocket his conscience, together with the ten points which made his average winnings. The strangest thing in the world is the different way in which whist affects the temper. It is no test of temper, as some pretend,--not at all! The best-tempered people in the world grow snappish at whist; and I have seen the most testy and peevish in the ordinary affairs of life bear their losses with the stoicism of Epictetus. This was notably manifested in the contrast between the present adversaries of the Hall and the Rectory. The squire, who was esteemed as choleric a gentleman as most in the county, was the best-humoured fellow you could imagine when you set him down to whist opposite the sunny face of his wife. You never heard one of those incorrigible blunderers scold each other; on the contrary, they only laughed when they threw away the game, with four by honours in their hands. The utmost that was ever said was a "Well, Harry, that was the oddest trump of yours. Ho, ho, ho!" or a "Bless me, Hazeldean--why, they made three tricks in clubs, and you had the ace in your hand all the time! Ha, ha, ha!" Upon which occasions Captain Barnabas, with great goodhumour, always echoed both the squire's Ho, ho, ho! and Mrs. Hazeldean's Ha, ha, ha! Not so the parson. He had so keen and sportsmanlike an interest in the game, that even his adversaries' mistakes ruffled him. And you would hear him, with elevated voice and agitated gestures, laying down the law, quoting Hoyle, appealing to all the powers of memory and common-sense against the very delinquencies by which he was enriched, ---a waste of eloquence that always heightened the hilarity of Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean. While these four were thus engaged, Mrs. Dale, who had come with her husband despite her headache, sat on the sofa beside Miss Jemima, or rather beside Miss Jemima's Flimsey, which had already secured the centre of the sofa, and snarled at the very idea of being disturbed. And Master Frank--at a table by himself--was employed sometimes in looking at his pumps and sometimes at Gilray's Caricatures, which his mother had provided for his intellectual requirements. Mrs. Dale, in her heart, liked Miss Jemima better than Mrs. Hazeldean, of whom she was rather in awe, notwithstanding they had been little girls together, and occasionally still called each other Harry and Carry. But those tender diminutives belonged to the "Dear" genus, and were rarely employed by the ladies, except at times when, had they been little girls still, and the governess out of the way, they would have slapped and pinched each other. Mrs. Dale was still a very pretty woman, as Mrs. Hazeldean was still a very fine woman. Mrs. Dale painted in water-colours, and sang, and made card-racks and penholders, and was called an "elegant, accomplished woman;" Mrs. Hazeldean cast up the squire's accounts, wrote the best part of his letters, kept a large establishment in excellent order, and was called "a clever, sensible woman." Mrs. Dale had headaches and nerves; Mrs. Hazeldean had neither nerves nor headaches. Mrs. Dale said, "Harry had no real harm in her, but was certainly very masculine;" Mrs. Hazeldean said, "Carry would be a good creature but for her airs and graces." Mrs. Dale said Mrs. Hazeldean was "just made to be a country squire's lady;" Mrs. Hazeldean said, "Mrs. Dale was the last person in the world who ought to have been a parson's wife." Carry, when she spoke of Harry to a third person, said, "Dear Mrs. Hazeldean;" Harry, when she referred incidentally to Carry, said, "Poor Mrs. Dale." And now the reader knows why Mrs. Hazeldean called Mrs. Dale "poor,"--at least as well as I do. For, after all, the word belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which may be called "obscure significants," resembling the Konx Ompax, which hath so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian Mysteries: the application is rather to be illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained. "That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs. Dale, who was embroidering the word CAROLINE on the border of a cambric pocket handkerchief; but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not bite, will he?" "Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; "but" (she added in a confidential whisper) "don't say he,--'t is a lady dog!" "Oh," said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions,--"oh, then, you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs,--that is being consistent indeed, Jemima!" MISS JEMIMA.--"I had a gentleman dog once,--a pug!--pugs are getting very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me--he snapped at every one else; the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe--I had been staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick might do. So, on coming here I left Bluff--that was his name--with Miss Smilecox." (A pause.) MRS. DALE (looking up languidly).--"Well, my love?" MISS JEMIMA.--"Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me again? A pug, too--yet people say pugs are faithful! I am sure they ought to be, nasty things! I have never had a gentleman dog since,--they are all alike, believe me, heartless, selfish creatures." MRS. DALE.--"Pugs? I dare say they are!" MISS JEMIMA (with spirit).-"MEN!--I told you it was a gentleman dog!" MRS. DALE (apologetically).--"True, my love, but the whole thing was so mixed up!" MISS JEMIMA.--"You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of Marriage in the papers,--an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is approaching, and that--" MRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the universe).--"Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr. Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's wife" (said smilingly: Mrs. Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three), "to agree with him,--that is, in theology." MISS JEMIMA (earnestly).---"But the thing is so clear, if you will but look into--" MRS. DALE (putting her hand on Miss Jemima's lips playfully).---"Not a word more. Pray, what do you think of the squire's tenant at the Casino, Signor Riccabocca? An interesting creature, is he not?" MISS JEMIMA.--"Interesting! not to me. Interesting? Why is he interesting?" Mrs. Dale is silent, and turns her handkerchief in her pretty little white hands, appearing to contemplate the R in Caroline. MISS JEMIMA (half pettishly, half coaxingly).--"Why is he interesting? I scarcely ever looked at him; they say he smokes, and never eats. Ugly, too!" MRS. DALE.--"Ugly,--no. A fine bead,--very like Dante's; but what is beauty?" MISS JEMIMA.--"Very true: what is it indeed? Yes, as you say, I think there is something interesting about him; he looks melancholy, but that may be because he is poor." MRS. DALE.--"It is astonishing how little one feels poverty when one loves. Charles and I were very poor once,--before the squire--" Mrs. Dale paused, looked towards the squire, and murmured a blessing, the warmth of which brought tears into her eyes. "Yes," she added, after a pause, "we were very poor, but we were happy even then,--more thanks to Charles than to me;" and tears from a new source again dimmed those quick, lively eyes, as the little woman gazed fondly on her husband, whose brows were knit into a black frown over a bad hand. MISS JEMIMA.--"It is only those horrid men who think of money as a source of happiness. I should be the last person to esteem a gentleman less because he was poor." MRS. DALE.--"I wonder the squire does not ask Signor Riccabocca here more often. Such an acquisition we find him!" The squire's voice from the card-table.--"Whom ought I to ask more often, Mrs. Dale?" Parson's voice, impatiently.--"Come, come, come, squire: play to my queen of diamonds,--do!" SQUIRE.--"There, I trump it! pick up the trick, Mrs. H." PARSON.--"Stop! Stop! trump my diamond?" THE CAPTAIN (solemnly).--"'Trick turned; play on, Squire." SQUIRE.--"The king of diamonds." MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Lord! Hazeldean, why, that's the most barefaced revoke,--ha, ha, ha! trump the queen of diamonds and play out the king! well, I never! ha, ha, ha!" CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in tenor).--"Ha, ha, ha!" SQUIRE.--"Ho, ho, ho! bless my soul! ho, ho, ho!" CAPTAIN BARNABAS (in bass).--"Ho, ho, ho!" Parson's voice raised, but drowned by the laughter of his adversaries and the firm, clear tone of Captain Barnabas.--"Three to our score!--game!" SQUIRE (wiping his eyes).--"No help for it; Harry, deal for me. Whom ought I to ask, Mrs. Dale?" (Waxing angry.) "First time I ever heard the hospitality of Hazeldean called in question!" MRS. DALE.--"My dear sir, I beg a thousand pardons, but listeners--you know the proverb." SQUIRE (growling like a bear).--"I hear nothing but proverbs ever since we had that Mounseer among us. Please to speak plainly, ma'am." Mrs. DALE (sliding into a little temper at being thus roughly accosted). --"It was of Mounseer, as you call him, that I spoke, Mr. Hazeldean." SQUIRE.--"What! Rickeybockey?" MRS. DALE (attempting the pure Italian accentuation).--"Signor Riccabocca." PARSON (slapping his cards on the table in despair).--"Are we playing at whist, or are we not?" The squire, who is fourth player, drops the king to Captain Higginbotham's lead of the ace of hearts. Now the captain has left queen, knave, and two other hearts, four trumps to the queen, and nothing to win a trick with in the two other suits. This hand is therefore precisely one of those in which, especially after the fall of that king of hearts in the adversary's hand, it becomes a matter of reasonable doubt whether to lead trumps or not. The captain hesitates, and not liking to play out his good hearts with the certainty of their being trumped by the squire, nor, on the other hand, liking to open the other suits, in which he has not a card that can assist his partner, resolves, as becomes a military man in such dilemma, to make a bold push and lead out trumps in the chance of finding his partner strong and so bringing in his long suit. SQUIRE (taking advantage of the much meditating pause made by the captain).--"Mrs. Dale, it is not my fault. I have asked Rickeybockey,-- time out of mind. But I suppose I am not fine enough for those foreign chaps. He'll not come,--that's all I know." PARSON (aghast at seeing the captain play out trumps, of which he, Mr. Dale, has only two, wherewith he expects to ruff the suit of spades, of which he has only one, the cards all falling in suits, while he has not a single other chance of a trick in his hand).--"Really, Squire, we had better give up playing if you put out my partner in this extraordinary way,--jabber, jabber, jabber!" SQUIRE.--"Well, we must be good children, Harry. What!--trumps, Barney? Thank ye for that!" And the squire might well be grateful, for the unfortunate adversary has led up to ace king knave, with two other trumps. Squire takes the parson's ten with his knave, and plays out ace king; then, having cleared all the trumps except the captain's queen and his own remaining two, leads off tierce major in that very suit of spades of which the parson has only one,--and the captain, indeed, but two,-- forces out the captain's queen, and wins the game in a canter. PARSON (with a look at the captain which might have become the awful brows of Jove, when about to thunder).--"That, I suppose, is the new- fashioned London play! In my time the rule was, 'First save the game, then try to win it.'" CAPTAIN.--"Could not save it, sir." PARSON (exploding)--"Not save it!--two ruffs in my own hand,--two tricks certain till you took them out! Monstrous! The rashest trump."--Seizes the cards, spreads them on the table, lip quivering, hands trembling, tries to show how five tricks could have been gained,--N.B. It is /short/ whist which Captain Barnabas had introduced at the Hall,--can't make out more than four; Captain smiles triumphantly; Parson in a passion, and not at all convinced, mixes all the cards together again, and falling back in his chair, groans, with tears in his voice.--"The cruellest trump! the most wanton cruelty!" The Hazeldeans in chorus.--"Ho, ho, ho! Ha, ha, ha!" The captain, who does not laugh this time, and whose turn it is to deal, shuffles the cards for the conquering game of the rubber with as much caution and prolixity as Fabius might have employed in posting his men. The squire gets up to stretch his legs, and, the insinuation against his hospitality recurring to his thoughts, calls out to his wife, "Write to Rickeybockey to-morrow yourself, Harry, and ask him to come and spend two or three days here. There, Mrs. Dale, you hear me?" "Yes," said Mrs. Dale, putting her hands to her ears in implied rebuke at the loudness of the squire's tone. "My dear sir, do remember that I'm a sad nervous creature." "Beg pardon," muttered Mr. Hazeldean, turning to his son, who having got tired of the caricatures, had fished out for himself the great folio County History, which was the only book in the library that the squire much valued, and which he usually kept under lock and key, in his study, together with the field-books and steward's accounts, but which he had reluctantly taken into the drawing-room that day, in order to oblige Captain Higginbotham. For the Higginbothams--an old Saxon family, as the name evidently denotes--had once possessed lands in that very county; and the captain, during his visits to Hazeldean Hall, was regularly in the habit of asking to look into the County History, for the purpose of refreshing his eyes, and renovating his sense of ancestral dignity, with the following paragraph therein: To the left of the village of Dunder, and pleasantly situated in a hollow, lies Botham Hall, the residence of the ancient family of Higginbotham, as it is now commonly called. Yet it appears by the county rolls, and sundry old deeds, that the family formerly styled itself Higges, till the Manor House lying in Botham, they gradually assumed the appellation of Higges-in-Botham, and in process of time, yielding to the corruptions of the vulgar, Higginbotham." "What, Frank! my County History!" cried the squire. "Mrs. H., he has got my County History!" "Well, Hazeldean, it is time he should know something about the county." "Ay, and history too," said Mrs. Dale, malevolently, for the little temper was by no means blown over. FRANK.--"I'll not hurt it, I assure you, sir. But I'm very much interested just at present." THE CAPTAIN (putting down the cards to cut).--"You've got hold of that passage about Botham Hall, page 706, eh?" FRANK.--"No; I was trying to make out how far it is to Mr. Leslie's place, Rood Hall. Do you know, Mother?" MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"I can't say I do. The Leslies don't mix with the county; and Rood lies very much out of the way." FRANK.--"Why don't they mix with the county?" MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"I believe they are poor, and therefore I suppose they are proud; they are an old family." PARSON (thrumming on the table with great impatience).--" Old fiddle- dee!--talking of old families when the cards have been shuffled this half-hour!" CAPTAIN BARNABAS.--"Will you cut for your partner, ma'am?" SQUIRE (who has been listening to Frank's inquiries with a musing air).-- "Why do you want to know the distance to Rood Hall?" FRANK (rather hesitatingly).--"Because Randal Leslie is there for the holidays, sir." PARSON.---"Your wife has cut for you, Mr. Hazeldean. I don't think it was quite fair; and my partner has turned up a deuce,--deuce of hearts. Please to come and play, if you mean to play." The squire returns to the table, and in a few minutes the game is decided by a dexterous finesse of the captain against the Hazeldeans. The clock strikes ten; the servants enter with a tray; the squire counts up his own and his wife's losings; and the captain and parson divide sixteen shillings between them. SQUIRE.--"There, Parson, I hope you'll be in a better humour. You win enough out of us to set up a coach-and-four." "Tut!" muttered the parson; "at the end of the year, I'm not a penny the richer for it all." And, indeed, monstrous as that assertion seemed, it was perfectly true, for the parson portioned out his gains into three divisions. One-third he gave to Mrs. Dale, for her own special pocket-money; what became of the second third he never owned even to his better half,--but certain it was, that every time the parson won seven-and-sixpence, half-a-crown, which nobody could account for, found its way to the poor-box; while the remaining third, the parson, it is true, openly and avowedly retained; but I have no manner of doubt that, at the year's end, it got to the poor quite as safely as if it had been put into the box. The party had now gathered round the tray, and were helping themselves to wine and water, or wine without water,--except Frank, who still remained poring over the map in the County History, with his head leaning on his hands, and his fingers plunged in his hair. "Frank," said Mrs. Hazeldean, "I never saw you so studious before." Frank started up and coloured, as if ashamed of being accused of too much study in anything. SQUIRE (with a little embarrassment in his voice).--"Pray, Frank, what do you know of Randal Leslie?" "Why, sir, he is at Eton." "What sort of a boy is he?" asked Mrs. Hazeldean. Frank hesitated, as if reflecting, and then answered, "They say he is the cleverest boy in the school. But then he saps." "In other words," said Mr. Dale, with proper parsonic gravity, "he understands that he was sent to school to learn his lessons, and he learns them. You call that sapping? call it doing his duty. But pray, who and what is this Randal Leslie, that you look so discomposed, Squire?" "Who and what is he?" repeated the squire, in a low growl. "Why, you know Mr. Audley Egerton married Miss Leslie, the great heiress; and this boy is a relation of hers. I may say," added the squire, "that he is a near relation of mine, for his grandmother was a Hazeldean; but all I know about the Leslies is, that Mr. Egerton, as I am told, having no children of his own, took up young Randal (when his wife died, poor woman), pays for his schooling, and has, I suppose, adopted the boy as his heir. Quite welcome. Frank and I want nothing from Mr. Audley Egerton, thank Heaven!" "I can well believe in your brother's generosity to his wife's kindred," said the parson, sturdily, "for I am sure Mr. Egerton is a man of strong feeling." "What the deuce do you know about Mr. Egerton? I don't suppose you could ever have even spoken to him." "Yes," said the parson, colouring up, and looking confused. "I had some conversation with him once;" and observing the squire's surprise, he added--"when I was curate at Lansmere, and about a painful business connected with the family of one of my parishioners." "Oh, one of your parishioners at Lansmere,--one of the constituents Mr. Audley Egerton threw over, after all the pains I had taken to get him his seat. Rather odd you should never have mentioned this before, Mr. Dale!" "My dear sir," said the parson, sinking his voice, and in a mild tone of conciliatory expostulation, "you are so irritable whenever Mr. Egerton's name is mentioned at all." "Irritable!" exclaimed the squire, whose wrath had been long simmering, and now fairly boiled over,--"irritable, sir! I should think so: a man for whom I stood godfather at the hustings, Mr. Dale! a man for whose sake I was called a 'prize ox,' Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was hissed in a market-place, Mr. Dale! a man for whom I was shot at, in cold blood, by an officer in His Majesty's service, who lodged a ball in my right shoulder, Mr. Dale! a man who had the ingratitude, after all this, to turn his back on the landed interest,--to deny that there was any agricultural distress in a year which broke three of the best farmers I ever had, Mr. Dale!--a man, sir, who made a speech on the Currency which was complimented by Ricardo, a Jew! Good heavens! a pretty parson you are, to stand up for a fellow complimented by a Jew! Nice ideas you must have of Christianity! Irritable, sir!" now fairly roared the squire, adding to the thunder of his voice the cloud of a brow, which evinced a menacing ferocity that might have done honour to Bussy d'Amboise or Fighting Fitzgerald. "Sir, if that man had not been my own half-brother, I'd have called him out. I have stood my ground before now. I have had a ball in my right shoulder. Sir, I'd have called him out." "Mr. Hazeldean! Mr. Hazeldean! I'm shocked at you," cried the parson; and, putting his lips close to the squire's ear, he went on in a whisper, "What an example to your son! You'll have him fighting duels one of these days, and nobody to blame but yourself." This warning cooled Mr. Hazeldean; and muttering, "Why the deuce did you set me off?" he fell back into his chair, and began to fan himself with his pocket-handkerchief. The parson skilfully and remorselessly pursued the advantage he had gained. "And now that you may have it in your power to show civility and kindness to a boy whom Mr. Egerton has taken up, out of respect to his wife's memory,--a kinsman, you say, of your own, and who has never offended you,--a boy whose diligence in his studies proves him to be an excellent companion to your son-Frank" (here the parson raised his voice), "I suppose you would like to call on young Leslie, as you were studying the county map so attentively." "Yes, yes," answered Frank, rather timidly, "if my father does not object to it. Leslie has been very kind tome, though he is in the sixth form, and, indeed, almost the head of the school." "Ah!" said Mrs. Hazeldean, "one studious boy has a fellow feeling for another; and though you enjoy your holidays, Frank, I am sure you read hard at school." Mrs. Dale opened her eyes very wide, and stared in astonishment. Mrs. Hazeldean retorted that look, with great animation. "Yes, Carry," said she, tossing her head, "though you may not think Frank clever, his masters find him so. He got a prize last half. That beautiful book, Frank--hold up your head, my love--what did you get it for?" FRANK (reluctantly).--"Verses, ma'am." MRS. HAZELDEAN (with triumph).--" Verses!--there, Carry, verses!" FRANK (in a hurried tone).--"Yes, but Leslie wrote them for me." MRS. HAZELDEAN (recoiling).--"O Frank! a prize for what another did for you--that was mean." FRANK (ingenuously).--"You can't be more ashamed, Mother, than I was when they gave me the prize." MRS. DALE (though previously provoked at being snubbed by Harry, now showing the triumph of generosity over temper).--"I beg your pardon, Frank. Your mother must be as proud of that shame as she was of the prize." Mrs. Hazeldean puts her arm round Frank's neck, smiles beamingly on Mrs. Dale, and converses with her son in a low tone about Randal Leslie. Miss Jemima now approached Carry, and said in an "aside," "But we are forgetting poor Mr. Riccabocca. Mrs. Hazeldean, though the dearest creature in the world, has such a blunt way of inviting people--don't you think if you were to say a word to him, Carry?" MRS. DALE (kindly, as she wraps her shawl round her).--" Suppose you write the note yourself? Meanwhile I shall see him, no doubt." PARSON (putting his hand on the squire's shoulder).--"You forgive my impertinence, my kind friend. We parsons, you know, are apt to take strange liberties, when we honour and love folks as I do." "Fish," said the squire; but his hearty smile came to his lips in spite of himself. "You always get your own way, and I suppose Frank must ride over and see this pet of my--" "Brother's," quoth the parson, concluding the sentence in a tone which gave to the sweet word so sweet a sound that the squire would not correct the parson, as he had been about to correct himself. Mr. Dale moved on; but as he passed Captain Barnabas, the benignant character of his countenance changed sadly. "The cruellest trump, Captain Higginbotham!" said he sternly, and stalked by-majestic. The night was so fine that the parson and his wife, as they walked home, made a little detour through the shrubbery. MRS. DALE.--"I think I have done a good piece of work to-night." PARSON (rousing himself from a revery).--"Have you, Carry?--it will be a very pretty handkerchief." MRS. DALE.--"Handkerchief?--nonsense, dear. Don't you think it would be a very happy thing for both if Jemima and Signor Riccabocca could be brought together?" PARSON.--"Brought together!" MRS. DALE.--"You do snap up one so, my dear; I mean if I could make a match of it." PARSON.--"I think Riccabocca is a match already, not only for Jemima, but yourself into the bargain." MRS. DALE (smiling loftily).--"Well, we shall see. Was not Jemima's fortune about L4000?" PARSON (dreamily, for he is relapsing fast into his interrupted revery). --"Ay--ay--I dare say." MRS. DALE.--"And she must have saved! I dare say it is nearly L6000 by this time; eh! Charles dear, you really are so--good gracious, what's that!" As Mrs. Dale made this exclamation, they had just emerged from the shrubbery into the village green. PARSON.--"What's what?" MRS. DALE (pinching her husband's arm very nippingly). "That thing-- there--there." PARSON.--"Only the new stocks, Carry; I don't wonder they frighten you, for you are a very sensible woman. I only wish they would frighten the squire." CHAPTER XIII. [Supposed to be a letter from Mrs. Hazeldean to A. Riccabocca, Esq., The Casino; but, edited, and indeed composed, by Miss Jemima Hazeldean.] HAZELDEAN HALL. DEAR SIR,--To a feeling heart it must always be painful to give pain to another, and (though I am sure unconsciously) you have given the greatest pain to poor Mr. Hazeldean and myself, indeed to all our little circle, in so cruelly refusing our attempts to become better acquainted with a gentleman we so highly ESTEEM. Do, pray, dear sir, make us the amende honorable, and give us the pleasure of your company for a few days at the Hall. May we expect you Saturday next?---our dinner hour is six o'clock. With the best compliments of Mr. and Miss Jemima Hazeldean, believe me, my dear sir, Yours truly, H. H. Miss Jemima having carefully sealed this note, which Mrs. Hazeldean had very willingly deputed her to write, took it herself into the stable- yard, in order to give the groom proper instructions to wait for an answer. But while she was speaking to the man, Frank, equipped for riding, with more than his usual dandyism, came into the yard, calling for his pony in a loud voice; and singling out the very groom whom Miss Jemima was addressing--for, indeed, he was the smartest of all in the squire's stables--told him to saddle the gray pad and accompany the pony. "No, Frank," said Miss Jemima, you can't have George; your father wants him to go on a message,--you can take Mat." "Mat, indeed!" said Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great patch on his boots,--besides, he called Frank "Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill,--"Mat, indeed! let Mat take the message, and George go with me." But Miss Jemima had also her reasons for rejecting Mat. Mat's foible was not servility, and he always showed true English independence in all houses where he was not invited to take his ale in the servants' hall. Mat might offend Signor Riccabocca, and spoil all. An animated altercation ensued, in the midst of which the squire and his wife entered the yard, with the intention of driving in the conjugal gig to the market town. The matter was referred to the natural umpire by both the contending parties. The squire looked with great contempt on his son. "And what do you want a groom at all for? Are you afraid of tumbling off the pony?" FRANK.--"No, Sir; but I like to go as a gentleman, when I pay a visit to a gentleman!" SQUIRE (in high wrath).---"You precious puppy! I think I'm as good a gentleman as you any day, and I should like to know when you ever saw me ride to call on a neighbour with a fellow jingling at my heels, like that upstart Ned Spankie, whose father kept a cotton mill. First time I ever heard of a Hazeldean thinking a livery coat was necessary to prove his gentility!" MRS. HAZELDEAN (observing Frank colouring, and about to reply).--"Hush, Frank, never answer your father,--and you are going to call on Mr. Leslie?" "Yes, ma'am, and I am very much obliged to my father for letting me," said Frank, taking the squire's hand. "Well, but, Frank," continued Mrs. Hazeldean, "I think you heard that the Leslies were very poor." FRANK.--"Eh, Mother?" MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"And would you run the chance of wounding the pride of a gentleman as well born as yourself by affecting any show of being richer than he is?" SQUIRE (with great admiration).--"Harry, I'd give L10 to have said that!" FRANK (leaving the squire's hand to take his mother's).--"You're quite right, Mother; nothing could be more snobbish!" SQUIRE. "Give us your fist, too, sir; you'll be a chip of the old block, after all." Frank smiled, and walked off to his pony. MRS. HAZELDEAN (to Miss Jemima).--"Is that the note you were to write for me?" MISS JEMIMA.--"Yes; I supposed you did not care about seeing it, so I have sealed it, and given it to George." MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"But Frank will pass close by the Casino on his way to the Leslies'. It may be more civil if he leaves the note himself." MISS JEMIMA (hesitatingly).--"Do you think so?" MRS. HAZELDEAN.--" Yes, certainly. Frank, Frank, as you pass by the Casino, call on Mr. Riccabocca, give this note, and say we shall be heartily glad if he will come." Frank nods. "Stop a bit," cried the squire. "If Rickeybockey is at home, 't is ten to one if he don't ask you to take a glass of wine! If he does, mind, 't is worse than asking you to take a turn on the rack. Faugh! you remember, Harry?--I thought it was all up with me." "Yes," cried Mrs. Hazeldean; "for Heaven's sake not a drop. Wine, indeed!" "Don't talk of it," cried the squire, making a wry face. "I'll take care, Sir!" said Frank, laughing as he disappeared within the stable, followed by Miss Jemima, who now coaxingly makes it up with him, and does not leave off her admonitions to be extremely polite to the poor foreign gentleman till Frank gets his foot into the stirrup, and the pony, who knows whom he has got to deal with, gives a preparatory plunge or two, and then darts out of the yard. 
41791	----	The House by the River By A. P. Herbert New York Alfred A Knopf 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA I The Whittakers were At Home every Wednesday. No one else in Hammerton Chase was officially At Home at any time. So every one went to the Whittakers' on Wednesdays. There are still a few intimate corners in London where people, other than the poor, are positively acquainted with their neighbours. And Hammerton Chase is one of these. In heartless Kensington we know no more of our neighbour than we may gather from furtive references to the Red Book and _Who's Who_, or stealthy reconnaissances from behind the dining-room curtains as he goes forth in the morning to his work and to his labour. Our communication with him is limited to the throwing back over the garden-wall of his children's balls, aeroplanes, and spears, or--in the lowest parts of Kensington--to testy hammerings with the fire-irons towards the close of his musical evenings. Overt, deliberate, avoidable, social intercourse with any person living in the same street or the same block of mansions is a thing unknown. What true Londoner remembers going to an At Home, a dance, a musical evening, or other entertainment in his own street? Who is there who regards with friendship the occupant of the opposite flat? Hammerton Chase could scarcely be regarded as a street. A short half-mile of old and dignified houses, clustered irregularly in all shapes and sizes along the sunny side of the Thames, with large trees and little gardens fringing the bank across the road, and, lying opposite, the Island, a long triangle of young willows, the haunt of wild duck and heron and swan--it had a unique, incomparable character of its own. It was like neither street, nor road, nor avenue, nor garden, nor any other urban unit of place in London, or indeed, it was locally supposed, in the world. It had something, perhaps, of an old village and something of a Cathedral Close, something of Venice and something of the sea. But it was _sui generis_. It was The Chase, W. 6. And the W. 6 was generally considered to be superfluous. But, whatever it was, it prided itself on the intimate and sociable relations of its members. They were all on friendly terms with each other, and knew exactly the circumstances and employment, the ambitions, plans, and domestic crises of each other at any given moment. They "dropped in" at each other's houses for conversation and informal entertainment; they borrowed wine-glasses for their dinner-parties and tools for their gardens and anchors for their boats. They were a community, a self-sufficient community, isolated geographically from their natural homes in Chelsea and Kensington, W., by the dreary wilderness of West Kensington and the barbarous expanse of Hammersmith, and clinging almost pathetically together in their little oasis of civilization. And yet they were not suburban. They were in physical fact on the actual borders of London County; they were six miles from Charing Cross. But Ealing and the suburbs are farther still. And the soul of Ealing was many leagues removed from the soul of The Chase, which, like The Chase, was something not elsewhere to be discovered. So that on Wednesdays the Whittakers were At Home in the evening, and every one went. Andrew Whittaker was an artist and art-critic; though for various reasons he devoted more time to criticism than to execution. Mrs. Whittaker wrote novels in the intervals of engaging a new servant or dismissing an old one, and grappling undaunted with the domestic crisis which either operation produced. They were both exceedingly pleasant, cultivated, and feckless people, and they well represented the soul of The Chase. Indeed, no one else was so well fitted to collect the bodies of The Chase together on Wednesdays. On this Wednesday there were fewer bodies than usual in the grey drawing-room. It was a moist and thunderous evening, very heavy and still, and many of The Chase were gasping quietly in their own little gardens, reluctant to enter a house of any kind. And there were one or two households vaguely "away in the country." It was rather the habit of true members of The Chase to "go away" in May, or in June, or in any month but August, not simply because it was a wise and sensible thing to do, August being an overrated and tumultuous month in the country, not only because if you lived in the airy Chase the common craving of Londoners to escape from London in August did not affect you, but chiefly because if you lived in The Chase that was the kind of thing you did. Mrs. Whittaker was a little distressed by the meagre attendance. Six or seven ladies of The Chase, Mr. Dimple, the barrister, Mr. Mard, the architect, and his wife were there; but these were all elderly and unexciting, and without some powerful stimulus from the outer world it was impossible to prevent them from discussing food and domestic servants. Domestic worries dominated their lives. Life in The Chase was one long domestic worry. And the great problem of Mrs. Whittaker's At Homes was to prevent people from talking about servants, food, and domestic worries. Her method was to invite large numbers of artistic, literary, and otherwise interesting people from distant London, who were apparently immune from domestic worries or were at any rate capable of excluding them from their conversation. The artistic element was thinly represented this evening by a psychologist from Oxford and a dramatic critic. But, nobly though they strove to discuss the drama and the mind, they were hopelessly swamped by a loud discussion on domestic servants and food among the ladies of The Chase, vigorously led by Mrs. Vincent and Mrs. Church. Mrs. Ralph Vincent was a carroty-haired lady of extraordinary aggressiveness and defiant juvenility in the face of her forty-five summers and seven children. Mrs. Church was the widow-daughter of old Mrs. Ambrose, who was ninety and extremely deaf. Mrs. Church herself had an unfortunate stutter. Yet these two ladies, living together at Island View, practically constituted the Intelligence Staff of The Chase. They knew everything. They never went out, except on Wednesdays to the Whittakers', when the indomitable Mrs. Ambrose strode unaided under the splendid elms to Willow House and laboured by stages up the narrow stairs. But their agents came to them daily for teas and "little talks," and handed over, willingly or no, the secrets of The Chase. Nor could it be said that either of them knew more or less than the other. Old Mrs. Ambrose prided herself on her lip-reading, and no doubt Mrs. Church's unfortunate impediment made it easier for the old lady to practise this art to advantage. Some said, indeed, that Mrs. Church's stutter had been assumed in filial piety for this very purpose. Mrs. Ambrose was busily endeavouring to read the lips of the psychologist and the dramatic critic, whom she suspected of being engaged in a discussion of unusual interest, if not actual indelicacy. People who knew of her supposed gift felt sometimes very uncomfortable about conversation in her presence, especially if they were speaking to some reckless person who did not know of it. The voice of the psychologist was heard protesting to his host the sincerity and thoroughness of the Oxford method. Whittaker stood patiently in front of him with a trayful of home-made cocktails. "We _make_ them concentrate ... _a priori_ ... processes of thought ... lectures ... philosophy ... system...." Then domesticity broke out again, and Mrs. Whittaker, listening with one ear to each party, raged furiously within. "Mary takes the children in the morning ... the gas-oven ... margarine ... the geyser ... the front doorstep ... pull out the damper ... simply walked out of the house ... margarine ... Mrs. Walker's Bureau ... butter ... very good references ... margarine ... the principles of reasoning ... what about Susan?... margarine ... a month's wages ... margarine ... thought-circles ... washing-up ... a lady-help ... margarine...." Mrs. Whittaker despaired. Were none of her artistic circle coming? She went over to her husband and whispered fiercely, "Are the Byrnes coming? Go out and ring them up. Tell them they simply _must_." Whittaker deposited his tray in the arms of the psychologist and went out; the psychologist assumed the air of one who is equal to any emergency, and sat solemnly embracing the tray. When Whittaker came back there was a wide grin on his pleasant face. He announced: "The Byrnes are coming in a minute--and he's bringing the Choir." "Oh, _good_," said Mrs. Whittaker, and echoing approvals came from several of the company. The psychologist said, "Is that _Stephen_ Byrne?" in an awed voice, and tried not to look as impressed and gratified as he felt when Whittaker assured him that it was. The elderly ladies looked more cheerful, and abandoned the barren topic of domestic worries to discuss poetry and Mr. Byrne. Mrs. Ambrose said, "I _like_ Mr. Byrne"; Mrs. Church said, "A _nice_ man, Mr. Byrne"; Mrs. Vincent said, "Such a _nice_ couple, the Byrnes." There were many accomplished people living in The Chase, but Stephen Byrne was the lion of them all; there were many delightful people living in The Chase, but Stephen Byrne was the darling of them all. He was the gem, the treasure of The Chase. Indeed, he was the treasure of England. He was a real poet. Men had heard of him before the war; but it was in the years of war that he had come to greatness. He was one of a few men who had been able in a few fine poems to set free for the nation a little of the imprisoned grandeur, the mute emotion of that time. But none of all those young men, who found their voices suddenly in the war and spoke with astonishment the splendid feelings of the people, had so touched the imagination, had so nearly expressed the tenderness of England, as Stephen Byrne. At twenty-seven he was a great man--a national idol. No wonder, therefore, that The Chase delighted in him. But there was more. He was personally delightful. So many successful men are unusually ugly, or unusually bad-tempered, or soured, or boorish, or intolerably rude; and the people of The Chase, being essentially a critical people and far too noble to be capable of intellectual snobbery, would not have given their hearts to a successful poet if he had been ugly or boorish or intolerably rude. Stephen Byrne was none of these things--but handsome and affable and beautifully mannered. And so they loved him. While they were waiting for him it grew dark and a little cooler, and more of The Chase came in. Mr. Dunk, the American, came in, and Petway, of the Needlework Guild, and Morrison, the publisher. After them came Mr. and Mrs. Stimpson. Stimpson was a Civil Servant, but his life-work was cabinet-making. Mrs. Stimpson was an execrable housekeeper and mother, but knitted with extraordinary finish. Knitting was her craft; cabinet-making was her husband's craft. Everybody had a craft of some kind in The Chase. They all made things or did things, which nobody made or did in Kensington. Sometimes this making or doing was their profession; sometimes it was a _parergon_ carried on deliciously in leisure hours. In either case it was the most important part of their lives. Mr. Dunk kept rabbits; Mr. Farraday kept boats, and sailed interminably in his cutter or rowed about in an almost invisible dinghy. However innocent and respectable they looked, each of them, one felt, was capable of secret pottery, or privately addicted to modelling or engraving. There was nothing The Chase could not do. When these people came in the At Home brightened appreciably; there was a loud noise of really intelligent conversation, and Mrs. Whittaker was satisfied. Whittaker laboured assiduously at his home-made cocktails, and was suitably rewarded by their rapid consumption. Whittaker's cocktails had the advantages and the defects of an impromptu composition, which is precisely what they were. He was bound by no cast-iron rules as to ingredients in manufacture. But they were always powerful and generally popular; and most of the ladies attempted them if only because they were such a glorious gamble. Only Mrs. Ambrose resolutely declined. And as they drank them they were all pleasurably excited by the imminent advent of Stephen Byrne. The door opened violently, striking the psychologist in the middle of the back, and a wave of people surged into the room, with much chattering and loud laughter. Towering in the centre of the mob was a huge clergyman, with large, round spectacles and a brick-red face, who reminded one instantly of Og, Gog, and Magog, however vague one's previous impressions of those personages had been. He had a voice like a Tube train, rumbling far off in a tunnel, and his laugh was like the bursting of shells. He was six foot eight, and magnificently proportioned. With him was a man about twenty-seven, a Civil Servant and resident of The Chase, by name John Egerton. In front of these two, hopelessly dwarfed by the Rev. Peter, were two young ladies--and Stephen Byrne, a tall figure in a black velvet smoking-jacket. It said much for the personality, and indeed the person, of the young poet that in the arresting presence of the Rev. Peter most of the company looked immediately at Stephen Byrne. Many of them, indeed, thought it more seemly for some reason to conceal their interest, and went on talking or listening to their neighbours; they swivelled their eyes painfully towards the door without moving their heads, and suddenly said "Quite" or "Really" with a vain affectation of intelligence and usually in an inappropriate context. These were mostly men, who could not be expected openly to admit that there was present a more important male than themselves. But most of the women, and especially the older ones, regarded with evident admiration the black-haired, bonny celebrity of Hammerton Chase. It was very black, that hair, unbelievably black, and of a curious, attractive texture. One wanted to touch it. And, although he was a poet, it was not too long. Smiling happily under the light, Stephen Byrne was very good to look at. A high brow gave him a perhaps spurious suggestion of nobility, for the rest of the face was not so noble. The modern habit is to affix a label to every man, and be affronted if he forgets or ignores his label. But the most inveterate labeller would have been puzzled by the face of Stephen Byrne. In repose it was a handsome, impressive face, full of what is vaguely described as "breeding," the nose straight and thin, the mouth firm and unobtrusive. One felt confidence, sympathy, attraction. But when he spoke or smiled, one thought again. There was attraction still, and for most people an immediate irresistible charm, but less confidence. There was a certain weakness in the mobile mouth, a certain fleshliness. You could imagine this young man being noble or mean, cruel or kind, good-humoured or petulant, selfish or magnanimous or simply damnable. Which is merely to say that he was a complicated affair. But if indeed he had a darker side, it had never been revealed to the people of The Chase; and they loved him. The two ladies were Margery Byrne, his wife, and Muriel Tarrant, a favourite niece of the Reverend Peter. They were both very fair, both very delightful without being exactly beautiful. Miss Muriel Tarrant was the sole unmarried and still marriageable maiden in The Chase. It was a curious thing; the female population of The Chase consisted almost entirely of married ladies, young or old, elderly ladies who were past that sort of thing, and small children. Muriel Tarrant swam like a solitary comet in this galaxy of fixed or immature stars. None could imagine why she remained single for a moment, so young and fresh and admirable she was. People indeed said that John Egerton ... but no one knew. Muriel's young brother, George Edwin, a tall youth with the precise features of Greek sculpture and the immaculate locks of a barber's assistant, brought up the rear, looking a little dazed. There was a third young lady, disconcertingly tall and slightly abashed, and an obviously artistic youth in a blue collar, clinging timidly to the skirts of the party--both strangers to The Chase. Stephen Byrne introduced them. "All these people," he explained, with a comprehensive gesture, "do pottery and engraving. They are The Chase. Give me one of your cocktails, Whittaker. No--give me two." With two thin glasses of Whittaker's latest concoction he walked over to old Mrs. Ambrose, watching him from her distant corner and wishing she was less old and less deaf, so that she could command the attentions of pleasant and distinguished young men. When he came to her she glowed with contentment like the harvest moon emerging from a mist, and to her own intense astonishment and the horror of her daughter was prevailed upon by Stephen to accept and actually consume the cocktail he had brought her. So excited was she, and so excited was Mrs. Church, her daughter, that Mrs. Church's stutter became altogether unconquerable, and the old lady's lip-reading became more than ever an adventure in guess-work. This meant a complete breakdown in their system of communications, which made conversation difficult. But Stephen chattered and sparkled undeterred, and the old ladies chuckled and crooned with satisfaction. Mrs. Ambrose thought he was talking about domestic servants, because she had lip-read the word "cook." In fact, he was talking nonsense about the origin of the word _cock_-tail, as Mrs. Church kept trying to explain. But she never got further than, "He d--d--didn't say c--c--_cook_, Mother--he said c--c--c--" because the old lady always interrupted with "Housemaids, ah--yes," and wagged her white head with profound meaning. The rumour travelled round the noisy room that Mr. Byrne had made Mrs. Ambrose have a cocktail, and they all said, "How _like_ him! the naughty old thing! No one else would have done _that_." Margery Byrne was trying to make the dramatic critic talk about the drama, but he had come to the conclusion that no one in Hammerton liked to talk about anything but domestic worries. As he lived in a service flat and did not have any, it was far from easy for him, but he was doing his best, and had ascertained from Mrs. Byrne that she had just engaged a new maid, named Emily, who seemed likely to be satisfactory. When Mrs. Byrne heard of her husband's feat, she looked across at him fondly, but almost reproachfully. "That means he's had three himself," she said, with a gay laugh. The dramatic critic, who flattered himself that he had probed the depths of human nature, thought, "What a nice, easygoing wife!" But Mrs. Byrne was really thinking, "I _wish_ he wouldn't drink so many--horrid, strong stuff." And she saw that, though her husband was being so pleasant and kind to the two old ladies, he was looking most of the time at Muriel Tarrant, the pretty girl in the corner beyond him, who was talking to John Egerton, and blushing prettily about something. Margery Byrne said to herself, "I am not jealous," and looked away. An enormous chatter filled the room. The psychologist sat silent, noticing things. Mr. Whittaker fussed about with coffee and thin glasses. Odd corners of tables and mantelpieces and bookshelves became crowded with discarded coffee-cups and dissipated glasses, perilously poised. Mrs. Whittaker, talking busily to the Reverend Peter, listened anxiously, with both ears at the public pulse, as it were, and could detect no single murmur of domestic worries. Every one, it seemed, was being interesting and intelligent. Then the carroty-haired Mrs. Vincent bustled up to her. "_Won't_ you make them sing to us, Mrs. Whittaker?--Mr. Byrne's Choir, I mean. I've never heard them, you know." The Reverend Peter roared across the room, "A song, Stephen--a song! Forward, the Choir!" The Hammerton Choir was the unduly dignified title of the faintly flippant, faintly musical company of pleasant people which the Byrnes gathered periodically at their house along The Chase. They sang, indeed, informally and wholly impromptu, a wide range of quartettes and choruses and glees. But volume of sound rather than delicacy of execution was their strong point, and the prevailing tone was frivolous. Indeed, it was scarcely in keeping with the sonorous title they had assumed; and Mrs. Vincent and others of Mrs. Whittaker's guests, who had heard of the Hammerton Choir, but had not actually heard it, might be pardoned if they had formed too flattering an impression of its powers. Some of the Choir showed a certain bashfulness at the proposal that they should sing so publicly. John Egerton at first definitely refused, partly perhaps because he was happily occupied with Miss Muriel Tarrant in an almost impregnable corner. She, however, not wishing the company to suppose that she had any such thought, urged him into the arena; and Stephen Byrne prevailed upon the rest of his following. He himself showed no signs of bashfulness. Miss Tarrant was the Choir's principal treble, and Stephen, bowing gallantly, escorted her with Miss Tiffany to the piano, a decayed and tinny instrument, with many photographs of children obliquely regarding each other on the top. Stephen sat at the piano, and the Reverend Peter stood stooping like a tired steeple beyond. He was, of course, the bass. The young man with the blue collar provided with John Egerton a throaty and wavering tenor. Egerton tried to stand next to Miss Tarrant, but was thwarted without intention by his companion tenor. Miss Tiffany grew slowly pinker and pinker. A solemn hush descended. The company held their breath. At the beginning of the Great War Mr. Asquith made a speech. In it he formulated the principles for which this nation was fighting. The formula was perfect and worthy of a great master of formulæ, sonorous and dignified, yet not verbose. It said everything without saying a word too much. And Mr. Asquith was, justifiably, so pleased with it that for many years he lost no opportunity of publicly repeating it, or if he did not repeat it, of reminding people about it in speeches and pronouncements and letters to the Press. It began, "We shall not sheathe the sword," and for a long time it was blazoned on every hoarding. Few men can have had so striking a literary success with four sentences. But over and above its conciseness and majesty and lucidity the formula had other qualities which may or may not have been consciously imparted to it by Mr. Asquith. Its component sentences had the literary form of Hebraic poetry, the structure and rhythm of the Psalms. They might, indeed, have come out of the Psalms. But this was not all. One would understand the Prime Minister of England modelling some important literary composition on the style of the Psalms, which is a noble style. And that being so, one could understand the result being more or less easily adjustable to some one or other of those Church of England chants, which have done so much to popularize the Psalms of David. But the extraordinary thing about Mr. Asquith's formula was that it fitted exactly the Quadruple Chant, the unique and famous Quadruple Chant, designed by a benignant Church to make the longest Psalm that David composed less inexpressibly fatiguing than it would be to the music of a miserable single or double chant. There were four sentences in Mr. Asquith's formula. There were four musical sentences in the Quadruple Chant, each divided in twain. And they fitted each other like a glove, or, rather, like a well-fitting glove. It was marvellous. The only reasonable conclusion was that Mr. Asquith, in a moment of pious exaltation, had deliberately set his formula to the Quadruple Chant. Alone of the English-speaking race Stephen Byrne had discovered these astounding truths. Having formed the conclusion that Mr. Asquith had written the words to that chant, he held that one ought to sing the words to that chant. This would be the highest compliment to the man and the best means of perpetuating his work. And so, with many others, he did. But there is a season for all things; and it cannot be pretended that Mrs. Whittaker's select and crowded At Home was the season for this particular thing. Stephen struck a chord. The company wondered what masterpiece was to be given them--perhaps some Schubert, perhaps something from Gilbert and Sullivan. Then the great anthem rolled out. The voices of the Hammerton Choir were not individually of high quality, but they blended well, and their volume was surprising. They sang in excellent time, all stopping at the asterisks absolutely together, all accomplishing with perfect unanimity those long polysyllabic passages on one note which make psalm-singing in our churches so fruitful a source of precipitancy and schism. "We shall not sheathe the sword" (pause for breath), "which we hàve not/lightly/drawn,//until Belgium has recovered all and MORE than/all that/she has/sacrificed. "Until France is adequàte/ly sec/urèd//against the/menace/of ag/gression." (The accentuation of _ate_ in "adequately" was the one blot on the pointing; it was unworthy of Mr. Asquith.) "Until the rights of the smaller nationàlit/-ies of/Europe//are placed upon an ùnass/aila/ble found/ation/." (That was a grand stanza; the Hammerton singers gave a delicious burlesque of the country choir gabbling with ever-growing speed through the first words, and falling with a luxurious snarl on their objective, the unfortunate accented syllable _al_.) "And until the military dòmin/ation of/ Prussia//is whòlly and/final/ly dest/royèd." (_Prussia_ was given with a splendid crescendo of hate, worthy of the best Prussian traditions, and "destroy-èd" came with an effective rallentando.) The Reverend Peter Tarrant, rumbling in a profound bass the final "destroy-èd," was so life-like an imitation of a real clergyman leading a real village choir that those of the audience who had been slightly shocked by the whole performance became suddenly amused, and those who had not been shocked at all, which was a large majority, were reduced to the final stages of hysterical approval. The "turn" was a huge success. A roar of laughter and clapping and questioning followed the solemn ending. The Choir were urged to "do it again." The two ladies, flushed and almost overcome by the applause, a circumstance quite new in the history of the Choir, begged to be excused; but Stephen once more constrained them. This time, closely following the best contemporary models on the variety stage, he urged the audience to assist, and produced from some mysterious source a number of copies of the words, neatly typed and pointed. And then, indeed, a wondrous thing was heard. For all that mixed but mainly respectable company rose up, and, opening timidly, rendered with an ever-increasing confidence and volume that profane and ridiculous hymn. Stephen Byrne stood superbly on a footstool and conducted with a poker, his black eyes flashing, his whole figure vital with excitement and mirth. And all those people were under his spell. Even the psychologist forbore for a moment to analyse the workings either of his own or any man's mind, and concentrated genuinely on the correct pointing of his words, chuckling insanely at each half-verse. All of them chuckled and gurgled as they sang. But such is the hypnotic effect of any music with religious associations, and so powerful is the simple act of singing vigorously in unison as a generator of sentiment and solemnity in those who sing, that by the end of the third stanza they had forgotten that they were being funny, that the whole thing was a ridiculous joke, and discovered themselves, to Stephen's intense dismay, chanting with long faces and tones of inexpressible fervour the pious resolution that the military domination of Prussia must be wholly and finally "destroy-èd." They finished, almost with lumps in their throats, so moving was it all, and stood for a moment in a sheepish hush, half feeling that some one should say, "Let us pray," or give out a text before they might sit down. Then some one cackled in the background, and the spell was broken with peals of insane laughter. While the hoarse company were having their glasses justifiably refilled, Margery Byrne came quickly up to her husband, and gave him the look which means to a husband, "I want to go home now." She was tired and she looked tired; and she was going to have a baby. Stephen said, "Right you are, my dear--just a minute." He was talking now to the Reverend Peter and Muriel Tarrant, who was prettily flushed and a little excited. He was arguing with the Reverend Peter about the poetry of John Donne. He, too, was excited and pleased and reluctant to go home. But he knew that Margery ought to go home. And of such stuff are the real temptations of man. He looked an apology and an appeal at his wife and said, "One minute, my dear.... Would you mind?" knowing well that she minded. Mrs. Byrne said that of course she did not mind, and went back to her seat by the dramatic critic, yawning furtively. So Stephen stood against the piano and defended John Donne, that strange Elizabethan mixture of piety and paganism and poetry and nastiness. He had forgotten Mr. Asquith now; he had forgotten the Choir and Muriel Tarrant, and he was absorbed in the serious pronouncement of an artistic belief. The Reverend Peter said that he was no prig, but some of John Donne was too much for him. He could not believe in the essential greatness of a grown man who could write such stuff. Stephen began to quote a line or two from memory; then he reached up for an old brown volume on one of Whittaker's shelves and read from it in a low voice that only the clergyman could hear. "This is what I make of him," he said. And he began to talk. He talked with the real eloquence of a master of words profoundly moved, with growing earnestness and vigour. He spoke of the eternal contradictions of human personality, of the amazing mixtures which make up men; how true was the saying of Samuel Butler that everything a man does is in a measure a picture of himself, yet how true it was that one could not confidently judge what a man was like from what he wrote. He told the Reverend Peter that he was narrow in his estimate--unjust. One must strike a balance. Many of the company had gathered about him now, and were listening; Stephen saw this at last, and finished. Then the Reverend Peter laid a large hand affectionately on his shoulder and said, "You're a wonderful man, Stephen. I surrender. I dare say I've wronged the fellow.... I'll read him again.... You poets are certainly an odd mixture." And that was the thought of all those who had heard the singing and listened to the talk. Stephen turned from him with a curious smile and saw suddenly the reproachful figure of his wife. He said, "Come along, my dear--I'm so sorry! Are you coming, John?" Egerton looked across at Muriel Tarrant and her mother. They were entangled with Mrs. Ambrose and showed no signs of escaping. He said, "No--I shall stay a little, I think." In the hot darkness of The Chase Stephen took his wife's arm, and knew at once that she was cross. They walked in silence to The House by the River and in silence entered the poky little hall. Stephen cursed himself; it was a stupid end to a jolly evening. In the hall he kissed her and said that he was sorry, and she sighed and smiled, and kissed him and went upstairs. Stephen walked reflectively into the dining-room and mixed himself a whisky and water. And as he drank, Emily Gaunt came up from the kitchen to ask if Mrs. Byrne wanted tea. Emily Gaunt was the new maid. Stephen finished his whisky and noticed for the first time that she was pretty--in a way. "No, thank you, Emily," he said, and smiled at her. And Emily smiled. II It was nearly high tide. Stephen Byrne stood at the end of his garden and regarded contentedly the River Thames. The warm glow of sunset lingered about the houses by Hammersmith Bridge and the tall trees on the Surrey side. The houses and the tall trees and the great old elms by William Morris' house stood rigid on their heads in the still water, and all that wide and comfortable reach between the Island and Hammersmith Bridge was beautiful in the late sun. There were a few small clouds flushed with pink in the southern sky, and these also lay like reefs of coral here and there in the water. The little boats in the foreground, moored in ranks in the tiny roads off Hammerton Chase, lay already deep in the shadow of the high houses of the Terrace, and the water about them was cool and very black. The busy tugs went by, hurrying up with the last of the flood, long chains of barges swishing delightfully behind them. The tug _Maud_ went by, and _Margaret_, her inseparable companion. On their funnels were a green stripe and a red stripe and a yellow stripe. On their barges were reposeful bargees, smoking old pipes in the stern, and pondering, no doubt, the glories of their life. _Margaret_ this evening had a glorious barge, a great black vessel with a light blue line along the gunwale and a tangle of rigging and coffee-coloured sails strewn along her deck. As they fussed away past the Island the long waves crept smoothly across the river and stole secretly under the little boats in the roads, the sailing-boats and the rowing-boats and the motor-boats and the absurd dinghies, and tossed them up and heaved them about with pleasing chuckles; and went on to the garden-wall of the houses and splashed noisily under Stephen's nose and frothed back to the boats. And the boats rolled happily with charming ripply noises till the water was calm and quiet again. A swan drifted lazily backwards with the tide, searching for something in the back of its neck. It was all very soothing and beautiful, and Stephen Byrne could have looked at the high tide for ever. High tide was a great moment at Hammerton Chase. It had a powerful influence on the minds of The Chase. There was a tremendous feeling of fulfilment, of achievement, about the river when the flood was still sweeping up, wandering on to the road on one bank and almost topping the towpath on the other, making Hammerton Reach a broad and dignified affair. The time went quickly when the tide was high. There were long hours when the tide was low, when the river dwindled to a mean and dejected stream, creeping narrowly along between gloomy stretches of mud and brickbats and broken crockery, where the boats lay protesting and derelict in uncomfortable attitudes. There was a sense of disappointment then, of stagnation and failure. Those who lived by the river and loved and studied it were keenly susceptible to the tides. And this tide seemed particularly copious and good. For one thing, he had dined well. He had drunk at Brierley's a satisfying quantity of some admirable Château Yquem, followed by some quite excellent old brandy. He was by no means drunk; but he was conscious of a glow, a warm contentment. Life seemed amicable and prosperous and assured. After all, he was a fortunate young fellow, Stephen Byrne. The life of a successful poet was undoubtedly a good life. And he was happily married. His wife was pretty and loving and almost perfect. Very soon she was to have another baby; and it would be a boy, of course. The first was a dear, delightful, incomparable creature, but she was a girl. The next would be a boy. And he loved his home. He loved Hammersmith and the faithful companionable river, the barges and the jolly tugs and his little garden and his motor-boat and his dinghy and the sun-steeped window-seat in the corner of his study, the white conservatory he had whitewashed with his wife, and the exuberant creeper they had trained together. Stephen's house was The House by the River, which stood with one other in an isolated communion between Hammerton Terrace and the Island. The bank swung out widely above the Terrace, so that Stephen's house and its neighbour were on a miniature promontory, commanding unobstructed the ample curve of the river to Hammersmith Bridge, a mile away. The houses were old and ill-appointed within, with rattling sashes and loose doors, but dignified and beautiful without, modest old brick draped generously with green. And they were full of tall windows drinking in the sun and looking away to the south towards the hills about Putney and Roehampton, or westwards to the remote green of Richmond Hill. They were rich with sunshine and an air that was not London's. Stephen looked up at his high old house and was proud of it. He was proud of the thick ivy and creeper all over it and the green untidy garden below it, and the pretty view of the dining-room, where the light was on, a lonely island of gold in the dusk, seen delightfully through matted ropes of creeper. There was a light in the bathroom, too--Emily Gaunt, the housemaid, no doubt, having a bath. As he looked up he heard the sound of water tumbling down the pipes outside the house, and deduced absently that Emily had pulled up the waste-plug. Stephen looked over his neighbour's wall into his neighbour's garden. His neighbour was John Egerton and a good friend of his, probably the best friend he had. But John Egerton was not in his garden. Stephen was sorry, for he felt that inclination towards human society which normally accompanies the warm afterglow of good wine. Mrs. Byrne was dining with her mother, and would not be back for an hour or so. Stephen regretted that he had come back so early. He could not write. He did not want to read. He felt full, but not capable of poetry. He wanted company. The glow was still upon him, but it was growing chilly on the wall. It was time to go in. He knocked out his pipe. The dottle fell with a fizzle in the water. He walked in slowly to the dining-room and poured out a glass of port. Failing company there must be more glow. The port was good and admirably productive of glow. Stephen stood by the old oak sideboard, luxuriously reviving the sensations of glow. The dining-room, it seemed to him, was extraordinarily beautiful; the sea-picture by Quint an extraordinarily adequate picture of the sea; the port extraordinarily comforting and velvety; the whole of life extraordinarily well arranged. When he had finished the port he heard a timid creaking on the staircase. He went into the tiny hall, walking with a self-conscious equilibrium. Emily Gaunt was coming down the stairs to her bedroom, fresh from her bath. Emily Gaunt was a pleasant person, well-proportioned, and, for a housemaid, unusually fair to see. Her eyes, like her hair, were a very dark brown, and there was a certain refinement in her features. Her hair was hanging about her shoulders and her face--usually pale--was rosy from her bath. In the absence of a dressing-gown or kimono, she wore an old coat of Cook's over her night-gown. Cook was skinny and Emily was plump, so that Cook's coat was far from meeting where it ought to have met. There was a great deal of Emily's neck and Emily's night-gown to be seen. Stephen, so far, had taken little notice of Emily, except that one evening he had smiled at her for some reason and she had smiled at him; but at this moment, in the special circumstances of this lovely evening, she seemed in his eyes surprisingly desirable. In the half-light from the dining-room it was easy to forget that she was a servant. She was merely a warm young female creature, plump and comely, and scantily clad. And there was no one else in the house. "Good evening, Emily," said Stephen, looking up the stairs. "Good evening, Mr. Byrne," said Emily, halting on the stairs. She was a little surprised to see him. Cook was having her "evening out" and Emily had thought herself alone in the house. Now, Emily Gaunt was a well-behaved young woman. She was accustomed to being looked at by her male employers, and she was accustomed to keeping them at a proper distance. For so she had been brought up. But when she was not looked at she was usually sensible of a certain disappointment. Stephen Byrne had not looked at her enough, and she was undeniably disappointed. She liked the look of him; she liked his voice when he said, "Where are my boots, please, Emily?" And she did not get on well with Mrs. Byrne. Moreover, she had had a warm bath and was conscious also of a kind of glow. So that when she had said, "Good evening, Mr. Byrne," she continued at once her demure and unaffected descent. Cook would have turned and fled up the stairs, panting with modesty. So would many another domestic young person. But Emily descended. If she had waited, or turned back up the stairs, or faltered, "Oh, _sir_," and scurried like a young hind away from him, there is no doubt that Stephen would have made himself scarce--would have left the coast clear. But she descended. When she came to the bottom of the stairs where Stephen was standing, there was hardly space for her to pass. Stephen made no move. He said fatuously, "Had a nice bath, Emily?" and he put one arm around her as she passed, lightly, almost timidly, just touching the back of Cook's coat. Emily said, "Yes, thank you, sir," and looked at him. Only a glance, quick and fugitive as an electric spark--but what a glance! Yet she made no attempt to stop; she did not giggle or stammer or protest; she passed on. In another moment she would have gone. But Stephen had touched her. He had received and registered that naughty and electrical glance. He was inflamed. He did a thing the like of which he had never done before. He closed his right arm about the girl and firmly embraced her. And he kissed her very suddenly and hotly. Emily screamed. Stephen pulled her closer and kissed her again. And again Emily screamed. It was all very unfortunate. For it may be that if he had been less precipitate he could have been equally amorous without encountering anything more than a purely formal opposition. Emily Gaunt was prepared to be kissed, but not suddenly, not violently. It should have been properly led up to--a little talk, a compliment or two, some blushes, and a delicate embrace. That was the proper routine in Emily's set, or in anybody else's set for that matter. But this sudden, desperate, hot-breathed entanglement was quite another thing. It was frightening. And who can blame Emily Gaunt for that high-pitched rasping cry? Stephen blamed her. It startled him a little, that screaming--frightened him, too. It brought him back to reality. He thought suddenly of neighbours, of John Egerton, of old Mrs. Ambrose across the way. Suppose they heard. It became urgent to stop the screaming. Playfully, almost, he put his hands at Emily's throat. And even the touch of her throat was somehow inflammatory. It made him want to kiss her again. "Shut up, you little fool," he said. "I shan't hurt you." But Emily's nerve had gone. She opened her mouth to scream again. Stephen's hands tightened about the neck and the scream was never heard. "_Now_, will you be quiet?" he said. "You're perfectly safe, Emily--I'm sorry.... I was a fool ..." and he released his grip. But Emily was thoroughly, hideously, frightened now. A kind of despairing wail, a thin and inarticulate "Help!" came from her. Stephen put his hand over her mouth, and Emily bit him. And then Stephen saw red. The lurking animal which is in every man was already strong in him that evening, though Emily's first scream had cowed it a little. Now it took complete charge. With a throaty growl of exasperation he put both hands at the soft throat of Emily and shook her, jerkily exhorting her as he did so, "Will--you--be quiet--you--silly--little fool--will you--be quiet--you--fool--you'll--have--everybody--here--you ..." He only meant to shake her--he did not mean to squeeze with his hands--did not know that he _was_ squeezing--mercilessly. He was between Emily and the dining-room, and in the dim light of the hall he could not see the starting, horrible eyes, the darkening flesh of poor Emily Gaunt. He only knew that this silly screaming was intolerable and must be stopped--stopped for certain, without further bother ... before the whole street came round ... before his wife came back ... before ... "Stop it, will you?... For God's sake, stop it!" he cried, almost plaintively, as his grip loosened a moment, and a strangled gasp burst from Emily. He was too much possessed with his anxious rage to notice _how_ strangled it was. What he wanted was silence ... complete silence, that was it ... screams and gasps, they were all dangerous.... "Oh ... stop it ... can't you?" The shaking process had taken them across the tiny hall. They were by the hat-stand now. Emily's oscillating head cannoned against a hat-peg. Her weight became suddenly noticeable. Emily's hands stopped scrabbling at his wrists ... her bare feet stopped kicking. Good, she was becoming sensible. Thank God! Cautiously, with a vast relief, Stephen took his hands away. "That's better," he said. And then Emily Gaunt fell heavily against his shirt-front and slithered past him to the floor. Her forehead hit the bottom corner of the hat-stand. Her body lay limp, face downwards, and perfectly still. In the dark hall the sound of snoring was heard. He knew then that Emily Gaunt was dead. But it was absurd.... He turned on the light, groping stupidly in the dark for the switch. His hands were shaking--that was from the gripping, of course. And they were sweating. So was his face. Kneeling down, he pulled at Emily's shoulders. He pulled her over on to her back. "My God!" he whispered. "My God!... my God!..." A bell jangled in the basement. Some one with his head lowered was peering through the frosted glass of the front door. III In moments of crisis the human mind can become extraordinarily efficient. Before the bell was silent in the basement, the mind of Stephen Byrne, kneeling in a sweat by the dead body of a housemaid, had covered a vast field of circumstance and performed two or three distinct logical processes. His first instinct was to put out the light. With that person peering on the doorstep the light in the hall had better be out. He felt exposed, naked, illuminated. On the other hand, one could see practically nothing through the frosted glass from outside, only the shadow of any one actually moving in the hall. That he knew from experience. Probably the person--whoever it was--could see nothing that was on the floor, nothing that was below the level of his or her interfering eye. If Stephen stayed still as he was, the person might never know he was there, might even go away in disgust. To put the light out would be a gratuitous advertisement that somebody was in the house. Besides, it would look so rude. Stephen did not turn out the light. He knelt there on two knees and a hand, staring like a snake at the front door. With his right hand he was stealthily scratching his left armpit. It was itching intolerably. And his dress-collar was sticking into his neck. He was intensely conscious of these things. But all the time the precipitate arguments were jostling in his brain. What sort of person would peer through the glass? Surely a very familiar thing to do. He could think of a few people who would do it--the Whittakers--but they were away; his wife--but it was too early, and she had a latch-key; John Egerton--but Stephen thought he was out. Or a policeman, of course. A policeman who had heard the screaming, or been told of the screaming, might do it, or even a neighbouring busybody, if he had heard. But they would have clattered up to the door, run up or stopped importantly on the doorstep--probably hammered with the knocker. The person had not done that. He had only rung that damnable bell. The person's head disappeared. He gave a loud knock with the big brass knocker which Stephen had bought in Jerusalem. Just one knock. Then the whole world was silent. Stephen's heart thumped like a steam-engine going at slow speed. He thought, "It's true what they say in the books.... I can hear it." The person shuffled its feet on the step. "My God!" said Stephen again. "My God!" In the hall there was an enormous silence. A tug hooted dismally on the river. Stephen started scratching again. He was thinking of his wife now, of Margery. He loved Margery--he loved her very truly and well. And she was just going to have a baby. What would she--How would she--O God! But she must not know. He would do something in a minute when the damned fool had gone away. Why the hell didn't he go away, and leave a man alone? It must be some kind of visitor--not a policeman, or a panicky neighbour. They would have been more impatient. Why the hell didn't he go? It was Whittaker, perhaps. Or that South American chap. The person did not go away. For the person had only been on the doorstep for thirty seconds in all, and the person was in no hurry. Soon he would go away--he must go =away=, Stephen thought. The _hours_ he had been out there. It must be a long time, because Stephen's knees were so sore. And he did want to get on with doing something--he was not clear what--but something. "God will provide," he thought. And as he uttered that hideous blasphemy the person began to whistle. He whistled gently an air from _I Pagliacci_, and to Stephen Byrne, it was merciful music. For it was a favourite tune of John Egerton's, bowled often by both of them at casual gatherings of the Hammerton Choir in Mrs. Bryne's drawing-room. It must be John, after all, this person on the doorstep; good old John--thank God! If it was John, he would let him in; he would tell him the whole story. John must help him. It was suddenly revealed to Stephen that he could not bear this burden alone. It was too much. John was the man. But one must be careful. One must make sure. A cunning look came into his eyes. With elaborate stealth he crawled backwards from Emily's body and so into Emily's bedroom, which looked over the street. Under the blind he reconnoitred the front doorstep. The back of the person was turned towards him, but it was clear to him that the person was John Egerton, though he could only see part of the back and nothing of the head. No two persons in Hammerton Chase, or probably in the world, wore a shabby green coat like that. It was certainly John, come round for some singing, no doubt. He walked back boldly into the hall. He was cooler now, and his heart was working more deliberately. But he was horribly afraid. He put out the lights. Then he opened the front door, very grudgingly, and looked round the corner. "Hullo!" said Egerton. "Hullo!" said Stephen. "Come in," and then, with a sudden urgency--"_quick!_" John Egerton came slowly in and stood still in the dark. "What's the matter?" he asked. Stephen said, "I'm in a hole," and turned on the light. It was very badly managed. No doubt he should have hidden Emily away before he opened the door; should have led up gradually to the ultimate revelation; should have carefully prepared a man like Egerton for a sight like the body of Emily Gaunt. For it was a coarse and terrible sight. She lay on her back by the hat-stand, with her dark hair tumbled on the floor, her face mottled and blue, her eyes gaping disgustingly, her throat marked and inflamed with the fingers of her employer. The coat of Cook was crumpled beneath her, and she had torn great rents in her night-dress in her desperate resistance, so that she lay half-naked in the cruel glare of the electric light. Her two plump legs were crossed fantastically like the legs of a crusader, but so that the feet were wide apart. Her pink flesh glistened and smelt powerfully of soap. It was not the kind of thing to spring upon any man, least of all should it have been sprung upon Egerton. For he was a highly sensitive man and easily shocked. He had not been, like Stephen, to the war--being a Civil Servant and imperfect in the chest--and in an age when the majority of living young men have looked largely on, and become callous about, death, John Egerton had never seen a dead body. And he was a person of extraordinary modesty, in the sense in which most women but few men possess modesty. He had a real chastity of thought which few men ever achieve. John Egerton was no prig. Only he had this natural purity of outlook which made him actually blush when indelicate things were said on the stage or hinted at in private society. And now he was suddenly confronted in the house of his best friend with the dead and disgusting body of a half-naked female. He was inexpressibly shocked. When the light went on and he looked down at the floor, his mouth opened suddenly, but he said no word; he only stared incredulously at the sprawling flesh. Then he began to blush. A faint flush travelled slowly over his rather sallow face. He looked up then at Stephen, watching anxiously in the corner. "What the devil--" he said. From the tone in which he spoke, Stephen realized suddenly the error he had made. Pulling down a coat from a peg, he flung it over the body. Only a few times had he heard John Egerton speak like that and look like that, but he knew quite clearly what it meant. John should have been kept out of this. Or he should have had it broken to him. Of course. But there was no time--no time--that was the trouble. Stephen looked at his watch. It was twenty to ten. At any moment his wife might be back. Something must be done. He opened the dining-room door. "Come in here," he said, and they went in. John Egerton stood by the sideboard looking very grim and perplexed. He could not be called handsome, not at least beside Stephen Byrne. There was less intellect but more character in his face, a kind of moral refinement in the adequate jaw and steady grey eyes, set well apart under indifferent eyebrows. His face was pale from too much office-work, and he had the habit of a forward stoop, from peering nervously at new people. These things gave him, somehow, a false air of primness, and a little detracted from the kindliness, the humanity, which was the secret of his character and his charm. For ultimately men were charmed by John, though a deep-seated shyness concealed him from them at a first meeting. His voice was soft and unassuming, his mouth humorous but firm. He had slightly discoloured teeth, not often visible. Stephen's teeth were admirable and flashed attractively when he smiled. "What's it all mean?" John said. "Is she--" Stephen said, "She's dead ... it's Emily, our maid." "How?" Egerton began. "I--I was playing the fool ... pretended I was going to kiss her, you know ... the little fool thought I meant it ... got frightened ... then something ... I don't know what happened exactly ... she bumped her head.... Oh, damn it, there's no time to explain ... we've got to get her away somehow ... and I want you to help ... Margery ..." "Get her away?" said John; "but the police ... you can't ..." John Egerton was still far from grasping the full enormity of the position. He had been badly shocked by the sight of the body. He was shocked by his friend's incoherent confession of some vulgar piece of foolery with a servant. He was amazed that a man like Stephen should even "pretend" that he was going to kiss a servant. That kind of thing was not done in The Chase, and Stephen was not that kind of man, he thought. No doubt he had had a little too much wine, flung out some stupid compliment or other; there had been a scuffle, and then some accident, a fall or something--the girl probably had a weak heart; fleshy people often did: it was all very horrible and regrettable, but not criminal. Nothing to be kept from the police. But it was damnably awkward, of course, with Mrs. Byrne in that condition. Stephen's spluttering mention of her name had suddenly reminded him of that. There would be policemen, fusses, inquests, and things. She would be upset. John had a great regard for Mrs. Byrne. She oughtn't to be upset just now. But it couldn't be helped. Stephen Byrne was pouring out port again--a full glass. He lifted and drank it with an impatient urgency, leaning back his black head. Some of the wine spilled out as he drank, and flowed stickily down his chin. Three drops fell on his crumpled shirt-front and swelled slowly into pear-shaped stains. His friend's failure to understand was clearly revealed to him, and filled him with an unreasonable irritation. It was his own fault of course. He should have told him the whole truth. But somehow he couldn't--even now--though every moment was precious. Even now he could not look at John and tell him simply what he had done. He took a napkin from the sideboard drawer and rubbed it foolishly across his shirt-front, as he spoke. He said: "Oh, for God's sake, John ... don't you understand ... I ... I believe I ... I've killed her ... myself ... I don't know." He looked quickly at John and away again. John's honest mouth was opening. His grey eyes were wide and horrified. When Stephen saw that, he hurried on, "I may be wrong ... but anyhow Margery mustn't know anything about it ... you _must_ see that ... it would probably kill her ... and she'll be back any moment now. Oh, _come_ on, for God's sake." A sudden vision of his wife walking through the front door on to that horrible thing in the hall spurred him to the door. John Egerton stood still by the solid table, his hands gripping the edge of it behind him. He understood now. "Good God!" he said quickly, as if to himself, and again, "Good God!" Then starting up, "But, Stephen, it's ... it's ... you mean ..." Suddenly the word "murder" had flashed into his thoughts, and that word seemed to light up the whole ghastly business, made it immediately more hideous. "It's _murder_," he had been going to say, but some fantastic sense of delicacy stopped him. Stephen halted at the door. A wild rage came over him. There was a strange kind of fierce resolution about him then which his friend had never seen before. "Oh, for God's sake, don't stand dithering there, John," he flung back. "Are you going to help me or not? If not, clear out ... if you are, come on ... quick, before Margery comes." He went into the hall. John Egerton said no more, but followed. That illuminating unspoken word "murder," which had shown him the whole awfulness of this affair had shown him also the urgency of the present moment, the necessity of helping Stephen to "get her away." For Margery Byrne's sake. Just how he felt towards Stephen at that moment, what he would have done if Stephen had been a bachelor, he had had not time to consider. And it did not matter. For Mrs. Byrne's--for Margery's--sake, something must be done, as Stephen said. And he, John Egerton, must help. "What are you going to do?" he said. Stephen was crouched on his haunches, busily tidying Emily's night-dress, pulling it about. "The river," he said shortly. "It's high tide--Thank God!" he added. John Egerton looked shrinkingly at the torn and ineffective night-dress, at the wide spaces of pink flesh showing through the rents. He could not imagine himself picking up that body. He said, "What?--like--like _that_?" Stephen looked up. "Yes," he said; "why not?" But he knew very well why not. Because of a certain insane sense of decency which governs even a murderer in the presence of death. Emily Gaunt must not be "got away" like that! Besides, it would be dangerous. He thought for a moment. Then, "No," he said. "Wait a minute," and clattered down the basement stairs. When he came back he was trailing behind him a long and capacious sack, which had hung on a nail in the scullery for the receipt of waste paper and bottles and odds and ends of domestic refuse. The sack, fortunately, had been only half full. All its contents he had tumbled recklessly on the scullery floor. But as he came up the stairs he was curiously disturbed by the thought of that refuse. What was to be done with it? What would Margery say? The scullery had been recently cleaned out, he knew. And the sack? How could he explain its disappearance? These damned details. "Here you are," he said. "This will do," and he laid the sack on the floor. He began to put Emily into the sack. He drew the mouth of the sack over her feet. They were already cold. John Egerton stood stiffly under the light, in a kind of paralysis of disgust. He felt "I must help!... I must help!" but somehow he could not move a finger. The sack was over the knees now. It was strangely difficult. The toes kept catching. But Stephen was fantastically preoccupied with the refuse on the scullery floor, with coming explanations about the sack. "There'll be an awful row," he said ... "the hell of a mess down there ... what shall I say about the sack?" Then, suddenly, "What shall I say, John?... Think of something, for God's sake!" John Egerton jumped. The wild incongruity of Stephen's question scarcely occurred to him. He tried solemnly to think of something to say about the sack. He would be helpful here, surely. But no thought came. His mind was a confused muddle of night-dresses and inquests and naked legs and Margery Byrne--Margery Byrne arriving quietly on the doorstep--Margery Byrne scandalized, agonized, hideously, fatally ill. "I don't know, Stephen," he said feebly--"I don't know ... say you ... oh, anything." He was fascinated now by the progress of the sack, which had nearly covered the legs. He saw clearly that a moment was coming when he would _have_ to help, when one of them would have to lift Emily and one of them manipulate the sack. Already Stephen was cursing and in difficulties. The night-dress kept rucking up and had to be pulled back, and when that was done the sack lost ground again. "Oh, hell!" he said, with a note of final exasperation, "lend a hand, John--lift her a bit," and then as John still hesitated, sick with reluctance, "Oh, _lift_ her, can't you?" John stooped down. The moment had come. He put his hands under the small of Emily's back, shuddering as he touched her. With an effort he lifted her an inch or two. With a great heave Stephen advanced the sack six inches. Then it caught again in those maddening toes. With a guttural exclamation of rage he turned back towards the feet and tugged furiously at the sack. When it was free John Egerton had relaxed his hold. Emily was lying heavy on the slack of the sack. He was gazing with a kind of helpless horror at the purple inflammation of Emily's throat, realizing for the first time just how brutal and violent her end had been. Stephen cursed again. "Lift, damn you, _lift_--oh, hell!" John lifted, and with a wild fumbling impatience the whole of Emily's body was covered. Only the head and one arm were left. They had forgotten the arm. It lay flung out away from the body, half hidden under an overcoat. Stephen seized it savagely and tried to bend it in under the mouth of the sack, with brutal ridiculous tugs, like an ill-tempered man packing an over-loaded bag. John watched him with growing disapproval. "That's no good," he said. "Pull down the sack again." Stephen did so. The sweat now was running down his face; he was spent and panting, and his composure was all gone. With his black hair ruffled over his forehead he looked wicked. Something of his impatience had communicated itself to John, mastering even his abhorrence. He wanted furiously to get the thing done. It was he now who seized the recalcitrant arm and thrust it into the sack; it was he who fiercely pulled the sack over Emily's head, and hid at last that puffy and appalling face with a long "Ah--h" of relief. At the mouth of the sack was a fortunate piece of cord, threaded through a circle of ragged holes. John Egerton pulled it tight and fumbled at the making of a knot. He felt vaguely that something special in the way of knots was required--a bowline--a reef knot or something--not a "granny," anyhow. How was it you tied a reef knot? Dimly remembered instructions came to him--"the same string over both times"--or "under," wasn't it? Stephen crouched at his side, dazedly watching his mobile fingers muddling with the cord. A step sounded outside on the pavement. Stephen woke up with a whispered "My God!" and panic snatched at the pair of them. Feverishly John finished his knot and tugged at the ends. It was a "granny," he saw, but a granny it must remain. The steps had surely stopped outside the door. "Quick," he whispered, and got his right arm under the sack. Stumbling and straining, with a reckless disturbance of rugs and mats, they bundled the sagging body of Emily Gaunt into the dining-room. In the dining-room John Egerton halted and laid his end of her down. He was not strong, and she was heavy. Stephen clung to her feet, and the two of them stood listening, very shaky and afraid. There was no sound in the street now. The steps must have passed the door. From the rear there was the melancholy hooting of a tug, calling for its waiting barges at Ginger Wharf. They could hear the slow, methodical panting of her engines and the furtive swish of the water at her bows. In the garden a cat was wailing--horribly like a child in pain. To John Egerton these familiar sounds seemed like the noises of a new world, the new world he had entered at about a quarter-past nine, when he had become a partner, an accomplice, in this wretched piece of brutality and deceit. He felt curiously identified with it now--he was part of it, not merely an impersonal observer. He had a sensation of personal guilt. "It's all right," said somebody, very far away, in the voice of Stephen Byrne--a hoarse and furtive voice. John Egerton picked up his burden, and another staggering stage was accomplished into the conservatory. It was dusk now, but a large moon was up, and thin streams of silver filtered through the opaque roof and the crowded vine-leaves on to the long bundle on the floor. It was too light, Stephen thought, for this kind of work. When they had halted he said, "Wait a minute, John--I'll go and see if the coast is clear." He went quickly down the stone steps into the tiny garden. The long, rich grass of Stephen's "lawn" was drenched and glistening with dew. There was the heavy scent of something in the next-door garden, and over all a hot, intolerable stillness. Stephen became suddenly oppressed with the sense of guilt. Instinctively he stepped on to the wet grass and rustled softly through it to the river, his silk socks sponging up the dew. Over the shallow wall he inspected furtively the silent river. Nothing moved. It was slack water, and the downward procession of tugs had not properly begun. The water was smooth; the black reflections of the opposite trees were sharp and perfect. Down towards Hammersmith a few lights hung like pendant jewels in the water. Over the far houses there was a flicker like summer lightning from an electric train. A huddle of driftwood and odd refuse floated motionless in mid-stream, very black and visible, waiting for the tide to turn; but along the edges the stream already crept stealthily down, lapping softly against the moored ranks of boats, against Stephen's boat riding comfortably beneath him. In the neighbouring gardens nothing moved. About this hour in the hot weather the residents of Hammerton Chase would creep out secretly into their gardens and cast their refuse into the river, and there was often to be heard at dusk a scattered succession of subdued splashes. But tonight there were no splashes. Probably the duty was already done. Stephen remembered incongruously this local habit, and was at once relieved and disappointed. Too many people prowling in their gardens might be dangerous. On the other hand, there was a certain safety in a multitude of splashes. One more would have made no difference. There were no splashes now, and scarcely any sound: only the fretful muttering of distant traffic, the occasional rumble of buses on the far-off bridge, and the small plops of fishes leaping at the moon. Close to Stephen was an unobtrusive munching in the wired space where Joan's rabbits were kept. A buck rabbit lay hunched in the moonlight masticating contentedly the last remnants of the evening cabbage. Another nosed at the wire-netting, begging without conviction for further illicit supplies. Stephen stooped down automatically and rubbed his nose. But for the moonlight and the present slackness of the tide the moment was propitious. Stephen walked back more boldly into the conservatory. "You take the feet," he said. Without further speech they picked up the bundle and descended laboriously into the garden. The bright moon intimidated John. He looked back over his shoulder for people peering out of windows. But only the windows of his own house commanded the garden; and Mrs. Bantam, his housekeeper, would be long since in bed. Paddling quietly through the dew, he, too, thought fantastically of other burdens he had smuggled down to the river on many a breathless night, pailfuls of potato-peelings and old tins and ashes. In his mind he gave a mute hysterical chuckle at the thought. What other residents, he wondered, had taken this kind of contraband through their gardens in the secret night? Old Dimple, the barrister--ha! ha!--or Mrs. Ambrose? Perhaps they, too, had strangled people in their house and consigned them guiltily to the condoning Thames. Perhaps all those sober, respectable people were capable, like Stephen, of astonishing crimes. Nothing, now, could be really surprising. God, what's that? There was a sudden scuffle and clatter in the dark angle by the river wall--only the rabbits panicking into corners at the silent coming of a stranger. But John was aware of the violent beating of his heart. They laid Emily on the ground and looked over the wall. The tide now had definitely turned. The middle stream was smoothly moving, oily and swift. John felt happier. It would soon be over now. An easy thing, to slip her over into the friendly water ... no more of this hideous heaving and fumbling with a cold body in a sweat of anxiety. But to Stephen, regarding doubtfully the close row of boats a hundred yards downstream, new and disquieting uncertainties had occurred. To him, too, it had seemed a simple thing to drop Emily over the wall and let the river dispose of her. But supposing the river failed, flung her against the mooring-chain of one of those boats, jammed her with the tide under the sloping bows of Mr. Adamson's decrepit hulk, left her there till the tide went down.... He saw with a frightening clearness Emily Gaunt being discovered in the morning on the muddy foreshore of Hammerton Terrace--discovered by Andrews, the longshoreman, or a couple of small boys, or Thingummy Rawlins, prowling down from his garden to tinker with his motor-boat.... No, that would never do. He said in a low voice, "John ... we'll have to take her out in the boat ... we can't just drop her.... These damned boats ... supposing she caught ..." John Egerton uttered a long groan of disappointment. It was not all over, then. There must be more liftings and irritations, more damnable association with this vileness. "O _Lord_!" he protested. "Stephen, I can't...." His face was pale and almost piteous under the moon. Stephen answered him without petulance this time. "John, old man--for God's sake, see it through ... we _must_ get on, and I can't do it without you.... I'm awfully sorry.... It's got to be done...." The appeal in his voice succeeded as an irritable outburst could not have done. John Egerton braced himself again. In his own mind he recognized the practical wisdom of using the boat. He said with a great weariness, "Come on then." It was a long and difficult business getting that body into the boat. A flight of wooden steps led down from the wall to the water, and from there the boat--a small motor-boat, half-dinghy, half-canoe--had to be hauled in with a boathook for Stephen to step acrobatically into her and unfasten the moorings. Then she had to be paddled close up under the wall and fastened lightly to the steps. While Stephen was doing this a tug swished by, with a black string of barges clinging clumsily astern. The red eye of her port-light glared banefully across the water. John felt that the man in that tug must guess infallibly what work he was at. A solitary lantern in the stern of the sternmost barge flickered about the single figure standing at the tiller. He could see the face of the man, turned unmistakably towards him. She was travelling fast, and Stephen cursed as her wash took hold of his little boat and tossed her up and banged her against the wall and the rickety steps. John, leaning anxiously over, could hear his muttered execrations as he fended her off. Then there was a hot, whispered argument--on the best way of getting the body down, Stephen standing swaying in the boat, with his face upturned, like some ridiculous moonlight lover, John flinging down assertions and reasonings in a forced whisper which broke now and then into a harsh undertone. Stephen thought it should be carted down the steps. John, with an aching objection to further prolonged contact with the thing, said it should be lowered with a rope. "Haven't you a bit of rope?" he reiterated--"a bit of rope--much the best." Sick of argument, Stephen fumbled with wild mutterings in his locker, and brought out in a muddle of oil-cans and tools a length of stout cord. Together they made a rough bight about Emily's middle, together lifted her to the flat stone parapet of the wall. When she was there a dog barked suspiciously in Hammerton Terrace; another echoed him along The Chase. The two men crouched against the wall in a tense and ridiculous agitation. Through all these emergencies and arguments and muffled objurgations there stirred in John's mind ironical recollections of passages in detective stories, where dead bodies were constantly being transported with facility and dispatch in any desired direction. It seemed so easy in the books, it was so damnably difficult in practice--or so they were finding it. And always there was the menace of Margery's return; she must be back soon, she would certainly come out into the garden on a night like this.... When they had the body stretched flat and ready on the wall, Stephen went back into the boat. It had sidled down below the steps, and had to be hauled back. The tide was maddeningly strong. Stephen urged the boat with imprecations under the wall. To keep it there he must hold on stoutly with a boathook, and could give little help to John in the detested task of lowering the sack. John's hands were clammy with sweat like the hands of a gross man. He gripped the rope with a desperate energy and thrust Emily gently over the side. The rope dragged and scraped across the parapet; the body swayed in the moonlight with a preposterous see-saw motion. When it was half-way to the water, they heard a tug puffing rhythmically towards them--somewhere beyond the Island. It was not yet in sight, but a resistless unreasoning panic immediately invaded them. Stephen, with one free hand, clawed recklessly at an edge of sacking; John, in a furious effort to quicken the descent of Emily, lost altogether his control of the rope. The rope slipped swiftly through his moist and impotent palms. Emily, with an intimidating bump and a wooden clatter of sculls, fell ponderously into the boat and lay sprawled across the gunwale. A sibilant "Damned fool!" slid up the wall from Stephen, almost overbalanced by the sudden descent of the body. The two men waited with an elaborate assumption of innocence while the tug fussed past, their hearts pounding absurdly. Then, before the wash had come, John Egerton stepped gingerly down the creaking steps, and they pushed out into the rolling reflection of the moon. The nose of the boat lifted steeply on the oily swell of the tug's wash, and the head of Emily slipped down with a thump over the thwart, her feet still projecting obliquely over the side; John Egerton pulled them in. He looked back with a new disquiet at the still and silvery houses of Hammerton Terrace, at the dim shrubberies along The Chase. There were lights in some of the houses. Out there under the public moon he felt very visible and suspect--a naked feeling. He heard a remote mutter from Stephen, paddling in the bows: "Too many of these damned tugs!" and another: "This filthy _moon_!" They were working slowly against the tide between the Island and the mainland of The Chase. Stephen's plan was to round the top of the Island, cross the river, and get rid of Emily in the shadows of the other side, drifting down with the tide. Even in the narrow channel by the bank the tide was exasperating, and paddling the boat, heavy with the engine, was slow work and strenuous. But the engine would be too noisy. And it was an uncertain starter. Stephen said at last, "Hell! get out the sculls!" John Egerton groped in the locker for rowlocks with an oppressive sense of incompetence and delay. His fingers moved with an ineffectual urgency in a messy confusion of spanners and oil-cans, tins of grease, and slimy labyrinths of thin cord. Only one rowlock was discoverable. The finding of the second became in his mind a task of inconceivable importance and difficulty. Vast issues depended on it--Stephen ... Margery ... babies ... Emily Gaunt ... and somehow or other Mrs. Bantam. Thunderous mutterings rolled down distantly from the bows. John groaned helplessly. He caught his fingers sharply on the edge of a screw-driver. "It's not here ... it's not here ... it _can't_ be, Stephen." With a sense of heroic measures he hauled out in clattering handfuls the whole muddle of implements in the locker. Under the electric coil lurked the missing rowlock. "Row, then, like the devil," ordered Stephen. Out here, in this strange watery adventure, Stephen was the readily acknowledged commander. John rowed, with grunts and splashings. They rounded the Island, the moon glowing remotely beyond it through the traceries of young willow stems. Stephen was doing something with an anchor at the mouth of the sack, breathing audibly through his nose. John sculled obliquely across the river, struggling against the tide, steadily losing ground, he felt. "Losing ground," he thought insanely, "ought to be losing _water_, of course." So strangely do the minds of men move in critical hours. When they were half-way over, the chunk-chunk of a motor-boat came lazily upstream. "God!" said Stephen, "a police-boat." John thought, "Will it _never_ end?" It was appalling, this accumulation of obstacles and delays and potential witnesses. He was tired now, and acutely conscious of a general perspiration. They drifted downstream under the bank, while the police-boat phutted up on the far side, a low black shape without lights. Caped figures chattered easily in the stern and took no evident notice of the small white motor-boat under the bank; but Stephen and John imagined fatal suspicions and perceptions proceeding under the peaked caps. They passed. "_Now!_" Stephen was fiddling with his anchor again, tugging at a knot; his tone was final. "Take her out into the middle again ... _quick_!" John pulled gallantly with his left. They were opposite the house again now, moving smoothly towards Hammersmith Bridge. No other craft was in sight or sound. Stephen said thickly, "If we don't get her over now, we never shall ... stand by.... No, no ... you trim the boat.... I'll manage it." He edged Emily close up against the gunwale, her extremities on a couple of thwarts, her middle sagging down the side of the boat. He looked quickly up the river and down the river and at Hammerton Terrace and at the oil-mills below and at the empty towpath on the opposite bank, all silent, all still. Stephen put a hand under the sack. Close by a tiny fish leaped lightly from the river. Stephen saw the flash of its belly, and took his hand away with a start. Then with a great heave under Emily's middle, a violent pushing and lifting with feet and body and arms, that set the sculls clattering and the boat precariously rocking he got the body half over the gunwale, John perched anxiously on the other side, striving to correct the already dangerous list. Stephen struggled blasphemously with the infuriating sack. Somehow, somewhere it was maddeningly entangled with something in the boat. Frantic tugging and thrusting, irritable oaths, moved it not at all. John looked fearfully behind him. A lighted omnibus was swimming through space, perilously near ... Hammersmith Bridge. Stephen was kicking the body now with a futile savagery. "What the hell?" he said. "O God!" John groped distantly with a hand in the dark. Then, "The anchor!" he said--"the anchor's caught...." He heard a relieved "O Lord!" from Stephen, "thought I'd put the anchor end over first"--and for the first time made himself a petulant comment, "Why the devil didn't you?" It was too much--this sort of thing. Then the shaggy end of the sack was slithering quietly over the side, the anchor twinkled swiftly in the moon, and the relieved boat rocked suddenly with a wild, delighted levity. Emily was gone. Peering back upstream, the two men saw a slowly expanding circle on the black water And there were a few bubbles. Emily was indeed gone. Stephen sat in a limp posture of absolute exhaustion, his shoulders hunched, his head on his hands, speechless. John looked at his watch. It was a quarter-past ten--only about an hour since Emily died. He stared incredulous at the faintly luminous hands. Then he looked round; the boat seemed to be drifting very fast. On his right were the boat-houses, a dark huddle of boats clinging to the rafts in front of them. The boat-houses were next to the Bridge. He looked back and up, with a new fear. The long span of the suspension bridge hung almost above them. A bus rumbled ominously above. Two persons were standing on the footpath against the parapet, looking down at the boat. He could see the pale blobs of their faces. One of them had a Panama hat. The boat shot into the dark under the Bridge. John leaned forward. "Stephen," he whispered--"Stephen." There was no answer. John touched his knee. "Stephen." A yellow face lifted slowly. "What is it?" "There was some one watching on the Bridge ... two men." Stephen sighed with a profound weariness. "It can't be helped," he said. A dreadful paralysis seemed to have succeeded the heavy strain. He looked as the men used to look after a long spell in the line, sitting at last in a dingy billet--played out. John Egerton took the sculls and turned the boat round. The boat moved stiffly, with a steady gurgle at the bows; the noiseless tide swung violently by; the oars creaked complainingly. "This _tide_ ..." muttered John. Stephen Byrne raised his head. "The tide's going out," he said stupidly. IV Margery Byrne walked home very happily from the Underground Station at Stamford Brook, The ticket collector uttered a reverent "Good night, mum"; the policeman at the corner of St. Peter's Square brightened suddenly at her and saluted with the imperishable manner of past military service. The world was very kind and friendly, she felt. But that was the usual manner of the world to Margery Byrne. The world invariably looked at her as it passed her in the street. The male world invariably looked again. The mannerless male world usually looked back. The shameless male world stared at her in Tubes and manoeuvred obviously for commanding positions. But that part of the world, having secured its positions, was generally either disappointed or abashed. There was an aspect of fragility and virtue about her which stirred in the bold and shameless male the almost atrophied instincts of chivalry and protection. After a little they ceased to stare, but opened doors for her with a conscious knighthood. There are women who make a man feel evil at the sight of them. Margery made a man feel good. But this aspect of fragility was without any suggestion of feebleness. It was just that she was slight and fair, and her face small and her features intensely delicate and refined. She had a rarefied look--as if all flaws and imperfections and superfluities had been somehow chemically removed, leaving only the essential stamina and grace. For she had stamina. She walked with an easy un-urban swing, and she could walk a long way. Her lips were little and slightly anæmic, but firm. There was an evident will in the determined and perfectly proportioned chin. The nose was small but admirably straight and set very close above the mouth. Only her large blue eyes seemed a little out of proportion, but these suggested a warm sympathy which the smallness of her features might otherwise have concealed. Her head, balanced attractively on straight white shoulders, was covered gloriously, if a little thinly, with hair of a light gold, an indescribable tint not often encountered outside the world of books. But such, in fact, was Margery's hair. Her skin also was of a colour and texture not to be painted in words--it had that indefinable quality for which there has been discovered no better name than transparent. And this pale, almost colourless quality of complexion completed the effect of fragility, of physical refinement. It was still and sultry in St. Peter's Square. The old moon hung above the church and lit up the ridiculous stone eagles on the decayed and pompous houses on Margery's right. "Like lecterns," she thought, for the thousandth time. The houses were square and semi-detached, two in one; a life-size eagle perched over every porch, its neck screwed tragically towards its sister-eagle craning sympathetically on the neighbouring porch, seeking apparently for ever a never-to-be-attained communion. What sort of people lived there, Margery wondered, and why? So far from town and no view of the river, no special attraction. The people of The Chase always wondered in this way as they walked through St. Peter's Square. The problems of who lived in it and why were permanently insoluble since nobody who lived in The Chase knew anybody who lived in the Square. They knew each other, and that was enough. They knew it was worth while travelling a long way if you lived in The Chase, because of the river, the views, the openness, and the fine old rambling, rickety houses. But why should any one live in an inland square with eagles over the front doors? Margery did not know. And she had other things to think of. Tomorrow she must speak seriously to Emily. Emily, like all these young women, had started excellently, but was becoming slack. And impertinent, sometimes. But one must be careful. Just now was not the time to frighten her away. Then Trueman's man was coming for the curtains in the morning; they must be got ready. And there was a mountain of needlework to be done. And she must run through Stephen's clothes again--before she was too ill for it. Only a month more now, perhaps less. That was a blessing. She was not frightened this time--not like the first time, with little Joan--that _had_ been rather terrifying--not knowing quite what it was like. But it was a long, interminable business; for such ages, it seemed, you had to "be careful," not play tennis, or go out to dinner just when you wanted to. You felt a fool sometimes, inventing reasons for not doing things, when of course there was only one reason. And so ugly--especially in London ... going about in shops ... and Tubes. Never mind. It was worth it. And afterwards.... Margery cast her mind deliciously forward to that "afterwards." They would all go away somewhere, her dear Stephen and Joan and a new and adorable little Stephen. She was determined that it should be a boy this time. That was what Stephen wanted, and what he wanted, within reason, he should have. He deserved it, the dear man. Really, he was becoming an amazingly perfect husband. Becoming, yes--for just at first he had been difficult. But that was during the war; they had seen so little of each other--and he was always worried, overworked. But now they had really "settled down," the horrid war was done with, and he had been too wonderfully delightful and nice to her. Lately especially. Much more considerate and helpful and--and, yes, demonstrative. She felt more sure of him. She was appalled, sometimes, to think how essential he was to her, how frightfully dependent she had become on the existence of this one man, met quite by chance, or what was called chance, at somebody else's house. If anything should happen now--Even the children would be a poor consolation. But nothing would happen. He would go on being more and more delicious and successful; she would go on being happy and proud, watching eagerly the maturement of her ambitions for him. Even now she was intensely proud of him--though, of course, it would never do to let him suspect it. It was an astounding thing, this literary triumph. Secretly, she admitted, she had never had enormous faith in his poetical powers. She had liked his work because it was his. And being the daughter of a mildly literary man, she had developed a serious critical faculty capable of generously appraising any artistic effort of real sincerity and promise. But she had seldom thought of Stephen's poetry in terms of the market, of public favour and material reward. Certainly she had not married him as "a poet" or even "a writer." But that only made his meteoric success more dazzling and delightful. Sometimes it was almost impossible to realize, she found, that this young man she had married was the same Stephen Byrne whose name was everywhere--on the bookstalls, in the publishers' advertisements, in literary articles in any paper you picked up; that all over the country men and women were buying and reading and re-reading and quoting and discussing bits of poetry which _her_ husband had scribbled down on odd bits of paper at her own house. It was astounding. Margery was passing the small houses at the end of the Square, the homes of clerks and shop-people and superior artisans. She glanced at a group of wives, garrulously taking the air at a doorway, and almost pitied them because _their_ husbands' names were never before the public. It seemed awful, now, to be absolutely obscure. No. She didn't think that really. After all, it was an "extra," this fame. It had nothing to do with her marrying Stephen; it would have nothing to do with her happiness with Stephen. It was a kind of matrimonial windfall. What really mattered was Stephen himself, and Margery herself, and the way in which they fitted together. What, she really--yes, _adored_--there was no other word--was himself, his black hair and his twinkling smile, his laugh and jolliness and funny little ways. And his character. That, of course, was the foundation of it all. A dear and excellent character. Other men, even the best of them, did horrid things sometimes. Stephen, she knew, with all his faults--a little selfish, perhaps--conceited? no, but self-centred, rather--would never do anything mean or degrading or treacherous. She could trust him absolutely. He would certainly never disgrace her as some men did disgrace their wives--women, drink, and so on. "The soul of honour"--that was the phrase.... That, again, was a marvellous piece of fortune, that out of a world of peccant questionable men she should have been allowed to appropriate a man like Stephen, so nearly perfect and secure. No wonder she had this consuming, this frightening sense of adoration, sometimes. But she tried to suppress that. It was dangerous. "Thou shalt not bow down ..." Margery smiled secretly and turned her latch-key in the lock. In the hall she noticed immediately Stephen's hat on the peg, and was glad that he was home. She walked through with her letters to the garden, and looked out over the wall. The boat was gone, and she was faintly disappointed. Far down the river she fancied she saw it, a dirty whiteness, and resisted an impulse to call to Stephen. It must be nice on the river tonight. The rabbits rustled stealthily in the corner; a faint unpleasant smell hung about their home. She looked absently at the rabbit Paul, his nose twitching endlessly in the moonlight, and went in to bed. When she had undressed she leaned for a long time out of the high window looking at the night. Across the river lay the broad reservoirs of the water company, and the first houses were half a mile away; so that from the window on a night like this you looked over seemingly endless stretches of gleaming water; strangers coming there at night-time wondered at the wide spaciousness of this obscure corner of London. You could imagine yourself easily in some Oriental city. Hammersmith and Chiswick and Barnes wore a romantic coat of shadow and silver. The carved reflections of the small trees on the other bank were so nearly like reflected rows of palms. The far-off outline of factories against the sky had the awe and mystery of mosques. In the remote murmur of London traffic there was the note, at once lazy and sinister, treacherous and reposeful, of an Eastern town. And now when no tugs went by and nothing stirred, the silent river, rushing smoothly into the black heart of London, had for Margery something of the sombre majesty of the Nile, hinting at dark unnameable things, passion and death and furtive cruelties, and all that sense of secrecy and crime which clings to the river-side of great cities, the world over. Margery wondered idly how much of all that talk about the Thames was true; whether horrible things were still done secretly beside her beloved river, hidden and condoned by the river, carried away to the sea.... Down in the docks, no doubt.... Wapping and so on. The prosaic thumping of a tug broke the spell of Margery's imagination. She looked up and down for Stephen's boat, a faint crossness in her mind because of his lateness. She got into bed. She was sleepy, but she would read and doze a little till he came in. She woke first drowsily to the hollow sound of oars clattering in a boat, a murmur of low voices and subdued splashings ... Stephen mooring the boat ... how late he was. A long while afterwards, it seemed, she woke again: Stephen was creaking cautiously up the stairs. She felt that he was peeping at her round the door, murmured sleepily, "How late you are," dimly comprehended his soft excuses ... something about the tide ... caught by the tide ... engine went wrong ... of course ... always did ... raised her head with a vast effort to be kissed ... a very delicate and reverent kiss ... remembered to ask if Cook was back ... mustn't lock the front door ... half heard a deep "Good night, my darling, go to sleep" ... and drifted luxuriously to sleep again, to comfortable dreams of Stephen, dreams of babies ... moonlight ... especial editions ... palm trees and water--peaceful, silvery water. Long afterwards there was a distant fretful interruption, hardly heeded. A stir outside. Cook's voice ... Stephen's voice ... something about Emily. Emily Gaunt ... not come home ... must speak seriously to Emily tomorrow ... can't be bothered now. Stephen see to it ... Stephen and Cook. Cook's voice, raucous. Cook's night out ... late ... go to bed, Cook ... go to bed ... go to bed, everybody ... all's well. * * * * * Stephen turned out the light and crept away to the little room behind, thanking God for the fortunate sleepiness of his wife. The dreaded moment had passed. He sat down wearily on the bed and tried to reduce the whirling tangle in his brain to order. He ought, of course, to be thinking things out, planning precautions, explanations, studied ignorances. But he was too muddled, too tired. God, how tired! Lugging that hateful sack about. And that awful row home--more than a mile against the tide, though John had done most of that, good old John.... (There was something disturbing he had said to John, when they parted at last--what the devil was it?... Something had slipped out.... An intangible, uneasy memory prodded him somewhere ... no matter.) And then when he did get back, what a time he had had in the scullery, tidying the refuse on the floor, groping about under a table ... hundreds of pieces of paper, grease-paper, newspaper, paper bags, orange skins, old tins, bottles.... He had gathered them all and put them in a bucket, a greasy bucket, with tea-leaves at the bottom ... carried it down to the river on tiptoe ... four journeys. God, what a night! But it was over now--it was over--that part of it. All that was wanted now was a straight face, a little acting, and some straightforward lying. "God knows, I can lie all right," Stephen thought, "though nobody knows it." What lie was it he had invented about the sack, tired as he was? Oh yes, that John had borrowed it, and that John had first emptied the rubbish into the river.... Yes, he had coached John on the steps about that ... told him to keep it up if necessary. Old John had looked funny when he said that. John didn't like lies, even necessary ones. A bit of a prig, old John. Stephen pulled at the bow of his black tie and fumbled at the stud. He took off one sock and scratched his ankle reflectively. It was a pity about John. He was such a good fellow, really, such a good friend. He had helped him splendidly tonight, invaluable. But God knew what he felt about it all.... Shocked, of course.... Flabbergasted (whatever that meant). The question was, how would he get over the shock? How would he feel when he woke up? Would he be permanently shocked, stop being friends?... He was a friend worth keeping, old John. And his opinion was worth having, his respect. Anyhow, it was going to be awkward. One would always feel a bit mean and ashamed now with John--in the wrong, somehow.... Stephen hated to feel in the wrong. Cook lumbered breathlessly up the stairs, and halted with a loud sigh on the landing. She knocked delicately on Mrs. Byrne's door and threw out a tentative, "If you please, mum." Stephen went out. The acting must begin. "What is it, Mrs. Beach--speak low--Mrs. Byrne's asleep." "It's Emily, sir, if you please, sir, turned half-past eleven now, sir, and she's not in the house. I didn't speak before, sir, thinking she might have slipped out like for a bit of a turn and met a friend like. She weren't in the kitchen, sir, when I come in, nor in the bedroom neither. I thought perhaps as how you'd seen her, sir, when you come in and sent her on a herrand like. What had I best do sir shall I lock up sir it's late for a young girl and gone out without her mack too." Mrs. Beach concluded her remarks with a long, unpunctuated peroration as if fearful that her scanty wind should fail altogether before she had fully delivered herself. Stephen thought rapidly. Had he sent Emily out on a "herrand," or had he not seen her at all? He said, "No, Mrs. Beach, I didn't see her; I went straight out on to the river. No doubt she went out for a little walk and met a friend, as you say. She'll be back soon, no doubt, and I'm afraid you'll have to let her in ... very naughty of her to stay out so late. Nothing to be done, I fear. Good night, Mrs. Beach." Mrs. Beach caught sympathetically at Stephen's meaning suggestion of Emily's naughtiness. "Good night, sir," she puffed; "she always was a one for the young men, though I says it myself, but there youth will 'ave its fling, they say, and sorry I am to disturb you, sir, but I thought as I'd best speak, it was that late, sir." "Quite right, Mrs. Beach. Good night." "Good night, sir." Mrs. Beach sighed herself ponderously down the dark stairs. Stephen went back into his room with a startling sense of elation. He had done that well. It would be marvellously easy if it was all like that. That word "naughty" had been a masterpiece; he was proud of it. Already he had set moving a plausible explanation of Emily's disappearance--Emily's frailty--Emily's "friend." Cook would do the rest. Mentally he chuckled. Suddenly then he appreciated the vileness on which he was congratulating himself, and the earlier blackness settled upon him. Something like conscience, something like remorse, had room to stir in place of his abated fears. It was going to be a wretched business, this "easy" lying and hypocrisy and deceit--endless stretches of wickedness seemed to open out before him. What a mess it was! How the devil had it happened--to him, Stephen Byrne, the reputed, respectable young author? Suddenly--like the lights fusing ... What, in Heaven's name, had made him do it? Emily Gaunt, of all people.... Curse Emily! He wasted no pity on her, no sentimental sorrow for the wiping out of a warm young life. Emily had brought it on herself, the little fool. It was her fault--really.... Stephen was too self-centred to be gravely disturbed by thoughts of Emily, except so far as she was likely to affect his future peace of mind. And he had seen too much of death in the war to be much distressed by the fact of death. His inchoate remorse was more of a protest than a genuine regret for wrong--a protest against the wounding of self-respect, against the coming worries and anxieties and necessary evasions, and all the foreseen unpleasantness which this damnable night had forced upon him. It must not happen again, this kind of thing. Too upsetting. Stephen began to make fierce resolutions, as sincere as any resolutions can be that rest on such unsubstantial foundations. He was going to be a better fellow in future--a better husband.... People thought a lot of him at present--and they were deceived. In future he would live up grandly to "people's" conception of him, to Margery's conception of him. When he thought of Margery he was suddenly and intensely ashamed. That aspect of his conduct he had so far managed to ignore. Now he became suddenly hot at the thought of it. He had behaved damnably to Margery. Supposing she had come back earlier, discovered Emily. "A--a--ah!" A strangled exclamation burst from him, as men groan in spite of themselves at some story of brutality or pain. Sweat stood about his temples. Poor Margery, so patient and loving and trustful. What a swine he had been! The resolutions swelled enormously ... no more drinking ... the drink had done it ... he would knock it off altogether. No, not altogether--that was silly, unnecessary. In moderation. He slipped his trousers to the floor. Margery thought too much of him, believed in him too well. It was terrible, in a way, being an idol; life would be easier if one had a bad reputation, even an ordinary "man-of-the-world" reputation. A character of moral perfection was a heavy burden, if you were not genuinely equal to it. Never mind, in future, he _would_ be equal to it; he _would_ be perfect. Tender and chivalrous thoughts of Margery invaded him; the resolutions surged wildly up, an almost religious emotion glowed warmly inside him; he felt somehow as he used to feel at Communion, walking back to his seat. He used to pray in those days, properly.... He felt like praying now. He tied the string of his pyjamas and knelt down by the small bed. It was a long time since he had prayed. During the war, in tight corners, when he had been terribly afraid, he had prayed--the sick, emergency supplications of all soldiers--the "O God, get me out of this and I will be good" kind of prayer. The _padres_ used to preach sermons about such prayers, and sometimes Stephen had determined to pray always at the safe times as well as the dangerous, but this had never lasted for long. Now his prayers were on the same note, wrung out of him like his resolutions by the urgent emotions of the moment, sincere but bodiless. He prayed, "O God, I have been a fool and a swine. O God, forgive me for this night's work and get me out of the mess safely, and I will--I will be good." That was the only way of expressing it--"being good," like a child. "In future I will be a better man and pray more often. O God, keep this from Margery, for her sake, not mine. O God, forgive me, and make me better. Amen." Stephen rose from his knees, a little relieved, but with an uncomfortable sense of bargaining. It was difficult to pray without driving a bargain, somehow ... like some of those wretched hymns: "And when I see Thee as Thou art I'll praise Thee as I ought," for instance, a close, inescapable contract. The old tune sang in his head. But if one prayed properly, no doubt one learned to exclude that commercial flavour.--How hot it was! He turned out the light and crept slowly under the sheets. For a long time he lay staring at the dark, thinking now of Emily's night-dress.... Probably it was marked--in neat red letters--Emily Gaunt. Probably the sacking would wear away where the rope went through it, dragging with the tide. Probably.... Hideous possibilities crowded back and gloom returned to him. And what was it he had said to John? He had forgotten about that. Something silly had slipped out, when John had looked so shocked, something intended to soothe John's terrible conscience, something about "doing the right thing afterwards"--after the baby had safely come. "I'll put things right then," he remembered saying. What the devil had he meant by that? What did John think he had meant? Hell! Stephen threw off the blanket; he was sweating again. When the cold chime of St. Peter's struck three he lay still maddeningly awake in a feverish muddle of thought. Then at last he slept, dreaming wildly. Emily Gaunt shifted uneasily in her oozy bed, tugging at her anchor, as the tide rolled down. V Every misfortune which can happen to a man who travels Underground in London had happened to John Egerton. Worn and irritable with a sultry day at the Ministry he had jostled with a shuffling multitude on to the airless platform at Charing Cross. From near the bottom of the stairs he saw that an Ealing train was already in; more important, the train was stopping at Stamford Brook. Stamford Brook was a "non-stop station," so that if you missed your train in the busy hours you might wait for an intolerable time. On this sweltering evening it was urgent to escape as quickly as possible from the maddening crowd of sticky citizens and simpering girls. It was urgent to catch that train. Already they were slamming home the doors. John made a nightmare attempt to hurry down the last few steps and across to that train. His way was blocked by a mob of deliberate backs, unaccountably indifferent to the departure of the Ealing train, and moving with exasperating slowness. John, with mumbled and insincere apologies, dived through the narrow alley between a portly man and a portly woman. Whistles were blowing now, but once down the stairs the way would be fairly clear to the desirable train. Only round the foot of the stairs hovered a bewildered family, a shoal of small children clinging to their expansive mother and meagre sire, wondering stupidly what they ought to do next in this strange muddle of a place. They were back from some country jaunt and bristled with mackintoshes and small chairs and parcels and spades and other impassable excrescences. John governed himself and said, "Excuse me, please," with a difficult assumption of calm. None of them moved. John longed to seize the little idiots by the throat and fling them aside, to knock down the meagre man and trample upon him. Instead, he shouted aggressively, "Let me pass, please!"--the train was moving now. The large woman looked back, with a frightened air, shot out an arm with a sharp "Mabel!" and plucked her first-born daughter aside by the flesh of her arm pinched painfully between finger and thumb. The child screeched, but the way was clear, and John flung forward. An open door was moving almost opposite him; he had only to swing himself in. Then from nowhere appeared a youthful uniformed official, who barred the way with an infuriating aspect of authority, and slammed fast the receding door. The train slid clattering past and vanished with a parting flicker of blue flashes. The boy walked off with an Olympian and incorruptible air, not looking at John, as who should say, "Tamper not with me." Interfering ass! John had an impulse to go after and abuse him, demonstrate with fierce argument the folly of the youth. The waiting crowd observed him with the heartless amusement of crowds, hoping secretly that he would lose his temper, provide entertainment. John saw them and controlled himself, thinking with a conscientious effort, "His duty, I suppose," and contented himself with a long glower at the obstructive family. The next train was a Wimbledon one; the next an Inner Circle; the next a Richmond, not stopping at Stamford Brook. The endless people shuffled always down the stairs, drifted aimlessly along the platform, jostled and barged good-humouredly about the teeming trains. Government flappers congregated giggling in small groups, furtively examined by ambulant young men. In spite of the heat and the stuffy smell of humanity and the exasperation of crowded travelling there was a pleasant atmosphere of contentment and goodwill. Only here and there were the fretful and distressed, mainly countryfolk, unaccustomed to the hardships of London. Tonight the equable John was among these petulant ones, which was unusual. He was worried and depressed--in no mood for a prolonged entanglement with a hot crowd. Never had he waited so long. Number 1 on the indicator now was a Putney train; Number 2 another Inner Circle--what the devil did they want with so many Circle trains? And why was Stamford Brook a non-stop station? Hundreds of people used it--far more than Sloane Square, for example, or St. James' Park. He would write a letter to the Company about these things. The terms of his letter began to frame themselves in his mind--conceived in the best Civil Service style: "It is evident ... convenience of greatest number of passengers ... revised program ... facilities ... volume of traffic ..." The Putney train racketed away; Number 2 was an Ealing now. John edged up to the glaring bookstall and stood with a row of men staring idly at the dusty covers of old sevenpennies--price two shillings. None of these men bought anything, only stood silent and gazed, as if in wonder at such a multitude of unbuyable books. On the cover of one of them--_Three Years with the Hapsburgs: the Thrilling Chronicle of an English Governess_--the gaudy picture of a young woman caught his eye. It reminded him somehow of Emily Gaunt, and he turned away. He did not want to be reminded of Emily. The Ealing train came in, and John was swept in with a tight mass of people through the middle doors of a smoking carriage. The atmosphere was a suffocating mixture of hot breath and evil tobacco-smoke. The carriage was packed. Men and women stood jammed together like troops in a communication-trench. Here and there a clerk stood up with a sheepish mumble and a sallow woman sank thankfully into his seat. John stared with increasing resentment at the rows of men who did not get up--tired labourers in corduroy trousers who sat on in unmoved contentment, or gross men with cigars who screened themselves behind evening papers, pretending they did not notice the standing women. The train stopped, and there was a fierce squeezing and struggling at the doors. A man behind John remembered suddenly that he wanted to get out, and began with much heaving and imprecation to hew a passage, treading violently on John's ankle. But by now there were more people surging inwards, clinging precariously to the fringe of the mob. The train rushed on, and the man was left within it, cursing feebly. John felt glad, maliciously, ridiculously glad. But when he looked again at the sedentary gross men, the placid labourers, and at the short, pale women swaying in the centre he became righteously furious with the evil manners of the men. He felt that he would like to address them, curse them about it--that fat one with the insolent leer and the cap all cock-eye, especially; he would say loudly at the next station, "Why don't you give one of these ladies your seat?" Then the man would _have_ to get up, would stand shamed before the world, while some grateful female--that nurse there--took his seat. Perhaps all the others would follow. Or perhaps it would happen quite differently. The man would not hear, or pretend not to hear; and he, John, would have to repeat his remark, losing greatly in dramatic force. And every one would stare at him, as if he were a madman! Or the man would surrender his seat with a sweet smile and an apology, "Very sorry, I didn't see"; and then the fools of women would refuse to take the seat. They would all say they were getting out at the next station; they would all simper and deprecate and behave like lunatics. The man would hover with a self-righteous, ingratiating smirk and sit down again. And John Egerton would look a fool. No--it couldn't be done. What cowards men were! A very hot and spotty man breathed disgustingly in John's face; unable to move his body, he turned his head away to the left. On that side stood a robust young woman, with hatpins menacingly projecting from a red straw hat. Her head rocked as the train jolted: the cherries on her hat bobbed ridiculously, the naked hatpin-points swung backwards and forwards in front of John's eye. He turned back to the disgusting breath of the spotty man. At Earl's Court the crowd melted a little; there were no seats, but there was room to breathe--room to stand by oneself, free from pressure of strange bodies. At Baron's Court he crept into a seat. At Hammersmith a noisy mob of shop-girls and hobble-dehoys surged in, and he surrendered his seat to a young woman, who was munching something. She sat down with a giggle and took her sister on her lap. Together they eyed him, with whispered jocularities. Only two more stations. The lights were out now. The train ran out through the daylight on to a high embankment, past an interminable series of dingy houses. There was more air. The filthy smoke eddied out of the narrow windows. The train rocked enormously--a bad piece of line. Looking down the car from his place by the door, John saw through the haze an interminable vista of uniform right hands fiercely clinging to uniform straps, of right arms uniformly crooked, of bowed heads uniformly bent over evening papers, of endless backs uniformly enduring and dull. And as the train gave a lurch, all the elbows swung out together towards the windows, and all the bodies bent outward like willows in the wind, and all the heads were lifted together in a mute and uniform protest. It was all like some fantastic physical drill. Then he fell into the weary stupor of the habitual Underground traveller, listening semiconsciously to the insane chatter of the chuckling girls. Ravenscourt Park shot by unnoticed. The train ran on for ever. Stooping suddenly, he saw the familiar letters of Stamford Brook dashing past at an astonishing speed. Surely--surely the train was stopping. The porters' room--the ticket collector--the passenger-shelter--the Safety First pictures--the advertisement of What Ho!--the other name-board of the station--the whole station--shot maddeningly past. The train rushed on to the intolerable remoteness of Turnham Green. Hell! John Egerton uttered an audible groan of vexation. _Two_ non-stop trains running! It was unpardonable. He had not even thought to look at the non-stop labels on the train at Charing Cross. It was too bad. Another matter for the letter to the Company! The women looked at his scowling face and giggled again, whispering behind their hands. From Turnham Green you might walk home; but it took nearly twenty minutes. Or if you were lucky you caught a train quickly back to Stamford Brook. As they came into the station, John saw an up-train gliding off on the other side of the same platform. Of course! just missed it! And no doubt the next one would decline to stop at Stamford Brook! Once you began having bad luck on the Underground you might as well give up all hope of improving it that day. You might as well walk. He _would_ walk. But how damnable it all was! He waited with the thick crowd at the ticket gate, fumbling for his ticket in his waistcoat pocket. That was where he had put it--he always did. Always in the same place--as a methodical man should do. But it was not there. It was not in the other waistcoat pocket--nor in his right-hand trouser pocket. "Now, then," said an aggressive voice behind, and he stepped aside. Lost his place in the queue, now! He put down his dispatch-case and felt furiously in his pockets with both hands. The passengers dwindled down the stairs; he was left alone, regarded indifferently by the bored official. This was a fitting climax to an abominable journey. He found it at last, lurking in the flap of a tobacco-pouch, and because he had come too far he was forced to pay another penny. There was a preposterous argument. "Putting a premium on inconvenience!" He walked home at last, cursing foolishly, and adding new periods to his letter to the Company. All over London men and women walked back to their homes that evening through the hot streets, bitter and irritated and physically distressed, ruminating on the problem of over-population and the difficulties of movement in the hub of the world--only a small proportion, it is true, as bitter and irritated as John, but every night the same proportion, every night a thousand or two. Historians, it is to be hoped, and scientists and statisticians, when they write up their estimates of that year, will not fail to record the mental and physical fatigue, the waste of tissue and nervous energy, imposed upon the citizens of our great Metropolis by the simple necessity of proceeding daily from their places of work to their places of residence. Small things, these irritations, an odd penny here, an odd ten minutes there, the difference between just catching and just missing a train, the difference between just standing for twenty minutes, and just sitting down--but they mounted up! They mounted up into vast excrescences of discourtesy and crossness; they made calm and equable and polite persons suddenly and amazingly abrupt and unkind. John Egerton was seldom so seriously ruffled; but then it was seldom that so peculiarly unfortunate a journey concluded so peculiarly painful a day. A sticky and intolerable day. A "rushed" and ineffectual day. "Things" had shown a deliberate perversity at the office, papers had surprisingly lost themselves and thereafter surprisingly discovered themselves at the most awkward moments; telephone girls had been pert, telephone numbers permanently engaged. The Board of Trade had behaved execrably. John's own Minister had been unusually curt--jumpy. And hovering at the back of it all, a kind of master-irritation, which governed and stimulated every other one, was the unpleasant memory of Emily Gaunt. So that he walked down the Square in a dark and melancholy temper. And Emily Gaunt met him on the doorstep. The skinny successor of Emily Gaunt in the household of the Byrnes stood at the doorway of his house, talking timidly to Mrs. Bantam. She had come for "some sack or other," Mrs. Bantam explained. "And there's no sack in this house--that I _will_ swear." She spoke with the violent emphasis of all Mrs. Bantams, as if the presence of a sack in a gentleman's house would have been an almost unspeakable offence against chastity and good taste. The skinny maid turned from her with relief to the less formidable presence of John. "If you please, sir, Cook says as the missus says as Mrs. Byrne says as--as"--the skinny maid faltered in this interminable forest of "as's"--"as you 'as the big sack that was in the scullery, sir, and if you've done with it, sir, could we 'ave it back, sir, as the man's come for the bottles?" The sack! Emily's sack! John had no need of the young woman's exposition. He remembered vividly. He remembered now what Stephen had said about it--in the boat--under the wall. John had "borrowed" it. He remembered now. But what the devil had he borrowed it for? And why--why should he have to stand on his own doorstep this terrible day and invent lies for a couple of women? And what had the man coming for the bottles to do with it, he wondered? But a lie must be invented--and quickly. He said, "Will you tell Mrs. Byrne, I'm very sorry--I took the sack out in my boat--to--to collect firewood--and--and--lost it--overboard, you know? Tell her I'm very sorry, will you, and I'll get her another sack?" He tried to smile nicely at the young woman; a painful smirk revealed itself. "Thank you, sir." The young woman melted away, and he walked indoors, feeling sullied and ashamed. He hated telling lies. He was one of those uncommon members of the modern world who genuinely object to the small insincerities of daily life, lying excuses over the telephone for not going out to dinner, manufactured "engagements," and so on. And the fact that this lie was part of a grand conspiracy to protect a man from an indictment for murder did not commend it. On the contrary, it enhanced that feeling of "identification" with the end of Emily which he had been trying for two weeks to shake off. Oh, it was damnable! For his solitary dinner he opened a bottle of white wine--a rare indulgence. He hoped earnestly that Mrs. Bantam would be less communicative than usual. Mrs. Bantam had cooked and kept house for him for six months. She was one of that invaluable body of semi-decayed but capable middle-aged females who move through the world scorning and avoiding the company of their own sex, and seeking for single gentlemen with households; single gentlemen without female encumbrances; single gentlemen over whom they may exercise an undisputed dominion; single gentlemen who want "looking after," who are incapable of ordering their own food or "seeing to" their own clothes, who would, it is to be supposed, fade helplessly out of existence but for the constant comfort and support of their superior cook-housekeepers. Mrs. Bantam was intensely superior. From what far heights of luxury and distinction she had descended to the obscure kitchen of Island Lodge could be dimly apprehended from her dignity and her vocabulary and an occasional allusive passage in her conversation. She was as the transmigrant soul of some domestic pig, faintly aware of a nobler status in some previous existence. Where or what that existence had been John had never discovered; only he knew that it was noble, and that it had ended abruptly many years ago with the inconsiderate decease of "my hubby." Mrs. Bantam, for all her dignity, was scraggy, and had the aspect of chronic indigestion and decay. She was draped for ever in funereal black, partly in memory of hubby, partly, no doubt, because black was "superior." She walked, or rather proceeded, with an elegant stoop, her head stuck forward like an investigating hen, her long arms hanging straight down in front of her from her stooping shoulders like plumb-lines, suspended from a leaning tower. Her face was pinched and marvellously pale, and her black eyes retreated into unfathomable recesses. Her chin receded and ended suddenly in a kind of fold, from which a flabby isthmus of skin went straight to the base of her throat, like the neck of a fowl; in this precarious envelope an Adam's apple of operatic dimensions moved up and down with alarming velocity. Like so many of the world's greatest personalities, she had a noble soul, but she would make speeches. Her intercourse with others was one long oration. And she was too urbane. When she laid the bacon before her gentleman of the moment as he gazed moodily at his morning paper, she would ask pardon in a shrill chirp, like the notes of a superannuated yodeller, for "passing in front" of him. This used to drive John as near to distraction as a Civil Servant can safely go. And though she had watched over him for six months, she still reminded him at every meal that she was as yet, of course, ill-acquainted with his tastes, and therefore unable to cater for those peculiar whims and fancies in which he differed from the last gentleman. By keeping sedulously alive this glorious myth she was able to disdain all responsibility for her choice and treatment of his food. She served supper now with an injured air, and John knew that she must be allowed to talk during the whole meal instead of only during the fish. She always talked during the fish. It was her ration. For she was lonely, poor thing, brooding all day in her basement. But when she was offended, or hurt, or merely annoyed, it was John's policy to allow her to exceed her ration. So now she stood in the dark corner by the door, clutching an elbow feverishly in each hand, as if she feared that at any moment her fore-arms might fly away and be no more seen, and began: "_Sack_, indeed! What next, I wonder? And I'm shore I hope you'll like the fillet of plaice, Mr. Egerton, though reely I don't know _what_ your tastes are. We all have our likes and dislikes as they say, and it takes time learning gentlemen's little ways. But as for seeing a sack in _this_ house--well, I'm shore I don't know when you had it, Mr. Egerton. A pore young thing that maid they have, so mean and scraggy-looking--a proper misery, _I_ call her. And Mrs. Byrne in that condition, too; one would think they wanted a good _strong_ gairl to help about the house. The doctor was sent for this afternoon, Mr. Egerton, and I don't wonder it came so soon, what with the worry about that other hussy going off like that--would you like the Worcester, Mr. Egerton? You must _tell_ me, you know, if there _is_ anything. I know the last gentleman would have mushroom catchup, or ketchop as they call it--nothing would satisfy him but mushroom catchup, and for those as like their insides messed up with toadstools and dandelions I'm shore it's very tasty, but, as I was saying, that Emily was a bad one and there's no mistake, gadding off like that with a young man and not her night out, and then the sauce of her people coming round and bothering Mrs. Byrne about her--the idea. Cook tells me Mr. Byrne told them straight out about her goings on with young men all the time she's been here, in and out, in and out night after night--and--" John woke up with a start. "What's that you say, Mrs. Bantam? Mr. Byrne--Mr. Byrne did _what_?" "I was just saying, sir, how Mr. Byrne told Emily's people what he thought of her when they come worrying round the other day, so Cook was telling me. A proper hussy she must have been and no mistake--not Cook I mean, but that young Emily, gadding out night after night, young men and followers and the good Lord knows what all. Are you ready for your cutlet now, sir, and all that plaice left in the dish? Well, I never did, if you aren't a poor eater, Mr. Egerton--and there's no doubt she was out with one of them one night and went further than she meant, no doubt, but if you make your bed you must lie on it, though I've no doubt she's sorry now...." Mrs. Bantam passed out into the kitchen, her voice trailing distantly away like the voices of the Pilgrims in _Tannhauser_. John sat silent, pondering darkly her disclosures. It was a fortnight now since the fatal evening of Emily Gaunt's destruction and disposal. During that fortnight he had not once seen Stephen Byrne in private. They had met at the Underground Station; they had pressed against each other in the rattling train, shouting odd scraps of conversation with other members of The Chase; and John had marvelled at the easy cheerfulness of his friend. But since that night he had never "dropped in" or "looked in" at The House by the River in the evenings. He had never been asked to come, and he was glad. He was afraid of seeing Stephen alone, and he supposed that Stephen was afraid. He had wondered sometimes what was going on in that house, had felt sometimes that he ought to go round and be helpful. But he could not. Like all The Chase, he had heard through his domestic staff of the sudden and inexcusable disappearance of Emily Gaunt. The soundless, uncanny systems of communication, which the more skilled Indian tribes are reputed to employ, could not have disseminated with greater thoroughness or rapidity than Mrs. Byrne's cook the precise details of the Emily mystery; how they had carried on angrily without her for three or four days, railing at her defection and lack of faith; how Mr. Byrne had at last suggested that she might have met with an accident; how the police had been informed; how they had prowled about the garden and looked aimlessly under beds; how they had shaken their pompous heads again and gone away, and all the rest of it. There had been no explanation and few theories, so far, to account for the vanishing of Emily. Now Mrs. Bantam had given him one, invented, apparently, and propagated by Stephen. And it shook him like a blow. That poor girl--as good as gold, so far as he knew--should be slandered and vilified in death by the one man who should have taken care at least to keep her name clean. A fierce note of scorn and disgust broke involuntarily from him. "Coming, sir," cried Mrs. Bantam, hurrying in with the almost imperceptible bustle of a swan pressed for time. "And it's sorry I am it's only a couple of cutlets I'm giving you, brown and nice as they are, but could I get steak at the butcher's today? Not if I was the King of Spain, sir, no, and the loin-chop that scraggy it was a regular piece of profiteering to have it in the shop, that it was, let alone sell it. Well, sir, as my poor hubby used to say, that young woman's no better than she should be, and she's come to a bad end...." "Never mind her now, Mrs. Bantam. We don't _know_ anything--" "_Know_ anything! I should think not, sir, for they're all as deceiving and artful as each other, of course, and when a nice kind gentleman like Mr. Byrne--but if one can't know one can guess--a nod's as good as a wink, they say, and I'm shore--" The address continued interminably. John made himself as the deaf adder and scraped his cutlet clean in a mute fever of irritation. He felt as a man feels in a busy office, working against time at some urgent task in the face of constant interruptions. He could not fix his mind on the Emily matter, on Stephen, on the Underground Railway, or his food. There was a kind of thickness about his temples which he had noticed already at Turnham Green station, and he felt that he was not digesting. Mrs. Bantam hammered ruthlessly on his tired head; and the ticket collector and the Board of Trade, and Emily and Stephen Byrne and the young porter at Victoria rushed indignantly about inside it. Sometimes he waved a fork distractedly at Mrs. Bantam and asked her to fetch a new kind of sauce, to secure a moment's respite. Soon all the sauce bottles he possessed were ranged before him, a pitiful monument of failure. And when Mrs. Bantam swept out to organize the sweet, he shouted that he had finished, and stole out into the garden, defeated. It was a damp and misty evening, with the hint of rain. The tide was as it had been a fortnight before on the Emily evening, rolling exuberantly in. Far out in the centre a dead yellow cat drifted westward at an astonishing speed, high out of the water. He knew the cat well. For weeks it had passed up and down the river. As far up as Richmond he had seen it, and as far down as London Bridge. Some days, perhaps, it caught under a moored barge, or was fixed for a little in the piers of a bridge, or ran ashore in the reeds above Putney, or lay at low tide under Hammerton Terrace. But most days it floated protesting through the Metropolis and back again. John wondered idly for how long it would drift like that, and in what last adventure it would finally disappear--cut in twain by a bustling tug, or stoned to the bottom by boys, or dragged down to the muddy depths by saturation. He thought of it straining now towards the sea, now to the open country, yet ever plucked back by the turning, relentless tide, just as it saw green fields or smelt the smell of the sea, to travel yet once more through the dark and cruel city. Once it was a kitten, fondled by children and very round and lovable and fat. And then the world had become indifferent, and then menacing, and then definitely hostile. Finally, no doubt, it had died a death of violence. John thought then of Emily, and sighed heavily. But he was feeling better now. Silence and the river had soothed him; and--given quiet and solitude--he had the Civil Servant's capacity for switching his mind from urgent worries to sedative thoughts. The cat, somehow, had been a sedative, in spite of its violent end. He went indoors out of the dark garden, studiously not looking at Stephen's windows. While he was on the stairs the telephone-bell rang in his study. He took off the receiver and listened moodily to a profound silence, varied only by the sound of some one furtively picking a lock with the aid of a dynamo. Angrily he banged on the receiver and arranged himself in an arm-chair with a heavy book. When he had done this the bell rang again. A petulant voice--no doubt justifiably petulant--said suddenly, "Are you the Midland Railway?" John said, "No," and rang off; then he thought of all the bitter and ironic things he ought to have said and regretted his haste. He sat down and lit his pipe. The accursed bell rang again, insistently, with infinitesimal pauses between the rings. He got up violently, with a loud curse. The blood surged again in his head; the ticket collector and the maddening train and Mrs. Bantam crowded back and concentrated themselves into the hateful exasperating shape of the telephone. He took off the receiver and shouted, "_Hullo! hullo!_ What is it? What is it? Stop that ringing!" There was no answer; the bell continued to ring. He had banged his pipe against the instrument, and the first ash was scattered over the papers on the table. He took it out of his mouth, and furiously waggled the receiver bracket up and down. He had heard that this caused annoyance, if not actual pain, to the telephone operator, and he hoped fervently that this was true. He wanted to hurt somebody. He would have liked to pick up the instrument and hurl it in the composite face of the evening's persecutors. His pipe rolled off on to the floor. He shouted again, "Oh, _what_ is it? _Hullo! hullo! hullo!_" The ringing abruptly ceased, and a low, anxious voice was heard: "Hullo! hullo! hullo! Is that you, John? Hullo!"--Stephen's voice. "Yes; what is it?" "Can you come round a minute? I _must_ see you. It's _urgent_." "What about?" said John, with a vague premonition. "About--about--you know what!--about the other night--you _must_ come! I can't leave the house." "No, I'm damned if I do--I've had enough of that." At that moment John felt that he hated his old friend. The accumulated annoyances of the day merged in and reinforced the new indignation he had felt against Stephen since the sack incident and the revelations of Mrs. Bantam. He had had enough. He refused to be further entangled in that business. Then Stephen spoke again, appealingly, despairingly. "John--you _must_! It's--it's _come up_." VI John Egerton prepared himself to go round. He cursed himself for a weak fool; he reviled his fate, and Emily and Stephen Byrne. But he prepared himself. He was beaten. But as he opened the front door the bell rang, and he saw Stephen himself on the doorstep--a pale and haggard Stephen, blinking weakly at the sudden blaze of light in the hall. "I came round after all," he said. "It's urgent!" But he stepped in doubtfully. The two curses of John Egerton's composition were his shyness and his soft-heartedness. When he saw Stephen he tried to look implacable; he tried to feel as angry as he had felt a moment before. But that weary and anxious face, that moment's hesitation on the step, and the whole shamefaced aspect of his friend melted him in a moment. Something terrible must be going on to make the vital, confident Stephen Byrne look like that. Once more, he must be helped. In the study, sipping like a wounded man at a comforting tumbler of whisky and water, Stephen told his story, beginning in the fashion of one dazed, with long pauses. That evening, just before dinner, as Mrs. Bantam had correctly reported, the doctor had been sent for. And Stephen, waiting in the garden for his descent, gazing moodily through a thin drizzle at the grey rising river, had seen unmistakably fifty yards from the bank a semi-submerged object drifting rapidly past, wrapped up in sacking. A large bulge of sacking had shown above the surface. It was Emily Gaunt. He was sure it was Emily Gaunt because of the colour of the sacking--a peculiar yellowish tint, unusual in sacks. And because he had always known it would happen. He had always known the rope would work on the flimsy stuff as the tide pulled, and eventually part it altogether. And now it had happened. When he saw it he did not know what to do. "I felt like rushing out into the boat at once," Stephen said, "and catching the thing--but the doctor ... Margery ... I had to wait...." he finished vaguely. "Of course," said John. "When he came down he said all was well--or fairly so--and he'd come again this evening. I'm expecting him now." Then with sudden energy, "I wish to God he'd come.... Is that _him_?" Stephen stopped and listened. John listened. There was no sound. "But we mustn't waste time--half-past eight now--tide turning in a moment." He leaned forward now, and began to speak with a jerky, almost incoherent haste, telescoping his words. "When he'd gone I dashed down to the boat ... could still see the--the thing in the distance--going round the bend ... thought I'd catch it easily, but the engine wouldn't start--of COURSE! Took me half an hour ... starved for petrol, I think...." He stopped for a moment, as if still speculating on the precise malady of the engine. "When I _did_ get away ... went like a bird ... nearly up to Kew ... but not a sign of the--the sack ... looked everywhere ... couldn't wait any longer ... I _had_ to get back ... only just back now ... against the tide. John, will _you_ go out now?... for God's sake, go ... take the boat and just patrol about ... slack water now ... tide turns in about ten minutes ... the damned thing _must_ come down ... unless it's stuck somewhere ... you must go, John. We must get hold of it tonight ... tonight ... or they'll find it in the morning. And, John," he added, as a hideous afterthought, his voice rising to a kind of hysterical shriek, "there's a label on the sack--with my name and address--I remembered yesterday." "But ... but ..." began John. "Quick!... I've got to get back." Stephen stood up. "God knows what they think of me at home as it is.... Say you'll go, John--_here's_ the key of the boat ... she'll start at once now.... It's a thousand to one chance, but it's worth it.... And if you're not quick it'll go past again." Something of his old masterfulness was coming back with his excitement. But when John still hesitated, his slow mouth framing the beginnings of objection, the hunted look came upon Stephen again. "John, for God's sake!" he said, with a low, pleading note. "I'm about done, old man ... what with Margery and--and ... but there's still a chance ... John!" The wretched John was melted again. He left his objections to the preposterous proposal unspoken. He put his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder. "It's all right, Stephen.... I'll manage it somehow ... don't you worry, old boy.... I'll manage it." "Thank God! I'll go now, John.... I'll come down when I hear you come back.... I _must_ go...." Together they hurried down the stairs, and John found himself suddenly alone at the end of his garden in an old mackintosh, bemused and incredulous. The rain had come, a hot, persistent, sibilant rain, and already it had brought the dark. The river was a shadowy mosaic of small splashes. The lights of Barnes showed mistily across the river, like lamps in a photograph. The tide was gathering momentum for the ebb; a mass of leaves and dead branches floated sluggishly past under the wall. John was in the boat, fiddling stupidly at the engine, glistening and splashing in the rain, before he had thought at all what exactly he was going to do to discharge his fantastic undertaking. The engine started miraculously. John cast off and the boat headed doggedly up against the tide, John peering anxiously from side to side at the rain-speckled water. The engine roared and clattered; the boat vibrated, quivering all over; the oars and boathook rattled ceaselessly against the side of the boat--a hollow, monotonous rattle; the exhaust snorted rhythmically astern. The rain splashed and pattered on the engine and on the thwarts, and rolled with a luxurious swishing sound in the bottom. The fly-wheel of the engine revolved like a Catherine-wheel composed of water--water flying in brief tangents from the rim. John had come out without a hat, and his hair was matted and black; the river splashed on his neck and trickled slowly under his collar. It was a heavy task, this, for one man with two hands to attempt, to shield the engine and himself with the same mackintosh, extending it like a wing with one arm over the fly-wheel, and to oil occasionally with an oil-can the mechanism of the pump, to regulate the oil-feed and the water-supply, and do all those little attentions without which the engine usually stopped; and at the same time to steer the boat, and look in the river for the floating body of a dead woman in a sack. It was madness. In that watery dusk his chances of seeing an obscure sack seemed ludicrously small. And what was he to do with it when he had found it? How should he dispose of it more effectually than it had been disposed of before? John did not know. But the boat rattled and gurgled along, past the Island, and past the ferry, till they were level with the brewery, by the bend. The bend here made at one side a large stretch of slack water where the tide moved hardly at all. By the other bank the tide raced narrowly down. Here, John thought, was the place for his purpose. So for a long hour he steered the boat back and forth from bank to bank, peering intensely through the rain. Sometimes he saw a log or a basket or a broken bottle scurrying dimly past and chased it with a wild hope downstream. Once he made sure that he had found what he had sought--a light object floating high out of the water; this he followed half-way down the Island. And when he found it it was a dead cat--a light-coloured cat. "The yellow cat," he thought. Once, as he headed obliquely across the river, boathook in hand, a black invisible police-boat shot surprisingly across his bows. A curse came out of the gloom and a lamp was flashed at him. The police-boat put about and worked back alongside; a heavy man in a cape asked him what the hell he was doing, charging about without a light. John might have asked the same question, but he was too frightened. He apologized and said he had let go of the rudder line to do something to the engine. The policemen went on again, growling. Then the tugs began to come down, very comforting and friendly, their lights gliding mistily through the wet. John had to be careful then, and creep upstream along the bank while their long lines of barges swung ponderously round the corner. And how could he be sure that Emily was not slipping past him in mid-stream, as he did so? It was hopeless, this. The wind got up--a chilly wind from the East. He was cold and clammy and terribly alone. The rain had crept under his shirt and up his sleeves; his trousers hung about his ankles, heavy with rain. He wanted to go home; he wanted to get out of the horrible wet boat; he was tired. But he had promised. Stephen was his best friend, and Stephen had appealed to him. He had done a bad thing, but he was still Stephen. And he, John, was mixed up in it now. If Emily was found at Putney in the morning, his own story would have to be told. Not a good story, either, whatever his motives had been. What _had_ his motives been? Margery Byrne, chiefly, of course. Well, she was still a motive--very much so. But how futile the whole thing was, how wet and miserable and vile! It must have been something like this in the trenches, only worse. What was that going past? A bottle, a Bass bottle with a screw stopper, bobbing about like an old man walking. Ha-ha! What would he do when he found Emily? What the devil would he do? Sink her again? But he had no anchor now--nothing. Put her ashore on the Island? But somebody would find her. Take her out of the sack--the incriminating sack? If she was found by herself, a mere body, in a night-dress.... In a night-dress? The night-dress wouldn't do. She mustn't be found in a night-dress. He would have to get rid of that too--that and the sack. Then any one might find her, and it would be a mystery. And Stephen's stories ... Stephen's stories about her levity and light conduct--they would come in useful. People like Mrs. Bantam would quite understand, now they knew what sort of person Emily had been. John realized with a sudden shame that he was feeling glad that Stephen had said those things. But how would he be able to do it? How could he take her out of the sack, out of the night-dress, and throw her back? How could he do it? and where? Once, long ago, he had come upon a big sack drifting in the evening. It was full of kindlewood, little penny packets of kindlewood, tied up with string. He remembered the weight of it, impossible to lift into the boat. He had towed it home, very slowly. He would have to tow Emily--land somewhere. She would be clammy--and slippery--and disgusting. He couldn't do it. But he _must_. The engine stopped. The engine stopped, mysteriously, abruptly. The boat slid sideways down the river. John pulled her head round with a paddle and fiddled gingerly with the hot engine. The rain fell upon it and sizzled. He turned vaguely a number of taps, fingered the electric wires; all was apparently well. He heaved at the starting-handle, patiently at first, then rapidly, then with a violent fury. Nothing happened. The boat slid along, turning sideways stupidly in the wind. They were almost level with The House by the River. It was no good. John took the paddle and worked her laboriously across the tide. He had done his best, he felt. The rain had stopped. When he came to the wooden steps the lights were on in Stephen's dining-room, in Stephen's drawing-room. And against the light he saw a head, motionless above the wall. The tide was a long way down now, faintly washing the bottom of the wall. A hoarse whisper came over the water: "John--John--any luck?" "None, Stephen, I'm sorry." John's voice was curiously soft and compassionate. There was silence. Then there came a kind of hysterical cackle, and Stephen's voice, "John, it's--it's a boy!" John stood up in the boat and began, "Congratulations, old ..." There was another cackle, and the head was gone. VII Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne had given his mother the maximum of trouble that Friday evening; and on Sunday morning she was still too feeble and ill to appreciate his beauty. Old Dr. Browning was less cheerful than Stephen had ever seen him. He shook his head almost grimly as he squeezed his square frame into his diminutive car. Stephen went back disconsolately into the warm garden. He had seen Margery for a moment, and she had whispered weakly, "You go out in your boat, my dear," and then something about "a lovely morning ... I'm all right." Also he had seen his son and tried hard to imagine that he was two years old, a legitimate object for enthusiasm. He had helped Joan to feed her rabbits and swept the garden and tidied things in the summer-house. But he had done all these things with an anxious eye on the full and falling river. And already he had had several shocks. Now he felt that he could not leave the river, not at least while the tide was up and there was all this muddle of flotsam quivering past. Usually, on Sunday mornings he sat in his sunny window writing, with the birds bickering in the creeper outside and the lazy sounds of Sunday morning floating up from the river. Sunday morning along The Chase was an irreligious but peaceful occasion. The people of The Chase strolled luxuriously in the hot sun from door to door, watching their neighbours' children depart with fussy pomp upon their walks. Babies slept interminably in huge prams under the trees. The old houses looked very gracious and friendly with the wistaria and ivy and countless kinds of green things scrambling about the rickety balconies and wandering through the open windows. Strangers walked in quiet couples along the path and admired the red roofs and the quaint brass knockers on the doors and the nice old names of the houses and the nice old ladies purring sleepily inside. Out on the river the owners of the anchored boats prepared them happily for action, setting sails and oiling engines and hauling laboriously at anchors. Two white cutters moved delicately about in the almost imperceptible breeze. Strenuous eights and fours and pairs went rhythmically up and down. The hoarse adjurations of their trainers came over the water with startling clearness. Single scullers, contemptuously independent, shot by like large water-beetles in slim skiffs. On the far towpath the idle people streamed blissfully along, marvelling at the gratuitous exertions of the oarsmen. Down the river there was a multitude of small boys bathing from a raft, with much splashing and shrill cries. Their bodies shone like polished metal in the distance. There were no tugs on Sundays, but at intervals a river-steamer plodded up towards Kew, a congested muddle of straw hats and blouses. Sometimes a piano tinkled in the stern, sounding almost beautiful across the water. On all these vulgar and suburban and irreligious people the June sun looked down with a great kindness and warmth; and they were happy. And Stephen, as a rule, was happy at Hammersmith on Sunday mornings. He thought with repugnance of Sunday morning in Kensington, of stiff clothes in the High Street and the shuttered faces of large drapery stores; he thought with pity even of the promenaders in Hyde Park, unable to see the trees for the people, unable to look at the sky because of their collars. He loved the air and openness and pleasant vulgar variety of Sunday morning at Hammersmith. Here at least it was a day of naturalness and rest. On any other Sunday, if the tide served, he would have slipped out after breakfast in his boat to gather firewood for the winter. Just now there was a wealth of driftwood in the river, swept off wharves by the spring tides or flung away by bargees--wedges and small logs and box-wood and beams and huge stakes, and delicious planks covered with tar. Any one who had a boat went wood-hunting on the river. He had a mind to go now. But it would look so odd, with his wife dangerously ill indoors, though she herself had told him to do it. But then that was like her. He must not go unless he had to--unless he saw something.... All Saturday while the tide was up he had furtively watched from window or garden, and seen nothing. Perhaps he had made a mistake on Friday. No. He had made no mistake. Emily Gaunt was drifting somewhere in this damnably public river. Unless she was already found, already lying in a mortuary. And if she was-- Stephen looked enviously at the happy crowds on the towpath, on the steamers, in the boats. A heavy sculling-boat passed close to the wall. It seemed almost to overflow with young men and women. All of them gazed curiously at him, muttering comments on his appearance. Their easy laughter annoyed him. He went indoors. He sat down automatically at his table in the window, and took out of a pigeon-hole a crumpled bundle of scribbled paper. It was the beginning of a long poem. He had begun it--when? Two--three weeks ago. Before Emily. He read through what he had written, and thought it bad--weak, flabby, uneven stuff--as it stood. But it was a good idea, and he could do it justice, he was sure, if he persevered. But not now. Just now he was incapable. Since Emily's night he had not written a line of poetry; he had only tried once. Not because of his conscience--it was the anxiety, the worry. He could not concentrate. A bell rang below, and he wondered if it was John Egerton. There was the sound of conversation in the hall, Cook's voice and the voice of a man, powerful and low. Then Cook lumbered up the stairs. "If you please, sir, there's a man brought the sack back what Mr. Egerton took, as used to 'ang in the scullery, and 'e'd like to see you." Stephen braced himself and went down. The man in the hall was an obvious detective--square built and solid, with hard grey eyes and a dark walrus moustache, a bowler hat in his hand. In the other he held the end of a yellow sack, muddy in patches and discoloured. "Sorry to trouble you, sir, but can you tell me anything about this sack? I'm a police officer," he added unnecessarily. Stephen felt extraordinarily cool. He said, "Can't say, Inspector. Sacks are very much alike. We had one in the scullery once, but--" He had the sack in his hands now, looking for the label. "And what happened to _your_ sack, sir?" said the man smoothly. "We lent it to Mr. Egerton, and--_Hullo!_ where did you find _this_, Inspector? It is ours!" And he held it out for the other to see the blurred lines of the label stitched inside the mouth of the sack. The name of Stephen Byrne, The House by the River, W. 6, was still legible. "Very curious, sir," said the man, looking hard at Stephen. "Do you remember when you lent it to Mr. Egerton?" Stephen made a rapid calculation. The exact period was seventeen days. He said, "When was it, Cook? About three weeks ago, wasn't it?" "Couldn't say, sir, I'm sure. All I knows is it went one day, and the other day we asked for it back from Mr. Egerton when the man came about the bottles, and he said--Mr. Egerton said, that is--as he was sorry he'd lost it picking up wood, or so Mabel said, and it was Mabel as went round for it." Stephen was feeling cooler and cooler. It was all amazingly easy. He said, "That's right, Cook; I remember now. I gave it to Mr. Egerton myself one evening; he was going out to get wood." Then, with a tone of cheerful finality as one who puts an end to a tedious conversation with an inferior, "Well, I'm sure we're much obliged to you, Inspector, for bringing it back. Where--" "If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to keep it a little longer. Those are my orders, sir--there's a little matter we're clearing up just now--" "Just so. Certainly, Inspector. As long as you like." "Thank you, sir. And as I take it, sir, none of your household has seen anything of this article since you lent it to Mr. Egerton?" "As far as I know, no one--I certainly haven't seen it myself. In fact, I was looking for it only the other day." The Inspector thought obviously for a moment, and obviously decided to say no more. "Well, that's all, sir, and thank you." Stephen bowed him affably out of the door. "Of course, if it's anything _important_, I should look in and see Mr. Egerton--he's only next door." "No, sir, it's of no consequence. I'll be off now." The man departed, with many smiles, and "sirs," and "Thank you's," and Stephen watched him round the corner. Then he went into the garden, full of a curious relief, almost of exultation. He could delight at last in the sun and the boats and the happy, irresponsible people. He, too, could look at the beloved river without any urgent anxiety of what it might carry into his view. The worst was over; the doubts were done with. Emily was found, and there was an end to it. And he had diddled the policeman. How cleverly, how gloriously he had diddled the policeman. Perfect frankness and easiness and calm--a gracious manner and a good lie--they had worked perfectly. He had never hoped for anything so easy. Almost without intention, certainly without plan, as if inspired he had uttered those tremendous lies about John. And, of course, he could hardly have said anything else. Cook had given John away already; one must be consistent. Poor old John! He must see John--talk to him--warn him--no, diddle him. He could manage John all right. He went down the steps into his tiny dinghy--a minute, fragile, flat-bottomed affair, just large enough and strong enough for a single man. It flitted lightly on the surface like one of those cumbrous-looking waterflies which move suddenly on the quiet surface of ponds with a startling velocity. He called it _The Water Beetle_. With a few strokes Stephen shot out into the lovely sun, and drifted a little, faintly stirring the oars as they rested flatly on the golden water with a movement which was almost a caress. It was very delightful out there, very soothing and warm. It was inspiring, too. Stephen thought suddenly of the long poem. He must have a go at that--now that things were better, now that his mind was easier. Then he saw John walk down to the end of his garden, smoking comfortably the unique and wonderful Sunday morning pipe. He rowed back immediately to the wall, framing smooth explanatory phrases in his head. John, he saw, was gazing with a strained look through his glasses at a muddle of wreckage drifting down from the Island. "You needn't worry, John," he said; "it's all over--it's--it's _found_.... Come down the steps." John came down and squatted at the foot of the steps, saying nothing. Stephen tied up the boat, but did not get out of it. "A man's been here this morning--a policeman--with the sack ... he wanted to know if we knew anything about it.... Cook saw him first, and let out that it was ours--said we'd lent it to you--silly fool ... about three weeks back ... when I saw him it was too late to say anything else...." He stopped and looked up. Surely John was going to say something. John looked steadily at him and said nothing. "She said Mabel went round and asked you for it, and you said--what _did_ you say, John?" John looked out across the river and thought. Then he said in a far-away voice: "I said I'd taken it out to pick up wood--and lost it. Overboard ... I had to say something." "Hell!" Stephen hoped that this exclamation had an authentic note of perplexity and distress. He was conscious of neither, only of a singular clearness and contentment. "Well, what are we going to do now?" There was no answer. "Margery's very bad this morning," he went on, with seeming irrelevance. "We're very worried. The doctor ..." John interrupted suddenly, "What _can_ we do? What will the police do next? Will they come and see me?" He had a sudden appalling vision of himself in a stammering, degrading interview with a detective. "No, John, they won't bother you.... I'm the man they'll bother.... There'll be an inquest, of course.... And I'm afraid you'll have to give evidence, John ... say what you said before, you know ... say you lost it ... about three weeks ago ... that's what I said ... somebody must have picked it up.... I'm awfully sorry, John--but it will be all right...." Then, doubtfully, "Of course, John ... if you'd rather ... I'll go at once and tell them the whole thing.... I hate the idea of you ... but there's Margery.... The doctor said ... I don't know what would happen...." John was roused at last. "Of course not, Stephen ... you're not to think of it ... it'll be all right, as you say.... Only ... only ..." with a strange fierceness, "I wish to God it had never happened." And he looked at Stephen very straight and stern, almost comically stern. "So do I," said Stephen, with a heavy sigh. For the first time since the policeman left he had the old sense of guiltiness and gloom. "There's one thing, Stephen ..." John hesitated and stammered a little. "I've heard some awful rumours about ... about that girl ... immoral and so on ... they're not true, are they?... anyhow, don't let's encourage them, Stephen ... it's not necessary ... and I don't like it...." He stopped, and was aware that he was blushing. It was a lame presentation of what he had intended as a firm unanswerable ultimatum: "If you want me to help you, you must drop all this." But Stephen somehow always intimidated him. Stephen thought, "The damned old prig!" He said, "What _do_ you mean, John? You don't imagine I ... these servants, I suppose ... but I quite agree.... I must go and see Margery now. So long, John ... and thank you so much." John went up into his garden and into his house and sat for a long time in a leather chair thinking and wondering. Stephen walked briskly in and whispered to the nurse. Mrs. Byrne was asleep. He sat down at the sunny table in the study window, and drew out again the long poem. It was a good idea--a very good idea. He read through what he had written; uneven, yes, but there was good stuff in it. A little polishing up wanted, a little correction. All that bit in the middle.... He scratched out "white" and scribbled over it "pale." Yes, that was better. The next part, about the snow, was rather wordy--wanted condensing; there were six lines, and four at least were very good--but one of them must go--perhaps two. He sharpened a pencil, looking out at the river. VIII After the inquest The Chase had plenty to talk about. Mrs. Ambrose and Mrs. Church were kept very busy. For few of The Chase had been actually present in the flesh--not because they were not interested and curious and indeed aching to be present, but because it seemed hardly decent. Since the great Nuisance Case about the noise of the Quick Boat Company's motor-boats there had been no event of communal importance to The Chase; life had been a lamentable blank. And it was an ill-chance that the first genuine excitement, not counting the close of the Great War, should be a function which it seemed hardly decent to attend: an inquest on the dead body of a housemaid from The Chase discovered almost naked in a sack by a police-boat at Barnes. Nevertheless, a sprinkling of The Chase was there--Mrs. Vincent for one, and Horace Dimple, the barrister, for another--though he of course attended the inquest purely as a matter of professional interest, in the same laudable spirit of inquiry in which law students crowd to the more sensational or objectionable trials at the High Court. There were also Mr. Mard, the architect, who was on the Borough Council, and Mr. and Mrs. Tatham, who had to visit the Food Committee that day. These, being in the neighbourhood of the Court, thought it would be foolish not to "look in." Few of them overtly acknowledged that the others were visibly there, or, if they were compelled to take notice, smiled thinly and looked faintly surprised. But so startling and sensational was the course of the inquest that when they returned to their homes any doubts about the propriety of attending it were speedily smothered by the important fact that they had positively been there, had been eyewitnesses of the astonishing scene, whether from chance or compassion or curiosity, or wisdom, or simple power of divination, which most of them felt they must undoubtedly possess. They had known all along that there was "something fishy" about that girl's disappearance, and now, you see, they were right. They looked eagerly in the morning papers and in the evening papers as only those look who have seen something actually take place, and insanely crave to see it reported in dirty print in the obscure corners of a newspaper. So do men who happen on a day to hear part of a Parliamentary debate anxiously study on the morrow the Parliamentary reports at which they have never so much as glanced before, and are never likely to glance again.... But this is human nature, and we must not be unkind to The Chase because they were unable to depart from that high standard. The papers reported the affair with curious brevity and curiously failed to get at the heart of it. The headlines were all about "Mr. Stephen Byrne "--"Poet's Housemaid"--"Tragedy in an Author's House"--and so on. It was only at the end of the small paragraphs that you found out there were black suspicions about a Civil Servant, one John Egerton, first-class clerk in the Ministry of Drains. And for The Chase these suspicions were the really startling and enthralling outcome of the inquest, as Mrs. Vincent and others described it. Mrs. Vincent described it after dinner in the house of the Petways, where she had dropped in casually for a chat. By a curious chance Mr. Dimple had also dropped in, so that the fortunate Petways had two eyewitnesses at once. The Whittakers came in in the middle of the story. And they all agreed that it was a surprising story--highly surprising as it affected Mr. Egerton, and also highly unfavourable. Dear Mr. Byrne had given his evidence in his usual charming manner, very clear and straightforward and delightful: very anxious to help the Coroner and the jury, in spite of the worry about poor Mrs. Byrne. "Very pale, he was," said Mrs. Vincent. "Overstrained," said Mr. Dimple. And it all depended on this sack, you see. The girl was tied up in the sack. Mrs. Vincent gave a little shiver. "Of course, it was all _rather_ horrible, you know, but--" "But you enjoyed it thoroughly," thought Whittaker. "Mr. Byrne said he remembered lending the sack to Mr. Egerton--to collect firewood or something--you know, he's _always_ poking about in that silly boat of his, picking up sticks." (The operation as described by Mrs. Vincent sounded incredibly puerile and base.) "Then the Coroner asked him if he remembered _when_. Mr. Byrne said it was about three weeks ago. Then they asked was it before or after the day that this young woman disappeared. You could have heard a pin drop. "I was really sorry for Mr. Byrne; I could see he didn't like it a bit. He didn't answer for a little, kind of hesitated, then he said it was _about_ the same day--he couldn't be sure; and that was all they could get out of him--it was _about_ the same day. And you should have _seen_ Mr. Egerton's face." Mrs. Vincent paused to appreciate the effect of her narrative. "Then there was the Byrnes' young woman, Mabel Jones or some such name. She was sent round to Mr. Egerton's to ask for the sack--one day last week. And _she_ said--what was it she said, Mr. Dimple?" "She said Mr. Egerton was 'short like' with her, and--" "Ah yes!" Mrs. Vincent hastened to resume the reins. "He was 'short like' and a bit 'uffy with her; and he said he'd lost the sack, picking up wood--lost it in the river.... "And then Mr. Egerton himself was put in the box and he told _exactly the same story_!" Mrs. Vincent said these words with a huge ironical emphasis, as if it would have reflected credit on Mr. Egerton had he invented an entirely new story for the purposes of the inquest. "He told exactly the same story, and he told it very badly, in my opinion--_you_ know, hesitating and mumbling, as if he was keeping something back--and looking at the floor all the time." "We must remember he's naturally a very shy man," said Mr. Dimple, "and a public inquest, at the best--" "Yes, but look what he _said_--The Coroner asked him the same question--when was it he had borrowed the sack--before or after the young woman disappeared. Mr. Egerton said he really didn't know, because he didn't know when the young woman had disappeared.... As if we didn't _all_ know, the very next day...." "Pardon me," said Mr. Dimple, "but I didn't know myself, not till one day last week--and I live two doors from the Byrnes--" "Yes, but you're a _man_," said Mrs. Vincent, with a large contempt. "So is Mr. Egerton." Mrs. Vincent should have been a boxer. She recovered nobly. "Anyhow, he didn't impress me, and he didn't impress the Coroner. The Coroner kept at him a long time, trying to get it out of him, _how_ he'd lost the sack and so on. Some of the jury asked questions too. They couldn't understand about the wood-collecting and what he wanted firewood for in the summer, and--Oh yes, _I_ remember. He said it must have slipped off the boat, you see, and been picked up by somebody. Then they asked him what he did with the wood when he picked it up--did he put it in the sack then and there or what? He said no, he just threw it in the bottom of the boat. _Then_ the Coroner said, 'When did you put it in the sack?' Mr. Egerton said, 'In the garden, of course, to take it indoors.' And then, you see, the Coroner said, 'Why on earth did he take the sack out in the boat at _all_?' You could have heard a--" Mrs. Vincent thought better of it. "Mr. Egerton couldn't answer that--he just looked sheepish, and mumbled something about 'he forgot!'--forgot, indeed!" Mrs. Vincent looked at Mr. Dimple--a triumphant, merciless look. Mr. Dimple murmured reflectively, "Yes--that _was_ odd--very odd." "And as for that Mrs. Bantam of his, the old frump! _She_ actually swore that there'd never been a sack in the house! Well, it stands to reason, if Mr. Egerton borrowed that sack to collect wood in, she _must_ have seen it, unless he kept it locked up somewhere--and if he did lock it up somewhere--well, he must have had some funny reason for it...." Mrs. Vincent shrugged her shoulders expressively. "So _that_ didn't do him any good--especially as she cheeked the Coroner." "And what was the verdict?" "Oh, the jury were _very_ quick--I only waited ten minutes or so, you know, just on the chance--and when they came back they said, 'Wilful murder against somebody unknown'--or something like that. I must say, I was surprised, because the Coroner was _very_ down on Mr. Egerton--" "And so were you, I gather," said Mrs. Whittaker, with forced calm; the Whittakers liked Egerton, and Mrs. Vincent was slowly bringing them to the boil. "Well, if you ask me, I really _don't_ think he comes out of it very well. Of course, I know the jury didn't say anything about him, but--" "And that being so, Mrs. Vincent, if you will allow me"--Mr. Dimple at last cast off his judicial detachment; he spoke with his usual deprecating and kindly air, with a kind of halting fluency that made it seem as if his sentences would never end--"if you will allow me--er, as a lawyer--to ah, venture a little advice--that being so, I think one ought to be careful--not to say anything--which might be--ah, repeated--by perhaps thoughtless people--of course I know we are all friends here--and possibly misinterpreted--as a suggestion--that Mr. Egerton's part in this affair--though I know, of course, that there were--er--puzzling circumstances--about the evidence--I thought so myself--that Mr. Egerton's part--was--er--more serious--than one is entitled strictly to deduce--from the verdict--which _as_ you say--Mrs. Vincent--did not refer to him directly in any way. You won't mind my saying so, will you?--but I almost think--" Mr. Dimple always talked like that. He was a noble little man, with a thin, peaked, legal countenance and mild eyes that expressed unutterable kindness and impartiality to the whole world. His natural benevolence and a long training in the law had produced in him a complete incapacity for downright censure. His judgments were a tangle of parentheses; and people said that if he were ever raised to the Bench his delivery of the death sentence would generate in the condemned person a positive glow of righteousness and content. He never "thought" or "said"; he only "almost thought" or "ventured to suggest" or "hazarded the opinion, subject of course to--" And this, combined with his habit of parenthesis and periphrasis and polysyllaby (if there is a word like that), made his utterances of almost unendurable duration. He was one of those men during whose anecdotes it is almost impossible to keep awake. Polite people, who knew him well and honoured him for the goodness of his heart and the charity of his life, sometimes rebuked themselves because of this failure, and swore to be better when they met him again. At the beginning of a story (and he had many) they would say to themselves firmly, "I will keep awake during the whole of this anecdote; I will attend to the very end; I will understand it and laugh sincerely about it." Then Mr. Dimple would ramble off into his genial forest of qualifications and brackets, and the minds of his hearers immediately left him; they thought of their homes, or their work, or the food they were eating, or of the clothes of some other person, or of some story they intended to tell when Mr. Dimple had done; and they came suddenly out of their dreams, to find Mr. Dimple yet labouring onward to his climax; and they said, with shame and mortification, "I have failed again," and laughed very heartily at the wrong moment. Yet people loved Mr. Dimple; and if it was impossible sometimes to deduce from what he actually said what it was he actually thought, one was often able to make a good guess on the assumption that he never wittingly said anything cruel or unkind or even mildly censorious to or about anybody. Mr. Whittaker knew this, and he interrupted with: "Thank you, Dimple--I thoroughly agree with you--but I don't think you go nearly far enough." He stood up, looking very severely at Mrs. Vincent. "I think it's _disgusting_ to say such things about a man--especially about a man like Egerton. I think we ought to get home now, Dorothy. Good night, Mrs. Petway." Mrs. Petway spluttered feebly, but was unable to utter. The Whittakers departed, trailing clouds of anger. Mrs. Vincent assumed an air of injury. "Well, my dear, I'm sure I'm sorry if I said anything to upset them, but really--Of course, I know I don't understand the _law_, Mr. Dimple, and I don't want to be unfair to any man, but one must use one's common sense, and what I think is that Mr. Egerton made away with that poor girl, and that's all about it." She looked defiantly at Mr. Dimple. Mr. Dimple opened his mouth and shut it again. Then he went away. IX It is to be regretted that very many of The Chase shared the views of Mrs. Vincent. Mrs. Vincent was a tireless propagandist of her own views about other people. The Whittakers, and the Dimples, and the Tathams, and all the more charitable and kindly people who were faintly shocked but unconvinced by the whole affair, preferred not to talk about it at all. So Mrs. Vincent steadily gained ground and John Egerton became a dark and suspected figure, regarded with a shuddering horror by most of his neighbours. He found this out very soon at the Underground station in the mornings. Here on the platform there were always many of The Chase, watching with growing irritation the non-stop trains thundering past, and meanwhile chattering with one another of their hopes and fears and domestic crises. John soon found that men became engrossed in advertisements or conversations or newspapers as he approached, or sidled away down the platform, or busily lit their pipes. And twice, before he realized what was in their minds, his usual "Good morning" was met with a stony, contemptuous stare. After that he took to avoiding the men himself. He noticed then that the burly and genial ticket collector had begun to withhold his invariable greeting and comment on the weather. And after that John travelled by bus to Hammersmith and took the train there. Nobody knew him there. And he left off walking up the Square, but went by Red Man Lane, which was longer. In the Square he might meet anybody. In the Square everybody knew him. In the Square he felt that every one discussed him as he passed; the women chattering at their cottage doors lowered their voices, he was sure, and muttered about him. The milk-boys stared at him unusually, and laughed suddenly, contemptuously, when he had gone. Or so he thought. For he was never sure. He felt sometimes that he would like to stop and make sure. He would like to say to the two young women with the baskets whom he passed every day, "I believe you were saying something about me.... I know what it was.... Well, it's all rot.... It was another man did it, really.... I can't explain ... but you've no right to look at me like that." He longed to be able to justify himself, for he was a warm and sympathetic soul, and liked to be on terms of vague friendliness and respect with people he met or passed in the streets or dealt with daily in shops; he liked saying "Good morning" to milkmen and porters and policemen and paper-boys. And the fear that any day any of these people might ignore him or insult him was a terrible fear. Contrary to the common belief, it is more difficult for an innocent man, if he be shy and sensitive, to look the whole world in the face than it is for the abandoned evil-doer with his guilt fresh upon him. So John avoided people he knew as much as he could. He avoided even his friends. The kindly Whittakers made special efforts to bring him to their house. They urged him to come in on their Wednesday evenings that they might show the Vincents and the Vincent following what decent people thought of him. But he would not go. He could not face the possibility of a public insult in a drawing-room, some degrading, hot-cheeked, horrible "scene." And after all, it was only for a little time. Mrs. Byrne was still in a bad way, but she was "out of the wood," Mrs. Bantam said. And when she was quite well, Stephen of course would somehow manage to put things right, in spite of his extraordinary conduct at the inquest. He did not see Stephen for ten days after the inquest. He had felt sometimes that he would like to see him, would like to tell him how awkward he had made things by the way he had given his evidence. But it seemed hardly fair to worry him. He must be worried enough, as it was, poor man. And John felt that he would never be able to approach the topic without seeming to be questioning Stephen's loyalty. And he did not want to do that. He was quite sure that Stephen had never meant to put things as he had. It was nervousness; and the muddle-headedness that comes from too much thinking, too much planning, and the musty, intimidating atmosphere of the Coroner's Court, and the stupid badgering of the smug Coroner. Probably Stephen had hardly known what he was saying. He himself had felt like that. And Stephen had had far more reason for nervousness in that place. When Margery was better, he would go round and see Stephen, and Stephen would "do the right thing." That was his own phrase. Meanwhile, people must be avoided, and Mrs. Bantam was a great comfort. Mrs. Bantam had shown herself a loyal and devoted soul. She, at least, had perfect faith in him. There had never been a sack in _this_ house, _that_ she knew. And that was all about it. Since her spirited appearance in the Coroner's Court, her inter-prandial addresses were confined to two themes--the ineptitude of the law and the high character of her employer. She was wearisome, but she was very soothing to the injured pride of a shy man who conceived himself as the detested byword of West London. There was one other spark of comfort. The Tarrants were away in the country and had missed all this. But Mrs. Vincent was a friend of Mrs. Tarrant and would no doubt write to her. John wondered whether he ought to write to Muriel Tarrant. He did not think so. They were not really on writing terms. And in the big room over the river, where the blinds were always down, but the sun thrust through in brilliant slices at the corners, Margery Byrne lay very still--sleeping and thinking, sleeping and thinking, of Stephen and Michael Hilary and Joan, but chiefly of Stephen. In the morning and in the evening he came up and sat with her for an hour, and he was very tender and solicitous. She saw that he was pale and weary looking, with anxious eyes, and she was touched and secretly surprised that her illness should have made him look like this. Indeed, it pleased her. But she told him that he must worry about her no more; she told him he must eat enough, and not sit up working too late. Then she would say that she wanted to sleep, lest he should become fidgety or bored with sitting in the darkened room. She would kiss him very fondly, and follow him with her eyes while he walked softly to the door. Then she would lie in a happy dream listening to the birds in the ivy, and the soft river-sounds, the distant cries of the bargemen, and the melancholy whistle of tugs, and the ripple of their wash about the moored boats; she would lie and listen and make huge plans for the future--infinite, impossible, contradictory plans. And the centre of all of them was Stephen. * * * * * And Stephen would go down into the warm study and sit down in the sunny window and write. Ever since that Sunday morning when the detective came with the sack he had been writing. It was extraordinary that he was able to write. He knew that it was extraordinary. Sometimes he sat in the evening and tried to understand it. In that fearful time before the detective came, and most of all in those terrible days when Emily Gaunt was drifting irrecoverably up and down in the river, no conceivable power could have wrung from him a single line. He could no more have written poetry than he could have written a scientific treatise. But now, amazingly, he could command the spirit, the idea, the concentration--everything; he could become absorbed, could lose himself in his work. The idea he was working on had been with him for a long time; he had made notes for the poem many weeks back, long before Emily had come to the house; he had written a few lines of it just before she left it. But one wanted more than ideas to do good work of that kind; one must have--what was it?--"peace of mind," presumably. There must be no tempers, or terrors, or worries in the mind. And, one would have thought, no remorse, no pricking of conscience. But perhaps that did not matter. For otherwise how could he now have "peace of mind"? Stephen felt that his conscience was working; he was sorry for what he had done--truly sorry. He was sorry for poor old John. But it did not trouble him when he sat down in the sunshine to write. He could forget it then. But that day when the baby came, when he had seen the sack go past and chased it in the boat, and the next day when Emily was still at large, drifting bulkily for the first police-boat to see--on those days he could not have forgotten. He had been afraid--afraid for Margery, and afraid for himself. And now, somehow, he was not afraid. Why was that? Distressing things, appalling things, might still happen, but he was not disturbed by them. The day after the inquest he had been a little disturbed; he had not been able to settle down to work that day; he had wandered vaguely up and down the house, had sat in the garden a little, had rowed in the boat a little--restless; and he had slept badly. But the next day he had worked successfully many hours. In a little diary he kept a record of work--so many hours, such and such a poem, so many hundreds of words. All these weeks he had automatically made the entries as usual, and from Sunday, 1st June, the figures moved steadily upward. After the 5th there was a distinct bound--seven hours on the 6th. June 1st was the day the policeman came--the day he had told the policeman about John--almost by accident, he felt. Yes; he had not meant anything then. And the 4th was the day of the inquest--the day he had made all those other suggestions about John--quite intentionally--and cleverly, too. That was the secret of it, of course, that was the real foundation of his peace of mind--the way he had managed to entangle John in the affair. He had John hopelessly entangled now. It was strange how it had worked out. In the beginning he had honestly intended "to do the right thing." Or he believed he had. From the time, at any rate, that John had become seriously involved, he had really meant to "own up" as soon as Margery was well enough. Probably it would have meant suicide, he remembered--a long time ago it seemed--thinking of that; but he was going to do _something_. And then the inspiration and the chance had come hand in hand that Sunday morning to show him a better way. It _was_ a better way. He knew quite certainly now that he would never own up--not even if Margery was to die. He would never say a word to clear John's character. He had a fairly clear idea now of what would happen. There would (he hoped) be no further proceedings; the evidence was too thin. All that John would suffer would be this local gossip and petty suspicion; and he would have to live that down. John would not mind--a good fellow, John. But if he did mind, if he ever showed signs of expecting to be cleared, if he ever suggested a confession or any rubbish of that sort, the answer would be simple: "Really, my dear John, the evidence is so strong against you that I don't really think I should be _believed_ now if I said _I_ did it. And you must remember, John, you've anyhow sworn all sorts of things on your oath that you'd have to explain away--the Civil Service wouldn't like that--perjury, you know. Of course, if you _want_ me, John--but I really think it would be better from _your_ point of view--I only want to do the best for _you_, John--" He could hear himself solemnly developing the argument; and he could see John bowing to his judgment, acquiescing. If he didn't acquiesce; if he made trouble, or if the police made trouble--but Stephen preferred not to think of that. Yet if it did happen he would be ready. If it was oath against oath, with the scales weighted already against John, he knew who would be believed. And, after all, John Egerton, good fellow as he was, would leave but a tiny gap in the world. What were his claims on life? What had he to give to mankind? A single man, parents dead, an obscure Civil Servant, at five hundred a year--a mere machine, incapable of creation, easily replaced, perhaps not even missed. What was he worth to the world beside the great Stephen Byrne? Supposing they both died now, how would their obituary notices compare? John's--but John would not have one; his death would be announced on the front page of the newspapers. But about himself there would be half-columns. He knew what they would say: "Tragic death of a young poet still in his prime ... Keats ... unquestionable stamp of genius ... a loss that cannot be measured ... best work still unwritten ... engaged, we understand ... new poem ... would have set the seal ..." and so on. And it would all be true. Wasn't it _right_, then, that if the choice had ever to be made, he, Stephen Byrne, should be chosen, should be allowed to live and enrich the world? It was curious that never before had he so clearly appreciated his own value to humanity. Somehow, he had never thought of himself in that way. This business had brought it home to him. Anyhow, he must get on with this poem. It was going to be a big thing. The more he wrote, the more it excited him; and the more contented he became with the work he was doing, the more satisfied he was with his material circumstances, the more sure that all would be well for him with the Emily affair. This is the way of many writers. Their muses and their moods react upon each other in a kind of unending circle. When they are unhappy they cannot write; but when they are busy with writing, and they know that it is good, they grow happier and happier. Then when they have finished and the first intoxication of achievement has worked itself out, depression comes again. And then, while they are yet too exhausted for a new effort, all their work seems futile and worthless, and all life a meaningless blank. And until the next creative impulse restores their confidence and vigour they are, comparatively, miserable. Stephen Byrne was peculiarly sensitive to these reactions. He had that creative itch which besets especially the young writer with his wings still strange and wonderful upon him. At the end of a day in which he had written nothing new, he went to bed with a sense of frustration, of failure and emptiness. There was something missing. For weeks on end he wrote something every day, some new created thing, if it was only a single verse, apart from the routine work of criticism and review-writing and odd journalism with which he helped to keep his family alive. But ideas do not come continually to any man; and when they come, the weary mind is not always ready to shape them. There were long periods of barrenness or stagnancy when Stephen could write nothing. Sometimes the ideas came copiously enough, but hovered like maddening ghosts just out of his grasp, clearly seen, but unattainable. Sometimes they came not at all. In either case, like a good artist, Stephen made no attempt to force the unwilling growth, but let himself lie fallow for a little. But all these fallow times he was restless and half-content. He had the sense, somehow, of failure. He became moody and irritable, and silent at meals. But when the creative fit was upon him, when he had made some little poem, or was still hot and busy at a long one, the world was benevolent and good, life was a happy adventure, and Stephen talked like a small boy at dinner-time. So this poem he was working at was an important thing. The "idea" was comparatively old. It had come to him in a fallow time, and had been stored somewhere away. When the policeman's visit restored his tranquillity, the fallow time was over. The idea was ready to hand, and he had only to take it out and sow it and water it. And as it grew and blossomed under his hand, it commanded him. It made him superior to circumstance; it decorated his fortunes and made them hopeful and benign. Nothing could be harmful or disturbing while he was doing such good work every day. It made him sure that he was right--sure that his decisions were wise. It made him see that no good purpose would be served by telling the world the truth about Emily Gaunt and about John Egerton. So he went on writing. But there was another curious thing about this poem. It was a kind of epic, an immensely daring, ambitious affair. The war came into it, but it was not about the war. Rather it was a great song of the chivalry and courage of the men and women of our time wherever these have appeared. There were battles in it, and the sea was in it, and something of the obscure gallantry of hidden or humble men; and something also of the imperishable heroisms that did not belong to the war--Scott's last voyage and Shackleton's voyage, and the amazing braveries of the air. And day by day, as he sat there in the sun, glorifying, page by page, the high qualities of these men, their courage and their truth and straightness, he was conscious distantly of the strange contradiction between what he was doing and what he was. He stopped sometimes and thought, "This is sincere work that I am doing; I mean it; it excites me; the critics, whatever they say, will say that it is sincere and noble writing. Parents in the days to come may make their children read it as an exhortation to manliness and truth. They may even say that I was a noble character myself.... And all the time I am doing a mean and dirty thing--a cowardly thing. And I don't care. My life is a lie, and this poem is a lie, but I don't care; it is good work." All that June the weather was very lovely. In the busy streets the air grew heavy and stifling, full of dust and the vile fumes of motor buses. They were like prisons. But by the river there was always a sense of freshness and freedom; and when the great tide swept up in the evenings a gentle breeze came in light breaths from the west and fingered and fondled the urgent water, making it into a patchwork of rippled places and smooth places, where there swam for a little in a fugitive glow of amber and rose the small clouds over the Richmond Hills. Then it was cool and strengthening to sit in a small boat and drink the breeze, and Stephen always, when the tide was up, would row out into the ripples to see the big sun go down behind Hammerton Church. And while the boat rocked gently on the wash of tugs, he would sit motionless, trying to store the sunset in his mind. He would look at the lights in the water, the unimaginable pattern and colouring of the clouds, fretted like the sand when the sea goes out, consciously realizing, consciously memorizing, thinking, "I must remember how that looked!" For he was not naturally observant, and often, he knew, made up for his lack of observation by his power of imagining. But the critics said he was observant, and observant he was determined to be. Or he would row across to the eastern end of the Island and tie his boat to the single willow tree that stood there. From this point, looking eastward, you saw the whole of the splendid reach, curving magnificently away to Hammersmith Bridge. You saw the huddled, irregular houses beside it glowing golden in the last sunlight, with here and there a window that blazed at you like a furnace; you saw the fine old trees on the southern bank and the tall chimneys and the distant church that had something of the grace of Magdalen Tower, and you saw the wide and exuberant stream with an impression of bigness and dignity which could never be commanded from the bank; and you saw it rich with colour and delicate lights--with steel-blue and gold--with copper and with rose. You knew that it was a thick and muddy stream, that most of the houses were squalid houses, and many of the buildings were ugly buildings. But they were all beautiful in the late sun, and Stephen loved them. And while he sat there, the poem hovered always in the background of his mind. Everything he saw he saw as material which might somehow take its place in the poem. Sometimes half-consciously he was shaping ahead the scheme of what he had next to do, the general form and sequence of it; and sometimes there was a line that would not come right, a word or a phrase that would not surrender itself, and this problem would be always busy in his head, the alternatives chasing each other in a tumbling perpetual circle. Sometimes he would go into the house again in a vague depression, simply because this difficulty had not yet resolved itself. But there were certain evenings of such peace and quiet dignity that he was stricken with a brief and unwilling remorse. Then the poem was at last thrust out of his mind; then he thought of Margery and the wrong he had done her, and of John and the wrong he was doing him, and shame took hold of him. At these moments he had an impulse to abandon his plans, to forget his poem and his ambitions and his love of life, and give himself up suddenly to the police. This was usually when the sun was yet warm and wonderful. But when the sun had gone, and he had come back into the dark and silent garden, this mood departed quickly. Fear came back to him then, the love of warmth and light and comfort and life, and with that the love of praise and the desire of success. And then he would think passionately again of his poem; he would snatch, as it were in self-defence, at the pride and excitement of his purpose, and comfort his soul with new assurances of his own exceeding worth. And when he had recaptured that consoling invigorating mood, the great contradiction would smite him with a fresh and glorious force, the contradiction of his personal vileness and the beauty and nobility of the work which he was doing. Then as he sat down in the bright island of light at his table, he would think again, with a kind of conceited malice, of the blind and stupid world which judged a man by his work--which would slobber over a murderer and a liar and a betrayer of friends simply because he could write good verse about good men. And sometimes he even formed this thought into an arrogant phrase, "They think they know me, the damned fools--but they don't!" Then he would go on with the noble poem. And Margery Byrne lay silent alone in the cool bedroom, thinking of Stephen. X So the weeks went by. And John and Stephen saw little of each other. Indeed, they saw little of any one. Then, towards the end of June, Margery Byrne got up for the first time, and little Joan came home from her grandmother's. In a week Margery was completely and delightedly "up," full of plans and longing to take up life exactly where she had left it. Stephen found her curiously eager for company, and especially the company of old friends; it seemed to her so long since she had seen them. Very soon she asked why John Egerton was so neglecting them. "Get him to come round, Stephen," she said. "Ring him up now." Stephen had lately told her the story of the inquest, of the local feeling and faction; and Margery had at once determined that she would think nothing of it. She would do as the Whittakers did; not that she was prepared in any case to believe evil of John. Yet at the back of her mind there was just a hint of curiosity about it. So Stephen reluctantly rang him up--reluctantly because he had wanted to work that evening, and because he feared this meeting. But he did not dare to seem unwilling. And John Egerton came. He had known for some days that he would soon have to do it, and he, too, had been afraid. But this evening he was almost glad of the invitation. The long weeks of semi-isolation had tried him very severely. The sense of being an outcast from his fellows, suspected, despised, had grown unreasonably and was a perpetual irritant to the nerves. He had an aching to go again into a friend's house, to sit and talk again with other men. And even the house of the Byrnes and the company of the Byrnes might be a soothing relief from his present loneliness. And now that Margery was up and well, the time was surely near when something would be done about this business. Unpleasant things had happened. The family of the Gaunts had been to see him. They had come again this evening--in the middle of supper--sly, grasping, malicious people, a decayed husband of about fifty with a drooping, ragged moustache, with watery eyes and the aspect of a wet rat, and an upright, aggressive, spiteful little wife, with an antique bonnet fixed very firmly on the extreme summit of her yellowish hair. She had thin lips, a harsh voice, and an unpleasant manner. There was also a meek son of about twenty, and Emily's fiancé, who looked conscientiously sad and respectable and wore a bowler hat. But the woman did all the talking. The men only interposed when they felt that she was going too far to be effective. They wanted money. The men might be half-ashamed of wanting it, but they wanted it, and they clearly expected to get it. They assumed as common ground that John had made away with Emily and had only been preserved from arrest by the strange eccentricities of the law. They did not want trouble made, but there it was: Emily had been a good daughter to them and had contributed money to the household; and it was only fair that something should be done to heal the injury to their affections and their accounts. If not, of course, there would _have_ to be trouble. John Egerton, disgusted and humiliated, had nobly kept his temper, but firmly refused to give them a penny. They had gone away, muttering threats. John had no idea what they would do, but they filled him with loathing and fear. He could not endure this much longer for any man's sake. Stephen must release him. But the evening at the Byrnes' house did nothing to clear things up. Rather it aggravated the tangle. Mrs. Byrne was lying on the sofa, looking more fragile yet more delicious than he had ever seen her. She greeted him very kindly and they talked for a little, while Stephen sat rather glumly in the window-seat staring out at the river. She spoke happily of Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne, of his charm and his intelligence, and how already he really had something of Stephen about him; and as she said that she smiled at Stephen. And she leaned back with a little sigh of content and looked round at her drawing-room, rich with warm and comfortable colour, at the striped material of delicate purple, at the Japanese prints she had bought with Stephen at a sale, at the curious but excellent wall-paper of dappled grey, and the pleasant rows of books on the white shelves, at the flowers in the Chinese bowl which Stephen had bought for her in some old shop, and the mass of roses on the shiny Sheraton table; then she looked out through the window at the red light of a tug sliding mysteriously down through the steely dark and back again at Stephen. And John knew that she was counting up her happiness; and he thought with an intense pity and rage how precarious that happiness was. He realized then that he could not allow Stephen to "do the right thing"; he would not press for it. After all, it was a small thing for himself to suffer, this petty local suspicion, even the visitations of the Gaunts, compared with the suffering which this dear and delicate lady would have to bear if the truth were told. Surely it was an easy sacrifice for a man to make. So John sat glowing with sentiment and resolution, and Margery pondered the happiness of life, and Stephen brooded darkly in the window, and they were all silent. Then Margery suggested that the two men should sing together as they used to do; and they sang. They sang odd things from an Old English song book, picked out at random as they turned over the leaves. And it seemed as if every song in that book must have for those two some hidden and sinister meaning. It was bad enough, in any case, to stand there together behind Margery at the piano, and try to sing as they had sung in the old days, when nothing had happened. But these songs had some terrible innuendoes: "Blow, blow, thou winter wind," they sang first, and "Sigh no more, ladies." And when they came to "a friend's ingratitude" and "fellowship forgot" and "Men were deceivers ever," the two men became foolishly self-conscious. They looked studiously in front of them, and each in his heart hoped that the other had not noticed, hoped that his own expression was perfectly normal and composed. It was exceedingly foolish. There were other songs like this, and after a few more Stephen said shortly that that was enough. Then they tried to talk again; but the men could think of no topic which did not somehow lead them near to Emily Gaunt and such dangerous ground. Even when Margery began to speak of the motor-boat, the men seemed to be stricken silly and dumb. Margery wondered what ailed them, till she remembered about John's "wood-collecting" evidence, and blushed suddenly at her folly. Stephen went down with John to the front door feeling certain that he would there and then "have it out." But John said nothing, only a quick "Good night." He did not look at Stephen. They felt then like strangers to each other. And Stephen, marvelling at John's silence and strangely moved by his coldness, became suddenly anxious to get at his thoughts. He said, "John--I--I--I hope you're not ... hadn't I better ... I--I mean ... are you being worried much ... by this?..." His vagueness was partly due to a new and genuine nervousness and partly to calculation--a half-conscious determination not to commit himself. But John perfectly understood. "No, Stephen, we'll forget all that ... you're not to do anything.... It's a bit trying, but I can stand it. I don't want to upset things any more now.... Margery and you ... a fresh start, you know.... Good night." And he was gone. Stephen went slowly upstairs, astonished and ashamed, with a confused sense of humiliation and relief. And while he felt penitent and mean in the face of this magnanimity of John's, he could not avoid a certain conceited contentment with the wisdom and success of his planning. Yes, it was very satisfactory. And now he could get on with the poem about "Chivalry." He sat down at his table and pulled out the scribbled muddle of manuscript. But he wrote no word that night. He sat for a long time staring at the paper, thinking of the chivalry of John Egerton. And it brought no inspiration. XI John went home thinking pitifully of Margery Byrne and vowing hotly that he would sacrifice himself for her sake. In the hall he found a letter from Miss Muriel Tarrant. The neat round writing on the envelope stirred him deliciously where it stared up from the floor. Almost reverently he picked it up and fingered it and turned it over and examined it with the fond and foolish deliberation of a lover for whom custom has not staled these little blisses. The letter was an invitation to a dance. The Tarrants had just come home and they were taking a party to the Buxton Galleries on Saturday. And they were very anxious for John to go. It was clear, then, that they had declined to join the faction of Mrs. Vincent, though they must have heard the story, numbers of stories, by this time. And John, as he argued thus, was almost overwhelmed with pride and tenderness and exultation. He felt then that he had known always that Muriel was different from the malicious sheep who were her mother's friends. And this letter, coming at this moment, seemed like some glorious sign of approbation from Heaven, an acknowledgment and a reward for the deed of sacrifice to which he had but just devoted himself. It was an inspiration to go on with it--though it made the sacrifice itself seem easy. He took the letter to his bed and laid it on the table beside him. And for a long time he pondered in the dark the old vague dreams of Muriel and marriage which, since the coming of the letter, had presented themselves with such startling clearness. He had not seen her for many weeks, but this letter was like a first meeting; it was a revelation. He knew she was not clever, perhaps not even very intelligent; but she was young and lovely and kind; and she should be the simple companion of his simple heart. He was very lonely in this dark house, very silent and alone. He wanted some one who would bring voices and colour into his home, would make it a glowing and intimate place, like Margery Byrne's. Poor Margery! And Muriel would do this. But he would have hard work to bring this about. He knew very little what she thought of him. He would be very accomplished and winning at this dance. Probably there would be four of them--Muriel and himself and her young brother George and some flame of his. They would dance together most of the evening, and he would dance with Muriel. And he must not be awkward--slide about or tread on her toes. He was not "keen on dancing," and he was not good at dancing. But he could "get round"; and Muriel would teach him the rest. She loved teaching people. But the party was to be a larger affair than John had imagined it. There were to be at least six, if the men could be found. And in the morning Muriel Tarrant came herself to the Byrnes' house and asked if Stephen would come. It was a bold suggestion, for she did not know him very well, and she knew that he seldom danced, seldom indeed "went out" at all in the evenings. But such boldness became a virtue in the post-war code of decorum, and she was a bold person, Muriel Tarrant. This morning she looked very fresh and alluring, with her fair hair creeping in calculated abandon from a small blue hat and a cluster of tiny black feathers fastened at the side of it--tiny feathers, but somehow inexpressibly naughty. They wandered downwards over the little curls at the side of her head and nestled delicately against her face. Margery was yet in bed, and Stephen took his visitor out into the hot garden, where little Joan was wheeling sedately a small pram and the rabbits lay panting in dark corners. And first he said that he would not go to the dance. He was busy and he did not love dancing; and anyhow Margery could not go. But Muriel perched herself on the low wall over the river, and leaned forward with her blue eyes on his, and a little pout about her lips; and she said, "Oh, _do_, Mr. Byrne." And there was a kind of personal appeal in her voice and her eagerness and her steady smiling eyes that woke up his vanity and his admiration. He thought, "She really thinks it is important that I should go; she likes me." And then, "And I like her." And then he said that he would go. They talked a little in the sun before she went, and when she was gone Stephen felt as if some secret had passed between them. Also he wondered why he had thought so little of her existence before. And Muriel went down The Chase, smiling at some secret thought. They dined hurriedly at Brierleys' that Saturday. Muriel and her brother and Stephen and John, and two young sisters of the name of Atholl, to whom George Tarrant owed an apparently impartial allegiance. They were equally plump and unintelligent, and neither was exciting to the outward eye, but it seemed that they danced well. But to young George this was the grand criterion of fitness for the purpose of a dance. John's idea of a dance--and Stephen's--was a social function at which you encountered pleasant people with whom, because there was dancing, one danced. But it was soon made clear to him that these were the withered memories of an obsolete age. For this was the time of the Great Craze. A dance now was no social affair; it was a semi-gladiatorial display to which one went to perform a purely physical operation with those who were physically most fitted to perform it. Dancing had passed out of the "party" stage; it was no longer even a difficult, but agreeable and universal pastime; it was practically a profession. It was entirely impossible, except for the very highly gifted, even to approximate to the correct standards of style and manner without spending considerable sums of money on their own tuition. And when they had finished their elaborate and laborious training, and were deemed worthy to take the floor at the Buxton Galleries at all, they found that their new efficiency was a thin and ephemeral growth. The steps and rhythms and dances which they had but yesterday acquired, at how much trouble and expense, passed today into the contemptible limbo of the unfashionable, like the hats of last spring; and so the life of the devotee was one long struggle to keep himself abreast of the latest invention of the astute but commercially-minded professional teachers. "For ever climbing up the climbing wave," for ever studying, yet for ever out-of-date, he oscillated hopefully between the Buxton Galleries and his chosen priest; and so swift and ruthless were the changes of fashion and the whims of the priesthood, that in order to get your money's worth of the last trick you had learned, it was necessary, during its brief life of respectability, to dance at every available opportunity. You danced as many nights a week as was physically or financially possible; you danced on week-days, and you danced on Sundays; you began dancing in the afternoon, and you danced during tea in the coffee-rooms of expensive restaurants, whirling your precarious way through littered and abandoned tea-tables; and at dinner-time you leapt up madly before the fish and danced like variety _artistes_ in a highly polished arena before a crowd of complete strangers eating their food; or, as if seized with an uncontrollable craving for the dance, you flung out after the joint for one wild gallop in an outer room, from which you returned, sweating and dyspeptic, to the consumption of an iced pudding, before dashing forth to the final orgy at a night-club, or a gallery, or the mansion of an earl. But it was seldom that you danced at anybody's mansion. The days of private and hospitable dances were practically dead. Nobody could afford to give as many dances as the dancing cult required. Moreover, at private dances there were old-fashioned conventions and hampering politenesses to be observed. You might have to dance occasionally out of mere courtesy with some person who was three weeks behind the times, who could not do the Jimble or the Double-Jazz Glide, or might even have an attachment for the degrading and obsolete Waltz. On the other hand, you would not be allowed to dance the entire evening with "the one woman in the room who can do the Straddle properly," and there was a prejudice against positive indecency. So it was better from all points of view to pay a few guineas and go to a gallery or a restaurant or a night-club with a small number of selected women, dragooned by long practice into a slavish harmony with the niceties of your particular style and favourite steps. And after all, what with the dancing lessons, and the dance-dinners, and the dance-teas, and the taxis to dances, and the taxis away from dances, and the tickets for dances, and the subscriptions to night-clubs, and the life-memberships of night-clubs which perished after two years, you had so much capital invested in the industry that you simply could not _afford_ to have a moment's pleasure placed in jeopardy by deficiencies of technique in your guests. Away, then, with mere Beauty and mere Charm and mere Intelligence and mere Company! Bring out the Prize Mares and show us their steps and their stamina, their powers of endurance and harmonious submission, before we consent to appear with them in the public and costly arena. A party selected on these lines, however suitable for the serious business of the evening, could be infinitely wearisome for the purposes of dinner. Stephen thought he had never beheld two young women so little entertaining as the two Misses Atholl. All they talked of and all that George Tarrant talked of was the dances they had been to, and were going to, and could not go to, and the comparative values of various mutual friends, considered solely as dancers. It was like the tedious "shop" of the more fanatical golfers; and indeed at any moment Stephen expected to hear that some brave or other had a handicap of three at the Buxton Galleries, or had become stale from over-training, or ruined his form by ordinary walking. Stephen (or Muriel) had taken care that they should be sitting together, but though she was very lively and charming, and though her talk was less restricted in range than the talk of the Atholls, Stephen began to wish intensely that he had not come. And he thought of Margery, and was sorry that he had left her alone in the house to come and listen to this futile jabbering. She had approved enthusiastically of his coming, for she thought that he went out too little; but she had looked rather wistful, he thought, when he left. She liked dancing herself. To John, too, the talk at dinner and the personality (if any) of the Misses Atholl was inexpressibly dull; and since he was as far away from Muriel as it was possible for him to be, and since she scarcely spoke a word to any one but Stephen, he had nothing to console him but a few provocative glances and the hope of seeing more of her at the dance. And even this hope was dimmed by the presence of Stephen and the intimidating technicalities of the conversation. He did not understand why Stephen had come, and he rather resented his coming. Wherever Stephen was one of the company, he always felt himself closing up socially like an awed anemone in the presence of a large fish. And tonight in that dominating presence he could not see in himself the brilliant and romantic figure which he had determined to be at this party. It was far from being the kind of party he had expected. The amazing language of young George and the Misses Atholl made it still less likely that that figure would be achieved at the dance. What were these "Rolls" and "Buzzes" and "Slides," he wondered. And how did one do them? The art of dancing seemed to have acquired strange complexities since he had last attempted it eighteen months ago. Then with a faint pride he had mastered the Fox Trot and something they called a Boston. They had seemed very daring and difficult then, but already it seemed they were dead. At any rate they were never mentioned. John foresaw some hideous embarrassments, and he too wished fervently that he had not come. But Muriel at least was enjoying herself. She was feeling unusually mischievous and irresponsible. She twinkled mischief at John's glum face, and she twinkled mischief into Stephen's eyes. Only they were different kinds of mischief. She had long been fond of John "in a kind of way"; she was still fond of him "in a kind of way." But he was a slow and indefinite suitor, old John, and he was undeniably not exciting. However, there was no one she liked better, and if he should ever bring himself to the pitch of suggesting it, she had little doubt that she would take him. His income would not be large, but it would be certain. But it was slow work waiting, and this evening she had Stephen Byrne; and Stephen Byrne was undeniably exciting. Not simply because he was a great poet,--for though she liked "poitry" in a vague way, she did not like any one poet or one piece of poetry much better than another--but because he had made a _success_ of poetry, a worldly success. He had made a name, he had even made money; he was a well-known man. And he was handsome and young, and his hair was black, and that morning in the garden he had admired her. She knew that. And she knew that she had touched his vanity by her urgency and his senses by her charm, and something naughty had stirred in her, and that too he had seen and enjoyed with a sympathetic naughtiness. And she had thought to herself that it would be an amusing thing to captivate this famous young man, this married, respectable, delightful youth; it would be interesting to see how powerful she could be. And at least she might waken John Egerton into activity. They went on to the dance in two taxis. John found himself on one of the small seats with his back to the driver, with Stephen and Muriel chattering aloofly together in the gloom of the larger seat. The small seat in a taxi is, at the best of times, a position of moral and strategic inferiority, and tonight John felt this keenly. He screwed his head round uncomfortably in his sharp collar and pretended to be profoundly interested in the wet and hurrying streets. But he heard every word they said; and they said no word to him. From the door of the galleries where the dancing was done, a confused uproar overflowed into the passages, as if several men of powerful physique were banging a number of pokers against a number of saucepans, and blowing whistles, and occasional catcalls, and now and then beating a drum and several sets of huge cymbals, and ceaselessly twanging at innumerable banjos, and at the same time singing in a foreign language, and shouting curses or exhortations or street-cries, or imitating hunting-calls or the cry of the hyena, or uniting suddenly in the final war-whoop of some pitiless Indian tribe. It was a really terrible noise. It hit you like the breath of an explosion as you entered the room. There was no distinguishable tune. It was simply an enormous noise. But there was a kind of savage rhythm about it, which made John think immediately of Indians and fierce men and the native camps which he had visited at the Earl's Court Exhibition. And this was not surprising; for the musicians included one genuine negro and three men with their faces blacked; and the noise and the rhythm were the authentic music of a negro village in South America; and the words which some genius had once set to the noise were an exhortation to go to the place where the negroes dwelt. To judge by their movements, John thought, many of the dancers had in fact been there, and carefully studied the best indigenous models. They were doing some quite extraordinary things. No two couples were doing quite the same thing for more than a few seconds; so that there was an endless variety of extraordinary motions and extraordinary postures. Some of them shuffled secretly along the edge of the room, their faces tense, their shoulders swaying faintly like reeds in a light wind, their progress almost imperceptible; they did not rotate, they did not speak, but sometimes the tremor of a skirt or the slight stirring of a patent leather shoe showed that they were indeed alive and in motion, though that motion was as the motion of a glacier, not to be measured in minutes or yards. And some, in a kind of fever, rushed hither and thither among the thick crowd, avoiding disaster with marvellous dexterity; and sometimes they revolved slowly and sometimes quickly, and sometimes spun giddily round for a moment like gyroscopic tops. Then they too would be seized with a kind of trance, or, it may be, with sheer shortness of breath, and hung motionless for a little in the centre of the room, while the mad throng jostled and flowed about them like the leaves in autumn round a dead bird. And some did not revolve at all, but charged straightly up and down; and some of these thrust their loves for ever before them, as the Prussians thrust the villagers in the face of the enemy, and some for ever navigated themselves backwards like moving breakwaters to protect their darlings from the rough seas of tangled women and precipitate men. Some of them kept themselves as upright as possible, swaying gracefully like willows from the hips, and some of them contorted themselves into hideous and angular shapes, now leaning perilously forward till they were practically lying upon their terrified partners, and now bending sideways as a man bends who has water in one ear after bathing. All of them clutched each other in a close and intimate manner, but some, as if by separation to intensify the joy of their union, or perhaps to secure greater freedom for some particularly spacious manoeuvre, would part suddenly in the middle of the room and, clinging distantly with their hands, execute a number of complicated side-steps in opposite directions, or aim a series of vicious kicks at each other, after which they would reunite in a passionate embrace, and gallop in a frenzy round the room, or fall into a trance, or simply fall down; if they fell down they lay still for a moment in the fearful expectation of death, as men lie who fall under a horse; and then they would creep on hands and knees to the shore through the mobile and indifferent crowd. Watching them you could not tell what any one couple would do next. The most placid and dignified among them might at any moment fling a leg out behind them and almost kneel in mutual adoration, and then, as if nothing unusual had happened, shuffle solemnly onward through the press; or, as though some electric mechanism had been set in motion, they would suddenly lift a foot sideways and stand on one leg, reminding the observer irresistibly of a dog out for a walk; or, with the suggestion of an acrobat nerving himself for the final effort of daring, the male would plant himself firmly on both feet while his maiden laboriously leapt a half-circle through the air about the tense figure of her swain. It was marvellous with what unanimity these eccentricities were performed. So marvellous, John thought, that it was impossible to think of them as spontaneous, joyous expressions of art. He imagined the male issuing his orders during the long minutes of shuffling motion, carefully manoeuvring into position, sizing up like a general the strategic situation, and then hoarsely whispering the final "Now!" And after that they moved on with all the nonchalance of extreme self-consciousness, thinking, no doubt, "It cost me a lot to learn that--but it was worth it." The look of their faces confirmed this view, for nearly all were set and purposeful and strained, as men who have serious work in hand; not soulful, not tense with emotion, but simply expressive of concentration. With few exceptions there was nothing of the joy of life in those faces, the rapture of music or of motion. They meant business. And this was the only thing that could absolve many of them from the charge of public indecency; for it was clear that their motions and the manner of their embraces were not the expression of licence or affection so much as matters of technique. Upon this whirlpool John Egerton embarked with the gravest misgivings, especially as he was conscious of a strange Miss Atholl clinging to his person. Young George Tarrant had immediately plunged into the storm with her sister, and his fair head was to be seen far off, gleaming and motionless like a lighthouse above the tossing heads and undulant shoulders. Stephen had secured Muriel Tarrant, and poor John was very miserable. If he had been less shy, or more intimate with Miss Atholl, he might have comforted himself with the comedy of it all. And if he had been more ruthless he might have bent Miss Atholl to his will and declined to attempt anything but his own primitive two-step. But he became solemn and panic-stricken, and surrendered his hegemony to her, suffering her to give him intricate advice in a language which was meaningless to him, and to direct him with ineffectual tugs and pushes which only made his bewilderment worse. The noise was deafening, the atmosphere stifling, the floor incredibly slippery. The four black men were now all shouting at once, and playing all their instruments at once, working up to the inconceivable uproar of the finale, and all the dancers began to dance with a last desperate fury and velocity. Bodies buffeted John from behind, and while he was yet looking round in apology or anger, other bodies buffeted him from the flank, and more bodies buffeted his partner and pressed her against his reluctant frame. It was like swimming in a choppy sea, where there is no time to recover from the slap and buffets of one wave before the next one smites you. Miss Atholl whispered, "Hold me tighter," and John, blushing faintly at these unnatural advances, tightened a little his ineffectual grip. The result of this was that he kicked her more often on the ankle and trod more often on her toes. Close beside him a couple fell down with a crash and a curse and the harsh tearing of satin. John glanced at them in concern, but was swept swiftly onward with the tide. He was dimly aware now that the black men were standing on their chairs bellowing, and fancied the end must be near. And with this thought he found himself surprisingly in a quiet backwater, a corner between two rows of chairs, from which he determined never to issue till the Last Banjo should indeed sound. And here he sidled and shuffled vaguely for a little, hoping that he gave the impression of a man preparing himself for some vast culminating feat, a sidestep, or a "buzz," or a double-Jazzspin, or whatever these wonders might be. Then the noise suddenly ceased; there was a burst of perfunctory clapping, and the company became conscious of the sweat of their bodies. John looked round longingly for Muriel. But Muriel was happily chattering to Stephen Byrne in a deep sofa surrounded by palms. Stephen, like John, had surveyed the new dancing with dismay, but his dismay was more artistic than personal. He was as much amused as disgusted, and he did not intend, for any woman, to make himself ridiculous by attempting any of the more recent monstrosities. But, unlike John, he had the natural spirit of dancing in his soul; so that he was able to ignore the freakish stupidities of the scene, and extract an artistic elemental pleasure of his own from the light and the colour and excitement, from the barbaric rhythm of the noise and the seductive contact of Muriel Tarrant. So he took her and swung her defiantly round in an ordinary old-fashioned waltz; and she, because it was the great Stephen Byrne, felt no shame at this sacrilege. When they had come to the sofa, she talked for a little the idle foolishness which is somehow inseparable from the intervals between dances, and he thought, "I wonder whether she always talks like this. I wonder if she reads my poems. I wonder if she likes them." He began to wish that she would pay him a compliment about them, even an unintelligent compliment. It might jar upon him intellectually, but, coming from her, it would still be pleasing. For it is a mistake to suppose that great artists are so remote from the weaknesses of other men that they are not sometimes ready to have their vanity tickled by a charming girl at the expense of their professional sensibilities. But she only said, "It's a ripping band here. I hope you'll come here again, Mr. Byrne." And he thought, "What a conversation!" How could one live permanently with a conversation like this? But old John could! But as she said it she looked him in the eyes very directly and delightfully, and once again there was the sense of a secret passing between them. * * * * * Then they went to look for John, and Muriel determined that she would be very nice to him. The next dance was, nominally, a waltz, and that was a rare event. John asked if he might waltz in the ancient fashion, and though she was being conscientiously sweet and gracious to him, and though she had made no murmur when Stephen had done as John would like to do, some devil within her made her refuse. She said that he must do the Hesitation Waltz as other people were doing. The chief point of this seemed to be that you imitated the dog, not by spasms, but consistently. Even the most expert practitioner failed to invest this feat with elegance and dignity, and the remainder, poising themselves pathetically with one leg in the air, as if waiting for the happy signal when they might put it down, would have looked ridiculous if they had not looked so sad. Stephen, revolving wearily with the younger Miss Atholl, wished that the Medusa's head might be smuggled into the room for the attitudes of this dance to be imperishably recorded in cold stone. Then he caught sight of the unhappy John, and was smitten with an amused sympathy. John's study of the habits of dogs had evidently been superficial, and he did not greatly enjoy his first dance with his love. He held her very reverently and loosely, though dimly aware that this made things much more difficult, but he could not bring himself to seize that soft and altogether sacred form in the kind of intimate clutch which the other men affected--Stephen, he noticed, included. It was a maddening complexity of emotion, that dance--the incredible awe and rapture of holding his adored, however lightly, in his arms, the intoxication of her nearness the fragrance of her dress, and the touch of her hair upon his face--and all this ruined by the exasperating futility of the actual dance, the vile necessity of thinking whether he was in time with the music and in time with Muriel, and if he was going to run into the couple ahead, and if there was room to reverse in that corner, and whether he should cock his leg up farther, or not so far, or not at all. He envied bitterly the easy accomplishment of the circling youths about him, who, for all the earnestness of their expressions, had each of them, no doubt, time to appreciate the fact that they held on their arms some warm and lovely girl. Yet Muriel was very kind and forbearing and instructive, and at the end of it he did feel that he had made some progress, both with his hesitating and his suit. They sat in the interval on the same sofa, and Muriel was still gracious. She told him that he would pick it up very quickly, that it was all knack, that it was all balance, that it was all practice, that no practice was needed. And John believed everything and was much excited and pleased. He thanked her for her advice, and vowed that he would take lessons and become an expert. And Muriel thought, "He will never be able to dance; could I live permanently with a man like that?" She thought what a prim, funny "old boy" he was. But he was a nice "old boy," and that rumour about the maid-servant was positively ridiculous. The next dance she had promised to Stephen. The four black men were playing a wild and precipitate tune. A certain melody was distinguishable, and it had less of the lunacies of extravagant syncopation than most of their repertoire. But it was a wicked tune, a hot, provocative, passionate tune, that fired a man with a kind of fever of motion. Faster and faster, and louder and louder, the black men played; and though it was impossible for the dancers to move much faster because of the press, their entranced souls responded to the gathering urgency of the music, and they clutched their partners more tightly, and they were conscious no more of the sweat upon their bodies, of their sore toes, or disordered dresses, they forgot for a moment the technical details of the movements of their feet, and they were whirled helplessly on in a savage crescendo of noise and motion and physical rapture towards the final Elysium of licence to which this dance must surely lead them. Stephen Byrne felt the fever and enjoyed it. He enjoyed it equally as a personal indulgence and as an artistic experience. He held Muriel very close, and found himself dancing with an eager pleasure which surprised him. Yet as he danced, he was noticing his own sensations and the faces of the people about him, the intense faces of the men, the drugged expressions of the women. He saw oldish men looking horribly young in their animal excitement, and oldish women looking horrible in their coquettishness. And he saw them all as literary material. He thought, "This is good copy." Muriel, he knew, was enjoying it too. Her eyes were half-closed, her face, a little pale, had the aspect of absolute surrender which can be seen in churches. But sometimes she opened her eyes wide and smiled at Stephen. And this excited him very much, so that he watched for it; and when she saw that she blushed. Then he was swept with a hot gust of feeling, and he realized that he was dangerously attracted by this girl. He thought of Margery and the late vows he had made, and he was ashamed. But the mad dance went on, with ever-increasing fury, and the black men returned with a vast tempestuous chord and a shattering crash of cymbals to the original melody, and all those men and women braced themselves to snatch the last moment of this intoxication. Those who were dancing with bad partners or dull partners were filled with bitterness because they were not getting the full measure of the dance; and those who held the perfect partners in their arms foresaw with sorrow the near end of their rapture, and began, if they had not already begun, to conceive for each other a certain sentimental regard. Stephen thought no more of Margery, but he thought tenderly of Muriel and the moment when the dance must end. For when it ended all would be over; he might not hold her in his arms any more, he might not enjoy her loveliness in any way, because he was married, and she was dedicated to John. She was too good for John. But because he was married he must stand aside and see her sacrificed to John or to somebody like John. He must not interfere with that. But he would like to interfere. He would like to kiss her at the end of the dance. The dance was finished at last, and while they sat together afterwards, hot and exhausted, Muriel said suddenly, "What's all this about Mr. Egerton--and--that maid of yours--? There are some horrid stories going round--Mrs. Vincent--Mother said she wouldn't listen to any of them." Stephen was silent for a little. Then he said, in a doubtful, deliberate manner: "Well, I've known John as long as anybody in The Chase, and I know he's a jolly good fellow, but--but--It was an extraordinary affair, that, altogether. I don't know what to make of it." He finished with a sigh of perplexity. Then he sat silent again, marvelling at himself, and Muriel said no more. John came up and stood awkwardly before them. He wanted to ask Muriel for the next dance, but he was too shy to begin. His dress-suit was ill-fitting and old, his hair ruffled, his tie crooked, and as she lay back on the sofa Muriel could see a glimpse of shirt between the top of his trousers and the bottom of the shrunken and dingy white waistcoat, where any pronounced movement of his body caused a spasmodic but definite hiatus. His shirt front had buckled into a wide dent. Of all these things poor John was acutely conscious as he stood uncertainly before the two. Stephen said heartily, "Hallo, old John, you look a bit the worse for wear. How did you get on that time?" John stammered, "Not very well--I want Miss Tarrant to give me some more--some more instruction." And he looked at Muriel, an appealing, pathetic look. He wished very fiercely that Stephen was not there--so easy and dashing, and certain of himself. And Muriel had no smile for him. She glanced inquiringly at Stephen, and said, with the hard face of a statue, "I'm sorry, I'm doing the next with Mr. Byrne." And Stephen nodded. She danced no more with John that night. Sometimes as he sat out disconsolately with one of the Atholl women, she brushed him with her skirt, or he saw her distantly among the crowd. And he looked now with a new longing at the adorable poise of her head upon her shoulders, at the sheen and texture of her hair, at the grace and lightness of her movements, as she swam past with Stephen. He looked after her till she was lost in the press, trying to catch her eye, hoping that she might see him and smile at him. But if she saw him she never smiled. And when he was sick with love and sadness, and hated the Atholls with a bitter hatred, he left the building alone, and went home miserably by the Underground. XII July drew on to a sultry end. In the little gardens of Hammerton the thin lawns grew yellow and bare: and there, by the river-wall, the people of The Chase took their teas and their suppers, and rested gratefully in the evening cool. One week after the dance the Byrnes were to go away into the country, and Margery had looked forward eagerly to the 27th of July. But Stephen said on the 25th that he could not come: he had nearly finished the poem "Chivalry," and he wanted to finish it before he went away; and he had much business to settle with publishers and so on: he was publishing a volume of _Collected Poems_, and there were questions of type and paper and cover to be determined; and he had a long article for _The Epoch_ to do. All these things might take a week or they might take a fortnight; but he would follow Margery as soon as he might--she could feel sure of that. Against this portentous aggregate of excuses Margery argued gently and sorrowfully but vainly. And sorrowfully she went away with Nurse and Joan and Michael Hilary. She went away to Hampshire, to the house of an old friend--a lovely place on the shore of the Solent. You drove there from Brockenhurst through the fringes of the New Forest, through marvellous regiments of ancient trees, and wild stretches of heathery waste, and startling patches of hedge and pasture, where villages with splendid names lurked slyly in unexpected hollows, and cows stood sleepily by the rich banks of little brooks. And when you came to the house, you saw suddenly the deep blue band of the Solent, coloured like the Dardanelles, and quiet like a lake. Beyond it rose the green foothills of the Island, patched with the brown of ploughlands and landslides by the sea, and far-off the faint outline of Mottistone Down and Brightstone Down, little heights that had the colour and dignity of great mountains when the light caught them in the early morning or in the evening or after the rain. On the water small white boats with red sails and green sails shot about like butterflies, and small black fishing-craft prowled methodically near the shore. And sometimes in the evening a great liner stole out of Southampton Water and crept enormously along the farther shore, her hull a beautiful grey, her funnel an indescribable tint, that was neither pink nor scarlet nor red, but fitted perfectly in the bright picture of the land and the sea. And all day there were ships passing, battleships and aged tramps and dredgers and destroyers, and sometimes a tall sailing-ship that looked like an old engraving, and big yachts with sails like snow, and little yachts with sails like cinnamon or the skin of an Arab boy. At low tide there were long stretches of mudflats and irregular pools, before the house and far away to the west; and these at sunset were places of great beauty. For the sunset colours of the tumbled clouds, and the subtle green of the lower sky and the bold blue of the cloudless spaces above were in these pools and in the near shallows of the sea perfectly recaptured. In this delicate mosaic of golden pools and rose pools and nameless lights herons moved with a majestic stealth or stood like ebony images watching for fish; and little companies of swans swam up and down with the arrogant beauty of all swans and the unique beauty of swans in sea water: and all the sea-birds of England circled and swooped against the sun or clustered chattering on the purple mud and saffron patches of sand, with a strange quietness, as if they, too, must do their reverence to the stillness and the splendour of that hour. The sun went down and all those colours departed, but for a sad glow over Dorsetshire and the deep green of the Needles Light that shot along the still surface almost to your feet as you stood in the thick grass above the shore. Then you went with the sensation of awe into the house; and the house was old and comforting and spacious, with a mellow roof of gentle red; and it was rich with the timber of Hampshire trees. There was a lawn in front of it and a tangled screen of low shrubs and sallow trees; and when Margery stood in the wide window of her room there was nothing but these between herself and the sea; and there was no building to be seen nor the work of any man, only the friendly ships and their lights, and the far smoke of a farm upon the Island, and at night the blinking lamp of a buoy-light in the Channel. To Margery it would have been the perfect haven of contentment and rest--if Stephen had come with her. But he had not come. At night the curlews flew past the windows with the long and sweet and musical cry which no other bird can utter and no man imitate, nor even interpret--for who can say from the sound of it if it be a cry of melancholy or a song of hope or rejoicing or love? But to Margery in those weeks it was a song of absolute sadness, of lost possibilities and shattered dreams, and it was the very voice of her disappointment, her protest against the exquisite tantalization of her coming to this exquisite retreat--and coming alone. And Stephen in London worked on at "Chivalry." He was beginning to be tired of it now as the end of it came in sight, and it was true that he wanted to be able to leave the whole burden of it behind him when he went away. But that was not the whole reason of his staying at home, and what the whole reason was he had not consciously determined; but faintly he knew that Muriel Tarrant was part of it. He was tired of the poem now, and was eager to be done--eager to be done with the long labour of execution of an idea no longer fresh with the first fury of inspiration. And now that so much was achieved he was urgent to finish it quickly and give it to the world, lest some other be before him. For poets and all authors suffer something of the terrors of inventors and scientific creators, toiling feverishly at the latest child of their imagination, while who knows what other man may not already have stolen their darling, may not this very hour be hurrying to the Patent Office, filching rights and the patronage of rich men, ruining perhaps for ever by their folly or avarice or imperfection the whole glory of the conception. Stephen had this sort of secret fear. They seemed so obvious now, his idea and his scheme of execution, though at their birth they had seemed so strange and bold and original. Surely some other man had long since thought of writing a poem like his, was even now correcting his proofs, some mean and barren artist who could never do justice to the theme, but would make it for ever a stale and tawdry thing. Or maybe in the winter there would be a paper shortage or a printers' strike or a revolution, and if his masterpiece had not seen the light by then it would never see the light at all; or at best there would be long months of intolerable waiting, and it would be given to the world at the wrong season, when the world was no longer inspired with the sense of chivalry, when the critics were bored with chivalry, at Christmas time when men looked for lighter fare, or in the spring, when men wanted nothing but the spring. So all that August he worked, thinking little of Margery, thinking little of any one. But though there was this fever of purpose and anxiety driving him on, day by day the labour grew more wearisome and difficult. Men who go out to offices or factories to do their work think enviously sometimes of the gentler lot of the author, bound by no regulations or hours or personal entanglements, but able to sit down at his own time at his own desk and put down without physical labour or nervous strain the easy promptings of his brain. They do not know with how much terror and distaste he may have to drag himself to that desk, with what agony of mind he sits there. The nervous weariness of writing, the physical weariness of writing, the mental incubus of a great conception that must be carried unformed in the heavy mind month after weary month, for ever growing and swelling and bursting to be born, yet not able to be born, because this labour of writing is so long, the hideous labour of writing and rewriting and correcting, of futile erasions and vacillations and doubt, of endless worryings over little words and tragic sacrifices and fresh starts and rearrangements--these are terrible things. An author is to his work as a rejected lover his love, for ever drawn yet for ever repelled. Stephen sometimes in the morning would almost long to be transformed into a clerk, or a railway porter, some one who need ask little of himself since little is asked of him but the simple observance of a routine; he would have to force himself to sit on at his work, as a man forces himself to face danger or bear pain; he would even welcome interruptions, yet bitterly resent them; for when the words would not come or would not arrange themselves, when nothing went absolutely right, any distraction was sweet which legitimately for a single hour released him from the drudgery of thought; and yet it was hateful, for it postponed yet another hour the end of that drudgery, and in that precious hour--who knows?--the divine ease and assurance might have returned, the maddening difficulties melted away, so strange and fitful are the springs of inspiration. So all these weeks he worked and saw nobody; he did not see Muriel, though the Tarrants were still at home, and he did not see John, who had gone away to Devonshire with a fellow Civil Servant. But at last in the third week the labour was finished. It was finished at sunset on a breathless evening; he finished it with a glowing sense of contentment with good work done. Then he read it over, from beginning to end. And as he read the glow faded, the contentment departed. The mournful disillusion of achievement began. Here and there were phrases which stirred, passages which satisfied; but for the most part he read his work with a sort of sick shame and disappointment. Who in the wide world could read these stale and wearisome lines? Each of them at one time had seemed the fresh and perfect expression of a fine thought; each of them was the final choice of numberless alternatives; but so often he had read them, so often written them, so often in his head endlessly recited them, in the streets and on the river or in the dark night, that they were all old now, old and dull. He had learned by long experience to discount a little this gloomy and inevitable reaction, and now as he turned over the final page of spidery manuscript, he tried hard to restore his faith, reminding himself that the world would see his work as he saw it first himself, and not as he saw it now. Anyhow, it was done, and could not be mended any more. Perhaps it would be better when it was typed. But then the drudgery would begin again--the reading and re-reading and alteration and doubt, the weary numbering of pages, the weary correction of typist's lunacies. And after that there would be proofs and the correcting of proofs; then new doubts would discover themselves, and the old doubts would live again; and he would hate it. Yet it would be better then--it would be better in print. Now he was tired of it and would forget it. He felt the impulse to relaxation and indulgence and rest which drives athletes to excesses when their race is run, their long discipline over. He went out into the garden and into the boat, and paddled gently upstream with the tide, under the bank. It was nearly ten and the sun was long down. There was no moon and it was dark on the river with the brilliant darkness of a starry night. He paddled gently past John's house, scarcely moving the oars; past Mr. Farraday's and the two moored barges at the Bakery wharf. He drifted under the fig-tree by the Whittakers', and came near to the house of the Tarrants. The Tarrants' house, like his own, was on the river side of the road, and their garden ran down to a low wall over the water. As he came out from under the fig-tree he looked up over his shoulder at the house; and Muriel Tarrant was in his mind. There was a figure in a white dress leaning motionless over the wall, and as he looked up the figure stirred sharply. Then he began to tremble with a curious excitement, for he saw that it was Muriel herself. He dipped the oars in the water and stopped the boat under the wall. She said, very softly, "Mr. Byrne?" He said, "Muriel," and his voice was no more than a whisper. But she heard. Then there was an intolerable silence, and they stared at each other through the gloom; and nothing moved anywhere but the smooth, hurrying water chuckling faintly round the boat and against the oars and along the wall. They were silent, and their hearts beat with a guilty urgency; and in the thoughts of both was the same riot of doubt and scruple and exquisite excitement. Stephen said at last,--and in his voice there was again that stealthy hoarseness,--"Come out in the boat!" She hesitated. She looked quickly over her shoulder at the house, which was quite dark, because her mother and their only servant had gone early to bed. Then without a word she came down the steps. She gave him a hot hand that quivered in his as he helped her down. Quietly he pushed off the boat; but on the Island a swan heard them and flew away with a startling clatter, looking very large against the stars. Still in silence they drifted away under the trees past the Tathams' and past the brewery, and past the Petways' and the ferry and the church. There was something in this silence very suggestive of wrong, making them already confessed conspirators. Muriel somehow felt this, and said at last: "Mother's gone to bed. I mustn't be long." Her voice and her words and her low delightful laugh broke the spell of self-conscious wickedness which had held them. They felt at last that they really were in this boat with each other under the stars; it was no fantastic dream but an amusing and, after all, quite ordinary adventure, nothing to be ashamed of or furtive about--a gentleman and a lady boating in the evening on the Thames. So Stephen steered out into mid-stream and pulled more strongly now, away past the empty meadows, and the first low houses of Barnes, and under the big black bridge, and round the bend by the silent factories. Then there were a few last houses, very old and dignified, and you came out suddenly into a wide reach where there moved against the stars a long procession of old elms, and the banks were clothed with an endless tangle of willows and young shrubs, drooping and dipping in the water. The tide lapped among thick reeds, and there was no murmur of London to be heard, and no houses to be seen nor the lights of houses. It was a corner of startling solitude, forgotten somehow in the urge of civilization; as if none had had a heart to build a factory there or a brewery or a wharf, but had built them resolutely to the east or to the west and all around, determined, if they could, to spare this little relic of the old country Thames. And here Stephen stopped rowing, and tied his boat to a willow branch; and Muriel watched him, saying nothing. Then he sat down beside her in the wide stern-seat. She turned her head and looked at him, very pale against the trees. And he put his arm about her and kissed her. It was very hot in that quiet place, and the night lay over them like a velvet covering, heavy and sensuous and still. In each of them there was the sense that this had been inevitable. They had known that it must happen in that breathless moment at the garden wall. And this was somehow comforting to the conscience. So they sat there for a little longer, clinging tremorously in an ecstasy of passion. A tug thrashed by; there was a sudden tumult of splashing in the willows and in the reeds and the boat rocked violently against the branches. Stephen fended her off. Then they sat whispering and looking at the stars. It was a clear and wonderful sky and no star was missing. Stephen told her the names of stars and the stories about them. And she murmured dreamily that she saw and understood; but she saw nothing and understood nothing but the marvellous completeness of her conquest of this man, and the frightening completeness of his conquest of her. She had never meant that things should go so far. And he, as he looked at the stars and the freckled gleam upon the waters and the hot white face of the girl at his side, thought also, "I did not mean it to go so far. But it is romance, this--it is poetry, and rich experience--so it is justified." And what he meant was, "It is copy." The tide turned at last, and they drifted softly and luxuriously down to Hammerton Reach, and stole at midnight under the hushed gardens of The Chase to the Tarrants' wall. And there again they kissed upon the steps. He whispered hotly, "Tomorrow!" and she whispered, "Yes--if I can--" and was gone. In the morning there came a letter from Margery, beseeching him to come to her as soon as he could--a pathetic, gentle little letter. She drew a picture of the peace and beauty of the place, and ended acutely by emphasizing its possibilities as an inspiration to poetry. "Do come down, my darling, as soon as you can. I do want you to be here with me for a bit. I know you want to finish the poem, but this is such a heavenly place, I'm sure it would help you to finish it; I sometimes feel like writing poetry myself here! Joan says that Daddy _must_ come quick!" Stephen wrote back, with a bewildered wonder at himself, that he had nearly finished, but could not get away for at least a week. That day he wrote a love-song--dedicated "To M." He had never written anything of the kind before, and it excited him as nothing in "Chivalry" had ever excited him. All that week the tide was high in the evenings, and on the third day the moon began. And every night, when all Hammerton had gone to their early beds, he paddled secretly to the Tarrants' steps, still drunk with amorous excitement and the sense of stealthy adventure. Every night Muriel was waiting on the wall, slim and tremulous and pale; and they slipped away under the bank to the open spaces where none could see. And each day they said to themselves that this must be the last evening, for disaster must surely come of these meetings and these kisses; and each day looked forward with a hot expectancy to the evening that was to come, that must be the end of this delicious madness. Yet every night he whispered, "Tomorrow?" and every night she whispered, "If I can." And each day he wrote a new love-song--dedicated "To M." On the seventh day young George came down to see his sister, and, greatly daring, Stephen proposed a long expedition down the river in his motor-boat. So those three set out at noon and travelled down river in the noisy boat through the whole of London. They saw the heart of London as it can only be seen from London's river, the beauty of Westminster from Vauxhall and the beauty of the City from Westminster. And as a man walks eastward through Aldgate into a different world, they left behind them the sleek dignity of Parliament and the Temple and the Embankment and shot under Blackfriars Bridge into a different world--a world of clustering, untidy bridges and sheer warehouses and endless wharves. They felt very small in the little boat that spun sideways in the bewildering eddies round the bridges and was pulled under them at breathless speed by the confined and tremendous tide. They came through London Bridge into a heavy sea, where the boat pitched and wallowed and tossed her head and plunged suddenly with frightening violence in the large waves that ran not one way only but rolled back obliquely from the massed barges by the banks, and dashed at each other and made a tumult of water, very difficult for a small boat to weather. Tugs dashed up and down and across the river with the disquieting quickness and inconsequence of taxi-cabs in the narrow space between the barges and the big steamers huddled against the wharves. The men in them looked out and laughed at the puny white boat plunging sideways under Tower Bridge. There was then an ocean-going steamer moving portentously out, and Muriel was frightened by the size of the ship, and the noise and racket of the wharves, and the hooting tugs, and the mad water splashing and heaving about them. But they came soon past Wapping into a wide and quieter reach; and here there were many ships and many barges, some anchored and some slowly moving, like ships in a dream. All of them were bright with colour against the sky and against the steel-blue water and the towering muddle of wharves and tall chimneys and warehouses upon the banks. The sails of the barges stood out far off in lovely patches of warm brown, and their masts shone like copper in the sun. Tucked away among the wharves and cranes were old, mysterious houses, balconies and lady-like windows looking incongruously over coal-barges. But it was all mysterious and all beautiful, Stephen thought, in this sunny market of the Thames. He liked the strange old names of the places they passed, and told them lovingly to Muriel--Limehouse Causeway, the Wapping Old Stairs, and Shadwell Basin, and Cherry Garden Pier; and he loved to see through inlets here and there the high forests of masts, and know that yonder were the special mysteries of great docks; for for such things he had the romantic reverence of a boy. But Muriel saw no romance and little beauty in the Pool of London, and her brother George saw less. She saw it only as a strange muddle of dirty vessels and ugly buildings, strongly suggestive of slums and the East End. It was noisy sometimes, and she had been splashed with water which she knew was dirty and probably infected; she felt that she preferred the westward stretches of the Thames, where navigation was less anxious and Stephen was not so preoccupied with his surroundings. Stephen perceived this and was aware of a faint disappointment. Only when they rounded a bend and saw suddenly the gleaming pile of Greenwich Hospital, brilliant against the green hill behind, did Muriel definitely admire. And then, Stephen thought, it was not because she saw that the building was so beautiful from that angle and in that light, but because it had such an air of cleanliness and austere respectability after the orgy of raffish and commercial scenery which she had been compelled to endure. Or perhaps it was because at Greenwich Pier they were going to get out of the boat. XIII They came home in the gathering dusk on the young flood. And because of this and because it was Saturday evening they had the river to themselves, and moved almost alone through the silent and deserted Pool. They followed slowly after the sun and saw the Tower Bridge as a black scaffolding framing the last glow of yellow and gold. All the undiscovered colours of sunset and half-darkness lay upon the water, smooth now and velvety, and they fled away in front of the boat as the glow departed. At Blackfriars the moon had not yet come, and Nature had made thick darkness; but man had made a marvel of light and beauty upon the water that left Stephen silent with wonder. The high trams swam along the Embankment, palaces of light, and they swam yet more admirably in the water. There were the scattered lights of houses, and the brilliant lights of theatres, and the opulent lights of hotels, and the regimented lights of street-lamps, and the sudden little lights of matches on the banks, and the tiny lights of cigarettes, where men hung smoking on the Embankment wall, and sometimes a bright, inexplicable light high up among the roofs; and the lights of Parliament, and at last the light of the young moon peeping shyly over a Lambeth brewery--and all these lights were different and beautiful in the dark, and made a glory of the muddy water. The small boat travelled on in the lonely darkness of mid-stream, and to Stephen it seemed a wonderful thing that no other but he and Muriel and her brother George could look as they could upon those magical lights and the magical patterns that the water had made of them. He had a sense of remoteness, of privileged remoteness from the world; yet he had a yearning for pleasant companionship, and itched for the moment when young George was to leave them to go to his Club. Young George left them at Westminster Pier, and those two went on together in the boat. The lights of Chelsea were as beautiful as the lights of Westminster, and Stephen thought suddenly of Margery's description of evening by the Solent. It was hardly necessary to go so far for loveliness, he thought. He was glad that Muriel was with him, because she too was lovely, but when she clung to him in the old passionate way he kissed her very gently and without fire. For the poetry of all that he had seen that day had somehow purged him of the extravagant fever of the previous nights; and he imagined, unreasonably, that she too would be ready for this refinement of their relations. But she was not. She was tired with the long day, with trying to share an enthusiasm which she did not understand, for colours which she did not see, and lights which after all were only the ordinary lights she saw in the streets on the way to dances; she wanted to have done with that kind of thing now that they were alone again; she wanted to be hotly embraced and hotly kissed. For the end of this adventure was terribly near now. After tomorrow her brother was coming to live at home again; after that there would be no more safety. Tomorrow would be the last night. Of all this Stephen was but vaguely sensible. She was still a sweet and adorable companion, and his soul was still bursting with poetry and romance, but it was the poetry of the moonlit Thames rather than the poetry of a furtive passion. And because of this, and because he was dimly conscious that she looked for some more violent demonstration than he was able in the flesh to give, he thought suddenly of the Love-Songs which he had made to her, but never mentioned: and he wondered if they would please her. He stopped the engine and let the boat drift. Then, very softly, in a voice timid at first with self-consciousness, but gathering body and feeling as he went on, he spoke for her the words of his Love-Songs. At the end he felt that they were very good, better than he had thought, and waited anxiously to hear what she would say. And she listened in bewilderment. She was flattered in her vanity that a poet should have written them for her; but she did not understand them, and she was not moved or deeply interested. She said at last: "How _nice_, Stephen! Did you really make up all that about me?" And at that the last flicker of the fire which had burned in him for so many days went out. He saw clearly for the first time the insane unfitness of their intimacy. In the first fascination of his senses, in the voluptuous secrecy of their meetings under the moon, he had asked nothing of her intellect; he had been content with the touch of her hands, with the warm seduction of her kisses. And these, too, were still precious, but they were not enough. They were not enough to a poet on a night of poetry now that his senses were almost satisfied. So all the way home he held her gently and talked to her tenderly, as he might have talked to Margery. And Muriel saw that she must be content with that for this night, and was happy and quiet beside him. But when they parted under the wall it was she who whispered, "Tomorrow--the last time," and it was he who whispered, "Yes." In the morning he woke with a vague sense of distaste for something that he had to do. All that day he had this restless, dissatisfied feeling. And this was in part the first stirring of the impulse to write which came always when he had no work in progress and no great effort forming in his mind. The weary reaction from the finishing of "Chivalry" was over, and the creative itch was upon him, which could not be satisfied by the making of little Love-Songs. And he felt no more like the making of Love-Songs. He wished almost that he might hurry immediately down to Hampshire. But his promise for the evening prevented that. He sat down in the sunny window-seat and thought, pondering gloomily the wild events of these summer months. And as he brooded over them with regret and sadness, and the beginnings of new resolutions, there flashed from them, with the electric suddenness of genuine inspiration, the bright spark of a new idea, a new idea for the new work which he was aching to begin. Thereon his mood of repentance faded away, and the moral aspect of the things he had done dissolved into the background--like fairies at a pantomime; and there was left the glowing vision of a work of art. He was excited by this vision, and immediately was busy with a sheet of paper--like a painter capturing a first impression--jotting down in undecipherable half-words and initials the rough outline of his plan, even the names of his characters and a few odd phrases. There moved in his mind a seductive first line for the opening of this poem, and that line determined in the end the whole question of metre; for it was an inspired line, and it was in exactly the right metre. All the afternoon he sat in the shady corner of the garden over the river, dreaming over the structure of this poem. In the evening he began to work upon it; and all the evening he worked, with a feverish concentration and excitement. At about ten o'clock the moon was well up, and the rising tide was lapping and murmuring already about the wall and about the boats. And he did not forget Muriel; he did not forget his promise. He knew that she was waiting for him, silent on the wall. He knew that he was bound in honour, or in dishonour, to go to her. But he did not go. He had done with that. And he had better things to do tonight. So Muriel leaned lonely over the wall, looking down the river past the fig-tree and the barges, looking and listening. The moon rose high over Wimbledon, and the twin red lights of the _Stork_ were lit, and the yellow lights twinkled in the houses and bobbed along the bridge, and the great tide rolled up with a rich suggestion of fulfilment and hope. Quiet couples drifted by in hired boats and were happy. But Stephen did not come. And Muriel waited. St. Peter's clock struck eleven, and still she waited, in a flame of longing and impatience. The dew came down, and she was cold; the chill of foreboding entered her heart. And still she waited. She would wait till half-past eleven, till a quarter of twelve, till midnight. She knew now that she loved this man with a deep and consuming love; it had begun lightly, as a kind of diversion, but the game had turned to bitter earnest. And still she waited. It was slack water now, and the river stood still, holding its breath. Men passed singing along the towpath on the outer side; the song floated over the water, in sentimental tones of exquisite melancholy. From the Island a wild-duck rose with his mate, and bustled away with a startling whir to some sweet haunt among the reeds. A cat wailed at its wooing in a far garden--a sickly amorous sound. The last pair of lovers rowed slowly past, murmuring gently. Then all was still, and Muriel was left alone, alone of the world's lovers thwarted and forgotten. Midnight struck, and she crept into the house and into her bed, sick with longing and the rage of shame. Stephen at midnight went in contentment to his bed. He had written a hundred lines. XIV Lying in bed he made up his mind to go down to Margery the following Tuesday. But Margery, too, had been making up her mind. She wired at lunch time, and arrived herself at tea. She was tired, she said, of living alone in her Paradise. But she did not scold or question or worry him; so glad she was to be at home again with her Stephen. Stephen also was very glad, astonishingly glad, he felt. He greeted her and kissed her with a tender warmth which surprised them both. This sudden home-coming of his wife, of chattering Joan and bubbling Michael and comfortable old Nurse, and all that atmosphere of staid domesticity which they brought with them into the house seemed to set an opportune seal on his new resolutions, on the final renunciation which he had made last night. It was the one thing he wanted, he felt, to confirm him in virtue. He took little Joan into the garden to see the rabbits. She was two and a half now, a bright and spirited child, with her mother's fairness and fragile grace, and something of Stephen's vitality. She greeted with delighted cries her old friends among the bunnies, Peter and Maud and Henry, and all their endless progeny, little grey bunnies and yellow bunnies and black bunnies and tiny little brown bunnies that were mere scurrying balls of fur, coloured like a chestnut mare. The rabbit Peter and the rabbit Maud ran out of their corners and sniffed at her ankles, their noses twitching, as she stood in the sun. She stroked them and squeezed them and kissed them, and they bore it patiently in the expectation of food. But when they saw that she had no food, they stamped petulantly with their hind legs and ran off. Then she laughed her perfect inimitable laugh, and tried to coax the tiniest bunnies to come to her with a piece of decayed cabbage; and they pattered towards her in a doubtful crescent, their tiny noses twitching with the precise velocity of their parents' noses, their ears cocked forward in suspicion. When they had eddied back and forth for a little, like playful children defying the sea, they saw that the bait was indeed a rotten one, unworthy of the deed of daring which was asked of them, and they scuttled finally away into corners, where they lay heaving with their eyes slewed back, looking for danger. The rabbit Maud was annoyed by the clatter they made, and, chased them impatiently about the run, nipping them viciously at the back of their necks; and the rabbit Peter, excited beyond bearing by the commotion, pursued the rabbit Maud as she pursued their young. Then they all stopped suddenly to nibble inconsequently at old bits of cabbage, or scratch their bellies, or scrabble vainly on the stone floor, or stamp with venom in the hutches, or lie full length and operate their noses. Little Joan loved them whatever they did, and Stephen, listening and watching while she gurgled and exclaimed, was sensible as he had never been before of the pride and privilege of being a father. The sight of his daughter playing with the young rabbits, young and playful and innocent as they, stirred him to an appropriate and almost mawkish remorse. For the great writer who, by his gifts of selection and restraint, can keep out from his writings all sentimentality and false emotion, cannot by the same powers keep them from his mind. Stephen Byrne, looking at innocence and thinking of his own wickedness, forgot his proportions, forgot the balanced realism which he put into everything he wrote, and swore to himself that by this sight he was converted, that by this revelation of innocence, he, too, would be innocent again. So they began again the quiet routine of domestic content, and Margery was very happy, putting out of her mind as an artist's madness the strange failure of Stephen to join her in the country. In the third week of September there were printed in the autumn number of a literary Quarterly "Six Love-Songs," by Stephen Byrne, which he had sent in hot haste to the editor on the morning of the Greenwich expedition. There was printed above them the dedication "_To M._," and Margery as she read them was touched and melted with a great tenderness and pride. She would not speak of them to him, but she looked up, blushing, at the end of them and said only "_Stephen!_" And Stephen cursed himself in a hot shame for having thought them and written them and sent them to the paper. But since she liked them so well, and appreciated them as Muriel had never done, and since he persuaded himself that at this moment he might have written the same songs to his wife, so tenderly did he think of her now, he slowly came to forget the vicious squalor of their origin; and in time, when literary friends spoke of them and congratulated him (for they made a great stir) the shame had all gone, and he answered with a virtuous and modest pride, as if indeed they had been written to his wife--and so in fact he almost believed. All September he worked steadily at the new poem. Very soon Margery asked if she might read as much as he had written. And first he hesitated, and then he said she might not. Not till that moment did he realize the true character of what he was doing. The idea of the poem was very simple. He had taken the base history of his own life in this amazing summer, and was making of it a romantic and glorious poem. Everything was there--Emily and his cruelty to Emily and the chivalry of John Egerton and his treachery to John, Margery, and Muriel, and his betrayal of both of them, and the second treachery to John in the stealing of Muriel. They were all there, and the deeds were there. But the names they bore were the names of old knights and fine ladies, moving generously through an age of chivalry and gallant ways; and the deeds he had done were invested with so rich a romance by the grace of and imagery and humanity of his verse, and by the gracious atmosphere of knighthood and adventure and forest battles which he wrapped about them, that they were beautiful. They were poetry. Himself in the story was a brave and legendary figure, Gelert by name, and Margery, the Princess, was his fair lady. And he had slain Emily by mischance in a forest encounter with another knight. He had hidden her body in a dark mysterious lake in the heart of the forest; this lake was beautifully described. John, his faithful companion, was present and helped him, and because of the honour in which he held the Princess, he engaged to stay in the forest and do battle with the people of Emily if they should discover the crime, while Gelert rode off on some secret venture of an urgent and noble character. So John stayed, and was grievously wounded. But Gelert rode off to the castle of John's love and poisoned her mind against John, and wooed her and won her and flung her away when he was tired of her; but she loved him still too well to love any other from that day; and when John came to her she cast him out. More, because he was the companion-at-arms of Gelert, and she would do anything to wound Gelert, she sent word to the people of Emily that it was John indeed who had slain Emily, and they sought him out and slew him. But Gelert went home to his castle and swore great vows in passages of amazing dignity, and was absolved from his sins, and ruled the land for a long time in godly virtue, helping the weak and succouring the oppressed. And so finely was all this presented that at the end of it you felt but a conventional sympathy for the unfortunate John, while Gelert remained in the mind as a mixed, but on the whole a knightly character. It was a lunatic excess of self-revelation, and Stephen was afraid of it. Nothing would have persuaded him to modify in any way his artistic purpose, and in his heart he flattered himself that the romantic disguise of his story was strong enough to protect it from the suggestion of reality. It would stand that test, he was sure. Yet he was not sure--not at any rate just now, with the sordid facts still fresh in his mind. Later, no doubt, when the thing was complete, and he could polish and prune it as a whole, he would be able to make himself absolutely safe. But just now, while the work was still shadowy and formless, he shrank from risking the revelations it might convey. To Margery most of all. Also, maybe, he was a little afraid that she would laugh at him. And Margery said nothing, but wondered to herself what it might mean. * * * * * John came home in the middle of September, and called the same evening at the Tarrants' house. But he was told after a long wait that they were not at home. The next morning, as he walked to the station, he passed in the street a parcel delivery van. On the front of it were the twin red posters of _I Say_, a weekly organ of the sensational patriotic type. It was a paper which did in fact a great deal of good in championing the cause of the under-dog, yet at the same time impressing upon the under-dog the highest constitutional principles. But it had to live. And it lived by the weekly promises of sensation which blazed at the public from the red posters all over England, and travelled everywhere on the front of delivery vans and the backs of buses. There was seldom more than a single sensation to each issue. But the very most was made of it by an ingenious contrivance of the editor, who himself arranged the wording of the posters; for each sensation he composed two and sometimes three quite different posters, cunningly devised so that any man who saw all three of them was as likely as not to buy the paper in the confident belief that he was getting for his penny three separate sensations. The two posters that John saw ran as follows: one "A CIVIL SERVANT'S NAME," and the other "OUR ROTTEN DETECTIVES." At the station he saw another one specially issued to the West London paper stalls--"MYSTERY OF HAMMERTON CHASE." And at Charing Cross there was yet another--"WHO OUGHT TO BE HANGED?" John had no doubt of what he would find in the paper. He had wondered often at the long quiescence of the Gaunt family. Clearly they had taken their tale to the editor of _I Say_, and had probably been suitably compensated for their trouble and expense in bringing to the notice of the people's champion a shameful case of oppression and wrong. So John walked on to the station with a strange feeling of lightness in the head and pain in his heart. At Hammersmith there was no copy of _I Say_ to be had; at Charing Cross he bought two. The week's sensation was dealt with in a double-page article by the editor, diabolically clever. It set out at length the sparse facts of "The Hammerton Mystery" as revealed at the inquest, with obsequious references to "the genius of Stephen Byrne, the poet and prophet of Younger England"; and it contained some scathing comments on "the crass ineptitude of our detective organization." But it attacked no person, it imputed nothing. The sole concern of the editor was that "months have passed and a hideous crime is yet unpunished. This poor girl went forth from her father and mother, and the young man who had promised to share her life; she went out into the world, innocent and fresh, to help her family in the battle of life with the few poor shillings she could earn by menial services in a strange house. It was not her fault that she was attractive to a certain type of man; but that attraction was no doubt her undoing. She took the fancy of some amorous profligate; she resisted his unknightly attentions; she was done to death. Her body was consigned in circumstances of the foulest indignity to a filthy grave in the river ooze. "We are entitled to ask--What are the police doing? The matter has faded now from the public memory--has it faded from theirs? It is certain that it has not faded in the loyal hearts of the Gaunt family. At the time of the inquest the public were preoccupied with national events of the first importance, and the murder did not excite the attention it deserved. We have only too good reason to believe that our Criminal Investigation mandarins, supine as ever until they are goaded to activity by the spur of popular opinion, are taking advantage of that circumstance to allow this piece of blackguardly wickedness to sink for ever into oblivion. We do not intend that it should sink into oblivion, etc. etc." But in the tail of the article lay the personal sting, cleverly concealed. "But there is another aspect of this vile affair which we are compelled to notice. While the family of the murdered girl are nursing silently their broken hearts; while our inspectors and chief inspectors and criminal investigators are enjoying their comfortable salaries, there is a young man in Hammerton, a public servant of high character and irreproachable antecedents, over whom a black cloud of suspicion is hanging in connection with this crime. We cannot pretend that his evidence at the inquest was wholly satisfactory either in substance or in manner; it was shiftily given, and in the mind of any men less incompetent than the local coroner and the local dunderheads who composed the jury, would have raised questions of fundamental importance. But we are confident that John Egerton is innocent; and we say that it is a reproach to the whole system of British justice that he should still be an object of ignorant suspicion owing to the failure of the police-force to hound down the villain responsible for the crime. "The fair name of a good citizen is at stake. It must be cleared." At the office there were whisperings and curious looks; and John's chiefs conferred in dismay on a position of delicacy that was unexampled in their official experience. John went home early, with his _I Say's_ crumpled in his pocket. And there he found the Rev. Peter Tarrant striding about impatiently with a copy open on the table before him. His head moved about like a great bat just under the low roof; his jolly red face was as full of anger as it could ever be. "Look here, John," he roared, "what are you going to do about this--this MUCK?" "Nothing." In truth he had thought little of what he was going to do; he had been too angry and bewildered and ashamed. Only he had sworn vaguely to himself that whatever happened he would stand by his old determination to keep this business from Margery. And, now that the question was put to him, the best way of doing that was clearly to do nothing. He began to think of reasons for doing nothing. The Rev. Peter thundered again, "_Nothing?_ But you _must_--you must do--something." He stuttered with impotent rage and brought his fist down on _I Say_ with a titanic force, so that the table jumped and the wedgwood plate clattered on the dresser. "You can't sit down under this sort of thing--you must bring an action--" "Can't afford it; it would cost me a thousand if I won--and five thousand if--if I lost." "If you _lost_!" The Rev. Peter looked at him in wonder. John tried to look him straight in the face, but his glance wavered in the shy distress of an innocent man who suspects the beginnings of doubt in a friend's mind. "Yes--you know what a Law Court is--anything may happen--and I should never make a good show in the witness box, if I stood there for ever." "I don't care--you can't sit down under it. You'll lose your job, won't you--for one thing?" "No--I don't know--I can't help it if I do." "Well, if you don't lose that you'll lose Muriel." The Rev. Peter lowered his voice. "Look here, I want you two to fix things up. I've just been to see her--she looks unhappy--she's lonely, I believe, with that damned old mother of hers. But you can't expect her to marry you with this sort of thing going about uncontradicted." And at that John wavered. But he thought of Margery and his knightly vow, and he thought of the witness box; of himself stammering and shifting hour after hour in that box; of pictures in the Press; of columns in the Press; of day after day of public wretchedness--the inquest over again infinitely enlarged. And he thought of the open, perhaps inevitable, ignominy of losing a libel action. And he was sure that he was right. They argued about this for a long time, and the Rev. Peter yielded at last. But he bellowed then, "Well, you must write them a letter at once. Sit down now, and I'll dictate it. Sit down, will you? By God, it makes me sweat, this!" John sat down meekly and wrote to the editor of _I Say_, as the Rev. Peter commanded. The Rev. Peter dictated in round tones of a man practising a speech: "'_Dear Sir_: "'I have seen your infamous article. It is a cruel and disgusting libel. I wish to state publicly that I had nothing to do with the death of Emily Gaunt; that so far as I know no suspicion does rest upon me here or elsewhere; and that, if indeed there is suspicion, it is not in the minds of any one whose opinion I value, and I can therefore ignore it. In any case I should prefer to do without your dirty assistance.'" "Can't say 'dirty'--can we?" said John. "Why not? They _are_ dirt--filth--muck! Well, then--put 'dishonouring'--'your dishonouring assistance.' Go on: "'I am not a rich man, and I cannot afford to bring an action for libel against you. A successful suit would cost me far more money and trouble than I should like to waste upon it. You, on the other hand, could easily afford to lose and would probably be actually benefited by a substantial increase in your circulation. "'I must ask you to print this letter in your next issue and insist also on an unqualified apology for your use of my name. "'I am sending this letter to the local Press.'" The editor of _I Say_ did not print this letter, as the Rev. Peter had fondly imagined he would, but he referred in his second article, which was similar to the first, only more outspoken, to "the receipt of an abusive letter from the suspected person." Slowly that week a copy of _I Say_ found its way into every house in The Chase; and the article was read and discussed and argued about, and the whole controversy of May, which had been almost forgotten, sprang into life again. And the following week the local papers were bought and borrowed and devoured, and John's spirited and courageous letter was admired and laughed at and condemned. The Chase fell again into factions, though now the Whittaker (pro-John) faction was the stronger. For nobody liked _I Say_, though it was always exciting to read when there was some special excuse for bringing it into the house. Besides, the honour of The Chase was now at stake. John and the Rev. Peter had reckoned without the generosity and communal feeling of the people of The Chase. They were never so happy as when they had some communal enterprise on foot, a communal kitchen, or a communal crèche or a communal lawsuit, some joint original venture which offered reasonable opportunities for friendly argument and committee meetings and small subscriptions. This spirit had of course unlimited scope during the war, and perhaps it was the communal Emergency Food-Kitchen that had been its most ambitious and perfect expression. But it lived on vigorously after the war. Several of the busiest and earliest workers among the men shared a communal taxi into town every day. There was a communal governess, and one or two semi-communal boats. There was also a kind of communal Housing Council, which met whenever a house in The Chase was to be let or sold, and exerted pressure on the outgoing tenant as to his choice of a successor. Outside friends of The Chase who desired and were desired to come into residence were placed upon a roster by the Housing Council, and when the Council's edict had once gone forth, the outgoing tenant was expected at all costs to see that the chosen person was enabled to succeed him, and if he did not, or if he allowed the owner of the house to enter into some secret arrangement with an outsider, unknown and unapproved by the Council, it was a sin against the solidarity of The Chase. And there had already been a communal lawsuit, that great case of _Stimpson and Others_ versus _The Quick Boat Company_--an action for nuisance brought by the entire Chase, because of the endless and intolerable noise and smell of the defendant company's motor-boats, which they manufactured half a mile up the river and exercised all day snorting and phutting and dashing about with loud and startling reports in the narrow reach between the Island and The Chase. Nine gallant champions had stood forward with Stimpson for freedom and The Chase. But all The Chase had attended the preliminary meetings; all The Chase had subscribed; all The Chase and all their wives had given evidence in Court; and before this unbroken, or almost unbroken, front (for there were a few black sheep) the Quick Boat Company had gone down heavily. Judgment for the plaintiffs had been given in the early spring. So that when it was widely understood that for lack of money John Egerton, a member of The Chase, was unable to defend himself from a scurrilous libel in a vulgar paper, the deepest instincts of the neighbourhood were aroused. A small informal Committee met at once at the Whittakers' house--Whittaker and Mr. Dimple (for legal advice) and Andrews and Tatham and Henry Stimpson. Stephen Byrne was asked to come, but had an engagement. Mr. Dimple's advice was simple. He said that subject to certain reservations--as to which he would not bother the Committee, since they related rather to the incalculable niceties of the law, and lawyers, as they knew, were always on the nice side (laughter--but not much)--and assuming that Mr. Egerton won his case, as to which he would express no opinion, though as a man he might venture to say that he knew of no one in The Chase--he had almost said no one in London--of whom it would be more unfair--he would not put it stronger than that, for he liked to assume that even a paper such as _I Say_ was sincere and honest at heart--to make the kind of suggestion which he knew and they all knew had been made in that paper, about Mr. Egerton--a quiet, God-fearing, honest citizen--but they all knew him as well as he did, so he would say no more about that--subject then to what he had said first and assuming what he had just said--and bearing in mind the proverbial--he thought he might say proverbial (Dickens, after all, was almost a proverb) uncertainties and surprises of his own profession, he thought they would not be wildly optimistic or unduly despondent--and for himself he wanted to be neither--if they estimated the costs of the action at a thousand pounds, but of course-- Waking up at the word "pounds"--the kind of word for which they had been subconsciously waiting--the Committee began the process of unravelling which was always necessary after one of Mr. Dimple's discourses. And their conclusion was that it was up to The Chase to subscribe as much of the money as possible, as much at any rate as would enable John Egerton to issue a writ without the risk of financial ruin. Henry Stimpson was naturally deputed to collect the money. Stimpson was an indefatigable man, a laborious Civil Servant who worked from 10 till 7.30 every day (and took his lunch at the office), yet was not only ready but pleased to spend his evenings and his week-ends, canvassing for subscriptions, writing whips for meetings, or working out elaborate calculations of the amount due to Mrs. Ambrose in money and kind on her resigning from the communal kitchen after paying the full subscription and depositing a ham in the Committee's charge which had been cooked by mistake and sent to Mrs. Vincent. He genuinely enjoyed this kind of task, and he did it very, very well. Henry Stimpson duly waited on the Byrnes and explained the position. Stephen Byrne had read the articles in _I Say_, and Margery had read them. And a gloom had fallen upon Stephen, for which Margery was unable wholly to account as a symptom of solicitude for his friend's troubles--especially as they never seemed to see each other nowadays. To her knowledge they had not met at all since the summer holidays. Nor had they. They avoided each other. This resurrection of the Emily affair, these articles and the new publicity, and now on top of that the prospect of a libel action, was to Stephen like a slap in the face. He had almost forgotten his old anxieties in the absorption of work and the soothing atmosphere of his new resolutions. But he would not go to John; he had been lucky before; he might be lucky again; he would wait. Old John might be trusted to do nothing precipitate. So he promised to subscribe to the fund for the defence of John Egerton's good name, and Stimpson went away. The money was to be collected by that day week, and on the following Thursday there would be a general meeting to consider a plan of campaign. Stimpson's eyes as he spoke of "a general meeting" were full of quiet joy. And Stephen went on with his work--very slowly now, but he went on. The poem was nearly finished; he had only to polish it a little. But he sat now for long minutes glowering and frowning over his paper, staring out of the window, staring at nothing. Margery, watching him, wondered yet more what work he was at, and what was the secret of this gloom. She began to think that the two things might be connected; he might be attempting some impossible task; he might be overworked and stale. This had happened before. But in his worst hours of artistic depression he had never looked so black as sometimes she saw him now. And she noticed that he tried to conceal this mood from her; he would manufacture a smile if he caught her watching him. And that, too, was unusual. Then one evening when she went to her table for some small thing she saw there the unmistakable manuscript of this new work lying in an irregular heap on the blotter. Her eyes were caught by the title--"The Death in the Wood"--written in large capitals at the head; and almost without thinking she read the first line. And she read the few following lines. Then, urged on by an uncontrollable curiosity and excitement, she read on. She sat down at the table and read, threading a slow way through a maze of alterations and erasions, and jumbles of words enclosed in circles on the margin or at the bottom or at the top and wafted with arrows and squiggly lines into their intended positions. But she understood the strange language of creative manuscript, and she read through the whole of the first section--Gelert riding through the forest, the battle in the forest, and the death of the maiden. And as she read she was deeply moved. She forgot the problem of Stephen's gloom in her admiration and affectionate pride. At the end of it Gelert stood sorrowing over the body and made a speech of intense dignity and poetic feeling. And at that point she heard the voice of Stephen at the front door, and started away, remembering suddenly that this reading was a breach of confidence. But why--why was she not allowed to see it? Yet that, after all, was a small thing; and she went to bed very happy, dreaming such golden dreams of the success of the poem as she might have dreamed if she had written it herself. XV The Chase was true to its highest traditions. Before the week was over it was known that the sum determined on by the Egerton Defence Fund Committee had been already promised, and more. Stephen Byrne, with a heavy heart, went to the "general meeting" on Tuesday evening. To have stayed away would have looked odd; also he was anxious to know the worst. He walked there as most men go to a battle, full of secret foreboding, yet dubiously glad of the near necessity for action. If, indeed, there was to be a libel action, backed by all the meddlesome resources of The Chase, things would have to come to a head. This was a development which had never been provided for in his calculations and plans. It would have been easier, somehow, if John had been arrested, charged by the Crown with murder. He would have known then what to do--or he thought he would. He wished now that he had been to see John, found out what he was thinking. But he was nervous of John now, or rather he was nervous of himself. He could not trust himself not to do something silly if he met John in private again; the only thing to do was to try to forget him, laugh at him if possible. And that was the devil of this libel business. He would have to be there himself, he would have to give evidence again, and sit there probably while poor old John was stammering and mumbling in the box. Yet he had done it before--why not again? Somehow he felt that he could not do it again. It all seemed different now. And that poem! Why the hell had he written it? Why had he sent it to _The Argus_. He had had it typed on Thursday, and sent it off by special messenger on Friday, just in time for the October number. _The Argus_ liked long poems. What a fool he had been! Or had he? He knew very well himself what it all meant--but how could any one else connect it with life--with Emily Gaunt? No, that was all right. And it was damned good stuff! He was glad he had sent it. It would go down well. And another day would have meant missing the October number. Yes, it was damned good stuff! He stood at the Whittakers' door, turning over in his head some favourite lines from Gelert's speech in the forest. Damned good! As he thought how excellent it was, there was a curious sensation of tingling and contraction in the flesh of his body and the back of his legs. When he came out, an hour later, he was a happier man. He was almost happy. For it had been announced at the meeting, with all the solemnity of shocked amazement, that Mr. Egerton had refused to avail himself of the generous undertakings of The Chase and neighbourhood. The money promised would enable him to sue with an easy mind. But he would not sue. There was nothing to be done, then, but put and carry votes of thanks to the unofficial Committee for their labour and enterprise, to Whittaker for the use of his house, to Henry Stimpson for his wasted efforts. The last of these votes was felt by most to be effort equally wasted, since they knew well that Henry Stimpson had in fact thoroughly enjoyed collecting promises and cash, and had now the further unlooked-for delight of having to return the money already subscribed. This done, the meeting broke up with a sense that they had been thwarted, or at any rate unreasonably debarred from a legitimate exercise of their communal instincts. But apart from this intelligible disappointment there was a good deal of head-shaking, and plain, if not outspoken, disapproval of Egerton's conduct. Stephen, moving among the crowd, gathered easily the sense of The Chase, and it had veered surprisingly since Whittaker's announcement. For John Egerton had advanced, it seemed, the astounding reason that he might _lose_ the case. To the simple people of The Chase--as indeed to the simple population of England--there was only one test to a libel action. Either you won or you lost. The complex cross-possibilities of justification and privilege and fair comment and the rest of it, which Mr. Dimple was heard to be apologetically explaining in a corner to a deaf lady, were lost upon them. If you failed to win your case, what the other man said was true, and if you were not confident of winning, your conscience could not be absolutely clear. The meeting rather felt that John Egerton had let them down, but they were certain that he had let himself down. And it was clear that even his staunchest supporters, men like Whittaker and Tatham, were shaken in their allegiance. But Stephen Byrne was happy. He had trusted to luck again, and luck, or rather the quixotic lunacy of John Egerton, had saved him again. It was wonderful. It was all over now. John had finally made his bed, and he must lie on it. He thought little of what this must mean to John, this aggravation of the local suspicions. He saw only one thing, that yet another wall had been raised between himself and exposure, that once more his anxieties might be thrust into the background. That he might settle down again with a comfortable mind to literature and domestic calm. He had forgotten with his fears his compunction of an hour ago; he had forgotten even to feel grateful to John; and if he thought of him with pity, it was a contemptuous pity. He saw John now as a kind of literary figure of high but laughable virtue, a man so virtuous as to be ridiculous, a mere foil to the heroic dare-devils of life--such as Gelert and Stephen Byrne. So he came to his own house, thinking again of those excellent lines of Gelert's speech. In the hall he composed in his mind the description of the meeting which he would give to Margery. But Margery, too, was thinking of Gelert. She was reading the manuscript of "The Death in the Wood." She had watched Stephen go out in a slow gloom to the meeting, and then she had hurried to the table and taken guiltily the bundle from the special manuscript drawer. For Stephen, with the sentimental fondness of many writers for the original work of their own hands, preserved his manuscripts long after they had been copied in type and printed and published. Twice during the last week she had gone to that drawer, but each time she had been interrupted. And at each reading her curiosity and admiration had grown. She had suspected nothing--had imagined no sort of relation between Stephen's life and Gelert's adventures. There was no reason why she should. For she detested--as she had been taught by Stephen to detest--the conception of art as a vast autobiography. Stephen's personality was in the feeling and in the phrasing of his work; and that was enough for her; the substance was a small matter. Even the incident of the maiden in the wood, her death and her concealment in the lake, had scarcely stirred the memory of Emily. For the reverent and idyllic scene in which the two knights had "laid" the body of the maiden among the reeds and water lilies of the lake, to be discovered by her kinsmen peeping through the tangled thickets of wild rose, was as remote as possible from the sordid ugliness of Emily's disposal and discovery in a muddy sack near Barnes. But now she had finished. And she did suspect. When she came to the passage describing Gelert's remorse for the betrayal of his old companion-at-arms, his gloomy bearing and penitent vows, she thought suddenly of Stephen's late extravagant gloom, which she was still unable to understand. And then she suspected. Idly the thought came, and idly she put it away. But it returned, and she hated herself because of it. It grew to a stark suspicion, and she sat for a moment in an icy terror, frozen with pain by her imaginations. Then in a fever of anxiety she went back to the beginning of the manuscript, and hurried through it again, noting every incident of the story in the hideous light of her suspicions. And as she turned over the untidy pages, the terror grew. In the light of this dreadful theory so many things were explained--little odd things which had puzzled her and been forgotten--Stephen's surprising anxiety when Michael was born (and Emily disappeared), and that evening in the summer, when they had all been so silent and awkward together, and the drifting apart of Stephen and John, and John's extraordinary evidence, and Stephen's present depression. It was all so terribly clear, and the incidents of the poem so terribly fitted in. Margery moaned helplessly to herself, "Oh, _Stephen_!" When he came in, she was almost sure. It was curious that at first she thought nothing of Gelert's illicit amours in the castle, the stealing of his own friend's lady. That part of the poem, of course, was a piece of romantic imagination, with which she had no personal concern. But while she waited for Stephen, turning over the leaves once more, the thought did come to her, "If one part is true--why not all?" But this thought she firmly thrust out. She was sure of him in _that_ way, at any rate. She flung a cushion over the manuscript and waited. He came in slowly as he had gone out, but she saw at once that his gloom was somehow relieved. And as he told her in studied accents of distress the story of the meeting, there came to her a sick certainty that he was acting. He was not _really_ sorry that John had thought it best not to take any action; he was glad. When he had finished, she said, in a hard voice which startled her, "What _do_ you make of it, Stephen? Do you think he really did it?" Stephen looked at the fire, the first fire of late September, and he said, "God knows, Margery; God knows. He's a funny fellow, John." He sighed heavily and stared into the fire. And then she was quite sure. She stood up from the sofa, the manuscript in her hand, and came towards him. "Stephen," she said, "I've been reading this--You--I--oh, _Stephen_!" The last word came with a little wail, and she burst suddenly into tears, hiding her face against his shoulder. She stood there sobbing, and shaken with sobbing, and he tried to soothe her, stroking her hair with a futile caressing movement, and murmuring her name ridiculously, over and over again. It did not occur to him to go on acting, to pretend astonishment or incomprehension. She had blundered somehow on the secret, and perhaps it was better so. To her at least he could lie no more. At last the sobbing ceased, and he kissed her gently, and she turned from him automatically to tidy her hair in the glass. Then she said, still breathless and incoherent, "Stephen, is it true--that _poor_ Emily--and poor John--Oh, Stephen, how _could_ you?" The tears were coming back, so he put his arms about her again. And he spoke quickly, saying anything, anything to hold her attention and keep away those terrible tears. "Darling, I was a fool ... it was for your sake in the first place--for your sake we kept it dark, I mean--it was John's idea--and then--I don't know--I was a beast--But don't worry. Tomorrow I'll put it all right.... I'll give myself up--I--" But at these words, and at the picture they raised, a great cry burst from her, "Oh, no, Stephen. No! no!--you mustn't." And she seized the lapels of his coat and shook him fiercely in the intensity of her feeling, the human, passionate, protective feeling of a wife for her own man--careless what evil he may have done if somehow he may be made safe for her. And Stephen was startled. He had not expected this. He said, stupidly, "But John--what about John?--don't you want me--don't you--?" "No, Stephen, no--at least--" and she stopped, thinking now of John, trying conscientiously to realize what was owed to him. Then she went on, in a broken torrent of pleading, "No, Stephen, it's gone on so long now--a little more won't matter to him--surely, Stephen--and nobody _really_ thinks he did it--_nobody_, Stephen. It's only people like Mrs. Vincent, Mrs. Ambrose was saying so only yesterday--and it would mean--it would mean--what _would_ it mean, Stephen--Stephen, tell me?" But as she imagined what this would mean to Stephen she stood shuddering before him, her big eyes staring piteously at him. "It would mean--O God, Margery, I don't know--" and he turned away. So for a long time she pleaded with him, in groping, inarticulate half-sentences. She never reproached him, never asked him how he had come to do a foul murder. She did not want to know that, she did not want to think of what it was _right_ for him to do--that was too dangerous. All that mattered was this danger--a danger that could be avoided if she could only persuade him. And Stephen listened in a kind of stupor, listened miserably to the old excuses and arguments, and half-truths with which he had so often in secret convinced himself. But somehow, as Margery put them with all the prejudice of her passionate fears, they did not convince him. They stood out horribly in their nakedness. And though he was touched and amazed by the strength of her forgiveness and her love in the face of this knowledge, he wished almost that she had not forgiven him, had urged him with curses to go out and do his duty. No, he did not wish that, really. But he did wish she would leave him alone now, leave him to think. He _must_ think. His eye fell on the manuscript lying on the floor, and he began to wonder what it was in the poem that had told her, and how much it had told. She had said nothing of that. He interrupted her: "How--how did you guess?" He jerked his head at the paper. She told him. And as she went again through that terrible process in her mind, that other thought returned, that idle notion about the wooing in the castle, which she had flung away from her. She said, faltering and slow, her lips trembling, "Stephen--there's nothing else in it ... is there?... I ought to have guessed?--Stephen, you _do_ love me--don't you?" She stepped uncertainly towards him, and then with a loud cry, "Darling, I _do_!" he caught her to him. And she knew that it was true. XVI In the morning he went out as usual to feed the sea-gulls before breakfast, as if nothing had happened or was likely to happen. He was pleased as usual to see from the window that they were waiting for him, patient dots of grey and white, drifting on the near water. The sun broke thinly through the October haze, and the birds circled in a chattering crowd against the gold. And he had as usual the sense of personal satisfaction when they caught in the air, with marvellous judgment and grace, the pieces of old bread he flung out over the water, and was disappointed as usual when they missed it, and the bread fell into the river, though even then it was delightful to see with how much delicacy they skimmed over, and plucked it from the surface as they flew, as if it were a point of honour not to settle or pause or wet their red feet, tucked back beneath them. And he had breakfast as usual with Margery and chattering Joan, and as usual afterwards went out with Joan to feed the rabbits, and again enjoyed the mysterious and universal pleasure of giving food to animals and watching them eat. He noted as usual the peculiar habits and foibles of the rabbit Henry and the rabbit Maud, and the common follies of all of them--how they all persisted, as usual, in crowding impossibly round the same cabbage leaf, jostling and thrusting and eating with the maximum discomfort, with urgent anxiety and petulant stamping because there were too many of them, while all around there lay large wet cabbage leaves, inviting and neglected. He listened as usual to little Joan's insane interminable questions, and answered them as usual as intelligently as he could. And he puffed as usual at the perfect pipe of after-breakfast, and swept as usual the dead leaves from the path. But all these things he did with the exquisite melancholy enjoyment of a schoolboy, knowing that he does them for the last time on the last day of his holidays at home. And he had decided nothing. Margery, too, moved as usual through the busy routine of after-breakfast, "ordering" food for herself and Stephen and the children and the servants, and promising Cook to get some lard and "speaking to" Mary about the drawing-room carpet, and arranging for the dining-room to be "done out" tomorrow, and conferring with Nurse and telephoning for some fish. She did these things in a kind of dream, hating them more than usual, and now and then she looked out of the window, and wondered what Stephen was doing, and what he was thinking. For she knew that he had not decided. And she would not speak to him; she had said her say, and some instinct told her that silence now was her best hope. So all day they went about in this distressful tranquillity, pretending that this day was as yesterday, and as the day before. At midday the tide was down; the grey sky crept up from the far roofs and hid the sun. There was the damp promise of a drizzle in the air, and the bleak depression of low tide lay over the mud and the meagre stream and the deserted boats. They had lunch almost in silence, and after lunch a thin rain began. Stephen stared out at it silent from the window, thinking and thinking and deciding nothing; and Margery sat silent by the fire, darning. And her silence, and the silent riot of his thoughts, and the silent miserable rain, and the empty abandoned river, united in a vast conspiracy of menace and accusation and gloom. They were leagued together to get on his nerves and drive him to despair. He went out suddenly, and down to the dining-room, and there he drank some whisky, very quickly, and very strong. Then, because he must do _something_ or he would go mad, he dragged the dinghy over the mud and shingle down to the water, and he rowed up to the Island to pick up firewood from the mud-banks, where the high tides took it and left it tangled in the reeds and young willow stems. It was an infinite toil to get this wood, but all afternoon he worked there, crashing fiercely through the tall forest of withes and crowded reeds, and slithering down banks into deep mud, and groping laboriously in the slush of small inlets for tiny pieces of tarred wood, and filling his basket with great beams and bits of bark, and small planks and box-wood, and painfully carrying them through the mud and the wet reeds down to the boat. He worked hard, with a savage determination to tire himself, to occupy his mind, cursing with a kind of furious satisfaction when the stems sprang back and whipped him in the face. The sweat came out upon him, and his hands were scratched, and the mud was thick upon his clothes. But all the time he thought. He could not stop thinking. And somehow the fierce energy of the work communicated itself to his thoughts. As he struck down the brittle reeds he fancied himself striking at his enemies, manfully meeting his Fate. All his life he had done things thoroughly, as he was doing this foolish wood-gathering. He had faced things, he had not been afraid. He would not be afraid now. He would give himself up. No, no! He couldn't do that. Not fair to Margery--a long wait, prison, trial, the dock--hanging! Aah! He made a shuddering cry at that thought, and he lashed out with the stick in his hand, beating at the withes in a fury of fear. No, no! by God, no!--hanging--the last morning! Not that. But still, he must be brave. No more cowardice. That was the worst of all he had done this summer--the cowardice. No more sitting tight at John's expense. Whatever Margery said. It was sweet of her, but later it would be different. When all this was forgotten, she would remember ... she would be living with him, day after day, knowing every night there was a murderer in her bed, a liar, a coward, a treacherous coward.... Very soon she would hate him. And he would hate her, because she knew. He would be always ashamed before her, all day, always.... Just now they did not mind, because they were afraid. But they _would_ mind.... She had not even minded about Muriel, when he told her--and he had told her everything. But she would mind that, too, in the end.... She would always be imagining Muriels. No, there must be no more cowardice. It must finish now, one way or another. But there was only one way. The rain had stopped now, and a warm wind blew freshly from the south-west. The two swans of the Island washed themselves in the ruffled shallows, wings flapping and necks busily twisting. In the west was a stormy and marvellous sky, still dark pillows of heavy clouds, black and grey, and an angry purple, with small white tufts floating irresponsibly across them, and here and there a startling lake of the palest blue; while low down, beneath them, as if rebellious at the long grey day, and determined somehow to make a show at his own setting, the sun revealed himself as an orange dome on the roof of the Quick Boat Company, and poised grotesquely between the tall black chimneys, flung out behind the Richmond Hills a narrow ribbon of defiant light, and away towards Hammersmith all the windows in a big house lit up suddenly with orange and gold, as if the house were burning furiously within. The boat was heavy now with wood, and Stephen pushed her off, to row home with his face to the sunset and the storm. Now the light was caught in the mud-slopes by the Island, and they, too, were beautiful. And as he rowed he said a self-conscious farewell to the sun and the warm wind and the river which he loved. No one loved this river as he did. They lived smugly in their drawing-rooms like Kensington people, and they looked out at the river when the sun shone at high tide, and in the summer crept out timidly for an hour in hired boats like trippers. But when it was winter and the wind blew, they drew their curtains and shivered over their fires and shut out the river, so that they hardly knew it was there from the autumn to the spring. They did not deserve to live by the river; they did not understand it. They did not see that it was lovable always, and most lovable perhaps when the tide rushed in against the wild west wind, and the rain and the spindrift lashed your face as you tossed in a small boat over the lively waves. They thought it was the noisy storm rushing down a muddy river; they thought the wind made a melancholy howl about the windows. They did not know that the river in the wind was a place of poetry and excitement, such as you might not find in the rest of London, that the noisy wind and the muddy water and the wet mud at low tide were things of beauty and healthy life if you went out and made friends with them. These people never saw the sunset in winter, and the curious majesty of factories against the glow; they never saw the lights upon the mud; they did not love the barges and the tugs, sliding up with a squat importance out of the fog, or swishing lazily down in the early morning, with the hoar-frost thick upon their decks. They did not know what the river was like in the darkness or the winter dusk; you could not know that till you had been on the river many times at those hours and found out the strange lights and the strange whispers, and the friendly loneliness of the river in the dark. And when he had gone, no one here would do that; no one would row out in the frosty noons or the velvet dusks, no one would feed the sea-gulls in the morning, or steal out in the evening to watch the dab-chicks diving round the Island. No one would be left who properly loved the river. They would sit in their drawing-rooms and shudder at the wind, and say: "That poor fellow Byrne--he was mad about the river--he was always pottering about on the river in a boat--and then, you know, he drowned himself in the river--just outside here." Yes, he would do that. There would be something "dramatic" about that. Just outside here--in the dark. He had decided now. Not poison, for he knew nothing about that; not shooting--for he had no revolver. But the river. When he had decided his heart was lighter. Very carefully he moored the boat, and took out the wood and carried it in a basket to the kitchen to be dried. Then he took a last look at the river and the sun and went in to tea. All that evening he was very cheerful with Margery in the drawing-room, and at dinner and afterwards. At dinner he talked hard and laughed very often. And Margery was easier in her mind, though sometimes she was puzzled by his laughter. But she thought that she had persuaded him, or that he had persuaded himself, that she was right, and this gaiety was the reaction from the long uncertainty of mind. And indeed it was. She saw also that he drank a good deal; but because he was cheerful at last, and would be more cheerful when he had drunk more, she did not mind. By the late post there came a copy of _The Argus_. They looked at the parcel, but they did not open it, and they did not look at each other. When she went up to bed he kissed her fondly, but not too fondly, lest she should suspect--and said that he would sit and read for a little by the fire. Then he opened _The Argus_ and read through "The Death in the Wood" from beginning to end. It pleased him now--it pleased him very much; for it was more than a week since he had seen it, and some of its original freshness had returned. It was good. But it seemed to him, as he read it now, to be a very damning confession of weakness and sin, and while he glowed with the pride of artistic achievement, he was chilled with the shame of his human record. It was so clear and naked in this poem that he had written; it must be obvious to any who read it what kind of a man he was and what things he had done. Margery had known, and surely the whole world would know. But no matter--he would be too quick for them. He would be dead before they discovered. And anyhow he was going to tell the world. Of course, he had forgotten that. He was going to tell the truth about John before he went. Of course. He must do that now. He took some writing-paper and went down into the dining-room. He felt a little cold--not so cheerful. A little whisky would buck him up. A little whisky, while he wrote this letter. He drank half a tumbler, and sat down. How would it go, this letter? To the police, of course. He wrote: "This is to certify that I, Stephen Byrne, strangled Emily Gaunt on the 15th of May; John Egerton had nothing to do with it. I am going to drown myself." He signed it and read it over. After "strangled" he squeezed in "by accident." It looked untidy, and he wrote it all out again. That would do. He drank some more whisky and sat staring at the paper. Why should he do that? Wasn't he going to do enough, as it was? He was going to die; that was surely punishment enough. Why should he leave this damned silly confession behind? Just for the sake of old John. Damn John! A good fellow, John. A damned fool, John. Was it fair to Margery? That was the thing. Was it fair? One more drink. He filled up the fourth glass and sat pondering stupidly the supreme selfishness. Outside the wind had risen, and Margery shivered upstairs at the rattle of the windows. Eleven o'clock--why was Stephen so long? What was that noise? A dull report--like a distant bomb. She sat up in bed, listening. Then she remembered. The gas-stove being lit in the dining-room. Something was wrong with it. But why had it frightened her? And why was it being lit? Because it was cold in the dining-room, and the wind was howling, and there was a numb sensation in his hands. A funny dead feeling. The whisky, perhaps. But when he had turned on the gas, he forgot about it, and stood thinking, matchbox in hand, thinking out the new problem. It was difficult to think clearly. Then it exploded like that, when he put the match to it. He kicked it. Damned fool of a thing. Like John. It was John who was responsible for all this worry and fuss. John could go to the devil. He had fooled John before, and he would fool him again. Ha, ha! That was a cunning idea. Then they would say in the papers, "A great genius--a noble character--ha, ha!--'The Death in the Wood'--last work, imaginative writing"--ha, ha! _imaginative!_--and it was all true. But nobody would know--nobody would say so--because he would be dead. John wouldn't say so, and Margery wouldn't say so--because he would be dead. Mustn't say anything about the dead. Oh no! Must burn this silly confession. When he had had another drink. It was so cold. No more whisky--hell! "There's hoosh in the bottle still." But there wasn't. Who wrote that? Damned Canadian fellow. The Yukon. Port. There was some port somewhere. Port was warming. He fumbled in the oak dresser for the decanter, knocking over a number of glasses. Damned little port left--somebody been at it. Best drink in the world--port. Good, rich, generous stuff. Ah! That was good. One more glass. Then he would go out. Half-past eleven. Margery would be wandering down in a minute--would think he was drunk. He wasn't drunk--head perfectly clear. Saw the whole thing now. Dramatic end--drowned in sight of home--national loss--moonlight. No, there was no moon. Hell of a wind, though. A sou'wester--he, he! Poor Margery, poor Muriel, poor John! They would miss him--when he had gone. They would be sorry then. Good fellow, John. Good fellows--all of them. But they didn't appreciate him--nobody did. Yes, Muriel did. A dear girl, Muriel. But no mind. He would like to say good-bye to Muriel. And Margery. But that wouldn't do. Dear things, both of them. Drink their healths. The last glass. No more port. No more whisky. No cheese, no butter, no jam. Like the war. Ha, ha! First-rate port. He was warm now, and sleepy. God, what a wind. Mustn't go to sleep here. Sleep in the river--the dear old river. Drowning was pleasant, they said--not like hanging. Would rather stay here, though--in the warm. Only there was no more port. And he had promised some one--_must_ keep promises. Come on, then. No shirking. Head perfectly clear. What was it he was going to do first? Something he had to do. God knows. Head perfectly clear. But sleepy. Terribly sleepy. He walked over with an intense effort of steadiness to the door into the garden, as if there were many watching, and opened the door. The wind beat suddenly in his face and rushed past triumphant into the house. The bay-tree tossed and shook itself in the next garden. The dead leaves rushed rustling up and down the stone path, and leapt in coveys up the wall, and fled for refuge up the steps and into the house out of the furious wind. The shock of the cool air and the violence of the wind sobered him a little, and he paused irresolute at the top of the steps. Then, with the obstinate fidelity of a drunken man to a purpose once formed, he walked unsteadily down the steps; he looked up at the lighted window of Margery's room, and waved his arm vaguely, and shouted a thick "Good-bye," but his throat was husky, and it was difficult to shout. Then he passed on down the path, talking to himself. There was a boathook against the wall and he picked it up, and went down the steps into the small dinghy. He fumbled for a long time with the rope that tied her, and pushed off at last with the boathook. He pushed out into the wind, stupidly paddling with the boathook, because he had forgotten the oars. But it was no matter. He would not go back. He must go on. Out into the middle. Margery, lying wondering in bed, heard the faint sound of a cry above the wind, and jumped out of bed. From the window she saw nothing but the hurrying clouds and the faint, wild gleam of the excited river. She crept down shivering to the drawing-room, where the lights still burned. A great draught of cold air swept up to the stairs, and she ran down fearfully to the dining-room. She saw the glasses in the brilliant light, the empty glasses and the empty bottle and the empty decanter, and under one of the glasses a sheet of paper flapping in the wind. She picked it up, stained with a wet half-circle of wine, and then with a low wail she ran out through the open door into the roaring gloom, her thin covering whipping about her. It was dark in the garden, but over the river there was the pale radiance of water in a wind. And there were some stars now, racing after the clouds. And away towards the Island she saw the boat, not far off, a small black smudge against the dirty gleam of the tumbled river. It was moving very slowly, for the wind was fighting for it with the stubborn tide. And in the boat she saw a standing figure, swaying as the boat rocked, leaning with one hand on some kind of a staff, and waving the other with sweeping gestures in the air, as a man making a speech. As she looked a squall came over the water, a sudden gust of furious violence, as if the wind were seized with a passion of uncontrollable temper. The figure in the boat swayed backwards and recovered itself, and lurched forward and fell; it fell into the water with a great splash, which Margery saw, but never heard. Then she gave a wild, high cry. The wind caught it and flung it away, but many heard it. And none who heard it in all those houses will ever forget it. She ran crying up the garden, calling on the name of John Egerton. And John Egerton heard. XVII John Egerton came home very weary that evening; and all the way home things went wrong as they had gone wrong on a certain evening in June when he had come home tired to find the Byrnes' maid on the doorstep, and told the first lie about the sack. Tonight again the trains went wrong, and they were stuffy and packed, difficult to enter and difficult to leave and abominable to be in. It was one of the exceptionally hateful journeys which men remember as they remember battles. It was of a piece with that night in June, and John thought of them together as he walked home, hot and jumpy with irritation. Nothing had gone right since that night--nothing. He had lost his love, and his good name, and his peace of mind--and his best friend. He had had faith in Stephen then; he had admired and loved--had almost idolized him. Tonight he felt that he hated Stephen. Not a word from him--not one word of encouragement or gratitude in all this filthy business of the articles. Not that he wanted Stephen to _do_ anything--oh no! He had made his vow and he would stick to it. But it did hurt that Stephen should take this sacrifice so much as a matter of course, should do nothing to help him in this new storm of suspicion. He had been a good friend once--a jolly, companionable friend, open-hearted and full of laughter--the best friend a lonely bachelor could have. Well, it was done with now. He had lost that as he had lost everything else. And it had all begun with that lie. Perhaps it was a judgment. Perhaps there was never a virtuous lie. He had bought at Charing Cross the October number of _The Argus_, because he had seen on the cover the name of Stephen Byrne, and he read everything that Stephen wrote. After dinner he sat down and read "The Death in the Wood." And at first he read, as Margery had read, only with admiration, though it was now a jealous, almost reluctant admiration. He thought, "How can a mean swine like Stephen create such glorious high-minded stuff?" It was unnatural, wrong. While he was reading the bell rang. Mrs. Bantam came in. "It's them Gaunts," she whispered. The Gaunt family had not been near him for months, and now they had come to pluck the certain fruit of the _I Say_ articles. They stood in a defiant cluster in the tiny hall. John, for once, fortified and embittered by the exasperations of the Underground, allowed himself to be violently angry. He took a stick from the rack and shouted at them, "Get out of my house--or I'll--I'll throw you out!" A little to his surprise they did go out, and he went back to "The Death in the Wood," pleasantly relieved by his self-assertion and anger. He read on through the burial in the lake, and the finding of the maiden, and the battle at the lake where the faithful Tristram fought and was wounded. Then he came to the wooing in the castle, the false wooing by Gelert of Tristram's lady, the lovely Isobel. And here the soft heart of John melted within him; for the picture of Isobel which Stephen had drawn was so like the picture of Muriel that was ever in his own mind, a fair and gracious and relenting lady; and the hot words of Gelert were such words as he would have uttered and had dreamed himself uttering to Muriel Tarrant. But Muriel Tarrant had done with him, it seemed; she would hardly nod at him across the road; he had not spoken to her alone since that miserable dance. And this poetry of Stephen Byrne's was the perfect expression of his faithful devotion, and made him almost weep with sentimental regret. He read these passages several times. Then he went on to the poisoning by Gelert of Isobel's mind against her old lover, and his conquest of her, and his cruel desertion of her. And somewhere among those terrible lines the thought came to him as it had come to Margery, with a red-hot excruciating stab--that this story was a true story. And he looked back then, as Margery had looked, at the first pages of the poem and at the memory of those dreadful months in the new light of his suspicions. He remembered the dance, and Muriel's face at the dance; how kind at the beginning of it, how cold and cruel at the end--when she had danced many times with Stephen. He remembered how he had met her in September in the street; and how in her sidelong look there had been not only that coldness, but also a certain shame. Could it be?... Once, he was sure, she had liked him a little--in the end he could have won her; she would have relieved him of this loneliness--this loneliness in an empty house with the hateful whining at the windows; but something devilish and unknown had got in the way.... And if it was Stephen, and Stephen's lies.... God! He would go to Muriel, he would go to Stephen; he would have it out of them, he would go now-- And as he paced up and down the room, working himself into a fever of rage, that terrible cry came out of the night, and he rushed out into the garden. Over the wall he scrambled to Margery, and heard her incoherent appeals; then on to Stephen's steps and down into Stephen's motor-boat. "The oars," he shouted--"the oars!" and Margery pushed them, trembling, over the wall. He rowed out wildly towards the Island, missing the water and splashing emptily in his haste. He turned round and there was nothing to be seen, no other boat, no bobbing head,--nothing, nothing but the gleam and shadow of the tumbled water. He rowed round laboriously in a wide circle for many minutes, peering, shouting, damp with spindrift and the sweat of rowing, though his hands were frozen and numb upon the oars. The boat was a hideous weight for rowing in the fierce wind, and when he could see nothing anywhere, he started the engine--with merciful ease--and steered up past the Island, since anything that was in the water must move up with the tide at last. The spray shot over the bows and blinded him. The boat steered drunkenly as he wiped his eyes and peered out at the water, and shouted weakly at the wind. He came out past the Island into the open, and there he saw the dinghy, fifty yards ahead, a dark blot, dancing aimlessly sideways over the short waves. Anyhow, he would pick up the dinghy--it might be useful. But when he came up with the dinghy he saw that there was something in it, something that was like the carved figures that may be seen brooding over tombs, with curved back and head drooping over clasped knees, a figure of utter dejection. But now and then it moved and paddled feebly in the water with one hand. John called, with an incredulous question in his voice, "Stephen? Stephen? Is that you?" And it was Stephen, brooding bitterly over the shame of his last cowardice, and exhausted with the long struggle he had made for life. For the cold clutch of the water had woken up the love of life, and he had swum in a scrambling terror after the boat, and climbed with infinite difficulty back into the oarless boat. He was sodden and cold, and sick with humiliation. And John Egerton of all people must come and find him. So he turned his head and said with a great bitterness, "O God! It's _you_, is it?" When John saw that miserable figure, there began to take hold of him that old and fatal softness of heart; he felt very pitiful, and he said gently, "Get in, Stephen." And Stephen crawled over into the other boat, the water streaming from him; and they sat together on the wide seat in front of the engine as they had sat so often before. Then John said, "What happened? We thought you--" Stephen growled, "So I did--but--but I funked it.... I was drunk." Then he burst out, "But, damn it, it's nothing to do with you.... Turn her round--I'm soaked." And then, at the sullen bitterness of his voice and his words, John Egerton remembered his rage, he remembered the black grievance and suspicion he had against this man. And though the impulse to pity and forbearance struggled still within him, he fought it down. He would be firm for once. The boats swung sideways in the wind, and drifted, rolling, round the bend. He put his hand behind him on the starting-handle of the engine, as he said: "We're not going back yet, Stephen. I want to ask you something. What have you--what have you been--been doing to Muriel? What have you said to her--about me, and about--?" "Oh, _hell_, John! I'm frozen, I can't sit jawing here. Start the boat and let me get home--or let _me_, damn you!" And he too seized the handle, gripping John's hand; and they sat there, crouching absurdly over the back of the seat, glowering at each other in the noisy wind. And John nearly gave way; he felt that he was being unreasonable, perhaps foolish--this was no place for talk. But he was very angry and resentful again, and he said he would be firm for once. And so do the tragedies of life have their birth. He shouted, "We're not going back till you've told me the truth--you've been telling lies to Muriel--you've made love to her. God knows what you've done--and you've got to tell me--_now_!" "_Will_ you let go of this handle, damn you? It's _my_ boat!" John held on. Then Stephen gave a great heave with his body, so that John nearly went overboard; but his grip held firm. So they fought with their bodies for a minute, heaving and panting and muttering low curses, and clutching still the disputed handle. The boat rocked dangerously, and the forgotten dinghy drifted away. They were beyond the houses now, and beyond the brewery, moving slowly past the flat and desolate meadows. There was no one to see them. But no one could have seen them. The rain was coming and it was really dark now; a huge black cloud had rolled up out of the west and blotted out the last stars. John looked once towards the meadows, but he could not see the bank--only an endless flickering blackness. They were alone out there in the howling dark, and they knew that they were alone. And at last, when nothing came of this insane struggle, Stephen suddenly took his hand from the handle and struck John a fierce blow on the side of the head; and John staggered, but gripped him immediately by the throat with his left hand, clinging still to the handle with his right. So they sat for a moment, Stephen clutching at the hand at his throat, and black hatred in the hearts of both of them, and their eyes fixed in a staring fury. Stephen was the stronger man, and with a supreme effort he tore away the hand from his throat. He dived forward over the thwart and seized one of the oars. Then he turned to attack, standing up in a crouching posture. But John Egerton had seen red at last, and he dimly knew that Stephen was yet more mad with fury than himself. He had no weapon except the starting-handle in his hand, but as Stephen turned, he whipped this from its place and sprang forward; he struck out fiercely with the iron handle. Stephen lifted his oar to guard himself, and the handle struck it with great force, with a heavy thud upon the wood. Stephen swayed a little, but he was unhurt, and the handle fell from John's hands into the boat. Then Stephen lifted his oar again and swung it in a wide circle, like a great sword, a vicious, terrible blow. But John ducked, and it swept over his head. And while Stephen was yet recovering himself, he sprang up, and he sprang at Stephen, and he lunged at him with his fist. John Egerton was no boxer, but fate was with him in that fight, and all the hoarded resentment of the summer was behind that blow. It caught Stephen on the jaw as he raised his head. It caught him on the point of the jaw with the uncanny completeness of precision and force which no man can endure who is struck in that place. His head went up, and the oar dropped from his hands. For a moment he tottered, and then he fell, without a word, without a cry, forward and sideways, into the water. And John himself fell forward over the thwart, and lay panting in the rolling boat. When he looked out at last, he could see nothing, nothing but the empty water, and the empty meadows, and, far off, the lights of Barnes. He searched the water for a long time, and after a little he found the oar, which Stephen had dropped; but he found nothing else. And at last he was sure that Stephen was dead. He went home slowly against the tide; and Margery was waiting in the garden, looking out into the wind. He told her simply that he could not find Stephen; and this time he lied easily. * * * * * That night she did not show him the paper which she had found in the dining-room. But in the morning she gave it to him, and John tore it carefully into small pieces and threw them on the fire. And this he did without the sense or the circumstance of drama. For John Egerton was no artist. But he was a good man. XVIII So died Stephen Byrne. And the world talked for many days of the tragic accident of his drowning, of the tragic failure of his friend to find him, under the eyes of his wife, under the windows of his home. But the people of The Chase, at least, were not surprised; they had always said, they discovered, that he would overdo it at last ... pottering about on the river at all hours of the night. They found the body, by a strange chance, among the thick weeds and rushes round the Island, about the place where Stephen had hunted for firewood on the last day. It had come down with the tide, and had been blown into the weeds, as the driftwood was blown. But the world did not know this, and they said it was the weeds which had pulled him down at last to his death. Three weeks later the Stephen Byrne Memorial Committee met for the first time. It was a truly representative body. Lord Milroy was, of course, in the chair, because he and Stephen were Old Boys of the same Foundation, and because he was always in the chair. John Egerton was a member because Margery insisted; and Dimple, Whittaker, and Stimpson represented The Chase with him. Indeed, the whole affair had its origin in The Chase. It was clear of course from the beginning that there would be a memorial somewhere, whether it was at Stephen's school or his birthplace; or it might even be a national memorial. But before any one else had made a move the people of The Chase put their heads together and decided that it should be a Chase memorial, run by The Chase, and erected in or about The Chase. Further, in order to ensure that The Chase memorial should be _the_ memorial, they astutely invited all possible competitive bodies to send representatives to sit on _The_ Stephen Byrne Memorial Committee. All these bodies fell into the trap. The Old Savonians sent two representatives, and the village of Monckton Parva another; and a man came from the Home Office and another from the Authors' Society, and others from various literary bodies. They met at the Whittakers', and Lord Milroy presided. Lord Milroy was one of those useful and assiduous noblemen who live in a constant state of being in the chair. One felt that at the Last Day he would probably be found in the chair, gravely deprecating the tone of the last speaker and taking it that the sense of the Committee was rather in favour of the course which commended itself to him. For although he was courteous and statesmanlike and suave, he was passionately attached to his own opinions, and generally saw to it that they prevailed. On the matter of this memorial he speedily formed an opinion. There were many alternative proposals--some of them attractive, but expensive or impracticable, some of them merely fantastic. One man took the view that the work and character of Stephen Byrne would be most suitably commemorated by the endowment of a school of poetry in Northern Australia, where the arts were notoriously neglected. The school, of course, would bear the name of Stephen Byrne, and this would be a perpetual link between Australia and the mother country. The Old Savonians pointed out to the Committee that the gymnasium at Savonage, where Stephen Byrne had spent perhaps the happiest years of his life, must somehow be enlarged--if it was to keep pace with the expansion of the school. And the spirit of the founder's motto, "Mens sana in corpore sano," could hardly be so perfectly expressed as by the commemoration of a fine mind in the building up of fine bodies. Besides, there was no prospect otherwise of getting the gymnasium enlarged. The representatives of Monckton Parva were more ambitious. They said that the place where a man was born and the place where a man lived afterwards were the two great geographical monuments of his life. Since the Committee did not see their way to arrange for a memorial in each of these places, why not somehow unite them? The house where Stephen was born was now unhappily situated between a brewery and a tannery; and unless sufficient funds were subscribed to provide for the total destruction of the brewery and the tannery, the house as it stood could scarcely be regarded as a suitable nucleus for the memorial. They therefore suggested that the house should be demolished or rather disintegrated, brick by brick, and re-erected in a suitable site in Hammerton Chase as near as possible to Stephen's house. The house was small and comparatively mobile; indeed, there was a legend in the township that the house had been transplanted once, if not twice, already. Alternatively both the house at Monckton and the house at The Chase might be razed to the ground and re-erected as one building on a neutral site in Kensington, or perhaps Lincolnshire, a county which Stephen had mentioned very favourably in one of his poems. Mr. Dimple, who had been got at by the church, strongly advocated the claims of the Montobel Day Nursery; Stephen, he said, had had two children himself, and if he had been able to give an opinion, would almost certainly have elected to be commemorated by a gift to the little ones of the neighbourhood. No one thought much of any of these suggestions; and after a great deal of bland and sugary argument the field of alternatives was thinned down for practical purposes to two--Mr. Stimpson's plan and Mr. Meredith's plan. Mr. Meredith was the Home Office man. He had vacillated for a while between a Stephen Byrne monolith at Hammersmith Broadway and a Stephen Byrne Scholarship at London University, the balance of the fund to be devoted to the provision of a mural tablet in Hammerton church, setting out the principal works of Stephen Byrne, a kind of monumental bibliography. Finally, however, he decided in favour of the Hammersmith Broadway scheme. At that time there was much excitement in the Press over the conduct of foot passengers in the London streets, who were said to show an extraordinary carelessness of life in the face of the rapid increase of motor transport. For example, they took no notice of "refuges"; they crossed the street at any old point. And Meredith's theory--which was also apparently the official theory of the Home Secretary, if not actually of the Home Secretary's private secretary--was that people neglected the refuges because they were such dull places. An unbeautiful lamp-post, he said, sprouting unnaturally from a small island of pavement, held out no inducement to pedestrians. It simply did not attract their attention, so they did not go there. Now, if they were made _attractive_, if every refuge at the principal crossings and danger-points were made into a thing of intrinsic beauty or interest, the people would crowd to them, to look at the statue, or read the inscription, or drink at the fountain, or whatever it was. And he proposed that the first experiment should be made with a Stephen Byrne memorial at Hammersmith Broadway, which was very dangerous and had nothing striking in the centre of it. He said it was a curious thing that, if you counted the people who used the Piccadilly Circus refuge or the King Charles refuge in one day, you would find the number was "out of all proportion" to the number of people who used an ordinary refuge where there was no fountain and no flower-girls and no statue of King Charles. Nobody could remember doing this, and very few of the Committee were prepared to take his word for it. In fact, Stimpson said that what Meredith said was not borne out by his own experience (and this was as near as the Committee ever approached to open incredulity or contradiction); he also said that you do not _want_ crowds gathering round refuges and gaping at pieces of sculpture; but then Stimpson was prejudiced, for Stimpson had his own plan. And Lord Milroy came down heavily in favour of Stimpson's plan. He distrusted the Bureaucracy on principle and he disliked Meredith in particular. And he was not fond of John Egerton; John was another Civil Servant, and therefore a Bureaucrat, and John was the only member other than Meredith who was hotly opposed to Stimpson's plan. So that for a man less free from prejudice than the chairman there would have been a good deal of prejudice in favour of Stimpson's plan as against Meredith's plan. And there was much to be said for Stimpson's plan. It had a certain imaginative boldness, and just that touch of sentiment which a memorial demands; and it was simple. He said that the great thing geographically in Stephen Byrne's life at Hammerton Chase was the river. He had loved the river; not Hammerton nor even The Chase, but the river. And any memorial that was made to him in Hammerton should be somehow expressive of this. There was only one place where such a memorial could conveniently be made; and that place was the Island, the wild untenanted Island, the Island where he had died. At the eastern end of the Island, in sight of his own home, should his monument be put--a simple figure in some grey stone, sitting there in his favourite posture under the single willow-tree, with his knees drawn up and the head thrown back, and looking out with the poetic vision over that noble sweep of the wide river, at the gracious trees and delicate lights, and the huddled houses curving away.... Stimpson was almost moving as he developed the idea, and most of the Committee were captivated at once. Lord Milroy said that he knew a sculptor who was the very man for such a task. He specialized in river-work; and Lord Milroy, when travelling in India, had been specially struck by a figure he had seen--by a figure looking over the Ganges, which was the work of this man. He also said that he was attracted by the breadth and freshness of the scheme; and this was true. Only John Egerton hotly opposed it. The idea of a stone figure of Stephen Byrne, sitting for ever under the willow-tree in sight of his windows, and in sight of Margery's windows, revolted him. But he could think of no convincing objections. The Island was often submerged at high tide; the soil was sodden; the banks crumbled away. The land did not belong to Hammerton; nobody knew to whom it did belong, perhaps to the Port of London Authority, perhaps to the Crown. Anyhow, it would take a long time to secure authority. And so on. His difficulties were easily dealt with; his timid suggestion that Margery might not like it was scornfully rejected; and after the chairman's summing-up, delivered in a very statesmanlike manner, the Committee by a large majority adopted the plan. So, after many months, the statue was put up, and reverently unveiled. It was a noble piece of work. The figure was sitting in an easy posture on the thwart of a boat, and this rested on a low, broad pedestal that was just high enough to keep the figure out of the water at the highest tides, yet so low that you did not notice it. You looked over and saw simply the slight figure of a young man in grey, sitting near the water under the tree, his hands clasped about his knees, his feet crossed naturally, and his head thrown back a little, and his lips a little parted, as if he were asking some question of the things he saw. It was the exact posture of Stephen Byrne in that place, as many remembered it; and the tone and colour of the figure were so quiet and right that it was part of the scene, part of the river, and part of the Island, as it was meant to be. And on the pedestal there was written, simply: IN MEMORY OF STEPHEN BYRNE A GREAT POET HE LOVED THIS PLACE The unveiling was a quaint, unusual ceremony. The time chosen was a little after high tide on a fortunate afternoon in early January, when the sun shone amazingly in a clear June sky, and the windless river wore its most delicate blue. There gathered round the draped figure at the end of the Island a splendid company of men and women. They came there necessarily in numbers of small boats, and the greater part of them remained all the time in these boats. They hung there in a dense crowd, clinging to ropes made fast to the Island. Only the Committee and the very great men stood on the Island by the tree. All those others, great and small, sat absolutely silent in their boats for many minutes; they had come long journeys, some of them, to see this thing, and some of them were only Saturday holiday-makers, brought there by curiosity as they rowed upstream; but they all sat silent. And as the hour for the unveiling came near, the tugs and the barges and the small boats passing by stopped their engines or laid aside their sweeps or their oars, and stood still in reverence; and the river stood still, for it was slack water. All this quietness of respect was very moving; and the men and women rowed back afterwards in the warm sun, feeling that they had seen a fine thing. It was marred only by one strange note. John Egerton and Margery did not go over for the unveiling; but they watched together from Margery's garden. And in the stillness there were many there who heard and remembered the high cackle of hysterical laughter which came over the water when the figure was revealed. It was a thin and horrible laughter that had no mirth in it, only a fierce and bitter derision. It went on for a full half-minute and faded away to a faint sound, as if the man laughing had gone suddenly into a house. Muriel Tarrant heard it, for she was there with her mother, not in black, as were many of The Chase, but darkly dressed. When she heard that laughter she looked back quickly over her shoulder; and when she turned her head to the statue again, her face was very white. Very soon the figure became a landmark to those who used the river. It became a mark among the watermen and bargees and the captains of tugs. And people made pilgrimages in small boats on the warm winter days to look at it and read the inscription. Margery Byrne lived on in her house, and John Egerton lived on next to her in his. But why they stayed in that place it is hard to say. For you would think it was a cruel fate which set up at their own doors the graven image of their old idol; you would have said it was a hard thing to look out of the window at any hour of the day and see always some pilgrim at the shrine, doing his silent homage to the idol--gazing up from a boat or standing on the Island with his head bared--knowing nothing, suspecting nothing. And sometimes, indeed--they confessed to each other--they wanted to rush out to the river-side, and shout over the water at these worshippers the secret history of that splendid figure. Yet it fascinated them. And it may be that, in spite of all, they were proud of it; they were proud in secret of the pilgrims and the homage and the Sunday crowds. It is certain at least that they never went to their beds--and this also they confessed to each other--they never went to their beds or threw up a window in the morning to bathe in the sun without turning their eyes up the river to the end of the Island, to the seated figure under the tree. On a dark night it was difficult to see, but on a moonlit night they could see it very clearly. And they looked at it always. The idol had something still of the old magic, though they knew that the feet of it were clay. But on the wild sou'wester nights they looked out very quickly and drew close the blinds. And on those nights they were always sad. But the statue stood there for three months only. In April there was a great storm and a great tide. The wind and the rain came violently out of the south-west and beat upon the statue; and the swollen tide rushed up over the Island, and over the road, and over the little gardens of The Chase; it surged up about the knees of the statue, and tugged and fretted at the crumbling banks. At dusk the tide was not full, but already the short waves were slapping the face of the statue, and there was nothing to be seen under the willow-tree but the head and shoulders of a man struggling in the furious race of the flood. In the morning it was seen that the bank and the new stone facing of the bank had collapsed; and at low tide the statue was found grovelling in the mud, with its nose shattered. The willow is very near to the edge of the Island now, and it is strange that it survived that tide. There is nothing under it now but a small patch of rich green grass, very noticeable from the windows of the Terrace. This grass is a favourite haunt of the Island swans; and they stand there for hours, cleaning themselves. So for the first time the true story of Stephen Byrne is told; and those at least who live in The Chase will know the real name of Stephen Byrne, and the real name of Hammerton Chase. It is to be hoped that they will be kinder now to John Egerton, and as kind as they can be to the memory of Stephen Byrne. For there is something to be said for every man; and Stephen Byrne was a strange mixture. As for the rest, the pilgrims and the far worshippers, they may understand the story or they may not; and it can be no great matter to them. For they never knew Stephen Byrne in the flesh; and they have his poetry as they had it before. And when the statue is put back securely in its place, no doubt they will come to see it again. For, after all, the inscription said that he was a great poet; it did not say that he was a good man. THE END 
7707	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK SIXTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. WHEREIN MR. CAXTON IS PROFOUNDLY METAPHYSICAL. "Life," said my father, in his most dogmatical tone, "is a certain quantity in time, which may be regarded in two ways,--First, as life integral; Second, as life fractional. Life integral is that complete whole expressive of a certain value, large or small, which each man possesses in himself. Life fractional is that same whole seized upon and invaded by other people, and subdivided amongst them. They who get a large slice of it say, 'A very valuable life this!' Those who get but a small handful say, 'So, so; nothing very great!' Those who get none of it in the scramble exclaim, 'Good for nothing!'" "I don't understand a word you are saying," growled Captain Roland. My father surveyed his brother with compassion: "I will make it all clear, even to your understanding. When I sit down by myself in my study, having carefully locked the door on all of you, alone with my books and thoughts, I am in full possession of my integral life. I am /totus, teres, atque rotundus/,--a whole human being, equivalent in value, we will say, for the sake of illustration, to a fixed round sum, L100 for example. But when I go forth into the common apartment, each of those to whom I am of any worth whatsoever puts his finger into the bag that contains me, and takes out of me what he wants. Kitty requires me to pay a bill; Pisistratus to save him the time and trouble of looking into a score or two of books; the children to tell them stories, or play at hide-and-seek; and so on throughout the circle to which I have incautiously given myself up for plunder and subdivision. The L100 which I represented in my study is now parcelled out; I am worth L40 or L50 to Kitty, L20 to Pisistratus, and perhaps 30s. to the children. This is life fractional. And I cease to be an integral till once more returning to my study, and again closing the door on all existence but my own. Meanwhile, it is perfectly clear that to those who, whether I am in the study or whether I am in the common sitting-room, get nothing at all out of me, I am not worth a farthing. It must be wholly indifferent to a native of Kamschatka whether Austin Caxton be or be not razed out of the great account-book of human beings. "Hence," continued my father,--"hence it follows that the more fractional a life be--that is, the greater the number of persons among whom it can be subdivided--why, the more there are to say, 'A very valuable life that!' Thus the leader of a political party, a conqueror, a king, an author, who is amusing hundreds or thousands or millions, has a greater number of persons whom his worth interests and affects than a Saint Simeon Stylites could have when he perched himself at the top of a column; although, regarded each in himself, Saint Simeon, in his grand mortification of flesh, in the idea that he thereby pleased his Divine Benefactor, might represent a larger sum of moral value per se than Bonaparte or Voltaire." PISISTRATUS.--"Perfectly clear, sir; but I don't see what it has to do with 'My Novel.'" MR. CAXTON.--"Everything. Your novel, if it is to be a full and comprehensive survey of the 'Quicquid agunt homines' (which it ought to be, considering the length and breadth to which I foresee, from the slow development of your story, you meditate extending and expanding it), will embrace the two views of existence,--the integral and the fractional. You have shown us the former in Leonard, when he is sitting in his mother's cottage, or resting from his work by the little fount in Riccabocca's garden. And in harmony with that view of his life, you have surrounded him with comparative integrals, only subdivided by the tender hands of their immediate families and neighbours,--your squires and parsons, your Italian exile and his Jemima. With all these, life is, more or less, the life natural, and this is always, more or less, the life integral. Then comes the life artificial, which is always, more or less, the life fractional. In the life natural, wherein we are swayed but by our own native impulses and desires, subservient only to the great silent law of Virtue (which has pervaded the universe since it swung out of chaos), a man is of worth from what he is in himself,--Newton was as worthy before the apple fell from the tree as when all Europe applauded the discoverer of the Principle of Gravity. But in the life artificial we are only of worth inasmuch as we affect others; and, relative to that life, Newton rose in value more than a million per cent when down fell the apple from which ultimately sprang up his discovery. In order to keep civilization going and spread over the world the light of human intellect, we have certain desires within us, ever swelling beyond the ease and independence which belongs to us as integrals. Cold man as Newton might be (he once took a lady's hand in his own, Kitty, and used her forefinger for his tobacco-stopper,--great philosopher!), cold as he might be, he was yet moved into giving his discoveries to the world, and that from motives very little differing in their quality from the motives that make Dr. Squills communicate articles to the 'Phrenological Journal' upon the skulls of Bushmen and wombats. For it is the property of light to travel. When a man has light in him, forth it must go. But the first passage of genius from its integral state (in which it has been reposing on its own wealth) into the fractional is usually through a hard and vulgar pathway. It leaves behind it the reveries of solitude,--that self-contemplating rest which may be called the Visionary,--and enters suddenly into the state that may be called the Positive and Actual. There it sees the operations of money on the outer life; sees all the ruder and commoner springs of action; sees ambition without nobleness, love without romance; is bustled about and ordered and trampled and cowed,--in short, it passes an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel, and does not detect what good and what grandeur, what addition even to the true poetry of the social universe, fractional existences like Richard Avenel's bestow; for the pillars that support society are like those of the Court of the Hebrew Tabernacle,--they are of brass, it is true, but they are filleted with silver. From such intermediate state Genius is expelled and driven on its way, and would have been so in this case had Mrs. Fairfield (who is but the representative of the homely natural affections, strongest ever in true genius,--for light is warm) never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss rose on her sisterly bosom. Now, forth from this passage and defile of transition into the larger world, must Genius go on, working out its natural destiny amidst things and forms the most artificial. Passions that move and influence the world are at work around it. Often lost sight of itself, its very absence is a silent contrast to the agencies present. Merged and vanished for a while amidst the Practical World, yet we ourselves feel all the while that it is there; is at work amidst the workings around it. This practical world that effaces it rose out of some genius that has gone before; and so each man of genius, though we never come across him, as his operations proceed in places remote from our thoroughfares, is yet influencing the practical world that ignores him, for ever and ever. That is GENIUS! We can't describe it in books; we can only hint and suggest it by the accessories which we artfully heap about it. The entrance of a true Probationer into the terrible ordeal of Practical Life is like that into the miraculous cavern, by which, legend informs us, Saint Patrick converted Ireland." BLANCHE.--"What is that legend? I never heard of it." MR. CAXTON.--"My dear, you will find it in a thin folio at the right on entering my study, written by Thomas Messingham, and called 'Florilegium Insulae Sanctorum,' etc. The account therein is confirmed by the relation of an honest soldier, one Louis Ennius, who had actually entered the cavern. In short, the truth of the legend is undeniable, unless you mean to say, which I can't for a moment suppose, that Louis Ennius was a liar. Thus it runs: Saint Patrick, finding that the Irish pagans were incredulous as to his pathetic assurances of the pains and torments destined to those who did not expiate their sins in this world, prayed for a miracle to convince them. His prayer was heard; and a certain cavern, so small that a man could not stand up therein at his ease, was suddenly converted into a Purgatory, comprehending tortures sufficient to convince the most incredulous. One unacquainted with human nature might conjecture that few would be disposed to venture voluntarily into such a place; on the contrary, pilgrims came in crowds. Now, all who entered from vain curiosity or with souls unprepared perished miserably; but those who entered with deep and earnest faith, conscious of their faults, and if bold, yet humble, not only came out safe and sound, but purified, as if from the waters of a second baptism. See Savage and Johnson at night in Fleet Street,--and who shall doubt the truth of Saint Patrick's Purgatory!" Therewith my father sighed; closed his Lucian, which had lain open on the table, and would read none but "good books" for the rest of the evening. CHAPTER II. On their escape from the prison to which Mr. Avenel had condemned them, Leonard and his mother found their way to a small public-house that lay at a little distance from the town, and on the outskirts of the high road. With his arm round his mother's waist, Leonard supported her steps, and soothed her excitement. In fact, the poor woman's nerves were greatly shaken, and she felt an uneasy remorse at the injury her intrusion had inflicted on the young man's worldly prospects. As the shrewd reader has guessed already, that infamous tinker was the prime agent of evil in this critical turn in the affairs of his quondam customer; for, on his return to his haunts around Hazeldean and the Casino, the tinker had hastened to apprise Mrs. Fairfield of his interview with Leonard, and, on finding that she was not aware that the boy was under the roof of his uncle, the pestilent vagabond (perhaps from spite against Mr. Avenel, or perhaps from that pure love of mischief by which metaphysical critics explain the character of Iago, and which certainly formed a main element in the idiosyncrasy of Mr. Sprott) had so impressed on the widow's mind the haughty demeanour of the uncle, and the refined costume of the nephew, that Mrs. Fairfield had been seized with a bitter and insupportable jealousy. There was an intention to rob her of her boy!--he was to be made too fine for her. His silence was now accounted for. This sort of jealousy, always more or less a feminine quality, is often very strong amongst the poor; and it was the more strong in Mrs. Fairfield, because, lone woman that she was, the boy was all in all to her. And though she was reconciled to the loss of his presence, nothing could reconcile her to the thought that his affections should be weaned from her. Moreover, there were in her mind certain impressions, of the justice of which the reader may better judge hereafter, as to the gratitude--more than ordinarily filial--which Leonard owed to her. In short, she did not like, as she phrased it, "to be shaken off;" and after a sleepless night she resolved to judge for herself, much moved thereto by the malicious suggestions to that effect made by Mr. Sprott, who mightily enjoyed the idea of mortifying the gentlemen by whom he had been so disrespectfully threatened with the treadmill. The widow felt angry with Parson Dale and with the Riccaboccas: she thought they were in the plot against her; she communicated. therefore, her intentions to none, and off she set, performing the journey partly on the top of the coach, partly on foot. No wonder that she was dusty, poor woman! "And, oh, boy!" said she, half sobbing, "when I got through the lodge- gates, came on the lawn, and saw all that power o' fine folk, I said to myself, says I--for I felt fritted--I'll just have a look at him and go back. But ah, Lenny, when I saw thee, looking so handsome, and when thee turned and cried 'Mother,' my heart was just ready to leap out o' my mouth, and so I could not help hugging thee, if I had died for it. And thou wert so kind, that I forgot all Mr. Sprott had said about Dick's pride, or thought he had just told a fib about that, as he had wanted me to believe a fib about thee. Then Dick came up--and I had not seen him for so many years--and we come o' the same father and mother; and so--and so--" The widow's sobs here fairly choked her. "Ah," she said, after giving vent to her passion, and throwing her arms round Leonard's neck, as they sat in the little sanded parlour of the public-house,--"ah, and I've brought thee to this. Go back; go back, boy, and never mind me." With some difficulty Leonard pacified poor Mrs. Fairfield, and got her to retire to bed; for she was, indeed, thoroughly exhausted. He then stepped forth into the road; musingly. All the stars were out; and Youth, in its troubles, instinctively looks up to the stars. Folding his arms, Leonard gazed on the heavens, and his lips murmured. From this trance, for so it might be called, he was awakened by a voice in a decidedly London accent; and, turning hastily round, saw Mr. Avenel's very gentlemanlike butler. Leonard's first idea was that his uncle had repented, and sent in search of him. But the butler seemed as much surprised at the rencontre as himself: that personage, indeed, the fatigues of the day being over, was accompanying one of Mr. Gunter's waiters to the public-house (at which the latter had secured his lodging), having discovered an old friend in the waiter, and proposing to regale himself with a cheerful glass, and- THAT of course--abuse of his present sitivation. "Mr. Fairfield!" exclaimed the butler, while the waiter walked discreetly on. Leonard looked, and said nothing. The butler began to think that some apology was due for leaving his plate and his pantry, and that he might as well secure Leonard's propitiatory influence with his master. "Please, sir," said he, touching his hat, "I was just a showing Mr. Giles the way to the Blue Bells, where he puts up for the night. I hope my master will not be offended. If you are a going back, sir, would you kindly mention it?" "I am not going back, Jarvis," answered Leonard, after a pause; "I am leaving Mr. Avenel's house, to accompany my mother,--rather suddenly. I should be very much obliged to you if you would bring some things of mine to me at the Blue Bells. I will give you the list, if you will step with me to the inn." Without waiting for a reply, Leonard then turned towards the inn, and made his humble inventory: item, the clothes he had brought with him from the Casino; item, the knapsack that had contained them; item, a few books, ditto; item, Dr. Riccabocca's watch; item, sundry manuscripts, on which the young student now built all his hopes of fame and fortune. This list he put into Mr. Jarvis's hand. "Sir," said the butler, twirling the paper between his finger and thumb, "you're not a going for long, I hope?" and he looked on the face of the young man, who had always been "civil spoken to him," with as much curiosity and as much compassion as so apathetic and princely a personage could experience in matters affecting a family less aristocratic than he had hitherto condescended to serve. "Yes," said Leonard, simply and briefly; "and your master will no doubt excuse you for rendering me this service." Mr. Jarvis postponed for the present his glass and chat with the waiter, and went back at once to Mr. Avenel. That gentleman, still seated in his library, had not been aware of the butler's absence; and when Mr. Jarvis entered and told him that he had met Mr. Fairfield, and communicating the commission with which he was intrusted, asked leave to execute it, Mr. Avenel felt the man's inquisitive eye was on him, and conceived new wrath against Leonard for a new humiliation to his pride. It was awkward to give no explanation of his nephew's departure, still more awkward to explain. After a short pause, Mr. Avenel said sullenly, "My nephew is going away on business for some time,--do what he tells you;" and then turned his back, and lighted his cigar. "That beast of a boy," said he, soliloquizing, "either means this as an affront, or an overture: if an affront, he is, indeed, well got rid of; if an overture, he will soon make a more respectful and proper one. After all, I can't have too little of relations till I have fairly secured Mrs. M'Catchley. An Honourable! I wonder if that makes me an Honourable too? This cursed Debrett contains no practical information on those points." The next morning the clothes and the watch with which Mr. Avenel presented Leonard were returned, with a note meant to express gratitude, but certainly written with very little knowledge of the world; and so full of that somewhat over-resentful pride which had in earlier life made Leonard fly from Hazeldean, and refuse all apology to Randal, that it is not to be wondered at that Mr. Avenel's last remorseful feelings evaporated in ire. "I hope he will starve!" said the uncle, vindictively. CHAPTER III. "Listen to me, my dear mother," said Leonard the next morning, as, with knapsack on his shoulder and Mrs. Fairfield on his arm, he walked along the high road; "I do assure you from my heart that I do not regret the loss of favours which I see plainly would have crushed out of me the very sense of independence. But do not fear for me; I have education and energy,--I shall do well for myself, trust me.--No, I cannot, it is true, go back to our cottage; I cannot be a gardener again. Don't ask me,--I should be discontented, miserable. But I will go up to London! That's the place to make a fortune and a name: I will make both. Oh, yes, trust me, I will. You shall soon be proud of your Leonard; and then we will always live together,--always! Don't cry," "But what can you do in Lunnon,--such a big place, Lenny?" "What! Every year does not some lad leave our village, and go and seek his fortune, taking with him but health and strong hands? I have these, and I have more: I have brains and thoughts and hopes, that--again I say, No, no; never fear for me!" The boy threw back his head proudly; there was something sublime in his young trust in the future. "Well. But you will write to Mr. Dale or to me? I will get Mr. Dale or the good mounseer (now I know they were not agin me) to read your letters." "I will, indeed!" "And, boy, you have nothing in your pockets. We have paid Dick; these, at least, are my own, after paying the coach fare." And she would thrust a sovereign and some shillings into Leonard's waistcoat pocket. After some resistance, he was forced to consent. "And there's a sixpence with a hole in it. Don't part with that, Lenny; it will bring thee good luck." Thus talking, they gained the inn where the three roads met, and from which a coach went direct to the Casino. And here, without entering the inn, they sat on the greensward by the hedgerow, waiting the arrival of the coach--Mrs. Fairfield was much subdued in spirits, and there was evidently on her mind something uneasy,--some struggle with her conscience. She not only upbraided herself for her rash visit, but she kept talking of her dead Mark. And what would he say of her, if he could see her in heaven? "It was so selfish in me, Lenny." "Pooh, pooh! Has not a mother a right to her child?" "Ay, ay, ay!" cried Mrs. Fairfield. "I do love you as a child,--my own child. But if I was not your mother, after all, Lenny, and cost you all this--oh, what would you say of me then?" "Not my own mother!" said Leonard, laughing as he kissed her. "Well, I don't know what I should say then differently from what I say now,--that you, who brought me up and nursed and cherished me, had a right to my home and my heart, wherever I was." "Bless thee!" cried Mrs. Fairfield, as she pressed him to her heart. "But it weighs here,--it weighs," she said, starting up. At that instant the coach appeared, and Leonard ran forward to inquire if there was an outside place. Then there was a short bustle while the horses were being changed; and Mrs. Fairfield was lifted up to the roof of the vehicle, so all further private conversation between her and Leonard ceased. But as the coach whirled away, and she waved her hand to the boy, who stood on the road-side gazing after her, she still murmured, "It weighs here,--it weighs!" CHAPTER IV. Leonard walked sturdily on in the high road to the Great City. The day was calm and sunlit, but with a gentle breeze from gray hills at the distance; and with each mile that he passed, his step seemed to grow more firm, and his front more elate. Oh, it is such joy in youth to be alone with one's daydreams! And youth feels so glorious a vigour in the sense of its own strength, though the world be before and--against it! Removed from that chilling counting-house, from the imperious will of a patron and master, all friendless, but all independent, the young adventurer felt a new being, felt his grand nature as Man. And on the Man rushed the genius long interdicted and thrust aside,--rushing back, with the first breath of adversity, to console--no! the Man needed not consolation,--to kindle, to animate, to rejoice! If there is a being in the world worthy of our envy, after we have grown wise philosophers of the fireside, it is not the palled voluptuary, nor the careworn statesman, nor even the great prince of arts and letters, already crowned with the laurel, whose leaves are as fit for poison as for garlands; it is the young child of adventure and hope. Ay, and the emptier his purse, ten to one but the richer his heart, and the wider the domains which his fancy enjoys as he goes on with kingly step to the Future. Not till towards the evening did our adventurer slacken his pace and think of rest and refreshment. There, then, lay before him on either side the road those wide patches of uninclosed land which in England often denote the entrance to a village. Presently one or two neat cottages came in sight; then a small farmhouse, with its yard and barns. And some way farther yet, he saw the sign swinging before an inn of some pretensions,--the sort of inn often found on a long stage between two great towns commonly called "The Halfway House." But the inn stood back from the road, having its own separate sward in front, whereon was a great beech-tree (from which the sign extended) and a rustic arbour; so that to gain the inn, the coaches that stopped there took a sweep from the main thoroughfare. Between our pedestrian and the inn there stood, naked and alone, on the common land, a church; our ancestors never would have chosen that site for it; therefore it was a modern church,--modern Gothic; handsome to an eye not versed in the attributes of ecclesiastical architecture, very barbarous to an eye that was. Somehow or other the church looked cold and raw and uninviting. It looked a church for show, --much too big for the scattered hamlet, and void of all the venerable associations which give their peculiar and unspeakable atmosphere of piety to the churches in which succeeding generations have knelt and worshipped. Leonard paused and surveyed the edifice with an unlearned but poetical gaze; it dissatisfied him. And he was yet pondering why, when a young girl passed slowly before him, her eyes fixed on the ground, opened the little gate that led into the churchyard, and vanished. He did not see the child's face; but there was something in her movements so utterly listless, forlorn, and sad that his heart was touched. What did she there? He approached the low wall with a noiseless step, and looked over it wistfully. There by a grave, evidently quite recent, with no wooden tomb nor tombstone like the rest, the little girl had thrown herself, and she was sobbing loud and passionately. Leonard opened the gate, and approached her with a soft step. Mingled with her sobs, he heard broken sentences, wild and vain, as all human sorrowings over graves must be. "Father! oh, Father, do you not really hear me? I am so lone, so lone! Take me to you,--take me!" And she buried her face in the deep grass. "Poor child!" said Leonard, in a half whisper,--"he is not there. Look above!" The girl did not heed him; he put his arm round her waist gently; she made a gesture of impatience and anger, but she would not turn her face, and she clung to the grave with her hands. After clear, sunny days the dews fall more heavily; and now, as the sun set, the herbage was bathed in a vaporous haze,--a dim mist rose around. The young man seated himself beside her, and tried to draw the child to his breast. Then she turned eagerly, indignantly, and pushed him aside with jealous arms. He profaned the grave! He understood her with his deep poet-heart, and rose. There was a pause. Leonard was the first to break it. "Come to your home with me, my child, and we will talk of him by the way." "Him! Who are you? You did not know him!" said the girl, still with anger. "Go away! Why do you disturb me? I do no one harm. Go! go!" "You do yourself harm, and that will grieve him if he sees you yonder! Come!" The child looked at him through her blinding tears, and his face softened and soothed her. "Go!" she said, very plaintively, and in subdued accents. "I will but stay a minute more. I--I have so much to say yet." Leonard left the churchyard, and waited without; and in a short time the child came forth, waived him aside as he approached her, and hurried away. He followed her at a distance, and saw her disappear within the inn. CHAPTER V. "Hip-Hip-Hurrah!" Such was the sound that greeted our young traveller as he reached the inn door,--a sound joyous in itself, but sadly out of harmony with the feelings which the child sobbing on the tombless grave had left at his heart. The sound came from within, and was followed by thumps and stamps, and the jingle of glasses. A strong odour of tobacco was wafted to his olfactory sense. He hesitated a moment at the threshold. Before him, on benches under the beech-tree and within the arbour, were grouped sundry athletic forms with "pipes in the liberal air." The landlady, as she passed across the passage to the taproom, caught sight of his form at the doorway, and came forward. Leonard still stood irresolute. He would have gone on his way, but for the child: she had interested him strongly. "You seem full, ma'am," said he. "Can I have accommodation for the night?" "Why, indeed, sir," said the landlady, civilly, "I can give you a bedroom, but I don't know where to put you meanwhile. The two parlours and the tap-room and the kitchen are all choke-full. There has been a great cattle-fair in the neighbourhood, and I suppose we have as many as fifty farmers and drovers stopping here." "As to that, ma'am, I can sit in the bedroom you are kind enough to give me; and if it does not cause you much trouble to let me have some tea there, I should be glad; but I can wait your leisure. Do not put yourself out of the way for me." The landlady was touched by a consideration she was not much habituated to receive from her bluff customers. "You speak very handsome, sir, and we will do our best to serve you, if you will excuse all faults. This way, sir." Leonard lowered his knapsack, stepped into the passage, with some difficulty forced his way through a knot of sturdy giants in top- boots or leathern gaiters, who were swarining in and out the tap-room, and followed his hostess upstairs to a little bedroom at the top of the house. "It is small, sir, and high," said the hostess, apologetically. "But there be four gentlemen farmers that have come a great distance, and all the first floor is engaged; you will be more out of the noise here." "Nothing can suit me better. But, stay,--pardon me;" and Leonard, glancing at the garb of the hostess, observed she was not in mourning. "A little girl whom I saw in the churchyard yonder, weeping very bitterly--is she a relation of yours? Poor child! she seems to have deeper feelings than are common at her age." "Ah, sir," said the landlady, putting the corner of her apron to her eyes, "it is a very sad story. I don't know what to do. Her father was taken ill on his way to Lunnon, and stopped here, and has been buried four days. And the poor little girl seems to have no relations--and where is she to go? Laryer Jones says we must pass her to Marybone parish, where her father lived last; and what's to become of her then? My heart bleeds to think on it." Here there rose such an uproar from below, that it was evident some quarrel had broken out; and the hostess, recalled to her duties, hastened to carry thither her propitiatory influences. Leonard seated himself pensively by the little lattice. Here was some one more alone in the world than he; and she, poor orphan, had no stout man's heart to grapple with fate, and no golden manuscripts that were to be as the "Open-Sesame" to the treasures of Aladdin. By and by, the hostess brought him up a tray with tea and other refreshments, and Leonard resumed his inquiries. "No relatives?" said he; "surely the child must have some kinsfolk in London? Did her father leave no directions, or was he in possession of his faculties?" "Yes, sir; he was quite reasonable like to the last. And I asked him if he had not anything on his mind, and he said, 'I have.' And I said, 'Your little girl, sir?' And he answered me, 'Yes, ma'am;' and laying his head on his pillow, he wept very quietly. I could not say more myself, for it set me off to see him cry so meekly; but my husband is harder nor I, and he said, 'Cheer up, Mr. Digby; had not you better write to your friends?' "'Friends!' said the gentleman, in such a voice! 'Friends I have but one, and I am going to Him! I cannot take her there!' Then he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and called for his clothes, and rummaged in the pockets as if looking for some address, and could not find it. He seemed a forgetful kind of gentleman, and his hands were what I call helpless hands, sir! And then he gasped out, 'Stop, stop! I never had the address. Write to Lord Les--', something like Lord Lester, but we could not make out the name. Indeed he did not finish it, for there was a rush of blood to his lips; and though he seemed sensible when he recovered (and knew us and his little girl too, till he went off smiling), he never spoke word more." "Poor man," said Leonard, wiping his eyes. "But his little girl surely remembers the name that he did not finish?" "No. She says he must have meant a gentleman whom they had met in the Park not long ago, who was very kind to her father, and was Lord something; but she don't remember the name, for she never saw him before or since, and her father talked very little about any one lately, but thought he should find some kind friends at Screwstown, and travelled down there with her from Lunnon. But she supposes he was disappointed, for he went out, came back, and merely told her to put up the things, as they must go back to Lunnon. And on his way there he--died. Hush, what's that? I hope she did not overhear us. No, we were talking low. She has the next room to your'n, sir. I thought I heard her sobbing. Hush!" "In the next room? I hear nothing. Well, with your leave, I will speak to her before I quit you. And had her father no money with him?" "Yes, a few sovereigns, sir; they paid for his funeral, and there is a little left still,--enough to take her to town; for my husband said, says he, 'Hannah, the widow gave her mite, and we must not take the orphan's;' and my husband is a hard man, too, sir--bless him!" "Let me take your hand, ma'am. God reward you both." "La, sir! why, even Dr. Dosewell said, rather grumpily though, 'Never mind my bill; but don't call me up at six o'clock in the morning again, without knowing a little more about people.' And I never afore knew Dr. Dosewell go without his bill being paid. He said it was a trick o' the other doctor to spite him." "What other doctor?" "Oh, a very good gentleman, who got out with Mr. Digby when he was taken ill, and stayed till the next morning; and our doctor says his name is Morgan, and he lives in Lunnou, and is a homy--something." "Homicide," suggested Leonard, ignorantly. "Ah, homicide; something like that, only a deal longer and worse. But he left some of the tiniest little balls you ever see, sir, to give the child; but, bless you, they did her no good,--how should they?" "Tiny balls, oh--homoeopathist--I understand. And the doctor was kind to her; perhaps he may help her. Have you written to him?" "But we don't know his address, and Lunnon is a vast place, sir." "I am going to London and will find it out." "Ah, sir, you seem very kind; and sin' she must go to Lunnon (for what can we do with her here?--she's too genteel for service), I wish she was going with you." "With me!" said Leonard, startled,--"with me! Well, why not?" "I am sure she comes of good blood, sir. You would have known her father was quite the gentleman, only to see him die, sir. He went off so kind and civil like, as if he was ashamed to give so much trouble,--quite a gentleman, if ever there was one. And so are you, sir, I'm sure," said the land lady, courtesying; "I know what gentlefolk be. I've been a housekeeper in the first of families in this very shire, sir, though I can't say I've served in Lunnon; and so, as gentlefolks know each other, I 've no doubt you could find out her relations. Dear, dear! Coming, coming!" Here there were loud cries for the hostess, and she hurried away. The farmers and drovers were beginning to depart, and their bills were to be made out and paid. Leonard saw his hostess no more that night. The last Hip-hip-hurrah was heard,--some toast, perhaps to the health of the county members,--and the chamber of woe beside Leonard's rattled with the shout. By and by, silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant sounds below. The carts and gigs rolled away; the clatter of hoofs on the road ceased; there was then a dumb dull sound as of locking-up, and low, humming voices below, and footsteps mounting the stairs to bed, with now and then a drunken hiccough or maudlin laugh, as some conquered votary of Bacchus was fairly carried up to his domicile. All, then, at last was silent, just as the clock from the church sounded the stroke of eleven. Leonard, meanwhile, had been looking over his manuscripts. There was first a project for an improvement on the steam-engine,--a project that had long lain in his mind, begun with the first knowledge of mechanics that he had gleaned from his purchases of the tinker. He put that aside now,--it required too great an effort of the reasoning faculty to re-examine. He glanced less hastily over a collection of essays on various subjects, --some that he thought indifferent, some that he thought good. He then lingered over a collection of verses written in his best hand with loving care,--verses first inspired by his perusal of Nora's melancholy memorials. These verses were as a diary of his heart and his fancy,-- those deep, unwitnessed struggles which the boyhood of all more thoughtful natures has passed in its bright yet murky storm of the cloud and the lightning-flash, though but few boys pause to record the crisis from which slowly emerges Man. And these first desultory grapplings with the fugitive airy images that flit through the dim chambers of the brain had become with each effort more sustained and vigorous, till the phantoms were spelled, the flying ones arrested, the Immaterial seized, and clothed with Form. Gazing on his last effort, Leonard felt that there at length spoke forth the poet. It was a work which though as yet but half completed, came from a strong hand; not that shadow trembling on unsteady waters, which is but the pale reflex and imitation of some bright mind, sphered out of reach and afar, but an original substance,-- a life, a thing of the Creative Faculty,--breathing back already the breath it had received. This work had paused during Leonard's residence with Mr. Avenel, or had only now and then, in stealth, and at night, received a rare touch. Now, as with a fresh eye he reperused it, and with that strange, innocent admiration, not of self--for a man's work is not, alas! himself,--it is the beautified and idealized essence, extracted he knows not how from his own human elements of clay; admiration known but to poets,--their purest delight, often their sole reward. And then with a warmer and more earthly beat of his full heart, he rushed in fancy to the Great City, where all rivers of fame meet, but not to be merged and lost, sallying forth again, individualized and separate, to flow through that one vast Thought of God which we call THE WORLD. He put up his papers; and opened his window, as was his ordinary custom, before he retired to rest,--for he had many odd habits; and he loved to look out into the night when he prayed. His soul seemed to escape from the body--to mount on the air, to gain more rapid access to the far Throne in the Infinite--when his breath went forth among the winds, and his eyes rested fixed on the stars of heaven. So the boy prayed silently; and after his prayer he was about, lingeringly, to close the lattice, when he heard distinctly sobs close at hand. He paused, and held his breath, then looked gently out; the casement next his own was also open. Someone was also at watch by that casement,--perhaps also praying. He listened yet more intently, and caught, soft and low, the words, "Father, Father, do you hear me now?" CHAPTER VI. Leonard opened his door and stole towards that of the room adjoining; for his first natural impulse had been to enter and console. But when his touch was on the handle, he drew back. Child though the mourner was, her sorrows were rendered yet more sacred from intrusion by her sex. Something, he knew not what, in his young ignorance, withheld him from the threshold. To have crossed it then would have seemed to him profanation. So he returned, and for hours yet he occasionally heard the sobs, till they died away, and childhood wept itself to sleep. But the next morning, when he heard his neighbour astir, he knocked gently at her door: there was no answer. He entered softly, and saw her seated very listlessly in the centre of the room,--as if it had no familiar nook or corner as the rooms of home have, her hands drooping on her lap, and her eyes gazing desolately on the floor. Then he approached and spoke to her. Helen was very subdued, and very silent. Her tears seemed dried up; and it was long before she gave sign or token that she heeded him. At length, however, he gradually succeeded in rousing her interest; and the first symptom of his success was in the quiver of her lip, and the overflow of her downcast eyes. By little and little he wormed himself into her confidence; and she told him in broken whispers her simple story. But what moved him the most was, that beyond her sense of loneliness she did not seem to feel her own unprotected state. She mourned the object she had nursed and heeded and cherished, for she had been rather the protectress than the protected to the helpless dead. He could not gain from her any more satisfactory information than the landlady had already imparted, as to her friends and prospects; but she permitted him passively to look among the effects her father had left, save only that, if his hand touched something that seemed to her associations especially holy, she waved him back, or drew it quickly away. There were many bills receipted in the name of Captain Digby, old yellow faded music-scores for the flute, extracts of Parts from Prompt Books, gay parts of lively comedies, in which heroes have so noble a contempt for money,--fit heroes for a Sheridan and a Farquhar; close by these were several pawnbroker's tickets; and, not arrayed smoothly, but crumpled up, as if with an indignant nervous clutch of the helpless hands, some two or three letters. He asked Helen's permission to glance at these, for they might afford a clew to friends. Helen gave the permission by a silent bend of the head. The letters, however, were but short and freezing answers from what appeared to be distant connections or former friends, or persons to whom the deceased had applied for some situation. They were all very disheartening in their tone. Leonard next endeavoured to refresh Helen's memory as to the name of the nobleman which had been last on her father's lips; but there he failed wholly. For it may be remembered that Lord L'Estrange, when he pressed his loan on Mr. Digby, and subsequently told that gentleman to address him at Mr. Egerton's, had, from a natural delicacy, sent the child on, that she might not witness the charity bestowed on the father; and Helen said truly that Mr. Digby had sunk latterly into an habitual silence on all his affairs. She might have heard her father mention the name, but she had not treasured it up; all she could say was, that she should know the stranger again if she met him, and his dog too. Seeing that the child had grown calm, Leonard was then going to leave the room, in order to confer with the hostess, when she rose suddenly, though noiselessly, and put her little hand in his, as if to detain him. She did not say a word; the action said all,--said, "Do not desert me." And Leonard's heart rushed to his lips, and he answered to the action, as he bent down, and kissed her cheek, "Orphan, will you go with me? We have one Father yet to both of us, and He will guide us on earth. I am fatherless like you." She raised her eyes to his, looked at him long, and then leaned her head confidingly on his strong young shoulder. CHAPTER VII. At noon that same day the young man and the child were on their road to London. The host had at first a little demurred at trusting Helen to so young a companion; but Leonard, in his happy ignorance, had talked so sanguinely of finding out this lord, or some adequate protectors for the child; and in so grand a strain, though with all sincerity, had spoken of his own great prospects in the metropolis (he did not say what they were!) that had he been the craftiest impostor he could not more have taken in the rustic host. And while the landlady still cherished the illusive fancy that all gentlefolks must know each other in London, as they did in a county, the landlord believed, at least, that a young man so respectably dressed, although but a foot-traveller, who talked in so confident a tone, and who was so willing to undertake what might be rather a burdensome charge, unless he saw how to rid himself of it, would be sure to have friends older and wiser than himself, who would judge what could best be done for the orphan. And what was the host to do with her? Better this volunteered escort, at least, than vaguely passing her on from parish to parish, and leaving her friendless at last in the streets of London. Helen, too, smiled for the first time on being asked her wishes, and again put her hand in Leonard's. In short, so it was settled. The little girl made up a bundle of the things she most prized or needed. Leonard did not feel the additional load, as he slung it to his knapsack; the rest of the luggage was to be sent to London as soon as Leonard wrote (which he promised to do soon) and gave an address. Helen paid her last visit to the churchyard; and she joined her companion as he stood on the road, without the solemn precincts. And now they had gone on some hours; and when he asked her if she were tired, she still answered "No." But Leonard was merciful, and made their day's journey short; and it took them some days to reach London. By the long lonely way they grew so intimate, at the end of the second day, they called each other brother and sister; and Leonard, to his delight, found that as her grief, with the bodily movement and the change of scene, subsided from its first intenseness and its insensibility to other impressions, she developed a quickness of comprehension far beyond her years. Poor child! that had been forced upon her by Necessity. And she understood him in his spiritual consolations, half poetical, half religious; and she listened to his own tale, and the story of his self-education and solitary struggles,--those, too, she understood. But when he burst out with his enthusiasm, his glorious hopes, his confidence in the fate before them, then she would shake her head very quietly and very sadly. Did she comprehend them! Alas! perhaps too well. She knew more as to real life than he did. Leonard was at first their joint treasurer; but before the second day was over, Helen seemed to discover that he was too lavish; and she told him so, with a prudent grave look, putting her hand on his arm as he was about to enter an inn to dine; and the gravity would have been comic, but that the eyes through their moisture were so meek and grateful. She felt he was about to incur that ruinous extravagance on her account. Somehow or other, the purse found its way into her keeping, and then she looked proud and in her natural element. Ah! what happy meals under her care were provided; so much more enjoyable than in dull, sanded inn-parlours, swarming with flies, and reeking with stale tobacco. She would leave him at the entrance of a village, bound forward, and cater, and return with a little basket and a pretty blue jug--which she had bought on the road,--the last filled with new milk; the first with new bread, and some special dainty in radishes or water- tresses. And she had such a talent for finding out the prettiest spot whereon to halt and dine: sometimes in the heart of a wood,--so still, it was like a forest in fairy tales, the hare stealing through the alleys, or the squirrel peeping at them from the boughs; sometimes by a little brawling stream, with the fishes seen under the clear wave, and shooting round the crumbs thrown to them. They made an Arcadia of the dull road up to their dread Thermopylae, the war against the million that waited them on the other side of their pass through Tempo. "Shall we be as happy when we are great?" said Leonard, in his grand simplicity. Helen sighed, and the wise little head was shaken. CHAPTER VIII. At last they came within easy reach of London; but Leonard had resolved not to enter the metropolis fatigued and exhausted, as a wanderer needing refuge, but fresh and elate, as a conqueror coming in triumph to take possession of the capital. Therefore they halted early in the evening of the day preceding this imperial entry, about six miles from the metropolis, in the neighbourhood of Ealing (for by that route lay their way). They were not tired on arriving at their inn. The weather was singularly lovely, with that combination of softness and brilliancy which is only known to the rare true summer days of England; all below so green, above so blue,--days of which we have about six in the year, and recall vaguely when we read of Robin Hood and Maid Marian, of Damsel and Knight in Spenser's golden Summer Song, or of Jacques, dropped under the oak-tree, watching the deer amidst the dells of Ardennes. So, after a little pause at their inn, they strolled forth, not for travel but pleasure, towards the cool of sunset, passing by the grounds that once belonged to the Duke of Kent, and catching a glimpse of the shrubs and lawns of that beautiful domain through the lodge-gates; then they crossed into some fields, and came to a little rivulet called the Brent. Helen had been more sad that day than on any during their journey,--perhaps because, on approaching London, the memory of her father became more vivid; perhaps from her precocious knowledge of life, and her foreboding of what was to befall them, children that they both were. But Leonard was selfish that day; he could not be influenced by his companion's sorrow; he was so full of his own sense of being, and he already caught from the atmosphere the fever that belongs to anxious capitals. "Sit here, sister," said he, imperiously, throwing himself under the shade of a pollard-tree that overhung the winding brook, "sit here and talk." He flung off his hat, tossed back his rich curls, and sprinkled his brow from the stream that eddied round the roots of the tree that bulged out, bald and gnarled, from the bank and delved into the waves below. Helen quietly obeyed him, and nestled close to his side. "And so this London is really very vast,--VERY?" he repeated inquisitively. "Very," answered Helen, as, abstractedly, she plucked the cowslips near her, and let them fall into the running waters. "See how the flowers are carried down the stream! They are lost now. London is to us what the river is to the flowers, very vast, very strong;" and she added, after a pause, "very cruel!" "Cruel! Ah, it has been so to you; but now--now I will take care of you!" he smiled triumphantly; and his smile was beautiful both in its pride and its kindness. It is astonishing how Leonard had altered since he had left his uncle's. He was both younger and older; for the sense of genius, when it snaps its shackles, makes us both older and wiser as to the world it soars to, younger and blinder as to the world it springs from. "And it is not a very handsome city, either, you say?" "Very ugly indeed," said Helen, with some fervour; "at least all I have seen of it." "But there must be parts that are prettier than others? You say there are parks: why should not we lodge near them and look upon the green trees?" "That would be nice," said Helen, almost joyously; "but--" and here the head was shaken--"there are no lodgings for us except in courts and alleys." "Why?" "Why?" echoed Helen, with a smile, and she held up the purse. "Pooh! always that horrid purse; as if, too, we were not going to fill it! Did not I tell you the story of Fortunio? Well, at all events, we will go first to the neighbourhood where you last lived, and learn there all we can; and then the day after to-morrow I will see this Dr. Morgan, and find out the lord." The tears started to Helen's soft eyes. "You want to get rid of me soon, brother." "I! Ah, I feel so happy to have you with me it seems to me as if I had pined for you all my life, and you had come at last; for I never had brother nor sister nor any one to love, that was not older than myself, except--" "Except the young lady you told me of," said Helen, turning away her face; for children are very jealous. "Yes, I loved her, love her still. But that was different," said Leonard. "I could never have talked to her as to you: to you I open my whole heart; you are my little Muse, Helen: I confess to you my wild whims and fancies as frankly as if I were writing poetry." As he said this, a step was heard, and a shadow fell over the stream. A belated angler appeared on the margin, drawing his line impatiently across the water, as if to worry some dozing fish into a bite before it finally settled itself for the night. Absorbed in his occupation, the angler did not observe the young persons on the sward under the tree, and he halted there, close upon them. "Curse that perch!" said he, aloud. "Take care, sir," cried Leonard; for the man, in stepping back, nearly trod upon Helen. The angler turned. "What 's the matter? Hist! you have frightened my perch. Keep still, can't you?" Helen drew herself out of the way, and Leonard remained motionless. He remembered Jackeymo, and felt a sympathy for the angler. "It is the most extraordinary perch, that!" muttered the stranger, soliloquizing. "It has the devil's own luck. It must have been born with a silver spoon in its mouth, that damned perch! I shall never catch it,--never! Ha! no, only a weed. I give it up." With this, he indignantly jerked his rod from the water and began to disjoint it. While leisurely engaged in this occupation, he turned to Leonard. "Humph! are you intimately acquainted with this stream, sir?" "No," answered Leonard. "I never saw it before." ANGLER, (solemnly).--"Then, young man, take my advice, and do not give way to its fascinations. Sir, I am a martyr to this stream; it has been the Delilah of my existence." LEONARD (interested, the last sentence seemed to him poetical).--"The Delilah! sir, the Delilah!" ANGLER.--"The Delilah. Young man, listen, and be warned by example. When I was about your age, I first came to this stream to fish. Sir, on that fatal day, about three p.m., I hooked up a fish,--such a big one, it must have weighed a pound and a half. Sir, it was that length; "and the angler put finger to wrist. "And just when I had got it nearly ashore, by the very place where you are sitting, on that shelving bank, young man, the line broke, and the perch twisted himself among those roots, and--cacodaemon that he was--ran off, hook and all. Well, that fish haunted me; never before had I seen such a fish. Minnows I had caught in the Thames and elsewhere, also gudgeons, and occasionally a dace. But a fish like that--a PERCH, all his fins up, like the sails of a man-of-war --a monster perch,--a whale of a perch! No, never till then had I known what leviathans lie hid within the deeps. I could not sleep till I had returned; and again, sir,--I caught that perch. And this time I pulled him fairly out of the water. He escaped; and how did he escape? Sir, he left his eye behind him on the hook. Years, long years, have passed since then; but never shall I forget the agony of that moment." LEONARD.--"To the perch, sir?" ANGLER.--"Perch! agony to him! He enjoyed it. Agony to me! I gazed on that eye, and the eye looked as sly and as wicked as if it were laughing in my face. Well, sir, I had heard that there is no better bait for a perch than a perch's eye. I adjusted that eye on the hook, and dropped in the line gently. The water was unusually clear; in two minutes I saw that perch return. He approached the hook; he recognized his eye, frisked his tail, made a plunge, and, as I live, carried off the eye, safe and sound; and I saw him digesting it by the side of that water- lily. The mocking fiend! Seven times since that day, in the course of a varied and eventful life, have I caught that perch, and seven times has that perch escaped." LEONARD (astonished).--"It can't be the same perch; perches are very tender fish. A hook inside of it, and an eye hooked out of it--no perch could withstand such havoc in its constitution." ANGLER (with an appearance of awe).--"It does seem supernatural. But it is that perch; for hark ye, sir, there is ONLY ONE perch in the whole brook! All the years I have fished here, I have never caught another perch; and this solitary inmate of the watery element I know by sight better than I knew my own lost father. For each time that I have raised it out of the water, its profile has been turned to me, and I have seen with a shudder that it has had only--One Eye! It is a most mysterious and a most diabolical phenomenon, that perch! It has been the ruin of my prospects in life. I was offered a situation in Jamaica: I could not go with that perch left here in triumph. I might afterwards have had an appointinent in India, but I could not put the ocean between myself and that perch: thus have I frittered away my existence in the fatal metropolis of my native land. And once a week from February to December I come hither. Good heavens! if I should catch the perch at last, the occupation of my existence will be gone." Leonard gazed curiously at the angler, as the last thus mournfully concluded. The ornate turn of his periods did not suit with his costume. He looked wofully threadbare and shabby,--a genteel sort of shabbiness too,--shabbiness in black. There was humour in the corners of his lip; and his hands, though they did not seem very clean--indeed his occupation was not friendly to such niceties--were those of a man who had not known manual labour. His face was pale and puffed, but the tip of the nose was red. He did not seem as if the watery element was as familiar to himself as to his Delilah, the perch. "Such is Life!" recommenced the angler, in a moralizing tone, as he slid his rod into its canvas case. "If a man knew what it was to fish all one's life in a stream that has only one perch, to catch that one perch nine times in all, and nine times to see it fall back into the water, plump,--if a man knew what it was, why, then "--here the angler looked over his shoulder full at Leonard--"why then, young sir, he would know what human life is to vain ambition. Good-evening." Away he went treading over the daisies and kingcups. Helen's eyes followed him wistfully. "What a strange person!" said Leonard, laughing. "I think he is a very wise one," murmured Helen; and she came close up to Leonard, and took his hand in both hers, as if she felt already that he was in need of the Comforter,--the line broken, and the perch lost! CHAPTER IX. At noon the next day, London stole upon them through a gloomy, thick, oppressive atmosphere; for where is it that we can say London bursts on the sight? It stole on them through one of its fairest and most gracious avenues of approach,--by the stately gardens of Kensington, along the side of Hyde Park, and so on towards Cumberland Gate. Leonard was not the least struck. And yet with a very little money, and a very little taste, it would be easy to render this entrance to London as grand and as imposing as that to Paris from the Champs Elysees. As they came near the Edgware Road, Helen took her new brother by the hand and guided him; for she knew all that neighbourhood, and she was acquainted with a lodging near that occupied by her father (to that lodging itself she could not have gone for the world), where they might be housed cheaply. But just then the sky, so dull and overcast since morning, seemed one mass of black cloud. There suddenly came on a violent storm of rain. The boy and girl took refuge in a covered mews, in a street running out of the Edgware Road. This shelter soon became crowded; the two young pilgrims crept close to the wall, apart from the rest, Leonard's arm round Helen's waist, sheltering her from the rain that the strong wind contending with it beat in through the passage. Presently a young gentleman of better mien and dress than the other refugees entered, not hastily, but rather with a slow and proud step, as if, though he deigned to take shelter, he scorned to run to it. He glanced somewhat haughtily at the assembled group, passed on through the midst of it, came near Leonard, took off his hat, and shook the rain from its brim. His head thus uncovered, left all his features exposed; and the village youth recognized, at the first glance, his old victorious assailant on the green at Hazeldean. CHAPTER IX. Yet Randal Leslie was altered. His dark cheek was as thin as in boyhood, and even yet more wasted by intense study and night vigils; but the expression of his face was at once more refined and manly, and there was a steady concentrated light in his eye, like that of one who has been in the habit of bringing all his thoughts to one point. He looked older than he was. He was dressed simply in black, a colour which became him; and altogether his aspect and figure were, not showy indeed, but distinguished. He looked to the common eye a gentleman; and to the more observant a scholar. Helter-skelter! pell-mell! the group in the passage now pressed each on each, now scattered on all sides, making way, rushing down the mews, against the walls, as a fiery horse darted under shelter. The rider, a young man with a very handsome face, and dressed with that peculiar care which we commonly call dandyism, cried out, good-humouredly, "Don't be afraid; the horse sha'n't hurt any of you. A thousand pardons--so ho! so ho!" He patted the horse, and it stood as still as a statue, filling up the centre of the passage. The groups resettled; Randal approached the rider. "Frank Hazeldean!" "Ah, is it indeed Randal Leslie?" Frank was off his horse in a moment, and the bridle was consigned to the care of a slim 'prentice-boy holding a bundle. "My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you. How lucky it was that I should turn in here. Not like me either, for I don't much care for a ducking. Staying in town, Randal?" "Yes; at your uncle's, Mr. Egerton. I have left Oxford." "For good?" "For good." "But you have not taken your degree, I think? We Etonians all considered you booked for a double-first. Oh, we have been so proud of your fame,-- you carried off all the prizes." "Not all; but some, certainly. Mr. Egerton offered me my choice,--to stay for my degree, or to enter at once into the Foreign Office. I preferred the end to the means. For, after all, what good are academical honours but as the entrance to life? To enter now is to save a step in a long way, Frank." "Ah, you were always ambitious, and you will make a great figure, I am sure." "Perhaps so--if I work for it. Knowledge is power." Leonard started. "And you!" resumed Randal, looking with some curious attention at his old schoolfellow. "You never came to Oxford. I did hear you were going into the army." "I am in the Guards," said Frank, trying hard not to look too conceited as he made that acknowledgment. "The governor pished a little, and would rather I had come to live with him in the old Hall, and take to farming. Time enough for that, eh? By Jove, Randal, how pleasant a thing is life in London! Do you go to Almack's to-night?" "No; Wednesday is a holiday in the House. There is a great parliamentary dinner at Mr. Egerton's. He is in the Cabinet now, you know; but you don't see much of your uncle, I think." "Our sets are different," said the young gentleman, in a tone of voice worthy of Brummel. "All those parliamentary fellows are devilish dull. The rain's over. I don't know whether the governor would like me to call at Grosvenor Square; but pray come and see me. Here's my card to remind you; you must dine at our mess. Such capital fellows! What day will you fix?" "I will call and let you know. Don't you find it rather expensive in the Guards? I remember that you thought the governor, as you call him, used to chafe a little when you wrote for more pocket-money; and the only time I ever saw you with tears in your eyes was when Mr. Hazeldean, in sending you L5, reminded you that his estates were not entailed,--were at his own disposal, and they should never go to an extravagant spendthrift. It was not a pleasant threat that, Frank." "Oh!" cried the young man, colouring deeply. "It was not the threat that pained me; it was that my father could think so meanly of me as to fancy that---Well, well, but those were schoolboy days. And my father was always more generous than I deserved. We must see a great deal of each other, Randal. How good-natured you were at Eton, making my longs and shorts for me; I shall never forget it. Do call soon." Frank swung himself into his saddle, and rewarded the slim youth with half-a-crown,--a largess four times more ample than his father would have deemed sufficient. A jerk of the reins and a touch of the heel, off bounded the fiery horse and the gay young rider. Randal mused, and as the rain had now ceased, the passengers under shelter dispersed and went their way. Only Randal, Leonard, and Helen remained behind. Then, as Randal, still musing, lifted his eyes, they fell full upon Leonard's face. He started, passed his hand quickly over his brow, looked again, hard and piercingly; and the change in his pale cheek to a shade still paler, a quick compression and nervous gnawing of his lip, showed that he too recognized an old foe. Then his glance ran over Leonard's dress, which was somewhat dust-stained, but far above the class amongst which the peasant was born. Randal raised his brows in surprise, and with a smile slightly supercilious--the smile stung Leonard--and with a slow step, Randal left the passage, and took his way towards Grosvenor Square. The Entrance of Ambition was clear to him. Then the little girl once more took Leonard by the hand, and led him through rows of humble, obscure, dreary streets. It seemed almost like an allegory personified, as the sad, silent child led on the penniless and low-born adventurer of genius by the squalid shops and through the winding lanes, which grew meaner and meaner, till both their forms vanished from the view. CHAPTER X. "But do come; change your dress, return and dine with me; you will have just time, Harley. You will meet the most eminent men of our party; surely they are worth your study, philosopher that you affect to be." Thus said Audley Egerton to Lord L'Estrange, with whom he had been riding (after the toils of his office). The two gentlemen were in Audley's library,--Mr. Egerton, as usual, buttoned up, seated in his chair, in the erect posture of a man who scorns "inglorious ease;" Harley, as usual, thrown at length on the sofa., his long hair in careless curls, his neckcloth loose, his habiliments flowing simplex mundit is, indeed, his grace all his own; seemingly negligent, never slovenly; at ease everywhere and with every one, even with Mr. Audley Egerton, who chilled or awed the ease out of most people. "Nay, my dear Audley, forgive me. But your eminent men are all men of one idea, and that not a diverting one, politics! politics! politics! The storm in the saucer." "But what is your life, Harley?--the saucer without the storm?" "Do you know, that's very well said, Audley? I did not think you had so much liveliness of repartee. Life! life! it is insipid, it is shallow, --no launching Argosies in the saucer. Audley, I have the oddest fancy--" "That of course," said Audley, dryly; "you never had any other. What is the new one?" HARLEY (with great gravity).--"Do you believe in Mesmerism?" AUDLEY.--"Certainly not." HARLEY.--"If it were in the power of an animal magnetizer to get me out of my own skin into somebody's else! That's my fancy! I am so tired of myself,--so tired! I have run through all my ideas,--know every one of them by heart. When some pretentious impostor of an idea perks itself up and says, 'Look at me,--I 'm a new acquaintance,' I just give it a nod, and say 'Not at all, you have only got a new coat on; you are the same old wretch that has bored me these last twenty years; get away.' But if one could be in a new skin, if I could be for half-an-hour your tall porter, or one of your eminent matter-of-fact men, I should then really travel into a new world.' Every man's brain must be a world in itself, eh? If I could but make a parochial settlement even in yours, Audley,-- run over all your thoughts and sensations. Upon my life, I 'll go and talk to that French mesmerizer about it." [If, at the date in which Lord L'Estrange held this conversation with Mr. Egerton, Alfred de Musset had written his comedies, we should suspect that his lordship had plagiarized from one of them the whimsical idea that he here vents upon Audley. In repeating it, the author at least cannot escape from the charge of obligation to a writer whose humour is sufficiently opulent to justify the loan.] AUDLEY (who does not seem to like the notion of having his thoughts and sensations rummaged, even by his friend, and even in fancy)--"Pooh, pooh, pooh! Do talk like a man of sense." HARLEY.--"Man of sense! Where shall I find a model? I don't know a man of sense!--never met such a creature. Don't believe it ever existed. At one time I thought Socrates must have been a man of sense: a delusion; he would stand gazing into the air, and talking to his Genius from sunrise to sunset. Is that like a man of sense? Poor Audley! how puzzled he looks! Well, I'll try and talk sense to oblige you. And first" (here Harley raised himself on his elbow),--"first, is it true, as I have heard vaguely, that you are paying court to the sister of that infamous Italian traitor?" "Madame di Negra? No: I am not paying court to her," answered Audley, with a cold smile. "But she is very handsome; she is very clever; she is useful to me,--I need not say how or why; that belongs to my metier as a politician. But I think, if you will take my advice, or get your friend to take it, I could obtain from her brother, through my influence with her, some liberal concessions to your exile. She is very anxious to know where he is." "You have not told her?" "No; I promised you I would keep that secret." "Be sure you do; it is only for some mischief, some snare, that she could desire such information. Concessions! pooh! This is no question of concessions, but of rights." "I think you should leave your friend to judge of that." "Well, I will write to him. Meanwhile, beware of this woman. I have heard much of her abroad, and she has the character of her brother for duplicity and--" "Beauty," interrupted Audley, turning the conversation with practised adroitness. "I am told that the count is one of the handsomest men in Europe, much handsomer than his sister still, though nearly twice her age. Tut, tut, Harley; fear not for me. I am proof against all feminine attractions. This heart is dead." "Nay, nay; it is not for you to speak thus,--leave that to me. But even I will not say it. The heart never dies. And you; what have you lost?-- a wife; true: an excellent, noble-hearted woman. But was it love that you felt for her? Enviable man, have you ever loved?" "Perhaps not, Harley," said Audley, with a sombre aspect and in dejected accents; "very few men ever have loved, at least as you mean by the word. But there are other passions than love that kill the heart, and reduce us to mechanism." While Egerton spoke, Harley turned aside, and his breast heaved. There was a short silence; Audley was the first to break it. "Speaking of my lost wife, I am sorry that you do not approve what I have done for her young kinsman, Randal Leslie." HARLEY (recovering himself with an effort).--"Is it true kindness to bid him exchange manly independence for the protection of an official patron?" AUDLEV.--"I did not bid him. I gave him his choice. At his age, I should have chosen as he has done." HARLEY.--"I trust not; I think better of you. But answer me one question frankly, and then I will ask another. Do you mean to make this young man your heir?" AUDLEY (with a slight embarrassment).--"Heir, pooh! I am young still. I may live as long as he--time enough to think of that." HARLEY.--"Then now to my second question. Have you told this youth plainly that he may look to you for influence, but not for wealth?" AUDLEY (firmly).--"I think I have; but I shall repeat it more emphatically." HARLEY.--"Then I am satisfied as to your conduct, but not as to his. For he has too acute an intellect not to know what it is to forfeit independence; and, depend on it, he has made his calculations, and would throw you into the bargain in any balance that he could strike in his favour. You go by your experience in judging men; I by my instincts. Nature warns us as it does the inferior animals,--only we are too conceited, we bipeds, to heed her. My instincts of soldier and gentleman recoil from that old young man. He has the soul of the Jesuit. I see it in his eye, I hear it in the tread of his foot; /volto sciolto/ he has not; /i pensieri stretti/ he has. Hist! I hear now his step in the hall. I should know it from a thousand. That's his very touch on the handle of the door." Randal Leslie entered. Harley--who, despite his disregard for forms, and his dislike to Randal, was too high-bred not to be polite to his junior in age or inferior in rank-rose and bowed. But his bright piercing eyes did not soften as they caught and bore down the deeper and more latent fire in Randal's. Harley did not resume his seat, but moved to the mantelpiece, and leaned against it. RANDAL.--"I have fulfilled your commissions, Mr. Egerton. I went first to Maida Hill, and saw Mr. Burley. I gave him the check, but he said it was too much, and he should return half to the banker; he will write the article as you suggested. I then--" AUDLEY.--"Enough, Randal! we will not fatigue Lord L'Estrange with these little details of a life that displeases him,--the life political." HARLEY.---"But these details do not displease me; they reconcile me to my own life. Go on, pray, Mr. Leslie." Randal had too much tact to need the cautioning glance of Mr. Egerton. He did not continue, but said with a soft voice, "Do you think, Lord L'Estrange, that the contemplation of the mode of life pursued by others can reconcile a man to his own, if he had before thought it needed a reconciler?" Harley looked pleased, for the question was ironical; and if there was a thing in the world be abhorred, it was flattery. "Recollect your Lucretius, Mr. Leslie, the /Suave mare/, etc., 'pleasant from the cliff to see the mariners tossed on the ocean.' Faith, I think that sight reconciles one to the cliff, though, before, one might have been teased by the splash from the spray, and deafened by the scream of the sea-gulls. But I leave you, Audley. Strange that I have heard no more of my soldier! Remember I have your promise when I come to claim it. Good-by, Mr. Leslie, I hope that Burley's article will be worth the check." Lord L'Estrange mounted his horse, which was still at the door, and rode through the Park. But he was no longer now unknown by sight. Bows and nods saluted him on every side. "Alas, I am found out, then," said he to himself. "That terrible Duchess of Knaresborough, too--I must fly my coun try." He pushed his horse into a canter, and was soon out of the Park. As he dismounted at his father's sequestered house, you would have hardly supposed him the same whimsical, fantastic, but deep and subtle humourist that delighted in perplexing the material Audley, for his expressive face was unutterably serious. But the moment he came into the presence of his parents, the countenance was again lighted and cheerful. It brightened the whole room like sunshine. CHAPTER XI. "Mr. Leslie," said Egerton, when Harley had left the library, "you did not act with your usual discretion in touching upon matters connected with politics in the presence of a third party." "I feel that already, sir; my excuse is, that I held Lord L'Estrange to be your most intimate friend." "A public man, Mr. Leslie, would ill serve his country if he were not especially reserved towards his private friends--when they do not belong to his party." "But pardon me my ignorance. Lord Lansmere is so well known to be one of your supporters, that I fancied his son must share his sentiments, and be in your confidence." Egerton's brows slightly contracted, and gave a stern expression to a countenance always firm and decided. He however answered in a mild tone, "At the entrance into political life, Mr. Leslie, there is nothing in which a young man of your talents should be more on his guard than thinking for himself; he will nearly always think wrong. And I believe that is one reason why young men of talent disappoint their friends, and remain so long out of office." A haughty flush passed over Randal's brow, and faded away quickly; he bowed in silence. Egerton resumed, as if in explanation, and even in kindly apology, "Look at Lord L'Estrange himself. What young man could come into life with brighter auspices? Rank, wealth, high animal spirits (a great advantage those same spirits, Mr. Leslie), courage, self-possession, scholarship as brilliant perhaps as your own; and now see how his life is wasted! Why? He always thought fit to think for himself. He could never be broken into harness, and never will be. The state coach, Mr. Leslie, requires that all the horses should pull together." "With submission, sir," answered Randal, "I should think that there were other reasons why Lord L'Estrange, whatever be his talents--and of these you must be indeed an adequate judge--would never do anything in public life." "Ay, and what?" said Egerton, quickly. "First," said Randal, shrewdly, "private life has done too much for him. What could public life give to one who needs nothing? Born at the top of the social ladder, why should he put himself voluntarily at the last step, for the sake of climbing up again? And secondly, Lord L'Estrange seems to me a man in whose organization /sentiment/ usurps too large a share for practical existence." "You have a keen eye," said Audley, with some admiration,--"keen for one so young. Poor Harley!" Mr. Egerton's last words were said to himself. He resumed quickly, "There is something on my mind, my young friend. Let us be frank with each other. I placed before you fairly the advantages and disadvantages of the choice I gave you. To take your degree with such honours as no doubt you would have won, to obtain your fellowship, to go to the Bar, with those credentials in favour of your talents,--this was one career. To come at once into public life, to profit by my experience, avail yourself of my interest, to take the chances of rise or fall with a party,--this was another. You chose the last. But in so doing, there was a consideration which might weigh with you, and on which, in stating your reasons for your option, you were silent." "What is that, sir?" "You might have counted on my fortune, should the chances of party fail you: speak, and without shame if so; it would be natural in a young man, who comes from the elder branch of the House whose heiress was my wife." "You wound me, Mr. Egerton," said Randal, turning away. Mr. Egerton's cold glance followed Randal's movements; the face was hid from the glance, and the statesman's eye rested on the figure, which is often as self-betraying as the countenance itself. Randal baffled Mr. Egerton's penetration,--the young man's emotion might be honest pride and pained and generous feeling, or it might be something else. Egerton continued slowly, "Once for all, then, distinctly and emphatically, I say, never count upon that; count upon all else that I can do for you, and forgive me when I advise harshly or censure coldly; ascribe this to my interest in your career. Moreover, before decision becomes irrevocable, I wish you to know practically all that is disagreeable or even humiliating in the first subordinate steps of him who, without wealth or station, would rise in public life. I will not consider your choice settled till the end of a year at least,--your name will be kept on the college books till then; if on experience you should prefer to return to Oxford, and pursue the slower but surer path to independence and distinction, you can. And now give me your hand, Mr. Leslie, in sign that you forgive my bluntness: it is time to dress." Randal, with his face still averted, extended his hand. Mr. Egerton held it a moment, then dropping it, left the room. Randal turned as the door closed; and there was in his dark face a power of sinister passion, that justified all Harley's warnings. His lips moved, but not audibly; then as if struck by a sudden thought, he followed Egerton into the hall. "Sir," said he, "I forgot to say, that on returning from Maida Hill, I took shelter from the rain under a covered passage, and there I met unexpectedly with your nephew, Frank Hazeldean." "Ah!" said Egerton, indifferently, "a fine young man; in the Guards. It is a pity that my brother has such antiquated political notions; he should put his son into parliament, and under my guidance; I could push him. Well, and what said Frank?" "He invited me to call on him. I remember that you once rather cautioned me against too intimate an acquaintance with those who have not got their fortunes to make." "Because they are idle, and idleness is contagious. Right,--better not to be too intimate with a young Guardsman." "Then you would not have me call on him, sir? We were rather friends at Eton; and if I wholly reject his overtures, might he not think that you--" "I!" interrupted Egerton. "Ah, true; my brother might think I bore him a grudge; absurd. Call then, and ask the young man here. Yet still, I do not advise intimacy." Egerton turned into his dressing-room. "Sir," said his valet, who was in waiting, "Mr. Levy is here,--he says by appointment; and Mr. Grinders is also just come from the country." "Tell Mr. Grinders to come in first," said Egerton, seating himself. "You need not wait; I can dress without you. Tell Mr. Levy I will see him in five minutes." Mr. Grinders was steward to Audley Egerton. Mr. Levy was a handsome man, who wore a camellia in his button-hole; drove, in his cabriolet, a high-stepping horse that had cost L200; was well known to young men of fashion, and considered by their fathers a very dangerous acquaintance. CHAPTER XII. As the company assembled in the drawing-rooms, Mr. Egerton introduced Randal Leslie to his eminent friends in a way that greatly contrasted the distant and admonitory manner which he had exhibited to him in private. The presentation was made with that cordiality and that gracious respect, by which those who are in station command notice for those who have their station yet to win. "My dear lord, let me introduce to you a kinsman of my late wife's" (in a whisper),--"the heir to the elder branch of her family. Stanmore, this is Mr. Leslie, of whom I spoke to you. You, who were so distinguished at Oxford, will not like him the worse for the prizes he gained there. Duke, let me present to you Mr. Leslie. The duchess is angry with me for deserting her balls; I shall hope to make my peace, by providing myself with a younger and livelier substitute. Ah, Mr. Howard, here is a young gentleman just fresh from Oxford, who will tell us all about the new sect springing up there. He has not wasted his time on billiards and horses." Leslie was received with all that charming courtesy which is the /To Kalon/ of an aristocracy. After dinner, conversation settled on politics. Randal listened with attention, and in silence, till Egerton drew him gently out; just enough, and no more,--just enough to make his intelligence evident, and without subjecting him to the charge of laying down the law. Egerton knew how to draw out young men,--a difficult art. It was one reason why he was so peculiarly popular with the more rising members of his party. The party broke up early. "We are in time for Almack's," said Egerton, glancing at the clock, "and I have a voucher for you; come." Randal followed his patron into the carriage. By the way Egerton thus addressed him, "I shall introduce you to the principal leaders of society; know them and study them: I do not advise you to attempt to do more,--that is, to attempt to become the fashion. It is a very expensive ambition: some men it helps, most men it ruins. On the whole, you have better cards in your hands. Dance or not as it pleases you; don't flirt. If you flirt people will inquire into your fortune,--an inquiry that will do you little good; and flirting entangles a young man into marrying. That would never do. Here we are." In two minutes more they were in the great ballroom, and Randal's eyes were dazzled with the lights, the diamonds, the blaze of beauty. Audley presented him in quick succession to some dozen ladies, and then disappeared amidst the crowd. Randal was not at a loss: he was without shyness; or if he had that disabling infirmity, he concealed it. He answered the languid questions put to him with a certain spirit that kept up talk, and left a favourable impression of his agreeable qualities. But the lady with whom he got on the best was one who had no daughters out, a handsome and witty woman of the world,--Lady Frederick Coniers. It is your first ball at Almack's then, Mr. Leslie?" "My first." "And you have not secured a partner? Shall I find you one? What do you think of that pretty girl in pink?" "I see her--but I cannot think of her." "You are rather, perhaps, like a diplomatist in a new court, and your first object is to know who is who." "I confess that on beginning to study the history of my own day I should like to distinguish the portraits that illustrate the memoir." "Give me your arm, then, and we will come into the next room. We shall see the different notabilites enter one by one, and observe without being observed. This is the least I can do for a friend of Mr. Egerton's." "Mr. Egerton, then," said Randal,--as they threaded their way through the space without the rope that protected the dancers,--"Mr. Egerton has had the good fortune to win your esteem even for his friends, however obscure?" "Why, to say truth, I think no one whom Mr. Egerton calls his friend need long remain obscure, if he has the ambition to be otherwise; for Mr. Egerton holds it a maxim never to forget a friend nor a service." "Ah, indeed!" said Randal, surprised. "And therefore," continued Lady Frederick, "as he passes through life, friends gather round him. He will rise even higher yet. Gratitude, Mr. Leslie, is a very good policy." "Hem," muttered Mr. Leslie. They had now gained the room where tea and bread and butter were the homely refreshments to the habitues of what at that day was the most exclusive assembly in London. They ensconced themselves in a corner by a window, and Lady Frederick performed her task of cicerone with lively ease, accompanying each notice of the various persons who passed panoramically before them with sketch and anecdote, sometimes good- natured, generally satirical, always graphic and amusing. By and by Frank Hazeldean, having on his arm a young lady of haughty air and with high though delicate features, came to the tea-table. "The last new Guardsman," said Lady Frederick; "very handsome, and not yet quite spoiled. But he has got into a dangerous set." RANDAL.--"The young lady with him is handsome enough to be dangerous." LADY FREDERICK (laughing).--"No danger for him there,--as yet at least. Lady Mary (the Duke of Knaresborough's daughter) is only in her second year. The first year, nothing under an earl; the second, nothing under a baron. It will be full four years before she comes down to a commoner. Mr. Hazeldean's danger is of another kind. He lives much with men who are not exactly /mauvais ton/, but certainly not of the best taste. Yet he is very young; he may extricate himself,--leaving half his fortune behind him. What, he nods to you! You know him?" "Very well; he is nephew to Mr. Egerton." "Indeed! I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but not that he was related to Mr. Egerton." "Half-brother." "Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? He has no sons himself." RANDAL.---"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my family, --from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean." Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal's countenance with more attention than she had yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies. Randal was very short there. An hour afterwards, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the refreshment-room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed through the room as she appeared. She might be three or four and twenty. She was dressed in black velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat and the clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the diamonds with which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the deepest jet, and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and brilliant, her features regular and striking; but their expression, when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love modesty and softness in the looks of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and vivacity in the countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that all which might before have marred the effect of her beauty strangely and suddenly disappeared. "Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal. "An Italian,-- a Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians. "Di Negra," suggested another, who had been abroad: "she is a widow; her husband was of the great Genoese family of Negra,--a younger branch of it." Several men now gathered thickly around the fair Italian. A few ladies of the highest rank spoke to her, but with a more distant courtesy than ladies of high rank usually show to foreigners of such quality as Madame di Negra. Ladies of rank less elevated seemed rather shy of her,--that might be from jealousy. As Randal gazed at the marchesa with more admiration than any woman, perhaps, had before excited in him, he heard a voice near him say, "Oh, Madame di Negra is resolved to settle amongst us, and marry an Englishman." "If she can find one sufficiently courageous," returned a female voice. "Well, she's trying hard for Egerton, and he has courage enough for anything." The female voice replied, with a laugh, "Mr Egerton knows the world too well, and has resisted too many temptations to be--" "Hush! there he is." Egerton came into the room with his usual firm step and erect mien. Randal observed that a quick glance was exchanged between him and the marchesa; but the minister passed her by with a bow. Still Randal watched, and, ten minutes afterwards, Egerton and the marchesa were seated apart in the very same convenient nook that Randal and Lady Frederick had occupied an hour or so before. "Is this the reason why Mr. Egerton so insultingly warns me against counting on his fortune?" muttered Randal. "Does he mean to marry again?" Unjust suspicion!--for, at that moment, these were the words that Audley Egerton was dropping forth from his lips of bronze, "Nay, dear madam, do not ascribe to my frank admiration more gallantry than it merits. Your conversation charms me, your beauty delights me; your society is as a holiday that I look forward to in the fatigues of my life. But I have done with love, and I shall never marry again." "You almost pique me into trying to win, in order to reject you," said the Italian, with a flash from her bright eyes. "I defy even you," answered Audley, with his cold hard smile. "But to return to the point. You have more influence, at least, over this subtle ambassador; and the secret we speak of I rely on you to obtain me. Ah, Madam, let us rest friends. You see I have conquered the unjust prejudices against you; you are received and feted everywhere, as becomes your birth and your attractions. Rely on me ever, as I on you. But I shall excite too much envy if I stay here longer, and am vain enough to think that I may injure you if I provoke the gossip of the ill-natured. As the avowed friend, I can serve you; as the supposed lover, No--" Audley rose as he said this, and, standing by the chair, added carelessly, "--propos, the sum you do me the honour to borrow will be paid to your bankers to-morrow." "A thousand thanks! my brother will hasten to repay you." Audley bowed. "Your brother, I hope, will repay me in person, not before. When does he come?" "Oh, he has again postponed his visit to London; he is so much needed in Vienna. But while we are talking of him, allow me to ask if your friend, Lord L'Estrange, is indeed still so bitter against that poor brother of mine?" "Still the same." "It is shameful!" cried the Italian, with warmth; "what has my brother ever done to him that he should actually intrigue against the count in his own court?" "Intrigue! I think you wrong Lord L'Estrange; he but represented what he believed to be the truth, in defence of a ruined exile." "And you will not tell me where that exile is, or if his daughter still lives?" "My dear marchesa, I have called you friend, therefore I will not aid L'Estrange to injure you or yours. But I call L'Estrange a friend also; and I cannot violate the trust that--" Audley stopped short, and bit his lip. "You understand me," he resumed, with a more genial smile than usual; and he took his leave. The Italian's brows met as her eye followed him; then, as she too rose, that eye encountered Randal's. "That young man has the eye of an Italian," said the marchesa to herself, as she passed by him into the ballroom. CHAPTER XIII. Leonard and Helen settled themselves in two little chambers in a small lane. The neighbourhood was dull enough, the accommodation humble; but their landlady had a smile. That was the reason, perhaps, why Helen chose the lodgings: a smile is not always found on the face of a landlady when the lodger is poor. And out of their windows they caught sight of a green tree, an elm, that grew up fair and tall in a carpenter's yard at the rear. That tree was like another smile to the place. They saw the birds come and go to its shelter; and they even heard, when a breeze arose, the pleasant murmur of its boughs. Leonard went the same evening to Captain Digby's old lodgings, but he could learn there no intelligence of friends or protectors for Helen. The people were rude and surly, and said that the captain still owed them L1 17s. The claim, however, seemed very disputable, and was stoutly denied by Helen. The next morning Leonard set out in search of Dr. Morgan. He thought his best plan was to inquire the address of the doctor at the nearest chemist's, and the chemist civilly looked into the "Court Guide," and referred him to a house in Bulstrode Street, Manchester Square. To this street Leonard contrived to find his way, much marvelling at the meanness of London: Screwstown seemed to him the handsomer town of the two. A shabby man-servant opened the door, and Leonard remarked that the narrow passage was choked with boxes, trunks, and various articles of furniture. He was shown into a small room containing a very large round table, whereon were sundry works on homoeopathy, Parry's "Cymbrian Plutarch," Davies's "Celtic Researches," and a Sunday news paper. An engraved portrait of the illustrious Hahnemann occupied the place of honour over the chimneypiece. In a few minutes the door to an inner room opened, and Dr. Morgan appeared, and said politely, "Come in, sir." The doctor seated himself at a desk, looked hastily at Leonard, and then at a great chronometer lying on the table. "My time's short, sir,--going abroad: and now that I am going, patients flock to me. Too late. London will repent its apathy. Let it!" The doctor paused majestically, and not remarking on Leonard's face the consternation he had anticipated, he repeated peevishly, "I am going abroad, sir, but I will make a synopsis of your case, and leave it to my successor. Hum! "Hair chestnut; eyes--what colour? Look this way,--blue, dark blue. Hem! Constitution nervous. What are the symptoms?" "Sir," began Leonard, "a little girl--" DR. MORGAN (impatiently).--"Little girl; never mind the history of your sufferings; stick to the symptoms,--stick to the symptoms." LEONARD.--"YOU mistake me, Doctor, I have nothing the matter with me. A little girl--" DR. MORGAN.--"Girl again! I understand! it is she who is ill. Shall I go to her? She must describe her own symptoms,--I can't judge from your talk. You'll be telling me she has consumption, or dyspepsia, or some such disease that don't exist: mere allopathic inventions,--symptoms, sir, symptoms." LEONARD (forcing his way).--"You attended her poor father, Captain Digby, when he was taken ill in the coach with you. He is dead, and his child is an orphan." DR. MORGAN (fumbling in his medical pocket-book).--"Orphan! nothing for orphans, especially if inconsolable, like aconite and chamomilla." [It may be necessary to observe that bomoeopathy professes to deal with our moral affections as well as with our physical maladies, and has a globule for every sorrow.] With some difficulty Leonard succeeded in bringing Helen to the recollection of the homoeopathist, stating how he came in charge of her, and why he sought Dr. Morgan. The doctor was much moved. "But, really," said he, after a pause, "I don't see how I can help the poor child. I know nothing of her relations. This Lord Les--whatever his name is--I know of no lords in London. I knew lords, and physicked them too, when I was a blundering allopathist. There was the Earl of Lansmere,--has had many a blue pill from me, sinner that I was. His son was wiser; never would take physic. Very clever boy was Lord L'Estrange--" "Lord L'Estrange! that name begins with Les--" "Stuff! He's always abroad,--shows his sense. I'm going abroad too. No development for science in this horrid city,--full of prejudices, sir, and given up to the most barbarous allopathical and phlebotomical propensities. I am going to the land of Hahnemann, sir,--sold my good- will, lease, and furniture, and have bought in on the Rhine. Natural life there, sir,--homeeopathy needs nature: dine at one o'clock, get up at four, tea little known, and science appreciated. But I forget. Cott! what can I do for the orphan?" "Well, sir," said Leonard, rising, "Heaven will give me strength to support her." The doctor looked at the young man attentively. "And yet," said he, in a gentler voice, "you, young man, are, by your account, a perfect stranger to her, or were so when you undertook to bring her to London. You have a good heart, always keep it. Very healthy thing, sir, a good heart,--that is, when not carried to excess. But you have friends of your own in town?" LEONARD.--"Not yet, sir; I hope to make them." DOCTOR.--"Pless me, you do? How?--I can't make any." Leonard coloured and hung his'head. He longed to say, "Authors find friends in their readers,--I am going to be an author." But he felt that the reply would savour of presumption, and held his tongue. The doctor continued to examine him, and with friendly interest. "You say you walked up to London: was that from choice or economy?" LEONARD.--"Both, sir." DOCTOR.--"Sit down again, and let us talk. I can give you a quarter of an hour, and I'll see if I can help either of you, provided you tell me all the symptoms,--I mean all the particulars." Then, with that peculiar adroitness which belongs to experience in the medical profession, Dr. Morgan, who was really an acute and able man, proceeded to put his questions, and soon extracted from Leonard the boy's history and hopes. But when the doctor, in admiration at a simplicity which contrasted so evident an intelligence, finally asked him his name and connections, and Leonard told them, the homoeopathist actually started. "Leonard Fairfield, grandson of my old friend, John Avenel of Lansmere! I must shake you by the hand. Brought up by Mrs. Fairfield!-- "Ah, now I look, strong family likeness,--very strong" The tears stood in the doctor's eyes. "Poor Nora!" said he. "Nora! Did you know my aunt?" "Your aunt! Ah! ah! yes, yes! Poor Nora! she died almost in these arms,--so young, so beautiful. I remember it as if yesterday." The doctor brushed his hand across his eyes, and swallowed a globule; and before the boy knew what he was about, had, in his benevolence, thrust another between Leonard's quivering lips. A knock was heard at the door. "Ha! that 's my great patient," cried the doctor, recovering his self- possession,--"must see him. A chronic case, excellent patient,--tic, sir, tic. Puzzling and interesting. If I could take that tic with me, I should ask nothing more from Heaven. Call again on Monday; I may have something to tell you then as to yourself. The little girl can't stay with you,--wrong and nonsensical! I will see after her. Leave me your address,--write it here. I think I know a lady who will take charge of her. Good-by. Monday next, ten o'clock." With this, the doctor thrust out Leonard, and ushered in his grand patient, whom he was very anxious to take with him to the banks of the Rhine. Leonard had now only to discover the nobleman whose name had been so vaguely uttered by poor Captain Digby. He had again recourse to the "Court Guide;" and finding the address of two or three lords the first syllable of whose titles seemed similar to that repeated to him, and all living pretty near to each other, in the regions of Mayfair, he ascertained his way to that quarter, and, exercising his mother-wit, inquired at the neighbouring shops as to the personal appearance of these noblemen. Out of consideration for his rusticity, he got very civil and clear answers; but none of the lords in question corresponded with the description given by Helen. One was old, another was exceedingly corpulent, a third was bedridden,--none of them was known to keep a great dog. It is needless to say that the name of L'Estrange (no habitant of London) was not in the "Court Guide." And Dr. Morgan's assertion that that person was always abroad unluckily dismissed from Leonard's mind the name the homoeopathist had so casually mentioned. But Helen was not disappointed when her young protector returned late in the day, and told her of his ill-success. Poor child! she was so pleased in her heart not to be separated from her new brother; and Leonard was touched to see how she had contrived, in his absence, to give a certain comfort and cheerful grace to the bare room devoted to himself. She had arranged his few books and papers so neatly, near the window, in sight of the one green elm. She had coaxed the smiling landlady out of one or two extra articles of furniture, especially a walnut-tree bureau, and some odds and ends of ribbon, with which last she had looped up the curtains. Even the old rush-bottom chairs had a strange air of elegance, from the mode in which they were placed. The fairies had given sweet Helen the art that adorns a home, and brings out a smile from the dingiest corner of hut and attic. Leonard wondered and praised. He kissed his blushing ministrant gratefully, and they sat down in joy to their abstemious meal; when suddenly his face was overclouded,--there shot through him the remembrance of Dr. Morgan's words, "The little girl can't stay with you, --wrong and nonsensical. I think I know a lady who will take charge of her." "Ah," cried Leonard, sorrowfully, "how could I forget?" And he told Helen what grieved him. Helen at first exclaimed that she would not go. Leonard, rejoiced, then began to talk as usual of his great prospects; and, hastily finishing his meal, as if there were no time to lose, sat down at once to his papers. Then Helen contemplated him sadly, as he bent over his delightful work. And when, lifting his radiant eyes from his manuscripts, he exclaimed, "No, no, you shall not go. This must succeed,--and we shall live together in some pretty cottage, where we can see more than one tree,"--then Helen sighed, and did not answer this time, "No, I will not go." Shortly after she stole from the room, and into her own; and there, kneeling down, she prayed, and her prayer was somewhat this, "Guard me against my own selfish heart; may I never be a burden to him who has shielded me." Perhaps as the Creator looks down on this world, whose wondrous beauty beams on us more and more, in proportion as our science would take it from poetry into law,--perhaps He beholds nothing so beautiful as the pure heart of a simple loving child. CHAPTER XIV. Leonard went out the next day with his precious manuscripts. He had read sufficient of modern literature to know the names of the principal London publishers; and to these he took his way with a bold step, though a beating heart. That day he was out longer than the last; and when he returned, and came into the little room, Helen uttered a cry, for she scarcely recognized him,--there was on his face so deep, so silent, and so concentrated a despondency. He sat down listlessly, and did not kiss her this time, as she stole towards him. He felt so humbled. He was a king deposed. He take charge of another life! He! She coaxed him at last into communicating his day's chronicle. The reader beforehand knows too well what it must be to need detailed repetition. Most of the publishers had absolutely refused to look at his manuscripts; one or two had good-naturedly glanced over and returned them at once with a civil word or two of flat rejection. One publisher alone --himself a man of letters, and who in youth had gone through the same bitter process of disillusion that now awaited the village genius-- volunteered some kindly though stern explanation and counsel to the unhappy boy. This gentleman read a portion of Leonard's principal poem with attention, and even with frank admiration. He could appreciate the rare promise that it manifested. He sympathized with the boy's history, and even with his hopes; and then he said, in bidding him farewell, "If I publish this poem for you, speaking as a trader, I shall be a considerable loser. Did I publish all I admire, out of sympathy with the author, I should be a ruined man. But suppose that, impressed as I really am with the evidence of no common poetic gifts in this manuscript, I publish it, not as a trader, but a lover of literature, I shall in reality, I fear, render you a great disservice, and perhaps unfit your whole life for the exertions on which you must rely for independence." "How, sir?" cried Leonard. "Not that I would ask you to injure yourself for me," he added, with proud tears in his eyes. "How, my young friend? I will explain. There is enough talent in these verses to induce very flattering reviews in some of the literary journals. You will read these, find yourself proclaimed a poet, will cry 'I am on the road to fame.' You will come to me, 'And my poem, how does it sell?' I shall point to some groaning shelf, and say, 'Not twenty copies! The journals may praise, but the public will not buy it.' 'But you will have got a name,' you say. Yes, a name as a poet just sufficiently known to make every man in practical business disinclined to give fair trial to your talents in a single department of positive life; none like to employ poets;--a name that will not put a penny in your purse,--worse still, that will operate as a barrier against every escape into the ways whereby men get to fortune. But having once tasted praise, you will continue to sigh for it: you will perhaps never again get a publisher to bring forth a poem, but you will hanker round the purlieus of the Muses, scribble for periodicals, fall at last into a bookseller's drudge. Profits will be so precarious and uncertain, that to avoid debt may be impossible; then, you who now seem so ingenuous and so proud, will sink deeper still into the literary mendicant, begging, borrowing--" "Never! never! never!" cried Leonard, veiling his face with his hands. "Such would have been my career," continued the publisher; "but I luckily had a rich relative, a trader, whose calling I despised as a boy, who kindly forgave my folly, bound me as an apprentice, and here I am; and now I can afford to write books as well as sell them. "Young man, you must have respectable relations,--go by their advice and counsel; cling fast to some positive calling. Be anything in this city rather than poet by profession." "And how, sir, have there ever been poets? Had they other callings?" "Read their biography, and then--envy them!" Leonard was silent a moment; but lifting his head, answered loud and quickly, "I have read their biography. True, their lot was poverty,-- perhaps hunger. Sir, I--envy them!" "Poverty and hunger are small evils," answered the bookseller, with a grave, kind smile. "There are worse,--debt and degradation, and-- despair." "No, sir, no, you exaggerate; these last are not the lot of all poets." "Right, for most of our greatest poets had some private means of their own. And for others--why, all who have put into a lottery have not drawn blanks. But who could advise another man to set his whole hope of fortune on the chance of a prize in a lottery? And such a lottery!" groaned the publisher, glancing towards sheets and reams of dead authors, lying, like lead, upon his shelves. Leonard clutched his manuscripts to his heart, and hurried away. "Yes," he muttered, as Helen clung to him, and tried to console,--"yes, you were right: London is very vast, very strong, and very cruel;" and his head sank lower and lower yet upon his bosom. The door was flung widely open, and in, unannounced, walked Dr. Morgan. The child turned to him, and at the sight of his face she remembered her father; and the tears that for Leonard's sake she had been trying to suppress found way. The good doctor soon gained all the confidence of these two young hearts; and after listening to Leonard's story of his paradise lost in a day, he patted him on the shoulder and said, "Well, you will call on me on Monday, and we will see. Meanwhile, borrow these of me!"--and he tried to slip three sovereigns into the boy's hand. Leonard was indignant. The bookseller's warning flashed on him. Mendicancy! Oh, no, he had not yet come to that! He was almost rude and savage in his rejection; and the doctor did not like him the less for it. "You are an obstinate mule," said the homoeopathist, reluctantly putting up his sovereigns. "Will you work at something practical and prosy, and let the poetry rest a while?" "Yes," said Leonard, doggedly. "I will work." "Very well, then. I know an honest bookseller, and he shall give you some employment; and meanwhile, at all events, you will be among books, and that will be some comfort." Leonard's eyes brightened. "A great comfort, sir." He pressed the hand he had before put aside to his grateful heart. "But," resumed the doctor, seriously, "you really feel a strong predisposition to make verses?" "I did, sir." "Very bad symptom indeed, and must be stopped before a relapse! Here, I have cured three prophets and ten poets with this novel specific." While thus speaking he had got out his book and a globule. "Agaricus muscarius dissolved in a tumbler of distilled water,--teaspoonful whenever the fit comes on. Sir, it would have cured Milton himself." "And now for you, my child," turning to Helen, "I have found a lady who will be very kind to you. Not a menial situation. She wants some one to read to her and tend on her; she is old and has no children. She wants a companion, and prefers a girl of your age to one older. Will this suit you?" Leonard walked away. Helen got close to the doctor's ear, and whispered, "No, I cannot leave him now,--he is so sad." "Cott!" grunted the doctor, "you two must have been reading 'Paul and Virginia.' If I could but stay in England, I would try what ignatia would do in this case,--interesting experiment! Listen to me, little girl, and go out of the room, you, sir." Leonard, averting his face, obeyed. Helen made an involuntary step after him; the doctor detained and drew her on his knee. "What's your Christian name?--I forget." "Helen." "Helen, listen. In a year or two you will be a young woman, and it would be very wrong then to live alone with that young man. Meanwhile you have no right to cripple all his energies. He must not have you leaning on his right arm,--you would weigh it down. I am going away, and when I am gone there will be no one to help you, if you reject the friend I offer you. Do as I tell you, for a little girl so peculiarly susceptible (a thorough pulsatilla constitution) cannot be obstinate and egotistical." "Let me see him cared for and happy, sir," said she, firmly, "and I will go where you wish." "He shall be so; and to-morrow, while he is out, I will come and fetch you. Nothing so painful as leave-taking, shakes the nervous system, and is a mere waste of the animal economy." Helen sobbed aloud; then, writhing from the doctor, she exclaimed, "But he may know where I am? We may see each other sometimes? Ah, sir, it was at my father's grave that we first met, and I think Heaven sent him to me. Do not part us forever." "I should have a heart of stone if I did," cried the doctor, vehemently; "and Miss Starke shall let him come and visit you once a week. I'll give her something to make her. She is naturally indifferent to others. I will alter her whole constitution, and melt her into sympathy--with rhododendron and arsenic!" CHAPTER XV. Before he went the doctor wrote a line to "Mr. Prickett, Bookseller, Holborn," and told Leonard to take it the next morning, as addressed. "I will call on Prickett myself tonight and prepare him for your visit. But I hope and trust you will only have to stay there a few days." He then turned the conversation, to communicate his plans for Helen. Miss Starke lived at Highgate,--a worthy woman, stiff and prim, as old maids sometimes are; but just the place for a little girl like Helen, and Leonard should certainly be allowed to call and see her. Leonard listened and made no opposition,--now that his day-dream was dispelled, he had no right to pretend to be Helen's protector. He could have prayed her to share his wealth and his fame; his penury and his drudgery--no. It was a very sorrowful evening,--that between the adventurer and the child. They sat up late, till their candle had burned down to the socket; neither did they talk much; but his hand clasped hers all the time, and her head pillowed it self on his shoulder. I fear when they parted it was not for sleep. And when Leonard went forth the next morning, Helen stood at the street door watching him depart--slowly, slowly. No doubt, in that humble lane there were many sad hearts; but no heart so heavy as that of the still, quiet child, when the form she had watched was to be seen no more, and, still standing on the desolate threshold, she gazed into space, and all was vacant. CHAPTER XVI. Mr. Prickett was a believer in homeeopathy, and declared, to the indignation of all the apothecaries round Holborn, that he had been cured of a chronic rheumatism by Dr. Morgan. The good doctor had, as he promised, seen Mr. Prickett when he left Leonard, and asked him as a favour to find some light occupation for the boy, that would serve as an excuse for a modest weekly salary. "It will not be for long," said the doctor: "his relations are respectable and well off. I will write to his grandparents, and in a few days I hope to relieve you of the charge. Of course, if you don't want him, I will repay what he costs meanwhile." Mr. Prickett, thus prepared for Leonard, received him very graciously; and, after a few questions, said Leonard was just the person he wanted to assist him in cataloguing his books, and offered him most handsomely L1 a week for the task. Plunged at once into a world of books vaster than he had ever before won admission to, that old divine dream of knowledge, out of which poetry had sprung, returned to the village student at the very sight of the venerable volumes. The collection of Mr. Prickett was, however, in reality by no means large; but it comprised not only the ordinary standard works, but several curious and rare ones. And Leonard paused in making the catalogue, and took many a hasty snatch of the contents of each tome, as it passed through his hands. The bookseller, who was an enthusiast for old books, was pleased to see a kindred feeling (which his shop-boy had never exhibited) in his new assistant; and he talked about rare editions and scarce copies, and initiated Leonard into many of the mysteries of the bibliographist. Nothing could be more dark and dingy than the shop. There was a booth outside, containing cheap books and odd volumes, round which there was always an attentive group; within, a gas-lamp burned night and day. But time passed quickly to Leonard. He missed not the green fields, he forgot his disappointments, he ceased to remember even Helen. O strange passion of knowledge! nothing like thee for strength and devotion! Mr. Prickett was a bachelor, and asked Leonard to dine with him on a cold shoulder of mutton. During dinner the shop-boy kept the shop, and Mr. Prickett was really pleasant, as well as loquacious. He took a liking to Leonard, and Leonard told him his adventures with the publishers, at which Mr. Prickett rubbed his hands and laughed, as at a capital joke. "Oh, give up poetry, and stick to a shop," cried he; "and to cure you forever of the mad whim to be author, I'll just lend you the 'Life and Works of Chatterton.' You may take it home with you and read before you go to bed. You'll come back quite a new man to-morrow." Not till night, when the shop was closed, did Leonard return to his lodging. And when he entered the room, he was struck to the soul by the silence, by the void. Helen was gone! There was a rose-tree in its pot on the table at which he wrote, and by it a scrap of paper, on which was written, DEAR, dear brother Leonard, God bless you. I will let you know when we can meet again. Take care of this rose, Brother, and don't forget poor HELEN. Over the word "forget" there was a big round blistered spot that nearly effaced the word. Leonard leaned his face on his hands, and for the first time in his life he felt what solitude really is. He could not stay long in the room. He walked out again, and wandered objectless to and fro the streets. He passed that stiller and humbler neighbourhood, he mixed with the throng that swarmed in the more populous thoroughfares. Hundreds and thousands passed him by, and still--still such solitude. He came back, lighted his candle, and resolutely drew forth the "Chatterton" which the bookseller had lent him. It was an old edition, in one thick volume. It had evidently belonged to some contemporary of the poet's,--apparently an inhabitant of Bristol,--some one who had gathered up many anecdotes respecting Chatterton's habits, and who appeared even to have seen him, nay, been in his company; for the book was interleaved, and the leaves covered with notes and remarks, in a stiff clear hand,--all evincing personal knowledge of the mournful immortal dead. At first, Leonard read with an effort; then the strange and fierce spell of that dread life seized upon him,--seized with pain and gloom and terror,--this boy dying by his own hand, about the age Leonard had attained himself. This wondrous boy, of a genius beyond all comparison the greatest that ever yet was developed and extinguished at the age of eighteen,--self-taught, self-struggling, self-immolated. Nothing in literature like that life and that death! With intense interest Leonard perused the tale of the brilliant imposture, which had been so harshly and so absurdly construed into the crime of a forgery, and which was (if not wholly innocent) so akin to the literary devices always in other cases viewed with indulgence, and exhibiting, in this, intellectual qualities in themselves so amazing, --such patience, such forethought, such labour, such courage, such ingenuity,--the qualities that, well directed, make men great, not only in books, but action. And, turning from the history of the imposture to the poems themselves, the young reader bent before their beauty, literally awed and breathless. How this strange Bristol boy tamed and mastered his rude and motley materials into a music that comprehended every tune and key, from the simplest to the sublimest! He turned back to the biography; be read on; he saw the proud, daring, mournful spirit alone in the Great City, like himself. He followed its dismal career, he saw it falling with bruised and soiled wings into the mire. He turned again to the later works, wrung forth as tasks for bread,--the satires without moral grandeur, the politics without honest faith. He shuddered and sickened as he read. True, even here his poet mind appreciated (what perhaps only poets can) the divine fire that burned fitfully through that meaner and more sordid fuel,--he still traced in those crude, hasty, bitter offerings to dire Necessity the hand of the young giant who had built up the stately verse of Rowley. But alas! how different from that "mighty line." How all serenity and joy had fled from these later exercises of art degraded into journey-work! Then rapidly came on the catastrophe,--the closed doors, the poison, the suicide, the manuscripts torn by the hands of despairing wrath, and strewed round the corpse upon the funereal floors. It was terrible! The spectre of the Titan boy (as described in the notes written on the margin), with his haughty brow, his cynic smile, his lustrous eyes, haunted all the night the baffled and solitary child of song. CHAPTER XVII. It will often happen that what ought to turn the human mind from some peculiar tendency produces the opposite effect. One would think that the perusal in the newspaper of some crime and capital punishment would warn away all who had ever meditated the crime, or dreaded the chance of detection. Yet it is well known to us that many a criminal is made by pondering over the fate of some predecessor in guilt. There is a fascination in the Dark and Forbidden, which, strange to say, is only lost in fiction. No man is more inclined to murder his nephews, or stifle his wife, after reading "Richard the Third" or "Othello." It is the reality that is necessary to constitute the danger of contagion. Now, it was this reality in the fate and life and crowning suicide of Chatterton that forced itself upon Leonard's thoughts, and sat there like a visible evil thing, gathering evil like cloud around it. There was much in the dead poet's character, his trials, and his doom, that stood out to Leonard like a bold and colossal shadow of himself and his fate. Alas! the book seller, in one respect, had said truly. Leonard came back to him the next day a new man; and it seemed even to himself as if he had lost a good angel in losing Helen. "Oh, that she had been by my side!" thought he. "Oh, that I could have felt the touch of her confiding hand; that, looking up from the scathed and dreary ruin of this life, that had sublimely lifted itself from the plain, and sought to tower aloft from a deluge, her mild look had spoken to me of innocent, humble, unaspiring childhood! Ah! If indeed I were still necessary to her,--still the sole guardian and protector,--then could I say to myself; 'Thou must not despair and die! Thou hast her to live and to strive for.' But no, no! Only this vast and terrible London,--the solitude of the dreary garret, and those lustrous eyes, glaring alike through the throng and through the solitude." CHAPTER XVIII. On the following Monday Dr. Morgan's shabby man-servant opened the door to a young man in whom he did not at first remember a former visitor. A few days before, embrowned with healthful travel, serene light in his eye, simple trust on his careless lip, Leonard Fairfield had stood at that threshold. Now again he stood there, pale and haggard, with a cheek already hollowed into those deep anxious lines that speak of working thoughts and sleepless nights; and a settled sullen gloom resting heavily on his whole aspect. "I call by appointment," said the boy, testily, as the servant stood irresolute. The man gave way. "Master is just gone out to a patient: please to wait, sir;" and he showed him into the little parlour. In a few moments, two other patients were admitted. These were women, and they began talking very loud. They disturbed Leonard's unsocial thoughts. He saw that the door into the doctor's receivingroom was half open, and, ignorant of the etiquette which holds such penetralia as sacred, he walked in to escape from the gossips. He threw himself into the doctor's own wellworn chair, and muttered to himself, "Why did he tell me to come? What new can he think of for me? And if a favour, should I take it? He has given me the means of bread by work: that is all I have a right to ask from him, from any man,--all I should accept." While thus soliloquizing, his eye fell on a letter lying open on the table. He started. He recognized the handwriting,--the same as that of the letter which had inclosed. L50 to his mother,--the letter of his grandparents. He saw his own name: he saw something more,--words that made his heart stand still, and his blood seem like ice in his veins. As he thus stood aghast, a hand was laid on the letter, and a voice, in an angry growl, muttered, "How dare you come into my room, and pe reading my letters? Er-r-r!" Leonard placed his own hand on the doctor's firmly, and said, in a fierce tone, "This letter relates to me, belongs to me, crushes me. I have seen enough to know that. I demand to read all,--learn all." The doctor looked round, and seeing the door into the waiting-room still open, kicked it to with his foot, and then said, under his breath, "What have you read? Tell me the truth." "Two lines only, and I am called--I am called--" Leonard's frame shook from head to foot, and the veins on his forehead swelled like cords. He could not complete the sentence. It seemed as if an ocean was rolling up through his brain, and roaring in his ears. The doctor saw at a glance that there was physical danger in his state, and hastily and soothingly answered, "Sit down, sit down; calm yourself; you shall know all,--read all; drink this water;" and he poured into a tumbler of the pure liquid a drop or two from a tiny phial. Leonard obeyed mechanically, for he was no longer able to stand. He closed his eyes, and for a minute or two life seemed to pass from him; then he recovered, and saw the good doctor's gaze fixed on him with great compassion. He silently stretched forth his hand towards the letter. "Wait a few moments," said the physician, judiciously, "and hear me meanwhile. It is very unfortunate you should have seen a letter never meant for your eye, and containing allusions to a secret you were never to have known. But if I tell you more, will you promise me, on your word of honour, that you will hold the confidence sacred from Mrs. Fairfield, the Avenels,--from all? I myself am pledged to conceal a secret, which I can only share with you on the same condition." "There is nothing," announced Leonard, indistinctly, and with a bitter smile on his lip,--" nothing, it seems, that I should be proud to boast of. Yes, I promise; the letter, the letter!" The doctor placed it in Leonard's right hand, and quietly slipped to the wrist of the left his forefinger and thumb, as physicians are said to do when a victim is stretched on the rack. "Pulse decreasing," he muttered; "wonderful thing, aconite!" Meanwhile Leonard read as follows, faults in spelling and all:-- DR. MORGAN SIR,--I received your favur duly, and am glad to hear that the pore boy is safe and Well. But he has been behaving ill, and ungrateful to my good son Richard, who is a credit to the whole Famuly and has made himself a Gentleman and Was very kind and good to the boy, not knowing who and What he is--God forbid! I don't want never to see him again--the boy. Pore John was ill and Restless for days afterwards. John is a pore cretur now, and has had paralyticks. And he Talked of nothing but Nora--the boy's eyes were so like his Mother's. I cannot, cannot see the Child of Shame. He can't cum here--for our Lord's sake, sir, don't ask it--he can't, so Respectable as we've always been!--and such disgrace! Base born! base born! Keep him where he is, bind him prentis, I'll pay anything for That. You says, sir, he's clever, and quick at learning; so did Parson Dale, and wanted him to go to Collidge and make a Figur,--then all would cum out. It would be my death, sir; I could not sleep in my grave, sir. Nora, that we were all so proud of. Sinful creturs that we are! Nora's good name that we've saved, now gone, gone. And Richard, who is so grand, and who was so fond of pore, pore Nora! He would not hold up his Head again. Don't let him make a Figur in the world; let him be a tradesman, as we were afore him,--any trade he takes to,--and not cross us no more while he lives. Then I shall pray for him, and wish him happy. And have not we had enuff of bringing up children to be above their birth? Nora, that I used to say was like the first lady o' the land-oh, but we were rightly punished! So now, sir, I leave all to you, and will Pay all you want for the boy. And be sure that the secret's kept. For we have never heard from the father, and, at leest, no one knows that Nora has a, living son but I and my daughter Jane, and Parson Dale and you--and you Two are good Gentlemen--and Jane will keep her word, and I am old, and shall be in my grave Soon, but I hope it won't be while pore John needs me. What could he do without me? And if that got wind, it would kill me straght, sir. Pore John is a helpless cretur, God bless him. So no more from your servant in all dooty, M. AVENEL. Leonard laid down this letter very calmly, and, except by a slight heaving at his breast, and a deathlike whiteness of his lips, the emotions he felt were undetected. And it is a proof how much exquisite goodness there was in his heart that the first words he spoke were, "Thank Heaven!" The doctor did not expect that thanksgiving, and he was so startled that he exclaimed, "For what?" "I have nothing to pity or excuse in the woman I knew and honoured as a mother. I am not her son--her-" He stopped short. "No: but don't be hard on your true mother,--poor Nora!" Leonard staggered, and then burst into a sudden paroxysm of tears. "Oh, my own mother! my dead mother! Thou for whom I felt so mysterious a love,--thou from whom I took this poet soul! pardon me, pardon me! Hard on thee! Would that thou wert living yet, that I might comfort thee! What thou must have suffered!" These words were sobbed forth in broken gasps from the depth of his heart. Then he caught up the letter again, and his thoughts were changed as his eyes fell upon the writer's shame and fear, as it were, of his very existence. All his native haughtiness returned to him. His crest rose, his tears dried. "Tell her," he said, with astern, unfaltering voice, "tell Mrs. Avenel that she is obeyed; that I will never seek her roof, never cross her path, never disgrace her wealthy son. But tell her, also, that I will choose my own way in life,--that I will not take from her a bribe for concealment. Tell her that I am nameless, and will yet make a name." A name! Was this but an idle boast, or was it one of those flashes of conviction which are never belied, lighting up our future for one lurid instant, and then fading into darkness? "I do not doubt it, my prave poy," said Dr. Morgan, growing exceedingly Welsh in his excitement; "and perhaps you may find a father, who--" "Father! who is he, what is he? He lives, then! But he has deserted me,--he must have betrayed her! I need him not. The law gives me no father." The last words were said with a return of bitter anguish: then, in a calmer tone, he resumed, "But I should know who he is--as another one whose path I may not cross." Dr. Morgan looked embarrassed, and paused in deliberation. "Nay," said he, at length, "as you know so much, it is surely best that you should know all." The doctor then proceeded to detail, with some circumlocution, what we will here repeat from his account more succinctly. Nora Avenel, while yet very young, left her native village, or rather the house of Lady Lansinere, by whom she had been educated and brought up, in order to accept the place of companion to a lady in London. One evening she suddenly presented herself at her father's house, and at the first sight of her mother's face she fell down insensible. She was carried to bed. Dr. Morgan (then the chief medical practitioner of the town) was sent for. That night Leonard came into the world, and his mother died. She never recovered her senses, never spoke intelligibly from the time she entered the house. "And never, therefore, named your father," said Dr. Morgan. "We knew not who he was." "And how," cried Leonard, fiercely,--"how have they dared to slander this dead mother? How knew they that I--was--was--was not the child of wedlock?" "There was no wedding-ring on Nora's finger, never any rumour of her marriage; her strange and sudden appearance at her father's house; her emotions on entrance, so unlike those natural to a wife returning to a parent's home,--these are all the evidence against her. But Mrs. Avenel deemed them strong, and so did I. You have a right to think we judged too harshly,--perhaps we did." "And no inquiries were ever made?" said Leonard, mournfully, and after a long silence,--"no inquiries to learn who was the father of the motherless child?" "Inquiries! Mrs. Avenel would have died first. Your grandmother's nature is very rigid. Had she come from princes, from Cadwallader himself," said the Welshman, "she could not more have shrunk from the thought of dishonour. Even over her dead child, the child she had loved the best, she thought but how to save that child's name and memory from suspicion. There was luckily no servant in the house, only Mark Fairfield and his wife (Nora's sister): they had arrived the same day on a visit. "Mrs. Fairfield was nursing her own infant two or three months old; she took charge of you; Nora was buried and the secret kept. None out of the family knew of it but myself and the curate of the town,--Mr. Dale. The day after your birth, Mrs. Fairfield, to prevent discovery, moved to a village at some distance. There her child died; and when she returned to Hazeldean, where her husband was settled, you passed as the son she had lost. Mark, I know, was as a father to you, for he had loved Nora: they had been children together." "And she came to London,--London is strong and cruel," muttered Leonard. "She was friendless and deceived. I see all,--I desire to know no more. This father--he must in deed have been like those whom I have read of in books. To love, to wrong her,--that I can conceive; but then to leave, to abandon; no visit to her grave, no remorse, no search for his own child. Well, well; Mrs. Avenel was right. Let us think of him no more." The man-servant knocked at the door, and then put in his head. "Sir, the ladies are getting very impatient, and say they'll go." "Sir," said Leonard, with a strange calm return to the things about him, "I ask your pardon for taking up your time so long. I go now. I will never mention to my moth--I mean to Mrs. Fairfield--what I have learned, nor to any one. I will work my way somehow. If Mr. Prickett will keep me, I will stay with him at present; but I repeat, I cannot take Mrs. Avenel's money and be bound apprentice. Sir, you have been good and patient with me,--Heaven reward you." The doctor was too moved to answer. He wrung Leonard's hand, and in another minute the door closed upon the nameless boy. He stood alone in the streets of London; and the sun flashed on him, red and menacing, like the eye of a foe! CHAPTER XIX. Leonard did not appear at the shop of Mr. Prickett that day. Needless it is to say where he wandered, what he suffered, what thought, what felt. All within was storm. Late at night he returned to his solitary lodging. On his table, neglected since the morning, was Helen's rose-tree. It looked parched and fading. His heart smote him: he watered the poor plant,--perhaps with his tears. Meanwhile Dr. Morgan, after some debate with himself whether or not to apprise Mrs. Avenel of Leonard's discovery and message, resolved to spare her an uneasiness and alarm that might be dangerous to her health, and unnecessary in itself. He replied shortly, that she need not fear Leonard's coming to her house; that he was disinclined to bind himself an apprentice, but that he was provided for at present; and in a few weeks, when Dr. Morgan heard more of him through the tradesman by whom he was employed, the doctor would write to her from Germany. He then went to Mr. Prickett's, told the willing bookseller to keep the young man for the present,--to be kind to him, watch over his habits and conduct, and report to the doctor in his new home, on the Rhine, what avocation he thought Leonard would be best suited for, and most inclined to adopt. The charitable Welshman divided with the bookseller the salary given to Leonard, and left a quarter of his moiety in advance. It is true that he knew he should be repaid on applying to Mrs. Avenel; but being a man of independent spirit himself, he so sympathized with Leonard's present feelings, that he felt as if he should degrade the boy did he maintain him, even secretly, out of Mrs. Avenel's money,--money intended not to raise, but keep him down in life. At the worst, it was a sum the doctor could afford, and he had brought the boy into the world. Having thus, as he thought, safely provided for his two young charges, Helen and Leonard, the doctor then gave himself up to his final preparations for departure. He left a short note for Leonard with Mr. Prickett, containing some brief advice, some kind cheering; a postscript to the effect that he had not communicated to Mrs. Avenel the information Leonard had acquired, and that it were best to leave her in that ignorance; and six small powders to be dissolved in water, and a teaspoonful every fourth hour,-- "Sovereign against rage and sombre thoughts," wrote the doctor. By the evening of the next day Dr. Morgan, accompanied by his pet patient with the chronic tic, whom he had talked into exile, was on the steamboat on his way to Ostend. Leonard resumed his life at Mr. Prickett's; but the change in him did not escape the bookseller. All his ingenuous simplicity had deserted him. He was very distant and very taciturn; he seemed to have grown much older. I shall not attempt to analyze metaphysically this change. By the help of such words as Leonard may himself occasionally let fall, the reader will dive into the boy's heart, and see how there the change had worked, and is working still. The happy, dreamy peasant-genius gazing on Glory with inebriate, undazzled eyes is no more. It is a man, suddenly cut off from the old household holy ties,--conscious of great powers, and confronted on all sides by barriers of iron, alone with hard Reality and scornful London; and if he catches a glimpse of the lost Helicon, he sees, where he saw the Muse, a pale melancholy spirit veiling its face in shame,--the ghost of the mournful mother, whose child has no name, not even the humblest, among the family of men. On the second evening after Dr. Morgan's departure, as Leonard was just about to leave the shop, a customer stepped in with a book in his hand, which he had snatched from the shop-boy, who was removing the volumes for the night from the booth without. "Mr. Prickett, Mr. Prickett!" said the customer, "I am ashamed of you. You presume to put upon this work, in two volumes, the sum of eight shillings." Mr. Prickett stepped forth from the Cimmerian gloom of some recess, and cried, "What! Mr. Burley, is that you? But for your voice, I should not have known you." "Man is like a, book, Mr. Prickett; the commonalty only look to his binding. I am better bound, it is very true." Leonard glanced towards the speaker, who now stood under the gas-lamp, and thought he recognized his face. He looked again. Yes; it was the perch-fisher whom he had met on the banks of the Brent, and who had warned him of the lost fish and the broken line. MR. BURLEY (continuing).--"But the 'Art of Thinking'!--you charge eight shillings for the 'Art of Thinking.'" MR. PRICKETT.--"Cheap enough, Mr. Burley. A very clean copy." MR. BURLEY.--"Usurer! I sold it to you for three shillings. It is more than one hundred and fifty per cent you propose to gain from my 'Art of Thinking.'" MR. PRICKETT (stuttering and taken aback).--"You sold it to me! Ah, now I remember. But it was more than three shillings I gave. You forget,-- two glasses of brandy-and-water." MR. BURLEY.--"Hospitality, sir, is not to be priced. If you sell your hospitality, you are not worthy to possess my 'Art of Thinking.' I resume it. There are three shillings, and a shilling more for interest. No; on second thoughts, instead of that shilling, I will return your hospitality: and the first time you come my way you shall have two glasses of brandy-and-water." Mr. Prickett did not look pleased, but he made no objection; and Mr. Burley put the book into his pocket, and turned to examine the shelves. He bought an old jest-book, a stray volume of the Comedies of Destouches, paid for them, put them also into his pocket, and was sauntering out, when he perceived Leonard, who was now standing at the doorway. "Hem! who is that?" he asked, whispering Mr. Prickett. "A young assistant of mine, and very clever." Mr. Burley scanned Leonard from top to toe. "We have met before, sir. But you look as if you had returned to the Brent, and been fishing for my perch." "Possibly, sir," answered Leonard. "But my line is tough, and is not yet broken, though the fish drags it amongst the weeds, and buries itself in the mud." He lifted his hat, bowed slightly, and walked on. "He is clever," said Mr. Burley to the bookseller: "he understands allegory." MR. PRICKETT.---"Poor youth! He came to town with the idea of turning author: you know what that is, Mr. Burley." MR. BURLEY (with an air of superb dignity).--"Bibliopole, yes! An author is a being between gods and men, who ought to be lodged in a palace, and entertained at the public charge upon ortolans and Tokay. He should be kept lapped in down, and curtained with silken awnings from the cares of life, have nothing to do but to write books upon tables of cedar, and fish for perch from a gilded galley. And that 's what will come to pass when the ages lose their barbarism and know their benefactors. Meanwhile, sir, I invite you to my rooms, and will regale you upon brandy-and-water as long as I can pay for it; and when I cannot--you shall regale me." Mr. Prickett muttered, "A very bad bargain indeed," as Mr. Burley, with his chin in the air, stepped into the street. CHAPTER XX. At first Leonard had always returned home through the crowded thoroughfares,--the contact of numbers had animated his spirits. But the last two days, since the discovery of his birth, he had taken his way down the comparatively unpeopled path of the New Road. He had just gained that part of this outskirt in which the statuaries and tomb-makers exhibit their gloomy wares, furniture alike for gardens and for graves,--and, pausing, contemplated a column, on which was placed an urn, half covered with a funeral mantle, when his shoulder was lightly tapped, and, turning quickly, he saw Mr. Burley standing behind him. "Excuse me, sir, but you understand perch-fishing; and since we find ourselves on the same road, I should like to be better acquainted with you. I hear you once wished to be an author. I am one." Leonard had never before, to his knowledge, seen an author, and a mournful smile passed his lips as he surveyed the perch-fisher. Mr. Burley was indeed very differently attired since the first interview by the brooklet. He looked much less like an author,--but more perhaps like a perch-fisher. He had a new white hat, stuck on one side of his head, a new green overcoat, new gray trousers, and new boots. In his hand was a whalebone stick, with a silver handle. Nothing could be more vagrant, devil-me-Garish, and, to use a slang word, tigerish, than his whole air. Yet, vulgar as was his costume, he did not himself seem vulgar, but rather eccentric, lawless,--something out of the pale of convention. His face looked more pale and more puffed than before, the tip of his nose redder; but the spark in his eye was of a livelier light, and there was self-enjoyment in the corners of his sensual, humorous lip. "You are an author, sir," repeated Leonard. "Well; and what is your report of the calling? Yonder column props an urn. The column is tall, and the urn is graceful. But it looks out of place by the roadside: what say you?" MR. BURLEY.--"It would look better in the churchyard." LEONARD.--"So I was thinking. And you are an author!" MR. BURLEY.--"Ah, I said you had a quick sense of allegory. And so you think an author looks better in a churchyard, when you see him but as a muffled urn under the moonshine, than standing beneath the gas-lamp in a white hat, and with a red tip to his nose. Abstractedly, you are right. But, with your leave, the author would rather be where he is. Let us walk on." The two men felt an interest in each other, and they walked some yards in silence. "To return to the urn," said Mr. Burley,--"you think of fame and churchyards. Natural enough, before illusion dies; but I think of the moment, of existence,--and I laugh at fame. Fame, sir--not worth a glass of cold-without! And as for a glass of warm, with sugar--and five shillings in one's pocket to spend as one pleases--what is there in Westminster Abbey to compare with it?" "Talk on, sir,--I should like to hear you talk. Let me listen and hold my tongue." Leonard pulled his hat over his brows, and gave up his moody, questioning, turbulent mind to his new acquaintance. And John Burley talked on. A dangerous and fascinating talk it was,-- the talk of a great intellect fallen; a serpent trailing its length on the ground, and showing bright, shifting, glorious hues, as it grovelled,--a serpent, yet without the serpent's guile. If John Burley deceived and tempted, he meant it not,--he crawled and glittered alike honestly. No dove could be more simple. Laughing at fame, he yet dwelt with an eloquent enthusiasm on the joy of composition. "What do I care what men without are to say and think of the words that gush forth on my page?" cried he. "If you think of the public, of urns, and laurels, while you write, you are no genius; you are not fit to be an author. I write because it rejoices me, because it is my nature. Written, I care no more what becomes of it than the lark for the effect that the song has on the peasant it wakes to the plough. The poet, like the lark, sings 'from his watch-tower in the skies.' Is this true?" "Yes, very true!" "What can rob us of this joy? The bookseller will not buy; the public will not read. Let them sleep at the foot of the ladder of the angels, --we climb it all the same. And then one settles down into such good- tempered Lucianic contempt for men. One wants so little from them, when one knows what one's self is worth, and what they are. They are just worth the coin one can extract from them, in order to live. "Our life--that is worth so much to us. And then their joys, so vulgar to them, we can make them golden and kingly. Do you suppose Burns drinking at the alehouse, with his boors around him, was drinking, like them, only beer and whiskey? No, he was drinking nectar; he was imbibing his own ambrosial thoughts,--shaking with the laughter of the gods. The coarse human liquid was just needed to unlock his spirit from the clay,-- take it from jerkin and corduroys, and wrap it in the 'singing robes' that floated wide in the skies: the beer or the whiskey needed but for that, and then it changed at once into the drink of Hebe. But come, you have not known this life,--you have not seen it. Come, give me this night. I have moneys about me,--I will fling them abroad as liberally as Alexander himself, when he left to his share but hope. Come!" "Whither?" "To my throne. On that throne last sat Edmund Kean, mighty mime! I am his successor. We will see whether in truth these wild sons of genius, who are cited but 'to point a moral and adorn a tale,' were objects of compassion. Sober-suited tits to lament over a Savage or a Morland, a Porson and a Burns!" "Or a Chatterton," said Leonard, gloomily. "Chatterton was an impostor in all things; he feigned excesses that he never knew. He a bacchanalian, a royster! HE! No. We will talk of him. Come!" Leonard went. CHAPTER XXI. The Room! And the smoke-reek, and the gas glare of it! The whitewash of the walls, and the prints thereon of the actors in their mime-robes, and stage postures,--actors as far back as their own lost Augustan era, when the stage was a real living influence on the manners and the age! There was Betterton, in wig and gown,--as Cato, moralizing on the soul's eternity, and halting between Plato and the dagger. There was Woodward as "The Fine Gentleman," with the inimitable rake-hell in which the heroes of Wycherly and Congreve and Farquhar live again. There was jovial Quin as Falstaff, with round buckler and "fair round belly." There was Colley Cibber in brocade, taking snuff as with "his Lord," the thumb and forefinger raised in air, and looking at you for applause. There was Macklin as Shylock, with knife in hand: and Kemble in the solemn weeds of the Dane; and Kean in the place of honour over the chimneypiece. When we are suddenly taken from practical life, with its real workday men, and presented to the portraits of those sole heroes of a world Fantastic and Phantasmal, in the garments wherein they did "strut and fret their hour upon the stage," verily there is something in the sight that moves an inner sense within ourselves,--for all of us have an inner sense of some existence, apart from the one that wears away our days: an existence that, afar from St. James's and St. Giles's, the Law Courts and Exchange, goes its way in terror or mirth, in smiles or in tears, through a vague magic-land of the poets. There, see those actors--they are the men who lived it--to whom our world was the false one, to whom the Imaginary was the Actual! And did Shakspeare himself, in his life, ever hearken to such applause as thundered round the personators of his airy images? Vague children of the most transient of the arts, fleet shadows on running waters, though thrown down from the steadfast stars, were ye not happier than we who live in the Real? How strange you must feel in the great circuit that ye now take through eternity! No prompt-books, no lamps, no acting Congreve and Shakspeare there! For what parts in the skies have your studies on the earth fitted you? Your ultimate destinies are very puzzling. Hail to your effigies, and pass we on! There, too, on the whitewashed walls, were admitted the portraits of ruder rivals in the arena of fame,--yet they, too, had known an applause warmer than his age gave to Shakspeare; the Champions of the Ring,--Cribb and Molyneux and Dutch Sam. Interspersed with these was an old print of Newmarket in the early part of the last century, and sundry engravings from Hogarth. But poets, oh, they were there too! poets who might be supposed to have been sufficiently good fellows to be at home with such companions,--Shakspeare, of course, with his placid forehead; Ben Jonson, with his heavy scowl; Burns and Byron cheek by jowl. But the strangest of all these heterogeneous specimens of graphic art was a full-length print of William Pitt!---William Pitt, the austere and imperious. What the deuce did he do there amongst prize-fighters and actors and poets? It seemed an insult to his grand memory. Nevertheless there he was, very erect, and with a look of ineffable disgust in his upturned nostrils. The portraits on the sordid walls were very like the crambo in the minds of ordinary men,--very like the motley pictures of the FAMOUS hung up in your parlour, O my Public! Actors and prize-fighters, poets and statesmen, all without congruity and fitness, all whom you have been to see or to hear for a moment, and whose names have stared out in your newspapers, O my public! And the company? Indescribable! Comedians, from small theatres, out of employ; pale, haggard-looking boys, probably the sons of worthy traders, trying their best to break their fathers' hearts; here and there the marked features of a Jew. Now and then you might see the curious puzzled face of some greenhorn about town, or perhaps a Cantab; and men of grave age, and grayhaired, were there, and amongst them a wondrous proportion of carbuncled faces and bottle-noses. And when John Burley entered, there was a shout that made William Pitt shake in his frame. Such stamping and hallooing, and such hurrahs for "Burley John." And the gentleman who had filled the great high leathern chair in his absence gave it up to John Burley; and Leonard, with his grave, observant eye, and lip half sad and half scornful, placed himself by the side of his introducer. There was a nameless, expectant stir through the assembly, as there is in the pit of the opera when some great singer advances to the lamps, and begins, "Di tanti palpiti." Time flies. Look at the Dutch clock over the door. Half-an-hour. John Burley begins to warm. A yet quicker light begins to break from his Eye; his voice has a mellow luscious roll in it. "He will be grand to-night," whispered a thin man, who looked like a tailor, seated on the other side of Leonard. Time flies,--an hour. Look again at the Dutch clock. John Burley is grand, he is in his zenith, at his culminating point. What magnificent drollery! what luxuriant humour! How the Rabelais shakes in his easy-chair! Under the rush and the roar of this fun (what word else shall describe it?) the man's intellect is as clear as gold sand under a river. Such wit and such truth, and, at times, such a flood of quick eloquence! All now are listeners,--silent, save in applause. And Leonard listened too. Not, as he would some nights ago, in innocent unquestioning delight. No; his mind has passed through great sorrow, great passion, and it comes out unsettled, inquiring, eager, brooding over joy itself as over a problem. And the drink circulates, and faces change; and there are gabbling and babbling; and Burley's head sinks in his bosom, and he is silent. And up starts a wild, dissolute, bacchanalian glee for seven voices. And the smoke-reek grows denser and thicker, and the gaslight looks dizzy through the haze. And John Burley's eyes reel. Look again at the Dutch clock. Two hours have gone. John Burley has broken out again from his silence, his voice thick and husky, and his laugh cracked; and he talks, O ye gods! such rubbish and ribaldry; and the listeners roar aloud, and think it finer than before. And Leonard, who had hitherto been measuring himself in his mind against the giant, and saying inly, "He soars out of my reach," finds the giant shrink smaller and smaller, and saith to himself, "He is but of man's common standard after all!" Look again at the Dutch clock. Three hours have passed. Is John Burley now of man's common standard? Man himself seems to have vanished from the scene,--his soul stolen from him, his form gone away with the fumes of the smoke, and the nauseous steam from that fiery bowl. And Leonard looked round, and saw but the swine of Circe,--some on the floor, some staggering against the walls, some hugging each other on the tables, some fighting, some bawling, some weeping. The divine spark had fled from the human face; the Beast is everywhere growing more and snore out of the thing that had been Man. And John Burley, still unconquered, but clean lost to his senses, fancies himself a preacher, and drawls forth the most lugubrious sermon upon the brevity of life that mortal ever beard, accompanied with unctuous sobs; and now and then in the midst of balderdash gleams out a gorgeous sentence, that Jeremy Taylor might have envied, drivelling away again into a cadence below the rhetoric of a Muggletonian. And the waiters choked up the doorway, listening and laughing, and prepared to call cabs and coaches; and suddenly some one turned off the gaslight, and all was dark as pitch,--howls and laughter, as of the damned, ringing through the Pandemonium. Out from the black atmosphere stepped the boy-poet; and the still stars rushed on his sight, as they looked over the grimy roof-tops. CHAPTER XXII. Well, Leonard, this is the first time thou hast shown that thou hast in thee the iron out of which true manhood is forged and shaped. Thou hast the power to resist. Forth, unebriate, unpolluted, he came from the orgy, as yon star above him came from the cloud. He had a latch-key to his lodgings. He let himself in and walked noiselessly up the creaking wooden stair. It was dawn. He passed on to his window and threw it open. The green elm-tree from the carpenter's yard looked as fresh and fair as if rooted in solitude, leagues away from the smoke of Babylon. "Nature, Nature!" murmured Leonard, "I hear thy voice now. This stills, this strengthens. But the struggle is very dread. Here, despair of life,--there, faith in life. Nature thinks of neither, and lives serenely on." By and by a bird slid softly from the heart of the tree, and dropped on the ground below out of sight. But Leonard heard its carol. It awoke its companions; wings began to glance in the air, and the clouds grew red towards the east. Leonard sighed and left the window. On the table, near Helen's rose- tree, which he bent over wistfully, lay a letter. He had not observed it before. It was in Helen's hand. He took it to the light, and read it by the pure, healthful gleams of morn:-- IVY LODGE. Oh, my dear brother Leonard, will this find you well, and (more happy I dare not say, but) less sad than when we parted? I write kneeling, so that it seems to me as if I wrote and prayed at the same time. You may come and see me to-morrow evening, Leonard. Do come, do,--we shall walk together in this pretty garden; and there is an arbour all covered with jessamine and honeysuckle, from which we can look down on London. I have looked from it so many times,-- so many--trying if I can guess the roofs in our poor little street, and fancying that I do see the dear elm-tree. Miss Starke is very kind to me; and I think after I have seen you, that I shall be happy here,--that is, if you are happy. Your own grateful sister, HELEN. P. S.--Any one will direct you to our house; it lies to the left near the top of the hill, a little way down a lane that is overhung on one side with chestnut-trees and lilacs. I shall be watching for you at the gate. Leonard's brow softened, he looked again like his former self. Up from the dark sea at his heart smiled the meek face of a child, and the waves lay still as at the charm of a spirit. CHAPTER XXIII. "And what is Mr. Burley, and what has he written?" asked Leonard of Mr. Prickett, when he returned to the shop. Let us reply to that question in our own words, for we know more about Mr. Burley than Mr. Prickett does. John Burley was the only son of a poor clergyman, in a village near Ealing, who had scraped and saved and pinched, to send his son to an excellent provincial school in a northern county, and thence to college. At the latter, during his first year, young Burley was remarked by the undergraduates for his thick shoes and coarse linen, and remarkable to the authorities for his assiduity and learning. The highest hopes were entertained of him by the tutors and examiners. At the beginning of the second year his high animal spirits, before kept down by study, broke out. Reading had become easy to him. He knocked off his tasks with a facile stroke, as it were. He gave up his leisure hours to Symposia by no means Socratical. He fell into an idle, hard-drinking set. He got into all kinds of scrapes. The authorities were at first kind and forbearing in their admonitions, for they respected his abilities, and still hoped he might become an honour to the University. But at last he went drunk into a formal examination, and sent in papers, after the manner of Aristophanes, containing capital jokes upon the Dons and Big- wigs themselves. The offence was the greater and seemed the more premeditated for being clothed in Greek. John Burley was expelled. He went home to his father's a miserable man, for, with all his follies, he had a good heart. Removed from ill example, his life for a year was blameless. He got admitted as usher into the school in which he had received instruction as a pupil. This school was in a large town. John Burley became member of a club formed among the tradesmen, and spent three evenings a week there. His astonishing convivial and conversational powers began to declare themselves. He grew the oracle of the club; and, from being the most sober, peaceful assembly in which grave fathers of a family ever smoked a pipe or sipped a glass, it grew under Mr. Burley's auspices the parent of revels as frolicking and frantic as those out of which the old Greek Goat Song ever tipsily rose. This would not do. There was a great riot in the streets one night, and the next morning the usher was dismissed. Fortunately for John Burley's conscience, his father had died before this happened,--died believing in the reform of his son. During his ushership Mr. Burley had scraped acquaintance with the editor of the county newspaper, and given him some capital political articles; for Burley was, like Parr and Porson, a notable politician. The editor furnished him with letters to the journalists in London, and John came to the metropolis and got employed on a very respectable newspaper. At college he had known Audley Egerton, though but slightly: that gentleman was then just rising into repute in parliament. Burley sympathized with some question on which Audley had distinguished himself, and wrote a very good article thereon,--an article so good that Egerton inquired into the authorship, found out Burley, and resolved in his own mind to provide for him whenever he himself came into office. But Burley was a man whom it was impossible to provide for. He soon lost his connection with the news paper. First, he was so irregular that he could never be depended upon. Secondly, he had strange, honest, eccentric twists of thinking, that could coalesce with the thoughts of no party in the long run. An article of his, inadvertently admitted, had horrified all the proprietors, staff, and readers of the paper. It was diametrically opposite to the principles the paper advocated, and compared its pet politician to Catiline. Then John Burley shut himself up and wrote books. He wrote two or three books, very clever, but not at all to the popular taste,--abstract and learned, full of whims that were caviare to the multitude, and larded with Greek. Nevertheless they obtained for him a little money, and among literary men some reputation. Now Audley Egerton came into power, and got him, though with great difficulty,--for there were many prejudices against this scampish, harum-scarum son of the Muses,--a place in a public office. He kept it about a month, and then voluntarily resigned it. "My crust of bread and liberty!" quoth John Burley, and he vanished into a garret. From that time to the present he lived--Heaven knows how! Literature is a business, like everything else; John Burley grew more and more incapable of business. "He could not do task-work," he said; he wrote when the whim seized him, or when the last penny was in his pouch, or when he was actually in the spunging-house or the Fleet,--migrations which occurred to him, on an average, twice a year. He could generally sell what he had actually written, but no one would engage him beforehand. Editors of magazines and other periodicals were very glad to have his articles, on the condition that they were anonymous; and his style was not necessarily detected, for he could vary it with the facility of a practised pen. Audley Egerton continued his best supporter, for there were certain questions on which no one wrote with such force as John Burley,-- questions connected with the metaphysics of politics, such as law reform and economical science. And Audley Egerton was the only man John Burley put himself out of the way to serve, and for whom he would give up a drinking bout and do task-work; for John Burley was grateful by nature, and he felt that Egerton had really tried to befriend him. Indeed, it was true, as he had stated to Leonard by the Brent, that even after he had resigned his desk in the London office, he had had the offer of an appointment in Jamaica, and a place in India, from the minister. But probably there were other charms then than those exercised by the one- eyed perch that kept him to the neighbourhood of London. With all his grave faults of character and conduct, John Burley was not without the fine qualities of a large nature. He was most resolutely his own enemy, it is true, but he could hardly be said to be any one else's. Even when he criticised some more fortunate writer, he was good-humoured in his very satire: he had no bile, no envy. And as for freedom from malignant personalities, he might have been a model to all critics. I must except politics, however, for in these he could be rabid and savage. He had a passion for independence, which, though pushed to excess, was not without grandeur. No lick-platter, no parasite, no toad-eater, no literary beggar, no hunter after patronage and subscriptions; even in his dealings with Audley Egerton, he insisted on naming the price for his labours. He took a price, because, as the papers required by Audley demanded much reading and detail, which was not at all to his taste, he considered himself entitled fairly to something more than the editor of the journal wherein the papers appeared was in the habit of giving. But he assessed this extra price himself, and as he would have done to a bookseller. And when in debt and in prison, though he knew a line to Egerton would have extricated him, he never wrote that line. He would depend alone on his pen,--dipped it hastily in the ink, and scrawled himself free. The most debased point about him was certainly the incorrigible vice of drinking, and with it the usual concomitant of that vice,--the love of low company. To be King of the Bohemians, to dazzle by his wild humour, and sometimes to exalt by his fanciful eloquence, the rude, gross natures that gathered round him,--this was a royalty that repaid him for all sacrifice of solid dignity; a foolscap crown that he would not have changed for an emperor's diadem. Indeed, to appreciate rightly the talents of John Burley, it was necessary to hear him talk on such occasions. As a writer, after all, he was now only capable of unequal desultory efforts; but as a talker, in his own wild way, he was original and matchless. And the gift of talk is one of the most dangerous gifts a man can possess for his own sake,--the applause is so immediate, and gained with so little labour. Lower and lower and lower had sunk John Burley, not only in the opinion of all who knew his name, but in the habitual exercise of his talents. And this seemed wilfully--from choice. He would write for some unstamped journal of the populace, out of the pale of the law, for pence, when he could have got pounds from journals of high repute. He was very fond of scribbling off penny ballads, and then standing in the street to hear them sung. He actually once made himself the poet of an advertising tailor, and enjoyed it excessively. But that did not last long, for John Burley was a Pittite,--not a Tory, he used to say, but a Pittite. And if you had heard him talk of Pitt, you would never have known what to make of that great statesman. He treated him as the German commentators do Shakspeare, and invested him with all imaginary meanings and objects, that would have turned the grand practical man into a sibyl. Well, he was a Pittite; the tailor a fanatic for Thelwall and Cobbett. Mr. Burley wrote a poem wherein Britannia appeared to the tailor, complimented him highly on the art he exhibited in adorning the persons of her sons; and bestowing upon him a gigantic mantle, said that he, and he alone, might be enabled to fit it to the shoulders of living men. The rest of the poem was occupied in Mr. Snip's unavailing attempts to adjust this mantle to the eminent politicians of the day, when, just as he had sunk down in despair, Britannia reappeared to him, and consoled him with the information that he had done all mortal man could do, and that she had only desired to convince pigmies that no human art could adjust to THEIR proportions the mantle of William Pitt. /Sic itur ad astra/,--she went back to the stars, mantle and all! Mr. Snip was exceedingly indignant at this allegorical effusion, and with wrathful shears cut the tie between himself and his poet. Thus, then, the reader has, we trust, a pretty good idea of John Burley, --a specimen of his genus not very common in any age, and now happily almost extinct, since authors of all degrees share in the general improvement in order, economy, and sober decorum, which has obtained in the national manners. Mr. Prickett, though entering into less historical detail than we have done, conveyed to Leonard a tolerably accurate notion of the man, representing him as a person of great powers and learning, who had thoroughly thrown himself away. Leonard did not, however, see how much Mr. Burley himself was to be blamed for his waste of life; he could not conceive a man of genius voluntarily seating himself at the lowest step in the social ladder. He rather supposed he had been thrust down there by Necessity. And when Mr. Prickett, concluding, said, "Well, I should think Burley would cure you of the desire to be an author even more than Chatterton," the young man answered gloomily, "Perhaps," and turned to the book- shelves. With Mr. Prickett's consent, Leonard was released earlier than usual from his task, and a little before sunset he took his way to Highgate. He was fortunately directed to take the new road by the Regent's Park, and so on through a very green and smiling country. The walk, the freshness of the air, the songs of the birds, and, above all, when he had got half-way, the solitude of the road, served to rouse him from his stern and sombre meditations. And when he came into the lane overhung with chestnut- trees, and suddenly caught sight of Helen's watchful and then brightening face, as she stood by the wicket, and under the shadow of cool, murmurous boughs, the blood rushed gayly through his veins, and his heart beat loud and gratefully. CHAPTER XXIV. She drew him into the garden with such true childlike joy. Now behold them seated in the arbour,--a perfect bower of sweets and blossoms; the wilderness of roof-tops and spires stretching below, broad and far; London seen dim and silent, as in a dream. She took his hat from his brows gently, and looked him in the face with tearful penetrating eyes. She did not say, "You are changed." She said, "Why, why did I leave you?" and then turned away. "Never mind me, Helen. I am man, and rudely born; speak of yourself. This lady is kind to you, then?" "Does she not let me see you? Oh, very kind,--and look here." Helen pointed to fruits and cakes set out on the table. "A feast, brother." And she began to press her hospitality with pretty winning ways, more playful than was usual to her, and talking very fast, and with forced, but silvery, laughter. By degrees she stole him from his gloom and reserve; and though he could not reveal to her the cause of his bitterest sorrow, he owned that he had suffered much. He would not have owned that to another living being. And then, quickly turning from this brief confession, with assurances that the worst was over, he sought to amuse her by speaking of his new acquaintance with the perch-fisher. But when he spoke of this man with a kind of reluctant admiration, mixed with compassionate yet gloomy interest, and drew a grotesque, though subdued, sketch of the wild scene in which he had been spectator, Helen grew alarmed and grave. "Oh, brother, do not go there again,--do not see more of this bad man." "Bad!--no! Hopeless and unhappy, he has stooped to stimulants and oblivion--but you cannot understand these things, my pretty preacher." "Yes, I do, Leonard. What is the difference between being good and bad? The good do not yield to temptations, and the bad do." The definition was so simple and so wise that Leonard was more struck with it than he might have been by the most elaborate sermon by Parson Dale. "I have often murmured to myself since I lost you, 'Helen was my good angel; '--say on. For my heart is dark to myself, and while you speak light seems to dawn on it." This praise so confused Helen that she was long before she could obey the command annexed to it. But, by little and little, words came to both more frankly. And then he told her the sad tale of Chatterton, and waited, anxious to hear her comments. "Well," he said, seeing that she remained silent, "how can I hope, when this mighty genius laboured and despaired? What did he want, save birth and fortune and friends and human justice?" "Did he pray to God?" asked Helen, drying her tears. Again Leonard was startled. In reading the life of Chatterton he had not much noted the scepticism, assumed or real, of the ill-fated aspirer to earthly immortality. At Helen's question, that scepticism struck him forcibly. "Why do you ask that, Helen?" "Because, when we pray often, we grow so very, very patient," answered the child. "Perhaps, had he been patient a few months more, all would have been won by him, as it will be by you, brother, for you pray, and you will be patient." Leonard bowed his head in deep thought, and this time the thought was not gloomy. Then out from that awful life there glowed another passage, which before he had not heeded duly, but regarded rather as one of the darkest mysteries in the fate of Chatterton. At the very time the despairing poet had locked himself up in his garret, to dismiss his soul from its earthly ordeal, his genius had just found its way into the light of renown. Good and learned and powerful men were preparing to serve and save him. Another year--nay, perchance another month--and he might have stood acknowledged sublime in the foremost ranks of his age. "Oh, Helen!" cried Leonard, raising his brows, from which the cloud had passed, "why, indeed, did you leave me?" Helen started in her turn as he repeated this regret, and in her turn grew thoughtful. At length she asked him if he had written for the box which had belonged to her father and been left at the inn. And Leonard, though a little chafed at what he thought a childish interruption to themes of graver interest, owned, with self-reproach, that he had forgotten to do so. Should he not write now to order the box to be sent to her at Miss Starke's? "No; let it be sent to you. Take care of it. I should like to know that something of mine is with you; and perhaps I may not stay here long." "Not stay here? That you must, my dear Helen,--at least as long as Miss Starke will keep you, and is kind. By and by" (added Leonard, with something of his former sanguine tone) "I may yet make my way, and we shall have our cottage to ourselves. But--oh, Helen!--I forgot--you wounded me; you left your money with me. I only found it in my drawers the other day. Fie! I have brought it back." "It was not mine,--it is yours. We were to share together,--you paid all; and how can I want it here, too?" But Leonard was obstinate; and as Helen mournfully received back all that of fortune her father had bequeathed to her, a tall female figure stood at the entrance of the arbour, and said, in a voice that scattered all sentiment to the winds, "Young man, it is time to go." CHAPTER XXV. "Already?" said Helen, with faltering accents, as she crept to Miss Starke's side while Leonard rose and bowed. "I am very grateful to you, madam," said he, with the grace that comes from all refinement of idea, "for allowing me to see Miss Helen. Do not let me abuse your kindness." Miss Starke seemed struck with his look and manner, and made a stiff half courtesy. A form more rigid than Miss Starke's it was hard to conceive. She was like the Grim White Woman in the nursery ballads. Yet, apparently, there was a good-nature in allowing the stranger to enter her trim garden, and providing for him and her little charge those fruits and cakes which belied her aspect. "May I go with him to the gate?" whispered Helen, as Leonard had already passed up the path. "You may, child; but do not loiter. And then come back, and lock up the cakes and cherries, or Patty will get at them." Helen ran after Leonard. "Write to me, brother,--write to me; and do not, do not be friends with this man, who took you to that wicked, wicked place." "Oh, Helen, I go from you strong enough to brave worse dangers than that," said Leonard, almost gayly. They kissed each other at the little wicket gate, and parted. Leonard walked home under the summer moonlight, and on entering his chamber looked first at his rose-tree. The leaves of yesterday's flowers lay strewn around it; but the tree had put forth new buds. "Nature ever restores," said the young man. He paused a moment, and added, "Is it that Nature is very patient?" His sleep that night was not broken by the fearful dreams he had lately known. He rose refreshed, and went his way to his day's work,--not stealing along the less crowded paths, but with a firm step, through the throng of men. Be bold, adventurer,--thou hast more to suffer! Wilt thou sink? I look into thy heart, and I cannot answer. 
7712	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK ELEVENTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF HATE AS AN AGENT IN CIVILIZED LIFE. It is not an uncommon crotchet amongst benevolent men to maintain that wickedness is necessarily a sort of insanity, and that nobody would make a violent start out of the straight path unless stung to such disorder by a bee in his bonnet. Certainly when some very clever, well-educated person like our friend, Randal Leslie, acts upon the fallacious principle that "roguery is the best policy," it is curious to see how many points he has in common with the insane: what over-cunning, what irritable restlessness, what suspicious belief that the rest of the world are in a conspiracy against him, which it requires all his wit to baffle and turn to his own proper aggrandizement and profit. Perhaps some of my readers may have thought that I have represented Randal as unnaturally far- fetched in his schemes, too wire-drawn and subtle in his speculations; yet that is commonly the case with very refining intellects, when they choose to play the knave; it helps to disguise from themselves the ugliness of their ambition, just as a philosopher delights in the ingenuity of some metaphysical process, which ends in what plain men call "atheism," who would be infinitely shocked and offended if he were called an atheist. Having premised thus much on behalf of the "Natural" in Randal Leslie's character, I must here fly off to say a word or two on the agency in human life exercised by a passion rarely seen without a mask in our debonair and civilized age,--I mean Hate. In the good old days of our forefathers, when plain speaking and hard blows were in fashion, when a man had his heart at the tip of his tongue, and four feet of sharp iron dangling at his side, Hate played an honest, open part in the theatre of the world. In fact, when we read History, Hate seems to have "starred it" on the stage. But now, where is Hate? Who ever sees its face? Is it that smiling, good-tempered creature, that presses you by the hand so cordially, or that dignified figure of state that calls you its "Right Honourable friend"? Is it that bowing, grateful dependent; is it that soft-eyed Amaryllis? Ask not, guess not: you will only know it to be hate when the poison is in your cup, or the poniard in your breast. In the Gothic age, grim Humour painted "the Dance of Death;" in our polished century, some sardonic wit should give us "the Masquerade of Hate." Certainly, the counter-passion betrays itself with ease to our gaze. Love is rarely a hypocrite. But Hate--how detect, and how guard against it? It lurks where you least suspect it; it is created by causes that you can the least foresee; and Civilization multiplies its varieties, whilst it favours its disguise: for Civilization increases the number of contending interests, and Refinement renders more susceptible to the least irritation the cuticle of Self-Love. But Hate comes covertly forth from some self-interest we have crossed, or some self-love we have wounded; and, dullards that we are, how seldom we are aware of our offence! You may be hated by a man you have never seen in your life: you may be hated as often by one you have loaded with benefits; you may so walk as not to tread on a worm; but you must sit fast on your easy-chair till you are carried out to your bier, if you would be sure not to tread on some snake of a foe. But, then, what harm does the hate do us? Very often the harm is as unseen by the world as the hate is unrecognized by us. It may come on us, unawares, in some solitary byway of our life; strike us in our unsuspecting privacy; thwart as in some blessed hope we have never told to another; for the moment the world sees that it is Hate that strikes us, its worst power of mischief is gone. We have a great many names for the same passion,--Envy, Jealousy, Spite, Prejudice, Rivalry; but they are so many synonyms for the one old heathen demon. When the death-giving shaft of Apollo sent the plague to some unhappy Achaean, it did not much matter to the victim whether the god were called Helios or Smintheus. No man you ever met in the world seemed more raised above the malice of Hate than Audley Egerton: even in the hot war of politics he had scarcely a personal foe; and in private life he kept himself so aloof and apart from others that he was little known, save by the benefits the waste of his wealth conferred. That the hate of any one could reach the austere statesman on his high pinnacle of esteem,--you would have smiled at the idea! But Hate is now, as it ever has been, an actual Power amidst "the Varieties of Life;" and, in spite of bars to the door, and policemen in the street, no one can be said to sleep in safety while there wakes the eye of a single foe. CHAPTER II. The glory of Bond Street is no more. The title of Bond Street Lounger has faded from our lips. In vain the crowd of equipages and the blaze of shops: the renown of Bond Street was in its pavement, its pedestrians. Art thou old enough, O reader! to remember the Bond Street Lounger and his incomparable generation? For my part, I can just recall the decline of the grand era. It was on its wane when, in the ambition of boyhood, I first began to muse upon high neck cloths and Wellington boots. But the ancient /habitues/--the /magni nominis umbrae/, contemporaries of Brummell in his zenith, boon companions of George IV. in his regency-- still haunted the spot. From four to six in the hot month of June, they sauntered stately to and fro, looking somewhat mournful even then, foreboding the extinction of their race. The Bond Street Lounger was rarely seen alone: he was a social animal, and walked arm in arm with his fellow-man. He did not seem born for the cares of these ruder times; not made was he for an age in which Finsbury returns members to parliament. He loved his small talk; and never since then has talk been so pleasingly small. Your true Bond Street Lounger had a very dissipated look. His youth had been spent with heroes who loved their bottle. He himself had perhaps supped with Sheridan. He was by nature a spendthrift: you saw it in the roll of his walk. Men who make money rarely saunter; men who save money rarely swagger. But saunter and swagger both united to stamp PRODIGAL on the Bond Street Lounger. And so familiar as he was with his own set, and so amusingly supercilious with the vulgar residue of mortals whose faces were strange to Bond Street! But he is gone. The world, though sadder for his loss, still strives to do its best without him; and our young men, nowadays, attend to model cottages, and incline to Tractarianism. Still the place, to an unreflecting eye, has its brilliancy and bustle; but it is a thoroughfare, not a lounge. And adown the thoroughfare, somewhat before the hour when the throng is thickest, passed two gentlemen of an appearance exceedingly out of keeping with the place.--Yet both had the air of men pretending to aristocracy,--an old- world air of respectability and stake in the country, and Church-and- Stateism. The burlier of the two was even rather a beau in his way. He had first learned to dress, indeed, when Bond Street was at its acme, and Brummell in his pride. He still retained in his garb the fashion of his youth; only what then had spoken of the town, now betrayed the life of the country. His neckcloth ample and high, and of snowy whiteness, set off to comely advantage a face smooth-shaven, and of clear florid hues; his coat of royal blue, with buttons in which you might have seen yourself "veluti in speculum", was rather jauntily buttoned across a waist that spoke of lusty middle age, free from the ambition, the avarice, and the anxieties that fret Londoners into thread-papers; his small-clothes, of grayish drab, loose at the thigh and tight at the knee, were made by Brummell's own breeches-maker, and the gaiters to match (thrust half-way down the calf), had a manly dandyism that would have done honour to the beau-ideal of a county member. The profession of this gentleman's companion was unmistakable,--the shovel-hat, the clerical cut of the coat, the neckcloth without collar, that seemed made for its accessory the band, and something very decorous, yet very mild, in the whole mien of this personage, all spoke of one who was every inch the gentleman and the parson. "No," said the portlier of these two persons,--"no, I can't say I like Frank's looks at all. There's certainly something on his mind. However, I suppose it will be all out this evening." "He dines with you at your hotel, Squire? Well, you must be kind to him. We can't put old heads upon young shoulders." "I don't object to his bead being young," returned the squire; "but I wish he had a little of Randal Leslie's good sense in it. I see how it will end; I must take him back to the country; and if he wants occupation, why, he shall keep the hounds, and I'll put him into Brooksby farm." "As for the hounds," replied the parson, "hounds necessitate horses; and I think more mischief comes to a young man of spirit from the stables than from any other place in the world. They ought to be exposed from the pulpit, those stables!" added Mr. Dale, thoughtfully; "see what they entailed upon Nimrod! But Agriculture is a healthful and noble pursuit, honoured by sacred nations, and cherished by the greatest men in classical times. For instance, the Athenians were--" "Bother the Athenians!" cried the squire, irreverently; "you need not go so far back for an example. It is enough for a Hazeldean that his father and his grandfather and his great-grandfather all farmed before him; and a devilish deal better, I take it, than any of those musty old Athenians, no offence to them. But I'll tell you one thing, Parson, a man to farm well, and live in the country, should have a wife; it is half the battle." "As to a battle, a man who is married is pretty sure of half, though not always the better half, of it," answered the parson, who seemed peculiarly facetious that day. "Ah, Squire, I wish I could think Mrs. Hazeldean right in her conjecture!--you would have the prettiest daughter-in-law in the three kingdoms. And I do believe that, if I could have a good talk with the young lady apart from her father, we could remove the only objection I know to the marriage. Those Popish errors--" "Ah, very true!" cried the squire; "that Pope sticks hard in my gizzard. I could excuse her being a foreigner, and not having, I suppose, a shilling in her pocket--bless her handsome face!--but to be worshipping images in her room instead of going to the parish church, that will never do. But you think you could talk her out of the Pope, and into the family pew?" "Why, I could have talked her father out of the Pope, only, when he had not a word to say for himself, he bolted out of the window. Youth is more ingenuous in confessing its errors." "I own," said the squire, "that both Harry and I had a favourite notion of ours till this Italian girl got into our heads. Do you know we both took a great fancy to Randal's little sister,--pretty, blushing, English- faced girl as ever you saw. And it went to Harry's good heart to see her so neglected by that silly, fidgety mother of hers, her hair hanging about her ears; and I thought it would be a fine way to bring Randal and Frank more together, and enable me to do something for Randal himself,--a good boy with Hazeldean blood in his veins. But Violante is so handsome, that I don't wonder at the boy's choice; and then it is our fault,--we let them see so much of each other as children. However, I should be very angry if Rickeybockey had been playing sly, and running away from the Casino in order to give Frank an opportunity to carry on a clandestine intercourse with his daughter." "I don't think that would be like Riccabocca; more like him to run away in order to deprive Frank of the best of all occasions to court Violante, if he so desired; for where could he see more of her than at the Casino?" SQUIRE.--"That's well put. Considering he was only a foreign doctor, and, for aught we know, once went about in a caravan, he is a gentleman- like fellow, that Rickeybockey. I speak of people as I find them. But what is your notion about Frank? I see you don't think he is in love with Violante, after all. Out with it, man; speak plain." PARSON.--"Since you so urge me, I own I do not think him in love with her; neither does my Carry, who is uncommonly shrewd in such matters." SQUIRE.--"Your Carry, indeed!--as if she were half as shrewd as my Harry. Carry--nonsense!" PARSON (reddening).---"I don't want to make invidious remarks; but, Mr. Hazeldean, when you sneer at my Carry, I should not be a man if I did not say that--" SQUIRE (interrupting).--"She is a good little woman enough; but to compare her to my Harry!" PARSON.--"I don't compare her to your Harry; I don't compare her to any woman in England, Sir. But you are losing your temper, Mr. Hazeldean!" SQUIRE.--"I!" PARSON.--"And people are staring at you, Mr. Hazeldean. For decency's sake, compose yourself, and change the subject. We are just at the Albany. I hope that we shall not find poor Captain Higginbotham as ill as he represents himself in his letter. Ah, is it possible? No, it cannot be. Look--look!" SQUIRE.--"Where--what--where? Don't pinch so hard. Bless me, do you see a ghost?" PARSON.--"There! the gentleman in black!" SQUIRE.--"Gentleman in black! What! in broad daylight! Nonsense!" Here the parson made a spring forward, and, catching the arm of the person in question, who himself had stopped, and was gazing intently on the pair, exclaimed, "Sir, pardon me; but is not your name Fairfield? Ah, it is Leonard,--it is--my dear, dear boy! What joy! So altered, so improved, but still the same honest face. Squire, come here--your old friend, Leonard Fairfield." "And he wanted to persuade me," said the squire, shaking Leonard heartily by the hand, "that you were the Gentleman in Black; but, indeed, he has been in strange humours. and tantrums all the morning. Well, Master Lenny; why, you are grown quite a gentleman! The world thrives with you, eh? I suppose you are head-gardener to some grandee." "Not that, sir," said Leonard, smiling; "but the world has thriven with me at last, though not without some rough usage at starting. Ah, Mr. Dale, you can little guess how often I have thought of you and your discourse on Knowledge; and, what is more, how I have lived to feel the truth of your words, and to bless the lesson." PARSON (much touched and flattered).--"I expected nothing less from you, Leonard; you were always a lad of great sense, and sound judgment. So you have thought of my little discourse on Knowledge, have you?" SQUIRE.--"Hang knowledge! I have reason to hate the word. It burned down three ricks of mine; the finest ricks you ever set eyes on, Mr. Fairfield." PARSON.--"That was not knowledge, Squire; that was ignorance." SQUIRE.--"Ignorance! The deuce it was. I'll just appeal to you, Mr. Fairfield. We have been having sad riots in the shire, and the ringleader was just such another lad as you were!" LEONARD.--"I am very much obliged to you, Mr. Hazeldean. In what respect?" SQUIRE.--"Why, he was a village genius, and always reading some cursed little tract or other; and got mighty discontented with King, Lords, and Commons, I suppose, and went about talking of the wrongs of the poor, and the crimes of the rich, till, by Jove, sir, the whole mob rose one day with pitchforks and sickles, and smash went Farmer Smart's thrashing- machines; and on the same night my ricks were on fire. We caught the rogues, and they were all tried; but the poor deluded labourers were let off with a short imprisonment. The village genius, thank Heaven, is sent packing to Botany Bay." LEONARD.--"But did his books teach him to burn ricks and smash machines?" PARSON.--"No; he said quite the contrary, and declared that he had no hand in those misdoings." SQUIRE.--"But he was proved to have excited, with his wild talk, the boobies who had! 'Gad, sir, there was a hypocritical Quaker once, who said to his enemy, 'I can't shed thy blood, friend, but I will hold thy head under water till thou art drowned.' And so there is a set of demagogical fellows, who keep calling out, 'Farmer, this is an oppressor, and Squire, that is a vampire! But no violence! Don't smash their machines, don't burn their ricks! Moral force, and a curse on all tyrants!' Well, and if poor Hodge thinks moral force is all my eye, and that the recommendation is to be read backwards, in the devil's way of reading the Lord's prayer, I should like to know which of the two ought to go to Botany Bay,--Hodge, who comes out like a man, if he thinks he is wronged, or t' other sneaking chap, who makes use of his knowledge to keep himself out of the scrape?" PARSON.--"It may be very true; but when I saw that poor fellow at the bar, with his intelligent face, and heard his bold clear defence, and thought of all his hard struggles for knowledge, and how they had ended, because he forgot that knowledge is like fire, and must not be thrown amongst flax,--why, I could have given my right hand to save him. And, oh, Squire, do you remember his poor mother's shriek of despair when he was sentenced to transportation for life--I hear it now! And what, Leonard--what do you think had misled him? At the bottom of all the mischief was a tinker's bag. You cannot forget Sprott?" LEONARD.--"Tinker's bag! Sprott!" SQUIRE.---"That rascal, sir, was the hardest follow to nab you could possibly conceive; as full of quips and quirks as an Old Bailey lawyer. But we managed to bring it home to him. Lord! his bag was choke-full of tracts against every man who had a good coat on his back; and as if that was not enough, cheek by jowl with the tracts were lucifers, contrived on a new principle, for teaching my ricks the theory of spontaneous combustion. The labourers bought the lucifers--" PARSON.--"And the poor village genius bought the tracts." SQUIRE.--"All headed with a motto, 'To teach the working classes that knowledge is power.' So that I was right in saying that knowledge had burnt my ricks; knowledge inflamed the village genius, the village genius inflamed fellows more ignorant than himself, and they inflamed my stackyard. However, lucifers, tracts, village genius, and Sprott are all off to Botany Bay; and the shire has gone on much the better for it. So no more of your knowledge for me, begging your pardon, Mr. Fairfield. Such uncommonly fine ricks as mine were too! I declare, Parson, you are looking as if you felt pity for Sprott; and I saw you, indeed, whispering to him as he was taken out of court." PARSON (looking sheepish).--"Indeed, Squire, I was only asking him what had become of his donkey, an unoffending creature." SQUIRE.--"Unoffending! Upset me amidst a thistle-bed in my own village green! I remember it. Well, what did he say had become of the donkey?" PARSON.--"He said but one word; but that showed all the vindictiveness of his disposition. He said it with a horrid wink, that made my blood run cold. 'What's become of your poor donkey?' said I, and he answered--" SQUIRE.--"Go on. He answered--" PARSON.--"'Sausages.'" SQUIRE.--"Sausages! Like enough; and sold to the poor; and that's what the poor will come to if they listen to such revolutionizing villains. Sausages! Donkey sausages! "(spitting)--"'T is bad as eating one another; perfect cannibalism." Leonard, who had been thrown into grave thought by the history of Sprott and the village genius, now pressing the parson's hand, asked permission to wait on him before Mr. Dale quitted London; and was about to withdraw, when the parson, gently detaining him, said, "No; don't leave me yet, Leonard,--I have so much to ask you, and to talk about. I shall be at leisure shortly. We are just now going to call on a relation of the squire's, whom you must recollect, I am sure,--Captain Higginbotham-- Barnabas Higginbotham. He is very poorly." "And I am sure he would take it kind in you to call too," said the squire, with great good-nature. LEONARD.--"Nay, sir, would not that be a great liberty?" SQUIRE.--"Liberty! To ask a poor sick gentleman how he is? Nonsense. And I say, Sir, perhaps, as no doubt you have been living in town, and know more of newfangled notions than I do,--perhaps you can tell us whether or not it is all humbug,--that new way of doctoring people." LEONARD.--"What new way, sir. There are so many." SQUIRE.--"Are there? Folks in London do look uncommonly sickly. But my poor cousin (he was never a Solomon) has got hold, he says, of a homely-- homely---What's the word, Parson?" PARSON. "Homoeopathist." SQUIRE.--"That's it. You see the captain went to live with one Sharpe Currie, a relation who had a great deal of money, and very little liver; --made the one, and left much of the other in Ingee, you understand. The captain had expectations of the money. Very natural, I dare say; but Lord, sir, what do you think has happened? Sharpe Currie has done him. Would not die, Sir; got back his liver, and the captain has lost his own. Strangest thing you ever heard. And then the ungrateful old Nabob has dismissed the captain, saying, 'He can't bear to have invalids about him;' and is going to marry, and I have no doubt will have children by the dozen!" PARSON.--" It was in Germany, at one of the Spas, that Mr. Currie recovered; and as he had the selfish inhumanity to make the captain go through a course of waters simultaneously with himself, it has so chanced that the same waters that cured Mr. Currie's liver have destroyed Captain Higginbotham's. An English homoeopathic physician, then staying at the Spa, has attended the captain hither, and declares that he will restore him by infinitesimal doses of the same chemical properties that were found in the waters which diseased him. Can there be anything in such a theory?" LEONARD.--"I once knew a very able, though eccentric homoeopathist, and I am inclined to believe there may be something in the system. My friend went to Germany; it may possibly be the same person who attends the captain. May I ask his name?" SQUIRE.---"Cousin Barnabas does not mention it. You may ask it of himself, for here we are at his chambers. I say, Parson" (whispering slyly), "if a small dose of what hurt the captain is to cure him, don't you think the proper thing would be a--legacy? Ha! ha!" PARSON (trying not to laugh).--"Hush, Squire. Poor human nature! We must be merciful to its infirmities. Come in, Leonard." Leonard, interested in his doubt whether he might thus chance again upon Dr. Morgan, obeyed the invitation, and with his two companions followed the woman, who "did for the captain and his rooms," across the small lobby, into the presence of the sufferer. CHAPTER III. Whatever the disposition towards merriment at his cousin's expense entertained by the squire, it vanished instantly at the sight of the captain's doleful visage and emaciated figure. "Very good in you to come to town to see me,--very good in you, cousin, and in you, too, Mr. Dale. How very well you are both looking! I'm a sad wreck. You might count every bone in my body." "Hazeldean air and roast beef will soon set you up, my boy," said the squire, kindly. "You were a great goose to leave them, and these comfortable rooms of yours in the Albany." "They are comfortable, though not showy," said the captain, with tears in his eyes. "I had done my best to make them so. New carpets, this very chair--(morocco!), that Japan cat (holds toast and muffins)--just when-- just when"--(the tears here broke forth, and the captain fairly whimpered)--"just when that ungrateful, bad-hearted man wrote me word 'he was--was dying and lone in the world;' and--and--to think what I've gone through for him;--and to treat me so! Cousin William, he has grown as hale as yourself, and--and--" "Cheer up, cheer up!" cried the compassionate squire. "It is a very hard case, I allow. But you see, as the old proverb says, "T is ill waiting for a dead man's shoes;' and in future--I don't mean offence--but I think if you would calculate less on the livers of your relations, it would be all the better for your own. Excuse me!" "Cousin William," replied the poor captain, "I am sure I never calculated; but still, if you had seen that deceitful man's good-for- nothing face--as yellow as a guinea--and have gone through all I've gone through, you would have felt cut to the heart, as I do. I can't bear ingratitude. I never could. But let it pass. Will that gentleman take a chair?" PARSON.--"Mr. Fairfield has kindly called with us, because he knows something of this system of homeeopathy which you have adopted, and may, perhaps, know the practitioner. What is the name of your doctor?" CAPTAIN (looking at his watch).--"That reminds me" (swallowing a globule). "A great relief these little pills--after the physic I've taken to please that malignant man. He always tried his doctor's stuff upon me. But there's another world, and a juster!" With that pious conclusion the captain again began to weep. "Touched," muttered the squire, with his forefinger on his forehead. "You seem to have a good--tidy sort of a nurse here, Cousin Barnabas. I hope she 's pleasant, and lively, and don't let you take on so." "Hist!--don't talk of her. All mercenary; every bit of her fawning! Would you believe it? I give her ten shillings a week, besides all that goes down of my pats of butter and rolls, and I overheard the jade saying to the laundress that 'I could not last long; and she 'd--EXPECTATIONS!' Ah, Mr. Dale, when one thinks of the sinfulness there is in this life! But I'll not think of it. No, I'll not. Let us change the subject. You were asking my doctor's name. It is--" Here the woman with "expectations" threw open the door, and suddenly announced "DR. MORGAN." CHAPTER IV. The parson started, and so did Leonard. The homoeopathist did not at first notice either. With an unobservant bow to the visitors, he went straight to the patient, and asked, "How go the symptoms?" Therewith the captain commenced, in a tone of voice like a schoolboy reciting the catalogue of the ships in Homer. He had been evidently conning the symptoms, and learning them by heart. Nor was there a single nook or corner in his anatomical organization, so far as the captain was acquainted with that structure, but what some symptom or other was dragged therefrom, and exposed to day. The squire listened with horror to the morbific inventory, muttering at each dread interval, "Bless me! Lord bless me! What, more still! Death would be a very happy release!" Meanwhile the doctor endured the recital with exemplary patience, noting down in the leaves of his pocketbook what appeared to him the salient points in this fortress of disease to which he had laid siege, and then, drawing forth a minute paper said, "Capital,--nothing can be better. This powder must be dissolved in eight tablespoonfuls of water; one spoonful every two hours." "Tablespoonful?" "Tablespoonful." "'Nothing can be better,' did you say, sir?" repeated the squire, who in his astonishment at that assertion applied to the captain's description of his sufferings, had hitherto hung fire,--"nothing can be better?" "For the diagnosis, sir!" replied Dr. Morgan. "For the dogs' noses, very possibly," quoth the squire; "but for the inside of Cousin Higginbotham, I should think nothing could be worse." "You are mistaken, sir," replied Dr. Morgan. "It is not the captain who speaks here,--it is his liver. Liver, sir, though a noble, is an imaginative organ, and indulges in the most extraordinary fictions. Seat of poetry and love and jealousy--the liver. Never believe what it says. You have no idea what a liar it is! But--ahem--ahem. Cott--I think I've seen you before, sir. Surely your name's Hazeldean?" "William Hazeldean, at your service, Doctor. But where have you seen me?" "On the hustings at Lansmere. You were speaking on behalf of your distinguished brother, Mr. Egerton." "Hang it!" cried the squire: "I think it must have been my liver that spoke there! for I promised the electors that that half-brother of mine would stick by the land, and I never told a bigger lie in my life!" Here the patient, reminded of his other visitors, and afraid he was going to be bored with the enumeration of the squire's wrongs, and probably the whole history of his duel with Captain Dashmore, turned with a languid wave of his hand, and said, "Doctor, another friend of mine, the Rev. Mr. Dale, and a gentleman who is acquainted with homoeopathy." "Dale? What, more old friends!" cried the doctor, rising; and the parson came somewhat reluctantly from the window nook, to which he had retired. The parson and the homoeopathist shook hands. "We have met before on a very mournful occasion," said the doctor, with feeling. The parson held his finger to his lips, and glanced towards Leonard. The doctor stared at the lad, but he did not recognize in the person before him the gaunt, care-worn boy whom he had placed with Mr. Prickett, until Leonard smiled and spoke. And the smile and the voice sufficed. "Cott! and it is the poy!" cried Dr. Morgan; and he actually caught hold of Leonard, and gave him an affectionate Welch hug. Indeed, his agitation at these several surprises became so great that he stopped short, drew forth a globule--"Aconite,--good against nervous shocks!" and swallowed it incontinently. "Gad," said the squire, rather astonished, "'t is the first doctor I ever saw swallow his own medicine! There must be sornething in it." The captain now, highly disgusted that so much attention was withdrawn from his own case, asked in a querulous voice, "And as to diet? What shall I have for dinner?" "A friend!" said the doctor, wiping his eyes. "Zounds!" cried the squire, retreating, "do you mean to say, that the British laws (to be sure they are very much changed of late) allow you to diet your patients upon their fellow-men? Why, Parson, this is worse than the donkey sausages." "Sir," said Dr. Morgan, gravely, "I mean to say, that it matters little what we eat in comparison with care as to whom we eat with. It is better to exceed a little with a friend than to observe the strictest regimen, and eat alone. Talk and laughter help the digestion, and are indispensable in affections of the liver. I have no doubt, sir, that it was my patient's agreeable society that tended to restore to health his dyspeptic relative, Mr. Sharpe Currie." The captain groaned aloud. "And, therefore, if one of you gentlemen will stay and dine with Mr. Higginbotham, it will greatly assist the effects of his medicine." The captain turned an imploring eye, first towards his cousin, then towards the parson. "I 'm engaged to dine with my son--very sorry," said the squire. "But Dale, here--" "If he will be so kind," put in the captain, "we might cheer the evening with a game at whist,--double dummy." Now, poor Mr. Dale had set his heart on dining with an old college friend, and having no stupid, prosy double dummy, in which one cannot have the pleasure of scolding one's partner, but a regular orthodox rubber, with the pleasing prospect of scolding all the three other performers. But as his quiet life forbade him to be a hero in great things, the parson had made up his mind to be a hero in small ones. Therefore, though with rather a rueful face, he accepted the captain's invitation, and promised to return at six o'clock to dine. Meanwhile he must hurry off to the other end of the town, and excuse himself from the pre-engagement he had already formed. He now gave his card, with the address of a quiet family hotel thereon, to Leonard, and not looking quite so charmed with Dr. Morgan as he was before that unwelcome prescription, he took his leave. The squire too, having to see a new churn, and execute various commissions for his Harry, went his way (not, however, till Dr. Morgan had assured him that, in a few weeks, the captain might safely remove to Hazeldean); and Leonard was about to follow, when Morgan hooked his arm in his old /protege/, and said, "But I must have some talk with you; and you have to tell me all about the little orphan girl." Leonard could not resist the pleasure of talking about Helen; and he got into the carriage, which was waiting at the door for the homoeopathist. "I am going in the country a few miles to see a patient," said the doctor; "so we shall have time for undisturbed consultation. I have so often wondered what had become of you. Not hearing from Prickett, I wrote to him, and received from his heir an answer as dry as a bone. Poor fellow, I found that he had neglected his globules and quitted the globe. Alas, 'pulvis et umbra sumus!' I could learn no tidings of you. Prickett's successor declared he knew nothing about you. I hoped the best; for I always fancied you were one who would fall on your legs,-- bilious-nervous temperament; such are the men who succeed in their undertakings, especially if they take a spoonful of chamomilla whenever they are over-excited. So now for your history and the little girl's,-- pretty little thing,--never saw a more susceptible constitution, nor one more suited to pulsatilla." Leonard briefly related his own struggles and success, and informed the good doctor how they had at last discovered the nobleman in whom poor Captain Digby had confided, and whose care of the orphan had justified the confidence. Dr. Morgan opened his eyes at hearing the name of Lord L'Estrange. "I remember him very well," said he, "when I practised murder as an allopathist at Lansmere. But to think that wild boy, so full of whim and life and spirit, should become staid enough for a guardian to that dear little child, with her timid eyes and pulsatilla sensibilities. Well, wonders never cease! And he has befriended you too, you say. Ah, he knew your family." "So he says. Do you think, sir, that he ever knew--ever saw--my mother?" "Eh! your mother?--Nora?" exclaimed the doctor, quickly; and, as if struck by some sudden thought, his brows met, and he remained silent and musing a few moments; then, observing Leonard's eyes fixed on him earnestly, he replied to the question, "No doubt he saw her; she was brought up at Lady Lansmere's. Did he not tell you so?" "No." A vague suspicion here darted through Leonard's mind, but as suddenly vanished. His father! Impossible. His father must have deliberately wronged the dead mother. And was Harley L'Estrange a man capable of such wrong? And had he been Harley's son, would not Harley have guessed it at once, and so guessing, have owned and claimed him? Besides, Lord L'Estrange looked so young,--old enough to be Leonard's father!--he could not entertain the idea. He roused himself and said, falteringly, "You told me you did not know by what name I should call my father." "And I told you the truth, to the best of my belief." "By your honour, sir?" "By my honour, I do not know it." There was now a long silence. The carriage had long left London, and was on a high road somewhat lonelier, and more free from houses than most of those which form the entrances to the huge city. Leonard gazed wistfully from the window, and the objects that met his eyes gradually seemed to appeal to his memory. Yes! it was the road by which he had first approached the metropolis, hand in hand with Helen--and hope so busy at his poet's heart. He sighed deeply. He thought he would willingly have resigned all he had won--independence, fame, all--to feel again the clasp of that tender hand, again to be the sole protector of that gentle life. The doctor's voice broke on his revery. "I am going to see a very interesting patient,--coats to his stomach quite worn out, sir,--man of great learning, with a very inflamed cerebellum. I can't do him much good, and he does me a great deal of harm." "How harm?" asked Leonard, with an effort at some rejoinder. "Hits me on the heart, and makes my eyes water; very pathetic case,-- grand creature, who has thrown himself away. Found him given over by the allopathists, and in a high state of delirium tremens, restored him for a time, took a great liking to him,--could not help it,--swallowed a great many globules to harden myself against him, would not do, brought him over to England with the other patients, who all pay me well (except Captain Higginbotham). But this poor fellow pays me nothing,--costs me a great deal in time and turnpikes, and board and lodging. Thank Heaven, I'm a single man, and can afford it! My poy, I would let all the other patients go to the allopathists if I could but save this poor, big, penniless, princely fellow. But what can one do with a stomach that has not a rag of its coats left? Stop" (the doctor pulled the check-string). "This is the stile. I get out here and go across the fields." That stile, those fields--with what distinctness Leonard remembered them. Ah, where was Helen? Could she ever, ever again be, his child-angel? "I will go with you, if you permit," said he to the good doctor. "And while you pay your visit, I will saunter by a little brook that I think must run by your way." "The Brent--you know that brook? Ah, you should hear my poor patient talk of it, and of the hours he has spent angling in it,--you would not know whether to laugh or cry. The first day he was brought down to the place, he wanted to go out and try once more, he said, for his old deluding demon,--a one-eyed perch." "Heavens!" exclaimed Leonard, "are you speaking of John Burley?" "To be sure, that is his name,--John Burley." "Oh, has it come to this? Cure him, save him, if it be in human power. For the last two years I have sought his trace everywhere, and in vain, the moment I had money of my own, a home of my own. Poor, erring, glorious Burley! Take me to him. Did you say there was no hope?" "I did not say that," replied the doctor. "But art can only assist Nature; and though Nature is ever at work to repair the injuries we do to her, yet, when the coats of a stomach are all gone, she gets puzzled, and so do I. You must tell me another time how you came to know Burley, for here we are at the house, and I see him at the window looking out for me." The doctor opened the garden gate of the quiet cottage to which poor Burley had fled from the pure presence of Leonard's child-angel. And with heavy step, and heavy heart, Leonard mournfully followed, to behold the wrecks of him whose wit had glorified orgy, and "set the table in a roar." Alas, poor Yorick! CHAPTER V. Audley Egerton stands on his hearth alone. During the short interval that has elapsed since we last saw him, events had occurred memorable in English history, wherewith we have nought to do in a narrative studiously avoiding all party politics even when treating of politicians. The new ministers had stated the general programme of their policy, and introduced one measure in especial that had lifted them at once to the dizzy height of popular power. But it became clear that this measure could not be carried without a fresh appeal to the people. A dissolution of parliament, as Audley's sagacious experience had foreseen, was inevitable. And Audley Egerton had no chance of return for his own seat, for the great commercial city identified with his name. Oh, sad, but not rare, instance of the mutabilities of that same popular favour now enjoyed by his successors! The great commoner, the weighty speaker, the expert man of business, the statesman who had seemed a type of the practical steady sense for which our middle class is renowned,--he who, not three years since, might have had his honoured choice of the largest popular constituencies in the kingdom,--he, Audley Egerton, knew not one single town (free from the influences of private property or interest) in which the obscurest candidate, who bawled out for the new liberal measure, would not have beaten him hollow. Where one popular hustings, on which that grave sonorous voice, that had stilled so often the roar of faction, would not be drowned amidst the hoots of the scornful mob? True, what were called the close boroughs still existed; true, many a chief of his party would have been too proud of the honour of claiming Andley Egerton for his nominee. But the ex-minister's haughty soul shrunk from this contrast to his past position. And to fight against the popular measure, as member of one of the seats most denounced by the people,--he felt it was a post in the grand army of parties below his dignity to occupy, and foreign to his peculiar mind, which required the sense of consequence and station. And if, in a few months, those seats were swept away--were annihilated from the rolls of parliament--where was he? Moreover, Egerton, emancipated from the trammels that had bound his will while his party was in office, desired, in the turn of events, to be nominee of no man,--desired to stand at least freely and singly on the ground of his own services, be guided by his own penetration; no law for action but his strong sense and his stout English heart. Therefore he had declined all offers from those who could still bestow seats in parliament. Seats that he could purchase with hard gold were yet open to him. And the L5,000 he had borrowed from Levy were yet untouched. To this lone public man, public life, as we have seen, was the all in all. But now more than ever it was vital to his very wants. Around him yawned ruin. He knew that it was in Levy's power at any moment to foreclose on his mortgaged lands; to pour in the bonds and the bills which lay within those rosewood receptacles that lined the fatal lair of the sleek usurer; to seize on the very house in which now moved all the pomp of a retinue that vied with the valetaille of dukes; to advertise for public auction, under execution, "the costly effects of the Right Hon. Audley Egerton." But, consummate in his knowledge of the world, Egerton felt assured that Levy would not adopt these measures against him while he could still tower in the van of political war,--while he could still see before him the full chance of restoration to power, perhaps to power still higher than before, perhaps to power the highest of all beneath the throne. That Levy, whose hate he divined, though he did not conjecture all its causes, had hitherto delayed even a visit, even a menace, seemed to him to show that Levy still thought him one "to be helped," or, at least, one too powerful to crush. To secure his position in parliament unshackled, unfallen, if but for another year,--new combinations of party might arise, new reactions take place, in public opinion! And, with his hand pressed to his heart, the stern firm man muttered, "If not, I ask but to die in my harness, and that men may not know that I am a pauper until all that I need from my country is a grave." Scarce had these words died upon his lips ere two quick knocks in succession resounded at the street door. In another moment Harley entered, and, at the same time, the servant in attendance approached Audley, and announced Baron Levy. "Beg the baron to wait, unless he would prefer to name his own hour to call again," answered Egerton, with the slightest possible change of colour. "You can say I am now with Lord L'Estrange." "I had hoped you had done forever with that deluder of youth," said Harley, as soon as the groom of the chambers had withdrawn. "I remember that you saw too much of him in the gay time, ere wild oats are sown; but now surely you can never need a loan; and if so is not Harley L'Estrange by your side?" EGERTON.--"My dear Harley! doubtless he but comes to talk to me of some borough. He has much to do with those delicate negotiations." HARLEY.--"And I have come on the same business. I claim the priority. I not only hear in the world, but I see by the papers, that Josiah Jenkins, Esq., known to fame as an orator who leaves out his h's, and young Lord Willoughby Whiggolin, who is just made a Lord of the Admiralty, because his health is too delicate for the army, are certain to come in for the city which you and your present colleague will as certainly vacate. That is true, is it not?" EGERTON.--"My old Committee now vote for Jenkins and Whiggolin; and I suppose there will not be even a contest. Go on." "So my father and I are agreed that you must condescend, for the sake of old friendship, to be once more member for Lansmere." "Harley," exclaimed Egerton, changing countenance far more than he had done at the announcement of Levy's portentous visit, "Harley, no, no!" "No! But why? Wherefore such emotion?" asked L'Estrauge, in surprise. Audley was silent. HARLEY.--"I suggested the idea to two or three of the late ministers; they all concur in advising you to accede. In the first place, if declining to stand for the place which tempted you from Lansmere, what more natural than that you should fall back on that earlier representation? In the second place, Lansmere is neither a rotten borough to be bought, nor a close borough, under one man's nomination. It is a tolerably large constituency. My father, it is true, has considerable interest in it, but only what is called the legitimate influence of property. At all events, it is more secure than a contest for a larger town, more dignified than a seat for a smaller. Hesitating still? Even my mother entreats me to say how she desires you to renew that connection." "Harley," again exclaimed Egerton; and fixing upon his friend's earnest face eyes which, when softened by emotion, were strangely beautiful in their expression,--"Harley, if you could but read my heart at this moment, you would--you would--" His voice faltered, and he fairly bent his proud head upon Harley's shoulder; grasping the hand he had caught nervously, clingingly, "Oh, Harley, if I ever lose your love, your friendship, nothing else is left to me in the world." "Audley, my dear, dear Audley, is it you who speak to me thus? You, my school friend, my life's confidant,--you?" "I am grown very weak and foolish," said Egerton, trying to smile. "I do not know myself. I, too, whom you have so often called 'Stoic,' and likened to the Iron Man in the poem which you used to read by the riverside at Eton." "But even then, my Audley, I knew that a warm human heart (do what you would to keep it down) beat strong under the iron ribs. And I often marvel now, to think you have gone through life so free from the wilder passions. Happier so!" Egerton, who had turned his face from his friend's gaze, remained silent for a few moments; and he then sought to divert the conversation, and roused himself to ask Harley how he had succeeded in his views upon Beatrice, and his watch on the count. "With regard to Peschiera," answered Harley, "I think we must have overrated the danger we apprehended, and that his wagers were but an idle boast. He has remained quiet enough, and seems devoted to play. His sister has shut her doors both on myself and my young associate during the last few days. I almost fear that in spite of very sage warnings of mine, she must have turned his poet's head, and that either he has met with some scornful rebuff to incautious admiration or that, he himself has grown aware of peril, and declines to face it; for he is very much embarrassed when I speak to him respecting her. But if the count is not formidable, why, his sister is not needed; and I hope yet to get justice for my Italian friend through the ordinary channels. I have secured an ally in a young Austrian prince, who is now in London, and who has promised to back, with all his influence, a memorial I shall transmit to Vienna.--/a propos/, my dear Audley, now that you have a little breathing-time, you must fix an hour for me to present to you my young poet, the son of her sister. At moments the expression of his face is so like hers." "Ay, ay," answered Egerton, quickly, "I will see him as you wish, but later. I have not yet that breathing-time you speak of; but you say he has prospered; and, with your friendship, he is secure from fortune. I rejoice to think so." "And your own /protege/, this Vandal Leslie, whom you forbid me to dislike--hard task!--what has he decided?" "To adhere to my fate. Harley, if it please Heaven that I do not live to return to power, and provide adequately for that young man, do not forget that he clung to me in my fall." "If he still cling to you faithfully, I will never forget it. I will forget only all that now makes me doubt him. But you talk of not living, Audley! Pooh! your frame is that of a predestined octogenarian." "Nay," answered Audley, "I was but uttering one of those vague generalities which are common upon all mortal lips. And now farewell,-- I must see this baron." "Not yet, until you have promised to consent to my proposal, and be once more member for Lansmere. Tut! don't shake your head. I cannot be denied. I claim your promise in right of our friendship, and shall be seriously hurt if you even pause to reflect on it." "Well, well, I know not how to refuse you, Harley; but you have not been to Lansmere yourself since--since that sad event. You must not revive the old wound,--you must not go; and--and, I own it, Harley, the remembrance of it pains even me. I would rather not go to Lansmere." "Ah, my friend, this is an excess of sympathy, and I cannot listen to it. I begin even to blame my own weakness, and to feel that we have no right to make ourselves the soft slaves of the past." "You do appear to me of late to have changed," cried Egerton, suddenly, and with a brightening aspect. "Do tell me that you are happy in the contemplation of your new ties,--that I shall live to see you once more restored to your former self." "All I can answer, Audley," said L'Estrange, with a thoughtful brow, "is, that you are right in one thing,--I am changed; and I am struggling to gain strength for duty and for honour. Adieu! I shall tell my father that you accede to our wishes." CHAPTER VI. When Harley was gone, Egerton sunk back on his chair, as if in extreme physical or mental exhaustion, all the lines of his countenance relaxed and jaded. "To go back to that place--there--there--where--Courage, courage! what is another pang?" He rose with an effort, and folding his arms tightly across his breast, paced slowly to and fro the large, mournful, solitary room. Gradually his countenance assumed its usual cold and austere composure,--the secret eye, the guarded lip, the haughty, collected front. The man of the world was himself once more. "Now to gain time, and to baffle the usurer," murmured Egerton, with that low tone of easy scorn, which bespoke consciousness of superior power and the familiar mastery over hostile natures. He rang the bell: the servant entered. "Is Baron Levy still waiting?" "Yes, sir." "Admit him." Levy entered. "I beg your pardon, Levy," said the ex-minister, "for having so long detained you. I am now at your commands." "My dear fellow," returned the baron, "no apologies between friends so old as we are; and I fear that my business is not so agreeable as to make you impatient to discuss it." EGERTON (with perfect composure).--"I am to conclude, then, that you wish to bring our accounts to a close. Whenever you will, Levy." THE BARON (disconcerted and surprised).--"Peste! /mon cher/, you take things coolly. But if our accounts are closed, I fear you will have but little to live upon." EGERTON.--"I can continue to live on the salary of a Cabinet Minister." BARON.--"Possibly; but you are no longer a Cabinet Minister." EGERTON.--"You have never found me deceived--in a political prediction. Within twelve months (should life be spared to me) I shall be in office again. If the same to you, I would rather wait till then formally and amicably to resign to you my lands and this house. If you grant that reprieve, our connection can thus close without the eclat and noise which may be invidious to you, as it would be disagreeable to me. But if that delay be inconvenient, I will appoint a lawyer to examine your accounts, and adjust my liabilities." THE BARON (soliloquizing).--"I don't like this. A lawyer! That may be awkward." EGERTON (observing the baron, with a curl on his lip). "Well, Levy, how shall it be?" THE BARON.--"You know, my dear fellow, it is not my character to be hard on any one, least of all upon an old friend. And if you really think there is a chance of your return to office, which you apprehend that an /esclandre/ as to your affairs at present might damage, why, let us see if we can conciliate matters. But, first, /mon cher/, in order to become a minister, you must at least have a seat in parliament; and pardon me the question, how the deuce are you to find one?" EGERTON.--"It is found." THE BARON.--"Ah, I forgot the L5,000 you last borrowed." EGERTON.--"NO; I reserve that sum for another purpose." THE BARON (with a forced laugh).--"Perhaps to defend yourself against the actions you apprehend from me?" EGERTON.--"You are mistaken. But to soothe your suspicions I will tell you plainly, that finding any sum I might have insured on my life would be liable to debts preincurred, and (as you will be my sole creditor) might thus at my death pass back to you; and doubting whether, indeed, any office would accept my insurance, I appropriate that sum to the relief of my conscience. I intend to bestow it, while yet in life, upon my late wife's kinsman, Randal Leslie. And it is solely the wish to do what I consider an act of justice, that has prevailed with me to accept a favour from the hands of Harley L'Estrange, and to become again the member for Lansmere." THE BARON.--"Ha!--Lansmere! You will stand for Lansmere?" EGERTON (wincing).--"I propose to do so." THE BARON.--"I believe you will be opposed, subjected to even a sharp contest. Perhaps you may lose your election." EGERTON.--"If so, I resign myself, and you can foreclose on my estates." THE BARON (his brow clearing).--"Look you, Egerton, I shall be too happy to do you a favour." EGERTON (with stateliness).--"Favour! No, Baron Levy, I ask from you no favour. Dismiss all thought of rendering me one. It is but a consideration of business on both sides. If you think it better that we shall at once settle our accounts, my lawyer shall investigate them. If you agree to the delay I request, my lawyer shall give you no trouble; and all that I have, except hope and character, pass to your hands without a struggle." THE BARON.--"Inflexible and ungracious, favour or not--put it as you will--I accede, provided, first, that you allow me to draw up a fresh deed, which will accomplish your part of the compact; and secondly, that we saddle the proposed delay with the condition that you do not lose your election." EGERTON.--"Agreed. Have you anything further to say?" THE BARON.--"Nothing, except that, if you require more money, I am still at your service." EGERTON.--"I thank you. No; I shall take the occasion of my retirement from office to reduce my establishment. I have calculated already, and provided for the expenditure I need, up to the date I have specified, and I shall have no occasion to touch the L5,000 that I still retain." "Your young friend, Mr. Leslie, ought to be very grateful to you," said the baron, rising. "I have met him in the world,--a lad of much promise and talent. You should try and get him also into parliament." EGERTON (thoughtfully).--"You are a good judge of the practical abilities and merits of men, as regards worldly success. Do you really think Randal Leslie calculated for public life--for a parliamentary career?" THE BARON.--"Indeed I do." EGERTON (speaking more to himself than Levy).---"Parliament without fortune,--'t is a sharp trial; still he is prudent, abstemious, energetic, persevering; and at the onset, under my auspices and advice, he might establish a position beyond his years." THE BARON. "It strikes me that we might possibly get him into the next parliament; or, as that is not likely to last long, at all events, into the parliament to follow,--not for one of the boroughs which will be swept away, but for a permanent seat, and without expense." EGERTON.--"Ay,--and how?" THE BARON.---"Give me a few days to consider. An idea has occurred to me. I will call again if I find it practicable. Good-day to you, Egerton, and success to your election for Lansmere." CHAPTER VII. Peschiera had not been so inactive as he had appeared to Harley and the reader. On the contrary, he had prepared the way for his ultimate design, with all the craft and the unscrupulous resolution which belonged to his nature. His object was to compel Riccabocca into assenting to the count's marriage with Violante, or, failing that, to ruin all chance of his kinsman's restoration. Quietly and secretly he had sought out, amongst the most needy and unprincipled of his own countrymen, those whom he could suborn to depose to Riccabocca's participation in plots and conspiracies against the Austrian dominion. These his former connection with the Carbonari enabled him to track to their refuge in London; and his knowledge of the characters he had to deal with fitted him well for the villanous task he undertook. He had, therefore, already selected out of these desperadoes a sufficient number either to serve as witnesses against his kinsman, or to aid him in any more audacious scheme which circumstance might suggest to his adoption. Meanwhile, he had (as Harley had suspected he would) set spies upon Randal's movements; and the day before that young traitor confided to him Violante's retreat, he had at least got scent of her father's. The discovery that Violante was under a roof so honoured, and seemingly so safe, as Lord Lansmere's, did not discourage this bold and desperate adventurer. We have seen him set forth to reconnoitre the house at Knightsbridge. He had examined it well, and discovered the quarter which he judged favourable to a coup-de-main, should that become necessary. Lord Lansmere's house and grounds were surrounded by a wall, the entrance being to the high-road, and by a porter's lodge. At the rear there lay fields crossed by a lane or byroad. To these fields a small door in the wall, which was used by the gardeners in passing to and from their work, gave communication. This door was usually kept locked; but the lock was of the rude and simple description common to such entrances, and easily opened by a skeleton key. So far there was no obstacle which Peschiera's experience in conspiracy and gallantry did not disdain as trivial. But the count was not disposed to abrupt and violent means in the first instance. He had a confidence in his personal gifts, in his address, in his previous triumphs over the sex, which made him naturally desire to hazard the effect of a personal interview; and on this he resolved with his wonted audacity. Randal's description of Violante's personal appearance, and such suggestions as to her character and the motives most likely to influence her actions as that young lynx-eyed observer could bestow, were all that the count required of present aid from his accomplice. Meanwhile we return to Violante herself. We see her now seated in the gardens at Knightsbridge, side by side with Helen. The place was retired, and out of sight from the windows of the house. VIOLANTE.--"But why will you not tell me more of that early time? You are less communicative even than Leonard." HELEN (looking down, and hesitatingly).--"Indeed there is nothing to tell you that you do not know; and it is so long since, and things are so changed now." The tone of the last words was mournful, and the words ended with a sigh. VIOLANTE (with enthusiasm).--"How I envy you that past which you treat so lightly! To have been something, even in childhood, to the formation of a noble nature; to have borne on those slight shoulders half the load of a man's grand labour; and now to see Genius moving calm in its clear career; and to say inly, 'Of that genius I am a part!'" HELEN (sadly and humbly).--"A part! Oh, no! A part? I don't understand you." VIOLANTE.--"Take the child Beatrice from Dante's life, and should we have a Dante? What is a poet's genius but the voice of its emotions? All things in life and in Nature influence genius; but what influences it the most are its own sorrows and affections." Helen looks softly into Violante's eloquent face, and draws nearer to her in tender silence. VIOLANTE (suddenly).--"Yes, Helen, yes,--I know by my own heart how to read yours. Such memories are ineffaceable. Few guess what strange self-weavers of our own destinies we women are in our veriest childhood!" She sunk her voice into a whisper: "How could Leonard fail to be dear to you,--dear as you to him,--dearer than all others?" HELEN (shrinking back, and greatly disturbed).--"Hush, hush! you must not speak to me thus; it is wicked,--I cannot bear it. I would not have it be so; it must not be,--it cannot!" She clasped her hands over her eyes for a moment, and then lifted her face, and the face was very sad, but very calm. VIOLANTE (twining her arm round Helen's waist).--"How have I wounded you,--how offended? Forgive me, but why is this wicked? Why must it not be? Is it because he is below you in birth?" HELEN.--"No, no,--I never thought of that. And what am I? Don't ask me,--I cannot answer. You are wrong, quite wrong as to me. I can only look on Leonard as--as a brother. But--but, you can speak to him more freely than I can. I would not have him waste his heart on me, nor yet think me unkind and distant, as I seem. I know not what I say. But-- but--break to him--indirectly--gently--that duty in both forbids us both to--to be more than friends--than--" "Helen, Helen!" cried Violante, in her warm, generous passion, "your heart betrays you in every word you say. You weep; lean on me, whisper to me; why--why is this? Do you fear that your guardian would not consent? He not consent? He who--" HELEN.--"Cease--cease--cease!" VIOLANTE.--"What! You can fear Harley--Lord L'Estrange? Fie; you do not know him." HELEN (rising suddenly).--"Violante, hold; I am engaged to another." Violante rose also, and stood still, as if turned to stone; pale as death, till the blood came, at first slowly, then with suddenness from her heart, and one deep glow suffused her whole countenance. She caught Helen's hand firmly, and said in a hollow voice, "Another! Engaged to another! One word, Helen,--not to him--not to-- Harley--to--" "I cannot say,--I must not. I have promised," cried poor Helen, and as Violante let fall her hand, she hurried away. Violante sat down mechanically; she felt as if stunned by a mortal blow. She closed her eyes and breathed hard. A deadly faintness seized her; and when it passed away, it seemed to her as if she were no longer the same being, nor the world around her the same world,--as if she were but one sense of intense, hopeless misery, and as if the universe were but one inanimate void. So strangely immaterial are we really--we human beings, with flesh and blood--that if you suddenly abstract from us but single, impalpable, airy thought, which our souls have cherished, you seem to curdle the air, to extinguish the sun, to snap every link that connects us to matter, and to benumb everything into death, except woe. And this warm, young, southern nature but a moment before was so full of joy and life, and vigorous, lofty hope. It never till now had known its own intensity and depth. The virgin had never lifted the veil from her own soul of woman. What, till then, had Harley L'Estrange been to Violante? An ideal, a dream of some imagined excellence, a type of poetry in the midst of the common world. It had not been Harley the man,--it had been Harley the Phantom. She had never said to herself, "He is identified with my love, my hopes, my home, my future." How could she? Of such he himself had never spoken; an internal voice, indeed, had vaguely, yet irresistibly, whispered to her that, despite his light words, his feelings towards her were grave and deep. O false voice! how it had deceived her! Her quick convictions seized the all that Helen had left unsaid. And now suddenly she felt what it is to love, and what it is to despair. So she sat, crushed and solitary, neither murmuring nor weeping, only now and then passing her hand across her brow, as if to clear away some cloud that would not be dispersed; or heaving a deep sigh, as if to throw off some load that no time henceforth could remove. There are certain moments in life in which we say to ourselves, "All is over; no matter what else changes, that which I have made my all is gone evermore--evermore!" And our own thought rings back in our ears, "Evermore--evermore!" CHAPTER VIII. As Violante thus sat, a stranger, passing stealthily through the trees, stood between herself and the evening sun. She saw him not. He paused a moment, and then spoke low, in her native tongue, addressing her by the name which she had borne in Italy. He spoke as a relation, and excused his intrusion: "For," said he, "I come to suggest to the daughter the means by which she can restore to her father his country and his honours." At the word "father" Violante roused herself, and all her love for that father rushed back upon her with double force. It does so ever,--we love most our parents at the moment when some tie less holy is abruptly broken; and when the conscience says, "There, at least, is a love that has never deceived thee!" She saw before her a man of mild aspect and princely form. Peschiera (for it was he) had banished from his dress, as from his countenance, all that betrayed the worldly levity of his character. He was acting a part, and he dressed and looked it. "My father!" she said, quickly, and in Italian. "What of him? And who are you, signor? I know you not." Peschiera smiled benignly, and replied in a tone in which great respect was softened by a kind of parental tenderness,--"Suffer me to explain, and listen to me while I speak." Then, quietly seating himself on the bench beside her, he looked into her eyes, and resumed,-- "Doubtless you have heard of the Count di Peschiera?" VIOLANTE.--"I heard that name, as a child, when in Italy. And when she with whom I then dwelt (my father's aunt) fell ill and died, I was told that my home in Italy was gone, that it had passed to the Count di Peschiera,--my father's foe!" PESCHTERA.--"And your father, since then, has taught you to hate this fancied foe?" VIOLANTE.--"Nay, my father did but forbid me ever to breathe his name." PESCHIERA.--"Alas! what years of suffering and exile might have been saved your father, had he but been more just to his early friend and kinsman,--nay, had he but less cruelly concealed the secret of his retreat. Fair child, I am that Giulio Franzini, that Count di Peschiera. I am the man you have been told to regard as your father's foe. I am the man on whom the Austrian Emperor bestowed his lands. And now judge if I am, in truth, the foe. I have come hither to seek your father, in order to dispossess myself of my sovereign's gift. I have come but with one desire,--to restore Alphonso to his native land, and to surrender the heritage that was forced upon me." VIOLANTE.--"My father, my dear father! His grand heart will have room once more. Oh, this is noble enmity, true revenge! I understand it, signor, and so will my father, for such would have been his revenge on you. You have seen him?" PESCHIERA.--"No, not yet. I would not see him till I had seen yourself; for you, in truth, are the arbiter of his destinies, as of mine." VIOLANTE.--"I, Count? I--arbiter of my father's destinies? Is it possible?" PESCHIERA (with a look of compassionate admiration, and in a tone yet more emphatically parental).--"How lovely is that innocent joy! But do not indulge it yet. Perhaps it is a sacrifice which is asked from you,-- a sacrifice too hard to bear. Do not interrupt me. Listen still, and you will see why I could not speak to your father until I had obtained an interview with yourself. See why a word from you may continue still to banish me from his presence. You know, doubtless, that your father was one of the chiefs of a party that sought to free Northern Italy from the Austrians. I myself was at the onset a warm participator in that scheme. In a sudden moment I discovered that some of its more active projectors had coupled with a patriotic enterprise plots of a dark nature, and that the conspiracy itself was about to be betrayed to the government. I wished to consult with your father; but he was at a distance. I learned that his life was condemned. Not an hour was to be lost. I took a bold resolve, that has exposed me to his suspicions and to my country's wrath. But my main idea was to save him, my early friend, from death, and my country from fruitless massacre. "I withdrew from the intended revolt. I sought at once the head of the Austrian government in Italy, and made terms for the lives of Alphonso and of the other more illustrious chiefs, which otherwise would have been forfeited. I obtained permission to undertake myself the charge of securing my kinsman in order to place him in safety, and to conduct him to a foreign land, in an exile that would cease when the danger was dispelled. But unhappily he deemed that I only sought to destroy him. He fled from my friendly pursuit. The soldiers with me were attacked by an intermeddling Englishman; your father escaped from Italy, concealing his retreat; and the character of his flight counteracted my efforts to obtain his pardon. The government conferred on me half his revenues, holding the other half at its pleasure. I accepted the offer in order to save his whole heritage from confiscation. That I did not convey to him what I pined to do,--namely, the information that I held but in trust what was bestowed by the government, and the full explanation of what seemed blamable in my conduct,--was necessarily owing to the secrecy he maintained. I could not discover his refuge; but I never ceased to plead for his recall. This year only I have partially succeeded. He can be restored to his heritage and rank, on one proviso,--a guarantee for his loyalty. That guarantee the government has named: it is the alliance of his only child with one whom the government can trust. It was the interest of all the Italian nobility that the representation of a House so great falling to a female should not pass away wholly from the direct line,--in a word, that you should ally yourself with a kinsman. But one kinsman, and he the next in blood, presented himself. In short, Alphonso regains all that he lost on the day in which his daughter gives her hand to Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera. Ah," continued the count, mournfully, "you shriek, you recoil. He thus submitted to your choice is indeed unworthy of you. You are scarce in the spring of life, he is in its waning autumn. Youth loves youth. He does not aspire to your love. All that he can say is, love is not the only joy of the heart,--it is joy to raise from ruin a beloved father; joy to restore, to a land poor in all but memories, a chief in whom it reverences a line of heroes. These are the joys I offer to you,--you, a daughter, and an Italian maid. Still silent? Oh, speak to me!" Certainly this Count Peschiera knew well how woman is to be wooed and won; and never was woman more sensitive to those high appeals which most move all true earnest womanhood than was the young Violante. Fortune favoured him in the moment chosen. Harley was wrenched away from her hopes, and love a word erased from her language. In the void of the world, her father's image alone stood clear and visible. And she who from infancy had so pined to serve that father, who at first learned to dream of Harley as that father's friend! She could restore to him all for which the exile sighed; and by a sacrifice of self,--self-sacrifice, ever in itself such a temptation to the noble! Still, in the midst of the confusion and disturbance of her mind, the idea of marriage with another seemed so terrible and revolting, that she could not at once conceive it; and still that instinct of openness and honour, which pervaded all her character, warned even her inexperience that there was something wrong in this clandestine appeal to herself. Again the count besought her to speak, and with an effort she said, irresolutely, "If it be as you say, it is not for me to answer you; it is for my father." "Nay," replied Peschiera. "Pardon, if I contradict you. Do you know so little of your father as to suppose that he will suffer his interest to dictate to his pride? He would refuse, perhaps, even to receive my visit, to hear my explanations; but certainly he would refuse to buy back his inheritance by the sacrifice of his daughter to one whom he has deemed his foe, and whom the mere disparity of years would incline the world to say he had made the barter of his personal ambition. But if I could go to him sanctioned by you; if I could say, 'Your daughter overlooks what the father might deem an obstacle,--she has consented to accept my hand of her own free choice, she unites her happiness, and blends her prayers with mine,'--then, indeed, I could not fail of success; and Italy would pardon my errors, and bless your name. Ah, Signorina, do not think of me save as an instrument towards the fulfilment of duties so high and sacred! think but of your ancestors, your father, your native land, and reject not the proud occasion to prove how you revere them all!" Violante's heart was touched at the right chord. Her head rose, the colour came back to her pale cheek, she turned the glorious beauty of her countenance towards the wily tempter. She was about to answer and to seal her fate, when at that instant Harley's voice was heard at a little distance, and Nero came bounding towards her, and thrust himself, with rough familiarity, between her and Peschiera. The count drew back, and Violante, whose eyes were still fixed on his face, started at the change that passed there. One quick gleam of rage sufficed in an instant to light up the sinister secrets of his nature,--it was the face of the baffled gladiator. He had time but for few words. "I must not be seen here," he muttered; "but to-morrow, in these gardens, about this hour. I implore you, for the sake of your father,--his hopes, fortunes, his very life,--to guard the secret of this interview,--to meet me again. Adieu!" He vanished amidst the trees, and was gone,--noiselessly, mysteriously, as he had come. CHAPTER IX. The last words of Peschiera were still ringing in Violante's ears when Harley appeared in sight, and the sound of his voice dispelled the vague and dreamy stupor which had crept over her senses. At that voice there returned the consciousness of a mighty loss, the sting of an intolerable anguish. To meet Harley there, and thus, seemed impossible. She turned abruptly away, and hurried towards the horse. Harley called to her by name, but she would not answer, and only quickened her steps. He paused a moment in surprise, and then hastened after her. "Under what strange taboo am I placed?" said he, gayly, as he laid his hand on her shrinking arm. "I inquire for Helen,--she is ill, and cannot see me. I come to sun myself in your presence, and you fly me as if gods and men had set their mark on my brow. Child! child! what is this? You are weeping?" "Do not stay me now,--do not speak to me," answerred Violante, through her stifling sobs, as she broke from his hand and made towards the house. "Have you a grief, and under the shelter of my father's roof,--a grief that you will not tell to me? Cruel!" cried Harley, with inexpressible tenderness of reproach in his soft tones. Violante could not trust herself to reply. Ashamed of her self-betrayal, softened yet more by his pleading voice, she could have prayed to the earth to swallow her. At length, checking her tears by an heroic effort, she said, almost calmly, "Noble friend, forgive me. I have no grief, believe me, which--which I can tell to you. I was but thinking of my poor father when you came up; alarming myself about him, it may be, with vain, superstitious fears; and so--even a slight surprise--your abrupt appearance has sufficed to make me thus weak and foolish; but I wish to see my father!--to go home--home!" "Your father is well, believe me, and pleased that you are here. No danger threatens him; and you, here, are safe." "I safe--and from what?" Harley mused irresolute. He inclined to confide to her the danger which her father had concealed; but had he the right to do so against her father's will? "Give me," he said, "time to reflect, and to obtain permission to intrust you with a secret which, in my judgment, you should know. Meanwhile, this much I may say, that rather than you should incur the danger that I believe he exaggerates, your father would have given you a protector-- even in Randal Leslie." Violante started. "But," resumed Harley, with a calm, in which a certain deep mournfulness was apparent, unconsciously to himself, "but I trust you are reserved for a fairer fate, and a nobler spouse. I have vowed to live henceforth in the common workday world. But for you, bright child, for you, I am a dreamer still!" Violante turned her eyes for one instant towards the melancholy speaker. The look thrilled to his heart. He bowed his face involuntarily. When he looked up, she had left his side. He did not this time attempt to follow her, but moved away and plunged amidst the leafless trees. An hour afterwards he re-entered the house, and again sought to see Helen. She had now recovered sufficiently to give him the interview he requested. He approached her with a grave and serious gentleness. "My dear Helen," said he, "you have consented to be my wife, my life's mild companion; let it be soon--soon--for I need you. I need all the strength of that holy tie. Helen, let me press you to fix the time." "I owe you too much," answered Helen, looking down, "to have any will but yours. But your mother," she added, perhaps clinging to the idea of some reprieve,--"your mother has not yet--" "My mother--true. I will speak first to her. You shall receive from my family all honour due to your gentle virtues. Helen, by the way, have you mentioned to Violante the bond between us?" "No; that is, I fear I may have unguardedly betrayed it, against Lady Lansmere's commands too--but--but--" "So, Lady Lansmere forbade you to name it to Violante? This should not be. I will answer for her permission to revoke that interdict. It is due to Violante and to you. Tell your young friend all. Ah, Helen, if I am at times cold or wayward, bear with me--bear with me; for you love me, do you not?" CHAPTER X. That same evening Randal heard from Levy (at whose house he stayed late) of that self-introduction to Violante which (thanks to his skeleton key) Peschiera had contrived to effect; and the count seemed more than sanguine,--he seemed assured as to the full and speedy success of his matrimonial enterprise. "Therefore," said Levy, "I trust I may very soon congratulate you on the acquisition of your family estates." "Strange!" answered Randal, "strange that my fortunes seem so bound up with the fate of a foreigner like Beatrice di Negra and her connection with Frank Hazeldean." He looked up at the clock as he spoke, and added, "Frank by this time has told his father of his engagement." "And you feel sure that the squire cannot be coaxed into consent?" "No; but I feel sure that the squire will be so choleric at the first intelligence, that Frank will not have the self-control necessary for coaxing; and, perhaps, before the squire can relent upon this point, he may, by some accident, learn his grievances on another, which would exasperate him still more." "Ay, I understand,--the post-obit?" Randal nodded. "And what then?" asked Levy. "The next of kin to the lands of Hazeldean may have his day." The baron smiled. "You have good prospects in that direction, Leslie; look now to another. I spoke to you of the borough of Lansmere. Your patron, Audley Egerton, intends to stand for it." Randal's heart had of late been so set upon other and more avaricious schemes, that a seat in parliament had sunk into a secondary object; nevertheless his ambitious and all-grasping nature felt a bitter pang, when he heard that Egerton thus interposed between himself and any chance of advancement. "So," he muttered sullenly,--"so this man, who pretends to be my benefactor, squanders away the wealth of my forefathers, throws me penniless on the world; and, while still encouraging me to exertion and public life, robs me himself of--" "No!" interrupted Levy, "not robs you; we may prevent that. The Lansmere interest is not so strong in the borough as Dick Avenel's." "But I cannot stand against Egerton." "Assuredly not,--you may stand with him." "How?" "Dick Avenel will never suffer Egerton to come in; and though he cannot, perhaps, carry two of his own politics, he can split his votes upon you." Randal's eyes flashed. He saw at a glance that if Avenel did not overrate the relative strength of parties, his seat could be secured. "But," he said, "Egerton has not spoken to me on such a subject; nor can you expect that he would propose to me to stand with him, if he foresaw the chance of being ousted by the very candidate he himself introduced." "Neither he nor his party will anticipate that possibility. If he ask you, agree to stand,--leave the rest to me." "You must hate Egerton bitterly," said Randal; "for I am not vain enough to think that you thus scheme but from pure love to me." "The motives of men are intricate and complicated," answered Levy, with unusual seriousness. "It suffices to the wise to profit by the actions, and leave the motives in shade." There was silence for some minutes. Then the two drew closer towards each other, and began to discuss details in their joint designs. Randal walked home slowly. It was a cold moonlit night. Young idlers of his own years and rank passed him by on their way from the haunts of social pleasure. They were yet in the first fair holiday of life. Life's holiday had gone from him forever. Graver men, in the various callings of masculine labour--professions, trade, the State--passed him also. Their steps might be sober, and their faces careworn; but no step had the furtive stealth of his, no face the same contracted, sinister, suspicious gloom. Only once, in a lonely thoroughfare, and on the opposite side of the way, fell a footfall, and glanced an eye, that seemed to betray a soul in sympathy with Randal Leslie's. And Randal, who had heeded none of the other passengers by the way, as if instinctively, took note of this one. His nerves crisped at the noise- less slide of that form, as it stalked on from lamp to lamp, keeping pace with his own. He felt a sort of awe, as if he had beheld the wraith of himself; and even as he glanced suspiciously at the stranger, the stranger glanced at him. He was inexpressibly relieved when the figure turned down another street and vanished. That man was a felon, as yet undetected. Between him and his kind there stood but a thought,--a veil air-spun, but impassable, as the veil of the Image at Sais. And thus moved and thus looked Randal Leslie, a thing of dark and secret mischief, within the pale of the law, but equally removed from man by the vague consciousness that at his heart lay that which the eyes of man would abhor and loathe. Solitary amidst the vast city, and on through the machinery of Civilization, went the still spirit of Intellectual Evil. CHAPTER XI. Early the next morning Randal received two notes, one from Frank, written in great agitation, begging Randal to see and propitiate his father, whom he feared he had grievously offended; and then running off, rather incoherently, into protestations that his honour as well as his affections were engaged irrevocably to Beatrice, and that her, at least, he could never abandon. And the second note was from the squire himself--short, and far less cordial than usual--requesting Mr. Leslie to call on him. Randal dressed in haste, and went first to Limmer's hotel. He found the parson with Mr. Hazeldean, and endeavouring in vain to soothe him. The squire had not slept all night, and his appearance was almost haggard. "Oho! Mr. young Leslie," said he, throwing himself back in his chair as Randal entered, "I thought you were a friend,--I thought you were Frank's adviser. Explain, sir! explain!" "Gently, my dear Mr. Hazeldean," said the parson. "You do but surprise and alarm Mr. Leslie. Tell him more distinctly what he has to explain." SQUIRE.--"Did you or did you not tell me or Mrs. Hazeldean that Frank was in love with Violante Rickeybockey?" RANDAL (as in amaze).--"I! Never, sir! I feared, on the contrary, that he was somewhat enamoured of a very different person. I hinted at that possibility. I could not do more, for I did not know how far Frank's affections were seriously engaged. And indeed, sir, Mrs. Hazeldean, though not encouraging the idea that your son could marry a foreigner and a Roman Catholic, did not appear to consider such objections insuperable, if Frank's happiness were really at stake." Here the poor squire gave way to a burst of passion, that involved in one tempest Frank, Randal, Harry herself, and the whole race of foreigners, Roman Catholics, and women. While the squire was still incapable of hearing reason, the parson, taking aside Randal, convinced himself that the whole affair, so far as Randal was concerned, had its origin in a very natural mistake; and that while that young gentleman had been hinting at Beatrice, Mrs. Hazeldean had been thinking of Violante. With considerable difficulty he succeeded in conveying this explanation to the squire, and somewhat appeasing his wrath against Randal. And the Dissimulator, seizing his occasion, then expressed so much grief and astonishment at learning that matters had gone as far as the parson informed him,--that Frank had actually proposed to Beatrice, been accepted, and engaged himself, before even communicating with his father; he declared so earnestly, that he could never conjecture such evil, that he had had Frank's positive promise to take no step without the sanction of his parents; he professed such sympathy with the squire's wounded feelings, and such regret at Frank's involvement, that Mr. Hazeldean at last yielded up his honest heart to his consoler, and griping Randal's hand, said, "Well, well, I wronged you; beg your pardon. What now is to be done?" "Why, you cannot consent to this marriage,--impossible!" replied Randal; "and we must hope, therefore, to influence Frank by his sense of duty." "That's it," said the squire; "for I'll not give way. Pretty pass things have come to, indeed! A widow, too, I hear. Artful jade! thought, no doubt, to catch a Hazeldean of Hazeldean. My estates go to an outlandish Papistical set of mongrel brats! No, no, never!" "But," said the parson, mildly, "perhaps we may be unjustly prejudiced against this lady. We should have consented to Violante; why not to her? She is of good family?" "Certainly," said Randal. "And good character?" Randal shook his head, and sighed. The squire caught him roughly by the arm--"Answer the parson!" cried he, vehemently. "Indeed, sir, I cannot speak disrespectfully of the character of a woman,--who may, too, become Frank's wife; and the world is ill-natured and not to be believed. But you can judge for yourself, my dear Mr. Hazeldean. Ask your brother whether Madame di Negra is one whom he would advise his nephew to marry." "My brother!" exclaimed the squire, furiously. "Consult my distant brother on the affairs of my own son?" "He is a man of the world," put in Randal. "And of feeling and honour," said the parson; "and, perhaps, through him, we may be enabled to enlighten Frank, and save him from what appears to be the snare of an artful woman." "Meanwhile," said Randal, "I will seek Frank, and do my best with him. Let me go now,--I will return in an hour or so." "I will accompany you," said the parson. "Nay, pardon me, but I think we two young men can talk more openly without a third person, even so wise and kind as you." "Let Randal go," growled the squire. And Randal went. He spent some time with Frank, and the reader will easily divine how that time was employed. As he left Frank's lodgings, he found himself suddenly seized by the squire himself. "I was too impatient to stay at home and listen to the parson's prosing," said Mr. Hazeldean, nervously. "I have shaken Dale off. Tell me what has passed. Oh, don't fear,--I'm a man, and can bear the worst." Randal drew the squire's arm within his, and led him into the adjacent park. "My dear sir," said he, sorrowfully, "this is very confidential what I am about to say. I must repeat it to you, because, without such confidence, I see not how to advise you on the proper course to take. But if I betray Frank, it is for his good, and to his own father;--only do not tell him. He would never forgive me; it would forever destroy my influence over him." "Go on, go on," gasped the squire; "speak out. I'll never tell the ungrateful boy that I learned his secrets from another." "Then," said Randal, "the secret of his entanglement with Madame di Negra is simply this: he found her in debt--nay, on the point of being arrested--" "Debt! arrested! Jezebel!" "And in paying the debt himself, and saving her from arrest, he conferred on her the obligation which no woman of honour could accept save from an affianced husband. Poor Frank!--if sadly taken in, still we must pity and forgive him!" Suddenly, to Randal's great surprise, the squire's whole face brightened up. "I see, I see!" he exclaimed, slapping his thigh. "I have it, I have it! 'T is an affair of money! I can buy her off. If she took money from him--the mercenary, painted baggage I--why, then, she'll take it from me. I don't care what if costs--half my fortune--all! I'd be content never to see Hazeldean Hall again, if I could save my son, my own son, from disgrace and misery; for miserable he will be, when he knows he has broken my heart and his mother's. And for a creature like that! My boy, a thousand hearty thanks to you. Where does the wench live? I'll go to her at once." And as he spoke, the squire actually pulled out his pocketbook, and began turning over and counting the bank-notes in it. Randal at first tried to combat this bold resolution on the part of the squire; but Mr. Hazeldean had seized on it with all the obstinacy of his straightforward English mind. He cut Randal's persuasive eloquence off in the midst. "Don't waste your breath! I've settled it; and if you don't tell me where she lives, 't is easily found out, I suppose." Randal mused a moment. "After all," thought he, "why not? He will be sure so to speak as to enlist her pride against himself, and to irritate Frank to the utmost. Let him go." Accordingly he gave the information required; and, insisting with great earnestness on the squire's promise not to mention to Madame di Negra his knowledge of Frank's pecuniary aid (for that would betray Randal as the informant); and satisfying himself as he best might with the squire's prompt assurance, "that he knew how to settle matters, without saying why or wherefore, as long as he opened his purse wide enough," he accompanied Mr. Hazeldean back into the streets, and there left him,--fixing an hour in the evening for an interview at Limmer's, and hinting that it would be best to have that interview without the presence of the parson. "Excellent good man," said Randal, "but not with sufficient knowledge of the world for affairs of this kind, which you understand so well." "I should think so," quoth the squire, who had quite recovered his good- humour. "And the parson is as soft as buttermilk. We must be firm here,--firm, sir." And the squire struck the end of his stick on the pavement, nodded to Randal, and went on to May Fair as sturdily and as confidently as if to purchase a prize cow at a cattle-show. CHAPTER XII. "Bring the light nearer," said John Burley,--"nearer still." Leonard obeyed, and placed the candle on a little table by the sick man's bedside. Burley's mind was partially wandering; but there was method in his madness. Horace Walpole said that "his stomach would survive all the rest of him." That which in Burley survived the last was his quaint, wild genius. He looked wistfully at the still flame of the candle: "It lives ever in the air!" said he. "What lives ever?" Burley's voice swelled, "Light!" He turned from Leonard, and again contemplated the little flame. "In the fixed star, in the Will-o'-the- wisp, in the great sun that illumines half a world, or the farthing rushlight by which the ragged student strains his eyes,--still the same flower of the elements! Light in the universe, thought in the soul--Ay, ay, go on with the simile. My head swims. Extinguish the light! You cannot; fool, it vanishes from your eye, but it is still in the space. Worlds must perish, suns shrivel up, matter and spirit both fall into nothingness, before the combinations whose union makes that little flame which the breath of a babe can restore to darkness, shall lose the power to form themselves into light once more. Lose the power!---no, the necessity: it is the one Must in creation. Ay, ay, very dark riddles grow clear now,--now when I could not cast up an addition sum in the baker's bill! What wise man denied that two and two made four? Do they not make four? I can't answer him. But I could answer a question that some wise men have contrived to make much knottier." He smiled softly, and turned his face for some minutes to the wall. This was the second night on which Leonard had watched by his bedside, and Burley's state had grown rapidly worse. He could not last many days, perhaps many hours. But he had evinced an emotion beyond mere delight at seeing Leonard again. He had since then been calmer, more himself. "I feared I might have ruined you by my bad example," he said, with a touch of humour that became pathos as he added, "That idea preyed on me." "No, no; you did me great good." "Say that,--say it often," said Burley, earnestly; "it makes my heart feel so light." He had listened to Leonard's story with deep interest, and was fond of talking to him of little Helen. He detected the secret at the young man's heart, and cheered the hopes that lay there, amidst fears and sorrows. Burley never talked seriously of his repentance; it was not in his nature to talk seriously of the things which he felt solemnly. But his high animal spirits were quenched with the animal power that fed them. Now, we go out of our sensual existence only when we are no longer enthralled by the Present, in which the senses have their realm. The sensual being vanishes when Ave are in the Past or the Future. The Present was gone from Burley; he could no more be its slave and its king. It was most touching to see how the inner character of this man unfolded itself, as the leaves of the outer character fell off and withered,--a character no one would have guessed in him, an inherent refinement that was almost womanly; and he had all a woman's abnegation of self. He took the cares lavished on him so meekly. As the features of the old man return in the stillness of death to the aspect of youth,--the lines effaced, the wrinkles gone,--so, in seeing Burley now, you saw what he had been in his spring of promise. But he himself saw only what he had failed to be,--powers squandered, life wasted. "I once beheld," he said, "a ship in a storm. It was a cloudy, fitful day, and I could see the ship with all its masts fighting bard for life and for death. Then came night, dark as pitch, and I could only guess that the ship fought on. Towards the dawn the stars grew visible, and once more I saw the ship: it was a wreck,--it went down just as the stars shone forth." When he had made that allusion to himself, he sat very still for some time, then he spread out his wasted hands, and gazed on them, and on his shrunken limbs. "Good," said he, laughing low; "these hands were too large and rude for handling the delicate webs of my own mechanism, and these strong limbs ran away with me. If I had been a sickly, puny fellow, perhaps my mind would have had fair play. There was too much of brute body here! Look at this hand now! You can see the light through it! Good, good!" Now, that evening, until he had retired to bed, Burley had been unusually cheerful, and had talked with much of his old eloquence, if with little of his old humour. Amongst other matters, he had spoken with considerable interest of some poems and other papers in manuscript which had been left in the house by a former lodger, and which, the reader may remember, Mrs. Goodyer had urged him in vain to read, in his last visit to her cottage. But then he had her husband Jacob to chat with, and the spirit bottle to finish, and the wild craving for excitement plucked his thoughts back to his London revels. Now poor Jacob was dead, and it was not brandy that the sick man drank from the widow's cruse; and London lay afar amidst its fogs, like a world resolved back into nebula. So, to please his hostess and distract his own solitary thoughts, he had condescended (just before Leonard found him out) to peruse the memorials of a life obscure to the world, and new to his own experience of coarse joys and woes. "I have been making a romance, to amuse myself, from their contents," said he. "They maybe of use to you, brother author. I have told Mrs. Goodyer to place them in your room. Amongst those papers is a sort of journal,--a woman's journal; it moved me greatly. A man gets into another world, strange to him as the orb of Sirius, if he can transport himself into the centre of a woman's heart, and see the life there, so wholly unlike our own. Things of moment to us, to it so trivial; things trifling to us, to it so vast. There was this journal, in its dates reminding me of stormy events in my own existence, and grand doings in the world's. And those dates there, chronicling but the mysterious, unrevealed record of some obscure, loving heart! And in that chronicle, O Sir Poet, there was as much genius, vigour of thought, vitality of being, poured and wasted, as ever kind friend will say was lavished on the rude outer world by big John Burley! Genius, genius! are we all alike, then, save when we leash ourselves to some matter-of- fact material, and float over the roaring seas on a wooden plank or a herring tub?" And after he had uttered that cry of a secret anguish, John Burley had begun to show symptoms of growing fever and disturbed brain; and when they had got him into bed, he lay there muttering to himself, until, towards midnight, he had asked Leonard to bring the light nearer to him. So now he again was quiet, with his face turned towards the wall; and Leonard stood by the bedside sorrowfully, and Mrs. Goodyer, who did not heed Burley's talk, and thought only of his physical state, was dipping cloths into iced water to apply to his forehead. But as she approached with these, and addressed him soothingly, Burley raised himself on his arm, and waved aside the bandages. "I do not need them," said he, in a collected voice. "I am better now. I and that pleasant light understand one another, and I believe all it tells me. Pooh, pooh, I do not rave." He looked so smilingly and so kindly into her face, that the poor woman, who loved him as her own son, fairly burst into tears. He drew her towards him, and kissed her forehead. "Peace, old fool," said he, fondly. "You shall tell anglers hereafter how John Burley came to fish for the one-eyed perch which he never caught; and how, when he gave it up at the last, his baits all gone, and the line broken amongst the weeds, you comforted the baffled man. There are many good fellows yet in the world who will like to know that poor Burley did not die on a dunghill. Kiss me. Come, boy, you too. Now, God bless you, I should like to sleep." His cheeks were wet with the tears of both his listeners, and there was a moisture in his own eyes, which, nevertheless, beamed bright through the moisture. He laid himself down again, and the old woman would have withdrawn the light. He moved uneasily. "Not that," he murmured,--"light to the last!" and putting forth his wan hand, he drew aside the curtain so that the light might fall full on his face. [Every one remembers that Goethe's last words are said to have been, "More Light;" and perhaps what has occurred in the text may be supposed a plagiarism from those words. But, in fact, nothing is more common than the craving and demand for light a little before death. Let any consult his own sad experience in the last moments of those whose gradual close he has watchaed and tended. What more frequent than a prayer to open the shutters and let in the sun? What complaint more repeated and more touching than "that it is growing dark"? I once knew a sufferer, who did not then seem in immediate danger, suddenly order the sick room to be lit up as if for a gala. When this was told to the physician, he said gravely, "No worse sign."] In a few minutes he was asleep, breathing calmly and regularly as an infant. The old woman wiped her eyes, and drew Leonard softly into the adjoining room, in which a bed had been made up for him. He had not left the house since he had entered it with Dr. Morgan. "You are young, sir," said she, with kindness, "and the young want sleep. Lie down a bit: I will call you when he wakes." "No, I could not sleep," said Leonard. "I will watch for you." The old woman shook her head. "I must see the last of him, sir; but I know he will be angry when his eyes open on me, for he has grown very thoughtful of others." "Ah, if he had but been, as thoughtful of himself!" murmured Leonard; and he seated himself by the table, on which, as he leaned his elbow, he dislodged some papers placed there. They fell to the ground with a dumb, moaning, sighing sound.-- "What is that?" said he, starting. The old woman picked up the manuscripts and smoothed them carefully. "Ah, sir, he bade me place these papers here. He thought they might keep you from fretting about him, in case you would sit up and wake. And he had a thought of me, too; for I have so pined to find out the poor young lady, who left them years ago. She was almost as dear to me as he is; dearer perhaps until now--when--when I am about to lose him!" Leonard turned from the papers, without a glance at their contents: they had no interest for him at such a moment. The hostess went on, "Perhaps she is gone to heaven before him; she did not look like one long for this world. She left us so suddenly. Many things of hers besides these papers are still, here; but I keep them aired and dusted, and strew lavender over them, in case she ever come for them again. You never heard tell of her, did you, sir?" she added, with great simplicity, and dropping a half courtesy. "Of her--of whom?" "Did not Mr. John tell you her name--dear, dear; Mrs. Bertram." Leonard started; the very name so impressed upon his memory by Harley L'Estrange! "Bertram!" he repeated. "Are you sure?" "Oh, yes, sir! And many years after she had left us, and we had heard no more of her, there came a packet addressed to her here, from over sea, sir. We took it in, and kept it, and John would break the seal, to know if it would tell us anything about her; but it was all in a foreign language like,--we could not read a word." "Have you the packet? Pray show it to me. It may be of the greatest value. To-morrow will do--I cannot think of that just now. Poor Burley!" Leonard's manner indicated that he wished to talk no more, and to be alone. So Mrs. Goodyer left him, and stole back to Burley's room on tiptoe: The young man remained in deep revery for some moments. "Light," he murmured. "How often 'Light' is the last word of those round whom the shades are gathering!" He moved, and straight on his view through the cottage lattice there streamed light indeed,--not the miserable ray lit by a human hand, but the still and holy effulgence of a moonlit heaven. It lay broad upon the humble floors, pierced across the threshold of the death chamber, and halted clear amidst its shadows. Leonard stood motionless, his eye following the silvery silent splendour. "And," he said inly--"and does this large erring nature, marred by its genial faults, this soul which should have filled a land, as yon orb the room, with a light that linked earth to heaven--does it pass away into the dark, and leave not a ray behind? Nay, if the elements of light are ever in the space, and when the flame goes out, return to the vital air, so thought once kindled lives forever around and about us, a part of our breathing atmosphere. Many a thinker, many a poet, may yet illumine the world, from the thoughts which yon genius, that will have no name, gave forth to wander through air, and recombine again in some new form of light." Thus he went on in vague speculations, seeking, as youth enamoured of fame seeks too fondly, to prove that mind never works, however erratically, in vain, and to retain yet, as an influence upon earth, the soul about to soar far beyond the atmosphere where the elements that make fame abide. Not thus had the dying man interpreted the endurance of light and thought. Suddenly, in the midst of his revery, a loud cry broke on his ear. He shuddered as he heard, and hastened forebodingly into the adjoining room. The old woman was kneeling by the bedside, and chafing Burley's hand, eagerly looking into his face. A glance sufficed to Leonard. All was over. Burley had died in sleep,--calmly, and without a groan. The eyes were half open, with that look of inexpressible softness which death sometimes leaves; and still they were turned towards the light; and the light burned clear. Leonard closed tenderly the heavy lids; and as he covered the face, the lips smiled a serene farewell. CHAPTER XIII. We have seen Squire Hazeldean (proud of the contents of his pocketbook, and his knowledge of the mercenary nature of foreign women) set off on his visit to Beatrice di Negra. Randal thus left, musing lone in the crowded streets, resolved with astute complacency the probable results of Mr. Hazeldean's bluff negotiation; and convincing himself that one of his vistas towards Fortune was becoming more clear and clear, he turned, with the restless activity of some founder of destined cities in a new settlement, to lop the boughs that cumbered and obscured the others. For truly, like a man in a vast Columbian forest, opening entangled space, now with the ready axe, now with the patient train that kindles the slower fire, this child of civilized life went toiling on against surrounding obstacles, resolute to destroy, but ever scheming to construct. And now Randal has reached Levy's dainty business-room, and is buried deep in discussion how to secure to himself, at the expense of his patron, the representation of Lansmere, and how to complete the contract which shall reannex to his forlorn inheritance some fragments of its ancient wealth. Meanwhile, Chance fought on his side in the boudoir of May Fair. The squire had found the marchesa at home, briefly introduced himself and his business, told her she was mistaken if she had fancied she had taken in a rich heir in his son; that, thank Heaven, he could leave his estates to his ploughman, should he so please, but that he was willing to do things liberally; and whatever she thought Frank was worth, he was very ready to pay for. At another time Beatrice would perhaps have laughed at this strange address; or she might, in some prouder moment, have fired up with all a patrician's resentment and a woman's pride; but now her spirit was crushed, her nerves shattered: the sense of her degraded position, of her dependence on her brother, combined with her supreme unhappiness at the loss of those dreams with which Leonard had for a while charmed her wearied waking life,--all came upon her. She listened; pale and speechless; and the poor squire thought he was quietly advancing towards a favourable result, when she suddenly burst into a passion of hysterical tears; and just at that moment Frank himself entered the room. At the sight of his father, of Beatrice's grief, his sense of filial duty gave way. He was maddened by irritation, by the insult offered to the woman he loved, which a few trembling words from her explained to him,-- maddened yet more by the fear that the insult had lost her to him; warm words ensued between son and father, to close with the peremptory command and vehement threat of the last. "Come away this instant, sir! Come with me, or before the day is over, I strike you out of my will!" The son's answer was not to his father; he threw himself at Beatrice's feet. "Forgive him; forgive us both--" "What! you prefer that stranger to me,--to the inheritance of Hazeldean!" cried the squire, stamping his foot. "Leave your estates to whom you will; all that I care for in life is here!" The squire stood still a moment or so, gazing on his son with a strange bewildered marvel at the strength of that mystic passion, which none not labouring under its fearful charm can comprehend, which creates the sudden idol that no reason justifies, and sacrifices to its fatal shrine alike the Past and the Future. Not trusting himself to speak, the father drew his hand across his eyes, and dashed away the bitter tear that sprang from a swelling and indignant heart; then he uttered an inarticulate sound, and, finding his voice gone, moved away to the door, and left the house. He walked through the streets, bearing his head very erect, as a proud man does when deeply wounded, and striving to shake off some affection that he deems a weakness; and his trembling nervous fingers fumbled at the button of his coat, trying to tighten the garment across his chest, as if to confirm a resolution that still sought to struggle out of the revolting heart. Thus he went on, and the reader, perhaps, will wonder whither; and the wonder may not lessen when he finds the squire come to a dead pause in Grosvenor Square, and at the portico of his "distant brother's" stately house. At the squire's brief inquiry whether Mr. Egerton was at home, the porter summoned the groom of the chambers; and the groom of the chambers, seeing a stranger, doubted whether his master was not engaged, but would take in the stranger's card and see. "Ay, ay," muttered the squire, "this is true relationship!--my child prefers a stranger to me; why should I complain that I am a stranger in a brother's house? Sir," added the squire aloud, and very meekly--"sir, please to say to your master that I am William Hazeldean." The servant bowed low, and without another word conducted the visitor into the statesman's library, and announcing Mr. Hazeldean, closed the door. Audley was seated at his desk, the grim iron boxes still at his feet, but they were now closed and locked. And the ex-minister was no longer looking over official documents; letters spread open before him of far different nature; in his hand there lay a long lock of fair silken hair, on which his eyes were fixed sadly and intently. He started at the sound of his visitor's name, and the tread of the squire's stalwart footstep; and mechanically thrust into his bosom the relic of younger and warmer years, keeping his hand to his heart, which beat loud with disease under the light pressure of that golden hair. The two brothers stood on the great man's lonely hearth, facing each other in silence, and noting unconsciously the change made in each during the long years in which they had never met. The squire, with his portly size, his hardy sunburned cheeks, the partial baldness of his unfurrowed open forehead, looked his full age,--deep into middle life. Unmistakably he seemed the pater familias, the husband and the father, the man of social domestic ties. But about Audley (really some few years junior to the squire), despite the lines of care on his handsome face, there still lingered the grace of youth. Men of cities retain youth longer than those of the country,--a remark which Buffon has not failed to make and to account for. Neither did Egerton betray the air of the married man; for ineffable solitariness seemed stamped upon one whose private life had long been so stern a solitude. No ray from the focus of Home played round that reserved, unjoyous, melancholy brow. In a word, Audley looked still the man for whom some young female heart might fondly sigh; and not the less because of the cold eye and compressed lip, which challenged interest even while seeming to repel it. Audley was the first to speak, and to put forth the right hand, which he stole slowly from its place at his breast, on which the lock of hair still stirred to and fro at the heave of the labouring heart. "William," said he, with his rich deep voice, "this is kind. You are come to see me, now that men say that I am fallen. The minister you censured is no more; and you see again the brother." The squire was softened at once by this address. He shook heartily the hand tendered to him; and then, turning away his head, with an honest conviction that Audley ascribed to him a credit which he did not deserve, he said, "No, no, Audley; I am more selfish than you think me. I have come--I have come to ask your advice,--no, not exactly that--your opinion. But you are busy?" "Sit down, William. Old days were coining over me when you entered; days earlier still return now,--days, too, that leave no shadow when their suns are set." The proud man seemed to think he had said too much. His practical nature rebuked the poetic sentiment and phrase. He re-collected himself, and added, more coldly, "You would ask my opinion? What on? Some public matter--some parliamentary bill that may affect your property?" "Am I such a mean miser as that? Property--property? what does property matter, when a man is struck down at his own hearth? Property, indeed! But you have no child--happy brother!" "Ay, ay; as you say, I am a happy man; childless! Has your son displeased you? I have heard him well spoken of, too." "Don't talk of him. Whether his conduct be good or ill is my affair," resumed the poor father, with a testy voice--jealous alike of Audley's praise or blame of his rebellious son. Then he rose a moment, and made a strong gulp, as if for air; and laying his broad brown hand on his brother's shoulder, said, "Randal Leslie tells me you are wise,--a consummate man of the world. No doubt you are so. And Parson Dale tells me that he is sure you have warm feelings,--which I take to be a strange thing for one who has lived so long in London, and has no wife and no child, a widower, and a member of parliament,--for a commercial city, too. Never smile; it is no smiling matter with me. You know a foreign woman, called Negra or Negro; not a blackymoor, though, by any means,--at least on the outside of her. Is she such a woman as a plain country gentleman would like his only son to marry--ay or no?" "No, indeed," answered Audley, gravely; "and I trust your son will commit no action so rash. Shall I see him, or her? Speak, my dear William. What would you have me do?" "Nothing; you have said enough," replied the squire, gloomily; and his head sank on his breast. Audley took his hand, and pressed it fraternally. "William," said the statesman, "we have been long estranged; but I do not forget that when we last met, at--at Lord Lansmere's house, and when I took you aside, and said, 'William, if I lose this election, I must resign all chance of public life; my affairs are embarrassed. I would not accept money from you,--I would seek a profession, and you can help me there,' you divined my meaning, and said, 'Take orders; the Hazeldean living is just vacant. I will get some one to hold it till you are ordained.' I do not forget that. Would that I had thought earlier of so serene an escape from all that then tormented me! My lot might have been far happier." The squire eyed Audley with a surprise that broke forth from his more absorbing emotions. "Happier! Why, all things have prospered with you; and you are rich enough now; and--you shake your head. Brother, is it possible! do you want money? Pooh, not accept money from your mother's son!--stuff!" Out came the squire's pocketbook. Audley put it gently aside. "Nay," said he, "I have enough for myself; but since you seek and speak with me thus affectionately, I will ask you one favour. Should I die before I can provide for my wife's kinsman, Randal Leslie, as I could wish, will you see to his fortunes, so far as you can, without injury to others,--to your own son?" "My son! He is provided for. He has the Casino estate--much good may it do him! You have touched on the very matter that brought me here. This boy, Randal Leslie, seems a praiseworthy lad, and has Hazeldean blood in his veins. You have taken him up because he is connected with your late wife. Why should I not take him up, too, when his grandmother was a Hazeldean? My main object in calling was to ask what you mean to do for him; for if you do not mean to provide for him, why, I will, as in duty bound. So your request comes at the right time; I think of altering my will. I can put him into the entail, besides a handsome legacy. You are sure he is a good lad,--and it will please you too, Audley!" "But not at the expense of your son. And stay, William: as to this foolish marriage with Madame di Negra,--who told you Frank meant to take such a step?" "He told me himself; but it is no matter. Randal and I both did all we could to dissuade him; and Randal advised me to come to you." "He has acted generously, then, our kinsman Randal--I am glad to hear it," said Audley, his brow somewhat clearing. "I have no influence with this lady; but, at least, I can counsel her. Do not consider the marriage fixed because a young man desires it. Youth is ever hot and rash." "Your youth never was," retorted the squire, bluntly. "You married well enough, I'm sure. I will say one thing for you: you have been, to my taste, a bad politician--beg pardon--but you were always a gentleman. You would never have disgraced your family and married a--" "Hush!" interrupted Egerton, gently. "Do not make matters worse than they are. Madame di Negra is of high birth in her own country; and if scandal--" "Scandal!" cried the squire, shrinking, and turning pale. "Are you speaking of the wife of a Hazeldean? At least she shall never sit by the hearth at which now sits his mother; and whatever I may do for Frank, her children shall not succeed. No mongrel cross-breed shall kennel in English Hazeldean. Much obliged to you, Audley, for your good feeling; glad to have seen you; and hark ye, you startled me by that shake of your head, when I spoke of your wealth; and from what you say about Randal's prospects, I guess that you London gentlemen are not so thrifty as we are. You shall let me speak. I say again, that I have some thousands quite at your service. And though you are not a Hazeldean, still you are my mother's son; and now that I am about to alter my will, I can as well scratch in the name of Egerton as that of Leslie. Cheer up, cheer up: you are younger than I am, and you have no child; so you will live longer than I shall." "My dear brother," answered Audley, "believe me, I shall never live to want your aid. And as to Leslie, add to the L5,000 I mean to give him an equal sum in your will, and I shall feel that he has received justice." Observing that the squire, though he listened attentively, made no ready answer, Audley turned the subject again to Frank; and with the adroitness of a man of the world, backed by cordial sympathy in his brother's distress, he pleaded so well Frank's lame cause, urged so gently the wisdom of patience and delay, and the appeal to filial feeling rather than recourse to paternal threats, that the squire grew mollified in spite of himself, and left his brother's house a much less angry and less doleful man. Mr. Hazeldean was still in the Square, when he came upon Randal himself, who was walking with a dark-whiskered, showy gentleman, towards Egerton's house. Randal and the gentleman exchanged a hasty whisper, and the former then exclaimed, "What, Mr. Hazeldean, have you just left your brother's house? Is it possible?" "Why, you advised me to go there, and I did. I scarcely knew what I was about. I am very glad I did go. Hang politics! hang the landed interest! what do I care for either now?" "Foiled with Madame di Negra?" asked Randal, drawing the squire aside. "Never speak of her again!" cried the squire, fiercely. "And as to that ungrateful boy--but I don't mean to behave harshly to him,--he shall have money enough to keep her if he likes, keep her from coming to me, keep him, too, from counting on my death, and borrowing post-obits on the Casino--for he'll be doing that next--no, I hope I wrong him there; I have been too good a father for him to count on my death already. After all," continued the squire, beginning to relax, "as Audley says, the marriage is not yet made; and if the woman has taken him in, he is young, and his heart is warm. Make yourself easy, my boy. I don't forget how kindly you took his part; and before I do anything rash, I'll at least consult with his poor mother." Randal gnawed his pale lip, and a momentary cloud of disappointment passed over his face. "True, sir," said he, gently; "true, you must not be rash. Indeed, I was thinking of you and poor dear Frank at the very moment I met you. It occurred to me whether we might not make Frank's very embarrassments a reason to induce Madame di Negra to refuse him; and I was on my way to Mr. Egerton, in order to ask his opinion, in company with the gentleman yonder." "Gentleman yonder. Why should he thrust his long nose into my family affairs? Who the devil is he?" "Don't ask, sir. Pray let me act." But the squire continued to eye askant the dark-whiskered personage thus interposed between himself and his son, and who waited patiently a few yards in the rear, carelessly readjusting the camellia in his button- hole. "He looks very outlandish. Is he a foreigner too?" asked the squire at last. "No, not exactly. However, he knows all about Frank's embarrassments; and--" "Embarrassments! what, the debt he paid for that woman? How did he raise the money?" "I don't know," answered Randal; "and that is the reason I asked Baron Levy to accompany me to Egerton's, that he might explain in private what I have no reason--" "Baron Levy!" interrupted the squire. "Levy, Levy--I have heard of a Levy who has nearly ruined my neighbour Thornhill,--a money-lender. Zounds! is that the man who knows my son's affairs? I'll soon learn, sir." Randal caught hold of the squire's arm: "Stop, stop; if you really insist upon learning more about Frank's debts, you must not appeal to Baron Levy directly, and as Frank's father: he will not answer you. But if I present you to him as a mere acquaintance of mine, and turn the conversation, as if carelessly, upon Frank, why, since, in the London world, such matters are never kept secret, except from the parents of young men, I have no doubt he will talk out openly." "Manage it as you will," said the squire. Randal took Mr. Hazeldean's arm, and joined Levy--"A friend of mine from the country, Baron." Levy bowed profoundly, and the three walked slowly on. "By the by," said Randal, pressing significantly upon Levy's arm, "my friend has come to town upon the somewhat unpleasant business of settling the debts of another,--a young man of fashion,--a relation of his own. No one, sir (turning to the squire), could so ably assist you in such arrangements as could Baron Levy." BARON (modestly, and with a moralizing air).--"I have some experience in such matters, and I hold it a duty to assist the parents and relations of young men who, from want of reflection, often ruin themselves for life. I hope the young gentleman in question is not in the hands of the Jews?" RANDAL.--"Christians are as fond of good interest for their money as ever the Jews can be." BARON.--"Granted, but they have not always so much money to lend. The first thing, sir" (addressing the squire),--"the first thing for you to do is to buy up such of your relation's bills and notes of hand as may be in the market. No doubt we can get them a bargain, unless the young man is heir to some property that may soon be his in the course of nature." RANDAL.--"Not soon--Heaven forbid! His father is still a young man,--a fine healthy man," leaning heavily on Levy's arm; "and as to post-obits--" BARON.--"Post-obits on sound security cost more to buy up, however healthy the obstructing relative may be." RANDAL.--"I should hope that there are not many sons who can calculate, in cold blood, on the death of their fathers." BARON.--"Ha, ha! He is young, our friend Randal; eh, sir?" RANDAL.--"Well, I am not more scrupulous than others, I dare say; and I have often been pinched hard for money, but I would go barefoot rather than give security upon a father's grave! I can imagine nothing more likely to destroy natural feeling, nor to instil ingratitude and treachery into the whole character, than to press the hand of a parent, and calculate when that hand may be dust; than to sit down with strangers and reduce his life to the measure of an insurance-table; than to feel difficulties gathering round one, and mutter in fashionable slang, 'But it will be all well if the governor would but die.' And he who has accustomed himself to the relief of post-obits must gradually harden his mind to all this." The squire groaned heavily; and had Randal proceeded another sentence in the same strain, the squire would have wept outright. "But," continued Randal, altering the tone of his voice, "I think that our young friend, of whom we were talking just now, Levy, before this gentleman joined us, has the same opinions as myself on this head. He may accept bills, but he would never sign post-obits." BARON (who, with the apt docility of a managed charger to the touch of a rider's hand, had comprehended and complied with each quick sign of Randal's).--"Pooh! the young fellow we are talking of? Nonsense. He would not be so foolish as to give five times the percentage he otherwise might. Not sign post-obits! Of course he has signed one." RANDAL.--"Hist! you mistake, you mistake!" SQUIRE (leaving Randal's arm and seizing Levy's).--"Were you speaking of Frank Hazeldean?" BARON.--"My dear sir, excuse me, I never mention names before strangers." SQUIRE.--"Strangers again! Man, I am the boy's father Speak out, sir," and his hand closed on Levy's arm with the strength of an iron vice. BARON.--"Gently; you hurt me, sir: but I excuse your feelings. Randal, you are to blame for leading me into this indiscretion; but I beg to assure Mr. Hazeldean, that though his son has been a little extravagant--" RANDAL.--"Owing chiefly to the arts of an abandoned woman." BARON.--"Of an abandoned woman;--still he has shown more prudence than you would suppose; and this very post-obit is a proof of it. A simple act of that kind has enabled him to pay off bills that were running on till they would have ruined even the Hazeldean estate; whereas a charge on the reversion of the Casino--" SQUIRE.--"He has done it then? He has signed a postobit?" RANDAL.--"No, no, Levy must be wrong." BARON.--"My dear Leslie, a man of Mr. Hazeldean's time of life cannot have your romantic boyish notions. He must allow that Frank has acted in this like a lad of sense--very good head for business has my young friend Frank! And the best thing Mr. Hazeldean can do is quietly to buy up the post-obit, and thus he will place his son henceforth in his power." SQUIRE.--"Can I see the deed with my own eyes?" BARON.--"Certainly, or how could you be induced to buy it up? But on one condition; you must not betray me to your son. And, indeed, take my advice, and don't say a word to him on the matter." SQUIRE.--"Let me see it, let me see it with my own eyes! His mother else will never believe it--nor will I." BARON.--"I can call on you this evening." SQUIRE.--"Now, now!" BARON.--"You can spare me, Randal; and you yourself can open to Mr. Egerton the other affair respecting Lansmere. No time should be lost, lest L'Estrange suggest a candidate." RANDAL (whispering).--"Never mind me. This is more important." (Aloud) --"Go with Mr. Hazeldean. My dear kind friend" (to the squire), "do not let this vex you so much. After all, it is what nine young men out of ten would do in the same circumstances. And it is best you should know it; you may save Frank from further ruin, and prevent, perhaps, this very marriage." "We will see," exclaimed the squire, hastily. "Now, Mr. Levy, come." Levy and the squire walked on, not arm in arm, but side by side. Randal proceeded to Egerton's house. "I am glad to see you, Leslie," said the ex-minister. "What is it I have heard? My nephew, Frank Hazeldean, proposes to marry Madame di Negra against his father's consent? How could you suffer him to entertain an idea so wild? And how never confide it to me?" RANDAL.--"My dear Mr. Egerton, it is only to-day that I was informed of Frank's engagement. I have already seen him, and expostulated in vain; till then, though I knew your nephew admired Madame di Negra, I could never suppose he harboured a serious intention." EGERTON.--"I must believe you, Randal. I will myself see Madame di Negra, though I have no power, and no right, to dictate to her. I have but little time for all such private business. The dissolution of parliament is so close at hand." RANDAL (looking down).--"It is on that subject that I wished to speak to you, sir. You think of standing for Lansmere. Well, Baron Levy has suggested to me an idea that I could not, of course, even countenance, till I had spoken to you. It seems that he has some acquaintance with the state of parties in that borough. He is informed that it is not only as easy to bring in two of our side as to carry one, but that it would make your election still more safe not to fight single-handed against two opponents; that if canvassing for yourself alone, you could not carry a sufficient number of plumper votes; that split votes would go from you to one or other of the two adversaries; that, in a word, it is necessary to pair you with a colleague. If it really be so, you of course will learn best from your own Committee; but should they concur in the opinion Baron Levy has formed, do I presume too much on your kindness to deem it possible that you might allow me to be the second candidate on your side? I should not say this, but that Levy told me you had some wish to see me in parliament, amongst the supporters of your policy. And what other opportunity can occur? Here the cost of carrying two would be scarcely more than that of carrying one. And Levy says the party would subscribe for my election; you, of course, would refuse all such aid for your own; and indeed, with your great name, and Lord Lansmere's interest, there can be little beyond the strict legal expenses." As Randal spoke thus at length, he watched anxiously his patron's reserved, unrevealing countenance. EGERTON (dryly).--"I will consider. You may safely leave in my hands any matter connected with your ambition and advancement. I have before told you I hold it a duty to do all in my power for the kinsman of my late wife, for one whose career I undertook to forward, for one whom honour has compelled to share in my own political reverses." Here Egerton rang the bell for his hat and gloves, and walking into the hall, paused at the street door. There beckoning to Randal, he said, slowly, "You seem intimate with Baron Levy; I caution you against him, --a dangerous acquaintance, first to the purse, next to the honour." RANDAL.--"I know it, sir; and am surprised myself at the acquaintance that has grown up between us. Perhaps its cause is in his respect for yourself." EGERTON.--"Tut." RANDAL.---"Whatever it be, he contrives to obtain a singular hold over one's mind, even where, as in my case, he has no evident interest to serve. How is this? It puzzles me!" EGERTON.--"For his interest, it is most secured where he suffers it to be least evident; for his hold over the mind, it is easily accounted for. He ever appeals to two temptations, strong with all men,--Avarice and Ambition. Good-day." RANDAL.--"Are you going to Madame di Negra's? Shall I not accompany you? Perhaps I may be able to back your own remonstrances." EGERTON.--"No, I shall not require you." RANDAL.--"I trust I shall hear the result of your interview? I feel so much interested in it. Poor Frank!" Audley nodded. "Of course, of course." CHAPTER XIV. On entering the drawing-room of Madame di Negra, the peculiar charm which the severe Audley Egerton had been ever reputed to possess with women would have sensibly struck one who had hitherto seen him chiefly in his relations with men in the business-like affairs of life. It was a charm in strong contrast to the ordinary manners of those who are emphatically called "Ladies' men." No artificial smile, no conventional, hollow blandness, no frivolous gossip, no varnish either of ungenial gayety or affected grace. The charm was in a simplicity that unbent more into kindness than it did with men. Audley's nature, whatever its faults and defects, was essentially masculine; and it was the sense of masculine power that gave to his voice a music when addressing the gentler sex, and to his manner a sort of indulgent tenderness that appeared equally void of insincerity and presumption. Frank had been gone about half-an-hour, and Madame di Negra was scarcely recovered from the agitation into which she had been thrown by the affront from the father and the pleading of the son. Egerton took her passive hand cordially, and seated himself by her side. "My dear marchesa,'I said he, "are we then likely to be near connections? And can you seriously contemplate marriage with my young nephew, Frank Hazeldean? You turn away. Ah, my fair friend, there are but two inducements to a free woman to sign away her liberty at the altar. I say a free woman, for widows are free, and girls are not. These inducements are, first, worldly position; secondly, love. Which of these motives can urge Madame di Negra to marry Mr. Frank Hazeldeani?" "There are other motives than those you speak of,--the need of protection, the sense of solitude, the curse of dependence, gratitude for honourable affection. But you men never know women!" "I grant that you are right there,--we never do; neither do women ever know men. And yet each sex contrives to dupe and to fool the other! Listen to me. I have little acquaintance with my nephew, but I allow he is a handsome young gentleman, with whom a handsome young lady in her teens might fall in love in a ball-room. But you, who have known the higher order of our species, you who have received the homage of men, whose thoughts and mind leave the small talk of drawing-room triflers so poor and bald, you cannot look me in the face and say that it is any passion resembling love which you feel for my nephew. And as to position, it is right that I should inform you that if he marry you he will have none. He may risk his inheritance. You will receive no countenance from his parents. You will be poor, but not free. You will not gain the independence you seek for. The sight of a vacant, discontented face in that opposite chair will be worse than solitude. And as to grateful affection," added the man of the world, "it is a polite synonym for tranquil indifference." "Mr. Egerton," said Beatrice, "people say you are made of bronze. Did you ever feel the want of a home?" "I answer you frankly," replied the statesman, "if I had not felt it, do you think I should have been, and that I should be to the last, the joyless drudge of public life? Bronze though you call my nature, it would have melted away long since like wax in the fire, if I had sat idly down and dreamed of a home!" "But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, "have no public life, and we do idly sit down and dream. Oh," she continued, after a short pause, and clasping her hands firmly together, "you think me worldly, grasping, ambitious; how different my fate had been had I known a home!--known one whom I could love and venerate; known one whose smiles would have developed the good that was once within me, and the fear of whose rebuking or sorrowful eye would have corrected what is evil." "Yet," answered Audley, "nearly all women in the great world have had that choice once in their lives, and nearly all have thrown it away. How few of your rank really think of home when they marry! how few ask to venerate as well as to love! and how many, of every rank, when the home has been really gained, have wilfully lost its shelter,--some in neglectful weariness, some from a momentary doubt, distrust, caprice, a wild fancy, a passionate fit, a trifle, a straw, a dream! True, you women are ever dreamers. Commonsense, common earth, is above or below your comprehension." Both now are silent. Audley first roused himself with a quick, writhing movement. "We two," said he, smiling half sadly, half cynically,--"we two must not longer waste time in talking sentiment. We know both too well what life, as it has been made for us by our faults or our misfortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you to pause before you yield to the foolish suit of my foolish nephew. Rely on it, you will either command a higher offer for your prudence to accept; or, if you needs must sacrifice rank and fortune, you, with your beauty and your romantic heart, will see one who, at least for a fair holiday season (if human love allows no more), can repay you for the sacrifice. Frank Hazeldean never can." Beatrice turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to her eyes. "Think over this well," said Audley, in the softest tones of his mellow voice. "Do you remember that when you first came to England, I told you that neither wedlock nor love had any lures for me? We grew friends upon that rude avowal, and therefore I now speak to you like some sage of old, wise because standing apart and aloof from all the affections and ties that mislead our wisdom. Nothing but real love--how rare it is; has one human heart in a million ever known it?--nothing but real love can repay us for the loss of freedom, the cares and fears of poverty, the cold pity of the world that we both despise and respect. And all these, and much more, follow the step you would inconsiderately take, an imprudent marriage." "Audley Egerton," said Beatrice, lifting her dark, moistened eyes, "you grant that real love does compensate for an imprudent marriage. You speak as if you had known such love--you! Can it be possible?" "Real love--I thought that I knew it once. Looking back with remorse, I should doubt it now but for one curse that only real love, when lost, has the power to leave evermore behind it." "What is that?" "A void here," answered Egerton, striking his heart. "Desolation!-- Adieu!" He rose and left the room. "Is it," murmured Egerton, as he pursued his way through the streets--"is it that, as we approach death, all the first fair feelings of young life come back to us mysteriously? Thus I have heard, or read, that in some country of old, children scattering flowers preceded a funeral bier." CHAPTER XV. And so Leonard stood beside his friend's mortal clay, and watched, in the ineffable smile of death, the last gleam which the soul had left there; and so, after a time, he crept back to the adjoining room with a step as noiseless as if he had feared to disturb the dead. Wearied as he was with watching, he had no thought of sleep. He sat himself down by the little table, and leaned his face on his hand, musing sorrowfully. Thus time passed. He heard the clock from below strike the hours. In the house of death the sound of a clock becomes so solemn. The soul that we miss has gone so far beyond the reach of time! A cold, superstitious awe gradually stole over the young man. He shivered, and lifted his eyes with a start, half scornful, half defying. The moon was gone; the gray, comfortless dawn gleamed through the casement, and carried its raw, chilling light through the open doorway into the death-room. And there, near the extinguished fire, Leonard saw the solitary woman, weeping low; and watching still. He returned to say a word of comfort; she pressed his hand, but waved him away. He understood. She did not wish for other comfort than her quiet relief of tears. Again, he returned to his own chamber, and his eye this time fell upon the papers which he had hitherto disregarded. What made his heart stand still, and the blood then rush so quickly through his veins? Why did he seize upon those papers with so tremulous a hand, then lay them down, pause, as if to nerve himself, and look so eagerly again? He recognized the handwriting,--those fair, clear characters, so peculiar in their woman-like delicacy and grace, the same as in the wild, pathetic poems, the sight of which had made an era in his boyhood. From these pages the image of the mysterious Nora rose once more before him. He felt that he was with a mother. He went back, and closed the door gently, as if with a jealous piety, to exclude each ruder shadow from the world of spirits, and be alone with that mournful ghost. For a thought written in warm, sunny life, and then suddenly rising up to us, when the hand that traced and the heart that cherished it are dust, is verily as a ghost. It is a likeness struck off of the fond human being, and surviving it. Far more truthful than bust or portrait, it bids us see the tear flow, and the pulse beat. What ghost can the churchyard yield to us like the writing of the dead? The bulk of the papers had been once lightly sewn to each other; they had come undone, perhaps in Burley's rude hands, but their order was easily apparent. Leonard soon saw that they formed a kind of journal,--not, indeed, a regular diary, nor always relating to the things of the day. There were gaps in time--no attempt at successive narrative; sometimes, instead of prose, a hasty burst of verse, gushing evidently from the heart; sometimes all narrative was left untold, and yet, as it were, epitomized by a single burning line--a single exclamation--of woe or joy! Everywhere you saw records of a nature exquisitely susceptible; and, where genius appeared, it was so artless, that you did not call it genius, but emotion. At the onset the writer did not speak of herself in the first person. The manuscript opened with descriptions and short dialogues, carried on by persons to whose names only initial letters were assigned, all written in a style of simple innocent freshness, and breathing of purity and happiness, like a dawn of spring. Two young persons, humbly born, a youth and a girl, the last still in childhood, each chiefly self-taught, are wandering on Sabbath evenings among green dewy fields, near the busy town, in which labour awhile is still. Few words pass between them. You see at once, though the writer does not mean to convey it, how far beyond the scope of her male companion flies the heavenward imagination of the girl. It is he who questions, it is she who answers; and soon there steals upon you, as you read, the conviction that the youth loves the girl, and loves in vain. All in this writing, though terse, is so truthful! Leonard, in the youth, already recognizes the rude imperfect scholar, the village bard, Mark Fairfield. Then there is a gap in description; but there are short weighty sentences, which show deep ening thought, increasing years, in the writer. And though the innocence remains, the happiness begins to be less vivid on the page. Now, insensibly, Leonard finds that there is a new phase in the writer's existence. Scenes no longer of humble, workday rural life surround her, and a fairer and more dazzling image succeeds to the companion of the Sabbath eves. This image Nora evidently loves to paint,--it is akin to her own genius; it captivates her fancy; it is an image that she (inborn artist, and conscious of her art) feels to belong to a brighter and higher school of the Beautiful. And yet the virgin's heart is not awakened,--no trace of the heart yet there! The new image thus introduced is one of her own years, perhaps; nay, it may be younger still, for it is a boy that is described, with his profuse fair curls, and eyes new to grief, and confronting the sun as a young eagle's; with veins so full of the wine of life, that they overflow into every joyous whim; with nerves quiveringly alive to the desire of glory; with the frank generous nature, rash in its laughing scorn of the world, which it has not tried. Who was this boy? it perplexed Leonard. He feared to guess. Soon, less told than implied, you saw that this companionship, however it chanced, brings fear and pain on the writer. Again (as before, with Mark Fairfield), there is love on the one side and not on the other; with her there is affectionate, almost sisterly, interest, admiration, gratitude, but a something of pride or of terror that keeps back love. Here Leonard's interest grew intense. Were there touches by which conjecture grew certainty; and he recognized, through the lapse of years, the boy-lover in his own generous benefactor? Fragments of dialogue now began to reveal the suit of an ardent, impassioned nature, and the simple wonder and strange alarm of a listener who pitied but could not sympathize. Some great worldly distinction of rank between the two became visible,--that distinction seemed to arm the virtue and steel the affections of the lowlier born. Then a few sentences, half blotted out with tears, told of wounded and humbled feelings,--some one invested with authority, as if the suitor's parent, had interfered, questioned, reproached, counselled. And it was evident that the suit was not one that dishonoured; it wooed to flight, but still to marriage. And now these sentences grew briefer still, as with the decision of a strong resolve. And to these there followed a passage so exquisite, that Leonard wept unconsciously as he read. It was the description of a visit spent at home previous to some sorrowful departure. He caught the glimpse of a proud and vain, but a tender wistful mother, of a father's fonder but less thoughtful love. And then came a quiet soothing scene between the girl and her first village lover, ending thus: "So she put M.'s hand into her sister's, and said, 'You loved me through the fancy, love her with the heart,' and left them comprehending each other, and betrothed." Leonard sighed. He understood now how Mark Fairfield saw, in the homely features of his unlettered wife, the reflection of the sister's soul and face. A few words told the final parting,--words that were a picture. The long friendless highway, stretching on--on--towards the remorseless city, and the doors of home opening on the desolate thoroughfare, and the old pollard-tree beside the threshold, with the ravens wheeling round it and calling to their young. He too had watched that threshold from the same desolate thoroughfare. He too had heard the cry of the ravens. Then came some pages covered with snatches of melancholy verse, or some reflections of dreamy gloom. The writer was in London, in the house of some high-born patroness,-- that friendless shadow of a friend which the jargon of society calls "companion." And she was looking on the bright storm of the world as through prison bars. Poor bird, afar from the greenwood, she had need of song,--it was her last link with freedom and nature. The patroness seems to share in her apprehensions of the boy suitor, whose wild rash prayers the fugitive had resisted; but to fear lest the suitor should be degraded, not the one whom he pursues,--fear an alliance ill-suited to a high-born heir. And this kind of fear stings the writer's pride, and she grows harsh in her judgment of him who thus causes but pain where he proffers love. Then there is a reference to some applicant for her hand, who is pressed upon her choice; and she is told that it is her duty so to choose, and thus deliver a noble family from a dread that endures so long as her hand is free. And of this fear, and of this applicant, there breaks out a petulant yet pathetic scorn. After this the narrative, to judge by the dates, pauses for days and weeks, as if the writer had grown weary and listless,--suddenly to reopen in a new strain, eloquent with hopes and with fears never known before. The first person was abruptly assumed,--it was the living "I" that now breathed and moved along the lines. How was this? The woman was no more a shadow and a secret unknown to herself. She had assumed the intense and vivid sense of individual being; and love spoke loud in the awakened human heart. A personage not seen till then appeared on the page. And ever afterwards this personage was only named as "He," as if the one and sole representative of all the myriads that walk the earth. The first notice of this prominent character on the scene showed the restless, agitated effect produced on the writer's imagination. He was invested with a romance probably not his own. He was described in contrast to the brilliant boy whose suit she had feared, pitied, and now sought to shun, --described with a grave and serious, but gentle mien, a voice that imposed respect, an eye and lip that showed collected dignity of will. Alas? the writer betrayed herself, and the charm was in the contrast, not to the character of the earlier lover, but her own. And now, leaving Leonard to explore and guess his way through the gaps and chasms of the narrative, it is time to place before the reader what the narrative alone will not reveal to Leonard. CHAPTER XVI. Nora Avenel had fled from the boyish love of Harley L'Estrange, recommended by Lady Lansmere to a valetudinarian relative of her own, Lady Jane Horton, as companion. But Lady Lansmere could not believe it possible that the lowborn girl could long sustain her generous pride, and reject the ardent suit of one who could offer to her the prospective coronet of a countess. She continually urged upon Lady Jane the necessity of marrying Nora to some one of rank less disproportioned to her own, and empowered that lady to assure any such wooer of a dowry far beyond Nora's station. Lady Jane looked around, and saw in the outskirts of her limited social ring a young solicitor, a peer's natural son, who was on terms of more than business-like intimacy with the fashionable clients whose distresses made the origin of his wealth. The young man was handsome, well-dressed, and bland. Lady Jane invited him to her house; and, seeing him struck with the rare loveliness of Nora, whispered the hint of the dower. The fashionable solicitor, who afterwards ripened into Baron Levy, did not need that hint; for, though then poor, he relied on himself for fortune, and, unlike Randal, he had warm blood in his veins. But Lady Jane's suggestions made him sanguine of success; and when he formally proposed, and was as formally refused, his self-love was bitterly wounded. Vanity in Levy was a powerful passion; and with the vain, hatred is strong, revenge is rankling. Levy retired, concealing his rage; nor did he himself know how vindictive that rage, when it cooled into malignancy, could become, until the arch-fiend OPPORTUNITY prompted its indulgence and suggested its design. Lady Jane was at first very angry with Nora for the rejection of a suitor whom she had presented as eligible. But the pathetic grace of this wonderful girl had crept into her heart, and softened it even against family prejudice; and she gradually owned to herself that Nora was worthy of some one better than Mr. Levy. Now, Harley had ever believed that Nora returned his love, and that nothing but her own sense of gratitude to his parents, her own instincts of delicacy, made her deaf to his prayers. To do him justice, wild and headstrong as he then was, his suit would have ceased at once had he really deemed it persecution. Nor was his error unnatural; for his conversation, till it had revealed his own heart, could not fail to have dazzled and delighted the child of genius; and her frank eyes would have shown the delight. How, at his age, could he see the distinction between the Poetess and the Woman? The poetess was charmed with rare promise in a soul of which the very errors were the extravagances of richness and beauty. But the woman--no! the woman required some nature not yet undeveloped, and all at turbulent, if brilliant, strife with its own noble elements, but a nature formed and full-grown. Harley was a boy, and Nora was one of those women who must find or fancy an Ideal that commands and almost awes them into love. Harley discovered, not without difficulty, Nora's new residence. He presented himself at Lady Jane's, and she, with grave rebuke, forbade him the house. He found it impossible to obtain an interview with Nora. He wrote, but he felt sure that his letters never reached her, since they were unanswered. His young heart swelled with rage. He dropped threats, which alarmed all the fears of Lady Lansmere, and even the prudent apprehensions of his friend, Audley Egerton. At the request of the mother, and equally at the wish of the son, Audley consented to visit at Lady Jane's, and make acquaintance with Nora. "I have such confidence in you," said Lady Lansmere, "that if you once know the girl, your advice will be sure to have weight with her. You will show her how wicked it would be to let Harley break our hearts and degrade his station." "I have such confidence in you," said young Harley, "that if you once know my Nora, you will no longer side with my mother. You will recognize the nobility which nature only can create, you will own that Nora is worthy a rank more lofty than mine; and my mother so believes in your wisdom, that, if you plead in my cause, you will convince even her." Audley listened to both with his intelligent, half-incredulous smile; and wholly of the same opinion as Lady Lansmere, and sincerely anxious to save Harley from an indiscretion that his own notions led him to regard as fatal, he resolved to examine this boasted pearl, and to find out its flaws. Audley Egerton was then in the prime of his earnest, resolute, ambitious youth. The stateliness of his natural manners had then a suavity and polish which, even in later and busier life, it never wholly lost; since, in spite of the briefer words and the colder looks by which care and power mark the official man, the minister had ever enjoyed that personal popularity which the indefinable, external something, that wins and pleases, can alone confer. But he had even then, as ever, that felicitous reserve which Rochefoucauld has called the "mystery of the body,"--that thin yet guardian veil which reveals but the strong outlines of character, and excites so much of interest by provoking so much of conjecture. To the man who is born with this reserve, which is wholly distinct from shyness, the world gives credit for qualities and talents beyond those that it perceives; and such characters are attractive to others in proportion as these last are gifted with the imagination which loves to divine the unknown. At the first interview, the impression which this man produced upon Nora Avenel was profound and strange. She had heard of him before as the one. whom Harley most loved and looked up to; and she recognized at once in his mien, his aspect, his words, the very tone of his deep tranquil voice, the power to which woman, whatever her intellect, never attains; and to which, therefore, she imputes a nobility not always genuine,-- namely, the power of deliberate purpose and self-collected, serene ambition. The effect that Nora produced on Egerton was not less sudden. He was startled by a beauty of face and form that belonged to that rarest order, which we never behold but once or twice in our lives. He was yet more amazed to discover that the aristocracy of mind could bestow a grace that no aristocracy of birth could surpass. He was prepared for a simple, blushing village girl, and involuntarily he bowed low his proud front at the first sight of that delicate bloom, and that exquisite gentleness which is woman's surest passport to the respect of man. Neither in the first, nor the second, nor the third interview, nor, indeed, till after many interviews, could he summon up courage to commence his mission, and allude to Harley. And when he did so at last his words faltered. But Nora's words were clear to him. He saw that Harley was not loved; and a joy, which he felt as guilty, darted through his whole frame. From that interview Audley returned home greatly agitated, and at war with himself. Often, in the course of this story, has it been hinted that, under all Egerton's external coldness and measured self-control, lay a nature capable of strong and stubborn passions. Those passions broke forth then. He felt that love had already entered into the heart, which the trust of his friend should have sufficed to guard. "I will go there no more," said he, abruptly, to Harley. "But why?" "The girl does not love you. Cease then to think of her." Harley disbelieved him, and grew indignant. But Audley had every worldly motive to assist his sense of honour. He was poor, though with the reputation of wealth, deeply involved in debt, resolved to rise in life, tenacious of his position in the world's esteem. Against a host of counteracting influences, love fought single-handed. Audley's was a strong nature; but, alas! in strong natures, if resistance to temptation is of granite, so the passions that they admit are of fire. Trite is the remark that the destinies of our lives often date from the impulses of unguarded moments. It was so with this man, to an ordinary eye so cautious and so deliberate. Harley one day came to him in great grief; he had heard that Nora was ill: he implored Andley to go once more and ascertain. Audley went. Lady Jane Horton, who was suffering under a disease which not long afterwards proved fatal, was too ill to receive him. He was shown into the room set apart as Nora's. While waiting for her entrance, he turned mechanically over the leaves of an album, which Nora, suddenly summoned away to attend Lady Jane, had left behind her on the table. He saw the sketch of his own features; he read words inscribed below it,--words of such artless tenderness, and such unhoping sorrow, words written by one who had been accustomed to regard her genius as her sole confidant, under Heaven; to pour out to it, as the solitary poet-heart is impelled to do, thoughts, feelings, the confession of mystic sighs, which it would never breathe to a living ear, and, save at such moments, scarcely acknowledge to itself. Audley saw that he was beloved, and the revelation, with a sudden light, consumed all the barriers between himself and his own love. And at that moment Nora entered. She saw him bending over the book. She uttered a cry, sprang forward, and then sank down, covering her face with her hands. But Audley was at her feet. He forgot his friend, his trust; he forgot ambition, he forgot the world. It was his own cause that he pleaded,-- his own love that burst forth from his lips. And when the two that day parted, they were betrothed each to each. Alas for them, and alas for Harley! And now this man, who had hitherto valued himself as the very type of gentleman, whom all his young contemporaries had so regarded and so revered, had to press the hand of a confiding friend, and bid adieu to truth. He had to amuse, to delay, to mislead his boy-rival,--to say that he was already subduing Nora's hesitating doubts, and that with a little time, she could be induced to consent to forget Harley's rank, and his parent's pride, and become his wife. And Harley believed in Egerton, without one suspicion on the mirror of his loyal soul. Meanwhile, Audley, impatient of his own position,--impatient, as strong minds ever are, to hasten what they have once resolved, to terminate a suspense that every interview with Harley tortured alike by jealousy and shame, to pass out of the reach of scruples, and to say to himself, "Right--or wrong, there is no looking back; the deed is done,"--Audley, thus hurried on by the impetus of his own power of will, pressed for speedy and secret nuptials,--secret, till his fortunes, then wavering, were more assured, his career fairly commenced. This was not his strongest motive, though it was one. He shrank from the discovery of his wrong to his friend, desired to delay the self-humiliation of such announcement, until, as he persuaded himself, Harley's boyish passion was over, had yielded to the new allurements that would naturally beset his way. Stifling his conscience, Audley sought to convince himself that the day would soon come when Harley could hear with indifference that Nora Avenel was another's. "The dream of an hour, at his age," murmured the elder friend; "but at mine the passion of a life!" He did not speak of these latter motives for concealment to Nora. He felt that to own the extent of his treason to a friend would lower him in her eyes. He spoke therefore but slightingly of Harley, treated the boy's suit as a thing past and gone. He dwelt only on reasons that compelled self-sacrifice on his side or hers. She did not hesitate which to choose. And so, where Nora loved, so submissively did she believe in the superiority of the lover, that she would not pause to hear a murmur from her own loftier nature, or question the propriety of what he deemed wise and good. Abandoning prudence in this arch affair of life, Audley still preserved his customary caution in minor details. And this indeed was characteristic of him throughout all his career, heedless in large things, wary in small. He would not trust Lady Jane Horton with his secret, still less Lady Lansmere. He simply represented to the former that Nora was no longer safe from Harley's determined pursuit under Lady Jane's roof, and that she had better elude the boy's knowledge of her movements, and go quietly away for a while, to lodge with some connection of her own. And so, with Lady Jane's acquiescence, Nora went first to the house of a very distant kinswoman of her mother's, and afterwards to one that Egerton took as their bridal home, under the name of Bertram. He arranged all that might render their marriage most free from the chance of premature discovery. But it so happened on the very morning of their bridal, that one of the witnesses he selected (a confidential servant of his own) was seized with apoplexy. Considering, in haste, where to find a substitute, Egerton thought of Levy, his own private solicitor, his own fashionable money-lender, a man with whom he was then as intimate as a fine gentleman is with the lawyer of his own age, who knows all his affairs, and has helped, from pure friendship, to make them as bad as they are! Levy was thus suddenly summoned. Egerton, who was in great haste, did not at first communicate to him the name of the intended bride; but he said enough of the imprudence of the marriage, and his reasons for secrecy, to bring on himself the strongest remonstrances; for Levy had always reckoned on Egerton's making a wealthy marriage,--leaving to Egerton the wife, and hoping to appropriate to himself the wealth, all in the natural course of business. Egerton did not listen to him, but hurried him on towards the place at which the ceremony was to be performed; and Levy actually saw the bride before he had learned her name. The usurer masked his raging emotions, and fulfilled his part in the rites. His smile, when he congratulated the bride, might have shot cold into her heart; but her eyes were cast on the earth, seeing there but a shadow from heaven, and her heart was blindly sheltering itself in the bosom to which it was given evermore. She did not perceive the smile of hate that barbed the words of joy. Nora never thought it necessary later to tell Egerton that Levy had been a refused suitor. Indeed, with the exquisite tact of love, she saw that such a confidence, the idea of such a rival, would have wounded the pride of her high-bred, well-born husband. And now, while Harley L'Estrange, frantic with the news that Nora had left Lady Jane's roof, and purposely misled into wrong directions, was seeking to trace her refuge in vain, now Egerton, in an assumed name, in a remote quarter, far from the clubs, in which his word was oracular, far from the pursuits, whether of pastime or toil, that had hitherto engrossed his active mind, gave himself up, with wonder at his own surrender, to the only vision of fairyland that ever weighs down the watchful eyelids of hard ambition. The world for a while shut out, he missed it not. He knew not of it. He looked into two loving eyes that haunted him ever after, through a stern and arid existence, and said murmuringly, "Why, this, then, is real happiness!" Often, often, in the solitude of other years, to repeat to himself the same words, save that for is, he then murmured was! And Nora, with her grand, full heart, all her luxuriant wealth of fancy and of thought, child of light and of song, did she then never discover that there was something comparatively narrow and sterile in the nature to which she had linked her fate? Not there could ever be sympathy in feelings, brilliant and shifting as the tints of the rainbow. When Audley pressed her heart to his own, could he comprehend one finer throb of its beating? Was all the iron of his mind worth one grain of the gold she had cast away in Harley's love? Did Nora already discover this? Surely no. Genius feels no want, no repining, while the heart is contented. Genius in her paused and slumbered: it had been as the ministrant of solitude: it was needed no more. If a woman loves deeply some one below her own grade in the mental and spiritual orders, how often we see that she unconsciously quits her own rank, comes meekly down to the level of the beloved, is afraid lest he should deem her the superior,--she who would not even be the equal. Nora knew no more that she had genius; she only knew that she had love. And so here, the journal which Leonard was reading changed its tone, sinking into that quiet happiness which is but quiet because it is so deep. This interlude in the life of a man like Audley Egerton could never have been long; many circumstances conspired to abridge it. His affairs were in great disorder; they were all under Levy's management. Demands that had before slumbered, or been mildly urged, grew menacing and clamorous. Harley, too, returned to London from his futile researches, and looked out for Audley. Audley was forced to leave his secret Eden, and reappear in the common world; and thenceforward it was only by stealth that he came to his bridal home,--a visitor, no more the inmate. But more loud and fierce grew the demands of his creditors, now when Egerton had most need of all which respectability and position and belief of pecuniary independence can do to raise the man who has encumbered his arms, and crippled his steps towards fortune. He was threatened with writs, with prison. Levy said "that to borrow more would be but larger ruin," shrugged his shoulders, and even recommended a voluntary retreat to the King's Bench. "No place so good for frightening one's creditors into compounding their claims; but why," added Levy, with covert sneer, "why not go to young L'Estrange, a boy made to be borrowed from!" Levy, who had known from Lady Jane of Harley's pursuit of Nora, had learned already how to avenge himself on Egerton. Audley could not apply to the friend he had betrayed. And as to other friends, no man in town had a greater number. And no man in town knew better that he should lose them all if he were once known to be in want of their money. Mortified, harassed, tortured, shunning Harley, yet ever sought by him, fearful of each knock at his door, Audley Egerton escaped to the mortgaged remnant of his paternal estate, on which there was a gloomy manor-house, long uninhabited, and there applied a mind, afterwards renowned for its quick comprehension of business, to the investigation of his affairs, with a view to save some wreck from the flood that swelled momently around him. And now--to condense as much as possible a record that runs darkly on into pain and sorrow--now Levy began to practise his vindictive arts; and the arts gradually prevailed. On pretence of assisting Egerton in the arrangement of his affairs, which he secretly contrived, however, still more to complicate, he came down frequently to Egerton Hall for a few hours, arriving by the mail, and watching the effect which Nora's almost daily letters produced on the bridegroom, irritated by the practical cares of life. He was thus constantly at hand to instil into the mind of the ambitious man a regret for the imprudence of hasty passion, or to embitter the remorse which Audley felt for his treachery to L'Estrange. Thus ever bringing before the mind of the harassed debtor images at war with love, and with the poetry of life, he disattuned it (so to speak) for the reception of Nora's letters, all musical as they were with such thoughts as the most delicate fancy inspires to the most earnest love. Egerton was one of those men who never confide their affairs frankly to women. Nora, when she thus wrote, was wholly in the dark as to the extent of his stern prosaic distress. And so--and so--Levy always near-- type of the prose of life in its most cynic form--so by degrees all that redundant affluence of affection, with its gushes of grief for his absence, prayers for his return, sweet reproach if a post failed to bring back an answer to the woman's yearning sighs,--all this grew, to the sensible, positive man of real life, like sickly romantic exaggeration. The bright arrows shot too high into heaven to hit the mark set so near to the earth. Ah, common fate of all superior natures! What treasure, and how wildly wasted! "By-the-by," said Levy, one morning, as he was about to take leave of Audley and return to town,--"by-the-by, I shall be this evening in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Egerton." EGERTON.--"Say Mrs. Bertram!" LEVY.--"Ay; will she not be in want of some pecuniary supplies?" EGERTON. "My wife!--Not yet. I must first be wholly ruined before she can want; and if I were so, do you think I should not be by her side?" LEVY.--"I beg pardon, my dear fellow; your pride of gentleman is so susceptible that it is hard for a lawyer not to wound it unawares. Your wife, then, does not know the exact state of your affairs?" EGERTON.--"Of course not. Who would confide to a woman things in which she could do nothing, except to tease one the more?" LEVY.--"True, and a poetess too! I have prevented your finishing your answer to Mrs. Bertram's last letter. Can I take it--it may save a day's delay--that is, if you do not object to my calling on her this evening." EGERTON (sitting down to his unfinished letter).--"Object! no." LEVY (looking at his watch).--"Be quick, or I shall lose the coach." EGEPTON (sealing the letter).--"There. And I should be obliged to you if you would call; and without alarming her as to my circumstances, you can just say that you know I am much harassed about important affairs at present, and so soothe the effects of my very short answers--" LEVY.--"To those doubly-crossed, very long letters,--I will." "Poor Nora," said Egerton, sighing, "she will think this answer brief and churlish enough. Explain my excuses kindly, so that they will serve for the future. I really have no time and no heart for sentiment. The little I ever had is well-nigh worried out of me. Still I love her fondly and deeply." LEVY.--"You must have done so. I never thought it in you to sacrifice the world to a woman." EGERTON.--"Nor I either; but," added the strong man, conscious of that power which rules the world infinitely more than knowledge, conscious of tranquil courage, "but I have not sacrificed the world yet. This right arm shall bear up her and myself too." LEVY.--"Well said! but in the mean while, for heaven's sake, don't attempt to go to London, nor to leave this place; for, in that case, I know you will be arrested, and then adieu to all hopes of parliament, --of a career." Audley's haughty countenance darkened; as the dog, in his bravest mode, turns dismayed from the stone plucked from the mire, so, when Ambition rears itself to defy mankind, whisper "disgrace and a jail,"--and, lo, crestfallen, it slinks away! That evening Levy called on Nora, and ingratiating himself into her favour by praise of Egerton, with indirect humble apologetic allusions to his own former presumption, he prepared the way to renewed visits; she was so lonely, and she so loved to see one who was fresh from seeing Audley, one who would talk to her of him! By degrees the friendly respectful visitor thus stole into her confidence; and then, with all his panegyrics on Audley's superior powers and gifts, he began to dwell upon the young husband's worldly aspirations, and care for his career; dwell on them so as vaguely to alarm Nora,--to imply that, dear as she was, she was still but second to Ambition. His way thus prepared, he next began to insinuate his respectful pity at her equivocal position, dropped hints of gossip and slander, feared that the marriage might be owned too late to preserve reputation. And then what would be the feelings of the proud Egerton if his wife were excluded from that world whose opinion he so prized? Insensibly thus he led her on to express (though timidly) her own fear, her own natural desire, in her letters to Audley. When could the marriage be proclaimed? Proclaimed! Audley felt that to proclaim such a marriage at such a moment would be to fling away his last cast for fame and fortune. And Harley, too,--Harley still so uncured of his frantic love! Levy was sure to be at hand when letters like these arrived. And now Levy went further still in his determination to alienate these two hearts. He contrived, by means of his various agents, to circulate through Nora's neighbourhood the very slanders at which he had hinted. He contrived that she should be insulted when she went abroad, outraged at home by the sneers of her own servant, and tremble with shame at her own shadow upon her abandoned bridal hearth. Just in the midst of this intolerable anguish, Levy reappeared. His crowning hour was ripe. He intimated his knowledge of the humiliations Nora had undergone, expressed his deep compassion, offered to intercede with Egerton "to do her justice." He used ambiguous phrases, that shocked her ear and tortured her heart, and thus provoked her on to demand him to explain; and then, throwing her into a wild state of indefinite alarm, in which he obtained her solemn promise not to divulge to Audley what he was about to communicate, he said, with villanous hypocrisy of reluctant shame, "that her marriage was not strictly legal; that the forms required by the law had not been complied with, that Audley, unintentionally or purposely, had left himself free to disown the rite and desert the bride." While Nora stood stunned and speechless at a falsehood which, with lawyer-like show, he contrived to make truth-like to her inexperience, he hurried rapidly on, to re-awake on her mind the impression of Audley's pride, ambition, and respect for worldly position. "These are your obstacles," said he; "but I think I may induce him to repair the wrong, and right you at last." Righted at last--oh, infamy! Then Nora's anger burst forth. She believe such a stain on Audley's honour! "But where was the honour when he betrayed his friend? Did you not know that he was entrusted by Lord L'Estrange to plead for him. How did he fulfil the trust?" "Plead for L'Estrange!" Nora had not been exactly aware of this,--in the sudden love preceding those sudden nuptials, so little touching Harley (beyond Audley's first timid allusions to his suit, and her calin and cold reply) had been spoken by either. Levy resumed. He dwelt fully on the trust and the breach of it, and then said: "In Egerton's world, man holds it far more dishonour to betray a man than to dupe a woman; and if Egerton could do the one, why doubt that he would do the other? But do not look at me with those indignant eyes. Put himself to the test; write to him to say that the suspicions amidst which you live have become intolerable, that they infect even yourself, despite your reason, that the secrecy of your nuptials, his prolonged absence, his brief refusal, on unsatisfactory grounds, to proclaim your tie, all distract you with a terrible doubt. Ask him, at least (if he will not yet declare your marriage), to satisfy you that the rites were legal." "I will go to him," cried Nora, impetuously. "Go to him!--in his own house! What a scene, what a scandal! Could he ever forgive you?" "At least, then, I will implore him to come here. I can not write such horrible words; I cannot! I cannot! Go, go!" Levy left her, and hastened to two or three of Audley's most pressing creditors,--men, in fact, who went entirely by Levy's own advice. He bade them instantly surround Audley's country residence with bailiffs. Before Egerton could reach Nora, he would thus be lodged in a jail. These preparations made, Levy himself went down to Audley, and arrived, as usual, an hour or two before the delivery of the post. And Nora's letter came; and never was Audley's grave brow more dark than when he read it. Still, with his usual decision, he resolved to obey her wish,--rang the bell, and ordered his servant to put up a change of dress, and send for post-horses. Levy then took him aside, and led him to the window. "Look under yon trees. Do you see those men? They are bailiffs. This is the true reason why I come to you to-day. You cannot leave this house." Egerton recoiled. "And this frantic, foolish letter at such a time!" he muttered, striking the open page, full of love in the midst of terror, with his clenched hand. O Woman, Woman! if thy heart be deep, and its chords tender, beware how thou lovest the man with whom all that plucks him from the hard cares of the workday world is frenzy or a folly! He will break thy heart, he will shatter its chords, he will trample out from its delicate framework every sound that now makes musical the common air, and swells into unison with the harps of angels. "She has before written to me," continued Audley, pacing the room with angry, disordered strides, "asking me when our marriage can be proclaimed, and I thought my replies would have satisfied any reasonable woman. But now, now this is worse, immeasurably worse,--she actually doubts my honour! I, who have made such sacrifices,--actually doubts whether I, Audley Egerton, an English gentleman, could have been base enough to--" "What?" interrupted Levy, "to deceive your friend L'Estrange? Did not she know that?" "Sir!" exclaimed Egerton, turning white. "Don't be angry,--all's fair in love as in war; and L'Estrange will live yet to thank you for saving him from such a misalliance. But you are seriously angry: pray, forgive me." With some difficulty and much fawning, the usurer appeased the storm he had raised in Audley's conscience. And he then heard, as if with surprise, the true purport of Nora's letter. "It is beneath me to answer, much less to satisfy, such a doubt," said Audley. "I could have seen her, and a look of reproach would have sufficed; but to put my hand to paper, and condescend to write, 'I am not a villain, and I will give you the proofs that I am not'--never!" "You are quite right; but let us see if we cannot reconcile matters between your pride and her feelings. Write simply this: 'All that you ask me to say or to explain, I have instructed Levy, as my solicitor, to say and explain for me; and you may believe him as you would myself.'" "Well, the poor fool, she deserves to be punished; and I suppose that answer will punish her more than a lengthier rebuke.--My mind is so distracted, I cannot judge of these trumpery woman-fears and whims; there, I have written as you suggest. Give her all the proof she needs, and tell her that in six months at furthest, come what will, she shall bear the name of Egerton, as henceforth she must share his fate." "Why say six months?" "Parliament must be dissolved, and there must be a general election before then. I shall either obtain a seat, be secure from a jail, have won field for my energies, or--" "Or what?" "I shall renounce ambition altogether, ask my brother to assist me towards whatever debts remain when all my property is fairly sold--they cannot be much. He has a living in his gift; the incumbent is old, and, I hear, very ill. I can take orders." "Sink into a country parson!" "And learn content. I have tasted it already. She was then by my side. Explain all to her. This letter, I fear, is too unkind--But to doubt me thus!" Levy hastily placed the letter in his pocketbook; and, for fear it should be withdrawn, took his leave. And of that letter he made such use, that the day after he had given it to Nora, she had left the house, the neighbourhood; fled, and not a trace! Of all the agonies in life, that which is most poignant and harrowing, that which for the time most annihilates reason, and leaves our whole organization one lacerated, mangled heart, is the conviction that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love. The moment the anchor snaps, the storm comes on, the stars vanish behind the cloud. When Levy returned, filled with the infamous hope which had stimulated his revenge,--the hope that if he could succeed in changing into scorn and indignation Nora's love for Audley, he might succeed also in replacing that broken and degraded idol,--his amaze and dismay were great on hearing of her departure. For several days he sought her traces in vain. He went to Lady Jane Horton's,--Nora had not been there. He trembled to go back to Egerton. Surely Nora would have written to her husband, and in spite of her promise, revealed his own falsehood; but as days passed, and not a clew was found, he had no option but to repair to Egerton Hall, taking care that the bailiffs still surrounded it. Audley had received no line from Nora. The young husband was surprised, perplexed, uneasy, but had no suspicion of the truth. At length Levy was forced to break to Audley the intelligence of Nora's flight. He gave his own colour to it. Doubtless she had gone to seek her own relations, and, by their advice, take steps to make her marriage publicly known. This idea changed Audley's first shock into deep and stern resentment. His mind so little comprehended Nora's, and was ever so disposed to what is called the common-sense view of things, that he saw no other mode to account for her flight and her silence. Odious to Egerton as such a proceeding would be, he was far too proud to take any steps to guard against it. "Let her do her worst," said he, coldly, masking emotion with his usual self-command; "it will be but a nine days' wonder to the world, a fiercer rush of my creditors on their hunted prey" "And a challenge from Lord L'Estrange." "So be it," answered Egerton, suddenly placing his hand at his heart. "What is the matter? Are you ill?" "A strange sensation here. My father died of a complaint of the heart, and I myself was once told to guard, through life, against excess of emotion. I smiled at such a warning then. Let us sit down to business." But when Levy had gone, and solitude reclosed round that Man of the Iron Mask, there grew upon him more and more the sense of a mighty loss. Nora's sweet loving face started from the shadows of the forlorn walls. Her docile, yielding temper, her generous, self-immolating spirit, came back to his memory, to refute the idea that wronged her. His love, that had been suspended for awhile by busy cares, but which, if without much refining sentiment, was still the master passion of his soul, flowed back into all his thoughts,--circumfused the very atmosphere with a fearful, softening charm. He escaped under cover of the night from the watch of the bailiffs. He arrived in London. He himself sought everywhere he could think of for his missing bride. Lady Jane Horton was confined to her bed, dying fast, incapable even to receive and reply to his letter. He secretly sent down to Lansmere to ascertain if Nora had gone to her parents. She was not there. The Avenels believed her still with Lady Jane Horton. He now grew most seriously alarmed; and in the midst of that alarm, Levy secretly contrived that he should be arrested for debt; but he was not detained in confinement many days. Before the disgrace got wind, the writs were discharged, Levy baffled. He was free. Lord L'Estrange had learned from Audley's servant what Audley would have concealed from him out of all the world. And the generous boy, who, besides the munificent allowance he received from the earl, was heir to an independent and considerable fortune of his own, when he should attain his majority, hastened to borrow the money and discharge all the obligations of his friend. The benefit was conferred before Audley knew of it, or could prevent. Then a new emotion, and perhaps scarce less stinging than the loss of Nora, tortured the man who had smiled at the warning of science; and the strange sensation at the heart was felt again and again. And Harley, too, was still in search of Nora,--would talk of nothing but her, and looked so haggard and grief-worn. The bloom of the boy's youth was gone. Could Audley then have said, "She you seek is another's; your love is razed out of your life; and, for consolation, learn that your friend has betrayed you"? Could Audley say this? He did not dare. Which of the two suffered the most? And these two friends, of characters so different, were so singularly attached to each other,--inseparable at school, thrown together in the world, with a wealth of frank confidences between them, accumulated since childhood. And now, in the midst of all his own anxious sorrow, Harley still thought and planned for Egerton. And self-accusing remorse, and all the sense of painful gratitude, deepened Audley's affection for Harley into a devotion as to a superior, while softening it into a reverential pity that yearned to relieve, to atone; but how,--oh, how? A general election was now at hand, still no news of Nora. Levy kept aloof from Audley, pursuing his own silent search. A seat for the borough of Lansmere was pressed upon Audley, not only by Harley, but his parents, especially by the countess, who tacitly ascribed to Audley's wise counsels Nora's mysterious disappearance. Egerton at first resisted the thought of a new obligation to his injured friend; but he burned to have it, some day, in his power to repay at least his pecuniary debt: the sense of that debt humbled him more than all else. Parliamentary success might at last obtain for him some lucrative situation abroad, and thus enable him gradually to remove this load from his heart and his honour. No other chance of repayment appeared open to him. He accepted the offer, and went down to Lansmere. His brother, lately married, was asked to meet him; and there also was Miss Leslie the heiress, whom Lady Lansmere secretly hoped her son Harley would admire, but who had long since, no less secretly, given her heart to the unconscious Egerton. Meanwhile, the miserable Nora--deceived by the arts and representations of Levy, acting on the natural impulse of a heart so susceptible to shame, flying from a home which she deemed dishonoured, flying from a lover whose power over her she knew to be so great that she dreaded lest he might reconcile her to dishonour itself--had no thought save to hide herself forever from Audley's eye. She would not go to her relations, to Lady Jane; that were to give the clew, and invite the pursuit. An Italian lady of high rank had visited at Lady Jane's,--taken a great fancy to Nora; and the lady's husband, having been obliged to precede her return to Italy, had suggested the notion of engaging some companion; the lady had spoken of this to Nora and to Lady Jane Horton, who had urged Nora to accept the offer, elude Harley's pursuit, and go abroad for a time. Nora then had refused; for she then had seen Audley Egerton. To this Italian lady she now went, and the offer was renewed with the most winning kindness, and grasped at in the passion of despair. But the Italian had accepted invitations to English country-houses before she finally departed for the Continent. Meanwhile Nora took refuge in a quiet lodging in a sequestered suburb, which an English servant in the em ployment of the fair foreigner recommended. Thus had she first come to the cottage in which Burley died. Shortly afterwards she left England with her new companion, unknown to all,--to Lady Jane as to her parents. All this time the poor girl was under a moral delirium, a confused fever, haunted by dreams from which she sought to fly. Sound physiologists agree that madness is rarest amongst persons of the finest imagination. But those persons are, of all others, liable to a temporary state of mind in which judgment sleeps,--imagination alone prevails with a dire and awful tyranny. A single idea gains ascendancy, expels all others, presents itself everywhere with an intolerable blinding glare. Nora was at that time under the dread one idea, to fly from shame! But when the seas rolled, and the dreary leagues interposed between her and her lover; when new images presented themselves; when the fever slaked, and reason returned,--doubt broke upon the previous despair. Had she not been too credulous, too hasty? Fool, fool! Audley have been so poor a traitor! How guilty was she, if she had wronged him! And in the midst of this revulsion of feeling, there stirred within her another life. She was destined to become a mother. At that thought her high nature bowed; the last struggle of pride gave way; she would return to England, see Audley, learn from his lips the truth, and even if the truth were what she had been taught to believe, plead not for herself, but for the false one's child. Some delay occurred in the then warlike state of affairs on the Continent before she could put this purpose into execution; and on her journey back, various obstructions lengthened the way. But she returned at last, and resought the suburban cottage in which she had last lodged before quitting England. At night, she went to Audley's London house; there was only a woman in charge of it. Mr. Egerton was absent, electioneering somewhere; Mr. Levy, his lawyer, called every day for any letters to be forwarded to him. Nora shrank from seeing Levy, shrank from writing even a letter that would pass through his bands. If she had been deceived, it had been by him, and wilfully. But parliament was already dissolved; the election would soon be over. Mr. Egerton was expected to return to town within a week. Nora went back to Mrs. Goodyer's and resolved to wait, devouring her own heart in silence. But the newspapers might inform her where Audley really was; the newspapers were sent for and conned daily. And one morning this paragraph met her eye:-- The Earl and Countess of Lansmere are receiving a distinguished party at their country seat. Among the guests is Miss Leslie, whose wealth and beauty have excited such sensation in the fashionable world. To the disappointment of numerous aspirants amongst our aristocracy, we hear that this lady has, however, made her distinguished choice in Mr. Audley Egerton. That gentleman is now a candidate for the borough of Lansmere, as a supporter of the Government; his success is considered certain, and, according to the report of a large circle of friends, few new members will prove so valuable an addition to the ministerial ranks. A great career may indeed be predicted for a young man so esteemed for talent and character, aided by a fortune so immense as that which he will shortly receive with the hand of the accomplished heiress. Again the anchor snapped, again the storm descended, again the stars vanished. Nora was now once more under the dominion of a single thought, as she had been when she fled from her bridal home. Then, it was to escape from her lover,--now, it was to see him. As the victim stretched on the rack implores to be led at once to death, so there are moments when the anuihilation of hope seems more merciful than the torment of suspense. CHAPTER XVII. When the scenes in some long diorama pass solemnly before us, there is sometimes one solitary object, contrasting, perhaps, the view of stately cities or the march of a mighty river, that halts on the eye for a moment, and then glides away, leaving on the mind a strange, comfortless, undefined impression. Why was the object presented to us? In itself it seemed comparatively insignificant. It may have been but a broken column, a lonely pool with a star-beam on its quiet surface,--yet it awes us. We remember it when phantasmal pictures of bright Damascus, or of colossal pyramids, of bazaars in Stamboul, or lengthened caravans that defile slow amidst the sands of Araby, have sated the wondering gaze. Why were we detained in the shadowy procession by a thing that would have been so commonplace had it not been so lone? Some latent interest must attach to it. Was it there that a vision of woe had lifted the wild hair of a Prophet; there where some Hagar had stilled the wail of her child on her indignant breast? We would fain call back the pageantry procession, fain see again the solitary thing that seemed so little worth the hand of the artist, and ask, "Why art thou here, and wherefore dost thou haunt us?" Rise up,--rise up once more, by the broad great thoroughfare that stretches onward and onward to the remorseless London! Rise up, rise up, O solitary tree with the green leaves on thy bough, and the deep rents in thy heart; and the ravens, dark birds of omen and sorrow, that build their nest amidst the leaves of the bough, and drop with noiseless plumes down through the hollow rents of the heart, or are heard, it may be in the growing shadows of twilight, calling out to their young. Under the old pollard-tree, by the side of John Avenel's house, there cowered, breathless and listening, John Avenel's daughter Nora. Now, when that fatal newspaper paragraph, which lied so like truth, met her eyes, she obeyed the first impulse of her passionate heart,--she tore the wedding ring from her finger, she enclosed it, with the paragraph itself, in a letter to Audley,--a letter that she designed to convey scorn and pride--alas! it expressed only jealousy and love. She could not rest till she had put this letter into the post with her own hand, addressed to, Audley at Lord Lansmere's. Scarce had it left her ere she repented. What had she done,--resigned the birth-right of the child she was so soon to bring into the world, resigned her last hope in her lover's honour, given up her life of life--and from belief in what?--a report in a newspaper! No, no; she would go herself to Lansmere; to her father's home,--she could contrive to see Audley before that letter reached his hand. The thought was scarcely conceived before obeyed. She found a vacant place in a coach that started from London some hours before the mail, and went within a few miles of Lansmere; those last miles she travelled on foot. Exhausted, fainting, she gained at last the sight of home, and there halted, for in the little garden in front she saw her parents seated. She heard the murmur of their voices, and suddenly she remembered her altered shape, her terrible secret. How answer the question, "Daughter, where and who is thy husband?" Her heart failed her; she crept under the old pollard-tree, to gather up resolve, to watch, and to listen. She saw the rigid face of the thrifty, prudent mother, with the deep lines that told of the cares of an anxious life, and the chafe of excitable temper and warm affections against the restraint of decorous sanctimony and resolute pride. The dear stern face never seemed to her more dear and more stern. She saw the comely, easy, indolent, good- humoured father; not then the poor, paralytic sufferer, who could yet recognize Nora's eyes under the lids of Leonard, but stalwart and jovial,--first bat in the Cricket Club, first voice in the Glee Society, the most popular canvasser of the Lansmere Constitutional True Blue Party, and the pride and idol of the Calvinistical prim wife; never from those pinched lips of hers had come forth even one pious rebuke to the careless, social man. As he sat, one hand in his vest, his profile turned to the road, the light smoke curling playfully up from the pipe, over which lips, accustomed to bland smile and hearty laughter, closed as if reluctant to be closed at all, he was the very model of the respectable retired trader in easy circumstances, and released from the toil of making money while life could yet enjoy the delight of spending it. "Well, old woman," said John Avenel, "I must be off presently to see to those three shaky voters in Fish Lane; they will have done their work soon, and I shall catch 'em at home. They do say as how we may have an opposition; and I know that old Smikes has gone to Lonnon in search of a candidate. We can't have the Lansmere Constitutional Blues beat by a Lonnoner! Ha, ha, ha!" "But you will be home before Jane and her husband Mark come? How ever she could marry a common carpenter!" "Yes," said John, "he is a carpenter; but he has a vote, and that strengthens the family interest. If Dick was not gone to Amerikay, there would be three on us. But Mark is a real good Blue! A Lonnoner, indeed! a Yellow from Lonnon beat my Lord and the Blues! Ha, ha!" "But, John, this Mr. Egerton is a Lonnoner!" "You don't understand things, talking such nonsense. Mr. Egerton is the Blue candidate, and the Blues are the Country Party; therefore how can he be a Lonnoner? An uncommon clever, well-grown, handsome young man, eh! and my young Lord's particular friend." Mrs. Avenel sighed. "What are you sighing and shaking your head for?" "I was thinking of our poor, dear, dear Nora!" "God bless her!" cried John, heartily. There was a rustle under the boughs of the old hollow-hearted pollard- tree. "Ha, ha! Hark! I said that so loud that I have startled the ravens!" "How he did love her!" said Mrs. Avenel, thoughtfully. "I am sure he did; and no wonder, for she looks every inch a lady; and why should not she be my lady, after all?" "He? Who? Oh, that foolish fancy of yours about my young Lord? A prudent woman like you!--stuff! I am glad my little beauty is gone to Lonnon, out of harm's way." "John, John, John! No harm could ever come to my Nora. She 's too pure and too good, and has too proper a pride in her, to--" "To listen to any young lords, I hope," said John; "though," he added, after a pause, "she might well be a lady too. My Lord, the young one, took me by the hand so kindly the other day, and said, 'Have not you heard from her--I mean Miss Avenel--lately?' and those bright eyes of his were as full of tears as--as--as yours are now." "Well, John, well; go on." "That is all. My Lady came up, and took me away to talk about the election; and just as I was going, she whispered, 'Don't let my wild boy talk to you about that sweet girl of yours. We must both see that she does not come to disgrace.' 'Disgrace!' that word made me very angry for the moment. But my Lady has such a way with her that she soon put me right again. Yet, I do think Nora must have loved my young Lord, only she was too good to show it. What do you say?" And the father's voice was thoughtful. "I hope she'll never love any man till she's married to him; it is not proper, John," said Mrs. Avenel, somewhat starchly, though very mildly. "Ha, ha!" laughed John, chucking his prim wife under the chin, "you did not say that to me when I stole your first kiss under that very pollard- tree--no house near it then!" "Hush, John, hush!" and the prim wife blushed like a girl. "Pooh," continued John, merrily, "I don't see why we plain folk should pretend to be more saintly and prudish-like than our betters. There's that handsome Miss Leslie, who is to marry Mr. Egerton--easy enough to see how much she is in love with him,--could not keep her eyes off from him even in church, old girl! Ha, ha! What the deuce is the matter with the ravens?" "They'll be a comely couple, John. And I hear tell she has a power of money. When is the marriage to be?" "Oh, they say as soon as the election is over. A fine wedding we shall have of it! I dare say my young Lord will be bridesman. We'll send for our little Nora to see the gay doings!" Out from the boughs of the old tree came the shriek of a lost spirit,-- one of those strange, appalling sounds of human agony which, once heard, are never forgotten. It is as the wail of Hope, when SHE, too, rushes forth from the Coffer of Woes, and vanishes into viewless space; it is the dread cry of Reason parting from clay, and of Soul, that would wrench itself from life! For a moment all was still--and then a dull, dumb, heavy fall! The parents gazed on each other, speechless: they stole close to the pales, and looked over. Under the boughs, at the gnarled roots of the oak, they saw--gray and indistinct--a prostrate form. John opened the gate, and went round; the mother crept to the road-side, and there stood still. "Oh, wife, wife!" cried John Avenel, from under the green boughs, "it is our child Nora! Our child! our child!" And, as he spoke, out from the green boughs started the dark ravens, wheeling round and round, and calling to their young! And when they had laid her on the bed, Mrs. Avenel whispered John to withdraw for a moment; and with set lips but trembling hands began to unlace the dress, under the pressure of which Nora's heart heaved convulsively. And John went out of the room bewildered, and sat himself down on the landing-place, and wondered whether he was awake or sleeping; and a cold numbness crept over one side of him, and his head felt very heavy, with a loud, booming noise in his ears. Suddenly his wife stood by his side, and said, in a very low voice, "John, run for Mr. Morgan,--make haste. But mind--don't speak to any one on the way. Quick, quick!" "Is she dying?" "I don't know. Why not die before?" said Mrs. Avenel, between her teeth; "but Mr. Morgan is a discreet, friendly man." "A true Blue!" muttered poor John, as if his mind wandered; and rising with difficulty, he stared at his wife a moment, shook his head, and was gone. An hour or two later, a little, covered, taxed cart stopped at Mr. Avenel's cottage, out of which stepped a young man with pale face and spare form, dressed in the Sunday suit of a rustic craftsman; then a homely, but pleasant, honest face bent down to him, smilingly; and two arms emerging from under covert of a red cloak extended an infant, which the young man took tenderly. The baby was cross and very sickly; it began to cry. The father hushed, and rocked, and tossed it, with the air of one to whom such a charge was familiar. "He'll be good when we get in, Mark," said the young woman, as she extracted from the depths of the cart a large basket containing poultry and home-made bread. "Don't forget the flowers that the squire's gardener gave us," said Mark the Poet. Without aid from her husband, the wife took down basket and nosegay, settled her cloak, smoothed her gown, and said, "Very odd! they don't seem to expect us, Mark. How still the house is! Go and knock; they can't ha' gone to bed yet." Mark knocked at the door--no answer. A light passed rapidly across the windows on the upper floor, but still no one came to his summons. Mark knocked again. A gentleman dressed in clerical costume, now coming from Lansinere Park, on the opposite side of the road, paused at the sound of Mark's second and more impatient knock, and said civilly, "Are you not the young folks my friend John Avenel told me this morning he expected to visit him?" "Yes, please, Mr. Dale," said Mrs. Fairfield, dropping her courtesy. "You remember me! and this is my dear good man!" "What! Mark the Poet?" said the curate of Lansmere, with a smile. "Come to write squibs for the election?" "Squibs, sir!" cried Mark, indignantly. "Burns wrote squibs," said the curate, mildly. Mark made no answer, but again knocked at the door. This time, a man, whose face, even seen by the starlight, was much flushed, presented himself at the threshold. "Mr. Morgan!" exclaimed the curate, in benevolent alarm; no illness here, I hope?" "Cott! it is you, Mr. Dale!--Come in, come in; I want a word with you. But who the teuce are these people?" "Sir," said Mark, pushing through the doorway, "my name is Fairfield, and my wife is Mr. Avenel's daughter!" "Oh, Jane--and her baby too!--Cood! cood! Come in; but be quiet, can't you? Still, still--still as death!" The party entered, the door closed; the moon rose, and shone calmly on the pale silent house, on the sleeping flowers of the little garden, on the old pollard with its hollow core. The horse in the taxed cart dozed unheeded; the light still at times flitted across the upper windows. These were the only signs of life, except when a bat, now and then attracted by the light that passed across the windows, brushed against the panes, and then, dipping downwards, struck up against the nose of the slumbering horse, and darted merrily after the moth that fluttered round the raven's nest in the old pollard. CHAPTER XVIII. All that day Harley L'Estrange had been more than usually mournful and dejected. Indeed, the return to scenes associated with Nora's presence increased the gloom that had settled on his mind since he had lost sight and trace of her. Audley, in the remorseful tenderness he felt for his injured friend, had induced L'Estrange towards evening to leave the Park, and go into a district some miles off, on pretence that he required Harley's aid there to canvass certain important outvoters: the change of scene might rouse him from his reveries. Harley himself was glad to escape from the guests at Lansmere. He readily consented to go. He would not return that night. The outvoters lay remote and scattered, he might be absent for a day or two. When Harley was gone, Egerton himself sank into deep thought. There was rumour of some unexpected opposition. His partisans were alarmed and anxious. It was clear that the Lansmere interest, if attacked, was weaker than the earl would believe; Egerton might lose his election. If so, what would become of him? How support his wife, whose return to him he always counted on, and whom it would then become him at all hazards to acknowledge? It was that day that he had spoken to William Hazeldean as to the family living.--"Peace, at least," thought the ambitious man,--"I shall have peace!" And the squire had promised him the rectory if needed; not without a secret pang, for his Harry was already using her conjugal influence in favour of her old school-friend's husband, Mr. Dale; and the squire thought Audley would be but a poor country parson, and Dale--if he would only grow a little plumper than his curacy would permit him to be--would be a parson in ten thousand. But while Audley thus prepared for the worst, he still brought his energies to bear on the more brilliant option; and sat with his Committee, looking into canvass-books, and discussing the characters, politics, and local interests of every elector, until the night was well- nigh gone. When he gained his room; the shutters were unclosed, and he stood a few moments at the window, gazing on the moon. At that sight, the thought of Nora, lost and afar, stole over him. The man, as we know, had in his nature little of romance and sentiment. Seldom was it his wont to gaze upon moon or stars. But whenever some whisper of romance did soften his hard, strong mind, or whenever moon or stars did charm his gaze from earth, Nora's bright Muse-like face, Nora's sweet loving eyes, were seen in moon and star-beam, Nora's low tender voice heard in the whisper of that which we call romance, and which is but the sound of the mysterious poetry that is ever in the air, would we but deign to hear it! He turned with a sigh, undressed, threw himself on his bed, and extinguished his light. But the light of the moon would fill the room. It kept him awake for a little time; he turned his face from the calm, heavenly beam resolutely towards the dull blind wall, and fell asleep. And, in the sleep, he was with Nora,--again in the humble bridal-home. Never in his dreams had she seemed to him so distinct and life-like,-- her eyes upturned to his, her hands clasped together, and resting on his shoulder, as had been her graceful wont, her voice murmuring meekly, "Has it, then, been my fault that we parted? Forgive, forgive me!" And the sleeper imagined that he answered, "Never part from me again,--never, never!" and that he bent down to kiss the chaste lips that so tenderly sought his own. And suddenly he heard a knocking sound, as of a hammer, --regular, but soft, low, subdued. Did you ever, O reader, hear the sound of the hammer on the lid of a coffin in a house of woe,--when the undertaker's decorous hireling fears that the living may hear how he parts them from the dead? Such seemed the sound to Audley. The dream vanished abruptly. He woke, and again heard the knock; it was at his door. He sat up wistfully; the moon was gone, it was morning. "Who is there?" he cried peevishly. A low voice from without answered, "Hush, it is I; dress quick; let me see you." Egerton recognized Lady Lansmere's voice. Alarmed and surprised, he rose, dressed in haste, and went to the door. Lady Lansmere was standing without, extremely pale. She put her finger to her lip, and beckoned him to follow her. He obeyed mechanically. They entered her dressing-room, a few doors from his own chamber, and the countess closed the door. Then laying her slight firm hand on his shoulder, she said, in suppressed and passionate excitement, "Oh, Mr. Egerton, you must serve me, and at once. Harley! Harley! save my Harley! Go to him, prevent his coming back here, stay with him; give up the election,--it is but a year or two lost in your life, you will have other opportunities; make that sacrifice to your friend." "Speak--what is the matter? I can make no sacrifice too great for Harley!" "Thanks, I was sure of it. Go then, I say, at once to Harley; keep him away from Lansmere on any excuse you can invent, until you can break the sad news to him,--gently, gently. Oh, how will he bear it; how recover the shock? My boy, my boy!" "Calm yourself! Explain! Break what news; recover what shock?" "True; you do not know, you have not heard. Nora Avenel lies yonder, in her father's house,--dead, dead!" Audley staggered back, clapping his hand to his heart, and then dropping on his knee as if bowed down by the stroke of heaven. "My bride, my wife!" he muttered. "Dead--it cannot be!" Lady Lansmere was so startled at this exclamation, so stunned by a confession wholly unexpected, that she remained unable to soothe, to explain, and utterly unprepared for the fierce agony that burst from the man she had ever seen so dignified and cold, when he sprang to his feet, and all the sense of his eternal loss rushed upon his heart. At length he crushed back his emotions, and listened in apparent calm, and in a silence broken but by quick gasps for breath, to Lady Lansmere's account. One of the guests in the house, a female relation of Lady Lansmere's, had been taken suddenly ill about an hour or two before; the house had been disturbed, the countess herself aroused, and Mr. Morgan summoned as the family medical practitioner. From him she had learned that Nora Avenel had returned to her father's house late on the previous evening, had been seized with brain fever, and died in a few hours. Audley listened, and turned to the door, still in silence. Lady Lansmere caught him by the arm. "Where are you going? Ah, can I now ask you to save my son from the awful news, you yourself the sufferer? And yet-- yet--you know his haste, his vehemence, if he learned that you were his rival, her husband; you whom he so trusted! What, what would be the result?---I tremble!" "Tremble not,--I do not tremble! Let me go! I will be back soon, and then,"--(his lips writhed)--"then we will talk of Harley." Egerton went forth, stunned and dizzy. Mechanically he took his way across the park to John Avenel's house. He had been forced to enter that house, formally, a day or two before, in the course of his canvass; and his worldly pride had received a shock when the home, the birth, and the manners of his bride's parents had been brought before him. He had even said to himself, "And is it the child of these persons that I, Audley Egerton, must announce to the world as wife?" Now, if she had been the child of a beggar-nay, of a felon--now if he could but recall her to life, how small and mean would all that dreaded world appear to him! Too late, too late! The dews were glistening in the sun, the birds were singing overhead, life wakening all around him--and his own heart felt like a charnel-house. Nothing but death and the dead there,--nothing! He arrived at the door: it was open: he called; no one answered: he walked up the narrow stairs, undisturbed, unseen; he came into the chamber of death. At the opposite side of the bed was seated John Avenel; but he seemed in a heavy sleep. In fact, paralysis had smitten him; but he knew it not; neither did any one. Who could heed the strong hearty man in such a moment? Not even the poor anxious wife! He had been left there to guard the house, and watch the dead,--an unconscious man; numbed, himself, by the invisible icy hand! Audley stole to the bedside; he lifted the coverlid thrown over the pale still face. What passed within him during the minute he stayed there who shall say? But when he left the room, and slowly descended the stairs, he left behind him love and youth, all the sweet hopes and joys of the household human life, for ever and ever! He returned to Lady Lansmere, who awaited his coming with the most nervous anxiety. "Now," said he, dryly, "I will go to Harley, and I will prevent his returning hither." "You have seen the parents. Good heavens! do they know of your marriage?" "No; to Harley I must own it first. Meanwhile, silence!" "Silence!" echoed Lady Lansmere; and her burning hand rested in Audley's, and Audley's hand was as ice. In another hour Egerton had left the house, and before noon he was with Harley. It is necessary now to explain the absence of all the Avenel family, except the poor stricken father. Nora had died in giving birth to a child,--died delirious. In her delirium she had spoken of shame, of disgrace; there was no holy nuptial ring on her finger. Through all her grief, the first thought of Mrs. Avenel was to save the good name of her lost daughter, the unblemished honour of all the living Avenels. No matron long descended from knights or kings had keener pride in name and character than the poor, punctilious Calvinistic trader's wife. "Sorrow later, honour now!" With hard dry eyes she mused and mused, and made out herplan. Jane Fairfield should take away the infant at once, before the day dawned, and nurse it with her own. Mark should go with her, for Mrs. Avenel dreaded the indiscretion of his wild grief. She would go with them herself part of the way, in order to command or reason them into guarded silence. But they could not go back to Hazeldean with another infant; Jane must go where none knew her; the two infants might pass as twins. And Mrs. Avenel, though naturally a humane, kindly woman, and with a mother's heart to infants, looked with almost a glad sternness at Jane's puny babe, and thought to herself, "All difficulty would be over should there be only one! Nora's child could thus pass throughout life for Jane's!" Fortunately for the preservation of the secret, the Avenels kept no servant,--only an occasional drudge, who came a few hours in the day, and went home to sleep. Mrs. Avenel could count on Mr. Morgan's silence as to the true cause of Nora's death. And Mr. Dale, why should be reveal the dishonour of a family? That very day, or the next at furthest, she could induce her husband to absent himself, lest he should blab out the tale while his sorrow was greater than his pride. She alone would then stay in the house of death until she could feel assured that all else were hushed into prudence. Ay, she felt, that with due precautions, the name was still safe. And so she awed and hurried Mark and his wife away, and went with them in the covered cart, that hid the faces of all three, leaving for an hour or two the house and the dead to her husband's charge, with many an admonition, to which be nodded his head, and which he did not hear. Do you think this woman was unfeeling and inhuman? Had Nora looked from heaven into her mother's heart Nora would not have thought so. A good name when the burial stone closes over dust is still a possession upon the earth; on earth it is indeed our only one! Better for our friends to guard for us that treasure than to sit down and weep over perishable clay. And weep!---Oh, stern mother, long years were left to thee for weeping! No tears shed for Nora made such deep furrows on the cheeks as thine did! Yet who ever saw them flow? Harley was in great surprise to see Egerton; more surprised when Egerton told him that he found he was to be opposed,--that he had no chance of success at Lansmere, and had, therefore, resolved to retire from the contest. He wrote to the earl to that effect; but the countess knew the true cause, and hinted it to the earl; so that, as we saw at the commencement of this history, Egerton's cause did not suffer when Captain Dashmore appeared in the borough; and, thanks to Mr. Hazeldean's exertions and oratory, Audley came in by two votes,--the votes of John Avenel and Mark Fairfield. For though the former had been removed a little way from the town, and by medical advice, and though, on other matters, the disease that had smitten him left him docile as a child (and he had but vague indistinct ideas of all the circumstances connected with Nora's return, save the sense of her loss), yet he still would hear how the Blues went on, and would get out of bed to keep his word: and even his wife said, "He is right; better die of it than break his promise!" The crowd gave way as the broken man they had seen a few days before so jovial and healthful was brought up in a chair to the poll, and said, with his tremulous quavering voice, "I 'm a true Blue,--Blue forever!" Elections are wondrous things! No man who has not seen can guess how the zeal in them triumphs over sickness, sorrow, the ordinary private life of us! There was forwarded to Audley, from Lansmere Park, Nora's last letter. The postman had left it there an hour or two after he himself had gone. The wedding-ring fell on the ground, and rolled under his feet. And those burning, passionate reproaches, all that anger of the wounded dove, explained to him the mystery of her return, her unjust suspicions, the cause of her sudden death, which he still ascribed to brain fever, brought on by excitement and fatigue. For Nora did not speak of the child about to be born; she had not remembered it when she wrote, or she would not have written. On the receipt of this letter, Egerton could not remain in the dull village district,--alone, too, with Harley. He said, abruptly, that he must go to London; prevailed on L'Estrange to accompany him; and there, when he heard from Lady Lansmere that the funeral was over, he broke to Harley, with lips as white as the dead, and his hand pressed to his heart, on which his hereditary disease was fastening quick and fierce, the dread truth that Nora was no more. The effect upon the boy's health and spirits was even more crushing than Audley could anticipate. He only woke from grief to feel remorse. "For," said the noble Harley, "had it not been for my passion, my rash pursuit, would she ever have left her safe asylum,--ever even have left her native town? And then--and then--the struggle between her sense of duty and her love to me! I see it all--all! But for me she were living still!" "Oh, no!" cried Egerton, his confession now rushing to his lips. "Believe me, she never loved you as you think. Nay, nay, hear me! Rather suppose that she loved another, fled with him, was perhaps married to him, and--" "Hold!" exclaimed Harley, with a terrible burst of passion,--"you kill her twice to me if you say that! I can still feel that she lives--lives here, in my heart--while I dream that she loved me--or, at least, that no other lip ever knew the kiss that was denied to mine! But if you tell me to doubt that--you--you--" The boy's anguish was too great for his frame; he fell suddenly back into Audley's arms; he had broken a blood- vessel. For several days he was in great danger; but his eyes were constantly fixed on Audley's, with wistful intense gaze. "Tell me," he muttered, at the risk of re-opening the ruptured veins, and of the instant loss of life,--"tell me, you did not mean that! Tell me you have no cause to think she loved another--was another's!" "Hush, hush! no cause--none--none! I meant but to comfort you, as I thought,--fool that I was!--that is all!" cried the miserable friend. And from that hour Audley gave up the idea of righting himself in his own eyes, and submitted still to be the living lie,--he, the haughty gentleman! Now, while Harley was still very weak and suffering, Mr. Dale came to London, and called on Egerton. The curate, in promising secrecy to Mrs. Avenel, had made one condition, that it should not be to the positive injury of Nora's living son. What if Nora were married after all? And would it not be right, at least, to learn the name of the child's father? Some day he might need a father. Mrs. Avenel was obliged to content herself with these reservations. However, she implored Mr. Dale not to make inquiries. What could they do? If Nora were married, her husband would naturally, of his own accord, declare himself; if seduced and forsaken, it would but disgrace her memory (now saved from stain) to discover the father to a child of whose very existence the world as yet knew nothing. These arguments perplexed the good curate. But Jane Fairfield had a sanguine belief in her sister's innocence; and all her suspicions naturally pointed to Lord L'Estrange. So, indeed, perhaps; did Mrs. Avenel's, though she never owned them. Of the correctness of these suspicions Mr. Dale was fully convinced; the young lord's admiration, Lady Lansmere's fears, had been too evident to one who had often visited at the Park; Harley's abrupt departure just before Nora's return home; Egerton's sudden resignation of the borough before even opposition was declared, in order to rejoin his friend, the very day of Nora's death,--all confirmed his ideas that Harley was the betrayer or the husband. Perhaps there might have been a secret marriage--possibly abroad--since Harley wanted some years of his majority. He would, at least, try to see and to sound Lord L'Estrange. Prevented this interview by Harley's illness, the curate resolved to ascertain how far he could penetrate into the mystery by a conversation with Egerton. There was much in the grave repute which the latter had acquired, and the singular and pre-eminent character for truth and honour with which it was accompanied, that made the curate resolve upon this step. Accordingly; he saw Egerton, meaning only diplomatically to extract from the new member for Lansmere what might benefit the family of the voters who had given him his majority of two. He began by mentioning, as a touching fact, how poor John Avenel, bowed down by the loss of his child and the malady which had crippled his limbs and enfeebled his mind, had still risen from his bed to keep his word. And Audley's emotions seemed to him so earnest and genuine, to show so good a heart, that out by little and little came more: first, his suspicions that poor Nora had been betrayed; then his hopes that there might have been private marriage; and as Audley, with his iron self- command, showed just the proper degree of interest, and no more, he went on, till Audley knew that he had a child. "Inquire no further!" said the man of the world. "Respect Mrs. Avenel's feelings and wishes, I entreat you; they are the right ones. Leave the rest to me. In my position--I mean as a resident of London--I can quietly and easily ascertain more than you could, and provoke no scandal! If I can right this--this--poor--[his voice trembled]--right the lost mother, or the living child, sooner or later you will hear from me; if not, bury this secret where it now rests, in a grave which slander has not reached. But the child--give me the address where it is to be found --in case I succeed in finding the father, and touching his heart." "Oh, Mr. Egerton, may I not say where you may find that father--who he is?" "Sir!" "Do not be angry; and, after all, I cannot ask you to betray any confidence which a friend may have placed in you. I know what you men of high honour are to each other, even in sin. No, no, I beg pardon; I leave all in your hands. I shall hear from you then?" "Or if not, why, then, believe that all search is hopeless. My friend! if you mean Lord L'Estrange, he is innocent. I--I--I--[the voice faltered]--am convinced of it." The curate sighed, but made no answer. "Oh, ye men of the world!" thought he. He gave the address which the member for Lansmere had asked for, and went his way, and never heard again from Audley Egerton. He was convinced that the man who had showed such deep feeling had failed in his appeal to Harley's conscience, or had judged it best to leave Nora's name in peace, and her child to her own relations and the care of Heaven. Harley L'Estrange, scarcely yet recovered, hastened to join our armies on the Continent, and seek the Death which, like its half-brother, rarely comes when we call it. As soon as Harley was gone, Egerton went to the village to which Mr. Dale had directed him, to seek for Nora's child. But here he was led into a mistake which materially affected the tenor of his own life, and Leonard's future destinies. Mrs. Fairfield had been naturally ordered by her mother to take another name in the village to which she had gone with the two infants, so that her connection with the Avenel family might not be traced, to the provocation of inquiry and gossip. The grief and excitement through which she had gone dried the source of nutriment in her breast. She put Nora's child out to nurse at the house of a small farmer, at a little distance from the village, and moved from her first lodging to be nearer to the infant. Her own child was so sickly and ailing, that she could not bear to intrust it to the care of an other. She tried to bring it up by hand; and the poor child soon pined away and died. She and Mark could not endure the sight of their baby's grave; they hastened to return to Hazeldean, and took Leonard with them. From that time Leonard passed for the son they had lost. When Egerton arrived at the village, and inquired for the person whose address had been given to him, he was referred to the cottage in which she had last lodged, and was told that she had been gone some days,--the day after her child was buried. Her child buried! Egerton stayed to inquire no more; thus he heard nothing of the infant that had been put out to nurse. He walked slowly into the churchyard, and stood for some minutes gazing on the small new mound; then, pressing his hand on the heart to which all emotion had been forbidden, he re-entered his chaise and returned to London. The sole reason for acknowledging his marriage seemed to him now removed. Nora's name had escaped reproach. Even had his painful position with regard to Harley not constrained him to preserve his secret, there was every motive to the world's wise and haughty son not to acknowledge a derogatory and foolish marriage, now that none lived whom concealment could wrong. Audley mechanically resumed his former life,--sought to resettle his thoughts on the grand objects of ambitious men. His poverty still pressed on him; his pecuniary debt to Harley stung and galled his peculiar sense of honour. He saw no way to clear his estates, to repay his friend, but by some rich alliance. Dead to love, he faced this prospect first with repugnance, then with apathetic indifference. Levy, of whose treachery towards himself and Nora he was unaware, still held over him the power that the money-lender never loses over the man that has owed, owes, or may owe again. Levy was ever urging him to propose, to the rich Miss Leslie; Lady Lansmere, willing to atone, as she thought, for his domestic loss, urged the same; Harley, influenced by his mother, wrote from the Continent to the same effect. "Manage it as you will," at last said Egerton to Levy, "so that I am not a wife's pensioner." "Propose for me, if you will," he said to Lady Lansmere,--"I cannot woo, --I cannot talk of love." Somehow or other the marriage, with all its rich advantages to the ruined gentleman, was thus made up. And Egerton, as we have seen, was the polite and dignified husband before the world,--married to a woman who adored him. It is the common fate of men like him to be loved too well! On her death-bed his heart was touched by his wife's melancholy reproach,--"Nothing I could do has ever made you love me!" "It is true," answered Audley, with tears in his voice and eyes; "Nature gave me but a small fund of what women like you call 'love,' and I lavished it all away." And he then told her, though with reserve, some portion of his former history; and that soothed her; for when she saw that he had loved, and could grieve, she caught a glimpse of the human heart she had not seen before. She died, forgiving him, and blessing. Audley's spirits were much affected by this new loss. He inly resolved never to marry again. He had a vague thought at first of retrenching his expenditure, and making young Randal Leslie his heir. But when he first saw the clever Eton boy, his feelings did not warm to him, though his intellect appreciated Randal's quick, keen talents. He contented himself with resolving to push the boy,--to do what was merely just to the distant kinsman of his late wife. Always careless and lavish in money matters, generous and princely, not from the delight of serving others, but from a grand seigneur's sentiment of what was due to himself and his station, Audley had a mournful excuse for the lordly waste of the large fortune at his control. The morbid functions of the heart had become organic disease. True, he might live many years, and die at last of some other complaint in the course of nature; but the progress of the disease would quicken with all emotional excitement; he might die suddenly--any day--in the very prime, and, seemingly, in the full vigour, of his life. And the only physician in whom he confided what he wished to keep concealed from the world (for ambitious men would fain be thought immortal) told him frankly that it was improbable that, with the wear and tear of political strife and action, he could advance far into middle age. Therefore, no son of his succeeding--his nearest relations all wealthy--Egerton resigned himself to his constitutional disdain of money; he could look into no affairs, provided the balance in his banker's hands were such as became the munificent commoner. All else he left to his steward and to Levy. Levy grew rapidly rich,--very, very rich,--and the steward thrived. The usurer continued to possess a determined hold over the imperious great man. He knew Audley's secret; he could reveal that secret to Harley. And the one soft and tender side of the statesman's nature--the sole part of him not dipped in the ninefold Styx of practical prosaic life, which renders man so invulnerable to affection--was his remorseful love for the school friend whom he still deceived. Here then you have the key to the locked chambers of Audley Egerton's character, the fortified castle of his mind. The envied minister, the joyless man; the oracle on the economies of an empire, the prodigal in a usurer's hands; the august, high-crested gentleman, to whom princes would refer for the casuistry of honour, the culprit trembling lest the friend he best loved on earth should detect his lie! Wrap thyself in the decent veil that the Arts or the Graces weave for thee, O Human Nature! It is only the statue of marble whose nakedness the eye can behold without shame and offence! CHAPTER XIX. Of the narrative just placed before the reader, it is clear that Leonard could gather only desultory fragments. He could but see that his ill- fated mother had been united to a man she had loved with surpassing tenderness; had been led to suspect that the marriage was fraudulent; had gone abroad in despair; returned repentant and hopeful; had gleaned some intelligence that her lover was about to be married to another, and there the manuscript closed with the blisters left on the page by agonizing tears. The mournful end of Nora, her lonely return to die under the roof of her parents,--this he had learned before from the narrative of Dr. Morgan. But even the name of her supposed husband was not revealed. Of him Leonard could form no conjecture, except that he was evidently of higher rank than Nora. Harley L'Estrange seemed clearly indicated in the early boy-lover. If so, Harley must know all that was left dark to Leonard, and to him Leonard resolved to confide the manuscripts. With this resolution he left the cottage, resolving to return and attend the funeral obsequies of his departed friend. Mrs. Goodyer willingly permitted him to take away the papers she had lent to him, and added to them the packet which had been addressed to Mrs. Bertram from the Continent. Musing in anxious gloom over the record he had read, Leonard entered London on foot, and bent his way towards Harley's hotel; when, just as he had crossed into Bond Street, a gentleman in company with Baron Levy, and who seemed, by the flush on his brow and the sullen tone of his voice, to have had rather an irritating colloquy with the fashionable usurer, suddenly caught sight of Leonard, and, abruptly quitting Levy, seized the young man by the arm. "Excuse me, sir," said the gentleman, looking hard into Leonard's face, "but unless these sharp eyes of mine are mistaken, which they seldom are, I see a nephew whom, perhaps, I behaved to rather too harshly, but who still has no right to forget Richard Avenel." "My dear uncle," exclaimed Leonard, "this is indeed a joyful surprise; at a time, too, when I needed joy! No; I have never forgotten your kindness, and always regretted our estrangement." "That is well said; give us your fist again. Let me look at you--quite the gentleman, I declare--still so good-looking too. We Avenels always were a handsome family. "Good-by, Baron Levy. Need not wait for me; I am not going to run away. I shall see you again." "But," whispered Levy, who had followed Avenel across the street, and eyed Leonard with a quick, curious, searching glance--"but it must be as I say with regard to the borough; or (to be plain) you must cash the bills on the day they are due." "Very well, sir, very well. So you think to put the screw upon me, as if I were a poor little householder. I understand,--my money or my borough?" "Exactly so," said the baron, with a soft smile. "You shall hear from me." (Aside, as Levy strolled away)--"D---d tarnation rascal!" Dick Avenel then linked his arm in his nephew's, and strove for some minutes to forget his own troubles, in the indulgence of that curiosity in the affairs of another, which was natural to him, and in this instance increased by the real affection which he had felt for Leonard. But still his curiosity remained unsatisfied; for long before Leonard could overcome his habitual reluctance to speak of his success in literature, Dick's mind wandered back to his rival at Screwstown, and the curse of "over-competition,"--to the bills which Levy had discounted, in order to enable Dick to meet the crushing force of a capitalist larger than himself, and the "tarnation rascal" who now wished to obtain two seats at Lansmere, one for Randal Leslie, one for a rich Nabob whom Levy had just caught as a client, and Dick, though willing to aid Leslie, had a mind to the other seat for himself. Therefore Dick soon broke in upon the hesitating confessions of Leonard, with exclamations far from pertinent to the subject, and rather for the sake of venting his own griefs and resentment than with any idea that the sympathy or advice of his nephew could serve him. "Well, well," said Dick, "another time for your history. I see you have thrived, and that is enough for the present. Very odd; but just now I can only think of myself. I'm in a regular fix, sir. Screwstown is not the respectable Screwstown that you remember it--all demoralized and turned topsy-turvy by a demoniacal monster capitalist, with steam-engines that might bring the falls of Niagara into your back parlour, sir! And as if that was not enough to destroy and drive into almighty shivers a decent fair-play Britisher like myself, I hear he is just in treaty for some patent infernal invention that will make his engines do twice as much work with half as many hands! That's the way those unfeeling ruffians increase our poor-rates! But I 'll get up a riot against him, I will! Don't talk to me of the law! What the devil is the good of the law if it don't protect a man's industry,--a liberal man, too, like me!" Here Dick burst into a storm of vituperation against the rotten old country in general, and Mr. Dyce, the monster capitalist of Screwstown, in particular. Leonard started; for Dick now named, in that monster capitalist, the very person who was in treaty for Leonard's own mechanical improvement on the steam-engine. "Stop, uncle, stop! Why, then, if this man were to buy the contrivance you speak of, it would injure you?" "Injure me, sir! I should be a bankrupt,--that is, if it succeeded; but I dare say it is all a humbug." "No, it will succeed,--I 'll answer for that!" "You! You have seen it?" "Why, I invented it!" Dick hastily withdrew his arm from Leonard's. "Serpent's tooth!" he said falteringly, "so it is you, whom I warmed at my hearth, who are to ruin Richard Avenel?" "No; but to save him! Come into the City and look at my model. If you like it, the patent shall be yours!" "Cab, cab, cab," cried Dick Avenel, stopping a "Ransom; "jump in, Leonard,-jump in. I'll buy your patent,--that is, if it be worth a straw; and as for payment--" "Payment! Don't talk of that!" "Well, I won't," said Dick, mildly; "for 't is not the topic of conversation I should choose myself, just at present. And as for that black-whiskered alligator, the baron, let me first get out of those rambustious, unchristian, filbert-shaped claws of his, and then--but jump in! jump in! and tell the man where to drive!" A very brief inspection of Leonard's invention sufficed to show Richard Avenel how invaluable it would be to him. Armed with a patent, of which the certain effects in the increase of power and diminution of labour were obvious to any practical man, Avenel felt that he should have no difficulty in obtaining such advances of money as he required, whether to alter his engines, meet the bills discounted by Levy, or carry on the war with the monster capitalist. It might be necessary to admit into partnership some other monster capitalist--What then? Any partner better than Levy. A bright idea struck him. "If I can just terrify and whop that infernal intruder on my own ground for a few months, he may offer, himself, to enter into partnership,--make the two concerns a joint-stock friendly combination, and then we shall flog the world." His gratitude to Leonard became so lively that Dick offered to bring his nephew in for Lansmere instead of himself; and when Leonard declined the offer, exclaimed, "Well, then, any friend of yours; I'm all for reform against those high and mighty right honourable borough-mongers; and what with loans and mortgages on the small householders, and a long course of 'Free and Easies' with the independent freemen, I carry one--seat certain, perhaps both seats of the town of Lansmere, in my breeches pocket." Dick then, appointing an interview with Leonard at his lawyer's, to settle the transfer of the invention, upon terms which he declared "should be honourable to both parties," hurried off, to search amongst his friends in the City for some monster capitalist, who alight be induced to extricate him from the jaws of Levy and the engines of his rival at Screwstown. "Mullins is the man, if I can but catch him," said Dick. "You have heard of Mullins?---a wonderful great man; you should see his nails; he never cuts them! Three millions, at least, he has scraped together with those nails of his, sir. And in this rotten old country, a man must have nails a yard long to fight with a devil like Levy! Good-by, good-by,--Goon-by, MY DEAR, nephew!" CHAPTER XX. Harley L'Estrange was seated alone in his apartments. He had just put down a volume of some favourite classic author, and he was resting his hand firmly clenched upon the book. Ever since Harley's return to England, there had been a perceptible change in the expression of his countenance, even in the very bearing and attitudes of his elastic youthful figure. But this change had been more marked since that last interview with Helen which has been recorded. There was a compressed, resolute firmness in the lips, a decided character in the brow. To the indolent, careless grace of his movements had succeeded a certain indescribable energy, as quiet and self-collected as that which distinguished the determined air of Audley Egerton himself. In fact, if you could have looked into his heart, you would have seen that Harley was, for the first time, making a strong effort over his passions and his humours; that the whole man was nerving himself to a sense of duty. "No," he muttered,--"no! I will think only of Helen; I will think only of real life! And what (were I not engaged to another) would that dark- eyed Italian girl be to me?--What a mere fool's fancy is this! I love again,--I, who through all the fair spring of my life have clung with such faith to a memory and a grave! Come, come, come, Harley L'Estrange, act thy part as man amongst men, at last! Accept regard; dream no more of passion. Abandon false ideals. Thou art no poet--why deem that life itself can be a poem?" The door opened, and the Austrian prince, whom Harley had interested in the cause of Violante's father, entered, with the familiar step of a friend. "Have you discovered those documents yet?" said the prince. "I must now return to Vienna within a few days; and unless you can arm me with some tangible proof of Peschiera's ancient treachery, or some more unanswerable excuse for his noble kinsman, I fear that there is no other hope for the exile's recall to his country than what lies in the hateful option of giving his daughter to his perfidious foe." "Alas!" said Harley, "as yet all researches have been in vain; and I know not what other steps to take, without arousing Peschiera's vigilance, and setting his crafty brains at work to counteract us. My poor friend, then, must rest contented with exile. To give Violante to the count were dishonour. But I shall soon be married; soon have a home, not quite unworthy of their due rank, to offer both to father and to child." "Would the future Lady L'Estrange feel no jealousy of a guest so fair as you tell me this young signorina is? And would you be in no danger yourself, my poor friend?" "Pooh!" said Harley, colouring. "My fair guest would have two fathers; that is all. Pray do not jest on a thing so grave as honour." Again the door opened, and Leonard appeared. "Welcome," cried Harley, pleased to be no longer alone under the prince's penetrating eye,--"welcome. This is the noble friend who shares our interest for Riccabocca, and who could serve him so well, if we could but discover the document of which I have spoken to you." "It is here," said Leonard, simply; "may it be all that you require!" Harley eagerly grasped at the packet, which had been sent from Italy to the supposed Mrs. Bertram, and, leaning his face on his hand, rapidly hurried through the contents. "Hurrah!" he cried at last, with his face lighted up, and a boyish toss of his right hand. "Look, look, Prince, here are Peschiera's own letters to his kinsman's wife; his avowal of what he calls his 'patriotic designs;' his entreaties to her to induce her husband to share them. Look, look, how he wields his influence over the woman he had once wooed; look how artfully he combats her objections; see how reluctant our friend was to stir, till wife and kinsman both united to urge him!" "It is enough,-quite enough," exclaimed the prince, looking at the passages in Peschiera's letters which Harley pointed out to him. "No, it is not enough," shouted Harley, as he continued to read the letters with his rapid sparkling eyes. "More still! O villain, doubly damned! Here, after our friend's flight, here is Peschiera's avowal of guilty passion; here, he swears that he had intrigued to ruin his benefactor, in order to pollute the home that had sheltered him. Ah, see how she answers! thank Heaven her own eyes were opened at last, and she scorned him before she died! She was innocent! I said so. Violante's mother was pure. Poor lady, this moves me! Has your emperor the heart of a man?" "I know enough of our emperor," answered the prince, warmly, "to know that, the moment these papers reach him, Peschiera is ruined, and your friend is restored to his honours. You will live to see the daughter, to whom you would have given a child's place at your hearth, the wealthiest heiress of Italy,--the bride of some noble lover, with rank only below the supremacy of kings!" "Ah," said Harley, in a sharp accent, and turning very pale,--"ah, I shall not see her that! I shall never visit Italy again!--never see her more,--never, after she has once quitted this climate of cold iron cares and formal duties! never, never!" He turned his head for a moment, and then came with quick step to Leonard. "But you, O happy poet! No Ideal can ever be lost to you. You are independent of real life. Would that I were a poet!" He smiled sadly. "You would not say so, perhaps, my dear Lord," answered Leonard, with equal sadness, "if you knew how little what you call 'the Ideal' replaces to a poet the loss of one affection in the genial human world. Independent of real life! Alas! no. And I have here the confessions of a true poet-soul, which I will entreat you to read at leisure; and when you have read, say if you would still be a poet!" He took forth Nora's manuscripts as he spoke. "Place them yonder, in my escritoire, Leonard; I will read them later." "Do so, and with heed; for to me there is much here that involves my own life,--much that is still a mystery, and which I think you can unravel!" "I!" exclaimed Harley; and he was moving towards the escritoire, in a drawer of which Leonard had carefully deposited the papers, when once more, but this time violently, the door was thrown open, and Giacomo rushed into the room, accompanied by Lady Lansmere. "Oh, my Lord, my Lord!" cried Giacomo, in Italian, "the signorina! the signorina! Violante!" "What of her? Mother, Mother! what of her? Speak, speak!" "She has gone,--left our house!" "Left! No, no!" cried Giacomo. "She must have been deceived or forced away. The count! the count! Oh, my good Lord, save her, as you once saved her father!" "Hold!" cried Harley. "Give me your arm, Mother. A second such blow in life is beyond the strength of man,--at least it is beyond mine. So, so! I am better now! Thank you, Mother. Stand back, all of you! give me air. So the count has triumphed, and Violante has fled with him! Explain all,--I can bear it!" 
7711	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK TENTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. UPON THIS FACT,--THAT THE WORLD IS STILL MUCH THE SAME AS IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN. It is observed by a very pleasant writer, read nowadays only by the brave pertinacious few who still struggle hard to rescue from the House of Pluto the souls of departed authors, jostled and chased as those souls are by the noisy footsteps of the living,--it is observed by the admirable Charron, that "judgment and wisdom is not only the best, but the happiest portion God Almighty hath distributed amongst men; for though this distribution be made with a very uneven hand, yet nobody thinks himself stinted or ill-dealt with, but he that hath never so little is contented in this respect." And, certainly, the present narrative may serve in notable illustration of the remark so dryly made by the witty and wise preacher. For whether our friend Riccabocca deduce theories for daily life from the great folio of Machiavelli; or that promising young gentleman, Mr. Randal Leslie, interpret the power of knowledge into the art of being too knowing for dull honest folks to cope with him; or acute Dick Avenel push his way up the social ascent with a blow for those before, and a kick for those behind him, after the approved fashion of your strong New Man; or Baron Levy--that cynical impersonation of Gold--compare himself to the Magnetic Rock in the Arabian tale, to which the nails in every ship that approaches the influence of the loadstone fly from the planks, and a shipwreck per day adds its waifs to the Rock,--questionless, at least; it is, that each of those personages believes that Providence has bestowed on him an elder son's inheritance of wisdom. Nor, were we to glance towards the obscurer paths of life, should we find good Parson Dale deem himself worse off than the rest of the world in this precious commodity, --as, indeed, he has signally evinced of late in that shrewd guess of his touching Professor Moss. Even plain Squire Hazeldean takes it for granted that he could teach Audley Egerton a thing or two worth knowing in politics; Mr. Stirn thinks that there is no branch of useful lore on which he could not instruct the squire; while Sprott the tinker, with his bag full of tracts and lucifer matches, regards the whole framework of modern society, from a rick to a constitution, with the profound disdain of a revolutionary philosopher. Considering that every individual thus brings into the stock of the world so vast a share of intelligence, it cannot but excite our wonder to find that Oxenstiern is popularly held to be right when he said, "See, my son, how little wisdom it requires to govern States,"--that is, Men! That so many millions of persons, each with a profound assurance that he is possessed of an exalted sagacity, should concur in the ascendancy of a few inferior intellects, according to a few stupid, prosy, matter-of-fact rules as old as the hills, is a phenomenon very discreditable to the spirit and energy of the aggregate human species! It creates no surprise that one sensible watch-dog should control the movements of a flock of silly grass-eating sheep; but that two or three silly grass-eating sheep should give the law to whole flocks of such mighty sensible watch-dogs--/Diavolo!/ Dr. Riecabocca, explain that, if you can! And wonderfully strange it is, that notwithstanding all the march of enlightenment, notwithstanding our progressive discoveries in the laws of Nature, our railways, steam-engines, animal magnetism, and electrobiology,--we have never made any improvement that is generally acknowledged, since men ceased to be troglodytes and nomads, in the old-fashioned gamut of flats and sharps, which attunes into irregular social jog-trot all the generations that pass from the cradle to the grave; still, "/the desire for something have have not/" impels all the energies that keep us in movement, for good or for ill, according to the checks or the directions of each favourite desire. A friend of mine once said to a millionaire, whom he saw forever engaged in making money which he never seemed to have any pleasure in spending, "Pray, Mr ----, will you answer me one question: You are said to have two millions, and you spend L600 a year. In order to rest and enjoy, what will content you?" "A little more," answered the millionaire. That "little more" is the mainspring of civilization. Nobody ever gets it! "Philus," saith a Latin writer, "was not so rich as Laelius; Laelius was not so rich as Scipio; Scipio was not so rich as Crassus; and Crassus was not so rich--as he wished to be!" If John Bull were once contented, Manchester might shut up its mills. It is the "little more" that makes a mere trifle of the National Debt!--Long life to it! Still, mend our law-books as we will, one is forced to confess that knaves are often seen in fine linen, and honest men in the most shabby old rags; and still, notwithstanding the exceptions, knavery is a very hazardous game, and honesty, on the whole, by far the best policy. Still, most of the Ten Commandments remain at the core of all the Pandects and Institutes that keep our hands off our neighbours' throats, wives, and pockets; still, every year shows that the parson's maxim--"non quieta movere "--is as prudent for the health of communities as when Apollo recommended his votaries not to rake up a fever by stirring the Lake Camarina; still, people, thank Heaven, decline to reside in parallelograms, and the surest token that we live under a free government is when we are governed by persons whom we have a full right to imply, by our censure and ridicule, are blockheads compared to ourselves! Stop that delightful privilege, and, by Jove! sir, there is neither pleasure nor honour in being governed at all! You might as well be--a Frenchman! CHAPTER II. The Italian and his friend are closeted together. "And why have you left your home in -----shire, and why this new change of name?" "Peschiera is in England." "I know it." "And bent on discovering me; and, it is said, of stealing from me my child." "He has had the assurance to lay wagers that he will win the hand of your heiress. I know that too; and therefore I have come to England,--first to baffle his design--for I do not think your fears altogether exaggerated,--and next to learn from you how to follow up a clew which, unless I am too sanguine, may lead to his ruin, and your unconditional restoration. Listen to me. You are aware that, after the skirmish with Peschiera's armed hirelings sent in search of you, I received a polite message from the Austrian government, requesting me to leave its Italian domains. Now, as I hold it the obvious duty of any foreigner admitted to the hospitality of a State, to refrain from all participation in its civil disturbances, so I thought my honour assailed at this intimation, and went at once to Vienna, to explain to the minister there (to whom I was personally known), that though I had, as became man to man, aided to protect a refugee, who had taken shelter under my roof, from the infuriated soldiers at the command of his private foe, I had not only not shared in any attempt at revolt, but dissuaded, as far as I could, my Italian friends from their enterprise; and that because, without discussing its merits, I believed, as a military man and a cool spectator, the enterprise could only terminate in fruitless bloodshed. I was enabled to establish my explanation by satisfactory proof; and my acquaintance with the minister assumed something of the character of friendship. I was then in a position to advocate your cause, and to state your original reluctance to enter into the plots of the insurgents. I admitted freely that you had such natural desire for the independence of your native land, that, had the standard of Italy been boldly hoisted by its legitimate chiefs, or at the common uprising of its whole people, you would have been found in the van, amidst the ranks of your countrymen; but I maintained that you would never have shared in a conspiracy frantic in itself, and defiled by the lawless schemes and sordid ambition of its main projectors, had you not been betrayed and decoyed into it by the misrepresentations and domestic treachery of your kinsman,--the very man who denounced you. Unfortunately, of this statement I had no proof but your own word. I made, however, so far an impression in your favour, and, it may be, against the traitor, that your property was not confiscated to the State, nor handed over, upon the plea of your civil death, to your kinsman." "How!--I do not understand. Peschiera has the property?" "He holds the revenues but of one half upon pleasure, and they would be withdrawn, could I succeed in establishing the case that exists against him. I was forbidden before to mention this to you; the minister, not inexcusably, submitted you to the probation of unconditional exile. Your grace might depend upon your own forbearance from further conspiracies--forgive the word. I need not say I was permitted to return to Lombardy. I found, on my arrival, that--that your unhappy wife had been to my house, and exhibited great despair at hearing of my departure." Riccabocca knit his dark brows, and breathed hard. "I did not judge it necessary to acquaint you with this circumstance, nor did it much affect me. I believed in her guilt--and what could now avail her remorse, if remorse she felt? Shortly afterwards, I heard that she was no more." "Yes," muttered Riccabocca, "she died in the same year that I left Italy. It must be a strong reason that can excuse a friend for reminding me even that she once lived!" "I come at once to that reason," said L'Estrange, gently. "This autumn I was roaming through Switzerland, and, in one of my pedestrian excursions amidst the mountains, I met with an accident, which confined me for some days to a sofa at a little inn in an obscure village. My hostess was an Italian; and as I had left my servant at a town at some distance, I required her attention till I could write to him to come to me. I was thankful for her cares, and amused by her Italian babble. We became very good friends. She told me she had been servant to a lady of great rank, who had died in Switzerland; and that, being enriched by the generosity of her mistress, she had married a Swiss innkeeper, and his people had become hers. My servant arrived, and my hostess learned my name, which she did not know before. She came into my room greatly agitated. In brief, this woman had been servant to your wife. She had accompanied her to my villa, and known of her anxiety to see me, as your friend. The Government had assigned to your wife your palace at Milan, with a competent income. She had refused to accept of either. Failing to see me, she had set off towards England, resolved upon seeing yourself; for the journals had stated that to England you had escaped." "She dared! shameless! And see, but a moment before, I had forgotten all but her grave in a foreign soil,--and these tears had forgiven her," murmured the Italian. "Let them forgive her still," said Harley, with all his exquisite sweetness of look and tone. "I resume. On entering Switzerland your wife's health, which you know was always delicate, gave way. To fatigue and anxiety succeeded fever, and delirium ensued. She had taken with her but this one female attendant--the sole one she could trust--on leaving home. She suspected Peschiera to have bribed her household. In the presence of this woman she raved of her innocence, in accents of terror and aversion denounced your kinsman, and called on you to vindicate her name and your own." "Ravings indeed! Poor Paulina!" groaned Riccabocca, covering his face with both hands. "But in her delirium there were lucid intervals. In one of these she rose, in spite of all her servants could do to restrain her, took from her desk several letters, and reading them over, exclaimed piteously, 'But how to get them to him; whom to trust? And his friend is gone!' Then an idea seemed suddenly to flash upon her, for she uttered a joyous exclamation, sat down, and wrote long and rapidly, enclosed what she wrote with all the letters, in one packet, which she sealed carefully, and bade her servant carry to the post, with many injunctions to take it with her own hand, and pay the charge on it. 'For oh!' said she (I repeat the words as my informant told them to me),--'for oh! this is my sole chance to prove to my husband that, though I have erred, I am not the guilty thing he believes me; the sole chance, too, to redeem my error, and restore, perhaps, to my husband his country, to my child her heritage.' The servant took the letter to the post; and when she returned, her lady was asleep, with a smile upon her face. But from that sleep she woke again delirious, and before the next morning her soul had fled." Here Riccabocca lifted one hand from his face and grasped Harley's arm, as if mutely beseeching him to pause. The heart of the man struggled hard with his pride and his philosophy; and it was long before Harley could lead him to regard the worldly prospects which this last communication from his wife might open to his ruined fortunes,--not, indeed, till Riccabocca had persuaded himself, and half persuaded Harley (for strong, indeed, was all presumption of guilt against the dead), that his wife's protestations of innocence from all but error had been but ravings. "Be this as it may," said Harley, "there seems every reason to suppose that the letters enclosed were Peschiera's correspondence, and that, if so, these would establish the proof of his influence over your wife, and of his perfidious machinations against yourself. I resolved, before coming hither, to go round by Vienna. There I heard, with dismay, that Peschiera had not only obtained the imperial sanction to demand your daughter's hand, but had boasted to his profligate circle that he should succeed; and he was actually on his road to England. I saw at once that could this design, by any fraud or artifice, be successful with Violante (for of your consent, I need not say, I did not dream), the discovery of the packet, whatever its contents, would be useless; Peschiera's end would be secured. I saw also that his success would suffice forever to clear his name; for his success must imply your consent (it would be to disgrace your daughter, to assert that she had married without it), and your consent would be his acquittal. I saw, too, with alarm, that to all means for the accomplishment of his project he would be urged by despair; for his debts are great, and his character nothing but new wealth can support. I knew that he was able, bold, determined, and that he had taken with him a large supply of money borrowed upon usury,--in a word, I trembled for you both. I have now seen your daughter, and I tremble no more. Accomplished seducer as Peschiera boasts himself, the first look upon her face so sweet, yet so noble, convinced me that she is proof against a legion of Peschieras. Now, then, return we to this all- important subject,--to this packet. It never reached you. Long years have passed since then. "Does it exist still? Into whose hands would it have fallen? "Try to summon up all your recollections. The servant could not remember the name of the person to whom it was addressed; she only insisted that the name began with a B, that it was directed to England, and that to England she accordingly paid the postage. Whom then, with a name that begins with B, or (in case the servant's memory here mislead her) whom did you or your wife know, during your visit to England, with sufficient intimacy to make it probable that she would select such a person for her confidant?" "I cannot conceive," said Riccabocca, shaking his head. "We came to England shortly after our marriage. Paulina was affected by the climate. She spoke not a word of English, and indeed not even French, as might have been expected from her birth, for her father was poor, and thoroughly Italian. She refused all society. I went, it is true, somewhat into the London world,--enough to induce me to shrink from the contrast that my second visit as a beggared refugee would have made to the reception I met with on my first; but I formed no intimate friendships. I recall no one whom she could have written to as intimate with me." "But," persisted Harley, "think again. Was there no lady well acquainted with Italian, and with whom, perhaps, for that very reason, your wife became familiar?" "Ah, it is true. There was one old lady of retired habits, but who had been much in Italy. Lady--Lady--I remember--Lady Jane Horton." "Horton--Lady Jane!" exclaimed Harley; "again; thrice in one day!-- is this wound never to scar over?" Then, noting Riccabocca's look of surprise, he said, "Excuse me, my friend; I listen to you with renewed interest. Lady Jane was a distant relation of my own; she judged me, perhaps, harshly--and I have some painful associations with her name; but she was a woman of many virtues. Your wife knew her?" "Not, however, intimately; still, better than any one else in London. But Paulina would not have written to her; she knew that Lady Jane had died shortly after her own departure from England. I myself was summoned back to Italy on pressing business; she was too unwell to journey with me as rapidly as I was obliged to travel; indeed, illness detained her several weeks in England. In this interval she might have made acquaintances. Ah, now I see; I guess. You say the name began with B. Paulina, in my absence, engaged a companion,--a Mrs. Bertram. This lady accompanied her abroad. Paulina became excessively attached to her, she knew Italian so well. Mrs. Bertram left her on the road, and returned to England, for some private affairs of her own. I forget why or wherefore; if, indeed, I ever asked or learned. Paulina missed her sadly, often talked of her, wondered why she never heard from her. No doubt it was to this Mrs. Bertram that she wrote!" "And you don't know the lady's friends, or address?" "No." "Nor who recommended her to your wife?" "No." "Probably Lady Jane Horton?" "It may be so. "Very likely." "I will follow up this track, slight as it is." "But if Mrs. Bertram received the communication, how comes it that it never reached myself--Oh, fool that I am, how should it! I, who guarded so carefully my incognito!" "True. This your wife could not foresee; she would naturally imagine that your residence in England would be easily discovered. But many years must have passed since your wife lost sight of this Mrs. Bertram, if their acquaintance was made so soon after your marriage; and now it is a long time to retrace,--before even your Violante was born." "Alas! yes. I lost two fair sons in the interval. Violante was born to me as the child of sorrow." "And to make sorrow lovely! how beautiful she is!" The father smiled proudly. "Where, in the loftiest houses of Europe, find a husband worthy of such a prize?" "You forget that I am still an exile, she still dowerless. You forget that I am pursued by Peschiera; that I would rather see her a beggar's wife--than---Pah, the very thought maddens me, it is so foul. /Corpo di Bacco!/ I have been glad to find her a husband already." "Already! Then that young man spoke truly?" "What young man?" "Randal Leslie. How! You know him?" Here a brief explanation followed. Harley heard with attentive ear, and marked vexation, the particulars of Riccabocca's connection and implied engagement with Leslie. "There is something very suspicious to me in all this," said he. "Why should this young man have so sounded me as to Violante's chance of losing fortune if she married, an Englishman?" "Did he? Oh, pooh! Excuse him. It was but his natural wish to seem ignorant of all about me. He did not know enough of my intimacy with you to betray my secret." But he knew enough of it--must have known enough--to have made it right that he should tell you I was in England. He does not seem to have done so." "No; that is strange--yet scarcely strange; for, when we last met, his head was full of other things,--love and marriage. /Basta!/ youth will be youth." "He has no youth left in him!" exclaimed Harley, passionately. "I doubt if he ever had any. He is one of those men who come into the world with the pulse of a centenarian. You and I never shall be as old as he was in long clothes. Ah, you may laugh; but I am never wrong in my instincts. I disliked him at the first,--his eye, his smile, his voice, his very footstep. It is madness in you to countenance such a marriage; it may destroy all chance of your restoration." "Better that than infringe my word once passed." "No, no," exclaimed Harley; "your word is not passed, it shall not be passed. Nay, never look so piteously at me. At all events, pause till we know more of this young man. If he be worthy of her without a dower, why, then, let him lose you your heritage. I should have no more to say." "But why lose me my heritage? There is no law in Austria which can dictate to a father what husband to choose for his daughter." "Certainly not. But you are out of the pale of law itself just at present; and it would surely be a reason for State policy to withhold your pardon, and it would be to the loss of that favour with your own countrymen, which would now make that pardon so popular, if it were known that the representative of your name were debased by your daughter's alliance with an English adventurer,--a clerk in a public office. Oh, sage in theory, why are you such a simpleton in action?" Nothing moved by this taunt, Riceabocca rubbed his hands, and then stretched them comfortably over the fire. "My friend," said he, "the representation of my name would pass to my son." "But you have no son." "Hush! I am going to have one; my Jemima informed me of it yesterday morning; and it was upon that information that I resolved to speak to Leslie. Am I a simpleton now?" "Going to have a son," repeated Harley, looking very bewildered; "how do you know it is to be a son?" "Physiologists are agreed," said the sage, positively, "that where the husband is much older than the wife, and there has been a long interval without children before she condescends to increase the population of the world, she (that is, it is at least as nine to four)--she brings into the world a male. I consider that point therefore as settled, according to the calculations of statisticians and the researches of naturalists." Harley could not help laughing, though he was still angry and disturbed. "The same man as ever; always the fool of philosophy." "/Cospetto!/" said Riccabocca. "I am rather the philosopher of fools. And talking of that, shall I present you to my Jemima?" "Yes; but in turn I must present you to one who remembers with gratitude your kindness, and whom your philosophy, for a wonder, has not ruined. Some time or other you must explain that to me. Excuse me for a moment; I will go for him. "For him,--for whom? In my position I must be cautious; and--" "I will answer for his faith and discretion. Meanwhile order dinner, and let me and my friend stay to share it." "Dinner? /Corpo di Bacco!/---not that Bacchus can help us here. What will Jemima say?" "Henpecked man, settle that with your connubial tyrant. But dinner it must be." I leave the reader to imagine the delight of Leonard at seeing once more Riccabocca unchanged and Violante so improved, and the kind Jemima too; and their wonder at him and his history, his books and his fame. He narrated his struggles and adventures with a simplicity that removed from a story so personal the character of egotism. But when he came to speak of Helen he was brief and reserved. Violante would have questioned more closely; but, to Leonard's relief, Harley interposed. "You shall see her whom he speaks of before long, and question her yourself." With these words, Harley turned the young man's narrative into new directions; and Leonard's words again flowed freely. Thus the evening passed away happily to all save Riccabocca. For the thought of his dead wife rose ever and anon before the exile; but when it did, and became too painful, he crept nearer to Jemima, and looked in her simple face, and pressed her cordial hand. And yet the monster had implied to Harley that his comforter was a fool,--so she was, to love so contemptible a slanderer of herself and her sex. Violante was in a state of blissful excitement; she could not analyze her own joy. But her conversation was chiefly with Leonard; and the most silent of all was Harley. He sat listening to Leonard's warm yet unpretending eloquence,--that eloquence which flows so naturally from genius, when thoroughly at its ease, and not chilled back on itself by hard, unsympathizing hearers; listened, yet more charmed, to the sentiments less profound, yet no less earnest,--sentiments so feminine, yet so noble, with which Violante's fresh virgin heart responded to the poet's kindling soul. Those sentiments of hers were so unlike all he heard in the common world, so akin to himself in his gone youth! Occasionally--at some high thought of her own, or some lofty line from Italian song, that she cited with lighted eyes, and in melodious accents --occasionally he reared his knightly head, and his lip quivered, as if he had heard the sound of a trumpet. The inertness of long years was shaken. The Heroic, that lay deep beneath all the humours of his temperament, was reached, appealed to; and stirred within him, rousing up all the bright associations connected with it, and long dormant. When he arose to take leave, surprised at the lateness of the hour, Harley said, in a tone that bespoke the sincerity of the compliment, "I thank you for the happiest hours I have known for years." His eye dwelt on Violante as he spoke. But timidity returned to her with his words, at his look; and it was no longer the inspired muse, but the bashful girl that stood before him. "And when shall I see you again?" asked Riccabocca, disconsolately, following his guest to the door. "When? Why, of course, to-morrow. Adieu! my friend. No wonder you have borne your exile so patiently,--with such a child!" He took Leonard's arm, and walked with him to the inn where he had left his horse. Leonard spoke of Violante with enthusiasm. Harley was silent. CHAPTER III. The next day a somewhat old-fashioned, but exceedingly patrician, equipage stopped at Riccabocca's garden-gate. Giacomo, who, from a bedroom window, had caught sight of its winding towards the house, was seized with undefinable terror when he beheld it pause before their walls, and heard the shrill summons at the portal. He rushed into his master's presence, and implored him not to stir,--not to allow any one to give ingress to the enemies the machine might disgorge. "I have heard," said he, "how a town in Italy--I think it was Bologna--was once taken and given to the sword, by incautiously admitting a wooden horse full of the troops of Barbarossa and all manner of bombs and Congreve rockets." "The story is differently told in Virgil," quoth Riccabocca, peeping out of the window. "Nevertheless, the machine looks very large and suspicious; unloose Pompey." "Father," said Violante, colouring, "it is your friend, Lord L'Estrange; I hear his voice." "Are you sure?" "Quite. How can I be mistaken?" "Go, then, Giacomo; but take Pompey with thee,--and give the alarm if we are deceived." But Violante was right; and in a few moments Lord L'Estrange was seen walking up the garden, and giving the arm to two ladies. "Ah," said Riccabocca, composing his dressing-robe round him, "go, my child, and summon Jemima. Man to man; but, for Heaven's sake, woman to woman." Harley had brought his mother and Helen, in compliment to the ladies of his friend's household. The proud countess knew that she was in the presence of Adversity, and her salute to Riccabocca was only less respectful than that with which she would have rendered homage to her sovereign. But Riccabocca, always gallant to the sex that he pretended to despise, was not to be outdone in ceremony; and the bow which replied to the courtesy would have edified the rising generation, and delighted such surviving relics of the old Court breeding as may linger yet amidst the gloomy pomp of the Faubourg St. Germain. These dues paid to etiquette, the countess briefly introduced Helen as Miss Digby, and seated herself near the exile. In a few moments the two elder personages became quite at home with each other; and, really, perhaps Riccabocca had never, since we have known him, showed to such advantage as by the side of his polished, but somewhat formal visitor. Both had lived so little with our modern, ill- bred age! They took out their manners of a former race, with a sort of pride in airing once more such fine lace and superb brocade. Riccabocca gave truce to the shrewd but homely wisdom of his proverbs, perhaps he remembered that Lord Chesterfield denounces proverbs as vulgar; and gaunt though his figure, and far from elegant though his dressing-robe, there was that about him which spoke undeniably of the grand seigneur,--of one to whom a Marquis de Dangeau would have offered a fauteuil by the side of the Rohans and Montmorencies. Meanwhile Helen and Harley seated themselves a little apart, and were both silent,--the first, from timidity; the second, from abstraction. At length the door opened, and Harley suddenly sprang to his feet,-- Violante and Jemima entered. Lady Lansinere's eyes first rested on the daughter, and she could scarcely refrain from an exclamation of admiring surprise; but then, when she caught sight of Mrs. Riccabocca's somewhat humble, yet not obsequious mien,--looking a little shy, a little homely, yet still thoroughly a gentlewoman (though of your plain, rural kind of that genus), she turned from the daughter, and with the /savoir vivre/ of the fine old school, paid her first respects to the wife; respects literally, for her manner implied respect,--but it was more kind, simple, and cordial than the respect she had shown to Riccabocca; as the sage himself had said, here "it was Woman to Woman." And then she took Violante's hand in both hers, and gazed on her as if she could not resist the pleasure of contemplating so much beauty. "My son," she said softly, and with a half sigh,--"my son in vain told me not to be surprised. This is the first time I have ever known reality exceed description!" Violante's blush here made her still more beautiful; and as the countess returned to Riccabocca, she stole gently to Helen's side. "Miss Digby, my ward," said Harley, pointedly, observing that his mother had neglected her duty of presenting Helen to the ladies. He then reseated himself, and conversed with Mrs. Riccabocca; but his bright, quick eye glanced over at the two girls. They were about the same age-- and youth was all that, to the superficial eye, they seemed to have in common. A greater contrast could not well be conceived; and, what is strange, both gained by it. Violante's brilliant loveliness seemed yet more dazzling, and Helen's fair, gentle face yet more winning. Neither had mixed much with girls of her own age; each took to the other at first sight. Violante, as the less shy, began the conversation. "You are his ward,--Lord L'Estrange's?" "Yes." "Perhaps you came with him from Italy?" "No, not exactly; but I have been in Italy for some years." "Ah! you regret--nay, I am foolish--you return to your native land. But the skies in Italy are so blue,--here it seems as if Nature wanted colours." "Lord L'Estrange says that you were very young when you left Italy; you remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy to England." "He! Impossible!" "Why impossible, fair sceptic?" cried Harley, interrupting himself in the midst of a speech to Jemima. Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard--she was speaking low; but, though visibly embarrassed, she answered distinctly, "Because in England there is the noblest career for noble minds." Harley was startled, and replied, with a slight sigh, "At your age I should have said as you do. But this England of ours is so crowded with noble minds that they only jostle each other, and the career is one cloud of dust." "So, I have read, seems a battle to a common soldier, but not to the chief." "You have read good descriptions of battles, I see." Mrs. Riccabocca, who thought this remark a taunt upon her step-daughter's studies, hastened to Violante's relief. "Her papa made her read the history of Italy, and I believe that is full of battles." HARLEY.--"All history is, and all women are fond of war and of warriors. I wonder why?" VIOLANTE (turning to Helen, and in a very low voice, resolved that Harley should not hear this time).--" We can guess why,--can we not?" HARLEY (hearing every word, as if it had been spoken in St. Paul's Whispering Gallery).--"If you can guess, Helen, pray tell me." HELEN (shaking her pretty head, and answering with a livelier smile than usual).--"But I am not fond of war and warriors." HARLEY (to Violante).--"Then I must appeal at once to you, self-convicted Bellona that you are. Is it from the cruelty natural to the female disposition?" VIOLANTE (with a sweet musical laugh). "From two propensities still more natural to it." HARLEY.--"YOU puzzle me: what can they be?" VIOLANTE.--"Pity and admiration; we pity the weak and admire the brave." Harley inclined his head, and was silent. Lady Lansmere had suspended her conversation with Riccabocca to listen to this dialogue. "Charming!" she cried. "You have explained what has often perplexed me. Ah, Harley, I am glad to see that your satire is foiled: you have no reply to that." "No; I willingly own myself defeated, too glad to claim the signorina's pity, since my cavalry sword hangs on the wall, and I can have no longer a professional pretence to her admiration." He then rose, and glanced towards the window. "But I see a more formidable disputant for my conqueror to encounter is coming into the field,--one whose profession it is to substitute some other romance for that of camp and siege." "Our friend Leonard," said Riccabocca, turning his eye also towards the window. "True; as Quevedo says, wittily, 'Ever since there has been so great a demand for type, there has been much less lead to spare for cannon-balls.'" Here Leonard entered. Harley had sent Lady Lansmere's footman to him with a note, that prepared him to meet Helen. As he came into the room, Harley took him by the hand and led him to Lady Lansmere. "The friend of whom I spoke. Welcome him now for my sake, ever after for his own;" and then, scarcely allowing time for the countess's elegant and gracious response, he drew Leonard towards Helen. "Children," said he, with a touching voice, that thrilled through the hearts of both, "go and seat yourselves yonder, and talk together of the past. Signorina, I invite you to renewed discussion upon the abstruse metaphysical subject you have started; let us see if we cannot find gentler sources for pity and admiration than war and warriors." He took Violante aside to the window. "You remember that Leonard, in telling you his history last night, spoke, you thought, rather too briefly of the little girl who had been his companion in the rudest time of his trials. When you would have questioned more, I interrupted you, and said, 'You should see her shortly, and question her yourself.' And now what think you of Helen Digby? Hush, speak low. But her ears are not so sharp as mine." VIOLANTE.--"Ah! that is the fair creature whom Leonard called his child- angel? What a lovely innocent face!--the angel is there still." HARLEY (pleased both at the praise and with her who gave it).--"You think so; and you are right. Helen is not communicative. But fine natures are like fine poems,--a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on." Violante gazed on Leonard and Helen as they sat apart. Leonard was the speaker, Helen the listener; and though the former had, in his narrative the night before, been indeed brief as to the episode in his life connected with the orphan, enough had been said to interest Violante in the pathos of their former position towards each other, and in the happiness they must feel in their meeting again,--separated for years on the wide sea of life, now both saved from the storm and shipwreck. The tears came into her eyes. "True," she said, very softly, "there is more here to move pity and admiration than in--" She paused. HARLEY.---"Complete the sentence. Are you ashamed to retract? Fie on your pride and obstinacy!" VIOLANTE.--"No; but even here there have been war and heroism,--the war of genius with adversity, and heroism in the comforter who shared it and consoled. Ah, wherever pity and admiration are both felt, something nobler than mere sorrow must have gone before: the heroic must exist." "Helen does not know what the word 'heroic' means," said Harley, rather sadly; "you must teach her." "Is it possible," thought he as he spoke, "that a Randal Leslie could have charmed this grand creature? No 'Heroic' surely, in that sleek young placeman.---"Your father," he said aloud, and fixing his eyes on her face, "sees much, he tells me, of a young man about Leonard's age, as to date; but I never estimate the age of men by the parish register, and I should speak of that so-called young man as a contemporary of my great-grandfather,--I mean Mr. Randal Leslie. Do you like him?" "Like him," said Violante, slowly, and as if sounding her own mind,-- "like him--yes." "Why?" asked Harley, with dry and curt indignation. "His visits seem to please my dear father. Certainly I like him." "Hum. He professes to like you, I suppose?" Violante laughed unsuspiciously. She had half a mind to reply, "Is that so strange?" But her respect for Harley stopped her. The words would have seemed to her pert. "I am told he is clever," resumed Harley. "Oh, certainly." "And he is rather handsome. But I like Leonard's face better." "Better--that is not the word. Leonard's face is as that of one who has gazed so often upon Heaven; and Mr. Leslie's--there is neither sunlight nor starlight reflected there." "My dear Violante?" exclaimed Harley, overjoyed; and he pressed her hand. The blood rushed over the girl's cheek and brow; her hand trembled in his. But Harley's familiar exclamation might have come from a father's lips. At this moment Helen softly approached them, and looking timidly into her guardian's face, said, "Leonard's mother is with him: he asks me to call and see her. May I?" "May you! A pretty notion the signorina must form of your enslaved state of pupilage, when she hears you ask that question. Of course you may." "Will you come with us?" Harley looked embarrassed. He thought of the widow's agitation at his name; of that desire to shun him, which Leonard had confessed, and of which he thought he divined the cause. And so divining, he too shrank from such a meeting. "Another time, then," said he, after a pause. Helen looked disappointed, but said no more. Violante was surprised at this ungracious answer. She would have blamed it as unfeeling in another; but all that Harley did was right in her eyes. "Cannot I go with Miss Digby?" said she, "and my mother will go too. We both know Mrs. Fairfield. We shall be so pleased to see her again." "So be it," said Harley; "I will wait here with your father till you come back. Oh, as to my mother, she will excuse the--excuse Madame Riccabocca, and you too. See how charmed she is with your father. I must stay to watch over the conjugal interests of mine." But Mrs. Riccabocca had too much good old country breeding to leave the countess; and Harley was forced himself to appeal to Lady Lansmere. When he had explained the case in point, the countess rose and said, "But I will call myself, with Miss Digby." "No," said Harley, gravely, but in a whisper. "No; I would rather not. I will explain later." "Then," said the countess aloud, after a glance of surprise at her son, "I must insist on your performing this visit, my dear madam, and you, Signorina. In truth, I have something to say confidentially to--" "To me," interrupted Riccabocca. "Ah, Madame la Comtesse, you restore me to five-and-twenty. Go, quick, O jealous and injured wife; go, both of you, quick; and you, too, Harley." "Nay," said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, "Harley must stay, for my design is not at present upon destroying your matrimonial happiness, whatever it may be later. It is a design so innocent that my son will be a partner in it." Here the countess put her lips to Harley's ear, and whispered. He received her communication in attentive silence; but when she had done, pressed her hand, and bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal. In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on their road to the neighbouring cottage. Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that Leonard and Helen must have much to say to each other; and (ignorant, as Leonard himself was, of Helen's engagement to Harley) began already, in the romance natural to her age, to predict for them happy and united days in the future. So she took her stepmother's arm, and left Helen and Leonard to follow. "I wonder," she said musingly, "how Miss Digby became Lord L'Estrange's ward. I hope she is not very rich, nor very high-born." "La, my love," said the good Jemima, "that is not like you; you are not envious of her, poor girl?" "Envious! Dear mamma, what a word! But don't you think Leonard and Miss Digby seem born for each other? And then the recollections of their childhood--the thoughts of childhood are so deep, and its memories so strangely soft!" The long lashes drooped over Violante's musing eyes as she spoke. "And therefore," she said, after a pause,--"therefore I hoped that Miss Digby might not be very rich nor very high-born." "I understand you now, Violante," exclaimed Jemima, her own early passion for match-making instantly returning to her; "for as Leonard, however clever and distinguished, is still the son of Mark Fairfield the carpenter, it would spoil all if--Miss Digby was, as you say, rich and high-born. I agree with you,--a very pretty match, a very pretty match, indeed. I wish dear--Mrs. Dale were here now,--she is so clever in settling such matters." Meanwhile Leonard and Helen walked side by side a few paces in the rear. He had not offered her his arm. They had been silent hitherto since they left Riccabocca's house. Helen now spoke first. In similar cases it is generally the woman, be she ever so timid, who does speak first. And here Helen was the bolder; for Leonard did not disguise from himself the nature of his feelings, and Helen was engaged to another, and her pure heart was fortified by the trust reposed in it. "And have you ever heard more of the good Dr. Morgan, who had powders against sorrow, and who meant to be so kind to us,--though," she added, colouring, "we did not think so then?" "He took my child-angel from me," said Leonard, with visible emotion; "and if she had not returned, where and what should I be now? But I have forgiven him. No, I have never met him since." "And that terrible Mr. Burley?" "Poor, poor Burley! He, too, is vanished out of my present life. I have made many inquiries after him; all I can hear is that he went abroad, supposed as a correspondent to some journal. I should like so much to see him again, now that perhaps I could help him as he helped me." "Helped you--ah!" Leonard smiled with a beating heart, as he saw again the dear prudent, warning look, and involuntarily drew closer to Helen. She seemed more restored to him and to her former self. "Helped me much by his instructions; more, perhaps, by his very faults. You cannot guess, Helen,--I beg pardon, Miss Digby, but I forgot that we are no longer children,--you cannot guess how much we men, and more than all, perhaps, we writers whose task it is to unravel the web of human actions, owe even to our own past errors; and if we learned nothing by the errors of others, we should be dull indeed. We must know where the roads divide, and have marked where they lead to, before we can erect our sign-post; and books are the sign-posts in human life." "Books! and I have not yet read yours. And Lord L'Estrange tells me you are famous now. Yet you remember me still,--the poor orphan child, whom you first saw weeping at her father's grave, and with whom you burdened your own young life, over-burdened already. No, still call me Helen--you must always be to me a brother! Lord L'Estrange feels that; he said so to me when he told me that we were to meet again. He is so generous, so noble. Brother!" cried Helen, suddenly, and extending her hand, with a sweet but sublime look in her gentle face,--"brother, we will never forfeit his esteem; we will both do our best to repay him! Will we not? --say so!" Leonard felt overpowered by contending and unanalyzed emotions. Touched almost to tears by the affectionate address, thrilled by the hand that pressed his own, and yet with a vague fear, a consciousness that something more than the words themselves was implied,--something that checked all hope. And this word "brother," once so precious and so dear, why did he shrink from it now; why could he not too say the sweet word "sister"? "She is above me now and evermore!" he thought mournfully; and the tones of his voice, when he spoke again, were changed. The appeal to renewed intimacy but made him more distant, and to that appeal itself he made no direct answer; for Mrs. Riccabocca, now turning round, and pointing to the cottage which came in view, with its picturesque gable-ends, cried out, "But is that your house, Leonard? I never saw anything so pretty." "You do not remember it then," said Leonard to Helen, in accents of melancholy reproach,--"there where I saw you last? I doubted whether to keep it exactly as it was, and I said, '--No! the association is not changed because we try to surround it with whatever beauty we can create; the dearer the association, the more the Beautiful becomes to it natural.' Perhaps you don't understand this,--perhaps it is only we poor poets who do." "I understand it," said Helen, gently. She looked wistfully at the cottage. "So changed! I have so often pictured it to myself, never, never like this; yet I loved it, commonplace as it was to my recollection; and the garret, and the tree in the carpenter's yard." She did not give these thoughts utterance. And they now entered the garden. CHAPTER IV. Mrs. Fairfield was a proud woman when she received Mrs. Riccabocca and Violante in her grand house; for a grand house to her was that cottage to which her boy Lenny had brought her home. Proud, indeed, ever was Widow Fairfield; but she thought then in her secret heart, that if ever she could receive in the drawing-room of that grand house the great Mrs. Hazeldean, who had so lectured her for refusing to live any longer in the humble, tenement rented of the squire, the cup of human bliss would be filled, and she could content edly die of the pride of it. She did not much notice Helen,--her attention was too absorbed by the ladies who renewed their old acquaintance with her, and she carried them all over the house, yea, into the very kitchen; and so, somehow or other, there was a short time when Helen and Leonard found themselves alone. It was in the study. Helen had unconsciously seated herself in Leonard's own chair, and she was gazing with anxious and wistful interest on the scattered papers, looking so disorderly (though, in truth, in that disorder there was method, but method only known to the owner), and at the venerable well-worn books, in all languages, lying on the floor, on the chairs--anywhere. I must confess that Helen's first tidy womanlike idea was a great desire to arrange the litter. "Poor Leonard," she thought to herself, "the rest of the house so neat, but no one to take care of his own room and of him!" As if he divined her thought, Leonard smiled and said, "It would be a cruel kindness to the spider, if the gentlest band in the world tried to set its cobweb to rights." HELEN.--"You were not quite so bad in the old days." LEONARD.--"Yet even then you were obliged to take care of the money. I have more books now, and more money. My present housekeeper lets me take care of the books, but she is less indulgent as to the money." HELEN (archly).--"Are you as absent as ever?" LEONARD.--"Much more so, I fear. The habit is incorrigible, Miss Digby--" HELEN.--"Not Miss Digby; sister, if you like." LEONARD (evading the word that implied so forbidden an affinity).-- "Helen, will you grant me a favour? Your eyes and your smile say 'yes.' Will you lay aside, for one minute, your shawl and bonnet? What! can you be surprised that I ask it? Can you not understand that I wish for one minute to think that you are at home again under this roof?" Helen cast down her eyes, and seemed troubled; then she raised them, with a soft angelic candour in their dovelike blue, and, as if in shelter from all thoughts of more warm affection, again murmured "brother," and did as he asked her. So there she sat, amongst the dull books, by his table, near the open window, her fair hair parted on her forehead, looking so good, so calm, so happy! Leonard wondered at his own self-command. His heart yearned to her with such inexpressible love, his lips so longed to murmur, "Ah, as now so could it be forever! Is the home too mean?" But that word "brother" was as a talisman between her and him. Yet she looked so at home--perhaps so at home she felt!---more certainly than she had yet learned to do in that stiff stately house in which she was soon to have a daughter's rights. Was she suddenly made aware of this, that she so suddenly arose, and with a look of alarm and distress on her face. "But--we are keeping Lady Lansmere too long," she said falteringly. "We must go now," and she hastily took up her shawl and bonnet. Just then Mrs. Fairfield entered with the visitors, and began making excuses for inattention to Miss Digby, whose identity with Leonard's child-angel she had not yet learned. Helen received these apologies with her usual sweetness. "Nay," she said, "your son and I are such old friends, how could you stand on ceremony with me?" "Old friends!" Mrs. Fairfield stared amazed, and then surveyed the fair speaker more curiously than she had yet done. "Pretty, nice-spoken thing," thought the widow; "as nice-spoken as Miss Violante, and humbler- looking like,--though, as to dress, I never see anything so elegant out of a picter." Helen now appropriated Mrs. Riccabocca's arm; and, after a kind leave- taking with the widow, the ladies returned towards Riccabocca's house. Mrs. Fairfield, however, ran after them with Leonard's hat and gloves, which he had forgotten. "'Deed, boy," she said, kindly, yet scoldingly, "but there'd be no more fine books, if the Lord had not fixed your head on your shoulders. You would not think it, marm," she added to Mrs. Riccabocca, "but sin' he has left you, he's not the 'cute lad he was; very helpless at times, marm!" Helen could not resist turning round, and looking at Leonard, with a sly smile. The widow saw the smile, and catching Leonard by the arm, whispered, "But where before have you seen that pretty young lady? Old friends!" "Ah, Mother," said Leonard, sadly, "it is a long tale; you have heard the beginning, who can guess the end?" and he escaped. But Helen still leaned on the arm of Mrs. Riccabocca, and, in the walk back, it seemed to Leonard as if the winter had re-settled in the sky. Yet he was by the side of Violante, and she spoke to him with such praise of Helen! Alas! it is not always so sweet as folks say to hear the praises of one we love. Sometimes those praises seem to ask ironically, "And what right hast thou to hope because thou lovest? All love her." CHAPTER V. No sooner had Lady Lansmere found herself alone with Riccabocca and Harley than she laid her hand on the exile's arm, and, addressing him by a title she had not before given him, and from which he appeared to shrink nervously, said, "Harley, in bringing me to visit you, was forced to reveal to me your incognito, for I should have discovered it. You may not remember me, in spite of your gallantry; but I mixed more in the world than I do now, during your first visit to England, and once sat next to you at dinner at Carlton House. Nay, no compliments, but listen to me. Harley tells me you have cause for some alarm respecting the designs of an audacious and unprincipled adventurer, I may call him; for adventurers are of all ranks. Suffer your daughter to come to me on a visit, as long as you please. With me, at least, she will be safe; and if you, too, and the--" "Stop, my dear madam," interrupted Riccabocca, with great vivacity; "your kindness overpowers me. I thank you most gratefully for your invitation to my child; but--" "Nay," in his turn interrupted Harley, "no buts. I was not aware of my mother's intention when she entered this room. But since she whispered it to me, I have reflected on it, and am convinced that it is but a prudent precaution. Your retreat is known to Mr. Leslie, he is known to Peschiera. Grant that no indiscretion of Mr. Leslie's betray the secret; still I have reason to believe that the count guesses Randal's acquaintance with you. Audley Egerton this morning told me he had gathered that, not from the young man himself, but from questions put to himself by Madame di Negra; and Peschiera might and would set spies to track Leslie to every house that he visits,--might and would, still more naturally, set spies to track myself. Were this man an Englishman, I should laugh at his machinations; but he is an Italian, and has been a conspirator. What he could do I know not; but an assassin can penetrate into a camp, and a traitor can creep through closed walls to one's hearth. With my mother, Violante must be safe; that you cannot oppose. And why not come yourself?" Riccabocca had no reply to these arguments, so far as they affected Violante; indeed, they awakened the almost superstitious terror with which he regarded his enemy, and he consented at once that Violante should accept the invitation proffered. But he refused it for himself and Jemima. "To say truth," said he, simply, "I made a secret vow, on re-entering England, that I would associate with none who knew the rank I had formerly held in my own land. I felt that all my philosophy was needed to reconcile and habituate myself to my altered circumstances. In order to find in my present existence, however humble, those blessings which make all life noble,--dignity and peace,--it was necessary for poor, weak human nature wholly to dismiss the past. It would unsettle me sadly, could I come to your house, renew awhile, in your kindness and respect-- nay, in the very atmosphere of your society--the sense of what I have been; and then (should the more than doubtful chance of recall from my exile fail me) to awake, and find myself for the rest of life what I am. And though, were I alone, I might trust myself perhaps to the danger, yet my wife: she is happy and contented now; would she be so, if you had once spoiled her for the simple position of Dr. Riccabocca's wife? Should I not have to listen to regrets and hopes and fears that would prick sharp through my thin cloak of philosophy? Even as it is, since in a moment of weakness I confided my secret to her, I have had 'my rank' thrown at me, --with a careless hand, it is true, but it hits hard nevertheless. No stone hurts like one taken from the ruins of one's own home; and the grander the home, why, the heavier the stone! Protect, dear madam, protect my daughter, since her father doubts his own power to do so. But--ask no more." Riccabocca was immovable here; and the matter was settled as he decided, it being agreed that Violante should be still styled but the daughter of Dr. Riccabocca. "And now, one word more," said Harley. "Do not confide to Mr. Leslie these arrangements; do not let him know where Violante is placed,--at least, until I authorize such confidence in him. It is sufficient excuse that it is no use to know unless he called to see her, and his movements, as I said before, may be watched. You can give the same reason to suspend his visits to yourself. Suffer me, meanwhile, to mature my judgment on this young man. In the meanwhile, also, I think that I shall have means of ascertaining the real nature of Peschiera's schemes. His sister has sought to know me; I will give her the occasion. I have heard some things of her in my last residence abroad, which make me believe that she cannot be wholly the count's tool in any schemes nakedly villanous; that she has some finer qualities in her than I once supposed; and that she can be won from his influence. It is a state of war; we will carry it into the enemy's camp. You will promise me, then, to refrain from all further confidence in Mr. Leslie?" "For the present, yes," said Riccabocca, reluctantly. "Do not even say that you have seen me, unless he first tell you that I am in England, and wish to learn your residence. I will give him full occasion to do so. Pish! don't hesitate; you know your own proverb-- "'Boccha chiusa, ed occhio aperto Non fece mai nissun deserto.' "The closed mouth and the open eye,' etc." "That's very true," said the doctor, much struck. "Very true. 'In boccha chiusa non c'entrano mosche.' One can't swallow flies if one keeps one's mouth shut. /Corpo di Bacco!/ that's very true indeed." CHAPTER VI. Violante and Jemima were both greatly surprised, as the reader may suppose, when they heard, on their return, the arrangements already made for the former. The countess insisted on taking her at once, and Riccabocca briefly said, "Certainly, the sooner the better." Violante was stunned and bewildered. Jemima hastened to make up a little bundle of things necessary, with many a woman's sigh that the poor wardrobe contained so few things befitting. But among the clothes she slipped a purse, containing the savings of months, perhaps of years, and with it a few affectionate lines, begging Violante to ask the countess to buy her all that was proper for her father's child. There is always something hurried and uncomfortable in the abrupt and unexpected withdrawal of any member from a quiet household. The small party broke into still smaller knots. Violante hung on her father, and listened vaguely to his not very lucid explanations. The countess approached Leonard, and, according to the usual mode with persons of quality addressing young authors, complimented him highly on the books she had not read, but which her son assured her were so remarkable. She was a little anxious to know where Harley had first met with Mr. Oran, whom he called his friend; but she was too highbred to inquire, or to express any wonder that rank should be friends with genius. She took it for granted that they had formed their acquaintance abroad. Harley conversed with Helen.--"You are not sorry that Violante is coming to us? She will be just such a companion for you as I could desire; of your own years too." HELEN (ingenuously).--"It is hard to think I am not younger than she is." HARLEY.--"Why, my dear Helen?" HELEN.--"She is so brilliant. She talks so beautifully. And I--" HARLEY.--"And you want but the habit of talking, to do justice to your own beautiful thoughts." Helen looked at him gratefully, but shook her head. It was a common trick of hers, and always when she was praised. At last the preparations were made, the farewell was said, Violante was in the carriage by Lady Lansmere's side. Slowly moved on the stately equipage with its four horses and trim postilions, heraldic badges on their shoulders, in the style rarely seen in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, and now fast vanishing even amidst distant counties. Riccabocca, Jemima, and Jackeymo continued to gaze after it from the gate. "She is gone," said Jackeymo, brushing his eyes with his coat-sleeve. "But it is a load off one's mind." "And another load on one's heart," murmured Riccabocca. "Don't cry, Jemima; it may be bad for you, and bad for him that is to come. It is astonishing how the humours of the mother may affect the unborn. I should not like to have a son who has a more than usual propensity to tears." The poor philosopher tried to smile; but it was a bad attempt. He went slowly in, and shut himself with his books. But he could not read. His whole mind was unsettled. And though, like all parents, he had been anxious to rid himself of a beloved daughter for life, now that she was gone but for a while, a string seemed broken in the Music of Home. CHAPTER VII. The evening of the same day, as Egerton, who was to entertain a large party at dinner, was changing his dress, Harley walked into his room. Egerton dismissed his valet by a sign, and continued his toilet. "Excuse me, my dear Harley, I have only ten minutes to give you. I expect one of the royal dukes, and punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes." Harley had usually a jest for his friend's aphorisms; but he had none now. He laid his hand kindly on Egerton's shoulder. "Before I speak of my business, tell me how you are,--better?" "Better,--nay, I am always well. Pooh! I may look a little tired,-- years of toil will tell on the countenance. But that matters little: the period of life has passed with me when one cares how one looks in the glass." As he spoke, Egerton completed his dress, and came to the hearth, standing there, erect and dignified as usual, still far handsomer than many a younger man, and with a form that seemed to have ample vigour to support for many a year the sad and glorious burden of power. "So now to your business, Harley." "In the first place, I want you to present me, at the earliest opportunity, to Madame di Negra. You say she wished to know me." "Are you serious?" "Yes." "Well, then, she receives this evening. I did not mean to go; but when my party breaks up--" "You can call for me at The Travellers. Do!" "Next, you knew Lady Jane Horton better even than I did, at least in the last year of her life." Harley sighed, and Egerton turned and stirred the fire. "Pray, did you ever see at her house, or hear her speak of, a Mrs. Bertram?" "Of whom?" said Egerton, in a hollow voice, his face still turned towards the fire. "A Mrs. Bertram; but heavens! my dear fellow, what is the matter? Are you ill?" "A spasm at the heart, that is all; don't ring, I shall be better presently; go on talking. Mrs.--why do you ask?" "Why? I have hardly time to explain; but I am, as I told you, resolved on righting my old Italian friend, if Heaven will help me, as it ever does help the just when they bestir themselves; and this Mrs. Bertram is mixed up in my friend's affairs." "His! How is that possible?" Harley rapidly and succinctly explained. Audley listened attentively, with his eyes fixed on the floor, and still seeming to labour under great difficulty of breathing. At last he answered, "I remember something of this Mrs.--Mrs.--Bertram. But your inquiries after her would be useless. I think I have heard that she is long since dead; nay, I am sure of it." "Dead!--that is most unfortunate. But do you know any of her relations or friends? Can you suggest any mode of tracing this packet, if it came to her hands?" "No." "And Lady Jane had scarcely any friend that I remember except my mother, and she knows nothing of this Mrs. Bertram. How unlucky! I think I shall advertise. Yet, no. I could only distinguish this Mrs. Bertram from any other of the same name, by stating with whom she had gone abroad, and that would catch the attention of Peschiera, and set him to counterwork us." "And what avails it?" said Egerton. "She whom you seek is no more--no more!" He paused, and went on rapidly: "The packet did not arrive in England till years after her death, was no doubt returned to the post- office, is destroyed long ago." Harley looked very much disappointed. Egerton went on in a sort of set, mechanical voice, as if not thinking of what he said, but speaking from the dry practical mode of reasoning which was habitual to him, and by which the man of the world destroys the hopes of an enthusiast. Then starting up at the sound of the first thundering knock at the street door, he said, "Hark! you must excuse me." "I leave you, my dear Audley. But I must again ask, Are you better now?" "Much, much,--quite well: I will call for you,--probably between eleven and twelve." CHAPTER VIII. If any one could be more surprised at seeing Lord L'Estrange at the house of Madame di Negra that evening than the fair hostess herself, it was Randal Leslie. Something instinctively told him that this visit threatened interference with whatever might be his ultimate projects in regard to Riccabocca and Violante. But Randal Leslie was not one of those who shrink from an intellectual combat. On the contrary, he was too confident of his powers of intrigue not to take a delight in their exercise. He could not conceive that the indolent Harley could be a match for his own restless activity and dogged perseverance. But in a very few moments fear crept on him. No man of his day could produce a more brilliant effect than Lord L'Estrange, when he deigned to desire it. Without much pretence to that personal beauty which strikes at first sight, he still retained all the charm of countenance, and all the grace of manner, which had made him in boyhood the spoiled darling of society. Madame di Negra had collected but a small circle round her; still it was of the elite of the great world,--not, indeed, those more precise and reserved /dames de chateau/, whom the lighter and easier of the fair dispensers of fashion ridicule as prudes; but nevertheless, ladies were there, as unblemished in reputation, as high in rank, flirts and coquettes, perhaps,--nothing more; in short, "charming women,"--the gay butterflies that hover over the stiff parterre. And there were ambassadors and ministers, and wits and brilliant debaters, and first- rate dandies (dandies, when first-rate, are generally very agreeable men). Amongst all these various persons, Harley, so long a stranger to the London world, seemed to make himself at home with the ease of an Alcibiades. Many of the less juvenile ladies remembered him, and rushed to claim his acquaintance, with nods and becks, and wreathed smiles. He had ready compliment for each. And few indeed were there, men or women, for whom Harley L'Estrange had not appropriate attraction. Distinguished reputation as soldier and scholar for the grave; whim and pleasantry for the gay; novelty for the sated; and for the more vulgar natures was he not Lord L'Estrange, unmarried, possessed already of a large independence, and heir to an ancient earldom, and some fifty thousands a year? Not till he had succeeded in the general effect--which, it must be owned, he did his best to create--did Harley seriously and especially devote himself to his hostess. And then he seated himself by her side; and, as if in compliment to both, less pressing admirers insensibly slipped away and edged off. Frank Hazeldean was the last to quit his ground behind Madame di Negra's chair; but when he found that the two began to talk in Italian, and he could not understand a word they said, he too--fancying, poor fellow, that be looked foolish, and cursing his Eton education that had neglected, for languages spoken by the dead, of which he had learned little, those still in use among the living, of which he had learned nought--retreated towards Randal, and asked wistfully, "Pray, what age should you say L'Estrange was? He must be devilish old, in spite of his looks. Why, he was at Waterloo!" "He is young enough to be a terrible rival," answered Randal, with artful truth. Frank turned pale, and began to meditate dreadful bloodthirsty thoughts, of which hair-triggers and Lord's Cricket-ground formed the staple. Certainly there was apparent ground for a, lover's jealousy; for Harley and Beatrice now conversed in a low tone, and Beatrice seemed agitated, and Harley earnest. Randal himself grew more and more perplexed. Was Lord L'Estrange really enamoured of the marchesa? If so, farewell to all hopes of Frank's marriage with her! Or was he merely playing a part in Riccabocca's interest; pretending to be the lover, in order to obtain an influence over her mind, rule her through her ambition, and secure an ally against her brother? Was this finesse compatible with Randal's notions of Harley's character? Was it consistent with that chivalric and soldierly spirit of honour which the frank nobleman affected, to make love to a woman in mere /ruse de guerre/? Could mere friendship for Riccabocca be a sufficient inducement to a man, who, whatever his weaknesses or his errors, seemed to wear on his very forehead a soul above deceit, to stoop to paltry means, even for a worthy end? At this question, a new thought flashed upon Randal,--might not Lord L'Estrange have speculated himself upon winning Violante; would not that account for all the exertions he had made on behalf of her inheritance at the court of Vienna,--exertions of which Peschiera and Beatrice had both complained? Those objections which the Austrian government might take to Violante's marriage with some obscure Englishman would probably not exist against a man like Harley L'Estrange, whose family not only belonged to the highest aristocracy of England, but had always supported opinions in vogue amongst the leading governments of Europe. Harley himself, it is true, had never taken part in politics, but his notions were, no doubt, those of a high-born soldier, who had fought, in alliance with Austria, for the restoration of the Bourbons. And this immense wealth--which Violante might lose, if she married one like Randal himself--her marriage with the heir of the Lansmeres might actually tend only to secure. Could Harley, with all his own expectations, be indifferent to such a prize?-- and no doubt he had learned Violante's rare beauty in his correspondence with Riccabocca. Thus considered, it seemed natural to Randal's estimate of human nature that Harley's more prudish scruples of honour, as regards what is due to women, could not resist a temptation so strong. Mere friendship was not a motive powerful enough to shake them, but ambition was. While Randal was thus cogitating, Frank thus suffering, and many a whisper, in comment on the evident flirtation between the beautiful hostess and the accomplished guest, reached the ears both of the brooding schemer and the jealous lover, the conversation between the two objects of remark and gossip had taken a new turn. Indeed, Beatrice had made an effort to change it. "It is long, my Lord," said she, still speaking Italian, "since I have heard sentiments like those you address to me; and if I do not feel myself wholly unworthy of them, it is from the pleasure I have felt in reading sentiments equally foreign to the language of the world in which I live." She took a book from the table as she spoke: "Have you seen this work?" Harley glanced at the title-page. "To be sure I have, and I know the author." "I envy you that honour. I should so like also to know one who has discovered to me deeps in my own heart which I had never explored." "Charming marchesa, if the book has done this, believe me that I have paid you no false compliment,--formed no overflattering estimate of your nature; for the charm of the work is but in its simple appeal to good and generous emotions, and it can charm none in whom those emotions exist not!" "Nay, that cannot be true, or why is it so popular?" "Because good and generous emotions are more common to the human heart than we are aware of till the appeal comes." "Don't ask me to think that! I have found the world so base." "Pardon me a rude question; but what do you know of the world?" Beatrice looked first in surprise at Harley, then glanced round the room with significant irony. "As I thought; you call this little room 'the world.' Be it so. I will venture to say, that if the people in this room were suddenly converted into an audience before a stage, and you were as consummate in the actor's art as you are in all others that please and command--" "Well?" "And were to deliver a speech full of sordid and base sentiments, you would be hissed. But let any other woman, with half your powers, arise and utter sentiments sweet and womanly, or honest and lofty, and applause would flow from every lip, and tears rush to many a worldly eye. The true proof of the inherent nobleness of our common nature is in the sympathy it betrays with what is noble wherever crowds are collected. Never believe the world is base; if it were so, no society could hold together for a day. But you would know the author of this book? I will bring him to you." "Do." "And now," said Harley, rising, and with his candid, winning smile, "do you think we shall ever be friends?" "You have startled me so that I can scarcely answer. But why would you be friends with me?" "Because you need a friend. You have none?" "Strange flatterer!" said Beatrice, smiling, though very sadly; and looking up, her eye caught Randal's. "Pooh!" said Harley, "you are too penetrating to believe that you inspire friendship there. Ah, do you suppose that; all the while I have been conversing with you, I have not noticed the watchful gaze of Mr. Randal Leslie? What tie can possibly connect you together I know not yet; but I soon shall." "Indeed! you talk like one of the old Council of Venice. You try hard to make me fear you," said Beatrice, seeking to escape from the graver kind of impression Harley had made on her, by the affectation partly of coquetry, partly of levity. "And I," said L'Estrange, calmly, "tell you already that I fear you no more." He bowed, and passed through the crowd to rejoin Audley, who was seated in a corner whispering with some of his political colleagues. Before Harley reached the minister, he found himself close to Randal and young Hazeldean. He bowed to the first, and extended his hand to the last. Randal felt the distinction, and his sullen, bitter pride was deeply galled,--a feeling of hate towards Harley passed into his mind. He was pleased to see the cold hesitation with which Frank just touched the hand offered to him. But Randal had not been the only person whose watch upon Beatrice the keen-eyed Harley had noticed. Harley had seen the angry looks of Frank Hazeldean, and divined the cause. So he smiled forgivingly at the slight he had received. "You are like me, Mr. Hazeldean," said he. "You think something of the heart should go with all courtesy that bespeaks friendship-- "'The hand of Douglas is his own.'" Here Harley drew aside Randal. "Mr. Leslie, a word with you. If I wished to know the retreat of Dr. Riccabocca, in order to render him a great service, would you confide to me that secret?" "That woman has let out her suspicions that I know the exile's retreat," thought Randal; and with quick presence of mind, he replied at once, "My Lord, yonder stands a connection of Dr. Riccabocca's. Mr. Hazeldean is surely the person to whom you should address this inquiry." "Not so, Mr. Leslie; for I suspect that he cannot answer it, and that you can. Well, I will ask something that it seems to me you may grant without hesitation. Should you see Dr. Riccabocca, tell him that I am in England, and so leave it to him to communicate with me or not; but perhaps you have already done so?" "Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, bowing low, with pointed formality, "excuse me if I decline either to disclaim or acquiesce in the knowledge you impute to me. If I am acquainted with any secret intrusted to me by Dr. Riccabocca, it is for me to use my own discretion how best to guard it. And for the rest, after the Scotch earl, whose words your Lordship has quoted, refused to touch the hand of Marmion, Douglas could scarcely have called Marmion back in order to give him--a message!" Harley was not prepared for this tone in Mr. Egerton's protege, and his own gallant nature was rather pleased than irritated by a haughtiness that at least seemed to bespeak independence of spirit. Nevertheless, L'Estrange's suspicions of Randal were too strong to be easily set aside, and therefore he replied, civilly, but with covert taunt, "I submit to your rebuke, Mr. Leslie, though I meant not the offence you would ascribe to me. I regret my unlucky quotation yet the more, since the wit of your retort has obliged you to identify yourself with Marmion, who, though a clever and brave fellow, was an uncommonly--tricky one." And so Harley, certainly having the best of it, moved on, and joined Egerton, and in a few minutes more both left the room. "What was L'Estrange saying to you?" asked Frank. "Something about Beatrice, I am sure." "No; only quoting poetry." "Then what made you look so angry, my dear fellow? I know it was your kind feeling for me. As you say, he is a formidable rival. But that can't be his own hair. Do you think he wears a toupet? I am sure he was praising Beatrice. He is evidently very much smitten with her. But I don't think she is a woman to be caught by mere rank and fortune! Do you? Why can't you speak?" "If you do not get her consent soon, I think she is lost to you," said Randal, slowly; and before Frank could recover his dismay, glided from the house. CHAPTER IX. Violante's first evening at the Lansmeres had passed more happily to her than the first evening under the same roof had done to Helen. True that she missed her father much, Jemima somewhat; but she so identified her father's cause with Harley that she had a sort of vague feeling that it was to promote that cause that she was on this visit to Harley's parents. And the countess, it must be owned, was more emphatically cordial to her than she had ever yet been to Captain Digby's orphan. But perhaps the real difference in the heart of either girl was this, that Helen felt awe of Lady Lansmere, and Violante felt only love for Lord L'Estrange's mother. Violante, too, was one of those persons whom a reserved and formal person, like the countess, "can get on with," as the phrase goes. Not so poor little Helen,--so shy herself, and so hard to coax into more than gentle monosyllables. And Lady Lansmere's favourite talk was always of Harley. Helen had listened to such talk with respect and interest. Violante listened to it with inquisitive eagerness, with blushing delight. The mother's heart noticed the distinction between the two, and no wonder that that heart moved more to Violante than to Helen. Lord Lansmere, too, like most gentlemen of his age, clumped all young ladies together as a harmless, amiable, but singularly stupid class of the genus-Petticoat, meant to look pretty, play the piano, and talk to each other about frocks and sweethearts. Therefore this animated, dazzling creature, with her infinite variety of look and play of mind, took him by surprise, charmed him into attention, and warmed him into gallantry. Helen sat in her quiet corner, at her work, sometimes listening with almost mournful, though certainly unenvious, admiration at Violante's vivid, yet ever unconscious, eloquence of word and thought, sometimes plunged deep into her own secret meditations. And all the while the work went on the same, under the small, noiseless fingers. This was one of Helen's habits that irritated the nerves of Lady Lansmere. She despised young ladies who were fond of work. She did not comprehend how often it is the resource of the sweet womanly mind, not from want of thought, but from the silence and the depth of it. Violante was surprised, and perhaps disappointed, that Harley had left the house before dinner, and did not return all the evening. But Lady Lansmere, in making excuse for his absence, on the plea of engagements, found so good an opportunity to talk of his ways in general,--of his rare promise in boyhood, of her regret at the inaction of his maturity, of her hope to see him yet do justice to his natural powers,--that Violante almost ceased to miss him. And when Lady Lansmere conducted her to her room, and, kissing her cheek tenderly, said, "But you are just the person Harley admires,--just the person to rouse him from melancholy dreams, of which his wild humours are now but the vain disguise"--Violante crossed her arms on her bosom, and her bright eyes, deepened into tenderness, seemed to ask, "He melancholy --and why?" On leaving Violante's room, Lady Lansmere paused before the door of Helen's; and, after musing a little while, entered softly. Helen had dismissed her maid; and, at the moment Lady Lansmere entered, she was kneeling at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped before her face. Her form, thus seen, looked so youthful and child-like, the attitude itself was so holy and so touching, that the proud and cold expression on Lady Lansmere's face changed. She shaded the light involuntarily, and seated herself in silence that she might not disturb the act of prayer. When Helen rose, she was startled to see the countess seated by the fire, and hastily drew her hand across her eyes. She had been weeping. Lady Lansmere did not, however, turn to observe those traces of tears, which Helen feared were too visible. The countess was too absorbed in her own thoughts; and as Helen timidly approached, she said--still with her eyes on the clear low fire--"I beg your pardon, Miss Digby, for my intrusion; but my son has left it to me to prepare Lord Lansmere to learn the offer you have done Harley the honour to accept. I have not yet spoken to my Lord; it may be days before I find a fitting occasion to do so; meanwhile I feel assured that your sense of propriety will make you agree, with me that it is due to Lord L'Estrange's father, that strangers should not learn arrangements of such moment in his family before his own consent be obtained." Here the countess came to a full pause; and poor Helen, finding herself called upon for some reply to this chilling speech, stammered out, scarce audibly, "Certainly, madam, I never dreamed of--" "That is right, my dear," interrupted Lady Lansmere, rising suddenly, and as if greatly relieved. "I could not doubt your superiority to ordinary girls of your age, with whom these matters are never secret for a moment. Therefore, of course, you will not mention, at present, what has passed between you and Harley, to any of the friends with whom you may correspond." "I have no correspondents, no friends, Lady Lansmere," said Helen, deprecatingly, and trying hard not to cry. "I am very glad to hear it, my dear; young ladies never should have. Friends, especially friends who correspond, are the worst enemies they can have. Good-night, Miss Digby. I need not add, by the way, that though we are bound to show all kindness to this young Italian lady, still she is wholly unconnected with our family; and you will be as prudent with her as you would have been with your correspondents, had you had the misfortune to have any." Lady Lansmere said the last words with a smile, and left an ungenial kiss (the stepmother's kiss) on Helen's bended brow. She then left the room, and Helen sat on the seat vacated by the stately, unloving form, and again covered her face with her hands, and again wept. But when she rose at last, and the light fell upon her face, that soft face was sad indeed, but serene,--serene, as with some inward sense of duty, sad, as with the resignation which accepts patience instead of hope. CHAPTER X. The next morning Harley appeared at breakfast. He was in gay spirits, and conversed more freely with Violante than he had yet done. He seemed to amuse himself by attacking all she said, and provoking her to argument. Violante was naturally a very earnest person; whether grave or gay, she spoke with her heart on her lips, and her soul in her eyes. She did not yet comprehend the light vein of Harley's irony, so she grew piqued and chafed; and she was so lovely in anger; it so brightened the beauty and animated her words, that no wonder Harley thus maliciously teased her. But what, perhaps, she liked still less than the teasing-- though she could not tell why--was the kind of familiarity that Harley assumed with her,--a familiarity as if he had known her all her life,-- that of a good-humoured elder brother, or a bachelor uncle. To Helen, on the contrary, when he did not address her apart, his manner was more respectful. He did not call her by her Christian name, as he did Violante, but "Miss Digby," and softened his tone and inclined his head when he spoke to her. Nor did he presume to jest at the very few and brief sentences he drew from Helen, but rather listened to them with deference, and invariably honoured them with approval. After breakfast he asked Violante to play or sing; and when she frankly owned how little she had cultivated those accomplishments, he persuaded Helen to sit down to the piano, and stood by her side while she did so, turning over the leaves of her music-book with the ready devotion of an admiring amateur. Helen always played well, but less well than usual that day, for her generous nature felt abashed. It was as if she were showing off to mortify Violante. But Violante, on the other hand, was so passionately fond of music that she had no feeling left for the sense of her own inferiority. Yet she sighed when Helen rose, and Harley thanked Miss Digby for the delight she had given him. The day was fine. Lady Lansmere proposed to walk in the garden. While the ladies went up-stairs for their shawls and bonnets, Harley lighted his cigar, and stepped from the window upon the lawn. Lady Lansmere joined him before the girls came out. "Harley," said she, taking his arm. "what a charming companion you have introduced to us! I never met with any that both pleased and delighted me like this dear Violante. Most girls who possess some power of conversation, and who have dared to think for themselves, are so pedantic, or so masculine; but she is always so simple, and always still the girl. Ah, Harley!" "Why that sigh, my dear mother?" "I was thinking how exactly she would have suited you,--how proud I should have been of such a daughter-in-law, and how happy you would have been with such a wife." Harley started. "Tut," said he, peevishly, "she is a mere child; you forget my years." "Why," said Lady Lansmere, surprised, "Helen is quite as young as Violante." "In dates-yes. But Helen's character is so staid; what it is now it will be ever; and Helen, from gratitude, respect, or pity, condescends to accept the ruins of my heart, while this bright Italian has the soul of a Juliet, and would expect in a husband all the passion of a Romeo. Nay, Mother, hush. Do you forget that I am engaged,--and of my own free will and choice? Poor dear Helen! /A propos/, have you spoken to my father, as you undertook to do?" "Not yet. I must seize the right moment. You know that my Lord requires management." "My dear mother, that female notion of managing us men costs you ladies a great waste of time, and occasions us a great deal of sorrow. Men are easily managed by plain truth. We are brought up to respect it, strange as it may seem to you!" Lady Lansmere smiled with the air of superior wisdom, and the experience of an accomplished wife. "Leave it to me, Harley, and rely on my Lord's consent." Harley knew that Lady Lansmere always succeeded in obtaining her way with his father; and he felt that the earl might naturally be disappointed in such an alliance, and, without due propitiation, evince that disappointment in his manner to Helen. Harley was bound to save her from all chance of such humiliation. He did not wish her to think that she was not welcomed into his family; therefore he said, "I resign myself to your promise and your diplomacy. Meanwhile, as you love me, be kind to my betrothed." "Am I not so?" "Hem. Are you as kind as if she were the great heiress you believe Violante to be?" "Is it," answered Lady Lansmere, evading the question--"is it because one is an heiress and the other is not that you make so marked a difference in your own manner to the two; treating Violante as a spoilt child, and Miss Digby as--" "The destined wife of Lord L'Estrange, and the daughter-in-law of Lady Lansmere,--yes." The countess suppressed an impatient exclamation that rose to her lips, for Harley's brow wore that serious aspect which it rarely assumed save when he was in those moods in which men must be soothed, not resisted. And after a pause he went on, "I am going to leave you to-day. I have engaged apartments at the Clarendon. I intend to gratify your wish, so often expressed, that I should enjoy what are called the pleasures of my rank, and the privileges of single-blessedness,--celebrate my adieu to celibacy, and blaze once more, with the splendour of a setting sun, upon Hyde Park and May Fair." "You are a positive enigma. Leave our house, just when you are betrothed to its inmate! Is that the natural conduct of a lover?" "How can your woman eyes be so dull, and your woman heart so obtuse?" answered Harley, half laughing, half scolding. "Can you not guess that I wish that Helen and myself should both lose the association of mere ward and guardian; that the very familiarity of our intercourse under the same roof almost forbids us to be lovers; that we lose the joy to meet, and the pang to part. Don't you remember the story of the Frenchman, who for twenty years loved a lady, and never missed passing his evenings at her house. She became a widow. 'I wish you joy,' cried his friend; 'you may now marry the woman you have so long adored.' 'Alas!' said the poor Frenchman, profoundly dejected; 'and if so, where shall I spend my evenings?'" Here Violante and Helen were seen in the garden, walking affectionately arm in arm. "I don't perceive the point of your witty, heartless anecdote," said Lady Lansmere, obstinately. "Settle that, however, with Miss Digby. But to leave the very day after your friend's daughter comes as a guest!--what will she think of it?" Lord L'Estrange looked steadfastly at his mother. "Does it matter much what she thinks of me,--of a man engaged to another; and old enough to be--" "I wish to heaven you would not talk of your age, Harley; it is a reflection upon mine; and I never saw you look so well nor so handsome." With that she drew him on towards the young ladies; and, taking Helen's arm, asked her, aside, "If she knew that Lord L'Estrange had engaged rooms at the Clarendon; and if she understood why?" As while she said this she moved on, Harley was left by Violante's side. "You will be very dull here, I fear, my poor child," said he. "Dull! But why will you call me child? Am I so very--very child-like?" "Certainly, you are to me,--a mere infant. Have I not seen you one; have I not held you in my arms?" VIOLANTE.--"But that was a long time ago!" HARLEY.--"True. But if years have not stood still for you, they have not been stationary for me. There is the same difference between us now that there was then. And, therefore, permit me still to call you child, and as child to treat you!" VIOLANTE.--"I will do no such thing. Do you know that I always thought I was good-tempered till this morning." HARLEY.--"And what undeceived you? Did you break your doll?" VIOLANTE (with an indignant flash from her dark eyes).---"There!--again! --you delight in provoking me!" HARLEY.--"It was the doll, then. Don't cry; I will get you another." Violante plucked her arm from him, and walked away towards the countess in speechless scorn. Harley's brow contracted, in thought and in gloom. He stood still for a moment or so, and then joined the ladies. "I am trespassing sadly on your morning; but I wait for a visitor whom I sent to before you were up. He is to be here at twelve. With your permission, I will dine with you tomorrow, and you will invite him to meet me." "Certainly. And who is your friend? I guess--the young author?" "Leonard Fairfield," cried Violante, who had conquered, or felt ashamed, of her short-lived anger. "Fairfield!" repeated Lady Lansmere. "I thought, Harley, you said the name was Oran." "He has assumed the latter name. He is the son of Mark Fairfield, who married an Avenel. Did you recognize no family likeness?--none in those eyes, Mother?" said Harley, sinking his voice into a whisper. "No;" answered the countess, falteringly. Harley, observing that Violante was now speaking to Helen about Leonard, and that neither was listening to him, resumed in the same low tone, "And his mother--Nora's sister--shrank from seeing me! That is the reason why I wished you not to call. She has not told the young man why she shrank from seeing me; nor have I explained it to him as yet. Perhaps I never shall." "Indeed, dearest Harley," said the countess, with great gentleness, "I wish you too much to forget the folly--well, I will not say that word --the sorrows of your boyhood, not to hope that you will rather strive against such painful memories than renew them by unnecessary confidence to any one; least of all to the relation of--" "Enough! don't name her; the very name pains me. And as to confidence, there are but two persons in the world to whom I ever bare the old wounds,--yourself and Egerton. Let this pass. Ha!--a ring at the bell-- that is he!" CHAPTER XI. Leonard entered on the scene, and joined the party in the garden. The countess, perhaps to please her son, was more than civil,--she was markedly kind to him. She noticed him more attentively than she had hitherto done; and, with all her prejudices of birth, was struck to find the son of Mark Fairfield the carpenter so thoroughly the gentleman. He might not have the exact tone and phrase by which Convention stereotypes those born and schooled in a certain world; but the aristocrats of Nature can dispense with such trite minutia? And Leonard had lived, of late at least, in the best society that exists for the polish of language and the refinement of manners,--the society in which the most graceful ideas are clothed in the most graceful forms; the society which really, though indirectly, gives the law to courts; the society of the most classic authors, in the various ages in which literature has flowered forth from civilization. And if there was something in the exquisite sweetness of Leonard's voice, look, and manner, which the countess acknowledged to attain that perfection in high breeding, which, under the name of "suavity," steals its way into the heart, so her interest in him was aroused by a certain subdued melancholy which is rarely without distinction, and never without charm. He and Helen exchanged but few words. There was but one occasion in which they could have spoken apart, and Helen herself contrived to elude it. His face brightened at Lady Lansmere's cordial invitation, and he glanced at Helen as he accepted it; but her eye did not meet his own. "And now," said Harley, whistling to Nero, whom his ward was silently caressing, "I must take Leonard away. Adieu! all of you, till to-morrow at dinner. Miss Violante, is the doll to have blue eyes or black?" Violante turned her own black eyes in mute appeal to Lady Lansmere, and nestled to that lady's side as if in refuge from unworthy insult. CHAPTER XII. "Let the carriage go to the Clarendon," said Harley to his servant; "I and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, I think you would rejoice at an occasion to serve your old friends, Dr. Riccabocca and his daughter?" "Serve them! Oh, yes." And there instantly returned to Leonard the recollection of Violante's words when, on leaving his quiet village, he had sighed to part from all those he loved; and the little dark-eyed girl had said, proudly, yet consolingly, "But to SERVE those you love!" He turned to L'Estrange, with beaming, inquisitive eyes. "I said to our friend," resumed Harley, "that I would vouch for your honour as my own. I am about to prove my words, and to confide the secrets which your penetration has indeed divined,--our friend is not what he seems." Harley then briefly related to Leonard the particulars of the exile's history, the rank he had held in his native land, the manner in which, partly through the misrepresentations of a kinsman he had trusted, partly through the influence of a wife he had loved, he had been drawn into schemes which he believed bounded to the emancipation of Italy from a foreign yoke by the united exertions of her best and bravest sons. "A noble ambition!" interrupted Leonard, manfully. "And pardon me, my Lord, I should not have thought that you would speak of it in a tone that implies blame." "The ambition in itself was noble," answered Harley; "but the cause to which it was devoted became defiled in its dark channel through Secret Societies. It is the misfortune of all miscellaneous political combinations, that with the purest motives of their more generous members are ever mixed the most sordid interests, and the fiercest passions of mean confederates. When those combinations act openly, and in daylight, under the eye of Public Opinion, the healthier elements usually prevail; where they are shrouded in mystery, where they are subjected to no censor in the discussion of the impartial and dispassionate, where chiefs working in the dark exact blind obedience, and every man who is at war with law is at once admitted as a friend of freedom, the history of the world tells us that patriotism soon passes away. Where all is in public, public virtue, by the natural sympathies of the common mind, and by the wholesome control of shame, is likely to obtain ascendancy; where all is in private, and shame is but for him who refuses the abnegation of his conscience, each man seeks the indulgence of his private vice. And hence in Secret Societies (from which may yet proceed great danger to all Europe) we find but foul and hateful Eleusinia, affording pretexts to the ambition of the great, to the license of the penniless, to the passions of the revengeful, to the anarchy of the ignorant. In a word, the societies of these Italian Carbonari did but engender schemes in which the abler chiefs disguised new forms of despotism, and in which the revolutionary many looked forward to the overthrow of all the institutions that stand between Law and Chaos. Naturally, therefore," added L'Estrange, dryly, "when their schemes were detected, and the conspiracy foiled, it was for the silly, honest men entrapped into the league to suffer, the leaders turned king's evidence, and the common mercenaries became--banditti." Harley then proceeded to state that it was just when the /soi-disant/ Riccabocca had discovered the true nature and ulterior views of the conspirators he had joined, and actually withdrawn from their councils, that he was denounced by the kinsman who had duped him into the enterprise, and who now profited by his treason. Harley next spoke of the packet despatched by Riccabocca's dying wife, as it was supposed, to Mrs. Bertram; and of the hopes he founded on the contents of that packet, if discovered. He then referred to the design which had brought Peschiera to England,--a design which that personage had avowed with such effrontery to his companions at Vienna, that he had publicly laid wagers on his success. "But these men can know nothing of England, of the safety of English laws," said Leonard, naturally. "We take it for granted that Riccabocca, if I am still so to call him, refuses his consent to the marriage between his daughter and his foe. Where, then, the danger? This count, even if Violante were not under your mother's roof, could not get an opportunity to see her. He could not attack the house and carry her off like a feudal baron in the middle ages." "All this is very true," answered Harley. "Yet I have found through life that we cannot estimate danger by external circumstances, but by the character of those from whom it is threatened. This count is a man of singular audacity, of no mean natural talents,--talents practised in every art of duplicity and intrigue; one of those men whose boast it is that they succeed in whatever they undertake; and he is, here, urged on the one hand by all that can whet the avarice, and on the other, by all that can give invention to despair. Therefore, though I cannot guess what plan he may possibly adopt, I never doubt that some plan, formed with cunning and pursued with daring, will be embraced the moment he discovers Violante's retreat,--unless, indeed, we can forestall all peril by the restoration of her father, and the detection of the fraud and falsehood to which Peschiera owes the fortune he appropriates. Thus, while we must prosecute to the utmost our inquiries for the missing documents, so it should be our care to possess ourselves, if possible, of such knowledge of the count's machinations as may enable us to defeat them. Now, it was with satisfaction that I learned in Germany that Peschiera's sister was in London. I knew enough both of his disposition and of the intimacy between himself and this lady, to make me think it probable he will seek to make her his instrument and accomplice, should he require one. Peschiera (as you may suppose by his audacious wager) is not one of those secret villains who would cut off their right hand if it could betray the knowledge of what was done by the left,--rather one of those self-confident vaunting knaves of high animal spirits, and conscience so obtuse that it clouds their intellect, who must have some one to whom they can boast of their abilities and confide their projects. And Peschiera has done all he can to render this poor woman so wholly dependent on him as to be his slave and his tool. But I have learned certain traits in her character that show it to be impressionable to good, and with tendencies to honour. Peschiera had taken advantage of the admiration she excited, some years ago, in a rich young Englishman, to entice this admirer into gambling, and sought to make his sister both a decoy and an instrument in his designs of plunder. She did not encourage the addresses of our countryman, but she warned him of the snare laid for him, and entreated him to leave the place lest her brother should discover and punish her honesty. The Englishman told me this himself. In fine, my hope of detaching this lady from Peschiera's interests, and inducing her to forewarn us of his purpose, consists but in the innocent, and, I hope, laudable artifice, of redeeming herself,-- of appealing to, and calling into disused exercise, the better springs of her nature." Leonard listened with admiration and some surprise to the singularly subtle and sagacious insight into character which Harley evinced in the brief clear strokes by which he had thus depicted Peschiera and Beatrice, and was struck by the boldness with which Harley rested a whole system of action upon a few deductions drawn from his reasonings on human motive and characteristic bias. Leonard had not expected to find so much practical acuteness in a man who, however accomplished, usually seemed indifferent, dreamy, and abstracted to the ordinary things of life. But Harley L'Estrange was one of those whose powers lie dormant till circumstance applies to them all they need for activity,--the stimulant of a motive. Harley resumed: "After a conversation I had with the lady last night, it occurred to me that in this part of our diplomacy you could render us essential service. Madame di Negra--such is the sister's name--has conceived an admiration for your genius, and a strong desire to know you personally. I have promised to present you to her; and I shall do so after a preliminary caution. The lady is very handsome, and very fascinating. It is possible that your heart and your senses may not be proof against her attractions." "Oh, do not fear that!" exclaimed Leonard, with a tone of conviction so earnest that Harley smiled. "Forewarned is not always forearmed against the might of beauty, my dear Leonard; so I cannot at once accept your assurance. But listen to me! Watch yourself narrowly, and if you find that you are likely to be captivated, promise, on your honour, to retreat at once from the field. I have no right, for the sake of another, to expose you to danger; and Madame di Negra, whatever may be her good qualities, is the last person I should wish to see you in love with." "In love with her! Impossible!" "Impossible is a strong word," returned Harley; "still I own fairly (and this belief alone warrants me in trusting you to her fascinations), that I do think, as far as one man can judge of another, that she is not the woman to attract you; and if filled by one pure and generous object in your intercourse with her, you will see her with purged eyes. Still I claim your promise as one of honour." "I give it," said Leonard, positively. "But how can I serve Riccabocca? How aid in--" "Thus," interrupted Harley: "the spell of your writings is, that, unconsciously to ourselves, they make us better and nobler. And your writings are but the impressions struck off from your mind. Your conversation, when you are roused, has the same effect. And as you grow more familiar with Madame di Negra, I wish you to speak of your boyhood, your youth. Describe the exile as you have seen him,--so touching amidst his foibles, so grand amidst the petty privations of his fallen fortunes, so benevolent while poring over his hateful Machiavelli, so stingless in his wisdom of the serpent, so playfully astute in his innocence of the dove--I leave the picture to your knowledge of humour and pathos. Describe Violante brooding over her Italian Poets, and filled with dreams of her fatherland; describe her with all the flashes of her princely nature, shining forth through humble circumstance and obscure position; waken in your listener compassion, respect, admiration for her kindred exiles,--and I think our work is done. She will recognize evidently those whom her brother seeks. She will question you closely where you met with them, where they now are. Protect that secret; say at once that it is not your own. Against your descriptions and the feelings they excite, she will not be guarded as against mine. And there are other reasons why your influence over this woman of mixed nature may be more direct and effectual than my own." "Nay, I cannot conceive that." "Believe it, without asking me to explain," answered Harley. For he did not judge it necessary to say to Leonard: "I am high-born and wealthy, you a peasant's son, and living by your exertions. This woman is ambitious and distressed. She might have projects on me that would counteract mine on her. You she would but listen to, and receive, through the sentiments of good or of poetical that are in her; you she would have no interest to subjugate, no motive to ensnare." "And now," said Harley, turning the subject, "I have another object in view. This foolish sage friend of ours, in his bewilderment and fears, has sought to save Violante from one rogue by promising her hand to a man who, unless my instincts deceive me, I suspect much disposed to be another. Sacrifice such exuberance of life and spirit to that bloodless heart, to that cold and earthward intellect! By Heaven, it shall not be!" "But whom can the exile possibly have seen of birth and fortunes to render him a fitting spouse for his daughter? Whom, my Lord, except yourself?" "Me!" exclaimed Harley, angrily, and changing colour. "I worthy of such a creature?---I, with my habits! I, silken egotist that I am! And you, a poet, to form such an estimate of one who might be the queen of a poet's dreasn!" "My Lord, when we sat the other night round Riccabocca's hearth, when I heard her speak, and observed you listen, I said to myself, from such knowledge of human nature as comes, we know not how, to us poets,--I said, 'Harley L'Estrange has looked long and wistfully on the heavens, and he now hears the murmur of the wings that can waft him towards them.' And then I sighed, for I thought how the world rules us all in spite of ourselves, and I said, 'What pity for both, that the exile's daughter is not the worldly equal of the peer's son!' And you too sighed, as I thus thought; and I fancied that, while you listened to the music of the wing, you felt the iron of the chain. But the exile's daughter is your equal in birth, and you are her equal in heart and in soul." "My poor Leonard, you rave," answered Harley, calmly. "And if Violante is not to be some young prince's bride, she should be some young poet's." "Poet's! Oh, no!" said Leonard, with a gentle laugh. "Poets need repose where they love!" Harley was struck by the answer, and mused over it in silence. "I comprehend," thought he; "it is a new light that dawns on me. What is needed by the man whose whole life is one strain after glory--whose soul sinks, in fatigue, to the companionship of earth--is not the love of a nature like his own. He is right,--it is repose! While I!--it is true; boy that he is, his intuitions are wiser than all my experience! It is excitement, energy, elevation, that Love should bestow on me. But I have chosen; and, at least, with Helen my life will be calm, and my hearth sacred. Let the rest sleep in the same grave as my youth." "But," said Leonard, wishing kindly to arouse his noble friend from a revery which he felt was mournful, though he did not divine its true cause,--"but you have not yet told me the name of the signorina's suitor. May I know?" "Probably one you never heard of. Randal Leslie,--a placeman. You refused a place; you were right." "Randal Leslie? Heaven forbid!" cried Leonard, revealing his surprise at the name. "Amen! But what do you know of him? "Leonard related the story of Burley's pamphlet." Harley seemed delighted to hear his suspicions of Randal confirmed. "The paltry pretender;--and yet I fancied that he might be formidable! However, we must dismiss him for the present,--we are approaching Madame di Negra's house. Prepare yourself, and remember your promise." CHAPTER XIII. Some days have passed by. Leonard and Beatrice di Negra have already made friends. Harley is satisfied with his young friend's report. He himself has been actively occupied. He has sought, but hitherto in vain, all trace of Mrs. Bertram; he has put that investigation into the hands of his lawyer, and his lawyer has not been more fortunate than himself. Moreover, Harley has blazed forth again in the London world, and promises again /de faire fureur/; but he has always found time to spend some hours in the twenty-four at his father's house. He has continued much the same tone with Violante, and she begins to accustom herself to it, and reply saucily. His calm courtship to Helen flows on in silence. Leonard, too, has been a frequent guest at the Lansmeres: all welcome and like him there. Peschiera has not evinced any sign of the deadly machinations ascribed to him. He goes less into the drawing-room world; for in that world he meets Lord L'Estrange; and brilliant and handsome though Peschiera be, Lord L'Estrange, like Rob Roy Macgregor, is "on his native heath," and has the decided advantage over the foreigner. Peschiera, however, shines in the clubs, and plays high. Still, scarcely an evening passes in which he and Baron Levy do not meet. Audley Egerton has been intensely occupied with affairs, only seen once by Harley. Harley then was about to deliver himself of his sentiments respecting Randal Leslie, and to communicate the story of Burley and the pamphlet. Egerton stopped him short. "My dear Harley, don't try to set me against this young man. I wish to hear nothing in his disfavour. In the first place, it would not alter the line of conduct I mean to adopt with regard to him. He is my wife's kinsman; I charged myself with his career, as a wish of hers, and therefore as a duty to myself. In attaching him so young to my own fate, I drew him necessarily away from the professions in which his industry and talents (for he has both in no common degree) would have secured his fortunes; therefore, be he bad, be he good, I shall try to provide for him as I best can; and, moreover, cold as I am to him, and worldly though perhaps he be, I have somehow or other conceived an interest in him, a liking to him. He has been under my roof, he is dependent on me; he has been docile and prudent, and I am a lone childless man; therefore, spare him, since in so doing you spare me; and ah, Harley, I have so many cares on me now that--" "Oh, say no more, my dear, dear Audley," cried the generous friend; "how little people know you!" Audley's hand trembled. Certainly his nerves began to show wear and tear. Meanwhile, the object of this dialogue--the type of perverted intellect, of mind without heart, of knowledge which had no aim but power--was in a state of anxious, perturbed gloom. He did not know whether wholly to believe Levy's assurance of his patron's ruin. He could not believe it when he saw that great house in Grosvenor Square, its hall crowded with lacqueys, its sideboard blazing with plate; when no dun was ever seen in the antechamber; when not a tradesman was ever known to call twice for a bill. He hinted to Levy the doubts all these phenomena suggested to him; but the baron only smiled ominously, and said, "True, the tradesmen are always paid; but the how is the question! Randal, /mon cher/, you are too innocent. I have but two pieces of advice to suggest, in the shape of two proverbs,--'Wise rats run from a falling house,' and, 'Make hay while the sun shines.' /A propos/, Mr. Avenel likes you greatly, and has been talking of the borough of Lansmere for you. He has contrived to get together a great interest there. Make much of him." Randal had indeed been to Mrs. Avenel's /soiree dansante/, and called twice and found her at home, and been very bland and civil, and admired the children. She had two, a boy and a girl, very like their father, with open faces as bold as brass. And as all this had won Mrs. Avenel's good graces, so it had propitiated her husband's. Avenel was shrewd enough to see how clever Randal was. He called him "smart," and said "he would have got on in America," which was the highest praise Dick Avenel ever accorded to any man. But Dick himself looked a little careworn; and this was the first year in which he had murmured at the bills of his wife's dressmaker, and said with an oath, that "there was such a thing as going too much ahead." Randal had visited Dr. Riccabocca, and found Violante flown. True to his promise to Harley, the Italian refused to say where, and suggested, as was agreed, that for the present it would be more prudent if Randal suspended his visits to himself. Leslie, not liking this proposition, attempted to make himself still necessary by working on Riccabocca's fears as to that espionage on his retreat, which had been among the reasons that had hurried the sage into offering Randal Violante's hand. But Riccabocca had already learned that the fancied spy was but his neighbour Leonard; and, without so saying, he cleverly contrived to make the supposition of such espionage an additional reason for the cessation of Leslie's visits. Randal then, in his own artful, quiet, roundabout way, had sought to find out if any communication had passed between L'Estrange and Riccabocca. Brooding over Harley's words to him, he suspected there had been such communication, with his usual penetrating astuteness. Riceabocca, here, was less on his guard, and rather parried the sidelong questions than denied their inferences. Randal began already to surmise the truth. Where was it likely Violante should go but to the Lansmeres? This confirmed his idea of Harley's pretensions to her hand. With such a rival what chance had he? Randal never doubted for a moment that the pupil of Machiavelli would "throw him over," if such an alliance to his daughter really presented itself. The schemer at once discarded from his objects all further aim on Violante; either she would be poor, and he would not have her; or she would be rich, and her father would give her to another. As his heart had never been touched by the fair Italian, so the moment her inheritance became more doubtful, it gave him no pang to lose her; but he did feel very sore and resentful at the thought of being supplanted by Lord L'Estrange,--the man who had insulted him. Neither, as yet, had Randal made any way in his designs on Frank. For several days Madame di Negra had not been at home either to himself or young Hazeldean; and Frank, though very unhappy, was piqued and angry; and Randal suspected, and suspected, and suspected, he knew not exactly what, but that the devil was not so kind to him there as that father of lies ought to have been to a son so dutiful. Yet, with all these discouragements, there was in Randal Leslie so dogged and determined a conviction of his own success, there was so great a tenacity of purpose under obstacles, and so vigilant an eye upon all chances that could be turned to his favour, that he never once abandoned hope, nor did more than change the details in his main schemes. Out of calculations apparently the most far-fetched and improbable, he had constructed a patient policy, to which he obstinately clung. How far his reasonings and patience served to his ends remains yet to be seen. But could our contempt for the baseness of Randal himself be separated from the faculties which he elaborately degraded to the service of that baseness, one might allow that there was something one could scarcely despise in this still self-reliance, this inflexible resolve. Had such qualities, aided as they were by abilities of no ordinary acuteness, been applied to objects commonly honest, one would have backed Randal Leslie against any fifty picked prize-men from the colleges. But there are judges of weight and metal who do that now, especially Baron Levy, who says to himself as he eyes that pale face all intellect, and that spare form all nerve, "This is a man who must make way in life; he is worth helping." By the words "worth helping" Baron Levy meant "worth getting into my power, that he may help me." CHAPTER XIV. But parliament had met. Events that belong to history had contributed yet more to weaken the administration. Randal Leslie's interest became absorbed in politics, for the stake to him was his whole political career. Should Audley lose office, and for good, Audley could aid him no more; but to abandon his patron, as Levy recommended, and pin himself, in the hope of a seat in parliament, to a stranger,--an obscure stranger, like Dick Avenel,--that was a policy not to be adopted at a breath. Meanwhile, almost every night, when the House met, that pale face and spare form, which Levy so identified with shrewdness and energy, might be seen amongst the benches appropriated to those more select strangers who obtain the Speaker's order of admission. There, Randal heard the great men of that day, and with the half-contemptuous surprise at their fame, which is common enough amongst clever, well-educated young men, who know not what it is to speak in the House of Commons. He heard much slovenly English, much trite reasoning, some eloquent thoughts, and close argument, often delivered in a jerking tone of voice (popularly called the parliamentary twang), and often accompanied by gesticulations that would have shocked the manager of a provincial theatre. He thought how much better than these great dons (with but one or two exceptions), he himself could speak,--with what more refined logic, with what more polished periods, how much more like Cicero and Burke! Very probably he might have so spoken, and for that very reason have made that deadest of all dead failures,--a pretentious imitation of Burke and Cicero. One thing, however, he was obliged to own,--namely, that in a popular representative assembly, it is not precisely knowledge which is power, or if knowledge, it is but the knowledge of that particular assembly, and what will best take with it; passion, invective, sarcasm, bold declamation, shrewd common-sense, the readiness so rarely found in a very profound mind,--he owned that all these were the qualities that told; when a man who exhibited nothing but "knowledge," in the ordinary sense of the word, stood an imminent chance of being coughed down. There at his left--last but one in the row of the ministerial chiefs-- Randal watched Audley Egerton, his arms folded on his breast, his hat drawn over his brows, his eyes fixed with steady courage on whatever speaker in the Opposition held possession of the floor. And twice Randal heard Egerton speak, and marvelled much at the effect that minister produced. For of those qualities enumerated above, and which Randal had observed to be most sure of success, Audley Egerton only exhibited to a marked degree the common-sense and the readiness. And yet, though but little applauded by noisy cheers, no speaker seemed more to satisfy friends, and command respect from foes. The true secret was this, which Randal might well not divine, since that young person, despite his ancient birth, his Eton rearing, and his refined air, was not one of Nature's gentlemen,--the true secret was, that Audley Egerton moved, looked, and spoke like a thorough gentleman of England,--a gentleman of more than average talents and of long experience, speaking his sincere opinions, not a rhetorician aiming at effect. Moreover, Egerton was a consummate man of the world. He said, with nervous simplicity, what his party desired to be said, and put what his opponents felt to be the strong points of the case. Calm and decorous, yet spirited and energetic, with little variety of tone, and action subdued and rare, but yet signalized by earnest vigour, Audley Egerton impressed the understanding of the dullest, and pleased the taste of the most fastidious. But once, when allusions were made to a certain popular question, on which the premier had announced his resolution to refuse all concession, and on the expediency of which it was announced that the Cabinet was nevertheless divided, and when such allusions were coupled with direct appeals to Mr. Egerton, as "the enlightened member of a great commercial constituency," and with a flattering doubt that "that Right Honourable gentleman, member for that great city, identified with the cause of the Burgher class, could be so far behind the spirit of the age as his official chief,"--Randal observed that Egerton drew his hat still more closely over his brows, and turned to whisper with one of his colleagues. He could not be got up to speak. That evening Randal walked home with Egerton, and intimated his surprise that the minister had declined what seemed to him a good occasion for one of those brief, weighty replies by which Audley was chiefly distinguished,--an occasion to which he had been loudly invited by the "hears" of the House. "Leslie," answered the statesman, briefly, "I owe all my success in parliament to this rule,--I have never spoken against my convictions. I intend to abide by it to the last." "But if the question at issue comes before the House, you will vote against it?" "Certainly, I vote as a member of the Cabinet. But since I am not leader and mouthpiece of the party, I retain as an individual the privilege to speak or keep silence." "Ah, my dear Mr. Egerton," exclaimed Randal, "forgive me. But this question, right or wrong, has got such hold of the public mind. So little, if conceded in time, would give content; and it is so clear (if I may judge by the talk I hear everywhere I go) that by refusing all concession, the Government must fall, that I wish--" "So do I wish," interrupted Egerton, with a gloomy, impatient sigh,--"so do I wish! But what avails it? If my advice had been taken but three weeks ago--now it is too late--we could have doubled the rock; we refused, we must split upon it." This speech was so unlike the discreet and reserved minister, that Randal gathered courage to proceed with an idea that had occurred to his own sagacity. And before I state it, I must add that Egerton had of late shown much more personal kindness to his protege; whether his spirits were broken, or that at last, close and compact as his nature of bronze was, he felt the imperious want to groan aloud in some loving ear, the stern Audley seemed tamed and softened. So Randal went on, "May I say what I have heard expressed with regard to you and your position--in the streets, in the clubs?" "Yes, it is in the streets and the clubs that statesmen should go to school. Say on." "Well, then, I have heard it made a matter of wonder why you, and one or two others I will not name, do not at once retire from the ministry, and on the avowed ground that you side with the public feeling on this irresistible question." "Eh!" "It is clear that in so doing you would become the most popular man in the country,--clear that you would be summoned back to power on the shoulders of the people. No new Cabinet could be formed without you, and your station in it would perhaps be higher, for life, than that which you may now retain but for a few weeks longer. Has not this ever occurred to you?" "Never," said Audley, with dry composure. Amazed at such obtuseness, Randal exclaimed, "Is it possible! And yet, forgive me if I say I think you are ambitious, and love power." "No man more ambitious; and if by power you mean office, it has grown the habit of my life, and I shall not know what to do without it." "And how, then, has what seems to me so obvious never occurred to you?" "Because you are young, and therefore I forgive you; but not the gossips who could wonder why Audley Egerton refused to betray the friends of his whole career, and to profit by the treason." "But one should love one's country before a party." "No doubt of that; and the first interest of a country is the honour of its public men." "But men may leave their party without dishonour!" "Who doubts that? Do you suppose that if I were an ordinary independent member of parliament, loaded with no obligations, charged with no trust, I could hesitate for a moment what course to pursue? Oh, that I were but the member for ----------! Oh, that I had the full right to be a free agent! But if a member of a Cabinet, a chief in whom thousands confide, because he is outvoted in a council of his colleagues, suddenly retires, and by so doing breaks up the whole party whose confidence he has enjoyed, whose rewards he has reaped, to whom he owes the very position which he employs to their ruin,--own that though his choice may be honest, it is one which requires all the consolations of conscience." "But you will have those consolations. And," added Randal, energetically, "the gain to your career will be so immense!" "That is precisely what it cannot be," answered Egerton, gloomily. "I grant that I may, if I choose, resign office with the present Government, and so at once destroy that Government; for my resignation on such ground would suffice to do it. I grant this; but for that very reason I could not the next day take office with another administration. I could not accept wages for desertion. No gentleman could! and therefore--" Audley stopped short, and buttoned his coat over his broad breast. The action was significant; it said that the man's mind was made up. In fact, whether Audley Egerton was right or wrong in his theory depends upon much subtler, and perhaps loftier, views in the casuistry of political duties, than it was in his character to take. And I guard myself from saying anything in praise or disfavour of his notions, or implying that he is a fit or unfit example in a parallel case. I am but describing the man as he was, and as a man like him would inevitably be, under the influences in which he lived, and in that peculiar world of which he was so emphatically a member. "Ce n'est pas moi qui parle, c'est Marc Aurele." He speaks, not I. Randal had no time for further discussion. They now reached Egerton's house, and the minister, taking the chamber candlestick from his servant's hand, nodded a silent goodnight to Leslie, and with a jaded look retired to his room. CHAPTER XV. But not on the threatened question was that eventful campaign of Party decided. The Government fell less in battle than skirmish. It was one fatal Monday--a dull question of finance and figures. Prosy and few were the speakers,--all the Government silent, save the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and another business-like personage connected with the Board of Trade, whom the House would hardly condescend to hear. The House was in no mood to think of facts and figures. Early in the evening, between nine and ten, the Speaker's sonorous voice sounded, "Strangers must withdraw!" And Randal, anxious and foreboding, descended from his seat and went out of the fatal doors. He turned to take a last glance at Audley Egerton. The whipper-in was whispering to Audley; and the minister pushed back his hat from his brows, and glanced round the House, and up into the galleries, as if to calculate rapidly the relative numbers of the two armies in the field; then be smiled bitterly, and threw himself back into his seat. That smile long haunted Leslie. Amongst the strangers thus banished with Randal, while the division was being taken, were many young men, like himself, connected with the administration,--some by blood, some by place. Hearts beat loud in the swarming lobbies. Ominous mournful whispers were exchanged. "They say the Government will have a majority of ten." "No; I hear they will certainly be beaten." "H--says by fifty." "I don't believe it," said a Lord of the Bedchamber; "it is impossible. I left five Government members dining at The Travellers." "No one thought the division would be so early." "A trick of the Whigs-shameful!" "Wonder some one was not set up to talk for time; very odd P--did not speak; however, he is so cursedly rich, he does not care whether he is out or in." "Yes; and Audley Egerton too, just such another: glad, no doubt, to be set free to look after his property; very different tactics if we had men to whom office was as necessary as it is--to me!" said a candid young placeman. Suddenly the silent Leslie felt a friendly grasp on his arm. He turned and saw Levy. "Did I not tell you?" said the baron, with an exulting smile. "You are sure, then, that the Government will be outvoted?" "I spent the morning in going over the list of members with a parliamentary client of mine, who knows them all as a shepherd does his sheep. Majority for the Opposition at least twenty-five." "And in that case must the Government resign, sir?" asked the candid young placeman, who had been listening to the smart, well-dressed baron, "his soul planted in his ears." "Of course, sir," replied the baron, blandly, and offering his snuff-box (true Louis Quinze, with a miniature of Madame de Pompadour, set in pearls). "You are a friend to the present ministers? You could not wish them to be mean enough to stay in?" Randal drew aside the baron. "If Audley's affairs are as you state, what can he do?" "I shall ask him that question to-morrow," answered the baron, with a look of visible hate; "and I have come here just to see how he bears the prospect before him." "You will not discover that in his face. And those absurd scruples of his! If he had but gone out in time--to come in again with the New Men!" "Oh, of course, our Right Honourable is too punctilious for that!" answered the baron, sneering. Suddenly the doors opened, in rushed the breathless expectants. "What are the numbers? What is the division?" "Majority against ministers," said a member of Opposition, peeling an orange, "twenty-nine." The baron, too, had a Speaker's order; and he came into the House with Randal, and sat by his side. But, to their disgust, some member was talking about the other motions before the House. "What! has nothing been said as to the division?" asked the baron of a young county member, who was talking to some non-parliamentary friend in the bench before Levy. The county member was one of the baron's pet eldest sons, had dined often with Levy, was under "obligations" to him. The young legislator looked very much ashamed of Levy's friendly pat on his shoulder, and answered hurriedly, "Oh, yes; H------ asked if, after such an expression of the House, it was the intention of ministers to retain their places, and carry on the business of the Government." "Just like H-------! Very inquisitive mind! And what was the answer he got?" "None," said the county member; and returned in haste to his proper seat in the body of the House. "There comes Egerton," said the baron. And, indeed, as most of the members were now leaving the House, to talk over affairs at clubs or in saloons, and spread through town the great tidings, Audley Egerton's tall head was seen towering above the rest. And Levy turned away disappointed. For not only was the minister's handsome face, though pale, serene and cheerful, but there was an obvious courtesy, a marked respect, in the mode in which that assembly--heated though it was--made way for the fallen minister as he passed through the jostling crowd. And the frank urbane nobleman, who afterwards, from the force, not of talent but of character, became the leader in that House, pressed the hand of his old opponent, as they met in the throng near the doors, and said aloud, "I shall not be a proud man if ever I live to have office; but I shall be proud if ever I leave it with as little to be said against me as your bitterest opponents can say against you, Egerton." "I wonder," exclaimed the baron, aloud, and leaning over the partition that divided him from the throng below, so that his voice reached Egerton--and there was a cry from formal, indignant members, "Order in the strangers' gallery I wonder what Lord L'Estrange will say?" Audley lifted his dark brows, surveyed the baron for an instant with flashing eyes, then walked down the narrow defile between the last benches, and vanished from the scene, in which, alas! so few of the most admired performers leave more than an actor's short-lived name! CHAPTER XVI. Baron Levy did not execute his threat of calling on Egerton the next morning. Perhaps he shrank from again meeting the flash of those indignant eyes. And indeed Egerton was too busied all the forenoon to see any one not upon public affairs, except Harley, who hastened to console or cheer him. When the House met, it was announced that the ministers had resigned, only holding their offices till their successors were appointed. But already there was some reaction in their favour; and when it became generally known that the new administration was to be formed of men few indeed of whom had ever before held office, the common superstition in the public mind that government is like a trade, in which a regular apprenticeship must be served, began to prevail; and the talk at the clubs was that the new men could not stand; that the former ministry, with some modification, would be back in a month. Perhaps that too might be a reason why Baron Levy thought it prudent not prematurely to offer vindictive condolences to Mr. Egerton. Randal spent part of his morning in inquiries as to what gentlemen in his situation meant to do with regard to their places; he heard with great satisfaction that very few intended to volunteer retirement from their desks. As Randal himself had observed to Egerton, "Their country before their party!" Randal's place was of great moment to him; its duties were easy, its salary amply sufficient for his wants, and defrayed such expenses as were bestowed on the education of Oliver and his sister. For I am bound to do justice to this young man,--indifferent as he was towards his species in general, the ties of family were strong with him; and he stinted himself in many temptations most alluring to his age, in the endeavour to raise the dull honest Oliver and the loose-haired pretty Juliet somewhat more to his own level of culture and refinement. Men essentially griping and unscrupulous often do make the care for their family an apology for their sins against the world. Even Richard III., if the chroniclers are to be trusted, excused the murder of his nephews by his passionate affection for his son. With the loss of that place, Randal lost all means of support, save what Audley could give him; and if Audley were in truth ruined? Moreover, Randal had already established at the office a reputation for ability and industry. It was a career in which, if he abstained from party politics, he might rise to a fair station and to a considerable income. Therefore, much contented with what he learned as to the general determination of his fellow officials, a determination warranted by ordinary precedent in such cases, Randal dined at a club with good relish, and much Christian resignation for the reverse of his patron, and then walked to Grosvenor Square, on the chance of finding Audley within. Learning that he was so, from the porter who opened the door, Randal entered the library. Three gentlemen were seated there with Egerton: one of the three was Lord L'Estrange; the other two were members of the really defunct, though nominally still existing, Government. He was about to withdraw from intruding on this conclave, when Egerton said to him gently, "Come in, Leslie; I was just speaking about yourself." "About me, sir?" "Yes; about you and the place you hold. I had asked Sir ----[pointing to a fellow minister] whether I might not, with propriety, request your chief to leave some note of his opinion of your talents, which I know is high, and which might serve you with his successor." "Oh, sir, at such a time to think of me!" exclaimed Randal, and he was genuinely touched. "But," resumed Audley, with his usual dryness, "Sir ----, to my surprise, thinks that it would better become you that you should resign. Unless his reasons, which he has not yet stated, are very strong, such would not be my advice." "My reasons," said Sir ----, with official formality, "are simply these: I have a nephew in a similar situation; he will resign, as a matter of course. Every one in the public offices whose relations and near connections hold high appointments in the Government will do so. I do not think Mr. Leslie will like to feel himself a solitary exception." "Mr. Leslie is no relation of mine,--not even a near connection," answered Egerton. "But his name is so associated with your own: he has resided so long in your house, is so well known in society (and don't think I compliment when I add, that we hope so well of him), that I can't think it worth his while to keep this paltry place, which incapacitates him too from a seat in parliament." Sir ---- was one of those terribly rich men, to whom all considerations of mere bread and cheese are paltry. But I must add that he supposed Egerton to be still wealthier than himself, and sure to provide handsomely for Randal, whom Sir ---- rather liked than not; and for Randal's own sake, Sir ---- thought it would lower him in the estimation of Egerton himself, despite that gentleman's advocacy, if he did not follow the example of his avowed and notorious patron. "You see, Leslie," said Egerton, checking Randal's meditated reply, "that nothing can be said against your honour if you stay where you are; it is a mere question of expediency; I will judge that for you; keep your place." Unhappily the other member of the Government, who had hitherto been silent, was a literary man. Unhappily, while this talk had proceeded, he had placed his hand upon Randal Leslie's celebrated pamphlet, which lay on the library table; and, turning over the leaves, the whole spirit and matter of that masterly composition in defence of the administration (a composition steeped in all the essence of party) recurred to his too faithful recollection. He, too, liked Randal; he did more,--he admired the author of that striking and effective pamphlet. And therefore, rousing himself from the sublime indifference he had before felt for the fate of a subaltern, he said, with a bland and complimentary smile, "No; the writer of this most able publication is no ordinary placeman. His opinions here are too vigorously stated; this fine irony on the very person who in all probability will be the chief in his office has excited too lively an attention to allow him the /sedet eternumque sedebit/ on an official stool. Ha, ha! this is so good! Read it, L'Estrange. What say you?" Harley glanced over the page pointed out to him. The original was in one of Burley's broad, coarse, but telling burlesques, strained fine through Randal's more polished satire. It was capital. Harley smiled, and lifted his eyes to Randal. The unlucky plagiarist's face was flushed,--the beads stood on his brow. Harley was a good hater; he loved too warmly not to err on the opposite side; but he was one of those men who forget hate when its object is distressed and humbled. He put down the pamphlet and said, "I am no politician; but Egerton is so well known to be fastidious and over-scrupulous in all points of official etiquette, that Mr. Leslie cannot follow a safer counsellor." "Read that yourself, Egerton," said Sir ----; and he pushed the pamphlet to Audley. Now Egerton had a dim recollection that that pamphlet was unlucky; but he had skimmed over its contents hastily, and at that moment had forgotten all about it. He took up the too famous work with a reluctant hand, but he read attentively the passages pointed out to him, and then said gravely and sadly, "Mr. Leslie, I retract my advice. I believe Sir ---- is right,--that the nobleman here so keenly satirized will be the chief in your office. I doubt whether he will not compel your dismissal; at all events, he could scarcely be expected to promote your advancement. Under the circumstances, I fear you have no option as a--" Egerton paused a moment, and, with a sigh that seemed to settle the question, concluded with--"as a gentleman." Never did Jack Cade, never did Wat Tyler, feel a more deadly hate to that word "gentleman" than the well-born Leslie felt then; but he bowed his head, and answered with his usual presence of mind, "You utter my own sentiment." "You think we are right, Harley?" asked Egerton, with an irresolution that surprised all present. "I think," answered Harley, with a compassion for Randal that was almost over-generous, and yet with an equivoque on the words, despite the compassion,--"I think whoever has served Audley Egerton never yet has been a loser by it; and if Mr. Leslie wrote this pamphlet, he must have well served Audley Egerton. If he undergoes the penalty, we may safely trust to Egerton for the compensation." "My compensation has long since been made," answered Randal, with grace; "and that Mr. Egerton could thus have cared for my fortunes, at an hour so occupied, is a thought of pride which--" "Enough, Leslie! enough!" interrupted Egerton, rising and pressing his protege's hand. "See me before you go to bed." Then the two other ministers rose also and shook hands with Leslie, and told him he had done the right thing, and that they hoped soon to see him in parliament; and hinted, smilingly, that the next administration did not promise to be very long-lived; and one asked him to dinner, and the other to spend a week at his country-seat. And amidst these congratulations at the stroke that left him penniless, the distinguished pamphleteer left the room. How he cursed big John Burley! CHAPTER XVII. It was past midnight when Audley Egerton summoned Randal. The statesman was then alone, seated before his great desk, with its manifold compartments, and engaged on the task of transferring various papers and letters, some to the waste-basket, some to the flames, some to two great iron chests with patent locks, that stood, open-mouthed, at his feet. Strong, stern, and grim looked those iron chests, silently receiving the relics of power departed; strong, stern, and grim as the grave. Audley lifted his eyes at Randal's entrance, signed to him to take a chair, continued his task for a few moments, and then turning round, as if by an effort he plucked himself from his master-passion,--Public Life, he said, with deliberate tones, "I know not, Randal Leslie, whether you thought me needlessly cautious, or wantonly unkind, when I told you never to expect from me more than such advance to your career as my then position could effect,--never to expect from my liberality in life, nor from my testament in death, an addition to your private fortunes. I see by your gesture what would be your reply, and I thank you for it. I now tell you, as yet in confidence, though before long it can be no secret to the world, that my pecuniary affairs have been so neglected by me in my devotion to those of the State, that I am somewhat like the man who portioned out his capital at so much a day, calculating to live just long enough to make it last. Unfortunately he lived too long." Audley smiled--but the smile was cold as a sunbeam upon ice-and went on with the same firm, unfaltering accents. "The prospects that face me I am prepared for; they do not take me by surprise. I knew long since how this would end, if I survived the loss of office. I knew it before you came to me, and therefore I spoke to you as I did, judging it manful and right to guard you against hopes which you might otherwise have naturally entertained. On this head, I need say no more. It may excite your surprise, possibly your blame, that I, esteemed methodical and practical enough in the affairs of the State, should be so imprudent as to my own." "Oh, sir! you owe no account to me." "To you, at least, as much as to any one. I am a solitary man; my few relations need nothing from me. I had a right do spend what I possessed as I pleased; and if I have spent it recklessly as regards myself, I have not spent it ill in its effect on others. It has been my object for many years to have no Private Life,--to dispense with its sorrows, joys, affections; and as to its duties, they did not exist for me. I have said." Mechanically, as he ended, the minister's hand closed the lid of one of the iron boxes, and on the closed lid he rested his firm foot. "But now," he resumed, "I have failed to advance your career. True, I warned you that you drew into a lottery; but you had more chance of a prize than a blank. A blank, however, it has turned out, and the question becomes grave,--What are you to do?" Here, seeing that Egerton came to a full pause, Randal answered readily, "Still, sir, to go by your advice." "My advice," said Audley, with a softened look, "would perhaps be rude and unpalatable. I would rather place before you an option. On the one hand, recommence life again. I told you that I would keep your name on your college books. You can return, you can take your degree, after that, you can go to the Bar,--you have just the talents calculated to succeed in that profession. Success will be slow, it is true; but, with perseverance, it will be sure. And, believe me, Leslie, Ambition is only sweet while it is but the loftier name for Hope. Who would care for a fox's brush if it had not been rendered a prize by the excitement of the chase?" "Oxford--again! It is a long step back in life," said Randal, drearily, and little heeding Egerton's unusual indulgence of illustration. "A long step back--and to what? To a profession in which one never begins to rise till one's hair is gray. Besides, how live in the mean while?" "Do not let that thought disturb you. The modest income that suffices for a student at the Bar, I trust, at least, to insure you from the wrecks of my fortune." "Ah, sir, I would not burden you further. What right have I to such kindness, save my name of Leslie?" And in spite of himself, as Randal concluded, a tone of bitterness, that betrayed reproach, broke forth. Egerton was too much the man of the world not to comprehend the reproach, and not to pardon it. "Certainly," he answered calmly, "as a Leslie you are entitled to my consideration, and would have been entitled perhaps to more, had I not so explicitly warned you to the contrary. But the Bar does not seem to please you?" "What is the alternative, sir? Let me decide when I hear it," answered Randal, sullenly. He began to lose respect for the roan who owned he could do so little for him, and who evidently recommended him to shift for himself. If one could have pierced into Egerton's gloomy heart as he noted the young man's change of tone, it may be a doubt whether one would have seen there pain or pleasure,--pain, for merely from the force of habit he had begun to like Randal, or pleasure at the thought that he might have reason to withdraw that liking. So lone and stoical had grown the man who had made it his object to have no private life! Revealing, however, neither pleasure nor pain, but with the composed calmness of a judge upon the bench, Egerton replied,-- "The alternative is, to continue in the course you have begun, and still to rely on me." "Sir, my dear Mr. Egerton," exclaimed Randal, regaining all his usual tenderness of look and voice, "rely on you! But that is all I ask. Only" "Only, you would say, I am going out of power, and you don't see the chance of my return?" "I did not mean that." "Permit me to suppose that you did: very true; but the party I belong to is as sure of return as the pendulum of that clock is sure to obey the mechanism that moves it from left to right. Our successors profess to come in upon a popular question. All administrations who do that are necessarily short-lived. Either they do not go far enough to please present supporters, or they go so far as to arm new enemies in the rivals who outbid them with the people. 'T is the historymof all revolutions, and of all reforms. Our own administration in reality is destroyed for having passed what was called a popular measure a year ago, which lost us half our friends, and refusing to propose another popular measure this year, in the which we are outstripped by the men who hallooed us on to the last. Therefore, whatever our successors do, we shall by the law of reaction, have another experiment of power afforded to ourselves. It is but a question of time; you can wait for it,--whether I can is uncertain. But if I die before that day arrives, I have influence enough still left with those who will come in, to obtain a promise of a better provision for you than that which you have lost. The promises of public men are proverbially uncertain; but I shall entrust your cause to a man who never failed a friend, and whose rank will enable him to see that justice is done to you,--I speak of Lord L'Estrange." "Oh, not he; he is unjust to me; he dislikes me; he--" "May dislike you (he has his whims), but he loves me; and though for no other human being but you would I ask Harley L'Estrange a favour, yet for you I will," said Egerton, betraying, for the first time in that dialogue, a visible emotion,--"for you, a Leslie, a kinsman, however remote, to the wife from whom I received my fortune! And despite all my cautions, it is possible that in wasting that fortune I may have wronged you. Enough: you have now before you the two options, much as you had at first; but you have at present more experience to aid you in your choice. You are a man, and with more brains than most men; think over it well, and decide for yourself. Now to bed, and postpone thought till the morrow. Poor Randal, you look pale!" Audley, as he said the last words, put his hand on Randal's shoulder, almost with a father's gentleness; and then suddenly drawing himself up, as the hard inflexible expression, stamped on that face by years, returned, he moved away and resettled to Public Life and the iron box. CHAPTER XVIII. Early the next day Randal Leslie was in the luxurious business-room of Baron Levy. How unlike the cold Doric simplicity of the statesman's library! Axminster carpets, three inches thick; /portieres a la Francaise/ before the doors; Parisian bronzes on the chimney-piece; and all the receptacles that lined the room, and contained title-deeds and postobits and bills and promises to pay and lawyer-like japan boxes, with many a noble name written thereon in large white capitals--"making ruin pompous," all these sepulchres of departed patrimonies veneered in rosewood that gleamed with French polish, and blazed with ormulu. There was a coquetry, an air of /petit maitre/, so diffused over the whole room, that you could not, for the life of you, recollect you were with a usurer! Plutus wore the, aspect of his enemy Cupid; and how realize your idea of Harpagon in that baron, with his easy French "/Mon cher/," and his white, warm hands that pressed yours so genially, and his dress so exquisite, even at the earliest morn? No man ever yet saw that baron in a dressing-gown and slippers! As one fancies some feudal baron of old (not half so terrible) everlastingly clad in mail, so all one's notions of this grand marauder of civilization were inseparably associated with varnished boots and a camellia in the button-hole. "And this is all that he does for you!" cried the baron, pressing together the points of his ten taper fingers. "Had he but let you conclude your career at Oxford, I have heard enough of your scholarship to know that you would have taken high honours, been secure of a fellowship, have betaken yourself with content to a slow and laborious profession, and prepared yourself to die on the woolsack." "He proposes to me now to return to Oxford," said Randal. "It is not too late!" "Yes, it is," said the baron. "Neither individuals nor nations ever go back of their own accord. There must be an earthquake before a river recedes to its source." "You speak well," answered Randal, "and I cannot gainsay you. But now!" "Ah, the now is the grand question in life, the then is obsolete, gone by,--out of fashion; and now, /mon cher/, you come to ask my advice?" "No, Baron, I come to ask your explanation." "Of what?" "I want to know why you spoke to me of Mr. Egerton's ruin; why you spoke to me of the lands to be sold by Mr. Thornhill; and why you spoke to me of Count Peschiera. You touched on each of those points within ten minutes, you omitted to indicate what link can connect them." "By Jove," said the baron, rising, and with more admiration in his face than you could have conceived that face, so smiling and so cynical, could exhibit,--"by Jove, Randal Leslie, but your shrewdness is wonderful. You really are the first young man of your day; and I will 'help you,' as I helped Audley Egerton. Perhaps you will be more grateful." Randal thought of Egerton's ruin. The parallel implied by the baron did not suggest to him the rare enthusiasm of gratitude. However, he merely said, "Pray, proceed; I listen to you with interest." "As for politics, then," said the baron, "we will discuss that topic later. I am waiting myself to see how these new men get on. The first consideration is for your private fortunes. You should buy this ancient Leslie property--Rood and Dulmansberry--only L20,000 down; the rest may remain on mortgage forever--or at least till I find you a rich wife,--as in fact I did for Egerton. Thornhill wants the L20,000 now,--wants them very much." "And where," said Randal, with an iron smile, "are the L20,000 you ascribe to me to come from?" "Ten thousand shall come to you the day Count Peschiera marries the daughter of his kinsman with your help and aid; the remaining ten thousand I will lend you. No scruple, I shall hazard nothing, the estates will bear that additional burden. What say you,--shall it be so?" "Ten thousand pounds from Count Peschiera!" said Randal, breathing hard. "You cannot be serious? Such a sum--for what?--for a mere piece of information? How otherwise can I aid him? There must be trick and deception intended here." "My dear fellow," answered Levy, "I will give you a hint. There is such a thing in life as being over-suspicious. If you have a fault, it is that. The information you allude to is, of course, the first assistance you are to give. Perhaps more may be needed, perhaps not. Of that you will judge yourself, since the L10,000 are contingent on the marriage aforesaid." "Over-suspicious or not," answered Randal, "the amount of the sum is too improbable, and the security too bad, for me to listen to this proposition, even if I could descend to--" "Stop, /mon cher/. Business first, scruples afterwards. The security too bad; what security?" "The word of Count di Peschiera." "He has nothing to do with it, he need know nothing about it. 'T is my word you doubt. I am your security." Randal thought of that dry witticism in Gibbon, "Abu Rafe says he will be witness for this fact, but who will be witness for Abu Rafe?" but he remained silent, only fixing on Levy those dark observant eyes, with their contracted, wary pupils. "The fact is simply this," resumed Levy: "Count di Peschiera has promised to pay his sister a dowry of L20,000, in case he has the money to spare. He can only have it to spare by the marriage we are discussing. On my part, as I manage his affairs in England for him, I have promised that, for the said sum of L20,000, I will guarantee the expenses in the way of that marriage, and settle with Madame di Negra. Now, though Peschiera is a very liberal, warm-hearted fellow, I don't say that he would have named so large a sum for his sister's dowry, if in strict truth he did not owe it to her. It is the amount of her own fortune, which by some arrangements with her late husband, not exactly legal, he possessed himself of. If Madame di Negra went to law with him for it, she could get it back. I have explained this to him; and, in short, you now understand why the sum is thus assessed. But I have bought up Madame di Negra's debts, I have bought up young Hazeldean's (for we must make a match between these two a part of our arrangements). I shall present to Peschiera, and to these excellent young persons, an account that will absorb the whole L20,000. That sum will come into my hands. If I settle the claims against them for half the money, which, making myself the sole creditor, I have the right to do, the moiety will remain. And if I choose to give it to you in return for the services which provide Peschiera with a princely fortune, discharge the debts of his sister, and secure her a husband in my promising young client, Mr. Hazeldean, that is my lookout,--all parties are satisfied, and no one need ever be the wiser. The sum is large, no doubt; it answers to me to give it to you; does it answer to you to receive it?" Randal was greatly agitated; but vile as he was, and systematically as in thought he had brought himself to regard others merely as they could be made subservient to his own interest, still, with all who have not hardened themselves in actual crime, there is a wide distinction between the thought and the act; and though, in the exercise of ingenuity and cunning, he would have had few scruples in that moral swindling which is mildly called "outwitting another," yet thus nakedly and openly to accept a bribe for a deed of treachery towards the poor Italian who had so generously trusted him--he recoiled. He was nerving himself to refuse, when Levy, opening his pocket-book, glanced over the memoranda therein, and said, as to himself, "Rood Manor--Dulmansberry, sold to the Thornhills by Sir Gilbert Leslie, knight of the shire; estimated present net rental L2,250 7s. 0d. It is the greatest bargain I ever knew. And with this estate in hand, and your talents, Leslie, I don't see why you should not rise higher than Audley Egerton. He was poorer than you once!" The old Leslie lands--a positive stake in the country--the restoration of the fallen family; and on the other hand, either long drudgery at the Bar,--a scanty allowance on Egerton's bounty, his sister wasting her youth at slovenly, dismal Rood, Oliver debased into a boor!--or a mendicant's dependence on the contemptuous pity of Harley L'Estrange,-- Harley, who had refused his hand to him, Harley, who perhaps would become the husband of Violante! Rage seized him as these contrasting pictures rose before his view. He walked to and fro in disorder, striving to re-collect his thoughts, and reduce himself from the passions of the human heart into the mere mechanism of calculating intellect. "I cannot conceive," said he, abruptly, "why you should tempt me thus,--what interest it is to you!" Baron Levy smiled, and put up his pocket-book. He saw from that moment that the victory was gained. "My dear boy," said he, with the most agreeable bonhommie, "it is very natural that you should think a man would have a personal interest in whatever he does for another. I believe that view of human nature is called utilitarian philosophy, and is much in fashion at present. Let me try and explain to you. In this affair I sha'n't injure myself. True, you will say, if I settle claims which amount to L20,000 for L10,000, I might put the surplus into my own pocket instead of yours. Agreed. But I shall not get the L20,000, nor repay myself Madame di Negra's debts (whatever I may do as to Hazeldean's), unless the count gets this heiress. You can help in this. I want you; and I don't think I could get you by a less offer than I make. I shall soon pay myself back the L10,000 if the count get hold of the lady and her fortune. Brief, I see my way here to my own interests. Do you want more reasons,--you shall have them. I am now a very rich man. How have I become so? Through attaching myself from the first to persons of expectations, whether from fortune or talent. I have made connections in society, and society has enriched me. I have still a passion for making money. "/Que voulez- vous/?" It is my profession, my hobby. It will be useful to me in a thousand ways to secure as a friend a young man who will have influence with other young men, heirs to something better than Rood Hall. You may succeed in public life. A man in public life may attain to the knowledge of State secrets that are very profitable to one who dabbles a little in the Funds. We can perhaps hereafter do business together that may put yourself in a way of clearing off all mortgages on these estates,--on the encumbered possession of which I shall soon congratulate you. You see I am frank; 't is the only way of coming to the point with so clever a fellow as you. And now, since the less we rake up the mud in a pond from which we have resolved to drink the better, let us dismiss all other thoughts but that of securing our end. Will you tell Peschiera where the young lady is, or shall I? Better do it yourself; reason enough for it, that he has confided to you his hope, and asked you to help him; why should not you? Not a word to him about our little arrangement; he need never know it. You need never be troubled." Levy rang the bell: "Order my carriage round." Randal made no objection. He was deathlike pale, but there was a sinister expression of firmness on his thin, bloodless lips. "The next point," Levy resumed, "is to hasten the match between Frank and the fair widow. How does that stand?" "She will not see me, nor receive him." "Oh, learn why! And if you find on either side there is a hitch, just let me know; I will soon remove it." "Has Hazeldean consented to the post-obit?" "Not yet; I have not pressed it; I wait the right moment, if necessary." "It will be necessary." "Ah, you wish it. It shall be so." Randal Leslie again paced the room, and after a silent self-commune came up close to the baron, and said, "Look you, sir, I am poor and ambitious; you have tempted me at the right moment, and with the right inducement. I succumb. But what guarantee have I that this money will be paid, these estates made mine upon the conditions stipulated?" "Before anything is settled," replied the baron, "go and ask my character of any of our young friends, Borrowell, Spendquick--whom you please; you will hear me abused, of course; but they will all say this of me, that when I pass my word, I keep it. If I say, '/Mon cher/, you shall have the money,' a man has it; if I say, 'I renew your bill for six months,' it is renewed. 'T, is my way of doing business. In all cases any word is my bond. In this case, where no writing can pass between us, my only bond must be my word. Go, then, make your mind clear as to your security, and come here and dine at eight. We will call on Peschiera afterwards." "Yes," said Randal, "I will at all events take the day to consider. Meanwhile, I say this, I do not disguise from myself the nature of the proposed transaction, but what I have once resolved I go through with. My sole vindication to myself is, that if I play here with a false die, it will be for a stake so grand, as once won, the magnitude of the prize will cancel the ignominy of the play. It is not this sum of money for which I sell myself,--it is for what that sum will aid me to achieve. And in the marriage of young Hazeldean with the Italian woman, I have another, and it may be a larger interest. I have slept on it lately,-- I wake to it now. Insure that marriage, obtain the post-obit. from Hazeldean, and whatever the issue of the more direct scheme for which you seek my services, rely on my gratitude, and believe that you will have put me in the way to render gratitude of avail. At eight I will be with you." Randal left the room. The baron sat thoughtful. "It is true," said he to himself, "this young man is the next of kin to the Hazeldean estate, if Frank displease his father sufficiently to lose his inheritance; that must be the clever boy's design. Well, in the long-run, I should make as much, or more, out of him than out of the spendthrift Frank. Frank's faults are those of youth. He will reform and retrench. But this man! No, I shall have him for life. And should he fail in this project, and have but this encumbered property--a landed proprietor mortgaged up to his ears--why, he is my slave, and I can foreclose when I wish, or if he prove useless; --no, I risk nothing. And if I did--if I lost L10,000--what then? I can afford it for revenge!--afford it for the luxury of leaving Audley Egerton alone with penury and ruin, deserted, in his hour of need, by the pensioner of his bounty, as he will be by the last friend of his youth, when it so pleases me,--me whom he has called 'scoundrel'! and whom he--" Levy's soliloquy halted there, for the servant entered to announce the carriage. And the baron hurried his band over his features, as if to sweep away all trace of the passions that distorted their smiling effrontery. And so, as he took up his cane and gloves, and glanced at the glass, the face of the fashionable usurer was once more as varnished as his boots. CHAPTER XIX. When a clever man resolves on a villanous action, he hastens, by the exercise of his cleverness, to get rid of the sense of his villany. With more than his usual alertness, Randal employed the next hour or two in ascertaining how far Baron Levy merited the character he boasted, and how far his word might be his bond. He repaired to young men whom be esteemed better judges on these points than Spendquick and Borrowell,-- young men who resembled the Merry Monarch, inasmuch as-- "They never said a foolish thing, And never did a wise one." There are many such young men about town,--sharp and able in all affairs except their own. No one knows the world better, nor judges of character more truly, than your half-beggared /roue/. From all these Baron Levy obtained much the same testimonials: he was ridiculed as a would-be dandy, but respected as a very responsible man of business, and rather liked as a friendly, accommodating species of the Sir Epicure Mammon, who very often did what were thought handsome, liberal things; and, "in short," said one of these experienced referees, "he is the best fellow going--for a money-lender! You may always rely on what he promises, and he is generally very forbearing and indulgent to us of good society; perhaps for the same reason that our tailors are,--to send one of us to prison would hurt his custom. His foible is to be thought a gentleman. I believe, much as I suppose he loves money, he would give up half his fortune rather than do anything for which we could cut him. He allows a pension of three hundred a year to Lord S-----. True; he was his man of business for twenty years, and before then S----- was rather a prudent fellow, and had fifteen thousand a year. He has helped on, too, many a clever young man,--the best borough-monger you ever knew. He likes having friends in parliament. In fact, of course he is a rogue; but if one wants a rogue, one can't find a pleasanter. I should like to see him on the French stage,--a prosperous /Macaire/; Le Maitre could hit him off to the life." From information in these more fashionable quarters, gleaned with his usual tact, Randal turned to a source less elevated, but to which he attached more importance. Dick Avenel associated with the baron,--Dick Avenel must be in his clutches. Now Randal did justice to that gentleman's practical shrewdness. Moreover, Avenel was by profession a man of business. He must know more of Levy than these men of pleasure could; and as he was a plain-spoken person, and evidently honest, in the ordinary acceptation of the word, Randal did not doubt that out of Dick Avenel he should get the truth. On arriving in Eaton Square, and asking for Mr. Avenel, Randal was at once ushered into the drawing-room. The apartment was not in such good, solid, mercantile taste as had characterized Avenel's more humble bachelor's residence at Screwstown. The taste now was the Honourable Mrs. Avenel's; and, truth to say, no taste could be worse. Furniture of all epochs heterogeneously clumped together,--here a sofa /a la renaissance/ in Gobelin; there a rosewood Console from Gillow; a tall mock-Elizabethan chair in black oak, by the side of a modern Florentine table of Mosaic marbles; all kinds of colours in the room, and all at war with each other; very bad copies of the best-known pictures in the world in the most gaudy frames, and impudently labelled by the names of their murdered originals,--"Raphael," "Corregio," "Titian," "Sebastian del Piombo." Nevertheless, there had been plenty of money spent, and there was plenty to show for it. Mrs. Avenel was seated on her sofa /a la renaissance/, with one of her children at her feet, who was employed in reading a new Annual in crimson silk binding. Mrs. Avenel was in an attitude as if sitting for her portrait. Polite society is most capricious in its adoptions or rejections. You see many a very vulgar person firmly established in the /beau monde/; others, with very good pretensions as to birth, fortune, etc., either rigorously excluded, or only permitted a peep over the pales. The Honourable Mrs. Avenel belonged to families unquestionably noble, both by her own descent and by her first marriage; and if poverty had kept her down in her earlier career, she now, at least, did not want wealth to back her pretensions. Nevertheless, all the dispensers of fashion concurred in refusing their support to the Honourable Mrs. Avenel. One might suppose it was solely on account of her plebeian husband; but indeed it was not so. Many a woman of high family can marry a low-born man not so presentable as Avenel, and, by the help of his money, get the fine world at her feet. But Mrs. Avenel had not that art. She was still a very handsome, showy woman; and as for dress, no duchess could be more extravagant. Yet these very circumstances had perhaps gone against her ambition; for your quiet little plain woman, provoking no envy, slips into coteries, when a handsome, flaunting lady--whom, once seen in your drawing-room, can be no more over-looked than a scarlet poppy amidst a violet bed--is pretty sure to be weeded out as ruthlessly as a poppy would be in a similar position. Mr. Avenel was sitting by the fire, rather moodily, his hands in his pockets, and whistling to himself. To say truth, that active mind of his was very much bored in London, at least during the fore part of the day. He hailed Randal's entrance with a smile of relief, and rising and posting himself before the fire--a coat tail under each arm--he scarcely allowed Randal to shake hands with Mrs. Avenel, and pat the child on the head, murmuring, "Beautiful creature!" (Randal was ever civil to children,--that sort of wolf in sheep's clothing always is; don't be taken in, O you foolish young mothers!)--Dick, I say, scarcely allowed his visitor these preliminary courtesies, before he plunged far beyond depth of wife and child into the political ocean. "Things now were coming right,--a vile oligarchy was to be destroyed. British respectability and British talent were to have fair play." To have heard him you would have thought the day fixed for the millennium! "And what is more," said Avenel, bringing down the fist of his right hand upon the palm of his left, "if there is to be a new parliament, we must have new men; not worn-out old brooms that never sweep clean, but men who understand how to govern the country, Sir. I INTEND TO COME IN MYSELF!" "Yes," said Mrs. Avenel, hooking in a word at last, "I am sure, Mr. Leslie, you will think I did right. I persuaded Mr. Avenel that, with his talents and property, he ought, for the sake of his country, to make a sacrifice; and then you know his opinions now are all the fashion, Mr. Leslie; formerly they would have been called shocking and vulgar!" Thus saying, she looked with fond pride at Dick's comely face, which at that moment, however, was all scowl and frown. I must do justice to Mrs. Avenel; she was a weak woman, silly in some things, and a cunning one in others, but she was a good wife as wives go. Scotch women generally are. "Bother!" said Dick. "What do women know about politics? I wish you'd mind the child,--it is crumpling up and playing almighty smash with that flim-flam book, which cost me one pound one." Mrs. Avenel submissively bowed her head, and removed the Annual from the hands of the young destructive; the destructive set up a squall, as destructives usually do when they don't have their own way. Dick clapped his hand to his ears. "Whe-e-ew, I can't stand this; come and take a walk, Leslie: I want stretching!" He stretched himself as he spoke, first half-way up to the ceiling, and then fairly out of the room. Randal, with his May Fair manner, turned towards Mrs. Avenel as if to apologize for her husband and himself. "Poor Richard!" said she, "he is in one of his humours,--all men have them. Come and see me again soon. When does Almack's open?" "Nay, I ought to ask you that question,--you who know everything that goes on in our set," said the young serpent. Any tree planted in "our set," if it had been but a crab-tree, would have tempted Mr. Avenel's Eve to jump at its boughs. "Are you coming, there?" cried Dick, from the foot of the stairs. CHAPTER XX. "I have just been at our friend Levy's," said Randal, when he and Dick were outside the street door. "He, like you, is full of politics; pleasant man,--for the business he is said to do." "Well," said Dick, slowly, "I suppose he is pleasant, but make the best of it--and still--" "Still what, my dear Avenel?" (Randal here for the first time discarded the formal Mister.) MR. AVENEL.--"Still the thing itself is not pleasant." RANDAL (with his soft hollow laugh).--"You mean borrowing money upon more than five per cent?" "Oh, curse the percentage. I agree with Bentham on the Usury Laws,--no shackles in trade for me, whether in money or anything else. That's not it. But when one owes a fellow money even at two per cent, and 't is not convenient to pay him, why, somehow or other, it makes one feel small; it takes the British Liberty out of a man!" "I should have thought you more likely to lend money than to borrow it." "Well, I guess you are right there, as a general rule. But I tell you what it is, sir; there is too great a mania for competition getting up in this rotten old country of ours. I am as liberal as most men. I like competition to a certain extent, but there is too much of it, sir,--too much of it." Randal looked sad and convinced. But if Leonard had heard Dick Avenel, what would have been his amaze? Dick Avenel rail against competition! Think there could be too much of it! "Of course heaven and earth are coming together," said the spider, when the housemaid's broom invaded its cobweb. Dick was all for sweeping away other cobwebs; but he certainly thought heaven and earth coming together when he saw a great Turk's-head besom poked up at his own. Mr. Avenel, in his genius for speculation and improvement, had established a factory at Screwstown, the first which had ever eclipsed the church spire with its Titanic chimney. It succeeded well at first. Mr. Avenel transferred to this speculation nearly all his capital. "Nothing," quoth he, "paid such an interest. Manchester was getting worn out,--time to show what Screwstown could do. Nothing like competition." But by-and-by a still greater capitalist than Dick Avenel, finding out that Screwstown was at the mouth of a coal mine, and that Dick's profits were great, erected a still uglier edifice, with a still taller chimney. And having been brought up to the business, and making his residence in the town, while Dick employed a foreman and flourished in London, this infamous competitor so managed, first to share, and then gradually to sequester, the profits which Dick had hitherto monopolized, that no wonder Mr. Avenel thought competition should have its limits. "The tongue touches where the tooth aches," as Dr. Riccabocca would tell us. By little and little our Juvenile Talleyrand (I beg the elder great man's pardon) wormed out from Dick this grievance, and in the grievance discovered the origin of Dick's connection with the money-lender. "But Levy," said Avenel, candidly, "is a decentish chap in his way,-- friendly too. Mrs. A. finds him useful; brings some of your young highflyers to her soirees. To be sure, they don't dance,--stand all in a row at the door, like mutes at a funeral. Not but what they have been uncommon civil to me lately, Spendquick particularly. By-the-by, I dine with him to-morrow. The aristocracy are behindhand,--not smart, sir, not up to the march; but when a man knows how to take 'em, they beat the New Yorkers in good manners. I'll say that for them. I have no prejudice." "I never saw a man with less; no prejudice even against Levy." "No, not a bit of it! Every one says he's a Jew; he says he's not. I don't care a button what he is. His money is English,--that's enough for any man of a liberal turn of mind. His charges, too, are moderate. To be sure, he knows I shall pay them; only what I don't like in him is a sort of way he has of mon-cher-ing and my-good-fellow-ing one, to do things quite out of the natural way of that sort of business. He knows I have got parliamentary influence. I could return a couple of members for Screwstown, and one, or perhaps two, for Lansmere, where I have of late been cooking up an interest; and he dictates to--no, not dictates--but tries to humbug me into putting in his own men. However, in one respect, we are likely to agree. He says you want to come into parliament. You seem a smart young fellow; but you must throw over that stiff red-tapist of yours, and go with Public Opinion, and--Myself." "You are very kind, Avenel; perhaps when we come to compare opinions we may find that we agree entirely. Still, in Egerton's present position, delicacy to him--However, we'll not discuss that now. But you really think I might come in for Lansmere,--against the L'Estrange interest, too, which must be strong there?" "It was very strong, but I've smashed it, I calculate." "Would a contest there cost very much?" "Well, I guess you must come down with the ready. But, as you say, time enough to discuss that when you have squared your account with 'delicacy;' come to me then, and we'll go into it." Randal, having now squeezed his orange dry, had no desire to waste his time in brushing up the rind with his coat-sleeve, so he unhooked his arm from Avenel's, and, looking at his watch, discovered he should be just in time for an appointment of the most urgent business,--hailed a cab, and drove off. Dick looked hipped and disconsolate at being left alone; he yawned very loud, to the astonishment of three prim old maiden Belgravians who were passing that way; and then his mind began to turn towards his factory at Screwstown, which had led to his connection with the baron; and he thought over a letter he had received from his foreman that morning, informing him that it was rumoured at Screwstown that Mr. Dyce, his rival, was about to have new machinery on an improved principle; and that Mr. Dyce had already gone up to town, it was supposed, with the intention of concluding a purchase for a patent discovery to be applied to the new machinery, and which that gentleman had publicly declared in the corn- market "would shut up Mr. Avenel's factory before the year was out." As this menacing epistle recurred to him, Dick felt his desire to yawn incontinently checked. His brow grew very dark; and he walked, with restless strides, on and on, till he found himself in the Strand. He then got into an omnibus, and proceeded to the city, wherein he spent the rest of the day looking over machines and foundries, and trying in vain to find out what diabolical invention the over-competition of Mr. Dyce had got hold of. "If," said Dick Avenel to himself, as he returned fretfully homeward--"if a man like me, who has done so much for British industry and go-a-head principles, is to be catawampously champed up by a mercenary, selfish cormorant of a capitalist like that interloping blockhead in drab breeches, Tom Dyce, all I can say is, that the sooner this cursed old country goes to the dogs, the better pleased I shall be. I wash my hands of it." CHAPTER XXI. Randal's mind was made up. All he had learned in regard to Levy had confirmed his resolves or dissipated his scruples. He had started from the improbability that Pesehiera would offer, and the still greater improbability that Peschiera would pay him, L10,000 for such information or aid as he could bestow in furthering the count's object. But when Levy took such proposals entirely on himself, the main question to Randal became this,--could it be Levy's interest to make so considerable a sacrifice? Had the baron implied only friendly sentiments as his motives, Randal would have felt sure he was to be taken in; but the usurer's frank assurance that it would answer to him in the long-run to concede to Randal terms so advantageous, altered the case, and led our young philosopher to look at the affair with calm, contemplative eyes. Was it sufficiently obvious that Levy counted on an adequate return? Might he calculate on reaping help by the bushel if he sowed it by the handful? The result of Randal's cogitations was that the baron might fairly deem himself no wasteful sower. In the first place, it was clear that Levy, not without reasonable ground, believed that he could soon replace, with exceeding good interest, any sum he might advance to Randal, out of the wealth which Randal's prompt information might bestow on Levy's client, the count; and secondly, Randal's self-esteem was immense, and could he but succeed in securing a pecuniary independence on the instant, to free him from the slow drudgery of the Bar, or from a precarious reliance on Audley Egerton, as a politician out of power, his convictions of rapid triumph in public life were as strong as if whispered by an angel or promised by a fiend. On such triumphs, with all the social position they would secure, Levy might well calculate for repayment by a thousand indirect channels. Randal's sagacity detected that, through all the good-natured or liberal actions ascribed to the usurer, Levy had steadily pursued his own interests, he saw that Levy meant to get him into his power, and use his abilities as instruments for digging new mines, in which Baron Levy would claim the right of large royalties. But at that thought Randal's pale lip curled disdainfully; he confided too much in his own powers not to think that he could elude the grasp of the usurer, whenever it suited him to do so. Thus, on a survey, all conscience hushed itself; his mind rushed buoyantly on to anticipations of the future. He saw the hereditary estates regained,-- no matter how mortgaged,--for the moment still his own, legally his own, yielding for the present what would suffice for competence to one of few wants, and freeing his name from that title of Adventurer, which is so prodigally given in rich old countries to those who have no estates but their brains. He thought of Violante but as the civilized trader thinks of a trifling coin, of a glass bead, which he exchanges with some barbarian for gold dust; he thought of Frank Hazeldean married to the foreign woman of beggared means, and repute that had known the breath of scandal,--married, and living on post-obit instalments of the Casino property; he thought of the poor squire's resentment; his avarice swept from the lands annexed to Rood on to the broad fields of Hazeldean; he thought of Avenel, of Lansmere, of parliament; with one hand he grasped fortune, with the next power. "And yet I entered on life with no patrimony (save a ruined hall and a barren waste),--no patrimony but knowledge. I have but turned knowledge from books to men; for books may give fame after death, but men give us power in life." And all the while he thus ruminated, his act was speeding his purpose. Though it was but in a miserable hack-cab that he erected airy scaffoldings round airy castles, still the miserable hack-cab was flying fast, to secure the first foot of solid ground whereon to transfer the mental plan of the architect to foundations of positive slime and clay. The cab stopped at the door of Lord Lansmere's house. Randal had suspected Violante to be there: he resolved to ascertain. Randal descended from his vehicle and rang the bell. The lodge-keeper opined the great wooden gates. "I have called to see the young lady staying here,--the foreign young lady." Lady Lansmere had been too confident of the security of her roof to condescend to give any orders to her servants with regard to her guest, and the lodge-keeper answered directly,-- "At home, I believe, sir. I rather think she is in the garden with my lady." "I see," said Randal; and he did see the form of Violante at a distance. "But, since she is walking, I will not disturb her at present. I will call another day." The lodge-keeper bowed respectfully, Randal jumped into his cab: "To Curzon Street,--quick!" CHAPTER XXII. Harley had made one notable oversight in that appeal to Beatrice's better and gentler nature, which he entrusted to the advocacy of Leonard,--a scheme in itself very characteristic of Harley's romantic temper, and either wise or foolish, according as his indulgent theory of human idiosyncrasies in general, and of those peculiar to Beatrice di Negra in especial, was the dream of an enthusiast, or the inductive conclusion of a sound philosopher. Harley had warned Leonard not to fall in love with the Italian,--he had forgotten to warn the Italian not to fall in love with Leonard; nor had he ever anticipated the probability of that event. This is not to be very much wondered at; for if there be anything on which the most sensible men are dull-eyed, where those eyes are not lighted by jealousy, it is as to the probabilities of another male creature being beloved. All, the least vain of the whiskered gender, think it prudent to guard themselves against being too irresistible to the fair sex; and each says of his friend, "Good fellow enough, but the last man for that woman to fall in love with!" But certainly there appeared on the surface more than ordinary cause for Harley's blindness in the special instance of Leonard. Whatever Beatrice's better qualities, she was generally esteemed worldly and ambitious. She was pinched in circumstances, she was luxuriant and extravagant; how was it likely that she could distinguish any aspirant of the humble birth and fortunes of the young peasant-author? As a coquette, she might try to win his admiration and attract his fancy; but her own heart would surely be guarded in the triple mail of pride, poverty, and the conventional opinions of the world in which she lived. Had Harley thought it possible that Madame di Negra could stoop below her station, and love, not wisely, but too well, he would rather have thought that the object would be some brilliant adventurer of fashion, some one who could turn against herself all the arts of deliberate fascination, and all the experience bestowed by frequent conquest. One so simple as Leonard, so young and so new! Harley L'Estrange would have smiled at himself, if the idea of that image subjugating the ambitious woman to the disinterested love of a village maid had once crossed his mind. Nevertheless, so it was, and precisely from those causes which would have seemed to Harley to forbid the weakness. It was that fresh, pure heart, it was that simple, earnest sweetness, it was that contrast in look, in tone, in sentiment, and in reasonings, to all that had jaded and disgusted her in the circle of her admirers,--it was all this that captivated Beatrice at the first interview with Leonard. Here was what she had confessed to the sceptical Randal she had dreamed and sighed for. Her earliest youth had passed into abhorrent marriage, without the soft, innocent crisis of human life,--virgin love. Many a wooer might have touched her vanity, pleased her fancy, excited her ambition--her heart had never been awakened; it woke now. The world, and the years that the world had wasted, seemed to fleet away as a cloud. She was as if restored to the blush and the sigh of youth,--the youth of the Italian maid. As in the restoration of our golden age is the spell of poetry with us all, so such was the spell of the poet himself on her. Oh, how exquisite was that brief episode in the life of the woman palled with the "hack sights and sounds" of worldly life! How strangely happy were those hours, when, lured on by her silent sympathy, the young scholar spoke of his early struggles between circumstance and impulse, musing amidst the flowers, and hearkening to the fountain; or of his wanderings in the desolate, lamp-lit streets, while the vision of Chatterton's glittering eyes shone dread through the friendless shadows. And as he spoke, whether of his hopes or his fears, her looks dwelt fondly on the young face, that varied between pride and sadness,--pride ever so gentle, and sad ness ever so nobly touching. She was never weary of gazing on that brow, with its quiet power; but her lids dropped before those eyes, with their serene, unfathomable passion. She felt, as they haunted her, what a deep and holy thing love in such souls must be. Leonard never spoke to her of Helen--that reserve every reader can comprehend. To natures like his, first love is a mystery; to confide it is to profane. But he fulfilled his commission of interesting her in the exile and his daughter, and his description of them brought tears to her eyes. She inly resolved not to aid Peschiera in his designs on Violante. She forgot for the moment that her own fortune was to depend on the success of those designs. Levy had arranged so that she was not reminded of her poverty by creditors,--she knew not how. She knew nothing of business. She gave herself up to the delight of the present hour, and to vague prospects of a future associated with that young image,--with that face of a guardian angel that she saw before her, fairest in the moments of absence; for in those moments came the life of fairy-land, when we shut our eyes on the world, and see through the haze of golden revery. Dangerous, indeed, to Leonard would have been the soft society of Beatrice di Negra, had not his heart been wholly devoted to one object, and had not his ideal of woman been from that object one sole and indivisible reflection. But Beatrice guessed not this barrier between herself and him. Amidst the shadows that he conjured up from his past life, she beheld no rival form. She saw him lonely in the world, as she was herself. And in his lowly birth, his youth, in the freedom from presumption which characterized him in all things (save that confidence in his intellectual destinies which is the essential attribute of genius), she but grew the bolder by the belief that, even if he loved her, he would not dare to hazard the avowal. And thus, one day, yielding, as she had ever been wont to yield, to the impulse of her quick Italian heart--how she never remembered, in what words she could never recall--she spoke, she owned her love, she pleaded, with tears and blushes, for love in return. All that passed was to her as a dream,--a dream from which she woke with a fierce sense of agony, of humiliation,--woke as the woman "scorned." No matter how gratefully, how tenderly Leonard had replied, the reply was refusal. For the first time she learned she had a rival; that all he could give of love was long since, from his boyhood, given to another. For the first time in her life, that ardent nature knew jealousy, its torturing stings, its thirst for vengeance, its tempest of loving hate. But, to outward appearance, silent and cold she stood as marble. Words that sought to soothe fell on her ear unheeded: they were drowned by the storm within. Pride was the first feeling which dominated the warring elements that raged in her soul. She tore her hand from that which clasped hers with so loyal a respect. She could have spurned the form that knelt at her feet, not for love, but for pardon. She pointed to the door with the gesture of an insulted queen. She knew no more till she was alone. Then came that rapid flash of conjecture peculiar to the storms of jealousy; that which seems to single from all nature the one object to dread and to destroy; the conjecture so often false, yet received at once by our convictions as the revelation of instinctive truth. He to whom she had humbled herself loved another; whom but Violante,--whom else, young and beautiful, had he named in the record of his life?--None! And he had sought to interest her, Beatrice di Negra, in the object of his love; hinted at dangers which Beatrice knew too well; implied trust in Beatrice's will to protect. Blind fool that she had been! This, then, was the reason why he had come, day after day, to Beatrice's house; this was the charm that had drawn him thither; this--she pressed her hands to her burning temples, as if to stop the torture of thought. Suddenly a voice was heard below, the door opened, and Randal Leslie entered. CHAPTER XXIII. Punctually at eight o'clock that evening, Baron Levy welcomed the new ally he had secured. The pair dined /en tete a tete/, discussing general matters till the servants left them to their wine. Then said the baron, rising and stirring the fire--then said the baron, briefly and significantly, "Well!" "As regards the property you spoke of," answered Randal, "I am willing to purchase it on the terms you name. The only point that perplexes me is how to account to Audley Egerton, to my parents, to the world, for the power of purchasing it." "True," said the baron, without even a smile at the ingenious and truly Greek manner in which Randal had contrived to denote his meaning, and conceal the ugliness of it--"true, we must think of that. If we could manage to conceal the real name of the purchaser for a year or so, it might be easy,--you may be supposed to have speculated in the Funds; or Egerton may die, and people may believe that he had secured to you something handsome from the ruins of his fortune." "Little chance of Egerton's dying." "Humph!" said the baron. "However, this is a mere detail, reserved for consideration. You can now tell us where the young lady is?" "Certainly. I could not this morning,--I can now. I will go with you to the count. Meanwhile, I have seen Madame di Negra; she will accept Frank Hazeldean if he will but offer himself at once." "Will he not?" "No! I have been to him. He is overjoyed at my representations, but considers it his duty to ask the consent of his parents. Of course they will not give it; and if there be delay, she will retract. She is under the influence of passions on the duration of which there is no reliance." "What passions? Love?" "Love; but not for Hazeldean. The passions that bring her to accept his hand are pique and jealousy. She believes, in a word, that one who seems to have gained the mastery over her affections with a strange suddenness, is but blind to her charms because dazzled by Violante's. She is prepared to aid in all that can give her rival to Peschiera; and yet, such is the inconsistency of woman" (added the young philosopher, with a shrug of the shoulders), "that she is also prepared to lose all chance of securing him she loves, by bestowing herself on another!" "Woman, indeed, all over!" said the baron, tapping his snuff-box (Louis Quinze), and regaling his nostrils with a scornful pinch. "But who is the man whom the fair Beatrice has thus honoured? Superb creature! I had some idea of her myself when I bought up her debts; but it might have embarrassed me, in more general plans, as regards the count. All for the best. Who's the man? Not Lord L'Estrange?" "I do not think it is he; but I have not yet ascertained. I have told you all I know. I found her in a state so excited, so unlike herself, that I had no little difficulty in soothing her into confidence so far. I could not venture more." "And she will accept Frank?" "Had he offered to-day she would have accepted him!" "It may be a great help to your fortunes, /mon cher/, if Frank Hazeldean marry this lady without his father's consent. Perhaps he may be disinherited. You are next of kin. "How do you know that?" asked Randal, sullenly. "It is my business to know all about the chances and connections of any one with whom I do money matters. I do money matters with young Mr. Hazeldean; so I know that the Hazeldean property is not entailed; and, as the squire's half-brother has no Hazeldean blood in him, you have excellent expectations." "Did Frank tell you I was next of kin?" "I rather think so; but I am sure you did." "I--when?" "When you told me how important it was to you that Frank should marry Madame di Negra. /Peste! mon cher/, do you think I am a blockhead?" "Well, Baron, Frank is of age, and can marry to please himself. You implied to me that you could help him in this." "I will try. See that he call at Madame di Negra's tomorrow, at two precisely." "I would rather keep clear of all apparent interference in this matter. Will you not arrange that he call on her? And do not forget to entangle him in a post-obit." "Leave it to me. Any more wine? No?--then let us go to the count's." CHAPTER XXIV. The next morning Frank Hazeldean was sitting over his solitary breakfast- table. It was long past noon. The young man had risen early, it is true, to attend his military duties, but he had contracted the habit of breakfasting late. One's appetite does not come early when one lives in London, and never goes to bed before daybreak. There was nothing very luxurious or effeminate about Frank's rooms, though they were in a very dear street, and he paid a monstrous high price for them. Still, to a practised eye, they betrayed an inmate who can get through his money, and make very little show for it. The walls were covered with coloured prints of racers and steeple-chases, interspersed with the portraits of opera-dancers, all smirk and caper. Then there was a semi-circular recess covered with red cloth, and fitted up for smoking, as you might perceive by sundry stands full of Turkish pipes in cherry-stick and jessamine, with amber mouthpieces; while a great serpent hookah, from which Frank could no more have smoked than he could have smoked out of the head of a boa constrictor, coiled itself up on the floor; over the chimney-piece was a collection of Moorish arms. What use on earth ataghan and scimitar and damasquined pistols, that would not carry straight three yards, could be to an officer in his Majesty's Guards is more than I can conjecture, or even Frank satisfactorily explain. I have strong suspicions that this valuable arsenal passed to Frank in part payment of a bill to be discounted. At all events, if so, it was an improvement on the bear that he had sold to the hair-dresser. No books were to be seen anywhere, except a Court Guide, a Racing Calendar, an Army List, the Sporting Magazine complete (whole bound in scarlet morocco, at about a guinea per volume), and a small book, as small as an Elzevir, on the chimney-piece, by the side of a cigar-case. That small book had cost Frank more than all the rest put together; it was his Own Book, his book par excellence; book made up by himself,--his BETTING Book! On a centre table were deposited Frank's well-brushed hat; a satinwood box, containing kid-gloves, of various delicate tints, from primrose to lilac; a tray full of cards and three-cornered notes; an opera-glass, and an ivory subscription-ticket to his opera stall. In one corner was an ingenious receptacle for canes, sticks, and whips--I should not like, in these bad times, to have paid the bill for them; and mounting guard by that receptacle, stood a pair of boots as bright as Baron Levy's,--"the force of brightness could no further go." Frank was in his dressing-gown,--very good taste, quite Oriental, guaranteed to be true Indian cashmere, and charged as such. Nothing could be more neat, though perfectly simple, than the appurtenances of his breakfast-table: silver tea-pot, ewer, and basin, all fitting into his dressing-box--for the which may Storr and Mortimer be now praised, and some day paid! Frank looked very handsome, rather tired, and exceedingly bored. He had been trying to read the "Morning Post," but the effort had proved too much for him. Poor dear Frank Hazeldean!--true type of many a poor dear fellow who has long since gone to the dogs. And if, in this road to ruin, there had been the least thing to do the traveller any credit by the way! One feels a respect for the ruin of a man like Audley Egerton. He is ruined /en roi/! From the wrecks of his fortune he can look down and see stately monuments built from the stones of that dismantled edifice. In every institution which attests the humanity of England was a record of the princely bounty of the public man. In those objects of party, for which the proverbial sinews of war are necessary, in those rewards for service, which private liberality can confer, the hand of Egerton had been opened as with the heart of a king. Many a rising member of parliament, in those days when talent was brought forward through the aid of wealth and rank, owed his career to the seat which Audley Egerton's large subscription had secured to him; many an obscure supporter in letters and the Press looked back to the day when he had been freed from the jail by the gratitude of the patron. The city he represented was embellished at his cost; through the shire that held his mortgaged lands, which he had rarely ever visited, his gold had flowed as a Pactolus; all that could animate its public spirit, or increase its civilization, claimed kindred with his munificence, and never had a claim disallowed. Even in his grand, careless household, with its large retinue and superb hospitality, there was something worthy of a representative of that time- honoured portion of our true nobility, the untitled gentlemen of the land. The Great Commoner had, indeed, "something to show" for the money he had disdained and squandered. But for Frank Hazeldean's mode of getting rid of the dross, when gone, what would be left to tell the tale? Paltry prints in a bachelor's lodging; a collection of canes and cherry- sticks; half-a-dozen letters in ill-spelt French from a figurante; some long-legged horses, fit for nothing but to lose a race; that damnable Betting-Book; and--/sic transit gloria/--down sweeps some hawk of a Levy, on the wings of an I O U, and not a feather is left of the pigeon! Yet Frank Hazeldean has stuff in him,--a good heart, and strict honour. Fool though he seem, there is sound sterling sense in some odd corner of his brains, if one could but get at it. All he wants to save him from perdition is, to do what he has never yet done,--namely, pause and think. But, to be sure, that same operation of thinking is not so easy for folks unaccustomed to it, as people who think--think! "I can't bear this," said Frank, suddenly, and springing to his feet. "This woman, I cannot get her out of my head. I ought to go down to the governor's; but then if he gets into a passion, and refuses his consent, where am I? And he will, too, I fear. I wish I could make out what Randal advises. He seems to recommend that I should marry Beatrice at once, and trust to my mother's influence to make all right afterwards. But when I ask, 'Is that your advice?' he backs out of it. Well, I suppose he is right there. I can understand that he is unwilling, good fellow, to recommend anything that my father would disapprove. But still--" Here Frank stopped in his soliloquy, and did make his first desperate effort to--think! Now, O dear reader, I assume, of course, that thou art one of the class to which thought is familiar; and, perhaps, thou hast smiled in disdain or incredulity at that remark on the difficulty of thinking which preceded Frank Hazeldean's discourse to himself. But art thou quite sure that when thou hast tried to think thou hast always succeeded? Hast thou not often been duped by that pale visionary simulacrum of thought which goes by the name of revery? Honest old Montaigne confessed that he did not understand that process of sitting down to think, on which some folks express themselves so glibly. He could not think unless he had a pen in his hand and a sheet of paper before him; and so, by a manual operation, seized and connected the links of ratiocination. Very often has it happened to myself when I have said to Thought peremptorily, "Bestir thyself: a serious matter is before thee, ponder it well, think of it," that that same thought has behaved in the most refractory, rebellious manner conceivable; and instead of concentrating its rays into a single stream of light, has broken into all the desultory tints of the rainbow, colouring senseless clouds, and running off into the seventh heaven, so that after sitting a good hour by the clock, with brows as knit as if I was intent on squaring the circle, I have suddenly discovered that I might as well have gone comfortably to sleep--I have been doing nothing but dream,--and the most nonsensical dreams! So when Frank Hazeldean, as he stopped at that meditative "But still "--and leaning his arm on the chimney-piece, and resting his face on his hand, felt himself at the grave crisis of life, and fancied he was going "to think on it," there only rose before him a succession of shadowy pictures,--Randal Leslie, with an unsatisfactory countenance, from which he could extract nothing; the squire, looking as black as thunder in his study at Hazeldean; his mother trying to plead for him, and getting herself properly scolded for her pains; and then off went that Will-o'-the-wisp which pretended to call itself Thought, and began playing round the pale, charming face of Beatrice di Negra, in the drawing-room at Curzon Street, and repeating, with small elfin voice, Randal Leslie's assurance of the preceding day, "as to her affection for you, Frank, there is no doubt of that; she only begins to think you are trifling with her." And then there was a rapturous vision of a young gentleman on his knee, and the fair pale face bathed in blushes, and a clergyman standing by the altar, and a carriage- and-four with white favours at the church-door; and of a honeymoon, which would have astonished as to honey all the bees of Hymettus. And in the midst of these phantasmagoria, which composed what Frank fondly styled. "making up his mind," there came a single man's elegant rat-tat-tat at the street door. "One never has a moment for thinking," cried Frank, and he called out to his valet, "Not at home." But it was too late. Lord Spendquick was in the hall, and presently within the room. How d'ye do's were exchanged and hands shaken. LORD SPENDQUICK.--"I have a note for you, Hazeldean." FRANK (lazily).--"From whom?" LORD SPENDQUICK.--"Levy. Just come from him,--never saw him in such a fidget. He was going into the city,--I suppose to see X. Y. Dashed off this note for you, and would have sent it by a servant, but I said I would bring it." FRANK (looking fearfully at the note).--"I hope he does not want his money yet. 'Private and confidential,'--that looks bad." SPENDQUICK.--"Devilish bad, indeed." Frank opens the note, and reads, half aloud, "Dear Hazeldean--" SPENDQUICK (interrupting.)--"Good sign! He always Spendquicks me when he lends me money; and 't is 'My dear Lord' when he wants it back. Capital sign!" Frank reads on, but to himself, and with a changing countenance, DEAR HAZELDEAN,--I am very sorry to tell you that, in consequence of the sudden failure of a house at Paris with which I Had large dealings, I am pressed on a sudden for all the ready money I can get. I don't want to inconvenience you, but do try to see if you can take up those bills of yours which I hold, and which, as you know, have been due some little time. I had hit on a way of arranging your affairs; but when I hinted at it, you seemed to dislike the idea; and Leslie has since told me that you have strong objections to giving any security on your prospective property. So no more of that, my dear fellow. I am called out in haste to try what I can do for a very charming client of mine, who is in great pecuniary distress, though she has for her brother a foreign count, as rich as a Croesus. There is an execution in her house. I am going down to the tradesman who put it in, but have no hope of softening him; and I fear there will be others before the day is out. Another reason for wanting money, if you can help me, mon cher! An execution in the house of one of the most brilliant women in London,--an execution in Curzon Street, May Fair! It will be all over the town if I can't stop it. Yours in haste, LEVY. P.S.---Don't let what I have said vex you too much. I should not trouble you if Spendquick and Borrowell would pay me something. Perhaps you can get them to do so. Struck by Frank's silence and paleness, Lord Spendquick here, in the kindest way possible, laid his hand on the young Guardsman's shoulder. and looked over the note with that freedom which gentlemen in difficulties take with each other's private and confidential correspondence. His eye fell on the postscript. "Oh, damn it," cried Spendquick, "but that's too bad,--employing you to get me to pay him! Such horrid treachery. Make yourself easy, my dear Frank; I could never suspect you of anything so unhandsome. I could as soon suspect myself of--paying him--" "Curzon Street! Count!" muttered Frank, as if waking from a dream. "It must be so." To thrust on his boots, change his dressing-robe for a frock-coat, snatch at his hat, gloves, and cane, break from Spendquick, descend the stairs, a flight at a leap, gain the street, throw himself into a cabriolet,--all this was done before his astounded visitor could even recover breath enough to ask "What's the matter?" Left thus alone, Lord Spendquick shook his head,--shook it twice, as if fully to convince himself that there was nothing in it; and then re-arranging his hat before the looking-glass, and drawing on his gloves deliberately, he walked downstairs, and strolled into White's, but with a bewildered and absent air. Standing at the celebrated bow-window for some moments in musing silence, Lord Spendquick at last thus addressed an exceedingly cynical, sceptical old roue, "Pray, do you think there is any truth in the stories about people in former times selling themselves to the devil?" "Ugh," answered the rout, much too wise ever to be surprised. "Have you any personal interest in the question?" "I!--no; but a friend of mine has just received a letter from Levy, and he flew out of the room in the most ex-tra-ordi-na-ry manner,--just as people did in those days when their time was up! And Levy, you know, is--" "Not quite as great a fool as the other dark gentleman to whom you would compare him; for Levy never made such bad bargains for himself. Time up! No doubt it is. I should not like to be in your friend's shoes." "Shoes!" said Spendquick, with a sort of shudder; "you never saw a neater fellow, nor one, to do him justice, who takes more time in dressing than he does in general. And talking of shoes, he rushed out with the right boot on the left foot, and the left boot on the right. Very mysterious!" And a third time Lord Spendquick shook his head,--and a third time that head seemed to him wondrous empty. CHAPTER XXV. Buy Frank had arrived in Curzon Street, leaped from the cabriolet, knocked at the door, which was opened by a strange-looking man in a buff waistcoat and corduroy smalls. Frank gave a glance at this personage, pushed him aside, and rushed upstairs. He burst into the drawing-room,-- no Beatrice was there. A thin elderly man, with a manuscript book in his hands, appeared engaged in examining the furniture, and making an inventory, with the aid of Madame di Negra's upper servant. The thin man stared at Frank, and touched the hat which was on his head. The servant, who was a foreigner, approached Frank, and said, in broken English, that his lady did not receive,--that she was unwell, and kept her room. Frank thrust a sovereign into the servant's hand, and begged him to tell Madame di Negra. that Mr. Hazeldean entreated the honour of an interview. As soon as the servant vanished on this errand, Frank seized the thin man by the arm. "What is this?---an execution?" "Yes, sir." "For what sum?" "Fifteen hundred and forty-seven pounds. We are the first in possession." "There are others, then?" "Or else, sir, we should never have taken this step. Most painful to our feelings, sir; but these foreigners are here to day, and gone to-morrow. And--" The servant re-entered. Madame di Negra would see Mr. Hazeldean. Would he walk upstairs? Frank hastened to obey this summons. Madame di Negra was in a small room which was fitted up as a boudoir. Her eyes showed the traces of recent tears, but her face was composed, and even rigid, in its haughty though mournful expression. Frank, however, did not pause to notice her countenance, to hear her dignified salutation. All his timidity was gone. He saw but the woman whom he loved in distress and humiliation. As the door closed on him, he flung himself at her feet. He caught at her hand, the skirt of her robe. "Oh, Madame di Negra!--Beatrice!" he exclaimed, tears in his eyes, and his voice half-broken by generous emotion; "forgive me, forgive me! don't see in me a mere acquaintance. By accident I learned, or, rather, guessed--this--this strange insult to which you are so unworthily exposed. I am here. Think of me--but as a friend,--the truest friend. Oh, Beatrice,"--and he bent his head over the hand he held,--" I never dared say so before, it seems presuming to say it now, but I cannot help it. I love you,--I love you with my whole heart and soul; to serve you-- if only but to serve you!--I ask nothing else." And a sob went from his warm, young, foolish heart. The Italian was deeply moved. Nor was her nature that of the mere sordid adventuress. So much love and so much confidence! She was not prepared to betray the one, and entrap the other. "Rise, rise," she said softly; "I thank you gratefully. But do not suppose that I--" "Hush! hush!--you must not refuse me. Hush! don't let your pride speak." "No, it is not my pride. You exaggerate what is occurring here. You forget that I have a brother. I have sent for him. He is the only one I can apply to. Ah, that is his knock! But I shall never, never forget that I have found one generous noble heart in this hollow world." Frank would have replied, but he heard the count's voice on the stairs, and had only time to rise and withdraw to the window, trying hard to repress his agitation and compose his countenance. Count di Peschiera entered,--entered as a very personation of the beauty and magnificence of careless, luxurious, pampered, egotistical wealth,--his surtout, trimmed with the costliest sables, flung back from his splendid chest. Amidst the folds of the glossy satin that enveloped his throat gleamed a turquoise, of such value as a jeweller might have kept for fifty years before he could find a customer rich and frivolous enough to buy it. The very head of his cane was a masterpiece of art, and the man himself, so elegant despite his strength, and so fresh despite his years!--it is astonishing how well men wear when they think of no one but themselves! "Pr-rr!" said the count, not observing Frank behind the draperies of the window; "Pr-rr--It seems to me that you must have passed a very unpleasant quarter of an hour. And now--/Dieu me damne, quoi faire/!" Beatrice pointed to the window, and felt as if she could have sunk into the earth for shame. But as the count spoke in French, and Frank did not very readily comprehend that language, the words escaped him, though his ear was shocked by a certain satirical levity of tone. Frank came forward. The count held out his hand, and with a rapid change of voice and manner, said, "One whom my sister admits at such a moment must be a friend to me." "Mr. Hazeldean," said Beatrice, with meaning, "would indeed have nobly pressed on me the offer of an aid which I need no more, since you, my brother, are here." "Certainly," said the count, with his superb air of grand seigneur; "I will go down and clear your house of this impertinent canaille. But I thought your affairs were with Baron Levy. He should be here." "I expect him every moment. Adieu! Mr. Hazeldean." Beatrice extended her hand to her young lover with a frankness which was not without a certain pathetic and cordial dignity. Restrained from further words by the count's presence, Frank bowed over the fair hand in silence, and retired. He was on the stairs when he was joined by Peschiera. "Mr. Hazeldean," said the latter, in a low tone, "will you come into the drawing-room?" Frank obeyed. The man employed in his examination of the furniture was still at his task: but at a short whisper from the count he withdrew. "My dear sir," said Peschiera, "I am so unacquainted with your English laws, and your mode of settling embarrassments of this degrading nature, and you have evidently showed so kind a sympathy in my sister's distress, that I venture to ask you to stay here, and aid me in consulting with Baron Levy." Frank was just expressing his unfeigned pleasure to be of the slightest use, when Levy's knock resounded at the streetdoor, and in another moment the baron entered. "Ouf!" said Levy, wiping his brows, and sinking into a chair as if he had been engaged in toils the most exhausting,--"ouf! this is a very sad business,--very; and nothing, my dear count, nothing but ready money can save us here." "You know my affairs, Levy," replied Peschiera, mournfully shaking his head, "and that though in a few months, or it may be weeks, I could discharge with ease my sister's debts, whatever their amount, yet at this moment, and in a strange land, I have not the power to do so. The money I brought with me is nearly exhausted. Can you not advance the requisite sum?" "Impossible!--Mr. Hazeldean is aware of the distress under which I labour myself." "In that case," said the count, "all we can do to-day is to remove my sister, and let the execution proceed. Meanwhile I will go among my friends, and see what I can borrow from them." "Alas!" said Levy, rising and looking out of the window--"alas!--we cannot remove the marchesa,--the worst is to come. Look!--you see those three men; they have a writ against her person: the moment she sets her foot out of these doors she will be arrested." [At that date the law of /mesne process/ existed still.] "Arrested!" exclaimed Peschiera and Frank in a breath. "I have done my best to prevent this disgrace, but in vain," said the baron, looking very wretched. "You see these English tradespeople fancy they have no hold upon foreigners. But we can get bail; she must not go to prison--" "Prison!" echoed Frank. He hastened to Levy and drew him aside. The count seemed paralyzed by shame and grief. Throwing himself back on the sofa, he covered his face with his hands. "My sister!" groaned the count--"daughter to a Peschiera, widow to a Di Negra!" There was something affecting in the proud woe of this grand patrician. "What is the sum?" whispered Frank, anxious that the poor count should not overhear him; and indeed the count seemed too stunned and overwhelmed to hear anything less loud than a clap of thunder! "We may settle all liabilities for L5,000. Nothing to Peschiera, who is enormously rich. /Entre nous/, I doubt his assurance that he is without ready money. It may be so, but--" "Five thousand pounds! How can I raise such a sum?" "You, my dear Hazeldean? What are you talking about? To be sure you could raise twice as much with a stroke of your pen, and throw your own debts into the bargain. But--to be so generous to an acquaintance!" "Acquaintance!--Madame di Negra! the height of my ambition is to claim her as my wife!" "And these debts don't startle you?" "If a man loves," answered Frank, simply, "he feels it most when the woman he loves is in affliction. And," he added, after a pause, "though these debts are faults, kindness at this moment may give me the power to cure forever both her faults and my own. I can raise this money by a stroke of the pen! How?" "On the Casino property." Frank drew back. "No other way?" "Of course not. But I know your scruples; let us see if they can be conciliated. You would marry Madame di Negra; she will have L20,000 on her wedding-day. Why not arrange that, out of this sum, your anticipative charge on the Casino property be paid at once? Thus, in truth, it will be but for a few weeks that the charge will exist. The bond will remain locked in my desk; it can never come to your father's know ledge, nor wound his feelings. And when you marry (if you will but be prudent in the mean while), you will not owe a debt in the world." Here the count suddenly started up. "Mr. Hazeldean, I asked you to stay and aid us by your counsel; I see now that counsel is unavailing. This blow on our House must fall! I thank you, Sir,--I thank you. Farewell. Levy, come with me to my poor sister, and prepare her for the worst." "Count," said Frank, "hear me. My acquaintance with you is but slight, but I have long known and--and esteemed your sister. Baron Levy has suggested a mode in which I can have the honour and the happiness of removing this temporary but painful embarrassment. I can advance the money." "No, no!" exclaimed Peschiera. "How can you suppose that I will hear of such a proposition? Your youth and benevolence mislead and blind you. Impossible, sir,--impossible! Why, even if I had no pride, no delicacy of my own, my sister's fair fame--" "Would suffer indeed," interrupted Levy, "if she were under such obligation to any one but her affianced husband. Nor, whatever my regard for you, Count, could I suffer my client, Mr. Hazeldean, to make this advance upon any less valid security than that of the fortune to which Madame di Negra is entitled." "Ha!--is this indeed so? You are a suitor for my sister's hand, Mr. Hazeldean?" "But not at this moment,--not to owe her hand to the compulsion of gratitude," answered gentleman Frank. "Gratitude! And you do not know her heart, then? Do not know--" the count interrupted himself, and went on after a pause. "Mr. Hazeldean, I need not say that we rank among the first Houses in Europe. My pride led me formerly into the error of disposing of my sister's hand to one whom she did not love, merely because in rank he was her equal. I will not again commit such an error, nor would Beatrice again obey me if I sought to constrain her. Where she marries, there she will love. If, indeed, she accepts you, as I believe she will, it will be from affection solely. If she does, I cannot scruple to accept this loan,--a loan from a brother-inlaw--loan to me, and not charged against her fortune! That, sir," turning to Levy, with his grand air, "you will take care to arrange. If she do not accept you, Mr. Hazeldean, the loan, I repeat, is not to be thought of. Pardon me, if I leave you. This, one way or other, must be decided at once." The count inclined his head with much stateliness, and then quitted the room. His step was heard ascending the stairs. "If," said Levy, in the tone of a mere man of business--"if the count pay the debts, and the lady's fortune be only charged with your own, after all, it will not be a bad marriage in the world's eye, nor ought it to be in a father's. Trust me, we shall get Mr. Hazeldean's consent, and cheerfully too." Frank did not listen; he could only listen to his love, to his heart beating loud with hope and with fear. Levy sat down before the table, and drew up a long list of figures in a very neat hand,--a list of figures on two accounts, which the post-obit on the Casino was destined to efface. After a lapse of time, which to Frank seemed interminable, the count re-appeared. He took Frank aside, with a gesture to Levy, who rose, and retired into the drawing-room. "My dear young friend," said Peschiera, "as I suspected, my sister's heart is wholly yours. Stop; hear me out. But, unluckily, I informed her of your generous proposal; it was most unguarded, most ill-judged in me, and that has well-nigh spoiled all; she has so much pride and spirit; so great a fear that you may think yourself betrayed into an imprudence which you may hereafter regret, that I am sure she will tell you that she does not love you, she cannot accept you, and so forth. Lovers like you are not easily deceived. Don't go by her words; but you shall see her yourself and judge. Come." Followed mechanically by Frank, the count ascended the stairs, and threw open the door of Beatrice's room. The marchesa's back was turned; but Frank could see that she was weeping. "I have brought my friend to plead for himself," said the count, in French; "and take my advice, sister, and do not throw away all prospect of real and solid happiness for a vain scruple. Heed me!" He retired, and left Frank alone with Beatrice. Then the marchesa, as if by a violent effort, so sudden was her movement, and so wild her look, turned her face to her wooer, and came up to him, where he stood. "Oh," she said, clasping her hands, "is this true? You would save me from disgrace, from a prison--and what can I give you in return? My love! No, no. I will not deceive you. Young, fair, noble as you are, I do not love you as you should be loved. Go; leave this house; you do not know my brother. Go, go--while I have still strength, still virtue enough to reject whatever may protect me from him! whatever--may---Oh, go, go." "You do not love me?" said Frank. "Well, I don't wonder at it; you are so brilliant, so superior to me. I will abandon hope,--I will leave you, as you command me. But at least I will not part with my privilege to serve you. As for the rest, shame on me if I could be mean enough to boast of love, and enforce a suit, at such a moment." Frank turned his face and stole away softly. He did not arrest his steps at the drawing-room; he went into the parlour, wrote a brief line to Levy charging him quietly to dismiss the execution, and to come to Frank's rooms with the necessary deeds; and, above all, to say nothing to the count. Then he went out of the house and walked back to his lodgings. That evening Levy came to him, and accounts were gone into, and papers signed; and the next morning Madame di Negra was free from debt; and there was a great claim on the reversion of the Casino estates; and at the noon of that next day, Randal was closeted with Beatrice; and before the night came a note from Madame di Negra, hurried, blurred with tears, summoning Frank to Curzon Street. And when he entered the marchesa's drawing-room, Peschiera was seated beside his sister; and rising at Frank's entrance, said, "My dear brother-in-law!" and placed Frank's hand in Beatrice's. "You accept--you accept me--and of your own free will and choice?" And Beatrice answered, "Bear with me a little, and I will try to repay you with all my--all my--" She stopped short, and sobbed aloud. "I never thought her capable of such acute feelings, such strong attachment," whispered the count. Frank heard, and his face was radiant. By degrees Madame di Negra recovered composure, and she listened with what her young lover deemed a tender interest, but what, in fact, was mournful and humbled resignation, to his joyous talk of the future. To him the hours passed by, brief and bright, like a flash of sunlight. And his dreams when he retired to rest were so golden! But when he awoke the next morning, he said to himself, "What--what will they say at the Hall?" At that same hour Beatrice, burying her face on her pillow, turned from the loathsome day, and could have prayed for death. At that same hour, Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera, dismissing some gaunt, haggard Italians, with whom he had been in close conference, sallied forth to reconnoitre the house that contained Violante. At that same hour, Baron Levy was seated before his desk, casting up a deadly array of figures, headed, "Account with the Right Hon. Audley Egerton, M. P., Dr. and Cr."--title-deeds strewed around him, and Frank Hazeldean's post-obit peeping out fresh from the elder parchments. At that same hour, Audley Egerton had just concluded a letter from the chairman of his committee in the city he represented, which letter informed him that he had not a chance of being re-elected. And the lines of his face were as composed is usual, and his foot rested as firm on the grim iron box; but his hand was pressed to his heart, and his eye was on the clock, and his voice muttered, "Dr. F--should be here!" And that hour Harley L'Estrange, who the previous night had charmed courtly crowds with his gay humour, was pacing to and fro the room in his hotel with restless strides and many a heavy sigh; and Leonard was standing by the fountain in his garden, and watching the wintry sunbeams that sparkled athwart the spray; and Violante was leaning on Helen's shoulder, and trying archly, yet innocently, to lead Helen to talk of Leonard; and Helen was gazing steadfastly on the floor, and answering but by monosyllables; and Randal Leslie was walking down to his office for the last time, and reading, as he passed across the Green Park, a letter from home, from his sister; and then, suddenly crumpling the letter in his thin pale hand, he looked up, beheld in the distance the spires of the great national Abbey; and recalling the words of our hero Nelson, he muttered, "Victory and Westminster, but not the Abbey!" And Randal Leslie felt that, within the last few days, he had made a vast stride in his ambition,--his grasp on the old Leslie lands, Frank Hazeldean betrothed, and possibly disinherited; and Dick Avenel, in the background, opening against the hated Lansmere interest that same seat in parliament which had first welcomed into public life Randal's ruined patron. "But some must laugh, and some must weep; Thus runs the world away!" 
7709	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK EIGHTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. THE ABUSE OF INTELLECT. There is at present so vehement a flourish of trumpets, and so prodigious a roll of the drum, whenever we are called upon to throw up our hats, and cry "Huzza" to the "March of Enlightenment," that, out of that very spirit of contradiction natural to all rational animals, one is tempted to stop one's ears, and say, "Gently, gently; LIGHT is noiseless: how comes 'Enlightenment' to make such a clatter? Meanwhile, if it be not impertinent, pray, where is Enlightenment marching to?" Ask that question of any six of the loudest bawlers in the procession, and I'll wager tenpence to California that you get six very unsatisfactory answers. One respectable gentleman, who, to our great astonishment, insists upon calling himself "a slave," but has a remarkably free way of expressing his opinions, will reply, "Enlightenment is marching towards the seven points of the Charter." Another, with his hair /a la jeune France/, who has taken a fancy to his friend's wife, and is rather embarrassed with his own, asserts that Enlightenment is proceeding towards the Rights of Women, the reign of Social Love, and the annihilation of Tyrannical Prejudice. A third, who has the air of a man well-to-do in the middle class, more modest in his hopes, because he neither wishes to have his head broken by his errand-boy, nor his wife carried off to an Agapemone by his apprentice, does not take Enlightenment a step farther than a siege on Debrett, and a cannonade on the Budget. Illiberal man! the march that he swells will soon trample him under foot. No one fares so ill in a crowd as the man who is wedged in the middle. A fourth, looking wild and dreamy, as if he had come out of the cave of Trophonius, and who is a mesmerizer and a mystic, thinks Enlightenment is in full career towards the good old days of alchemists and necromancers. A fifth, whom one might take for a Quaker, asserts that the march of Enlightenment is a crusade for universal philanthropy, vegetable diet, and the perpetuation of peace by means of speeches, which certainly do produce a very contrary effect from the Philippics of Demosthenes! The sixth--good fellow without a rag on his back--does not care a straw where the march goes. He can't be worse off than he is; and it is quite immaterial to him whether he goes to the dog-star above, or the bottomless pit below. I say nothing, however, against the march, while we take it altogether. Whatever happens, one is in good company; and though I am somewhat indolent by nature, and would rather stay at home with Locke and Burke (dull dogs though they were) than have my thoughts set off helter-skelter with those cursed trumpets and drums, blown and dub-a-dubbed by fellows whom I vow to heaven I would not trust with a five-pound note,--still, if I must march, I must; and so deuce take the hindmost! But when it comes to individual marchers upon their own account,--privateers and condottieri of Enlightenment,--who have filled their pockets with Lucifer matches, and have a sublime contempt for their neighbour's barns and hay-ricks, I don't see why I should throw myself into the seventh heaven of admiration and ecstasy. If those who are eternally rhapsodizing on the celestial blessings that are to follow Enlightenment, Universal Knowledge, and so forth, would just take their eyes out of their pockets, and look about them, I would respectfully inquire if they have never met any very knowing and enlightened gentleman, whose acquaintance is by no means desirable. If not, they are monstrous lucky. Every man must judge by his own experience; and the worst rogues I have ever encountered were amazingly well-informed clever fellows. From dunderheads and dunces we can protect ourselves, but from your sharpwitted gentleman, all enlightenment and no prejudice, we have but to cry, "Heaven defend us!" It is true, that the rogue (let him be ever so enlightened) usually comes to no good himself, --though not before he has done harm enough to his neighbours. But that only shows that the world wants something else in those it rewards besides intelligence per se and in the abstract; and is much too old a world to allow any Jack Horner to pick out its plums for his own personal gratification. Hence a man of very moderate intelligence, who believes in God, suffers his heart to beat with human sympathies, and keeps his eyes off your strongbox, will perhaps gain a vast deal more power than knowledge ever gives to a rogue. Wherefore, though I anticipate an outcry against me on the part of the blockheads, who, strange to say, are the most credulous idolators of Enlightenment, and if knowledge were power, would rot on a dunghill, yet, nevertheless, I think all really enlightened men will agree with me, that when one falls in with detached sharpshooters from the general March of Enlightenment, it is no reason that we should make ourselves a target, because Enlightenment has furnished them with a gun. It has, doubtless, been already remarked by the judicious reader that of the numerous characters introduced into this work, the larger portion belong to that species which we call the INTELLECTUAL,--that through them are analyzed and developed human intellect, in various forms and directions. So that this History, rightly considered, is a kind of humble familiar Epic, or, if you prefer it, a long Serio-Comedy, upon the Varieties of English Life in this our Century, set in movement by the intelligences most prevalent. And where more ordinary and less refined types of the species round and complete the survey of our passing generation, they will often suggest, by contrast, the deficiencies which mere intellectual culture leaves in the human being. Certainly, I have no spite against intellect and enlightenment. Heaven forbid I should be such a Goth! I am only the advocate for common-sense and fair play. I don't think an able man necessarily an angel; but I think if his heart match his head, and both proceed in the Great March under the divine Oriflamine, he goes as near to the angel as humanity will permit: if not, if he has but a penn'orth of heart to a pound of brains, I say, "/Bon jour, mon ange/! I see not the starry upward wings, but the grovelling cloven-hoof." I 'd rather be offuscated by the Squire of Hazeldean than en lightened by Randal Leslie. Every man to his taste. But intellect itself (not in the philosophical but the ordinary sense of the term) is rarely, if ever, one completed harmonious agency; it is not one faculty, but a compound of many, some of which are often at war with each other, and mar the concord of the whole. Few of us but have some predominant faculty, in itself a strength; but which, usurping unseasonably dominion over the rest, shares the lot of all tyranny, however brilliant, and leaves the empire weak against disaffection within, and invasion from without. Hence, intellect may be perverted in a man of evil disposition, and sometimes merely wasted in a man of excellent impulses, for want of the necessary discipline, or of a strong ruling motive. I doubt if there be one person in the world who has obtained a high reputation for talent, who has not met somebody much cleverer than himself, which said somebody has never obtained any reputation at all! Men like Audley Egerton are constantly seen in the great positions of life; while men like Harley L'Estrange, who could have beaten them hollow in anything equally striven for by both, float away down the stream, and, unless some sudden stimulant arouse their dreamy energies, vanish out of sight into silent graves. If Hamlet and Polonius were living now, Polonius would have a much better chance of being a Cabinet Minister, though Hamlet would unquestionably be a much more intellectual character. What would become of Hamlet? Heaven knows! Dr. Arnold said, from his experience of a school, that the difference between one man and another was not mere ability,--it was energy. There is a great deal of truth in that saying. Submitting these hints to the judgment and penetration of the sagacious, I enter on the fresh division of this work, and see already Randal Leslie gnawing his lips on the background. The German poet observes that the Cow of Isis is to some the divine symbol of knowledge, to others but the milch cow, only regarded for the pounds of butter she will yield. O tendency of our age, to look on Isis as the milch cow! O prostitution of the grandest desires to the basest uses! Gaze on the goddess, Randal Leslie, and get ready thy churn and thy scales. Let us see what the butter will fetch in the market. CHAPTER II. A new Reign has commenced. There has been a general election; the unpopularity of the Administration has been apparent at the hustings. Audley Egerton, hitherto returned by vast majorities, has barely escaped defeat--thanks to a majority of five. The expenses of his election are said to have been prodigious. "But who can stand against such wealth as Egerton's,--no doubt backed, too, by the Treasury purse?" said the defeated candidate. It is towards the close of October; London is already full; parliament will meet in less than a fortnight. In one of the principal apartments of that hotel in which foreigners may discover what is meant by English comfort, and the price which foreigners must pay for it, there sat two persons side by side, engaged in close conversation. The one was a female, in whose pale clear complexion and raven hair, in whose eyes, vivid with a power of expression rarely bestowed on the beauties of the North, we recognize Beatrice, Marchesa di Negra. Undeniably handsome as was the Italian lady, her companion, though a man, and far advanced into middle age, was yet more remarkable for personal advantages. There was a strong family likeness between the two; but there was also a striking contrast in air, manner, and all that stamps on the physiognomy the idiosyncrasies of character. There was something of gravity, of earnestness and passion, in Beatrice's countenance when carefully examined; her smile at times might be false, but it was rarely ironical, never cynical. Her gestures, though graceful, were unrestrained and frequent. You could see she was a daughter of the South. Her companion, on the contrary, preserved on the fair, smooth face, to which years had given scarcely a line or wrinkle, something that might have passed, at first glance, for the levity and thoughtlessness of a gay and youthful nature; but the smile, though exquisitely polished, took at times the derision of a sneer. In his manners he was as composed and as free from gesture as an Englishman. His hair was of that red brown with which the Italian painters produce such marvellous effects of colour; and if here and there a silver thread gleamed through the locks, it was lost at once amidst their luxuriance. His eyes were light, and his complexion, though without much colour, was singularly transparent. His beauty, indeed, would have been rather womanly than masculine, but for the height and sinewy spareness of a frame in which muscular strength was rather adorned than concealed by an admirable elegance of proportion. You would never have guessed this man to be an Italian; more likely you would have supposed him a Parisian. He conversed in French, his dress was of French fashion, his mode of thought seemed French. Not that he was like the Frenchman of the present day,-- an animal, either rude or reserved; but your ideal of the marquis of the old regime, the roue of the Regency. Italian, however, he was, and of a race renowned in Italian history. But, as if ashamed of his country and his birth, he affected to be a citizen of the world. Heaven help the world if it hold only such citizens! "But, Giulio," said Beatrice di Negra, speaking in Italian, "even granting that you discover this girl, can you suppose that her father will ever consent to your alliance? Surely you know too well the nature of your kinsman?" "Tu to trompes, ma soeur," replied Giulio Franzini, Count di Peschiera, in French as usual,--"tu to trompes; I knew it before he had gone through exile and penury. How can I know it now? But comfort yourself, my too anxious Beatrice, I shall not care for his consent, till I 've made sure of his daughter's." "But how win that in despite of the father?" "Eh, mordieu!" interrupted the count, with true French gayety; "what would become of all the comedies ever written, if marriages were not made in despite of the father? Look you," he resumed, with a very slight compression of his lip, and a still slighter movement in his chair,-- "look you, this is no question of ifs and buts! it is a question of must and shall,--a question of existence to you and to me. When Danton was condemned to the guillotine, he said, flinging a pellet of bread at the nose of his respectable judge, 'Mon individu sera bientot dans le neant.' My patrimony is there already! I am loaded with debts. I see before me, on the one side, ruin or suicide; on the other side, wedlock and wealth." "But from those vast possessions which you have been permitted to enjoy so long, have you really saved nothing against the time when they might be reclaimed at your hands?" "My sister," replied the count, "do I look like a man who saved? Besides, when the Austrian Emperor, unwilling to raze from his Lombard domains a name and a House so illustrious as our kinsman's, and desirous, while punishing that kinsman's rebellion, to reward my adherence, forbore the peremptory confiscation of those vast possessions at which my mouth waters while we speak, but, annexing them to the crown during pleasure, allowed me, as the next of male kin, to retain the revenues of one half for the same very indefinite period,--had I not every reason to suppose that before long I could so influence his Imperial Majesty, or his minister, as to obtain a decree that might transfer the whole, unconditionally and absolutely, to myself? And methinks I should have done so, but for this accursed, intermeddling English Milord, who has never ceased to besiege the court or the minister with alleged extenuations of our cousin's rebellion, and proofless assertions that I shared it in order to entangle my kinsman, and betrayed it in order to profit by his spoils. So that, at last, in return for all my services, and in answer to all my claims, I received from the minister himself this cold reply, Count of Peschiera, your aid was important, and your reward has been large. That reward it would not be for your honour to extend, and justify the ill opinion of your Italian countrymen by formally appropriating to yourself all that was forfeited by the treason you denounced. A name so noble as yours should be dearer to you than fortune itself.'" "Ah Giulio," cried Beatrice, her face lighting up, changed in its whole character, "those were words that might make the demon that tempts to avarice fly from your breast in shame." The count opened his eyes in great amaze; then he glanced round the room, and said quietly, "Nobody else hears you, my dear Beatrice; talk commonsense. Heroics sound well in mixed society; but there is nothing less suited to the tone of a family conversation." Madame di Negra bent down her head abashed, and that sudden change in the expression of her countenance which had seemed to betray susceptibility to generous emotion, faded as suddenly away. "But still," she said coldly, "you enjoy one half of those ample revenues: why talk, then, of suicide and ruin?" "I enjoy them at the pleasure of the crown; and what if it be the pleasure of the crown to recall our cousin, and reinstate him in his possessions?" "There is a probability, then, of that pardon? When you first employed me in your researches you only thought there was a possibility." "There is a great probability of it, and therefore I am here. I learned some little time since that the question of such recall had been suggested by the emperor, and discussed in Council. The danger to the State, which might arise from our cousin's wealth, his alleged abilities,--abilities! bah! and his popular name, deferred any decision on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere question of time. He cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty already extended to the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice on which I acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable age; that if she were to wed, with the emperor's consent, some one whose attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my friend) 'apply to the emperor for his consent to that alliance for yourself,--you, on whom he can depend; you who, if the daughter should die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke." "You saw the emperor?" "And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated that so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against me, when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would willingly give me the hand of his child." "You did!" cried the marchesa, amazed. "And," continued the count, imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front,--"and that I should thus have the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty, the agent for the restoration of his honours, while, in the eyes of the envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion that I had wronged him." "And the emperor consented?" "Pardieu, my dear sister, what else could his Majesty do? My proposition smoothed every obstacle, and reconciled policy with mercy. It remains, therefore, only to find out what has hitherto baffled all our researches, the retreat of our dear kinsfolk, and to make myself a welcome lover to the demoiselle. There is some disparity of years, I own; but--unless your sex and my glass flatter me overmuch--I am still a, match for many a gallant of five-and-twenty." The count said this with so charming a smile, and looked so pre-eminently handsome, that he carried off the coxcombry of the words as gracefully as if they had been spoken by some dazzling hero of the grand old comedy of Parisian life. Then interlacing his fingers and lightly leaning his hands, thus clasped, upon his sister's shoulder, he looked into her face, and said slowly, "And now, my sister, for some gentle but deserved reproach. Have you not sadly failed me in the task I imposed on your regard for my interests? Is it not some years since you first came to England on the mission of discovering these worthy relations of ours? Did I not entreat you to seduce into your toils the man whom I new to be my enemy, and who was indubitably acquainted with our cousin's retreat,--a secret he has hitherto locked within his bosom? Did you not tell me, that though he was then in England, you could find no occasion even to meet him, but that you had obtained the friendship of the statesman to whom I directed your attention, as his most intimate associate? And yet you, whose charms are usually so irresistible, learn nothing from the statesman, as you see nothing of Milord. Nay, baffled and misled, you actually suppose that the quarry has taken refuge in France. You go thither, you pretend to search the capital, the provinces, Switzerland, /que sais je/? All in vain,--though--/foi de gentilhomme/--your police cost me dearly. You return to England; the same chase, and the same result. /Palsambleu, ma soeur/, I do too much credit to your talents not to question your zeal. In a word, have you been in earnest,--or have you not had some womanly pleasure in amusing yourself and abusing my trust?" "Giulio," answered Beatrice, sadly, "you know the influence you have exercised over my character and my fate. Your reproaches are not just. I made such inquiries as were in my power, and I have now cause to believe that I know one who is possessed of this secret, and can guide us to it." "Ah, you do!" exclaimed the count. Beatrice did not heed the exclamation, and hurried on. "But grant that my heart shrunk from the task you imposed on me, would it not have been natural? When I first came to England, you informed me that your object in discovering the exiles was one which I could honestly aid. You naturally wished first to know if the daughter lived; if not, you were the heir. If she did, you assured me you desired to effect, through my mediation, some liberal compromise with Alphonso, by which you would have sought to obtain his restoration, provided he would leave you for life in possession of the grant you hold from the crown. While these were your objects, I did my best, ineffectual as it was, to obtain the information required." "And what made me lose so important, though so ineffectual an ally?" asked the count, still smiling; but a gleam that belied the smile shot from his eye. "What! when you bade me receive and co-operate with the miserable spies-- the false Italians--whom you sent over, and seek to entangle this poor exile, when found, in some rash correspondence to be revealed to the court; when you sought to seduce the daughter of the Count of Peschiera, the descendant of those who had ruled in Italy, into the informer, the corrupter, and the traitress,--no, Giulio, then I recoiled; and then, fearful of your own sway over me, I retreated into France. I have answered you frankly." The count removed his hands from the shoulder on which they had reclined so cordially. "And this," said he, "is your wisdom, and this your gratitude! You, whose fortunes are bound up in mine; you, who subsist on my bounty; you, who--" "Hold," cried the marchesa, rising, and with a burst of emotion, as if stung to the utmost, and breaking into revolt from the tyranny of years, --"hold! Gratitude! bounty! Brother, brother! what, indeed, do I owe to you? The shame and the misery of a life. While yet a child, you condemned me to marry against my will, against my heart, against my prayers,--and laughed at my tears when I knelt to you for mercy. I was pure then, Giulio,--pure and innocent as the flowers in my virgin crown. And now--now--" Beatrice stopped abruptly, and clasped her hands before her face. "Now you upbraid me," said the count, unruffled by her sudden passion, "because I gave you in marriage to a man young and noble?" "Old in vices, and mean of soul! The marriage I forgave you. You had the right, according to the customs of our country, to dispose of my hand. But I forgave you not the consolations that you whispered in the ear of a wretched and insulted wife." "Pardon me the remark," replied the count, with a courtly bend of his head, "but those consolations were also conformable to the customs of our country, and I was not aware till now that you had wholly disdained them. And," continued the count," you were not so long a wife that the gall of the chain should smart still. You were soon left a widow,--free, childless, young, beautiful." "And penniless." "True, Di Negra was a gambler, and very unlucky; no fault of mine. I could neither keep the cards from his hands, nor advise him how to play them." "And my own portion? O Giulio, I knew but at his death why you had condemned me to that renegade Genoese. He owed you money, and, against honour, and I believe against law, you had accepted my fortune in discharge of the debt." "He had no other way to discharge it; a debt of honour must be paid,--old stories these. What matters? Since then my purse has been open to you." "Yes, not as your sister, but your instrument, your spy! Yes, your purse has been open--with a niggard hand." "/Un peu de conscience, ma chere/,--you are so extravagant. But come, be plain. What would you?" "I would be free from you." "That is, you would form some second marriage with one of these rich island lords. /Ma foi/, I respect your ambition." "It is not so high. I aim but to escape from slavery,--to be placed beyond dishonourable temptation. I desire," cried Beatrice, with increased emotion,--"I desire to re-enter the life of woman." "Eno'!" said the count, with a visible impatience; "is there anything in the attainment of your object that should render you indifferent to mine? You desire to marry, if I comprehend you right. And to marry as becomes you, you should bring to your husband not debts, but a dowry. Be it so. I will restore the portion that I saved from the spendthrift clutch of the Genoese,--the moment that it is mine to bestow, the moment that I am husband to my kinsman's heiress. And now, Beatrice, you imply that my former notions revolted your conscience; my present plan should content it, for by this marriage shall our kinsman regain his country, and repossess, at least, half his lands. And if I am not an excellent husband to the demoiselle, it will be her own fault. I have sown my wild oats. /Je suis bon prince/, when I have things a little my own way. It is my hope and my intention, and certainly it will be my interest, to become /digne epoux et irreprochable pere de famille/. I speak lightly, --'t is my way. I mean seriously. The little girl will be very happy with me, and I shall succeed in soothing all resentment her father may retain. Will you aid me then, yes or no? Aid me, and you shall indeed be free. The magician will release the fair spirit he has bound to his will. Aid me not, /ma chere/, and mark, I do not threaten--I do but warn--aid me not; grant that I become a beggar, and ask yourself what is to become of you,--still young, still beautiful, and still penniless? Nay, worse than penniless; you have done me the honour," and here the count, looking on the table, drew a letter from a portfolio emblazoned with his arms and coronet,--"you have done me the honour to consult me as to your debts." "You will restore my fortune?" said the marchesa, irresolutely,--and averting her head from an odious schedule of figures. "When my own, with your aid, is secured." "But do you not overrate the value of my aid?" "Possibly," said the count, with a caressing suavity--and he kissed his sister's forehead. "Possibly; but, by my honour, I wish to repair to you any wrong, real or supposed, I may have done you in past times. I wish to find again my own dear sister. I may over-value your aid, but not the affection from which it comes. Let us be friends, /cara Beatrice mia/," added the count, for the first time employing Italian words. The marchesa laid her head on his shoulder, and her tears flowed softly. Evidently this man had great influence over her,--and evidently, whatever her cause for complaint, her affection for him was still sisterly and strong. A nature with fine flashes of generosity, spirit, honour, and passion was hers; but uncultured, unguided, spoilt by the worst social examples, easily led into wrong, not always aware where the wrong was, letting affections good or bad whisper away her conscience or blind her reason. Such women are often far more dangerous when induced to wrong than those who are thoroughly abandoned,--such women are the accomplices men like the Count of Peschiera most desire to obtain. "Ah, Giulio," said Beatrice, after a pause, and looking up at him through her tears, "when you speak to me thus, you know you can do with me what you will. Fatherless and motherless, whom had my childhood to love and obey but you?" "Dear Beatrice," murmured the count, tenderly, and he again kissed her forehead. "So," he continued, more carelessly,--"so the reconciliation is effected, and our interests and our hearts re-allied. Now, alas! to descend to business. You say that you know some one whom you believe to be acquainted with the lurking-place of my father-in-law--that is to be!" "I think so. You remind me that I have an appointment with him this day: it is near the hour,--I must leave you." "To learn the secret?---Quick, quick. I have no fear of your success, if it is by his heart that you lead him!" "You mistake; on his heart I have no hold. But he has a friend who loves me, and honourably, and whose cause he pleads. I think here that I have some means to control or persuade him. If not--ah, he is of a character that perplexes me in all but his worldly ambition; and how can we foreigners influence him through THAT?" "Is he poor, or is he extravagant?" "Not extravagant, and not positively poor, but dependent." "Then we have him," said the count, composedly. "If his assistance be worth buying, we can bid high for it. /Sur mon ame/, I never yet knew money fail with any man who was both worldly and dependent. I put him and myself in your hands." Thus saying, the count opened the door, and conducted his sister with formal politeness to her carriage. He then returned, reseated himself, and mused in silence. As he did so, the muscles of his countenance relaxed. The levity of the Frenchman fled from his visage, and in his eye, as it gazed abstractedly into space, there was that steady depth so remarkable in the old portraits of Florentine diplomatist or Venetian Oligarch. Thus seen, there was in that face, despite all its beauty, something that would have awed back even the fond gaze of love,-- something hard, collected, inscrutable, remorseless. But this change of countenance did not last long. Evidently thought, though intense for the moment, was not habitual to the man; evidently he had lived the life which takes all things lightly,--so he rose with a look of fatigue, shook and stretched himself, as if to cast off, or grow out of, an unwelcome and irksome mood. An hour afterwards, the Count of Peschiera was charming all eyes, and pleasing all ears, in the saloon of a high-born beauty, whose acquaintance he had made at Vienna, and whose charms, according to that old and never-truth-speaking oracle, Polite Scandal, were now said to have attracted to London the brilliant foreigner. CHAPTER III. The marehesa regained her house, which was in Curzon Street, and withdrew to her own room, to readjust her dress, and remove from her countenance all trace of the tears she had shed. Half an hour afterwards she was seated in her drawing-room, composed and calm; nor, seeing her then, could you have guessed that she was capable of so much emotion and so much weakness. In that stately exterior, in that quiet attitude, in that elaborate and finished elegance which comes alike from the arts of the toilet and the conventional repose of rank, you could see but the woman of the world and the great lady. A knock at the door was heard, and in a few moments there entered a visitor, with the easy familiarity of intimate acquaintance,--a young man, but with none of the bloom of youth. His hair, fine as a woman's, was thin and scanty, but it fell low over the forehead, and concealed that noblest of our human features. "A gentleman," says Apuleius, "ought to wear his whole mind on his forehead." The young visitor would never have committed so frank an imprudence. His cheek was pale, and in his step and his movements there was a languor that spoke of fatigued nerves or delicate health. But the light of the eye and the tone of the voice were those of a mental temperament controlling the bodily,--vigorous and energetic. For the rest, his general appearance was distinguished by a refinement alike intellectual and social. Once seen, you would not easily forget him; and the reader, no doubt, already recognizes Randal Leslie. His salutation, as I before said, was that of intimate familiarity; yet it was given and replied to with that unreserved openness which denotes the absence of a more tender sentiment. Seating himself by the marchesa's side, Randal began first to converse on the fashionable topics and gossip of the day; but it was observable that while he extracted from her the current anecdote and scandal of the great world, neither anecdote nor scandal did he communicate in return. Randal Leslie had already learned the art not to commit himself, nor to have quoted against him one ill-natured remark upon the eminent. Nothing more injures the man who would rise beyond the fame of the salons than to be considered backbiter and gossip; "yet it is always useful," thought Randal Leslie, "to know the foibles, the small social and private springs, by which the great are moved. Critical occasions may arise in which such a knowledge may be power." And hence, perhaps (besides a more private motive, soon to be perceived), Randal did not consider his time thrown away in cultivating Madame di Negra's friendship. For, despite much that was whispered against her, she had succeeded in dispelling the coldness with which she had at first been received in the London circles. Her beauty, her grace, and her high birth had raised her into fashion, and the homage of men of the first station, while it perhaps injured her reputation as woman, added to her celebrity as fine lady. So much do we cold English, prudes though we be, forgive to the foreigner what we avenge on the native. Sliding at last from these general topics into very well-bred and elegant personal compliment, and reciting various eulogies, which Lord this and the Duke of that had passed on the marchesa's charms, Randal laid his hand on hers, with the license of admitted friendship, and said, "But since you have deigned to confide in me, since when (happily for me, and with a generosity of which no coquette could have been capable) you, in good time, repressed into friendship feelings that might else have ripened into those you are formed to inspire and disdain to return, you told me with your charming smile, 'Let no one speak to me of love who does not offer me his hand, and with it the means to supply tastes that I fear are terribly extravagant,'--since thus you allowed me to divine your natural objects, and upon that understanding our intimacy has been founded, you will pardon me for saying that the admiration you excite amongst these grands seigneurs I have named only serves to defeat your own purpose, and scare away admirers less brilliant, but more in earnest. Most of these gentlemen are unfortunately married; and they who are not belong to those members of our aristocracy who, in marriage, seek more than beauty and wit,--namely, connections to strengthen their political station, or wealth to redeem a mortgage and sustain a title." "My dear Mr. Leslie," replied the marchesa,--and a certain sadness might be detected in the tone of the voice and the droop of the eye,--"I have lived long enough in the real world to appreciate the baseness and the falsehood of most of those sentiments which take the noblest names. I see through the hearts of the admirers you parade before me, and know that not one of them would shelter with his ermine the woman to whom he talks of his heart. Ah," continued Beatrice, with a softness of which she was unconscious, but which might have been extremely dangerous to youth less steeled and self-guarded than was Randal Leslie's,--"ah, I am less ambitious than you suppose. I have dreamed of a friend, a companion, a protector, with feelings still fresh, undebased by the low round of vulgar dissipation and mean pleasures,--of a heart so new, that it might restore my own to what it was in its happy spring. I have seen in your country some marriages, the mere contemplation of which has filled my eyes with delicious tears. I have learned in England to know the value of home. And with such a heart as I describe, and such a home, I could forget that I ever knew a less pure ambition." "This language does not surprise me," said Randal; "yet it does not harmonize with your former answer to me." "To you," repeated Beatrice, smiling, and regaining her lighter manner; "to you,--true. But I never had the vanity to think that your affection for me could bear the sacrifices it would cost you in marriage; that you, with your ambition, could bound your dreams of happiness to home. And then, too," said she, raising her head, and with a certain grave pride in her air,--"and then, I could not have consented to share my fate with one whom my poverty would cripple. I could not listen to my heart, if it had beat for a lover without fortune, for to him I could then have brought but a burden, and betrayed him into a union with poverty and debt. Now, it may be different. Now I may have the dowry that befits my birth. And now I may be free to choose according to my heart as woman, not according to my necessities, as one poor, harassed, and despairing." "Ah," said Randal, interested, and drawing still closer towards his fair companion,--"ah, I congratulate you sincerely; you have cause, then, to think that you shall be--rich?" The marchesa paused before she answered, and during that pause Randal relaxed the web of the scheme which he had been secretly weaving, and rapidly considered whether, if Beatrice di Negra would indeed be rich, she might answer to himself as a wife; and in what way, if so, he had best change his tone from that of friendship into that of love. While thus reflecting, Beatrice answered, "Not rich for an Englishwoman; for an Italian, yes. My fortune should be half a million--" "Half a million!" cried Randal, and with difficulty he restrained himself from falling at her feet in adoration. "Of francs!" continued the marchesa. "Francs! Ah," said Randal, with a long-drawn breath, and recovering from his sudden enthusiasm, "about L20,000? eight hundred a year at four per cent. A very handsome portion, certainly (Genteel poverty!" he murmured to himself. "What an escape I have had! but I see--I see. This will smooth all difficulties in the way of my better and earlier project. I see),--a very handsome portion," he repeated aloud,--"not for a grand seigneur, indeed, but still for a gentleman of birth and expectations worthy of your choice, if ambition be not your first object. Ah, while you spoke with such endearing eloquence of feelings that were fresh, of a heart that was new, of the happy English home, you might guess that my thoughts ran to my friend who loves you so devotedly, and who so realizes your ideal. Proverbially, with us, happy marriages and happy homes are found not in the gay circles of London fashion, but at the hearths of our rural nobility, our untitled country gentlemen. And who, amongst all your adorers, can offer you a lot so really enviable as the one whom, I see by your blush, you already guess that I refer to?" "Did I blush?" said the marchesa, with a silvery laugh. "Nay, I think that your zeal for your friend misled you. But I will own frankly, I have been touched by his honest ingenuous love,--so evident, yet rather looked than spoken. I have contrasted the love that honours me with the suitors that seek to degrade; more I cannot say. For though I grant that your friend is handsome, high-spirited, and generous, still he is not what--" "You mistake, believe me," interrupted Randal. "You shall not finish your sentence. He is all that you do not yet suppose him; for his shyness, and his very love, his very respect for your superiority, do not allow his mind and his nature to appear to advantage. You, it is true, have a taste for letters and poetry rare among your countrywomen. He has not at present--few men have. But what Cimon would not be refined by so fair an Iphigenia? Such frivolities as he now shows belong but to youth and inexperience of life. Happy the brother who could see his sister the wife of Frank Hazeldean." The marchesa leaned her cheek on her hand in silence. To her, marriage was more than it usually seems to dreaming maiden or to disconsolate widow. So had the strong desire to escape from the control of her unprincipled and remorseless brother grown a part of her very soul; so had whatever was best and highest in her very mixed and complex character been galled and outraged by her friendless and exposed position, the equivocal worship rendered to her beauty, the various debasements to which pecuniary embarrassments had subjected her--not without design on the part of the count, who though grasping, was not miserly, and who by precarious and seemingly capricious gifts at one time, and refusals of all aid at another, had involved her in debt in order to retain his hold on her; so utterly painful and humiliating to a woman of her pride and her birth was the station that she held in the world,--that in marriage she saw liberty, life, honour, self-redemption; and these thoughts, while they compelled her to co-operate with the schemes by which the count, on securing to himself a bride, was to bestow on herself a dower, also disposed her now to receive with favour Randal Leslie's pleadings on behalf of his friend. The advocate saw that he had made an impression, and with the marvellous skill which his knowledge of those natures that engaged his study bestowed on his intelligence, he continued to improve his cause by such representations as were likely to be most effective. With what admirable tact he avoided panegyric of Frank as the mere individual, and drew him rather as the type, the ideal of what a woman in Beatrice's position might desire, in the safety, peace, and Honour of a home, in the trust and constancy and honest confiding love of its partner! He did not paint an elysium,--he described a haven; he did not glowingly delineate a hero of romance,--he soberly portrayed that Representative of the Respectable and the Real which a woman turns to when romance begins to seem to her but delusion. Verily, if you could have looked into the heart of the person he addressed, and heard him speak, you would have cried admiringly, "Knowledge is power; and this man, if as able on a larger field of action, should play no mean part in the history of his time." Slowly Beatrice roused herself from the reveries which crept over her as he spoke,--slowly, and with a deep sigh, and said, "Well, well, grant all you say! at least before I can listen to so honourable a love, I must be relieved from the base and sordid pleasure that weighs on me. I cannot say to the man who wooes me, 'Will you pay the debts of the daughter of Franzini, and the widow of Di Negra?'" "Nay, your debts, surely, make so slight a portion of your dowry." "But the dowry has to be secured;" and here, turning the tables upon her companion, as the apt proverb expresses it, Madame di Negra extended her hand to Randal, and said in the most winning accents, "You are, then, truly and sincerely my friend?" "Can you doubt it?" "I prove that I do not, for I ask your assistance." "Mine? How?" "Listen; my brother has arrived in London--" "I see that arrival announced in the papers." "And he comes, empowered by the consent of the emperor, to ask the hand of a relation and countrywoman of his,--an alliance that will heal long family dissensions, and add to his own fortunes those of an heiress. My brother, like myself, has been extravagant. The dowry which by law he still owes me it would distress him to pay till this marriage be assured." "I understand," said Randal. "But how can I aid this marriage?" "By assisting us to discover the bride. She, with her father, sought refuge and concealment in England." "The father had, then, taken part in some political disaffections, and was proscribed?" "Exactly; and so well has he concealed himself, that he has baffled all our efforts to discover his retreat. My brother can obtain him his pardon in cementing this alliance--" "Proceed." "Ah, Randal, Randal, is this the frankness of friendship? You know that I have before sought to obtain the secret of our relation's retreat,-- sought in vain to obtain it from Mr. Egerton, who assuredly knows it--" "But who communicates no secrets to living man," said Randal, almost bitterly; "who, close and compact as iron, is as little malleable to me as to you." "Pardon me. I know you so well that I believe you could attain to any secret you sought earnestly to acquire. Nay, more, I believe that you know already that secret which I ask you to share with me." "What on earth makes you think so?" "When, some weeks ago, you asked me to describe the personal appearance and manners of the exile, which I did partly from the recollections of my childhood, partly from the description given to me by others, I could not but notice your countenance, and remark its change; in spite," said the marchesa, smiling, and watching Randal while she spoke,--"in spite of your habitual self-command. And when I pressed you to own that you had actually seen some one who tallied with that description, your denial did not deceive me. Still more, when returning recently, of your own accord, to the subject, you questioned me so shrewdly as to my motives in seeking the clew to our refugees, and I did not then answer you satisfactorily, I could detect--" "Ha, ha," interrupted Randal, with the low soft laugh by which occasionally he infringed upon Lord Chesterfield's recommendations to shun a merriment so natural as to be illbred,--"ha, ha, you have the fault of all observers too minute and refined. But even granting that I may have seen some Italian exiles (which is likely enough), what could be more natural than my seeking to compare your description with their appearance; and granting that I might suspect some one amongst them to be the man you search for, what more natural also than that I should desire to know if you meant him harm or good in discovering his 'whereabout'? For ill," added Randal, with an air of prudery,--"ill would it become me to betray, even to friendship, the retreat of one who would hide from persecution; and even if I did so--for honour itself is a weak safeguard against your fascinations--such indiscretion might be fatal to my future career." "How?" "Do you not say that Egerton knows the secret, yet will not communicate; and is he a man who would ever forgive in me an imprudence that committed himself? My dear friend, I will tell you more. When Audley Egerton first noticed my growing intimacy with you, he said, with his usual dryness of counsel, 'Randal, I do not ask you to discontinue acquaintance with Madame di Negra, for an acquaintance with women like her forms the manners, and refines the intellect; but charming women are dangerous, and Madame di Negra is--a charming woman.'" The marchesa's face flushed. Randal resumed: "'Your fair acquaintance' (I am still quoting Egerton) 'seeks to dis cover the home of a countryman of hers. She suspects that I know it. She may try to learn it through you. Accident may possibly give you the information she requires. Beware how you betray it. By one such weakness I should judge of your general character. He from whom a woman can extract a secret will never be fit for public life.' Therefore, my dear marchesa, even supposing I possess this secret, you would be no true friend of mine to ask me to reveal what would imperil all my prospects. For as yet," added Randal, with a gloomy shade on his brow,--"as yet, I do not stand alone and erect,--I lean, I am dependent." "There may be a way," replied Madame di Negra, persisting, "to communicate this intelligence without the possibility of Mr. Egerton's tracing our discovery to yourself; and, though I will not press you further, I add this,--You urge me to accept your friend's hand; you seem interested in the success of his suit, and you plead it with a warmth that shows how much you regard what you suppose is his happiness; I will never accept his hand till I can do so without blush for my penury,--till my dowry is secured; and that can only be by my brother's union with the exile's daughter. For your friend's sake, therefore, think well how you can aid me in the first step to that alliance. The young lady once discovered, and my brother has no fear for the success of his suit." "And you would marry Frank if the dower was secured?" "Your arguments in his favour seem irresistible," replied Beatrice, looking down. A flash went from Randal's eyes, and he mused a few moments. Then slowly rising, and drawing on his gloves, he said, "Well, at least you so far reconcile my honour towards aiding your research, that you now inform me you mean no ill to the exile." "Ill!--the restoration to fortune, honours, his native land!" "And you so far enlist my heart on your side, that you inspire me with the hope to contribute to the happiness of two friends whom I dearly love. I will, therefore, diligently try to ascertain if, among the refugees I have met with, lurk those whom you seek; and if so, I will thoughtfully consider how to give you the clew. Meanwhile, not one incautious word to Egerton." "Trust me,--I am a woman of the world." Randal now had gained the door. He paused, and renewed carelessly,-- "This young lady must be heiress to great wealth, to induce a man of your brother's rank to take so much pains to discover her." "Her wealth will be vast," replied the marchesa; "and if anything from wealth or influence in a foreign State could be permitted to prove my brother's gratitude--" "Ah, fie!" interrupted Randal; and, approaching Madame di Negra, he lifted her hand to his lips, and said gallantly, "This is reward enough to your preux chevalier." With those words he took his leave. CHAPTER IV. With his hands behind him, and his head drooping on his breast, slow, stealthy, noiseless, Randal Leslie glided along the streets on leaving the Italian's house. Across the scheme he had before revolved, there glanced another yet more glittering, for its gain might be more sure and immediate. If the exile's daughter were heiress to such wealth, might he himself hope--He stopped short even in his own soliloquy, and his breath came quick. Now, in his last visit to Hazeldean, he had come in contact with Riccabocca, and been struck by the beauty of Violante. A vague suspicion had crossed him that these might be the persons of whom the marchesa was in search, and the suspicion had been confirmed by Beatrice's description of the refugee she desired to discover. But as he had not then learned the reason for her inquiries, nor conceived the possibility that he could have any personal interest in ascertaining the truth, he had only classed the secret in question among those the further research into which might be left to time and occasion. Certainly the reader will not do the unscrupulous intellect of Randal Leslie the injustice to suppose that he was deterred from confiding to his fair friend all that he knew of Riccabocca by the refinement of honour to which he had so chivalrously alluded. He had correctly stated Audley Egerton's warning against any indiscreet confidence, though he had forborne to mention a more recent and direct renewal of the same caution. His first visit to Hazeldean had been paid without consulting Egerton. He had been passing some days at his father's house, and had gone over thence to the squire's. On his return to London, he had, however, mentioned this visit to Audley, who had seemed annoyed and even displeased at it, though Randal knew sufficient of Egerton's character to guess that such feelings could scarce be occasioned merely by his estrangement from his half-brother. This dissatisfaction had, therefore, puzzled the young man. But as it was necessary to his views to establish intimacy with the squire, he did not yield the point with his customary deference to his patron's whims. Accordingly he observed that he should be very sorry to do anything displeasing to his benefactor, but that his father had been naturally anxious that he should not appear positively to slight the friendly overtures of Mr. Hazeldean. "Why naturally?" asked Egerton. "Because you know that Mr. Hazeldean is a relation of mine,--that my grandmother was a Hazeldean." "Ah!" said Egerton, who, as it has been before said, knew little and cared less about the Hazeldean pedigree, "I was either not aware of that circumstance, or had forgotten it. And your father thinks that the squire may leave you a legacy?" "Oh, sir, my father is not so mercenary,--such an idea never entered his head. But the squire himself has indeed said, 'Why, if anything happened to Frank, you would be next heir to my lands, and therefore we ought to know each other.' But--" "Enough," interrupted Egerton. "I am the last man to pretend to the right of standing between you and a single chance of fortune, or of aid to it. And whom did you meet at Hazeldean?" "There was no one there, sir; not even Frank." "Hum. Is the squire not on good terms with his parson? Any quarrel about tithes?" "Oh, no quarrel. I forgot Mr. Dale; I saw him pretty often. He admires and praises you very much, sir." "Me--and why? What did he say of me?" "That your heart was as sound as your head; that he had once seen you about some old parishioners of his, and that he had been much impressed with the depth of feeling he could not have anticipated in a man of the world, and a statesman." "Oh, that was all; some affair when I was member for Lansmere?" "I suppose so." Here the conversation had broken off; but the next time Randal was led to visit the squire he had formally asked Egerton's consent, who, after a moment's hesitation, had as formally replied, "I have no objection." On returning from this visit, Randal mentioned that he had seen Riccabocca: and Egerton, a little startled at first, said composedly, "Doubtless one of the political refugees; take care not to set Madame di Negra on his track. Remember, she is suspected of being a spy of the Austrian government." "Rely on me, sir," said Randal; "but I should think this poor doctor can scarcely be the person she seeks to discover." "That is no affair of ours," answered Egerton: "we are English gentlemen, and make not a step towards the secrets of another." Now, when Randal revolved this rather ambiguous answer, and recalled the uneasiness with which Egerton had first heard of his visit to Hazeldean, he thought that he was indeed near the secret which Egerton desired to conceal from him and from all,--namely, the incognito of the Italian whom Lord L'Estrange had taken under his protection. "My cards," said Randal to himself, as with a deep-drawn sigh he resumed his soliloquy, "are become difficult to play. On the one hand, to entangle Frank into marriage with this foreigner, the squire could never forgive him. On the other hand, if she will not marry him without the dowry--and that depends on her brother's wedding this countrywoman--and that countrywoman be, as I surmise, Violante, and Violante be this heiress, and to be won by me! Tush, tush. Such delicate scruples in a woman so placed and so constituted as Beatrice di Negra must be easily talked away. Nay, the loss itself of this alliance to her brother, the loss of her own dowry, the very pressure of poverty and debt, would compel her into the sole escape left to her option. I will then follow up the old plan; I will go down to Hazeldean, and see if there be any substance in the new one; and then to reconcile both. Aha--the House of Leslie shall rise yet from its ruin--and--" Here he was startled from his revery by a friendly slap on the shoulder, and an exclamation, "Why, Randal, you are more absent than when you used to steal away from the cricket-ground, muttering Greek verses, at Eton." "My dear Frank," said Randal, "you--you are so brusque, and I was just thinking of you." "Were you? And kindly, then, I am sure," said Frank Hazeldean, his honest handsome face lighted up with the unsuspecting genial trust of friendship; "and Heaven knows," he added, with a sadder voice, and a graver expression on his eye and lip,--"Heaven knows I want all the kindness you can give me!" "I thought," said Randal, "that your father's last supply, of which I was fortunate enough to be the bearer, would clear off your more pressing debts. I don't pretend to preach, but really, I must say once more, you should not be so extravagant." FRANK (seriously).--"I have done my best to reform. I have sold off my horses, and I have not touched dice nor card these six months; I would not even put into the raffle for the last Derby." This last was said with the air of a man who doubted the possibility of obtaining belief to some assertion of preternatural abstinence and virtue. RANDAL.--"Is it possible? But with such self-conquest, how is it that you cannot contrive to live within the bounds of a very liberal allowance?" FRANK (despondingly).--"Why, when a man once gets his head under water, it is so hard to float back again on the surface. You see, I attribute all my embarrassments to that first concealment of my debts from my father, when they could have been so easily met, and when be came up to town so kindly." "I am sorry, then, that I gave you that advice." "Oh, you meant it so kindly, I don't reproach you; it was all my own fault." "Why, indeed, I did urge you to pay off that moiety of your debts left unpaid, with your allowance. Had you done so, all had been well." "Yes; but poor Borrowell got into such a scrape at Goodwood, I could not resist him; a debt of honour,--that must be paid; so when I signed another bill for him, he could not pay it, poor fellow! Really he would have shot himself, if I had not renewed it. And now it is swelled to such an amount with that cursed interest, that he never can pay it; and one bill, of course, begets another,--and to be renewed every three months; 't is the devil and all! So little as I ever got for all I have borrowed," added Frank, with a kind of rueful amaze. "Not L1,500 ready money; and the interest would cost me almost as much yearly,--if I had it." "Only L1,500!" "Well; besides seven large chests of the worst cigars you ever smoked, three pipes of wine that no one would drink, and a great bear that had been imported from Greenland for the sake of its grease." "That should, at least, have saved you a bill with your hairdresser." "I paid his bill with it," said Frank, "and very good-natured he was to take the monster off my hands,--it had already hugged two soldiers and one groom into the shape of a flounder. I tell you what," resumed Frank, after a short pause, "I have a great mind even now to tell my father honestly all my embarrassments." RANDAL (solemnly).--"Hum!" FRANK.--" What? don't you think it would be the best way? I never can save enough,--never can pay off what I owe; and it rolls like a snowball." RANDAL.--"Judging by the squire's talk, I think that with the first sight of your affairs you would forfeit his favour forever; and your mother would be so shocked, especially after supposing that the sum I brought you so lately sufficed to pay off every claim on you. If you had not assured her of that it might be different; but she, who so hates an untruth, and who said to the squire, 'Frank says this will clear him; and with all his faults, Frank never yet told a lie!'" "Oh, my dear mother!--I fancy I hear her!" cried Frank, with deep emotion. "But I did not tell a lie, Randal; I did not say that that sum would clear me." "You empowered and begged me to say so," replied Randal, with grave coldness; "and don't blame me if I believed you." "No, no! I only said it would clear me for the moment." "I misunderstood you, then, sadly; and such mistakes involve my own honour. Pardon me, Frank; don't ask my aid in future. You see, with the best intentions, I only compromise myself." "If you forsake me, I may as well go and throw myself into the river," said Frank, in a tone of despair; "and sooner or later, my father must know my necessities. The Jews threaten to go to him already; and the longer the delay, the more terrible the explanation." "I don't see why your father should ever learn the state of your affairs; and it seems to me that you could pay off these usurers, and get rid of these bills, by raising money on comparatively easy terms--" "How?" cried Frank, eagerly. "Why, the Casino property is entailed on you, and you might obtain a sum upon that, not to be paid till the property becomes yours." "At my poor father's death? Oh, no, no! I cannot bear the idea of this cold-blooded calculation on a father's death. I know it is not uncommon; I know other fellows who have done it, but they never had parents so kind as mine; and even in them it shocked and revolted me. The contemplating a father's death, and profiting by the contemplation it seems a kind of parricide: it is not natural, Randal. Besides, don't you remember what the Governor said,--he actually wept while he said it,--'Never calculate on my death; I could not bear that.' Oh, Randal, don't speak of it!" "I respect your sentiments; but still, all the post-orbits you could raise could not shorten Mr. Hazeldean's life by a day. However, dismiss that idea; we must think of some other device. Ha, Frank! you are a handsome fellow, and your expectations are great--why don't you marry some woman with money?" "Pooh!" exclaimed Frank, colouring. "You know, Randal, that there is but one woman in the world I can ever think of; and I love her so devotedly, that, though I was as gay as most men before, I really feel as if the rest of her sex had lost every charm. I was passing through the street now--merely to look up at her windows." "You speak of Madame di Negra? I have just left her. Certainly, she is two or three years older than you; but if you can get over that misfortune, why not marry her?" "Marry her!" cried Frank, in amaze, and all his colour fled from his cheeks. "Marry her! Are you serious?" "Why not?" "But even if she, who is so accomplished, so admired, even if she would accept me, she is, you know, poorer than myself. She has told me so frankly. That woman has such a noble heart,--and--and--my father would never consent, nor my mother either. I know they would not." "Because she is a foreigner?" "Yes--partly." "Yet the squire suffered his cousin to marry a foreigner." "That was different. He had no control over Jemima; and a daughter-in- law is so different; and my father is so English in his notions; and Madame di Negra, you see, is altogether so foreign. Her very graces would be against her in his eyes." "I think you do both your parents injustice. A foreigner of low birth-- an actress or singer, for instance--of course would be highly objectionable; but a woman like Madame di Negra, of such high birth and connections--" Frank shook his head. "I don't think the Governor would care a straw about her connections, if she were a king's daughter. He considers all foreigners pretty much alike. And then, you know" (Frank's voice sank into a whisper),--"you know that one of the very reasons why she is so dear to me would be an insuperable objection to the old-fashioned folks at home." "I don't understand you, Frank." "I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with a noble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of cavaliers and gentlemen,--"I love her the more because the world has slandered her name,--because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But would they at the Hall,--they who do not see with a lover's eyes, they who have all the stubborn English notions about the indecorum and license of Continental manners, and will so readily credit the worst? Oh, no! I love, I cannot help it--but I have no hope." "It is very possible that you may be right," exclaimed Randal, as if struck and half convinced by his companion's argument,--"very possible; and certainly I think that the homely folks at the Hall would fret and fume at first, if they heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet still, when your father learned that you had done so, not from passion alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice,--to clear yourself of debt, to--" "What do you mean?" exclaimed Frank, impatiently. "I have reason to know that Madame di Negra will have as large a portion as your father could reasonably expect you to receive with any English wife. And when this is properly stated to the squire, and the high position and rank of your wife fully established and brought home to him,--for I must think that these would tell, despite your exaggerated notions of his prejudices,--and then, when he really sees Madame di Negra, and can judge of her beauty and rare gifts, upon my word, I think, Frank, that there would be no cause for fear. After all, too, you are his only son. He will have no option but to forgive you; and I know how auxiously both your parents wish to see you settled in life." Frank's whole countenance became illuminated. "There is no one who understands the squire like you, certainly," said he, with lively joy. "He has the highest opinion of your judgment. And you really believe you could smooth matters?" "I believe so; but I should be sorry to induce you to run any risk; and if, on cool consideration, you think that risk is incurred, I strongly advise you to avoid all occasion of seeing the poor marchesa. Ah, you wince; but I say it for her sake as well as your own. First, you must be aware, that, unless you have serious thoughts of marriage, your attentions can but add to the very rumours that, equally groundless, you so feelingly resent; and, secondly, because I don't think any man has a right to win the affections of a woman--especially a woman who seems to me likely to love with her whole heart and soul--merely to gratify his own vanity." "Vanity! Good heavens! can you think so poorly of me? But as to the marchesa's affections," continued Frank, with a faltering voice, "do you really and honestly believe that they are to be won by me?" "I fear lest they may be half won already," said Randal, with a smile and a shake of the head; "but she is too proud to let you see any effect you may produce on her, especially when, as I take it for granted, you have never hinted at the hope of obtaining her hand." "I never till now conceived such a hope. My dear Randal, all my cares have vanished! I tread upon air! I have a great mind to call on her at once." "Stay, stay," said Randal. "Let me give you a caution. I have just informed you that Madame di Negra will have, what you suspected not before, a fortune suitable to her birth. Any abrupt change in your manner at present might induce her to believe that you were influenced by that intelligence." "Ah!" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, as if wounded to the quick. "And I feel guilty,--feel as if I was influenced by that intelligence. So I am, too, when I reflect," he continued, with a naivete that was half pathetic; "but I hope she will not be very rich; if so, I'll not call." "Make your mind easy, it is but a portion of some twenty or thirty thousand pounds, that would just suffice to discharge all your debts, clear away all obstacle to your union, and in return for which you could secure a more than adequate jointure and settlement on the Casino property. Now I am on that head, I will be yet more communicative. Madame di Negra has a noble heart, as you say, and told me herself, that, until her brother on his arrival had assured her of this dowry, she would never have consented to marry you, never crippled with her own embarrassments the man she loves. Ah! with what delight she will hail the thought of assisting you to win back your father's heart! But be guarded meanwhile. And now, Frank, what say you--would it not be well if I ran down to Hazeldean to sound your parents? It is rather inconvenient to me, to be sure, to leave town just at present; but I would do more than that to render you a smaller service. Yes, I'll go to Rood Hall to-morrow, and thence to Hazeldean. I am sure your father will press me to stay, and I shall have ample opportunities to judge of the manner in which he would be likely to regard your marriage with Madame di Negra,-- supposing always it were properly put to him. We can then act accordingly." "My dear, dear Randal, how can I thank you? If ever a poor fellow like me can serve you in return--but that's impossible." "Why, certainly, I will never ask you to be security to a bill of mine," said Randal, laughing. "I practise the economy I preach." "Ah!" said Frank, with a groan, "that is because your mind is cultivated,--you have so many resources; and all my faults have come from idleness. If I had had anything to do on a rainy day, I should never have got into these scrapes." "Oh, you will have enough to do some day managing your property. We who have no property must find one in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank, I must go home now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of the Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra." "The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It may interest her to know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that I never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to her: she is so superior, and I feel positively shy with her." "Do me the favour, Frank," said Randal, waiting patiently till this reply ended,--for he was devising all the time what reason to give for his request,--"never to allude to the Riccaboccas either to her or to her brother, to whom you are sure to be presented." "Why not allude to them?" Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still at fault, and, for a wonder, he thought it the best policy to go pretty near the truth. "Why, I will tell you. The marchesa conceals nothing from her brother, and he is one of the few Italians who are in high favour with the Austrian court." "Well!" "And I suspect that poor Dr. Riccabocca fled his country from some mad experiment at revolution, and is still hiding from the Austrian police." "But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an Englishman's dogged inborn conviction of the sanctity of his native island. "I should like to see an Austrian pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to reject." "Hum--that's true and constitutional, no doubt; but Riccabocca may have excellent reasons--and, to speak plainly, I know he has (perhaps as affecting the safety of friends in Italy)--for preserving his incognito, and we are bound to respect those reasons without inquiring further." "Still I cannot think so meanly of Madame di Negra," persisted Frank (shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, and both from his sense of honour), "as to suppose that she would descend to be a spy, and injure a poor countryman of her own, who trusts to the same hospitality she receives herself at our English hands. Oh, if I thought that, I could not love her!" added Frank, with energy. "Certainly you are right. But see in what a false position you would place both her brother and herself. If they knew Riccabocca's secret, and proclaimed it to the Austrian Government, as you say, it would be cruel and mean; but if they knew it and concealed it, it might involve them both in the most serious consequences. You know the Austrian policy is proverbially so jealous and tyrannical?" "Well, the newspapers say so, certainly." "And, in short, your discretion can do no harm, and your indiscretion may. Therefore, give me your word, Frank. I can't stay to argue now." "I'll not allude to the Riccaboccas, upon my honour," answered Frank; "still, I am sure that they would be as safe with the marchesa as with--" "I rely on your honour," interrupted Randal, hastily, and hurried off. CHAPTER V. Towards the evening of the following day, Randal Leslie walked slowly from a village in the main road (about two miles from Rood Hall), at which he had got out of the coach. He passed through meads and cornfields, and by the skirts of woods which had formerly belonged to his ancestors, but had been long since alienated. He was alone amidst the haunts of his boyhood, the scenes in which he had first invoked the grand Spirit of Knowledge, to bid the Celestial Still One minister to the commands of an earthly and turbulent ambi tion. He paused often in his path, especially when the undulations of the ground gave a glimpse of the gray church tower, or the gloomy firs that rose above the desolate wastes of Rood. "Here," thought Randal, with a softening eye,--"here, how often, comparing the fertility of the lands passed away from the inheritance of my fathers, with the forlorn wilds that are left to their mouldering Hall,--here how often have I said to myself, 'I will rebuild the fortunes of my House.' And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge, and grew kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my thought. Again-- again O thou haughty Past, brace and strengthen me in the battle with the Future." His pale lips writhed as he soliloquized, for his conscience spoke to him while he thus addressed his will, and its voice was heard more audibly in the quiet of the rural landscape, than amidst the turmoil and din of that armed and sleepless camp which we call a city. Doubtless, though Ambition have objects more vast and beneficent than the restoration of a name, that in itself is high and chivalrous, and appeals to a strong interest in the human heart. But all emotions and all ends of a nobler character had seemed to filter themselves free from every golden grain in passing through the mechanism of Randal's intellect, and came forth at last into egotism clear and unalloyed. Nevertheless, it is a strange truth that, to a man of cultivated mind, however perverted and vicious, there are vouchsafed gleams of brighter sentiments, irregular perceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal unreasoning wickedness of uneducated villany,--which perhaps ultimately serve as his punishment, according to the old thought of the satirist, that there is no greater curse than to perceive virtue yet adopt vice. And as the solitary schemer walked slowly on, and his childhood--innocent at least indeed-- came distinct before him through the halo of bygone dreams,--dreams far purer than those from which he now rose each morning to the active world of Man,--a profound melancholy crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed aloud, "Then I aspired to be renowned and great; now, how is it that, so advanced in my career, all that seemed lofty in the end has vanished from me, and the only means that I contemplate are those which my childhood would have called poor and vile? Ah, is it that I then read but books, and now my knowledge has passed onward, and men contaminate more than books? But," he continued, in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is only so to be won,--and of what use is knowledge if it be not power--does not success in life justify all things? And who prizes the wise man if he fails?" He continued his way, but still the soft tranquillity around rebuked him, and still his reason was dissatisfied, as well as his conscience. There are times when Nature, like a bath of youth, seems to restore to the jaded soul its freshness,--times from which some men have emerged, as if reborn. The crises of life are very silent. Suddenly the scene opened on Randal Leslie's eyes,--the bare desert common, the dilapidated church, the old house, partially seen in the dank dreary hollow, into which it seemed to Randal to have sunken deeper and lowlier than when he saw it last. And on the common were some young men playing at hockey. That old-fashioned game, now very uncommon in England, except at schools, was still preserved in the primitive vicinity of Rood by the young yeomen and farmers. Randal stood by the stile and looked on, for among the players he recognized his brother Oliver. Presently the ball was struck towards Oliver, and the group instantly gathered round that young gentleman, and snatched him from Randal's eye; but the elder brother heard a displeasing din, a derisive laughter. Oliver had shrunk from the danger of the thick clubbed sticks that plied around him, and received some stroke across the legs, for his voice rose whining, and was drowned by shouts of, "Go to your mammy. That's Noll Leslie all over. Butter shins!" Randal's sallow face became scarlet. "The jest of boors--a Leslie!" he muttered, and ground his teeth. He sprang over the stile, and walked erect and haughtily across the ground. The players cried out indignantly. Randal raised his hat, and they recognized him, and stopped the game. For him at least a certain respect was felt. Oliver turned round quickly, and ran up to him. Randal caught his arm firmly, and without saying a word to the rest, drew him away towards the house. Oliver cast a regretful, lingering look behind him, rubbed his shins, and then stole a timid glance towards Randal's severe and moody countenance. "You are not angry that I was playing at hockey with our neighbours," said he, deprecatingly, observing that Randal would not break the silence. "No," replied the elder brother; "but in associating with his inferiors, a gentleman still knows how to maintain his dignity. There is no harm in playing with inferiors, but it is necessary to a gentleman to play so that he is not the laughing-stock of clowns." Oliver hung his head, and made no answer. They came into the slovenly precincts of the court, and the pigs stared at them from the palings, as their progenitors had stared, years before, at Frank Hazeldean. Mr. Leslie, senior, in a shabby straw-hat, was engaged in feeding the chickens before the threshold, and he performed even that occupation with a maundering lack-a-daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains almost one by one from his inert dreamy fingers. Randal's sister, her hair still and forever hanging about her ears, was seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the parlour window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high fidget and complaint. Somehow or other, as the young heir to all this helpless poverty stood in the courtyard, with his sharp, refined, intelligent features, and his strange elegance of dress and aspect, one better comprehended how, left solely to the egotism of his knowledge and his ambition, in such a family, and without any of the sweet nameless lessons of Home, he had grown up into such close and secret solitude of soul,--how the mind had taken so little nutriment from the heart, and how that affection and respect which the warm circle of the heart usually calls forth had passed with him to the graves of dead fathers, growing, as it were, bloodless and ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed. "Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, "how d' ye do? Who could have expected you? My dear, my dear," he cried, in a broken voice, and as if in helpless dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be wanting dinner, or supper, or something." But, in the mean while, Randal's sister Juliet had sprung up and thrown her arms round her brother's neck, and he had drawn her aside caressingly, for Randal's strongest human affection was for this sister. "You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair; "why do yourself such injustice,--why not pay more attention to your appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?" "I did not expect you, dear Randal; you always come so suddenly, and catch us /en dish-a-bill/." "Dish-a-bill!" echoed Randal, with a groan. "Dishabille! you ought never to be so caught!" "No one else does so catch us,--nobody else ever comes. Heigho!" and the young lady sighed very heartily. "Patience, patience; my day is coming, and then yours, my sister," replied Randal, with genuine pity, as he gazed upon what a little care could have trained into so fair a flower, and what now looked so like a weed. Here Mrs. Leslie, in a state of intense excitement--having rushed through the parlour, leaving a fragment of her gown between the yawning brass of the never-mended Brummagem work-table--tore across the hall, whirled out of the door, scattering the chickens to the right and left, and clutched hold of Randal in her motherly embrace. "La, how you do shake my nerves," she cried, after giving him a most hasty and uncomfortable kiss. "And you are hungry too, and nothing in the house but cold mutton! Jenny, Jenny, I say, Jenny! Juliet, have you seen Jenny? Where's Jenny? Out with the odd man, I'll be bound." "I am not hungry, Mother," said Randal; "I wish for nothing but tea." Juliet, scrambling up her hair, darted into the house to prepare the tea, and also to "tidy herself." She dearly loved her fine brother, but she was greatly in awe of him. Randal seated himself on the broken pales. "Take care they don't come down," said Mr. Leslie, with some anxiety. "Oh, Sir, I am very light; nothing comes down with me." The pigs stared up, and grunted in amaze at the stranger. "Mother," said the young man, detaining Mrs. Leslie, who wanted to set off in chase of Jenny, "Mother, you should not let Oliver associate with those village boors. It is time to think of a profession for him." "Oh, he eats us out of house and home--such an appetite! But as to a profession, what is he fit for? He will never be a scholar." Randal nodded a moody assent; for, indeed, Oliver had been sent to Cambridge, and supported there out of Randal's income from his official pay; and Oliver had been plucked for his Little Go. "There is the army," said the elder brother,--" a gentleman's calling. How handsome Juliet ought to be--but--I left money for masters--and she pronounces French like a chambermaid." "Yet she is fond of her book too. She's always reading, and good for nothing else." "Reading! those trashy novels!" "So like you,--you always come to scold, and make things unpleasant," said Mrs. Leslie, peevishly. "You are grown too fine for us, and I am sure we suffer affronts enough from others, not to want a little respect from our own children." "I did not mean to affront you," said Randal, sadly. "Pardon me. But who else has done so?" Then Mrs. Leslie went into a minute and most irritating catalogue of all the mortifications and insults she had received; the grievances of a petty provincial family, with much pretension and small power,--of all people, indeed, without the disposition to please--without the ability to serve--who exaggerate every offence, and are thankful for no kindness. Farmer Jones had insolently refused to send his wagon twenty miles for coals. Mr. Giles, the butcher, requesting the payment of his bill, had stated that the custom at Rood was too small for him to allow credit. Squire Thornhill, who was the present owner of the fairest slice of the old Leslie domains, had taken the liberty to ask permission to shoot over Mr. Leslie's land, since Mr. Leslie did not preserve. Lady Spratt (new people from the city, who hired a neighbouring country-seat) had taken a discharged servant of Mrs. Leslie's without applying for the character. The Lord-Lieutenant had given a ball, and had not invited the Leslies. Mr. Leslie's tenants had voted against their landlord's wish at the recent election. More than all, Squire Hazeldean and his Harry had called at Rood, and though Mrs. Leslie had screamed out to Jenny, "Not at home," she had been seen at the window, and the squire had actually forced his way in, and caught the whole family "in a state not fit to be seen." That was a trifle, but the squire had presumed to instruct Mr. Leslie how to manage his property, and Mrs. Hazeldean had actually told Juliet to hold up her head, and tie up her hair, "as if we were her cottagers!" said Mrs. Leslie, with the pride of a Montfydget. All these, and various other annoyances, though Randal was too sensible not to perceive their insignificance, still galled and mortified the listening heir of Rood. They showed, at least, even to the well-meant officiousness of the Hazeldeans, the small account in which the fallen family was held. As he sat still on the moss-grown pales, gloomy and taciturn, his mother standing beside him, with her cap awry, Mr. Leslie shamblingly sauntered up, and said in a pensive, dolorous whine, "I wish we had a good sum of money, Randal, boy!" To do Mr. Leslie justice, he seldom gave vent to any wish that savoured of avarice. His mind must be singularly aroused, to wander out of its normal limits of sluggish, dull content. So Randal looked at him in surprise, and said, "Do you, Sir?---why?" "The manors of Rood and Dulmansberry, and all the lands therein, which my great-grandfather sold away, are to be sold again when Squire Thornhill's eldest son comes of age, to cut off the entail. Sir John Spratt talks of buying them. I should like to have them back again! 'T is a shame to see the Leslie estates hawked about, and bought by Spratts and people. I wish I had a great, great sum of ready money." The poor gentleman extended his helpless fingers as he spoke, and fell into a dejected revery. Randal sprang from the paling, a movement which frightened the contemplative pigs, and set them off squalling and scampering. "When does young Thornhill come of age?" "He was nineteen last August. I know it, because the day he was born I picked up my fossil of the sea-horse, just by Dulmansberry church, when the joy-bells were ringing. My fossil sea-horse! It will be an heirloom, Randal--" "Two years--nearly two years--yet--ah, ah!" said Randal; and his sister now appearing, to announce that tea was ready, he threw his arm round her neck and kissed her. Juliet had arranged her hair and trimmed up her dress. She looked very pretty, and she had now the air of a gentlewoman,--something of Randal's own refinement in her slender proportions and well-shaped head. "Be patient, patient still, my dear sister," whispered Randal, "and keep your heart whole for two years longer." The young man was gay and good- humoured over his simple meal, while his family grouped round him. When it was over, Mr. Leslie lighted his pipe, and called for his brandy-and- water. Mrs. Leslie began to question about London and Court, and the new king and the new queen, and Mr. Audley Egerton, and hoped Mr. Egerton would leave Randal all his money, and that Randal would marry a rich woman, and that the king would make him a prime minister one of these days; and then she should like to see if Farmer Jones would refuse to send his wagon for coals! And every now and then, as the word "riches" or "money" caught Mr. Leslie's ears, he shook his head, drew his pipe from his mouth, "A Spratt should not have what belonged to my great- great-grandfather. If I had a good sum of ready money! the old family estates!" Oliver and Juliet sat silent, and on their good behaviour; and Randal, indulging his own reveries, dreamily heard the words "money," "Spratt," "great-great-grandfather," "rich wife," "family estates;" and they sounded to him vague and afar off, like whispers from the world of romance and legend,--weird prophecies of things to be. Such was the hearth which warmed the viper that nestled and gnawed at the heart of Randal, poisoning all the aspirations that youth should have rendered pure, ambition lofty, and knowledge beneficent and divine. CHAPTER VI. When the rest of the household were in deep sleep, Randal stood long at his open window, looking over the dreary, comfortless scene,--the moon gleaming from skies half-autumnal, half-wintry, upon squalid decay, through the ragged fissures of the firs; and when he lay down to rest, his sleep was feverish, and troubled by turbulent dreams. However, he was up early, and with an unwonted colour in his cheeks, which his sister ascribed to the country air. After breakfast, he took his way towards Hazeldean, mounted upon a tolerable, horse, which he borrowed of a neighbouring farmer who occasionally hunted. Before noon, the garden and ter race of the Casino came in sight. He reined in his horse, and by the little fountain at which Leonard had been wont to eat his radishes and con his book, he saw Riccabocca seated under the shade of the red umbrella. And by the Italian's side stood a form that a Greek of old might have deemed the Naiad of the Fount; for in its youthful beauty there was something so full of poetry, something at once so sweet and so stately, that it spoke to the imagination while it charmed the sense. Randal dismounted, tied his horse to the gate, and, walking down a trellised alley, came suddenly to the spot. His dark shadow fell over the clear mirror of the fountain just as Riccabocca had said, "All here is so secure from evil!--the waves of the fountain are never troubled like those of the river!" and Violante had answered in her soft native tongue, and lifting her dark, spiritual eyes, "But the fountain would be but a lifeless pool, oh my father, if the spray did not mount towards the skies!" CHAPTER VII. RANDAL advanced--"I fear, Signor Riccabocca, that I am guilty of some want of ceremony." "To dispense with ceremony is the most delicate mode of conferring a compliment," replied the urbane Italian, as he recovered from his first surprise at Randal's sudden address, and extended his hand. Violante bowed her graceful head to the young man's respectful salutation. "I am on my way to Hazeldean," resumed Randal, "and, seeing you in the garden, could not resist this intrusion." RICCOBOCCA.--"YOU come from London? Stirring times for you English, but I do not ask you the news. No news can affect us." RANDAL (softly).--"Perhaps yes." RICCABOCCA (startled).--"How?" VIOLANTE.--"Surely he speaks of Italy, and news from that country affects you still, my father." RICCABOCCA.--"Nay, nay, nothing affects me like this country; its east winds might affect a pyramid! Draw your mantle round you, child, and go in; the air has suddenly grown chill." Violante smiled on her father, glanced uneasily towards Randal's grave brow, and went slowly towards the house. Riccabocca, after waiting some moments in silence, as if expecting Randal to speak, said, with affected carelessness, "So you think that you have news that might affect me? /Corpo di Bacco/! I am curious to learn what?" "I may be mistaken--that depends on your answer to one question. Do you know the Count of Peschiera?" Riccabocca winced, and turned pale. He could not baffle the watchful eye of the questioner. "Enough," said Randal; "I see that I am right. Believe in my sincerity. I speak but to warn and to serve you. The count seeks to discover the retreat of a countryman and kinsman of his own." "And for what end?" cried Riccabocca, thrown off his guard, and his breast dilated, his crest rose, and his eye flashed; valour and defiance broke from habitual caution and self-control. "But--pooh!" he added, striving to regain his ordinary and half-ironical calm, "it matters not to me. I grant, sir, that I know the Count di Peschiera; but what has Dr. Riccabocca to do with the kinsman of so grand a personage?" "Dr. Riccabocca--nothing. But--" here Randal put his lip close to the Italian's ear, and whispered a brief sentence. Then retreating a step, but laying his hand on the exile's shoulder, he added, "Need I say that your secret is safe with me?" Riccabocca made no answer. His eyes rested on the ground musingly. Randal continued, "And I shall esteem it the highest honour you can bestow on me, to be permitted to assist you in forestalling danger." RICCABOCCA (slowly).--"Sir, I thank you; you have my secret, and I feel assured it is safe, for I speak to an English gentleman. There may be family reasons why I should avoid the Count di Peschiera; and, indeed, he is safest from shoals who steers clearest of his relations." The poor Italian regained his caustic smile as he uttered that wise, villanous Italian maxim. RANDAL.--"I know little of the Count of Peschiera save from the current talk of the world. He is said to hold the estates of a kinsman who took part in a conspiracy against the Austrian power." RICCABOCCA.--"It is true. Let that content him; what more does he desire? You spoke of forestalling danger; what danger? I am on the soil of England, and protected by its laws." RANDAL.--"Allow me to inquire if, had the kinsman no child, the Count di Peschiera would be legitimate and natural heir to the estates he holds?" RICCABOCCA.--"He would--What then?" RANDAL.--"Does that thought suggest no danger to the child of the kinsman?" Riccabocca recoiled, and gasped forth, "The child! You do not mean to imply that this man, infamous though he be, can contemplate the crime of an assassin?" Randal paused perplexed. His ground was delicate. He knew not what causes of resentment the exile entertained against the count. He knew not whether Riccabocca would not assent to an alliance that might restore him to his country,--and he resolved to feel his way with precaution. "I did not," said he, smiling gravely, "mean to insinuate so horrible a charge against a man whom I have never seen. He seeks you,--that is all I know. I imagine, from his general character, that in this search he consults his interest. Perhaps all matters might be conciliated by an interview!" "An interview!" exclaimed Riccabocca; "there is but one way we should meet,--foot to foot, and hand to hand." "Is it so? Then you would not listen to the count if he proposed some amicable compromise,--if, for instance, he was a candidate for the hand of your daughter?" The poor Italian, so wise and so subtle in his talk, was as rash and blind when it came to action as if he had been born in Ireland and nourished on potatoes and Repeal. He bared his whole soul to the merciless eye of Randal. "My daughter!" he exclaimed. "Sir, your very question is an insult." Randal's way became clear at once. "Forgive me," he said mildly; "I will tell you frankly all that I know. I am acquainted with the count's sister. I have some little influence over her. It was she who informed me that the count had come here, bent upon discovering your refuge, and resolved to wed your daughter. This is the danger of which I spoke. And when I asked your permission to aid in forestalling it, I only intended to suggest that it might be wise to find some securer home, and that I, if permitted to know that home, and to visit you, could apprise you from time to time of the count's plans and movements." "Sir, I thank you sincerely," said Riccabocca, with emotion; "but am I not safe here?" "I doubt it. Many people have visited the squire in the shooting season, who will have heard of you,--perhaps seen you, and who are likely to meet the count in London. And Frank Hazeldean, too, who knows the count's sister--" "True, true" interrupted Riccabocca. "I see, I see. I will consider, I will reflect. Meanwhile you are going to Hazel dean. Do not say a word to the squire. He knows not the secret you have discovered." With those words Riccabocca turned slightly away, and Randal took the hint to depart. "At all times command and rely on me," said the young traitor, and he regained the pale to which he had fastened his horse. As he remounted, he cast his eyes towards the place where he had left Riccabocca. The Italian was still standing there. Presently the form of Jackeymo was seen emerging from the shrubs. Riccabocca turned hastily round, recognized his servant, uttered an exclamation loud enough to reach Randal's ear, and then, catching Jackeymo by the arm, disappeared with him amidst the deep recesses of the garden. "It will be indeed in my favour," thought Randal, as he rode on, "if I can get them into the neighbourhood of London,--all occasion there to woo, and if expedient, to win, the heiress." CHAPTER VIII. "Br the Lord, Harry!" cried the squire, as he stood with his wife in the park, on a visit of inspection to some first-rate Southdowns just added to his stock,--"by the Lord, if that is not Randal Leslie trying to get into the park at the back gate! Hollo, Randal! you must come round by the lodge, my boy," said he. "You see this gate is locked to keep out trespassers." "A pity," said Randal. "I like short cuts, and you have shut up a very short one." "So the trespassers said," quoth the squire; "but Stirn insisted on it-- valuable man, Stirn. But ride round to the lodge. Put up your horse, and you'll join us before we can get to the house." Randal nodded and smiled, and rode briskly on. The squire rejoined his Harry. "Ah, William," said she, anxiously, "though certainly Randal Leslie means well, I always dread his visits." "So do I, in one sense," quoth the squire, "for he always carries away a bank-note for Frank." "I hope he is really Frank's friend," said Mrs. Hazeldean. "Who's else can he be? Not his own, poor fellow, for he will never accept a shilling from me, though his grandmother was as good a Hazeldean as I am. But, zounds, I like his pride, and his economy too. As for Frank--" "Hush, William!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean, and put her fair hand before the squire's mouth. The squire was softened, and kissed the fair hand gallantly,--perhaps he kissed the lips too; at all events, the worthy pair were walking lovingly arm-in-arm when Randal joined them. He did not affect to perceive a certain coldness in the manner of Mrs. Hazeldean, but began immediately to talk to her about Frank; praise that young gentleman's appearance; expatiate on his health, his popularity, and his good gifts, personal and mental,--and this with so much warmth, that any dim and undeveloped suspicions Mrs. Hazeldean might have formed soon melted away. Randal continued to make himself thus agreeable, until the squire, persuaded that his young kinsman was a first-rate agriculturalist, insisted upon carrying him off to the home-farm; and Harry turned towards the house; to order Randal's room to be got ready: "For," said Randal, "knowing that you will excuse my morning dress, I venture to invite myself to dine and sleep at the Hall." On approaching the farm-buildings, Randal was seized with the terror of an impostor; for, despite all the theoretical learning on Bucolics and Georgics with which he had dazzled the squire, poor Frank, so despised, would have beat him hollow when it came to the judging of the points of an ox, or the show of a crop. "Ha, ha," cried the squire, chuckling, "I long to see how you'll astonish Stirn. Why, you'll guess in a moment where we put the top-dressing; and when you come to handle my short-horns, I dare swear you'll know to a pound how much oil-cake has gone into their sides." "Oh, you do me too much honour,--indeed you do. I only know the general principles of agriculture; the details are eminently interesting, but I have not had the opportunity to acquire them." "Stuff!" cried the squire. "How can a man know general principles unless he has first studied the details? You are too modest, my boy. Ho! there 's Stirn looking out for us!" Randal saw the grim visage of Stirn peering out of a cattleshed, and felt undone. He made a desperate rush towards changing the squire's humour. "Well, sir, perhaps Frank may soon gratify your wish, and turn farmer himself." "Eh!" quoth the squire, stopping short,--"what now?" "Suppose he were to marry?" "I'd give him the two best farms on the property rent free. Ha, ha! Has he seen the girl yet? I'd leave him free to choose; sir, I chose for myself,--every man should. Not but what Miss Stick-to-rights is an heiress, and, I hear, a very decent girl, and that would join the two properties, and put an end to that law-suit about the right of way, which began in the reign of King Charles the Second, and is likely otherwise to last till the day of judgment. But never mind her; let Frank choose to please himself." "I'll not fail to tell him so, sir. I did fear you might have some prejudices. But here we are at the farmyard." "Burn the farmyard! How can I think of farmyards when you talk of Frank's marriage? Come on--this way. What were you saying about prejudices?" "Why, you might wish him to marry an Englishwoman, for instance." "English! Good heavens, sir, does he mean to marry a Hindoo?" "Nay, I don't know that he means to marry at all; I am only surmising; but if he did fall in love with a foreigner--" "A foreigner! Ah, then Harry was--" The squire stopped short. "Who might, perhaps," observed Randal--not truly, if he referred to Madame di Negra--"who might, perhaps, speak very little English?" "Lord ha' mercy!" "And a Roman Catholic--" "Worshipping idols, and roasting people who don't worship them." "Signor Riccabocca is not so bad as that." "Rickeybockey! Well, if it was his daughter! But not speak English! and not go to the parish church! By George, if Frank thought of such a thing, I'd cut him off with a shilling. Don't talk to me, sir; I would. I 'm a mild man, and an easy man; but when I say a thing, I say it, Mr. Leslie. Oh, but it is a jest,--you are laughing at me. There 's no such painted good-for-nothing creature in Frank's eye, eh?" "Indeed, sir, if ever I find there is, I will give you notice in time. At present, I was only trying to ascertain what you wished for a daughter-in-law. You said you had no prejudice." "No more I have,--not a bit of it." "You don't like a foreigner and a Catholic?" "Who the devil would?" "But if she had rank and title?" "Rank and title! Bubble and squeak! No, not half so good as bubble and squeak. English beef and good cabbage. But foreign rank and title!-- foreign cabbage and beef!---foreign bubble and foreign squeak!" And the squire made a wry face, and spat forth his disgust and indignation. "You must have an Englishwoman?" "Of course." "Money?" "Don't care, provided she is a tidy, sensible, active lass, with a good character for her dower." "Character--ah, that is indispensable?" "I should think so, indeed. A Mrs. Hazeldean of Hazeldean--You frighten me. He's not going to run off with a divorced woman, or a--" The squire stopped, and looked so red in the face that Randal feared he might be seized with apoplexy before Frank's crimes had made him alter his will. Therefore he hastened to relieve Mr. Hazeldean's mind, and assured him that he had been only talking at random; that Frank was in the habit, indeed, of seeing foreign ladies occasionally, as all persons in the London world were; but that he was sure Frank would never marry without the full consent and approval of his parents. He ended by repeating his assurance, that he would warn the squire if ever it became necessary. Still, however, he left Mr. Hazeldean so disturbed and uneasy that that gentleman forgot all about the farm, and went moodily on in the opposite direction, reentering the park at its farther extremity. As soon as they approached the house, the squire hastened to shut himself with his wife in full parental consultation; and Randal, seated upon a bench on the terrace, revolved the mischief he had done, and its chances of success. While thus seated, and thus thinking, a footstep approached cautiously, and a low voice said, in broken English, "Sare, sare, let me speak vid you." Randal turned in surprise, and beheld a swarthy, saturnine face, with grizzled hair and marked features. He recognized the figure that had joined Riccabocca in the Italian's garden. "Speak-a-you Italian?" resumed Jackeymo. Randal, who had made himself an excellent linguist, nodded assent; and Jackeymo, rejoiced, begged him to withdraw into a more private part of the grounds. Randal obeyed, and the two gained the shade of a stately chestnut avenue. "Sir," then said Jackeymo, speaking in his native tongue, and expressing himself with a certain simple pathos, "I am but a poor man; my name is Giacomo. You have heard of me; servant to the signore whom you saw to-day,--only a servant; but he honours me with his confidence. We have known danger together; and of all his friends and followers, I alone came with him to the stranger's land." "Good, faithful fellow," said Randal, examining the man's face, "say on. Your master confides in you? He has confided that which I told him this day?" "He did. Ah, sir; the padrone was too proud to ask you to explain more, --too proud to show fear of another. But he does fear, he ought to fear, he shall fear," continued Jackeymo, working himself up to passion,--"for the padrone has a daughter, and his enemy is a villain. Oh, sir, tell me all that you did not tell to the padrone. You hinted that this man might wish to marry the signora. Marry her!---I could cut his throat at the altar!" "Indeed," said Randal, "I believe that such is his object." "But why? He is rich, she is penniless,--no, not quite that, for we have saved--but penniless, compared to him." "My good friend, I know not yet his motives; but I can easily learn them. If, however, this count be your master's enemy, it is surely well to guard against him, whatever his designs; and to do so, you should move into London or its neighbourhood. I fear that, while we speak, the count may get upon his track." "He had better not come here!" cried the servant, menacingly, and putting his hand where the knife was not. "Beware of your own anger, Giacomo. One act of violence, and you would be transported from England, and your mast'r would lose a friend." Jackeymo seemed struck by this caution. "And if the padrone were to meet him, do you think the padrone would meekly say, 'Come sta sa Signoria'? The padrone would strike him dead!" "Hush! hush! You speak of what in England is called murder, and is punished by the gallows. If you really love your master, for Heaven's sake get him from this place, get him from all chance of such passion and peril. I go to town to-morrow; I will find him a house, that shall be safe from all spies, all discovery. And there, too, my friend. I can do what I cannot at this distance,--watch over him, and keep watch also on his enemy." Jackeymo seized Randal's hand, and lifted it towards his lip; then, as if struck by a sudden suspicion, dropped the hand, and said bluntly, "Signore, I think you have seen the padrone twice. Why do you take this interest in him?" "Is it so uncommon to take interest even in a stranger who is menaced by some peril?" Jackeymo, who believed little in general philanthropy, shook his head sceptically. "Besides," continued Randal, suddenly bethinking himself of a more plausible reason,--"besides, I am a friend and connection of Mr. Egerton; and Mr. Egerton's most intimate friend is Lord L'Estrange; and I have heard that Lord L'Estrange--" "The good lord! Oh, now I understand," interrupted Jackeymo, and his brow cleared. "Ah, if he were in England! But you will let us know when he comes?" "Certainly. Now, tell me, Giacomo, is this count really unprincipled and dangerous? Remember I know him not personally." "He has neither heart nor conscience." "That defect makes him dangerous to men; perhaps not less so to women. Could it be possible, if he obtained any interview with the signora, that he could win her affections?" Jackeymo crossed himself rapidly and made no answer. "I have heard that he is still very handsome." Jackeymo groaned. Randal resumed, "Enough; persuade the padrone to come to town." "But if the count is in town?" "That makes no difference; the safest place is always the largest city. Everywhere else, a foreigner is in himself an object of attention and curiosity." "True." "Let your master, then, come to London, or rather, into its neighbourhood. He can reside in one of the suburbs most remote from the count's haunts. In two days I will have found him a lodging and write to him. You trust to me now?" "I do indeed,--I do, Excellency. Ah, if the signorina were married, we would not care!" "Married! But she looks so high!" "Alas! not now! not here!" Randal sighed heavily. Jackeymo's eyes sparkled. He thought he had detected a new motive for Randal's interest,--a motive to an Italian the most natural, the most laudable of all. "Find the house, Signore, write to the padrone. He shall come. I'll talk to him. I can manage him. Holy San Giacomo, bestir thyself now,-- 't is long since I troubled thee!" Jackeymo strode off through the fading trees, smiling and muttering as he went. The first dinner-bell rang, and on entering the drawingroom, Randal found Parson Dale and his wife, who had been invited in haste to meet the unexpected visitor. The preliminary greetings over, Mr. Dale took the opportunity afforded by the squire's absence to inquire after the health of Mr. Egerton. "He is always well," said Randal. "I believe he is made of iron." "His heart is of gold," said the parson. "Ah," said Randal, inquisitively, "you told me you had come in contact with him once, respecting, I think, some of your old parishioners at Lansmere?" The parson nodded, and there was a moment's silence. "Do you remember your battle by the stocks, Mr. Leslie?" said Mr. Dale, with a good-humoured laugh. "Indeed, yes. By the way, now you speak of it, I met my old opponent in London the first year I went up to it." "You did! where?" "At a literary scamp's,--a cleverish man called Burley." "Burley! I have seen some burlesque verses in Greek by a Mr. Burley." "No doubt the same person. He has disappeared,--gone to the dogs, I dare say. Burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present." "Well, but Leonard Fairfield--you have seen him since?" "No." "Nor heard of him?" "No; have you?" "Strange to say, not for a long time. But I have reason to believe that he must be doing well." "You surprise me! Why?" "Because two years ago he sent for his mother. She went to him." "Is that all?" "It is enough; for he would not have sent for her if he could not maintain her." Here the Hazeldeans entered, arm-in-arm, and the fat butler announced dinner. The squire was unusually taciturn, Mrs. Hazeldean thoughtful, Mrs. Dale languid and headachy. The parson, who seldom enjoyed the luxury of converse with a scholar, save when he quarrelled with Dr. Riccaboeca, was animated by Randal's repute for ability into a great desire for argument. "A glass of wine, Mr. Leslie. You were saying, before dinner, that burlesque Greek is not a knowledge very much in power at present. Pray, Sir, what knowledge is in power?" RANDAL (laconically).--"Practical knowledge." PARSON.--"What of?" RANDAL.--"Men." PARSON (candidly).--"Well, I suppose that is the most available sort of knowledge, in a worldly point of view. How does one learn it? Do books help?" RANDAL.--"According as they are read, they help or injure." PARSON.--"How should they be read in order to help?" RANDAL.--"Read specially to apply to purposes that lead to power." PARSON (very much struck with Randal's pithy and Spartan logic).--" Upon my word, Sir, you express yourself very well. I must own that I began these questions in the hope of differing from you; for I like an argument." "That he does," growled the squire; "the most contradictory creature!" PARSON.---"Argument is the salt of talk. But now I am afraid I must agree with you, which I was not at all prepared for." Randal bowed and answered, "No two men of our education can dispute upon the application of knowledge." PARSON (pricking up his ears).--"Eh?--what to?" RANDAL.--"Power, of course." PARSON (overjoyed).--"Power!--the vulgarest application of it, or the loftiest? But you mean the loftiest?" RANDAL (in his turn interested and interrogative).--" What do you call the loftiest, and what the vulgarest?" PARSON.--"The vulgarest, self-interest; the loftiest, beneficence." Randal suppressed the half-disdainful smile that rose to his lip. "You speak, Sir, as a clergyman should do. I admire your sentiment, and adopt it; but I fear that the knowledge which aims only at beneficence very rarely in this world gets any power at all." SQUIRE (seriously).--"That's true; I never get my own way when I want to do a kindness, and Stirn always gets his when he insists on something diabolically brutal and harsh." PARSON.--"Pray, Mr. Leslie, what does intellectual power refined to the utmost, but entirely stripped of beneficence, most resemble?" RANDAL.--"Resemble?--I can hardly say. Some very great man--almost any very great man--who has baffled all his foes, and attained all his ends." PARSON.--"I doubt if any man has ever become very great who has not meant to be beneficent, though he might err in the means. Caesar was naturally beneficent, and so was Alexander. But intellectual power refined to the utmost, and wholly void of beneficence, resembles only one being, and that, sir, is the Principle of Evil." RANDAL (startled).--"Do you mean the Devil?" PARSON.--"Yes, Sir, the Devil; and even he, Sir, did not succeed! Even he, Sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure." MRS. DALE.--"My dear, my dear!" PARSON.--"Our religion proves it, my love; he was an angel, and he fell." There was a solemn pause. Randal was more impressed than he liked to own to himself. By this time the dinner was over, and the servants had retired. Harry glanced at Carry. Carry smoothed her gown and rose. The gentlemen remained over their wine; and the parson, satisfied with what he deemed a clencher upon his favourite subject of discussion, changed the subject to lighter topics, till, happening to fall upon tithes, the squire struck in, and by dint of loudness of voice, and truculence of brow, fairly overwhelmed both his guests, and proved to his own satisfaction that tithes were an unjust and unchristianlike usurpation on the part of the Church generally, and a most especial and iniquitous infliction upon the Hazeldean estates in particular. CHAPTER IX. On entering the drawing-room, Randal found the two ladies seated close together, in a position much more appropriate to the familiarity of their school-days than to the politeness of the friendship now existing between them. Mrs. Hazeldean's hand hung affectionately over Carry's shoulder, and both those fair English faces were bent over the same book. It was pretty to see these sober matrons, so different from each other in character and aspect, thus unconsciously restored to the intimacy of happy maiden youth by the golden link of some Magician from the still land of Truth or Fancy, brought together in heart, as each eye rested on the same thought; closer and closer, as sympathy, lost in the actual world, grew out of that world which unites in one bond of feeling the readers of some gentle book. "And what work interests you so much?" asked Randal, pausing by the table. "One you have read, of course," replied Mrs. Dale, putting a book-mark embroidered by herself into the page, and handing the volume to Randal. "It has made a great sensation, I believe." Randal glanced at the title of the work. "True," said he, "I have heard much of it in London, but I have not yet had time to read it." MRS. DALE.--"I can lend it to you, if you like to look over it to-night, and you can leave it for me with Mrs. Hazeldean." PARSON (approaching).--"Oh, that book!--yes, you must read it. I do not know a work more instructive." RANDAL.--"Instructive! Certainly I will read it then. But I thought it was a mere work of amusement,--of fancy. It seems so as I look over it." PARSON.--"So is the 'Vicar of Wakefield;' yet what book more instructive?" RANDAL.--"I should not have said that of the 'Vicar of Wakefield.' A pretty book enough, though the story is most improbable. But how is it instructive?" PARSON.--"By its results: it leaves us happier and better. What can any instruction do more? Some works instruct through the head, some through the heart. The last reach the widest circle, and often produce the most genial influence on the character. This book belongs to the last. You will grant my proposition when you have read it." Randal smiled and took the volume. MRS. DALE.--" Is the author known yet?" RANDAL.--"I have heard it ascribed to many writers, but I believe no one has claimed it." PARSON.--"I think it must have been written by my old college friend, Professor Moss, the naturalist,--its descriptions of scenery are so accurate." MRS. DALE.--"La, Charles dear! that snuffy, tiresome, prosy professor? How can you talk such nonsense? I am sure the author must be young, there is so much freshness of feeling." MRS. HAZELDEAN (positively).--"Yes, certainly, young." PARSON (no less positively).--"I should say just the contrary. Its tone is too serene, and its style too simple, for a young man. Besides, I don't know any young man who would send me his book, and this book has been sent me, very handsomely bound, too, you see. Depend upon it Moss is the loan--quite his turn of mind." MRS. DALE.--"You are too provoking, Charles dear! Mr. Moss is so remarkably plain, too." RANDAL.--"Must an author be handsome?" PARSON.--"Ha! ha! Answer that if you can, Carry." Carry remained mute and disdainful. SQUIRE (with great naivete).--" Well, I don't think there's much in the book, whoever wrote it; for I've read it myself, and understand every word of it." MRS. DALE.--"I don't see why you should suppose it was written by a man at all. For my part, I think it must be a woman." MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Yes, there's a passage about maternal affection, which only a woman could have written." PARSON.--"Pooh! pooh! I should like to see a woman who could have written that description of an August evening before a thunderstorm; every wild-flower in the hedgerow exactly the flowers of August, every sign in the air exactly those of the month. Bless you! a woman would have filled the hedge with violets and cowslips. Nobody else but my friend Moss could have written that description." SQUIRE.--"I don't know; there's a simile about the waste of corn-seed in hand-sowing, which makes me think he must be a farmer!" MRS. DALE (scornfully).--"A farmer! In hobnailed shoes, I suppose! I say it is a woman." MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"A WOMAN, and A MOTHER!" PARSON.--"A middle-aged man, and a naturalist." SQUIRE.--"No, no, Parson, certainly a young man; for that love-scene puts me in mind of my own young days, when I would have given my ears to tell Harry how handsome I thought her; and all I could say was, 'Fine weather for the crops, Miss.' Yes, a young man and a farmer. I should not wonder if he had held the plough himself." RANDAL (who had been turning over the pages).--"This sketch of Night in London comes from a man who has lived the life of cities and looked at wealth with the eyes of poverty. Not bad! I will read the book." "Strange," said the parson, smiling, "that this little work should so have entered into our minds, suggested to all of us different ideas, yet equally charmed all,--given a new and fresh current to our dull country life, animated us as with the sight of a world in our breasts we had never seen before save in dreams: a little work like this by a man we don't know and never may! Well, that knowledge is power, and a noble one!" "A sort of power, certainly, sir," said Randal, candidly; and that night, when Randal retired to his own room, he suspended his schemes and projects, and read, as he rarely did, without an object to gain by the reading. The work surprised him by the pleasure it gave. Its charm lay in the writer's calm enjoyment of the beautiful. It seemed like some happy soul sunning itself in the light of its own thoughts. Its power was so tranquil and even, that it was only a critic who could perceive how much force and vigour were necessary to sustain the wing that floated aloft with so imperceptible an effort. There was no one faculty predominating tyrannically over the others; all seemed proportioned in the felicitous symmetry of a nature rounded, integral, and complete. And when the work was closed, it left behind it a tender warmth that played round the heart of the reader and vivified feelings which seemed unknown before. Randal laid down the book softly; and for five minutes the ignoble and base purposes to which his own knowledge was applied stood before him, naked and unmasked. "Tut!" said he, wrenching himself violently away from the benign influence, "it was not to sympathize with Hector, but to conquer with Achilles, that Alexander of Macedon kept Homer under his pillow. Such should be the true use of books to him who has the practical world to subdue; let parsons and women construe it otherwise, as they may!" And the Principle of Evil descended again upon the intellect from which the guide of Beneficence was gone. CHAPTER X. Randal rose at the sound of the first breakfast-bell, and on the staircase met Mrs. Haaeldean. He gave her back the book; and as he was about to speak, she beckoned to him to follow her into a little morning- room appropriated to herself,--no boudoir of white and gold, with pictures by Watteau, but lined with large walnut-tree presses, that held the old heirloom linen, strewed with lavender, stores for the housekeeper, and medicines for the poor. Seating herself on a large chair in this sanctum, Mrs. Hazeldean looked formidably at home. "Pray," said the lady, coming at once to the point, with her usual straightforward candour, "what is all this you have been saying to my husband as to the possibility of Frank's marrying a foreigner?" RANDAL.--"Would you be as averse to such a notion as Mr. Hazeldean is?" MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"You ask me a question, instead of answering mine." Randal was greatly put out in his fence by these rude thrusts. For indeed he had a double purpose to serve,--first, thoroughly to know if Frank's marriage with a woman like Madame di Negra would irritate the squire sufficiently to endanger the son's inheritance; and, secondly, to prevent Mr. and Mrs. Hazeldean believing seriously that such a marriage was to be apprehended, lest they should prematurely address Frank on the subject, and frustrate the marriage itself. Yet, withal, he must so express himself, that he could not be afterwards accused by the parents of disguising matters. In his talk to the squire the preceding day, he had gone a little too far,--further than he would have done but for his desire of escaping the cattle-shed and short-horns. While he mused, Mrs. Hazeldean observed him with her honest sensible eyes, and finally exclaimed, "Out with it, Mr. Leslie!" "Out with what, my dear madam? The squire has sadly exaggerated the importance of what was said mainly in jest. But I will own to you plainly, that Frank has appeared to me a little smitten with a certain fair Italian." "Italian!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean. "Well, I said so from the first. Italian!---that's all, is it?" and she smiled. Randal was more and more perplexed. The pupil of his eye contracted, as it does when we retreat into ourselves, and think, watch, and keep guard. "And perhaps," resumed Mrs. Hazeldean, with a very sunny expression of countenance, "you have noticed this in Frank since he was here?" "It is true," murmured Randal; "but I think his heart or his fancy was touched even before." "Very natural," said Mrs. Hazeldean; "how could he help it?---such a beautiful creature! Well, I must not ask you to tell Frank's secrets; but I guess the object of attraction; and though she will have no fortune to speak of, and it is not such a match as he might form, still she is so amiable, and has been so well brought up, and is so little like one's general notions of a Roman Catholic, that I think I could persuade Hazeldean into giving his consent." "Ah," said Randal, drawing a long breath, and beginning, with his practised acuteness, to detect Mrs. Ilazeldean's error, "I am very much relieved and rejoiced to hear this; and I may venture to give Frank some hope, if I find him disheartened and desponding, poor fellow?" "I think you may," replied Mrs. Hazeldean, laughing pleasantly. "But you should not have frightened poor William so, hinting that the lady knew very little English. She has an accent, to be sure; but she speaks our tongue very prettily. I always forget that she 's not English born! Ha, ha, poor William!" RANDAL.--"Ha, ha!" MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"We had once thought of another match for Frank,--a girl of good English family." RANDAL.--"Miss Sticktorights?" MRS. HAZELDEAN.---"No; that's an old whim of Hazeldean's. But I doubt if the Sticktorights would ever merge their property in ours. Bless you! it would be all off the moment they came to settlements, and had to give up the right of way. We thought of a very different match; but there's no dictating to young hearts, Mr. Leslie." RANDAL.--"Indeed no, Mrs. Hazeldean. But since we now understand each other so well, excuse me if I suggest that you had better leave things to themselves, and not write to Frank on the subject. Young hearts, you know, are often stimulated by apparent difficulties, and grow cool when the obstacle vanishes." MRS. HAZELDEAN.--"Very possibly; it was not so with Hazeldean and me. But I shall not write to Frank on the subject for a different reason-- though I would consent to the match, and so would William; yet we both would rather, after all, that Frank married an Englishwoman, and a Protestant. We will not, therefore, do anything to encourage the idea. But if Frank's happiness becomes really at stake, then we will step in. In short, we would neither encourage nor oppose. You understand?" "Perfectly." "And in the mean while, it is quite right that Frank should see the world, and try to distract his mind, or at least to know it. And I dare say it has been some thought of that kind which has prevented his coming here." Randal, dreading a further and plainer eclaircissement, now rose, and saying, "Pardon me, but I must hurry over breakfast, and be back in time to catch the coach"--offered his arm to his hostess, and led her into the breakfast-parlour. Devouring his meal, as if in great haste, he then mounted his horse, and, taking cordial leave of his entertainers, trotted briskly away. All things favoured his project,--even chance had befriended him in Mrs. Hazeldean's mistake. She had, not unnaturally, supposed Violante to have captivated Frank on his last visit to the Hall. Thus, while Randal had certified his own mind that nothing could more exasperate the squire than an alliance with Madame di Negra, he could yet assure Frank that Mrs. Hazeldean was all on his side. And when the error was discovered, Mrs. Hazeldean would only have to blame herself for it. Still more successful had his diplomacy proved with the Riccaboccas: he had ascertained the secret he had come to discover; he should induce the Italian to remove to the neighbourhood of London; and if Violante were the great heiress he suspected her to prove, whom else of her own age would she see but him? And the old Leslie domains to be sold in two years--a portion of the dowry might purchase them! Flushed by the triumph of his craft, all former vacillations of conscience ceased. In high and fervent spirits he passed the Casino, the garden of which was solitary and deserted, reached his home, and, telling Oliver to be studious, and Juliet to be patient, walked thence to meet the coach and regain the capital. CHAPTER XI. Violante was seated in her own little room, and looking from the window on the terrace that stretched below. The day was warm for the time of year. The orange-trees had been removed under shelter for the approach of winter; but where they had stood sat Mrs. Riccabocca at work. In the belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his favourite servant. But the casements and the door of the belvidere were open; and where they sat, both wife and daughter could see the padrone leaning against the wall, with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on the floor; while Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking to him with visible earnestness. And the daughter from the window and the wife from her work directed tender, anxious eyes towards the still, thoughtful form so dear to both. For the last day or two, Riccabocca had been peculiarly abstracted, even to gloom. Each felt there was something stirring at his heart,--neither, as yet, knew what. Violante's room silently revealed the nature of the education by which her character had been formed. Save a sketchbook, which lay open on a desk at hand, and which showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this Riccabocca had been her teacher), there was nothing that spoke of the ordinary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no harp occupied yon nook, which seemed made for one; no broidery-frame, nor implements of work, betrayed the usual and graceful resources of a girl; but ranged on shelves against the wall were the best writers in English, Italian, and French; and these betokened an extent of reading, that he who wishes for a companion to his mind in the sweet commune of woman, which softens and refines all it gives and takes in interchange, will never condemn as masculine. You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble was the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely features. Nothing hard, nothing dry and stern was there. Even as you detected knowledge, it was lost in the gentleness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in the graver kinds of information became transmuted, through her heart and her fancy, into spiritual, golden stores. Give her some tedious and arid history, her imagination seized upon beauties other readers had passed by, and, like the eye of the artist, detected everywhere the Picturesque. Something in her mind seemed to reject all that was mean and commonplace, and to bring out all that was rare and elevated in whatever it received. Living so apart from all companions of her age, she scarcely belonged to the present time. She dwelt in the Past, as Sabrina in her crystal well. Images of chivalry, of the Beautiful and the Heroic,--such as, in reading the silvery line of Tasso, rise before us, softening force and valour into love and song,--haunted the reveries of the fair Italian maid. Tell us not that the Past, examined by cold Philosophy, was no better and no loftier than the Present: it is not thus seen by pure and generous eyes. Let the Past perish, when it ceases to reflect on its magic mirror the beautiful Romance which is its noblest reality, though perchance but the shadow of Delusion. Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. In her, life was so puissant and rich, that action seemed necessary to its glorious development,-- action, but still in the woman's sphere,--action to bless and to refine and to exalt all around her, and to pour whatever else of ambition was left unsatisfied into sympathy with the aspirations of man. Despite her father's fears of the bleak air of England, in that air she had strengthened the delicate health of her childhood. Her elastic step, her eyes full of sweetness and light, her bloom, at once soft and luxuriant, --all spoke of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of such exquisite mould, and the emotions of a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the passions of the South with the purity and devotion of the North. Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante was fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she was so ignorant of evil, that as yet she seemed nearly unacquainted with shame. From this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a delightful flow of happy converse. Though possessing so imperfectly the accomplishments ordinarily taught to young women, and which may be cultured to the utmost, and yet leave the thoughts so barren, and the talk so vapid, she had that accomplishment which most pleases the taste, and commands the love, of the man of talent; especially if his talent be not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where he seeks companionship,--the accomplishment of facility in intellectual interchange, the charm that clothes in musical words beautiful womanly ideas. "I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante, softly, as she still watched her father; "and methinks this is a new grief, and not for his country. He spoke twice yesterday of that dear English friend, and wished that he were here." As she said this, unconsciously the virgin blushed, her hands drooped on her knee, and she fell herself into thought as profound as her father's, but less gloomy. From her arrival in England, Violante had been taught a grateful interest in the name of Harley L'Estrange. Her father, preserving a silence that seemed disdain of all his old Italian intimates, had been pleased to converse with open heart of the Englishman who had saved where countrymen had betrayed. He spoke of the soldier, then in the full bloom of youth, who, unconsoled by fame, had nursed the memory of some hidden sorrow amidst the pine-trees that cast their shadow over the sunny Italian lake; how Riccabocca, then honoured and happy, had courted from his seclusion the English signore, then the mourner and the voluntary exile; how they had grown friends amidst the landscapes in which her eyes had opened to the day; how Harley had vainly warned him from the rash schemes in which he had sought to reconstruct in an hour the ruins of weary ages; how, when abandoned, deserted, proscribed, pursued, he had fled for life, the infant Violante clasped to his bosom, the English soldier had given him refuge, baffled the pursuers, armed his servants, accompanied the fugitive at night towards the defile in the Apennines, and, when the emissaries of a perfidious enemy, hot in the chase, came near, had said, "You have your child to save! Fly on! Another league, and you are beyond the borders. We will delay the foes with parley; they will not harm us." And not till escape was gained did the father know that the English friend had delayed the foe, not by parley, but by the sword, holding the pass against numbers, with a breast as dauntless as Bayard's on the glorious bridge. And since then, the same Englishman had never ceased to vindicate his name, to urge his cause; and if hope yet remained of restoration to land and honours, it was in that untiring zeal. Hence, naturally and insensibly, this secluded and musing girl had associated all that she read in tales of romance and chivalry with the image of the brave and loyal stranger. He it was who animated her drearhs of the Past, and seemed born to be, in the destined hour, the deliverer of the Future. Around this image grouped all the charms that the fancy of virgin woman can raise from the enchanted lore of old Heroic Fable. Once in her early girlhood, her father (to satisfy her curiosity, eager for general description) had drawn from memory a sketch of the features of the Englishman,--drawn Harley, as he was in that first youth, flattered and idealized, no doubt, by art, and by partial gratitude, but still resembling him as he was then, while the deep mournfulness of recent sorrow yet shadowed and concentrated all the varying expressions of his countenance; and to look on him was to say, "So sad, yet so young!" Never did Violante pause to remember that the same years which ripened herself from infancy into woman were passing less gently over that smooth cheek and dreamy brow,--that the world might be altering the nature as time the aspect. To her the hero of the Ideal remained immortal in bloom and youth. Bright illusion, common to us all, where Poetry once hallows the human form! Who ever thinks of Petrarch as the old, timeworn man? 'Who does not see him as when he first gazed on Laura?-- "Ogni altra cosa ogni pensier va fore; E sol ivi con voi rimansi Amore!" CHAPTER XII. And Violante, thus absorbed in revery, forgot to keep watch on the belvidere. And the belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no other ideal to distract her thoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the house. The exile entered his daughter's room, and she started to feel his hand upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow. "My child!" cried Riccabocca, seating himself, "I have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and to seek the neighbourhood of London." "Ah, dear father, that, then, was your thought? But what can be your reason? Do not turn away; you know how care fully I have obeyed your command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me." "I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. "I leave this place in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you are of an age to require teachers not to be obtained here, but I should like none to know where we go." The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his head. He said them in shame. "My mother--[so Violante always called Jemima]--my mother--you have spoken to her?" "Not yet. THERE is the difficulty." "No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied Violante, with soft reproach. "Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true, so good?" "Good--I grant it!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? 'Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente.'--["From the bad woman, guard thyself; to the good woman trust nothing."]--And if you must trust," added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but a secret!" "Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father's humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally,--"fie on your consistency, Padre Carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to me?" "You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we shall leave to-night." Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried away, and with a firm step strode the terrace, and approached his wife. "Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavelli, disguising in the tenderest words the cruellest intentions,--for one of his most cherished Italian proverbs was to the effect that there is no getting on with a mule or a woman unless you coax them,--"Anima mia, soul of my being, you have already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here." "She, poor child! Oh, no!" "She does, core of my heart,--she does, and is as ignorant of music as I am of tent-stitch." "She sings beautifully." "Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut. Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham or Brighton. We shall see." "All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?" "We shall go to-night; but terrible as it is to part from you,--you--" "Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands. Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without a single proverb at his heart. "Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss, and there is so much to see to at home." Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arm. She withdrew her hands from her face and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes. "Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in which I have been the partner of your hearth, and slept on your breast,-- all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child,--I grieve to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my side at the altar." "Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why do you say 'trust'? In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted your fidelity, hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she seemed scarcely to hear them. "Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs,--"can you think that I could have watched and thought and taxed my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have secrets known to your daughter, your servant, not to me? Fear not,--the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature; and do I not love you because I know it?--it is for something connected with those secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious, imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband." Mrs. Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm. "O Father, can you resist this? Trust her! trust her!---I am a woman like her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself,--ever nobler than all others, my own father." "Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca. "Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I feared, and would be cautious?" "For mine! Oh, then do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter,--the descendant of men who never feared?" Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained. "Jemima, wife mine! pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,--"come back to my breast--it has been long closed,--it shall be open to you now and forever." In another moment the wife was in her right place,--on her husband's bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling awhile at both, and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven and stole away. CHAPTER XIII. On Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours in the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of the Government at the approaching session of parliament. These rumours had sprung up suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for some time, the sagacious had shaken their heads and said, "Ministers could not last." True, that certain changes in policy, a year or two before, had divided the party on which the Government depended, and strengthened that which opposed it. But still the more important members of that Government had been so long identified with official station, and there seemed so little power in the Opposition to form a Cabinet of names familiar to official ears, that the general public had anticipated, at most, a few partial changes. Rumour now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. He sought Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident, and imperturbed. Somewhat relieved, Randal then set himself to work to find a safe home for Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in obtaining fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Egerton. He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in the neighbourhood of Norwood. No vicinity more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to Riccabocca, and communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office, thinking very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with mechanical precision, when the minister who presided over that department of the public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him to take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult relative to a very important point to be decided in the Cabinet that day. "I want you to take it," said the minister, smiling (the minister was a frank homely man), "because you are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give you some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often over cautious and brief in the litera scripta." Randal went first to Egerton's neighbouring office--Egerton had not been there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square. A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr. Egerton was at home; but the servant said, "Dr. F----- is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not like to be disturbed." "What! is your master ill?" "Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked poorly the last day or two." Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and Egerton was a man who so held the maxim that health and all else must give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced and unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that? How dare you?" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognizing Randal, he changed colour, bit his lip, and muttered dryly, "I beg pardon for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?" "This letter from Lord--; I was told to deliver it immediately into your own hands. I beg pardon--" "There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack of bronchitis; and as parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply." Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before, and it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion upon a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well dressed, was shown in, and honoured Randal with an easy and half-familiar bow. Randal remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house of a young nobleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, and did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed. "Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said he, arranging the camellia in his button-hole. "Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say "Our friend Egerton." "He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person. "I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's. Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever." Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas. Randal smiled. In the mean while the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron Levy, No.--, Bruton St." The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of an habitue of good society. Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years relinquished his ostensible calling: and not long since, in consequence of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be only equalled by his good-nature to all who were in want of a temporary loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other. You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy, about the same age as Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved, such magnificent black whiskers, such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark complexion, he did not, however, resemble a Jew,--at least externally; and, in fact, he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son of a rich English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction--in the opera. After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of her own persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his own Hebrew name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a widower, and then the real father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him great attention,--had him frequently at his house, initiated him betimes into his own high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste. But when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger Levy, who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to an attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be seen. Young Levy, however, contrived to do very well without him. His real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner where he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the fashionable classes of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant, so much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his clients,--chiefly young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew and Christian; and being neither one nor the other, resembled (to use Sheridan's incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the New Testament. Vulgar some might call Mr. Levy from his assurance, but it was not the vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society,--rather the /mauvais ton/ of a person not sure of his own position, but who has resolved to swagger into the best one he can get. When it is remembered that he had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an immense fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp as a needle, and as hard as a flint. No man had had more friends, and no man had stuck by them more firmly--so long as there was a pound in their pockets! Something of this character had Randal heard of the baron, and he now gazed, first at his card, and then at him with--admiration. "I met a friend of yours at Borrowell's the other day," resumed the baron,--"young Hazeldean. Careful fellow--quite a man of the world." As this was the last praise poor Frank deserved, Randal again smiled. The baron went on: "I hear, Mr. Leslie, that you have much influence over this same Hazeldean. His affairs are in a sad state. I should be very happy to be of use to him, as a relation of my friend Egerton's; but he understands business so well that he despises my advice." "I am sure you do him injustice." "Injustice! I honour his caution. I say to every man, 'Don't come to me: I can get you money on much easier terms than any one else; and what's the result! You come so often that you ruin yourself; whereas a regular usurer without conscience frightens you. "Cent percent," you say; "oh, I must pull in." If you have influence over your friend, tell him to stick to his bill-brokers, and have nothing to do with Baron Levy." Here the minister's bell rung, and Randal, looking through the window, saw Dr. F----- walking to his carriage, which had made way for Baron Levy's splendid cabriolet,--a cabriolet in the most perfect taste, baron's coronet on the dark-brown panels, horse black, with such action! harness just relieved with plating. The servant now entered, and requested Randal to step in; and addressing the baron, assured him that he would not be detained a minute. "Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this back to Lord ------, and say that I shall be with him in an hour." "No other message?--he seemed to expect one." "I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my message is not: beg him to see Mr. ----- before we meet,--he will understand,--all rests upon that interview." Egerton then, extending the letter, resumed gravely, "Of course you will not mention to any one that Dr. F----- was with me: the health of public men is not to be suspected. Hum,--were you in your own room or the ante- room?" "The ante-room, sir." Egerton's brow contracted slightly. "And Mr. Levy was there, eh?" "Yes--the baron." "Baron! true. Come to plague me about the Mexican loan, I suppose. I will keep you no longer." Randal, much meditating, left the house, and re-entered his hack cab. The baron was admitted to the statesman's presence. CHAPTER XIV. Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was different. It was as if the statesman, the man of business, had vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler who, nodding languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a year?" "The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer." "My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow"! And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled. "I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, bear L5,000 more." "A hard pull on it. You had really better sell." "I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley Egerton is done up,--his property is for sale.'" "It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may be yet!" "Be yet! How?" Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors,--thick and impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that might give us each a hundred thousand pounds. We would go shares." "Levy," said Egerton, coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face, "you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have told you that long ago." The usurer's brows darkened, but he dispelled the cloud with an easy laugh. "Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with emphasis, "to borrow it without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?" Egerton started as if stung. "You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed passionately. "I accept pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange!--I!" "Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of that act in your life which--" "Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!" He stopped, and paced the room, muttering, in broken sentences, "To blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!" Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned abruptly. "Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure, "you hate me--why, I know not." "Hate you! How have I shown hatred? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management, my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been,--perhaps a beggar." "What shall I be now, if I live? And this fortune which my marriage brought to me--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!" "Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? Again, dismiss from your mind the absurd thought that I hate you. True, you snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the L5,000?" "Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready when required." "Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?" "None." "I will take my leave, then. By-the-by, what do you suppose the Hazeldean rental is worth--net?" "I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon that too?" "Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr. Frank seems a liberal young gentleman." Before Egerton could answer, the baron had glided to the door, and, nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod. Egerton remained, standing on his solitary hearth. A drear, single man's room it was, from wall to wall, despite its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Brahmah escritoires and red boxes. Drear and cheerless,--no trace of woman's habitation, no vestige of intruding, happy children. There stood the austere man alone. And then with a deep sigh he muttered, "Thank Heaven, not for long,--it will not last long." Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it. "So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently. In five minutes more Audley Egerton was in the streets, his mien erect, and his step firm as ever. "That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the Opposition to a friend as they rode past the minister. "What would I not give for his nerves!" 
33206	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. _Plashers Mead_ Compton Mackenzie PLASHERS MEAD [Illustration: GUY AND PAULINE] PLASHERS MEAD BY COMPTON MACKENZIE AUTHOR OF _CARNIVAL_ [Illustration] HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK & LONDON Copyright, 1915, by Harper & Brothers TO GENERAL SIR IAN HAMILTON G.C.B., D.S.O. AND THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE MEDITERRANEAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. AUTUMN SEPTEMBER: OCTOBER: NOVEMBER 3 II. WINTER DECEMBER: JANUARY: FEBRUARY 55 III. SPRING MARCH: APRIL: MAY 99 IV. SUMMER JUNE: JULY: AUGUST 155 V. ANOTHER AUTUMN SEPTEMBER: OCTOBER: NOVEMBER 205 VI. ANOTHER WINTER DECEMBER: JANUARY: FEBRUARY 253 VII. ANOTHER SPRING MARCH: APRIL: MAY 297 VIII. ANOTHER SUMMER JUNE: JULY: AUGUST 339 IX. EPIGRAPH GUY: PAULINE 371 AUTUMN SEPTEMBER The slow train puffed away into the unadventurous country; and the bees buzzing round the wine-dark dahlias along the platform were once again audible. The last farewell that Guy Hazlewood flung over his shoulder to a parting friend was more casual than it would have been had he not at the same moment been turning to ask the solitary porter how many cases of books awaited his disposition. They were very heavy, it seemed; and the porter, as he led the way towards the small and obscure purgatory through which every package for Shipcot must pass, declared he was surprised to hear these cases contained merely books. He would not go so far as to suggest that hitherto he had never faced the existence of books in such quantity, for the admission might have impugned official omniscience; yet there was in his attitude just as much incredulity mingled with disdain of useless learning as would preserve his dignity without jeopardizing the financial compliment his services were owed. "Ah, well," he decided, as if he were trying to smooth over Guy's embarrassment at the sight of these large packing-cases in the parcel-office. "You'll want something as'll keep you busy this winter--for you'll be the gentleman who've come to live down Wychford way?" Guy nodded. "And Wychford is mortal dead in winter. Time walks very lame there, as they say. And all these books, I suppose, were better to come along of the 'bus to-night?" Guy looked doubtful. It was seeming a pity to waste this afternoon without unpacking a single case. "The trap...." he began. But the porter interrupted him firmly; he did not think Mr. Godbold would relish the notion of one of these packing-cases in his new trap. "I could give you a hand...." Guy began again. The porter stiffened himself against the slight upon his strength. "It's not the heffort," he asserted. "Heffort is what I must look for every day of my life. It's Mr. Godbold's trap." The discussion was given another turn by the entrance of Mr. Godbold himself. He was not at all concerned for his trap, and indeed by an asseverated indifference to its welfare he conveyed the impression that, new though it were, it was so much firewood, if the gentleman wanted firewood. No, the trap did not matter, but what about Mr. Hazlewood's knees? "Ah, there you are," said the porter, and he and Mr. Godbold both stood dumb in the presence of the finally insuperable. "I suppose it must be the 'bus," said Guy. On such a sleepy afternoon he could argue no longer. The books must be unpacked to-morrow; and the word lulled like an opiate the faint irritation of his disappointment. The porter's reiterated altruism was rewarded with a fee so absurdly in excess of anything he had done, that he began to speak of a possibility if, after all, the smallest case might not be squeezed ... but Mr. Godbold flicked the pony, and the trap rattled up the station road at a pace quite out of accord with the warmth of the afternoon. Presently he turned to his fare: "Mrs. Godbold said to me only this morning, she said, 'You ought to have had a luggage-flap behind and that I shall always say,' And she was right. Women is often right, what's more," the husband postulated. Guy nodded absently; he was thinking about the books. "Very often right," Mr. Godbold murmured. Still Guy paid no attention. "Very often," he repeated, but as Guy would neither contradict nor agree with him, Mr. Godbold relapsed into meditation upon the justice of his observation. The pony had settled down to his wonted pace and jogged on through the golden haze of fine September weather. Soon the village of Shipcot was left behind, and before them lay the long road winding upward over the wold to Wychford. Guy thought of the friend who had left him that afternoon and wished that Michael Fane were still with him to enjoy this illimitable sweep of country. He had been the very person to share in the excitement of arranging a new house. Guy could not remember that he had ever made a suggestion for which he had not been asked; nor could he call to mind a single occasion when his appreciation had failed. And now to-night, when for the first time he was going to sleep in his own house, his friend was gone. There had been no hint of departure during the six weeks of preparation they had spent together at the Stag Inn, and it was really perverse of Michael to rush back to London now. Guy jumped down from the trap, which was climbing the hill very slowly, and stretched his long legs. He was rather bored by his loneliness, but as soon as he had stated so much to himself, he was shocked at the disloyalty to his ambition. After all, he reassured himself, he was not going back to a dull inn-parlor; to-night he was going to sleep in an hermitage for the right to enjoy the seclusion of which he had been compelled to fight very hard. It was weak to imagine he was lonely already, and to fortify himself against this mood he pulled out of his pocket his father's last letter and read it again while he walked up the hill behind the trap. FOX HALL, GALTON, HANTS, _September 10th_. DEAR GUY,--I agree with some of what you say, but I disagree with a good deal more, and I am entirely opposed to your method of procedure, which is to put it very mildly rather casual. Your degree was not so good as it ought to have been, but I did not reproach you, because in the Consular Service you had chosen a career which did not call specially for a first. At the same time you could, if you had worked, have got a first quite easily. Your six months with the Macedonian Relief people seems to have knocked all your consular ambitions on the head rather too easily, I confess, to make me feel very happy about your future. And now without consulting me you take a house in the country for the purpose of writing poetry! You imply in answer to my remonstrances that I am unable to appreciate the "necessity" for your step. That may be, but I cannot help asking where you would be now if I at your age, instead of helping my father with his school, had gone off to Oxfordshire to write poetry. Perhaps I had ambitions to make a name for myself with the pen. If I had, I quenched them in order to devote myself to what I considered my duty. I do not reproach you for refusing to carry on the school at Fox Hall. Your dear mother's last request was that I should not urge you to be a schoolmaster, unless you were drawn to the vocation. Her wishes I have respected, and I repeat that I am not hurt at your refusal. At the same time I cannot encourage what can only be described as this whim of yours to bury yourself in a remote village where, having saddled yourself with the responsibilities of a house, you announce your intention of living by poetry! I am the last person to underestimate the value of poetry, but as a livelihood it seems to me as little to be relied upon as the weather. However, you are of age. You have £150 a year of your own. You are with the exercise of the strictest economy independent. And this brings me to the point of your last letter in which you ask me to supplement your own income with an allowance of £150 a year from me. This inclination to depend upon your father is not what I conceive to be the artist's spirit of independence. This overdrawing upon your achievement fills me with dismay for the future. However, since I do not wish you to begin hampered by debt and as you assure me that you have spent all your own money on this idiotic house, I will give you £150, to be paid in quarterly instalments of £37 10_s_, as from the 21st of this month for one year. Furthermore, at the end of next year if you find that poetry is less profitable than even you expect, I will offer you a place at Fox Hall, thereby securing for you the certainty of a life moderately free from financial worries. After all, even a schoolmaster has some spare time, and I dare say our greatest poets did much of their best work in their spare time. The idea of writing poetry all day and every day appeals to me as enervating and ostentatious. Your affectionate father, JOHN HAZLEWOOD. Guy stood still when he had finished the letter, and execrated mutely the damnable dependence that compelled him to accept gratefully and humbly this gift of £150. Yet with no money of his own coming in till December, with actually a housekeeper on her way from Cardiff and his house already furnished, he must accept the offer. In a year's time he would have proved the reasonableness of his request; and he began to compose a scene between them, in which his father would almost on bended knees beg him to accept an allowance of £300 a year in consideration of the magnificent proof he had afforded to the world of being in the direct line of English poets. "And I mustn't forget to send him a sonnet on his birthday," said Guy to himself. This notion restored his dignity, and he hurried on to overtake the trap which was waiting on the brow of the hill. "You were saying something about women being right," he reminded Mr. Godbold, as he sat down again beside him. "Has it ever struck you that fathers are nearly always wrong?" "That wouldn't do for me at all," said Mr. Godbold, shaking his head. "You see I'm the father of nine, and if I wasn't always right, sir, I shouldn't be no better than a bull in a china-shop where I live. I've _got_ to be right, Mr. Hazlewood." "I suppose that's what the Pope felt," Guy murmured. "Now do you reckon this here Pope they speak of really exists in a manner of speaking?" Mr. Godbold asked, as the trap bowled along the level stretch of upland road. "You know there's some of these narrow-minded mortals at Wychford as will have it that Mr. Grey, our parson, is in with the Pope, and I said to one or two of them the other night while we were arguing in the post-office, I said, 'Have any of you wise men of Gotham ever seen this Pope as you're so knowing about?'" "And had they?" asked Guy, encouragingly. "Not one of them," said Mr. Godbold. "And I thought to myself as I was walking up home, I thought now what if there wasn't no such thing as a Pope any more than there's women with fish-tails and all this rubbish you read of in books. If you ask my opinion of books, Mr. Hazlewood, I tell you that I think books is as bad for some people as wireworms is for carnations. They seem to regular eat into them." Guy laughed. Misgivings about the wisdom of his choice vanished, and he was being conscious of a very intimate pleasure in thus driving back to Wychford from the station. The country tossed for miles to right and left in great stretches of pasturage, and when Mr. Godbold pulled up for a moment to look at a trace, the air, brilliantly dusted with autumnal gold, seemed to endow him with the richness of its silence; along the sparse hedgerow chicory flowers burned with the pale intense blue of the September sky above, and Guy felt like them, worshipful of the cloudless scene. The road ran along the upland for half a mile before it dipped suddenly down into the valley of the Greenrush, from which the spire of Wychford church came delicately up into the air, like a coil of smoke ascending from the opalescent corona that hung over the small town clustered against the farther hillside. Down in that valley close to the church was Plashers Mead, and Guy watched eagerly for the first sight of his long, low house. Already the sparkle of the more distant curves of the Greenrush was visible; but Plashers Mead was still hidden by the slope of the bank. Presently this broke away to a ragged hedge, and the house displayed itself as much an integral part of the landscape as an outcrop of stone. "Tasty little place," commented Mr. Godbold while the trap jolted cautiously down the last twist of the hilly road. "But I reckon old Burrows was glad to let it. You're young, though, and I dare say you won't mind being flooded out in winter. Two years ago Burrows's son's wife's nephew was floating paper boats in the front hall. But you're young, and I dare say you'll enjoy it." The pony swept round the corner and pulled up with a jerk at the wooden gateway in the gray wall overhung by lime-trees that concealed from the highroad the moist fields and garden of Plashers Mead. "I'm sleeping here to-night, you know, for the first time," said Guy. He had tried all the way back not to make this announcement, but the sight of his own gateway destroyed his reserve. "Well, you'll have a fine night, that's one good job," Mr. Godbold predicted. "And the moon only just past the full," said Guy. "That's right," Mr. Godbold agreed; and the tenant passed through the gateway into the garden, where every path had its own melody of running water. He examined with proprietary solicitude the espaliers of apple-trees, and admired for the twentieth time the pledge they offered by their fantastic forms of his garden's antiquity. He pinched several pippins that seemed ripe, but they were still hard; and he could find nothing over which to exert his lordship until he saw by the edge of the path a piece of groundsel. Having solemnly exterminated the weed, Guy felt that the garden must henceforth recognize him as master, and he walked on through a mass of dropsical cabbages and early kale until he came face to face with the house, the sudden view of which like this never failed to give him a peculiar pleasure. The tangled garden, long and narrow, was bounded on the right, as one entered, by the Greenrush, over which hung a thicket of yews that completely shut out the first straggling houses of Wychford. On the left the massed espaliers ended abruptly in a large water-meadow reaching to the foot of the hill along which the highroad climbed in a slow diagonal. By the corner of the house the garden had narrowed to the apex of a thin triangle, so that the windows looked out over the water-meadow and, beyond, up the wide valley of the Greenrush to where the mighty western sky rested on rounded hills. At this apex the Greenrush flung a tributary stream to wash the back of the house and one side of the orchard, whence it wound in extravagant curves towards the easterly valley. The main branch, damned up to form a deep and sluggish mill-stream, flowed straight on, dividing Guy's domain from the churchyard. At the end of the orchard on this side was a lock-gate through which a certain amount of water continuously escaped from the mill-stream, enough, indeed, to make the orchard an island, as it trickled in diamonded shallows to reinforce the idle tributary. Somewhere in the farther depths of the eastern valley all vagrant waters were united, and somewhere still more remote they came to a confluence with their father the Thames. Guy sat upon the parapet of the well under the shade of a sycamore-tree and regarded with admiration and satisfaction the exterior of his house. He looked at the semicircular porch of stone over the front door and venerated the supporting cherubs who with puffed-out cheeks had blown defiance at wind and rain since the days of Elizabeth. He counted the nine windows, five above and four below, populating with the shapes of many friends the rooms they lightened. He looked at the steep roof of gray-stone tiles rich with the warm golden green of mossy patterns. He looked at the four pear-trees against the walls of the house barren now for many years. He looked at himself in silhouette against the silver sky of the well-water; and then he went indoors. The big stone-paved hall was very cool, and the sound of the stream at the back came babbling through lattices open to the light of a green world. Guy could not make up his mind whether the inside of the house smelled very dry or very damp, for there clung about it that odor peculiar to rustic age, which may be found equally in dry old barns and in damp potting-sheds. He wished he could furnish the hall worthily. At present it contained only a high-back chair, an alleged contemporary of Cromwell, which was doddering beside the hooded fireplace; a warming-pan; and an oak chest which remained a chest only so long as nobody either sat upon it or lifted the lid. There was also a grandfather-clock which had suffered an abrupt resurrection of four minutes' duration when it was recently lifted out of the furniture-van, but had now relapsed into the silence of years. Leading out of the hall was a small, empty room which had been dedicated to the possession of his friend Michael Fane; together they had planned to paper it with gold and paint the ceiling black. Michael, however, had still another year at Oxford, and the room with an obelisk of lining-paper standing upright on the bare floor was now a little desolate. On the other side of the hall was the dining-room, which Guy, by taxing his resources, had managed to furnish very successfully. It was a square room painted emerald-green above the white wainscot. Two inset cupboards were filled with glass and china: there were four Chippendale chairs and an oval Sheraton table, curtains of purple silk, some old English water-colors, and two candlesticks of Sheffield plate. Beyond the dining-room was the kitchen, the corridor to which was endowed with a swinging baize door considered by the landlord to be the finest feature of the house. The problem of equipping the kitchen had seemed insoluble until Guy heard of a sale in the neighborhood. He had bicycled over to this and bought the contents of the large kitchen at auction. The result was that the dresser encroached upon the table, that the table had one leg in the fender, and that a row of graduated dish-covers, the largest of which would have sheltered two turkeys, occupied whatever space was left. All that remained of Guy's own money had been invested in his kitchen, and he accounted for the large size of everything by the fact of the auction's having been held in the open air, where everything had looked so much smaller. Now, as he contemplated dubiously the result, he wondered what Miss Peasey would say to it. She and the books would arrive together at half past nine to-night. He hoped his unknown housekeeper would not be irritated by these dish-covers, and as a precautionary measure he unhooked the largest, carried it up-stairs, and deposited it on the floor of an unfurnished bedroom. The staircase ran steep and straight up from the hall into a long corridor with more casements opening on the orchard behind. The bedroom at one end was dedicated to the hope of Michael Fane's occupation and was always referred to in letters as his: "_By the way I put the largest dish-cover in your bedroom._" The next two bedrooms were also empty and belonged in spirit to the friends with whom Guy had lived during his last year at Oxford. The fourth was his own, very simply and sparsely furnished in comparison with the bedroom up in the roof which was intended for Miss Peasey. The preparation of that for an elderly unmarried woman had involved a certain voluptuousness of rep and fumed oak and heavily decorated china, the fruit of the second-best bedroom in the house of the dish-covers. As Guy went up the crooked stairs and knocked his head on three successive beams, he hoped Miss Peasey would not be as disproportionately large as the kitchen dresser. Her handwriting had been spidery enough, and he pictured her hopefully as small and wizened. Miss Peasey's bower with the big dormer window surveying the tree-tops of the orchard was certainly a success, and Guy saw that Michael had with happy intuition of female aspiration hung on the wall opposite her bed a large steel-engraving of Doré's Martyrs, which had been included with two hammocks and a fishing-rod in one of the odd lots lightly bid for at the auction. There did not seem anything else she could want; so, having killed a bluebottle with a tartan pincushion, he came down-stairs. Guy had left his own room to the last, partly because he regretted so much the delay in the arrival of those books and partly because, however inadequately equipped was the rest of the house, this room was always the final justification of his tenancy. It was a larger room than any of the others, for the corridor did not cut off its share of the back. It possessed, in addition to the usual window looking out over the western side of the valley, a very large bay which hung right over the stream, with a view of the orchard, of the church steeple, of the water-meadows beyond, and of the wold rolling across the horizon. This morning Michael and he had pushed the furniture into place, had set in order the great wicker chairs and nailed against the wall the frames of green canvas. The floor was covered with a sweet-smelling mat of Abingdon rushes; and the curtains of his old rooms in Balliol were hung in place, dim green curtains sown with golden fleurs-de-lys. The ivory image of an emaciated saint standing on the mantelshelf between candlesticks of old wrought iron was probably a Spanish Virgin, but Guy preferred to say she was Saint Rose of Lima because "_O Rose of Lima_" seemed a wonderful apostrophe to begin a poem. Nothing indeed remained for the room's perfection but to fill the new bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. Why had he not hired a cart in Shipcot? They would have been here by now, and he would actually have been able to begin work to-night, setting thus a noble period to these last six weeks of preparation. Guy dragged a chair into the bay window and, balancing his long legs on the sill, he made numerous calculations in which Miss Peasey's wages, the weekly bills for food, and the number of times he would have to go up to London were set against £150 a year. When he woke up, the lime-trees that bordered the highroad had flung their shadows half-way across the meadow, and the air was a fume of golden gnats against the dipping sun. Within ten minutes the sun vanished, and the mists began to rise. Guy, feeling rather chilly and ashamed of himself for falling asleep, rose hurriedly and went up into the town. He interviewed the driver of the omnibus and told him to look out for his books, and as an afterthought he mentioned the arrival of Miss Peasey. He wished now he had written and told his housekeeper to spend the night in Oxford; and he hoped she would not be prejudiced against Plashers Mead by a five-mile drive in a cold omnibus after her tiring journey from Cardiff. He dawdled about the steep village street for a while, gossiping with tradesmen at their doors and watching the warmth fade out of the gray houses in the falling dusk. Then he went to eat his last meal in the Stag Inn. After supper Guy returned to Plashers Mead, wandering round the house, dropping a great deal of candle-grease everywhere, and working himself up into a state of anxiety over Miss Peasey's advent. It would be terrible if she demanded her fare back to Wales the moment she arrived; and to propitiate her he put the best lamp in the kitchen, whence (as with such illumination it looked more than ever protuberant) he took another dish-cover up to Michael's bedroom. Since it was still but a few minutes after eight and the omnibus would not come for another hour and a half, he lit all the wax candles in his own room and wondered what to do. The tall shadows wavering in the draught were seeming cold and uncomfortable without a fire, so he restlessly threw back the curtains of the bay window to watch the rising of the moon. At that instant her rim appeared above the black hills, and presently a great moon of dislustered gold swam along the edge of the earth. Although she appeared to shed no light, the valley responded to her presence, and Guy was lured from his room to walk for a while in the dews. Out in the orchard a heavy mist wrapped him in wet folds of silver; yet overhead there was clear starlight, and he could watch the slow burnishing of the moon's face in her voyage up the sky. It was a queer country in which he found himself, where all the tree-tops seemed to be floating away from invisible trunks, and where for a while no sound was audible but his own footsteps making a music almost of violins in the saturated grass. The moon wrought upon the vapors a shifting damascene; and far behind, as it seemed, a rufous stain showed where the candles in his room were still alight. Gradually a variety of sounds began to play upon the silence. He could hear the dry squeak of a bat and cows munching in the meadows on the other side of the stream. The stream itself babbled and was still, babbled and was still; while along the bank voles were taking the water with splashes that went up and down a scale like the deep notes of a dulcimer. Far off, an owl hooted, an otter barked; and then as he crossed the middle of the orchard he was hearing nothing but apples fall with solemn thud, until the noise of the lock-gate swallowed all lighter sounds. Here the mist had temporarily dissolved, and in the moonlight he could see water gushing forth like an arch of lace and the long bramble-sprays combing the shallows below. Soon the orchard was left behind and he was in the mist of a wide meadow, where all was silent again except for the faint sobbing of the grass to his footsteps. He walked straight into the moon's face, stumbling from time to time over molehills with an eery fragrance of fresh-turned soil, and wishing he could ever say in verse a little of the magic this autumnal night was shedding upon his fancy. "By gad! if I can't write here, I ought to be shot," he declared. The church clock struck the half-hour as appositely as if his own father had said something about the need for hurrying up and showing what he could do. "Ah, but I'm not going to be hurried," said Guy, aloud. And since the clock could not answer him again, it was as good as having the best of an argument. Guy walked on, and after a while could hear once more the purling of the stream. He thought there was something strangely human about this river in the way it wandered so careless of direction. When he had left these banks, they had been going away from him: now here they were coming back like himself towards the moon, so that presently he was able without changing his course to walk under their border of willows. The mist had drifted away from the stream, leaving the spires of loosestrife plainly visible, and more dimly on the other side the forms of huge cattle at pasture. There was, too, a smell of meadowsweet softening with a summer languor the sharp September night. The willows gave way to overhanging thickets of hawthorn, as the river suddenly swept round to make a noose that was completed but a few yards ahead of where he was standing. He could not see on account of the bushes the size of the peninsula so formed, and when suddenly he heard from the depths a sound of laughter, so full was his brain of moonshine that if he had come face to face with a legendary queen of fairies, he would hardly have been surprised. It was with the deliberate encouragement of a vision surpassing all the fantasies of moon and mist that Guy stopped; and, indeed, on a sensuous impulse to pamper his imagination with an unsolved mystery he had almost turned round to go back. Curiosity, however, was too strong; for, as he paused irresolute, the fairy mirth tinkling again from the recesses of that bewitched inclosure died away upon the murmur of a conversation, and he could not leave any longer inviolate that screen of hawthorns. In the apogee of the river's noose two girls, clearly seen against the silver glooms beyond, were bending over a basket. Their heads were close together, and it was not until Guy was almost on top of them that he realized how impertinent his intrusion might seem. He drew back, blushing, just as one of the girls became aware of his presence and jumped up with an "oh" that floated away from her as lightly as a moth upon the moonshine. Her sister (Guy decided at once they were sisters) jumped up also and, luckily for him, since it offered the opportunity of a natural apology, overturned the basket. For a moment the three of them gazed at one another over the mushrooms that were tumbled upon the grass to be an elfin city of the East, so white and cold were their cupolas under the moon. "Can't I help to pick them up?" Guy asked, wondering to himself why on this night of nights that was the real beginning of Plashers Mead he should be blessed by this fortunate encounter. The two girls were wearing big white coats of some rough tweed or frieze on which the mist lay like gossamer; and, as neither of them had a hat, Guy could see that one was very dark and the other fair. "We wondered who you were," said the dark one. "I live at Plashers Mead," said Guy. "I know; I've seen you often," she answered. "And Father says every day, 'My dears, I really must call upon that young man.'" It was the fair one who spoke, and Guy recognized that it was her laughter he had first heard. "My other sister is somewhere close by," said the dark one. Guy was kneeling down to gather up the mushrooms, and he looked round to see another white figure coming towards them. "Oh, Margaret, do let's introduce him to Monica. It will be such fun," cried the fair sister. Guy saw that Margaret was shaking her head, but nevertheless when the third sister came near enough she did introduce him. Monica was more like Margaret, but much fairer than the first fair sister; and with her reserve and her pale-gold hair she seemed, as she greeted him, to be indeed a wraith of the moon. "Shall I carry the mushrooms back for you?" Guy offered. "Oh no, thanks," said Monica, quickly. "The Rectory is quite out of your way." He felt the implication of an eldest sister's disapproval, and not wishing to spoil the omens of romance, he left the three sisters by the banks of the Greenrush and was soon on his way home through the webs of mist. How extraordinary that he and Michael should have spent six weeks at Wychford without realizing that the Rector had three such daughters. Godbold had gossiped about him only this afternoon, reporting that he was held by some of his parishioners to be in with the Pope: they might more justly suspect him of being in with Titania. Monica, Margaret ... he had not heard the name of the third. Monica had seemed a little frigid, but Margaret and ... really when the omnibus arrived he must find out the name of the Rector's third daughter, of that one so obviously the youngest, with her light-brown hair and her laugh of which even now, as he paused, he fancied he could still hear the melodious echo. Monica, Margaret, and ... Rose, perhaps, for there had been something of a dewy eglantine about her. Surely that was indeed the echo of their voices; but, as upon distance the wayward sound eluded him, the belfry clock with whir and buzz and groan made preparation to strike the hour. Nine strokes boomed, leaving behind them a stillness absolute. The poet thought of time before him, of the three sisters by the river, of fame to come, and of his own fortune in finding Plashers Mead. Four months ago he had been in Macedonia, full of pro-consular romance, and now he was in England with a much keener sense of every moment's potentiality than he had ever known in the dreams of Oriental dominion. This sublunary adventure indicated how great a richness of pastoral life lay behind the slumber of a forgotten town; and it was seeming more than ever a pity Michael had not waited until to-night, so that he also might have met Monica and Margaret and that smallest innominate sister with the light-brown hair. Guy could not help arranging with himself for his friend to fall in love with one of them; and since he at once allotted Monica to Michael, he knew that he himself preferred one of the others. But which? Oh, it was ridiculous to ask such questions after seeing three girls for three minutes of moonlight. Perhaps it really had been sorcery, and in the morning, when he met them in Wychford High Street, they would appear dull and ordinary. They could not be so beautiful as he thought they were, he decided, since if they were he must have heard of their beauty. Nevertheless, it was in a mood of almost elated self-congratulation that Guy found himself hurrying through the orchard towards the candle-light of his room. The arrival of Miss Peasey, now that it was upon him, banished everything else; and instead of dreaming deliciously of that encounter in the water-meadows, he stood meditating on the failure of the kitchen. As he regarded the enormous dresser, the table trampling upon the fender, the seven dish-covers mocking his poor crockery, Guy had little hope that Miss Peasey would stay a week; and then suddenly, worse than any failure of equipment, he remembered that she might be hungry. He looked at his watch. A quarter past nine. Of course she would be hungry. She probably had eaten nothing but a banana since breakfast in Cardiff. Guy rushed out and surprised the landlord of the Stag by begging him to send the hostler down at once with cold beef and stout and cheese. "There's the 'bus," he cried. "Don't forget. At once. My new housekeeper. Long journey. And salad. Forgot she'd be hungry. Salt and mustard. I've got plates." The omnibus went rumbling past, and Guy followed at a jog-trot down the street, saw it cross the bridge, and, making a spurt, caught it up just as a woman alighted by the gate of Plashers Mead. "Ah, Miss Peasey," said Guy, breathlessly. "I went up the street to see if the 'bus was coming. Have you had a comfortable journey?" "Mr. Hazlewood?" asked the new housekeeper, blinking at him. The guard of the omnibus at this moment informed Guy that he had some cases for Plashers Mead. "Where is Mr. Hazlewood, then?" asked Miss Peasey, turning sharply. Over her shoulder Guy saw that the guard was apparently punching the side of his head, and he said, more loudly: "I'm Mr. Hazlewood." "I thought you were. I'm a little bit deaf after traveling, so you'll kindly speak slightly above the usual, Mr. Hazlewood." "I hope you've had a comfortable journey," Guy shouted. "Oh yes, I think I shall," she said with what Guy fancied was meant to be an encouraging smile. "I hope you haven't lost any of my parcels, young man," she continued, with a severe glance at the guard. "Four and a string-bag. Is that right, mum?" he bellowed. "She's as deaf as an adder, Mr. Hazlewood," he explained, confidentially. "We had a regular time getting of her into the 'bus before we found out she couldn't hear what was being said to her. Oh, very obstinate she was." "This is the garden," Guy shouted, as they passed in through the gate. "Yes, I dare say," Miss Peasey replied, ambiguously. Guy wondered how she would ever be got up-stairs to her room. "This is the hall," he shouted. "Rather unfurnished I'm afraid." "Oh yes, I'm quite used to the country," said Miss Peasey. Guy was now in a state of nervous indecision. Just as he was going to shout to Miss Peasey that the kitchen was through the baize door the hostler from the Stag came up to know whether mutton would do instead of beef, and just as he said pork would be better than nothing the guard arrived with Miss Peasey's tin box and wanted to know where he should put it. The hall seemed to be thronged with people. "You'd like your boxes up-stairs, wouldn't you?" he shouted to the housekeeper. "Oh, do you want to come up-stairs?" she said, cheerfully. "No, your boxes. The kitchen's in here." He really hustled her into the kitchen and, having got her at last in a well-lighted room, he begged her to sit down and expect her supper. By this time two men who had been summoned by the driver of the omnibus to bring in Guy's books were staggering and sweating into the hall. However, the confusion relaxed in time; and before the clock struck ten Guy was alone with Miss Peasey and without an audience was managing to make her understand most of what he was saying. "I'll come down in about half an hour," he told her, "and show you your room." "It's a long way," said Miss Peasey, when the moment was arrived to conduct her up the winding staircase to her bower in the roof. Guy had calculated that she would miss all the beams, and so from a desire to make the best of the staircase he had not mentioned them. He sighed with relief when she passed into her bedroom, unbumped. "Oh, quite nice," she pronounced, looking round her. "In the morning we'll talk over everything," said Guy, and with a hurried good-night he rushed away. In the hall he attacked with a chisel the first packing-case. One by one familiar volumes winked at him with their gold lettering in the candle-light. He chose Keats to take up-stairs, and, having read "St. Agnes' Eve," stood by the window of his bedroom poring upon the moonlit valley. In bed his mind skipped the stress of Miss Peasey's arrival and fled back to the meadows where he had been walking. "Monica, Margaret...." he began, dreamily. It was a pity he had forgotten to find out the name of that sister who was so like a wild rose. Never mind; he would find out to-morrow. And for the second time that day the word lulled him like an opiate. OCTOBER It was a blowy afternoon early in October, and Pauline was sitting by the window of what at Wychford Rectory was still called the nursery. The persistence of the old name might almost be taken as symbolic of the way in which time had glided by that house unrecognized, for here were Monica, Margaret, and Pauline grown up before any one had thought of changing its name even to school-room. And with the old name it had preserved the character childhood had lent it. There was not a chair that did not appear now like the veteran survivor of childish wars and misappropriations, nor any table nor cupboard that did not testify to an affectionate ill-treatment prolonged over many years. On the walls the paper which had once been vivid in its expression of primitive gaiety was now faded; but the pattern of berries, birds, and daisies still displayed that eternally unexplored tangle as freshly as once it was displayed for childish fancies of adventure. Pauline had always loved the window-seat, and from here she had always seen before any one else at the Rectory the first flash of Spring's azure eyes, the first graying of Winter's locks. So now on this afternoon she could see the bullying southwest wind thunderous against whatever laggards of Summer still tried to shelter themselves in the Rectory garden. Occasionally a few raindrops seemed to effect a frantic escape from the fierce assault and cling desperately to the window-panes, but since nobody could call it a really wet day Pauline had been protesting all the afternoon against her sisters' unwillingness to go out. Staying indoors was such a surrender to the season. "We ought to practise that Mendelssohn trio," Monica argued. "I hate Mendelssohn," Pauline retorted. "Well, I shall practise the piano part." "Oh, Monica, it will sound so dreadfully empty," cried Pauline. "Won't it, Margaret?" "I'm reading _Mansfield Park_. Don't talk," Margaret murmured. "If I could write like Jane Austen," she went on, dreamily, "I should be the happiest person in the world." "Oh, but you are the happiest person already," said Pauline. "At least you ought to be, if you'd only...." "You know I hate you to talk about him," Margaret interrupted. Pauline was silent. It was always a little alarming when Margaret was angry. With Monica one took for granted the disapproval of a fastidious nature, and it was fun to tease her; but Margaret with her sudden alternations of hardness and sympathy, of being great fun and frightfully intolerant, it was always wiser to propitiate. So Pauline stayed in the window-seat, pondering mournfully the lawn mottled with leaves, and the lily-pond that was being seamed and crinkled by every gust of the wind that skated across the surface. The very high gray wall against which the Japanese quinces spread their peacock-tails of foliage was shutting her out from the world to-day, and Pauline wished it were Summer again so that she could hurry through the little door in the wall and across the paddock to the banks of the Greenbush. In the Rectory punt she would not have had to bother with sisters who would not come out for a walk when they were invited. The tall trees on either side of the lawn roared in the wind and showered more leaves upon the angry air. What a long time it was to Summer, and for no reason that she could have given herself Pauline began to think about the man who had taken Plashers Mead. Of course it was obvious he would fall in love either with Monica or with Margaret, and really it must be managed somehow that he should choose Monica. Everybody fell in love with Margaret, which was so hard on poor Richard out in India, who was much the nicest person in the world, and whom Margaret must never give up. Pauline looked at her sister and felt afraid the new tenant of Plashers Mead would fall in love with her, for Margaret was so very adorable with her slim hands and her somber hair. "Really almost more like a lily than a girl," thought Pauline. Somehow the comparison reassured her, since it was impossible to think of any one's rushing to gather a lily without a great deal of hesitation. "I wish poor Richard would write and tell her she is like a lily, instead of always writing such a lot about the bridge he is building, though I expect it's a very wonderful bridge." After all, Monica with her glinting evanescence was just as beautiful as Margaret, and even more mysterious; and if she only would not be so frightening to young men, who would not fall in love with her! Pauline wondered vaguely if she could not persuade Margaret to go away for a month, so that the new tenant of Plashers Mead might have had time to fall irremediably in love with Monica before she came back. Richard would certainly be dreadfully worried out in India when he heard of a young man at Plashers Mead, and certainly rather ... yes, certainly in church on Sunday he had appeared rather charming. It was only last Spring that poor Richard had wished he could be living in Plashers Mead himself, and they had had several long discussions which never shed any light upon the problem of how such an ambition would be gratified. "I expect Monica will be like ice, and Margaret will seem so much easier to talk to, and if I dared to suggest that Monica should unbend a little she would freeze me as well. Oh, it's all very difficult," sighed Pauline to herself, "and perhaps I'd better not try to influence things. Only, if he does seem to like Margaret much better than Monica, I shall have to bring poor Richard into the conversation, which always makes Margaret cross for days." As she came to this resolution Pauline looked half apprehensively at her sister reading in the tumble-down arm-chair by the fire. How angry Margaret would be if she guessed what was being plotted, and Pauline actually jumped when she suddenly declared that _Mansfield Park_ was almost the best book Jane Austen ever wrote. "Is it, darling Margaret?" said Pauline, with a disarming willingness to be told again that it certainly was. "Or perhaps _Emma_," Margaret murmured, and Pauline hid herself behind the curtains. How droll Father had been about the "new young creature" at Plashers Mead! It had been so difficult to persuade him to interrupt one precious afternoon of planting bulbs to do his duty either as a neighbor or as Rector of the parish. And when he came back all he would say of the visit was: "Very pleasant, my dears. Oh yes, he showed me everything, and he really has a most remarkable collection of dish-covers--quite remarkable. But I ought not to have deserted those irises that Garstin sent me from the Taurus. Now perhaps we shall manage that obstinate little plum-colored brute which likes the outskirts of a pine forest, so they tell me." Just as Pauline was laughing to herself at the memory of her father's visit, the Rector himself appeared on the lawn. He was in his shirt-sleeves; his knees were muddy with kneeling; and Birdwood, the gardener, all blown about by the wind, was close behind him, carrying an armful of roots. Pauline threw up the window with a crash and called out: "Father, Father, what a darling you look, and your hair will be swept right away, if you aren't careful." The Rector waved his trowel remotely, and Pauline blew him kisses until she was made aware of protests in the room behind her. "Really," exclaimed Monica. "You are so noisy. You're almost vulgar." "Oh no, Monica," cried Pauline, dancing round the room. "Not vulgar. Not a horrid little vulgar person!" "And what a noise you do make," Margaret joined in. "Please, Pauline, shut the window." At this moment Mrs. Grey opened the door and loosed a whirlwind of papers upon the nursery. "Who's vulgar? Who's vulgar?" asked Mrs. Grey, laughing absurdly. "Why, what a tremendous draught!" "Mother, shut the door--the door," expostulated Margaret and Monica, simultaneously. "And do tell Pauline to control herself sometimes." "Pauline, control yourself," said Mrs. Grey. When the papers were settling down, Janet, the maid, came in to say there was a gentleman in the drawing-room, and in the confusion of the new whirlwind her entrance raised Janet was gone before any one knew who the gentleman was. "Ugh!" Margaret grumbled. "I never can be allowed to read in peace." "I was practising the Mendelssohn trio, Mother," said Monica, reproachfully. "Let us all practise. Let us all practise," Mrs. Grey proposed, beaming enthusiastically upon her daughters. "That would be charming." "Father is so sweet," said Pauline. "He's simply covered with mud." "Has he got his kneeler?" asked Mrs. Grey. Pauline rushed to the window again. "Mother says 'have you got your kneeler?'" The Rector paused vaguely, and Birdwood tried to indicate by kicking himself that he had the kneeler. "Ah, thoughtful Birdwood," said Mrs. Grey in a satisfied voice. "And now do you think we might have the window shut?" asked Margaret, resignedly. Monica was quite deliberately thumping at the piano part she was practising. Mrs. Grey sat down and began to tell a long story in which three poor people of Wychford got curiously blended somehow into one, so that Pauline, who was the only daughter that ever listened, became very sympathetic over a fourth poor person who had nothing to do with the tale. "And surely Janet came in to say something about the drawing-room," said Mrs. Grey, as she finished. "She said a gentleman," Pauline declared. "Oh, how vague you all are!" exclaimed Margaret, jumping up. "Well, Margaret, you were here," Pauline said. "And so was Monica." "But I was practising," said Monica, primly. "And I didn't hear a word Janet said." There was always this preliminary confusion at the Rectory when a stranger was announced, and it always ended in the same way by Mrs. Grey and Monica going down first, by Pauline rushing after them and banging the door as they were greeting the visitor, and by Margaret strolling in when the stage of comparative ease had been attained. So it fell out on this occasion, for Monica's skirt was just disappearing round the drawing-room door when Pauline, horrified at the idea of having to come in by herself, cleared the last three stairs of the billowy flight with a leap and sent Monica spinning forward as the door propelled her into the room. "Monica, I am so sorry." "Pauline! Pauline!" said Mrs. Grey, reprovingly. "So like an avalanche always." Guy, who had by now been waiting nearly a quarter of an hour, came forward a little shyly. "How d'ye do, how d'ye do," said Mrs. Grey, quickly and nervously. "We're so delighted to see you. So good of you ... charming really. Pauline is always impetuous. You've come to study farming at Wychford, haven't you? Most interesting. Don't tug at me, Pauline. Monica, do ring for tea. Are you fond of music?" Pauline withdrew from the conversation after the whispered attempt to correct her mother about Mr. Hazlewood's having taken Plashers Mead in order to be a farmer. She wanted to contemplate the visitor without being made to involve herself in the confusions of politeness. "Was he dangerous to Richard?" she asked herself, and alas, she had to tell herself that indeed it seemed probable he might be. Of course he was inevitably on the way to falling in love with Margaret, and as she looked at him with his clear-cut, pale face, his tumbled hair and large brown eyes which changed what seemed at first a slightly cynical personality to one that was almost a little wistful, Pauline began to speculate if Margaret might not herself be rather attracted to him. This was an unforeseen complication, for Margaret so far had only accepted homage. Pauline definitely began to be jealous for Richard, whose homage had been the most prodigal of any; and as Guy drawled on about his first adventure of housekeeping she told herself he was affected. The impression, too, of listening to some one more than usually self-possessed and cynical revived in her mind; and those maliciously drooping lids were obliterating the effect of the brown eyes. Sitting by herself in the oriel window, Pauline was nearly sure she did not like him. He had no business to be at the Rectory when Richard was building a bridge out in India; and now here was Margaret strolling graciously in, and almost at once obviously knowing so well how to get on with this idler. Oh, positively she disliked him. So cold and so cruel was that mouth, and so vain he was, as he sat there bending forward over hand-clasped, long, stupid, crossed legs. What right had he to laugh with Margaret about their father's visit? This stranger had assuredly never appreciated him. He was come here to spoil the happiness of Wychford, to destroy the immemorial perfection of life at the Rectory. And why would he keep looking up at herself? Margaret could be pleasant to anybody, but this intruder would soon find that she herself was loyal to the absent. Pauline wished that, when he met them all on that night of the moon, she had been so horridly rude as to make him avoid the family for ever. How could Margaret sit there talking so unconcernedly, when Richard might be dying of sunstroke at this very moment? Margaret was heartless, and this stranger with his drawl and his undergraduate affectation would encourage her to sneer at everything. "What's the matter, Pauline dearest?" her mother turned round to ask. "Nothing," answered Pauline, biting her lips to keep back surely the most unreasonable tears she had ever felt were springing. "You're not cross with me for calling you a landslide?" persisted Mrs. Grey, smiling at her from the midst of a glory momentarily shed by a stormy ray of sunshine. "Oh, Mother," said Pauline, now fairly in the midway between laughter and tears. "It was an avalanche you called me." "Why do you always sit near a window?" asked Monica. "She always rushes into a corner," said Margaret. Pauline jumped up from her chair and would have run out of the room forthwith; but in passing the first table she knocked from it a silver bowl of potpourri and scattered the contents over the carpet. Down she knelt to hide her confusion and repair the damage, and at the same moment Guy plunged down beside her to help. She caught his eyes so tenderly humorous that she too laughed. "I think it must be my fault," he said. "Don't you remember how, last time we met, your sister upset the mushrooms?" Pauline knew she was blushing, and when the rose-leaves were all gathered up, tea came in. Her attention was now entirely occupied by preventing her mother from doing the most ridiculous things with cakes and sugar and milk, and when tea was over Guy got up to go. There was a brief discussion after his departure, in which Margaret was so critical of his dress and of his absurdities that Pauline was reassured, and presently, indeed, found herself taking their visitor's part against her sisters. "Quite right, quite right, Pauline," said Mrs. Grey. "He's charming ... charming ... charming! Margaret and Monica so critical. Always so critical." Presently the family hurried out into the drive to protest against the Rector's planting any more bulbs, to tell him how unkind he had been not to come up to tea, and to warn him that the bell would sound for Evensong in two minutes. He was dragged out of the shrubbery where he had been superintending a clearance of aucubas, preparatory to planting a drift of new and very deep yellow primroses. "Really, my dears, I have never seen _Primula vulgaris_ so fine in texture or color. My friend Gilmour has spent ten years working up the stock. As large as florins." So he boasted of new wonders next Spring in the Rectory garden, while his wife and daughters brushed him and dusted him and helped to button up his cassock. "Doesn't Father look a darling?" demanded Pauline, as they watched the tall, handsome dreamer striding along the drive towards the sound of the bell, that was clanging loud and soft in its battle with the wind. "Oh, Pauline, run after him," said Mrs. Grey, "and remind him it's the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity. He started wrong last Sunday, and to-day's Wednesday, and it so offends some of the congregation." Pauline overtook her father in the church porch, and he promised he would be careful to read the right collect. She had not stayed to get a hat, and therefore must wait for him outside. "Very well, my dear child; I sha'n't be long. Do go and see if those sternbergias I planted against the south porch are in flower. Dear me, they should be, you know, after this not altogether intolerably overcast summer. Sun, though, sun! they want sun, poor dears!" "But, Father, I can't remember what sternbergias look like." "Oh yes, you can," said the Rector. "_Sternbergia lutea._ Amaryllidaceæ. A perfectly ordinary creature." And he vanished in the gloom of the priest's door. As Pauline came round the corner the wind was full in her face, and under the rose-edged wrack of driving clouds the churchyard looked desolate and savage. There were no flowers to be seen but beaten-down Michaelmas daisies and bedabbled phlox. The bell had stopped immediately when the Rector arrived; and the wind seemed now much louder as it went howling round the great church or rasping through the yews and junipers. The churchyard was bounded on the northerly side by the mill-stream, along which ran a wide path between a double row of willows now hissing and whistling as they were whipped by the blasts. Pauline walked slowly down this unquiet ambulatory, gazing curiously over to the other bank of the stream, where the orchard of Plashers Mead was strewn with red apples. There in the corner by the house that was just visible stood the owner, playing with a dog, a bobtail, too, which was the kind Pauline liked best. She wanted very much to wave, but, of course, it was impossible for the Rector's daughter to do anything like that in the churchyard. Yet if he did chance to walk in her direction, she would, whatever happened, shout to him across the stream to bring the dog next time he came to the Rectory. Pauline walked four times up and down the path, but first the dog disappeared and then the owner followed him, and presently Pauline discovered that the path beside the abandoned stream was very dreary. The crooked tombstones stood up starkly; the wind sighed across the green graves of the unknown; the fiery roses were fallen from the clouds. Pauline turned away from the path and went to take shelter behind the east end of the church. From here, as she fronted the invading night, she could see the gray wall of the Rectory garden and the paddock sloping down to the river. How sad it was to think of the months that must pass before that small meadow would be speckled with fritillaries or with irises blow white and purple. The wind shrieked with a sudden gust that seemed more violent, because where she was standing not a blade of grass twitched. Pauline looked up to reassure herself that the steeple was not toppling from the tower; as she did so a gargoyle grinned down at her. The grotesque was frightening in the dusk, and she hurried round to the priest's door. The Rector came out as she reached it, and accepted vaguely the information that there were no flowers to be seen but Michaelmas daisies and phlox. "Ah, I told Birdwood to confiscate those abominable dahlias which wretched Mrs. Godbold will plant every year. I gave her some of that new saxifrage I raised. What more does the woman want?" Pauline hung upon his arm while they walked back to the Rectory through the darkling plantation. "Isn't it a perfect place?" she murmured, hugging his arm closer when they came to the end of the mossy path and saw the twinkling of the drawing-room's oriel on the narrow south side, and the eleven steep gables that cleft the now scarcely luminous sky, one after another all the length of the house. "I doubt if anything but this confounded cotoneaster would do well against this wall," replied the Rector. He never failed to make this observation when he reached his front door; and his family knew that one day the cotoneaster would be torn down for a succession of camellias to struggle with the east winds of unkind Oxfordshire. In the hall Mrs. Grey and Margaret were bending over a table. "Guy has left his card," said Margaret. "Is that the man who came to see me about the rats?" asked the Rector. "No, no, Francis," said Mrs. Grey. "Guy is the young man at Plashers Mead." "Isn't Francis sweet?" cried Pauline, reaching up to kiss him. "Hush, Pauline. Pauline, you must not call your father Francis in the hall," said Mrs. Grey. "How touching of Guy to leave a card," Pauline murmured, looking at the oblong of pasteboard shimmering in the gloom. "Now we've just time to practise the Mendelssohn trio before dinner," declared Mrs. Grey. "And that will make you warm." The Rector wandered off to his library. Margaret and Pauline went with their mother up shadowy staircases and through shadowy corridors to the great music-room that ran half the length of the roof. Monica was already seated at the piano, all white and golden herself in the candle-light. Languidly Margaret unpacked her violoncello; Pauline tuned her violin. Soon the house was full of music, and the wind in the night was scarcely audible. NOVEMBER When Guy left the Rectory that October afternoon, he felt as if he had put back upon its shelf a book the inside of which, thus briefly glanced at, held for him, whenever he should be privileged to open it again, a new, indeed an almost magical, representation of life. On his fancy the Greys had impressed themselves with a kind of abundant naturalness; but however deeply he tried to think he was already plunged into the heart of their life, he realized that it was only in such a way as he might have dipped into the heart of a book. The intimacy revealed was not revealed by any inclusion of himself within the charm; and he was a little sad to think how completely he must have seemed outside the picture. Hence his first aspiration with regard to the family was somehow to become no longer a spectator, but actually a happy player in their representation of existence. Ordinarily, so far as experience had hitherto carried him, it had been easy enough to find himself on terms of intimacy with any group of human beings whose company was sufficiently attractive. For him, perhaps, it had even been particularly easy, so that he had never known the mortification of a repulse. No doubt now by contriving to be himself and relying upon the interest that was sure to be roused by his isolation and poetic ambitions, he would very soon be accorded the freedom of the Rectory. Yet such a prospect, however pleasant to contemplate, did not satisfy him, and he was already troubled by a faint jealousy of the many unknown friends of the Greys, to whom in the past the privilege of that freedom must have been frequently accorded. Guy wanted more than that; in the excess of his appreciation he wanted them to marvel at a time when they had not been aware of his existence; in fact, he was anxious to make himself necessary to their own sense of their own completeness. As he entered his solitary hall he was depressed by the extravagance of such a desire, saying to himself that he might as well sigh to become an integral figure of a pastoral by Giorgione, or of any work of art the life of which seems but momentarily stilled for the pleasure of whomsoever is observing it. Guy was for a while almost impatient even of his own room, for he felt it was lacking in any atmosphere except the false charm of novelty. He had been here three weeks now, he and deaf Miss Peasey; and were the two of them swept away to-morrow Plashers Mead would adapt itself to new-comers. There was nothing wrong with the house; such breeding would survive any occupation it might be called upon to tolerate. On the other hand, were chance to sweep the Greys from Wychford, so essentially did the Rectory seem their creation that already it was unimaginable to Guy apart from them. And as yet he had only dipped into the volume. Who could say what exquisite and intimate paragraphs did not await a more leisurely perusal? Really, thought Guy, he might almost suppose himself in love with the family, so much did the vision of them in that shadowy drawing-room haunt his memory. Indeed, they were become a picture that positively ached in his mind with longing for the moment of its repetition. For some days he spent all his time in the orchard, throwing sticks for his new bobtail; denying himself with an absurd self-consciousness the pleasure of walking so far along the mill-stream even as the bank opposite to the Rectory paddock; denying himself a fortuitous meeting with any of the family in Wychford High Street; and on Sunday denying himself the pleasure of seeing them in church, because he felt it might appear an excuse to be noticed. The vision of the Rectory obsessed him, but so elusively that when in verse he tried to state the emotion merely for his own satisfaction, he failed, and he took refuge from his disappointment by nearly always being late for meals. Often he would see Miss Peasey walking about the orchard with desolate tinkle of a Swiss sheep-bell, the only instrument of summons that the house possessed. Miss Peasey herself looked not unlike a battered old bellwether as she wandered searching for him in the wind; and Guy used to watch her from behind a tree-trunk, laughing to himself until Bob the dog trotted from one to another, describing anxious circles round their separation. "Your dinner's been waiting ten minutes, Mr. Hazlewood!" "Doesn't matter," Guy would shout. "Mutton to-day," Miss Peasey would say, and, "a little variety," she always added. Miss Peasey's religion was variety, and her tragedy was an invention that never kept pace with aspiration. For three weeks Guy had been given on Sunday roast beef which lasted till Wednesday; while on Thursday he was given roast mutton, which as a depressing cold bone always went out from the dining-room on Saturday night. Every morning he was asked what he would like for dinner, to which he always replied that he left it to her. Once, indeed, in a fertile moment he had suggested a curry, and Miss Peasey, brightening wonderfully, had chirped: "Ah yes, a little variety." But in the evening the taste of hot tin that represented Miss Peasey's curry made him for ever afterwards leave the variety to her own fancy, thereby preserving henceforth that immutable alternation of roast beef and roast mutton which was the horizon of her housekeeping. These solitary meals were lightened by the thought of the Rectory. Neither beef nor mutton seemed of much importance when his mind's eye could hold that shadowy drawing-room. There was Monica with her pale-gold hair in the stormy sunlight, cold and shy, but of such a marble purity of line that but to sit beside her was to admire a statue whose coldness made her the more admirable. There was Margaret, carved slimly out of ivory, very tall, with weight of dusky hair, and slow, fastidious voice that spoke dreamily of the things Guy loved best. There was Pauline sitting away from the others in the window-seat, away in her shyness and wildness. Was not the magic of her almost more difficult to recapture than any? A brier rose she was whose petals seemed to fall at the touch of definition, a brier rose that was waving out of reach, even of thought. Guy wished he could visualize the Rector in his own drawing-room; but instead he had to set him in Plashers Mead, of which no doubt he had thought the owner a young ass; and Guy blushed to remember the nervous idiocy which had let him take the Rector solemnly into the kitchen to look at dish-covers in a row, and deaf Miss Peasey sitting by as much fire as the table would yield to her chair. But if the Rector were missing from the picture, at any rate he could picture Mrs. Grey, shy like her daughters and with a delicious vagueness all her own. She was most like Pauline, and indeed in Pauline Guy could see her mother, as the young moon holds in her lap the wraith of the old moon.... "Why, you haven't eaten anything," remonstrated Miss Peasey, breaking in upon his vision. "And I've made you a rice pudding for a little variety." The shadowy drawing-room faded with the old chintz curtains and fragile, almost immaterial silver; the china bowls of Lowestoft; the dull, white paneling and faintly aromatic sweetness. Instead remained a rice pudding that smelled and looked as solid as a pie. However, that very afternoon Guy was greatly encouraged to get an invitation to dinner at the Rectory from the hands of the gardener. Birdwood was one of those servants who seem to have accepted with the obligations of service the extreme responsibilities of paternity; and Guy hastened to take advantage of the chance to establish himself on good terms with one who might prove a most powerful ally. "Not much of a garden, I'm afraid," he said, deprecatingly, to Birdwood, as they stood in colloquy outside. The gardener shook his head. "It wouldn't do for the Rector to see them cabbages and winter greens. 'I won't have the nasty things in my garden,' he says to me, and he'll rush at them regular ferocious with a fork. 'I won't have them,' he says. 'I can't abear the sight of them,' he says. Well, of course I knows better than go for to contradict him when he gets a downer on any plant, don't matter whether it's cabbage or calceolaria. But last time, when he'd done with his massacring of them, I popped round to Mrs. Grey, and I says, winking at her very hard, but of course not meaning any disrespectfulness, winking at her very hard, I says, 'Please, mum, I want one of these new allotments from the glebe.' 'Good Heavings, Birdwood,' she says, 'whatever on earth can you want with for an allotment?' With that I winks very hard again and says in a low voice right into her ear as you might say, 'To keep the wolf from the door, mum, with a few winter greens.' That's the way we grow our vegetables for the Rectory, out of an allotment, though we have got five acres of garden. Now you see what comes of being a connosher. You take my advice, Mr. Hazlenut, and clear all them cabbages out of sight before the Rector comes round here again." "I will certainly," Guy promised. "But you know it's a bit difficult for me to spend much money on flowers." "_We_ don't spend money over at the Rectory," said Birdwood, smiling in a superior way. "No?" "_We_ don't spend a penny. _We_ has every mortal plant and seed and cutting given to us. And not only that, but we gives in our turn. Look here, Mr. Hazlenut, I'm going to hand you out a bit of advice. The first time as you go round our garden with the Rector, when you turn into the second wall-garden, and see a border on your right, you catch hold of his arm and say, 'Why, good Heavings, if that isn't a new berberis.'" "Yes, but I don't know what an old berberis looks like," said Guy, hopelessly, "let alone a new one." "Never mind what the old ones look like. It's the new I'm telling you of. Don't you understand that everyone who comes down, from Kew even, says, 'That's a nice healthy little lot of _Berberis Knightii_ as you've got a hold of.' 'Ha,' says the Rector. 'I thought as you'd go for to say that. But it ain't Knightii,' he chuckles, 'and what's more, it ain't got a name yet, only a number, being a new importation from China,' he says. You go and call out what I told you, and he'll be so pleased, why, I wouldn't say he won't shovel half of the garden into your hands straight off." "Do the young ladies take an interest in flowers?" Guy asked. "Of course they try," said Birdwood, condescendingly. "But neither them nor their mother don't seem to learn nothing. They think more of a good clump of dellyphiniums than half a dozen meconopises as some one's gone mad to discover, with a lot of murderous Lammers from Tibbet ready to knife him the moment his back's turned." "Really?" "Oh, I was like that myself once. I can remember the time when I was as fond of a good dahlia as anything. Now I goes sniffing the ground to see if there's any _Mentha requieni_ left over from the frost." "Sniffing the ground?" "That's right. It's so small that if it wasn't for the smell any one wouldn't see it. That's _worth_ growing, that is. Only, if you'll understand me, it takes any one who's used to looking at peonies and such like a few years to find out the object of a plant that isn't any bigger than a pimple on an elephant." Guy was reluctant to let Birdwood go without bringing him to talk more directly of the family and less of the flowers. At the same time he felt it would be wiser not to rouse in the gardener any suspicion of how much he was interested in the Rectory; he was inclined to think he might resent it, and he wanted him as a friend. "Who is working in your garden?" asked Birdwood, as he turned to go. "Well, nobody just at present," said Guy, apologetically. "All right," Birdwood announced. "I'll get hold of some one for you in less than half a pig's whisper." "But not all the time," Guy explained, quickly. He was worried by the prospect of a gardener's wages coming out of his small income. "Once a week he'll come in," said Birdwood. Guy nodded. "What's his name?" "Graves he's called, but, being deaf and dumb, his name's not of much account." "Deaf and dumb?" repeated Guy. "But how shall I explain what I want done?" "I'll show you," said Birdwood. "I'll come round and put you in the way of managing him. Work? I reckon that boy would work any other mortal in Wychford to the bone. Work? Well, he can't hear nothing, and he can't say nothing, so what else can he do? And he does it. Good afternoon, Mr. Hazlenut." And Birdwood retired, whistling very shrilly as he went down the path to the gate. Two nights later Guy, with lighted lantern in his hand, set out to the Rectory. He did not venture to go by the orchard and the fields and so, crossing the narrow bridge over the stream, enter by way of the garden. Such an approach seemed too familiar for the present stage of his friendship, and he took the more formal route through an alley of medieval cottages that branched off Wychford High Street. Mysterious lattices blinked at him, and presently he felt the wind coming fresh in his face as he skirted the churchyard. The road continued past the back of a long row of almshouses, and when he saw the pillared gate of the Rectory drive, over which high trees were moaning darkly, Guy wondered if he were going to a large dinner-party. No word had been said of any one else's coming, but with Mrs. Grey's vagueness that portended nothing. He hoped that he would be the only guest, and, swinging his lantern with a pleased expectancy, he passed down the drive. Suddenly a figure materialized from the illumination he was casting and hailed him with a questioning "hullo?" "Hullo," Guy responded. "Oh, beg your pardon," exclaimed the other. "I thought it was Willsher." "My name's Hazlewood," said Guy, a little stiffly. "Mine's Brydone. We may as well hop in together." Guy rather resented the implication of this birdlike intrusion in company with the doctor's son, a lanky youth whom he had often noticed slouching about Wychford in a cap ostensibly alive with artificial flies. Apparently Willsher must also be expected, against whom Guy had already conceived a violent prejudice dating from the time he called at his father's office to sign the agreement for the tenancy of Plashers Mead. It was of ill augury that the Greys should apparently be supposing that he would make a trio with Brydone and Willsher. "Brought a lantern, eh?" said Brydone. "Yes, this is a lantern," Guy answered, coldly. "You'll never see me with a lantern," Brydone declared. Guy would have liked to retort that he hoped he would never even see Brydone without one. But he contented himself by saying, with all that Balliol could bring to his aid of crushing indifference: "Oh, really?" Somebody behind them was running down the drive and shouting, "Hoo-oo," in what Guy considered a very objectionable voice. It probably was Willsher. "Hullo, Charlie," said Brydone. "Hullo, Percy," said Willsher, for it was he. "Know this gentleman? Mr. Hazlewood?" "Only officially. Pleased to meet you," said the new-comer. "Not at all," answered Guy. He felt furious to think that the Greys would suppose he had arranged to arrive with these two fellows. "Done any fishing yet?" asked Brydone. "No, not yet," said Guy. "Well, your bit of river has been spoilt. Old Burrows let every one go there. But when you want some good fishing, Willsher and I rent about a mile of stream further up and we'll always be glad to give you a day. Eh, Charlie?" Charlie replied with much cordiality that Percy had taken the very words of invitation out of his mouth; and Guy, unable any longer to be frigid, said that he had some books at which they might possibly care to come and look one afternoon. Mr. Brydone and Mr. Willsher both declared they would be delighted, and the latter added in the friendliest way that he knew an old woman in Wychford who was very anxious to sell a Milton warranted to be a hundred years old at least. Was that anything in Mr. Hazlewood's way? Guy explained that a Milton of so recent a date was not likely to be much in his way, and Mr. Brydone remarked that no doubt if it had been a Stilton it would have been another matter. His friend laughed very heartily indeed at this joke, and in an atmosphere of almost hilarious good-fellowship, that was to Guy still a little mortifying, they rang the Rectory bell. None of the family had reached the drawing-room when they were shown in, and Guy was afraid they were rather early. "Always like this," said Brydone. "Absolutely no notion of time. Shouldn't be surprised if we had to wait another quarter of an hour. Known them for years, and they've always been like this. Eh, Charlie?" The solicitor's son shook his head gravely. He seemed to feel that as a man of business he should display a slight disapproval of such a casual family. "Ever since I was a kid I can remember it," he said. Guy tried to tell himself that all this talk of intimacy was merely due to the accidental associations of country life over many years. But it was with something very like apprehension that he waited for the Greys to come down. It would be dreadful to find that Brydone and Willsher had a status in the Rectory. When, however, their hosts appeared, Guy realized with a tremendous relief that Brydone and Willsher obviously existed outside his picture of the Rectory. To be sure, they were Charlie and Percy to Monica, Margaret, and Pauline; but galling as this was, Guy told himself that after a lifelong acquaintance nothing else could be expected. It pleased Guy really that the dinner was not a great success, for he was able to fancy that the Greys were encumbered by the presence of Brydone and Willsher. Monica was silent; Margaret was deliberately talking about things that could not possibly interest either of the young men; and Pauline was trying to save the situation by wild enthusiasms which were continually being repressed by her sisters. Mrs. Grey alternated between helping to check Pauline and behaving in exactly the same way herself. As for the Rector, he sat silent with a twinkle in his eye. Guy wished regretfully, when the time came to depart, that he could have stayed another few minutes to mark his superiority to the other guests; but alas, he was still far from that position, and no doubt he would never attain to it. "Oh, have you brought a lantern?" asked Pauline, excitedly, in the hall. "Oh, I wish I could walk back with you. I love lantern-light." "Pauline! Pauline! Do think what you're saying," Mrs. Grey protested. "I like lantern-light, too," Margaret proclaimed. "When you come to see us again," said Pauline, "will you bring your dog?" "Oh, I say, shall I?" asked Guy, flushing with pleasure. "Such a lamb, Margaret," said Pauline, kissing her sister impulsively and being straightly reproved for doing so. The good-nights were all said, and Guy walked up the drive with Brydone and Willsher. "Queer family, aren't they?" commented the doctor's son. "Extraordinarily charming," said Guy. "I've known them all my life," said Willsher, a little querulously. "And yet I never seem to know them any better." Guy was so much elated by this admission that he repeated more warmly his invitation to come and see him and his books, and parted from the two friends very pleasantly. Two or three days later Guy thought he might fairly make his dinner call, and with much forethought did not take Bob with him, so that soon there might be an excuse to come again to effect that introduction. Mrs. Grey and Monica were out; and Guy was invited to have tea in the nursery with Margaret and Pauline. He was conscious that an honor had been paid to him, partly by intuition, partly because neither of the girls said a conventional word about not going into the drawing-room. He felt, as he sat in that room fragrant with the memories of what must have been an idyllic childhood, the thrill that, as a child, he used to feel when he read, "_The Queen was in her parlor eating bread and honey._" This was such another parlor infinitely secluded from the world; and he thought he had never experienced a more breathless minute of anticipation than when he followed the girls along the corridor to their nursery. The matting worn silky with age seemed so eternally unprofaned, and on the wall outside the door the cuckoo calling five o'clock was like a confident bird in some paradise where neither time nor humanity was of much importance. Janet, the elderly parlor-maid, came stumping in behind them with the nursery tea-things; and, as Guy sat by the small hob-grate and saw the moist autumnal sun etherealize with wan gold the tattered volumes of childhood, the very plum cake on the tea-table was endowed with the romantic perfection of a cake in a picture-book. When the sun dipped behind the elms Guy half expected that Margaret and Pauline would vanish too, so exactly seemed they the figures that, were this room a mirage, he would expect to find within as guardians of the rare seclusion. Guy never could say what was talked about that afternoon; for when he found himself outside once again in the air of earth, he was bemused with the whole experience, as if suddenly released from enchantment. Out of a multitude of impressions, which had seemed at the time most delicately strange and potent, only a few incidents quite commonplace haunted his memory tangibly enough to be seized and cherished. Tea-cups floating on laughter against that wall-paper of berries, birds, and daisies; a pair of sugar-tongs clicking to the pressure of long, white fingers (so much could he recapture of Margaret); crumpets in a rosy mist (so much was Pauline); a copper kettle singing; the lisp of the wind; a disarray of tambour-frames and music, these were all that kept him company on his way back to Plashers Mead through the colorless twilight. Chance favored Guy next day by throwing him into the arms of the Rector, who asked if he were fond enough of flowers to look round the garden at a dull season of the year. Guy was so much elated that, if love of flowers meant more frequent opportunities of going to the Rectory, he would have given up poetry to become a professional gardener. Of course there was nothing to see, according to the Rector--a few nerines of his own crossing in the greenhouse; a _Buddleia auriculata_ honeycomb-scented in the angle of two walls; the double Michaelmas daisy, an ugly brute already condemned to extermination; a white red-hot-poker, evidently a favorite of the Rector's by the way he gazed upon it and said so casually _Kniphofia multiflora_, as if it were not indeed a treasure blooming in Oxfordshire's dreary Autumn. "Tulips to go in next week," said the Rector, rolling the prospect upon his tongue with meditative enjoyment. "A friend of mine has just sent me some nice fellows from Bokhara and Turkestan. I ought to get them in this week, but Birdwood must finish with these roses. And I've got a lot of clusiana too that ought to be in. I am going to try her in competition with shrubbery roots and see if _they'll_ make her behave herself." "Could I come in and help?" offered Guy. "Well, now that would certainly be most kind," said the Rector; and his thin, handsome face lit up with the excitement of infecting Guy with his own passion. "But aren't you busy?" "Oh no. I usually work at night." So Guy came to plant tulips, and from planting tulips to being asked to lunch was not far, and from finishing off a few left over to being asked to tea was not far, either. Moreover, when the tulips were all planted there were gladioli to be sorted and put away. Incidentally, too, the punt had to be calked and the boat-house had to be strengthened, so that in the end it was half-way into November before Guy realized he had been coming to the Rectory almost every day. The more he came, however, the more he was fascinated by the family. They still eluded him, and he was always aware, particularly between Margaret and Pauline, of a life in which as yet he hardly shared. At the same time, so familiar now were the inner places of the house and most of all the nursery, he felt as if happily there would come a day when to none of the sisters would he seem more noticeable than one of their tumble-down arm-chairs. Once or twice he stayed to dinner, and the long dining-room with the sea-gray wall-paper and curtains of the strawberry-thief design was always entered with a particular contentment of spirit. The table was very large, for somebody always forgot to take out the extra leaf put in for a dinner sometime last summer, or perhaps two summers ago. The result was that the Rector was far away in the shadows at one end; Mrs. Grey equally remote at the other; while Guy would in turn be near to Margaret or Pauline or even Monica in the middle. Old-fashioned glasses with spirals of green and white blown in their stems; silver that was nearly diaphanous with use and age; candlesticks solid as the Ionic columns they counterfeited, or tapering and fluted with branches that carried the candle-flames like flowers, everything seemed as if it had been created for this room alone. From the wall a lacquered clock as round and big and benign as the setting sun wavered in the coppery shadows of the fire, and with scarcely the sound of a tick showed forth time. Guy had never appreciated the sacredness of eating in good company until he dined casually like this at the Rectory. He never knew what he ate and always accepted what was put before him like manna; yet he was always conscious of having enjoyed the meal, and next morning he used to face, unabashed, Miss Peasey's tale of ruined tapioca which had waited for him too long. The seal of perfection was generally set on these unexpected dinners by chamber-music afterwards, when under the arched roof of the big music-room for an hour or more of trios and quartets Guy contemplated that family. The Greys could not have revealed the design of their life with anything but chamber-music, and setting aside any expression of inward things, thought Guy, how would it be possible to imagine them more externally decorative than seated so at this formal industry of art? He liked best perhaps the trios, when he and Mrs. Grey, each in a Caroline chair with tall wicker back, remained outside, and yet withal as much in the picture as two donors painted by an old Florentine. Monica in a white dress sat straight and stiff, with pale-gold hair that seemed the very color of the refined, the almost rarefied accompaniment upon which her fingers quivered and rippled. Something of her own coldness and remoteness and crystalline severity she brought to her instrument, as if upon a windless day a fountain played forth its pattern. Margaret's amber dress deepened from the shade of Monica's hair, and Margaret's eyes glowed deep and solemn as the solemn depths of the violoncello over which she hung with a thought of motherhood in the way she cherished it. Was it she, wondered Guy, who was the ultimate lure of this house, or was it Pauline? Of her, as she swayed to the violin, nothing could be said but that from a rose-bloomed radiance issued a sound of music. And how clearly in the united effect of the three sisters was written the beauty of their lives. Guy could almost see every hour of their girlhood passing in orderly pattern as the divine Houris dance along a Grecian frieze. There was neither passion nor sentiment in the music; there was neither sorrow nor regret. It was heartless in its limpid beauty; it was remote as a cloud against the sunrise; cold as water was it, and incommunicable as a dream; yet in solitude when Guy reconjured the sound afterwards, it returned to his memory like fire. A great occasion for Guy was the afternoon when first the Greys came to tea with him at Plashers Mead. Himself went into Wychford and bought the cakes, so many that Miss Peasey held up her hands with that ridiculously conventional gesture of surprise she used, exclaiming: "Oh, dear, this _is_ a variety!" Guy led them solemnly round the house and furnished the empty rooms with such vivid descriptions that their emptiness was scarcely any longer perceptible. In his own room he waited anxiously for judgment. Margaret was, of course, the first to declare an opinion. She did not like his curtains nor his green canvas, and she was by no means willing to accept his excuse that they were relics of undergraduate taste. "If you don't like them now, why do you have them? Why not plain white for the walls and no curtains at all, until you can get ones you really do like?" Pauline was afraid his feelings would be hurt and declared with such transparent dishonesty how greatly she loved everything in the room that Guy, grateful though he was to her intended sweetness, was more discouraged than ever. Monica objected to his having Our Lady on the mantelshelf, and would not admit her as Saint Rose of Lima; but Guy was enough in awe of Monica not to justify the identification with Saint Rose by his desire for a poetic apostrophe. As for Mrs. Grey, she behaved as she always did when Monica and Margaret were being critical--that is, by firing off "charmings!" in a sort of benevolent musketry; but if Guy was not convinced by her "charmings!" he could not resist her when she said: "I think Guy's room is charming ... charming!" He felt his room could be an absolute failure if from the ashes of its reputation he were alluded to actually for the first time as "Guy." Gone then was Mr. Hazlewood; fled were those odious "misses." He turned to Pauline and said, momentously, boldly: "I say, Pauline, you haven't seen my new kitten." She blushed, and Guy stood breathless with the attainment of the first peak. Then triumphantly he turned to Mrs. Grey: "Monica and Margaret are very severe, aren't they?" How easy it was, after all, and he wished he had addressed them directly by their christian names instead of taking refuge in a timid reference. Now all that was wanting for his pleasure was that Monica, Margaret, or Pauline should call him Guy. He wondered which would be the first. And vaguely he asked himself which he wanted to be the first. Pauline was talking to Margaret in the bay window. "Do you remember," she was saying, "when Richard came to look at Plashers Mead and we pretended he was going to take it?" Margaret frowned at her for answer; but for Guy the afternoon so lately perfected was spoiled again; and when they were gone, all the evening he glowered at phantom Richards who, whether Adonises or Calibans, were all equally obnoxious and more than obnoxious, positively minatory. Next day he felt he had no heart to make an excuse to visit the Rectory; and he was drearily eating some of the cakes of the tea-party when Mr. Brydone and Mr. Willsher paid him their first call. Guy did not think they would appreciate the empty rooms, however eloquently he narrated their future glories; so he led his visitors forthwith to the cakes, listening to the talk of trout and jack. After a while he asked with an elaborate indifference if either of them had lately been round to the Rectory. "Too clever for me," said Brydone, shaking his head. "Besides, Pauline kicked up a fuss a fortnight ago because we asked if we could have the otter-meet in their paddock." "They were never sporting, those Rectory kids," said Willsher, gloomily. "Never," his friend agreed, shaking his head. "Do you remember when Margaret egged on young Richard Ford to punch your head because your old terrier chivied the Greys' cat round the churchyard?" "I punched _his_ head, I remember," said Willsher in wrathful reminiscence. "Does Richard Ford live here?" Guy asked. "His father's the Vicar of Little Fairfield, the next parish, you know. Richard's gone to India. He's an engineer, awfully nice chap and head over heels in love with the fair Margaret. I believe there's a sort of engagement." In that moment by the lightening of his heart Guy knew that he was in love with Pauline. Outside the November night hung humid and oppressive. "I thought we should get it soon," said Willsher, and as the two friends vanished in the mazy garden Guy, looking up, felt rain falling softly yet with gathering intensity. He stood for a while in his doorway, held by the whispering blackness. Then suddenly in a rapture of realization he slammed the door and, singing at the top of his voice, marched about the hall. Once upon a time "to-morrow" had been wont to drowse him; now the word sounded upon his imagination like a golden trumpet. WINTER DECEMBER The rain which began the day after the Greys' visit to Plashers Mead went on almost without a break for a whole week. December with what it could bring of deadness, gloom, and moisture came drearily down on Wychford, and Pauline, as she sat high in her window-seat, lamented the interminable soak. "I can't think why Guy hasn't been near the Rectory lately," she grumbled. "I expect he's tired of us," said Margaret. "You don't really think so," Pauline contradicted. "You're much, much, _much_ too conceited to think so really." Margaret laughed. "You don't mind a bit when I call you conceited," Pauline went on, challenging her sister. "I believe you're so conceited that you're proud even of being conceited. Why doesn't Guy come and see us, I wonder?" "Why should he come?" Monica asked, rather severely. "Perhaps he's doing some work for a change." "I believe he's hurt," Pauline declared. "Hurt?" repeated her sisters. "Yes, because you were both so frightfully critical of his room. Oh, I _am_ glad that Mother and I aren't critical." "Well, if he's hurt because I said he oughtn't to have an image of Our Lady on his mantelshelf," said Monica, "I really don't think we need bother any more about him. Was I to encourage him in such stupid little Gothic affectations?" "Oh, oh!" cried Pauline. "I think he's frightened of you, Monica dear, and of your long sentences, for I'm sure I am." "He wasn't at all frightened of me," Monica asserted. "Didn't you hear him call me Monica?" "And surely," Margaret put in, "you didn't really like those stupid mock medieval curtains. No design, just a lot of meaningless fleurs-de-lys looking like spots. It's because I think Guy has got a glimmering of taste that I gave him my honest opinion. Otherwise I shouldn't have bothered." "No, I didn't like the curtains," Pauline admitted. "But I thought they were rather touching. And, oh, my dears, I can't tell you how touching I think the whole house is, with that poor woman squeezing her way about that enormous kitchen furniture!" Pauline looked out of the window as she spoke, and there at last was Guy, standing on the lawn with her father, who was explaining something about a root which he held in his hand. On the two of them the rain poured steadily down. Pauline threw up the sash and called out that they were to come in at once. "I am glad he's.... Why, what's the matter, Margaret?" she asked, as she saw her sister looking at her with an expression of rather emphatic surprise. "Really," commented Margaret. "I shouldn't have thought it was necessary to soothe his ruffled feelings by giving him the idea that you've been watching at the window all the week for his visit." "Oh, Margaret, you are unkind," and, since words would all too soon have melted into tears, Pauline rushed from the nursery away to her own white fastness at the top of the house. She did not pause in her headlong flight to greet her mother in the passage; nor even when she entangled herself in Janet's apron could she say a word. "Good gracious, Miss Pauline!" gasped Janet. "And only just now the cat went and run between my legs in the hall." Pauline's bedroom was immediately over the nursery; but so roundabout was the construction of the Rectory that, to reach the one from the other, all sorts of corridors and twisting stairways had to be passed; and when finally she flung herself down in her small arm-chair she was breathless. Soon, however, the tranquillity of the room restored her. The faded blue linen, so cool to her cheeks, quieted all the passionate indignation. On the wall Saint Ursula, asleep in her bed, seemed inconsistent with a proud rage; nor did Tobit, laughing in the angel's company, encourage her to sulk. Therefore, almost before Guy had taken off his wet overcoat, Pauline had rushed down-stairs again, had kissed Margaret, and had put three stitches in the tail of the scarlet bird that occupied her tambour-frame. Certainly when he came into the drawing-room she was as serene as her two sisters, and much more serene than Mrs. Grey, who had just discovered that she had carefully made the tea without a spoonful in the pot, besides mislaying a bottle of embrocation she had spent the afternoon in finding for an old parishioner's rheumatism. Pauline, however, soon began to worry herself again because Guy was surely avoiding her most deliberately, and not merely avoiding her, but paying a great deal of attention to Margaret. Of course she was glad for him to like Margaret, but Richard out in India must be considered. She could not forget that promise she had made to Richard last June, when they were paddling up-stream into the sunset. Guy was charming; in a way she could be almost as fond of him as of Richard, but what would she say to Richard if she let Guy carry off Margaret? Besides, it was unkind not to have a word for her when she was always such a good listener to his tales of Miss Peasey, and when they could always laugh together at the same absurdities of daily life. Perhaps he had felt that Margaret, who had been so critical over his curtains, must be propitiated--and yet now he was already going without a word to herself; he was shaking hands with her so formally that, though she longed to tease him for wearing silk socks with those heavy brogues, she could not. He seemed to be angry with her ... surely he was not angry because she had Hailed him from the window? "What was the matter with Guy?" she asked when he was gone, and, when everybody looked at her sharply, Pauline felt herself on fire with blushes, made a wild stitch in the tail of the scarlet bird, and then rushed away to look for the lost embrocation, refusing to hear when they called after her that Mother had been sitting on it all the afternoon. The windows along the corridors were inky blue, almost turning black, as she stared at them, half frightened in the unlighted dusk; outside, the noise of the rain was increasing every moment. She would sit up in her bedroom till dinner-time and write a long letter to India. By candle-light she wrote to Richard, seated at the small desk that was full of childish things. WYCHFORD RECTORY, OXON. _Tuesday_. MY DEAR RICHARD,--Thank you for your last letter, which was very interesting. I should think your bridge was wonderful. Will you come back to England when it's finished? There is not much to tell you except that a man called Guy Hazlewood has taken Plashers Mead. He is very nice, or else I should have hated him to take the house you wanted. He is very tall--not so tall as father, of course--and he is a poet. He has a very nice bobtail and a touching housekeeper who is deaf. Birdwood likes him very much; so I expect you would, too. Birdwood wants to know if it's true that people in India--oh, bother, now I've forgotten what it was, only he's got a bet with Godbold's nephew about it. Guy--you mustn't be jealous that we call him Guy because he really is very nice--has just been in to tea. Margaret is a darling, but I wish you'd take my advice and write more about her when you write. Of course I don't know what you do write, and I'm sure she really is interested in your bridge, but of course you must remember that she's not used to the kind of bridges you're building. But she's a darling and I'm simply longing for you to be married so that I can come and stay with you when I'm an old maid which I've quite made up my mind I'm going to be. Guy has been gardening with Father a good deal. Father says he's _fairly_ intelligent. Isn't Father sweet? He drank your health at dinner the other night without anybody's reminding him it was your birthday. I think Guy likes Monica best. I don't think he cares at all for Margaret except of course he must admire her--Margaret is such a darling! Oh, a merry Christmas because it will be Christmas before you get this letter. Percy Brydone and Charlie Willsher came to dinner last month. They were so touching and bored. Lots of love from Your loving PAULINE. Don't forget about writing to Margaret more about herself. Pauline put the letter in its crackling envelope with a sigh for the unformed hand in which it was written. Nothing brought home to her so nearly as this handwriting of hers the muddle she was always apt to make of things. How it sprawled across the page, so unlike Monica's that was small and neat and exquisitely formed, or Margaret's that was decorated with fantastic and beautiful affectations of manner. It was obvious, of course, that her sisters must always be the favorites of everybody, but it had been rather unkind of Guy to avoid her so obviously to-day. Richard had always realized that even if she were impulsive and foolish she was also tremendously sympathetic. "For I really am sympathetic," she assured her image in the glass, as she tried to make the light-brown hair look tidy enough to escape Margaret's remonstrances at dinner. If Guy were hopelessly in love with Margaret, how sympathetic she would be; and she would try to explain to him how interesting an unhappy love-affair always made people. For instance, there was Miss Verney, whom everybody thought was just a cross old maid; but if they had only seen, as she had seen, that cracked miniature, what romance even her cats would possess! She must take Guy to see Miss Verney or bring Miss Verney to see Guy; a meeting must somehow be arranged between these two, who would surely be drawn together by their misfortunes in love. Guy was exactly the person whom an unhappy love-affair would become. It would be so interesting in ten years' time, when she would be nearly thirty and old enough to be Guy's confidante without anybody's interference, to keep back the inquisitive world from Plashers Mead. No doubt by then Guy would be famous; he always spoke with such confidence of fame. Monica and Margaret would both be married, and she would still be living at the Rectory with her father and mother. Pauline, as she pictured the future, saw no change in them, but rather sacrificed to the ravages of time her own appearance and Guy's, so that at thirty she fancied both herself and him as already slightly gray. The gong sounded from the depths of the house, and hastily she snatched from her wardrobe the first frock she found; it happened to be a white one, more suitable to June than to December, with a skirt of many flounces all stiffly starched. After rustling down passages and stairs she reached the dining-room just as the others were going in to dinner. "Pauline, how charming you look in that frock!" her mother exclaimed. "Why, it's like Summer just to see you!" Pauline was very happy that night because her mother and sisters petted her with the simple affection for which she was always longing. The next day seemed fine enough to justify Mrs. Grey, Margaret, and Monica in making an expedition into Oxford to see about Christmas presents; and in the afternoon, while Pauline was sitting alone in the nursery, Guy was shown in by Janet. Pauline felt very shy and blushful when she met him so intimately as this, after all her plans for him on the night before. He, too, seemed ill at ease, and she was sadly positive he missed Margaret. The sense of embarrassment lasted until tea-time, when Janet came in to say that the Rector, hearing of Mr. Hazlewood's arrival, had decided to have tea in the nursery. "Oh, what fun!" cried Pauline, clapping her hands. "Janet, do give him the mug with 'A PRESENT FOR A GOOD BOY' on it!" "Dear me, Miss Pauline, what things you do think of, I do declare. Well, did you ever? Tut-tut! Fancy, for your father, too!" Nevertheless Janet sedately put the mug on the tray. When she was gone Pauline turned to Guy and said: "I'm sure Father thinks he ought to come and chaperon us. Isn't he sweet?" Presently the Rector appeared, looking very tall in the low doorway. He nodded cheerfully to Guy: "Seen Vartani? You know he's that pale, blue fellow from Nazareth. Very often he's a washy lilac, but this is genuinely blue." "No, I don't think I noticed it--him, I mean," said Guy, apologetically. "Oh, Father, of course he didn't! It's a tiny iris," she explained to Guy, "and Father puts in new roots every year...." "Bulbs, my dear, bulbs," corrected Mr. Grey. "It's one of the Histrio lot." "Well, bulbs. And every year one flower comes out in the middle of the Winter rain and lasts about ten minutes, and then all the Summer Birdwood and Father grub about looking for the bulb, which they never find, and then Father gets six new ones." They talked on, the three of them, about flowery subjects while the Rector drank his tea from the mug without a word of comment on the inscription. Then he went off to write a letter, and Guy, with a regretful glance at the room, supposed he ought to go. "Oh no! Stay a little while," said Pauline. "Look, it's raining again." It was only a shower through which the declining sun was lancing silver rays. As they watched it from the window without speaking, Pauline wondered if she ought to have given so frank an invitation to stay longer. Would Margaret have frowned? And how odd Guy was this afternoon. Why did he keep looking at her so intently as if about to speak, and then turn away with a sigh and nothing said? "I do love this room," said Guy at last. "I love it, too," Pauline agreed. "May I ask you something?" "Yes, of course." "You spoke to Margaret the other day about some one called Richard. Do you like him very much?" "Yes, of course. Only you mustn't ask me about him. Please don't. I've promised Margaret I wouldn't talk about him. Please, please, don't ask me any more." "But leaving Margaret out of it, do you like him ... well ... very much better than me, for instance?" Guy used himself for comparison with such an assumption of carelessness as might give the impression that only by accident did he mention himself instead of the leg of the table, or the kitten. "Oh, I couldn't tell you that. Because if I said I liked you even as much, I should feel disloyal to Richard, and he's the best friend I've got. Oh, do let's talk about something else. Please do, Mr. Hazlewood." "Oh, look here, I'm going!" exclaimed Guy; and he went instantly. Pauline felt unhappy to think she had hurt his feelings; but he should not expect her to like him better than Richard. If Richard were married to Margaret, it might be different; but suppose that Margaret fell in love with Guy? Pauline felt her heart almost stop beating at the notion, and she made up her mind that if such a calamity befell it would be entirely her fault. The idea that she should so betray Richard's confidence made her miserable for the rest of the evening. Yet, though she was unhappy about Richard, it was always the picture of Guy hurrying from the nursery and his reproachful backward look that was visibly before her mind. And in the morning, when she woke up, it was with a strange unsatisfactory feeling such as she had never known before. Yesterday came back to her remembrance with a great emptiness, seeming to her a day which had somehow never been properly finished. Here was the rain again raining, raining; and the old prospect of dreary weather that would not change for months. A week went by without any sign of Guy. There were no amusing evenings now when he stayed to dinner; there were no delightful days of planting bulbs in the garden; there was nothing indeed to do but visit bedridden old ladies to whom fine or bad weather no longer mattered. Yet nobody else except herself seemed at all unhappy about it. Actually not one of the family commented upon Guy's absence. "I really am afraid that Margaret _is_ heartless," said Pauline to her image in the glass. "She doesn't seem to care a bit whether he is here or not." Then suddenly the weather changed. The country sparkled with hoar-frost, and everybody forgot about the rain, asking if ever before such weather had been known for Christmas. Guy was invited to dinner at the Rectory, and Pauline forgot about her problems in the pleasure that the jolly afternoon brought. Self-consciousness under the critical glances of Monica and Margaret vanished in the atmosphere of intimacy shed by the occasion. She could laugh and make a great noise without being reproved, and Guy himself was obviously more at home than he had ever been. There seemed a likelihood that now, once again the progress of simple friendship would advance undisturbed by the complications of love, and Pauline was glad to be able to assure herself that Guy did not that afternoon display the slightest sign of a hopeless passion for Margaret. He was more in his mood and demeanor of last month, and diverted them greatly with an account of struggling to explain to Graves, the deaf-and-dumb gardener, what he wanted done in the garden. "But didn't Birdwood help you?" they asked, laughing. "Well, Birdwood showed me what I ought to do," said Guy. "But it seemed such a rough method of information that I hadn't the heart to adopt it. You see, as far as I could make out, it consisted of pulling up a cabbage by the root, hitting Graves on the head with it, and then nodding violently. That meant 'clear away these cabbages,' Or if Birdwood wanted to say, 'Plant broccoli here,' he dug Graves in the ribs with the dibbler and rubbed his nose in the unthinned seedlings." "What does Miss Peasey say?" asked Pauline, who was in a state of the highest amusement, because deaf-and-dumb Graves was one of the villagers who lived under her particular patronage. "Well, at first Miss Peasey was rather huffed, because she thought Graves was mocking her by pretending to be deaf. Now, however, she comes out and watches him at work and hopes that next Spring there'll be a little more variety in the garden." The sunny, sparkling weather lasted for a few days after Christmas; and one morning Pauline, walking by herself on Wychford down, met Guy. "I wondered if I should see you," he said. "Did you expect to see me, then?" "Well, I knew you often came here, and this morning I couldn't resist coming here myself." Pauline felt a sudden impulse to run away; and yet most unaccountably the impulse led her into walking along with Guy at a brisk pace over the close-cropped glittering turf. Round them trotted Bob in eddies of endless motion. "Listen," said Guy. "I'm sure I heard a lark singing." They stopped, and Pauline thought that never was there so sweet a silence as here upon the summit of this green down. Guy's lark could not be heard. There was not even the faint wind that sighs across high country. There was nothing but gorse and turf and a turquoise sky floating on silver deeps and distances above the Winter landscape. "When the gorse is out of bloom, kissing's out of fashion," he said, pointing to a golden spray. Pauline had heard the jingle often enough, but spoken solemnly like this by Guy on Wychford down, it flooded her cheeks with blushes, and in a sort of dear alarm the truth of it declared itself. She was startlingly aware of a new life, as it were demanding all sorts of questions of her. She felt a shyness that nearly drove her to run away from her companion, and yet at the same moment brought a complete incapacity for movement of any kind, an incapacity too that was full of rapture. She longed for him to say something of such convincing ordinariness as would break the spell and prove to her that she was still Pauline Grey; while with all her desire for the spell to be broken, she was wondering if every moment she were not deliberately offering herself to enchantment. "Have you ever felt," Guy was asking, "a long time after you've met somebody, as if you had suddenly met that person again for the first time?" Pauline shook her head vaguely. Then with an effort she recaptured her old self and said, laughing: "But then, you see, I never think about anything." "Sleeping beauty, sleeping beauty," said Guy. And with an abrupt change of manner he began to throw sticks for Bob, so that the lucid air was soon loud with continuous barking. "I wonder if we shall ever meet again on Wychford down?" said Guy, as together they swung along the rolling highroad towards the village. A horse and trap caught them up before Pauline could answer the speculation, and Mr. Godbold, as he passed, wished them both a very good morning. "Godbold seems extraordinarily interested in us," Guy remarked, when for the third time before he turned the corner Mr. Godbold looked back at them. "Oh, I wonder...." Pauline began, expressing with her lips sudden apprehension. "You mean he thought it strange to see us together?" "People in the country...." she began again. "Why don't you hurry on alone?" Guy asked. "And I'll come in to Wychford later." "Don't be stupid. What do the Wychford people matter? Besides, I should hate to do anything like that." She was half angry with Guy for the suggestion. It seemed to cast a shadow on the morning. When Pauline got back home she told them all about her meeting with Guy; nobody had a word of disapproval, not even Margaret, and the faint malaise of uncertainty vanished. After tea, however, Mrs. Grey came in, looking rather agitated. "Pauline," she began at once, "you must not meet Guy alone like that again." "Oh, darling Mother, you _are_ looking so pink and flustered," said Pauline. "No, there's nothing to laugh at. Nothing at all. I was most annoyed. Four of the people I visited actually had the impertinence to ask me if you and Guy were engaged." Pauline went off into peals of laughter and danced about the room; but when she was alone and thought again of what the gossips were saying, she suddenly realized it was not altogether for Richard's sake that she had dreaded the idea of Guy's falling in love with Margaret. JANUARY Plashers Mead and the Rectory were not the only romantic houses in Wychford. Indeed, the little town as a whole had preserved by reason of its remoteness from railways and important highroads the character given to it during the many years of prosperity which lasted until the reign of Charles the First. From that time it had slowly declined; and now with a stagnation that every year was more deeply accentuated by modern conditions it was still declining. New houses were never built, and even the King's Head, a pledge of commercial confidence in the Hanoverian succession, seemed to flaunt with an inappropriate modernity its red bricks mellowed by the passage of two centuries. Apart from this rival to the Stag Inn the fabric of Wychford was uniformly gray, to which, notwithstanding Miss Peasey's declaration of sameness, variety was amply secured by the character of the architecture. Gables and mullions; oaken eaves and corbels carefully ornamented; latticed oriels and sashed bows; roofs of steep unequal pitch to which age had often added strange undulations; chimney stacks of stone and Gothic entries--all these gave variety enough; and if the whole effect was too sober for Miss Peasey's taste, the little town on the hillside was now safe for ever from the brightening of the dolls-house spirit. Wychford could still be called a town, for it possessed a few side-streets, along the grass-grown cobbles of which there still existed many houses of considerable beauty and dignity. These had lapsed into a more apparent decay, because a dwindling population had avoided their direct exposure to the bleak country and had left them empty. In the High Street this melancholy of bygone fame was less noticeable, and here scarcely a house was unoccupied. Some buildings, indeed, had been degraded to unworthy usages; and it was sad to see Perpendicular fireplaces filled with cheap lines in drapery, or to find an ancient chantry trodden by pigs and fowls. Generally, however, the High Street to the summit of its steep ascent had an air of sedate prosperity that did not reflect the reality of a slow depopulation. About half-way up the hill on the other side of the town from Plashers Mead and the Rectory was a side-street called Abbey Lane that, instead of leading to open country, was bounded by a high stone wall. This blocked the thoroughfare except so far as to allow a narrow path to skirt its base and give egress along some untidy cottage gardens to a cross-road farther up the hill. In the middle of the wall confronting the street two columns surmounted with huge round finials showed where there had once been a gate wide enough to admit a coach. Above the wall a belt of high trees obscured the view and gave a dank shadow to the road beneath. At one corner a small wooden wicket with a half-obliterated proclamation of privacy enabled any one to pass through the wall and enter the grounds of Wychford Abbey. This wicket opened directly on a path that wound through a plantation of yews interspersed with tall beeches and elms, whose overarching tops intensified even in Wintry leaflessness the prevalent gloom. The silence of this plantation made Wychford High Street seem in remembrance a noisy, cheerful place, and the mere crackling of twigs and beech-mast induced the visitor to walk more quietly, fearful of profaning the mysteriousness even by so slight an indication of human presence. The plantation continued in tiers of trees down the hill to the Greenrush, which had been deepened by a dam to support this gloom of overhanging branches with slow and solemn stream. The path, however, kept to the level ground and emerged presently upon a large square of pallescent grass the farther side of which was bounded by a deserted house. There were no ruins of the ecclesiastical foundation to fret a Gothic moonlight, but Wychford Abbey did not require these to justify the foreboding approach; and the great Jacobean pile, whose stones the encroaching trees had robbed of warmth and vitality, brooded in the silence with a monstrous ghostliness that was scarcely heightened by the signs of material decay. Nevertheless, the casements whose glass was filmy like the eyes of blind men or sometimes diced with sinister gaps; the cracks and fissures in the external fabric; the headless supporters of the family coat; and the roof slowly being torn tile from tile by ivy--did consummate the initial impression. Within, the desolation was more marked. A few rotten planks had been nailed across the front door, but these had been kicked down by inquisitive explorers, and the hall remained perpetually open to the weather. In some of the rooms the floors had jagged pits, and there was not one which was not defiled by jackdaws, owls, and bats. Strands of sickly ivy, which had forced an entrance through the windows, clawed the dusty air. A leprosy had infected the plaster ceilings so that the original splendor of their moldings had become meaningless and scarcely any longer discernible; and the marble of the florid mantelpieces was streaked with abominable damp. The back of the house seemed to go beyond the rest in the expression of utter abandonment. Crumbling walls with manes of ivy inclosed a series of gardens rank with docks and nettles and almost impenetrable on account of the matted briers. As if to add the final touch of melancholy the caretaker (for somewhere in the depths of the house existed ironically a caretaker) had cultivated in this wilderness some dreary patches of potatoes. Beyond the forsaken parterres stretched a great unkempt shrubbery where laurels, peterswort, and hollies struggled in disorderly and overgrown profusion for the pleasure of numberless birds, and where a wide path still maintained its slow diagonal down the hillside to the river's edge. Such were the surroundings Guy chose to embower the doubts and hesitations that followed close upon the morning when on Wychford down he had been so nearly telling Pauline he loved her. Perhaps the almost savage gloom of this place helped to confirm his profound hopelessness. A black frost had succeeded the sparkle of Christmastide. The banks of the river in such weather were impossible, for the wind came biting across the water-meadows and piped in the withered reeds and rushes with an intolerable melancholy. Here in the grounds of Wychford Abbey there was comparative warmth, and the desolation suited the unfortunate end he was predicting for his hopes. To begin with, it was extremely improbable that Pauline cared about him. His assay with regard to Richard had not been encouraging, and his worst fears of being too late for real inclusion within the charm of the Rectory were surely justified. He had known all along how much exaggerated were his ambitions, and he wished now that in the first moment of their springing he had ruthlessly strangled them. Moreover, even if Pauline did ultimately come to care for him, how much farther was he advanced upon the road of a happy issue? It were presumptuous and absurd with only £150 a year to propose marriage, and if he gave up living here and became a schoolmaster at home, he knew that the post would be made conditional upon a willingness to wait as many years for marriage as the wisdom of age decreed. Besides, he could not take Pauline from Wychford and imprison her at Fox Hall to dose little boys with Gregory's Powder or check the schedule of their underclothing. The only justification for taking Pauline away from the Rectory would be to make her immortal in poetry. Yet encouraging as lately one or two epithets had certainly been, he was still far from having written enough to fill even a very thin book; and really as he came to review the past three months he could not say that he had done much more or much better than in the days when Plashers Mead was undiscovered. Time had lately gone by very fast, not merely on account of the jolly days at the Rectory, but also because weeks that were terminated by weekly bills seemed to be endowed with a double swiftness. "I really must eat less meat," said Guy to himself. "It's ridiculous to spend eleven shillings and sixpence every week on meat ... that's roughly £30 a year. Why, it's absurd! And I don't eat it. Bother Miss Peasey! What an appetite she has got." He wondered if he could break through the barrier of his housekeeper's deafness so far as to impress upon her the fact that she ate too much meat. She spent too much, also, on small things like pepper and salt. This reckless buying of pepper and salt made the grocer's bill an eternal irritation, for it really seemed absurd to be spending all one's money on pepper and salt. Yet people did live on £150 a year. Coleridge had married with less than that and apparently had got on perfectly well, or would have if he had not been foolish in other ways. How on earth was it done? He really must try and find out how much, for instance, Birdwood spent every week on the necessities of life. That was the worst of Oxford ... one came down without the slightest idea of the elementary facts of domestic economy. There had been a lot of soda bought last week. He remembered seeing it in one of those horrid little slippery tradesmen's books. Soda? What was it for? Vaguely Guy thought it was used to soften water, but there were plenty of rain-tubs at Plashers Mead, and soda must be an unjustifiable extravagance. Then Miss Peasey herself was getting £18 a year. It seemed very little--so little, indeed, that when he paid her every month he felt inclined to apologize for the smallness of the amount, but little as it was it only left him with £132. Knock off £30 for meat and he had £102; £18 must go in rent, and there was left £84. Then there was milk and bread and taxes and the subscription to the cricket-club and the subscription to all the other vice-presidencies to which the town had elected him. There was also Graves, his deaf-and-dumb gardener, and a new bucket for the well. Books and clothes, of course, could be obtained on credit, but even so some time or other bills came in. Guy made a number of mental calculations, but by no device was he able to make the amount required come to less than £82. That left £2 for Pauline, and then, by the way, there was the dog-license which he had forgotten. Thirty-two and sixpence for Pauline! Guy roamed through the sad arbors of Wychford Abbey in the depths of depression, and watched with a cynical amusement the birds searching for grubs in the iron ground. He began to feel a positive sense of injury against love which had descended with proverbial wantonness to complicate mortal affairs. He tried to imagine the Rectory without Pauline, and when he did so all the attraction was gone. Yet distinctly when he had first met the Greys he had not thought more often of Pauline than of her sisters. What perversity of circumstance had introduced love? "It's being alone," said Guy. "I feed myself upon dreams. Michael was perfectly right. Wychford is a place of dreams." He would cure this love-sickness. That was an idea for a sonnet. Damn! "_I attempt from love's sickness to fly._" It need not be said again. At the same time, poem or not, he would avoid the Rectory and shut himself close in that green room which Margaret and Monica had thought so crude with undergraduate taste. If this cold went on, there would be skating; and he began to picture Pauline upon the ice. The vision flashed like a diamond through these gloomy groves, and with the soughing of the skates in his ears and the thought of Pauline's hands crisscross in his own, Guy's first attack on love ended in complete surrender. Skating meant long talks with never a curious eye to cast dismay; and in long talks and rhythmic motion possibly she might come to love him. Guy's footsteps began to ring out upon the iron-bound walk, and of all the sad ghosts that should have haunted his path there was not one who walked now beside him; for, as he dreamed upon the vision of Pauline, the melancholy of that forsaken place was lightened with a sort of April exultation and the promise of new life to gladden the once populous gardens where lovers might have been merry in the past. However, when he was back in his house, Guy's earlier mood returned, and he made up his mind anew not to go to the Rectory. Nothing would do for him but the metaphysics and passion of Dr. John Donne; and on the dreary evening when the frost yielded to rain before there had been one day's skating, Guy was as near as any one may ever have been to conversing with that old lover's ghost who died before the god of Love was born. All his plans wore mourning, and the bills that week rose two-and-sixpence-halfpenny higher than their highest total so far. Guy moped in his green library and, as he read through the manuscripts of poetry that with the progress of the night seemed to him worse and worse, he wished he could recapture some of that self-confidence which had carried him so serenely through Oxford; and he asked himself if Pauline's love would endow him once more with that conviction of ultimate fame, to the former safe tenure of which he now looked back as from a disillusioned old age. Another week passed, and Guy wondered what they were thinking of him at the Rectory for his neglect of all they might justly suppose had been offered him. Absence from Pauline did not seem to have effected much so far except a complete paralysis of his power to work with that diligence he had always preached as the true threshold of art. Perhaps he had been always a little too insistent upon the merit of academic industry, too conscious of a deliberate embarkation upon a well-built career, too careful of mere equipment in his exploration of Parnassus. So long as he had been exercising his technical accomplishment, everything had seemed to be advancing securely towards the moment when inspiration should vitalize the promise of his craftsmanship. Now inspiration was at hand, and accomplishment had betrayed him. These effusions of restless love which he had lately produced were surely the most wretched cripples ever sent to climb the Heliconian slope. Guy looked at his note-book and marked how many apostrophes, the impulses to declaim which had seemed to scorch his imagination with bright ardors, had, alas, failed to kindle his uninflammable pencil. He derived a transient consolation from Browning's "Pauline," which was surely as inadequate as his own verse to celebrate the name. "_Pauline, mine own, bend o'er me._" That opening half-line was the only one which moved him. But, after all, Browning did not esteem his own Pauline, and had written it when he was twenty. Himself was twenty-two, and could not declare his passion in one lyric. A graceful sonnet for his father's birthday would not compensate for this dismaying failure. Moreover, in rhymes, thought Guy, Pauline was no niggard; and with a flicker of sardonic humor he recalled how many Swinburne had found for Faustine. It was Godbold who fed the vexations and torments of untried love with the bitterest medicine of all. He had come down to see Guy about an old chair that had to be fetched from a neighboring village, and, when his business was over, seemed inclined to chat for a while. "Have you ever noticed, Mr. Hazlewood," he began, "as there's a lot of people in this world who know more than a man knows himself?" Guy indicated that the fact had struck him. "Well, now, just because I happen to see you with Miss Pauline the other morning, there's half a dozen wise gabies in Wychford who've almost married you to her out of hand." Guy tried not to look annoyed. "Oh, you may well frown, Mr. Hazlewood, for, as I said to them, it's nothing more than nonsense to tie up a young man and a young woman just because they happen to take a walk together on a fine morning." "I hope this sort of intolerable gossip isn't still going on," said Guy, savagely. "Oh, well, you see, sir, Wychford is a middling place for gossip. And if it wasn't one of the Miss Greys it would be some other young miss roundhereabouts. Human nature, like pigeons, is set on mating." "I hope you'll contradict this ridiculous rumor," said Guy. "Oh, I have done already. In fact, I may say that one of my principles, Mr. Hazlewood, is to contradict everything. As I said to them, when they was talking about it in the post-office the other night, and that post-office is a rare place of gossip! Perhaps you've noticed that the nosiest man in a town always gets made postmaster? Where had I got to?--ah, yes, I said to them, 'You know a great lot about other people's business,' I said, 'but when I tell you that old Mrs. Mathers who lives in the last cottage but one in Rectory Lane says she's taken particular note as Mr. Hazlewood has never been near the Rectory for the last fortnight unless it was once when she heard footsteps and hadn't time to get to the window to see who it was on account of the kettle being on the boil at that moment, where's your Holy Matrimony?' I said. With that up speaks Miss Burge from the back of The shop whose father used to keep the King's Head before he dropped dead of the apoplexy on Shipcot platform. 'That doesn't say he hasn't gone round by the field the same as Mr. Burrows's servant used to when she was being courted by We'll-mention-no-names.' 'No, and that he hasn't, either,' said I, smacking the counter, for I was feeling a bit angry by now at all this poking about in other people's business, 'that he hasn't,' I said, 'because the Rectory cook asked me most particular if there was anything the matter down at Plashers Mead, seeing as Mr. Hazlewood hadn't been near the Rectory for a fortnight. That doesn't look like Holy Matrimony,' I said, and with that I walked out of the post-office. Mr. Hazlewood," Godbold concluded, very earnestly, "the gossip of Wychford is something as no one would believe, if they hadn't heard it, as I have, every mortal day of my life." Guy could have laughed on his own account, but the notion of Pauline's being dragged into the chatter made him furious. Yet what could he do? If he went frequently to the Greys' house he must be engaged, according to Wychford. And if he did not go.... "I suppose they'll be saying next that the engagement has been broken off," he inquired, with cold sarcasm. "Oh, they have said it. Depend upon it, Mr. Hazlewood, it undoubtedly has been said." It began to appeal to Guy as extremely undignified--the way in which he had let Godbold chatter on like this. "I'm afraid I must be getting back to my work," he said, curtly. "That's right. Work's the best answer to talk. Did you feel it much here in that rainy spell?" "The meadows were a bit splashy, of course, but the water never got anywhere near the house." "But it will. Don't you make any mistake. It will. Only, of course, we've had a dry Autumn. Why, last June year Miss Peasey could have been fishing for minnows in her kitchen. Now that seems a nice upstanding sort of woman. A Wesleen, they tell me? I haven't seen her in church that I can remember, and which would account for it. But I never talk to the chapel folk, they being that uncivilized. She's rather deaf, isn't she?" "Yes, and therefore cannot gossip," Guy snapped. "Well, I don't know," said Godbold, doubtfully. "Some of the most unnatural scandals I ever heard were made by deaf women. Though that doesn't mean I'm saying Miss Peasey is a talker." "I'm sure she isn't," Guy agreed. "Good night, Mr. Godbold." "Good night, Mr. Hazlewood. Don't you be discouraged by the gossip in Wychford. I always say, if you believe nothing you hear, next to nothing of what you read, and only half of what you see, no one can touch you. Good night once more, sir. And don't you fret over what people say. I remember they once said I tried to work a horse which had the blind staggers, and Mrs. Godbold was that aggravated she went and washed a shirt of mine twice over, worrying herself. Good night, Mr. Hazlewood." This time the red-bearded carrier of Wychford (not an inappropriate profession for him) really departed, leaving Guy in a state of considerable resentment at the thought of the Wychford commentary. That night the raw drizzle turned to snow; and when he looked out of his window next morning it was lying thick over the country and was making his bedroom seem as gray as the loaded clouds above. That exhilaration of a new landscape which comes with snow drove away some of Guy's depression, and after breakfast he went out, curious to contemplate its effect upon the Abbey. In the black frost the great pile had seemed to possess scarcely more substance than a shredded leaf; and when it lay sodden beneath the dripping trees, a manifest decay had made extinction infamous with the ooze of a rotting fungus. The weather now had brought a strange restoration to the abandoned house, and so completely had the covering of snow hidden most of the signs of dissolution that Wychford Abbey seemed no longer dead, but asleep in the quiet of a Winter morning. The lawn in front stretched before it in decent whiteness, and the veiling of the ragged, unhealthy grass took away from the front of the house that air of wan caducity, endowing the stones by contrast with tinted warmth and richness. The decrepit roof was hidden, and Wychford Abbey dreamed under its weight of snow with all the placid romance of a house on a Christmas card. The dark plantation was deprived of its gloom, and what was usually a kind of haunted stillness was now aspectful peace. Guy went over the crinching ground and strolled down the broad walk through the shrubbery. Everywhere the snow glistened with the footprints of many birds, but not a single call broke a silence which was cold and absolute except for the powdery whisper of the snow where it was sliding from the holly leaves. When Guy reached the bottom of the shrubbery he sat down on a fallen trunk by a backwater, which dried up here in the drift of dead leaves; and he watched the surface of it glazing perceptibly, yet not so fast but that the faint motion of the freezing air could write upon the smoothness a tremulous reticulation. He had not been resting long when he saw Margaret coming towards him down the walk, and with so light a tread that in her white coat she might have been a figment created for his fancy by the snow. He wondered if a sense of the added beauty her presence gave the scene were in her mind. Probably it was, for Margaret had a discreet vanity that would never gratify itself so well as when she was alone; and plainly she must suppose herself alone, since here on this snowy morning she would not have expected to meet anybody. Guy thought it would be considerate to draw aside without spoiling her dream, whatever the subject of the meditation. However, as he rose from the log to take the narrow path along the backwater and so turn homeward across the fields by the river, Margaret saw him and waved with a feathery gesture. As Guy went up the path to greet her he was thinking how much her hair was like a dark leaf that had shaken off the snow, so easily might her blanched attire have fallen upon her from the clouds; then, as he came close, every charming fancy was suddenly spoiled by a remembrance of Wychford gossip, and he turned hastily round to see if there were prying glances in the laurels. "What are you looking at?" she asked. "A squirrel," said Guy, quickly. He would not have had his absence from the Rectory ascribed to any fear of gossip; moreover, since a meeting with Margaret did not make his conscience the thrall of public opinion, he would not have her discreet vanity at all impaired. Therefore it was a squirrel he saw. "We've been wondering what has become of you," she said. "Well, I've been working rather hard; and as a matter of fact I was going to the Rectory this afternoon. Isn't the snow jolly after the rain? Especially here, don't you think?" She nodded. "I've got to go and visit an old woman who lives almost in Little Fairfield, and I thought I'd avoid as much as I could of the highroad." "Shall I come with you?" asked Guy, but in so doubtful a voice that Margaret laughingly declared she was sure he was in a state of being offended with the Rectory. "Oh, Margaret, don't be absurd. Offended?" "Over the curtains?" she asked. "Why, if it wouldn't betray a gross insensibility to your opinion, I should tell you I thought no more about what you said. Besides, we've had reconciling Christmas since then." "Ah, but you see, Pauline is always impressing on Monica and me our cruelty to you, and by this time Mother has been talked into believing in our hard and impenitent hearts." "Pauline is...." Guy broke off and saw another squirrel. He could not trust himself to speak of Pauline, for in this stillness of snow he felt that the lightest remark would reveal his love; and there was in nature this morning a sort of suspense that seemed to rebuke unuttered secrets. "Well, as you're walking with me to Fairfield--or nearly to Fairfield--your neglect of us shall be forgiven," Margaret promised. "Here we are out of the warm trees already. I'm glad I came this way, though I think it was rather foolish. Look how deep the snow seems on that field we've got to cross." "It isn't really," said Guy, vaulting over the fence that ran round the confines of the Abbey wood. "Ah, now you've spoiled it," she exclaimed. But Margaret did not pause a moment to regret the ruffling of that sheeted expanse, and they walked on silently, watching the toes of their boots juggle with the snow. "It generally is a pity," said Guy, after a while. "What?" "Impressing one's existence on so lovely and inviolate a thing as this." He indicated the untrodden field in front of them. "But look behind you," said Margaret. "Don't you think our footprints look very interesting?" "Interesting, perhaps," Guy admitted. "Yet footprints in snow never seem to be going anywhere." "Now I know quite well what you're doing," Margaret protested. "You're making that poor little wabbly track of ours try to bear all sorts of mysterious and symbolic intensities of meaning. Just because you're feeling annoyed with a sonnet, footprints in the snow mustn't lead anywhere. Why, Guy, if I told you what sentimental import my 'cello sometimes gives to a simple walk before lunch.... I mean, of course, when I've been playing badly." She sighed, and Guy wondered if the violoncello had been used with as little reference as a sonnet to the real cause of the mood. "Why did you sigh just now?" he asked after another minute or two of silent progress. "I wonder whether I'll tell you. No, I don't think I will. And yet...." "And yet perhaps, after all, you will," said Guy, eagerly. "And if you do, I'll tell you something in turn." "That's no bribe," said Margaret, laughing. "You foolish creature, don't you think I know what you'll tell me?" Guy shook his head. "I don't think you do. You may suspect. But for that matter, so may I. Isn't what you might have told me something that might most suitably be told on the way to Fairfield?" "You've been talking about me to Pauline," said Margaret, angrily. "Never," he declared. "But you don't suppose you can have all these mysterious allusions to Richard without my guessing that his father is Vicar of Fairfield. Dear Margaret, forgive me for guessing and tell me what you were going to tell." "Have you heard I was engaged to Richard Ford?" she asked. "I heard he was in love with you." "Oh, he is, he is," she murmured, and Guy, thinking of Richard in India, wondered if he ever dreamed of Margaret walking like this in a snowy England. The clock in Fairfield church struck eleven with an icy tinkle that on the muted air sounded very thinly. "But the problem for me," Margaret went on, "is whether I'm in love with him, or if Richard is merely the nicest person who has been in love with me so far." "Well, if you'd asked me that three months ago," Guy said, "I would have answered decidedly that you weren't in love with him if you had one doubt. But now ... well, you know really now I'm rather in the state of mind that wants everybody to be in love. And why do you think you're not in love with him?" "I haven't really explained well," said Margaret. "What I'm sure of is that I'm not as much in love with him as I want to be in love." "You're living opposite a looking-glass," said Guy. "That's what is the matter." They had reached the stile leading over into the highroad, and Margaret gazed back wistfully at the footprints in the snow, before they crossed it and went on their way. "Yes," she said. "I am conceited. But my conceit is really cowardice. I long for admiration, and when I am admired I despise it. I lie in bed thinking how well I play the 'cello, and when I have the instrument by me I don't believe I can play even moderately well. I am really fond of him, but the moment I think that anybody else is thinking about my being fond of him I almost hate his name. I can't bear the idea of going to live in India, and I detest bridges--you know he builds bridges--and yet I couldn't possibly write to him and say that he must think no more about me. I'm really a mixture of Monica and Pauline, and so I'm not as happy as either of them." "Yes, I suppose Pauline is very happy," said Guy in a depressed voice. "What am I to do?" Margaret asked. "I'm sure you're much more in love than you think," he declared, quickly, for he had the ghost of a temptation to tell her she was foolish to think any more of a love so uncertain as hers. There was enough jealousy of his standing at the Rectory to give him the impulse to rob Richard of his foothold, but the meanness destroyed itself on this virginal morning almost before Guy realized it had tried to exist. "Yes, I'm sure you're really in love," he repeated. "I think I can understand what you feel." "Do you?" said Margaret, shaking her head a little sadly. "I'm afraid it's only a very willing sympathy on your part, for I'm sure I don't understand myself. That's why I'm conceited, perhaps. I'm trying to build up a Margaret Grey for other people to look at, which I admire like any pretty thing one makes oneself, and perhaps why I can't fall really in love is because I'm afraid of some one's understanding me and showing me to myself." "You'd have to be very clever to disappoint that person," said Guy. "And why shouldn't Richard Ford be the one?" "Oh, he'll never discover me," said Margaret. "That's what's so dull." "Aren't you a little unreasonable?" Guy asked. "Of course I am. Now don't let's talk about me any more; I'm really not worth discussing--only just because my family is so exquisite and because I adore them, I never talk about Richard to them. Here's the old woman's cottage. I sha'n't be more than a few minutes." Guy felt honored by Margaret's confidence, but his heart was so full of Pauline that he transferred all the substance of what she had been saying to suit his own case. Would Pauline never know if she were in love? Would he be doomed to the position of Richard? Or worse, would Pauline fly from his love in terror of anything so disturbing to the perfection of her life at present? On the whole he was inclined to think that this was exactly what she would do; and he felt he would never have the courage to startle her with the question. When he thought of the girls to whom in the past of long vacations he had made protestations of devotion that were light as the thistle-down in the summery meadows where they were uttered, it was incredible that the asking of Pauline should speed his heart like this. With other girls he had always imagined them slightly in love with him, but for Pauline to be in love with him seemed hopeless, though he qualified his humility by assuring himself that she could be in love with nobody. Did Margaret really have a suspicion that he was in love with Pauline? If she had, why had she not drawn his confidence before she gave her own? She came out from the cottage as he propounded this, and he told her, when their faces were set towards Wychford and a chilly wind that was rising, how he had been thinking about her confidence all the while she was in the cottage. Moreover, he was under the impression this was the truth. "But don't think about me any more," she commanded. "Never?" "Not until I speak first. Isn't it cold? You must have been frozen waiting for me." They hurried along, talking mostly, though how the topic arose Guy never knew, about whether _Alice in Wonderland_ were better than _Alice Through the Looking-glass_ or not. The quotations that went to sustain the argument were so many that they arrived back very quickly, it seemed, at the stile leading into the snowy field. "Will you go home the same way?" Guy suggested. "Look, nobody has spoiled our tracks. They're jollier than ever, and do you see those rooks farther down the field? It will snow again this afternoon and our footprints will vanish." By the time they reached the Abbey wood Guy had made up his mind that as they walked up through the shrubbery, unless people were listening there, he would tell Margaret how deeply he was in love with Pauline. The resolution taken, his throat seemed to close up with nervousness, and, vaulting over the fence, he tripped and fell in a snow-drift. "Why this violent activity all of a sudden?" Margaret asked. He laughed gloomily and vowed it was the exhilarating weather. Up the broad walk they went slowly, and every yard was bringing them dreadfully nearer to Wychford High Street and the profanation of this snowy silence. Abruptly a robin began to sing from a bough almost overhead; and Guy, realizing half-unconsciously that unless he told Margaret now, his words would die upon that robin's rathe melody, said: "Margaret, you'll probably be angry, but I must tell you that I'm in love with your sister." He drove his stick deep into the snow to give his eyes the excuse of looking down. "With Pauline?" she said, softly. He congratulated himself upon the cunning with which he had at least thrown something on Margaret of the responsibility, as he almost called it. Had she said Monica it would have killed his hope at once. "Of course I know it must sound ridiculous, but...." "Is she in love with me?" asked Margaret, with tender mockery. "Well, I think she may be. Perhaps I'm almost sure she is." "Margaret," said Guy, seizing her hand. "I hope you'll be the happiest person in the world always. You know, don't you, that I'm dying for you to be happy?" There may have been tears in her eyes as she responded with faintest pressure of her hand to his affection. "And you won't forget all about me and take no more interest in what will seem my maddening indecision, when you and Pauline are happy?" "My dear, as if I could!" he exclaimed. "Lovers can forget very easily," said Margaret. "You see I've thought such a lot about being in love that I've got every one else's conduct clearly mapped out in my mind." Guy stopped dead; and, as he stopped, the robin now far behind them ceased his song, and even the flute of the wind sounding on distant hollows and horizons cracked in the frost so that the stillness was sharp as ice itself. "Margaret, what makes you think Pauline cares for me? How dare I be so fortunate?" "Because you know you are fortunate," said Margaret, nor could falling snow have touched his arm more lightly than she. "Why do you suppose I told you about Richard if it was not because I thought you appreciated Pauline?" "Ah, how I shall always love the snow," Guy exclaimed, grinding the slippery ball upon his heel to powder. "But now I've got a disappointment for you," said Margaret. "Pauline and Monica are going into Oxford to-day for a week." "You won't tell anybody what I've told you?" he begged. "Of course not. Secrets are much too fascinating not to be kept as long as possible." He opened the wicket, and presently they parted in the High Street. "I shall come in this afternoon," he called after her. "Unless you're bored with me." She invited him with her muff, and seemed to float out of sight. Suddenly Guy remembered that sometime this morning (it seemed as long ago as when Wychford Abbey was alive) Bob had been with him. He was glad of an excuse to go back and look for the dog in those now consecrated arbors. There the robin still sang his rather pensive tune; and there from a high ash-bough a missel-thrush, wearing full ermine of the Spring, saluted the vestal day. FEBRUARY Pauline started to Oxford with Monica, feeling rather disappointed she had not seen Guy before she went; for Margaret had come home with news of having walked with him to Fairfield, and it was tantalizing, indeed a little disturbing, to leave him behind with Margaret. "Nothing is said to Margaret," Pauline protested at lunch, "when _she_ goes out for a walk with Guy. Father, don't you think it's unfair?" "Well, darling Pauline," interrupted Mrs. Grey, with an anxious glance towards her second daughter, "you see, Margaret is in a way engaged." "I'm not engaged," Margaret declared. "But I'm asking Father," Pauline persisted. "Father, don't you think it's unfair?" The Rector was turning over the pages of a seed-catalogue and answered Pauline's question with that engaging irrelevancy to which his family and parish were accustomed. "It's disgraceful for these people to offer seeds of _Incarvillea olgæ_. My dears, you remember that anemic magenta brute, the color of a washed-out shirt? Ah," he sighed, "I wish they'd get that yellow _Incarvillea_ over. I am tempted to fancy it might be as good as _Tecoma Smithii_, and, of course, coming from that Yang-tse-kiang country, it would be hardy." "Francis dear!" Pauline cried. "Don't you think it's unfair?" "Pauline," said her mother, "you must not call your father Francis in the dining-room." The Rector, oblivious of everything, continued to turn slowly the pages of his catalogue. "Oh, bother going to Oxford!" said Monica, looking out of the window to where Janet with frozen breath listened for the omnibus under gathering snow-clouds. "Now, really," Pauline exclaimed, diverted from her complaint of Margaret's behavior by another injustice, "isn't Monica too bad? She's grumbling, though it was she who made the plan to stay with the Strettons. And though they're her friends and not mine, I've been made to go, too." "Well, I hate staying with people," Monica explained. "So do I," said Pauline. "And you accepted the invitation for me that day you were in Oxford buying Christmas presents, when you forgot to buy the patience-cards I wanted to give poor Miss Verney, so that I had to give her a horrid little china dog, though she hates dogs." "Now I'm sure it'll be charming, yes, charming, when you get there," Mrs. Grey affirmed, hopefully. "Oh, how glad I am I'm not going!" said Margaret. "I think you ought to go instead of me," Pauline told her. "They're not my friends," Margaret replied, with a shrug. "No, but they're more your friends than mine," Pauline argued. "Because you're nearer to Monica. They're four years off being my friends and only two from being yours." "Miss Monica," said Janet, coming into the room, "the 'bus has come out from the King's Head yard, and you'll be late." There was instantly a confusion of preparation by Mrs. Grey and Pauline, while Monica sighed at the trouble of departure, and Margaret with exasperating indifference sat warm and triumphant by the fire. "Good gracious!" the Rector exclaimed, flinging the catalogue down and speaking loud enough to be heard over the feverish search for Pauline's left glove. "These people have the impudence to advertise _Penstemon Lobbii_ as a novelty when it's really our old friend _Breviflorus_. What on earth is to be done with these scoundrels?" The horn of the omnibus sounded at the end of Rectory Lane; and the fat guard was marching through the snow with the girls' luggage. The good-bys were all said; and presently Pauline, with her muff held close to her cheeks against the north wind, was sitting on top of the omnibus that was toiling up the Shipcot road. As she caught sight of Plashers Mead, etched upon the white scene, she wished she had left a message with Margaret to say in what deep disgrace Guy was. On they labored across five miles of snow-stilled country with sparse flakes melting upon the horses' flanks, and never a wayfarer between Wychford and Shipcot to pause and stare at them. On the second night of their stay with the Strettons, Monica, when she and Pauline were going to bed, suddenly turned round from the dressing-table and demanded in rhetorical dismay why they had come. "Never mind," said Pauline; "we've only got five more evenings." "Well, that's nearly a week," Monica sighed. "And I'm tired to death of Olive already." "But I'm much worse off," Pauline declared, dolefully. "Because I have to sit next to the Professor, who does frighten me so. You see, he will include me in the conversation. Last night at dinner, after he'd been talking to that don from Balliol who knew Guy and whom I was dying to ask ... to talk to myself, I mean, he turned round to me and said, 'I am afraid, Miss Pauline, that Aramaic roots are not very interesting to you.' Well, of course I got muddled between Aramaic and aromatic, and said that Father had just been given a lot which were very poisonous." Monica laughed that sedate laugh of hers, which always seemed to Pauline like a clock striking, so independent was it of anybody's feelings. "Monica darling, I don't want to be critical," said Pauline. "But you know sometimes your laugh sounds just a little--a very little self-satisfied." "I think I am rather self-satisfied," Monica agreed, combing her golden hair away from her high, pale forehead. "And Margaret is conceited, and you're twice as sweet as both of us put together." "Oh no, I'm not! Oh no, no, Monica dearest, I'm not!" Pauline contradicted, hurriedly. "No, really I'm very horrid. And, you know, when I'm bored I'm sure I show it. Oh, dear, I hope the Strettons didn't notice I was bored. Mrs. Stretton was so touching with the things they had brought back from Madeira, and I do hate things people bring back from places like Madeira." "And when you're not bored with anybody," said Monica, "you're rather apt to make that too obvious also." "Monica, why are you saying that?" Pauline asked, with wide-open eyes. "Even supposing Guy is in love with you," said Monica, slowly blowing out the candles on the dressing-table as she spoke, so that nothing was left but the rosy gas, "I don't think it's necessary to show him quite so clearly that you're in love with _him_." "Monica!" "Darling little sister, I do so want you ... oh, how can I put it? Well, you know, when you break the time in a trio, as you sometimes do...." "But I'm not in love with Guy," Pauline interrupted. "At least, oh, Monica, why do you choose a house like this to tell me such things?" she asked, with tears and blushes fighting in her countenance. "Pauline, it's only that I want you to keep in time." "I can't possibly stay with the Strettons another five days," declared Pauline in deepest gloom. "You ought not to say things like that here." She was looking round this strange bedroom for the comfort of familiar pictures, but there was nothing on these pink walls except a view of the Matterhorn. Monica was kneeling to say her prayers, and in the stillness the frost outside seemed to be pressing against the window-panes. Pauline thought it was rather unfair of Monica to fade like this into unearthly communications; and she knelt down to pray somewhat vagrant prayers into the quilted eider-down that symbolized the guest-room's luxurious chill. She longed to look up in aspiration and behold Saint Ursula in that tall bed of hers, or cheerful Tobit walking with his dog in the angel's company, and in the corner her own desk that was full of childish things. She rose from her knees at the same moment as Monica, who at once began to talk lightly of the tiresome people at dinner and seemed utterly unconscious of having wounded Pauline's thoughts. Yet when the room was dark, for a long while these wounded thoughts danced upon the wintry air that breathed of Wychford. "_Even supposing Guy is in love with you._" It was curious that she could not feel very angry with Monica. "_Even supposing Guy is in love with you._" It really seemed a pity to fall asleep; it was like falling asleep when music was being played. The subject of Guy was not mentioned again, but during the days that remained of the visit Pauline scarcely felt that she was living in the Strettons' house, and was so absent in her demeanor that Monica was disturbed into what was for her a positive sociableness to counteract Pauline's appearance of inattention. To consummate the vexation of the visit there came a sudden thaw two days before they left, and Oxford was ankle-deep in slush. Finally Pauline and Monica were dragged through the very nadir of depression when on their last night they were taken out to dinner in trams and goloshes through such abominable conditions of weather. "Fancy not ordering a cab," whispered Monica, with cold disapproval. "Perhaps they can't afford it," Pauline suggested. "They can afford to go to Madeira," answered Monica, "and buy all those stupid knickknacks." "Well, Monica, they are your friends, you know," said Pauline. However, the 1st of February arrived next morning, and Oxford was left behind. Pauline sighed with relief when they were seated in the train, and the twenty miles of country to Shipcot that generally seemed so dull were as green and welcome as if they were returning from a Siberian exile. "You know, Monica, I really don't think we ought to stay with people. I don't think it's honest to spend such a hateful week as that in being pleasant," she declared. "I didn't notice that you were taking much trouble to hide your boredom," said Monica. "It seems to me that I was always in a state of trying to steer people round your behavior." "Oh, but Professor Stretton loves me," said Pauline. She was trying not to appear excited as the omnibus swished and slapped through the mud towards Wychford. She was determined that in future she would lead that inclosed and so serene life which she admired in her eldest sister. Nobody could criticize Monica except for her coldness, and Pauline knew that herself would never be able to be really as cold as that, however much she might assume the effect. "Grand weather after the snow," said the driver. The roofs of Wychford were sparkling on the hillside, and earth seemed to be turning restlessly in the slow Winter sleep. "This mud'll all be gone with a week of fine days like to-day," said the driver. Plashers Mead was in sight now, but it was Monica who pointed to where Guy and his dog were wandering across the meadows that were so vividly emerald after the snow. "I think it is," agreed Pauline, indifferently. In the Rectory garden a year might have passed, so great was the contrast between now and a week ago. Now the snowdrops were all that was left of the snow, and a treasure of aconites as bright as new guineas were scattered along the borders. Hatless and entranced, the Rector was roaming from one cohort of green spears to another, each one of which would soon be flying the pennons of Spring. Pauline rushed to embrace him, and he, without a word, led her to see where on a sunny bank Greek anemones had opened their deep-blue stars. "_Blanda_," he whispered. "And I've never known her so deep in color. Dear me, poor old Ford tells me he hasn't got one left. I warned him she must have sun and drainage, but he would mix her with _Nemorosa_ just to please his wife, which is ridiculous--particularly as they are never in bloom together." He bent over and with two long fingers held up a flower full in the sun's eye, as he might have stooped to chuck under the chin a little girl of his parish. Monica had brought back a new quartet, which they practised all that Candlemas Eve. When it was time to go to bed Mrs. Grey observed in a satisfied voice that, after all, it must have been charming at the Strettons'. "Oh no, Mother; it was terribly dull," Pauline protested. "Now, dear Pauline, how could it have been dull, when you've brought back this exquisite Schumann quartet?" Margaret came to Pauline's room to say good night, sat with her while she undressed, and tucked her up so lovingly that Pauline was more than ever delighted to be back at home. "Oh, Margaret, how sweet you are to me! Why? Is it because you really do miss me when I go away?" "Partly," said Margaret. "Why are you smiling so wisely? Have you put something under my pillow?" Pauline began to search. "There's nothing under your pillow except all the thoughts I have to-night for you." Once more Margaret leaned over and kissed her, and Pauline faded into sleep upon the happiness of being at home again. Next day after lunch her mother and sisters went to pay a long-postponed call upon a new family in the neighborhood, because Margaret insisted they must take advantage of this glorious weather which would surely not last very long. Pauline spent the early afternoon with the Rector and Birdwood, writing labels while they sowed a lot of new sweet-peas which had been sent to the Rector for an opinion upon their merits. The clock was striking four when Guy strolled into the garden. Somehow Pauline's labels were not so carefully written after his arrival, and at last the Rector advised her to take Hazlewood and show him _Anemone blanda_. They left the big wall-garden and went across the lawn in front of the house to the second wall-garden, where most of the Rector's favorites grew as it pleased them best. "Oh, they've all gone to bed," said Pauline. Guy knelt down and opened the petals of one. "They're exactly the color of your eyes," he said, looking up at her. Pauline was conscious that the simple statement was fraught with a significance far greater than anything which had so far happened in her life. It was ringing in her ears like a bugle-call that sounded some far-flung advance, and involuntarily she drew back and began to talk nonsense breathlessly, while Guy did not speak. Nor must she let him speak, she told herself, for behind that simple comparison how many questions were trembling! "Oh, I wonder if the others are back yet," she finally exclaimed, and forthwith hurried from the garden towards the house. She wished she must not look back over her shoulder to see Guy following her so gravely. Of course, when they were standing in the hall, the others had not come back; and the house in its silence was a hundred times more portentous than the garden. And what would Guy be thinking of her for bringing him back to this voicelessness in which she could not any longer talk nonsense? Here the least movement, the slightest gesture, the most ordinary word, would be weighted for both of them with an importance that seemed unlimited. For the first time the Rectory was strangely frightening; and when through the silent passages they were walking towards the nursery it was the exploration of a dream. Yet, however undiscoverable the object that was leading them, she was glad to see the nursery door, for there within would surely come back to her the ease of an immemorial familiarity. Yet in that room of childhood, that room the most bound up with the simple progress of her life, she found herself counting the birds, berries, and daisies upon the walls, as if she were beholding them vaguely for the first time. Why was she unpicking Margaret's work or folding into this foolish elaboration of triangles Monica's music. And why did Guy behave so oddly, taking up all sorts of unnatural positions, leaning upon the rickety mantelshelf, balancing himself upon the fender, pleating the curtains, and threading his way with long legs in and out, in and out of the chairs? "Pauline!" He had stopped abruptly by the fireplace, and was not looking at her when he spoke. Oh, he would never succeed in lifting even from the floor that match which with one foot he was trying to lift on to the other foot. "Pauline!" Now he was looking at her; and she must be looking at him, for there was nothing on this settee which would give her a good reason not to look at him. The room was so still that beyond the closed door the hoarse tick of the cuckoo-clock was audible; and what was that behind her which was fretting against the window-pane? And why was she holding with each hand to the brocade, as if she feared to be swept altogether out of this world? "Pauline!" Was it indeed her voice on earth that said "yes"? "Pauline, I suppose you know I love you?" And she was saying "yes." "Pauline, do you love me?" And again she had said "yes...." Outside in the corridor the cuckoo snapped the half-hour; then it seemed to tick faster and a thousand times faster. She must turn away from Guy, and as she turned she saw that what had been fretting the window-pane was a spray of yellow jasmine. Upon the cheek that was turned from him the dipping sun shed a warm glow, but the one nearer was a flame of fire. "Pauline!" He had knelt beside her in that moment; and, leaning over to his nearness, Pauline looked down at her hand in his, as if she were gazing at a flower which had been gathered. SPRING MARCH The doubts and the joys of the future broke upon Guy with so wide and commingled a vision, that before the others got home and even before Janet came in with tea, he hurried away from that nursery, where over the half-stilled echoes of childhood he had heard the sigh of Pauline's assent. The practical side of what he had done could be confronted to-morrow, and with a presage of hopelessness the word might have lain heavily upon his mind, if on the instant of sinking it had not been radiantly winged with the realization of the indestructible spirit that would henceforth animate all the to-morrows of time. No day could now droop for him, whatever the difficulties it brought, whatever the hazards, when he had Pauline and Pauline's heart; and like disregarded moments the years of their life went tumbling down into eternity, as the meaning of that sighed-out assent broke upon his conscience with fresh glory. "You'll tell your mother to-night?" he asked. "I think Margaret will know when she sees your shining eyes." "Are my eyes shining?" "Ah, don't you know they are, when you look into mine?" Guy could have proclaimed that he and she were stars flashing to one another across a stupendous night; but there were no similes that did not seem tawdry when he threw them round Pauline. "Child, child, beloved child!" he whispered; and his voice faltered for the pitiful inadequacy of anything that he could call her. What words existed, with whatever tenderness uttered, with whatever passion consecrated by old lovers, that would not still be words, when they were used for Pauline? Guy watched for a moment the cheek that was closer to his lips write in crimson the story of her love. He wished he could tell his love for her with even the hueless apograph of such a signal; and yet, since anything he said was only worthy of utterance in so far as she by this ebb and flow of response made it worthy, why should he trouble that cheek which, sentient now as a rose of the sun, hushed all but wonder? "Good-by!" He bent over and touched her hand with his lips. Then the Rectory stairs had borne him down like a feather; the Rectory door had assumed a kind of humanity, so that the handle seemed to relinquish his grasp with an affectionate unwillingness. Out in the drive, where the purple trees were washed by the February dusk, he stood perplexed at himself because in a wild kiss he had not crushed Pauline to his heart. Had it been from some scruple of honor in case her father and mother should not countenance his love? Had it sprung out of some impulse to postpone for a while a joy that must be the sharpest he would ever know? Or was it that in the past he had often kissed too lightly, so that now, when he really loved, he could not imagine the kiss unpassionate and fierce that would seal her immortally to love, yet leave her still a child? As he paused in that golden February dusk, Guy rejoiced he had told his love in such an awe of her girlhood; and when from the nursery window Pauline blew one kiss and vanished like a fay at mortal trespassing, he floated homeward upon the airy salute, weighing no more than a seed of dandelion to his own sense of being. Upon his way he observed nothing, neither passer-by nor carts in the muddy roads. As he crossed the bridge the roar of the water into the mill-pond was inaudible, nor did he hear his melodious garden ways. And when Miss Peasey came to his room with the lamp, he could not realize for a moment who she was or what she was talking about. The hour or two before dinner went by as one tranced minute; in a dream he went down to dinner; in a dream he began to carve; in a dream the knife remained motionless in the joint, so that Miss Peasey coming to inquire after his appetite thought it was stuck in a skewer. Up-stairs in the library again, he dreamed the evening away; and when the lamp hummed slowly and oilily to extinction he still sat on, till at last the fire perished, and from complete darkness he roused himself and went to bed. Guy was under the cloud of a reaction when he rang the Rectory bell on the morning after. The door looked less amicable, and the dragon-headed knocker stared balefully while he was waiting to be let in. He wondered for whom of the family he ought to ask, but Mrs. Grey came nervously into the hall and invited him into the drawing-room. "Pauline has gone over to Fairfield," she began in jerky sentences. "Charming ... yes, charming, you came this morning." The sun had not yet reached the oriel of the drawing-room, that with shadows and fragrance was welcoming Guy where he sat in a winged arm-chair beside the fire. Time was seeming to celebrate the momentousness of his visit by standing still as in a picture, and he knew that every word and every gesture of Mrs. Grey would in his memory rest always enambered. He was glad, and yet in the captivating quiet a little sorry, that she began to speak at once: "Of course Pauline told me about yesterday. And of course I would sooner she were in love with a man she loved than with a man who had a great deal of money. But of course you mustn't be engaged at once. At least you can be engaged; you are engaged. Oh yes, of course if you weren't engaged I shouldn't allow you to see each other, and you shall see each other occasionally. Francis has not said anything. The Rector will probably be rather doubtful. Of course I told him; only he happened to be very busy about something in the garden. But he would want Pauline to be happy. Of course she is my favorite--at least I should not say that, I love all my daughters, but Pauline is--well, she has the most beautiful nature in the world. My darling Pauline!" Mrs. Grey's eyes were wet, and Guy was so full of affectionate gratitude that it was only by blinking very hard at a small picture of Pauline hanging beside the mantelpiece he was able to keep his own dry. "I have a nicer picture than that which I will give you," Mrs. Grey promised. "The one that I am fondest of, the one I keep beside my bed. Perhaps you would like a picture of her when she was seventeen? She's just the same now, and really I think she'll always be the same." "You are too good to me, Mrs. Grey," he sighed. "We are all so fond of you ... even the Rector, though he is not likely to show it. Pauline is perhaps more like me. Her impulsiveness comes from me." "Ought I to talk to the Rector about our engagement?" Guy asked. "Oh no, no ... it would disturb him, and I don't think he'll admit that you _are_ engaged. In fact, he said something about children; but I would rather.... At least, of course, you are children. But Margaret says you can't be quite a child or you would not be in love with Pauline. And now if you go along the Fairfield road you'll meet her. But that is only an exception. Not often. I think to-day she might be disappointed if you didn't meet her. And come to lunch, of course. Poetry is a little precarious, but at any rate for the present we needn't talk about the future. I wish your mother were still alive. I think she would have loved Pauline." "She would have adored her," said Guy, fervently. "And your father? Of course you'll bring him to tea, when he comes to stay with you? That will be charming ... yes, charming. Now hurry, or you'll miss her." Guy had no words to tell Mrs. Grey of the devotion she had inspired; but all the way down the Fairfield road he blessed her and hoped that somehow the benediction would make itself manifest. Then, far away, coming over the brow of a hill, he saw Pauline. It was one of those hills with a suggestion of the sea behind them, so sharply are they cut against the sky. This was one of those hills that in childhood had thrilled him with promise of the faintly imaginable; and even now he always approached such a hill with a dream and surmise of new beauty. Yet more wonderful than any dream was the reality of Pauline coming towards him over the glistening road. She was shy when he met her, and the answers she gave to his eager questions were so softly spoken that Guy was half afraid of having exacted too much from her yesterday. Did she regret already the untroublous time before she knew him? Yet it was better that she should walk beside him in still unbroken enchantment, that the declaration of his love should not have damaged the wings seeming always unfolded for flight from earth; so would he wish to keep her always, that never this Psyche should be made a prisoner by him. The elusive quality of Pauline which was shared in a slighter degree by her sisters kept him eternally breathless, for she was immaterial as a cloud that flushes for an instant far away from the sunset. And yet she was made with too much of earth's simple beauty to be compared with clouds. Her sisters had the ghostly serenity and remoteness that might more appropriately be called elusive. Pauline gave more the effect of an earthly thing that transcends by the perfection of its substance even spirit; and rather was she seeming, though poised for airy regions, still sweetly content with earth. She had not been more elusive than eglantine overarching a deep lane at Midsummer, for he had pulled down the spray, and it was the fear of a petal falling too soon from the tremulous flowers that gave him this sense of awe as he walked beside her. Yet once again Guy found his comparisons poor enough when he looked at Pauline, and he exclaimed, despairingly: "There _are_ no words for you. I wanted to say to your mother what I thought about you. Oh, she was so charming." "She is a darling," said Pauline. "And so is Father." They were come to the stile where he and Margaret had watched their footprints on the snow. "And Margaret was very sympathetic, you know," he went on. "Really, if it hadn't been for her I should never have dared to tell you I loved you. We talked about her and Richard...." "Margaret does love him. She does," Pauline declared. "Only she will ask herself questions all the time." How she changed when she was speaking of Richard, thought Guy, a little jealously. Why could she not say out clearly like that her love for him? "You do love me this morning?" he asked. She was standing on the step of the stile, and he offered his hand to help her down. "Won't you say, 'I love you'?" But only with her eyes could she tell him, and as, her finger-tips on his, she jumped from the step, she was imponderable as the blush upon her cheeks. "In the Summer," said Guy, "you and I will be on the river together. Will you be shy when Summer comes?" "Monica says I'm not nearly shy enough." "What on earth does Monica expect?" They were under the trees of Wychford Abbey, and Guy told her of the days he had spent here, thinking of her and of the hopelessness of her loving him. "I could not imagine you would love me. Why do you?" She shook her head. "One day we'll explore the inside of the house together. Shall we?" "Oh no! I hate that place. Oh no, Guy, we'll never go there. Come quickly. I hate that house. Margaret loves it and says I'm morbid to be afraid. But I shudder when I see it." They hurried through the dark plantation; and Guy, under the influence of Pauline's positive terror, felt strangely as if, were he to look behind, he would behold the house leering at them sardonically. People, too, eyed them as they went down High Street and turned into Rectory Lane. Guy had a sensation of all the inhabitants hurrying from their business in the depths of their old houses to peer through the casements at Pauline and him; and he was glad when they reached the Rectory drive and escaped the silent commentary. When she was at home again Pauline's spirits rose amazingly; and all through lunch she was so excited that her mother and sisters were continually repressing her noisiness. Guy, on the contrary, felt woefully self-conscious, and was wondering all the while with how deep a dislike the Rector was regarding him and if after lunch he would not call him aside and solemnly expel him from the house. As they got up from the table the Rector asked if Guy were doing anything particular that afternoon, and on receiving an assurance that he was not, the Rector asked if he would help with the sweet-peas that still wanted sorting. Guy in a bodeful gloom said he would be delighted. "I shall be in the garden at two," said the Rector. "Shall I come as well and help?" Pauline offered. "No; I want you to take some things into the town for me," said the Rector. Guy's heart sank at this confirmation of his fears. Out in the hall Margaret took him aside. "Well, are you happy?" "Margaret, you've been beyond words good to me." "Always be happy," she said. Even Monica whispered to him that he was lucky, and Guy was so deeply impressed at being whispered to by Monica that it gave him a little courage for his interview. He joined the Rector in the garden punctually at two, and worked hard with labels and classifications. "_A7_," the Rector read out. "_A lavender twice as big as Lady Grizel Hamilton. D21. An orange that will not burn._ Humph! I don't believe it. Do you believe that, Birdwood?" The gardener shook his head. "There never was an orange as didn't burn like a house on fire the moment the sun set eyes on it." "Of course it'll burn, and, anyhow, there's no such thing as an orange sweet-pea. If there is, it's Henry Eckford." "Henry isn't orange," said Birdwood. "Leastways not an orange like you get at Christmas." "More buff?" "Buff as he can be," said Birdwood. "What do you think, Mr. Hazlenut?" he went on, turning to Guy and winking very hard. "I really don't know him ... it...." said Guy. "_O5_," the Rector began again. "_A cream and rose picotee Spenser._ Yes, I dare say," he commented. "And with about as much smell as distilled water." So the business went on, with Guy on tenterhooks all the while for his own summing-up by the Rector. He thought the moment was arrived when Birdwood was sent off on an errand and when the Rector, getting up from his kneeler, began to shake the trowel at him impressively. But all he said was: "Tingitana's plumping up magnificently. And we'll have some flowers in three weeks--the first I shall have had since the Diamond Jubilee. Sun! Sun!" Guy jumped at the apostrophe, so nearly did it approximate to "son-in-law." But of this relation nothing was said, and now Pauline was calling out that tea was ready. "Go in, my dear fellow," said the Rector. "I've still a few things to do in the garden. By the way, was your father at Trinity, Oxford?" "No, he was at Exeter." "Ah, then I didn't know him. I knew a Hazlewood at Trinity." The Rector turned away to business elsewhere, and Guy was left to puzzle over his casual allusion. Perhaps he ought to have raised the subject of being in love with Pauline, for which purpose the Rector may have given him an opening. Or did this inquiry about his father portend a letter to him from the Rector about his son's prospects? He certainly ought to have said something to make the Rector realize how much tact would be necessary in approaching his father. Pauline called again from the nursery window, and Guy hurried off to join the rest of the family at tea. In the drawing-room Mrs. Grey, Monica, and Margaret all seemed anxious to show their pleasure in Pauline's happiness; and Guy in the assurance this old house gave him of a smooth course for his love ceased to worry any longer about parental problems and was content to live in the merry and intimate present. He realized how far he was advanced in his relation to the family when Brydone, the doctor's son, came in to call. Guy took a malicious delight in his stilted talk, as for half an hour he tried to explain to Monica, a grave and abstracted listener, how the pike would in March go up the ditches and the shallow backwaters, and what great sport it was to snare them with a copper noose suspended from a long pole. There was, too, that triumphant moment he had long desired, when Brydone, rising to take his leave, asked if Guy were coming and when he was able to reply casually that he was not coming just yet. After tea Guy and Pauline, as if by an impulse that occurred to both of them simultaneously, begged Margaret to come and talk in the nursery. She seemed pleased that they wanted her; and the three of them spent the time till dinner in looking at the old familiar things of childhood--at photographs of Monica and Margaret and Pauline in short frocks; at tattered volumes scrawled in by the fingers of little girls. "I wish I'd known you when you were small," sighed Guy. "How wasted all these years seem." The gong went suddenly, and Margaret said that of course to-night he would stay to dinner. So once again he was staying to dinner, and now on such terms as would make this an occasion difficult to forget. As he waited alone in the lamplit nursery, while Margaret and Pauline were dressing, he kissed Pauline in each faded picture stuck in those gay scrap-books of Varese. Nor did he feel the least ashamed of himself, although at Oxford his cynicism had been the admiration even of Balliol, where there had been no one like him for tearing sentiment into dishonored rags. When the Rector came in to dinner, carrying with him a dusty botanical folio that swept all the glass and silver from his end of the table to huddle in the center, Guy tried to make out if he were very much depressed by his not having yet gone home. "Dear me," said the Rector, "I was sure I had seen it in here." "Seen what, Francis?" asked his wife. "A plant you wouldn't know. A Cilician crocus. "Isn't Father sweet?" said Pauline. "Because, of course, Mother never knows any plant." "What nonsense, Pauline! Of course I know a crocus." Towards the end of dinner Mrs. Grey said, rather nervously: "Francis dear, wouldn't you like to drink Pauline's health?" "Why, with pleasure," said the Rector. "Though she looks very well." Pauline jumped in her chair with delight at this, but Mrs. Grey waved her into silence and said: "And Guy's health, too?" The Rector courteously saluted him; but the guest feared there was an undernote of irony in the bow. After dinner when Monica, Margaret, and Pauline were preparing for a trio, Mrs. Grey said confidentially to Guy: "You mustn't expect Francis--the Rector to realize at once that you and Pauline are engaged. And, of course, it isn't exactly an engagement yet. You mustn't see her too often. You're both so young. Indeed, as Francis said, children really." Then the trio began, and Guy in the tall Caroline chair lived every note that Pauline played on her violin, demanding of himself what he had done to deserve her love. He looked round once at Mrs. Grey in the other chair, and marked her beating time while like his own her thoughts were all for Pauline. In the heart of that music Guy was able to say anything, and he could not resist leaning over and whispering to Mrs. Grey: "I adore her." "So do I," said the mother, breaking not a bar in her beat and gazing with soft eyes at that beloved player. When the music stopped Guy felt a little embarrassed by the remembrance of his unreserved avowal; yet evidently it had seemed natural to Mrs. Grey, for when he was saying good-by in the hall she whispered to Pauline that she could walk with Guy a short way along the drive. His heart leaped to the knowledge that here at last was the final sanction of his love for her. Pauline flung round her shoulders that white frieze coat in which he had first beheld her under the moon, misty, autumnal, a dream within a dream; and now they were actually walking together. He touched her arm half-timidly, as if even so light a gesture could destroy this moment. "Pauline, Pauline!" He saw her clear eyes in the February starshine, and, folding her close, he kissed her mouth. When he woke he was home; and for hours he sat entranced, knowing that never again for as long as he lived would he feel upon his lips as now the freshness of Pauline's first kiss. The rest of that February went by with lengthening eyes that died on the dusky riot of blackbirds in the rhododendrons. Here and there in mossy corners primroses were come too soon, seeming all aghast and wan to behold themselves out of the cloistral earth, while the buds of the daffodils were still upright and would not hang their heads till driven by the wooing of the windy March sun. The gray-eyed virginal month, that is of no season and must as often bear the malice of Winter's retreat as the ruffianly onset of Spring, had now that very seriousness which suited Guy's troth. Rules had been made with which neither he nor Pauline were discontented, and so through all that February Guy went twice a week to the Rectory and counted himself rich in Mrs. Grey's promise that he and Pauline should sometimes be allowed, when the season was full-fledged, to go for walks together. At present, however, the Rectory garden must be a territory large enough for their love. These first encounters were endowed with perhaps not much more than the excitement of what were in a way superficial observations, since neither of them was yet attempting to sound any deeps in the other's character. Guy was engaged with driving a wedge into that past of the Rectory whose least events he now envied, and he was never tired of the talks about Pauline's childhood, so much of a fairy-tale she still seemed and fit for endless repetition. And if Guy was never tired of being told, her family was never tired of telling. Never, he thought, was lover so fortunate in an audience as he in the willingness with which he was accorded a confirmation of all his praises. Sometimes, indeed, he had to look reproachfully at Monica or Margaret when Pauline seemed hurt at being checked for some piece of demonstrativeness. If he did so the sisters would always take an opportunity to draw him aside and explain that it was only Pauline's perfection which made them so anxious for its security. Indeed, they guarded her perpetually and with such a high sense of the privilege of wardship that Guy always had to forgive them at once. Moreover, he was so conscious of their magnanimity in considering him as a lover that he was almost afraid to claim his right. "Margaret," he said, one day, "I don't know how you can bear to contemplate Pauline married. Why, when I think of myself, I'm simply dumb before the--what word is there--audacity is much too pale and, oh, what word is there?" "I don't think I could contemplate her married to anybody but you," said Margaret. "But why me?" "Why, because you are young enough to make love beautiful and right," Margaret told him. "And yet you seem old enough to realize Pauline's exquisite nature. So that one isn't afraid of her being squandered for a young man's experience." "But I'm not rich," said Guy, deliberately leading Margaret on to discuss for the hundredth time this topic of himself and Pauline. "Pauline wouldn't be happy with riches. They would oppress her. She isn't luxurious like me." So round and round, backward and forward, on and on the debate would go, until Margaret had arranged for Guy and Pauline a life so idyllic that Shelley would scarcely have found a flaw in her conception. Pauline, however demonstrative in the presence of her family, was still shy when she was alone with her lover. Her mirth was turned to a whisper, and her greatest eloquence was a speech of drooping silences and of blushes rising and falling. Guy never tired of watching these flowery motions that were the response of her cheeks to his love. Each word he murmured was a wind to stir her countenance or ruffle her eyes, so that they, too, responded with cloudy deeps and shadows and sudden veilings. Nothing more was mentioned of the practical side of the engagement, for Mrs. Grey, Monica, and Margaret were all too delightfully enthralled with the progress of an idyll that was to each of them her own secret poem of Pauline in love; while as for the Rector, he remained outwardly oblivious of the whole matter. March came crashing into this peace without disturbing the simple pattern into which the existence of Guy and Pauline had now resolved itself--a pattern, moreover, that belonged to Pauline's mother and sisters for their own pleasure in embroidery, so that the lovers were, as it might be, carried about from room to room. Sometimes, indeed, when Guy came to the Rectory, there was a pretense of leaving him and Pauline alone; but mostly they were in the company of the others, and Guy was now as deep in the family life as if he were a son of the house. Since he and Pauline never went for walks together, perhaps Wychford speculation had died down--at any rate there was no gossip to disturb Mrs. Grey; although, as she had by now given up the theory of a sort of engagement, yet without consenting to anything in the shape of a final announcement, it might not have mattered much. Meanwhile, it began to dawn on Guy that the time was coming when he would have to make up his mind to do something definite, and on these bleak mornings of early March, as he watched the scanty snowflakes withering against the panes, he asked himself if there was any justification for staying on at Plashers Mead in the new circumstances of his life there. At night, however, when the wind piped and whistled round the house, he used to dream upon the firelight and shrink from the idea of abandoning all that Plashers Mead had stood for and all that now still more it must stand for in the future. If only a plan could be devised by which the house were secured against sacrilege; and half-fantastically he began to imagine a monastic academy for poets, of which he would be Warden. Perhaps Michael Fane would like this idea, and since he had money he might come forward with an offer of endowment. Then he and Pauline could be married; for £150 a year would be an ample income, if there were no rent to pay and no wages. He, of course, would earn his living as superintendent of the academic discipline; and really, as he dreamed over his plan, such an establishment would be an admirable corollary to Oxford. It might gain even a sort of official recognition from the university. Plainly some sort of institution was wanted where in these commercial days young writers could retreat to learn their craft less suicidally than by journalism. What should he call his academy? With marriage as the reason for inventing this economy, he could hardly give it too monastic a complexion. The louder the wind beat against the house, the more feasibly in the lamplit quiet within did the scheme present itself; and Michael Fane, who was always searching for an object in life, would be the very person to involve in the materialization. He would say nothing to anybody else; not even would he mention the idea to Pauline herself. These sanguine dreams occupied his evenings prosperously enough, while March swept past with searing winds from Muscovy that skimmed the rich earth of the plow-lands with a dusty pallor, tarnished the daffodils, and seemed to crack the very bird-song. Guy, however, with every day either a day nearer to seeing Pauline again or the day itself, did not care about the wind that blew, and he was as happy walking on the uplands as the spindle-shanked hares that sported among the turfy mounds. Later, the shrilling wind from the east surrendered to the booming of the equinox. Louder than before the weather beat against Guy's house from the opposite quarter. Chimneys groaned like broken horns, and after a desperate gale even deaf Miss Peasey complained that she had heard the wind once or twice in the night, and that her bedroom had seemed a bit draughty. Guy discovered that several tiles had been blown from the roof, so that through the lath and plaster above her head there was a sound of demoniac fife-playing. Then the wind dropped; the rain poured down; but at last on Lady Day morning Guy woke up to see a rich sky between white magnificent clouds, a gentle breeze, and a letter from his father. FOX HALL, GALTON, HANTS, _March 24th_. DEAR GUY,--I send you this with the third instalment of the £150. Please let me have a prompter acknowledgment than last time, when, I remember, you kept me waiting nearly three weeks. I am glad to have news of successful experiments in verse-making, but I should be much more glad to hear that you had made up your mind to make them as an accessory to a regular profession. You will notice that I do not attempt to influence your choice in this matter, and so I hope you will not retort with invidious comparisons between literature and the teaching of small boys. No, I do not remember a man called Grey in my time at Oxford, but I do remember a man of the same name as ours at Trinity. He came to grief, I believe, later on. You must assure your friend that this was not myself. I am glad you find the Rector and his wife such pleasant people. Have they any children? I wish I could say as much for the new Vicar of Galton, who is a pompous nincompoop and has introduced a lot of his High Church frippery which so annoys some of the parents. Your friend is lucky to be able to afford so much leisure for gardening. I am of course far too busy to think about anything like that except in the Summer holidays, when flowers would scarcely give me the change of air I want. This year I hope to come and see you for a week or two, and we shall be able to discuss the future. Don't work too hard and please oblige me by acknowledging the inclosed cheque. Your affectionate father, JOHN HAZLEWOOD. Guy went out in the orchard to meditate upon the advisableness of telling his father at once about Pauline. If he were coming to stay here next August, he ought to know beforehand, for it would be horrid to have the atmosphere of Plashers Mead ruined by acrimonious argument. August, however, was still a long way off, and now there was going to be fine weather for a while, which must not be spoiled. Besides, perhaps in the end his father would not come, and, anyway, himself would be having to decide presently upon a more definite step. He would tell Pauline, when he saw her to-morrow, that he ought to go up to London and get some journalistic work so as to bring the time of their marriage nearer. Or should he wait until he had sounded Michael about that academy? Plashers Mead enlarged itself for Guy's vision until the orchard was a quadrangle famed with gray cloisters, along which Parnassian aspirants walked in meditation. Would any of them be married except himself and Pauline? On the whole, he decided that they would not, though, of course, if Michael were to find the capital he must be allowed to marry. How the Balliol people would laugh at these fantastic plans, thought Guy, and he stopped for a moment from the architectonics of his academy to laugh at himself. Certainly it would be better not to publish his plans even to Pauline until they showed a hint of conceivable maturity. Guy fell back into the comfort of spacious dreams, wandering up and down the orchard; and round about him the starlings, pranked in metallic plumage of green and bronze, quarreled over the holes in the apple-tree they coveted for their nests. Suddenly Guy heard his name called, and, looking up, he saw across the mill-stream Margaret and Pauline standing in the churchyard. "We've been to church," said Pauline. "And a dead bat fell down nearly on to Father's head when he was giving the Blessing. So he and the sacristan have gone up in the tower to see what can be done about it." "Shall I come and help?" Guy suggested. "You won't be able to do any more than they will," said Margaret, laughing. "But if you want to come and help, you'd better. Hasn't your canoe arrived yet?" Guy shook his head. "It's such a glorious morning that I could almost swim the river," he declared. "Oh, Margaret, don't let him," Pauline exclaimed. Guy said he would be in the churchyard before they were back in Rectory Lane to meet him, and with Bob barking at his heels he ran at full speed through the orchard, through the garden, over the bridge, and down Rectory Lane just as the two girls reached the lych-gate. They all went into the big church, even Bob, though he slunk at their heels as modestly as might the devil. High up over the chancel they could see the Rector and the shiny-pated sacristan leaning from the windows of the bell-ringer's chamber and scratching with wands at some blind arches where bats might most improbably lurk. "Let's go to the top of the tower," Guy proposed. "Father isn't on the top of the tower," said Margaret. "But you go up with Pauline. I'll wait for you." So Guy and Pauline went through a low door beaked by Normans centuries ago, and climbed the stone stairs until they reached the bell-ringer's chamber, where they paused to greet the Rector, who waved a vague arm in greeting. The stairs grew more narrow and musty as they went higher; but all the way at intervals there were deep slits in the walls, framing thin pictures of the outspread country below the tower. Still up they went past the bell-ropes, past the great bells themselves that hung like a cluster of mighty fruit, until finally they came out through a small turret to meet the March sky. The spire, that rose as high again as they had already come, occupied nearly all the space and left only a yard of leaded roof on which to walk; but even so, up here where the breeze blew strongly, they seemed to stand in the very course of the clouds with the world at their feet. Northward they looked across the brown mill-stream; across Guy's green orchard; across the flashing tributary beyond the meadows, to where the Shipcot road climbed the side of the wold. Westward they looked to Plashers Mead and Miss Peasey flapping a table-cloth; to Guy's mazy garden and the gray wall under the limes; and farther to the tree-tops of Wychford Abbey; to the twining waters of the valley and the rounded hills. Southward they looked to Wychford town in tier on tier of shining roofs; and above the translucent smoke to where the telegraph-poles of the long highway went rocketing into Gloucestershire. And lastly eastward they looked through a flight of snowy pigeons to the Rectory asleep in gardens that already were painted with the simple flowers of Spring. Guy took Pauline's hand where it rested on the parapet. "Dearest, Spring is here," he said, "and this is our world that you and I are looking at to-day." APRIL Pauline in the happiness which had come to her lately had forgotten Miss Verney; and when one morning she met that solitary spinster, whose pale and watery eyes were uttering such reproach, she promised impulsively to come to tea that very afternoon and bring with her a friend. "You've certainly quite deserted me lately," said Miss Verney, in that wavering falsetto of hers, through which the echoes maybe of a once-admired soprano could still be distinctly heard. "Oh, but I've been so busy, Miss Verney." "Yes, I dare say. Well, I used to be busy once myself. Here's lovely weather for the first of April. Quite a treat to be out of doors. Now, don't make an April fool of your poor old Miss Verney by forgetting to come this afternoon. Who's the friend you are anxious to bring?" "Mr. Hazlewood. He's living at Plashers Mead, you know." "Dear me, a gentleman? Then he won't enjoy coming to see me." "But he will, Miss Verney, because he writes poetry, and you know you told me once that you used to write poetry." "Ah, well, dear me, that's a secret I should never have let out. Well, good-by, my dear, and pray don't forget to come, for I shall be having cakes, you know." Miss Verney, whose unhappy love-affair in a dim past had been Pauline's cherished secret since the afternoon of her seventeenth birthday, bowed with much dignity; and Pauline, lest she should offend her again, had to turn round several times to smile and wave farewells before Miss Verney disappeared into the confectioner's shop. When she got home Pauline asked her mother if she thought it mattered taking Guy to tea with Miss Verney. "Because, of course, she's sure to guess that we're engaged." "But, my dear child, you're not really engaged, at least not publicly. You must remember that." "But I could tell Miss Verney as a great secret. And I know she won't tell any one because once she told me a great secret about herself. Besides, she's gone to buy cakes for tea, and if I don't take Guy she'll be so dreadfully disappointed." "Why can't you take Guy without saying anything about being engaged?" asked Mrs. Grey. "Oh, because Miss Verney is so frightfully sharp, especially in matters of love. I think you don't like her much, Mother darling but really, you know, she is sympathetic." Mrs. Grey looked hopelessly round for advice, but as neither Margaret nor Monica was in the room, she had to give way to Pauline's entreaty, and the leave was granted. When Guy arrived at the Rectory about three o'clock he seemed delighted at the notion of going out to tea with Pauline, though he looked a little doubtfully at the others, as if he wondered at the permission's being accorded. However, they set out in an atmosphere of good-will, and Pauline was happy to have him beside her walking up Wychford High Street. Miss Verney's house was at the very top of the hill, which meant that the eyes of the whole population had to be encountered before they reached it. They could see Miss Verney watching for them as they walked across the slip of grass that with white posts and a festoon of white chains warded off general traffic. The moment they reached the gate her head vanished from the window, and they had scarcely rung the bell when the maid had opened the door; and they were scarcely inside the hall when Miss Verney came grandly out of the drawing-room (which was not the front room) to greet them. "How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Miss Grey will have told you that I rarely have visitors. And therefore this is a great pleasure." Pauline threw sparkling blue glances at Guy for the Miss Grey, while they followed her into the drawing-room full of cats and ornaments. The cats all marched round Guy in a sort of solemn quadrille, so that what with the embarrassment they caused to his legs and the difficulty that the rest of him found with the ornaments, Pauline really had to lead him safely to a chair. "Have you been long in Wychford, Mr. Hazlewood?" inquired Miss Verney. "I fear you'll find the valley very damp. We who live at the top of the hill consider the air up here so much more bracing. But then, you see, my father was a sailor." So the conversation progressed, conversation that was cut as thinly and nicely as the lozenges of bread and butter, fragments of which on various parts of the rug the cats were eating with that apparent difficulty cats always find in mastication. "I sadly spoil my pets," said Miss Verney. "For really, you see, they are my best friends, as I always say to people who look surprised at my indulgence of them.... Would you mind telling Bellerophon he's left a piece of butter just by your foot, that you might otherwise tread into the carpet. You'll forgive my fussiness, but then, you see, my father was a sailor." Pauline was longing to know what Miss Verney thought of Guy, and presently when tea was over she suggested that he should be shown the garden, the green oblong of which looked so inviting from the low windows. "Dear me, the garden," said Miss Verney. "Rather early in the year, don't you think, for the garden? My shoes. For though my father was a sailor, I do not, alas! inherit his constitution. I really think, Pauline, we must wait for the garden. But perhaps Mr. Hazlewood would care...." "Guy, you must see the garden," Pauline declared. So Guy rose and, having listened to Miss Verney's instructions about the key in the garden door, went out, followed by several cats. A moment later they saw him, still with two cats in attendance, bending with an appearance of profound interest over the narrow flower-beds that fringed the grass. "I declare that Pegasus and dear Bellerophon have taken quite a fancy to him. Most remarkable and gratifying," said Miss Verney, watching from the window through which the western sun flaming upon her thin hair kindled a few golden strands from the ashes that seemed before entirely to have quenched them. "Miss Verney, can you keep a secret?" asked Pauline, breathlessly. "My dear, you forget my father was a sailor," replied Miss Verney, supporting with each arm a martial elbow. "He and I are engaged," Pauline whispered through a blush. "Pauline, you amaze me!" the old maid exclaimed. "My dear child, I hope you'll let me wish you happiness." She came to Pauline and kissed with cold lips her cheek. "You have always been so kind and considerate to me. Yes, I am sure, without irreverence I can say you have been to me as welcome as the sun. I pray that you will always be happy. Ah, the dear fellow!" exclaimed Miss Verney, looking with the utmost affection to where Guy was now completing the circuit of her borders. "The dear fellow, how droll he must have thought it when I referred to you as Miss Grey. Though to this flinging about of christian names without regard for the sacredness of real intimacy, which is so common nowadays, I shall never submit." Miss Verney tapped upon the window to summon Guy within again. When he was back in the drawing-room she fluttered towards him and took his hand. "My dear Mr. Hazlewood (for, my father having been a sailor, I must always be rather blunter than most people), I have to congratulate you. This dear child! My greatest friend in Wychford, and indeed, really, so scattered now are all the people I have known, I might almost say, my greatest friend anywhere! You are a most enviable young man. But the secret is safe with me. No one shall know." "I had to tell Miss Verney," Pauline explained. "I'm delighted for Miss Verney to know," said Guy. "I only wish the time were come when everybody could know." Miss Verney was in a state of the greatest excitement, and made so many references to her nautical paternity that Pauline half expected her to hitch up her skirt and dance a triumphant hornpipe in the middle of the cats' slow waltzing. "This dear child," Miss Verney went on, clasping rapturous hands. "I have known her since she was twelve. The dearest little thing! I really wish you had known her; you would have fallen in love with her then, I do declare." And Miss Verney laughed in a high treble at her joke. "Lately I have been rather worried because I had an idea I was being deserted. But now I understand the reason. Oh, the secret is perfectly safe. In me you have a true sympathizer. Pauline will tell you that with the people she loves, there is no one so sympathetic as I am." Suddenly Miss Verney stopped and looked very suspicious. "You're not making an April fool of me?" she asked. "Miss Verney!" Pauline gasped. "How could you think I would joke about love?" The old maid's forehead cleared. "Of course you wouldn't, my dear, but really this morning I have been so pestered by some of the boys ringing the bell and saying my chimney is on fire that ... ah, but I am ashamed of myself. You must forgive me, Pauline. And is it not the thing to drink the health of lovers? There is a bottle of sherry, I feel sure. I brought several bottles that were left from my father's cellar, when I first came to Wychford, eight years ago, and they have not all been drunk yet." She rang the bell, and when the maid came in said: "Mabel, if you take my keys and open the store-cupboard, you will find some bottles of wine on the top shelf. Pray open one, and, having carefully decanted it, bring it as carefully in with three glasses on the silver tray." Mabel naturally looked very much astonished at this order, and while she was gone Miss Verney thought one after another of all the reasons that Mabel could possibly ascribe to her request for wine. "But she will never guess the real one," said Miss Verney. The wine was brought in and poured out. Miss Verney coughed a great deal over her glass, and two small pink spots appeared on her cheeks. "I am sure," she said, "that when my dear father brought this wine back from Portugal he would have been happy to know that some of it would be drunk to the health of two young people in love. For he was, if I may say so without impropriety, a great lady's man." Pauline and Guy drank Miss Verney's health in turn, and thanked her for the good omens she had wished for their love. "My dear Pauline," said Miss Verney, "do you think? I wonder if I dare? You know what I mean? Do you think I could show it to Mr. Hazlewood?" "Do you mean the miniature?" whispered Pauline. Miss Verney nodded. "Oh, do, Miss Verney, do! Guy would so appreciate it," Pauline declared. The old maid went to her bureau and from a small locked drawer took out a leather case which she handed to Guy. "The spring is broken. It opens very easily," she said in a gentle voice. Pauline forgot her shyness of Guy and leaned over his shoulder while he looked at the picture of a young man rosy with that too blooming youth which miniatures always portray. "We were engaged to be married," said Miss Verney. "But circumstances alter cases; and we were never married." Pauline looked down at Guy with tears in her eyes and felt miserable to be so happy when poor Miss Verney had been so sad. "Thank you very much for showing me that," said Guy. Soon it was time to say good-by to Miss Verney and, having made many promises to come quickly again, they left her and went down the steep High Street, where in many of the windows of the houses there were hyacinths and on the old walls plum-trees in bloom. "Pauline," said Guy, "let's go for a walk to-morrow morning and see if the gorse is in bloom on Wychford down. There are so many things I want to tell you." "Do you think Mother will let us?" "If we can go to tea with Miss Verney," said Guy, "we shall be able to go for a walk. And I never see you alone in the Rectory." "I'll ask Mother," said Pauline. "You want to come?" "Of course. Of course." "You see," said Guy, "it's one of the places where I nearly told you I loved you. And it wouldn't be fair not to tell you there, as soon as I can." In the Rectory everybody was anxious to know how Guy liked Pauline's Miss Verney. "Margaret, you are really unkind to laugh at her," protested Pauline. "Guy understands, if you don't, how frightfully sympathetic she is. She is one of the people who really understands about being in love." Margaret laughed. "Don't I?" she said. "No, indeed, Margaret, sometimes I don't think you do," said Pauline. "Nor I?" asked Monica. "You don't at all!" Pauline protested. "Well, if it means being like Miss Verney, I hope I never shall," said Monica. "Now, children, children," interrupted Mrs. Grey. "You must not be cross with one another." "Well, Mother, Margaret and Monica are not to laugh at Miss Verney," Pauline insisted. "And to-morrow Guy and I want as a great exception to go for a walk to Wychford down. May we?" "Well, as a great exception, yes," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, with apparently an access of grateful industry, said he must go home and work. Pauline wondered what Guy would have to tell her to-morrow, and she fell asleep that night hoping she would not be shy to-morrow; for, since Guy was still no more to Pauline than the personification of a vague and happy love just as Miss Verney's miniature was the personification of one that was not happy, she always was a little alarmed when the personification became real. Wychford down seemed to rest on billowy clouds next morning, so light was Pauline's heart, so light was the earth on which she walked; and when Guy kissed her the larks in their blue world were not far away, so near did she soar upon his kiss to the rays of their glittering plumes. "Every time I see you," said Guy, "the world seems to offer itself to us more completely. I never kissed you before under the sky like this." She wished he would not say the actual word, for it made her realize herself in his arms and brought back in a flood all her shyness. "I think it's dry enough to sit on this stone," said Guy. So they sat on one of the outcrops of Wychford freestone that all around were thrusting themselves up from the grass like old gray animals. "Now tell me more about Miss Verney," he went on. "Why was her love-affair unhappy?" "Oh, she never told me much," said Pauline. "You and I haven't very long," said Guy. "Love travels by so fast. You and I mustn't have secrets." "I haven't any secrets," said Pauline. "I had one about Richard, but you know about him. And that was Margaret's secret, really. Why do you say that, Guy?" "I was thinking of myself," he answered. "I was thinking how little you know about me--really not much more than you know of Miss Verney's miniature." "Guy, how strange," she said. "Last night I thought that." Then he began to talk in halting sentences, turned away from her all the time and digging his stick deep down in the turf, while Bob looked in with anxious curiosity for what these excavations would produce. "Pauline, I so adore you that it clouds everything to realize that before I loved you I should have had love-affairs with other girls. Of course they meant nothing, but now they make me miserable. Shall I tell you about them or shall I.... Can I blot them for ever out of my mind?" "Oh, don't tell me about them, don't tell me about them," Pauline murmured in a low, hurried voice. She felt that if Guy said another word she would run from him in a wild terror that would never let her rest, that would urge her out over the down's edge in desperate descent. "I don't want to tell you about them," said Guy. "But they've stood so at the back of my thoughts whenever I have been with you; and yesterday at Miss Verney's, I had a sense of guilt as if I were responsible in some way for her unhappiness. I had to tell you, Pauline." She sat silent under the song of the larks that in streams of melodious light poured through their wings. "Why do you say nothing?" he asked. "Oh, don't let's talk about it any more. Promise me never to talk about it. Oh, Guy, why 'of course'? Why 'of course'?" "Of course?" he repeated. "'Of course they meant nothing.' That seems so dreadful to me. Perhaps you won't understand." "Dear Pauline, isn't that 'of course' the reason they torment me?" he said. "It isn't kind of you to assume anything else." She forgave him in that instant; and before she knew what she had done had put her hand impulsively on his. To the Pauline who made that gesture he was no more the unapproachable lover, but some one whom she had wounded involuntarily. "My heart of hearts, my adored Pauline." With a sigh she faded to him; with a sigh the dog sat down by his master's neglected stick; with a sigh the April wind stole through the thickets of gorse and out over the down. And always more and more dauntlessly the larks flung before them their fountainous notes to pierce those blue spaces that burned between the clouds. No more was said of the past that morning, and with April come they were happy sitting up there, although, as Guy said, such weather could hardly be expected to last. And since this walk was a great exception to the rule of their life, they were back at the Rectory very punctually, so that by propitiating everybody with good behavior they might soon demand another exception. That night there recurred to Pauline, when she was in her room, a sudden memory of what Guy had said to her about girls with whom he had had love-affairs; and with the stark forms of shadows they made a procession across her walls in the candle-light. She wished now she had let Guy tell her more, so that she could give distinguishing lineaments of humanity to each of these maddening figures. What were they like and why, taken unaware, was she set on fire with rage to know them? For a long while Pauline tossed sleeplessly on that bed to which usually morning came so soon; and even when the candle was put out she seemed to feel these forms of Guy's confession all about her. To-morrow she must see him again; she could no longer bear to think of him alone. These shapes that from his past vaguely jeered at her were to him endowed, each, with what memories? Oh, she could cry out with exasperation even in this silent house where she had lived so long unvexed! "What is happening to me? What is happening to me?" asked Pauline, as the darkness drew nearer to her. "Why doesn't Margaret come?" She jumped out of bed and ran trembling to her sister's room. "Pauline, what is it?" asked Margaret, starting up. "I'm frightened, Margaret. I'm frightened. My room seemed full of people." "You goose. What people?" "Oh, Margaret, I do love you." She kissed her sister passionately; and Margaret, who was usually so lazy, got out of bed and came back with her to her room, where she read aloud _Alice in Wonderland_, sitting by the bed with her dark hair fallen about her slim shoulders. In the morning the impression of the night's alarm remained sharply enough with Pauline to make her anxious to see Guy, without waiting for the ordained interval to which they should submit; and all that day, when he did not come, for the first time she felt definitely the clamorous and persistent desire for his company, the absence of which the old perfection of her home "was no longer able to counteract. For the first time in her life the Rectory had a sort of emptiness; and there was not a room on this tediously beautiful day, nor any nook in the garden, which could calm her with the familiar assurance of home. When the time for music came round, that night, it seemed to Pauline not at all worth while to play quartets in celebration of a day that had been so barren of events. "Don't you want to play?" they asked her in surprise. "Why should we play?" she countered. "But I'll listen to you, if you like." Of course she was persuaded into taking her part, and never had she been so often out of tune and never had her strings snapped so continuously. Always until to-night the performance of music had brought to her the peaceful irresponsibilities of being herself in a pattern; now this sense of design was irritating her with an arduous repression, until at last she put down her violin and refused to play any more. Pauline felt that the others knew the cause of her ill-temper, but none of them said anything about Guy, and, with her for audience in one of the Caroline chairs, they played trios instead. Next day when Guy did come it was wet; and Pauline wished Margaret would leave them together, so that they could talk; but Margaret stayed all the afternoon in the nursery, and Pauline made up her mind that somehow she must go for another walk with Guy. She found her mother alone in the drawing-room before dinner. "Mother, don't you think Guy and I might go for a walk to-morrow?" "Oh, Pauline, you went for a walk together only the day before yesterday. And you really must remember you're not engaged. The Wychford people will gossip so, and that will make your father angry." "Well, why can't we be engaged openly?" "No, not yet. Now, please don't ask me. Pauline, I beg you will say no more about it." "Then I can go to-morrow," said Pauline. "Oh, Mother, you are so sweet to me." Mrs. Grey looked rather perplexed and as if she were vainly trying to determine what she had said to make Pauline suppose that leave for walks had been given. However, she evidently supposed it had; and when next Guy came to the Rectory Pauline whispered to him they could go for a walk if they did not have to go through Wychford. She could not understand herself when she found it so difficult to tell Guy this delightful news, for it was she who had managed it; and yet here she was blushing in the revelation. The fact that Wychford was out of bounds really made their walk more magical, for Pauline and Guy went past the lily-pond and the lawn in front of the house and slipped through the little wicket in the high gray wall, as it were in the very eye of the nursery window. They dallied for a while in the paddock, peering for fritillary buds; then they crossed the rickety bridge to the water-meadows, a territory not spied upon, silver-rosed with lady-smocks. To-day they would visit the peninsula where under the moon they first had met. Pauline, as they walked over the meads, no longer had the desire to ask Guy more about his tale of old loves. His presence beside her had rested her fears; and she made up her mind that the disquiet of the other evening had been mere fatigue after the excitement of the day. This secluded world from which they were now approaching the even greater seclusion of their peninsula gave itself all to her and Guy. "How often have I been here without you!" said Guy. "How often have I wished you were beside me, and now you are beside me." They were standing in a wreath of snowy blackthorn that almost veiled even the narrow entrance to this demesne they held in fief of April. "What did you think about me that night we met?" Guy asked. And for perhaps the hundredth time she whispered how she had liked him very much. "Why don't you ask me what I thought about you?" "What did you?" she whispered again. "I went to sleep thinking of you," he said. "I did not know your name. I loved you then, I think. Pauline, when next September comes we'll pick mushrooms together--shall we? And I shall never gather any mushrooms, because I shall always be gathering your hands. And the September afterwards. Pauline! Shall we be married? Pauline Hazlewood! Say that." She shook her head. "Whisper it." But she could not, and yet in her heart the foolish names were singing together. "How can I leave you?" Guy demanded. "Leave me?" she echoed. "I ought. I ought. You see, if I don't I shall never persuade my father that we must be married next year. I must go to London and show that I'm in earnest." "But when will you go?" said Pauline in deep dismay. "Is your voice sad?" he asked. "Pauline, don't you want me to go?" "Of course I don't," she replied, turning up to his a face so miserable that he held her to him and vowed he would not go. "My dearest, I only thought it was my duty, but if you will believe in me, then let me stay in Wychford. After all, you are young. I am young. Why, you won't be twenty till May Morning. And I sha'n't be twenty-three till next August. Even if we wait three years to be married, we shall be always together, and it won't seem so long." So with her arm in his Pauline walked on through the lady-smocks, thinking that never had any one a lover so wonderful as this long-legged lover beside her. Holy Week was at hand, and in the variety of functions that Monica insisted her father should hold and her family attend Pauline saw little of Guy, although he came very often to church, sitting as stiff and awkward, she thought, as a brass knight on a tomb. However, it pleased her greatly Guy should come to church, since it pleased her family. Yet that was least of all the true reason, and Pauline used to send the angels that came to visit her down through the church to visit Guy; her simple faith glowed with richer illumination when she thought of him in church, and while her mother and Monica tried to pull the Wychford choir through the notation of Solesmes, and while Margaret knelt apart in carved abstraction, Pauline prayed that Guy would all his life wish to keep Holy Week with her like this. Pauline hurried through a shower to church on Easter Morning, and shook mingled tears and raindrops from herself when she saw that Guy was come to Communion. So then that angel had traveled from her bedside last night to hover over Guy and bid him wake early next morning, because it was Easter Day. With never so holy a calm had she knelt in the jeweled shadows of that chancel or retired from the altar to find her pew imparadised. When the people came out of church the sun was shining, and on the trees and on the tombstones a multitude of birds were singing. Never had Pauline felt the spirit of Eastertide uplift her with such a joy, joy for her lover beside her, joy for Summer close at hand, joy for all the joy that Easter could bring to the soul. There were Easter eggs at breakfast dyed yellow, blue, and purple. There were new white trumpet daffodils for the Rector to gaze at. There was satisfaction for Monica in having defeated for ever Anglican chants, and for Margaret a letter from Richard, though, to be sure, she did not seem so glad of this as Pauline would have wished. There was all that happy scene and a new quartet for her mother; and for Guy and herself there was a long walk this afternoon to wherever they wanted to go. At the beginning of the week Monica and Margaret went away on a visit, to which they set out with the usual lamentations now redoubled because they suddenly realized it was universal holiday time. With her two eldest daughters away from the Rectory, Mrs. Grey was no match for Pauline; so she and Guy had a week of freedom, wandering over the country where they willed. Wychford down saw them, and the water-meadows of the western valley. The road to Fairfield knew their footsteps, and they even went to tea with Mr. and Mrs. Ford, who talked of Richard out in India and bemoaned the inferiority of their garden to the Rector's. They wandered by treeless roads that led to the hills, and to the grassy solitudes that seemed made to be walked over hand in hand. Once they went as far as the forest of Wych, a wild woodland that lay remote from any village and where along the glades myriads of primroses stared at them. Yet, though that day had seemed to Pauline almost more delicately fair than any of their days, it ended dismally with April in black misfeature, and before they reached home they were wet through. By ill luck her mother met her just as she was hurrying up to her room. "Pauline," she said, with a good deal of agitation, "I must forbid these walks with Guy every day. Wet to the skin! Oh dear, how careless of him to take you so far! You must be reasonable and unselfish. It's so difficult for me. Father asked where you were this afternoon, and I had to pretend to be deaf. He notices more than you think. Now really Guy must not come for a week, and there must be no more walks." Guy, however, came the next afternoon, and not only was he reproved by Mrs. Grey for yesterday's disaster, but actually he and Pauline were allowed only a quarter of an hour together in the garden. "I'll go into Oxford for a week," said Guy, with inspiration. "And then we sha'n't be tempted to see each other this week, and if we don't see each other this week, perhaps next week we shall be able to go out again. Besides, I want to make arrangements about bringing the canoe down. My friend Fane has wired to me to go and stay with him. He's up for the Easter vac, working. Shall I go?" Pauline wanted to say no, but she was, even after all these walks, still too shy to bid him stay. "Perhaps you'd better go," she agreed. "But, Guy, come back for my birthday." "As if I should stay away for that! Pauline, will you write to me? At least in letters you won't be shy to say you love me." "Oh no, Guy, no. My writing is so horrid." "But you must write. Pauline, if you want to know why I'm really going away, it's simply to have a letter from you." "You must write to me first then," she whispered. In truth Pauline felt terrified to think how she would ever begin a letter to Guy. He would cease to love her any more after she had written to him. He would hate her stupid letters. "I shall be glad to see Michael again," said Guy. "But I suppose I must not say anything about you. No, I won't talk about you. Oxford will be wonderfully quiet without undergraduates, and I shall have letters from you." Mrs. Grey came out into the garden. "Now, Guy, I think you ought to go. Because really the Rector is getting worried about you and Pauline." "I'm going into Oxford, Mrs. Grey." "Well, that is a charming idea--charming, yes." "But I'll be back for Pauline's birthday." "Charming--charming," Mrs. Grey still declared. "The Rector will have forgotten all about it by then." So Guy left Pauline for a week, and perhaps for more than a week. Margaret and Monica came home next day, and really, she thought, it was upsetting all the old ways of her life when she found herself not very much interested in what they had been doing. Miss Verney with her ecstatic praise of Guy was better company; but next morning her first love-letter arrived, and she could not resist peeping into it at breakfast. 99 ST. GILES, OXFORD, _April 18th_. MY ADORED PAULINE,--It's really all I can do to stay in Oxford. Even Fane seems dull, and though his rooms are jolly, I long for you. Have I told you what you are to me? Have I once been able to tell you.... Ah, there were pages crammed full and full of words that she must read alone. She could not read them here with her mother and sisters looking at her over the table. She must read them high in her white fastness at the top of the house. There all the morning she sat, and when she had read of his love once, she read of it again and then again, and once again. How foolish her answering letter would be; how disappointed Guy would be; but since she had promised, she must write to him; and, sitting at her desk that was full of childish things, she curled herself over the note-paper. MAY A pleasant company of thoughts traveled with Guy and his bicycle on the road to Oxford. In this easy progress the material hindrances to marriage were not seeming very important, and as he thought of his love for Pauline it spread before him, untroublous like the road down which he was spinning before a light breeze. With so much to compensate for their brief parting it was impossible to feel depressed; and as Guy drew near the city he felt he was an undergraduate again; and when he greeted Michael Fane in St. Giles he could positively hear his own Oxford drawl again. It was really delightful to be sitting here in view of his old college; and when after lunch he and Michael started for Wytham woods, more and more Guy was in an Oxford dream and carrying off the fantastic notion of the Parnassian academy with all the debonair confidence of his second year. Yet Guy knew that the scheme was absurd, and when Michael argued against it in his solemn way he found himself taking the other side from a mere undergraduate pleasure in argument. Indeed, Michael declared he had become a freshman since he went down, which made Guy stop dead, ankle-deep in kingcups, and laugh aloud for his youth, with hidden thoughts of Pauline to make him rejoice that he was young. He laughed again at Michael's seriousness and flung his scheme to the broad clouds, for on this generous day he and Pauline were enough, and neither anybody else's opinion nor anybody else's help was worth a second thought. The heartening warmth, however, did not last; and when towards evening the sun faded in a blanch of watery clouds with a cold wind for aftermath, Guy felt Michael might have been more sympathetic. Rather silently they walked back from Godstow, with Pauline between them; so that, after all, Guy thought, Michael was still an undergraduate, whereas he had embarked upon life. That night, however, when the curtains were drawn across Michael's bay window that overhung the whispering and ancient thoroughfare; when the fire burned high and the tobacco smoke clouded the glimmer of the books on the walls; when his chair creaked with that old Oxford creaking--Guy forgave Michael for any lack in his reception of the great plan. After all, he was writing to Pauline while his host was reading the Constitutional History of England at a table littered with heavy volumes, on which he brooded like a melancholy spectator of ruins. He must not be hard on Michael, who had not yet touched life, when for himself the vision of Pauline was wreathing this old room with starry blooms of wild rose. The letter was finished, and Guy went out to drop it in the pillar-box. His old college brooded at him across the road; to-morrow Pauline would get his letter; to-night there would be rain; to-morrow Pauline would get his letter! The envelope, as it shuffled down into the letter-box, seemed to say "yes." When Guy was back in the funny St. Giles room, he decided there was something rather finely ascetic about Michael seated there and reading imperturbably in the lamplight. His courteously fatigued manner was merely that of the idealist who had overreached himself; there was nothing bilious about him, not even so much cynicism as had slightly chilled Guy's own career at Oxford; rather did there emanate from Michael a kind of medieval steadfastness comparable only to those stone faces that look calmly down upon the transitory congregations of their church. Michael had this solemn presence that demanded an upward look, and once again an upward look, until without conversation the solemnity became a little disquieting. Guy felt bound to interrupt with light-hearted talk of his own that slow, still gaze across the lampshine. "Dash it, Michael! don't brood there like a Memento Mori. Put away Magna Charta and talk to me. You used to talk." "_You_ talk, Guy. You've been living alone all this time. You must have a great deal to say." So Guy flung theories of rhyme and meter to overwhelm Magna Charta; and, next day, he and Michael walked all over Oxford in the rain, he himself still talking. The day after there came with the sun a letter from Pauline which he took away with him to read in the garden of St. John's, leaving Michael to Magna Charta. There was nobody on the lawn, and Guy sat down on a wooden seat in air that was faintly perfumed by the precocious blooms of a lilac breaking to this unusual warmth of April. Unopened the letter rested in his hand; for his name written in this girlish charactery took on the romantic look of a name in an old tale. A breathlessness was in the air, such as had brooded upon Pauline's first kiss; and Guy sat marmoreal and rapt in an ecstasy of anticipation that he would never have from any other letter; so still he was that an alighting blackbird slipped over the grass almost to his feet before it realized the mistake and shrilled away on startled wings into the bushes behind. The trance of expectation was spoiled, and Guy with a sigh broke the envelope. WYCHFORD RECTORY, OXON, _Wednesday_. I am writing to you at my desk. I began this morning but it was time to go out when I began. Now it's after tea. Margaret came in just now and said I looked all crinkled up like a shell: it's because I simply don't know how to write to you. I have read your letter over and over again. I never thought there could be such a wonderful letter in the world. But I feel very sorry for poor Richard who can't write letters as exquisite as yours. I really feel miserable about him. And this letter to you makes me feel miserable because I can't write letters even as well as Richard. Mother was glad you thought of going to Oxford because she says we are a great responsibility to her. Isn't she sweet? She really is, you know. So I talked to Father myself very seriously. I explained to him that I was quite old enough to know my own mind, and he listened to all the things I told him about you. He said he supposed it was innevitable, which looks very funny somehow. Are you laughing at my spelling? And then he said it was nothing to do with him. So of course I rushed off to Mother and told her and when you come back we are to be allowed to go out twice a week and in three more months we can be engaged properly. Are you happy? Only, dear Guy, Mother doesn't want you to come back till my birthday. She thinks the idea of you and me will be better when Father has got an Iris lorti or some name like that. He has never had a flower of it before and he's so excited about it's coming out just when my birthday is. Every day he goes down and pinches the stalk of it. He says it's the loveliest flower in the world and grows on Mount Lebanon. So if it comes out on my birthday, you and I can certainly be engaged in August. Guy, I do hate my handwriting. Your loving PAULINE. It was a letter of gloriously good news, thought Guy, though he was a little disappointed not to have had the thrill of Pauline's endearment. Then, on the blank outside page, he saw scrawled in writing that went tumbling head over heels down the paper: _My darling Guy, I love you and underneath I have kissed the letter for you._ The sentence died out in faint ink that seemed to show forth the whisper in which it had been written. For Guy the tumble-down letters were written in fire; and with the treasure in his heart of that small sentence, read a hundred times, he did not know how he should endure ten long days without Pauline, and in this old college garden, on this sedate and academic lawn, he cried out that he adored her as if indeed she were beside him in this laylocked air. At the sound of his voice the birds close at hand were all silent; they might have stopped to listen. Then a green finch called, "Sweet! sweet!" whose gentle and persistent proclamation was presently echoed by all the other birds twittering together again in the confused raptures of their Spring. The days with Michael at St. Giles went by slowly enough, and their fairness was a wasted boon. Guy wrote many long letters to Pauline and received from her another letter in which she began with "_My dearest_," as he had begged her. Yet when he read the herald vocative, he wished he had not tried to alter that old abrupt opening, for never again would she write in the faint ink of shyness such a sentence as had tumbled down the back of her first letter. Michael seemed to divine that he was in love, and Guy wondered why he could not tell him about it. Once or twice he nearly brought himself to the point, but the thought of describing Pauline kept him mute; Michael must see her first. The canoe would be ready at the end of the week, and Guy announced he should paddle it up to Wychford, traveling from the Isis to the upper Thames, and from the upper Thames turning aside at Oldbridge to follow the romantic course of the Greenrush even to his own windows. "Rather fun," said Michael, "if the weather stays all right." "By Jove!" Guy exclaimed, "I believe it was at Oldbridge Inn that I first met you." "On May Day three years ago," Michael agreed. And, thought Guy, with a compassionate feeling for mere friendship, what a much more wonderful May Day should be this when Pauline was twenty. There was now her birthday present to buy, and Guy set out on the quest of it with as much exaltation as Percival may have sought the Holy Grail. He wished it were a ring he could buy for her; and indeed ultimately he could not resist a crystal set on a thin gold circlet that she, his rose of girls, would wear like a dewdrop. This ring, however, could not be his formal gift, but it would have to be offered when they were alone, and it must be worn nowhere but in the secret country they haunted with their love. The ring, uncostly as it was, took nearly all Guy's spare money, and he decided to buy a book for her, because in Oxford bookshops he still had accounts running. The April afternoon wore away while in his own particular bookshop kept by Mr. Brough, an ancient man with a white beard, he took down from the shelves volume after volume. At last he found a small copy of Blake's Lyrics bound in faded apple-green calf and tooled in a golden design of birds, berries, and daisies. This must be for Pauline, he decided, since some one must have known the pattern of that nursery wall-paper and, loving it, have wished it to be recorded more endurably. What more exquisite coincidence could assure him that this book was meant for Pauline? Yet he was half jealous of the unknown designer who had thought of something of which himself might have thought. Oh yes, this must be for Pauline; and as Guy rescued it from the dust and darkness of the old shop he ascribed to the green volume an emotion of relief, and was half aware of promising to it a new and dearer owner who with cherishing would atone for whatever misfortune had brought it to these gloomy shelves. Next morning, when Guy was ready to start, Michael presented him with a glazier's diamond pencil. "When you fall in love, Guy, this will serve to scribble sonnets to your lady on the lattices of Plashers Mead. I shall probably come there myself when term's over." "I wish you'd come and live there with me," said Guy in a last effort to persuade Michael. "You see, if you shared the house it wouldn't cost so much." "Perhaps I will," said Michael. "Who knows? I wonder what your Rectory people would think of me?" "Oh, Pauline would like you. Pauline's the youngest, you know," added Guy. "And I'm pretty certain you'd like Monica." Michael laughed. "Really, Guy, I must tell them in Balliol that since you went down you've become an idle matchmaker. Good-by." "Good-by. You're sure you won't mind the fag of forwarding my bicycle? I'll send you a post-card from Oldbridge." Guy, although there was still more than a week before he would see Pauline, felt, as he hurried towards the boat-builder's moorings, that he would see her within an hour, such airy freedom did the realization of being on his way give to his limbs. The journey to Wychford seemed effortless, for whatever the arduousness of a course steadily up-stream, it was nullified by the knowledge that every time the paddle was dipped into the water it brought him by his own action nearer to Pauline. A railway journey would have given him none of this endless anticipation, traveling through what at this time of the year, before the season of boating, was a delicious solitude. Guy could sing all the way if he wished, for there was nothing but buttercups and daisies, lambs and meadows and greening willows, to overlook his progress. He glided beneath ancient bridges and rested at ancient inns, nearer every night to Pauline. Scarcely had such days a perceptible flight, and were not May Morning marked in flame on his mind's calendar, he could have forgotten time in this slow, undated diminution. "O mistress mine, where are you roaming? Oh, stay and hear; your true love's coming, That can sing both high and low: Trip no further, pretty sweeting; Journeys end in lovers meeting, Every wise man's son doth know." This was the song Guy flung before his prow to the vision of Pauline leading him. "What is love? 'tis not hereafter; Present mirth hath present laughter; What's to come is still unsure: In delay there lies no plenty; Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth's a stuff will not endure." This was the song that Guy felt Shakespeare might have written to suit his journey now, as he paddled higher and higher up the stream that flowed towards Shakespeare's own country. The banks of the Greenrush were narrower than the banks of the Thames; and all the way they were becoming narrower, and all the way the stream was running more swiftly against him. It was Sunday evening when he reached Plashers Mead; and so massively welded was the sago on his Sheraton table that Guy wondered if Miss Peasey, to be ready for his arrival, had not cooked it a week ago. But what did sago matter when in his place there was laid a note from Pauline? MY DEAREST,--I've had all your letters and I've been very frightened you'd be drowned. To-morrow you've got to come to breakfast because I always have breakfast in the garden on my birthday unless it pours. I'm going to church at eight. I love you a thousand times more and I _will_ tell you so to-morrow and give you twenty kisses. Your own PAULINE. Do you like "your own" better than "your loving"? Guy went to bed very early and resolved to wake at dawn that he might have the hours of the morning for thoughts of Pauline on her birthday. It was after dawn when Guy woke, for he had fallen asleep very tired after his week on the river; still it was scarcely six when he came down into the orchard, and the birds were singing as Guy thought he had never heard them sing before. The apple-trees were already frilled with a foam of blossom; and on quivering boughs linnets with breasts rose-burnt by the winds of March throbbed out their carol. Chaffinches with flashing prelude of silver wings flourished a burst of song that broke as with too intolerable a triumph, then sought another tree and poured forth the triumphant song again. Thrushes, blackbirds, and warblers quired deep-throated melodies against the multitudinous trebles of those undistinguished myriads that with choric pæan saluted May; and on sudden diminuendoes could be heard the rustling canzonets of the goldfinches, rising and falling with reedy cadences. Guy launched his canoe, which crushed the dewy young grass in its track and laded the morning with one more fragrance. He paddled down the mill-stream and, landing presently in the Rectory paddock, now in full blow with white and purple irises, he went through the wicket into the garden. When he reached the lily-pond the birds on the lawn flew away and left it green and empty. He stood entranced, for the hush of the morning lay on the house, and in the wistaria Pauline's window dreamed, wide open. Deep in the shrubberies the birds still twittered incessantly. Why was he not one of these birds, that he might light upon her sill? Upon Guy's senses stole the imagination of a new fragrance, that was being shed upon the day by that wide-open window; a fragrance that might be of flowers growing by the walks of her dreams. And surely in those flowery dreams he was beside her, since he had lost all sense of being still on earth. A bee flew out from Pauline's room, an enviable bee which had been booming with indefinite motion for how long round and round the white tulips on her sill. Presently another bee flew in; and Guy's fancy, catching hold of its wings, hovered above Pauline where she lay sleeping. So sharp was the emotion he had of entering with the bee, that he was aware of brushing back her light-brown hair to lean down and kiss her forehead; and when the belfry clock clanged he was startled to find himself back upon this green and empty lawn. He must not stay here in front of her window, because if she woke and came in her white nightgown to greet the day she would be shy to see him standing here. Reluctantly Guy turned away and would have gone out again by the wicket in the wall if he had not come face to face with Birdwood. "I think I'm a bit early," he said in some embarrassment. "Yes, I think you are a bit early, sir," the gardener agreed. "Breakfast won't be till about half past eight?" Guy suggested. "And it's just gone the half of six," said Birdwood. "Would you like to see my canoe?" Guy asked. Birdwood looked round the lawn, seeming to imply that, such was Guy's liberty of behavior, he half expected to see it floating on the lily-pond. "Where is it, then?" he asked. Guy took him through the paddock to where the canoe lay on the mill-stream. "Handy little weapon," Birdwood commented. "Well, I'll see you later, I expect," said Guy, embarking again. "I'm coming to breakfast at the Rectory." "Yes, sir," the gardener answered, cheerfully. "In about another hour and a half I shall be looking for the eggs." Guy waved his hand and shot out into midstream, where he drifted idly. Should he go to church this morning? Pauline must have wanted him to come, or she would not have told him in her note that she was going. They had never discussed the question of religion. Tacitly he had let it be supposed he believed in her simple creed, and he knew his appearance of faith had given pleasure to the family as well as to Pauline herself. Was he being very honest with her or with them? Certainly when he knelt at the back of the church and saw Pauline as he had seen her on Easter Day, it was not hard to believe in divinity. But he did not carry away Pauline's faith to cheer his own secret hours. The thought of herself was always with him, but her faith remained as a kind of vision upon which he was privileged to gaze on those occasions when, as it were, she made of it a public confession. Had he really any right to intrude upon such sanctities as hers would be to-day? No doubt every birthday morning she went to church, and the strangeness of his presence seemed almost an unhallowing of such rites. Even to attend her birthday breakfast began to appear unjustifiable, as he thought of all the birthday breakfasts that for so many years had passed by without him and without any idea of there ever being any necessity for him. No doubt this morning he, miserable and unworthy skeptic, would be dowered with the half of her prayers, and in that consciousness could he bear to accept them, kneeling at the back of the church, unless he believed utterly they were sanctified by something more than her own maidenhood? Yet if he did not go to church Pauline would be disappointed, because she would surely expect him. She would be like the blessed damozel leaning out from the gold bar of Heaven and weeping because he did not come. There was no gain from honesty, if she were made miserable by it. It were better a thousand times he should kneel humbly at the back of the church and pray for the faith that was hers. And why could he not believe as she believed? If her faith were true, he suffered from injustice by having no grace accorded to him. Or did there indeed lie between him and her the impassable golden bar of Heaven? A cloud swept across the morning sun, and Guy shivered. Then the church-bell began to clang and, urging his canoe towards the churchyard, he jumped ashore and knelt at the back of the church. Guy had been aware during the service of the saintly pageant along the windows of the clerestory slowly dimming, and he was not surprised, when he came out, to see that clouds were dusking the first brilliance of the day. Mrs. Grey, Monica, and Margaret had prayed each in a different part of the church; but now in the porch they fluttered about Pauline with an intimate and happy awareness of her birthday, almost seeming to wrap her in it, so that she in flushed responsiveness wore all her twenty years like a bunch of roses. Guy was sensitive to the faint reluctance with which her mother and sisters resigned her to him on this birthday morning; but yet to follow them back from church with Pauline beside him in a trepidation of blushes and sparkles was too dear a joy for him in turn to resign. Half-way to the house Pauline remembered that her father had been left alone. This was too wide a breach in her birthday's accustomed ceremony, and, much dismayed, she begged Guy to go back with her. At that moment the rest of the family had disappeared round a curve in the walk, and Guy caught Pauline to him, complaining she had not kissed him since he was home. "Oh, but Father!" she said, breathlessly, tugging. "He'll be so hurt if we've gone on without him." Guy felt a stab of jealousy that even a father should intrude upon his birthday kiss for her. "Oh, very well," he said, half coldly. "If to see me again after a fortnight means so little...." "Guy," said Pauline, "you're not cross with me? And Father was so sweet about you. He said, 'Is Guy coming to breakfast?' Guy, you mustn't mind if I think a lot about everybody to-day. You see, this is my first birthday when there has been you." "Oh, don't remind me of the years before we met," said Guy. "I hate them all. No, I don't," he exclaimed in swift penitence. "I love them all. Hurry, darling girl, or we shall miss him." Pauline's eyes were troubled by a question, behind which lurked a fleeting alarm. "Kiss me," she murmured. "I was horrid." A kind of austerity informed their kiss of reconciliation, an austerity that suited the sky of impending rain under which they were standing in the light of the last wan sunbeam. Then they hurried to the churchyard, where in the porch the Rector was looking vaguely round for company he expected. "Lucky my friend _Lorteti_ came out yesterday. This rain will ruin him. You must take Guy to see that iris, my dear. Fancy! twenty-one to-day! Dear me! dear me! Most remarkable!" Pauline danced with delight behind the Rector's back. "He thinks I'm twenty-one," she whispered. "Oh, Guy, isn't he sweet? And he called you Guy. Oh, Francis," she cried, "do let me kiss you!" There was a short debate on the probability of the rain's coming before breakfast was done, but it was decided, thanks to Birdwood's optimism, to accept the risk of interruption by sitting down outside. The table was on the lawn, Pauline's presents lying in a heap at the head. As one by one she opened the packets, everybody stood round her, not merely her mother and father and sisters and Guy, but also Birdwood and elderly Janet and Mrs. Unger the cook and Polly who helped Mrs. Unger. "Oh, I'm so excited!" said Pauline. "Oh, I do hope it won't rain! Oh, thank you, Mrs. Unger! What a beautiful frame!" "I hope yaw'll find some one to put in it, miss," said Mrs. Unger with a glance of stately admiration towards her present and a triumphant side look at Janet, who after many years' superintendence of Pauline's white fastness had brought her bunches of lavender and woodruff tied up with ribbons. All the presents were now undone, among them Guy's green volume, a paste buckle from Margaret, a piece of old embroidery from Monica, and from Richard in India a pair of carved bellows, at the prodigal ingenuity of whose pattern Margaret looked a little peevish. When all the other presents had been examined, Birdwood stepped forward and with the air of a conjuror produced from under his coat a pot of rose-colored sweet-peas that exactly matched the frail hue of Pauline's cheeks. Breakfast was eaten, with everybody's eyes watching the now completely gray sky. How many such birthday breakfasts had been eaten on this cool lawn by these people, who in their simplicity were akin to the birds in their shrubberies and the flowers in their borders; and Guy thought of an old photograph taken by an uncle of Pauline's tenth birthday breakfast, when the table was heaped high with dolls and toys and Pauline in the middle of them, while Monica and Margaret, with legs as thin as thrushes', stood shy and graceful in the background. He sighed to himself with amazement at the fortune which like a genie had whisked him into this dear assemblage. Breakfast was over just as the rain began to fall with the tinkling whisper that forebodes determination. There was not a leaf in the garden that was not ringing like an elfin bell to these silver drops; but, alas! the unrelenting windless rain gave no hope to Guy and Pauline of that long walk together they had expected all a fortnight. There was nothing to do but sit in the nursery and wonder if it would ever stop. "I used to love rain when it kept me here," said Guy. "Now it has become our enemy." Worse was to come, for it rained every day faster and faster, and there were no journeys for Guy's new canoe. He and Pauline scarcely had ten minutes to themselves, since when they were kept in the house all the family treated them with that old proprietary manner. The unending rain began to fret them more sharply because Spring's greenery was in such weather of the vividest hue and was reproaching them perpetually for the waste of this lovely month of May. The river was rising. Already Guy's garden was sheened with standing moisture, and the apple-blossoms lay ruined. People vowed there had never been such rain in May, and still it rained. The river was running swiftly, level with the top of its banks, and many of the meadows were become glassy firmaments. Very beautiful was this green and silver landscape, but, oh, the rain was endless. Guy grew much depressed and Miss Peasey got rheumatism in her ankles. Then in the middle of the month, when Guy was feeling desperate and when even Pauline seemed sad for the hours that were being robbed from them, it cleared up. Guy had been to tea, and after tea he and Pauline had sat watching the weather. Margaret had stayed with them all the afternoon, but had left them alone now, when it was half past six and nearly time for Guy to go. The clouds, which all day had spread their pearly despair over the world, suddenly melted in a wild transplendency of gold. "Oh, do let's go for a walk before dinner," said Guy. "Don't let's tell anybody, but let's escape." "Where shall we go?" "Anywhere. Anywhere. Out in the meadows by the edge of the water. Let's get sopping wet. Dearest, do come. We're never free. We're never alone." So Pauline got ready; and they slipped away from the house, hoping that nobody would call them back, and hurrying through the wicket into the paddock where the irises hung all sodden. They walked along the banks of a river twice as wide as it should be, and found they could not cross the bridge. But it did not matter, for the field where they were walking was not flooded, and they went on towards the mill. Here they crossed the river and, hurrying always as if they were pursued, such was their sense of a sudden freedom that could not last, they made a circuit of the wettest meadows and came to the hill on the other side. Everywhere above them the clouds were breaking, and all the west was a fiery mist of rose and gold. The meadow they had found was crimsoned over with ragged-robins that in this strange light glowered angrily like rubies. Pauline bent down and gathered bunches of them until her arms were full. Her skirt was wet, but still she plucked the crimson flowers; and Guy was gathering them too, knee-deep in soaking grass. What fever was in the sunset to-night? "Pauline," he cried, flinging high his bunch of ragged-robins to scatter upon the incarnadined air, "I have never loved you as I love you now." Guy caught her to him; and into that kiss the fiery sky entered, so that Pauline let fall her ragged-robins and they lay limp in the grass and were trodden under foot. "Pauline, I have a ring for you," he whispered. "Will you wear it when we are alone?" She took the thin circlet set with a crystal and put it on her finger. Then with passionate arms she held him to her heart; the caress burned his lips like a flaming torch; the crystal flashed with hectic gleams, a basilisk, a perilous orient gem. "We must go home," she whispered. "Oh, Guy, I feel frightened of this evening." "Pauline, my burning rose," he whispered. And all the way back into the crimson sunset they talked still in whispers, and of those rain-drenched ragged-robins there was not one they carried home. La belle Dame sans mercy hath thee in thrall! La belle Dame sans mercy hath thee in thrall! La belle Dame sans mercy hath thee in thrall! The words did not cool Guy's pillow that night, but they led him by strange ways into a fevered sleep. SUMMER JUNE When Pauline reached the Rectory dinner had already begun in the mixture of candle-light and rosy dusk that seemed there more than anything to mark Summer's instant approach, and as with flushed cheeks she took her place at table she was conscious of an atmosphere that was half disapproval, half anxiety; or was it that she, disapproving of herself, expected criticism? Positively there was an emotion of being on her defense; she felt propitiatory and apologetic; and for the first time she was sharply aware of herself and her family as two distinct facts. It was to dispel this uneasy sense of potential division that she took up her violin with a faintly exaggerated willingness, and that, instead of dreaming of Guy in a corner of the room, she played all the evening in the same spirit of wanting to please. Her mother asked if she had enjoyed her walk, and Pauline had positively to fight with herself before she could answer lightly enough that the walk had been perfect. Why was her heart beating like this, and why did her sisters regard her so gravely? It must be her fancy, and almost defiantly she continued: "There was no harm in my going out with Guy, was there? We've not been together at all lately." "Why should there be any particular harm this evening?" Monica inquired. "Of course not, Monica," and again her heart was beating furiously. "I only asked because I thought you all seemed angry with me for being a little late for dinner." "I don't know why we should suddenly be sensitive about punctuality in this house," said Margaret. Pauline had never thought her own white fastness offered such relief and shelter as to-night; and yet, she assured herself, nobody had really been criticizing her. It must have been entirely her fancy, that air of reproach, those insinuations of cold surprise. People in this house did not understand what it meant to be as much in love as she. It was all very well for Margaret and Monica to lay down laws for behavior, Margaret who did not know whether she loved or not, Monica who disapproved of anything more directly emotional than a Gregorian chant. Yet they had not theorized to-night, nor had they propounded one rule of behavior; it was she who was rushing to meet their postulates and observations, arming herself with weapons of offense before the attack had begun. Yet why had neither Monica nor Margaret, nor even her mother, come to say good night to her? They did not understand about love, not one of them, not one of them. "Pauline?" It was her mother's voice outside her door, who, coming in, seemed perfectly herself. "Not undressed yet? What's the matter, darling Pauline? You look quite worried, sitting there in your chair." "I'm not worried, Mother. Really, darling, I'm not worried. I thought you were cross with me." Now she was crying and being petted. "I don't know why I'm crying. Oh, I'm so foolish! Why am I crying? Are you cross with me?" "Pauline, what is the matter? Have you had a quarrel with Guy?" "Good gracious, no! What makes you ask that? We had an exquisite walk, and the sunset was wonderful, oh, so wonderful! And we picked ragged-robins--great bunches of them. Only I forgot to bring them home. How stupid of me! Monica and Margaret aren't angry with me, are they? They were so cold at dinner. Why were they? Mother, I do love you so. You do understand me, don't you? You do sympathize with love? Mother, I do love you so." When Pauline was in bed her mother fetched Margaret and Monica, who both came and kissed her good night and asked what could have given her the idea that they were angry with her. "You foolish little thing, go to sleep," said Monica. "You mustn't let your being in love with Guy spoil the Rectory," said Margaret. "Because, you know, the Rectory is so much, much better than anything else in the world." Her mother and sisters left her, going gently from the room as if she were already asleep. Pauline read for a while from Guy's green volume of Blake; then taking from under her pillow the crystal ring, she put it on her third finger and blew out the light. Was he thinking of her at this moment? He must be, and how near they brought him to her, these nights of thoughts, for then she seemed to be floating out of her window to meet him half-way upon the May air. How she loved him; and he had given her this ring of which no one knew except themselves. It was strange to have been suddenly frightened in that sunset, for now, as she lay here looking back upon it, this evening was surely the most wonderful of her life. He had called her his burning rose. His burning rose ... his burning rose? Why had she not brought back a few of those ragged-robins to sit like confidantes beside her bed? Flowers were such companions; the beautiful and silent flowers. How far away sleep was still standing from her; and Pauline got out of bed and leaned from the window with a sensation of resting upon the buoyant darkness. The young May moon had already set, and not a sound could be heard; so still, indeed, was the night that it seemed as if the stars ought to be audible upon their twinkling. If now a nightingale would but sing to say what she was wanting to say to the darkness! Nightingales, however, were rare in the trees round Wychford, and the garden stayed silent. Perhaps Guy was leaning from his window like this, and it was a pity their lights could not shine across, each candle fluttering to the other. If only Plashers Mead were within view, they would be able to sit at their windows in the dark hours and sometimes signal to each other. Or would that be what Margaret called "cheapening" herself? Had she cheapened herself this evening when she had kissed him for the gift of this ring? Yet could she cheapen herself to Guy? He loved her as much as she loved him; and always she and he must be equal in their love. She could never be very much reserved with Guy; she did not want to be. She loved him, and this evening for the first time she had kissed him in the way that often in solitude she had longed to kiss him. "I only want to live for love," she whispered. Naturally Margaret did not know what love like hers meant; and perhaps it was as well, for it was sad enough to be parted from Guy for two days, when there was always the chance of seeing him in the hours between; but to be separated from him by oceans for two years, as Richard and Margaret were separated, that would be unbearable. "I suppose Margaret would call it 'cheapening' myself to be standing at my window like this. Good night, dearest Guy, good night. Your Pauline is thinking of you to the very last moment of being the smallest bit awake." Her voice set out to Plashers Mead, no louder than a moth's wing; and, turning away from the warm May night, Pauline went back to bed and fell asleep on the happy contemplation of a love that between them was exactly equal. The floods went down rapidly during the week; green Summer flung her wreaths before her; the cuckoo sang out of tune, and other birds more rarely; chestnut-blossoms powdered the grass; and the pinks were breaking all along the Rectory borders. These were days when not to idle down the river would have been a slight upon the season. So Pauline and Guy, with their two afternoons a week, which were not long in becoming four, spent all their time in the canoe. The Rectory punt could only be used on the mill-stream; and Pauline rejoiced, if somewhat guiltily, that they could not invite either of her sisters to accompany them. She and Guy had now so much to say to each other, every day more, it seemed, that it was impossible any longer not to wish to be alone. "Margaret says we are becoming selfish. Are we?" she asked, dragging her fingers through the water and perceiving the world through ranks of fleurs-de-lys. Guy, from where in the stern he sat hunched over his paddle, asked in what way they were supposed to be selfish. "Well, it is true that I'm dreadfully absent-minded all the time. You know, I can't think about anything but you. Then, you see, we used always to invite Margaret to be with us, and now we hurry away in the canoe from everybody." "One would think we spent all our time together," said Guy, "instead of barely four hours a week." "Oh, Guy darling, it's more than that. This is the fourth afternoon running that we've been together; and we weren't back yesterday till dinner-time." Guy put a finger to his mouth. "Hush! We're coming to the bend in the river that flows round the place we first met," he whispered. "Hush! if we talk about other people it will be disenchanted." He swung the canoe under the bushes, tied it to a hawthorn bough, and declared triumphantly, as they climbed ashore up the steep bank, that here was practically a desert island. Then they went to the narrow entrance and gazed over the meadows, which in this sacred time of growing grass really were impassable as the sea. "Not even a cow in sight," Guy commented in well-satisfied tones. "I shall be sorry when the hay is cut, and people and cattle can come here again." "People and cattle! How naughty you are, Guy! As if they were just the same!" "Well, practically, you know, as far as we're concerned, there isn't very much difference." For a long while they sat by the edge of the stream in their fragrant seclusion. "Dearest," Pauline sighed, "why can I listen to you all day, and yet whenever anybody else talks to me why do I feel as if I were only half awake?" "Because even when you're not with me," said Guy, "you're still really with me. That's why. You see, you're still listening to me." This was a pleasant explanation; but Pauline was anxious to be reassured about what Margaret had hinted was a deterioration in her character lately. "Perhaps we are a little selfish. But we won't be, when we're married." Guy had been scribbling on an envelope which he now handed to her; and she read: Mrs. Guy Hazlewood Plashers Mead Wychford Oxon. "Oh, Guy, you know I love to see it written; but isn't it unlucky to write it?" "I don't think you ought to be so superstitious," he scoffed. She wished he were not obviously despising the weakness of her beliefs. This was the mood in which she seemed farthest away from him; when she felt afraid of his cleverness; and when what had been simple became maddeningly twisted up like an object in a nightmare. Yet worries that were so faint as scarcely to have a definite shape could still be bought off with kisses; and always when she kissed Guy they receded out of sight again, temporarily appeased. June, which had come upon them unawares, drifted on towards Midsummer, and the indolent and lovely month mirrored herself in the stream with lush growth of sedges and grasses, with yellow water-lilies budding, with starry crowfoot and with spongy reeds and weeds that kept the canoe to a slow progress in accord with the season. At this time, mostly, they launched their craft in the mill-stream, whence they glided under Wychford bridge to the pool of an abandoned mill on the farther side. Here they would float immotionable on the black water, surrounded by tumble-down buildings that rose from the vivid and exuberant growth of the thick-leaved vegetation flourishing against these cold and decayed foundations. Pauline was always relieved when Guy with soundless paddle steered the canoe away from these deeps. The mill-pool affected her with the merely physical fear of being overturned and plunged into those glooms haunted by shadowy fish, there far down to be strangled by weeds the upper tentacles of which could be seen undulating finely to the least quiver upon the face of the water. Yet more subtly than by physical terrors did these deeps affect her, for the fathomless mill-pool always seemed, as they hung upon it, to ask a question. With such an air of horrible invitation it asked her where she was going with Guy, that no amount of self-reproach for a morbid fancy could drive away the fact of the question's being always asked, however firmly she might fortify herself against paying attention. The moment they passed out of reach of that smooth and cruel countenance, Pauline was always ashamed of the terror and never confided in Guy what a mixture of emotions the mill-pool could conjecture for her. Their journey across it was in this sunny weather the prelude to a cool time on the stream that flowed along the foot of the Abbey grounds. During May they had been wont to paddle directly up the smaller main stream, exploring far along the western valley; but on these June afternoons such a course involved too much energy. So they used to disembark from the canoe, pulling it over a narrow strip of grass to be launched again on the Abbey stream, which had been dammed up to flow with the greater width and solemnity that suited the grand house shimmering in eternal ghostliness at the top of the dark plantation. Pauline had no dread of Wychford Abbey at this distance, and she was fond of gliding down this stream into which the great beeches dipped their tresses, shading it from the heat of the sun. Every hour they spent on the river made them long to spend more hours together, and Pauline began to tell herself she was more deeply in love than any one she had ever known. Everything except love was floating away from her like the landscape astern of the canoe. She began to neglect various people in Wychford over whom she had hitherto watched with maternal solicitude; even Miss Verney was not often visited, because she and Guy could not go together, the one original rule to which Mrs. Grey still clung being a prohibition of walking together through the town. And with the people went her music. She did not entirely give up playing, but she always played so badly that Monica declared once she would rather such playing were given up. In years gone by Pauline had kept white fantail pigeons; but now they no longer interested her and she gave them away in pairs. Birdwood declared that the small bee-garden, which from earliest childhood had belonged to her guardianship, was a "proper disgrace." Her tambour-frame showed nothing but half-fledged birds from which since Winter had hung unkempt shreds of blue and red wool. And even her mother's vague talks about the poor people in Wychford had no longer an audience, because Margaret and Monica never had listened, and now Pauline was as inattentive as her sisters. Nothing was worth while except to be with Guy. Not one moment of this June must be wasted, and Pauline managed to set up a precedent for going out on the river with him after tea, when in the cool afternoon they would float down behind Guy's house under willows, under hawthorns, past the golden fleurs-de-lys, past the scented flags, past the early meadowsweet and the flowering rush, past comfrey and watermint, figwort, forget-me-not, and blue crane's-bill that shimmered in the sun like steely mail. On Midsummer Day about five o'clock Pauline and Guy set out on one of these expeditions that they had stolen from regularity, and found all their favorite fields occupied by haymakers whose labor they resented as an intrusion upon the country they had come to regard as their own. "Oh, I wish I had money!" Guy exclaimed. "I'd like to buy all this land and keep it for you and me. Why must all these wretched people come and disturb the peace of it?" "I used to love haymaking," said Pauline, feeling a little wistful for some of those simple joys that now seemed uncapturable again. "Yes. I should like haymaking," Guy assented, "if we were married. It's the fact that haymakers are at this moment preventing us being alone which makes me cry out against them. How can I kiss you here?" A wain loaded high with hay and laughing children was actually standing close against the ingress to their own peninsula. The mellow sun of afternoon was lending a richer quality of color to nut-brown cheeks and arms; was throwing long shadows across the shorn grass; was gilding the pitchforks and sparkling the gnats that danced above the patient horses. It was a scene that should have made Pauline dream with joy of her England; yet, with Guy's discontent brooding over it, she did not care for these jocund haymakers who were working through the lustered afternoon. "Hopeless," Guy protested. "It's like Piccadilly Circus." "Oh, Guy dear, you are absurd. It's not a bit like Piccadilly Circus." "I don't see the use of living in the country if it's always going to be alive with people," Guy went on. "We may as well turn round. The afternoon is ruined." When they reached the confines of Plashers Mead he exclaimed in deeper despair: "Pauline! I must kiss you; and, look, actually the churchyard now is crammed with people, all hovering about over the graves like ghouls. Why does everybody want to come out this afternoon?" They landed in the orchard behind the house, and Pauline was getting ready to help Guy push the canoe across to the mill-stream, when he vowed she must come and kiss him good night indoors. "Of course I will; though I mustn't stay more than a minute, because I promised Mother to be back by seven." "I don't deserve you," said Guy, standing still and looking down at her. "I've done nothing but grumble all the afternoon, and you've been an angel. Ah, but it's only because I long to kiss you." "I long to kiss you," she murmured. "Do you? Do you?" he whispered. "Oh, with those ghouls in the churchyard I can't even take your hand." They crossed the bridge from the orchard and came round to the front of the house into full sunlight, and thence out of the dazzle into Guy's hall that was filled with water melodies and the green light of their own pastoral world. Close they kissed, close and closer in the coolness and stillness. "Pauline! I shall go mad for love of you." "I love you. I love you," she sighed, nestling to his arms' inclosure. "Pauline!" "Guy!" Each called to the other as if over an abyss of years and time. Then Pauline said she must go back, but Guy reminded her of a book she had promised to read, and begged her just to come with him to the library. "I do want to talk to you once alone in my own room," he said. "The evenings won't seem so empty when I can think of you there." She could not disappoint him, and they went up-stairs and into his green room that smelt of tobacco smoke and meadowsweet. They stood by the window looking out over their territory, and Guy told for the hundredth time how, as it were, straight from this window he had plunged to meet her that September night. "Hullo!" he exclaimed, suddenly, reading on the pane that was scrabbled with mottoes cut by himself in idle moments with the glazier's pencil: The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land. Michael Fane. _June 24_. "That's to-day! Then Michael must be here. What an extraordinary thing!" Guy looked round the room for any sign of his friend; but there was nothing except the Shakespearian record of his presence. Pauline felt hurt that he should be so much interested in a friend when but a moment ago he had brought her here as if her presence were the only thing that counted for his evening's pleasure. "I must find out where he is," exclaimed Guy. Now he wanted to be rid of her, thought Pauline, and for the first time, when he had kissed her, she kissed him coldly in response. More bitter still was the thought that he did not remonstrate; he had not noticed. Pauline said she must hurry away, and Guy did not persuade her to stop. Oh, how she hated this friend of his! She had no one in whom she would be even mildly interested when she was with Guy. He took her home in the canoe, speculating all the way about Michael Fane's whereabouts; and as Pauline went across the Rectory paddock there were tears of mortification in her eyes that sometimes burnt as hotly even as with jealousy's rage. Her mother was on the lawn when she got back, and Pauline blinked her eyes a good deal to throw the blame of tears upon the sun. "Ah, you're back. Let's take a little walk round the garden," said Mrs. Grey in the nervous manner that told of something on her mind. They went into the larger wall-garden and walked along the wide herbaceous borders through a blaze of snapdragons that here all day had been swallowing the sunshine. "Where did you go with Guy?" her mother asked. "We went down the river, and they're cutting the grass in the big meadow, and then afterwards...." "Oh, Pauline, afterwards you went into Guy's house with him?" Pauline nodded. "I know. I was just going to tell you." "Pauline, how could you do such a thing?" "I only went to say good night. I wasn't there five minutes." Why should an action so simple be vexing her mother? "Are you angry with me for going?" "You must never do such a thing again," said Mrs. Grey, more crossly than Pauline had ever heard her. "Monica saw you go in as she was walking down Shipcot hill, and she has just this moment come and told me." "But why shouldn't I go in and say good night?" Pauline asked. "There were people in the churchyard. I thought it was better to say good night in the house." Her mother was tremendously pink with vexation, and Pauline looked at her in surprise. It was really unaccountable that such a trifling incident as going into Guy's house could have made her as angry as this. She must have offended her in some other way. "Mother, what have I done to annoy you?" "I can't think what made you do anything so stupid as that. I can't think. I can't think. So many people may have seen you go in." "Well, Mother darling, surely by this time," said Pauline, "everybody must know we are really engaged." Her mother stood in an access of irritation. "And don't you understand how that makes it all the worse? Please never do such an inconsiderate thing again. You can imagine how much it upset Monica, when she ran back to tell me." "Why didn't she come in and fetch me?" asked Pauline. "That would have been much easier. I think she thoroughly enjoyed making a great fuss about nothing. Everybody has been criticizing me lately. I know you all disapprove of anybody's being in love." "Pauline, when you are to blame, you shouldn't say such unkind things about Monica." "I have to say what I think sometimes," Pauline replied, rebelliously. "And as for Guy," Mrs. Grey went on, "I am astonished at his thoughtlessness. I can't understand how he could dream of letting you come into his house. I can't understand it." "Yes, but why shouldn't I go in?" Pauline persisted. "Darling Mother, you go on being angry with me, but you don't tell me why I shouldn't go in." "Can't you understand what the Wychford people might think?" Pauline shook her head. "Well, I sha'n't say any more about it," Mrs. Grey decided. "But you must promise me never, never to do such a foolish thing again." "I'll promise you never to go to Guy's house," said Pauline. "But I can't promise never to do foolish things when such perfectly ordinary things are called foolish." Mrs. Grey looked helplessly round her, but as neither of her two elder daughters was present she had nothing to say; and Pauline, who thought that all the fuss was due to nothing but Monica's unwarranted interference, had nothing to say, either; so they walked along the herbaceous borders, each with a demeanor of reproach for the other's failure to understand. The snapdragons lolled upon the sun with gold-bloomed anthers, and drank more and still more color until they were drenched beyond the deepest dyes of crimson, extinguishing the paler hues of rose and chrome which yet at moth-time would show like lamps when the others had dulled in the discouragement of twilight. "You mustn't think anything more about it," said her mother, after a long pause. "I'm sure it was only heedlessness. I don't think you can say I'm too strict with you and Guy. Really, you know, you ought to have had a very happy June. You've been together nearly all the time." "Darling," said Pauline, utterly penitent for the least look that could have wounded her mother's feelings, "you're sweet to us. And Guy loves you nearly as much as I do." The gong sounded upon the luteous air of the evening; and Pauline, with her arm closely tucked into her mother's arm, walked with her across the lawn towards the house. "It's no good looking crossly at me," she said, when like a beautiful ghost Monica came into the dining-room. "I've explained everything to Mother." "I'm very glad you have," Monica answered, austerely; and because she would not fall in with her own forgiving mood, Pauline took the gentle revenge of not expostulating with her that evening when there was an opportunity. Nor would she let Margaret refer to the subject. Her sisters were very adorable, but they knew nothing about love, and it would only make them more anxious to lay down laws if she showed that she was aware of their disapproval. She would be particularly charming to them both this evening, but her revenge must be never to mention the incident to either. The principal result of her mother's rebuke had been to drive away Pauline's anger with Guy and the jealousy of his friend. All she thought now was of the time when next they would meet and when she would be able to laugh with him over the absurdity of other people pretending to know anything about the ways of love or of lovers like themselves. She decided also that, as a penance for having been angry with Guy, she would take care to inquire the very first thing about the mystery of the inscription on the window. Oh, but how she hoped that his friend had not come to stay at Plashers Mead, for that would surely spoil this Summer of theirs. The next afternoon, when Pauline went into the paddock, Guy was awaiting for her on the mill-stream, her place in the canoe all ready as usual. "Have you found your friend?" she asked, faithful to her resolution. "Not a sign of him," said Guy. "What on earth he came for, I can't think. Miss Peasey never saw him, and of course she never heard him. He must have been bicycling. However, don't let's waste time in talking about Michael Fane." Pauline smiled at him with all her heart. How wonderful Guy was to reward her so richly for the little effort it had cost to inquire about his friend! "I've been prospecting this morning," he announced, as they shot along in the direction of the bridge. "They haven't started to make hay on the other side, so I'm going to paddle you furiously up-stream until we find some secret and magical meadow where we can hide and forget about yesterday's fiasco." They glided underneath the bridge and left it quivering in the empty sunlight behind them; they swept silently over the mill-pond while Pauline held her breath. Then the banks closed in upon their canoe and Guy fought his way against the swifter running of the water, on and on, on and on between the long grasses of the uncut meadows, on and on, on and on past the waterfall where the Abbey stream joined the main stream and gave it a wider and easier course. "Phew! it's hot," Guy exclaimed. "Sprinkle me with water." She splashed him, laughing; and he seized her hand to kiss her dabbled fingers. "Laugh, my sweet, sweet heart," he said. "It was your laugh I heard before I ever heard your voice, that night when I stood and looked at you and Margaret as if you were two silver people who had fallen down from the moon." Again she sprinkled him, laughing, and again he seized her hand and kissed her dabbled fingers. "They're as cool as coral," he said. "Why are you wrinkling your nose at me? Pauline, your eyes have vanished away!" He plucked speedwell flowers and threw them into her lap. "When I haven't got you with me," he said, "I have to pretend that the speedwells are your eyes, and that the dog-roses are your cheeks." "And what is my nose?" she asked, clapping her hands because she was sure he would not be able to think of any likeness. "Your nose is incomparable," he told her, and then he bent to his paddle and made the canoe fly along so that the water fluted to right and left of the bows. Ultimately they came to an island where all the afternoon they sat under a willow that was pluming with scanty shade a thousand forget-me-nots. Problems faded out upon the languid air, for Pauline was too well content with Guy's company to spoil the June peace. At last, however, she disengaged herself from his caressing arm and turned to him a serious and puzzled face. And when she was asking her question she knew how all the afternoon it had been fretting the back of her mind. "Why was Mother angry with me yesterday because I came into Plashers Mead to say good night to you?" "Was she angry?" asked Guy. "Well, Monica saw us and got home before me and told her, and she was worried at what people would think. What would they think?" Guy looked at her; then he shook his fist at the sky. "Oh, God, why must people try...." She touched his arm. "Guy, don't swear. At least not.... You'll call me superstitious and foolish," she murmured, dismayfully, "but really it hurts me to hear you say that." "I don't think you anything but the most lovely and perfect thing on earth," he vowed, passionately. "And it drives me mad that people should try to spoil your naturalness ... but still ... it was thoughtless of me." "But why, why?" she asked. "That's the word Mother used about you. Only why, why? Why shouldn't I go and say good night?" "Dear, there was no harm in that. But, you see, village people might say horrible things.... I was dreadfully to blame. Yes, of course I was." She flushed like a carnation at dawn; and when Guy put his arm around her she drew away. "Oh, Guy," she said, brokenly, "I can't bear to think of being alone to-night. I shall be asking questions all the night long; I know I shall. It's like that horrid mill-pool." "Mill-pool?" he echoed, looking at her in perplexity. She sighed and stared sadly down at the forget-me-nots. "You wouldn't understand; you'd think I was hysterical and stupid." Silently they left the island, and silently for some time they floated down the stream; then Pauline tossed her head bravely. "Love's rather cruel in a way." Guy looked aghast. "Pauline, you don't regret falling in love with me?" "No, of course not, of course not. Oh, I love you more than I can say." When Guy's arms were round her again Pauline thought that love could be as cruel as he chose; she did not care for his cruelty. JULY Guy had been conscious ever since the rose-gold evening of the ragged-robins of new elements having entered into his and Pauline's love for each other. All this month, however, June creeping upon them with verdurous and muffled steps had plotted to foil the least attempt on Guy's part to face the situation. Now the casual indiscretion of yesterday brought him sharply against it, and, as in the melancholy of the long Summer evening he contemplated the prospect, it appeared disquieting enough. In nine months he had done nothing; no quibbling could circumvent that deadly fact. For nine months he had lived in a house of his own, had accepted paternal help, had betrothed himself; and with every passing month he had done less to justify any single one of the steps. What were the remedies? The house might be sublet; at any rate, his father's bounty came to an end this quarter; engaging himself formally to Pauline, he could throttle the Muse and become a schoolmaster, and in two years perhaps they could be married. It would be a wrench to abandon poetry and the hope of fame, indeed it would stagger the very foundations of his pride; but rather than lose Pauline he would be content to remain the obscurest creature on earth. Literature might blazon his name; but her love blazoned his soul. Poetry was only the flame of life made visible, and if he were to sacrifice Pauline what gasping and ignoble rushlight of his own would he offer to the world? Yet could he bear to leave Pauline herself? The truth was he should have gone in March, when she was in a way still remote and when like a star she would have shone as brightly upon him absent or present. Now that star was burning in his heart with passionate fires and fevers and with quenchless ardors. It would be like death to leave her now; were she absent from him her very name would be as a draught of liquid fire. More implacable, too, than his own torment of love might be hers. If he had gone in March, she would have been gently sad, but in those first months she still had other interests; now if he parted from her she would merely all the time be growing older and they would have between them and their separation the intolerable wastage of their youth. Pauline had surrendered to love all the simple joys which had hitherto occupied her daily life; and if she were divided from him, he feared for the fire that might consume her. It was he who had kindled it upon that rosaureate evening of mid-May, and it was he who was charged with her ultimate happiness. The accident of yesterday had reminded him sharply how far this was so, and a sense of the tremendous responsibility created by his love for her lay upon Guy. He must never again give her family an occasion to remonstrate with her; he had been the one to blame, and he wished Mrs. Grey had spoken to him without saying anything to Pauline. How sad this long evening was, with reluctant day even now at half past nine o'clock still luminous in the west. Next morning there was a letter for Guy from his father. FOX HALL, GALTON, HANTS, _June 24th_. MY DEAR GUY,--I inclose the balance of the sum I gave you, and I hope it will have been enough to pay all the debts at which you hinted in your last letter. I do not think it would be fair to you to hamper you with any more money. In fact, I trust you have already made up your mind not to ask for any. You'll be sorry to hear that Wilkinson has fallen ill and must go abroad at once. This makes it imperative for me to know at once if you are coming to help me next September. If you are, I'm afraid I must ask you to come here immediately and take Wilkinson's place this term. I'm sorry to drag you away from your country estate, but I cannot go to the bother of getting a temporary master and then begin again with you in September. It unsettles the boys too much. So if you want to come in September, you must come now. You will only miss a month of your house and I hope that during the seven weeks of the summer holidays you will be able to transfer yourself comfortably and abandon it for ever. Take a day to think over my proposal and telegraph your answer to-morrow. Your affectionate father, JOHN HAZLEWOOD. It seemed fateful, the arrival of this letter on top of the doubts of last night. A day was not long in which to make up his mind. And yet, after all, a moment was enough. He ought to go; he ought to telegraph immediately before he could vacillate; he must not see Pauline first; he ought to accept this offer. Farewell, fame! Guy opened the front door and walked into Birdwood come with a note from the Rectory. "Miss Pauline took me away from my work to give you this most particular and important and wait for the answer," said the gardener. Guy asked him to step inside and see Miss Peasey while he went up-stairs to write the reply. "Miss Peasey doesn't think much of your variety, Birdwood. She says the garden is entirely blue." "What, all those dellyphiniums the Rector raised with his own hand and she don't like blue!" Birdwood shook his head to express another defeat at the hands of incomprehensible woman. A moment later, as Guy went up to his room with Pauline's note, he heard him bellow in the kitchen: "What's this I hear, mum, about the garden being too blue?" Then Guy closed the door of the library and shut out everything but the sound of the stream. MY DARLING,--I've got such exciting news. Mr. Delamere who's a friend of ours has asked us to stay in his barge--I mean he's lent us the barge for us to stay in. It's called the Naiad and it's on the Thames at Ladingford and when we've finished with it we're going to have it towed down to Oxford and come back from there by train. Mother asked if you would like to come and stay with us for a fortnight. Think of it, a fortnight! Margaret is coming and Monica is going to stay with Father, who can't leave the garden. Oh, Guy, I'm wild with happiness! We're to start on the first of July about. Do send me a little note by Birdwood. Of course I know there's no need. But I would love to have a little note especially as we sha'n't see each other till after lunch. Your own adoring PAULINE. Guy wrote the little note to Pauline, and to his father he wrote a long letter explaining that it was impossible to give up what he was doing to be a schoolmaster. It was peerless weather when they set out in Godbold's wagonette on the nine miles to Ladingford. Guy was thrilled to be traveling like this with Mrs. Grey, Margaret, and Pauline. The girls were in flowered muslin dresses, seeming more airy than he had ever thought them; and the luggage piled up beside Godbold had the same exquisite lightness, so that it appeared less like luggage than a store of birds' feathers. The thought of nearly having missed this summery pilgrimage made Guy catch his breath. They arrived at Ladington towards tea-time and found the barge lying by an old stone bridge about a mile away from the village. Apart from the spire of Ladingford church nothing conspicuously broke the horizon of that flat, green country stretching for miles to a shadowy range of hills. Whichever way they looked, these meads extended, with here and there willows and elms; close at hand was the quiet by-road that crossed the bridge and meandered over the low lands, as still and traffickless as the young Thames itself. The _Naiad_ was painted peacock-blue; owing to the turreted poops the owner had superimposed and the balustrade with rail of gilt gadroons, it almost had the look of a dismasted Elizabethan ship. "Anything more you'll want?" Godbold inquired. "Nothing more, thank you, Mr. Godbold," said Mrs. Grey. "Charming ... charming ... such a pleasant drive. Good afternoon, Mr. Godbold." The carrier turned his horse; and when the sound of the wagonette had died away there was silence except where the stream lapped against the barge and where very far off some rooks were cawing. Guy and Pauline had resolved that they would give Margaret no chance of calling them selfish during this fortnight; and since they were together all the time, it was much easier now not to wish to escape from everybody. The first week went by in such a perfection of delight as Guy had scarcely thought was possible. Indeed, it remained ultimately unimaginable, this dream-life on the _Naiad_. A pleasant woman in a sunbonnet came to cook breakfast and dinner; and Pauline and Margaret went to Ladingford and bought sunbonnets, a pink one for Pauline and for Margaret one of watchet blue. In the fresh mornings Guy and the sisters wandered idly over the meads; but in the afternoon Margaret generally read a book in the shade while Guy and Pauline went for walks, walks that ended always in sitting by the river's edge and telling each other the tale of their love. The nights with a clear moon waxing to the full were entrancing. There was a small piano on the barge, the notes of which had been brought by damp almost to the timbre of an exhausted spinet. It served, however, for Mrs. Grey to accompany Pauline while she played on a violin simple tunes. Guy used to lie back on the deck and count the stars above Pauline's pavans and galliards; then from the silence that followed he would see her coming, shadowy, light as the dewfall, to sit close beside him, to sit, her hand in his, for an hour while the moon climbed the sky and the fern-owls croaked in their hunting. And as the romantic climax of the day, it was wonderful to fall asleep with the knowledge that Pauline slept nearer to him than she had ever slept before. "Guy ought to go and see the Lamberts at the Manor," Mrs. Grey announced at the end of the second week. "I've written to Mrs. Lambert. It will be interesting for him." Guy was thrilled by the notion of visiting Ladingford Manor, which had been one of the great fortresses of romance held against the devastating commercial morality of the Victorian prime with its science and sciolism, and which possessed already some of the fabulous appeal of the medieval songs and tapestries John Lambert had created there. An invitation came presently to walk over any afternoon. Margaret said at first she would not go; but Guy, who was in a condition of excited reverence, declared she must come; and so the three of them set out across a path in the meads that Guy populated with romantic figures of the mid-Victorian days. On this stile Swinburne may have sat; here Burne-Jones may have looked back at the sky; and surely it were reasonable to suppose that Rossetti might have tied up his shoe on this big stone by this brook, even as Guy was tying up his shoe now. Soon they saw a group of elms and the smoke of clustered chimneys; there golden-gray in front of them stood Ladingford Manor. "There's the sort of stillness of fame about it," Guy whispered. He wondered if Mrs. Lambert would now resemble at all the famous pictures of her he had seen. And would she talk familiarly of the famous people she had known? They came to the gate, entering the garden along a flagged path on either side of which runnels flowed between borders of trim box. Mrs. Lambert was sitting in a yew parlor under a blue-silk umbrella that was almost a pavilion, and she received them with many comments upon the energy of walking so far on this hot afternoon. "You would like some beer, I'm sure. There is a bell in that mulberry-tree. If you toll the bell Charlotte will bring you beer." Guy tolled the bell, and Charlotte arrived with a pewter tray and pewter mugs of beer. Margaret would not be thirsty, but Pauline was afraid of hurting Mrs. Lambert's feelings, and she pretended to drink, lancing blue eyes at Guy over the rim of her mug. "It's home-brewed beer," said Mrs. Lambert, placidly, and then she leaned back and sighed at the dome of her blue-silk umbrella. She was still very beautiful, and Guy had a sensation that he was sitting at the feet of Helen or Lady Flora the lovely Roman. She was old now, but she wore about her like an aureole the dignity of all those inspirations of famous dead painters. "Home-brewed beer," Mrs. Lambert repeated, dreamily, and seemed to fall asleep in the past; while in the bee-drowsed yew parlor Pauline, Margaret, and Guy sat watching her. The throat of Sidonia the sorceress was hers; the heavy lids of Hipparchia were hers; the wrist of Ermengarde or Queen Blanche was hers; and the pewter tray on the grass at her feet held Circe's wine. Then Mrs. Lambert woke up and asked if they would like to see the house. "Toll the bell in the mulberry-tree, and Charlotte will come. You must excuse my getting up." They followed Charlotte round the rooms of Ladingford Manor. There on the walls were the tapestries that had inspired John Lambert, and there were the tapestries even more beautiful that himself had woven. On the tables were the books John Lambert had printed, which gave positively the aspect of being treasures by the discretion of their external appearance. In other rooms hung the original pictures of hackneyed mezzotints; and how rare they looked now with their velvety pigments of emerald and purple, of orange, cinnabar and scarlet glowing in the tempered sunlight! Margaret, as she moved from room to room, seemed with her weight of dusky hair and fastidious remoteness to belong to the company of lovely women whose romances filled these splendid scenes; but Pauline was life, irradiating with her joy each picture and giving to it the complement of its own still beauty. "Mrs. Lambert keeps very well, miss," said Charlotte, as they came out again from the house. "But, of course, she doesn't get about much now. Yet we can't really complain, especially with this fine weather." "Would you like some more beer?" Mrs. Lambert asked, when they joined her again in the yew parlor. They said they were no longer thirsty; and, having thanked her for the pleasures of the visit, they left her in the past, returning by the pale-green path across the meadows to where the _Naiad_ lay by the old bridge. "Oh, I did want some tea," sighed Margaret. "I love Mrs. Lambert," cried Pauline, dancing through the meads. "Wasn't it touching of her to offer Margaret beer? Oh, Guy, when we're married and when you die and I receive young poets at Plashers Mead, shall I offer their future sisters-in-law home-brewed beer? Oh, but I'm sure I shall forget to offer them anything." Was there any reason, thought Guy, why Plashers Mead should not become a second Ladingford Manor? Friends long ago took that house together; perhaps Michael Fane would, after all, see the necessity of a second Ladingford Manor and share Plashers Mead with himself and Pauline. After this visit it was impossible to contemplate the prospect of being a schoolmaster; it was impossible to imagine Pauline as a schoolmaster's wife. At all costs their love must be sustained on the pinnacle of romance where now it stood. Margaret would sympathize with his desire to set Pauline in beauty; she, dreading the idea of marrying an Indian engineer, would understand how impossible it was to make Pauline the wife of a schoolmaster. Such a declaration must somehow be avoided. It were better they should wait three years for marriage, five years, fourteen years as Tennyson had waited, rather than that he should make the monstrous surrender he had been so near to making. At least he would put himself and his work to the test, and in a year he would be able to publish his first volume of poems. Perhaps his father would realize then that he deserved to marry Pauline. After all, they were together; there were maddening restrictions, of course, but they were together. This visit to Ladingford Manor must be accepted as an omen to persevere in his original intention; for he had been granted the vision of a perfected beauty, which he knew, by reading the lives of the men who made it, had only been achieved after desperate struggles and disappointments. This enchanted time on the _Naiad_ must be the anticipated reward of a tremendous industry when he got back to Wychford. He would no more break the rules and fret at the restrictions made for him and Pauline. Every hour when they were together should henceforth be doubled in the intensity of its capacity for being enjoyed. One thing only he would demand, that in August they should be formally and openly engaged. Otherwise when Autumn came and made it impossible to go on the river, they would be kept to the Rectory; and the few hours of her company he would have must at least be free. He would talk to Margaret about it, so that she might use her influence to procure this favor. Then he would write and tell his father. All would be easy; Ladingford had inspired him. He beheld the visit in retrospect more and more clearly as an exhortation to endure against whatever the world should offer him to betray his ambition. Yet was Pauline the world? No, certainly Pauline had no kinship with the world, and therefore he was the more straitly bound to disregard the voice of material prosperity. She had joked about herself as a Mrs. Lambert of the future; but behind the lightness of her jest had stood confidence in himself and in his fame. Should he imprison that spirit of mirth and fire in the husk of a schoolmaster's wife? The second week passed; the time at Ladingford was over, and early in the morning they must start for the journey of thirty miles down to Oxford. The dapple-gray horse that would tow the barge was already arrived, and now stood munching the long grass in the shade of the bridge; the swallows were high in the golden air of the afternoon; the long-purples on the banks of the young river seemed to await reproachfully the disturbance of their tranquillity. To-morrow came; the dapple-gray horse was harnessed to the rope; and then slowly, slowly the _Naiad_ glided forward, leaving astern the gray bridge, the long-purples on the bank, and the swallows high in the silver air of the morning. There was not yet any poignancy of parting; for the spire of Ladingford church remained so long in sight that scarcely did they notice the slow recession; and often, when they thought it was gone, the winding river would show it to them again; and in the end, when really it seemed to have vanished, by standing on the poop they could still make out where now it pierced thinly the huge sky. Moreover, the contentment of that imperceptible evanescence and of their dreaming progress down the young Thames was plenary, lulling all regrets for a peace that seemed not yet truly to be lost. The hay in the meadows along the banks was mostly carried, and the cattle were magically fused with the July sunlight, curiously dematerialized like the creatures of a mirage. If a human voice was audible, it was audible deep in the green distance and belonged to the landscape as gently as the murmurous water scalloping the bows. Sometimes, indeed, they would pass late mowers who leaned upon their scythes and waved good fortune to the journey, but mostly it was all an emptiness of air and grass. "If only this young Thames flowed on for ever!" said Guy. He and Pauline were leaning over the rail of the barge, and Guy felt a sudden impulse to snatch at the bank rich in that moment with yellow loosestrife, and by his action arrest for ever the progress of the barge, so that for ever they would stay like the lovers on a Grecian urn. "And really," Guy went on, as already the banks of yellow loosestrife were become banks of long-purples, "there is no reason why for us in a way this river should not flow on for ever. Dear, everything had seemed so perishable before I found you. Pauline, you don't think I ought to surrender my intention, do you? I mean, you don't think I ought to go away from Plashers Mead?" Guy went on to tell her about the decision he had taken on the day the visit to Ladingford was arranged. "But it would have been dreadful to miss this time," Pauline declared. "Oh, I felt it would be impossible," he agreed. "But even if our marriage is postponed for another year, you do think I ought to stick it out here, don't you? And really, you know, few lovers can have such wonderful hours as the hours we do have." Easily she reassured him with her confidence in the rightness of his decision; easily she assuaged the ache of any lingering doubt with the proclamation of that inevitable triumph in the end. "But we must be engaged openly," said Guy. "You know I shall be twenty-three next month. Do you think we can be engaged properly in August?" "Mother promised in Spring," said Pauline. "Why don't you talk to her about it? Why don't you talk to her about it now? She loves you to talk to her." He looked round to where Mrs. Grey was sitting in a deck-chair; evidently by the rhythmic motion of her fingers she was restating to herself a tune which had formerly pleased her, as the barge glided on past a scene that changed perceptibly only in details of flowers and trees, while the great sky and the green hollow land and the blue distances rested immutable. Guy came and sat beside her. "I've never enjoyed a fortnight so much in my life," he said. She smiled at him but did not speak, for whatever quartet she was restating had to be finished first. Soon the last noiseless bars played themselves and she turned round to his conversation. "Mrs. Grey, do you think that Pauline and I can be engaged openly next month? It won't mean, if we are, that I shall be worrying to see her more often. In fact, I'm sure I shall worry less. But I want to tell my father, so that when he comes here he'll be able to see Pauline. He's a conventional sort of man, and I don't think he'd grasp an engagement such as ours is at present. Besides, I want to talk to the Rector, because I feel that now he regards the whole thing as a childish game. So can it be formal next month?" Mrs. Grey sat back, so silent that Guy wondered if she had listened to a word he had been saying. He paused for a moment, and then, as she did not reply, he went on: "I also want to say how sorry I am that I asked Pauline to come into Plashers Mead to say good night to me last month. I didn't realize, until she told me you were angry about it, what a foolish thing I'd done. I don't want you to think that, if we are formally engaged, I shall be doing stupid things like that all the time. Really, Mrs. Grey, I would always be very thoughtful." "Oh yes," she answered in her nervous way. "Oh yes. I understood it to have been a kind of carelessness. But I had to speak to Pauline about it, because she is so very impulsive. It's the sort of thing I might have done myself when I was a girl. At least, of course, I shouldn't, because the Rector.... Yes ... charming ... charming ... yes ... I really think you might be engaged next month. It's your birthday next month, isn't it?" "Thank you more than I can thank you," said Guy. Mrs. Grey waved to Pauline, who drew close. "Pauline darling, I've thought of such a nice birthday present for Guy ... yes ... charming, charming birthday present ... yes ... for you two to be engaged." Pauline threw her arms round her mother's neck; and Guy in his happiness noticed at that moment how Margaret was sitting by herself on the poop in the stern. He was wrenched by a sudden compunction, and asked Pauline if he should not go and tell Margaret. "Charming of Guy ... yes ... charming," Mrs. Grey enthusiastically exclaimed. "Now I call that really charming, and Pauline stays with me." Guy went up the companion and asked Margaret if she were particularly anxious to be alone. She seemed to pull herself from a day-dream as she turned to assure him she did not at all particularly want to be alone. Guy announced his good news, and Margaret offered him her slim hand with a kind of pathetic grace that moved him very much. "I think you deserve it," she said, "for you've both been so sweet to me all this fortnight. I expect you think I don't notice, but I do ... always." "Margaret," said Guy, "if this Summer Pauline and I have seemed to run away from people...." "Oh, but you have!" Margaret interrupted. "I don't think I should find excuses, if I were you, for perhaps it's natural." "I've fancied very often," he said, "that you've thought we were behaving selfishly." "I think all lovers are selfish," she answered. "Only in your case you began in such an idyllic way that I thought you were going to be a wonderful exception. Guy, I do most dreadfully want you not to spoil in any way the perfectly beautiful thing that Pauline and you in love is. You won't, will you?" "Have I yet?" asked Guy in a rather dismayed voice. "Do you want me to be frank? Yes, of course you do, and anyway I must be frank," said Margaret. "Well, sometimes you have-- I don't mean in wanting always to be alone or in asking her in to Plashers Mead to say good night. No, I don't mean in those ways so much. Of course they make me feel a little sad, but smaller things than that make me more uneasy." "You mean," said Guy, as she paused, "my staying on here and apparently doing nothing? But, Margaret, really I can't leave Pauline to be a schoolmaster, and surely you of all people can understand that?" "Oh no, I wasn't thinking of that," said Margaret. "I think, in fact, you're right to stay here and keep at what you're trying to do. If it was ever worth doing, it must be doubly worth doing now. Oh no, the only criticism I shall make is of something so small that you'll wonder how I can think it even worth mentioning. Guy, you know the photograph of Pauline which Mother used to have and which she gave to you?" Guy nodded. "Well, I happened to see it on the table by your bunk, and I wonder why you've taken it out of its simple little wooden frame and put it in a silver one?" Guy was taken aback, and when he asked himself why he had done this he could not find a reason. Now that Margaret had spoken of it, the consciousness of the exchange flooded him with shame as for an unforgivable piece of vandalism. Why, indeed, had he bought that silver frame and put the old wooden frame away, and where was the old wooden frame? In one of the drawers in his desk he thought; resolving this very night to restore it to the photograph and fling the usurper into the river. "I can't think why I did," he stammered to Margaret. "You've no idea how much this has worried me," she said. "I never had any doubts about your appreciation of Pauline." "And now you have," said Guy, biting his lip with mortification. The landscape fading from the stern of the barge oppressed him with the sadness of irreparable acts that are committed heedlessly, but after which nothing is ever quite the same. He wished he could tear to pieces that silver frame. "No, I won't have any doubts," said Margaret, offering him her hand again and smiling. "You've taken my criticism so sweetly that the change can't symbolize so much as I feared." It was very well to be forgiven like this, Guy thought, but the memory of his blunder was still hot upon his cheek and he felt a deep humiliation at the treachery of his taste. He had meant, when he came here to talk to Margaret, to ask her about herself and Richard, to display a captivating sympathy and restore to their pristine affection her relations with him, which latterly had seemed to diverge somewhat from one another. Now haunted by that silver frame, which with every moment of thought appeared more and more insistently the vile stationer's gewgaw that it was, Guy did not dare to approach Margaret in the security of an old intimacy. It was she, however, with her grace who healed the wound. "You're not hurt with me for speaking about that little thing?" she asked. "You see, you are in a way my brother." "Margaret, you are a dear!" And then recurred to him, as if from Ladingford Manor, the lines of Christina Rossetti, which he half whispered to her: "For there is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather; To cheer one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down, To strengthen whilst one stands." They had the sharper emotion for Guy because he had neither brothers nor sisters of his own; and that this lovely girl beside him on this dreaming barge should be his sister gave to the landscape one more incommunicable beauty. And so all day they glided down the young Thames; and when Guy had sat long enough with Margaret in the stern, he sat with Pauline at the prow; and about twilight they reached Oxford, whence they came to Shipcot by train and drove through five miles of moonlight back to Wychford. AUGUST Pauline and Guy with their formal engagement in sight were careful to give no excuse for a postponement by abusing their privileges. The river was now much overgrown with weeds, and in the last week of July rough weather set in which kept them in the Rectory a good deal on the occasions when they met. Guy, too, was harder at work than he had been all the Summer. The fact of being presently engaged in the eyes of the world was sufficiently exciting for Pauline to console her for the shorter time spent with Guy. Moreover, she was so grateful to her family for not opposing the publication of the engagement that she tried particularly to impress them with the sameness of herself, notwithstanding her being in love with Guy. It happened, therefore, that the old manner of existence at the Rectory reasserted itself for a while; the music in the evenings, the mornings in the garden, everything, indeed, that could make the family suppose that she was set securely in the heart of their united life. "When you and Margaret marry," Monica announced, one afternoon when the three sisters were in their nursery, "I really think I shall become a nun." "But we can't all leave Father and Mother!" Pauline exclaimed, shocked at the deserted prospect. "Now isn't that like people in love?" said Monica. "Ah, but, anyway, I shall only be living at Plashers Mead," Pauline went on. "So they won't be left entirely alone." "And as I probably sha'n't ever make up my mind to be married," Margaret added, "and as I've yet to meet the Mother Superior whom Monica could stand for more than a week, it seems probable that everything at the Rectory will go on pretty much the same." "Margaret, you will marry. I can't think why you talk like that. If you don't intend to marry Richard, you ought to tell him so now, and not keep him any longer in uncertainty." Pauline realized that Margaret did not like this direct attack, but it was so rarely that Margaret made it possible even to allude to Richard that she had to take the opportunity. "I don't think I've interfered much with you and Guy," said Margaret. "Is it necessary that you should settle my affairs?" "Oh, don't speak so unkindly to me, Margaret. I'm not trying to interfere. And, anyway, you do criticize Guy and me. Both you and Monica criticize us." "Only when you tell us we don't understand about love." "Well, you don't." "All of us don't want to be in love quite so obviously as you," said Margaret. "And Monica agrees with me." Monica nodded. "Well, it's my character," said Pauline. "I always knew that when I did fall in love I should fall dreadfully deep in love. I don't want to be thinking all the while about my personal dignity. I adore Guy. Why shouldn't I show it? Margaret loves Richard, but simply because she's so self-conscious she can't bear to show it. You call me morbid, Margaret, but I call you much more morbid than I." Yet, though she resented them at the time, Margaret's and Monica's continual demands for Pauline to be vigilant over her impulsiveness had an effect; and during all the month before they were engaged she tried when she was with Guy to acquire a little of the attitude her sisters desired. Circumstances, by keeping them for a good deal of the time at the Rectory, made this easy; and Guy, exalted by the notion of the formal troth, never made it difficult. Pauline tried to recapture more of the old interests of life at Wychford, and she was particularly attentive to Miss Verney, going often to see her in the little house at the top of the hill and sitting with her in the oblong garden whenever the August sun showed itself. "I'm sure I'm sorry it's going to be a protracted engagement," said Miss Verney. "They are apt to place a great strain upon people. I'm sure when I read in _The Times_ all about people's wills, though I always feel a trifle vulgar and inquisitive when I do so, I often say to myself, 'Well, really, it seems a pity that some people should have so much more money than is quite necessary.' Only yesterday evening I read of a gentleman called Somethingheim who left five hundred and seven thousand one hundred and six pounds fourteen shillings and some odd pence, and really, I thought to myself how much nicer it would have looked without the seven thousand one hundred and six pounds fourteen shillings and odd pence. And really I had quite a fanciful time imagining that I received a letter presenting it to me on account of some services my father rendered at Sebastopol, which at the time were overlooked. Seven thousand pounds I thought I would present to you and Mr. Guy Hazlewood, if you would allow me; a hundred pounds to the church; six pounds I had the idea of devoting to the garden; and the fourteen shillings and sevenpence--I remember now it was sevenpence--I thought would make such a pleasant surprise for my servant Mabel, who is really a most good-hearted girl, tactful with the cats, and not too fond of young men." "How sweet of you, Miss Verney, to think of such a nice present," said Pauline, who as she watched the old maid's grave air of patronage began almost to believe that the money had been given to her. "No, indeed, don't thank me at all, for I cannot imagine anything that would give me such true pleasure. Let me see. Seven thousand pounds at four per cent., which I think is as much as you could expect to get safely. That's seventy times four--two hundred and eighty pounds a year." "And Guy has some money--one hundred and fifty pounds, or one hundred and fifteen pounds, or it may be only fifty pounds." "Let us call it a hundred pounds," said Miss Verney. "For it would be more prudent not to exaggerate. Three hundred and eighty pounds a year. And I've no doubt the Rector on his side would be able to manage twenty pounds. Four hundred pounds a year. Surely a very nice little sum on which to marry. Oh, certainly quite a pleasant little sum." "Only the gentleman hasn't given you the seven thousand pounds," said Pauline. "No, exactly, he has not. That's just where it is," Miss Verney agreed. "But even if he hasn't," said Pauline, springing up and kissing her, "that doesn't prevent your being my dear Miss Verney; and so, thank you seven times for every pound you were going to give me." "My dear child, it would be, as I believe I remarked, a pleasure. I have the greatest dread of long engagements. My own, you know, lasted five years; and at the end of the time a misunderstanding arose with my father, who, being a sailor, had a hasty temper. This very misunderstanding arose over money. I'm sure the person who invented money was a great curse to the world, and deserved to be pecked at by that uncomfortable eagle much more than that poor fellow Prometheus, of whom I was reading in a mythology book that was given to me as a prize for spelling, and which I came across last night in an old trunk. My father declared that William.... His name; I believe I've never told you his name; his name was William Bankes, spelled with an E. Now, my own being Daisy after the ship which my father commanded at the moment when my poor mother ... when, in fact, I was born--my own name being Daisy, I was always a little doubtful as to whether people would laugh at the conjunction with Bankes, but being spelled with an E, I dare say it wouldn't have been uncomfortably remarked upon. My father said that William had deceived him about some money. Well, whatever it was, William broke off our engagement; and though all his presents were returned to him and all his letters, the miniature fell out of my hand when I was wrapping it up. I think I must have been a little upset at the moment, for I am not usually careless with any kind of ornament. And when I picked it up it was so cracked that I could scarcely bring myself to return it, feeling in a way ashamed of my carelessness and also wishing to keep something of William's by me. I have often blamed myself for doing this, and no doubt if the incident had occurred now when I am older, I should have acted more properly. However, at the time I was only twenty-four; so possibly there was a little excuse for what I did." Miss Verney stopped and stared out of her window; all about the room the cats were purring in the sunbeams; Pauline had a dozen plans racing through her mind for finding William and bringing him back like Peter in Mrs. Gaskell's book. She was just half-way up the hill with fluttering heart, longing to see Miss Verney's joy at the return of her William ... when tea tinkled in and the dream vanished. When Pauline told Guy about Miss Verney's seven thousand pounds he was rather annoyed, and said he was sorry that he and she were already an object of charity in Wychford. "Oh, Guy," she protested, "you mustn't take poor Miss Verney too seriously; but it was so sweet of her to want to set us up with an income." "Besides I _have_ got a hundred and fifty," said Guy. "Oh, Guy dear, don't look so cross. Please don't be cross and dreadfully in earnest about anything so stupid as money." "I feel everybody will be pitying you for becoming engaged to a penniless pretender like me," he sighed. "Don't be so stupid, Guy. If they pity anybody, they'll pity you for having a wife so utterly vague about practical things as I am. But I won't be, Guy, when we're married." "Oh, my own, I wish we were married now. God! I wish, I wish we were!" He had clasped her to him, and she drew away. Guy begged her pardon for swearing; but really she had drawn away because his eyes were so bright and wild that she was momentarily afraid of him. August kept wet and stormy; but on the nineteenth, the day before Guy's birthday and the vigil of their betrothal, the sun came out with the fierceness of late Summer. Pauline went with Margaret and Monica for a walk in the corn-fields, because she and Guy, although it was one of their trysting-days, had each resolved to keep it strictly empty of the other's company, so that after a kind of fast they should meet on the great day itself with a deeper welcome. Pauline made a wreath of poppies for Margaret, and for Monica a wreath of cornflowers; but her sisters could find no flower that became Pauline on this vigil, nor did she mind, for to-morrow was beckoning to her across the wheat, and she gladly went ungarlanded. "I wonder why I feel as if this were our last walk together," said Margaret. "Oh, Margaret, how can you say a horrid thing like that?" Pauline exclaimed; and to-morrow drooped before her in the dusty path. "No, darling, it's not horrid. But, oh, you don't know how much I mind that in a way the Rectory as it always has been will no longer be the Rectory." Pauline vowed she would go home, not caring on whose wheat she trampled, if Margaret talked any more like that. "I can't think why you want to make me sad," she protested. "What difference, after all, will this announcement of our engagement bring? I shall wear a ring, that's all!" "But everybody will know you belong to Guy," said Margaret, "instead of to all of us." "Oh, my dears, my dears," Pauline vowed, "I shall always belong to you as well! Don't make me feel unhappy." "You don't really feel unhappy," said Monica in her wise way, "because every morning I can hear you singing to yourself long before you ought to be awake." Then her sisters kissed her, and through the golden corn-fields they walked silently home. When Pauline was in bed that night her mother lingered after Margaret and Monica had left her room. "Are you glad, darling, you are going to give Guy such a charming birthday present to-morrow?" she asked. "It's your present," said Pauline, "because I couldn't possibly give myself unless you wanted me to. You know that, don't you, Mother? You do know that, don't you?" "I want you to be my happy Pauline," her mother whispered. "And I think that with Guy you will be my happy Pauline." "Oh, Mother, I shall, I shall! I love him so. Mother, what about Father? He simply won't say anything to me. To-day I helped him with transplanting, and I've been helping a lot lately ... with the daffodil bulbs when we came back from Ladingford, and all sorts of things. But he simply won't say a word." "Francis is always like that," her mother replied. "Even when he first was in love with me. Really, he never proposed ... we somehow got married. I think the best thing will be for you and Guy to go up to his room after lunch to-morrow, before he goes out in the garden; then you can show him your ring." "Oh, Mother, tell me what ring it is that Guy has found for me." "It's charming ... charming ... charming," said her mother, enthusiastically. "Oh, I won't ask, but I'm longing to see it. Mother, what do you think it will be? Oh, but you know, so I mustn't ask you to guess. Oh, I do hope Margaret and Monica will like it." "It's charming ... charming ... and now go to sleep." Her mother kissed her good night, and when she was gone Pauline took from under her pillow the crystal ring. "However nice the new one is," she said, "I shall always love you best, you secret ring." Then she got out of bed and took from her desk the manuscript book bound with a Siennese end-paper of shepherds and shepherdesses and rosy bowers, that was to be her birthday present to him. "What poetry will he write in you about me, you funny empty book?" she asked, and inscribed it-- For Guy with all of his Pauline's love. The book was left open for the roaming letters to dry themselves without a smudge, because there was never any blotting-paper in this desk that was littered with childish things. Then Pauline went to the window; but a gusty wind of late Summer was rustling the leaves and she could not stay dreaming on the night as in May she had dreamed. There was something faintly disquieting about this hollow wind which was like an envoy threatening the trees with the furious Winter to come, and Pauline shivered. "Summer will soon be gone," she whispered, "but nowadays it doesn't matter, because all days will be happy." On this thought she fell asleep, and woke to a sunny morning, though the sky was a turbid blue across which swollen clouds were steadily moving. She lay watchful, wondering if this quiet time of six o'clock would hold the best of Guy's birthday and if by eight o'clock the sky would not be quite gray. It was a pity she and Guy had not arranged to meet early, so that before the day was spoiled they should have possessed themselves of its prime. Pauline could no longer stay in bed with this sunlight, the lucid shadows of which, caught from the wistaria leaves, were flickering all about the room. She must go to the window and salute his birthday. Suddenly she recalled something Guy had once said of how he pictured her always moving round her room in the morning like a small white cloud. Blushful at the intimacy of the thought, she looked at herself in the glass. "You're his! You're his!" she whispered to her image. "Are you a white goose, as Margaret said you were? Or are you the least bit like a cloud?" Guy came and knelt by her in church that morning, and she took his action as the sign he offered to the world of holding her now openly. In the great church they were kneeling; rose-fired both of them by the crimson gowns of the high saints along the clerestory; and then Guy slipped upon her finger the new ring he had bought for their engagement, a pink topaz set in the old fashion, which burned there like the heart of the rosy fire in which they knelt suffused. Breakfast was to be in the garden, as all Rectory birthdays were except Monica's, which fell in January; and since the day had ripened to a kind of sweet sultriness as of a pear that has hung too long upon a wall, it was grateful to sit in the shade of the weeping-willow by the side of the lily-pond. To each floating cup, tawny or damasked, white or deepest cramoisy, the Rector called their attention. Nymphæas they were to him, fountain divinities that one after the other he flattered with courteous praise. When Guy had been given all his presents Pauline saw her father put a hand in his coat and pull out a small book. "Father has remembered Guy's birthday!" she cried, clapping her hands. "Now I do call that wonderful. Francis, you're wonderful. You're really wonderful!" "Pauline, Pauline, don't get too excited," her mother begged. "And please don't call your father Francis in the garden." "Propertius," Guy murmured, shyly opening the book; but when he was going to say something about that Roman lover to the Rector, the Rector had vanished. After breakfast Pauline and Guy walked in the inner wall-garden, that was now brilliant with ten thousand deep-throated gladioli. "Pauline," said Guy, "this morning I learned Milton's sonnet on his twenty-third birthday, and I feel rather worried. Listen: "How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late Spring no bud or blossom shew'th. "Well, now, if Milton felt like that," he sighed, "what about me? Pauline, tell me again that you believe in me." "Of course I believe in you," she vowed. "And I am right to stay here?" he asked, eagerly. "Oh, Guy, of course, of course." "You see, I shall be writing to my father to-night to tell him of our engagement, and I don't want to feel you have the least doubt of me. You haven't, have you? Never? Never? There must never have been the slightest doubt, or I shall doubt." "Dearest Guy," she said, "if you changed anything for me, our love wouldn't be the best thing for you, and I only want my love to be my love, if it is the love you want, Guy. I'm not clever, you know. I'm really stupid, but I can love. Oh, I can love you more than any one, I think. I know, I know I can. Guy, I do adore you. But if I felt you were thinking you ought to go away on account of me, I would have to give you up." "You couldn't give me up," he proclaimed, holding her straight before him with looks that were hungry for one word or one gesture that could help him to tell her what he wanted to say. "Does my love worry you?" she whispered, faint with all the responsibility she felt for the future of this lover of hers. "Pauline, my love for you is my life." But quickly they glided away from passion to discuss projects of simple happiness; and walking together a long while under the trees beyond the wall-garden, they were surprised to hear the gong sound for lunch before they had finished the decoration of Plashers Mead as it should be for their wedding-tide. Back in the sunlight, they were dazzled by the savage color of the gladioli in the hot August noon, and found them rather gaudy after the fronded half-light where nothing had disturbed the outspread vision of a future triumphantly attainable. After lunch her mother called Pauline aside and told her that now was the moment to impress the Rector with the fact of her engagement. The tradition was that her father went up to his library for half an hour every day in order to rest after lunch before he sallied out into the garden or the parish. As usual, his rest was consisting of standing on a chair and dragging down old numbers of _The Botanical Magazine_ or heavy volumes of _The Garden_ in order to search out a fact in connection with some plant. When Pauline and Guy presented themselves the Rector gave them a cordial invitation to enter, and Pauline fancied that he was being quite exceptionally kindly in his tone towards Guy. "Well, and what can I do for you two?" he asked, as he lit his long clay pipe and sat upright in his old leather arm-chair to regard them. "Father," said Pauline, coming straight to the heart of her subject, "have you seen my engagement ring?" She offered him the pink topaz to admire, and he bowed his head, conveying that faint mockery with which he treated anything that was not a flower. "Very fine. Very fine, my dear." "Well, aren't you going to congratulate me?" Pauline asked. "On what?" "Oh, Father, you are naughty. On Guy, of course." "Bless my heart," said the Rector. "And on what am I to congratulate him?" "On me, of course," said Pauline. "Now I wonder if I can honestly do that?" said the Rector, very seriously. "Father, you do realize, don't you, because you are being so naughty, but you do realize that from to-day we are really engaged?" "Only from to-day?" the Rector asked, a twinkle in his eye. "Well, of course," Pauline explained, "we've been in love for very nearly a year." "And when have you decided to get married?" Pauline looked at Guy. "We thought in about two years, sir," said Guy. "That is, of course, as soon as I've published my first book. Perhaps in a year, really." "Just when you find it convenient, in fact," said the Rector, still twinkling. "Well, Father," Pauline interrupted, "have we got your permission? Because that's what we've come up to ask." "You surprise me," said the Rector, starting back with an exaggerated look of astonishment such as one might use with children. "Father, if you won't be serious about it, I shall be very much hurt." "I am very serious indeed about it," said the Rector. "And supposing I said I wouldn't hear of any such thing as an engagement between you two young creatures, what would you say then?" "Oh, I should never forgive you," Pauline declared. "Besides, we're not young. Guy is twenty-three." "Now I thought he was at least fifty," said the Rector. "Father, we shall have to go away if you won't be serious. Mother told us to explain to you, and I think it's really unkind of you to laugh at us." The Rector rose and knocked his pipe out. "I must finish off the perennials. Well, well, Pauline, my dear, you're twenty-one...." Pauline would have liked to let him go on thinking she was of age, but she could not on this solemn occasion, and so she told him that she was still only twenty. "Ah, that makes a difference," said the Rector, pretending to look very fierce. And when Pauline's face fell he added, with a chuckle, "of one year. Well, well, I fancy you've both arranged everything. What is there left for me to say? You mustn't forget to show Guy those Nerines. God bless you, pretty babies. Be happy." Then the Rector walked quickly away and left them together in his dusty library where the botanical folios and quartos displaying tropic blooms sprawled open about the floor, where along the mantelpiece the rhizomes of _Oncocyclus irises_ were being dried; and where seeds were strewn plenteously on his desk, rattling among the papers whenever the wind blew. "Guy, we are really engaged." "Pauline, Pauline!" In the dusty room among the ghosts of dead seasons and the moldering store amassed by the suns of other years, they stood locked, heart to heart. Before Guy went home that night, when they were lingering in the hall, he told Pauline that the next thing to be done was to write to his own father. "Guy, do you think he'll like me?" "Why, how could he help it? But he may grumble at the idea of my being engaged." "When do you think he'll write?" "I expect he'll come down here to see me. In the Spring he wrote and said he would." "Guy, I'm sure he's going to make it difficult for you." Guy shook his head. "I know how to manage him," he proclaimed, confidently. Then he opened the door; along the drive the wind moaned, getting up for a gusty Bartlemy-tide. Pauline stood in the lighted doorway, letting the light shine upon him until he was lost in the shadows of the tall trees, sending, as he vanished, one more kiss down the wind to her. "Are you happy to-night?" asked her mother, bending over Pauline when she was in bed. "Oh, Mother darling, I'm so happy that I can't tell you how happy I am." In the candle-light her new ring sparkled; and when her mother was gone she put beside it the crystal ring, and it seemed to sparkle still more. Pauline was in such a mood of tenderness to everything that she petted even her pillow with a kind of affection, and she had the contentment of knowing she was going to meet sleep as if it were a great benignant figure that was bending to hear her tale of happy love. ANOTHER AUTUMN SEPTEMBER Guy became much occupied with the best way of breaking to his father the news of his engagement. He wished it were his marriage of which he had to inform him; for there was about marriage such a beautiful finality of spilled milk that the briefest letter would have settled everything. If now he wrote to announce an engagement, he ran the risk of his father's refusal to come and pay him that visit on which he was building such hopes from the combined effect of Pauline and Plashers Mead in restoring to the schoolmaster the bright mirror of his own youth. It would scarcely be fair to the Greys to introduce him while he was still ignorant of the relation in which he was supposed to stand to them, for they could scarcely be expected to regard him as a man to be humored up to such a point. After all, it was not as if he in his heart looked to his father for practical help; in reality he knew already that the engagement would meet with his opposition, notwithstanding Pauline ... notwithstanding Plashers Mead. Perhaps it would be better to write and tell him about it; if he came it would obviate an awkward explanation and there could be no question of false pretenses; if he declined to come, no doubt he would write such a letter as would justify his son in holding him up to the Greys as naturally intractable. Indeed, if it were not that he knew how sensitive Pauline was to the paternal benediction, he would have made no attempt to present him at all. His father kept him waiting over a week before he replied to the announcement Guy had ultimately decided to send him; and when it came, the letter did not promise the most favorable prospect. FOX HALL, GALTON, HANTS, _September 1st_. DEAR GUY,--I have taken a few days to think over the extraordinary news you have seen fit to communicate. I hope I am not so far removed from sympathy with your aspirations as not to be able to understand almost anything you might have to tell me about yourself. But this I confess defeats my best intentions, setting as it does a crown on all the rest of your acts of folly. I tried to believe that your desire to write poetry was merely a passing whim. I tried to think that your tenancy of this house was not the behavior of a thoughtless and wilful young man. I was most anxious, as I clearly showed (i) by my gift of £150, (ii) by my offer of a post at Fox Hall, to put myself in accord with your ambition; and now you write and tell me after a year's unprofitable idling that you are engaged to be married! I admit as a minute point in your favor you do not suggest that I should help you to tie yourself for life to the fancy of a young man of just twenty-three. Little did I think when I wrote to wish you many happy returns of the 20th of August, although you had previously disappointed me by your refusal to help me out of a nasty difficulty, little did I think that my answer was going to be this piece of reckless folly. May I ask what her parents are thinking of, or are they so blinded by your charms as to be willing to allow this daughter of theirs to wait until the income you make by selling your poetry enables you to get married? I gathered from your description of Mr. Grey that he was an extremely unpractical man; and his attitude towards your engagement certainly bears me out. I suppose I shall presently get a post-card to say that you are married on your income of £150, which, by the way, in the present state of affairs is very likely soon to be less. You invite me to come and stay with you before term begins, in order to meet the young lady to whom with extremely bad taste you jocularly allude as my "future daughter-in-law." Well, I accept your invitation, but I warn you that I shall give myself the unpleasant task of explaining to your "future father-in-law," as I suppose you would not blush to call him, what an utterly unreliable fellow you are and how in every way you have disappointed Your affectionate father, JOHN HAZLEWOOD. I shall arrive at two-thirty on the fifth (next Thursday). I wish I could say I was looking forward to seeing this insane house of yours. There was something in the taste of marmalade very appropriate to an unpleasant letter, and Guy wondered how many of them he had read at breakfast to the accompaniment of the bitter savor and the sound of crackling toast. He also wondered what was the real reason of his father's coming. Was it curiosity, or the prospect of lecturing a certain number of people gathered together to hear his opinion? Was it with the hope of dissuasion, or was it merely because he had settled to come on the fifth of September, and could not bear to thwart that finicking passion of his for knowing what he was going to do a month beforehand? Anyhow, whatever the reason, he was coming, and the next problem was to furnish for him a bedroom. How much had he in the bank? Four pounds sixteen shillings, and there was a blank counterfoil which Guy vaguely thought represented a cheque for two pounds. Of course Pauline's ring had lowered his balance rather prematurely this quarter; he ought to be very economical during the next one, and, as ill-luck would have it, next quarter would have to provide fuel. Two pounds sixteen shillings was not much to spend on furnishing a bedroom, even if the puny balance were not needed for the current expenses of the three weeks to Michaelmas. Could he borrow some bedroom furniture from the Rectory? No doubt Mrs. Grey would be amused and delighted to lend all he wanted, but it seemed rather an ignominious way of celebrating his engagement. Could he sleep on the chest in the hall? And as it wabbled to his touch he decided that not only could he not sleep on it nor in it, but that it would not even serve as a receptacle for his clothes. "Miss Peasey," he said, when the housekeeper came in to see if he had finished breakfast, "my father is coming to stay here on Thursday." Miss Peasey smiled encouragingly with the strained look in her eyes that always showed when she was hoping to find out from his next sentence what he had told her. Guy shouted his information over again, when, of course, Miss Peasey pretended she had heard him all the time. "Well, that will make quite a little variety, I'm sure." "Where will he sleep?" Guy asked. Miss Peasey jumped and said that there, she'd never thought of that. "Well, think about it now, Miss Peasey." Miss Peasey thought hard, but unfruitfully. "Could you borrow a bed in the town?" Guy shouted. "Well, wouldn't it seem rather funny? Why don't you send in to Oxford and buy a bed, Mr. Hazlewood?" Her pathetic trust in the strength of his financial resources, which Guy usually tried to encourage, was now rather irritating. "It seems hardly worth while to buy a bed for two or three days," he objected. "Which reminds me," said Miss Peasey, "that you'll really have to give that Bob another good thrashing, for he's eaten all the day's butter." "Well, we can buy more butter in Wychford, but we can't get a bed," Guy laughed. "Oh, he didn't touch the bread," said Miss Peasey. "Trust him for that. I never knew a large dog so dainty before." Guy decided to postpone the subject of the bed and try Miss Peasey more personally. "Could you spare your chest of drawers?" he asked, at top voice. Miss Peasey, however, did not answer, and from her complete indifference to his question Guy knew that she did not like the idea of such a loan. It looked as if he would be compelled to borrow the furniture from the Rectory; and then he thought how, after all, it would be a doubly good plan to do so, inasmuch as it would partially involve his father in the obligations of a guest. Moreover, it could scarcely fail to be a slight reproach to him that his son should have to borrow bedroom furniture from the family of his betrothed. Pauline was, of course, delighted at the idea of lending the furniture, and she and Guy had the greatest fun together in amassing enough to equip what would really be a very charming spare room. Deaf-and-dumb Graves was called in; and Birdwood helped also, under protest at the hindrance to his work, but at the same time reveling, if Birdwood could be said to revel, in the diversion. Mrs. Grey presided over the arrangement and fell so much in love with the new bedroom that she pillaged the Rectory much more ruthlessly than Pauline, and in the end they all decided that Guy's father would have the most attractive bedroom in Wychford. Guy, with so much preparation on hand, had no time to worry about the conduct of his father's visit, and after lunch on Thursday he got into the trap beside Godbold and drove off equably enough to meet the train at Shipcot. Mr. Hazlewood was in appearance a dried-up likeness of his son, and Guy often wondered if he would ever present to the world this desiccated exterior. Yet, after all, it was not so much his father's features as his cold eyes that gave this effect of a chilly force; he himself had his mother's eyes, and, thinking of hers burning darkly from the glooms of her sick-bed, Guy fancied that he would never wither to quite the inanimate and discouraging personality on the platform in front of him. "The train's quite punctual," said Mr. Hazlewood in rather an aggrieved tone of voice, such as he might have adopted if he had been shown a correct Latin exercise by a boy whom he was anxious to reprove. "Yes, this train is usually pretty punctual," Guy answered, and for a minute or two after a self-conscious hand-shake they talked about trains, each, as it seemed, trying to throw upon the other the responsibility of any conversation that might have promoted their ease. Guy introduced his father to Godbold, who greeted him with a kind of congratulatory respect and assumed towards Guy a manner that gave the impression of sharing with Mr. Hazlewood in his paternity. "Hope you're going to pay us a good long visit," said Godbold, hospitably, flicking the pony. Mr. Hazlewood, who, squashed as he was between Guy and fat Godbold, looked more sapless than ever, said he proposed to stay until the day after to-morrow. "Then you won't see us play Shipcot on Saturday, the last match of the season?" said Godbold in disappointed benevolence. "No, I sha'n't, I'm afraid. You see, my son is not so busy as I am." "Ah, but he's been very busy lately. Isn't that right, Mr. Hazlewood?" Godbold chuckled, with a wink across at Guy. "Well, we've all been expecting it for some time past and he has our good wishes. That he has. As sweetly pretty a young lady as you'll see in a month of Sundays." His father shrank perceptibly from a dominical pre-vision so foreign to his nature, and Guy changed the conversation by pointing out features in the landscape. "Extraordinarily inspiring sort of country," he affirmed. "So I should imagine," said his father. "Though precisely what that epithet implies I don't quite know." Guy was determined not to be put out of humor, and, surrendering the epithet at once, he substituted "bracing." "So is Hampshire," his father snapped. "I hope Wilkinson's successor has turned out well," Guy ventured in the hope that such a direct challenge would force a discharge of grievances. Surprisingly, however, his father talked without covert reproaches of the successor's virtues, of the field-club he had started, of his popularity with the boys, and of the luck which had brought him along at such short notice. At any rate, thought Guy, he could not be blamed for having caused any inconvenience to the school by his refusal to take up office at Fox Hall. The constraint of the long drive came to an end with the first view of Plashers Mead, at which his father gazed with the sort of mixture of resentment, interest, and alarm he might have displayed at the approach of a novel insect. "It looks as if it would be very damp," was his only comment. Here Godbold, who had perhaps for some time been conscious that all was not perfectly well between his passengers, interposed with a defense of Plashers Mead. "Lot of people seeing it from here think it's damp. But it isn't. In fact, it's the driest house in Wychford. And do you know for why, sir? Because it's so near running water. Running water keeps off the damp. Doctor Brydone told me that. 'Running water,' he says to me, 'keeps off the damp.' Those were his words." Mr. Hazlewood eyed Godbold distastefully--that is, so far as without turning his head he could eye him at all. Then the trap pulled up by the gate of Plashers Mead, Guy took his father's bag, and they passed in together. The noise of wheels died away, and here in the sound of the swift Greenrush Guy felt that hostility must surely be renounced at the balm of this September afternoon shedding serene sunlight. He began to display his possessions with the confidence their beauty always gave him. "Pretty good old apple-trees, eh? Ribston pippins nearly all of them. The blossom was rather spoiled by that wet May, but there's not such a bad crop considering. I like this salmon-colored phlox. General something or other beginning with an H it's called. Mr. Grey gave me a good deal. The garden, of course, was full of vegetables when I had it first. I must send you some clumps of this phlox to Galton. Of course, I got rid of the vegetables." "Yes, of course," agreed Mr. Hazlewood, dryly. "Doesn't the house look jolly from here? It's pretty old, you know. About 1590, I believe. It's a wonderful place, isn't it? Hullo! there's my housekeeper. Miss Peasey, here's my father. She's very deaf, so you'll have to shout." Mr. Hazlewood, who never shouted even at the naughtiest boy in his school, shuddered faintly at his son's invitation and bowed to Miss Peasey with a formality of disapproval that seemed to include her in the condemnation of all he beheld. "Quite a resemblance, I'm sure," Miss Peasey archly declared. "Tea will be ready at four o'clock, and Mr. Hazlewood senior's room is all in order for him." Then she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. "A little empty, I'm afraid," said Guy, as his father looked round the hall. "Is that water I hear?" "Yes, the river washes the back of the house." "And this place isn't damp?" "Not a bit," Guy declared, positively. "Well, it smells of bronchitis and double pneumonia." Guy showed his father the dining-room. "I've got it rather jolly, I think," he ventured. "Yes, my candlesticks and chairs, that your mother lent you for your rooms at Balliol, look very well," his father agreed. Guy led the way to the spare bedroom. "No wonder you spent all your money," Mr. Hazlewood commented, surveying the four-post bed and the Jacobean furniture. "How on earth did you manage to afford all this luxury?" "Oh, I picked it up somehow," said Guy, lightly. He had decided, on second thought, not to reveal the secret of the Rectory's loan. When his father had rid himself of the dust from his journey, Guy introduced him proudly to his own room. "Well, this is certainly quite a pleasant place," Mr. Hazlewood admitted. "If not too draughty with those two windows." "You must scratch a motto on the pane with the diamond pencil," Guy suggested. "My motto is hard work." "Well, write that. Or at any rate put your initials and the date." His father took up the pencil with that expression of superiority which Guy most hated, and scratched his name rather awkwardly on the glass. "I hope people won't suppose that is my ordinary hand," he said, grimly regarding the "John Hazlewood" of his inscription. During tea Guy wondered when he ought to introduce the subject of Pauline. Beyond Godbold's unfortunate allusion on the drive, nothing had been said by either of them; and Plashers Mead had not as yet effected that enchantment of his father's senses which would seem to proclaim the moment as propitious. How remote they were from one another, sitting here at tea! Really his father had not accorded him any salutation more cordial than the coldly absent-minded "good dog" he had just given to Bob. Yet there must be points of contact in their characters. There must be in himself something of his father. He could not so ridiculously resemble him and yet have absolutely nothing mentally in common. Perhaps his father did himself an injustice by his manner, for after all he had presented him with that £150. If he could only probe by some remark a generous impulse, Guy felt that in himself the affection of wonted intercourse over many years would respond immediately with a warmth of love. His father had cared greatly for his mother; and could not the love they had both known supply them with the point of sympathetic contact that would enable them to understand the ulterior intention of their two diverging lives? "It was awfully good of you, Father, to come down and stay here," said Guy. "I've really been looking forward to showing you the house. I think perhaps you understand now how much I've wanted to be here." Guy waited anxiously. "I've never thought you haven't wanted to be here," his father replied. "But between what we want and what we own there is a wide gap." Oh, why was a use to be made of these out-of-date weapons? Why could not one or two of his prejudices be surrendered, so that there were a chance of meeting him half-way? "But sometimes," said Guy, desperately, "inclination and duty coincide." "Very rarely, I'm afraid, in this world." "Do they in the next, then?" asked Guy, a little harshly, hating the conventionality of the answer that seemed to crystallize the intellectual dishonesty of a dominie's existence. He knew that the next world was merely an arid postulate which served for a few theorems and problems of education, and that duty and desire must only be kept apart on account of the hierarchical formulas of his craft. He must eternally appear as half inhuman as all the rest of the Pharisees: priests, lawyers, and schoolmasters, they were all alike in relying for their livelihood upon a capacity for depreciating human nature. "I was merely using a figure of speech," said his father. Exactly, thought Guy, and how was he ever to justify his love for Pauline to a man whose opinions could never be expressed except in figures of speech? He made up his mind to postpone the visit to the Rectory until to-morrow. Evidently it was not going to be made even moderately easy to broach the subject of Pauline. "I expect you'd like to have a look at some of my work," he suggested. "Very much," said Mr. Hazlewood; and in a moment with his dry assent he had reduced all his son's achievement to the level of a fifth-form composition. Guy took the manuscripts out of his desk, and, disengaging from the heap any poems that might be ascribed to the influence of Pauline, he presented the rest to his father. Mr. Hazlewood settled himself as comfortably as he could ever seem to be comfortable and solemnly began to read without comment. Guy would have liked to get up and leave him alone, for though he assured himself that the opinion, whether favorable or unfavorable, did not matter, his suspense was sharp and the inexpression of his father's demeanor, that assumption of tutorial impartiality, kept him puzzling and unable to do anything but watch the critic's face and toy mechanically with the hair of Bob's sentimental head upon his knee. At last the manuscripts were finished, and Guy sat back for the verdict. "Oh yes, I like some very much," said Mr. Hazlewood. "But I can't help thinking that all of them could have been written as well in recreation after the arduousness of a decent profession. However, you've burned your boats as far as Fox Hall is concerned, and I shall certainly be the first to congratulate you if you bring your ambition to a successful issue." "You mean monetarily?" Guy asked. His father did not answer. "You wouldn't count as a successful issue recognition from the people who care for poetry?" Guy went on. "I'm not particularly impressed by contemporary taste," said Mr. Hazlewood. "We seem to me to be living in a time when all the great men have gone, and the new generation does not appear likely to fill very adequately the gap they have left." "I wonder if there has ever been a time when people have not said just what you're saying? Do you seriously think you'd recognize a great man if you saw him?" "I hope I should," said his father, looking perfectly convinced that he would. "Well, I don't believe you would," said Guy. "How do you know I'm not a great man?" His father laughed dryly. "I don't know, my dear Guy, of course, and nothing would gratify me more than to find out that you were. But, at least, you'll allow me to observe that _great_ men are generally remarkable for their modesty." "Yes, after they've been accorded the homage of the world," Guy argued. "They can afford to be modest then. I fancy that most of them were self-confident in their youth. I hope they were, poor devils. It must have been miserable for most of them, if they weren't." "However," said Mr. Hazlewood, "all these theories of juvenile grandeur, interesting though they may be, do not take us far along the road of practical politics. I'm to understand, am I, that you are quite determined to remain here?" "For another year, at any rate," Guy said. "That is, until I have a volume of poems ready." "And your engagement?" asked his father. Guy smiled to himself. It was a minor triumph, but it was definitely a triumph to have made his father be the first to mention the subject that had stood at the back of their minds ever since they met on the Shipcot platform. "Look here, before we discuss that I want you to see Pauline. I think you'll understand my point of view more clearly after you've seen her. Now wouldn't you like to take a stroll round Wychford? The architecture...." Guy and his father wandered about until dusk, and in the evening after dinner they played piquet. "I suppose you wouldn't enjoy a walk in the moonlight?" Guy suggested, after the third hand. "I have my health to think about. Term begins in a fortnight, you know," said Mr. Hazlewood. Guy had pulled back the curtains and was watching the full moon. This, though ten days short of the actual anniversary, was the lunary festival of the night when he first saw Pauline. Might it be accepted as a propitious omen? Who could say? They talked of dull subjects until it was time to go to bed. Guy had sent a note to Mrs. Grey, suggesting that he should bring his father to tea next day; and so about four o'clock they set out to the Rectory, the lover in great trepidation of spirit. His father was seeming much more than ever parched and inhuman, and Guy foresaw that his effect upon Pauline would be disastrous. Nor did he feel that the strain upon his own nerves was going to be the best thing for the situation. On the way to the Rectory they met young Brydone, and Guy very nearly invited him to accompany them, in a desperate impulse to evoke a crowd in which he could lose this disturbing consciousness of his father's presence. However, he managed to avoid such a subversion of his attitude; and in a few minutes they were in the hall of the Rectory, where Mrs. Grey, as nervously agitated as she could be, was welcoming them. Luckily Margaret had arrived on the scene before Pauline, and Guy managed to place his father next to her, while he took up the task of trying to compose Mrs. Grey. At last Pauline came in, and Guy seemed to be only aware of a tremendous increase in the noise of the conversation. He realized that it was due to himself's talking nonsense at the top of his voice and that Pauline was vainly trying to get on with his father. Monica had gone to look for the Rector, and Mrs. Grey was displaying the kind of treasures she would produce at a mothers' meeting--treasures to which his father paid but the most scant attention. The whole room seemed to revolve round his father, who for Guy had become the only person in focus, as he stood there parched and inhuman, and perhaps himself a little shy of what he was evidently supposing to be a very mad family. Guy, so miserable was he feeling at his father's coldness of manner towards the Greys, wished passionately that his mother were alive, because he knew how much she would have appreciated them. Monica had now come back with information that the Rector was undiscoverable, so Mrs. Grey volunteered to show Mr. Hazlewood the garden. "She'll tell you all the flowers wrong," Pauline warned him. Mr. Hazlewood bowed. "I'm afraid I know nothing about flowers." "Guy has learned a lot from Father," said Pauline. "Haven't you, Guy?" She was making the bravest effort, but it was hopeless, utterly hopeless, Guy thought. How the promenade round these gardens that were haunted with his and her delights was banishing them one by one! How endless it was, and how complete was the failure to incorporate his father in a life which his advent had so detestably disturbed! Guy acknowledged that the meeting between him and Pauline had served no purpose, and as he looked forward to the final battle between their wills this evening, he set his teeth with rage to defeat his father, at the moment caring not at all if he never saw him again. Guy knew, as they were walking back to Plashers Mead, how little worth while it was to ask what his father had thought of the Greys; but, nevertheless, he could not resist the direct inquiry. "They seem a very happy-go-lucky family," was the reply. "I thought it extremely strange that Mr. Grey did not take the trouble to be at home for my visit. I should have thought that in regard to his daughter's future I might be considered sufficiently.... However, it's all of a piece." Guy hated the mock-modest lacuna in the characterization, and he thought of the many schoolmasters he had known whose consciousness of external opinion never allowed them to claim a virtue for themselves, although their least action always contained an implication of merit. Guy made some excuse for the Rector's absence and rather moodily walked on beside his father. The battle should be to-night; and after dinner he came directly to the point. "I hope you like Pauline?" "My dear Guy, your impulsiveness extends too far. How can I, after a few minutes' conversation, pronounce an opinion?" "But she's not a pathological case," cried Guy in exasperation. "Precisely," retorted his father. "And therefore I pay her the compliment of not rushing into headstrong approval or disapproval. Certainly she seemed to me superficially a very charming girl, but I should be inclined to think somewhat excitable." "Of course she was shy." "Naturally. These sudden immersions in new relationships do not make for ease. I was myself a little embarrassed. But, after all, the question is not whether I like--er--Pauline, but whether I am justified on her account as well as on yours in giving my countenance to this ridiculous engagement. Please don't interrupt me. My time is short, and I must, as your father, fulfil my obligations to you by saying what I have to say." Even in his speech he was epistolary, and while he spoke Guy was all the time, as it were, tearing him into small pieces and dropping him deliberately into the waste-paper basket. "Had I been given an opportunity," his father went on, "of speaking privately with Mr. Grey, I should have let him plainly understand how much I deplored your unjustifiable embarkation upon this engagement. You have, frankly, no right to engage yourself to a girl when you are without the means to bring the pledge to fruition. You possess, it is true, an income of £150 a year--too little to make you really independent, too much to compel you to relinquish your own mad scheme of livelihood. "I have had the privilege of reading your verse," he continued, protesting against an interruption with upraised hand. "Well, I am glad enough to say that it seems to me promising; but what is promising verse? A few seedlings in a flower-pot that even if they come to perfection will serve no purpose but of decoration. It is folly or mere wanton self-deception for you to pretend that you can live by poetry. Why, even if you were an American you couldn't live by poetry. Now please let me finish. My common sense no doubt strikes you as brutal, but if, when it is your turn to speak, you can produce the shadow of a probability that you will ever earn your own living, I shall be only too willing to be convinced. I am not so much enamoured of my schoolmaster's life as to wish to bind you down to that; but between being a schoolmaster and being what the world would call an idle young poseur lies a big gulf. Why did not you stick to your Macedonian idea? Surely that was romantic enough to please even you. No, the whole manner of your present life spells self-indulgence, and I warn you it will inevitably bring in its train the results of self-indulgence. My dear Guy, _do_ something. Don't stay here talking of what you are going to do. Say good-by for the present to Pauline and do something. If she is fond of you she will be prouder of you when she sees that you are determined to fight to win her. My boy, I speak to you very seriously, and I warn you that this is the last protest I shall make. You are behaving wrongly; her parents are behaving wrongly. If you must write, get some regular work. Why not try for the staff of some reputable paper like _The Spectator_?" "Good heavens!" Guy ejaculated. "Well, there may be other reputable papers, though I confess _The Spectator_ is my favorite." "Yes, I know. It probably would be." "It's this terrible inaction," his father went on. "I don't know how you can tolerate the ignominious position in which you find yourself. To me it would be unendurable." Mr. Hazlewood sighed with the satisfaction of unburdening himself, and waited for his son to reply, who with a tremendous effort not to spoil the force of his argument by losing his temper began calmly enough: "I have never contended that I should earn my living by poetry. What I have hoped is that when my first book appears it would be sufficiently remarkable to restore your confidence in me." "In other words," his father interrupted, "to tempt me to support you--or rather, as it now turns out, to help you to get married." "Well, why not?" said Guy. "I'm your only son. You can spare the money. Why shouldn't you help me? I'm not asking you to do anything before I've justified myself. I'm only asking you to wait a year. If my book is a failure, it will be I who pay the penalty, not you. My confidence will be severely damaged, whereas in your case only your conceit will be faintly ruffled." "Were I really a conceited man I should resent your last remark," said his father. "But let it pass, and finish what you were going to say." Guy got up and went to the window, seeking to find from the moonlight a coolness that would keep his temper in hand. "Would you have preferred that I did not ask Pauline to marry, that I made love to her without any intention of marriage?" "Not at all," his father replied. "I imagine that you still possess some self-restraint, that when you began to feel attracted to her you could have wrestled with yourself against what in the circumstances was a purely selfish emotion." "But why, why? What really good reason can you bring forward against my behavior, except reasons based on a cowardly fear of not being prosperous? You have always impressed on me so deeply the identity of your youthful ambitions with mine that I don't suppose I'm assuming too much when I ask what you would have done if you had met Mother when you were not in a position to marry her immediately? Would you have said nothing?" "I hope I should have had sufficient restraint not to want to marry anybody until I was able to offer material support as well as a higher devotion." "But if ... oh, love is not a matter of the will." "Excuse me," his father contradicted, obstinately. "Everything is a matter of will. That is precisely the point I am trying to make." Guy marched over to the fireplace and, balancing himself on the fender, proclaimed the attainment of a dead-lock. "You and I, my dear Father, differ in fundamentals. Supposing I admit for a moment that I may be wrong, aren't you just as wrong in not trying to see my point of view? Supposing, for instance, Tennyson had paid attention to criticism--I don't mean of his work, but of his manner of life--what would have happened?" "I can't afford to run the risk of being considered the fond parent by announcing you to the world as a second Tennyson. Thirty-five years of a schoolmaster's life have at least taught me that parents as parents have a natural propensity towards the worst excesses of human folly." "Then in other words," Guy responded, "I'm to mess up my life to preserve your dignity. That's what it amounts to. I tell you I believe in myself. I'm convinced that beside will, there is destiny." Mr. Hazlewood sniffed. "Destiny is the weak man's canonization of his own vices. "Well, then I _will_ succeed," retorted Guy. "Moreover, I will succeed in my own way. It seems a pity that we should argue acrimoniously. I shall say no more. I accept the responsibility. For what you've done for me I'm very much obliged. Would you care for a hand at piquet?" "Oh, certainly," said his father. Guy hugged himself with another minor triumph. At least it was he who had determined when the discussion should be closed. The next day, as Guy stood on the Shipcot platform and watched the slow train puffing away into the unadventurous country, he had a brief sentiment of regret for the failure of his father's visit, and made up his mind to write to him a letter to-morrow, which would sweeten a little of the bitterness between them. The bees buzzing round the wine-dark dahlias along the platform were once again audible; and close at hand was the hum of a reaper-and-binder. But as he drove back to Wychford his father passed from his mind, and mostly Guy thought of walking with Pauline under the pale and ardent blue of this September sky that was reflected in the chicory flowers along the sparse and dusty hedgerow. OCTOBER "My dears, he frightened me to death," Pauline declared to her family when Mr. Hazlewood had left the Rectory. "Only I expect, you know, that really he's rather sweet." "I don't think he approved of us very much," said Margaret. "I didn't approve of him very much," said Monica. "And where was Francis?" asked Mrs. Grey. "Francis was a naughty boy," said Pauline. Since they were sitting in the nursery, her mother allowed the christian name to pass without reproof. "He was so exactly like Guy," said Margaret. "Like Guy?" Pauline echoed, incredulously. "Yes, of course. Didn't you notice that?" Margaret laughed. "You're quite right, Margaret," said Mrs. Grey. "How clever of you to see. Now, of course, I realize how much alike they were ... how clever you are!" "Without Pauline," Margaret went on, "Guy might easily become his father all over again." "But, my dears," said Pauline, "that would be terrible. I remember how frightened I was of Guy the first day he came to the Rectory, and if he grows more like his father, I don't think I shall ever be anything else but frightened of him, even if we live for ever. For, though I'm sure he's really very sweet, I don't believe one would ever get _quite_ used to Mr. Hazlewood." Yet when Pauline was alone and had an opportunity to look back upon the visit, its effect was rather encouraging than otherwise. For one thing, it curiously made Guy more actual, because until the personality of his father projected itself upon the scene of their love he had always possessed for Pauline a kind of romantic unreality. In the Spring days and Summer days which had seemed to dedicate themselves to the service of intimacy, Guy had talked a great deal of his life before they met, but the more he had told her, the more was she in the state of being unable to realize that the central figure of these old tales was not a dream. When he was with her, she was often in a daze of wonder at the credibility of being loved like this; and there was never an occasion of seeing him even after the briefest absence that did not hold in the heart of its pleasure a surprise at his return. The appearance of Mr. Hazlewood was a phenomenon that gave the pledge of prosaic authority to her love, like a statement in print that, however absurd or uncomfortable, has a value so far beyond mere talk. She had often been made rather miserable by Guy's tales of the ladies he had loved with airy heedlessness, but these heroines had all faded out in the unreality of his life apart from her, and they took their place with days of adventure described in Macedonia or with the old diversions of Oxford. The visit of Mr. Hazlewood with the chilly disapproval it had shed was more authentic than, for instance, the idea of Guy's dark-eyed mother, who had seemed in his narrations almost to threaten Pauline with her son's fairy ancestry, as if from the grave she might at any moment summon him away. Mr. Hazlewood had carried with him a wonderful assurance of ordinariness. The merely external resemblance between him and his son proved that Guy could grow old; and the sense of his opposition was a trifling discomfort in comparison with the assurance he offered of an imaginable future. She remembered that her first idea of Guy had been that of some one dry and cynical; and no doubt this first impression of his father was equally wrong. She who had been so shy and speechless was no doubt much to blame, and the family had done nothing to help out the situation. It had been unkind of her father to hide himself, since to Mr. Hazlewood, who could not have understood that it was the sort of thing her father would be sure to do, such behavior must have presented itself very oddly. The Rector, on Pauline's remonstrating with him, was not at all penitent. "When your marriage, my dear, comes on the horizon--I don't mind how faint a horizon--of the probable, then it will be time to discuss matters in the practical way I suppose Mr. Hazlewood would like them to be discussed. Moreover, in any case, I forgot that the worthy gentleman was coming." Pauline was anxious to make excuses for the Rector to Guy, but Guy, when he came round next day, was only apologetic for his own father's behavior; and he and she came to a conclusion in the end that parents must be forgiven on account of their age. "At the same time," Guy added, "I blame my father for his conventional outlook. He doesn't seem able to realize the extraordinary help that you are to my work. In fact, he doesn't realize that my work is work. He's been teaching for so many years that now he can no longer learn anything. Your father's behavior is reasonable. He doesn't take us quite seriously, but he leaves the situation to our disentanglement. Well, we shall convince him that nothing in the world is so simple as a love like ours; but the worst of my father is that even if he were convinced he would be more annoying than ever." "You must make allowances, Guy. For one thing, how few people, even when they're young, understand about love. Besides, he's anxious about your career." "What right has he to be anxious?" Guy burst out. "If I fail, I pay the penalty, not he." "But he would be so hurt if you failed," she urged. "Pauline, if you can say that, you can imagine that I will fail. Even you are beginning to have doubts." "I haven't any doubts," she whispered. "I know you will be famous. And yet I have doubts of another sort. I sometimes wonder if I shall be enough when you are famous?" The question she had raised launched Guy upon a sea of eloquence. He worried no more about his father, but only protested his dependence upon Pauline's love for everything that he would ever have accomplished. "Yes, but I think I shall seem dull one day," she persisted, with a shake of the head. "No, no. How could you seem dull to me?" "But I'm not clever...." "Avoid that wretched word," he cried. "It can only be applied to thieves, politicians, and lawyers. I have told you a thousand times what you are to me, and I will not tell you again because I don't want to be an egotist. I don't want to represent you to myself as a creature that exists _for_ me. You are a being to whom I aspire. If we live for ever I shall have still to aspire to you and never be nearer than the hope of deserving you." "But your poetry, Guy, are you sure I appreciate it? Are you sure I'm not just a silly little thing lost in admiration of whatever you do?" Guy brushed her doubts aside. "Poetry is life trembling on the edge of human expression," he declared. "You are my life, and my poor verse faints in its powerlessness to say so. I always must be alone to blame if the treasure that you are is not proved to the world." How was she to convince him of her unworthiness, how was she to persuade this lover of hers that she was too simple a creature for his splendid enthronement? Suddenly one day he would see her in all her dullness and ordinariness, and, turning from her in disillusion, he would hold her culpable for anything in his work that might seem to have betrayed his ambition. "Guy," she called into the future, "you will always love me?" "Will there ever be another Pauline?" "Oh, there might be so easily." "Never! Never! Every hour, every moment cries 'never!'" In her heart she told herself that at least none but she could ever love him so well; and in the strange confidence his father's visit had given to her she told him in her turn how every hour and every moment made her more dependent upon his love. "I want nothing but you, nothing, nothing. I've given up everything for you." "What have you given up?" he demanded, at once, jealously and triumphantly regarding her. "Oh, nothing really; but all the foolish little interests. Nothing, my dearest, only pigeons and music and working woolen birds and visiting poor people. Such foolish little things ... and yet things that were once upon a time frightfully important." "You mustn't give up your music and your pigeons." They both laughed at the absurd conjunction. "How can I play when I'm thinking of you always, every second? Why, when I do anything but think of you, every object and every word floats away as it does when I'm tired and trying to keep awake in a big room." "You can play to me," he argued, "even when I'm not there." "Guy darling, I do, I do; but you've no idea how hopelessly playing to an absent lover destroys the time." The memory of Mr. Hazlewood's visit was soon lost in the celebration of their anniversary month. As they had promised themselves in Summer, they went on moonlit expeditions to gather mushrooms; and at the waning of the moon they rose early on many milk-white dawns instead, when the mushrooms at such an hour were veritably the spoil of dew, gleaming in their baskets under veils of gossamer. On these serene mornings the sound of autumnal bird-song came to them out of misted trees, so that they used to talk of the woods in the next Spring-time, themselves moving about the wan vapors with that very air of people who scarcely live in the present. There was in this plaintive music of robins and thrushes a regret for the days of Summer spent together that were now passed away, and yet a more robust melody might have affronted the wistful air of these milk-white dawns. The frail notes of the birds hinted at silence beyond, and through the opalescent and transuming landscape Guy and Pauline floated in fancy once more down the young Thames from Ladingford. The sad stillness of the year's surrender to decline admonished them to garner these hours, making a ghost even of the sun, as if to warn them of the fleeting world, the covetous and furtive world. They wonderfully enjoyed these hours, but Pauline, when at breakfast the mushrooms came fizzling to the table, could never believe that she had been with Guy, and she used often to be discontented on being reminded by her mother of how much of the day she had already spent in his company. Looking back at these immaterial mornings of autumnal mist, she saw them upon the confines of sleep: silvery spaces they seemed that were not robbed from any familiar time. There was during all this month a certain amount of congratulation which had to be endured, and Margaret was angry one day because Mr. and Mrs. Ford came over from Little Fairfield and alluded at tea to their hope of Richard and her soon being engaged. Pauline was naturally subject to the inquisitiveness of everybody, but as she could not without being absent-minded talk about anything except Guy, she found the general curiosity not very troublesome. Guy, however, resented this atmosphere of inquiry and was always more and more anxious to carry her out of reach of Wychford gossip. One day in mid-October they had set out together with the intention of taking a long walk to the open upland country on the other side of the town, when, as they were going up High Street, they saw two of the local chatter-boxes. "I will not stop and talk to Mrs. Brydone and Mrs. Willsher," Guy grumbled. "Let's cut up Abbey Lane." They turned aside and were making their way to the path that led under the Abbey wall to the highroad, when they saw Dr. Brydone and his son coming from that direction. "Really, there's a conspiracy of Brydones to waylay us this afternoon," Guy exclaimed, petulantly. "We shall have to go through the Abbey grounds." Pauline had passed the wicket, which he had impulsively flung open, before she realized the violation of one of her age-long rules. "It's really rather jolly in here to-day," said Guy. "I think we're duffers not to come more often, you know." The Autumn wind was booming round the plantation and sweeping up the broad path down the hillside with a skelter of leaves that gave a wild gaiety to the usually tristful scene. "Why shouldn't we explore inside?" suggested Guy. "There's something so exhilarating about this great west wind. Almost one could fancy it might blow away that ghost of a house." Pauline hesitated; since earliest childhood the Abbey had oppressed her with ill omen, and she could not overcome her prejudice in a moment. "You're not really afraid when you're with me?" he persisted. Pauline surrendered, and they went across the etiolated lawn towards the entrance. The wind was roaring through every crevice, and the ivy was scratching restlessly at the panes or shivering where through the gaps it had crept in with furry tendrils. "It's rather fun to be walking up this staircase as if this were our own house," said Guy. Pauline had an impulse to go back, and she made a quick step to descend. "Where are you going?" "Guy, I think I feel afraid." "Afraid of what?" "Oh, not of anything. Just afraid." "Come, foolish one," he whispered, gently. And she, though it was against her will, followed him up the echoing empty stairs. They went into every room, and Guy declared how they with their love were restoring to each of them the life it had known in the past. Here was a pleasant fancy, and Pauline hoped it might be true. In the thought that their presence was in a way the bestowal of charity on these maltreated halls she lost much of her alarm and began to enjoy the solitude spent with Guy. Whether they looked out at the wilderness that once was a garden or at the rank lawn in front, the thunderous wind surging round the house brought them closer together in the consciousness of their own shelter and their own peace in this deserted habitation. "Now confess," said Guy, "haven't we been rather stupid to neglect such a refuge?" "But, Guy, we haven't needed a refuge very often," objected Pauline, who, for all that she was losing some of her dread of the Abbey, was by no means inclined to set up a precedent for going there too often. "Not yet," he admitted. "But with Winter coming on and the wet days that will either keep us indoors or else prevent us from doing anything but walk perpetually along splashy roads, we sha'n't be sorry to have a place like this to which we can retreat in comparative comfort." "Oh, Guy," Pauline asked, anxiously, "I suppose we ought not to come here?" "Why on earth not?" "Don't be angry. But the idea just flashed through my mind that perhaps Mother wouldn't like us to come here very often." He sighed deeply. "Really, sometimes I wonder what is the good of being engaged. Are we for ever to be hemmed in by the conventions of a place like Wychford?" "Oh, but I expect Mother wouldn't mind, really," said Pauline, reassuring herself and him. "I'm always liable to these fits of doubt. Sometimes I feel quite weighed down by the responsibility of being grown up." She laughed at herself, and the laughter ringing through the hollow house seemed to return and mock her with a mirthless echo. "Oh, Guy!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Guy, I wish I hadn't laughed then! Did you hear how strangely it seemed as if the house laughed back at me?" She had gripped his arm, and Guy, startled by her gesture, exclaimed rather irritably that she ought to control her nerves. "Well, don't let's stay in this room. I don't like the green light that the ivy is giving your face." "What next?" he grumbled. "Well, let's go out on the balcony." They went half-way down-stairs to the door that opened on a large balustraded terrace with steps leading from either end into the ruined garden. The wind beat against them with such force here that very soon they went back into the house, and Guy found a small room looking out on the terrace, in which he persuaded Pauline to come and sit for a while. All the other rooms in the house had been so dreadfully decayed, so much battered by every humiliation time could inflict upon them, that this small parlor was in contrast positively habitable. It gave the impression of being perhaps the last place to which the long-vanished owners had desperately held. There was a rusty hob-grate, and in the window a deep wooden seat; while the walls were still painted with courtly scenes, and the inlaid wooden floor gave a decency which everywhere else had been destroyed by the mouldering boards. "I say, it would be fun to light a fire some time," said Guy. "This is just the room for us." "It's rather a frightening room," said Pauline, doubtfully. "Dearest, you insist on being frightened by everything this afternoon," he answered. "No, but this room is frightening, Guy," she persisted. "This seems so near to being lived in by dead people." "And what can dead people do to you and me?" he asked, with that sidelong mocking smile which she half disliked, half loved. Pauline looked back over her shoulder once; then she came across to where he invited her to sit in the window-bay. "I ought to have brought my diamond pencil," he said. "This is such a window for mottoes. Why, I declare! Somebody has scrawled one. Look, Pauline. Pauline, look! _1770. R. G. P. F._ inside a heart. Oh, what a pity it wasn't _P. G._ for Pauline Grey. Still, the _G_ can stand for Guy. Oh, really, I think it's an extraordinary coincidence! _P. F.?_ We can find out which of the Fentons that was. We'll look up in the history of the family. Darling, I am so glad we came to this little room. Think of those lovers who sat here once like us. Pauline, it makes me cherish you so." She sat upon his knees, because the window-seat was dusty, and because in this place of fled lovers she wanted to be held closely to his heart. The wind boomed and moaned, and the sun breaking through the clouds lit up the walls with a wild yellow light. Suddenly Pauline drew away from his arms. "Shadows went by the window," she cried. "Guy, I feel afraid. I feel afraid. There's a footstep." She was lily-white whose cheeks had but now been burning so fiercely. "Nonsense," he replied, half roughly. "It was that burst of sunshine." "Guy, there were shadows. Hark!" She nearly screamed, because footsteps were going down the stairs of the empty house. "It must have been the caretaker," said Guy. "I saw a white person. Guy, never, never let us come here again." "You don't seriously think you saw a ghost?" he asked. "Guy, how do I know? Come away into the air. We should never have come here. Oh, this room! I feel as if I should faint." "I'll see who it was," said Guy, springing up. "No, don't leave me. Wait for me. I'll come with you." They hurried down the stairs, and when they reached the pallid lawn they saw Margaret and Monica in their white coats disappearing among the yew-trees by the entrance. "There are your ghosts," said Guy, laughing. Yet, though Guy scoffed at her fears, Pauline was not sure that she would not have preferred a ghost to that disquieting passage of her sisters without hail or comment. Yet perhaps, after all, they had not seen her and Guy in that sinister small parlor. "Shall we catch them up?" he asked. And Pauline, with a breath of dismay, was conscious of an inclination to pretend that they had not been here this afternoon. She discovered herself, as it were, proposing to Guy that they should not overtake Monica and Margaret. A secretiveness she had never known before had seized her soul, and she hoped that their presence in the Abbey was unknown. Guy divined at once that she did not want to overtake her sisters, and he kept her under the trees, where they watched each assault of the wind tearing at the little foliage that still remained. He guided her tenderly away from the sight of the house; and they walked along the broad path down through the shrubbery, meeting a rout of brown and red and yellow leaves that swept by them. She clung to Guy's arm as if this urgent and tumultuous wind had the power to sweep her, too, into the confusion; such an affraying journey was life beginning to seem. This ghastly elation of the October weather would not allow her breath to examine the perplexity in which she had involved herself. She felt that if the wind blew any louder she would have to scream out in defiance of its violence or else surrender miserably and be whirled into oblivion. A brown oak-leaf had escaped from the perishable host and was palpitating in a fold of her sleeve like a hunted creature; but when Pauline would have rescued it at the same moment a gust came roaring up the walk under the hissing trees, and the driven leaf was torn from its refuge and flung high into the air to join the myriads in their giddy riot of death. "Come away from here," she cried to Guy. "Come away or I shall go mad in this wind." He looked at her with a sort of judicial demeanor, as if he were in doubt whether he ought not to reprove such excitement. "It was really beginning to blow quite fiercely," he said, when they had reached the comparative stillness of Abbey Lane. Behind them Pauline still heard with terror and hatred the moaning of the trees, and she hurried away from the sound. "Never, never will I go there again. Why did you ask me to go there? I would sooner have met a thousand Brydones than have been in that house." "Pauline," he protested, "you really do sometimes encourage yourself to be overwrought." "Guy, don't lecture me," she said, turning upon him fiercely. "Well, don't let the whole of Wychford see that you're in a temper," he retorted. "People haven't yet got over the idea of us two as a natural curiosity of the neighborhood. I don't want ... and I don't suppose you're very anxious for these yokels to discuss our quarrels in the post-office to-night?" "I don't mind what anybody does," said Pauline, desperately. "I only want to be out of this wind--this wind." She was rather glad that Guy, perhaps to punish her for the loss of control, said he must go and work instead of coming back to tea at the Rectory. It strangely gave her the ability to smile at him and be in their parting herself again, whereas had he come back with her she knew that she would still have felt irritated. Her smile may have abashed his ill-humor, for he seemed inclined to change his mind about the need for work; but she would not let him, and hurried towards home at the back of the west wind. Should she ask her sisters if they had seen her in the Abbey? It would be better to wait until they said something first. It would really be best to say nothing about this afternoon. Tea was in the nursery that day, for the Rector was holding some sort of colloquy in the drawing-room, which he always used for parochial business, because he dreaded having his seeds scattered by the awkward fingers of the flock. Tea had not come in yet, and Pauline took her familiar seat in the window, glad to be out of the wind, but pondering a little mournfully the lawn mottled with leaves, and the lily-pond that was being seamed and crinkled by every gust that skated across the surface. When the others arrived Pauline knew that she turned round to greet them defiantly, although she would have given much not to feel excuseful like this. "You didn't see Monica and me?" Margaret asked. "Only after you'd gone too far for us to call to you," Pauline answered, nervously assuring herself that Margaret had not tried to "catch her out," as Janet would have said. "We had taken the short cut through the Abbey," Monica explained. Pauline felt that what Monica had meant to say was: "We did not spy upon you deliberately." And that she should have had this instinct of putting her sisters in the wrong prepared her for something unpleasant, that and the fuss her mother was making over the tea-tray. Pauline was more than ever grateful to the impulse which had not allowed Guy to change his mind and come back with her. As soon as tea was over Margaret and Monica went away to practise a duet; and in the manner of their going from the room Pauline felt the louring of the atmosphere. Her mother began at once: "Pauline, I'm surprised at your going into the Abbey with Guy." "Well, it was really an accident. I mean it was because we wanted not to meet any of the Brydones, who were rushing at us from every side." Pauline tried to laugh, but her mother looked down at the milk-jug and flushed nearly to crimson in the embarrassment of something she was forcing herself to say. "It's not merely going into the Abbey ... no ... not merely that ... no, not merely going into the Abbey ... but to let Guy make love to you like that is so vulgar. Pauline, it's the sort of way that servants behave when they're in love." She sprang from the window-seat. "Mother, what do you mean?" "Margaret and Monica saw you sitting on Guy's knee. In any case I would rather you never did that. In any case ... yes ... but in a place where people passing might have seen ... yes, would have seen ... oh, it was inexcusable. I shall have to make much stricter rules...." "Are you going to speak to Guy about this?" Pauline asked. The house seemed to be whirling away like a leaf, such a shattering of her love were these words of her mother. "How can I speak to Guy about it?" Mrs. Grey demanded, irritably. "How can I, Pauline? It has nearly choked me to speak to you." "I think Monica and Margaret are almost wicked!" Pauline cried in flames. "They are trying to destroy everything. They are, they are. No, Mother, you sha'n't defend them. I knew they felt guilty when they went out of the room like that. How dare they put horrible thoughts in your mind? How dare they? They're cruel to me. And you're cruel to me. I don't understand what's happening to everybody. You'll make me hate you all, if you speak like that!" She rushed from the nursery and went first to the music-room, where Margaret was sounding deep notes, hanging over her violoncello, and where Monica was playing one of those contained, somewhat frigid accompaniments. "Margaret and Monica," said Pauline, standing in the doorway, "you're never to dare to speak about me to Mother as you must have spoken this afternoon. Because neither of you has any emotion but conceit and selfishness, you shall not be jealous of Guy and me. Margaret, you can have no heart. I shall write to Richard and tell him you're heartless. Don't smile down at your violoncello. You shall not rule me into being like yourself. Oh, I'll never play music with either of you again!" Then she left them, and in her white room for an hour she listened hopelessly to the trolling wind. NOVEMBER Guy was very indignant when he heard from Pauline the sequel of her sisters' vigilance. That they should afterwards have tried to atone with gentleness for what they had made her suffer did not avail with him. Monica and Margaret now impressed him with their unworldly beauty in a strange way, for they became sinister figures like the Lady Geraldine in Christabel, sly, malignant sylphs set in ambush to haunt the romantic path of his love. He was intensely aware that he ought not to resent their interference, but that he ought, in fact, to acknowledge the justice of it, and by a stoical endeavor prove himself entitled to the cares of this long engagement. Actually Guy was enduring a violent jealousy, and illogically he began to declare how the others were jealous of him and Pauline. The consciousness that he could not carry her off into immediate marriage galled him, and he suffered all the pangs of an unmerited servitude. He and Pauline became the prisoners of tyrants who were urging them to accept the yoke of convention; the more he suffered the more he knew in his heart that he was culpable, and the more culpable he recognized himself the more he chafed against the burden of waiting. All the resolutions that with the announcement of their betrothal had seemed to sail before a prospering breeze now turned and beat up against adverse influences, and were every moment in danger of being irreparably wrecked. Naturally coincident with all the stress of a situation, that owing to the temperament of the Greys was never relieved by discussion, was a complete failure to advance on the private road of his poetical ambition. All that he had written was seeming vain and bad; all that he was now trying to write deteriorated with every word painfully inscribed upon the cheerless empty page. He had conceived a set of eclogues that were to mark his contempt for the feverish incompetence of the modern school, whose ears had been corrupted by Wagner's filthy din; and all he could manage to achieve were seeming the banal inspirations of Mendelssohn. Guy was like an alchemist perpetually on the verge of discovering the stone that will transmute base metals to gold as he tried to find the secret by which such an one as Beethoven could purify with art the most violent emotions of humanity, yet always preserve their intrinsic value. He craved the secret which even the most obscure Elizabethans seemed to have possessed, that unearthly power of harmony which could fuse all baseness in a glittering song. Passion had never lost itself in arid decoration when they sang; nor yet had it ever betrayed itself with that impudently direct appeal these modern lyrists made, these shameless Rousseaus of verse. Yet he was as bad as any of them, for he was either like them when he tried to write his heart, or he expired in the mere sound of words like the degenerate ruck of the Caroline heirs to a great tradition. He was almost on the point of proclaiming his final failure, and if at that moment he could have received from his father the offer to come and teach small boys at Fox Hall, he would have gone. And yet would he have gone? Could he abandon the delight of being with Pauline? The nearer he came to confessing his failure the more he longed for her company. He was surely now in the midway of the thorny path of love, and whether he progressed or retreated he could not escape the spines. Well had he said to himself that night in May: "_La belle Dame sans mercy hath thee in thrall._" All the fire and fever of his present life on the outskirts of a haunted country was for his imagination alone. However timidly his pen approached those dreams, they vanished; and whenever his pen betrayed him Guy turned despairingly again to Pauline herself. These days without her were every day more unendurable. Once he had been content to talk about her to Mrs. Grey and her sisters, to listen to their praise of her; now every word they spoke wounded his pride. This madness of love could only feed itself in the very dungeons of his mind; and unless she were with him it did so horribly gorge itself that, if he had not swiftly seen her again, the madness would have broken the bars of its prison and ridden him like a hag. It was when Guy had worked himself to this pitch of desire for the remedy of her sweet presence that Pauline was denied to him. He knew he must blame himself because, even after the warning of that afternoon in the Abbey, whenever they were together he would carry her away into the country, whence they would not return sometimes until night had fallen. Worse than that, by his now continuous withdrawal from the life of the Rectory he must have disquieted her family. He saw that they were becoming anxious about Pauline, but for that very reason he could not bring himself to mitigate a solitary doubt of theirs. Even to talk about her in the lightest way was now become an outrage upon the seclusion of their joint life. Such a conversation as that with Margaret about the silver photograph-frame was now unimaginable. What right had any one to know even what picture of Pauline burned upon his wall in the night-time? At first Pauline herself, when the memory of the shock her mother's words had been to her died out, tried to justify the attitude of guardianship. She would explain to Guy how, ever since she could remember, her mother and sisters had treated her with this vigilance. They had, as she said, always so much adored her that it was natural for them to be unable at once to relinquish entirely to some one else the complete possession of her. Yet Guy must not be jealous, because she told them none of her secrets now; indeed, she was distressed at the thought of how far outside her confidence they reproachfully esteemed themselves. Her love for him had severely shaken the perfect unity of their immemorial life together, and he must be generous and understand how gradual would have to be their renunciation of her to him. Guy, however, would not allow Pauline to have regrets like this. The most trivial consideration of her family aroused his jealousy; and when Mrs. Grey said she thought it would be better if the old rule of seeing Pauline only twice a week came into force again, Guy was determined that Pauline should resent the step as bitterly as he resented it. All the time he was with her he would be lamenting the briefness of their permitted intercourse, and since the weather was now so wet that even they could not reasonably claim beneath such streaming skies the right to abscond into deserted country, November shed a gloom upon their love. On the days when Guy did come to the Rectory, no one attempted to rob them of their privacy; they were always granted the nursery to themselves, and even sometimes they had tea there together, if visitors came, so that the privilege of their few hours should not be infringed. Nevertheless, the old sense of time and the world at their service was lost. The dull November dusk came swiftly on; and out in the passage the cuckoo with maddening reiteration proclaimed each fleeting fifteen minutes. Often Guy was asked to dinner, but the old pleasure was mostly gone, for in the evening he and Pauline were not expected to retire by themselves; and there was always an implied reproach for his influence when she refused to play her violin. Then there came a dreadful day, because some cousins had arrived to stay at the Rectory; for these two girls, like every one else, had been accustomed to adore Pauline, and so were determined to take an extreme interest in her engagement. "We seem to have a ghastly lure for them," Guy groaned in exasperation, when Pauline had managed at last to secure the nursery for themselves. "Guy, they're only staying a week." "Well," he protested, "and for me to stay with you a week takes months of these miserable little hours we have. Oh, Pauline, I must see more of you!" Then back came the adoring cousins, and Guy felt that no torture he could imagine was bad enough for them. Their cordiality to him was so great that he had to be superficially pleasant; and, as smile after smile was wrung from him, by the end of the afternoon he felt sick with the agony his politeness had cost. "Hurry and dress! hurry! hurry!" he begged Pauline in a whisper when the gong sounded. "Let us at least have five minutes alone before dinner comes and I must go." Pauline was scarcely five minutes in coming down again, but Guy counted each tick of the clock with desperate heartsickness. "Oh, my darling, my darling," he said, when she was held in the so dearly longed for, the so terribly brief embrace. "I cannot bear the torment of to-day." She tried to soothe him; but Guy had reached the depths and this relief after such effort was almost too late. "Pauline, listen," he said, quickly. "You must come and say good night to me in the garden. Do you hear? You must! You must! I sha'n't sleep unless you do. You must!" "Guy," she murmured, "I couldn't." "You must! Promise ... you must. Come down and say good night to me on the lawn. I shall wait there all night. I shall wait...." The cuckoo burst out to cry seven o'clock. "You must come. You must come. Promise." "Perhaps," she whispered, faintly. Then she said she could not. Guy went to the door. "Remember, I have not kissed you good night," he proclaimed, solemnly. "And now I'm going. I shall wait from eleven o'clock, and stay all night until you have kissed me." "Oh, but Guy...." "To-night," he said. "You promise?" "Guy, if I dare, if I dare." There were footsteps in the passage. He fled across the room, kissed her momentarily and hurried out, saying good-by to the cousins, as he passed them, with a kind of exultant affection. Outside, the November night hung humid and oppressive; Guy, looking up, felt rain falling softly yet with gathering intensity, and he lingered a few moments in the drive, held by the whispering blackness. Behind him the lamplight of the Rectory windows seemed for the moment sad and unattainable and gave him the fancy he was drifting away from a friendly shore. Then suddenly he marched away along the drive, content; for the thought of "to-night," which latterly had often brought such a presentiment of loneliness, now sounded upon his imagination like the rapture of a nightingale. Plashers Mead had never appeared so desirable as now, when it was the prelude to such an enterprise as this of consecrating with a last embrace the rain and gloom of November. If he had any hesitation about the lightness or even, setting probity aside, about the prudence of such an action, he justified himself with romantic reasons; and if he was driven by conscience to an ultimate defense, he justified himself with the exceptional circumstances that gave him a sanction to accept from Pauline this sacrifice of her traditions. Impulses to consider what he was doing were easily dismissed; indeed, before he reached his house there was not one left. Inside, the warmth and comfort of Plashers Mead were additional incentives to prosecute his resolve; every gleaming book, the breathing of the dog upon the mat before the fire, the gentle purr of the lamp, all seemed to demand that voluptuous renunciation which would later urge him forth again into the night. That it would probably be raining was not to prove an obstacle; Pauline would be more sure to come if she thought he were standing outside in the rain. It was a second Eve of St. Agnes; and Guy went across to his shelf and took down Keats. He had come to the knights and ladies praying in their dumb oratories, when there was a knock at the front door, and his mind leaped to the thought that Pauline might have sent a note by Birdwood to prevent his coming to-night. The knock sounded again, and as Miss Peasey was evidently too deeply immersed in _The Pilgrim's Progress_, her vespertine lectionary, to pay heed to visitors at this hour of nine o'clock, he must go down and open the door himself. "Are we disturbing you?" It was the voice of Brydone, and with Willsher in his wake he came into the hall. "Charlie and I have made several shots to find you in, but, of course, we know you're a busy man nowadays." "Go on up-stairs, will you?" said Guy, making a tremendous effort to appear hospitable. "I'll dig out the whisky." He went along and shouted in Miss Peasey's ear what was wanted. She looked up as if it were Apollyon himself come to affront her holy abstraction. "I think there's some left from that bottle we got in August.... I shall lay it on the mat," she told him. Guy nodded encouragingly and went up-stairs to join his guests. "Well, I suppose you'll be soon having a missus in charge here," said Brydone, heartily. Willsher hummed "Bachelor Boys" as a contributory echo of the question. "Oh no; we're not getting married at once, you know," Guy explained. "Well, you're quite right," Brydone declared, heartily. "After all, being close at hand like this, you're not much likely to draw a blank in the lottery." "Marriage is a lottery, isn't it?" said Guy, with polite sarcasm. "Rather," sighed Willsher. "Terrific!" "I suppose I shall have to be looking round preparatory to getting married in two or three years' time," Brydone added. "Well, you see, after Christmas I shall be thinking about my finals, and then I'm going to come in as the old man's partner. Country people like it best if a doctor's married. No doubt about that, is there, Charlie?" The solicitor's son agreed it was indubitable. "Of course, if I had the cash to hang on in Harley Street for ten years as a specialist, it would be another matter. But I can't, so there it is." Even this fellow had his dreams, Guy thought; even he would make acquaintance with thwarted ambitions. "Been doing anything with a rod lately?" asked Willsher, whose pastime, when he could not be standing in action on the river's bank, was always to steer a conversation in the direction of anglers' gossip. "No, not lately," said Guy, "though I knocked down a lot of apples with one last month." "Ha-ha, that's good!" Brydone ejaculated. "That's very good, Hazlewood. That's good, isn't it, Charlie?" "Awfully good," agreed the angler. Their appreciation seemed perfectly genuine, and Guy was touched by the readiness of them to be entertained by his lame wit. "I mustn't forget to tell the old man that," Brydone chuckled. "He's always digging at me over the fish. Done anything with a rod lately? I knocked down a lot of apples last month. Your governor will like that, Charlie!" Guy heard the clink of a tray deposited cautiously on the floor of the passage outside. He allowed Miss Peasey time to retreat before he opened the door, because it was one of the clauses in her charter that she was never, as a lady housekeeper, to be asked to bring a tray into a room when any one but Guy was present. He hoped that after they had drunk his visitors would depart; but, alas! the unintended charm of his conversation seemed likely to prolong their stay. "Rabelais," Brydone read slowly, as he saw the volumes on the shelves. "That's a bit thick, isn't it?" "In quantity or quality, do you mean?" asked Guy. "I've heard that's the thickest book ever written," said Brydone. "Do you read old French easily?" asked Guy. "Oh, it's in old French, is it?" said Brydone, in a disappointed voice. "That would biff me." A silence fell upon the room, a silence that seemed to symbolize the "biffing" of the doctor's son by old French. Willsher took the opportunity to steer the conversation back to fish, and ten o'clock struck in the middle of an argument between him and his friend over the merits of two artificial flies. Guy must be on the Rectory lawn by eleven o'clock, and he began to be anxious, so animated was the discussion, about the departure of these well-meaning intruders. He did not want to plunge straight from their company into the glorious darkness that would hold Pauline; and he eyed the volume of Keats lying face downward on the table, hoping he would be allowed to come back to the knights and ladies praying in their dumb oratories, while he thought with a thrill of the moment when he should be able to read: And they are gone; ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm. "If you can't get a chub any other way, you can sometimes get him with a bit of bacon," Willsher was saying. "And I know a fellow who caught one of those whoppers under Marston's Mill with a cherry. Fact, I assure you." "I know a man at Oldbridge who caught a four-pounder with a bumblebee." "I caught a six-pounder at Oxford with a mouse's head myself," Guy declared. The friends looked at him in the admiration and envy with which anglers welcome a pleasant, companionable sort of lie. It was a bad move, for it seemed as if by that lie he had drawn closer the bonds of sympathy between himself and his guests. They visibly warmed to his company, for Brydone at once invited himself to another "tot" and was obviously settling down to a competitive talk about big fish; while Willsher's first shyness turned to familiarity, so completely indeed that he asked if Guy would mind his moving the furniture in order to try to explain to that fathead Brydone the exact promontory of the Greenrush where he had caught thirty trout in an hour when the mayfly was up two years ago. Half past ten struck from the church tower, and Guy became desperate. There was nothing he hated so much as asking people to go, which was one reason why he always discouraged them at the beginning; but it really seemed as if he must bring himself to the point of asking Brydone and Willsher to leave him to his work. He decided to allow them until a quarter to eleven. The minutes dragged along, and when the quarter sounded Guy said he was sorry, but that he was very much afraid he would have to work now. "Right oh," said Brydone. "We'll tootle off." But it took ten minutes to get them out of the house, and when at last they disappeared into the mazy garden Guy was in a fume of anxiety about his tryst. He could not now go round by Rectory Lane, as he had intended at first. No doubt Brydone and Willsher would stay talking half an hour on the bridge, for the rain had stopped and they had given the impression of having the night before them. In fact, Brydone had once definitely announced that the night was still young. Yet in a way the fact of their nearness and of his having to avoid them added a zest to the adventure. How dark it was and how heavily the trees dripped in the orchard! Guy pulled the canoe from the shed and dragged it squeaking over the wet grass; not even he in the exaltation of the moment was going to swim the Hellespont. When he was in the canoe and driving it with silent strokes along the straight black stream; when the lantern was put out and the darkness was at first so thick that like the water it seemed to resist the sweep of his paddle, Guy could no longer imagine that Pauline would venture out. He became oppressed by the impenetrable and humid air, and he began to long for rain to fall as if it would reassure him that nature in such an annihilation of form was still alive. Now he had swung past the overhanging willows of the churchyard; his eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, discovered against a vague sky the vague bulk of the church, and in a minute or two he could be sure that he was come to the Rectory paddock. He was wet to the knees, and his feet, sagging in the grass, seemed to make a most prodigious noise with their gurgling. Guy was too early when he crept over the lawn, for there were still lights in all the upper windows, and he withdrew to the plantation, where he waited in rapt patience while the branches dripped and pattered, dripped and pattered ceaselessly. One by one the lights had faded out, but still he must not signal to Pauline. How should he, after all, make known to her his presence on that dark lawn? Scarcely would she perceive from her window his shadowy form. He must not even whisper; he must not strike a match. Suddenly a light crossed his vision, and he started violently before he realized that it was only a glow-worm moving with laborious progress along the damp edge of the lawn. Black indeed was the hour when a glow-worm belated on this drear night of the year's decline could so alarm him. For a while he watched the creeping phosphorescence and wondered at it in kindly fellowship, thinking how like it was to a human lover, so small and solitary in this gigantic gloom. Then he began to pick it up and, as it moved across his hand and gave it with the wan fire a ghostly semblance, he resolved to signal with this lamp to Pauline. Midnight crashed its tale from the belfry, and nowhere in the long house was there any light. There was nothing now in the world but himself and this glow-worm wandering across his hand. He moved nearer to the house and stood beneath Pauline's window; surely she was leaning out; surely that was her shadow tremulous on the inspissate air. Guy waved, and the pale light moving to and fro seemed to exact an answer, for something fell at his feet, and by the glow-worm's melancholy radiance he read "_now_" on a piece of paper. Gratefully he set the insect down to vanish upon its own amorous path into the murk. Not a tree quivered, not a raindrop slipped from a blade of grass, but Guy held out his arms to clasp his long-awaited Pauline. The "now" prolonged its duration into hours, it seemed; and then when she did come she was in his arms before he knew by her step or by the rustle of her dress that she was coming. She was in his arms as though like a moth she had floated upon a flower. Their good night was kissed in a moment, and she was gone like a moth that cannot stay upon the flower it visits. Guy waited until he thought he saw her leaning from her window once more. Then he drew close to the wall of the house and strained his eyes to catch the farewell of her hand. As he looked up the rain began to fall again; and in an ecstasy he glided back to Plashers Mead, adoring the drench of his clothes and the soft sighing of the rain. ANOTHER WINTER DECEMBER In the first elation of having been able to prove to Guy how exclusively she loved him, Pauline had no misgivings about the effect upon herself of that dark descent into the garden. It was only when Guy, urging the success of what almost seemed disturbingly to state itself as an experiment, begged her to go farther and take the negligible risk of coming out with him on the river at night, that she began to doubt if she had acted well in yielding that first small favor. The problem, that she must leave herself to determine without a hint of its existence to any one outside, stuck unresolved at the back of her conscience, whence in moments of depression it would, as it were, leap forth to assail her peace of mind. She was positive, however, that the precedent had been unwise from whatever point of view regarded, and for a while she resisted earnestly the arguments Guy evoked about the privileges conferred on lovers by the customary judgment of the world. Nevertheless, in the end she did surrender anew to his persistence, and on two nights of dim December moonlight she escaped from the house and floated with him unhappily upon the dark stream, turning pale at every lean branch that stretched out from the bank, at every shadow, and at every sound of distant dogs' barking. Guy would not understand the falseness of this pleasure and, treating with scorn her alarm, he used to invent excuses by which she would be able to account for the emptiness of the room in the event of her absence being discovered. The mere prospect of such deceit distressed Pauline, and when she realized that even already by doing what she had done deceit had been set on foot, she told him she could not bear the self-reproach which followed. It was true, as she admitted, that there was really nothing to regret except the unhappiness the discovery of her action would bring to her family, but, of course, the chief effect of this was that Guy became even more jealous of her sisters' influence. The disaccord between him and them was making visible progress, and much of love's joy was being swallowed up in the sadness this brought to her. She wished now that she had said nothing about the rebuke she had earned for that unfortunate afternoon in the Abbey. Margaret and Monica had both tried hard ever since to atone for the part they played, and having forgiven them and accepted the justice of their point of view, Pauline was distressed that Guy should treat them now practically as avowed enemies. She might have known that happiness such as hers could not last, and she reproached herself for the many times she had triumphed in the thought of the superiority of their love to any other she had witnessed. She deserved this anxiety and this doubt as a punishment for the way in which she had often scoffed at the dullness of other people who were in love. Marriage, which at first had been only a delightful dream the remoteness of which did not matter, was now appearing the only remedy for the ills that were gathering round Guy and her. As soon as she had set her heart upon this panacea she began to watch Guy's work from the point of view of its subservience to that end. She was anxious that he should work particularly hard, and she became very sensitive to any implication of laziness in the casual opinion that Margaret or Monica would sometimes express. Guy was obviously encouraged by the interest she took, and for a while in the new preoccupation of working together as it were for a common aim the strain of their restricted converse was allayed. One day early in December Guy announced that really he thought he had now enough poems to make a volume, news which roused Pauline to the greatest excitement and which on the same evening she triumphantly announced to her family at dinner. "My dears, his book is finished! And, Father, he has translated some poems of that man--that Latin creature you gave him on his birthday." "Propertius is difficult," said the Rector. "Very difficult." "Oh, but I'm so glad he's difficult, because that will make it all the more valuable if Guy ... or won't it? Oh, don't let me talk nonsense; but really, darlings, aren't you all glad that his book is finished?" "We'll drink the poet's health," said the Rector. "Oh, Father, I must kiss you.... Aren't you pleased Guy appreciated your present?" "Now, Pauline, you're sweeping your napkin down on the floor...." "Oh, but, Mother, I must kiss Francis for being so sweet." "He promised to show me the poems," said Margaret. "But Guy doesn't like me any more." "Oh yes, Margaret, he does. Oh, Margaret, he really does. And if you say that, I shall have to break a secret. He's written two poems about you." Margaret flushed. "Has he? Well, he must certainly show them to me first or I shall veto the publication." "Oh, darlings," Pauline cried, "I am happy to-night! The famousness of Guy presently ... and oh, I forgot to tell you something so touching that happened this morning. What do you think? Miss Verney consulted me as to whether I thought it was time she began to wear caps." "Guy ought to write a poem about that," said Monica. "Oh no, Monica, you're not to laugh at poor Miss Verney. I must tell her to-morrow morning about Guy's book. She so appreciates greatness." It was a delightful evening, and Pauline in her contentment felt that she was back in the heart of that old Rectory life, so far did the confidence in Guy's justification of himself enable her to leave behind the shadows of the past two months, and most of all those miserable escapades in the watery December moonlight. "A book! Dear me, how important!" said Miss Verney when next morning Pauline was telling her the news. "Quite an important event for Wychford, I'm sure. I must write to the Stores and order a copy at once ... or perhaps, as a local celebrity ... yes, I think it would be kinder to patronize our Wychford stationer." "But, Miss Verney, it's not published yet, you know. We expect it won't be published before March at the earliest." "I don't think I ever met an author," said Miss Verney, meditatively. "You see, my father being a sailor.... Really, an author in Wychford!... Dear me, it's quite an important occasion." Pauline thought she would devote the afternoon to writing the good news to Richard, and Margaret, hearing of her intention, announced surprisingly that Richard was coming back in April for two or three months. "Oh, Margaret, and you never told me." "Well, I didn't think you took much interest in Richard nowadays. He asked what had happened to you." "I am glad he's coming back, Margaret. But oh, do tell me if you are going to marry him." Margaret would not answer, but Pauline, all of whose hopes were roseate to-day, decided that Margaret had really made up her mind at last, and she went up-stairs full of penitence for her neglect of Richard, but determined to make up for it by the good news she would send both of herself and of him. WYCHFORD RECTORY, OXON, _December_. MY DEAR RICHARD,--I am sorry that I've not written to you for so long, but I know you'll forgive me, because I have to think about so many things. Margaret has just told me you are coming back in April. Be sure it is April, because my birthday is on the first of May, you know, and you must be in England for my birthday. Margaret looked very happy when she said you were coming home. Richard, I am sure that everything will be _perfect_. Guy's book is finished, and perhaps it will be published in March. If it's published early in March, I will send you a copy so that you can read it on the steamer coming home. There are two poems about Margaret, who was very sympathetic with Guy over me! That's one of the reasons why I'm sure that everything will be perfect for you. Guy wants to meet you very much. He says he admires action. That's because I told him about your bridge. Your father and mother are always very sweet to us when we go and have tea with them. Miss Verney is going to wear caps. Birdwood asked if you would bring him back a Goorcha's--is that the way to spell it?--a Goorcha's knife because Godbold won't believe something he told him. Birdwood said you were a grand young chap and were wasted out in India. Father won a prize at Vincent Square for a yellow gladiolus. It's been christened--now I've forgotten what, but after somebody who had a golden throat. Guy's dog is a lamb. A merry Christmas, and lots of love from Your loving PAULINE. Pauline looked forward to Richard's return because she hoped that if Margaret married him her own marriage to Guy would begin to appear more feasible, it being at present almost too difficult to imagine anything like marriage exploding upon the quietude of the Rectory. The return of Richard, from the moment she eyed it in relation to her own affairs, assumed an importance it had never possessed before when it was only an ideal of childish sentiment, and Pauline made of it a foundation on which she built towering hopes. Guy, as soon as he had decided to publish his first volume, instantly acquired doubts about the prudence of the step, and he rather hurt Pauline's feelings by wanting Michael Fane to come and give him the support of his judgment. "I told you I should never be enough," she said, sadly. He consoled her with various explanations of his reliance upon a friend's opinion, but he would not give up his idea of getting him, and he wrote letter after letter until he was able to announce that for a week-end in mid-December Michael was actually pledged. "And I do want you to like him," said Guy, earnestly. Pauline promised that of course she would like him, but in her heart she assured herself she never would. It was cerulean Winter weather when the friend arrived, and Pauline, who had latterly taken up the habit of often coming into the churchyard to talk for a while with Guy across the severing stream, abandoned the churchyard throughout that week-end. Guy was vexed by her withdrawal and vowed that in consequence all the pleasure of the visit had been spoiled. "For I've been rushing in and out all the time to see if you were not in sight, and I'm often absolutely boorish to Fane, who, by the way, loves your Rectory bedroom so much." "Has he condescended to let your book appear?" asked Pauline. "Oh, rather; he says that everything I've included is quite all right. In fact, he's a much less severe critic than I am myself." Pauline had made up her mind, if possible, to avoid a meeting with Michael, but on Monday she relented, and they were introduced to each other. The colloquy on that turquoise morning, when the earth smelled fresh and the grass in the orchard was so vernally green, did not help Pauline to know much about Michael Fane, save that he was not so tall as Guy, and that somehow he gave the impression of regarding life more like a portrait by Vandyck than a human being. He was cold, she settled, and she, as usual shy and blushful, could only have seemed stupid to him. That afternoon, when the disturbing friend had gone, Pauline and Guy went for a walk. "He admired you tremendously." "Did he?" she made listless answer. "He said you were a fairy's child, and he also said you really were a wild rose." "What an exaggerated way of talking about somebody whom he has seen for only a moment." "Pauline," said Guy, affectionately rallying her, "aren't you being rather naughty--rather wilful, really? Didn't you like Michael?" "Guy, you can't expect me to know whether I liked him in a minute. He made me feel shyer than even most people do." "Well, let's talk about the book instead," said Guy, "What color shall the binding be?" "What color did he suggest?" "I see you're determined to be horrid about my poor, harmless Michael." "Well, why must he be brought down like this to approve of your book?" "Oh, he has good taste, and besides he's interested in you and me." "What did you tell him about us?" Pauline asked, sharply. "Nothing, my dearest, nothing," said Guy, flinging his stick for Bob to chase over the furrows. "At least," he added, turning and looking down at her with eyebrows arched in pretended despair of her unreasonableness, "I expect I bored him to death with singing your praises." Still Pauline could not feel charitable, and still she could not smile at Guy. "Ah, my rose," he said, tenderly. "Why will you droop? Why will you care about people who cannot matter to us? My own Pauline, can't you see that I called in a third person because I dare not trust myself now. All the day long, all the night long you are my care. I'm so dreadfully anxious to justify myself; I long for assurance at every step; once I was self-confident, but I can't be self-confident any longer. Success is no responsibility in itself, but now...." "It's my responsibility," cried Pauline, melting to him. "Oh, forgive me for being jealous. Darling boy, it's just my foolish ignorance that makes me jealous of some one who can give you more than I." "But no one can!" he vowed. "I only asked Michael's advice because you are too kind a judge. My success is of such desperate importance to us two. What would it have mattered before I met you? Now my failure would.... Oh, Pauline, failure is too horrible to think of!" "As if you could fail," she chided, gently. "And if you did fail, I would almost be glad, because I would love you all the more." "Pauline, would you?" "Ah no, I wouldn't," she whispered. "Because I could not love you more than I do now." The dog, with a sigh, dropped his stick; he was become accustomed to these interludes. "Bob gives us up as hopeless," Guy laughed. "I'm not a bit sympathetic, you jealous dog," she said. "Because you have your master all day long." The next time Guy came to the Rectory he brought with him the manuscript, so that Pauline could seal it for luck; and they sat in the nursery while Guy, for the last enumeration, turned over the pages one by one. "It represents so much," he said, "and it looks so little. My father will be rather surprised. I told him I should wait another year. I wonder if I ought to have waited." "Oh no," said Pauline. "Everything else is waiting and waiting. It makes me so happy to think of these pages flying away like birds." "I hope they won't be like homing-pigeons," said Guy. "It will be rather a blow if William Worrall rejects them." "Oh, but how could he be so foolish?" "I don't think he will, really," said Guy. "After all, a good many people have indorsed the first half, and I'm positive that what I've written here is better than that. I rather wish I'd finished the Eclogues, though. Do you think perhaps I'd better wait, after all?" "Oh no, Guy, don't wait." So, very solicitously the poems were wrapped up, and when they were tied and sealed and the parcel lay addressed upon the table, Mrs. Grey with Monica and Margaret came in. They were so sympathetic about the possible adventures in sight for that parcel, and Guy was so much his rather self-conscious self, that the original relation between him and the family seemed perfectly restored. Pauline was glad to belong to them, and in her pride of Guy's achievement she basked in their simple affection, thrilling to every word or look or gesture that confirmed her desire of the cherished accord between Guy and the others. "Now I'm sure you'd both like to go and post Guy's poems," Mrs. Grey exclaimed. "Yes ... charming ... to go and post them yourselves." Pauline waited anxiously for a moment, because of late Guy had often seemed impatient of these permissions granted to him by her mother, but this afternoon he was himself and full of the shy gratitude that made her wonder if indeed nearly a year could have flown by since their love had been declared. Dusk was falling when they reached the post-office. "Will you register it, Mr. Hazlewood?" asked the post-mistress. Guy nodded, and the parcel left their hands; in silence they watched it vanish into the company of other parcels that carried so much less; then back they came through the twilight to tea at the Rectory, both feeling as if the first really important step towards marriage had been taken. "You see," said Guy, "if only these poems of mine are well received, my father must acknowledge my right to be here, and if he once admits that, what barrier can there be to our wedding?" Pauline told him how much during the last month the distant prospect of their marriage had begun to weigh upon her, but now since that parcel had been left at the post-office, she said she would always talk of their wedding because that was such a much less remote word than marriage. "Come out to-night," said Guy, suddenly. She put her hand on his arm. "Guy, don't ask me again." He was penitent at once, and full of promises never to ask her again to do anything that might cause an instant's remorse. They had reached the hall of the Rectory, and in the shadows Pauline held him to her heart, suddenly caught in the flood of tenderness that a wife might have for a husband to whose faults she could be indulgent by the measure of his greater virtues kept, as it might be, for her alone. JANUARY Guy, as soon as he had sent off the poems to a publisher, was much less violently driven by the stress of love, which latterly had urged him along so wayward a course. He began to acquire a perspective and to lose some of that desperately clinging reliance upon present joys. The need of battling against an uncertain future had brought him to the pitch of madness at the thought of the hours of Pauline's company that must be wasted; but now when to his sanguine hopes marriage presented itself as at last within sight, sometimes even seeming as close as the Fall of this new year, he was anxious to set Pauline upon more tranquil waters, lest she too should like himself be the prey of wild imaginations that might destroy utterly one untempered by any except the gentler emotions of a secluded life. Her mother and sisters, whom he had come to regard as hostile interpreters of convention, took on again their old features of kindliness and grace; and he was able to see without jealous torments how reasonable their attitude had been throughout; nay, more than reasonable, how unworldly and noble-hearted it had been in confiding Pauline to the care of one who had so few pretensions to deserve her. He upbraided himself for having by his selfishness involved Pauline in the complexities of regrets for having done something against her judgment; and in this dreary rain of January, free from the burden of uncompleted labor, he now felt a more light-hearted assurance than he had known since the beginning of their love. Bills came in by every post, but their ability to vex him had vanished in the promise his manuscript gave of a speedy defeat of all material difficulties. The reaction from the strain of decking his poems with the final touches that were to precede the trial of public judgment gave place to dreams. A dozen times Guy followed the manuscript step by step of its journey from the moment the insentient mail-cart carried it away from Wychford to the moment when Mr. William Worrall threw a first casual glance to where it lay waiting for his perusal on the desk in the Covent Garden office. Guy saw the office-boy send off the formal post-card of acknowledgment that he had already received; and in his dream he rather pitied the youth for his unconsciousness of what a treasure he was acknowledging merely in the ordinary routine of a morning's work. Perhaps the packet would lie unopened for two or three days--in fact, probably Mr. Worrall might not yet have resumed work, as they say, after a short Christmas vacation. Moreover, when he came back to business, although at Guy's request for sponsors the poems had been vouched for by one or two reputed friends of the publisher with whom he was acquainted; he would no doubt still be inclined to postpone their examination. Then one morning he would almost inadvertently cut the string and glance idly at a page, and then.... At this point the author's mental visions varied. Sometimes Worrall would be so deeply transfixed by the revelation of a new planet swimming into ken that he would sit spellbound at his own good fortune, not emerging from a trance of delight until he sent a telegram inviting the poet to come post-haste to town and discuss terms. In other dreams the publisher would distrust his own judgment and take the manuscript under his arm to a critic of taste, anxiously watching his face and, as an expression of admiration gradually diffused itself, knowing that his own wild surmise had been true. There were many other variations of the first reception of the poems, but they all ended in the expenditure of sixpence on a telegram. Here the dream would amplify itself; and proofs, binding, paper, danced before Guy's vision; while soon afterwards the first reviews were coming in. At this stage the poet's triumph assumed a hundred shapes and diversities, and ultimately he could never decide between a leader on his work in _The Times_ headed A NEW GENIUS or an eulogy on the principal page of _The Daily Mail_ that galloped neck and neck for a column alongside one of The Letters of an Englishman. The former would bestow the greater honor; the latter would be more profitable; therefore in moments of unbridled optimism he was apt to allot both proclamations to his fortune. With such an inauguration of fame the rest was easy dreaming. His father would take a train to Shipcot on the same morning; if he read _The Times_ at breakfast he would catch the eleven o'clock from Galton and, traveling by way of Basingstoke, reach Shipcot by half past two. Practically one might dream that before tea he would have settled £300 a year on his son, so that the pleasant news could be announced to the Rectory that very afternoon. In that case he and Pauline could be married in April; and actually on her twenty-first birthday she would be his wife. They would not go to the Campagna this year, because these bills must be paid, unless his father, in an access of pride due to his having bought several more eulogies at bookstalls along the line, offered to pay all debts up to the day of his wedding; in which case they could go to the Campagna: I wonder do you feel to-day As I have felt since, hand in hand, We sat down on the grass, to stray In spirit better through the land, This morn of Rome and May? They would drive out from the city along the Appian Way and turn aside to sit among the ghostliness of innumerable grasses in those primal fields, the air of which would be full of the feathery seeds and the dry scents of that onrushing Summer. There would be no thought of time and no need for words; there would merely be the two of them on a morn of Rome and May. And later in the warm afternoon they would drive home, coming back to the city's heart to eat their dinner within sound of the Roman fountains. Then all the night-time she would be his, not his in frightened gasps as when wintry England was forbidding all joy to their youth, but his endlessly, utterly, gloriously. They would travel farther south and perhaps come to that Parthenopean shore calling to him still now from the few days he had spent upon its silver heights and beside its azure waters. In his dream Pauline was leaning on his shoulder beneath an Aleppo pine, at the cliff's edge--Pauline, whose alien freshness would bring a thought of England to sigh through its boughs, and a cooler world to the aromatic drought. Theirs should be sirenian moons and dawns, and life would be this dream's perfect fulfilment. In what loggia, firefly-haunted, would he hold her? The desire with which the picture flamed upon his imagination was almost intolerable, and here he always brought her back to Plashers Mead on a June dusk. Then she could be conjured in this house, summoned in spirit here to this very room; and if they had loved Italy, how they would love England as they walked across their meadows, husband and wife! With such visions Guy set on fire each January night that floated frorely into his bedroom, until one morning a letter arrived from Mr. William Worrall that made his fingers tremble as he broke the envelope and read the news: 217 COVENT GARDEN, W.C., _January 6th_. DEAR SIR,--I have looked at the poems you were kind enough to send for my consideration, and I shall be happy to hand them to a reader for his opinion. The reader's fee is one guinea. Should his opinion be favorable, I shall be glad to discuss terms with you. Yours faithfully, WILLIAM WORRALL. Guy threw the letter down in a rage. He would almost have preferred a flat refusal to this request for money to enable some jaded hack to read his poems. The proposal appeared merely insolent, and he wrote curtly to Mr. William Worrall to demand the immediate return of his manuscript. But after all, if Worrall did not accept his work, who would? Money was an ulterior consideration when the great object was to receive such unanimous approval as would justify the apparent waste of time in which he had been indulging. The moment his father acknowledged the right he had to be confident, he in turn would try to show by following his father's advice that he was not the wrong-headed idler of his reputation. Perhaps he would send the guinea to Worrall. He tore up his first letter and wrote another in which a cheque was inclosed. Then he began to add up the counterfoils of his cheque-book, a depressing operation that displayed an imminent financial crisis. He had overdrawn £5 last quarter. That left £32 10_s_. of the money paid in on December 21st. The quarter's rent was £4 10_s_. That left £28. Miss Peasey's wages were in arrears, and he must pay her £4 10_s_. on the fifteenth of this month. That would leave £23 10_s_., and he must knock off 7_s_. 6_d_. for Bob's license. About £3 had gone at Christmas and there were the books still to pay. Twenty pounds was not much for current expenses until next Lady Day. However, he decided that he could manage in Wychford, if he did not have to pay out money for Oxford debts, the creditors of which were pressing him harder each week. £ _s_. _d_. _Lampard_. Books. 39 15 0 _Harker_. Furniture. 17 18 0 _Faucett_. Books. 22 16 6 _Williamson_. Books. 13 19 0 _Ambrose_. Books. 4 7 0 _Brough_. Tobacco. 9 19 0 _Clary_. Clothes. 44 4 0 _Miscellaneous_. Books, Clothes, Stationery, Chemist, etc., etc. about £50 A total of £202 18_s_. 6_d_. Practically he might say that £200 would clear everything. Yet was £50 enough to allow for those miscellaneous accounts? Here, for instance, was a bill of £11 for boots and another of £14 for hats, apparently, though how the deuce he could have spent all that on hats he did not know. It would be wiser to say that £250 was required to free himself from debt. Guy read through the tradesmen's letters and detected an universal impatience, for they all reminded him that not merely for fifteen months had they received nothing on account of large outstanding bills, but also they made it clear that behind reiterated demands and politeness strained to breaking-point stood darkly the law. That brute Ambrose, to whom, after all, he owed only £4 7_s_., was the most threatening. In fact, he would obviously have to pay the ruffian in full. That left only £15 13_s_. for current expenses to Lady Day, or rather £14 12_s_., for, by the way, Worrall's guinea had been left out of the reckoning. Guy wondered if he ought to get rid of Miss Peasey and manage for himself in future. Yet the housekeeper probably earned her wages by what she saved him, and if he relied on a woman who "came in" every morning, that meant feeding a family. It would be better to sell a few books. He might raise £50 that way. Ten pounds to both Lampard and Clary, and six fivers among the rest, would postpone any violent pressure for a while. Guy at once began to choose the books with which he could most easily part. It was difficult to put aside as many as might be expected to raise £50, for his collection did not contain rarities, and it would be a sheer quantity of volumes, the extraction of which would horribly deplete his shelves, upon which he must rely. The January rain dripped monotonously on the window-sills while Guy dragged book after book from the shelves that for only fifteen months had known their company. They were a melancholy sight when he had stacked on the floor as many books as he could bear to lose, each shelf looking as disreputable as a row of teeth after a fight. A hundred volumes were gone, scarcely a dozen of which had he sacrificed without a pang. But a hundred volumes in order to raise £50 must sell at an average of ten shillings apiece, and in the light of such a test of value he regarded dismayfully the victims. Precious though they were to him, he could not fairly estimate the price they would fetch at more than five shillings each. That meant the loss of at least a hundred more books. Guy felt sick at the prospect and looked miserably along the rows for the further tribute of martyrs they must be forced to yield. With intense difficulty he gathered together another fifty, and then with a final effort came again for still another fifty. Here was the first edition of Swinburne's _Essays and Studies_. That must go, for it might count as ten shillings and therefore save a weaker brother. Rossetti's Poems in this edition of 1871 must go in order to save the complete works, for he could copy out the sonnet which was not reprinted in the later edition. Here was Payne's translation of Villon, which could certainly go, for it would fetch at least fifteen shillings, and he still possessed that tattered little French edition at two francs. The collected Verlaine might as well go, and the Mallarmé with the Rops frontispiece: the six volumes would save others better loved. Besides, he was sick of French poetry, wretched stuff most of it. Yet, here was Hérédia and the Pleiad and de Vigny, all of whom were beloved exceptions. He must preserve, too, the Italians (what a solace Leopardi had been), though here were a couple of Infernos, one of which could surely be sacrificed. He opened the first: _Amor, chee a nullo amato amar perdona,_ _Mi pres del costui piacer si forte,_ _Che, come vedi, ancor non m'abbandona._ The words were stained with the blue anemone to which he had likened Pauline's eyes that first day of their love's declaration. He opened the other: _Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse,_ _Quando leggemmo il disiato riso_ _Esser baciato da cotanto amante,_ _Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso,_ _La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante:_ And in this volume the words were stained with a ragged-robin which unnoticed had come back to Plashers Mead in his pocket that May eve, and which when it fell out later he had pressed between those burning pages. It was doubtless the worst kind of sentiment, but the two books must go back upon their shelves, and never must they be lost, even if everything but Shakespeare went. Guy put his hand to his forehead and found that it was actually wet with the agony of what on this January afternoon he had been compelling himself to achieve. Each book before it was condemned he stroked fondly and smelled like incense the fragrant mustiness of the pages, since nearly every volume still commemorated either the pleasure of the moment when he had bought it or some occasion of reading equally good to recall. Then he covered the pile with a shroud of tattered stuff and wrote a letter offering them to the only bookseller in Oxford with whom he had never dealt. Two days later an assistant came over to inspect the booty. "Well?" said Guy, painfully, when the assistant put away his note-book and shot his cuffs forward. "Well, Mr. Hazlewood, we can offer you thirty-five pounds for that little lot." Guy stammered a repetition of the disappointing sum. "That's right, sir. And we don't really want them." "But surely fifty pounds...." The assistant smiled in a superior way. "We must _try_ and make a _little_ profit," he murmured. "Oh, God, you'll do that! Why, I must have paid very nearly a hundred for them, and they were practically all second hand when I bought them." The assistant shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry, sir, but in offering you thirty-five pounds I'm offering too much as it is. We don't really want them, you see. They're not really any good to us." "You're simply being damned charitable in fact," said Guy. "All right. Give me a cheque and take them away when you like ... the sooner the better." He could have kicked that pile of books he had with such hardship chosen; already they seemed to belong to this smart young assistant with the satin tie; and he began to hate this agglomeration which had cost him such agony, and in the end had swindled him out of £15. The assistant sat down and wrote a cheque for Guy, took his receipt, and bowed himself out, saying that he would send for the books in the course of the week. Through the rain Guy went for consolation to Pauline. He told her of his sacrifice, and she with all she could give of exquisite compassion listened to his tale. "But, Guy, my darling, why don't you borrow the money from Father? I am sure he'd be delighted to lend it to you." Guy shook his head. "It's impossible. My debts must be paid by myself. I wouldn't even borrow from Michael Fane. Dearest, don't look so sad. I would sell my soul for you. Kiss me. Kiss me. I care for nothing but your kisses. You must promise not to say a word of this to any one. Besides, it's no sacrifice to do anything that brings our marriage nearer by an inch. These debts are weighting me down. They stifle me. I am miserable, too, about the poems. I haven't told you yet. It's really a joke in one way. Yes, it's really funny. Worrall wrote to ask for a guinea before he read them. Now, don't you think there is something very particularly humorous in being charged a guinea by a reader? However, don't worry about that." "How could he be so stupid?" she cried. "I hope you took them away from him." "Oh no. I sent the guinea. They must be published. Pauline, I must have done something soon or I shall go mad! Surely you see the funny side of his offer? I think the notion of my expecting to get five shillings apiece out of a lot of readers, and my only reader's getting a guinea out of me is funny. I think it's quite humorous." "Nothing is funny to me that hurts you," Pauline murmured. "And I'm heartbroken about the books." "Oh, when I'm rich I can buy plenty." "But not the same books." "That's mere sentiment," he laughed. "And the only sentiment I allow myself is in connection with things that you have sanctified." Then he told her about the flowers pressed in the two volumes of Dante, both in that same fifth canto. "And almost, you know," Guy whispered, "I value most the ragged-robin, because it commemorates the day you really began to love me." "Ah no," she protested. "Guy, don't say that. I always loved you, but I was shy before. I could not tell you. Sometimes I wish I were shy now. It would make our love so much less of a strain." "Is it a strain?" "Oh, sometimes!" she cried, nearly in tears, her light-brown hair upon his shoulder. "Oh yes, yes, Guy! I can't bear to feel.... I'm frightened sometimes, and when Mother has been cross with me, I've not known what to do. Guy, you won't ever ask me to come out again at night?" "Not if it worries you afterwards." "Oh yes, it has, it has! Guy, when shall we be married?" "This year. It shall be this year," he vowed. "Let us believe that, Pauline. You do believe that?" "Oh, Guy, I adore you so wildly. It must be this year. My darling, my darling, this year ... let it be this year." Guy doled out very carefully the £35 he had accumulated by the sale of his books. Lampard and Clary had to be content with £7 apiece. Five more creditors received £4, or rather one of them only £3 19_s_., so that the guinea left over could be put back into the current account for poetic justice. There was, for the present nothing more to do but await the verdict of Worrall's reader, and in a fortnight Guy heard from the publisher to say this had been favorable enough to make Mr. Worrall wish to see him in order to discuss the matter of publication. Guy was much excited and rushed across to the Rectory in a festivity of hopefulness. He had wired to say he would be in London next day, and all that evening the name of Worrall was lauded until round his unknown personality shone the aureole of a wise and benevolent saint. There seemed no limit to what so discerning a publisher might not do for Guy, and he and Pauline became to themselves and to her family the hero and heroine of such an adventure as never had been. In the course of the evening Guy had an opportunity of talking to Margaret, and for the first time for a long while he availed himself of it. "Are you really going to talk to me, then?" she asked in mock surprise. "Margaret, I've been rather objectionable lately," said Guy, remembering with an access of penitence that it must be almost exactly a year ago that he and Margaret in that snowy weather had first talked about his love for Pauline. "Well, I have thought that you were forgetting me," said Margaret. "I shall be sad if we are never going to be friends again." "Oh, Margaret, we are friends now. I've been worried, and I thought that you had been rather unkind to Pauline." "I haven't really." "Of course not. It was absolutely my fault," Guy admitted. "Now that there seems a chance of our being married in less than ten years, I'm going to give up this continual exasperation in which I live nowadays. It's curious that my first impression of you all should have been as of a Mozart symphony, so tranquil and gay and self-contained and perfectly made did the Rectory seem. How clumsily I have plunged into that life," he sighed. "Really, Margaret, I feel sometimes like a wild beast that's escaped from a menagerie and got into a concert of chamber-music. Look here, you shall never have to grumble at me again. Now tell me, just to show that you've forgiven my detestable irruption ... when Richard comes back...." Margaret gave him her hand for a moment, and looked down. "And you're happy?" he asked, eagerly. "I'm sure I shall be." "Oh, you will be, you will be." Pauline asked him afterwards what he had said to Margaret that could have made her so particularly sweet, and when Guy whispered his discovery, Pauline declared that the one thing necessary to make this evening perfect had been just that knowledge. "Guy, how clever of you to make her tell you what she will never tell us. You don't know how much it has worried me to feel that you were always angry with Margaret. How I've exaggerated everything! And what friends you really are, you dears!" "I've never been angry with her except on your account." "But you won't ever be again, because I'm so foolish. I'm really a sort of young Miss Verney." They laughed at this idea of Pauline's, and soon it was time for Guy to go. He thought luxuriously as he walked up the drive how large a measure of good news he would bring back with him from London. Guy was surprised to be kept waiting when he inquired for Mr. Worrall at three o'clock on the following afternoon. All the way up in the train he had thought so much about him and so kindlily, that it seemed he must the very moment he entered the dusty Georgian ante-chamber shake his publisher warmly by the hand. He had pictured him really as looking out for his coming, almost as vividly indeed in his prefiguration of the scene as to behold Mr. Worrall's face pressed tight against a pane and thence disappearing to greet him from the step. It was a shock to be invited to wait, and he repeated his name to the indifferent clerk a little insistently. "Mr. Worrall will see you in a minute," the clerk repeated. Guy looked at the few objects of interest in the outer office, at the original drawings of wrappers and frontispieces, at the signed photograph of a moderately distinguished poet of the 'nineties, at a depressing accumulation of still unsold volumes. The window was grimy, and the raindrops seemed from inside to smear it as tears smudge the face of a dirty child. The clerk pored over a ledger, and from the gray afternoon the cries of the porters in Covent Garden came drearily in. At last a bell sounded, and the clerk invited him "to step this way," lifting the counter and pointing up a narrow staircase beyond a glass door. Guy went up, and at last entered Mr. Worrall's private office. The publisher was a short, fat man with a bald and curiously conical head, reminding Guy very much of a dentist in his manner. The poet sat down and immediately caught in his first survey Mr. William Worrall's caricature by Max Beerbohm. As a result of this observation Guy throughout the interview could only perceive Mr. Worrall as the caricaturist had perceived him, and like a shape in a dream his head all the time grew more and more conical, until it seemed as if it would soon bore a hole in the festooned ceiling. "Well, Mr. Hazlewood," said the publisher, referring as he spoke to Guy's card with what Guy thought was a rather unnecessary implication of oblivion--"well, Mr. Hazlewood, my reader reports very favorably on your poems, and there seems no reason why I should not publish them." Guy bowed. "No reason at all," Mr. Worrall continued. Then making a Gothic arch with his fingers and looking up at the ceiling, he added: "Though, of course, there will be a risk. However, my reader's opinion was certainly favorable." And so it ought to be, thought Guy, for a guinea. "And I don't think," Mr. Worrall went on, "that in the circumstances we need be very much afraid. Have you any ideas about the price at which your sheaf, your little harvest is to be offered to the public?" "Oh, I should leave that to you," said Guy, hastily. "Precisely," said the publisher. "Yes, I think perhaps we might say five shillings or ... of course it _might_ be done in paper in the Covent Garden Series of Modern English Poets. Yes, the reader speaks most highly of your work. You know the Covent Garden Series of Modern Poets? In paper at half-a-crown net?" "I should be very proud to appear in such a series," said Guy, pleasantly. The series, as a matter of fact, was one that could do him no discredit. "It's a charming idea, isn't it?" said Mr. Worrall, fondling one of the set that lay on his desk. "Every five volumes has its own floral emblem. We've done The Rose, The Lily, The Violet. Let me see, your poems are mostly about London, aren't they?" "No, there isn't one about London," Guy pointed out, rather sharply. "No, precisely; then of course they would _not_ come in The London Pride set which still has a vacancy. Perhaps The Cowslip? What does the reader say? Um, yes, pastoral! Precisely! Well, then why not let us decide that your poems shall be Number Three in The Cowslip set. Capital! I think you'd be wise to choose the Covent Garden series in paper. The cost of publication is really less in that series, and I have always chosen my poets so carefully that I can be sure the Press will pay attention to--er neophytes. That is a great advantage for a young writer, as you no doubt realize without my telling you?" "The cost?" echoed Guy in a puzzled voice. "It will run you in for about thirty pounds--as a guarantee of course. The terms I suggest are simply a written agreement that you will guarantee thirty pounds towards the cost. Your royalty to be ten per cent. on the first thousand, twelve and a half on the next thousand, and fifteen over two thousand. We might fairly say that in the event of selling a thousand you would have nothing to pay, but, of course, if you only sell twenty or thirty, you will have to--er--pay for your piping." "And when should I have to produce this thirty pounds?" Guy asked. "Well, I might ask for a cheque to be placed to my account on the day of publication; and then, of course, I should send in a written statement twice a year with the usual three months' margin for settlement." "So that supposing my book came out in March?" Guy inquired. "By the following November I should hope to have the pleasure of sending you back your thirty pounds and a cheque on account of royalties," said the publisher, briskly. "They don't seem very good terms, somehow," said Guy. Mr. Worrall shrugged his shoulders, and his conical head grew more conical. "You forget the advantage of being in the Covent Garden Series of Modern Poets. However, don't, pray do not, intrust your manuscript to my pilotage unless you are perfectly satisfied. I have a good many poems to consider, you know." "May I write within a week or so and give you my decision?" Guy asked. "Naturally." "Well, good-by." "Good-by, Mr. Hazlewood. Clever fellow, isn't he?" Guy had given a farewell glance at Max Beerbohm's caricature. "Very clever," the poet fervently agreed. Guy left Mr. William Worrall's office and wandered dismally across Covent Garden, wondering where on earth he was going to be able to raise £30. He had intended to spend the night in town and look up some old friends, but, foreseeing now the inevitable question, "What are you doing?" he felt he had not the heart to explain that at present he was debating the possibility of spending £30 in order to produce a book of poems. All the people whom he would have been glad to see had held such high hopes of him at Oxford, had prophesied for his career such prosperity; and now when after fifteen months he emerged from his retirement it was but to pay a man to include him in the Covent Garden Series of Modern Poets. The rain came down faster, and a creeping fog made more inhospitable the dusk of London. He thought of a quick train somewhere about five o'clock, and in a sudden longing to be back in the country and to sleep, however dark and frore the January night that stretched between them, nearer to Pauline than here in this city of drizzled fog, he took a cab to Paddington. During the railway journey Guy contemplated various plans to raise the money he wanted. He knew that his father at the cost of a long letter would probably have given him the sum; but supposing a triumph lay before him, all the sweets of it would have been robbed by paternal help. Moreover, if the book were paid for thus, there would be a consequent suspicion of all favorable criticism; it would never seem a genuine book to his father, and the reviews would give him the impression of being the work of well-disposed amateurs or of personal friends. There was the alternative of borrowing the money from Michael Fane; and then as the train went clanging through the night Guy made up his mind to be under an obligation to nobody and to sacrifice all the rest of his books if necessary that this new book might be born. When he was back at Plashers Mead his resolution did not weaken; coldly and unsentimentally he began to eviscerate the already mutilated library. At the end of his task he had stacked upon the floor five hundred volumes to be offered as a bargain to the bookseller who had bought the others. All that was left, indeed, were the cheapest and most ordinary editions of poets, one or two volumes of the greatest of all like Rabelais and Cervantes, and the eternally read and most companionable like Boswell and Gilbert White and Sir Thomas Browne. In the determination that had seized him he rejoiced in his bare shelves, so much exalted by the glories of abnegation that he began to despise himself in his former attitude as a trifler among books and to say to himself, as he looked at the volumes which had survived this heartless clearance, that now he was set on the great fairway of literature without any temptation to diverge up the narrow streams of personal taste. The bookseller's assistant was not at all eager for the proffered bargain, and in the end Guy could only manage to obtain the £30 and not, as he had hoped, another £10 towards his debts. Nevertheless, he locked the cheque up in his desk with the satisfaction of a man who for the first time in his life earns money, and later on went across to tell Pauline the result of the visit to London. There was a smell of frost in the air that afternoon, and the sharpness of the weather consorted well with Guy's mood, taking away the heavy sense of disappointment and giving him a sparkling hopefulness. He and Pauline went for a walk on Wychford down, and in the wintry cheer he would not allow her to be cast down at the loss of his books or to resent Worrall's reception of the poems. "Everything is all right," he assured her. "The more we have to deny ourselves now, the greater will be my success when it comes. The law of compensation never fails. You and I are Davidsbündler marching against the Philistines. So be brave, my Pauline." "I will try to be brave," she promised. "But it's harder for me because I'm doing nothing." "Oh, nothing," said Guy. "Nothing except endow me with passion and ambition, with consolation ... oh, nothing, you foolish one." "Am I really all that to you?" "Forward," he shouted, hurling his stick in front of him and dragging Pauline at the heels of Bob across turf that was already beginning to crackle in the frost. Pauline could not resist his confidence, and when at last they had to turn round and leave a smoky orange sunset, they came home glowing to the Rectory, both in the highest spirits. Guy wrote to the publisher that night and announced his intention of accepting the "offer," a word which he could not resist framing with inverted commas in case the sarcastic shaft might pierce Mr. Worrall's hard and conical head. Sitting back in his chair and thinking over his poems, all sorts of verbal improvements suggested themselves to Guy; and he added a note asking for the manuscript to be sent back for a few corrections. He looked at his work with new eyes when it arrived, and bent with all the enthusiasm that fruition gave his pen upon reviewing each line for the hundredth time. He had enjoyed few things so well in his life as going to bed tired with the intense consideration of a rhyme and falling asleep in the ambition to reconsider it early next morning. About ten days had passed since Guy sold the second lot of books, and the poems were now as good as he could make them until print should reveal numbers of fresh faults. He hoped that Worrall would hurry on with the printing in order to allow him plenty of time for an even more severe scrutiny; and he wrote to suggest April as the month of publication, so anxious was he to have one specially bound copy to offer Pauline on her birthday. On the very morning when the manuscript had been wrapped up and was ready to be sent off a disturbing letter arrived from Lampard, his favorite Oxford bookseller, to say that, having made a purchase of books two or three days ago, he had been surprised to find among them a large number of volumes with Mr. Hazlewood's name inscribed on the fly-leaves, for which Mr. Hazlewood had not yet paid him. He ventured to think it was only by an oversight that Mr. Hazlewood had not paid his long outstanding account before disposing of the books, and in short he was anxious to know what Mr. Hazlewood intended to do about it. His bill, £32 15_s_., was inclosed. Guy wrote back to say that it was indeed a most unaccountable oversight on his part, but that he hoped, in order to mark his sympathy with Mr. Lampard's point of view, to send him another cheque very shortly, reminding the bookseller at the same time that he had scarcely three weeks ago sent him £7 on account. Mr. Lampard, in his reply, observed very plainly that Guy's letter was no reply at all and threatened politely to make matters rather unpleasant if the bill were not paid in full instantly. Guy tried once more a letter full of bland promises, and received in response a letter from Mr. Lampard's solicitor. The £30 intended for Mr. Worrall had to be sacrificed, and even £2 15_s_. had to be taken from his current account. Savagely he tore the paper from the manuscript, wrapped it up again, and despatched it to another publisher. The bad luck of the Lampard business made him only the more resolute not to invoke aid from his father or any one else. He was a prey to a perverse determination to do everything himself; but it was gloomy news that he had to tell Pauline that afternoon, and she broke down and cried in her disappointment. FEBRUARY Pauline had been looking forward to the entrance of February with joyful remembrance of what last February had brought her; and that the anniversary of Guy's declaration of his love should be heralded by such a discomfiture of their plans was a shock. The renewal of his uncertainty about the fate of the poems destroyed the progress of a love that seemed to have come back to its old calm course, and brought back with all the added sharpness of absence the heartache and the apprehension. Pauline sat in the nursery window-seat and pondered dolefully the obstacles to happiness from which her mind, however hard it tried, could not escape. Most insistently of these obstacles Guy's debts haunted her, harassing and material responsibilities that in great uncouth battalions swept endlessly past. Even in the middle of the night she would wake gasping in an effort to escape from being stifled by their vastness pressing down upon her brain. The small presents Guy had given her burned through the darkness to reproach her: even the two rings goaded her for the extravagance they represented. It was useless for Guy to explain that his debts were a trifle, because the statement of a sum so large as £200 appalled her as much as if he had said £2,000. She longed for a confidante whose sympathy she could exact for the incubus that possessed her lover; and fancying a disloyalty to him if she discussed his money affairs with her family, she could think of no one but Miss Verney to whom the burdensome secret might be intrusted. "William had the same difficulty," sighed the old maid. "Really it seems as if money _is_ the root of all evil. Two hundred pounds, you say? Oh, dear, how uncomfortable he must feel, poor young man!" "If only I could make some money, dear Miss Verney. But how could I?" "I used to ask myself that very question," said the old maid. "I used to ask myself just that very identical question. But there was never any satisfactory answer." "It seems so dreadful that he should have sold nearly all his books and still have debts," moaned Pauline. "It seems so cruel. Ought I to give him up?" "Give him up?" repeated Miss Verney, her cheeks becoming dead white at the question. "Oh, my dear, I don't think it could be right for you to give him up on account of debts. Patience seems to me the only remedy for your troubles, patience and constancy." "No, you've misunderstood me," cried Pauline. "I'm afraid that I hamper him, that I spoil his work. If I gave him up he would go away from Wychford and be free. Besides, perhaps then his father would pay his debts. Miss Verney, Mr. Hazlewood didn't like me, and I think Guy has quarreled with him over me. Oh, I'm the most miserable girl in England, and such a little time ago I was the happiest." "Money," said Miss Verney, slowly and seeming to address her cats rather than Pauline. "The root of all evil! Yes, yes, it is. It's the root of all evil." Pauline was a little heartened by Miss Verney's readiness to consider so seriously the monster that oppressed her thoughts; yet it was disquieting to regard the old maid, whose life had been ruined by money, and who all alone with cats stayed here in this small house at the top of Wychford town, the very image of unhappy love. It was disquieting to hear her reflections on the calamity of gold uttered like this to cats, and in a sudden dread of the future Pauline beheld herself talking in the same way a long time hence. She shivered and bade Miss Verney farewell; and now to all the other woes that stood behind her in the shadows was added the vision of herself mumbling to cats in February dusks of the dim years ahead. The idea of herself as the figure of an unhappy tale of love grew continuously more definite, and once she spoke of her dread to Guy, who was very angry. "How can you encourage such morbid notions?" he protested. "You really must cultivate the power to resist them. People go mad by indulging their depression as you're doing." "Perhaps I shall go mad," she whispered. "Oh, for God's sake don't talk like that!" he ejaculated in angry alarm; and Pauline, realizing how she had frightened him, was sorry and went to the other extreme of high spirits. "I thought we had agreed to wait ten years or twenty years, if necessary," said Guy. "And now after one year you are finding the strain too much. Why won't you have confidence in me? It's unfortunate about Worrall, I admit. But there are plenty of other publishers." He mentioned names one after another, but to Pauline they were the names of stone idols that stared unresponsively at her lover's poems. "If we had only done what Mother wanted and not seen so much of each other," she lamented. Guy's disposal of her vain fears was without effect, for his eloquence could not contend with these deepening regrets; and as fast as he threw down the material obstacles to their happiness Pauline saw them maddeningly rise again in the path before them, visible shapes of ill omen, grotesquely irrepressible. Guy used to asseverate that when Spring was really come she would lose all these morbid fancies, and with his perpetual ascription to wintry gloom of all the presentiments of woe that flocked round their intercourse, Pauline did begin to fancy that when the trees were green he and she would rejoice as of old in their love. The knowledge that Spring could not linger always was the only consoling certainty she now possessed, and from the window-seat she greeted with a passionate welcome each dusky azure minute that on these lengthening eves was robbed from night. The blackbirds sang to her now more personally, these somber-suited heralds who had never before seemed to proclaim so audaciously masterful Spring; and when the young moon cowered among the ragged clouds of a rainy golden sky and the last bird slipped like a shadow into the rhododendrons, such airs and whispers of April would steal through the open window. Every day, too, there were flowery tokens of hope and in sheltered corners of the garden the primroses came out one by one, an imperceptible assemblage like the birth of stars in the luminous green west. This gray-eyed virginal month had now such memories of the last progress it made through her life that Pauline could not help imputing to the season a sentimental participation in her life; there was a poignancy in the reopening of those blue Greek anemones which Guy, a year ago, had likened to her eyes, a poignancy that might have been present if the flowers had been consciously reminding her of vanished delights. Yet it was unreasonable to encourage such an emotion; or did she indeed, as sometimes was half-whispered to her inmost soul, regret the slightest bit everything since that day of the anemones? It was one evening toward the end of the months that Monica joined her and walked up and down the edge of the lawn where in the grass a drift of purple crocuses had lately been flaming for her solitary adoration. "In a way," said Pauline, "they are my favorite flowers of all. I don't think there is any thrill quite like the first crocus bud. It seems to me that as far as I can look back, oh, Monica, ever so far, that always the moment I've seen my crocuses budding Winter seems to fly away." "I remember your looking for them when you were tiny," Monica agreed. "I can see you now kneeling down, and the mud on your knees, and your eyes screwed up when you told me about your discovery." They talked for a while of childish days, each capping the other's evocation of those hours that now in retrospect appeared like the gay pictures of an old book long ago lost, and found again on an idle afternoon. They talked, too, of Margaret and whether she would marry Richard; and presently, without the obvious transition that would have made her silent, Pauline found that they were discussing Guy and herself. "I notice he doesn't come to church now so much as he did," said Monica. Pauline was startled by an abrupt statement of something which among all the other worries she had never defined to herself, but which, now that Monica revealed its shape, she knew had occupied a dark corner at the back of her mind more threatening than any of the rest. Of course she began at once to make excuses for Guy, but her sister, who brought to religion the same scrupulous temperament she gave to her music, would not admit their validity. "Don't you ever ask him why he hasn't been?" she persisted. "Oh, of course not. Why, I couldn't, Monica! I should never feel.... Oh no, Monica, it would really be impossible for me to talk to Guy about his faith." "His faith seems rather to have frozen lately," said Monica. "He's been upset and disappointed." "All the more reason for going to church," Monica urged. "Yes, for you, darling, or for me; but Guy may be different." "There's no room for moods in one's religious duties. The artistic temperament is not provided for." That serene and nunlike conviction of tone made Pauline feel a little rebellious, and yet in its corroboration of her own uneasiness she could not laugh it aside. "Well, even if there's no excuse for him and even supposing it made me dreadfully anxious," she affirmed, "I still wouldn't say a word to him." "Does he know you go to Confession?" Pauline blushed. Monica was like a Roman Catholic in the matter-of-fact way in which she alluded to something that for Pauline pierced such sanctities as could scarcely even be mentioned by herself to her own soul. "Monica, you don't really think that I ought to speak of that," she stammered. Not even to her sister could she bring herself to utter the sacramental word. "I certainly think you should," said Monica. "When you and Guy are married it would be terrible if your duties were to be the cause of a disagreement. Why, he might even persuade you to give up going to Confession." "Darling Monica," said Pauline, nervously, "I'd rather you didn't talk about this any more. You see, you're so much better than I, and you've thought so much more deeply than I have about religion. I don't think I shall ever be able to make my faith so narrow a ... so strict a rule as yours is. No, please, Monica, don't let us talk about this subject any more." "I only mentioned it because I'm afraid that with your beautiful nature you will be too merciful to that Guy of yours." "Oh, and I'd really rather you didn't say my nature was beautiful," Pauline protested. "Truthfully, Monica darling, it's a very ugly nature indeed, and I'm afraid it's getting uglier every day." Her sister's cloistral smile flickered upon the scene like the wan February sunlight. "I do hope Guy really appreciates you," was what she said. "See how the sparrows have pulled the crocuses into ribbons," Pauline exclaimed. And so that Monica could not talk to her any more, she hailed her father, who was wandering along towards the house on the other side of the lawn. When he sauntered across to them she pointed out the destructiveness of the sparrows. "Ah, well, my dear," he chuckled, "most florists are worse." "Perhaps _I'm_ a florist," Monica whispered, "and Guy may be only a mischievous sparrow." Pauline smiled at Monica and took her arm gratefully and affectionately. "We shall have all the daffs gone before we know where we are," said the Rector. "Maximus is out under the oaks. And King Alfred is just going to turn down his buds." "Dear King Alfred," said Pauline. "How glad I shall be to say good morning to him again!" Yes, all the daffodils would soon be here and then gone; and beyond this austere afternoon already she could fancy a smell of March winds. After Monica's question it was no longer possible for Pauline when she was alone to avoid facing the problem of Guy's attitude towards religion. The repression of her anxiety on this point had only increased the force of it when it was set free like this to compete with, and, in fact, overshadow all other cares. Looking back to her earliest thoughts of the world as it would one day affect herself, she remembered how, if she had ever imagined some one in love with her, she had always created a figure whose faith would be an eternal and joyful contemplation. She had never invented for herself a marriage with some one merely good-looking or rich or endowed with any of the romantic attributes that young girls were supposed to award their ideals, as her cousins would say, of men. When Guy entered her life, the only gift he brought her for which she was at all prepared was the conviction of his faith. This indeed was his spiritual and mental reality for her; the rest of him was a figment, a dream that might pass suddenly away. The visit of his father had given her a more clearly defined assurance of his existence on earth, but his faith had been the heart of the immortal substance of her love for Guy. The endlessness of their union was always present in her thoughts, the ultimate consolation of whatever delays they might be called upon to endure. Very often, even at the beginning of the engagement, Guy had frightened her sometimes by his indifference to immortality--sometimes by his harping upon the swift flight of youth, sometimes by his manifest indulgence of her creed. All these doubts, however, of his sympathy were allayed by his apparently deliberate pleasure in worship. She was angry with herself then for her mistrust of him, and her contentment had been perfect when in church he knelt beside her on that birthday of his, that day of their avowed betrothal, and on all those other occasions when he had given an outward proof of his faith. Now as she looked back on his absence from church lately, she could not but wonder whether all his attendance had not been a kind of fair-weather spoiling of her that could not withstand the least stress of worldly circumstance. She began to torment herself over every light remark that might have been a sneer and to look forward dreadfully to Guy's abrupt declaration of a profound disbelief in everything she held most sacred. His cleverness, as he hated her to call it, intervened and seemed to wrench them asunder; and the more she pondered his behavior, the more she became convinced that all the time Guy's religion had merely been Guy's kindness. This discovery was not to make her love him less; but it did throw upon her the responsibility of the knowledge that he had nothing within himself to fortify his soul, should mishap destroy his worldly confidence. For a long time Pauline lay awake in the darkness, fretting herself on account of Guy's resourcelessness of spirit, and to her imagination concentrated on this regard of him every hour seemed to make his solitude more terrible. Of her own religion she did not think, and Monica's anxiety about their agreement after marriage was without the least hint of danger. The possibility of any one's, even Guy's, influencing her own faith was inconceivable; nor was she at all occupied with her own disappointment at not finding Guy constant to her belief in him. Pauline's one grief was for him, that now when things were going badly he should be without spiritual hope. Suddenly her warm bed seemed to her wrong and luxurious in comparison with the chill darkness she imagined about Guy's soul at this moment. Impulsively she threw back the sheets and knelt down beside the bed to pray for his peace. So vividly was she conscious of the need for prayer that she was carried to undreamed-of heights of supplication, to strange summits whereon it seemed that if she could not pray she would never know how to pray again. Ordinarily her devotions had been but a beautiful and simple end or beginning of the day; they were associated with the early warmth of the sunlight or with the gentle flutters of roosting birds; they were the comforting and tangible pledges of a childhood not yet utterly departed. Now the fires and ecstasies of a more searching faith had seized Pauline. No longer did there pass before her eyes a procession of gay-habited saints, glad celestial creatures that smiled down upon her from a paradise not much farther away than the Rectory garden; no longer did she find herself surrounded by the well-loved figures who when death took her to them would hold out their arms in actual welcome and whom she would recognize one by one. To-night these visions were uncapturable, and beyond the darkness they had forsaken stretched a terrifying void and beyond the void was nothing but light that seemed to have the power of thinking, "I am Truth!" A speck in that void she saw Guy spinning away from her, and it seemed that unless she prayed he would be spun irremediably out of her consciousness. It seemed that the fierceness of her prayer was like the fierceness of a flame that was granted the power to sustain him, for when sometimes the tongues of fire languished Guy would sink so far that only by summoning fresh force from the light beyond could she bring him back. Gradually, however, her power was waning, and with whatever desperate force she prayed he could never be brought back to the point from which he had last slipped. He was spinning away into a horror of blackness.... "O Holy Ghost, save him!" she cried. Then Pauline fainted, and wondered to find herself lying upon the cold floor when she woke as from a dream. Yet it was not like the gasping rescue of oneself from a nightmare, for she lay awake a long while afterwards in peace, and she slept as if upon a victory and very early in the morning went to church. The days when the thrushes sang matins were come, and all the way she heard freshets of holy song pouring down through the air. She and her family always knelt apart from one another, and this morning Pauline chose a place hidden from the others, a place where she could lean her cheek against a pillar and be soothed by the cool touch of the stone like the assurance of unfathomable and maternal love. Now to her calm spirit returned the vision of those happy heavenly creatures, the bright-suited and intimate companions of her childhood. They welcomed her this morning and thronged about her downcast eyes with many angels, too, that like Tobit's angel, walked by her side. Only her father's mellow voice spoke from the chancel of earth, and even he in his violet chasuble took his place among the saints, and when she went up to the altar Heaven was once again very near to her. In the morning coolness it was almost impossible to believe that last night she had fainted, and she began to believe the whole experience had been a dream's agony. However, whether it were or not, she had made up her mind to ask Guy a direct question this afternoon. If, as she feared, he was feeling hostile to religion, she would accept the warning of the night and give all her determination to prayer for his faith to return. When they were together, it was for a long time impossible to begin the subject, and it was not until Guy asked what was making her so abstracted that Pauline could ask why he never came to church any more. In the pause before he answered she suffered anew the torment of that struggle in the darkness. "Does it worry you when I don't come?" he asked. "Well, yes, it does rather." "Then, of course, I will come," said Guy, at once. Now this was exactly the reason for which least of all she wanted him to come, and a trace of her mortification may have been visible, because he asked immediately if that did not please her. "Guy, don't you want to come to church? You used to come happily, didn't you?" "I think I came chiefly to be near you," he said. "That does make me so unhappy. I'd almost rather you came out of politeness to Father." "Well, that was another reason," Guy admitted. "And you never came because you wanted to?" she asked, miserably. "Of course I wanted to." "But because you believed?" "In what?" "Oh, Guy, don't be so cruel. Don't you believe in anything?" "I believe in you," he said. "Pauline, I believe in you so passionately that when I am with you I believe in what you believe." "Then you haven't any faith?" "I want to have it," said Guy. "If God won't condescend to give it to me ..." he broke off with a shrug. "But religion is either true or it isn't true, and if it isn't true why do you encourage me in lies?" she demanded, with desperate entreaty. "I'm ready to believe," he said. "How can you expect to have faith if your reason for it is merely to sit next me in church?" she asked, bitterly. "Now, I think it's you who are being cruel," said Guy. "I don't care. I don't care if I am cruel. You'll break my heart." "Good God!" Guy exclaimed. "Haven't I enough to torment me without religion appearing upon the scene? If you want me to hate it.... No, Pauline, I'm sorry ... you mustn't think that I don't long to have your faith. If I only could.... Oh, Pauline, Pauline!" She yielded to his consolation, and when he told her of the poems sent back almost by return of post from the second publisher she must open wide her compassionate arms. Nevertheless, he had somehow maltreated their love; and Pauline was aware of a wild effort to prepare for sorrow, whether near at hand or still far off she did not know, but she seemed to hear it like a wind rising at sunset. ANOTHER SPRING MARCH When the poems were returned by three publishers within the first fortnight of March, Guy was inclined to surrender his vocation and to think about such regular work as would banish the reproach he began to fancy was now perceptible at the back of everybody's eyes. The weather was abominably cold, and even Plashers Mead itself was no longer the embodiment of the old enthusiasm. Already in order to pay current expenses he was drawing upon the next quarter, and the combination of tradesmen's books with icy draughts curling through the house produced an atmosphere of perpetual exasperation. It always seemed to be coldest on Monday morning, and Miss Peasey _would_ breathe over his shoulder while he was adding up the bills. "We apparently live on butter," he grumbled. "Oh no, it was really lamb you had yesterday," the housekeeper maintained, irrelevantly. "I said we apparently live on butter," Guy shouted. Then, of course Miss Peasey _would_ poke her veiny nose right down into the book, while the draught blew her hair about and unpleasantly tickled his cheek. "It's the best butter," she said, sorrowfully, at last. "But my watch is quite all right." "I beg your pardon?" "I made an allusion to _Alice in Wonderland_," he shouted. Miss Peasey retired from the room in dudgeon, and Guy wasted ten minutes in examining various theories on what his housekeeper could have thought he meant by his last remark. Finally he wrote off to a friend of his, an ardent young Radical peer with whom he had shared rooms at Oxford. PLASHERS MEAD, WYCHFORD, OXON, _March 15th_. DEAR COM,--Why the dickens haven't you written to me for such ages? I'm going to chuck this place. Haven't you got any scheme on hand for teaching the democracy to find out the uselessness of your order? Why not a new critical weekly with me as bondslave-in-chief? Or doesn't one of your National Liberals want a bright young fellow to dot his i's and pick up his h's? For £250 a year I'll serve any of them, write his speeches, interview his constituents or even teach his cubs to prey on the body politic like Father Lion himself. Seriously, though, if you hear of anything, do think of me. Yours ever, G. H. Comeragh wrote back at once: 420 BROOK STREET, W., _March 16th_. DEAR OLD GUY,--If you will bury yourself like a misanthropic badger, you can't expect to be written to by every post. Oddly enough there has been some talk of starting a new paper; at least it isn't really very odd because the subject is mooted three times a day in the advanced political circles round which I revolve. However, just at present the scheme is in abeyance. Never mind, I'll fetch you out of your earth at the first excuse that offers itself. Do you ever go in and see the Balliol people? My young brother's up now, you know. Ask him over to lunch some day. He's a shining light of Tory Democracy and is going to preserve, or I suppose I ought to say conserve, the honor of our family. When are your poems coming out? I heard from Tom Anstruther the other day. He seems rather hurt that an attaché at Madrid is not given an opportunity of adjusting or upsetting the balance of power in Europe. I'll try to get down for a week-end, but I'm betraying my order by voting against an obscurantist majority whenever I can, and plotting hard against the liberties of landowners when I'm not voting. However, when the House flies away to search for Summer I'll drop out of the flock and perch a while on your roof. One thing I will promise, which is that when I'm Prime Minister you shall be offered the Laurel at £200 a year. Yours ever, COM. It was jolly to hear from Comeragh like this, and the letter opened for Guy a prospect of something that, when he came to think about it, appeared very much like a retreat. He realized abruptly that the strain of the last two months had been playing upon his nerves to such an extent that the notion of leaving Wychiford was no longer very distasteful. The realization of his potential apostasy came with rather a shock, and he felt that he ought somehow to atone to Pauline for the disloyalty towards her his attitude seemed to involve. He began to go to church again in a desperate endeavor to pursue the phantom that she called faith, but this very endeavor only made more apparent the vital difference in their relations with life. She always had for his attempts to capture something worth while for himself in religion a kind of questioning anxiety which was faintly irritating; and though he always pushed the problem hastily out of sight, the fact that he could now be irritated by her was dolefully significant. All through this month of maddening east wind Guy felt that he stood upon the verge of a catastrophe, and the despatch of the poems which at first had done so much to help matters along was now only another source of vexation. Formerly he had always possessed the refuge of work, but in this perpetual uncertainty he could not settle down to anything fresh, and the expectation every morning of his poems being once again rejected was a handicap to the whole day. Partly to plunge himself into a reaction and partly to avoid and even to crush their spiritual divergence, Guy always made love passionately to Pauline during these days. He was aware that she was terribly tried by this, but the knowledge made him more selfishly passionate. A sort of brutality had entered into their relation which Guy hated, but to which in these circumstances that made him feverishly glad to wound her he allowed more liberty every day. The merely physical side of this struggle between them was, of course, accentuated by the gag placed upon discussion. He would not give her the chance of saying why she feared his kisses, and he took an unfair advantage of the conviction that Pauline would never declare a reason until he demanded one. He was horribly conscious of abusing her love for him, and the more he was aware of that the more brutal he showed himself until sometimes he used to wonder in dismay if at the back of his mind the impulse to destroy his love altogether had not been born. Easter was approaching, and Pauline went to Oxford for a week to get Summer clothes. When she came back, Guy found her attitude changed. She was remote, almost evasive, and at the back of her tenderest glance was now a wistful appeal that perplexed his ardor. "I feel you don't want me to kiss you," he said, reproachfully. "What has happened? Why have you come back from Oxford so cold? What has happened to you, Pauline?" Her eyes took fire, melted into tenderness, flamed once more, and then were quenched in rising tears. The voice in which she answered him seemed to come from another world. "Guy, I am not cold.... I'm not cold enough...." She flung herself away from his gesture of endearment and buried her cheeks in the cushion of the faded old settee. A wild calm had fallen upon the room, as if like the atmosphere before a thunder-storm it could register a warning of the emotional tempest at hand. The books, the furniture, the very pattern of birds and daisies upon the wall stood out sharply, almost luridly it seemed; the cuckoo from the passage called the hour in notes of alarm, as if a storm-cock were sweeping up to cover from dangerous open country. "What do you mean?" Guy asked. He knew that he was carrying the situation between Pauline and himself farther along than he had ever taken it since the night they met. Yet nothing could have stopped his course at this moment and, if the end should ruin his life, he would persist. "What do you mean?" he repeated. "Don't ask me," she sobbed. "It's cruel to ask me." "You mean your mother...." he began. "No, no, it's myself, myself." "My dearest, if it's only yourself, you need not be afraid. Why, you're so adorable...." Pauline seemed to cry out at the wound he had given her, and Guy started back, afraid for an instant of what he was provoking. "Don't treat me like a stupid little girl that petting can cure. I'm not adorable, I'm bad.... I'm ... oh, Guy, I am so unhappy!" "What do you mean by 'bad'?" he asked. "You talk as if we were.... Really, darling, you don't grasp life at all." "Guy," she said, turning to him with fierce earnestness, "don't persuade me I've done nothing. I have. I ought not. I've known that all the time. If you don't want me to be miserable for the rest of my life, you mustn't persuade me. I've been so weak...." He was annoyed at the exaggeration in her words and perplexed by her violence. "Anybody would think, you know," he told her, "that we have behaved terribly." "We have. We have." Her mouth was drawn with pain; her eyes were wild. "But we've not," Guy contradicted, mustering desperately all the forces of normality to allay Pauline's over-strained ideas. "We've not," he repeated. "You don't understand, darling Pauline, that when you talk like that you give the impression of something that is unimaginable of you. It's dreadful to have to talk about this, but it's better that we should discuss it than that you should torture yourself needlessly like this." "It's not what we've done so much," she said. "It's what you've made me think about you." Guy laughed rather miserably. "That seems a very trifling reason for so much ... well, you know, it's very nearly hysteria." "To you, perhaps," she retorted, bitterly. "To me it's like madness." "I can't understand these morbid fancies of yours. What have you been doing in Oxford? Ah, I know," he shouted, in a rage of sudden divination. "You've been talking to a priest.... Oh, if I could burn every interfering scoundrel who...." The scene swept over him, choking the words in his throat with indignant impotent jealousy. "You've been to Confession. And what good have you got from it, but lies, lies?" "I've always been to Confession," Pauline answered, coldly. In a flash Guy visualized her religious life as one long creeping towards a gloomy Confessional, where lurked a smooth-faced priest who poured his poison into her ears. "You shall go no more," he vowed. "What right have you to drag the holiness of love in the mud of a priest's mind?" "You don't know how stupidly you're talking," said Pauline. "You say I exaggerate. You don't know how much you are exaggerating. You don't understand." "I thought you wanted me to have faith! How can I have faith when I hear of priests degrading our love? What right had you to go to a priest? What does he know of you or me? What has he suffered? What does he understand? Why do you listen to him and pay no heed to me? What did you say?" Pauline looked at him in silence. "What did you say?" he repeated, angrily. He was caring for nothing at that moment but to tear from her the history of the scene that made a furnace of his brain. "He must have tried to put the idea into your head that you've been doing wrong. I say you have done nothing wrong. I suppose you told him you came out at night with me on the river, and I suppose he concluded from that.... Oh, Pauline, I cannot let you be a prey to the mind of a priest. You don't realize what it means to me. You don't realise the raging jealousy it rouses." "Guy," she moaned, "love is too much for me. I can't bear the uncertainty. Your debts ... the sending back of your poems ... the fear that we shall never be married ... the doubts ... the thought that I've deceived my family ... the misery I bring to you because I can't think everything is right...." "I don't want you always to agree with me. I've promised never to ask you again to come out with me at night. I'll even promise never to kiss you again until we are married. But you must promise me never again to go to Confession." "I can't give up what I believe is right," she said. "Then I won't give up what I believe is right." He strained her to him and kissed her lips so closely that they were white instead of red. Then he went from her in an impulse to let her, if she would, break off the engagement. If he had stayed he must have blasphemed the religion which was soiling with its murk their love. He must have hurt her so deeply that he would have compelled her to bid him never come back. It was for her now, the responsibility of going on, and she should find what religion would do for her when she was left alone to battle with the infamous suggestions the fiction was giving to her mind. She should find that beside his love religion was nothing, that the folly would topple down and betray her at this very moment. When next he saw her, she would have forgotten her priests and their mummery; she would think only of him and live only for him. "Blow, you damned wind," he shouted to the brilliant and tranquil March day. "Blow, blow, can't you? You've blown all these days, and now when I want you in my face you lie still." But the weather stayed serene, and Guy had to run in order to tire the fury in his mind. He did not stop until he realized by the scampering of the March hares to right and left of his path how very absurd he must appear even to the blind heavens. "Why," he exclaimed, suddenly standing still and addressing a thorn-tree on the green down. "Why, of course, now I realize the Reformation!" This sudden apprehension of a tremendous historical fact was rather disconcerting in the way it brought home to him the uselessness of all the information that he had for years absorbed without any real response of recognition. It brought home to him how much he would have to discover for himself and appalled him with the mockery it made of his confidence hitherto. How if all those poems he had written were merely external emotion like his conception of religion until this moment? He really hoped the manuscript would come back this evening from whatever publisher had last eyed it disdainfully, so that in the light of this revelation of his youthfulness he could judge his life's achievement afresh. It was indeed frightening that in one moment all his comfortable standards could be struck away from beneath his feet, for if an outburst of jealousy on account of a priest's interference could suddenly reshape his conception of history, what fundamental changes in his conception of art might not be waiting for him a little way ahead? The spectacle of Pauline's simple creed had hitherto pleasantly affected his senses; and she had taken her place with the heroines of romantic poets and painters. It had been pleasant to murmur: Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars: and to compare himself with the lover of The Blessed Damozel had been a luxurious melancholy. Pauline and he had worshiped together in chapels of Lyonesse, where, if he had knelt beside her with a rather tender condescension towards her prayers, he had always been moved sincerely by the decorative appeal they made to him. He had felt a sentimental awe of her hushed approach to the altar, and he had derived a kind of sentimental satisfaction from the perfection of her attitude, perhaps, even more, he had placed upon it a sentimental reliance. Her faith had been the decorative adjunct of a great deal of his verse, and he flushed hotly to remember lines that now appeared as damnable insincerities with which he had allowed his pen to play. All that piety of hers he had sung so prettily was real and possessed an intrinsic power to injure him, so that what he had patronized and encouraged could rise up and pit itself deliberately against him. Pauline actually believed in her religion, believed in it to the extent of dishonoring their love to appease the mumbo-jumbo. That something so monstrously inexistent could have any such power was barely comprehensible, and yet here he was faced with what easily might prove to be a force powerful enough to annihilate their love. He remembered how in reading of Christina Rossetti's renunciation of a lover who did not believe as she believed, he had thought of the incident as a poet's exaggeration. And it might well have happened. Now, indeed, he could see why she was so much the greatest poetess of them all; her faith had been real. Lines from that Sonnet of sonnets came back to him, broken lines but full of dread: I love ... God the most; Would lose not Him but you, must one be lost: And if Pauline should speak so to him, if Pauline should disown him at the bidding of her phantom gods? How the thought swept into oblivion all his pitiful achievement, all his fretful emotions set down in rhyme. Either he must convince her that she was affrighted by vain fancies or he must bow before this reality of belief and seek humbly the truth where she discovered it. Yet if he took that course it held no pledge of faith for him. Shamefacedly and scarcely able to bear even the thorn-tree's presence, Guy knelt down and prayed that he might be given Pauline's single heart. The song of the innumerable larks rose into the crystalline, but all the prayers tumbled down from that stuffy pavilion of sky. The moment that the first emotional aspiration was thus defeated Guy was only conscious of his lapse into superstition, and, furious with the surrender, he went walking over the downs in a determination to shake Pauline's faith at whatever the cost temporarily to the beautiful appearance of their love. He wrote that evening in a fine frenzy of declamation against God, affirming in his verse the rights of man; but on reading the lines through next morning they seemed like the first vapors of adolescence; and when he turned for consolation to Shelley he found that even a great poet's rage on behalf of man against God was often turgid enough. It was, however, a hopeful sign that he could still perceive what puddles these aerial fountains of song often left behind them, and he was glad to find that not all the value of critical experience had been destroyed by the imperative need to readjust his values of reality. Birdwood brought a note from Pauline just when Guy had burned his effusion of the night before and come to the conclusion that as a polemical and atheistic rhymester he was of the very poorest quality. The gardener was inclined to be chatty, and when the weather and the dowers in season had been discussed at length, he observed that Miss Pauline was not looking so well as she ought to look. "You'll have to speak to her about it, Mr. Hazlenut." Birdwood had never learned to give Guy his proper name, and there had been many jokes between him and Pauline about this, and many vows by Guy that one day he would address the gardener as Birdseed. How far away such foolish little jokes were seeming now. "It's been a tiring Spring," said Guy. "The east wind...." "Her cheeks isn't nothing like so rosy as they was," said the gardener. "You'll excuse the liberty I'm taking in mentioning them, but having known Miss Pauline since she couldn't walk.... Why I happen to mention it is that there was a certain somebody up in the town who passed the remark to me and, I having to give him a piece of my mind pretty sharp on account of him talking so free, it sort of stuck in my memory and.... You don't think she's middling?" "Oh no, I think she's quite well," said Guy. "Well, as long as you aren't worrited, I don't suppose I've got any call to be worrited; only any one can't help it a bit when they see witches' cheeks on a young lady. She certainly does look middling, but maybe, as you say, it is this unnatural east wind." Birdwood touched his cap and retired, but his words had struck at Guy remorsefully while he walked away to a corner of the orchard reading Pauline's letter. The starlings were piping a sweet monotony of Spring, and daffodils, that he and she had planted last Summer when they came back from Ladingford, haunted his path. MY DARLING,--Why haven't you been to see me this morning? Why weren't you in the orchard? I stayed such a long while in the churchyard, but you never came. If I said anything yesterday that hurt your feelings, forgive me. You mustn't think that I was angry with you because perhaps I spoke angrily. Darling, darling Guy, I adore you so, and nothing else but you matters to my happiness. I should not have spoken about religion-- I don't know how we came to argue about it. It was unkind of me to be depressed and sad when my dearest was sad. Truly, truly I am so anxious about your poems only because I want you to be happy. Sometimes I must seem selfish, but you know that before anything it is your work I think of. I'm not really a bit worried about our being married. I have these fits of depression which are really very wrong. I'm not worried about anything really, only I had a dream about you last month which frightened me. Oh, Guy, come this afternoon and tell me you're not angry. I promise you that I won't make you miserable with my stupid depression. Guy, if I could only tell you how I love you. If you only knew how never, never for an instant do I care for anything but your happiness. You don't really want me to give up believing in anything, do you? It doesn't really make you angry, does it? Come and tell me this afternoon that you've forgiven Your PAULINE. I love you. I love you. Gently the daffodils swayed in this light breeze of dying March, and the grass was already tall enough to sigh forth its transitory Summer tune. Guy, in a flood of penitence, hastened at once to the Rectory to accuse himself to Pauline, and when he saw her watching for him at the nursery window he had no regrets that could stab to wound him as deeply as he deserved to be wounded. She was very tender and still that afternoon, and as he held her in his arms there seemed to him nothing more worth while in life than her cherishing. For them sitting in that nursery the hours swung lazily to and fro in felicity, and all the time there was nobody to disturb the reconciliation. They talked only of the future and allowed recent despairs and foreboding agitations to slink away disgraced. Janet, coming to take away the tea-things, beamed at their happiness and through a filigree of bare jasmine twigs the slanting sun touched with new life the faded wall-paper, opening wider, it seemed, the daisies' eyes, mellowing the berries, and tinting the birds with brighter plumes for their immutable and immemorial courtship. Plunged deep in such a peace, Guy, prompted by damnable discord, asked idly what had been that dream of which Pauline had spoken in her letter. She was unwilling for a long while to tell him, but he, spurred on by mischief itself, persuaded her in the end, and she recounted that experience of waking to find herself prone upon the floor of her room. "No wonder you're looking pale," he exclaimed. "Now you see the result of exciting yourself unnecessarily." "But it was so vivid," she protested, "and really the light was blinding, and it thought so terribly all the time." "I shall think very terribly that you've been reading some spiritualistic rot in a novel," said Guy, "if you talk like that. Your religion may be true, but I'm quite sure these conjuring tricks of your fancy are a sign of hysteria. And this poor speck that was me? How did you know it was me if it was a speck? Did that think, too? My foolish Pauline, you encouraged your morbid ideas when you were awake, and when you were asleep you paid the penalty." She had gone away from him and was standing by the window. "Guy, if you talk like that, it means you don't really love me. It means you have no sympathy, that you're cold and cruel and cynical." He sighed with elaborate compassion for her state of mind. "And what else? I wonder how you ever managed to fall in love with me." "Sometimes I wonder, too," she said, slowly. He turned quickly and went out of the room. Guy regretted before he was half-way down the passage what he had done, but he steeled himself against going back by persuading himself that Pauline's hysteria must be remorselessly checked. All the way back to Plashers Mead he had excuses for his behavior, and all the way he was wondering if he had done right. Supposing that she were to persist in this exaggeration of everything, who could say into what extravagance of attitude she might not find herself driven? Rage seized him against this malady that was sapping the foundations of their love, and all his affection for her was obscured in the contemplation of that overwrought Pauline who sacrificed herself to baseless doubts and alarms. If he once admitted her right to dream ridiculously about him, he would be encouraging her upon the road to madness. Had she not already fondled the notion of going mad, just as she would often fondle the picture of himself as the heroine of an unhappy love-affair? If he were severe now, she would surely come to see the absurdity of these religious fears, this heart-searching and morbid sensitiveness. It was curious that he was able to keep his idea of Pauline herself quite apart from Pauline as the subject of nervous depression. He was practically ascribing to her a double personality, so distinct were this two views of her in his mind. When he got home he found the manuscript had been sent back by a seventh publisher, and on top of the packet lay a letter from his friend Comeragh. 420 BROOK STREET, W. DEAR GUY,--Sir George Gascony asked me to-day if I knew of some one who would suit him as private secretary. He's going out to Persia next month. I told him about you. Come up to town and meet him. He's dining here on Thursday. I'm certain you can have the job. Yours ever, COMERAGH. At first the letter only presented itself to his imagination as an easy way of punishing Pauline's hysteria. It seemed to him the very weapon that was wanted to "give her a lesson," and after dinner he went across to the Rectory and announced his news in front of everybody, asking everybody if they did not think he ought to go, and talking enthusiastically of Oriental adventure until quite late. He sternly refused to allow himself a moment alone with Pauline in which to talk over the plan; and, even when they were left alone together in the hall, he kissed her good night hurriedly and silently and rather guiltily. When Guy was back at home and thought about his behavior, he began to wonder if he had committed himself to Persia too finally. The prospect, except so far as it would affect Pauline, had not really sunk into his mind yet, but now as he read the letter over he began to think that he really would like to go. It might mean a separation of two years, but it would reconcile him to his father, and it would assure his marriage at the end of the time. Persia might easily be almost as interesting as it sounded, and how remote from debts looked Bagdad. If last year he had been able practically to settle to be a schoolmaster, how much more easily could this resolution be taken. Dreamily he let his imagination play round the notion of Persia, dreamily and rather pleasantly it would solve so many difficulties, and it held the promise of so much active romance. Next morning Mrs. Grey sent round to ask if Guy would come to lunch early enough to have a talk with her first. "Yes ... charming.... I really wanted us to have a little talk together," she said in nervous welcome as she led the way to her own sitting-room, that with its red lacquer and its screen painted with birds-of-paradise hid itself away in a corner of the house. Ordinarily Guy would have accepted it as a sign of the highest favor to be brought to her small room, but this morning it seemed to imprison him. "Yes ... charming ... a little talk," said Mrs. Grey; and Guy, while he waited for her to begin, watched the mandarins that moved in absurd reduplications all about her arm-chair's faded green pattern. "Of course it was rather a surprise to us all last night ... yes.... I expect it was a surprise to you. And you really think you ought to go?" "I'm getting rather discouraged about poetry," Guy confessed. "I'm beginning to think that what I've written isn't much good, and that if I am ever going to write anything worth while it will be because I've learned to be less self-conscious about it. If I went to Persia with Sir George Gascony I should probably be kept fairly busy, and if there was any poetry left in me after that, well, it might be good stuff." "But you've not seen yet what people think of what you have written ... no ... you see, the poems haven't been published yet, which is very vexing ... and so I thought.... I mean the Rector thought that if there was any difficulty he would like to help you to publish them ... yes ... rather than go away to Persia ... you know ... yes ... poor little Pauline was crying nearly all night, and I don't think you ought to go away suddenly like this ... no ... and we couldn't find an atlas anywhere!" "You think I ought not to go?" said Guy, and he realized as he spoke that he was disappointed. "I do think that after all these months of hoping for your poems to be a success you ought at least to try them first, and then afterwards we can talk about Persia. I'm afraid you think I've been too strict about Pauline ... perhaps I have ... yes ... and so I think that now Spring is here you can go out every day ... yes ... charming ... now that the weather is getting better...." But now every day, thought Guy, bitterly, there would be recriminations between them. "Of course if you think I ought not to go, I won't," he said. "I'll write to Comeragh and refuse." "I'm sure you're glad, aren't you?" "Oh, rather." "We all understood why you thought you ought to go, and now I've another plan ... yes ... charming.... I'm going to send Pauline away for a month ... with Miss Verney ... yes ... charming, charming plan ... and you must make arrangements at once about your poems ... and then perhaps you could give them to Pauline for her birthday...." "But I don't think the Rector ought to pay for them," Guy objected. "The Rector wants to pay for them. But, of course, he won't say anything about it, and you will have to make the arrangements yourself." "You're all so good to me, and I feel such a fraud," said Guy. "You'd better make arrangements with the man you sent them to first ... and Pauline needn't know anything about it ... and I sha'n't say I've persuaded you not to go to China ... or else she will be worried ... she's looking rather pale.... I think two or three weeks by the seaside ... Lyme Regis perhaps or Cromer ... Lyme Regis, I think, because the trains to Folkstone have been torn out ... yes ... charming, charming." After lunch Guy told Pauline in the garden that he had decided not to accept the post he had been offered, and she was so obviously overjoyed at his decision that he no longer had the heart to feel the slightest disappointment. "Guy, I've been so stupid," she told him. "I've depressed you without any reason, but I will come back from Scarborough quite well." Guy began to laugh. "Oh, why are you laughing?" "Dearest, because I cannot make out where you really are going." "Scarborough, because Miss Verney has chosen Scarborough." They talked for a while of the letters that each would write to the other, and of what a Summer should follow that short parting, when every day they would be together and when perhaps even such days as those at Ladingford might come again. "And you won't worry about anything all this time you're away?" Guy asked. "I won't, indeed I won't." Guy went home to find a telegram from Comeragh saying that Sir George Gascony had got appendicitis and would not be going to Persia for a month or two at least. Yet he did not mention this telegram at the Rectory when next day he came to say good-by to Pauline, because he was anxious to preserve the idea of his having vainly attempted to do something, and when he sat alone in his orchard the same afternoon, he had an emotion of something very near to relief that for a while there would be no more heart-searchings and stress, no more misgivings and reproaches and despairs. He was perfectly happy, sitting by himself in the orchard and staring at the blackthorn by the margin of the stream. APRIL Miss Verney was so droll at Scarborough and enjoyed herself so much, that Pauline in her pleasure at the success of what the old maid called their "jaunt" really was able to put aside for the present her own perplexities. The sands were empty at this season, and the Spa unpopulous except for a few residents. The wind blew inland from a sparkling sea, while Miss Verney, with bonnet all awry, sitting in a draughty shelter, declared that somehow like this she pictured the Riviera; and when the weather was too bad even for Miss Verney's azure dreams, Pauline and she sat cozily among the tropic shells and Berlin wool of their lodgings. Long letters used to come every day from Guy, and long letters had to be written by Pauline to him; while perpetually Miss Verney tinkled on with marine tales that, if no doubt nautically inaccurate, had nevertheless a fine flavor of salt water. "I remember I was sitting in the parlor window at Southsea when a regiment.... I remember a captain in the Royal Marines.... I remember how anxious my father was that I should have been a boy." "Oh, dear Miss Verney, you can't remember that." "Oh yes, he invariably spoke of me as the Midshipman, I remember. I would then have been about eight years of age.... Pray give my very kind regards to Mr. Guy and say how well we are both looking, and what a benefit this fine air is, to be sure, and don't forget our little expedition to the theater. You must tell Mr. Guy the story of the piece. He will certainly enjoy hearing about that very nice-mannered convict who.... Ah dear! how my poor father used to revel in the play." Miss Verney's conversation scarcely ever stopped, and while Pauline was writing letters it was always particularly brisk, but she used to enjoy the accompaniment as she would have enjoyed the twittering of a bird. It seemed to inspire her letters with the equable gaiety that Guy was so glad to think was coming back to her. His own letters were invariably cheerful, and Pauline began to count the days to the time when she would see him again. Easter had gone by, and the weather was so steadily fine that it was a pity not to be together. He wrote of primroses awaiting her footsteps in the forest, of blue dog-violets and cowslips in the hollows of Wychford down, of all the birds that were now arrived in England, of the cuckoo's first call, and of the first swallow seen. Come back soon, my own, my sweet [he wrote]. Come back and let this Winter be all forgotten. I climbed up to the top of the church tower to-day, and oh, the tulips in your garden, and oh, the emptiness of that garden notwithstanding! Come back, my Pauline, for you'll see the iris buds in the paddock and you've no idea of the way in which that river of ours sparkles on these April mornings. I wish I could tell you how remote this Winter already has grown. It has crept out of memory like a dejected nightmare at breakfast. You are never to think again about the stupid things I've said about religion: think only, my dearest, that I hope always for your faith. It would be dishonest of me to say that I believe now exactly as you believe, but I want to believe like that. Perhaps I'm illogical in writing this: perhaps all the time I do believe. Forget too what I said about Confession. I would almost go myself to prove my penitence (to you!), but I just can't bring myself to do that, because for me it really would be useless and would turn me against everything you count as holy. Forget all that has cast a shadow on our love. Count it all as my heedlessness and be confident that I alone was to blame. I would write more, but letters are such impossible things for intimacy. Some people can pour out their souls on paper: I can't. That's really what my poems suffer from. I have been working at them again since you were away, and they have a kind of coldness, a sort of awkward youthful reserve. Perhaps that's better than youthful exuberance, and yet I don't know. One can prune the too prodigal growth, but one can't always be sure of having the prodigality when one has the maturity. The metaphors seem to be getting rather tied up, and you must be bored by now with my chattering criticism. Your mother came to tea yesterday and brought Monica. Margaret is rather in seclusion at present on account of Richard's arrival, I fancy. She's obviously dreading other people's notice. It is a rather self-conscious business, this waiting for the arrival of some one whom everybody expects is going to play such an important part in her life. If we were separated now for two years, it would be different; but I can see that Margaret is dreadfully afraid that now, having at last made up her mind to marry Richard, she may not care for him as much as she did. He must be a fine fellow. I'm looking forward tremendously to his coming. Monica was perfectly delightful yesterday, and grew quite excited in her nunlike way over the ultimate decoration of Plashers Mead. Dear me, what taste you all have got, and what a very great deal you've taught me! You must most of all forget that I ever said a word against your sisters. They have really equipped me in a way with a point of view towards art. I tried to tell Monica so yesterday afternoon. In fact, we got on very well together. In a way, you know, she almost appreciates you more than Margaret does. You represent her hope, her ideal of the world. Worldly one, I must say good night. Tell Miss Verney with my love that all her cats send their best respects and compliments and that Bellerophon particularly requests that his mistress will bring back whatever fish is in season at Scarborough. Oh, the funniest thing I've forgotten to tell you! Miss Peasey was chased by some bullocks across the big field behind the orchard! She was too priceless about it when she got home. Pauline began to think it was impossible for her ever to have had the least worry in the course of her engagement. This was the first time she had been parted from Guy for more than a week during the whole of a year, and there was something very reassuring in such an opportunity to regard him like this so disinterestedly, to find that the separation was having the traditional effect and to be positive that she was going to meet him again at the end of April more in love than ever. Nevertheless, she was always aware of being grateful for the repose from problems, and she did once or twice play with the idea of having perhaps made a mistake in objecting to his going abroad. It was on occasions of doubt like this that Pauline would try to impress Miss Verney with what existence had already meant to her. "I'm feeling so old, Miss Verney." "Old, my dear? Oh, that cannot be true," exclaimed her friend. "Falling very much in love does make one feel old," Pauline declared. "Let me see," Miss Verney went on, "let me try to remember how I felt. My impression is now that when I was in love I felt much younger than I do at present, but perhaps that is natural, for it is very nearly thirty years ago since William and I parted." "Is he still alive?" "Oh yes, he is still alive, but I have never seen him and he must be wonderfully altered. Sometimes I think of all the days that have gone by since we parted. It seems so strange to think of our lives being able to go on, when once it seemed to both of us that life could not go on at all if we were not together. It seems so strange to think of him eating his lunch somewhere at the same time that somewhere else I am eating my lunch. Who knows if he ever thinks of me, who knows indeed?" "If anything happened to prevent our marriage," began Pauline, thoughtfully, and then was silent. Miss Verney opened wide her pale-blue eyes. "And what could happen?" she asked, grandly. "I've no business to imagine such a thing, have I?" "None whatever," said Miss Verney, decidedly. But had Miss Verney's love-affair been complicated by anything more than merely natural difficulties? Guy's debts and unsuccess were nothing in comparison with other elements of disaccord ... and then Pauline pulled herself up from brooding and resolutely forced her mind to contemplate a happy Summer. Had she not just now been congratulating herself upon the disappearance of all worries in this sea air? The time at Scarborough drew to a close, and about a week before her birthday came the news of Richard's arrival from India. She and Miss Verney packed up and were home in Wychford two days before they were expected. "Richard, how lovely to see you again!" Pauline cried. "And, oh, Richard, I'm sure you've grown. Don't you think he has grown?" she demanded of everybody. "Richard, how clever of you to grow when you're twenty-seven." It was really like old times to go babbling on like this, while Richard sat and smiled encouragingly and spoke never a word. "Coming for a stroll?" he asked. "Oh, but I ought to see Guy first," she said. "Richard, I hope you like Guy." He nodded. "Do you think he looks like a poet?" "Never saw a poet before," said Richard. "Oh, but like your idea of a poet?" "Never thought much about poets," said Richard. "So you aren't coming for a stroll?" "I will to-morrow, but I must spend the sunset with Guy." Guy was waiting for her by the paddock, and they floated down-stream out of reach of people. In their own peninsula they kissed away the absence of twenty-two days. "You look much better," said Guy, critically. "I'm perfectly well." "And happy?" She answered him with her eyes. "Why, Pauline, I believe you're quite shy of me!" She blushed. "I really am a little, you know," she whispered. "Did you like Richard? Oh, Guy, I hope you did." "Of course I did." "And, Guy, you don't mind if I go for a walk with him to-morrow morning? You see, I know he's longing to hear about Margaret and himself." "But you'll come out with me in the afternoon?" "Why, of course." "Then Richard may have the morning," said Guy. "And I hope you'll arrange everything between him and Margaret so successfully that he won't steal any more hours from me." When Pauline had left Guy that evening she thought how strangely it had been like meeting him for the first time all over again. Or rather it was as if they had walked a long way down the wrong road and were now beginning to walk somewhat tentatively along what she hoped was surely the right road at last. Her duty was above all to help Guy with the material burdens; she must never again let him think that his debts or his prospects had any power to worry her. Merely most tactfully must she try to keep him from extravagance, and, oh dear, how she hoped that he had not bought her an expensive birthday present. It was too late to say anything about it now, but if Guy had been wisely economical how happy she would be. How she hoped, too, that Richard had not brought home from India a present that would annoy Margaret. Really, it was a most oppressive business, this week before her coming of age, for between Guy's extravagance and Richard's ... well, it was really not so much bad taste as Indian taste. She would love anything he gave her, of course, but perhaps he would consult beforehand with Margaret. Dear Richard, he was so sweet and touching, and if only he had not brought her something _very_ elaborately carved. She met him next morning half-way to Fairfield, and two years were obliterated as she kept pace with his long stride when they turned aside from the highroad and tramped upward over the grassy wold. "Richard, isn't it very hot in India?" He nodded. "And didn't you ever get used to walking a bit more slowly in India?" He laughed. "You lazy little thing. I thought you and Aunt Verney had been in training at Scarborough? Come on, let's sit down then." They sat down, and Richard drew with his stick in the close turf. "Is that your bridge?" Pauline asked, with all the interest she could put into her voice. He laughed for a long time. "Pauline, you villain, it's the beginning of Margaret's face!" She clapped her hands. "Oh, Richard, aren't I a villain? But, you know, it's not very frightfully like anything, is it?" "Pauline," he said, suddenly, in that sharp voice in which two years ago he had intrusted his interests to her before he went away--"Pauline, is Margaret going to marry me?" "Why, of course she is, Richard!" "Has she spoken to you about me?" "But you know she never speaks about her own affairs and that she can't bear anybody else to speak of them to her." "Then how do you know?" he asked. "Well, perhaps because I'm so much in love with Guy," Pauline whispered. "I don't see how that quite works. I'm a very dull sort of chap after that Guy of yours." "But you're not at all," Pauline declared. "And if you take my advice you won't think you're dull. You'll make Margaret marry you. Really, I'm sure that what she would like best is to be made to do something. You see, she's a darling, but she is just a very tiny little bit spoiled. You mustn't be so patient with her. But, Richard dear, I know she loves you, because she practically told Guy that she did." "Guy?" he echoed, looking rather indignant. "Well, you must understand how sweet Margaret was to him about me. She was so sympathetic, and really she practically brought about our engagement. Oh, I do love her so, Richard, and I do want her to be happy, and I do know so dreadfully well that you are the very person to make her happy." "Pauline, you are a pink brick," he avowed. And scarcely another word did he say for the rest of their walk. Pauline went to Margaret's room that night and, after fidgeting all the while her sister was undressing, suddenly plunged down beside her bed and caught hold of her hand. "Margaret, you're not to snub me, because I absolutely must speak. I must beg you not to keep Richard waiting any longer. Do, my darling, darling Margaret, do be kind to him and not so cold. He simply adores you, and.... Why, Margaret, you're crying!... Oh, let me kiss you, my Margaret, because you were so wonderful about Guy, and I've been a beast to you and you must, you must be happy." "If I could only love him as you love Guy," Margaret sighed between her tears. "You do really ... at least perhaps not _quite_ as much. Oh, Margaret, don't be angry with me if I whisper something to you; think how much you would love him if you and he had ... Margaret, you know what I mean." Pauline blew out the candle and rushed from the dark room; and lying awake in her own bed, she fancied among the flowers of the Rectory such fairy children for Margaret and herself, such fairy children dancing by the margin of the river. MAY On the morning before Pauline's birthday Guy received a letter from Michael Fane announcing abruptly his engagement and adding that on account of worldly opposition he had been persuaded into a postponement of his marriage for two months. Guy was rather ironically amused by the serious manner in which Michael took so brief a delay, and he could not help thinking how unreasonably impatient of trifles people with ample private means often showed themselves. Michael wrote that he would like to spend some of his probation at Plashers Mead, and alluded to the "luck" of his friend in being so near his Pauline. Guy wrote a letter of congratulation, and then he put Michael's news out of his mind in order to examine the two complete sets of the proofs on his poems which had also arrived that morning. He was engaged in the task of making a rather clumsy binding for them out of a piece of stained vellum when Richard Ford came round to Plashers Mead. Guy welcomed him gladly, for besides the personal attraction he felt towards this lean and silent engineer, he perceived in the likelihood of Richard's speedy marriage an earnest of his own. Somehow that marriage was going to break the spell of inactivity to which at the Rectory all seemed to be subject, and from which Guy was determined to keep Richard free, even if it were necessary to shake him as continuously as tired wanderers in the snow are shaken out of a dangerous sleep. "I came round to consult with you about my present to Pauline to-morrow," said Richard, very solemnly. "I've brought round one or two little things, so that you could give me your advice." "Why, of course I will," said Guy. "They're down-stairs in the hall. I had some difficulty in explaining to your housekeeper that I wasn't a peddler." In the hall was stacked a pile completely representative of the bazar: half a dozen shawls, the model of a temple, a carved table, some inlaid stools, every sort of typical Oriental gewgaw; in fact, an agglomeration that seemed to invite the smell of cheap incense for its effective display. "Godbold drove them over," Richard explained, as he saw Guy's astonishment. "Now look here, what's the best present for Pauline? You see, I'm not at all an artistic sort of chap, and I don't want to hoick forward something that's going to be more of a nuisance than anything else." "It's really awfully difficult to choose," said Guy, rather ambiguously. Then he discovered a simple ivory paper-knife which he declared was just the thing, having the happy thought that he would not cut the set of proofs he was binding for Pauline, so that to-morrow Richard could have the pleasure of beholding his gift put to immediate use. "You've chosen the smallest thing of the lot," said the disappointed donor. "You don't think a shawl as well?" he asked, holding up yards of gaudy material. "Well, candidly, I think Pauline's too fair for that color scheme, don't you?" "All right, the paper-knife. You don't mind if I leave these things here till Godbold can fetch them away, and ... er.... I wish you'd choose something for yourself. I've always taken a kind of interest in this house, don't you know, and I've often thought about it in India." "I'd like a gong," said Guy at once, and Richard was obviously gratified by his quick choice, and still further gratified when Guy suggested they should sound it immediately outside the kitchen door. Solemnly Richard held it up in the passage, while Guy crashed forth a glorious clamor, at the summons of which Miss Peasey came rushing out. "Good gracious!" she gasped. "I thought that dog Bob had jumped through the window." "This is a present for us from India," Guy shouted. "Oh, that's extremely handsome, isn't it? Well now, I shall expect you to be punctual in future for your meals. Dear me, yes, quite a variety, I'm sure, after that measly bell." The gong was given a prominent position in the bare hall, and Guy invited Richard up to his own room. After the question of the presents had been solved Richard was shy and silent again, and Guy found it very hard to make conversation. Several times his visitor seemed on the point of getting something off his mind, but when he was given an opportunity for speech he never accepted it. Desperate for a topic, Guy showed him the proofs of the poems, and explained that he was binding them roughly as his present to Pauline to-morrow. "That's something I can't understand," said Richard, intensely. "Writing! It beats me!" "Bridges would beat me," said Guy. Richard looked quite cheerful at this notion and under the influence of the encouragement he had received seemed at last on the point of getting out what he wanted to say, but he could manage nothing more confidential than a tug at his bristled fair mustache. "When are you and Margaret going to be married?" Guy asked, abruptly, for, of course, he had guessed that it was Margaret's name which was continually on the tip of his tongue. "By Jove! there you are! I'm rather stumped," said Richard, gloomily. "You see, the thing is ... well ... I suppose you know that when I started off to India last June year, Margaret and I were sort of engaged ... at least I was certainly engaged to her, only she hadn't absolutely made up her mind about me ... and, of course, that's just what you'd expect would happen to a chap like me ... dash it all! Hazlewood, I'm afraid to ask her again!" "I don't think you need be," said Guy. "Of course we haven't discussed you, except very indirectly," he hastily added, "but I'm positive that Margaret is only waiting for you to ask her to marry her on some definite day; on some definite day, Ford, that's the great thing to remember." "You mean I ought to say, 'Margaret, will you marry me on the twelfth of August, or the first of September? That's your notion, is it?" Guy nodded. "By gad! I'll ask her to-day," said Richard. "And you'll be engaged to-morrow," Guy prophesied. "When are you and Pauline going to be married?" Guy looked up quickly to see if the solid Richard were laughing at him, but there was nothing in those steel-blue eyes except the most benevolent inquiry. "That's the question," said Guy. "Writing is not quite such a certainty as bridge-building." "You mean there's the difficulty of money? By Jove! that's bad luck, isn't it? Still, you know, I expect that having the good fortune to have Pauline in love with you.... Well, I expect, you've got to expect a bit of difficulty somewhere, you know. You know, Pauline was...." he stopped and blinked at the window. "Pauline's awfully fond of you," Guy said, encouragingly. "Hazlewood, that kid's been.... Well, I can't express myself, you know, but I'd.... Well, I really can't talk about her." "I understand, though," said Guy. "Look here, you'll stay and have lunch with me, and then we can go across to the Rectory afterwards." Emotional subjects were tacitly put on one side to talk of the birds and butterflies that one might expect to find round Wychford, of Miss Verney and Godbold and other local characters, or of the prospects of the cricket team that year. After lunch Guy put the unbound set of proofs in his pocket and, launching the canoe, they floated down to the Rectory paddock. Mrs. Grey and the girls were all in the garden picking purple tulips, and Guy, taking Pauline aside, told her on what momentous quest Richard was come, suggesting that he should occupy the Rector's attention, while Pauline lured away her mother and Monica. The Rector was sitting in the library, hard at work rubbing the fluff from the anemone seeds with sand. "And what can I do for you, sir?" he asked. "I thought you'd like to see the proofs of my poems," said Guy. He laid the duplicates on the dusty table, and tried to thank his patron for what he had done. The Rector waved a clay pipe deprecatingly. "You must thank Constance ... you must thank my wife, if you thank anybody. But if I were you I shouldn't thank anybody till you find out for certain that she's done you a service," he recommended, with a twinkle. Guy laughed. "Worrall doesn't want to publish until the Autumn." The Rector made a face. "All that time to wait for the verdict?" "Time seems particularly hostile to me," Guy said. "You'll have to tweak his forelock pretty hard." "That's what I've come to consult you about. Do you think I ought to go to Persia with Sir George Gascony? Mrs. Grey thought I oughtn't to take so drastic a step until I had first tested my poems in public. But I've been reading them through, and they don't somehow look quite as important in print as they did in manuscript. I can't help feeling that I ought to have a regular occupation. What do you really advise me to do, Mr. Grey?" The Rector held up his arms in mock dismay. "Gracious goodness me, don't implicate a poor country parson in such affairs! I can give you advice about flowers and I can pretend to give you advice about your soul, but about the world, no, no." "I think perhaps I'll get some journalistic work in town," Guy suggested. "Persia or journalism!" commented the Rector. "Well, well, they're both famous for fairy tales. I recommend journalism as being nearer at hand." "Then I'll take your advice." "Oh, dear me, you must not involve me in such a responsibility. Now, if you were a nice rational iris I would talk to you, but for a talented young man with his life before him I shouldn't even be a good quack. Come along, let's go out and look at the tulips." "You _will_ glance through my poems?" Guy asked, diffidently. The Rector stood up and put his hand on the poet's shoulder. "Of course I will, my dear boy, and you mustn't be deceived by the manner of that shy old boor, the Rector of Wychford. Do what you think you ought to do, and make my youngest daughter happy. We shall be having her birthday before we know where we are." "It's to-morrow!" "Is it indeed? May Day. Of course. I remember last year I managed to bloom _Iris lorteti_. But this year, no! That wet May destroyed _Iris lorteti_. A delicate creature. Rose and brown. A delicate, lovely creature." Guy and the Rector pored over the tulips awhile, where in serried borders they displayed their somber sheen of amaranth and amethyst; then Guy strolled off to hear what was the news of Margaret and Richard. Pauline came flying to meet him down one of the long, straight garden paths. "Darling, they are to be married early in August," she cried. He caught her to him and kissed her, lest in the first poignant realization of other people's joy she might seem to be escaping from him utterly. Guy had a few minutes with Margaret before he went home that evening, and they walked beside the tulip borders, she tall and dark and self-contained in the fading light, being strangely suited by association with such flowers. "Dear Margaret," he said, "I want to tell you how tremendously I like Richard. Now that sounds patronizing. But I'm speaking quite humbly. These sort of Englishmen have been celebrated enough, perhaps, and lately there's been a tendency to laugh at them, but, my God! what is there on earth like the Richards of England? Margaret, you once very rightly reproved me for putting Pauline in a silver frame, do let me risk your anger and beg you never to put yourself in a silver frame from which to look out at Richard." "You do rather understand me, don't you?" she said, offering him her hand. "Help Pauline and me," he begged. "Haven't I always helped you?" "Not always, but you will now that you yourself are no longer uncertain about your future. The moment you find yourself perfectly happy you'll be longing for every one else to be the same." "But how haven't I helped you?" she persisted. "It would be difficult to explain in definite words. But I don't think my idea of your attitude towards us could have been entirely invented by my fancy." "What attitude? What do you mean, Guy?" He shook his head. "My dear, if you aren't conscious of it, I'm certainly not going to attempt to put it into words and involve myself in such a net." "How tantalizing you are!" "No, I'm not. If you have the least inclination to think I may be right, then you know what I mean and you can do what I ask. If you haven't the least notion of what I mean, then it was all my fancy, and I'm certainly not going to give my baseless fancies away." "This is all too cryptic," she murmured. "Then let it remain undeciphered," he said, smiling; and he led the conversation more directly towards their marriage and the strangeness of the Rectory without Margaret. Richard spent the night at Plashers Mead, and Guy heard the halting account of two years' uncertainty, of the bungalow that had been taken and embowered against Margaret's coming, and of the way in which his bridge had spanned not merely the river, but the very ocean, and even time itself. Pauline's birthday morning was cloudless, and Guy, though to himself he was inclined to blame the action as weak, went to church and knelt beside her. Then afterwards there was the scene of breakfast on the lawn that already, with only this first repetition, wore for him an immemorial air, so that he could no longer imagine a May Day that was not thus inaugurated. The presentation of his poems in proof had not a bit less wonderful effect than he had hoped, for Pauline could never finish turning over the pages and loving the ludicrously tumble-down binding. "Oh, it's so touching! I wish they could all be bound like this. And how I adore Richard's paper-knife." The four lovers disappeared after breakfast to enjoy the flashing May Day, and Monica, left alone with her mother, looked a little sad, she, the only one of those three lovely daughters of the Rectory still undisturbed by the demands of the invading world. May that year was like the fabled Spring of poets; and Guy and Pauline were left free to enjoy the passionate and merry month as perhaps never before had they enjoyed any season, not even that dreamed-away fortnight at Ladingford last year. They had ceased for a while with the engagement of Richard and Margaret to be the central figures of the Rectory, whether for blame or commendation, and, desiring nothing better than to be left without interference, they were lost in apple-blossom to every-day existence. Guy, with the prospect of his poems appearing in the Autumn, felt that he was justified in forgetting responsibilities and, having weathered the financial crisis of the March quarter, he had now nothing to worry him until Midsummer. That was the date he had fixed upon in his mind as suitable for making a determined attempt upon London. He had planned to shut up Plashers Mead and to take a small room in Chelsea, whence he would conquer in a few months the material obstacles that prevented their marriage. The poems, now that they were in print, seemed a less certain talisman to fame; but they would serve their purpose, indeed they had served their purpose already, for this long-secluded time would surely counterbalance the too easy victories of journalism. He would surely by now have lost that spruce Oxford cleverness, and might fairly expect to earn his living with dignity. The least success would justify his getting married, and Pauline would enjoy two years spent high in some London attic within the sound of chirping sparrows and the distant whispers of humanity. They would perhaps be able to afford to fly for magic weeks to Plashers Mead, pastoral interludes in that crowded life which lay ahead. How everything had resolved itself latterly, and how the gift of glorious May should be accepted as the intimate and dearest benefaction to their love! He and Pauline were together from earliest morn to the last minute of these rich and shadowy eves. They wreathed their boat with boughs of apple-blossom and went farther up the river than they had ever gone. The cuckoo was still in tune, and still the kingcups gilded all that hollow land; there was not yet the lush growth of weeds and reeds that indolent June would use to delay their dreaming progress; and still all the trees and all the hedges danced with that first sharp green of Spring, that cold and careless green of Spring. Then when the hawthorn came into prodigal bloom, and all the rolling country broke in endless waves of blossom, Pauline in her muslin dress seemed like an airy joy sustained by all these multitudinous petals, dancing upon this flowery tide, this sweet foam of May. "My flower, my sweet, are you indeed mortal?" he whispered. The texture of her sleeve against his was less tangible than the light breeze that puffed idly from the south to where they sat enraptured upon the damasked English grass. Apple-blossom powdered her lap and starred her light-brown hair, and around them like a Circean perfume drowning the actual world hung the odorous thickets of hawthorn. The month glided along until the time of ragged-robins came round again, and as if these flowers were positively of ill omen to Guy and Pauline, Mrs. Grey suddenly took it into her head again that they were seeing too much of each other. "I said you could see Pauline every day," she told Guy. "But I did not say all day." "But I shall be going away soon," he said; "and it seems a pity to lose any of this lovely month." "I'm sure I'm right ... and I did not know you had really decided to go away.... I'm sure, yes, I'm positive I'm right.... Why don't you be more like Margaret and Richard?... They aren't together all day long ... no, not all day." "But Pauline is so different from Margaret," Guy argued. "Yes, I know ... that's the reason ... she is too impulsive.... Yes, it's much better not to be together all the time.... I'm glad you've settled to go to London ... then perhaps you can be married next year...." A rule came into force again, and Guy began to feel the old exasperation against the curb upon youth's leisure. Rather unjustly he blamed Margaret, because he felt that the spectacle of her sedate affection made his for Pauline appear too wild, and Pauline herself beside Margaret seem completely distraught with love. It pleased Guy rather, and yet in a way it rather annoyed him, that Michael Fane should choose this moment to announce his intention of spending some time at Plashers Mead. Perhaps a little of the doubt was visible in his welcome, because Michael asked rather anxiously if he were intruding upon the May idyll; Guy laughed off the slight awkwardness and asked why Michael had not yet managed to get married. They talked about the evils of procrastination, but Guy could not at all see that Michael had much to complain of in a postponement of merely two months. His friend, however, was evidently rather upset, and he could not resist expatiating a little on his own grief with what Guy thought was the petulance of the too fortunate man. The warm May nights lulled them both, and they used to pass pleasant evenings leaning over the stream while the bats and fern-owls flew across the face of the decrescent moon; yet for Guy all the beauty of the season was more than ever endowed with intolerable fugacity. Pauline with Michael's arrival began to be moody again; would take no kind of interest in Michael's engagement; would only begin to see again the endless delays that hung so heavily round their marriage. Michael was not at all in the way, for he spent all the time writing to his lady-love, of whom he had told Guy really nothing; or he would sit in the lengthening grass of the orchard and read books of poetry, the pages of which used to wink with lucid reflection caught from the leaves of the fruit-trees overhead. Guy looked over his shoulder and saw that he was reading "The Statue and the Bust": So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam The glory dropped from their youth and love, And both perceived they had dreamed a dream; "That poem haunts me," exclaimed Guy, with a shudder. Where is the use of the lip's red charm, The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow, And the blood that blues the inside arm-- Unless we turn, as the soul knows how, The earthly gift to an end divine? "And yet I can't stop reading it," he sighed. How do their spirits pass, I wonder, Nights and days in the narrow room? Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder What a gift life was, ages ago, Six steps out of the chapel yonder. On this Summer morning the words wrote themselves in fire across his brain. "They light the way to dusty death," he sputtered, over and over again, when he had left Browning to Michael and flung himself face downward in the orchard grass. In despair of what a havoc time was making of their youth and their love, that very afternoon he begged Pauline to meet him again now in these dark nights of early Summer, now when soon he would be going away from her. "Going away?" she echoed in alarm. "I suppose that's the result of your friend's visit." Guy, however, was not going to surrender again, and he insisted that when a month had passed he would indeed be gone from Plashers Mead. It was nothing to do with Michael Fane; it was solely his own determination to put an end to his unprofitable dalliance. "But your poems? I thought that when your poems were published everything would be all right." "Oh, my poems," he scoffed. "They're valueless!" "Guy!" "They're mere decoration. They are trifles." "I don't understand you." "I care for nothing but to be married to you. For nothing, do you hear? Pauline, everything is to be subordinate to that. I would even write and beg my father to take me as a junior usher at Fox Hall for that. We must be married soon. I can't bear to see Richard and Margaret sailing along so calmly and quietly towards happiness." In the end he persuaded her to make all sorts of opportunities to meet him when no one else knew they were together. Even once most recklessly on a warm and moonless night of May's languorous decline to June, he took her in the canoe far away up the river; and when they floated home dawn was already glistening on the banks and on the prow of their ghostly canoe. Through bird-song and rosy vapors she fled from him to her silent room, while he stood in a trance and counted each dewy footstep that with silver traceries marked her flight across the lawn. ANOTHER SUMMER JUNE Michael Fane stayed on into June, and the fancy came to Pauline that he knew of these meetings with Guy at night. It enraged her with jealousy to think that he might have been taken into Guy's confidence so far, and the prejudice against him grew more violent every day. She already had enough regrets for having given way to Guy's persuasion, and the memory of that last return at dawn to her cool, reproachful room haunted her more bitterly when she thought of its no longer being a secret. The knowledge that Guy was soon going to leave Plashers Mead was another torment, for though in a way she was glad of his wanting to make the determined effort, she could not help connecting the resolve with his friend's visit, and in consequence of this her one desire was to upset the plan. The sight of Richard and Margaret progressing equably towards their marriage early in August also made her jealous, and she began unreasonably to ascribe to her sister an attitude of superiority that she allowed to gall her; and whenever Richard was praised by any of the family she could never help feeling now that the praise covered or implied a corresponding disparagement of Guy. With Monica she nearly quarreled over religion, for though in her heart it occupied the old Supreme place, her escapades at night, by the tacit leave they seemed to give Guy to presume that religion no longer counted as her chief resource, had led her for the first time to make herself appear outwardly indifferent. In fact, she now dreaded going to church, because she felt that if she once surrendered to the holy influence she would suffer again all the remorse of the Winter, that now by desperate deferment she was able for a little while to avoid. On top of all this vexation of soul she was angry with Guy because he seemed unable to realize that they were both walking on the edge of an abyss, and that all this abandonment of themselves to the joy of the fugitive season was a vain attempt to cheat fate. At such an hour she was naturally jealous that a friend's private affairs should occupy so much of Guy's attention, when he himself was walking blindly towards the doom of their love that now sometimes in flashes of horrible clarity she beheld at hand. Guy, however, persisted in trying to force Michael upon her; the jealousy such attempts fostered made her more passionate when she was alone with him, and this, as all the while she dreadfully foresaw, heaped up the reckoning that her conscience would presently have to pay. One afternoon she and Margaret and Monica went to tea at Plashers Mead, when to her sharp annoyance she found herself next to Guy's friend. She made up her mind at the beginning of the conversation that he was criticizing her, and, feeling shy and awkward, she could only reply to him in gasps and monosyllables and blushes. He seemed to her the coldest person she had ever known; he seemed utterly without emotion or sympathy; he must surely be the worst friend imaginable for Guy. He took no interest in anything, apparently; and then suddenly he definitely revealed himself as the cause of Guy's ambition to conquer London. "I think Guy ought to go away from here," he was saying. "I told him when he first took this house that he would be apt to dream away all his time here. You must make him give it up, Miss Grey. He's such an extraordinarily brilliant person that it would be terrible if he let himself do nothing in the end. Of course, he's been lucky to meet you, and that's kept him alive, but now he ought to go to London. He really ought." Pauline hated herself for the way in which she was gasping out her monosyllabic agreement with all this; but she did not feel able to argue with Michael Fane. He disconcerted her by his air of severe judgment, and however hard she tried she could not contradict him. Then suddenly in a rage with herself and with him, she began to talk nonsense at the top of her voice, rattling on until her sisters looked up at her in surprise, while Michael, evidently embarrassed, scarcely answered. At last the uncomfortable visit came to an end, and as she walked back with Guy, while the others went in front, she began to inveigh against the friend more fiercely than ever. "My dear, I can't think why you have him to stay with you. He hates your being engaged to me...." "Oh, nonsense!" Guy interrupted, rather crossly. "He does, he does; and he hates your staying down here. He says Plashers Mead is ruining you, and that you ought to go to London. Now, you see, I know why you want to go there." "Really, Pauline, you're talking nonsense. I'm going to London because I'm positive that your father and mother both think I ought to go. And I'm positive myself that I ought to go. I've been wrong to stay here all this time. I've done nothing to help forward our marriage. Look how nervous and ... how nervous and overwrought you've become. It's all my fault." "How I hate that friend of yours!" Guy looked up in astonishment at the fervor of her tone. "And how he hates me," she went on. "Oh, really, my dear child, you are ridiculous," Guy exclaimed, petulantly. "Are you going to take up this attitude towards all my friends? You're simply horridly jealous, that's the whole matter." Pauline did not quarrel now, because she thought it might gratify Michael Fane to see the discord he had created, but she treasured up her anger and knew that, when later she and Guy were alone, she would say whatever hard things now rested unsaid. Next morning Guy asked her if she would be very cross to hear that he was going to town for a night. "With your friend?" she asked. He nodded, and she turned away from him clouded blue eyes. "It _is_ unfair of you to hate Michael," he pleaded. "I told him you thought he was cold, and he said at once, 'Do tell her I'm not cold, and say how lovely I think her.' He said you were very lovely and strange ... a fairy's child." Still Pauline would not turn her head. "I told him that you were indeed a fairy's child," Guy went on, "and I told him how sometimes I felt I should go off my head with the responsibility your happiness was to me. For indeed, Pauline, it is, it is a responsibility." She felt she must yield when Guy spoke like that, but then, unfortunately, he began to talk about his friend again, and sullen jealousy returned. "Listen, Pauline, I'm going up to town because Michael wants me to see this girl he is going to marry. He was rather pathetic about her. It seems that ... well ... it's a sort of misalliance, and his people are angry about it, and really I must be loyal and go up to town and help him with ... well ... you see, really all his friends have been unsympathetic about her." "I expect they've every right to be," said Pauline. "I do think you're unreasonable. I'm only going away for a night." "Oh, go, go, go!" she cried, and, pulling herself free of his caress, she left him by the margin of the stream disconsolate and perplexed. Pauline, when Guy had gone to London with his friend, began to fret herself with the fear that he would not come back, and she was very remorseful at the thought that if he did not she would be responsible. She half expected to get a letter next day to tell her of his determination to remain in town for good, and when no letter came she exaggerated still more all her fears and longed to send him a telegram to ask if he had arrived safely, railing at herself for having let him leave her without knowing where he was going to stay. By the following afternoon all the jealousy of Michael had been swallowed up in a passionate desire for Guy's return, and when about three o'clock she saw him coming through the wicket in the high gray wall her heart beat fast with relief. She said not a word about Guy's journey, nor did she even ask if his friend had come back with him. She cared for nothing but to show by her tenderness how penitent she was for that yesterday which had torn such a rent in the perfection of their love. Guy was visibly much relieved to find that her jealous fit had passed away, and when she asked for an account of his journey he gave it to her most eagerly. "Yesterday was rather tragic," he said. "We went to see this Lily Haden to whom Michael had engaged himself, and ... well ... it's impossible to explain to you what happened, but it was all very horrible and rather like a scene in a French play. Anyhow, Michael is cured of that fancy, and now he talks of going out of England and even of becoming a monk. These extraordinary religious fads that succeed violent emotion of an utterly different kind! Personally I don't think the monkish phase will survive the disillusionment that's just as much bound to happen in religion as it was bound to happen over that girl." "What was she like?" Pauline asked, resolving to appear interested in Michael. "I never saw her," said Guy. "The tragedy took place 'off' in the Aristotelian manner." "Oh, Guy, don't use such long words." "Dear little thing, I wish you wouldn't ask any more about this girl. She is something quite outside your imagination; though I could make of her behavior such a splendid lesson for you, when you think you have behaved dreadfully in escaping from your room for an hour or two of moonlight. Poor Michael! he's as scrupulous as you are, and it's rather ironical that you and he shouldn't get on. Puritans, both of you! Now there's another friend of mine, Maurice Avery, whom you'd probably like very much, and yet he isn't worth Michael's little finger." "Did you see him yesterday?" "Yes, we went round to his studio in Grosvenor Road. Oh, my dear, such a glorious room, looking out over the river right into the face of the young moon coming up over Lambeth. A jolly old Georgian house. And at the back another long, low window looking out over a sea of roofs to the sunset behind the new Roman cathedral. There were lots of people there, and a man was playing that Brahms sonata your mother likes so much. Pauline, you and I simply must go and live in Chelsea or Westminster, and we can come back to Plashers Mead after the most amazing adventures. You would be such a rose on a London window-sill, or would you then be a tuft of London Pride, all blushes and bravery?" "Bravery! Why I'm frightened to death by the idea of going to live in London! Oh, Guy, I'm frightened of anything that will break into our life here." "But, dearest, we can't stay at Wychford for ever doing nothing. Read 'The Statue and the Bust' if you want to understand the dread that lies cold on my heart sometimes. Think how already nearly twenty months have gone by since we met, and still we are in the same position. We know each other better, and we are more in love than ever, but you have all sorts of worries at the back of your mind, and I have all sorts of ambitions not yet fulfilled. Michael has at last managed to make a complete ass of himself, but what have I done?" "Your poems ... your poems," she murmured, despairingly. "Are your poems really no use? Oh, Guy, that seems such a cruel thing to believe." Guy talked airily of what much more wonderful things he was going to write, and when he asked Pauline to meet him this very midnight on the river she had to consent, because in the thought that he appeared to be drifting out of reach of her love she felt half distraught and would have sacrificed anything to keep him by her. The June evening seemed of a sad, uniform green, for the blossom of the trees was departed and the borders were not yet marching in Midsummer array. There was always a sadness about these evenings of early June, a sadness, and sometimes a threat when the wind blew loudly among the young foliage. Those gusty eves were almost preferable to this protracted and luminous melancholy in which the sinking crescent of the moon hung scarcely more bright than ivory. The pensive beauty was too much for Pauline, who wished that she could shut out the obstinate day and read by candle-light such a book as _Alice in Wonderland_ until it was time to go to bed. Her white fastness, rose-bloomed by sunset as she dressed for dinner, reproached her intention of abandoning its shelter to-night, and she determined that this should really be the last escapade. There was no harm in what she had done, of course, as Guy assured her, and yet there was harm in behaving so traitorously towards that narrow white bed, towards pious, wide-eyed Saint Ursula and Tobit's companionable angel. The languor of the evening was heavy upon all the family; Monica was the only one who had the energy to go to her instrument. She played Chopin, and the austerity of her method made the ballads and the nocturnes more dangerously sweet. Gradually the melodies lulled most of Pauline's fears and charmed her to look forward eagerly to the velvet midnight when she with Guy beside her would float deep into such caressing glooms. After Monica had played them all into drowsiness, Pauline had to wait until the last sound had died away in the house and the illumination of the last window had faded from the bodeful night that was stroking her window with invitation to come forth. Twelve o'clock clanged from the belfry, and Pauline opened her bedroom door to listen. She had put on her white frieze coat, for although the night was warm, the wearing of such outdoor garb gave a queer kind of propriety to the whole business, and at the far end of the long corridor she saw herself in the dim candle-light mirrored like a ghost in the Venetian glass. From the heart of the house the cuckoo calling midnight a minute or two late made her draw back in alarm, and not merely in alarm, but also rather sentimentally, as if by her action she were going to offend that innocent bird of childhood. She wondered why to-night she felt so sensitive beforehand, since usually the regret had followed her action; but promising herself that to-night should indeed be the last time she would ever take this risk, she crept on tip-toe down the stairs. In the glimmering starshine Pauline could see Guy standing by the wicket in the high gray wall, a remote and spectral form against the blackness all around him, where the invisible trees gathered and hoarded the gloom. She sighed with relief to find that the arms with which so gently he enfolded her were indeed warm with life. Her passage over the lawn had been one long increasing fear that the shape, so indeterminate and motionless, that awaited her approach, might not be Guy in life, but a wan image of what he had been, a demon lover, a shadow from the cave of death. "Guy, my darling, my darling, it is you! Oh, I was so frightened that when I came close you wouldn't really be there." She leaned half sobbing upon his shoulder. "Pauline, don't talk so loud. I only did not come across the lawn to meet you for fear of attracting attention." "Let me go back now," she begged, "now that I've seen you." But Guy soon persuaded her to come with him through the wicket and out over the paddock where the grass whispered in their track, until at the sight of the canoe's outline she lost her fears and did not care how recklessly she explored the deeps of the night. In silence they traveled up-stream under the vaulted willows; under the giant sycamore whose great roots came writhing out of the darkness above the sheen of the water; under Wychford bridge whose cold breath dripped down in icy beads upon the thick swirl beneath; and then out through starshine across the mill-pool. Pauline held her breath while around their course was a sound of water sucking at the vegetation, gurgling and lapping and chuckling against the invisible banks. "The Abbey stream?" murmured Guy. She scarcely breathed her consent, and the canoe tore the growing sedge like satin as it bumped against the slope of the bank. Pauline felt that she was protesting with her real self against the part she was playing in this dream; but the dream became too potent, and she had to help Guy to push the canoe up through the grass and down again into the quiet water beyond. It was much blacker here on account of the overhanging beeches, but continually Pauline strained through the darkness for a sight of the deserted house, the windows of which seemed to follow with blank and bony gaze their progress. "Guy, let's hurry, for I can see the Abbey in the starlight," she exclaimed. "You have better eyes than mine if you can," he laughed. "My sweet, your face from where I'm sitting is as filmy as a rose at dusk. And even if you can see the Abbey, what does it matter? Do you think it's going to run down the hill and swim after us?" Pauline tried to laugh, but even that grotesque picture of his evoked a new terror, and, huddled among the cushions, she sat with beating heart, shuddering when the leaves of the great beech-trees fondled her hair. She looked back to her own white fastness and began to wonder if she had left the candle burning there; it seemed to her that she had, and that perhaps presently, perhaps even now, somebody was coming to see why it was burning. And still Guy took her farther up the stream. How empty her room would look, and what a chill would fall upon the sister or mother that peeped in. "Oh, take me back!" she cried. But still the canoe cleft the darkness and now, emerging from the cavernous trees, they glided once again into starshine infinitely outspread, through which with the dim glister of a snake the stream coiled and uncoiled itself. Guy grasped at the reeds and drew the canoe close against the bank, making it fast with two paddles plunged into the mud. Then he gathered her to him so that her head rested upon his shoulder and her lips could meet his. Thus enfolded for a long while she lay content. The candle in her room burned itself out and nothing could disturb her absence, no one could suppose that she was here on this starlit river. Scarcely, indeed, was she here except as in the midway of deepest sleep, resting between a dream and a dream. She might have stayed unvexed for ever if Guy had not begun to talk, for although at first his voice came softly and pleasantly out of the night and lulled her like a tune heard faintly in some far-off corner of the mind, minute by minute his accents became more real; suddenly, as her drowsed arm slid over the edge of the canoe into the water, she woke and began herself to talk and, as she talked, to shrink again from the vision of her whole life whether past or present or to come. In this malicious darkness she wanted to hear more about that girl who had betrayed Michael Fane; she wanted to know things that before she had not even known were hidden. She pressed Guy with questions, and when he would not answer them she began to feel jealous even of unrevealed sin. This girl was the link between all those girls at whose existence in his own past Guy had once hinted. Michael Fane appeared like the tempter and Guy like his easy prey. Distortions of the most ordinary, the most trifling incidents piled themselves upon her imagination; and that visit to London assumed a ghastly and impenetrable mysteriousness. Guy vainly tried to laugh away her fancies; faster and still faster the evil cohorts swept up against her, almost as tangible as bats flapping into her face. "Don't talk so loud," said Guy, crossly. "Do remember where we are." Then she reproached him with having brought her here. She felt that he deserved to pay the penalty, and defiantly she was talking louder and louder until Guy, with feverish strokes, urged the canoe down-stream towards home. "For God's sake, keep quiet!" he begged. "What has happened to you?" That he should be frightened by her violence made her more angry. She threw at him the wildest accusations, how that through him she had ceased to believe in God, to care for her family, for her honor, for him, for life itself. "Pauline, will you keep quiet? Are you mad to behave like this?" He drove the canoe into a thorn-bush, so that it should not upset, and he seized her wrist so roughly that she thought she screamed. There was something splendid in that scream being able to disquiet the night, and in an elation of woe she screamed again. "Do you know what you're doing?" he demanded. She found herself asking Guy if she were screaming, and when she knew that at last she could hurt him, she screamed more loudly. "You used to laugh at me when I said I might go mad," she cried. "Now do you like it? Do you like it?" "Pauline, I beg you to keep quiet. Pauline, think of your people. Will you promise to keep quiet if I take you out of this thorn-bush?" He began to laugh not very mirthfully, and that he could laugh infuriated her so much that she was silent with rage, while Guy disentangled the canoe from the thorn-bush and more swiftly than before urged it towards home. When they reached the grassy bank that divided the Abbey stream from the mill-pool, she would not get out of the canoe to walk to the other side. "I cannot cross that pool," she said. "Guy, don't ask me to. I've been afraid of it always. If we cross it to-night, I shall drown myself." He tried to argue with her. He pleaded with her, he railed at her, and finally he laughed at her, until she got out and watched him launch the canoe on the farther side and beckon through the tremulous sheen to her. Wildly she ran down the steep bank and flung herself into the water. "Where am I? Guy, where am I?" "Well, at present you're lying on the grass, but where you've been or where I've been this last five minutes.... Pauline, are you yourself again?" "Guy, my dearest, my dearest, I don't know why...." She burst into tears. "My dearest, how wet you are," she sobbed, stroking his drenched sleeve. "Well, naturally," he said, with a short laugh. "Look here, it was all my fault for bringing you out, so don't get into a state of mind about yourself, but you can't go back in the canoe. My nerves are still too shaky. I can lift you over the wall behind the mill, and we must go back to the Rectory across the street. Come, my Pauline, you're wet, you know. Oh, my own, my sweet, if I could only uncount the hours." Pauline would never have reached home but for Guy's determination. It was he who guided her past the dark entries, past the crafty windows of Rectory Lane, past the menacing belfry, past the trees of the Rectory drive. By the front door he asked her if she dared go up-stairs alone. "I will wait on the lawn until I see your candle alight," he promised. She kissed him tragically and crept in. Her room was undisturbed, but in the looking-glass she saw a dripping ghost, and when she held her candle to the window another ghost vanished slowly into the high gray wall. A cock crowed in the distance, and through the leaves of the wistaria there ran a flutter of waking sparrows. JULY When Guy looked back next morning at what had happened on the river, he felt that the only thing to do was to leave Pauline for a while and give her time and opportunity to recover from the shock. He wondered if it would be wiser merely to write a note to announce his intention or if she had now reached a point at which even a letter would be a disastrous aggravation of her state of mind. He felt that he could not bear any scene that might approximate to that horrible scene last night, and yet to go away abruptly in such circumstances seemed too callous. Supposing that he went across to the Rectory and that Pauline should have another seizure of hatred for him (there was no other word that could express what her attitude had been), how could their engagement possibly go on? Mrs. Grey would be appalled by the emotional ravages it had made Pauline endure; she would not be justified, whatever Pauline's point of view, in allowing the engagement to last a day longer. It would be surely wiser to write a letter and with all the love he felt explain that he thought she would be happier not to see him for a short while. Yet such a course might provoke her to declare the whole miserable business, and the false deductions that might be made from her account were dreadful to contemplate. He blamed himself entirely for what had happened, and yet he could scarcely have foreseen such a violent change. Even now he could not say what exactly had begun the outburst, and indeed the only explanation of it was by a weight of emotion that had been accumulating for months. Of course he should never have persuaded her to come out on the river at night, but still that he had done so was only a technical offense against convention. It was she who had magnified her acquiescence beyond any importance he could have conceived. He must thank religion for that, he must thank that poisonous fellow in the confessional who had first started her upon this ruinous path of introspection and self-torment. But, whatever the cause, it was the remedy that demanded his attention, and he twisted the situation round and round without being able to decide how to act. He realized how month by month his sense of responsibility for Pauline had been growing, yet now the problem of her happiness stared at him, brutally insoluble. What was it Margaret had once said about his being unlikely to squander Pauline for a young man's experience? Good God! had not just that been the very thing he had nearly done; and then with a shudder, remembering last night, he wondered if he ought any longer to say "nearly." He must see her. Of course he must see her this morning. He must somehow heal the injury he had inflicted upon her youth. Pauline was very gentle when they met. She had no reproaches except for herself and the way she had frightened him. "Oh, my Pauline, can't you forget it?" he begged. "Let me go away for a month or more. Let me go away till Margaret and Richard are going to be married." She acquiesced half listlessly, and then seeming to feel that she might have been cold in her manner, she wished him a happy holiday from her moods and jealousy and exacting love. He tried to pierce the true significance of her attitude, because it held in its heart a premonition for him that everything between them had been destroyed last night, and that henceforth whatever he or she did or said they would meet in the future only as ghosts may meet in shadowy converse and meaningless communion. "You will be glad to see me when I come back?" he asked. "Why, my dearest, of course I shall be glad!" He kissed her good-by, but her kiss was neither the kiss of lover nor of sister, but such a kiss as ghosts may use, seeking to perpetuate the mere form and outward semblance of life lost irrevocably. When Guy was driving with Godbold along the Shipcot road he had not made up his mind where he would go, and it was on the spur of the moment, as he stood in the booking-office, that he decided to go and see his father, to whom latterly he had written scarcely at all, and of whom he suddenly thought with affection. "I've settled to give up Plashers Mead," Guy told him that night, when they were sitting in the library at Fox Hall. "And try and get on the staff of a paper," he added to his father's faint bow. "Or possibly I may go to Persia as Sir George Gascony's secretary. My friend Comeragh got me the offer in March, but Sir George was ill and did not start." "That sounds much more sensible than journalism," said Mr. Hazlewood. "Yes, perhaps it would be better," Guy agreed. "But then, of course, there is the question of leaving Pauline for two years." Yet even as he enunciated this so solemnly, he knew in his heart that he would be rather glad to postpone for two years all the vexations of love. His father shrugged his shoulders. "My poems are coming out this Autumn," Guy volunteered. His father gave some answer of conventional approbation, and Guy without the least bitterness recognized that to his father the offer of the secretaryship had naturally presented itself as the more important occasion. "If you want any help with your outfit...." "Oh, you mustn't count on Persia," interrupted Guy. "But I'll go up to town to-morrow and ask Comeragh when Sir George is going." Next day, however, when Guy was in the train, he began to consider his Persian plan a grave disloyalty to Pauline. He wondered how last night he had come to think of it again, and fancied it might have been merely an instinct to gratify his father after their coolness. Of course, he would not dream of going, really, and yet it would have been jolly. Yes, it would certainly have been jolly, and he was rather relieved to find that Comeragh was out of town for a week, for his presence might have been a temptation. Michael Fane was not in London, either, so Guy went round to Maurice Avery's studio in Grosvenor Road, and in the pleasure of the company he found there the Persian idea grew less insistent. Maurice himself had just been invited to write a series of articles on the English ballet for a critical weekly journal called _The Point of View_. They went to a theater together, and Guy as he listened to Maurice's jargon felt for a while quite rustic, and was once or twice definitely taken in by it. Had he really been stagnating all this time at Wychford? And then the old superiority which at Oxford he always felt over his friend reasserted itself. "You're still skating, Maurice," he drawled. "The superficial area of your brain must be unparalleled." "You frowsty old yokel!" his friend exclaimed, laughing. "I don't believe I shall get much out of breath, catching up with your advanced ideas," Guy retorted. "Anyway, this Autumn I shall come to town for good." "And about time you did," said Maurice. "I say, mind you send your poems to _The Point of View_, and I'll give you a smashing fine notice the week after publication." Guy asked when Michael was coming back. "He's made a glorious mess of things, hasn't he?" said Maurice. "Oh, I don't know. Not necessarily." "Well, I admit he found her out in time. But fancy wanting to marry a girl like that. I told him what she was, and he merely got furious with me. But he's an extraordinary chap altogether. By the way, when are _you_ going to get married?" "When I can afford it," said Guy. "The question is whether an artist can ever afford to get married." "What rot you talk." "Wiser men than I have come to that conclusion," said Maurice. "Of course I haven't met your lady-love; but it does seem to me that your present mode of life is bound to be sterile of impressions." "I don't go about self-consciously obtaining impressions," said Guy, a little angrily. "I would as soon search for local color. Personally I very much doubt if any impressions after eighteen or nineteen help the artist. As it seems to me, all experience after that age is merely valuable for maturing and putting into proportion the more vital experiences of childhood. And I'm not at all sure that there isn't in every artist a capacity for development which proceeds quite independently of externals. I speculate sometimes as to what would be the result upon a really creative temperament of being wrecked at twenty-two on a desert island. I say twenty-two because I do count as valuable the academic influence that only begins to be effective after eighteen." "And what is your notion about this literary Crusoe?" asked Maurice. "Well, I fancy that his work would not suffer at all, that it would ripen, just as certain fruit ripens independently of sun, that he would display in fact quite normally the characteristic growth of the artist." "But where would he obtain his reaction?" Maurice asked. "From himself. If that isn't possible for some people I don't see how you're going to make a distinction between literature and journalism." "Some journalism is literature." "Only very bad journalism," Guy argued. "The journalistic mind experiences a quick reaction, the creative writer a very slow one. The journalist is affected by extremes; and he is continually aware of the impression they are making at the moment; contrariwise, the creative artist is always unaware of the impression at the moment it is made; he feels it from within first, and it develops according to his own characteristics. Let me give you an example. The journalist is like a man who, seeing a mosquito in the act of biting him, claps his hand down and kills it. The creative artist isn't aware of having been bitten until he sees the swelling ... big or small, according to his constitution. It is his business to cure the swelling, not to bother about the insect." "Your theories may be all right for great creative artists," said Maurice. "And I suppose you're willing to take the risk of stagnation?" "I'm not a great creative artist," said Guy, quickly. "At the same time I'm damned if I'm a journalist. No, the effect of Plashers Mead on me has been to make me long to be a man of action. So far it has been stimulating, and without external help I've been able to reach the conclusion that my poems were never worth writing.... I wrote because I wanted to; I don't believe I ever had to." "Then what are you going to do now?" asked Maurice. "I'm probably going to work in London at journalism." "Then, great Scott! why all this preliminary tirade against it?" "Because I don't want to bluff myself into thinking that I'm going to do anything but be a strictly professional writer," said Guy. "Or else perhaps because I don't really want to come and live in London at all, but go to Persia. Dash it all, for the first time in my life, Maurice, I don't know what I do want, and it's a very humiliating state of affairs for me." When Guy left the studio that evening he came away with that pleasant warming of the cockles of the brain that empirical conversation always gave. It was really very pleasant to be chattering away about æsthetic theories, to be meeting new people, and to be infused with this sense of being joined up to the motive force of a city's life. At his lodgings in Vincent Square a letter from Pauline awaited his return, and with a shock he realized half-way through its perusal that he was reading it listlessly. He turned back and tried to bring to its contents that old feverish absorption in magic pages, but something was wanting, whether in the letter or whether in himself he did not know. He came to the point of asking himself if he loved her still as much, and almost with horror at the question vowed he loved her more than ever, and that of all things on earth he only longed for their marriage. Yet in bed that night he thought more of his argument in the studio than about Pauline, and when he did think about her it was with a drowsy sense of relief. Vincent Square under the bland city moon seemed very peaceful, and in retrospect Wychford a place of endless storms. Next morning when Guy sat down to answer Pauline's letter, he found himself writing with mechanical fluency without really thinking of her at all. In fact, for the moment, she represented something that disturbed the Summer calm in London, and he consciously did not want to think about her until all this late troublous time had lost its actuality and he could be sure of returning to the Pauline of their love's earlier days. These shuttlecock letters were tossed backward and forward between Wychford and London throughout the rest of June and most of July, and sometimes Guy thought they were as unreal as his own poetry. He spent his time in looking up old friends, in second-hand bookshops, in the galleries of theaters. He did not see Michael Fane, who wrote to him from Rome before Guy knew he had gone there. Comeragh, however, he saw pretty often, and he enjoyed talking about politics nearly as much as about art. He met Sir George Gascony, and Comeragh assured him afterwards that when Sir George went out to Persia in August or September he could, if he liked, go with him. Guy put the notion at the back of his mind, whence he occasionally took it out and played with it. In the end, however, when the definite offer came he refused it. This happened at the end of his visit to London when his money was running out and when he had to be going back to Wychford to live somehow on credit, until the Michaelmas quarter replenished his overdrawn account. Before he left town he paid a visit to Mr. Worrall and told him that he wanted his poems to appear anonymously. In fact, if it were not for hurting the Rector's feelings he would have stopped their publication altogether. At the end of a hot and dusty July, and about a week before the Lammas wedding of Margaret and Richard, Guy came back to Plashers Mead. The immediate effect of seeing again the place which was now associated in his mind with interminable difficulties was to make him resolute to clarify the situation once and for all, to clarify it so completely that there could never again be a repetition of that night in June. His absence had been in the strictest sense an interlude, and all the letters which marked to each the existence of the other had been but conventional forms of love and comfortable postponements of reality. When he met Pauline, Guy felt that he met her to all intents directly after that dreadful night, with only this difference, that owing to the time they had had for repose he could now say things that six weeks ago he could not have said. He had arrived at Wychford for lunch, and as a matter of course they were to be together that afternoon. Ordinarily on such a piping July day he would have proposed the river for their converse, and it was a sign of how near at hand he felt their last time on the river that he proposed a walk instead. Guy was aware of wanting to take Pauline to some place that was neither hallowed nor cursed by past hours, and, avoiding familiar ways, they reached a barren, cup-shaped field shut off from the road by a spinney of firs that offered such a dry and draughty shade as made the field even in the hot sun of afternoon more tolerable. They sat down on the sour stony land among the rag-wort and teazles and feverfew. Summer had burnt up this abandoned pasturage, and while they sat in silence Guy rattled from the rank umbels of fool's-parsley and hemlock the innumerable seeds that would only profit the rankness of another year. "Well?" he said at last. Pauline looked at him questioningly, and he felt impatient to be sitting here on this sour stony land, and wondered how for merely this he could have refused that offer of Persian adventure. Not until now had he realized how much he had been resenting the performance of a duty. "You've hardly told me anything about your time in London," said Pauline. He looked at her sharply in case this might be a prelude to jealous interrogation. "There's nothing much to tell. I settled that my poems should appear anonymously. I'm afraid their publication may otherwise do me more harm than good." "All your poems?" she asked, wistfully. He nodded, impelled by a strong desire for absolute honesty, though he would have liked to except the poems about her, knowing how much she must be wounded to hear even them called worthless. "Then I've been no good to you at all?" "Of course you have. Because these poems are no good, it doesn't follow that what I write next won't be good. And yet I'm uncertain whether I ought to go on merely writing. I'm beginning to wonder if I oughtn't to have gone out to Persia with Gascony? I refused the job because I thought it would upset you. And so, dearest Pauline, when next you feel jealous, do remember that. Do remember that it is always you who come first. Don't think I'm regretful about Persia. I'm only wondering on your account if I ought to have gone. It would have made our marriage in three years a certainty, but still I hope by journalism to make it certain in one year. Are you glad, my Pauline?" "Yes, of course I'm glad," she answered, without fervor. "And you won't be jealous of my friends? Because it's impossible to be in London without friends, you know." "I told you I should never be enough." Guy tried not to be irritated by this. "If you would only be reasonable! I realize now that for me at my age it's foolish to withdraw from my contemporaries. I shall stagnate. These two years have not been wasted...." "Yes, they have," she interrupted, "if your poems are not worth your name." "Dearest, these two years may well be the foundation on which I build all the rest of my life." "May they?" "Yes, of course. But a desire for the stimulus of other people isn't the only reason for leaving Plashers Mead. I can't afford it here. My debts are really getting impossible to manage, and unless I can show my father that I'm ready to do anything to be a writer, as I can't go out to Persia, well ... frankly I don't know what will happen. I gave Burrows notice at Midsummer." "You never told me," said Pauline. "Well, no, I was afraid you'd be upset and I wanted you to have this quiet time when I was away...." "You don't trust me any more," she said. "Oh yes, I do, but I thought it would worry you. I know my money affairs do worry you. But now I shall be all right. I'll come down here often, you know, and, oh, really, dearest girl, it is better that I should be in London. So don't be jealous, will you, and don't torment yourself about my debts, will you, and don't think that you are anything but everything to me." "I expect you'll enjoy being in London," she said, slowly shredding the flowers from a spray of wild mignonette. "I hope I shall be so busy that I won't have time to regret Wychford," said Guy. He had by now broken off all the rank flowers in reach, and the sour stony ground was littered with seeds and pungent heads of bloom and ragged stalks. "You'll never regret Wychford," she said. "Never. Because I've spoiled it for you, my darling." She touched his hand gently and drew close to him, but only timidly; and as she made the movement a flight of goldfinches lighted upon the swaying thistle-down in the hollow of the waste land. "Pauline! Pauline!" he cried, and would have kissed her passionately, but she checked him: "No, no, I just want to lean my head upon your shoulder for a little while." Above her murmur he heard the rustle of the goldfinches' song in parting cadences upon the air, rising and falling; and looking down at Pauline in the sunlight, he felt that she was a wounded bird he should be cherishing. AUGUST The wedding of Richard and Margaret dreamed of for so long strung Pauline to a pitch of excitement that made her seem never more positively herself. She was conscious, as she gazed in the mirror on that Lammas morning, that the tired look at the back of her eyes had gone and that in her muslin dress sown with rosebuds she appeared exactly as she ought to have appeared in any prefiguration of herself in bridesmaid's attire. Feeling as she did in a way the principal architect of Richard's and Margaret's happiness, she was determined at whatever cost of dejection afterwards to bring to the completion of her design all the enthusiasm she had brought to its conception. "Do you like me as a bridesmaid?" she asked Guy. And he, with obviously eager welcome of the old Pauline, could not find enough words to say how much he liked her. "Richard, of course, is wearing a tail-coat," she murmured. "I sha'n't," he whispered, "when we are married. I shall wear tweeds, and you shall wear your white frieze coat ... the one in which I first saw you. How little you've changed in these two years!" "Have I? I think I've changed such a lot. Oh, Guy, such a tremendous lot!" He shook his head. "My rose, if all roses could stay like you, what a world of roses it would be." The wedding happened as perfectly as Pauline had imagined it would. Margaret looked most beautiful with her slim white satin gown and her weight of dusky hair, while Richard marched about stiff and awkward, yet so radiant that almost more than any one it was he who inspired the ceremony with hymeneal triumph and carried it beyond the soilure of unmeaning tears, he and Pauline, whose laughter was the expression of the joyous air, since Margaret was too deeply occupied with herself to cast a single questioning look. In the evening, when the diminished family sat in the drawing-room without going up-stairs to music, as a matter of course, Monica announced abruptly that at the end of the month she was going to be a novice in one of the large Anglican sisterhoods. It seemed as if she had most deliberately taken advantage of the general reaction in order that nobody might have the heart to combat her intention. Pauline and Mrs. Grey gasped, but they had no arguments to bring forward against the idea, and when Monica had outlined the plan in her most precise manner they simply acquiesced in the decision as immutable. That night, as Pauline lay awake with the excitement of the wedding still throbbing in her brain, the future from every side began to assail her fancy. It seemed to her since Margaret's marriage and Monica's decision to be a nun that she must be more than ever convinced of her absolute necessity to Guy's existence. Unless she were assured of this she had no right to leave her father and mother. No doubt at least a year would pass before she and Guy could be married, but, nevertheless, her decision must be made at once. He had not seemed to depend upon her so much when he was in London; his letters had no longer contained those intimate touches that formerly assured her of the intertwining of their lives. But it was not merely a question of letters, this attitude of his that latterly was continually being more sharply defined. Somewhere their love had diverged, and whereas formerly she had always been able to comfort herself with the certainty that between them love was exactly equal, now instead she could not help fancying that she loved him more than he loved her. It would, of course, be useless to ask him the question directly, for he would evade an answer by declaring it was prompted by unreasonable jealousy. Yet was her jealousy so very unreasonable, and if it were unreasonable was not that another reason against their marriage? Pauline tried to search in the past of their love for the occasion of the divergence. It must be her own fault. It was she who had often behaved foolishly and impetuously, who had always supposed that her mother and sisters knew nothing about love, who had been to Guy all through their engagement utterly useless. It was she who had stopped his becoming a schoolmaster to help his father, it was she who had discouraged him from accepting that post in Persia. As Pauline looked back upon these two years she saw herself at every cross-road in Guy's career standing to persuade him towards the wrong direction. Then, too, recurred the dreadful problem of religion. It was she who had not resisted his inclination to laugh at what she knew was true. It was she who had most easily and most weakly surrendered, so that it was natural for him to treat her faith as something more conventional than real. The worries surged round her like waves in the darkness, and the one anchor of hope she still possessed was dragging ominously. Oh, if she could but be sure that she was essential to his happiness, she would be able to conquer everything else. The loneliness of her father and mother, Guy's debts, the religious difficulties, the self-reproach for those moonlit nights upon the river, the jealousy of his friends, the fear of his poems' failure, his absence in London--all these could be overcome if only she were sure of being vital to Guy's felicity. A dull Summer wind sent a stir through the dry leaves of the creepers, but the night grew hotter notwithstanding, and sleep utterly refused to approach her room. Next day, when Guy came round to the Rectory, Pauline was so eager to hear the answer to her question that she would take no account of the jaded spirit of such a day as this after a wedding, and its natural influence on Guy's point of view. All the afternoon, however, they helped the Rector with his bulbs, and no opportunity of intimate conversation occurred until after tea when they were sitting in the nursery. The wind, that last night had run with slow tremors through the leaves, was now blowing gustily, and banks of clouds were gathering--great clouds that made the vegetation seem all the more dry and stale as they still deferred their drench of rain. "Guy, I don't want to annoy you, but is it really necessary that your poems should appear without your name?" "Absolutely," he said, firmly. "You don't think any of them are good?" "Oh, some are all right, but I don't believe in them as I used to believe in them." "Sometimes, my dearest, you frighten me with the sudden way in which you dispose of things.... They were important to you once, weren't they?" "Of course. But they have outlived their date. I must do better." She got up and went over to the window-seat, and when she spoke next she was looking at the wicket in the high gray wall. "Guy, could I outlive my date?" "Oh, dearest Pauline, I do beg you not to start problems this afternoon! Of course not." "Are you sure? Are you sure that when you are in London you won't find other girls more interesting than I am?" "Even if temporarily I were interested in another girl, you may be quite sure that she would always be second to you." "But you might be interested?" Pauline asked, breathlessly. "I must be free if I'm going to be an artist." "Free?" she echoed, slowly. The cuckoo in the passage struck seven, and Mrs. Grey came into the nursery to invite Guy to stay to dinner. All through the meal Pauline kept saying to herself, "free," "free," "free," and afterwards when her mother suggested a trio in the music-room, because they could no longer have quartets, and because soon they would not even have trios, Pauline played upon her violin nothing but that word "free," "free," "free." In the hall, when she kissed Guy good night, she had impulse to cling to him and pour out all her woes; but, remembering how often lately he had been the victim of her overwrought nerves, she let him go without an effort. For a little while she held the door ajar so that a thin shaft of lamplight showed his tall shape walking quickly away under the trees. Why was he walking so quickly away from her? Oh, it was raining fast, and she shut the door. Up-stairs in her room she wrote to him: Guy, you must forgive me, but I cannot bear the strain of this long engagement any more. I will go away with Miss Verney somewhere to-morrow so that you needn't hurry away from Plashers Mead before you intended. I meant to write you a long letter full of everything, but there isn't any more to say. PAULINE. Her mother found her sobbing over her desk that was full of childish things, and asked what was the matter. "I've broken off my engagement," and wearily she told her some of the reasons, but never any reason that might have seemed to cast the least blame on him. Next morning very early came a note for her mother from Guy, in which he said he was leaving Plashers Mead in a couple of hours, and begged that she would not let Pauline be the one to go away. EPIGRAPH GUY Guy could not make the effort to fight the doom upon their love declared by Pauline in her letter. He felt that if he did not acquiesce he would go mad; a deadness struck at him that he fancied was a wonderful sense of relief, and, hurriedly packing a few things, he went in pursuit of his friend Comeragh, in case it might not even now be too late to go to Persia. However, though he did not manage to be in time for Sir George Gascony, his friend secured him a job on some committee that was being organized in Macedonia by enthusiastic Liberals. His previous experience there was recommendation enough, and after he had seen his father, acquired his outfit, and settled up everything at Plashers Mead by means of Maurice Avery, early in September he set out Eastward. In Rome Guy picked up Michael Fane, who was on the point of starting for the Benedictine monastery at Cava. Having a few days to spare before he went on to Brindisi, he agreed to spend the time with Michael tramping in the sun along the Parthenopean shore. "I can't understand what consolation you expect to find by shutting yourself up with a lot of frowsty monks," said Guy, fretfully. "Nor can I understand when just at the moment you have been dealt the blow that should at last determine if you are to be an artist," retorted Michael--"I can't understand why you choose that exact moment to go and be futile in Macedonia." "Do you think I would be an artist now, even if I could?" asked Guy, fiercely. "How I hate such a point of view. No, no; I have made myself miserable, and I have made some one else miserable because I thought I wanted to be an artist. But never, never shall that old jejune ambition be gratified now." "You'll never try to write anything more?" "Nothing," said Guy. "Then what has all this been for?" "Perhaps to come back in a year, and.... Listen: "O ragged-robins, you will bloom each year, But we shall never pluck you after rain: For aye, O ragged hearts, you beat alone, And never more shall you be joined again. "Do you think I want to come back in a year and still be able to versify my grief like that? I look forward to something better than minor poetry." "You mean you still hope ..." his friend began. "I daren't even hope yet ... but all my life I'll do penance for having said that an artist must be free." They had reached the inn at Amalfi, where letters might be waiting for them. Guy read aloud one which had arrived from Maurice Avery: "422 GROSVENOR ROAD, "WESTMINSTER. "MY DEAR GUY,--I settled up everything for you at Plashers Mead. Rather a jolly place. I nearly took it on myself. I'm getting quite used to settling up other people's affairs since you and Michael have made me your executor. Good luck to you in Macedonia. "Last night I went to the Orient Ballet and met a perfectly delightful girl. If there is such a thing as love at first sight, I am in love. Jenny Pearl she is called. Forgive this apparently casual enthusiasm, but you two cynics will be able to tear me to pieces to your satisfaction. I offer my heart for your bitter mirth to embalm. "Yours ever, "M. A. "Your dog is at Godalming with my people. My sisters talk of nothing else. "Maurice rises like a phoenix from our ashes," said Guy, grimly. "He was always irrepressible," Michael agreed. "And still you haven't answered my question about your monkery," Guy persisted. "You want action. I want contemplation. But don't think that I'm going to take final vows to-morrow." "And do you really believe in the Christian religion?" Guy asked, incredulously. "Yes, I really do." "What an extraordinary thing!" Next day they parted, Michael going to the Benedictine house at Cava, Guy pressing on towards Salerno. With every breath of the rosemary, with every sough of the Aleppo pines, with every murmur of the blue Tyrrhenian winking far below, more and more sharply did he realize that what he had thought at the time was wonderful relief had been more truly despair. Yet in a happier September might he not hope to come back this way, setting his face towards England? One more turn of the head in the gathering gloom To watch her figure in the lighted door: One more wish that I never should turn again, But watch her standing there for evermore. PAULINE Pauline went away with Monica to spend the rest of August and the beginning of September in the depths of the country, where, however, for all the stillness of the ripe season, she did not find very great peace. In every lane, in every wood, below the brow of every hill, she was always half expecting to meet Guy. It was not until Monica was going to her sisterhood, and that she came back to see TO LET staring from the windows of Plashers Mead, that Pauline was able at last to realize what she had irrevocably done. On the day after her return Pauline went to see Miss Verney. To her she explained that the engagement was at an end. "I heard something about it," said Miss Verney. "And feeling sure that it was doubtless on account of money, I must very impertinently beg you to accept this." Pauline looked at the packet the old maid had thrust into her hand. "Those are deeds," said Miss Verney, importantly. "I have felt for some time past that I do not really need all my money. My income, you know, is very nearly two hundred and fifty pounds a year. One hundred pounds would be ample, and therefore I hope _you_ will accept the surplus." "My darling Miss Verney," said Pauline, "it could not be." But the old maid was with very great difficulty persuaded of the impossibility. "And you mean to say," she gasped, "that you are never going to see each other again?" "Oh, sometimes," Pauline whispered--"sometimes I wonder if it could really happen that Guy and I should never meet again. Please don't let's talk about it. I shall come and see you often, but you mustn't ever talk about Guy and me, will you?" "I shall put this money aside," Miss Verney announced, "because I am _most_ anxious to prove that one hundred pounds a year is ample for me. Extravagance has always been my temptation!" Later in the afternoon Pauline left her friend and went down Wychford High Street towards home. There were great wine-dark dahlias in the gardens, and the bell was sounding for Evensong. She knelt behind a pillar, all of the congregation. How through this Winter that was coming she would love her father and mother. And if Guy ever came back ... if Guy ever came back.... She heard her father's voice dying away with the close of the Office; and presently they walked about the golden churchyard, arm in arm. "I shouldn't be surprised to see _Sternbergia lutea_ this year," he observed. "We have had a lot of sun." "Have we?" Pauline sighed. "Oh yes, a great deal of sun." Her father, of course, would never speak of that broken engagement, and already she had made her mother promise never to speak of it again. Deep to her inmost heart only these familiar vales and streams and green meadows would speak of it for the rest of her life. THE END 
11869	----	Team VENETIA BY THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G. 1905 'Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child?' 'The child of love, though born in bitterness And nurtured in convulsion.' TO LORD LYNDHURST. In happier hours, when I first mentioned to you the idea of this Work, it was my intention, while inscribing it with your name, to have entered into some details as to the principles which had guided me in its composition, and the feelings with which I had attempted to shadow forth, though as 'in in a glass darkly,' two of the most renowned and refined spirits that have adorned these our latter days. But now I will only express a hope that the time may come when, in these pages, you may find some relaxation from the cares, and some distraction from the sorrows, of existence, and that you will then receive this dedication as a record of my respect and my affection. This Work was first published in the year 1837. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. Some ten years before the revolt of our American colonies, there was situate in one of our midland counties, on the borders of an extensive forest, an ancient hall that belonged to the Herberts, but which, though ever well preserved, had not until that period been visited by any member of the family, since the exile of the Stuarts. It was an edifice of considerable size, built of grey stone, much covered with ivy, and placed upon the last gentle elevation of a long ridge of hills, in the centre of a crescent of woods, that far overtopped its clusters of tall chimneys and turreted gables. Although the principal chambers were on the first story, you could nevertheless step forth from their windows on a broad terrace, whence you descended into the gardens by a double flight of stone steps, exactly in the middle of its length. These gardens were of some extent, and filled with evergreen shrubberies of remarkable overgrowth, while occasionally turfy vistas, cut in the distant woods, came sloping down to the south, as if they opened to receive the sunbeam that greeted the genial aspect of the mansion, The ground-floor was principally occupied by the hall itself, which was of great dimensions, hung round with many a family portrait and rural picture, furnished with long oaken seats covered with scarlet cushions, and ornamented with a parti-coloured floor of alternate diamonds of black and white marble. From the centre of the roof of the mansion, which was always covered with pigeons, rose the clock-tower of the chapel, surmounted by a vane; and before the mansion itself was a large plot of grass, with a fountain in the centre, surrounded by a hedge of honeysuckle. This plot of grass was separated from an extensive park, that opened in front of the hall, by tall iron gates, on each of the pillars of which was a lion rampant supporting the escutcheon of the family. The deer wandered in this enclosed and well-wooded demesne, and about a mile from the mansion, in a direct line with the iron gates, was an old-fashioned lodge, which marked the limit of the park, and from which you emerged into a fine avenue of limes bounded on both sides by fields. At the termination of this avenue was a strong but simple gate, and a woodman's cottage; and then spread before you a vast landscape of open, wild lands, which seemed on one side interminable, while on the other the eye rested on the dark heights of the neighbouring forest. This picturesque and secluded abode was the residence of Lady Annabel Herbert and her daughter, the young and beautiful Venetia, a child, at the time when our history commences, of very tender age. It was nearly seven years since Lady Annabel and her infant daughter had sought the retired shades of Cherbury, which they had never since quitted. They lived alone and for each other; the mother educated her child, and the child interested her mother by her affectionate disposition, the development of a mind of no ordinary promise, and a sort of captivating grace and charming playfulness of temper, which were extremely delightful. Lady Annabel was still young and lovely. That she was wealthy her establishment clearly denoted, and she was a daughter of one of the haughtiest houses in the kingdom. It was strange then that, with all the brilliant accidents of birth, and beauty, and fortune, she should still, as it were in the morning of her life, have withdrawn to this secluded mansion, in a county where she was personally unknown, distant from the metropolis, estranged from all her own relatives and connexions, and without resource of even a single neighbour, for the only place of importance in her vicinity was uninhabited. The general impression of the villagers was that Lady Annabel was a widow; and yet there were some speculators who would shrewdly remark, that her ladyship had never worn weeds, although her husband could not have been long dead when she first arrived at Cherbury. On the whole, however, these good people were not very inquisitive; and it was fortunate for them, for there was little chance and slight means of gratifying their curiosity. The whole of the establishment had been formed at Cherbury, with the exception of her ladyship's waiting-woman, Mistress Pauncefort, and she was by far too great a personage to condescend to reply to any question which was not made to her by Lady Annabel herself. The beauty of the young Venetia was not the hereditary gift of her beautiful mother. It was not from Lady Annabel that Venetia Herbert had derived those seraphic locks that fell over her shoulders and down her neck in golden streams, nor that clear grey eye even, whose childish glance might perplex the gaze of manhood, nor that little aquiline nose, that gave a haughty expression to a countenance that had never yet dreamed of pride, nor that radiant complexion, that dazzled with its brilliancy, like some winged minister of Raffael or Correggio. The peasants that passed the lady and her daughter in their walks, and who blessed her as they passed, for all her grace and goodness, often marvelled why so fair a mother and so fair a child should be so dissimilar, that one indeed might be compared to a starry night, and the other to a sunny day. CHAPTER II. It was a bright and soft spring morning: the dewy vistas of Cherbury sparkled in the sun, the cooing of the pigeons sounded around, the peacocks strutted about the terrace and spread their tails with infinite enjoyment and conscious pride, and Lady Annabel came forth with her little daughter, to breathe the renovating odours of the season. The air was scented with the violet, tufts of daffodils were scattered all about, and though the snowdrop had vanished, and the primroses were fast disappearing, their wild and shaggy leaves still looked picturesque and glad. 'Mamma,' said the little Venetia, 'is this spring?' 'This is spring, my child,' replied Lady Annabel, 'beautiful spring! The year is young and happy, like my little girl.' 'If Venetia be like the spring, mamma is like the summer!' replied the child; and the mother smiled. 'And is not the summer young and happy?' resumed Venetia. 'It is not quite so young as the spring,' said Lady Annabel, looking down with fondness on her little companion, 'and, I fear, not quite so happy.' 'But it is as beautiful,' said Venetia. 'It is not beauty that makes us happy,' said Lady Annabel; 'to be happy, my love, we must be good.' 'Am I good?' said Venetia. 'Very good,' said Lady Annabel 'I am very happy,' said Venetia; 'I wonder whether, if I be always good, I shall always be happy?' 'You cannot be happy without being good, my love; but happiness depends upon the will of God. If you be good he will guard over you.' 'What can make me unhappy, mamma?' inquired Venetia. 'An evil conscience, my love.' 'Conscience!' said Venetia: 'what is conscience?' 'You are not yet quite old enough to understand,' said Lady Annabel, 'but some day I will teach you. Mamma is now going to take a long walk, and Venetia shall walk with her.' So saying, the Lady Annabel summoned Mistress Pauncefort, a gentlewoman of not more discreet years than might have been expected in the attendant of so young a mistress; but one well qualified for her office, very zealous and devoted, somewhat consequential, full of energy and decision, capable of directing, fond of giving advice, and habituated to command. The Lady Annabel, leading her daughter, and accompanied by her faithful bloodhound, Marmion, ascended one of those sloping vistas that we have noticed, Mistress Pauncefort following them about a pace behind, and after her a groom, at a respectful distance, leading Miss Herbert's donkey. They soon entered a winding path through the wood which was the background of their dwelling. Lady Annabel was silent, and lost in her reflections; Venetia plucked the beautiful wild hyacinths that then abounded in the wood in such profusion, that their beds spread like patches of blue enamel, and gave them to Mistress Pauncefort, who, as the collection increased, handed them over to the groom; who, in turn, deposited them in the wicker seat prepared for his young mistress. The bright sun bursting through the tender foliage of the year, the clear and genial air, the singing of the birds, and the wild and joyous exclamations of Venetia, as she gathered her flowers, made it a cheerful party, notwithstanding the silence of its mistress. When they emerged from the wood, they found themselves on the brow of the hill, a small down, over which Venetia ran, exulting in the healthy breeze which, at this exposed height, was strong and fresh. As they advanced to the opposite declivity to that which they had ascended, a wide and peculiar landscape opened before them. The extreme distance was formed by an undulating ridge of lofty and savage hills; nearer than these were gentler elevations, partially wooded; and at their base was a rich valley, its green meads fed by a clear and rapid stream, which glittered in the sun as it coursed on, losing itself at length in a wild and sedgy lake that formed the furthest limit of a widely-spreading park. In the centre of this park, and not very remote from the banks of the rivulet, was an ancient gothic building, that had once been an abbey of great repute and wealth, and had not much suffered in its external character, by having served for nearly two centuries and a half as the principal dwelling of an old baronial family. Descending the downy hill, that here and there was studded with fine old trees, enriching by their presence the view from the abbey, Lady Annabel and her party entered the meads, and, skirting the lake, approached the venerable walls without crossing the stream. It was difficult to conceive a scene more silent and more desolate. There was no sign of life, and not a sound save the occasional cawing of a rook. Advancing towards the abbey, they passed a pile of buildings that, in the summer, might be screened from sight by the foliage of a group of elms, too scanty at present to veil their desolation. Wide gaps in the roof proved that the vast and dreary stables were no longer used; there were empty granaries, whose doors had fallen from their hinges; the gate of the courtyard was prostrate on the ground; and the silent clock that once adorned the cupola over the noble entrance arch, had long lost its index. Even the litter of the yard appeared dusty and grey with age. You felt sure no human foot could have disturbed it for years. At the back of these buildings were nailed the trophies of the gamekeeper: hundreds of wild cats, dried to blackness, stretched their downward heads and legs from the mouldering wall; hawks, magpies, and jays hung in tattered remnants! but all grey, and even green, with age; and the heads of birds in plenteous rows, nailed beak upward, and so dried and shrivelled by the suns and winds and frosts of many seasons, that their distinctive characters were lost. 'Do you know, my good Pauncefort,' said Lady Annabel, 'that I have an odd fancy to-day to force an entrance into the old abbey. It is strange, fond as I am of this walk, that we have never yet entered it. Do you recollect our last vain efforts? Shall we be more fortunate this time, think you?' Mistress Pauncefort smiled and smirked, and, advancing to the old gloomy porch, gave a determined ring at the bell. Its sound might be heard echoing through the old cloisters, but a considerable time elapsed without any other effect being produced. Perhaps Lady Annabel would have now given up the attempt, but the little Venetia expressed so much regret at the disappointment, that her mother directed the groom to reconnoitre in the neighbourhood, and see if it were possible to discover any person connected with the mansion. 'I doubt our luck, my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort, 'for they do say that the abbey is quite uninhabited.' ''Tis a pity,' said Lady Annabel, 'for, with all its desolation, there is something about this spot which ever greatly interests me.' 'Mamma, why does no one live here?' said Venetia. 'The master of the abbey lives abroad, my child.' 'Why does he, mamma?' 'Never ask questions, Miss Venetia,' said Mistress Pauncefort, in a hushed and solemn tone; 'it is not pretty.' Lady Annabel had moved away. The groom returned, and said he had met an old man, picking water-cresses, and he was the only person who lived in the abbey, except his wife, and she was bedridden. The old man had promised to admit them when he had completed his task, but not before, and the groom feared it would be some time before he arrived. 'Come, Pauncefort, rest yourself on this bench,' said Lady Annabel, seating herself in the porch; 'and Venetia, my child, come hither to me.' 'Mamma,' said Venetia, 'what is the name of the gentleman to whom this abbey belongs?' 'Lord Cadurcis, love.' 'I should like to know why Lord Cadurcis lives abroad?' said Venetia, musingly. 'There are many reasons why persons may choose to quit their native country, and dwell in another, my love,' said Lady Annabel, very quietly; 'some change the climate for their health.' 'Did Lord Cadurcis, mamma?' asked Venetia. 'I do not know Lord Cadurcis, dear, or anything of him, except that he is a very old man, and has no family.' At this moment there was a sound of bars and bolts withdrawn, and the falling of a chain, and at length the massy door slowly opened, and the old man appeared and beckoned to them to enter. ''Tis eight years, come Martinmas, since I opened this door,' said the old man, 'and it sticks a bit. You must walk about by yourselves, for I have no breath, and my mistress is bedridden. There, straight down the cloister, you can't miss your way; there is not much to see.' The interior of the abbey formed a quadrangle, surrounded by the cloisters, and in this inner court was a curious fountain, carved with exquisite skill by some gothic artist in one of those capricious moods of sportive invention that produced those grotesque medleys for which the feudal sculptor was celebrated. Not a sound was heard except the fall of the fountain and the light echoes that its voice called up. The staircase led Lady Annabel and her party through several small rooms, scantily garnished with ancient furniture, in some of which were portraits of the family, until they at length entered a noble saloon, once the refectory of the abbey, and not deficient in splendour, though sadly soiled and worm-eaten. It was hung with tapestry representing the Cartoons of Raffael, and their still vivid colours contrasted with the faded hangings and the dingy damask of the chairs and sofas. A mass of Cromwellian armour was huddled together in a corner of a long monkish gallery, with a standard, encrusted with dust, and a couple of old drums, one broken. From one of the windows they had a good view of the old walled garden, which did not tempt them to enter it; it was a wilderness, the walks no longer distinguishable from the rank vegetation of the once cultivated lawns; the terraces choked up with the unchecked shrubberies; and here and there a leaden statue, a goddess or a satyr, prostrate, and covered with moss and lichen. 'It makes me melancholy,' said Lady Annabel; 'let us return.' 'Mamma,' said Venetia, 'are there any ghosts in this abbey?' 'You may well ask me, love,' replied Lady Annabel; 'it seems a spell-bound place. But, Venetia, I have often told you there are no such things as ghosts.' 'Is it naughty to believe in ghosts, mamma, for I cannot help believing in them?' 'When you are older, and have more knowledge, you will not believe in them, Venetia,' replied Lady Annabel. Our friends left Cadurcis Abbey. Venetia mounted her donkey, her mother walked by her side; the sun was beginning to decline when they again reached Cherbury, and the air was brisk. Lady Annabel was glad to find herself by her fireside in her little terrace-room, and Venetia fetching her book, read to her mother until their dinner hour. CHAPTER III. Two serene and innocent years had glided away at Cherbury since this morning ramble to Cadurcis Abbey, and Venetia had grown in loveliness, in goodness, and intelligence. Her lively and somewhat precocious mind had become greatly developed; and, though she was only nine years of age, it scarcely needed the affection of a mother to find in her an interesting and engaging companion. Although feminine education was little regarded in those days, that of Lady Annabel had been an exception to the general practice of society. She had been brought up with the consciousness of other objects of female attainment and accomplishment than embroidery, 'the complete art of making pastry,' and reading 'The Whole Duty of Man.' She had profited, when a child, by the guidance of her brother's tutor, who had bestowed no unfruitful pains upon no ordinary capacity. She was a good linguist, a fine musician, was well read in our elder poets and their Italian originals, was no unskilful artist, and had acquired some knowledge of botany when wandering, as a girl, in her native woods. Since her retirement to Cherbury, reading had been her chief resource. The hall contained a library whose shelves, indeed, were more full than choice; but, amid folios of theological controversy and civil law, there might be found the first editions of most of the celebrated writers of the reign of Anne, which the contemporary proprietor of Cherbury, a man of wit and fashion in his day, had duly collected in his yearly visits to the metropolis, and finally deposited in the family book-room. The education of her daughter was not only the principal duty of Lady Annabel, but her chief delight. To cultivate the nascent intelligence of a child, in those days, was not the mere piece of scientific mechanism that the admirable labours of so many ingenious writers have since permitted it comparatively to become. In those days there was no Mrs. Barbauld, no Madame de Genlis, no Miss Edgeworth; no 'Evenings at Home,' no 'Children's Friend,' no 'Parent's Assistant.' Venetia loved her book; indeed, she was never happier than when reading; but she soon recoiled from the gilt and Lilliputian volumes of the good Mr. Newbury, and her mind required some more substantial excitement than 'Tom Thumb,' or even 'Goody Two-Shoes.' 'The Seven Champions' was a great resource and a great favourite; but it required all the vigilance of a mother to eradicate the false impressions which such studies were continually making on so tender a student; and to disenchant, by rational discussion, the fascinated imagination of her child. Lady Annabel endeavoured to find some substitute in the essays of Addison and Steele; but they required more knowledge of the every-day world for their enjoyment than an infant, bred in such seclusion, could at present afford; and at last Venetia lost herself in the wildering pages of Clelia and the Arcadia, which she pored over with a rapt and ecstatic spirit, that would not comprehend the warning scepticism of her parent. Let us picture to ourselves the high-bred Lady Annabel in the terrace-room of her ancient hall, working at her tapestry, and, seated at her feet, her little daughter Venetia, reading aloud the Arcadia! The peacocks have jumped up on the window-sill, to look at their friends, who love to feed them, and by their pecking have aroused the bloodhound crouching at Lady Annabel's feet. And Venetia looks up from her folio with a flushed and smiling face to catch the sympathy of her mother, who rewards her daughter's study with a kiss. Ah! there are no such mothers and no such daughters now! Thus it will be seen that the life and studies of Venetia tended rather dangerously, in spite of all the care of her mother, to the development of her imagination, in case indeed she possessed that terrible and fatal gift. She passed her days in unbroken solitude, or broken only by affections which softened her heart, and in a scene which itself might well promote any predisposition of the kind; beautiful and picturesque objects surrounded her on all sides; she wandered, at it were, in an enchanted wilderness, and watched the deer reposing under the green shadow of stately trees; the old hall itself was calculated to excite mysterious curiosity; one wing was uninhabited and shut up; each morning and evening she repaired with her mother and the household through long galleries to the chapel, where she knelt to her devotions, illumined by a window blazoned with the arms of that illustrious family of which she was a member, and of which she knew nothing. She had an indefinite and painful consciousness that she had been early checked in the natural inquiries which occur to every child; she had insensibly been trained to speak only of what she saw; and when she listened, at night, to the long ivy rustling about the windows, and the wild owls hooting about the mansion, with their pining, melancholy voices, she might have been excused for believing in those spirits, which her mother warned her to discredit; or she forgot these mournful impressions in dreams, caught from her romantic volumes, of bright knights and beautiful damsels. Only one event of importance had occurred at Cherbury during these two years, if indeed that be not too strong a phrase to use in reference to an occurrence which occasioned so slight and passing an interest. Lord Cadurcis had died. He had left his considerable property to his natural children, but the abbey had descended with the title to a very distant relative. The circle at Cherbury had heard, and that was all, that the new lord was a minor, a little boy, indeed very little older than Venetia herself; but this information produced no impression. The abbey was still deserted and desolate as ever. CHAPTER IV. Every Sunday afternoon, the rector of a neighbouring though still somewhat distant parish, of which the rich living was in the gift of the Herberts, came to perform divine service at Cherbury. It was a subject of deep regret to Lady Annabel that herself and her family were debarred from the advantage of more frequent and convenient spiritual consolation; but, at this time, the parochial discipline of the Church of England was not so strict as it fortunately is at present. Cherbury, though a vicarage, possessed neither parish church, nor a residence for the clergyman; nor was there indeed a village. The peasants on the estate, or labourers as they are now styled, a term whose introduction into our rural world is much to be lamented, lived in the respective farmhouses on the lands which they cultivated. These were scattered about at considerable distances, and many of their inmates found it more convenient to attend the church of the contiguous parish than to repair to the hall chapel, where the household and the dwellers in the few cottages scattered about the park and woods always assembled. The Lady Annabel, whose lot it had been in life to find her best consolation in religion, and who was influenced by not only a sincere but even a severe piety, had no other alternative, therefore, but engaging a chaplain; but this, after much consideration, she had resolved not to do. She was indeed her own chaplain, herself performing each day such parts of our morning and evening service whose celebration becomes a laic, and reading portions from the writings of those eminent divines who, from the Restoration to the conclusion of the last reign, have so eminently distinguished the communion of our national Church. Each Sunday, after the performance of divine service, the Rev. Dr. Masham dined with the family, and he was the only guest at Cherbury Venetia ever remembered seeing. The Doctor was a regular orthodox divine of the eighteenth century; with a large cauliflower wig, shovel-hat, and huge knee-buckles, barely covered by his top-boots; learned, jovial, humorous, and somewhat courtly; truly pious, but not enthusiastic; not forgetful of his tithes, but generous and charitable when they were once paid; never neglecting the sick, yet occasionally following a fox; a fine scholar, an active magistrate, and a good shot; dreading the Pope, and hating the Presbyterians. The Doctor was attached to the Herbert family not merely because they had given him a good living. He had a great reverence for an old English race, and turned up his nose at the Walpolian loanmongers. Lady Annabel, too, so beautiful, so dignified, so amiable, and highly bred, and, above all, so pious, had won his regard. He was not a little proud, too, that he was the only person in the county who had the honour of her acquaintance, and yet was disinterested enough to regret that he led so secluded a life, and often lamented that nothing would induce her to show her elegant person on a racecourse, or to attend an assize ball, an assembly which was then becoming much the fashion. The little Venetia was a charming child, and the kind-hearted Doctor, though a bachelor, loved children. O! matre pulchrâ, filia pulchrior, was the Rev. Dr. Masham's apposite and favourite quotation after his weekly visit to Cherbury. Divine service was concluded; the Doctor had preached a capital sermon; for he had been one of the shining lights of his university until his rich but isolating preferment had apparently closed the great career which it was once supposed awaited him. The accustomed walk on the terrace was completed, and dinner was announced. This meal was always celebrated at Cherbury, where new fashions stole down with a lingering pace, in the great hall itself. An ample table was placed in the centre on a mat of rushes, sheltered by a large screen covered with huge maps of the shire and the neighbouring counties. The Lady Annabel and her good pastor seated themselves at each end of the table, while Venetia, mounted on a high chair, was waited on by Mistress Pauncefort, who never condescended by any chance attention to notice the presence of any other individual but her little charge, on whose chair she just leaned with an air of condescending devotion. The butler stood behind his lady, and two other servants watched the Doctor; rural bodies all, but decked on this day in gorgeous livery coats of blue and silver, which had been made originally for men of very different size and bearing. Simple as was the usual diet at Cherbury the cook was permitted on Sunday full play to her art, which, in the eighteenth century, indulged in the production of dishes more numerous and substantial than our refined tastes could at present tolerate. The Doctor appreciated a good dinner, and his countenance glistened with approbation as he surveyed the ample tureen of potage royal, with a boned duck swimming in its centre. Before him still scowled in death the grim countenance of a huge roast pike, flanked on one side by a leg of mutton _à-la-daube_, and on the other by the tempting delicacies of bombarded veal. To these succeeded that masterpiece of the culinary art, a grand battalia pie, in which the bodies of chickens, pigeons, and rabbits were embalmed in spices, cocks' combs, and savoury balls, and well bedewed with one of those rich sauces of claret, anchovy, and sweet herbs, in which our great-grandfathers delighted, and which was technically termed a Lear. But the grand essay of skill was the cover of this pasty, whereon the curious cook had contrived to represent all the once-living forms that were now entombed in that gorgeous sepulchre. A Florentine tourte, or tansy, an old English custard, a more refined blamango, and a riband jelly of many colours, offered a pleasant relief after these vaster inventions, and the repast closed with a dish of oyster loaves and a pompetone of larks. Notwithstanding the abstemiousness of his hostess, the Doctor was never deterred from doing justice to her hospitality. Few were the dishes that ever escaped him. The demon dyspepsia had not waved its fell wings over the eighteenth century, and wonderful were the feats then achieved by a country gentleman with the united aid of a good digestion and a good conscience. The servants had retired, and Dr. Masham had taken his last glass of port, and then he rang a bell on the table, and, I trust my fair readers will not be frightened from proceeding with this history, a servant brought him his pipe. The pipe was well stuffed, duly lighted, and duly puffed; and then, taking it from his mouth, the Doctor spoke. 'And so, my honoured lady, you have got a neighbour at last.' 'Indeed!' exclaimed Lady Annabel. But the claims of the pipe prevented the good Doctor from too quickly satisfying her natural curiosity. Another puff or two, and he then continued. 'Yes,' said he, 'the old abbey has at last found a tenant.' 'A tenant, Doctor?' 'Ay! the best tenant in the world: its proprietor.' 'You quite surprise me. When did this occur?' 'They have been there these three days; I have paid them a visit. Mrs. Cadurcis has come to live at the abbey with the little lord.' 'This is indeed news to us,' said Lady Annabel; 'and what kind of people are they?' 'You know, my dear madam,' said the Doctor, just touching the ash of his pipe with his tobacco-stopper of chased silver, 'that the present lord is a very distant relative of the late one?' Lady Annabel bowed assent. 'The late lord,' continued the Doctor, 'who was as strange and wrong-headed a man as ever breathed, though I trust he is in the kingdom of heaven for all that, left all his property to his unlawful children, with the exception of this estate entailed on the title, as all estates should be, 'Tis a fine place, but no great rental. I doubt whether 'tis more than a clear twelve hundred a-year.' 'And Mrs. Cadurcis?' inquired Lady Annabel. 'Was an heiress,' replied the Doctor, 'and the late Mr. Cadurcis a spendrift. He was a bad manager, and, worse, a bad husband. Providence was pleased to summon him suddenly from this mortal scene, but not before he had dissipated the greater part of his wife's means. Mrs. Cadurcis, since she was a widow, has lived in strict seclusion with her little boy, as you may, my dear lady, with your dear little girl. But I am afraid,' said the Doctor, shaking his head, 'she has not been in the habit of dining so well as we have to-day. A very limited income, my dear madam; a very limited income indeed. And the guardians, I am told, will only allow the little lord a hundred a-year; but, on her own income, whatever it may be, and that addition, she has resolved to live at the abbey; and I believe, I believe she has it rent-free; but I don't know.' 'Poor woman!' said Lady Annabel, and not without a sigh. 'I trust her child is her consolation.' Venetia had not spoken during this conversation, but she had listened to it very attentively. At length she said, 'Mamma, is not a widow a wife that has lost her husband?' 'You are right, my dear,' said Lady Annabel, rather gravely. Venetia mused a moment, and then replied, 'Pray, mamma, are you a widow?' 'My dear little girl,' said Dr. Masham, 'go and give that beautiful peacock a pretty piece of cake.' Lady Annabel and the Doctor rose from the table with Venetia, and took a turn in the park, while the Doctor's horses were getting ready. 'I think, my good lady,' said the Doctor, 'it would be but an act of Christian charity to call upon Mrs. Cadurcis.' 'I was thinking the same,' said Lady Annabel; 'I am interested by what you have told me of her history and fortunes. We have some woes in common; I hope some joys. It seems that this case should indeed be an exception to my rule.' 'I would not ask you to sacrifice your inclinations to the mere pleasures of the world,' said the Doctor: 'but duties, my dear lady, duties; there are such things as duties to our neighbour; and here is a case where, believe me, they might be fulfilled.' The Doctor's horses now appeared. Both master and groom wore their pistols in their holsters. The Doctor shook hands warmly with Lady Annabel, and patted Venetia on her head, as she ran up from a little distance, with an eager countenance, to receive her accustomed blessing. Then mounting his stout mare, he once more waived his hand with an air of courtliness to his hostess, and was soon out of sight. Lady Annabel and Venetia returned to the terrace-room. CHAPTER V. 'And so I would, my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort, when Lady Annabel communicated to her faithful attendant, at night, the news of the arrival of the Cadurcis family at the abbey, and her intention of paying Mrs. Cadurcis a visit; 'and so I would, my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort, 'and it would be but an act of Christian charity after all, as the Doctor says; for although it is not for me to complain when my betters are satisfied, and after all I am always content, if your ladyship be; still there is no denying the fact, that this is a terrible lonesome life after all. And I cannot help thinking your ladyship has not been looking so well of late, and a little society would do your ladyship good; and Miss Venetia too, after all, she wants a playfellow; I am certain sure that I was as tired of playing at ball with her this morning as if I had never sat down in my born days; and I dare say the little lord will play with her all day long.' 'If I thought that this visit would lead to what is understood by the word society, my good Pauncefort, I certainly should refrain from paying it,' said Lady Annabel, very quietly. 'Oh! Lord, dear my lady, I was not for a moment dreaming of any such thing,' replied Mistress Pauncefort; 'society, I know as well as any one, means grand balls, Ranelagh, and the masquerades. I can't abide the thought of them, I do assure your ladyship; all I meant was that a quiet dinner now and then with a few friends, a dance perhaps in the evening, or a hand of whist, or a game of romps at Christmas, when the abbey will of course be quite full, a--' 'I believe there is as little chance of the abbey being full at Christmas, or any other time, as there is of Cherbury.' said Lady Annabel. 'Mrs. Cadurcis is a widow, with a very slender fortune. Her son will not enjoy his estate until he is of age, and its rental is small. I am led to believe that they will live quite as quietly as ourselves; and when I spoke of Christian charity, I was thinking only of kindness towards them, and not of amusement for ourselves.' 'Well, my lady, your la'ship knows best,' replied Mistress Pauncefort, evidently very disappointed; for she had indulged in momentary visions of noble visitors and noble valets; 'I am always content, you know, when your la'ship is; but, I must say, I think it is very odd for a lord to be so poor. I never heard of such a thing. I think they will turn out richer than you have an idea, my lady. Your la'ship knows 'tis quite a saying, "As rich as a lord."' Lady Annabel smiled, but did not reply. The next morning the fawn-coloured chariot, which had rarely been used since Lady Annabel's arrival at Cherbury, and four black long-tailed coach-horses, that from absolute necessity had been degraded, in the interval, to the service of the cart and the plough, made their appearance, after much bustle and effort, before the hall-door. Although a morning's stroll from Cherbury through the woods, Cadurcis was distant nearly ten miles by the road, and that road was in great part impassable, save in favourable seasons. This visit, therefore, was an expedition; and Lady Annabel, fearing the fatigue for a child, determined to leave Venetia at home, from whom she had actually never been separated one hour in her life. Venetia could not refrain from shedding a tear when her mother embraced and quitted her, and begged, as a last favour, that she might accompany her through the park to the avenue lodge. So Pauncefort and herself entered the chariot, that rocked like a ship, in spite of all the skill of the coachman and the postilion. Venetia walked home with Mistress Pauncefort, but Lady Annabel's little daughter was not in her usual lively spirits; many a butterfly glanced around without attracting her pursuit, and the deer trooped by without eliciting a single observation. At length she said, in a thoughtful tone, 'Mistress Pauncefort, I should have liked to have gone and seen the little boy.' 'You shall go and see him another day, Miss,' replied her attendant. 'Mistress Pauncefort,' said Venetia, 'are you a widow?' Mistress Pauncefort almost started; had the inquiry been made by a man, she would almost have supposed he was going to be very rude. She was indeed much surprised. 'And pray, Miss Venetia, what could put it in your head to ask such an odd question?' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'A widow! Miss Venetia; I have never yet changed my name, and I shall not in a hurry, that I can tell you.' 'Do widows change their names?' said Venetia. 'All women change their names when they marry,' responded Mistress Pauncefort. 'Is mamma married?' inquired Venetia. 'La! Miss Venetia. Well, to be sure, you do ask the strangest questions. Married! to be sure she is married,' said Mistress Pauncefort, exceedingly flustered. 'And whom is she married to?' pursued the unwearied Venetia. 'Your papa, to be sure,' said Mistress Pauncefort, blushing up to her eyes, and looking very confused; 'that is to say, Miss Venetia, you are never to ask questions about such subjects. Have not I often told you it is not pretty?' 'Why is it not pretty?' said Venetia. 'Because it is not proper,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'because your mamma does not like you to ask such questions, and she will be very angry with me for answering them, I can tell you that.' 'I tell you what, Mistress Pauncefort,' said Venetia, 'I think mamma is a widow.' 'And what then, Miss Venetia? There is no shame in that.' 'Shame!' exclaimed Venetia. 'What is shame?' 'Look, there is a pretty butterfly!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'Did you ever see such a pretty butterfly, Miss?' 'I do not care about butterflies to-day, Mistress Pauncefort; I like to talk about widows.' 'Was there ever such a child!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort, with a wondering glance. 'I must have had a papa,' said Venetia; 'all the ladies I read about had papas, and married husbands. Then whom did my mamma marry?' 'Lord! Miss Venetia, you know very well your mamma always tells you that all those books you read are a pack of stories,' observed Mistress Pauncefort, with an air of triumphant art. 'There never were such persons, perhaps,' said Venetia, 'but it is not true that there never were such things as papas and husbands, for all people have papas; you must have had a papa, Mistress Pauncefort?' 'To be sure I had,' said Mistress Pauncefort, bridling up. 'And a mamma too?' said Venetia. 'As honest a woman as ever lived,' said Mistress Pauncefort. 'Then if I have no papa, mamma must be a wife that has lost her husband, and that, mamma told me at dinner yesterday, was a widow.' 'Was the like ever seen!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort. 'And what then, Miss Venetia?' 'It seems to me so odd that only two people should live here, and both be widows,' said Venetia, 'and both have a little child; the only difference is, that one is a little boy, and I am a little girl.' 'When ladies lose their husbands, they do not like to have their names mentioned,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'and so you must never talk of your papa to my lady, and that is the truth.' 'I will not now,' said Venetia. When they returned home, Mistress Pauncefort brought her work, and seated herself on the terrace, that she might not lose sight of her charge. Venetia played about for some little time; she made a castle behind a tree, and fancied she was a knight, and then a lady, and conjured up an ogre in the neighbouring shrubbery; but these daydreams did not amuse her as much as usual. She went and fetched her book, but even 'The Seven Champions' could not interest her. Her eye was fixed upon the page, and apparently she was absorbed in her pursuit, but her mind wandered, and the page was never turned. She indulged in an unconscious reverie; her fancy was with her mother on her visit; the old abbey rose up before her: she painted the scene without an effort: the court, with the fountain; the grand room, with the tapestry hangings; that desolate garden, with the fallen statues; and that long, gloomy gallery. And in all these scenes appeared that little boy, who, somehow or other, seemed wonderfully blended with her imaginings. It was a very long day this; Venetia dined along with Mistress Pauncefort; the time hung very heavy; at length she fell asleep in Mistress Pauncefort's lap. A sound roused her: the carriage had returned; she ran to greet her mother, but there was no news; Mrs. Cadurcis had been absent; she had gone to a distant town to buy some furniture; and, after all, Lady Annabel had not seen the little boy. CHAPTER VI. A few days after the visit to Cadurcis, when Lady Annabel was sitting alone, a postchaise drove up to the hall, whence issued a short and stout woman with a rubicund countenance, and dressed in a style which remarkably blended the shabby with the tawdry. She was accompanied by a boy between eleven and twelve years of age, whose appearance, however, much contrasted with that of his mother, for he was pale and slender, with long curling black hair and large black eyes, which occasionally, by their transient flashes, agreeably relieved a face the general expression of which might be esteemed somewhat shy and sullen. The lady, of course, was Mrs. Cadurcis, who was received by Lady Annabel with the greatest courtesy. 'A terrible journey,' exclaimed Mrs. Cadurcis, fanning herself as she took her seat, 'and so very hot! Plantagenet, my love, make your bow! Have not I always told you to make a bow when you enter a room, especially where there are strangers? This is Lady Annabel Herbert, who was so kind as to call upon us. Make your bow to Lady Annabel.' The boy gave a sort of sulky nod, but Lady Annabel received it so graciously and expressed herself so kindly to him that his features relaxed a little, though he was quite silent and sat on the edge of his chair, the picture of dogged indifference. 'Charming country, Lady Annabel,' said Mrs. Cadurcis, 'but worse roads, if possible, than we had in Northumberland, where, indeed, there were no roads at all. Cherbury a delightful place, very unlike the abbey; dreadfully lonesome I assure you I find it, Lady Annabel. Great change for us from a little town and all our kind neighbours. Very different from Morpeth; is it not, Plantagenet?' 'I hate Morpeth,' said the boy. 'Hate Morpeth!' exclaimed Mrs. Cadurcis; 'well, I am sure, that is very ungrateful, with so many kind friends as we always found. Besides, Plantagenet, have I not always told you that you are to hate nothing? It is very wicked. The trouble it costs me, Lady Annabel, to educate this dear child!' continued Mrs. Cadurcis, turning to Lady Annabel, and speaking in a semi-tone. 'I have done it all myself, I assure you; and, when he likes, he can be as good as any one. Can't you, Plantagenet?' Lord Cadurcis gave a grim smile; seated himself at the very back of the deep chair and swung his feet, which no longer reached the ground, to and fro. 'I am sure that Lord Cadurcis always behaves well,' said Lady Annabel. 'There, Plantagenet,' exclaimed Mrs. Cadurcis, 'only listen to that. Hear what Lady Annabel Herbert says; she is sure you always behave well. Now mind, never give her ladyship cause to change her opinion.' Plantagenet curled his lip, and half turned his back on his companions. 'I regretted so much that I was not at home when you did me the honour to call,' resumed Mrs. Cadurcis; 'but I had gone over for the day to Southport, buying furniture. What a business it is to buy furniture, Lady Annabel!' added Mrs. Cadurcis, with a piteous expression. 'It is indeed very troublesome,' said Lady Annabel. 'Ah! you have none of these cares,' continued Mrs. Cadurcis, surveying the pretty apartment. 'What a difference between Cherbury and the abbey! I suppose you have never been there?' 'Indeed, it is one of my favourite walks,' answered Lady Annabel; 'and, some two years ago, I even took the liberty of walking through the house.' 'Was there ever such a place!' exclaimed Mrs. Cadurcis. 'I assure you my poor head turns whenever I try to find my way about it. But the trustees offered it us, and I thought it my duty to my son to reside there. Besides, it was a great offer to a widow; if poor Mr. Cadurcis had been alive it would have been different. I hardly know what I shall do there, particularly in winter. My spirits are always dreadfully low. I only hope Plantagenet will behave well. If he goes into his tantarums at the abbey, and particularly in winter, I hardly know what will become of me!' 'I am sure Lord Cadurcis will do everything to make the abbey comfortable to you. Besides, it is but a short walk from Cherbury, and you must come often and see us.' 'Oh! Plantagenet can be good if he likes, I can assure you, Lady Annabel; and behaves as properly as any little boy I know. Plantagenet, my dear, speak. Have not I always told you, when you pay a visit, that you should open your mouth now and then. I don't like chattering children,' added Mrs. Cadurcis, 'but I like them to answer when they are spoken to.' 'Nobody has spoken to me,' said Lord Cadurcis, in a sullen tone. 'Plantagenet, my love!' said his mother in a solemn voice. 'Well, mother, what do you want?' 'Plantagenet, my love, you know you promised me to be good!' 'Well! what have I done?' 'Lord Cadurcis,' said Lady Annabel, interfering, 'do you like to look at pictures?' 'Thank you,' replied the little lord, in a more courteous tone; 'I like to be left alone.' 'Did you ever know such an odd child!' said Mrs. Cadurcis; 'and yet, Lady Annabel, you must not judge him by what you see. I do assure you he can behave, when he likes, as pretty as possible.' 'Pretty!' muttered the little lord between his teeth. 'If you had only seen him at Morpeth sometimes at a little tea party,' said Mrs. Cadurcis, 'he really was quite the ornament of the company.' 'No, I wasn't,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Plantagenet!' said his mother again in a solemn tone, 'have I not always told you that you are never to contradict any one?' The little lord indulged in a suppressed growl. 'There was a little play last Christmas,' continued Mrs. Cadurcis, 'and he acted quite delightfully. Now you would not think that, from the way he sits upon that chair. Plantagenet, my dear, I do insist upon your behaving yourself. Sit like a man.' 'I am not a man,' said Lord Cadurcis, very quietly; 'I wish I were.' 'Plantagenet!' said the mother, 'have not I always told you that you are never to answer me? It is not proper for children to answer! O Lady Annabel, if you knew what it cost me to educate my son. He never does anything I wish, and it is so provoking, because I know that he can behave as properly as possible if he likes. He does it to provoke me. You know you do it to provoke me, you little brat; now, sit properly, sir; I do desire you to sit properly. How vexatious that you should call at Cherbury for the first time, and behave in this manner! Plantagenet, do you hear me?' exclaimed Mrs. Cadurcis, with a face reddening to scarlet, and almost menacing a move from her seat. 'Yes, everybody hears you, Mrs. Cadurcis,' said the little lord. 'Don't call me Mrs. Cadurcis,' exclaimed the mother, in a dreadful rage. 'That is not the way to speak to your mother; I will not be called Mrs. Cadurcis by you. Don't answer me, sir; I desire you not to answer me. I have half a mind to get up and give you a good shake, that I have. O Lady Annabel,' sighed Mrs. Cadurcis, while a tear trickled down her cheek, 'if you only knew the life I lead, and what trouble it costs me to educate that child!' 'My dear madam,' said Lady Annabel, 'I am sure that Lord Cadurcis has no other wish but to please you. Indeed you have misunderstood him.' 'Yes! she always misunderstands me,' said Lord Cadurcis, in a softer tone, but with pouting lips and suffused eyes. 'Now he is going on,' said his mother, beginning herself to cry dreadfully. 'He knows my weak heart; he knows nobody in the world loves him like his mother; and this is the way he treats me.' 'My dear Mrs. Cadurcis,' said Lady Annabel, 'pray take luncheon after your long drive; and Lord Cadurcis, I am sure you must be fatigued.' 'Thank you, I never eat, my dear lady,' said Mrs. Cadurcis, 'except at my meals. But one glass of Mountain, if you please, I would just take the liberty of tasting, for the weather is so dreadfully hot, and Plantagenet has so aggravated me, I really do not feel myself.' Lady Annabel sounded her silver hand-bell, and the butler brought some cakes and the Mountain. Mrs. Cadurcis revived by virtue of her single glass, and the providential co-operation of a subsequent one or two. Even the cakes and the Mountain, however, would not tempt her son to open his mouth; and this, in spite of her returning composure, drove her to desperation. A conviction that the Mountain and the cakes were delicious, an amiable desire that the palate of her spoiled child should be gratified, some reasonable maternal anxiety that after so long and fatiguing a drive he in fact needed some refreshment, and the agonising consciousness that all her own physical pleasure at the moment was destroyed by the mental sufferings she endured at having quarrelled with her son, and that he was depriving himself of what was so agreeable only to pique her, quite overwhelmed the ill-regulated mind of this fond mother. Between each sip and each mouthful, she appealed to him to follow her example, now with cajolery, now with menace, till at length, worked up by the united stimulus of the Mountain and her own ungovernable rage, she dashed down the glass and unfinished slice of cake, and, before the astonished Lady Annabel, rushed forward to give him what she had long threatened, and what she in general ultimately had recourse to, a good shake. Her agile son, experienced in these storms, escaped in time, and pushed his chair before his infuriated mother; Mrs. Cadurcis, however, rallied, and chased him round the room; once more she flattered herself she had captured him, once more he evaded her; in her despair she took up Venetia's 'Seven Champions,' and threw the volume at his head; he laughed a fiendish laugh, as, ducking his head, the book flew on, and dashed through a pane of glass; Mrs. Cadurcis made a desperate charge, and her son, a little frightened at her almost maniacal passion, saved himself by suddenly seizing Lady Annabel's work-table, and whirling it before her; Mrs. Cadurcis fell over the leg of the table, and went into hysterics; while the bloodhound, who had long started from his repose, looked at his mistress for instructions, and in the meantime continued barking. The astonished and agitated Lady Annabel assisted Mrs. Cadurcis to rise, and led her to a couch. Lord Cadurcis, pale and dogged, stood in a corner, and after all this uproar there was a comparative calm, only broken by the sobs of the mother, each instant growing fainter and fainter. At this moment the door opened, and Mistress Pauncefort ushered in the little Venetia. She really looked like an angel of peace sent from heaven on a mission of concord, with her long golden hair, her bright face, and smile of ineffable loveliness. 'Mamma!' said Venetia, in the sweetest tone. 'Hush! darling,' said Lady Annabel, 'this lady is not very well.' Mrs. Cadurcis opened her eyes and sighed. She beheld Venetia, and stared at her with a feeling of wonder. 'O Lady Annabel,' she faintly exclaimed, 'what must you think of me? But was there ever such an unfortunate mother? and I have not a thought in the world but for that boy. I have devoted my life to him, and never would have buried myself in this abbey but for his sake. And this is the way he treats me, and his father before him treated me even worse. Am I not the most unfortunate woman you ever knew?' 'My dear madam,' said the kind Lady Annabel, in a soothing tone, 'you will be very happy yet; all will be quite right and quite happy.' 'Is this angel your child?' inquired Mrs. Cadurcis, in a low voice. 'This is my little girl, Venetia. Come hither, Venetia, and speak to Mrs. Cadurcis.' 'How do you do, Mrs. Cadurcis?' said Venetia. 'I am so glad you have come to live at the abbey.' 'The angel!' exclaimed Mrs. Cadurcis. 'The sweet seraph! Oh! why did not my Plantagenet speak to you, Lady Annabel, in the same tone? And he can, if he likes; he can, indeed. It was his silence that so mortified me; it was his silence that led to all. I am so proud of him! and then he comes here, and never speaks a word. O Plantagenet, I am sure you will break my heart.' Venetia went up to the little lord in the corner, and gently stroked his dark cheek. 'Are you the little boy?' she said. Cadurcis looked at her; at first the glance was rather fierce, but it instantly relaxed. 'What is your name?' he said in a low, but not unkind, tone. 'Venetia!' 'I like you, Venetia,' said the boy. 'Do you live here?' 'Yes, with my mamma.' 'I like your mamma, too; but not so much as you. I like your gold hair.' 'Oh, how funny! to like my gold hair!' 'If you had come in sooner,' said Cadurcis, 'we should not have had this row.' 'What is a row, little boy?' said Venetia. 'Do not call me little boy,' he said, but not in an unkind tone; 'call me by my name.' 'What is your name?' 'Lord Cadurcis; but you may call me by my Christian name, because I like you.' 'What is your Christian name?' 'Plantagenet.' 'Plantagenet! What a long name!' said Venetia. 'Tell me then, Plantagenet, what is a row?' 'What often takes place between me and my mother, but which I am sorry now has happened here, for I like this place, and should like to come often. A row is a quarrel.' 'A quarrel! What! do you quarrel with your mamma?' 'Often.' 'Why, then, you are not a good boy.' 'Ah! my mamma is not like yours,' said the little lord, with a sigh. 'It is not my fault. But now I want to make it up; how shall I do it?' 'Go and give her a kiss.' 'Poh! that is not the way.' 'Shall I go and ask my mamma what is best to do?' said Venetia; and she stole away on tiptoe, and whispered to Lady Annabel that Plantagenet wanted her. Her mother came forward and invited Lord Cadurcis to walk on the terrace with her, leaving Venetia to amuse her other guest. Lady Annabel, though kind, was frank and firm in her unexpected confidential interview with her new friend. She placed before him clearly the enormity of his conduct, which no provocation could justify; it was a violation of divine law, as well as human propriety. She found the little lord attentive, tractable, and repentant, and, what might not have been expected, exceedingly ingenious and intelligent. His observations, indeed, were distinguished by remarkable acuteness; and though he could not, and indeed did not even attempt to vindicate his conduct, he incidentally introduced much that might be urged in its extenuation. There was indeed in this, his milder moment, something very winning in his demeanour, and Lady Annabel deeply regretted that a nature of so much promise and capacity should, by the injudicious treatment of a parent, at once fond and violent, afford such slight hopes of future happiness. It was arranged between Lord Cadurcis and Lady Annabel that she should lead him to his mother, and that he should lament the past, and ask her forgiveness; so they re-entered the room. Venetia was listening to a long story from Mrs. Cadurcis, who appeared to have entirely recovered herself; but her countenance assumed a befitting expression of grief and gravity when she observed her son. 'My dear madam,' said Lady Annabel, 'your son is unhappy that he should have offended you, and he has asked my kind offices to effect a perfect reconciliation between a child who wishes to be dutiful to a parent who, he feels, has always been so affectionate.' Mrs. Cadurcis began crying. 'Mother,' said her son, 'I am sorry for what has occurred; mine was the fault. I shall not be happy till you pardon me.' 'No, yours was not the fault,' said poor Mrs. Cadurcis, crying bitterly. 'Oh! no, it was not! I was in fault, only I. There, Lady Annabel, did I not tell you he was the sweetest, dearest, most generous-hearted creature that ever lived? Oh! if he would only always speak so, I am sure I should be the happiest woman that ever breathed! He puts me in mind quite of his poor dear father, who was an angel upon earth; he was indeed, when he was not vexed. O my dear Plantagenet! my only hope and joy! you are the treasure and consolation of my life, and always will be. God bless you, my darling child! You shall have that pony you wanted; I am sure I can manage it: I did not think I could.' As Lady Annabel thought it was as well that the mother and the son should not be immediately thrown together after this storm, she kindly proposed that they should remain, and pass the day at Cherbury; and, as Plantagenet's eyes brightened at the proposal, it did not require much trouble to persuade his mother to accede to it. The day, that had commenced so inauspiciously, turned out one of the most agreeable, both to Mrs. Cadurcis and her child. The two mothers conversed together, and, as Mrs. Cadurcis was a great workwoman, there was at least one bond of sympathy between her and the tapestry of her hostess. Then they all took a stroll in the park; and as Mrs. Cadurcis was not able to walk for any length of time, the children were permitted to stroll about together, attended by Mistress Pauncefort, while Mrs. Cadurcis, chatting without ceasing, detailed to Lady Annabel all the history of her life, all the details of her various complaints and her economical arrangements, and all the secrets of her husband's treatment of her, that favourite subject on which she ever waxed most eloquent. Plantagenet, equally indulging in confidence, which with him, however, was unusual, poured all his soul into the charmed ear of Venetia. He told her how he and his mother had lived at Morpeth, and how he hated it; how poor they had been, and how rich he should be; how he loved the abbey, and especially the old gallery, and the drums and armour; how he had been a day-scholar at a little school which he abhorred, and how he was to go some day to Eton, of which he was very proud. At length they were obliged to return, and when dinner was over the postchaise was announced. Mrs. Cadurcis parted from Lady Annabel with all the warm expressions of a heart naturally kind and generous; and Plantagenet embraced Venetia, and promised that the next day he would find his way alone from Cadurcis, through the wood, and come and take another walk with her. CHAPTER VII. This settlement of Mrs. Cadurcis and her son in the neighbourhood was an event of no slight importance in the life of the family at Cherbury. Venetia at length found a companion of her own age, itself an incident which, in its influence upon her character and pursuits, was not to be disregarded. There grew up between the little lord and the daughter of Lady Annabel that fond intimacy which not rarely occurs in childhood. Plantagenet and Venetia quickly imbibed for each other a singular affection, not displeasing to Lady Annabel, who observed, without dissatisfaction, the increased happiness of her child, and encouraged by her kindness the frequent visits of the boy, who soon learnt the shortest road from the abbey, and almost daily scaled the hill, and traced his way through the woods to the hall. There was much, indeed, in the character and the situation of Lord Cadurcis which interested Lady Annabel Herbert. His mild, engaging, and affectionate manners, when he was removed from the injudicious influence of his mother, won upon her feelings; she felt for this lone child, whom nature had gifted with so soft a heart and with a thoughtful mind whose outbreaks not unfrequently attracted her notice; with none to guide him, and with only one heart to look up to for fondness; and that, too, one that had already contrived to forfeit the respect even of so young a child. Yet Lady Annabel was too sensible of the paramount claims of a mother; herself, indeed, too jealous of any encroachment on the full privileges of maternal love, to sanction in the slightest degree, by her behaviour, any neglect of Mrs. Cadurcis by her son. For his sake, therefore, she courted the society of her new neighbour; and although Mrs. Cadurcis offered little to engage Lady Annabel's attention as a companion, though she was violent in her temper, far from well informed, and, from the society in which, in spite of her original good birth, her later years had passed, very far from being refined, she was not without her good qualities. She was generous, kind-hearted, and grateful; not insensible of her own deficiencies, and respectable from her misfortunes. Lady Annabel was one of those who always judged individuals rather by their good qualities than their bad. With the exception of her violent temper, which, under the control of Lady Annabel's presence, and by the aid of all that kind person's skilful management, Mrs. Cadurcis generally contrived to bridle, her principal faults were those of manner, which, from the force of habit, every day became less painful. Mrs. Cadurcis, who, indeed, was only a child of a larger growth, became scarcely less attached to the Herbert family than her son; she felt that her life, under their influence, was happier and serener than of yore; that there were less domestic broils than in old days; that her son was more dutiful; and, as she could not help suspecting, though she found it difficult to analyse the cause, herself more amiable. The truth was, Lady Annabel always treated Mrs. Cadurcis with studied respect; and the children, and especially Venetia, followed her example. Mrs. Cadurcis' self-complacency was not only less shocked, but more gratified, than before; and this was the secret of her happiness. For no one was more mortified by her rages, when they were past, than Mrs. Cadurcis herself; she felt they compromised her dignity, and had lost her all moral command over a child whom she loved at the bottom of her heart with a kind of wild passion, though she would menace and strike him, and who often precipitated these paroxysms by denying his mother that duty and affection which were, after all, the great charm and pride of her existence. As Mrs. Cadurcis was unable to walk to Cherbury, and as Plantagenet soon fell into the habit of passing every morning at the hall, Lady Annabel was frequent in her visits to the mother, and soon she persuaded Mrs. Cadurcis to order the old postchaise regularly on Saturday, and remain at Cherbury until the following Monday; by these means both families united together in the chapel at divine service, while the presence of Dr. Masham, at their now increased Sunday dinner, was an incident in the monotonous life of Mrs. Cadurcis far from displeasing to her. The Doctor gave her a little news of the neighbourhood, and of the country in general; amused her with an occasional anecdote of the Queen and the young Princesses, and always lent her the last number of 'Sylvanus Urban.' This weekly visit to Cherbury, the great personal attention which she always received there, and the frequent morning walks of Lady Annabel to the abbey, effectually repressed on the whole the jealousy which was a characteristic of Mrs. Cadurcis' nature, and which the constant absence of her son from her in the mornings might otherwise have fatally developed. But Mrs. Cadurcis could not resist the conviction that the Herberts were as much her friends as her child's; her jealousy was balanced by her gratitude; she was daily, almost hourly, sensible of some kindness of Lady Annabel, for there were a thousand services in the power of the opulent and ample establishment of Cherbury to afford the limited and desolate household at the abbey. Living in seclusion, it is difficult to refrain from imbibing even a strong regard for our almost solitary companion, however incompatible may be our pursuits, and however our tastes may vary, especially when that companion is grateful, and duly sensible of the condescension of our intimacy. And so it happened that, before a year had elapsed, that very Mrs. Cadurcis, whose first introduction at Cherbury had been so unfavourable to her, and from whose temper and manners the elegant demeanour and the disciplined mind of Lady Annabel Herbert might have been excused for a moment recoiling, had succeeded in establishing a strong hold upon the affections of her refined neighbour, who sought, on every occasion, her society, and omitted few opportunities of contributing to her comfort and welfare. In the meantime her son was the companion of Venetia, both in her pastimes and studies. The education of Lord Cadurcis had received no further assistance than was afforded by the little grammar-school at Morpeth, where he had passed three or four years as a day-scholar, and where his mother had invariably taken his part on every occasion that he had incurred the displeasure of his master. There he had obtained some imperfect knowledge of Latin; yet the boy was fond of reading, and had picked up, in an odd way, more knowledge than might have been supposed. He had read 'Baker's Chronicle,' and 'The Old Universal History,' and 'Plutarch;' and had turned over, in the book room of an old gentleman at Morpeth, who had been attracted by his intelligence, not a few curious old folios, from which he had gleaned no contemptible store of curious instances of human nature. His guardian, whom he had never seen, and who was a great nobleman and lived in London, had signified to Mrs. Cadurcis his intention of sending his ward to Eton; but that time had not yet arrived, and Mrs. Cadurcis, who dreaded parting with her son, determined to postpone it by every maternal artifice in her power. At present it would have seemed that her son's intellect was to be left utterly uncultivated, for there was no school in the neighbourhood which he could attend, and no occasional assistance which could be obtained; and to the constant presence of a tutor in the house Mrs. Cadurcis was not less opposed than his lordship could have been himself. It was by degrees that Lord Cadurcis became the partner of Venetia in her studies. Lady Annabel had consulted Dr. Masham about the poor little boy, whose neglected state she deplored; and the good Doctor had offered to ride over to Cherbury at least once a week, besides Sunday, provided Lady Annabel would undertake that his directions, in his absence, should be attended to. This her ladyship promised cheerfully; nor had she any difficulty in persuading Cadurcis to consent to the arrangement. He listened with docility and patience to her representation of the fatal effects, in his after-life, of his neglected education; of the generous and advantageous offer of Dr. Masham; and how cheerfully she would exert herself to assist his endeavours, if Plantagenet would willingly submit to her supervision. The little lord expressed to her his determination to do all that she desired, and voluntarily promised her that she should never repent her goodness. And he kept his word. So every morning, with the full concurrence of Mrs. Cadurcis, whose advice and opinion on the affair were most formally solicited by Lady Annabel, Plantagenet arrived early at the hall, and took his writing and French lessons with Venetia, and then they alternately read aloud to Lady Annabel from the histories of Hooke and Echard. When Venetia repaired to her drawing, Cadurcis sat down to his Latin exercise, and, in encouraging and assisting him, Lady Annabel, a proficient in Italian, began herself to learn the ancient language of the Romans. With such a charming mistress even these Latin exercises were achieved. In vain Cadurcis, after turning leaf over leaf, would look round with a piteous air to his fair assistant, 'O Lady Annabel, I am sure the word is not in the dictionary;' Lady Annabel was in a moment at his side, and, by some magic of her fair fingers, the word would somehow or other make its appearance. After a little exposure of this kind, Plantagenet would labour with double energy, until, heaving a deep sigh of exhaustion and vexation, he would burst forth, 'O Lady Annabel, indeed there is not a nominative case in this sentence.' And then Lady Annabel would quit her easel, with her pencil in her hand, and give all her intellect to the puzzling construction; at length, she would say, 'I think, Plantagenet, this must be our nominative case;' and so it always was. Thus, when Wednesday came, the longest and most laborious morning of all Lord Cadurcis' studies, and when he neither wrote, nor read, nor learnt French with Venetia, but gave up all his soul to Dr. Masham, he usually acquitted himself to that good person's satisfaction, who left him, in general, with commendations that were not lost on the pupil, and plenty of fresh exercises to occupy him and Lady Annabel until the next week. When a year had thus passed away, the happiest year yet in Lord Cadurcis' life, in spite of all his disadvantages, he had contrived to make no inconsiderable progress. Almost deprived of a tutor, he had advanced in classical acquirement more than during the whole of his preceding years of scholarship, while his handwriting began to become intelligible, he could read French with comparative facility, and had turned over many a volume in the well-stored library at Cherbury. CHAPTER VIII. When the hours of study were past, the children, with that zest for play which occupation can alone secure, would go forth together, and wander in the park. Here they had made a little world for themselves, of which no one dreamed; for Venetia had poured forth all her Arcadian lore into the ear of Plantagenet; and they acted together many of the adventures of the romance, under the fond names of Musidorus and Philoclea. Cherbury was Arcadia, and Cadurcis Macedon; while the intervening woods figured as the forests of Thessaly, and the breezy downs were the heights of Pindus. Unwearied was the innocent sport of their virgin imaginations; and it was a great treat if Venetia, attended by Mistress Pauncefort, were permitted to accompany Plantagenet some way on his return. Then they parted with an embrace in the woods of Thessaly, and Musidorus strolled home with a heavy heart to his Macedonian realm. Parted from Venetia, the magic suddenly seemed to cease, and Musidorus was instantly transformed into the little Lord Cadurcis, exhausted by the unconscious efforts of his fancy, depressed by the separation from his sweet companion, and shrinking from the unpoetical reception which at the best awaited him in his ungenial home. Often, when thus alone, would he loiter on his way and seat himself on the ridge, and watch the setting sun, as its dying glory illumined the turrets of his ancient house, and burnished the waters of the lake, until the tears stole down his cheek; and yet he knew not why. No thoughts of sorrow had flitted through his mind, nor indeed had ideas of any description occurred to him. It was a trance of unmeaning abstraction; all that he felt was a mystical pleasure in watching the sunset, and a conviction that, if he were not with Venetia, that which he loved next best, was to be alone. The little Cadurcis in general returned home moody and silent, and his mother too often, irritated by his demeanour, indulged in all the expressions of a quick and offended temper; but since his intimacy with the Herberts, Plantagenet had learnt to control his emotions, and often successfully laboured to prevent those scenes of domestic recrimination once so painfully frequent. There often, too, was a note from Lady Annabel to Mrs. Cadurcis, or some other slight memorial, borne by her son, which enlisted all the kind feelings of that lady in favour of her Cherbury friends, and then the evening was sure to pass over in peace; and, when Plantagenet was not thus armed, he exerted himself to be cordial; and so, on the whole, with some skill in management, and some trials of temper, the mother and child contrived to live together with far greater comfort than they had of old. Bedtime was always a great relief to Plantagenet, for it secured him solitude. He would lie awake for hours, indulging in sweet and unconscious reveries, and brooding over the future morn, that always brought happiness. All that he used to sigh for, was to be Lady Annabel's son; were he Venetia's brother, then he was sure he never should be for a moment unhappy; that parting from Cherbury, and the gloomy evenings at Cadurcis, would then be avoided. In such a mood, and lying awake upon his pillow, he sought refuge from the painful reality that surrounded him in the creative solace of his imagination. Alone, in his little bed, Cadurcis was Venetia's brother, and he conjured up a thousand scenes in which they were never separated, and wherein he always played an amiable and graceful part. Yet he loved the abbey; his painful infancy was not associated with that scene; it was not connected with any of those grovelling common-places of his life, from which he had shrunk back with instinctive disgust, even at a very tender age. Cadurcis was the spot to which, in his most miserable moments at Morpeth, he had always looked forward, as the only chance of emancipation from the distressing scene that surrounded him. He had been brought up with a due sense of his future position, and although he had ever affected a haughty indifference on the subject, from his disrelish for the coarse acquaintances who were perpetually reminding him, with chuckling self-complacency, of his future greatness, in secret he had ever brooded over his destiny as his only consolation. He had imbibed from his own reflections, at a very early period of life, a due sense of the importance of his lot; he was proud of his hereditary honours, blended, as they were, with some glorious passages in the history of his country, and prouder of his still more ancient line. The eccentric exploits and the violent passions, by which his race had been ever characterised, were to him a source of secret exultation. Even the late lord, who certainly had no claims to his gratitude, for he had robbed the inheritance to the utmost of his power, commanded, from the wild decision of his life, the savage respect of his successor. In vain Mrs. Cadurcis would pour forth upon this, the favourite theme for her wrath and her lamentations, all the bitter expressions of her rage and woe. Plantagenet had never imbibed her prejudices against the departed, and had often irritated his mother by maintaining that the late lord was perfectly justified in his conduct. But in these almost daily separations between Plantagenet and Venetia, how different was her lot to that of her companion! She was the confidante of all his domestic sorrows, and often he had requested her to exert her influence to obtain some pacifying missive from Lady Annabel, which might secure him a quiet evening at Cadurcis; and whenever this had not been obtained, the last words of Venetia were ever not to loiter, and to remember to speak to his mother as much as he possibly could. Venetia returned to a happy home, welcomed by the smile of a soft and beautiful parent, and with words of affection sweeter than music. She found an engaging companion, who had no thought but for her welfare, her amusement, and her instruction: and often, when the curtains were drawn, the candles lit, and Venetia, holding her mother's hand, opened her book, she thought of poor Plantagenet, so differently situated, with no one to be kind to him, with no one to sympathise with his thoughts, and perhaps at the very moment goaded into some unhappy quarrel with his mother. CHAPTER IX. The appearance of the Cadurcis family on the limited stage of her life, and the engrossing society of her companion, had entirely distracted the thoughts of Venetia from a subject to which in old days they were constantly recurring, and that was her father. By a process which had often perplexed her, and which she could never succeed in analysing, there had arisen in her mind, without any ostensible agency on the part of her mother which she could distinctly recall, a conviction that this was a topic on which she was never to speak. This idea had once haunted her, and she had seldom found herself alone without almost unconsciously musing over it. Notwithstanding the unvarying kindness of Lady Annabel, she exercised over her child a complete and unquestioned control. Venetia was brought up with strictness, which was only not felt to be severe, because the system was founded on the most entire affection, but, fervent as her love was for her mother, it was equalled by her profound respect, which every word and action of Lady Annabel tended to maintain. In all the confidential effusions with Plantagenet, Venetia had never dwelt upon this mysterious subject; indeed, in these conversations, when they treated of their real and not ideal life, Venetia was a mere recipient: all that she could communicate, Plantagenet could observe; he it was who avenged himself at these moments for his habitual silence before third persons; it was to Venetia that he poured forth all his soul, and she was never weary of hearing his stories about Morpeth, and all his sorrows, disgusts, and afflictions. There was scarcely an individual in that little town with whom, from his lively narratives, she was not familiar; and it was to her sympathising heart that he confided all his future hopes and prospects, and confessed the strong pride he experienced in being a Cadurcis, which from all others was studiously concealed. It had happened that the first Christmas Day after the settlement of the Cadurcis family at the abbey occurred in the middle of the week; and as the weather was severe, in order to prevent two journeys at such an inclement season, Lady Annabel persuaded Mrs. Cadurcis to pass the whole week at the hall. This arrangement gave such pleasure to Plantagenet that the walls of the abbey, as the old postchaise was preparing for their journey, quite resounded with his merriment. In vain his mother, harassed with all the mysteries of packing, indulged in a thousand irritable expressions, which at any other time might have produced a broil or even a fray; Cadurcis did nothing but laugh. There was at the bottom of this boy's heart, with all his habitual gravity and reserve, a fund of humour which would occasionally break out, and which nothing could withstand. When he was alone with Venetia, he would imitate the old maids of Morpeth, and all the ceremonies of a provincial tea party, with so much life and genuine fun, that Venetia was often obliged to stop in their rambles to indulge her overwhelming mirth. When they were alone, and he was gloomy, she was often accustomed to say, 'Now, dear Plantagenet, tell me how the old ladies at Morpeth drink tea.' This morning at the abbey, Cadurcis was irresistible, and the more excited his mother became with the difficulties which beset her, the more gay and fluent were his quips and cranks. Puffing, panting, and perspiring, now directing her waiting-woman, now scolding her man-servant, and now ineffectually attempting to box her son's ears, Mrs. Cadurcis indeed offered a most ridiculous spectacle. 'John!' screamed Mrs. Cadurcis, in a voice of bewildered passion, and stamping with rage, 'is that the place for my cap-box? You do it on purpose, that you do!' 'John,' mimicked Lord Cadurcis, 'how dare you do it on purpose?' 'Take that, you brat,' shrieked the mother, and she struck her own hand against the doorway. 'Oh! I'll give it you, I'll give it you,' she bellowed under the united influence of rage and pain, and she pursued her agile child, who dodged her on the other side of the postchaise, which he persisted in calling the family carriage. 'Oh! ma'am, my lady,' exclaimed the waiting-woman, sallying forth from the abbey, 'what is to be done with the parrot when we are away? Mrs. Brown says she won't see to it, that she won't; 'taynt her place.' This rebellion of Mrs. Brown was a diversion in favour of Plantagenet. Mrs. Cadurcis waddled down the cloisters with precipitation, rushed into the kitchen, seized the surprised Mrs. Brown by the shoulder, and gave her a good shake; and darting at the cage, which held the parrot, she bore it in triumph to the carriage. 'I will take the bird with me,' said Mrs. Cadurcis. 'We cannot take the bird inside, madam,' said Plantagenet, 'for it will overhear all our conversation, and repeat it. We shall not be able to abuse our friends.' Mrs. Cadurcis threw the cage at her son's head, who, for the sake of the bird, dexterously caught it, but declared at the same time he would immediately throw it into the lake. Then Mrs. Cadurcis began to cry with rage, and, seating herself on the open steps of the chaise, sobbed hysterically. Plantagenet stole round on tip-toe, and peeped in her face: 'A merry Christmas and a happy new year, Mrs. Cadurcis,' said her son. 'How can I be merry and happy, treated as I am?' sobbed the mother. 'You do not treat Lady Annabel so. Oh! no; it is only your mother whom you use in this manner! Go to Cherbury. Go by all means, but go by yourself; I shall not go: go to your friends, Lord Cadurcis; they are your friends, not mine, and I hope they are satisfied, now that they have robbed me of the affections of my child. I have seen what they have been after all this time. I am not so blind as some people think. No! I see how it is. I am nobody. Your poor mother, who brought you up, and educated you, is nobody. This is the end of all your Latin and French, and your fine lessons. Honour your father and your mother, Lord Cadurcis; that's a finer lesson than all. Oh! oh! oh!' This allusion to the Herberts suddenly calmed Plantagenet. He felt in an instant the injudiciousness of fostering by his conduct the latent jealousy which always lurked at the bottom of his mother's heart, and which nothing but the united talent and goodness of Lady Annabel could have hitherto baffled. So he rejoined in a kind yet playful tone, 'If you will be good, I will give you a kiss for a Christmas-box, mother; and the parrot shall go inside if you like.' 'The parrot may stay at home, I do not care about it: but I cannot bear quarrelling; it is not my temper, you naughty, very naughty boy.' 'My dear mother,' continued his lordship, in a soothing tone, 'these scenes always happen when people are going to travel. I assure you it is quite a part of packing up.' 'You will be the death of me, that you will,' said the mother, 'with all your violence. You are worse than your father, that you are.' 'Come, mother,' said her son, drawing nearer, and just touching her shoulder with his hand, 'will you not have my Christmas-box?' The mother extended her cheek, which the son slightly touched with his lip, and then Mrs. Cadurcis jumped up as lively as ever, called for a glass of Mountain, and began rating the footboy. At length the postchaise was packed; they had a long journey before them, because Cadurcis would go round by Southport, to call upon a tradesman whom a month before he had commissioned to get a trinket made for him in London, according to the newest fashion, as a present for Venetia. The commission was executed; Mrs. Cadurcis, who had been consulted in confidence by her son on the subject, was charmed with the result of their united taste. She had good-naturedly contributed one of her own few, but fine, emeralds to the gift; upon the back of the brooch was engraved:-- TO VENETIA, FROM HER AFFECTIONATE BROTHER, PLANTAGENET. 'I hope she will be a sister, and more than a sister, to you,' said Mrs. Cadurcis. 'Why?' inquired her son, rather confused. 'You may look farther, and fare worse,' said Mrs. Cadurcis. Plantagenet blushed; and yet he wondered why he blushed: he understood his mother, but he could not pursue the conversation; his heart fluttered. A most cordial greeting awaited them at Cherbury; Dr. Masham was there, and was to remain until Monday. Mrs. Cadurcis would have opened about the present immediately, but her son warned her on the threshold that if she said a word about it, or seemed to be aware of its previous existence, even when it was shown, he would fling it instantly away into the snow; and her horror of this catastrophe bridled her tongue. Mrs. Cadurcis, however, was happy, and Lady Annabel was glad to see her so; the Doctor, too, paid her some charming compliments; the good lady was in the highest spirits, for she was always in extremes, and at this moment she would willingly have laid down her life if she had thought the sacrifice could have contributed to the welfare of the Herberts. Cadurcis himself drew Venetia aside, and then, holding the brooch reversed, he said, with rather a confused air, 'Read that, Venetia.' 'Oh! Plantagenet!' she said, very much astonished. 'You see, Venetia,' he added, leaving it in her hand, 'it is yours.' Venetia turned the jewel; her eye was dazzled with its brilliancy. 'It is too grand for a little girl, Plantagenet,' she exclaimed, a little pale. 'No, it is not,' said Plantagenet, firmly; 'besides, you will not always be a little girl; and then, if ever we do not live together as we do now, you will always remember you have a brother.' 'I must show it mamma; I must ask her permission to take it, Plantagenet.' Venetia went up to her mother, who was talking to Mrs. Cadurcis. She had not courage to speak before that lady and Dr. Masham, so she called her mother aside. 'Mamma,' she said, 'something has happened.' 'What, my dear?' said Lady Annabel, somewhat surprised at the seriousness of her tone. 'Look at this, mamma!' said Venetia, giving her the brooch. Lady Annabel looked at the jewel, and read the inscription. It was a more precious offering than the mother would willingly have sanctioned, but she was too highly bred, and too thoughtful of the feelings of others, to hesitate for a moment to admire it herself, and authorise its acceptance by her daughter. So she walked up to Cadurcis and gave him a mother's embrace for his magnificent present to his sister, placed the brooch itself near Venetia's heart, and then led her daughter to Mrs. Cadurcis, that the gratified mother might admire the testimony of her son's taste and affection. It was a most successful present, and Cadurcis felt grateful to his mother for her share in its production, and the very proper manner in which she received the announcement of its offering. CHAPTER X. This was Christmas Eve; the snow was falling briskly. After dinner they were glad to cluster round the large fire in the green drawing-room. Dr. Masham had promised to read the evening service in the chapel, which was now lit up, and the bell was sounding, that the cottagers might have the opportunity of attending. Plantagenet and Venetia followed the elders to the chapel; they walked hand-in-hand down the long galleries. 'I should like to go all over this house,' said Plantagenet to his companion. 'Have you ever been?' 'Never,' said Venetia; 'half of it is shut up. Nobody ever goes into it, except mamma.' In the night there was a violent snowstorm; not only was the fall extremely heavy, but the wind was so high, that it carried the snow off the hills, and all the roads were blocked up, in many places ten or twelve feet deep. All communication was stopped. This was an adventure that amused the children, though the rest looked rather grave. Plantagenet expressed to Venetia his wish that the snow would never melt, and that they might remain at Cherbury for ever. The children were to have a holiday this week, and they had planned some excursions in the park and neighbourhood, but now they were all prisoners to the house. They wandered about, turning the staircase into mountains, the great hall into an ocean, and the different rooms into so many various regions. They amused themselves with their adventures, and went on endless voyages of discovery. Every moment Plantagenet longed still more for the opportunity of exploring the uninhabited chambers; but Venetia shook her head, because she was sure Lady Annabel would not grant them permission. 'Did you ever live at any place before you came to Cherbury?' inquired Lord Cadurcis of Venetia. 'I know I was not born here,' said Venetia; 'but I was so young that I have no recollection of any other place.' 'And did any one live here before you came?' said Plantagenet. 'I do not know,' said Venetia; 'I never heard if anybody did. I, I,' she continued, a little constrained, 'I know nothing.' 'Do you remember your papa?' said Plantagenet. 'No,' said Venetia. 'Then he must have died almost as soon as you were born, said Lord Cadurcis. 'I suppose he must,' said Venetia, and her heart trembled. 'I wonder if he ever lived here!' said Plantagenet. 'Mamma does not like me to ask questions about my papa,' said Venetia, 'and I cannot tell you anything.' 'Ah! your papa was different from mine, Venetia,' said Cadurcis; 'my mother talks of him often enough. They did not agree very well; and, when we quarrel, she always says I remind her of him. I dare say Lady Annabel loved your papa very much.' 'I am sure mamma did,' replied Venetia. The children returned to the drawing-room, and joined their friends: Mrs. Cadurcis was sitting on the sofa, occasionally dozing over a sermon; Dr. Masham was standing with Lady Annabel in the recess of a distant window. Her ladyship's countenance was averted; she was reading a newspaper, which the Doctor had given her. As the door opened, Lady Annabel glanced round; her countenance was agitated; she folded up the newspaper rather hastily, and gave it to the Doctor. 'And what have you been doing, little folks?' inquired the Doctor of the new comers. 'We have been playing at the history of Rome,' said Venetia, 'and now that we have conquered every place, we do not know what to do.' 'The usual result of conquest,' said the Doctor, smiling. 'This snowstorm is a great trial for you; I begin to believe that, after all, you would be more pleased to take your holidays at another opportunity.' 'We could amuse ourselves very well,' said Plantagenet, 'if Lady Annabel would be so kind as to permit us to explore the part of the house that is shut up.' 'That would be a strange mode of diversion,' said Lady Annabel, quietly, 'and I do not think by any means a suitable one. There cannot be much amusement in roaming over a number of dusty unfurnished rooms.' 'And so nicely dressed as you are too!' said Mrs. Cadurcis, rousing herself: 'I wonder how such an idea could enter your head!' 'It snows harder than ever,' said Venetia; 'I think, after all, I shall learn my French vocabulary.' 'If it snows to-morrow,' said Plantagenet, 'we will do our lessons as usual. Holidays, I find, are not so amusing as I supposed.' The snow did continue, and the next day the children voluntarily suggested that they should resume their usual course of life. With their mornings occupied, they found their sources of relaxation ample; and in the evening they acted plays, and Lady Annabel dressed them up in her shawls, and Dr. Masham read Shakspeare to them. It was about the fourth day of the visit that Plantagenet, loitering in the hall with Venetia, said to her, 'I saw your mamma go into the locked-up rooms last night. I do so wish that she would let us go there.' 'Last night!' said Venetia; 'when could you have seen her last night?' 'Very late: the fact is, I could not sleep, and I took it into my head to walk up and down the gallery. I often do so at the abbey. I like to walk up and down an old gallery alone at night. I do not know why; but I like it very much. Everything is so still, and then you hear the owls. I cannot make out why it is; but nothing gives me more pleasure than to get up when everybody is asleep. It seems as if one were the only living person in the world. I sometimes think, when I am a man, I will always get up in the night, and go to bed in the daytime. Is not that odd?' 'But mamma!' said Venetia, 'how came you to see mamma?' 'Oh! I am certain of it,' said the boy; 'for, to tell you the truth, I was rather frightened at first; only I thought it would not do for a Cadurcis to be afraid, so I stood against the wall, in the shade, and I was determined, whatever happened, not to cry out.' 'Oh! you frighten me so, Plantagenet!' said Venetia. 'Ah! you might well have been frightened if you had been there; past midnight, a tall white figure, and a light! However, there is nothing to be alarmed about; it was Lady Annabel, nobody else. I saw her as clearly as I see you now. She walked along the gallery, and went to the very door you showed me the other morning. I marked the door; I could not mistake it. She unlocked it, and she went in.' 'And then?' inquired Venetia, eagerly. 'Why, then, like a fool, I went back to bed,' said Plantagenet. 'I thought it would seem so silly if I were caught, and I might not have had the good fortune to escape twice. I know no more.' Venetia could not reply. She heard a laugh, and then her mother's voice. They were called with a gay summons to see a colossal snow-ball, that some of the younger servants had made and rolled to the window of the terrace-room. It was ornamented with a crown of holly and mistletoe, and the parti-coloured berries looked bright in a straggling sunbeam which had fought its way through the still-loaded sky, and fell upon the terrace. In the evening, as they sat round the fire, Mrs. Cadurcis began telling Venetia a long rambling ghost story, which she declared was a real ghost story, and had happened in her own family. Such communications were not very pleasing to Lady Annabel, but she was too well bred to interrupt her guest. When, however, the narrative was finished, and Venetia, by her observations, evidently indicated the effect that it had produced upon her mind, her mother took the occasion of impressing upon her the little credibility which should be attached to such legends, and the rational process by which many unquestionable apparitions might be accounted for. Dr. Masham, following this train, recounted a story of a ghost which had been generally received in a neighbouring village for a considerable period, and attested by the most veracious witnesses, but which was explained afterwards by turning out to be an instance of somnambulism. Venetia appeared to be extremely interested in the subject; she inquired much about sleep-walkers and sleepwalking; and a great many examples of the habit were cited. At length she said, 'Mamma, did you ever walk in your sleep?' 'Not to my knowledge,' said Lady Annabel, smiling; 'I should hope not.' 'Well, do you know,' said Plantagenet, who had hitherto listened in silence, 'it is very curious, but I once dreamt that you did, Lady Annabel.' 'Indeed!' said the lady. 'Yes! and I dreamt it last night, too,' continued Cadurcis. 'I thought I was sleeping in the uninhabited rooms here, and the door opened, and you walked in with a light.' 'No! Plantagenet,' said Venetia, who was seated by him, and who spoke in a whisper, 'it was not--' 'Hush!' said Cadurcis, in a low voice. 'Well, that was a strange dream,' said Mrs. Cadurcis; 'was it not, Doctor?' 'Now, children, I will tell you a very curious story,' said the Doctor; 'and it is quite a true one, for it happened to myself.' The Doctor was soon embarked in his tale, and his audience speedily became interested in the narrative; but Lady Annabel for some time maintained complete silence. CHAPTER XI. The spring returned; the intimate relations between the two families were each day more confirmed. Lady Annabel had presented her daughter and Plantagenet each with a beautiful pony, but their rides were at first to be confined to the park, and to be ever attended by a groom. In time, however, duly accompanied, they were permitted to extend their progress so far as Cadurcis. Mrs. Cadurcis had consented to the wishes of her son to restore the old garden, and Venetia was his principal adviser and assistant in the enterprise. Plantagenet was fond of the abbey, and nothing but the agreeable society of Cherbury on the one hand, and the relief of escaping from his mother on the other, could have induced him to pass so little of his time at home; but, with Venetia for his companion, his mornings at the abbey passed charmingly, and, as the days were now at their full length again, there was abundance of time, after their studies at Cherbury, to ride together through the woods to Cadurcis, spend several hours there, and for Venetia to return to the hall before sunset. Plantagenet always accompanied her to the limits of the Cherbury grounds, and then returned by himself, solitary and full of fancies. Lady Annabel had promised the children that they should some day ride together to Marringhurst, the rectory of Dr. Masham, to eat strawberries and cream. This was to be a great festival, and was looked forward to with corresponding interest. Her ladyship had kindly offered to accompany Mrs. Cadurcis in the carriage, but that lady was an invalid and declined the journey; so Lady Annabel, who was herself a good horsewoman, mounted her jennet with Venetia and Plantagenet. Marringhurst was only five miles from Cherbury by a cross-road, which was scarcely passable for carriages. The rectory house was a substantial, square-built, red brick mansion, shaded by gigantic elms, but the southern front covered with a famous vine, trained over it with elaborate care, and of which, and his espaliers, the Doctor was very proud. The garden was thickly stocked with choice fruit-trees; there was not the slightest pretence to pleasure grounds; but there was a capital bowling-green, and, above all, a grotto, where the Doctor smoked his evening pipe, and moralised in the midst of his cucumbers and cabbages. On each side extended the meadows of his glebe, where his kine ruminated at will. It was altogether a scene as devoid of the picturesque as any that could be well imagined; flat, but not low, and rich, and green, and still. His expected guests met as warm a reception as such a hearty friend might be expected to afford. Dr. Masham was scarcely less delighted at the excursion than the children themselves, and rejoiced in the sunny day that made everything more glad and bright. The garden, the grotto, the bowling-green, and all the novelty of the spot, greatly diverted his young companions; they visited his farmyard, were introduced to his poultry, rambled over his meadows, and admired his cows, which he had collected with equal care and knowledge. Nor was the interior of this bachelor's residence devoid of amusement. Every nook and corner was filled with objects of interest; and everything was in admirable order. The goddess of neatness and precision reigned supreme, especially in his hall, which, though barely ten feet square, was a cabinet of rural curiosities. His guns, his fishing-tackle, a cabinet of birds stuffed by himself, a fox in a glass-case that seemed absolutely running, and an otter with a real fish in its mouth, in turn delighted them; but chiefly, perhaps, his chimney-corner of Dutch tiles, all Scriptural subjects, which Venetia and Plantagenet emulated each other in discovering. Then his library, which was rare and splendid, for the Doctor was one of the most renowned scholars in the kingdom, and his pictures, his prints, and his gold fish, and his canary birds; it seemed they never could exhaust such sources of endless amusement; to say nothing of every other room in the house, for, from the garret to the dairy, his guests encouraged him in introducing them to every thing, every person, and every place. 'And this is the way we old bachelors contrive to pass our lives,' said the good Doctor; 'and now, my dear lady, Goody Blount will give us some dinner.' The Doctor's repast was a substantial one; he seemed resolved, at one ample swoop, to repay Lady Annabel for all her hospitality; and he really took such delight in their participation of it, that his principal guest was constrained to check herself in more than one warning intimation that moderation was desirable, were it only for the sake of the strawberries and cream. All this time his housekeeper, Goody Blount, as he called her, in her lace cap and ruffles, as precise and starch as an old picture, stood behind his chair with pleased solemnity, directing, with unruffled composure, the movements of the liveried bumpkin who this day was promoted to the honour of 'waiting at table.' 'Come,' said the Doctor, as the cloth was cleared, 'I must bargain for one toast, Lady Annabel: "Church and State."' 'What is Church and State?' said Venetia. 'As good things. Miss Venetia, as strawberries and cream,' said the Doctor, laughing; 'and, like them, always best united.' After their repast, the children went into the garden to amuse themselves. They strolled about some time, until Plantagenet at length took it into his head that he should like to learn to play at bowls; and he said, if Venetia would wait in the grotto, where they then were talking, he would run back and ask the Doctor if the servant might teach him. He was not long absent; but appeared, on his return, a little agitated. Venetia inquired if he had been successful, but he shook his head, and said he had not asked. 'Why did you not?' said Venetia. 'I did not like,' he replied, looking very serious; 'something happened.' 'What could have happened?' said Venetia. 'Something strange,' was his answer. 'Oh, do tell me, Plantagenet!' 'Why,' said he, in a low voice, 'your mamma is crying.' 'Crying!' exclaimed Venetia; 'my dear mamma crying! I must go to her directly.' 'Hush!' said Plantagenet, shaking his head, 'you must not go.' 'I must.' 'No, you must not go, Venetia,' was his reply; 'I am sure she does not want us to know she is crying.' 'What did she say to you?' 'She did not see me; the Doctor did, and he gave me a nod to go away.' 'I never saw mamma cry,' said Venetia. 'Don't you say anything about it, Venetia,' said Plantagenet, with a manly air; 'listen to what I say.' 'I do, Plantagenet, always; but still I should like to know what mamma can be crying about. Do tell me all about it.' 'Why, I came to the room by the open windows, and your mamma was standing up, with her back to me, and leaning on the mantel-piece, with her face in her handkerchief; and the Doctor was standing up too, only his back was to the fireplace; and when he saw me, he made me a sign to go away, and I went directly.' 'Are you sure mamma was crying?' 'I heard her sob.' 'I think I shall cry,' said Venetia. 'You must not; you must know nothing about it. If you let your mamma know that I saw her crying, I shall never tell you anything again.' 'What do you think she was crying about, Plantagenet?' 'I cannot say; perhaps she had been talking about your papa. I do not want to play at bowls now,' added Plantagenet; 'let us go and see the cows.' In the course of half an hour the servant summoned the children to the house. The horses were ready, and they were now to return. Lady Annabel received them with her usual cheerfulness. 'Well, dear children,' said she, 'have you been very much amused?' Venetia ran forward, and embraced her mother with even unusual fondness. She was mindful of Plantagenet's injunctions, and was resolved not to revive her mother's grief by any allusion that could recall the past; but her heart was, nevertheless, full of sympathy, and she could not have rode home, had she not thus expressed her love for her mother. With the exception of this strange incident, over which, afterwards, Venetia often pondered, and which made her rather serious the whole of the ride home, this expedition to Marringhurst was a very happy day. CHAPTER XII. This happy summer was succeeded by a singularly wet autumn. Weeks of continuous rain rendered it difficult even for the little Cadurcis, who defied the elements, to be so constant as heretofore in his daily visits to Cherbury. His mother, too, grew daily a greater invalid, and, with increasing sufferings and infirmities, the natural captiousness of her temper proportionally exhibited itself. She insisted upon the companionship of her son, and that he should not leave the house in such unseasonable weather. If he resisted, she fell into one of her jealous rages, and taunted him with loving strangers better than his own mother. Cadurcis, on the whole, behaved very well; he thought of Lady Annabel's injunctions, and restrained his passion. Yet he was not repaid for the sacrifice; his mother made no effort to render their joint society agreeable, or even endurable. She was rarely in an amiable mood, and generally either irritable or sullen. If the weather held up a little, and he ventured to pay a visit to Cherbury, he was sure to be welcomed back with a fit of passion; either Mrs. Cadurcis was angered for being left alone, or had fermented herself into fury by the certainty of his catching a fever. If Plantagenet remained at the abbey, she was generally sullen; and, as he himself was naturally silent under any circumstances, his mother would indulge in that charming monologue, so conducive to domestic serenity, termed 'talking at a person,' and was continually insinuating that she supposed he found it very dull to pass his day with her, and that she dared say that somebody could be lively enough if he were somewhere else. Cadurcis would turn pale, and bite his lip, and then leave the room; and whole days would sometimes pass with barely a monosyllable being exchanged between this parent and child. Cadurcis had found some opportunities of pouring forth his griefs and mortification into the ear of Venetia, and they had reached her mother; but Lady Annabel, though she sympathised with this interesting boy, invariably counselled duty. The morning studies were abandoned, but a quantity of books were sent over from Cherbury for Plantagenet, and Lady Annabel seized every opportunity of conciliating Mrs. Cadurcis' temper in favour of her child, by the attention which she paid the mother. The weather, however, prevented either herself or Venetia from visiting the abbey; and, on the whole, the communications between the two establishments and their inmates had become rare. Though now a continual inmate of the abbey, Cadurcis was seldom the companion of his mother. They met at their meals, and that was all. He entered the room every day with an intention of conciliating; but the mutual tempers of the mother and the son were so quick and sensitive, that he always failed in his purpose, and could only avoid a storm by dogged silence. This enraged Mrs. Cadurcis more even than his impertinence; she had no conduct; she lost all command over herself, and did not hesitate to address to her child terms of reproach and abuse, which a vulgar mind could only conceive, and a coarse tongue alone express. What a contrast to Cherbury, to the mild maternal elegance and provident kindness of Lady Annabel, and the sweet tones of Venetia's ever-sympathising voice. Cadurcis, though so young, was gifted with an innate fastidiousness, that made him shrink from a rude woman. His feelings were different in regard to men; he sympathised at a very early age with the bold and the energetic; his favourites among the peasantry were ever those who excelled in athletic sports; and, though he never expressed the opinion, he did not look upon the poacher with the evil eye of his class. But a coarse and violent woman jarred even his young nerves; and this woman was his mother, his only parent, almost his only relation; for he had no near relative except a cousin whom he had never even seen, the penniless orphan of a penniless brother of his father, and who had been sent to sea; so that, after all, his mother was the only natural friend he had. This poor little boy would fly from that mother with a sullen brow, or, perhaps, even with a harsh and cutting repartee; and then he would lock himself up in his room, and weep. But he allowed no witnesses of this weakness. The lad was very proud. If any of the household passed by as he quitted the saloon, and stared for a moment at his pale and agitated face, he would coin a smile for the instant, and say even a kind word, for he was very courteous to his inferiors, and all the servants loved him, and then take refuge in his solitary woe. Relieved by this indulgence of his mortified heart, Cadurcis looked about him for resources. The rain was pouring in torrents, and the plash of the troubled and swollen lake might be heard even at the abbey. At night the rising gusts of wind, for the nights were always clear and stormy, echoed down the cloisters with a wild moan to which he loved to listen. In the morning he beheld with interest the savage spoils of the tempest; mighty branches of trees strewn about, and sometimes a vast trunk uprooted from its ancient settlement. Irresistibly the conviction impressed itself upon his mind that, if he were alone in this old abbey, with no mother to break that strange fountain of fancies that seemed always to bubble up in his solitude, he might be happy. He wanted no companions; he loved to be alone, to listen to the winds, and gaze upon the trees and waters, and wander in those dim cloisters and that gloomy gallery. From the first hour of his arrival he had loved the venerable hall of his fathers. Its appearance harmonised with all the associations of his race. Power and pomp, ancestral fame, the legendary respect of ages, all that was great, exciting, and heroic, all that was marked out from the commonplace current of human events, hovered round him. In the halls of Cadurcis he was the Cadurcis; though a child, he was keenly sensible of his high race; his whole being sympathised with their glory; he was capable of dying sooner than of disgracing them; and then came the memory of his mother's sharp voice and harsh vulgar words, and he shivered with disgust. Forced into solitude, forced to feed upon his own mind, Cadurcis found in that solitude each day a dearer charm, and in that mind a richer treasure of interest and curiosity. He loved to wander about, dream of the past, and conjure up a future as glorious. What was he to be? What should be his career? Whither should he wend his course? Even at this early age, dreams of far lands flitted over his mind; and schemes of fantastic and adventurous life. But now he was a boy, a wretched boy, controlled by a vulgar and narrow-minded woman! And this servitude must last for years; yes! years must elapse before he was his own master. Oh! if he could only pass them alone, without a human voice to disturb his musings, a single form to distract his vision! Under the influence of such feelings, even Cherbury figured to his fancy in somewhat faded colours. There, indeed, he was loved and cherished; there, indeed, no sound was ever heard, no sight ever seen, that could annoy or mortify the high pitch of his unconscious ideal; but still, even at Cherbury, he was a child. Under the influence of daily intercourse, his tender heart had balanced, perhaps even outweighed, his fiery imagination. That constant yet delicate affection had softened all his soul: he had no time but to be grateful and to love. He returned home only to muse over their sweet society, and contrast their refined and gentle life with the harsh rude hearth that awaited him. Whatever might be his reception at home, he was thrown, back for solace on their memory, not upon his own heart; and he felt the delightful conviction that to-morrow would renew the spell whose enchantment had enabled him to endure the present vexation. But now the magic of that intercourse had ceased; after a few days of restlessness and repining, he discovered that he must find in his desolation sterner sources of support than the memory of Venetia, and the recollections of the domestic joys of Cherbury. It astonishing with what rapidity the character of Cadurcis developed itself in solitude; and strange was the contrast between the gentle child who, a few weeks before, had looked forward with so much interest to accompanying Venetia to a childish festival, and the stern and moody being who paced the solitary cloisters of Cadurcis, and then would withdraw to his lonely chamber and the amusement of a book. He was at this time deeply interested in Purchas's Pilgrimage, one of the few books of which the late lord had not despoiled him. Narratives of travels and voyages always particularly pleased him; he had an idea that he was laying up information which might be useful to him hereafter; the Cherbury collection was rich in this class of volumes, and Lady Annabel encouraged their perusal. In this way many weeks elapsed at the abbey, during which the visits of Plantagenet to Cherbury were very few. Sometimes, if the weather cleared for an hour during the morning, he would mount his pony, and gallop, without stopping, to the hall. The rapidity of the motion excited his mind; he fancied himself, as he embraced Venetia, some chieftain who had escaped for a moment from his castle to visit his mistress; his imagination conjured up a war between the opposing towers of Cadurcis and Cherbury; and when his mother fell into a passion on his return, it passed with him only, according to its length and spirit, as a brisk skirmish or a general engagement. CHAPTER XIII. One afternoon, on his return from Cherbury, Plantagenet found the fire extinguished in the little room which he had appropriated to himself, and where he kept his books. As he had expressed his wish to the servant that the fire should be kept up, he complained to him of the neglect, but was informed, in reply, that the fire had been allowed to go out by his mother's orders, and that she desired in future that he would always read in the saloon. Plantagenet had sufficient self-control to make no observation before the servant, and soon after joined his mother, who looked very sullen, as if she were conscious that she had laid a train for an explosion. Dinner was now served, a short and silent meal. Lord Cadurcis did not choose to speak because he felt aggrieved, and his mother because she was husbanding her energies for the contest which she believed impending. At length, when the table was cleared, and the servant departed, Cadurcis said in a quiet tone, 'I think I shall write to my guardian to-morrow about my going to Eton.' 'You shall do no such thing,' said Mrs. Cadurcis, bristling up; 'I never heard such a ridiculous idea in my life as a boy like you writing letters on such subjects to a person you have never yet seen. When I think it proper that you should go to Eton, I shall write.' 'I wish you would think it proper now then, ma'am.' 'I won't be dictated to,' said Mrs. Cadurcis, fiercely. 'I was not dictating,' replied her son, calmly. 'You would if you could,' said his mother. 'Time enough to find fault with me when I do, ma'am.' 'There is enough to find fault about at all times, sir.' 'On which side, Mrs. Cadurcis?' inquired Plantagenet, with a sneer. 'Don't aggravate me, Lord Cadurcis,' said his mother. 'How am I aggravating you, ma'am?' 'I won't be answered,' said the mother. 'I prefer silence myself,' said the son. 'I won't be insulted in my own room, sir,' said Mrs. Cadurcis. 'I am not insulting you, Mrs. Cadurcis,' said Plantagenet, rather fiercely; 'and, as for your own room, I never wish to enter it. Indeed I should not be here at this moment, had you not ordered my fire to be put out, and particularly requested that I should sit in the saloon.' 'Oh! you are a vastly obedient person, I dare say,' replied Mrs. Cadurcis, very pettishly. 'How long, I should like to know, have my requests received such particular attention? Pooh!' 'Well, then, I will order my fire to be lighted again,' said Plantagenet. 'You shall do no such thing,' said the mother; 'I am mistress in this house. No one shall give orders here but me, and you may write to your guardian and tell him that, if you like.' 'I shall certainly not write to my guardian for the first time,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'about any such nonsense.' 'Nonsense, sir! Nonsense you said, did you? Your mother nonsense! This is the way to treat a parent, is it? I am nonsense, am I? I will teach you what nonsense is. Nonsense shall be very good sense; you shall find that, sir, that you shall. Nonsense, indeed! I'll write to your guardian, that I will! You call your mother nonsense, do you? And where did you learn that, I should like to know? Nonsense, indeed! This comes of your going to Cherbury! So your mother is nonsense; a pretty lesson for Lady Annabel to teach you. Oh! I'll speak my mind to her, that I will.' 'What has Lady Annabel to do with it?' inquired Cadurcis, in a loud tone. 'Don't threaten me, sir,' said Mrs. Cadurcis, with violent gesture. 'I won't be menaced; I won't be menaced by my son. Pretty goings on, indeed! But I will put a stop to them; will I not? that is all. Nonsense, indeed; your mother nonsense!' 'Well, you do talk nonsense, and the greatest,' said Plantagenet, doggedly; 'you are talking nonsense now, you are always talking nonsense, and you never open your mouth about Lady Annabel without talking nonsense.' 'If I was not very ill I would give it you,' said his mother, grinding her teeth. 'O you brat! You wicked brat, you! Is this the way to address me? I have half a mind to shake your viciousness out of you, that I have! You are worse than your father, that you are!' and here she wept with rage. 'I dare say my father was not so bad, after all!' said Cadurcis. 'What should you know about your father, sir?' said Mrs. Cadurcis. 'How dare you speak about your father!' 'Who should speak about a father but a son?' 'Hold your impudence, sir!' 'I am not impudent, ma'am.' 'You aggravating brat!' exclaimed the enraged woman, 'I wish I had something to throw at you!' 'Did you throw things at my father?' asked his lordship. Mrs. Cadurcis went into an hysterical rage; then, suddenly jumping up, she rushed at her son. Lord Cadurcis took up a position behind the table, but the sportive and mocking air which he generally instinctively assumed on these occasions, and which, while it irritated his mother more, was in reality affected by the boy from a sort of nervous desire of preventing these dreadful exposures from assuming a too tragic tone, did not characterise his countenance on the present occasion; on the contrary, it was pale, but composed and very serious. Mrs. Cadurcis, after one or two ineffectual attempts to catch him, paused and panted for breath. He took advantage of this momentary cessation, and spoke thus, 'Mother, I am in no humour for frolics. I moved out of your way that you might not strike me, because I have made up my mind that, if you ever strike me again, I will live with you no longer. Now, I have given you warning; do what you please; I shall sit down in this chair, and not move. If you strike me, you know the consequences.' So saying, his lordship resumed his chair. Mrs. Cadurcis simultaneously sprang forward and boxed his ears; and then her son rose without the slightest expression of any kind, and slowly quitted the chamber. Mrs. Cadurcis remained alone in a savage sulk; hours passed away, and her son never made his appearance. Then she rang the bell, and ordered the servant to tell Lord Cadurcis that tea was ready; but the servant returned, and reported that his lordship had locked himself up in his room, and would not reply to his inquiries. Determined not to give in, Mrs. Cadurcis, at length, retired for the night, rather regretting her violence, but still sullen. Having well scolded her waiting-woman, she at length fell asleep. The morning brought breakfast, but no Lord Cadurcis; in vain were all the messages of his mother, her son would make no reply to them. Mrs. Cadurcis, at length, personally repaired to his room and knocked at the door, but she was as unsuccessful as the servants; she began to think he would starve, and desired the servant to offer from himself to bring his meal. Still silence. Indignant at his treatment of these overtures of conciliation, Mrs. Cadurcis returned to the saloon, confident that hunger, if no other impulse, would bring her wild cub out of his lair; but, just before dinner, her waiting-woman came running into the room. 'Oh, ma'am, ma'am, I don't know where Lord Cadurcis has gone; but I have just seen John, and he says there was no pony in the stable this morning.' 'Mrs. Cadurcis sprang up, rushed to her son's chamber, found the door still locked, ordered it to be burst open, and then it turned out that his lordship had never been there at all, for the bed was unused. Mrs. Cadurcis was frightened out of her life; the servants, to console her, assured her that Plantagenet must be at Cherbury; and while she believed their representations, which were probable, she became not only more composed, but resumed her jealousy and sullenness. 'Gone to Cherbury, indeed! No doubt of it! Let him remain at Cherbury.' Execrating Lady Annabel, she flung herself into an easy chair, and dined alone, preparing herself to speak her mind on her son's return. The night, however, did not bring him, and Mrs. Cadurcis began to recur to her alarm. Much as she now disliked Lady Annabel, she could not resist the conviction that her ladyship would not permit Plantagenet to remain at Cherbury. Nevertheless, jealous, passionate, and obstinate, she stifled her fears, vented her spleen on her unhappy domestics, and, finally, exhausting herself by a storm of passion about some very unimportant subject, again sought refuge in sleep. She awoke early in a fright, and inquired immediately for her son. He had not been seen. She ordered the abbey bell to be sounded, sent messengers throughout the demesne, and directed all the offices to be searched. At first she thought he must have returned, and slept, perhaps in a barn; then she adopted the more probable conclusion, that he had drowned himself in the lake. Then she went into hysterics; called Plantagenet her lost darling; declared he was the best and most dutiful of sons, and the image of his poor father, then abused all the servants, and then abused herself. About noon she grew quite distracted, and rushed about the house with her hair dishevelled, and in a dressing-gown, looked in all the closets, behind the screens, under the chairs, into her work-box, but, strange to say, with no success. Then she went off into a swoon, and her servants, alike frightened about master and mistress, mother and son, dispatched a messenger immediately to Cherbury for intelligence, advice, and assistance. In less than an hour's time the messenger returned, and informed them that Lord Cadurcis had not been at Cherbury since two days back, but that Lady Annabel was very sorry to hear that their mistress was so ill, and would come on to see her immediately. In the meantime, Lady Annabel added that she had sent to Dr. Masham, and had great hopes that Lord Cadurcis was at Marringhurst. Mrs. Cadurcis, who had now come to, as her waiting-woman described the returning consciousness of her mistress, eagerly embraced the hope held out of Plantagenet being at Marringhurst, poured forth a thousand expressions of gratitude, admiration, and affection for Lady Annabel, who, she declared, was her best, her only friend, and the being in the world whom she loved most, next to her unhappy and injured child. After another hour of suspense Lady Annabel arrived, and her entrance was the signal for a renewed burst of hysterics from Mrs. Cadurcis, so wild and terrible that they must have been contagious to any female of less disciplined emotions than her guest. CHAPTER XIV. Towards evening Dr. Masham arrived at Cadurcis. He could give no intelligence of Plantagenet, who had not called at Marringhurst; but he offered, and was prepared, to undertake his pursuit. The good Doctor had his saddle-bags well stocked, and was now on his way to Southport, that being the nearest town, and where he doubted not to gain some tidings of the fugitive. Mrs. Cadurcis he found so indisposed, that he anticipated the charitable intentions of Lady Annabel not to quit her; and after having bid them place their confidence in Providence and his humble exertions, he at once departed on his researches. In the meantime let us return to the little lord himself. Having secured the advantage of a long start, by the device of turning the key of his chamber, he repaired to the stables, and finding no one to observe him, saddled his pony and galloped away without plan or purpose. An instinctive love of novelty and adventure induced him to direct his course by a road which he had never before pursued; and, after two or three miles progress through a wild open country of brushwood, he found that he had entered that considerable forest which formed the boundary of many of the views from Cadurcis. The afternoon was clear and still, the sun shining in the light blue sky, and the wind altogether hushed. On each side of the winding road spread the bright green turf, occasionally shaded by picturesque groups of doddered oaks. The calm beauty of the sylvan scene wonderfully touched the fancy of the youthful fugitive; it soothed and gratified him. He pulled up his pony; patted its lively neck, as if in gratitude for its good service, and, confident that he could not be successfully pursued, indulged in a thousand dreams of Robin Hood and his merry men. As for his own position and prospects, he gave himself no anxiety about them: satisfied with his escape from a revolting thraldom, his mind seemed to take a bound from the difficulty of his situation and the wildness of the scene, and he felt himself a man, and one, too, whom nothing could daunt or appal. Soon the road itself quite disappeared and vanished in a complete turfy track; but the continuing marks of cartwheels assured him that it was a thoroughfare, although he was now indeed journeying in the heart of a forest of oaks and he doubted not it would lead to some town or village, or at any rate to some farmhouse. Towards sunset, he determined to make use of the remaining light, and pushed on apace; but it soon grew so dark, that he found it necessary to resume his walking pace, from fear of the overhanging branches and the trunks of felled trees which occasionally crossed his way. Notwithstanding the probable prospect of passing his night in the forest, our little adventurer did not lose heart. Cadurcis was an intrepid child, and when in the company of those with whom he was not familiar, and free from those puerile associations to which those who had known and lived with him long were necessarily subject, he would assume a staid and firm demeanour unusual with one of such tender years. A light in the distance was now not only a signal that the shelter he desired was at hand, but reminded him that it was necessary, by his assured port, to prove that he was not unused to travel alone, and that he was perfectly competent and qualified to be his own master. As he drew nearer, the lights multiplied, and the moon, which now rose over the forest, showed to him that the trees, retiring on both sides to some little distance, left a circular plot of ground, on which were not only the lights which had at first attracted his attention, but the red flames of a watch-fire, round which some dark figures had hitherto been clustered. The sound of horses' feet had disturbed them, and the fire was now more and more visible. As Cadurcis approached, he observed some low tents, and in a few minutes he was in the centre of an encampment of gipsies. He was for a moment somewhat dismayed, for he had been brought up with the usual terror of these wild people; nevertheless, he was not unequal to the occasion. He was surrounded in an instant, but only with women and children; for the gipsy-men never immediately appear. They smiled with their bright eyes, and the flames of the watch-fire threw a lurid glow over their dark and flashing countenances; they held out their practised hands; they uttered unintelligible, but not unfriendly sounds. The heart of Cadurcis faltered, but his voice did not betray him. 'I am cold, good people,' said the undaunted boy; 'will you let me warm myself by your fire?' A beautiful girl, with significant gestures, pressed her hand to her heart, then pointed in the direction of the tents, and then rushed away, soon reappearing with a short thin man, inclining to middle age, but of a compact and apparently powerful frame, lithe, supple, and sinewy. His complexion was dark, but clear; his eye large, liquid, and black; but his other features small, though precisely moulded. He wore a green jacket and a pair of black velvet breeches, his legs and feet being bare, with the exception of slippers. Round his head was twisted a red handkerchief, which, perhaps, might not have looked like a turban on a countenance less oriental. 'What would the young master?' inquired the gipsy-man, in a voice far from disagreeable, and with a gesture of courtesy; but, at the same time, he shot a scrutinising glance first at Plantagenet, and then at his pony. 'I would remain with you,' said Cadurcis; 'that is, if you will let me.' The gipsy-man made a sign to the women, and Plantagenet was lifted by them off his pony, before he could be aware of their purpose; the children led the pony away, and the gipsy-man conducted Plantagenet to the fire, where an old woman sat, presiding over the mysteries of an enormous flesh-pot. Immediately his fellows, who had originally been clustered around it, re-appeared; fresh blocks and branches were thrown on, the flames crackled and rose, the men seated themselves around, and Plantagenet, excited by the adventure, rubbed his hands before the fire, and determined to fear nothing. A savoury steam exuded from the flesh-pot. 'That smells well,' said Plantagenet. 'Tis a dimber cove,'[A] whispered one of the younger men to a companion. [Footnote A: 'Tis a lively lad.] 'Our supper has but rough seasoning for such as you,' said the man who had first saluted him, and who was apparently the leader; 'but the welcome is hearty.' The woman and girls now came with wooden bowls and platters, and, after serving the men, seated themselves in an exterior circle, the children playing round them. 'Come, old mort,' said the leader, in a very different tone to the one in which he addressed his young guest, 'tout the cobble-colter; are we to have darkmans upon us? And, Beruna, flick the panam.'[A] [Footnote A: Come, old woman, took after the turkey. Are we to wait till night! And, Beruna, cut the bread.] Upon this, that beautiful girl, who had at first attracted the notice of Cadurcis, called out in a sweet lively voice, 'Ay! ay! Morgana!' and in a moment handed over the heads of the women a pannier of bread, which the leader took, and offered its contents to our fugitive. Cadurcis helped himself, with a bold but gracious air. The pannier was then passed round, and the old woman, opening the pot, drew out, with a huge iron fork, a fine turkey, which she tossed into a large wooden platter, and cut up with great quickness. First she helped Morgana, but only gained a reproof for her pains, who immediately yielded his portion to Plantagenet. Each man was provided with his knife, but the guest had none. Morgana immediately gave up his own. 'Beruna!' he shouted, 'gibel a chiv for the gentry cove.'[A] [Footnote A: Bring a knife for the gentleman.] 'Ay! ay! Morgana!' said the girl; and she brought the knife to Plantagenet himself, saying at the same time, with sparkling eyes, 'Yam, yam, gentry cove.'[A] [Footnote A: Eat, eat, gentleman.] Cadurcis really thought it was the most delightful meal he had ever made in his life. The flesh-pot held something besides turkeys. Rough as was the fare, it was good and plentiful. As for beverage, they drank humpty-dumpty, which is ale boiled with brandy, and which is not one of the slightest charms of a gipsy's life. When the men were satisfied, their platters were filled, and given to the women and children; and Beruna, with her portion, came and seated herself by Plantagenet, looking at him with a blended glance of delight and astonishment, like a beautiful young savage, and then turning to her female companions to stifle a laugh. The flesh-pot was carried away, the men lit their pipes, the fire was replenished, its red shadow mingled with the silver beams of the moon; around were the glittering tents and the silent woods; on all sides flashing eyes and picturesque forms. Cadurcis glanced at his companions, and gazed upon the scene with feelings of ravishing excitement; and then, almost unconscious of what he was saying, exclaimed, 'At length I have found the life that suits me!' 'Indeed, squire!' said Morgana. 'Would you be one of us?' 'From this moment,' said Cadurcis, 'if you will admit me to your band. But what can I do? And I have nothing to give you. You must teach me to earn my right to our supper.' 'We'll make a Turkey merchant[A] of you yet,' said an old gipsy, 'never fear that.' [Footnote A: _i.e._ We will teach you to steal a turkey] 'Bah, Peter!' said Morgana, with an angry look, 'your red rag will never be still. And what was the purpose of your present travel?' he continued to Plantagenet. 'None; I was sick of silly home.' 'The gentry cove will be romboyled by his dam,' said a third gipsy. 'Queer Cuffin will be the word yet, if we don't tout.'[A] [Footnote A: His mother will make a hue and cry after the gentleman yet; justice of the peace will be the word, if we don't look sharp.] 'Well, you shall see a little more of us before you decide,' said Morgana, thoughtfully, and turning the conversation. 'Beruna.' 'Ay! ay! Morgana!' 'Tip me the clank, like a dimber mort as you are; trim a ken for the gentry cove; he is no lanspresado, or I am a kinchin.'[A] [Footnote A: Give me the tankard, like a pretty girl. Get a bed ready for the gentleman. He is no informer, or I am an infant.] 'Ay! ay! Morgana' gaily exclaimed the girl, and she ran off to prepare a bed for the Lord of Cadurcis. CHAPTER XV. Dr. Masham could gain no tidings of the object of his pursuit at Southport: here, however, he ascertained that Plantagenet could not have fled to London, for in those days public conveyances were rare. There was only one coach that ran, or rather jogged, along this road, and it went but once a week, it being expected that very night; while the innkeeper was confident that so far as Southport was concerned, his little lordship had not sought refuge in the waggon, which was more frequent, though somewhat slower, in its progress to the metropolis. Unwilling to return home, although the evening was now drawing in, the Doctor resolved to proceed to a considerable town about twelve miles further, which Cadurcis might have reached by a cross road; so drawing his cloak around him, looking to his pistols, and desiring his servant to follow his example, the stout-hearted Rector of Marringhurst pursued his way. It was dark when the Doctor entered the town, and he proceeded immediately to the inn where the coach was expected, with some faint hope that the fugitive might be discovered abiding within its walls; but, to all his inquiries about young gentlemen and ponies, he received very unsatisfactory answers; so, reconciling himself as well as he could to the disagreeable posture of affairs, he settled himself in the parlour of the inn, with a good fire, and, lighting his pipe, desired his servant to keep a sharp look-out. In due time a great uproar in the inn-yard announced the arrival of the stage, an unwieldy machine, carrying six inside, and dragged by as many horses. The Doctor, opening the door of his apartment, which led on to a gallery that ran round the inn-yard, leaned over the balustrade with his pipe in his mouth, and watched proceedings. It so happened that the stage was to discharge one of its passengers at this town, who had come from the north, and the Doctor recognised in him a neighbour and brother magistrate, one Squire Mountmeadow, an important personage in his way, the terror of poachers, and somewhat of an oracle on the bench, as it was said that he could take a deposition without the assistance of his clerk. Although, in spite of the ostler's lanterns, it was very dark, it was impossible ever to be unaware of the arrival of Squire Mountmeadow; for he was one of those great men who take care to remind the world of their dignity by the attention which they require on every occasion. 'Coachman!' said the authoritative voice of the Squire. 'Where is the coachman? Oh! you are there, sir, are you? Postilion! Where is the postilion? Oh! you are there, sir, are you? Host! Where is the host? Oh! you are there, sir, are you? Waiter! Where is the waiter? I say where is the waiter?' 'Coming, please your worship!' 'How long am I to wait? Oh! you are there, sir, are you? Coachman!' 'Your worship!' 'Postilion!' 'Yes, your worship!' 'Host!' 'Your worship's servant!' 'Waiter!' 'Your worship's honour's humble servant!' 'I am going to alight!' All four attendants immediately bowed, and extended their arms to assist this very great man; but Squire Mountmeadow, scarcely deigning to avail himself of their proffered assistance, and pausing on each step, looking around him with his long, lean, solemn visage, finally reached terra firma in safety, and slowly stretched his tall, ungainly figure. It was at this moment that Dr. Masham's servant approached him, and informed his worship that his master was at the inn, and would be happy to see him. The countenance of the great Mountmeadow relaxed at the mention of the name of a brother magistrate, and in an audible voice he bade the groom 'tell my worthy friend, his worship, your worthy master, that I shall be rejoiced to pay my respects to an esteemed neighbour and a brother magistrate.' With slow and solemn steps, preceded by the host, and followed by the waiter, Squire Mountmeadow ascended the staircase of the external gallery, pausing occasionally, and looking around him with thoughtful importance, and making an occasional inquiry as to the state of the town and neighbourhood during his absence, in this fashion: 'Stop! where are you, host? Oh! you are there, sir, are you? Well, Mr. Host, and how have we been? orderly, eh?' 'Quite orderly, your worship.' 'Hoh! Orderly! Hem! Well, very well! Never easy, if absent only four-and-twenty hours. The law must be obeyed.' 'Yes, your worship.' 'Lead on, sir. And, waiter; where are you, waiter? Oh, you are there, sir, are you? And so my brother magistrate is here?' 'Yes, your honour's worship.' 'Hem! What can he want? something in the wind; wants my advice, I dare say; shall have it. Soldiers ruly; king's servants; must be obeyed.' 'Yes, your worship; quite ruly, your worship,' said the host. 'As obliging and obstreperous as can be,' said the waiter. 'Well, very well;' and here the Squire had gained the gallery, where the Doctor was ready to receive him. 'It always gives me pleasure to meet a brother magistrate,' said Squire Mountmeadow, bowing with cordial condescension; 'and a gentleman of your cloth, too. The clergy must be respected; I stand or fall by the Church. After you, Doctor, after you.' So saying, the two magistrates entered the room. 'An unexpected pleasure, Doctor,' said the Squire; 'and what brings your worship to town?' 'A somewhat strange business,' said the Doctor; 'and indeed I am not a little glad to have the advantage of your advice and assistance.' 'Hem! I thought so,' said the Squire; 'your worship is very complimentary. What is the case? Larceny?' 'Nay, my good sir, 'tis a singular affair; and, if you please, we will order supper first, and discuss it afterwards. 'Tis for your private ear.' 'Oh! ho!' said the Squire, looking very mysterious and important. 'With your worship's permission,' he added, filling a pipe. The host was no laggard in waiting on two such important guests. The brother magistrates despatched their rump-steak; the foaming tankard was replenished; the fire renovated. At length, the table and the room being alike clear, Squire Mountmeadow drew a long puff, and said, 'Now for business, Doctor.' His companion then informed him of the exact object of his visit, and narrated to him so much of the preceding incidents as was necessary. The Squire listened in solemn silence, elevating his eyebrows, nodding his head, trimming his pipe, with profound interjections; and finally, being appealed to for his opinion by the Doctor, delivered himself of a most portentous 'Hem!' 'I question, Doctor,' said the Squire, 'whether we should not communicate with the Secretary of State. 'Tis no ordinary business. 'Tis a spiriting away of a Peer of the realm. It smacks of treason.' 'Egad!' said the Doctor, suppressing a smile, 'I think we can hardly make a truant boy a Cabinet question.' The Squire glanced a look of pity at his companion. 'Prove the truancy, Doctor; prove it. 'Tis a case of disappearance; and how do we know that there is not a Jesuit at the bottom of it?' 'There is something in that,' said the Doctor. 'There is everything in it,' said the Squire, triumphantly. 'We must offer rewards; we must raise the posse comitatus.' 'For the sake of the family, I would make as little stir as necessary,' said Dr. Masham. 'For the sake of the family!' said the Squire. 'Think of the nation, sir! For the sake of the nation we must make as much stir as possible. 'Tis a Secretary of State's business; 'tis a case for a general warrant.' 'He is a well-meaning lad enough,' said the Doctor. 'Ay, and therefore more easily played upon,' said the Squire. 'Rome is at the bottom of it, brother Masham, and I am surprised that a good Protestant like yourself, one of the King's Justices of the Peace, and a Doctor of Divinity to boot, should doubt the fact for an instant.' 'We have not heard much of the Jesuits of late years,' said the Doctor. 'The very reason that they are more active,' said the Squire. 'An only child!' said Dr. Masham. 'A Peer of the realm!' said Squire Mountmeadow. 'I should think he must be in the neighbourhood.' 'More likely at St. Omer's.' 'They would scarely take him to the plantations with this war?' 'Let us drink "Confusion to the rebels!"' said the Squire. 'Any news?' 'Howe sails this week,' said the Doctor. 'May he burn Boston!' said the Squire. 'I would rather he would reduce it, without such extremities,' said Dr. Masham. 'Nothing is to be done without extremities,' said Squire Mountmeadow. 'But this poor child?' said the Doctor, leading back the conversation. 'What can we do?' 'The law of the case is clear,' said the Squire; 'we must move a habeas corpus.' 'But shall we be nearer getting him for that?' inquired the Doctor. 'Perhaps not, sir; but 'tis the regular way. We must proceed by rule.' 'I am sadly distressed,' said Dr. Masham. 'The worst is, he has gained such a start upon us; and yet he can hardly have gone to London; he would have been recognised here or at Southport.' 'With his hair cropped, and in a Jesuit's cap?' inquired the Squire, with a slight sneer. 'Ah! Doctor, Doctor, you know not the gentry you have to deal with!' 'We must hope,' said Dr. Masham. 'To-morrow we must organise some general search.' 'I fear it will be of no use,' said the Squire, replenishing his pipe. 'These Jesuits are deep fellows.' 'But we are not sure about the Jesuits, Squire.' 'I am,' said the Squire; 'the case is clear, and the sooner you break it to his mother the better. You asked me for my advice, and I give it you.' CHAPTER XVI. It was on the following morning, as the Doctor was under the operation of the barber, that his groom ran into the room with a pale face and agitated air, and exclaimed, 'Oh! master, master, what do you think? Here is a man in the yard with my lord's pony.' 'Stop him, Peter,' exclaimed the Doctor. 'No! watch him, watch him; send for a constable. Are you certain 'tis the pony?' 'I could swear to it out of a thousand,' said Peter. 'There, never mind my beard, my good man,' said the Doctor. 'There is no time for appearances. Here is a robbery, at least; God grant no worse. Peter, my boots!' So saying, the Doctor, half equipped, and followed by Peter and the barber, went forth on the gallery. 'Where is he?' said the Doctor. 'He is down below, talking to the ostler, and trying to sell the pony,' said Peter. 'There is no time to lose,' said the Doctor; 'follow me, like true men:' and the Doctor ran downstairs in his silk nightcap, for his wig was not yet prepared. 'There he is,' said Peter; and true enough there was a man in a smock-frock and mounted on the very pony which Lady Annabel had presented to Plantagenet. 'Seize this man in the King's name,' said the Doctor, hastily advancing to him. 'Ostler, do your duty; Peter, be firm. I charge you all; I am a justice of the peace. I charge you arrest this man.' The man seemed very much astonished; but he was composed, and offered no resistance. He was dressed like a small farmer, in top-boots and a smock-frock. His hat was rather jauntily placed on his curly red hair. 'Why am I seized?' at length said the man. 'Where did you get that pony?' said the Doctor. 'I bought it,' was the reply. 'Of whom?' 'A stranger at market.' 'You are accused of robbery, and suspected of murder,' said Dr. Masham. 'Mr. Constable,' said the Doctor, turning to that functionary, who had now arrived, 'handcuff this man, and keep him in strict custody until further orders.' The report that a man was arrested for robbery, and suspected of murder, at the Red Dragon, spread like wildfire through the town; and the inn-yard was soon crowded with the curious and excited inhabitants. Peter and the barber, to whom he had communicated everything, were well qualified to do justice to the important information of which they were the sole depositaries; the tale lost nothing by their telling; and a circumstantial narrative of the robbery and murder of no less a personage than Lord Cadurcis, of Cadurcis Abbey, was soon generally prevalent. The stranger was secured in a stable, before which the constable kept guard; mine host, and the waiter, and the ostlers acted as a sort of supernumerary police, to repress the multitude; while Peter held the real pony by the bridle, whose identity, which he frequently attested, was considered by all present as an incontrovertible evidence of the commission of the crime. In the meantime Dr. Masham, really agitated, roused his brother magistrate, and communicated to his worship the important discovery. The Squire fell into a solemn flutter. 'We must be regular, brother Masham; we must proceed by rule; we are a bench in ourselves. Would that my clerk were here! We must send for Signsealer forthwith. I will not decide without the statutes. The law must be consulted, and it must be obeyed. The fellow hath not brought my wig. 'Tis a case of murder no doubt. A Peer of the realm murdered! You must break the intelligence to his surviving parent, and I will communicate to the Secretary of State. Can the body be found? That will prove the murder. Unless the body be found, the murder will not be proved, save the villain confess, which he will not do unless he hath sudden compunctions. I have known sudden compunctions go a great way. We had a case before our bench last month; there was no evidence. It was not a case of murder; it was of woodcutting; there was no evidence; but the defendant had compunctions. Oh! here is my wig. We must send for Signsealer. He is clerk to our bench, and he must bring the statutes. 'Tis not simple murder this; it involves petty treason.' By this time his worship had completed his toilet, and he and his colleague took their way to the parlour they had inhabited the preceding evening. Mr. Signsealer was in attendance, much to the real, though concealed, satisfaction of Squire Mountmeadow. Their worships were seated like two consuls before the table, which Mr. Signsealer had duly arranged with writing materials and various piles of calf-bound volumes. Squire Mountmeadow then, arranging his countenance, announced that the bench was prepared, and mine host was instructed forthwith to summon the constable and his charge, together with Peter and the ostler as witnesses. There was a rush among some of the crowd who were nighest the scene to follow the prisoner into the room; and, sooth to say, the great Mountmeadow was much too enamoured of his own self-importance to be by any means a patron of close courts and private hearings; but then, though he loved his power to be witnessed, he was equally desirous that his person should be reverenced. It was his boast that he could keep a court of quarter sessions as quiet as a church; and now, when the crowd rushed in with all those sounds of tumult incidental to such a movement, it required only Mountmeadow slowly to rise, and drawing himself up to the full height of his gaunt figure, to knit his severe brow, and throw one of his peculiar looks around the chamber, to insure a most awful stillness. Instantly everything was so hushed, that you might have heard Signsealer nib his pen. The witnesses were sworn; Peter proved that the pony belonged to Lord Cadurcis, and that his lordship had been missing from home for several days, and was believed to have quitted the abbey on this identical pony. Dr. Masham was ready, if necessary, to confirm this evidence. The accused adhered to his first account, that he had purchased the animal the day before at a neighbouring fair, and doggedly declined to answer any cross-examination. Squire Mountmeadow looked alike pompous and puzzled; whispered to the Doctor; and then shook his head at Mr. Signsealer. 'I doubt whether there be satisfactory evidence of the murder, brother Masham,' said the Squire; 'what shall be our next step?' 'There is enough evidence to keep this fellow in custody,' said the Doctor. 'We must remand him, and make inquiries at the market town. I shall proceed there immediately, He is a strange-looking fellow,' added the Doctor: 'were it not for his carroty locks, I should scarcely take him for a native.' 'Hem!' said the Squire, 'I have my suspicions. Fellow,' continued his worship, in an awful tone, 'you say that you are a stranger, and that your name is Morgan; very suspicious all this: you have no one to speak to your character or station, and you are found in possession of stolen goods. The bench will remand you for the present, and will at any rate commit you for trial for the robbery. But here is a Peer of the realm missing, fellow, and you are most grievously suspected of being concerned in his spiriting away, or even murder. You are upon tender ground, prisoner; 'tis a case verging on petty treason, if not petty treason itself. Eh! Mr. Signsealer? Thus runs the law, as I take it? Prisoner, it would be well for you to consider your situation. Have you no compunctions? Compunctions might save you, if not a principal offender. It is your duty to assist the bench in executing justice. The Crown is merciful; you may be king's evidence.' Mr. Signsealer whispered the bench; he proposed that the prisoner's hat should be examined, as the name of its maker might afford a clue to his residence. 'True, true, Mr. Clerk,' said Squire Mountmeadow, 'I am coming to that. 'Tis a sound practice; I have known such a circumstance lead to great disclosures. But we must proceed in order. Order is everything. Constable, take the prisoner's hat off.' The constable took the hat off somewhat rudely; so rudely, indeed, that the carroty locks came off in company with it, and revealed a profusion of long plaited hair, which had been adroitly twisted under the wig, more in character with the countenance than its previous covering. 'A Jesuit, after all!' exclaimed the Squire. 'A gipsy, as it seems to me,' whispered the Doctor. 'Still worse,' said the Squire. 'Silence in the Court!' exclaimed the awful voice of Squire Mountmeadow, for the excitement of the audience was considerable. The disguise was generally esteemed as incontestable evidence of the murder. 'Silence, or I will order the Court to be cleared. Constable, proclaim silence. This is an awful business,' added the Squire, with a very long face. 'Brother Masham, we must do our duty; but this is an awful business. At any rate we must try to discover the body. A Peer of the realm must not be suffered to lie murdered in a ditch. He must have Christian burial, if possible, in the vaults of his ancestors.' When Morgana, for it was indeed he, observed the course affairs were taking, and ascertained that his detention under present circumstances was inevitable, he relaxed from his doggedness, and expressed a willingness to make a communication to the bench. Squire Mountmeadow lifted up his eyes to Heaven, as if entreating the interposition of Providence to guide him in his course; then turned to his brother magistrate, and then nodded to the clerk. 'He has compunctions, brother Masham,' said his worship: 'I told you so; he has compunctions. Trust me to deal with these fellows. He knew not his perilous situation; the hint of petty treason staggered him. Mr. Clerk, take down the prisoner's confession; the Court must be cleared; constable, clear the Court. Let a stout man stand on each side of the prisoner, to protect the bench. The magistracy of England will never shrink from doing their duty, but they must be protected. Now, prisoner, the bench is ready to hear your confession. Conceal nothing, and if you were not a principal in the murder, or an accessory before the fact; eh, Mr. Clerk, thus runs the law, as I take it? there may be mercy; at any rate, if you be hanged, you will have the satisfaction of having cheerfully made the only atonement to society in your power.' 'Hanging be damned!' said Morgana. Squire Mountmeadow started from his seat, his cheeks distended with rage, his dull eyes for once flashing fire. 'Did you ever witness such atrocity, brother Masham?' exclaimed his worship. 'Did you hear the villain? I'll teach him to respect the bench. I'll fine him before he is executed, that I will!' 'The young gentleman to whom this pony belongs,' continued the gipsy, 'may or may not be a lord. I never asked him his name, and he never told it me; but he sought hospitality of me and my people, and we gave it him, and he lives with us, of his own free choice. The pony is of no use to him now, and so I came to sell it for our common good.' 'A Peer of the realm turned gipsy!' exclaimed the Squire. 'A very likely tale! I'll teach you to come here and tell your cock-and-bull stories to two of his majesty's justices of the peace. 'Tis a flat case of robbery and murder, and I venture to say something else. You shall go to gaol directly, and the Lord have mercy on your soul!' 'Nay,' said the gipsy, appealing to Dr. Marsham; 'you, sir, appear to be a friend of this youth. You will not regain him by sending me to gaol. Load me, if you will, with irons; surround me with armed men, but at least give me the opportunity of proving the truth of what I say. I offer in two hours to produce to you the youth, and you shall find he is living with my people in content and peace.' 'Content and fiddlestick!' said the Squire, in a rage. 'Brother Mountmeadow,' said the Doctor, in a low tone, to his colleague, 'I have private duties to perform to this family. Pardon me if, with all deference to your sounder judgment and greater experience, I myself accept the prisoner's offer.' 'Brother Masham, you are one of his majesty's justices of the peace, you are a brother magistrate, and you are a Doctor of Divinity; you owe a duty to your country, and you owe a duty to yourself. Is it wise, is it decorous, that one of the Quorum should go a-gipsying? Is it possible that you can credit this preposterous tale? Brother Masham, there will be a rescue, or my name is not Mountmeadow.' In spite, however, of all these solemn warnings, the good Doctor, who was not altogether unaware of the character of his pupil, and could comprehend that it was very possible the statement of the gipsy might be genuine, continued without very much offending his colleague, who looked upon, his conduct indeed rather with pity than resentment, to accept the offer of Morgana; and consequently, well-secured and guarded, and preceding the Doctor, who rode behind the cart with his servant, the gipsy soon sallied forth from the inn-yard, and requested the driver to guide his course in the direction of the forest. CHAPTER XVII. It was the afternoon of the third day after the arrival of Cadurcis at the gipsy encampment, and nothing had yet occurred to make him repent his flight from the abbey, and the choice of life he had made. He had experienced nothing but kindness and hospitality, while the beautiful Beruna seemed quite content to pass her life in studying his amusement. The weather, too, had been extremely favourable to his new mode of existence; and stretched at his length upon the rich turf, with his head on Beruna's lap, and his eyes fixed upon the rich forest foliage glowing in the autumnal sunset, Plantagenet only wondered that he could have endured for so many years the shackles of his common-place home. His companions were awaiting the return of their leader, Morgana, who had been absent since the preceding day, and who had departed on Plantagenet's pony. Most of them were lounging or strolling in the vicinity of their tents; the children were playing; the old woman was cooking at the fire; and altogether, save that the hour was not so late, the scene presented much the same aspect as when Cadurcis had first beheld it. As for his present occupation, Beruna was giving him a lesson in the gipsy language, which he was acquiring with a rapid facility, which quite exceeded all his previous efforts in such acquisitions. Suddenly a scout sang out that a party was in sight. The men instantly disappeared; the women were on the alert; and one ran forward as a spy, on pretence of telling fortunes. This bright-eyed professor of palmistry soon, however, returned running, and out of breath, yet chatting all the time with inconceivable rapidity, and accompanying the startling communication she was evidently making with the most animated gestures. Beruna started up, and, leaving the astonished Cadurcis, joined them. She seemed alarmed. Cadurcis was soon convinced there was consternation in the camp. Suddenly a horseman galloped up, and was immediately followed by a companion. They called out, as if encouraging followers, and one of them immediately galloped away again, as if to detail the results of their reconnaissance. Before Cadurcis could well rise and make inquiries as to what was going on, a light cart, containing several men, drove up, and in it, a prisoner, he detected Morgana. The branches of the trees concealed for a moment two other horsemen who followed the cart; but Cadurcis, to his infinite alarm and mortification, soon recognised Dr. Masham and Peter. When the gipsies found their leader was captive, they no longer attempted to conceal themselves; they all came forward, and would have clustered round the cart, had not the riders, as well as those who more immediately guarded the prisoner, prevented them. Morgana spoke some words in a loud voice to the gipsies, and they immediately appeared less agitated; then turning to Dr. Masham, he said in English, 'Behold your child!' Instantly two gipsy men seized Cadurcis, and led him to the Doctor. 'How now, my lord!' said the worthy Rector, in a stern voice, 'is this your duty to your mother and your friends?' Cadurcis looked down, but rather dogged than ashamed. 'You have brought an innocent man into great peril,' continued the Doctor. 'This person, no longer a prisoner, has been arrested on suspicion of robbery, and even murder, through your freak. Morgana, or whatever your name may be, here is some reward for your treatment of this child, and some compensation for your detention. Mount your pony, Lord Cadurcis, and return to your home with me.' 'This is my home, sir,' said Plantagenet. 'Lord Cadurcis, this childish nonsense must cease; it has already endangered the life of your mother, nor can I answer for her safety, if you lose a moment in returning.' 'Child, you must return,' said Morgana. 'Child!' said Plantagenet, and he walked some steps away, and leant against a tree. 'You promised that I should remain,' said he, addressing himself reproachfully to Morgana. 'You are not your own master,' said the gipsy; 'your remaining here will only endanger and disturb us. Fortunately we have nothing to fear from laws we have never outraged; but had there been a judge less wise and gentle than the master here, our peaceful family might have been all harassed and hunted to the very death.' He waved his hand, and addressed some words to his tribe, whereupon two brawny fellows seized Cadurcis, and placed him again, in spite of his struggling, upon his pony, with the same irresistible facility with which they had a few nights before dismounted him. The little lord looked very sulky, but his position was beginning to get ludicrous. Morgana, pocketing his five guineas, leaped over the side of the cart, and offered to guide the Doctor and his attendants through the forest. They moved on accordingly. It was the work of an instant, and Cadurcis suddenly found himself returning home between the Rector and Peter. Not a word, however, escaped his lips; once only he moved; the light branch of a tree, aimed with delicate precision, touched his back; he looked round; it was Beruna. She kissed her hand to him, and a tear stole down his pale, sullen cheek, as, taking from his breast his handkerchief, he threw it behind him, unperceived, that she might pick it up, and keep it for his sake. After proceeding two or three miles under the guidance of Morgana, the equestrians gained the road, though it still ran through the forest. Here the Doctor dismissed the gipsy-man, with whom he had occasionally conversed during their progress; but not a sound ever escaped from the mouth of Cadurcis, or rather, the captive, who was now substituted in Morgana's stead. The Doctor, now addressing himself to Plantagenet, informed him that it was of importance that they should make the best of their way, and so he put spurs to his mare, and Cadurcis sullenly complied with the intimation. At this rate, in the course of little more than another hour, they arrived in sight of the demesne of Cadurcis, where they pulled up their steeds. They entered the park, they approached the portal of the abbey; at length they dismounted. Their coming was announced by a servant, who had recognised his lord at a distance, and had ran on before with the tidings. When they entered the abbey, they were met by Lady Annabel in the cloisters; her countenance was very serious. She shook hands with Dr. Masham, but did not speak, and immediately led him aside. Cadurcis remained standing in the very spot where Doctor Masham left him, as if he were quite a stranger in the place, and was no longer master of his own conduct. Suddenly Doctor Masham, who was at the end of the cloister, while Lady Annabel was mounting the staircase, looked round with a pale face, and said in an agitated voice, 'Lord Cadurcis, Lady Annabel wishes to speak to you in the saloon.' Cadurcis immediately, but slowly, repaired to the saloon. Lady Annabel was walking up and down in it. She seemed greatly disturbed. When she saw him, she put her arm round his neck affectionately, and said in a low voice, 'My dearest Plantagenet, it has devolved upon me to communicate to you some distressing intelligence.' Her voice faltered, and the tears stole down her cheek. 'My mother, then, is dangerously ill?' he inquired in a calm but softened tone. 'It is even sadder news than that, dear child.' Cadurcis looked about him wildly, and then with an inquiring glance at Lady Annabel: 'There can be but one thing worse than that,' he at length said. 'What if it have happened?' said Lady Annabel. He threw himself into a chair, and covered his face with his hands. After a few minutes he looked up and said, in a low but distinct voice, 'It is too terrible to think of; it is too terrible to mention; but, if it have happened, let me be alone.' Lady Annabel approached him with a light step; she embraced him, and, whispering that she should be found in the next room, she quitted the apartment. Cadurcis remained seated for more than half an hour without changing in the slightest degree his position. The twilight died away; it grew quite dark; he looked up with a slight shiver, and then quitted the apartment. In the adjoining room, Lady Annabel was seated with Doctor Masham, and giving him the details of the fatal event. It had occurred that morning. Mrs. Cadurcis, who had never slept a wink since her knowledge of her son's undoubted departure, and scarcely for an hour been free from violent epileptic fits, had fallen early in the morning into a doze, which lasted about half an hour, and from which her medical attendant, who with Pauncefort had sat up with her during the night, augured the most favourable consequences. About half-past six o'clock she woke, and inquired whether Plantagenet had returned. They answered her that Doctor Masham had not yet arrived, but would probably be at the abbey in the course of the morning. She said it would be too late. They endeavoured to encourage her, but she asked to see Lady Annabel, who was immediately called, and lost no time in repairing to her. When Mrs. Cadurcis recognised her, she held out her hand, and said in a dying tone, 'It was my fault; it was ever my fault; it is too late now; let him find a mother in you.' She never spoke again, and in the course of an hour expired. While Lady Annabel and the Doctor were dwelling on these sad circumstances, and debating whether he should venture to approach Plantagenet, and attempt to console him, for the evening was now far advanced, and nearly three hours had elapsed since the fatal communication had been made to him, it happened that Mistress Pauncefort chanced to pass Mrs. Cadurcis' room, and as she did so she heard some one violently sobbing. She listened, and hearing the sounds frequently repeated, she entered the room, which, but for her candle, would have been quite dark, and there she found Lord Cadurcis kneeling and weeping by his mother's bedside. He seemed annoyed at being seen and disturbed, but his spirit was too broken to murmur. 'La! my lord,' said Mistress Pauncefort, 'you must not take on so; you must not indeed. I am sure this dark room is enough to put any one in low spirits. Now do go downstairs, and sit with my lady and the Doctor, and try to be cheerful; that is a dear good young gentleman. I wish Miss Venetia were here, and then she would amuse you. But you must not take on, because there is no use in it. You must exert yourself, for what is done cannot be undone; and, as the Doctor told us last Sunday, we must all die; and well for those who die with a good conscience; and I am sure the poor dear lady that is gone must have had a good conscience, because she had a good heart, and I never heard any one say the contrary. Now do exert yourself, my dear lord, and try to be cheerful, do; for there is nothing like a little exertion in these cases, for God's will must be done, and it is not for us to say yea or nay, and taking on is a murmuring against God's providence.' And so Mistress Pauncefort would have continued urging the usual topics of coarse and common-place consolation; but Cadurcis only answered with a sigh that came from the bottom of his heart, and said with streaming eyes, 'Ah! Mrs. Pauncefort, God had only given me one friend in this world, and there she lies.' CHAPTER XVIII. The first conviction that there is death in the house is perhaps the most awful moment of youth. When we are young, we think that not only ourselves, but that all about us, are immortal. Until the arrow has struck a victim round our own hearth, death is merely an unmeaning word; until then, its casual mention has stamped no idea upon our brain. There are few, even among those least susceptible of thought and emotion, in whose hearts and minds the first death in the family does not act as a powerful revelation of the mysteries of life, and of their own being; there are few who, after such a catastrophe, do not look upon the world and the world's ways, at least for a time, with changed and tempered feelings. It recalls the past; it makes us ponder over the future; and youth, gay and light-hearted youth, is taught, for the first time, to regret and to fear. On Cadurcis, a child of pensive temperament, and in whose strange and yet undeveloped character there was, amid lighter elements, a constitutional principle of melancholy, the sudden decease of his mother produced a profound effect. All was forgotten of his parent, except the intimate and natural tie, and her warm and genuine affection. He was now alone in the world; for reflection impressed upon him at this moment what the course of existence too generally teaches to us all, that mournful truth, that, after all, we have no friends that we can depend upon in this life but our parents. All other intimacies, however ardent, are liable to cool; all other confidence, however unlimited, to be violated. In the phantasmagoria of life, the friend with whom we have cultivated mutual trust for years is often suddenly or gradually estranged from us, or becomes, from, painful, yet irresistible circumstances, even our deadliest foe. As for women, as for the mistresses of our hearts, who has not learnt that the links of passion are fragile as they are glittering; and that the bosom on which we have reposed with idolatry all our secret sorrows and sanguine hopes, eventually becomes the very heart that exults in our misery and baffles our welfare? Where is the enamoured face that smiled upon our early love, and was to shed tears over our grave? Where are the choice companions of our youth, with whom we were to breast the difficulties and share the triumphs of existence? Even in this inconstant world, what changes like the heart? Love is a dream, and friendship a delusion. No wonder we grow callous; for how few have the opportunity of returning to the hearth which they quitted in levity or thoughtless weariness, yet which alone is faithful to them; whose sweet affections require not the stimulus of prosperity or fame, the lure of accomplishments, or the tribute of flattery; but which are constant to us in distress, and console us even in disgrace! Before she retired for the night, Lady Annabel was anxious to see Plantagenet. Mistress Pauncefort had informed her of his visit to his mother's room. Lady Annabel found Cadurcis in the gallery, now partially lighted by the moon which had recently risen. She entered with her light, as if she were on her way to her own room, and not seeking him. 'Dear Plantagenet,' she said, 'will you not go to bed?' 'I do not intend to go to bed to-night,' he replied. She approached him and took him by the hand, which he did not withdraw from her, and they walked together once or twice up and down the gallery. 'I think, dear child,' said Lady Annabel, 'you had better come and sit with us.' 'I like to be alone,' was his answer; but not in a sullen voice, low and faltering. 'But in sorrow we should be with our friends,' said Lady Annabel. 'I have no friends,' he answered. 'I only had one.' 'I am your friend, dear child; I am your mother now, and you shall find me one if you like. And Venetia, have you forgotten your sister? Is she not your friend? And Dr. Masham, surely you cannot doubt his friendship?' Cadurcis tried to stifle a sob. 'Ay, Lady Annabel,' he said, 'you are my friend now, and so are you all; and you know I love you much. But you were not my friends two years ago; and things will change again; they will, indeed. A mother is your friend as long as she lives; she cannot help being your friend.' 'You shall come to Cherbury and live with us,' said Lady Annabel.' You know you love Cherbury, and you shall find it a home, a real home.' He pressed her hand to his lips; the hand was covered with his tears. 'We will go to Cherbury to-morrow, dear Plantagenet; remaining here will only make you sad.' 'I will never leave Cadurcis again while my mother is in this house,' he said, in a firm and serious voice. And then, after a moment's pause, he added, 'I wish to know when the burial is to take place.' 'We will ask Dr. Masham,' replied Lady Annabel. 'Come, let us go to him; come, my own child.' He permitted himself to be led away. They descended to the small apartment where Lady Annabel had been previously sitting. They found the Doctor there; he rose and pressed Plantagenet's hand with great emotion. They made room for him at the fire between them; he sat in silence, with his gaze intently fixed upon the decaying embers, yet did not quit his hold of Lady Annabel's hand. He found it a consolation to him; it linked him to a being who seemed to love him. As long as he held her hand he did not seem quite alone in the world. Now nobody spoke; for Lady Annabel felt that Cadurcis was in some degree solaced; and she thought it unwise to interrupt the more composed train of his thoughts. It was, indeed, Plantagenet himself who first broke silence. 'I do not think I can go to bed, Lady Annabel,' he said. 'The thought of this night is terrible to me. I do not think it ever can end. I would much sooner sit up in this room.' 'Nay! my child, sleep is a great consoler; try to go to bed, love.' 'I should like to sleep in my mother's room,' was his strange reply. 'It seems to me that I could sleep there. And if I woke in the night, I should like to see her.' Lady Annabel and the Doctor exchanged looks. 'I think,' said the Doctor, 'you had better sleep in my room, and then, if you wake in the night, you will have some one to speak to. You will find that a comfort.' 'Yes, that you will,' said Lady Annabel. 'I will go and have the sofa bed made up in the Doctor's room for you. Indeed that will be the very best plan.' So at last, but not without a struggle, they persuaded Cadurcis to retire. Lady Annabel embraced him tenderly when she bade him good night; and, indeed, he felt consoled by her affection. As nothing could persuade Plantagenet to leave the abbey until his mother was buried, Lady Annabel resolved to take up her abode there, and she sent the next morning for Venetia. There were a great many arrangements to make about the burial and the mourning; and Lady Annabel and Dr. Masham were obliged, in consequence, to go the next morning to Southport; but they delayed their departure until the arrival of Venetia, that Cadurcis might not be left alone. The meeting between himself and Venetia was a very sad one, and yet her companionship was a great solace. Venetia urged every topic that she fancied could reassure his spirits, and upon the happy home he would find at Cherbury. 'Ah!' said Cadurcis, 'they will not leave me here; I am sure of that. I think our happy days are over, Venetia.' What mourner has not felt the magic of time? Before the funeral could take place, Cadurcis had recovered somewhat of his usual cheerfulness, and would indulge with Venetia in plans of their future life. And living, as they all were, under the same roof, sharing the same sorrows, participating in the same cares, and all about to wear the same mournful emblems of their domestic calamity, it was difficult for him to believe that he was indeed that desolate being he had at first correctly estimated himself. Here were true friends, if such could exist; here were fine sympathies, pure affections, innocent and disinterested hearts! Every domestic tie yet remained perfect, except the spell-bound tie of blood. That wanting, all was a bright and happy vision, that might vanish in an instant, and for ever; that perfect, even the least graceful, the most repulsive home, had its irresistible charms; and its loss, when once experienced, might be mourned for ever, and could never be restored. CHAPTER XIX. After the funeral of Mrs. Cadurcis, the family returned to Cherbury with Plantagenet, who was hereafter to consider it his home. All that the most tender solicitude could devise to reconcile him to the change in his life was fulfilled by Lady Annabel and her daughter, and, under their benignant influence, he soon regained his usual demeanour. His days were now spent as in the earlier period of their acquaintance, with the exception of those painful returns to home, which had once been a source to him of so much gloom and unhappiness. He pursued his studies as of old, and shared the amusements of Venetia. His allotted room was ornamented by her drawings, and in the evenings they read aloud by turns to Lady Annabel the volume which she selected. The abbey he never visited again after his mother's funeral. Some weeks had passed in this quiet and contented manner, when one day Doctor Masham, who, since the death of his mother, had been in correspondence with his guardian, received a letter from that nobleman, to announce that he had made arrangements for sending his ward to Eton, and to request that he would accordingly instantly proceed to the metropolis. This announcement occasioned both Cadurcis and Venetia poignant affliction. The idea of separation was to both of them most painful; and although Lady Annabel herself was in some degree prepared for an arrangement, which sooner or later she considered inevitable, she was herself scarcely less distressed. The good Doctor, in some degree to break the bitterness of parting, proposed accompanying Plantagenet to London, and himself personally delivering the charge, in whose welfare they were so much interested, to his guardian. Nevertheless, it was a very sad affair, and the week which was to intervene before his departure found both himself and Venetia often in tears. They no longer took any delight in their mutual studies but passed the day walking about and visiting old haunts, and endeavouring to console each other for what they both deemed a great calamity, and which was indeed, the only serious misfortune Venetia had herself experienced in the whole course of her serene career. 'But if I were really your brother,' said Plantagenet, 'I must have quitted you the same, Venetia. Boys always go to school; and then we shall be so happy when I return.' 'Oh! but we are so happy now, Plantagenet. I cannot believe that we are going to part. And are you sure that you will return? Perhaps your guardian will not let you, and will wish you to spend your holidays at his house. His house will be your home now.' It was impossible for a moment to forget the sorrow that was impending over them. There were so many preparations to be made for his departure, that every instant something occurred to remind them of their sorrow. Venetia sat with tears in her eyes marking his new pocket-handkerchiefs which they had all gone to Southport to purchase, for Plantagenet asked, as a particular favour, that no one should mark them but Venetia. Then Lady Annabel gave Plantagenet a writing-case, and Venetia filled it with pens and paper, that he might never want means to communicate with them; and her evenings were passed in working him a purse, which Lady Annabel took care should be well stocked. All day long there seemed something going on to remind them of what was about to happen; and as for Pauncefort, she flounced in and out the room fifty times a day, with 'What is to be done about my lord's shirts, my lady? I think his lordship had better have another dozen, your la'ship. Better too much than too little, I always say;' or, 'O! my lady, your la'ship cannot form an idea of what a state my lord's stockings are in, my lady. I think I had better go over to Southport with John, my lady, and buy him some;' or, 'Please, my lady, did I understand your la'ship spoke to the tailor on Thursday about my lord's things? I suppose your la'ship knows my lord has got no great-coat?' Every one of these inquiries made Venetia's heart tremble. Then there was the sad habit of dating every coming day by its distance from the fatal one. There was the last day but four, and the last day but three, and the last day but two. The last day but one at length arrived; and at length, too, though it seemed incredible, the last day itself. Plantagenet and Venetia both rose very early, that they might make it as long as possible. They sighed involuntarily when they met, and then they went about to pay last visits to every creature and object of which they had been so long fond. Plantagenet went to bid farewell to the horses and adieu to the cows, and then walked down to the woodman's cottage, and then to shake hands with the keeper. He would not say 'Good-bye' to the household until the very last moment; and as for Marmion, the bloodhound, he accompanied both of them so faithfully in this melancholy ramble, and kept so close to both, that it was useless to break the sad intelligence to him yet. 'I think now, Venetia, we have been to see everything,' said Plantagenet, 'I shall see the peacocks at breakfast time. I wish Eton was near Cherbury, and then I could come home on Sunday. I cannot bear going to Cadurcis again, but I should like you to go once a week, and try to keep up our garden, and look after everything, though there is not much that will not take care of itself, except the garden. We made that together, and I could not bear its being neglected.' Venetia could not assure him that no wish of his should be neglected, because she was weeping. 'I am glad the Doctor,' he continued, 'is going to take me to town. I should be very wretched by myself. But he will put me in mind of Cherbury, and we can talk together of Lady Annabel and you. Hark! the bell rings; we must go to breakfast, the last breakfast but one.' Lady Annabel endeavoured, by unusual good spirits, to cheer up her little friends. She spoke of Plantagenet's speedy return so much as a matter of course, and the pleasant things they were to do when he came back, that she really succeeded in exciting a smile in Venetia's April face, for she was smiling amid tears. Although it was the last day, time hung heavily on their hands. After breakfast they went over the house together; and Cadurcis, half with genuine feeling, and half in a spirit of mockery of their sorrow, made a speech to the inanimate walls, as if they were aware of his intended departure. At length, in their progress, they passed the door of the closed apartments, and here, holding Venetia's hand, he stopped, and, with an expression of irresistible humour, making a low bow to them, he said, very gravely, 'And good-bye rooms that I have never entered; perhaps, before I come back, Venetia will find out what is locked up in you!' Dr. Masham arrived for dinner, and in a postchaise. The unusual conveyance reminded them of the morrow very keenly. Venetia could not bear to see the Doctor's portmanteau taken out and carried into the hall. She had hopes, until then, that something would happen and prevent all this misery. Cadurcis whispered her, 'I say, Venetia, do not you wish this was winter?' 'Why, Plantagenet?' 'Because then we might have a good snowstorm, and be blocked up again for a week.' Venetia looked at the sky, but not a cloud was to be seen. The Doctor was glad to warm himself at the hall-fire, for it was a fresh autumnal afternoon. 'Are you cold, sir?' said Venetia, approaching him. 'I am, my little maiden,' said the Doctor. 'Do you think there is any chance of its snowing, Doctor Masham?' 'Snowing! my little maiden; what can you be thinking of?' The dinner was rather gayer than might have been expected. The Doctor was jocular, Lady Annabel lively, and Plantagenet excited by an extraordinary glass of wine. Venetia alone remained dispirited. The Doctor made mock speeches and proposed toasts, and told Plantagenet that he must learn to make speeches too, or what would he do when he was in the House of Lords? And then Plantagenet tried to make a speech, and proposed Venetia's health; and then Venetia, who could not bear to hear herself praised by him on such a day, the last day, burst into tears. Her mother called her to her side and consoled her, and Plantagenet jumped up and wiped her eyes with one of those very pocket-handkerchiefs on which she had embroidered his cipher and coronet with her own beautiful hair. Towards evening Plantagenet began to experience the reaction of his artificial spirits. The Doctor had fallen into a gentle slumber, Lady Annabel had quitted the room, Venetia sat with her hand in Plantagenet's on a stool by the fireside. Both were sad and silent. At last Venetia said, 'O Plantagenet, I wish I were your real sister! Perhaps, when I see you again, you will forget this,' and she turned the jewel that was suspended round her neck, and showed him the inscription. 'I am sure when I see you-again, Venetia,' he replied, 'the only difference will be, that I shall love you more than ever.' 'I hope so,' said Venetia. 'I am sure of it. Now remember what we are talking about. When we meet again, we shall see which of us two will love each other the most.' 'O Plantagenet, I hope they will be kind to you at Eton.' 'I will make them.' 'And, whenever you are the least unhappy, you will write to us?' 'I shall never be unhappy about anything but being away from you. As for the rest, I will make people respect me; I know what I am.' 'Because if they do not behave well to you, mamma could ask Dr. Masham to go and see you, and they will attend to him; and I would ask him too. I wonder,' she continued after a moment's pause, 'if you have everything you want. I am quite sure the instant you are gone, we shall remember something you ought to have; and then I shall be quite brokenhearted.' 'I have got everything.' 'You said you wanted a large knife.' 'Yes! but I am going to buy one in London. Dr. Masham says he will take me to a place where the finest knives in the world are to be bought. It is a great thing to go to London with Dr. Masham.' 'I have never written your name in your Bible and Prayer-book. I will do it this evening.' 'Lady Annabel is to write it in the Bible, and you are to write it in the Prayer-book.' 'You are to write to us from London by Dr. Masham, if only a line.' 'I shall not fail.' 'Never mind about your handwriting; but mind you write.' At this moment Lady Annabel's step was heard, and Plantagenet said, 'Give me a kiss, Venetia, for I do not mean to bid good-bye to-night.' 'But you will not go to-morrow before we are up?' 'Yes, we shall.' 'Now, Plantagenet, I shall be up to bid you good-bye, mind that' Lady Annabel entered, the Doctor woke, lights followed, the servant made up the fire, and the room looked cheerful again. After tea, the names were duly written in the Bible and Prayer-book; the last arrangements were made, all the baggage was brought down into the hall, all ransacked their memory and fancy, to see if it were possible that anything that Plantagenet could require was either forgotten or had been omitted. The clock struck ten; Lady Annabel rose. The travellers were to part at an early hour: she shook hands with Dr. Masham, but Cadurcis was to bid her farewell in her dressing-room, and then, with heavy hearts and glistening eyes, they all separated. And thus ended the last day! CHAPTER XX. Venetia passed a restless night. She was so resolved to be awake in time for Plantagenet's departure, that she could not sleep; and at length, towards morning, fell, from exhaustion, into a light slumber, from which she sprang up convulsively, roused by the sound of the wheels of the postchaise. She looked out of her window, and saw the servant strapping on the portmanteaus. Shortly after this she heard Plantagenet's step in the vestibule; he passed her room, and proceeded to her mother's dressing-room, at the door of which she heard him knock, and then there was silence. 'You are in good time,' said Lady Annabel, who was seated in an easy chair when Plantagenet entered her room. 'Is the Doctor up?' 'He is breakfasting.' 'And have you breakfasted?' 'I have no appetite.' 'You should take something, my child, before you go. Now, come hither, my dear Plantagenet,' she said, extending her hand; 'listen to me, one word. When you arrive in London, you will go to your guardian's. He is a great man, and I believe a very good one, and the law and your father's will have placed him in the position of a parent to you. You must therefore love, honour, and obey him; and I doubt not he will deserve all your affection, respect, and duty. Whatever he desires or counsels you will perform, and follow. So long as you act according to his wishes, you cannot be wrong. But, my dear Plantagenet, if by any chance it ever happens, for strange things sometimes happen in this world, that you are in trouble and require a friend, remember that Cherbury is also your home; the home of your heart, if not of the law; and that not merely from my own love for you, but because I promised your poor mother on her death-bed, I esteem myself morally, although not legally, in the light of a parent to you. You will find Eton a great change; you will experience many trials and temptations; but you will triumph over and withstand them all, if you will attend to these few directions. Fear God; morning and night let nothing induce you ever to omit your prayers to Him; you will find that praying will make you happy. Obey your superiors; always treat your masters with respect. Ever speak the truth. So long as you adhere to this rule, you never can be involved in any serious misfortune. A deviation from truth is, in general, the foundation of all misery. Be kind to your companions, but be firm. Do not be laughed into doing that which you know to be wrong. Be modest and humble, but ever respect yourself. Remember who you are, and also that it is your duty to excel. Providence has given you a great lot. Think ever that you are born to perform great duties. 'God bless you, Plantagenet!' she continued, after a slight pause, with a faltering voice, 'God bless you, my sweet child. And God will bless you if you remember Him. Try also to remember us,' she added, as she embraced him, and placed in his hand Venetia's well-lined purse. 'Do not forget Cherbury and all it contains; hearts that love you dearly, and will pray ever for your welfare.' Plantagenet leant upon her bosom. He had entered the room resolved to be composed, with an air even of cheerfulness, but his tender heart yielded to the first appeal to his affections. He could only murmur out some broken syllables of devotion, and almost unconsciously found that he had quitted the chamber. With streaming eyes and hesitating steps he was proceeding along the vestibule, when he heard his name called by a low sweet voice. He looked around; it was Venetia. Never had he beheld such a beautiful vision. She was muffled up in her dressing-gown, her small white feet only guarded from the cold by her slippers. Her golden hair seemed to reach her waist, her cheek was flushed, her large blue eyes glittered with tears. 'Plantagenet,' she said-- Neither of them could speak. They embraced, they mingled their tears together, and every instant they wept more plenteously. At length a footstep was heard; Venetia murmured a blessing, and vanished. Cadurcis lingered on the stairs a moment to compose himself. He wiped his eyes; he tried to look undisturbed. All the servants were in the hall; from Mistress Pauncefort to the scullion there was not a dry eye. All loved the little lord, he was so gracious and so gentle. Every one asked leave to touch his hand before he went. He tried to smile and say something kind to all. He recognised the gamekeeper, and told him to do what he liked at Cadurcis; said something to the coachman about his pony; and begged Mistress Pauncefort, quite aloud, to take great care of her young mistress. As he was speaking, he felt something rubbing against his hand: it was Marmion, the old bloodhound. He also came to bid his adieus. Cadurcis patted him with affection, and said, 'Ah! my old fellow, we shall yet meet again.' The Doctor appeared, smiling as usual, made his inquiries whether all were right, nodded to the weeping household, called Plantagenet his brave boy, and patted him on the back, and bade him jump into the chaise. Another moment, and Dr. Masham had also entered; the door was closed, the fatal 'All right' sung out, and Lord Cadurcis was whirled away from that Cherbury where he was so loved. BOOK II. CHAPTER I. Life is not dated merely by years. Events are sometimes the best calendars. There are epochs in our existence which cannot be ascertained by a formal appeal to the registry. The arrival of the Cadurcis family at their old abbey, their consequent intimacy at Cherbury, the death of the mother, and the departure of the son: these were events which had been crowded into a space of less than two years; but those two years were not only the most eventful in the life of Venetia Herbert, but in their influence upon the development of her mind, and the formation of her character, far exceeded the effects of all her previous existence. Venetia once more found herself with no companion but her mother, but in vain she attempted to recall the feelings she had before experienced under such circumstances, and to revert to the resources she had before commanded. No longer could she wander in imaginary kingdoms, or transform the limited world of her experience into a boundless region of enchanted amusement. Her play-pleasure hours were fled for ever. She sighed for her faithful and sympathising companion. The empire of fancy yielded without a struggle to the conquering sway of memory. For the first few weeks Venetia was restless and dispirited, and when she was alone she often wept. A mysterious instinct prompted her, however, not to exhibit such emotion before her mother. Yet she loved to hear Lady Annabel talk of Plantagenet, and a visit to the abbey was ever her favourite walk. Sometimes, too, a letter arrived from Lord Cadurcis, and this was great joy; but such communications were rare. Nothing is more difficult than for a junior boy at a public school to maintain a correspondence; yet his letters were most affectionate, and always dwelt upon the prospect of his return. The period for this hoped-for return at length arrived, but it brought no Plantagenet. His guardian wished that the holidays should be spent under his roof. Still at intervals Cadurcis wrote to Cherbury, to which, as time flew on, it seemed destined he never was to return. Vacation followed vacation, alike passed with his guardian, either in London, or at a country seat still more remote from Cherbury, until at length it became so much a matter of course that his guardian's house should be esteemed his home, that Plantagenet ceased to allude even to the prospect of return. In time his letters became rarer and rarer, until, at length, they altogether ceased. Meanwhile Venetia had overcome the original pang of separation; if not as gay as in old days, she was serene and very studious; delighting less in her flowers and birds, but much more in her books, and pursuing her studies with an earnestness and assiduity which her mother was rather fain to check than to encourage. Venetia Herbert, indeed, promised to become a most accomplished woman. She had a fine ear for music, a ready tongue for languages; already she emulated her mother's skill in the arts; while the library of Cherbury afforded welcome and inexhaustible resources to a girl whose genius deserved the richest and most sedulous cultivation, and whose peculiar situation, independent of her studious predisposition, rendered reading a pastime to her rather than a task. Lady Annabel watched the progress of her daughter with lively interest, and spared no efforts to assist the formation of her principles and her taste. That deep religious feeling which was the characteristic of the mother had been carefully and early cherished in the heart of the child, and in time the unrivalled writings of the great divines of our Church became a principal portion of her reading. Order, method, severe study, strict religious exercise, with no amusement or relaxation but of the most simple and natural character, and with a complete seclusion from society, altogether formed a system, which, acting upon a singularly susceptible and gifted nature, secured the promise in Venetia Herbert, at fourteen years of age, of an extraordinary woman; a system, however, against which her lively and somewhat restless mind might probably have rebelled, had not that system been so thoroughly imbued with all the melting spell of maternal affection. It was the inspiration of this sacred love that hovered like a guardian angel over the life of Venetia. It roused her from her morning slumbers with an embrace, it sanctified her evening pillow with a blessing; it anticipated the difficulty of the student's page, and guided the faltering hand of the hesitating artist; it refreshed her memory, it modulated her voice; it accompanied her in the cottage, and knelt by her at the altar. Marvellous and beautiful is a mother's love. And when Venetia, with her strong feelings and enthusiastic spirit, would look around and mark that a graceful form and a bright eye were for ever watching over her wants and wishes, instructing with sweetness, and soft even with advice, her whole soul rose to her mother, all thoughts and feelings were concentrated in that sole existence, and she desired no happier destiny than to pass through life living in the light of her mother's smiles, and clinging with passionate trust to that beneficent and guardian form. But with all her quick and profound feelings Venetia was thoughtful and even shrewd, and when she was alone her very love for her mother, and her gratitude for such an ineffable treasure as parental affection, would force her mind to a subject which at intervals had haunted her even from her earliest childhood. Why had she only one parent? What mystery was this that enveloped that great tie? For that there was a mystery Venetia felt as assured as that she was a daughter. By a process which she could not analyse, her father had become a forbidden subject. True, Lady Annabel had placed no formal prohibition upon its mention; nor at her present age was Venetia one who would be influenced in her conduct by the bygone and arbitrary intimations of a menial; nevertheless, that the mention of her father would afford pain to the being she loved best in the world, was a conviction which had grown with her years and strengthened with her strength. Pardonable, natural, even laudable as was the anxiety of the daughter upon such a subject, an instinct with which she could not struggle closed the lips of Venetia for ever upon this topic. His name was never mentioned, his past existence was never alluded to. Who was he? That he was of noble family and great position her name betokened, and the state in which they lived. He must have died very early; perhaps even before her mother gave her birth. A dreadful lot indeed; and yet was the grief that even such a dispensation might occasion, so keen, so overwhelming, that after fourteen long years his name might not be permitted, even for an instant, to pass the lips of his bereaved wife? Was his child to be deprived of the only solace for his loss, the consolation of cherishing his memory? Strange, passing strange indeed, and bitter! At Cherbury the family of Herbert were honoured only from tradition. Until the arrival of Lady Annabel, as we have before mentioned, they had not resided at the hall for more than half a century. There were no old retainers there from whom Venetia might glean, without suspicion, the information for which she panted. Slight, too, as was Venetia's experience of society, there were times when she could not resist the impression that her mother was not happy; that there was some secret sorrow that weighed upon her spirit, some grief that gnawed at her heart. Could it be still the recollection of her lost sire? Could one so religious, so resigned, so assured of meeting the lost one in a better world, brood with a repining soul over the will of her Creator? Such conduct was entirely at variance with all the tenets of Lady Annabel. It was not thus she consoled the bereaved, that she comforted the widow, and solaced the orphan. Venetia, too, observed everything and forgot nothing. Not an incident of her earliest childhood that was not as fresh in her memory as if it had occurred yesterday. Her memory was naturally keen; living in solitude, with nothing to distract it, its impressions never faded away. She had never forgotten her mother's tears the day that she and Plantagenet had visited Marringhurst. Somehow or other Dr. Masham seemed connected with this sorrow. Whenever Lady Annabel was most dispirited it was after an interview with that gentleman; yet the presence of the Doctor always gave her pleasure, and he was the most kind-hearted and cheerful of men. Perhaps, after all, it was only her illusion; perhaps, after all, it was the memory of her father to which her mother was devoted, and which occasionally overcame her; perhaps she ventured to speak of him to Dr. Masham, though not to her daughter, and this might account for that occasional agitation which Venetia had observed at his visits. And yet, and yet, and yet; in vain she reasoned. There is a strange sympathy which whispers convictions that no evidence can authorise, and no arguments dispel. Venetia Herbert, particularly as she grew older, could not refrain at times from yielding to the irresistible belief that her existence was enveloped in some mystery. Mystery too often presupposes the idea of guilt. Guilt! Who was guilty? Venetia shuddered at the current of her own thoughts. She started from the garden seat in which she had fallen into this dangerous and painful reverie; flew to her mother, who received her with smiles; and buried her face in the bosom of Lady Annabel. CHAPTER II. We have indicated in a few pages the progress of three years. How differently passed to the two preceding ones, when the Cadurcis family were settled at the abbey! For during this latter period it seemed that not a single incident had occurred. They had glided away in one unbroken course of study, religion, and domestic love, the enjoyment of nature, and the pursuits of charity; like a long summer sabbath-day, sweet and serene and still, undisturbed by a single passion, hallowed and hallowing. If the Cadurcis family were now not absolutely forgotten at Cherbury, they were at least only occasionally remembered. These last three years so completely harmonised with the life of Venetia before their arrival, that, taking a general view of her existence, their residence at the abbey figured only as an episode in her career; active indeed and stirring, and one that had left some impressions not easily discarded; but, on the whole, mellowed by the magic of time, Venetia looked back to her youthful friendship as an event that was only an exception in her lot, and she viewed herself as a being born and bred up in a seclusion which she was never to quit, with no aspirations beyond the little world in which she moved, and where she was to die in peace, as she had lived in purity. One Sunday, the conversation after dinner fell upon Lord Cadurcis. Doctor Masham had recently met a young Etonian, and had made some inquiries about their friend of old days. The information he had obtained was not very satisfactory. It seemed that Cadurcis was a more popular boy with his companions than his tutors; he had been rather unruly, and had only escaped expulsion by the influence of his guardian, who was not only a great noble, but a powerful minister. This conversation recalled old times. They talked over the arrival of Mrs. Cadurcis at the abbey, her strange character, her untimely end. Lady Annabel expressed her conviction of the natural excellence of Plantagenet's disposition, and her regret of the many disadvantages under which he laboured; it gratified Venetia to listen to his praise. 'He has quite forgotten us, mamma,' said Venetia. 'My love, he was very young when he quitted us,' replied Lady Annabel; 'and you must remember the influence of a change of life at so tender an age. He lives now in a busy world.' 'I wish that he had not forgotten to write to us sometimes,' said Venetia. 'Writing a letter is a great achievement for a schoolboy,' said the Doctor; 'it is a duty which even grown-up persons too often forget to fulfil, and, when postponed, it is generally deferred for ever. However, I agree with Lady Annabel, Cadurcis was a fine fellow, and had he been properly brought up, I cannot help thinking, might have turned out something.' 'Poor Plantagenet!' said Venetia, 'how I pity him. His was a terrible lot, to lose both his parents! Whatever were the errors of Mrs. Cadurcis, she was his mother, and, in spite of every mortification, he clung to her. Ah! I shall never forget when Pauncefort met him coming out of her room the night before the burial, when he said, with streaming eyes, "I only had one friend in the world, and now she is gone." I could not love Mrs. Cadurcis, and yet, when I heard of these words, I cried as much as he.' 'Poor fellow!' said the Doctor, filling his glass. 'If there be any person in the world whom I pity,' said Venetia, ''tis an orphan. Oh! what should I be without mamma? And Plantagenet, poor Plantagenet! he has no mother, no father.' Venetia added, with a faltering voice: 'I can sympathise with him in some degree; I, I, I know, I feel the misfortune, the misery;' her face became crimson, yet she could not restrain the irresistible words, 'the misery of never having known a father,' she added. There was a dead pause, a most solemn silence. In vain Venetia struggled to look calm and unconcerned; every instant she felt the blood mantling in her cheek with a more lively and spreading agitation. She dared not look up; it was not possible to utter a word to turn the conversation. She felt utterly confounded and absolutely mute. At length, Lady Annabel spoke. Her tone was severe and choking, very different to her usual silvery voice. 'I am sorry that my daughter should feel so keenly the want of a parent's love,' said her ladyship. What would not Venetia have given for the power or speech! but it seemed to have deserted her for ever. There she sat mute and motionless, with her eyes fixed on the table, and with a burning cheek, as if she were conscious of having committed some act of shame, as if she had been detected in some base and degrading deed. Yet, what had she done? A daughter had delicately alluded to her grief at the loss of a parent, and expressed her keen sense of the deprivation. It was an autumnal afternoon: Doctor Masham looked at the sky, and, after a long pause, made an observation about the weather, and then requested permission to order his horses, as the evening came on apace, and he had some distance to ride. Lady Annabel rose; the Doctor, with a countenance unusually serious, offered her his arm; and Venetia followed them like a criminal. In a few minutes the horses appeared; Lady Annabel bid adieu to her friend in her usual kind tone, and with her usual sweet smile; and then, without noticing Venetia, instantly retired to her own chamber. And this was her mother; her mother who never before quitted her for an instant without some sign and symbol of affection, some playful word of love, a winning smile, a passing embrace, that seemed to acknowledge that the pang of even momentary separation could only be alleviated by this graceful homage to the heart. What had she done? Venetia was about to follow Lady Annabel, but she checked herself. Agony at having offended her mother, and, for the first time, was blended with a strange curiosity as to the cause, and some hesitating indignation at her treatment. Venetia remained anxiously awaiting the return of Lady Annabel; but her ladyship did not reappear. Every instant, the astonishment and the grief of Venetia increased. It was the first domestic difference that had occurred between them. It shocked her much. She thought of Plantagenet and Mrs. Cadurcis. There was a mortifying resemblance, however slight, between the respective situations of the two families. Venetia, too, had quarrelled with her mother; that mother who, for fourteen years, had only looked upon her with fondness and joy; who had been ever kind, without being ever weak, and had rendered her child happy by making her good; that mother whose beneficent wisdom had transformed duty into delight; that superior, yet gentle being, so indulgent yet so just, so gifted yet so condescending, who dedicated all her knowledge, and time, and care, and intellect to her daughter. Venetia threw herself upon a couch and wept. They were the first tears of unmixed pain that she had ever shed. It was said by the household of Venetia when a child, that she had never cried; not a single tear had ever sullied that sunny face. Surrounded by scenes of innocence, and images of happiness and content, Venetia smiled on a world that smiled on her, the radiant heroine of a golden age. She had, indeed, wept over the sorrows and the departure of Cadurcis; but those were soft showers of sympathy and affection sent from a warm heart, like drops from a summer sky. But now this grief was agony: her brow throbbed, her hand was clenched, her heart beat with tumultuous palpitation; the streaming torrent came scalding down her cheek like fire rather than tears, and instead of assuaging her emotion, seemed, on the contrary, to increase its fierce and fervid power. The sun had set, the red autumnal twilight had died away, the shadows of night were brooding over the halls of Cherbury. The moan of the rising wind might be distinctly heard, and ever and anon the branches of neighbouring trees swung with a sudden yet melancholy sound against the windows of the apartment, of which the curtains had remained undrawn. Venetia looked up; the room would have been in perfect darkness but for a glimmer which just indicated the site of the expiring fire, and an uncertain light, or rather modified darkness, that seemed the sky. Alone and desolate! Alone and desolate and unhappy! Alone and desolate and unhappy, and for the first time! Was it a sigh, or a groan, that issued from the stifling heart of Venetia Herbert? That child of innocence, that bright emanation of love and beauty, that airy creature of grace and gentleness, who had never said an unkind word or done an unkind thing in her whole career, but had glanced and glided through existence, scattering happiness and joy, and receiving the pleasure which she herself imparted, how overwhelming was her first struggle with that dark stranger, Sorrow! Some one entered the room; it was Mistress Pauncefort. She held a taper in her hand, and came tripping gingerly in, with a new cap streaming with ribands, and scarcely, as it were, condescending to execute the mission with which she was intrusted, which was no greater than fetching her lady's reticule. She glanced at the table, but it was not there; she turned up her nose at a chair or two, which she even condescended to propel a little with a saucy foot, as if the reticule might be hid under the hanging drapery, and then, unable to find the object of her search, Mistress Pauncefort settled herself before the glass, elevating the taper above her head, that she might observe what indeed she had been examining the whole day, the effect of her new cap. With a complacent simper, Mistress Pauncefort then turned from pleasure to business, and, approaching the couch, gave a faint shriek, half genuine, half affected, as she recognised the recumbent form of her young mistress. 'Well to be sure,' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort, 'was the like ever seen! Miss Venetia, as I live! La! Miss Venetia, what can be the matter? I declare I am all of a palpitation.' Venetia, affecting composure, said she was rather unwell; that she had a headache, and, rising, murmured that she would go to bed. 'A headache!' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort, 'I hope no worse, for there is my lady, and she is as out of sorts as possible. She has a headache too; and when I shut the door just now, I am sure as quiet as a lamb, she told me not to make so much noise when I left the room. "Noise!" says I; "why really, my lady, I don't pretend to be a spirit; but if it comes to noise--" "Never answer me, Pauncefort," says my lady. "No, my lady," says I, "I never do, and, I am sure, when I have a headache myself, I don't like to be answered." But, to be sure, if you have a headache, and my lady has a headache too, I only hope we have not got the epidemy. I vow, Miss Venetia, that your eyes are as red as if you had been running against the wind. Well, to be sure, if you have not been crying! I must go and tell my lady immediately.' 'Light me to my room,' said Venetia; 'I will not disturb my mother, as she is unwell.' Venetia rose, and Mistress Pauncefort followed her to her chamber, and lit her candles. Venetia desired her not to remain; and when she had quitted the chamber, Venetia threw herself in her chair and sighed. To sleep, it was impossible; it seemed to Venetia that she could never rest again. She wept no more, but her distress was very great. She felt it impossible to exist through the night without being reconciled to her mother; but she refrained from going to her room, from the fear of again meeting her troublesome attendant. She resolved, therefore, to wait until she heard Mistress Pauncefort retire for the night, and she listened with restless anxiety for the sign of her departure in the sound of her footsteps along the vestibule on which the doors of Lady Annabel's and her daughter's apartments opened. An hour elapsed, and at length the sound was heard. Convinced that Pauncefort had now quitted her mother for the night, Venetia ventured forth, and stopping before the door of her mother's room, she knocked gently. There was no reply, and in a few minutes Venetia knocked again, and rather louder. Still no answer. 'Mamma,' said Venetia, in a faltering tone, but no sound replied. Venetia then tried the door, and found it fastened. Then she gave up the effort in despair, and retreating to her own chamber, she threw herself on her bed, and wept bitterly. Some time elapsed before she looked up again; the candles were flaring in their sockets. It was a wild windy night; Venetia rose, and withdrew the curtain of her window. The black clouds were scudding along the sky, revealing, in their occasional but transient rifts, some glimpses of the moon, that seemed unusually bright, or of a star that trembled with supernatural brilliancy. She stood a while gazing on the outward scene that harmonised with her own internal agitation: her grief was like the storm, her love like the light of that bright moon and star. There came over her a desire to see her mother, which she felt irresistible; she was resolved that no difficulty, no impediment, should prevent her instantly from throwing herself on her bosom. It seemed to her that her brain would burn, that this awful night could never end without such an interview. She opened her door, went forth again into the vestibule, and approached with a nervous but desperate step her mother's chamber. To her astonishment the door was ajar, but there was a light within. With trembling step and downcast eyes, Venetia entered the chamber, scarcely daring to advance, or to look up. 'Mother,' she said, but no one answered; she heard the tick of the clock; it was the only sound. 'Mother,' she repeated, and she dared to look up, but the bed was empty. There was no mother. Lady Annabel was not in the room. Following an irresistible impulse, Venetia knelt by the side of her mother's bed and prayed. She addressed, in audible and agitated tones, that Almighty and Beneficent Being of whom she was so faithful and pure a follower. With sanctified simplicity, she communicated to her Creator and her Saviour all her distress, all her sorrow, all the agony of her perplexed and wounded spirit. If she had sinned, she prayed for forgiveness, and declared in solitude, to One whom she could not deceive, how unintentional was the trespass; if she were only misapprehended, she supplicated for comfort and consolation, for support under the heaviest visitation she had yet experienced, the displeasure of that earthly parent whom she revered only second to her heavenly Father. 'For thou art my Father,' said Venetia, 'I have no other father but thee, O God! Forgive me, then, my heavenly parent, if in my wilfulness, if in my thoughtless and sinful blindness, I have sighed for a father on earth, as well as in heaven! Great have thy mercies been to me, O God! in a mother's love. Turn, then, again to me the heart of that mother whom I have offended! Let her look upon her child as before; let her continue to me a double parent, and let me pay to her the duty and the devotion that might otherwise have been divided!' 'Amen!' said a sweet and solemn voice; and Venetia was clasped in her mother's arms. CHAPTER III. If the love of Lady Annabel for her child were capable of increase, it might have been believed that it absolutely became more profound and ardent after that short-lived but painful estrangement which we have related in the last chapter. With all Lady Annabel's fascinating qualities and noble virtues, a fine observer of human nature enjoying opportunities of intimately studying her character, might have suspected that an occasion only was wanted to display or develop in that lady's conduct no trifling evidence of a haughty, proud, and even inexorable spirit. Circumstanced as she was at Cherbury, with no one capable or desirous of disputing her will, the more gracious and exalted qualities of her nature were alone apparent. Entertaining a severe, even a sublime sense of the paramount claims of duty in all conditions and circumstances of life, her own conduct afforded an invariable and consistent example of her tenet; from those around her she required little, and that was cheerfully granted; while, on the other hand, her more eminent situation alike multiplied her own obligations and enabled her to fulfil them; she appeared, therefore, to pass her life in conferring happiness and in receiving gratitude. Strictly religious, of immaculate reputation, rigidly just, systematically charitable, dignified in her manners, yet more than courteous to her inferiors, and gifted at the same time with great self-control and great decision, she was looked up to by all within her sphere with a sentiment of affectionate veneration. Perhaps there was only one person within her little world who, both by disposition and relative situation, was qualified in any way to question her undoubted sway, or to cross by independence of opinion the tenour of the discipline she had established, and this was her child. Venetia, with one of the most affectionate and benevolent natures in the world, was gifted with a shrewd, inquiring mind, and a restless imagination. She was capable of forming her own opinions, and had both reason and feeling at command to gauge their worth. But to gain an influence over this child had been the sole object of Lady Annabel's life, and she had hitherto met that success which usually awaits in this world the strong purpose of a determined spirit. Lady Annabel herself was far too acute a person not to have detected early in life the talents of her child, and she was proud of them. She had cultivated them with exemplary devotion and with admirable profit. But Lady Annabel had not less discovered that, in the ardent and susceptible temperament of Venetia, means were offered by which the heart might be trained not only to cope with but overpower the intellect. With great powers of pleasing, beauty, accomplishments, a sweet voice, a soft manner, a sympathetic heart, Lady Annabel was qualified to charm the world; she had contrived to fascinate her daughter. She had inspired Venetia with the most romantic attachment for her: such as rather subsists between two female friends of the same age and hearts, than between individuals in the relative situations which they bore to each other. Yet while Venetia thus loved her mother, she could not but also respect and revere the superior being whose knowledge was her guide on all subjects, and whose various accomplishments deprived her secluded education of all its disadvantages; and when she felt that one so gifted had devoted her life to the benefit of her child, and that this beautiful and peerless lady had no other ambition but to be her guardian and attendant spirit; gratitude, fervent and profound, mingled with admiring reverence and passionate affection, and together formed a spell that encircled the mind of Venetia with talismanic sway. Under the despotic influence of these enchanted feelings, Venetia was fast growing into womanhood, without a single cloud having ever disturbed or sullied the pure and splendid heaven of her domestic life. Suddenly the horizon had become clouded, a storm had gathered and burst, and an eclipse could scarcely have occasioned more terror to the untutored roamer of the wilderness, than this unexpected catastrophe to one so inexperienced in the power of the passions as our heroine. Her heaven was again serene; but such was the effect of this ebullition on her character, so keen was her dread of again encountering the agony of another misunderstanding with her mother, that she recoiled with trembling from that subject which had so often and so deeply engaged her secret thoughts; and the idea of her father, associated as it now was with pain, mortification, and misery, never rose to her imagination but instantly to be shunned as some unhallowed image, of which the bitter contemplation was fraught with not less disastrous consequences than the denounced idolatry of the holy people. Whatever, therefore, might be the secret reasons which impelled Lady Annabel to shroud the memory of the lost parent of her child in such inviolate gloom, it is certain that the hitherto restless though concealed curiosity of Venetia upon the subject, the rash demonstration to which it led, and the consequence of her boldness, instead of threatening to destroy in an instant the deep and matured system of her mother, had, on the whole, greatly contributed to the fulfilment of the very purpose for which Lady Annabel had so long laboured. That lady spared no pains in following up the advantage which her acuteness and knowledge of her daughter's character assured her that she had secured. She hovered round her child more like an enamoured lover than a fond mother; she hung upon her looks, she read her thoughts, she anticipated every want and wish; her dulcet tones seemed even sweeter than before; her soft and elegant manners even more tender and refined. Though even in her childhood Lady Annabel had rather guided than commanded Venetia; now she rather consulted than guided her. She seized advantage of the advanced character and mature appearance of Venetia to treat her as a woman rather than a child, and as a friend rather than a daughter. Venetia yielded herself up to this flattering and fascinating condescension. Her love for her mother amounted to passion; she had no other earthly object or desire but to pass her entire life in her sole and sweet society; she could conceive no sympathy deeper or more delightful; the only unhappiness she had ever known had been occasioned by a moment trenching upon its exclusive privilege; Venetia could not picture to herself that such a pure and entrancing existence could ever experience a change. And this mother, this devoted yet mysterious mother, jealous of her child's regret for a father that she had lost, and whom she had never known! shall we ever penetrate the secret of her heart? CHAPTER IV. It was in the enjoyment of these exquisite feelings that a year, and more than another year, elapsed at our lone hall of Cherbury. Happiness and content seemed at least the blessed destiny of the Herberts. Venetia grew in years, and grace, and loveliness; each day apparently more her mother's joy, and each day bound to that mother by, if possible, more ardent love. She had never again experienced those uneasy thoughts which at times had haunted her from her infancy; separated from her mother, indeed, scarcely for an hour together, she had no time to muse. Her studies each day becoming more various and interesting, and pursued with so gifted and charming a companion, entirely engrossed her; even the exercise that was her relaxation was participated by Lady Annabel; and the mother and daughter, bounding together on their steeds, were fanned by the same breeze, and freshened by the same graceful and healthy exertion. One day the post, that seldom arrived at Cherbury, brought a letter to Lady Annabel, the perusal of which evidently greatly agitated her. Her countenance changed as her eye glanced over the pages; her hand trembled as she held it. But she made no remark; and succeeded in subduing her emotion so quickly that Venetia, although she watched her mother with anxiety, did not feel justified in interfering with inquiring sympathy. But while Lady Annabel resumed her usual calm demeanour, she relapsed into unaccustomed silence, and, soon rising from the breakfast table, moved to the window, and continued apparently gazing on the garden, with her face averted from Venetia for some time. At length she turned to her, and said, 'I think, Venetia, of calling on the Doctor to-day; there is business on which I wish to consult him, but I will not trouble you, dearest, to accompany me. I must take the carriage, and it is a long and tiring drive.' There was a tone of decision even in the slightest observations of Lady Annabel, which, however sweet might be the voice in which they were uttered, scarcely encouraged their propriety to be canvassed. Now Venetia was far from desirous of being separated from her mother this morning. It was not a vain and idle curiosity, prompted by the receipt of the letter and its consequent effects, both in the emotion of her mother and the visit which it had rendered necessary, that swayed her breast. The native dignity of a well-disciplined mind exempted Venetia from such feminine weakness. But some consideration might be due to the quick sympathy of an affectionate spirit that had witnessed, with corresponding feeling, the disturbance of the being to whom she was devoted. Why this occasional and painful mystery that ever and anon clouded the heaven of their love, and flung a frigid shadow over the path of a sunshiny life? Why was not Venetia to share the sorrow or the care of her only friend, as well as participate in her joy and her content? There were other claims, too, to this confidence, besides those of the heart. Lady Annabel was not merely her only friend; she was her parent, her only parent, almost, for aught she had ever heard or learnt, her only relative. For her mother's family, though she was aware of their existence by the freedom with which Lady Annabel ever mentioned them, and though Venetia was conscious that an occasional correspondence was maintained between them and Cherbury, occupied no station in Venetia's heart, scarcely in her memory. That noble family were nullities to her; far distant, apparently estranged from her hearth, except in form she had never seen them; they were associated in her recollection with none of the sweet ties of kindred. Her grandfather was dead without her ever having received his blessing; his successor, her uncle, was an ambassador, long absent from his country; her only aunt married to a soldier, and established at a foreign station. Venetia envied Dr. Masham the confidence which was extended to him; it seemed to her, even leaving out of sight the intimate feelings that subsisted between her and her mother, that the claims of blood to this confidence were at least as strong as those of friendship. But Venetia stifled these emotions; she parted from her mother with a kind, yet somewhat mournful expression. Lady Annabel might have read a slight sentiment of affectionate reproach in the demeanour of her daughter when she bade her farewell. Whatever might be the consciousness of the mother, she was successful in concealing her impression. Very kind, but calm and inscrutable, Lady Annabel, having given directions for postponing the dinner-hour, embraced her child and entered the chariot. Venetia, from the terrace, watched her mother's progress through the park. After gazing for some minutes, a tear stole down her cheek. She started, as if surprised at her own emotion. And now the carriage was out of sight, and Venetia would have recurred to some of those resources which were ever at hand for the employment or amusement of her secluded life. But the favourite volume ceased to interest this morning, and almost fell from her hand. She tried her spinet, but her ear seemed to have lost its music; she looked at her easel, but the cunning had fled from her touch. Restless and disquieted, she knew not why, Venetia went forth again into the garden. All nature smiled around her; the flitting birds were throwing their soft shadows over the sunny lawns, and rustling amid the blossoms of the variegated groves. The golden wreaths of the laburnum and the silver knots of the chestnut streamed and glittered around; the bees were as busy as the birds, and the whole scene was suffused and penetrated with brilliancy and odour. It still was spring, and yet the gorgeous approach of summer, like the advancing procession of some triumphant king, might almost be detected amid the lingering freshness of the year; a lively and yet magnificent period, blending, as it were, Attic grace with Roman splendour; a time when hope and fruition for once meet, when existence is most full of delight, alike delicate and voluptuous, and when the human frame is most sensible to the gaiety and grandeur of nature. And why was not the spirit of the beautiful and innocent Venetia as bright as the surrounding scene? There are moods of mind that baffle analysis, that arise from a mysterious sympathy we cannot penetrate. At this moment the idea of her father irresistibly recurred to the imagination of Venetia. She could not withstand the conviction that the receipt of the mysterious letter and her mother's agitation were by some inexplicable connexion linked with that forbidden subject. Strange incidents of her life flitted across her memory: her mother weeping on the day they visited Marringhurst; the mysterious chambers; the nocturnal visit of Lady Annabel that Cadurcis had witnessed; her unexpected absence from her apartment when Venetia, in her despair, had visited her some months ago. What was the secret that enveloped her existence? Alone, which was unusual; dispirited, she knew not why; and brooding over thoughts which haunted her like evil spirits, Venetia at length yielded to a degree of nervous excitement which amazed her. She looked up to the uninhabited wing of the mansion with an almost fierce desire to penetrate its mysteries. It seemed to her that a strange voice came whispering on the breeze, urging her to the fulfilment of a mystical mission. With a vague, yet wild, purpose she entered the house, and took her way to her mother's chamber. Mistress Pauncefort was there. Venetia endeavoured to assume her accustomed serenity. The waiting-woman bustled about, arranging the toilet-table, which had been for a moment discomposed, putting away a cap, folding up a shawl, and indulging in a multitude of inane observations which little harmonised with the high-strung tension of Venetia's mind. Mistress Pauncefort opened a casket with a spring lock, in which she placed some trinkets of her mistress. Venetia stood by her in silence; her eye, vacant and wandering, beheld the interior of the casket. There must have been something in it, the sight of which greatly agitated her, for Venetia turned pale, and in a moment left the chamber and retired to her own room. She locked her door, threw herself in a chair; almost gasping for breath, she covered her face with her hands. It was some minutes before she recovered comparative composure; she rose and looked in the mirror; her face was quite white, but her eyes glittering with excitement. She walked up and down her room with a troubled step, and a scarlet flush alternately returned to and retired from her changing cheek. Then she leaned against a cabinet in thought. She was disturbed from her musings by the sound of Pauncefort's step along the vestibule, as she quitted her mother's chamber. In a few minutes Venetia herself stepped forth into the vestibule and listened. All was silent. The golden morning had summoned the whole household to its enjoyment. Not a voice, not a domestic sound, broke the complete stillness. Venetia again repaired to the apartment of Lady Annabel. Her step was light, but agitated; it seemed that she scarcely dared to breathe. She opened the door, rushed to the cabinet, pressed the spring lock, caught at something that it contained, and hurried again to her own chamber. And what is this prize that the trembling Venetia holds almost convulsively in her grasp, apparently without daring even to examine it? Is this the serene and light-hearted girl, whose face was like the cloudless splendour of a sunny day? Why is she so pallid and perturbed? What strong impulse fills her frame? She clutches in her hand a key! On that tempestuous night of passionate sorrow which succeeded the first misunderstanding between Venetia and her mother, when the voice of Lady Annabel had suddenly blended with that of her kneeling child, and had ratified with her devotional concurrence her wailing supplications; even at the moment when Venetia, in a rapture of love and duty, felt herself pressed to her mother's reconciled heart, it had not escaped her that Lady Annabel held in her hand a key; and though the feelings which that night had so forcibly developed, and which the subsequent conduct of Lady Annabel had so carefully and skilfully cherished, had impelled Venetia to banish and erase from her thought and memory all the associations which that spectacle, however slight, was calculated to awaken, still, in her present mood, the unexpected vision of the same instrument, identical she could not doubt, had triumphed in an instant over all the long discipline of her mind and conduct, in an instant had baffled and dispersed her self-control, and been hailed as the providential means by which she might at length penetrate that mystery which she now felt no longer supportable. The clock of the belfry of Cherbury at this moment struck, and Venetia instantly sprang from her seat. It reminded her of the preciousness of the present morning. Her mother was indeed absent, but her mother would return. Before that event a great fulfilment was to occur. Venetia, still grasping the key, as if it were the talisman of her existence, looked up to Heaven as if she required for her allotted task an immediate and special protection; her lips seemed to move, and then she again quitted her apartment. As she passed through an oriel in her way towards the gallery, she observed Pauncefort in the avenue of the park, moving in the direction of the keeper's lodge. This emboldened her. With a hurried step she advanced along the gallery, and at length stood before the long-sealed door that had so often excited her strange curiosity. Once she looked around; but no one was near, not a sound was heard. With a faltering hand she touched the lock; but her powers deserted her: for a minute she believed that the key, after all, would not solve the mystery. And yet the difficulty arose only from her own agitation. She rallied her courage; once more she made the trial; the key fitted with completeness, and the lock opened with ease, and Venetia found herself in a small and scantily-furnished ante-chamber. Closing the door with noiseless care, Venetia stood trembling in the mysterious chamber, where apparently there was nothing to excite wonder. The chamber into which the ante-room opened was still closed, and it was some minutes before the adventurous daughter of Lady Annabel could summon courage for the enterprise which awaited her. The door yielded without an effort. Venetia stepped into a spacious and lofty chamber. For a moment she paused almost upon the threshold, and looked around her with a vague and misty vision. Anon she distinguished something of the character of the apartment. In the recess of a large oriel window that looked upon the park, and of which the blinds were nearly drawn, was an old-fashioned yet sumptuous toilet-table of considerable size, arranged as if for use. Opposite this window, in a corresponding recess, was what might be deemed a bridal bed, its furniture being of white satin richly embroidered; the curtains half closed; and suspended from the canopy was a wreath of roses that had once emulated, or rather excelled, the lustrous purity of the hangings, but now were wan and withered. The centre of the inlaid and polished floor of the apartment was covered with a Tournay carpet of brilliant yet tasteful decoration. An old cabinet of fanciful workmanship, some chairs of ebony, and some girandoles of silver completed the furniture of the room, save that at its extreme end, exactly opposite to the door by which Venetia entered, covered with a curtain of green velvet, was what she concluded must be a picture. An awful stillness pervaded the apartment: Venetia herself, with a face paler even than the hangings of the mysterious bed, stood motionless with suppressed breath, gazing on the distant curtain with a painful glance of agitated fascination. At length, summoning her energies as if for the achievement of some terrible yet inevitable enterprise, she crossed the room, and averting her face, and closing her eyes in a paroxysm of nervous excitement, she stretched forth her arm, and with a rapid motion withdrew the curtain. The harsh sound of the brass rings drawn quickly over the rod, the only noise that had yet met her ear in this mystical chamber, made her start and tremble. She looked up, she beheld, in a broad and massy frame, the full-length portrait of a man. A man in the very spring of sunny youth, and of radiant beauty. Above the middle height, yet with a form that displayed exquisite grace, he was habited in a green tunic that enveloped his figure to advantage, and became the scene in which he was placed: a park, with a castle in the distance; while a groom at hand held a noble steed, that seemed impatient for the chase. The countenance of its intended rider met fully the gaze of the spectator. It was a countenance of singular loveliness and power. The lips and the moulding of the chin resembled the eager and impassioned tenderness of the shape of Antinous; but instead of the effeminate sullenness of the eye, and the narrow smoothness of the forehead, shone an expression of profound and piercing thought. On each side of the clear and open brow descended, even to the shoulders, the clustering locks of golden hair; while the eyes, large and yet deep, beamed with a spiritual energy, and shone like two wells of crystalline water that reflect the all-beholding heavens. Now when Venetia Herbert beheld this countenance a change came over her. It seemed that when her eyes met the eyes of the portrait, some mutual interchange of sympathy occurred between them. She freed herself in an instant from the apprehension and timidity that before oppressed her. Whatever might ensue, a vague conviction of having achieved a great object pervaded, as it were, her being. Some great end, vast though indefinite, had been fulfilled. Abstract and fearless, she gazed upon the dazzling visage with a prophetic heart. Her soul was in a tumult, oppressed with thick-coming fancies too big for words, panting for expression. There was a word which must be spoken: it trembled on her convulsive lip, and would not sound. She looked around her with an eye glittering with unnatural fire, as if to supplicate some invisible and hovering spirit to her rescue, or that some floating and angelic chorus might warble the thrilling word whose expression seemed absolutely necessary to her existence. Her cheek is flushed, her eye wild and tremulous, the broad blue veins of her immaculate brow quivering and distended; her waving hair falls back over her forehead, and rustles like a wood before the storm. She seems a priestess in the convulsive throes of inspiration, and about to breathe the oracle. The picture, as we have mentioned, was hung in a broad and massy frame. In the centre of its base was worked an escutcheon, and beneath the shield this inscription: MARMION HERBERT, AET. XX. Yet there needed not these letters to guide the agitated spirit of Venetia, for, before her eye had reached them, the word was spoken; and falling on her knees before the portrait, the daughter of Lady Annabel had exclaimed, 'My father!' CHAPTER V. The daughter still kneels before the form of the father, of whom she had heard for the first time in her life. He is at length discovered. It was, then, an irresistible destiny that, after the wild musings and baffled aspirations of so many years, had guided her to this chamber. She is the child of Marmion Herbert; she beholds her lost parent. That being of supernatural beauty, on whom she gazes with a look of blended reverence and love, is her father. What a revelation! Its reality exceeded the wildest dreams of her romance; her brightest visions of grace and loveliness and genius seemed personified in this form; the form of one to whom she was bound by the strongest of all earthly ties, of one on whose heart she had a claim second only to that of the being by whose lips his name was never mentioned. Was he, then, no more? Ah! could she doubt that bitterest calamity? Ah! was it, was it any longer a marvel, that one who had lived in the light of those seraphic eyes, and had watched them until their terrestrial splendour had been for ever extinguished, should shrink from the converse that could remind her of the catastrophe of all her earthly hopes! This chamber, then, was the temple of her mother's woe, the tomb of her baffled affections and bleeding heart. No wonder that Lady Annabel, the desolate Lady Annabel, that almost the same spring must have witnessed the most favoured and the most disconsolate of women, should have fled from the world that had awarded her at the same time a lot so dazzling and so full of despair. Venetia felt that the existence of her mother's child, her own fragile being, could have been that mother's sole link to life. The heart of the young widow of Marmion Herbert must have broken but for Venetia; and the consciousness of that remaining tie, and the duties that it involved, could alone have sustained the victim under a lot of such unparalleled bitterness. The tears streamed down her cheek as she thought of her mother's misery, and her mother's gentle love; the misery that she had been so cautious her child should never share; the vigilant affection that, with all her own hopes blighted, had still laboured to compensate to her child for a deprivation the fulness of which Venetia could only now comprehend. When, where, why did he die? Oh that she might talk of him to her mother for ever! It seemed that life might pass away in listening to his praises. Marmion Herbert! and who was Marmion Herbert? Young as he was, command and genius, the pride of noble passions, all the glory of a creative mind, seemed stamped upon his brow. With all his marvellous beauty, he seemed a being born for greatness. Dead! in the very burst of his spring, a spring so sweet and splendid; could he be dead? Why, then, was he ever born? It seemed to her that he could not be dead; there was an animated look about the form, that seemed as if it could not die without leaving mankind a prodigal legacy of fame. Venetia turned and looked upon her parents' bridal bed. Now that she had discovered her father's portrait, every article in the room interested her, for her imagination connected everything with him. She touched the wreath of withered roses, and one instantly broke away from the circle, and fell; she knelt down, and gathered up the scattered leaves, and placed them in her bosom. She approached the table in the oriel: in its centre was a volume, on which reposed a dagger of curious workmanship; the volume bound in velvet, and the word 'ANNABEL' embroidered upon it in gold. Venetia unclasped it. The volume was his; in a fly-leaf were written these words: 'TO THE LADY OF MY LOVE, FROM HER MARMION HERBERT.' With a fluttering heart, yet sparkling eye, Venetia sank into a chair, which was placed before the table, with all her soul concentred in the contents of this volume. Leaning on her right hand, which shaded her agitated brow, she turned a page of the volume with a trembling hand. It contained a sonnet, delineating the feelings of a lover at the first sight of his beloved, a being to him yet unknown. Venetia perused with breathless interest the graceful and passionate picture of her mother's beauty. A series of similar compositions detailed the history of the poet's heart, and all the thrilling adventures of his enchanted life. Not an incident, not a word, not a glance, in that spell-bound prime of existence, that was not commemorated by his lyre in strains as sweet and as witching! Now he poured forth his passion; now his doubts; now his hopes; now came the glowing hour when he was first assured of his felicity; the next page celebrated her visit to the castle of his fathers; and another led her to the altar. With a flushed cheek and an excited eye, Venetia had rapidly pored over these ardent annals of the heart from whose blood she had sprung. She turns the page; she starts; the colour deserts her countenance; a mist glides over her vision; she clasps her hands with convulsive energy; she sinks back in her chair. In a few moments she extends one hand, as if fearful again to touch the book that had excited so much emotion, raises herself in her seat, looks around her with a vacant and perplexed gaze, apparently succeeds in collecting herself, and then seizes, with an eager grasp, the volume, and throwing herself on her, knees before the chair, her long locks hanging on each side over a cheek crimson as the sunset, loses her whole soul in the lines which the next page reveals. ON THE NIGHT OUR DAUGHTER WAS BORN. I. Within our heaven of love, the new-born star We long devoutly watched, like shepherd kings, Steals into light, and, floating from afar, Methinks some bright transcendent seraph sings, Waving with flashing light her radiant wings, Immortal welcome to the stranger fair: To us a child is born. With transport clings The mother to the babe she sighed to bear; Of all our treasured loves the long-expected heir! II. My daughter! can it be a daughter now Shall greet my being with her infant smile? And shall I press that fair and taintless brow With my fond lips, and tempt, with many a wile Of playful love, those features to beguile A parent with their mirth? In the wild sea Of this dark life, behold a little isle Rises amid the waters, bright and free, A haven for my hopes of fond security! III. And thou shalt bear a name my line has loved, And their fair daughters owned for many an age, Since first our fiery blood a wanderer roved, And made in sunnier lands his pilgrimage, Where proud defiance with the waters wage The sea-born city's walls; the graceful towers Loved by the bard and honoured by the sage! My own VENETIA now shall gild our bowers, And with her spell enchain our life's enchanted hours! IV. Oh! if the blessing of a father's heart Hath aught of sacred in its deep-breath'd prayer, Skilled to thy gentle being to impart, As thy bright form itself, a fate as fair; On thee I breathe that blessing! Let me share, O God! her joys; and if the dark behest Of woe resistless, and avoidless care, Hath, not gone forth, oh! spare this gentle guest. And wreak thy needful wrath on my resigned breast! An hour elapsed, and Venetia did not move. Over and over again she conned the only address from the lips of her father that had ever reached her ear. A strange inspiration seconded the exertion of an exercised memory. The duty was fulfilled, the task completed. Then a sound was heard without. The thought that her mother had returned occurred to her; she looked up, the big tears streaming down her face; she listened, like a young hind just roused by the still-distant huntsman, quivering and wild: she listened, and she sprang up, replaced the volume, arranged the chair, cast one long, lingering, feverish glance at the portrait, skimmed through the room, hesitated one moment in the ante-chamber; opened, as all was silent, the no longer mysterious door, turned the noiseless lock, tripped lightly along the vestibule; glided into her mother's empty apartment, reposited the key that had opened so many wonders in the casket; and, then, having hurried to her own chamber, threw herself on her bed in a paroxysm of contending emotions, that left her no power of pondering over the strange discovery that had already given a new colour to her existence. CHAPTER VI. Her mother had not returned; it was a false alarm; but Venetia could not quit her bed. There she remained, repeating to herself her father's verses. Then one thought alone filled her being. Was he dead? Was this fond father, who had breathed this fervent blessing over her birth, and invoked on his own head all the woe and misfortunes of her destiny, was he, indeed, no more? How swiftly must the arrow have sped after he received the announcement that a child was given to him, Of all his treasured loves the long-expected heir! He could scarcely have embraced her ere the great Being, to whom he had offered his prayer, summoned him to his presence! Of that father she had not the slightest recollection; she had ascertained that she had reached Cherbury a child, even in arms, and she knew that her father had never lived under the roof. What an awful bereavement! Was it wonderful that her mother was inconsolable? Was it wonderful that she could not endure even his name to be mentioned in her presence; that not the slightest allusion to his existence could be tolerated by a wife who had been united to such a peerless being, only to behold him torn away from her embraces? Oh! could he, indeed, be dead? That inspired countenance that seemed immortal, had it in a moment been dimmed? and all the symmetry of that matchless form, had it indeed been long mouldering in the dust? Why should she doubt it? Ah! why, indeed? How could she doubt it? Why, ever and anon, amid the tumult of her excited mind, came there an unearthly whisper to her ear, mocking her with the belief that he still lived? But he was dead; he must be dead; and why did she live? Could she survive what she had seen and learnt this day? Did she wish to survive it? But her mother, her mother with all her sealed-up sorrows, had survived him. Why? For her sake; for her child; for 'his own Venetia!' His own! She clenched her feverish hand, her temples beat with violent palpitations, her brow was burning hot. Time flew on, and every minute Venetia was more sensible of the impossibility of rising to welcome her mother. That mother at length returned; Venetia could not again mistake the wheels of the returning carriage. Some minutes passed, and there was a knock at her door. With a choking voice Venetia bade them enter. It was Pauncefort. 'Well, Miss,' she exclaimed, 'if you ayn't here, after all! I told my lady, "My lady," says I, "I am sure Miss Venetia must be in the park, for I saw her go out myself, and I have never seen her come home." And, after all, you are here. My lady has come home, you know, Miss, and has been inquiring for you several times.' 'Tell mamma that I am not very well,' said Venetia, in a low voice, 'and that I have been obliged to lie down.' 'Not well, Miss,' exclaimed Pauncefort; 'and what can be the matter with you? I am afraid you have walked too much; overdone it, I dare say; or, mayhap, you have caught cold; it is an easterly wind: for I was saying to John this morning, "John," says I, "if Miss Venetia will walk about with only a handkerchief tied round her head, why, what can be expected?"' 'I have only a headache, a very bad headache, Pauncefort; I wish to be quiet,' said Venetia. Pauncefort left the room accordingly, and straightway proceeded to Lady Annabel, when she communicated the information that Miss Venetia was in the house, after all, though she had never seen her return, and that she was lying down because she had a very bad headache. Lady Annabel, of course, did not lose a moment in visiting her darling. She entered the room softly, so softly that she was not heard; Venetia was lying on her bed, with her back to the door. Lady Annabel stood by her bedside for some moments unnoticed. At length Venetia heaved a deep sigh. Her mother then said in a soft voice, 'Are you in pain, darling?' 'Is that mamma?' said Venetia, turning with quickness. 'You are ill, dear,' said Lady Annabel, taking her hand. 'Your hand is hot; you are feverish. How long has my Venetia felt ill?' Venetia could not answer; she did nothing but sigh. Her strange manner excited her mother's wonder. Lady Annabel sat by the bedside, still holding her daughter's hand in hers, watching her with a glance of great anxiety. 'Answer me, my love,' she repeated in a voice of tenderness. 'What do you feel?' 'My head, my head,' murmured Venetia. Her mother pressed her own hand to her daughter's brow; it was very hot. 'Does that pain you?' inquired Lady Annabel; but Venetia did not reply; her look was wild and abstracted. Her mother gently withdrew her hand, and then summoned Pauncefort, with whom she communicated without permitting her to enter the room. 'Miss Herbert is very ill,' said Lady Annabel, pale, but in a firm tone. 'I am alarmed about her. She appears to me to have fever; send instantly to Southport for Mr. Hawkins; and let the messenger use and urge all possible expedition. Be in attendance in the vestibule, Pauncefort; I shall not quit her room, but she must be kept perfectly quiet.' Lady Annabel then drew her chair to the bedside of her daughter, and bathed her temples at intervals with rose-water; but none of these attentions apparently attracted the notice of the sufferer. She was, it would seem, utterly unconscious of all that was occurring. She now lay with her face turned towards her mother, but did not exchange even looks with her. She was restless, and occasionally she sighed deeply. Once, by way of experiment, Lady Annabel again addressed her, but Venetia gave no answer. Then the mother concluded what, indeed, had before attracted her suspicion, that Venetia's head was affected. But then, what was this strange, this sudden attack, which appeared to have prostrated her daughter's faculties in an instant? A few hours back, and Lady Annabel had parted from Venetia in all the glow of health and beauty. The season was most genial; her exercise had doubtless been moderate; as for her general health, so complete was her constitution, and so calm the tenour of her life, that Venetia had scarcely experienced in her whole career a single hour of indisposition. It was an anxious period of suspense until the medical attendant arrived from Southport. Fortunately he was one in whom, from reputation, Lady Annabel was disposed to place great trust; and his matured years, his thoughtful manner, and acute inquiries, confirmed her favourable opinion of him. All that Mr. Hawkins could say, however, was, that Miss Herbert had a great deal of fever, but the cause was concealed, and the suddenness of the attack perplexed him. He administered one of the usual remedies; and after an hour had elapsed, and no favourable change occurring, he blooded her. He quitted Cherbury, with the promise of returning late in the evening, having several patients whom he was obliged to visit. The night drew on; the chamber was now quite closed, but Lady Annabel never quitted it. She sat reading, removed from her daughter, that her presence might not disturb her, for Venetia seemed inclined to sleep. Suddenly Venetia spoke; but she said only one word, 'Father!' Lady Annabel started; her book nearly fell from her hand; she grew very pale. Quite breathless, she listened, and again Venetia spoke, and again called upon her father. Now, with a great effort, Lady Annabel stole on tiptoe to the bedside of her daughter. Venetia was lying on her back, her eyes were closed, her lips still as it were quivering with the strange word they had dared to pronounce. Again her voice sounded; she chanted, in an unearthly voice, verses. The perspiration stood in large drops on the pallid forehead of the mother as she listened. Still Venetia proceeded; and Lady Annabel, throwing herself on her knees, held up her hands to Heaven in an agony of astonishment, terror, and devotion. Now there was again silence; but her mother remained apparently buried in prayer. Again Venetia spoke; again she repeated the mysterious stanzas. With convulsive agony her mother listened to every fatal line that she unconsciously pronounced. The secret was then discovered. Yes! Venetia must have penetrated the long-closed chamber; all the labours of years had in a moment been subverted; Venetia had discovered her parent, and the effects of the discovery might, perhaps, be her death. Then it was that Lady Annabel, in the torture of her mind, poured forth her supplications that the life or the heart of her child might never be lost to her, 'Grant, O merciful God!' she exclaimed, 'that this sole hope of my being may be spared to me. Grant, if she be spared, that she may never desert her mother! And for him, of whom she has heard this day for the first time, let him be to her as if he were no more! May she never learn that he lives! May she never comprehend the secret agony of her mother's life! Save her, O God! save her from his fatal, his irresistible influence! May she remain pure and virtuous as she has yet lived! May she remain true to thee, and true to thy servant, who now bows before thee! Look down upon me at this moment with gracious mercy; turn to me my daughter's heart; and, if it be my dark doom to be in this world a widow, though a wife, add not to this bitterness that I shall prove a mother without a child!' At this moment the surgeon returned. It was absolutely necessary that Lady Annabel should compose herself. She exerted all that strength of character for which she was remarkable. From this moment she resolved, if her life were the forfeit, not to quit for an instant the bedside of Venetia until she was declared out of danger; and feeling conscious that if she once indulged her own feelings, she might herself soon be in a situation scarcely less hazardous than her daughter's, she controlled herself with a mighty effort. Calm as a statue, she received the medical attendant, who took the hand of the unconscious Venetia with apprehension too visibly impressed upon his grave countenance. As he took her hand, Venetia opened her eyes, stared at her mother and her attendant, and then immediately closed them. 'She has slept?' inquired Lady Annabel. 'No,' said the surgeon, 'no: this is not sleep; it is a feverish trance that brings her no refreshment.' He took out his watch, and marked her pulse with great attention; then he placed his hand on her brow, and shook his head. 'These beautiful curls must come off,' he said. Lady Annabel glided to the table, and instantly brought the scissors, as if the delay of an instant might be fatal. The surgeon cut off those long golden locks. Venetia raised her hand to her head, and said, in a low voice, 'They are for my father.' Lady Annabel leant upon the surgeon's arm and shook. Now he led the mother to the window, and spoke in a hushed tone. 'Is it possible that there is anything on your daughter's mind, Lady Annabel?' he inquired. The agitated mother looked at the inquirer, and then at her daughter; and then for a moment she raised her hand to her eyes; then she replied, in a low but firm voice, 'Yes.' 'Your ladyship must judge whether you wish me to be acquainted with it,' said Mr. Hawkins, calmly. 'My daughter has suddenly become acquainted, sir, with some family incidents of a painful nature, and the knowledge of which I have hitherto spared her. They are events long past, and their consequences are now beyond all control.' 'She knows, then, the worst?' 'Without her mind, I cannot answer that question,' said Lady Annabel. 'It is my duty to tell you that Miss Herbert is in imminent danger; she has every appearance of a fever of a malignant character. I cannot answer for her life.' 'O God!' exclaimed Lady Annabel. 'Yet you must compose yourself, my dear lady. Her chance of recovery greatly depends upon the vigilance of her attendants. I shall bleed her again, and place leeches on her temples. There is inflammation on the brain. There are other remedies also not less powerful. We must not despair; we have no cause to despair until we find these fail. I shall not leave her again; and, for your satisfaction, not for my own, I shall call in additional advice, the aid of a physician.' A messenger accordingly was instantly despatched for the physician, who resided at a town more distant than Southport; the very town, by-the-bye, where Morgana, the gipsy, was arrested. They contrived, with the aid of Pauncefort, to undress Venetia, and place her in her bed, for hitherto they had refrained from this exertion. At this moment the withered leaves of a white rose fell from Venetia's dress. A sofa-bed was then made for Lady Annabel, of which, however, she did not avail herself. The whole night she sat by her daughter's side, watching every movement of Venetia, refreshing her hot brow and parched lips, or arranging, at every opportunity, her disordered pillows. About an hour past midnight the surgeon retired to rest, for a few hours, in the apartment prepared for him, and Pauncefort, by the desire of her mistress, also withdrew: Lady Annabel was alone with her child, and with those agitated thoughts which the strange occurrences of the day were well calculated to excite. CHAPTER VII. Early in the morning the physician arrived at Cherbury. It remained for him only to approve of the remedies which had been pursued. No material change, however, had occurred in the state of Venetia: she had not slept, and still she seemed unconscious of what was occurring. The gracious interposition of Nature seemed the only hope. When the medical men had withdrawn to consult in the terrace-room, Lady Annabel beckoned to Pauncefort, and led her to the window of Venetia's apartment, which she would not quit. 'Pauncefort,' said Lady Annabel, 'Venetia has been in her father's room.' 'Oh! impossible, my lady,' burst forth Mistress Pauncefort; but Lady Annabel placed her finger on her lip, and checked her. 'There is no doubt of it, there can be no doubt of it, Pauncefort; she entered it yesterday; she must have passed the morning there, when you believed she was in the park.' 'But, my lady,' said Pauncefort, 'how could it be? For I scarcely left your la'ship's room a second, and Miss Venetia, I am sure, never was near it. And the key, my lady, the key is in the casket. I saw it half an hour ago with my own eyes.' 'There is no use arguing about it, Pauncefort,' said Lady Annabel, with decision. 'It is as I say. I fear great misfortunes are about to commence at Cherbury.' 'Oh! my lady, don't think of such things,' said Pauncefort, herself not a little alarmed. 'What can happen?' 'I fear more than I know,' said Lady Annabel; 'but I do fear much. At present I can only think of her.' 'Well! my lady,' said poor Mistress Pauncefort, looking bewildered, 'only to think of such a thing! and after all the pains I have taken! I am sure I have not opened my lips on the subject these fifteen years; and the many questions I have been asked too! I am sure there is not a servant in the house--' 'Hush! hush!' said Lady Annabel, 'I do not blame you, and therefore you need not defend yourself. Go, Pauncefort, I must be alone.' Pauncefort withdrew, and Lady Annabel resumed her seat by her daughter's side. On the fourth day of her attack the medical attendants observed a favourable change in their patient, and were not, of course, slow in communicating this joyful intelligence to her mother. The crisis had occurred and was past: Venetia had at length sunk into slumber. How different was her countenance from the still yet settled features they had before watched with such anxiety! She breathed lightly, the tension of the eyelids had disappeared, her mouth was slightly open. The physician and his colleague declared that immediate danger was past, and they counselled Lady Annabel to take repose. On condition that one of them should remain by the side of her daughter, the devoted yet miserable mother quitted, for the first time her child's apartment. Pauncefort followed her to her room. 'Oh! my lady,' said Pauncefort, 'I am so glad your la'ship is going to lie down a bit.' 'I am not going to lie down, Pauncefort. Give me the key.' And Lady Annabel proceeded alone to the forbidden chamber, that chamber which, after what has occurred, we may now enter with her, and where, with so much labour, she had created a room exactly imitative of their bridal apartment at her husband's castle. With a slow but resolved step she entered the apartment, and proceeding immediately to the table, took up the book; it opened at the stanzas to Venetia. The pages had recently been bedewed with tears. Lady Annabel then looked at the bridal bed, and marked the missing rose in the garland: it was as she expected. She seated herself then in the chair opposite the portrait, on which she gazed with a glance rather stern than fond. 'Marmion,' she exclaimed, 'for fifteen years, a solitary votary, I have mourned over, in this temple of baffled affections, the inevitable past. The daughter of our love has found her way, perhaps by an irresistible destiny, to a spot sacred to my long-concealed sorrows. At length she knows her father. May she never know more! May she never learn that the being, whose pictured form has commanded her adoration, is unworthy of those glorious gifts that a gracious Creator has bestowed upon him! Marmion, you seem to smile upon me; you seem to exult in your triumph over the heart of your child. But there is a power in a mother's love that yet shall baffle you. Hitherto I have come here to deplore the past; hitherto I have come here to dwell upon the form that, in spite of all that has happened, I still was, perhaps, weak enough, to love. Those feelings are past for ever. Yes! you would rob me of my child, you would tear from my heart the only consolation you have left me. But Venetia shall still be mine; and I, I am no longer yours. Our love, our still lingering love, has vanished. You have been my enemy, now I am yours. I gaze upon your portrait for the last time; and thus I prevent the magical fascination of that face again appealing to the sympathies of my child. Thus and thus!' She seized the ancient dagger that we have mentioned as lying on the volume, and, springing on the chair, she plunged it into the canvas; then, tearing with unflinching resolution the severed parts, she scattered the fragments over the chamber, shook into a thousand leaves the melancholy garland, tore up the volume of his enamoured Muse, and then quitting the chamber, and locking and double locking the door, she descended the staircase, and proceeding to the great well of Cherbury, hurled into it the fatal key. 'Oh! my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort, as she met Lady Annabel returning in the vestibule, 'Doctor Masham is here.' 'Is he?' said Lady Annabel, as calm as usual. 'I will see him before I lie down. Do not go into Venetia's room. She sleeps, and Mr. Hawkins has promised me to let me know when she wakes.' CHAPTER VIII. As Lady Annabel entered the terrace-room, Doctor Masham came forward and grasped her hand. 'You have heard of our sorrow!' said her ladyship in a faint voice. 'But this instant,' replied the Doctor, in a tone of great anxiety.' Immediate danger--' 'Is past. She sleeps,' replied Lady Annabel. 'A most sudden and unaccountable attack,' said the Doctor. It is difficult to describe the contending emotions of the mother as her companion made this observation. At length she replied, 'Sudden, certainly sudden; but not unaccountable. Oh! my friend,' she added, after a moment's pause, 'they will not be content until they have torn my daughter from me.' 'They tear your daughter from you!' exclaimed Doctor Masham. 'Who?' 'He, he,' muttered Lady Annabel; her speech was incoherent, her manner very disturbed. 'My dear lady,' said the Doctor, gazing on her with extreme anxiety, 'you are yourself unwell.' Lady Annabel heaved a deep sigh; the Doctor bore her to a seat. 'Shall I send for any one, anything?' 'No one, no one,' quickly answered Lady Annabel. 'With you, at least, there is no concealment necessary.' She leant back in her chair, the Doctor holding her hand, and standing by her side. Still Lady Annabel continued sighing deeply: at length she looked up and said, 'Does she love me? Do you think, after all, she loves me?' 'Venetia?' inquired the Doctor, in a low and doubtful voice, for he was greatly perplexed. 'She has seen him; she loves him; she has forgotten her mother.' 'My dear lady, you require rest,' said Doctor Masham. 'You are overcome with strange fancies. Whom has your daughter seen?' 'Marmion.' 'Impossible! you forget he is--' 'Here also. He has spoken to her: she loves him: she will recover: she will fly to him; sooner let us both die!' 'Dear lady!' 'She knows everything. Fate has baffled me; we cannot struggle with fate. She is his child; she is like him; she is not like her mother. Oh! she hates me; I know she hates me.' 'Hush! hush! hush!' said the Doctor, himself very agitated. 'Venetia loves you, only you. Why should she love any one else?' 'Who can help it? I loved him. I saw him. I loved him. His voice was music. He has spoken to her, and she yielded: she yielded in a moment. I stood by her bedside. She would not speak to me; she would not know me; she shrank from me. Her heart is with her father: only with him.' 'Where did she see him? How?' 'His room: his picture. She knows all. I was away with you, and she entered his chamber.' 'Ah!' 'Oh! Doctor, you have influence with her. Speak to her. Make her love me! Tell her she has no father; tell her he is dead.' 'We will do that which is well and wise,' replied Doctor Masham: 'at present let us be calm; if you give way, her life may be the forfeit. Now is the moment for a mother's love.' 'You are right. I should not have left her for an instant. I would not have her wake and find her mother not watching over her. But I was tempted. She slept; I left her for a moment; I went to destroy the spell. She cannot see him again. No one shall see him again. It was my weakness, the weakness of long years; and now I am its victim.' 'Nay, nay, my sweet lady, all will be quite well. Be but calm; Venetia will recover.' 'But will she love me? Oh! no, no, no! She will think only of him. She will not love her mother. She will yearn for her father now. She has seen him, and she will not rest until she is in his arms. She will desert me, I know it.' 'And I know the contrary,' said the Doctor, attempting to reassure her; 'I will answer for Venetia's devotion to you. Indeed she has no thought but your happiness, and can love only you. When there is a fitting time, I will speak to her; but now, now is the time for repose. And you must rest, you must indeed.' 'Rest! I cannot. I slumbered in the chair last night by her bedside, and a voice roused me. It was her own. She was speaking to her father. She told him how she loved him; how long, how much she thought of him; that she would join him when she was well, for she knew he was not dead; and, if he were dead, she would die also. She never mentioned me.' 'Nay! the light meaning of a delirious brain.' 'Truth, truth, bitter, inevitable truth. Oh! Doctor, I could bear all but this; but my child, my beautiful fond child, that made up for all my sorrows. My joy, my hope, my life! I knew it would be so; I knew he would have her heart. He said she never could be alienated from him; he said she never could be taught to hate him. I did not teach her to hate him. I said nothing. I deemed, fond, foolish mother, that the devotion of my life might bind her to me. But what is a mother's love? I cannot contend with him. He gained the mother; he will gain the daughter too.' 'God will guard over you,' said Masham, with streaming eyes; 'God will not desert a pious and virtuous woman.' 'I must go,' said Lady Annabel, attempting to rise, but the Doctor gently controlled her; 'perhaps she is awake, and I am not at her side. She will not ask for me, she will ask for him; but I will be there; she will desert me, but she shall not say I ever deserted her.' 'She will never desert you,' said the Doctor; 'my life on her pure heart. She has been a child of unbroken love and duty; still she will remain so. Her mind is for a moment overpowered by a marvellous discovery. She will recover, and be to you as she was before.' 'We'll tell her he is dead,' said Lady Annabel, eagerly. 'You must tell her. She will believe you. I cannot speak to her of him; no, not to secure her heart; never, never, never can I speak to Venetia of her father.' 'I will speak,' replied the Doctor, 'at the just time. Now let us think of her recovery. She is no longer in danger. We should be grateful, we should be glad.' 'Let us pray to God! Let us humble ourselves,' said Lady Annabel. 'Let us beseech him not to desert this house. We have been faithful to him, we have struggled to be faithful to him. Let us supplicate him to favour and support us!' 'He will favour and support you,' said the Doctor, in a solemn tone. 'He has upheld you in many trials; he will uphold you still.' 'Ah! why did I love him! Why did I continue to love him! How weak, how foolish, how mad I have been! I have alone been the cause of all this misery. Yes, I have destroyed my child.' 'She lives, she will live. Nay, nay! you must reassure yourself. Come, let me send for your servant, and for a moment repose. Nay! take my arm. All depends upon you. We have great cares now; let us not conjure up fantastic fears.' 'I must go to my daughter's room. Perhaps by her side I might rest. Nowhere else. You will attend me to the door, my friend. Yes! it is something in this life to have a friend.' Lady Annabel took the arm of the good Masham. They stopped at her daughter's door. 'Rest here a moment,' she said, as she entered the room without a sound. In a moment she returned. 'She still sleeps,' said the mother; 'I shall remain with her, and you--?' 'I will not leave you,' said the Doctor, 'but think not of me. Nay! I will not leave you. I will remain under this roof. I have shared its serenity and joy; let me not avoid it in this time of trouble and tribulation.' CHAPTER IX. Venetia still slept: her mother alone in the chamber watched by her side. Some hours had elapsed since her interview with Dr. Masham; the medical attendant had departed for a few hours. Suddenly Venetia moved, opened her eyes, and said in a faint voice, 'Mamma!' The blood rushed to Lady Annabel's heart. That single word afforded her the most exquisite happiness. 'I am here, dearest,' she replied. 'Mamma, what is all this?' inquired Venetia. 'You have not been well, my own, but now you are much better.' 'I thought I had been dreaming,' replied Venetia, 'and that all was not right; somebody, I thought, struck me on my head. But all is right now, because you are here, my dear mamma.' But Lady Annabel could not speak for weeping. 'Are you sure, mamma, that nothing has been done to my head?' continued Venetia. 'Why, what is this?' and she touched a light bandage on her brow. 'My darling, you have been ill, and you have lost blood; but now you are getting quite well. I have been very unhappy about you; but now I am quite happy, my sweet, sweet child.' 'How long have I been ill?' 'You have been very ill indeed for four or five days; you have had a fever, Venetia; but now the fever is gone; and you are only a little weak, and you will soon be well.' 'A fever! and how did I get the fever?' 'Perhaps you caught cold, my child; but we must not talk too much.' 'A fever! I never had a fever before. A fever is like a dream.' 'Hush! sweet love. Indeed you must not speak.' 'Give me your hand, mamma; I will not speak if you will let me hold your hand. I thought in the fever that we were parted.' 'I have never left your side, my child, day or night,' said Lady Annabel, not without agitation. 'All this time! all these days and nights! No one would do that but you, mamma. You think only of me.' 'You repay me by your love, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, feeling that her daughter ought not to speak, yet irresistibly impelled to lead out her thoughts. 'How can I help loving you, my dear mamma?' 'You do love me, you do love me very much; do you not, sweet child?' 'Better than all the world,' replied Venetia to her enraptured parent. 'And yet, in the fever I seemed to love some one else: but fevers are like dreams; they are not true.' Lady Annabel pressed her lips gently to her daughter's, and whispered her that she must speak no more. When Mr. Hawkins returned, he gave a favourable report of Venetia. He said that all danger was now past, and that all that was required for her recovery were time, care, and repose. He repeated to Lady Annabel alone that the attack was solely to be ascribed to some great mental shock which her daughter had received, and which suddenly had affected her circulation; leaving it, after this formal intimation, entirely to the mother to take those steps in reference to the cause, whatever it might be, which she should deem expedient. In the evening, Lady Annabel stole down for a few moments to Dr. Masham, laden with joyful intelligence; assured of the safety of her child, and, what was still more precious, of her heart, and even voluntarily promising her friend that she should herself sleep this night in her daughter's chamber, on the sofa-bed. The Doctor, therefore, now bade her adieu, and said that he should ride over from Marringhurst every day, to hear how their patient was proceeding. From this time, the recovery of Venetia, though slow, was gradual. She experienced no relapse, and in a few weeks quitted her bed. She was rather surprised at her altered appearance when it first met her glance in the mirror, but scarcely made any observation on the loss of her locks. During this interval, the mind of Venetia had been quite dormant; the rage of the fever, and the violent remedies to which it had been necessary to have recourse, had so exhausted her, that she had not energy enough to think. All that she felt was a strange indefinite conviction that some occurrence had taken place with which her memory could not grapple. But as her strength returned, and as she gradually resumed her usual health, by proportionate though almost invisible degrees her memory returned to her, and her intelligence. She clearly recollected and comprehended what had taken place. She recalled the past, compared incidents, weighed circumstances, sifted and balanced the impressions that now crowded upon her consciousness. It is difficult to describe each link in the metaphysical chain which at length connected the mind of Venetia Herbert with her actual experience and precise situation. It was, however, at length perfect, and gradually formed as she sat in an invalid chair, apparently listless, not yet venturing on any occupation, or occasionally amused for a moment by her mother reading to her. But when her mind had thus resumed its natural tone, and in time its accustomed vigour, the past demanded all her solicitude. At length the mystery of her birth was revealed to her. She was the daughter of Marmion Herbert; and who was Marmion Herbert? The portrait rose before her. How distinct was the form, how definite the countenance! No common personage was Marmion Herbert, even had he not won his wife, and celebrated his daughter in such witching strains. Genius was stamped on his lofty brow, and spoke in his brilliant eye; nobility was in all his form. This chivalric poet was her father. She had read, she had dreamed of such beings, she had never seen them. If she quitted the solitude in which she lived, would she see men like her father? No other could ever satisfy her imagination; all beneath that standard would rank but as imperfect creations in her fancy. And this father, he was dead. No doubt. Ah! was there indeed no doubt? Eager as was her curiosity on this all-absorbing subject, Venetia could never summon courage to speak upon it to her mother. Her first disobedience, or rather her first deception of her mother, in reference to this very subject, had brought, and brought so swiftly on its retributive wings, such disastrous consequences, that any allusion to Lady Annabel was restrained by a species of superstitious fear, against which Venetia could not contend. Then her father was either dead or living. That was certain. If dead, it was clear that his memory, however cherished by his relict, was associated with feelings too keen to admit of any other but solitary indulgence. If living, there was a mystery connected with her parents, a mystery evidently of a painful character, and one which it was a prime object with her mother to conceal and to suppress. Could Venetia, then, in defiance of that mother, that fond devoted mother, that mother who had watched through long days and long nights over her sick bed, and who now, without a murmur, was a prisoner to this very room, only to comfort and console her child: could Venetia take any step which might occasion this matchless parent even a transient pang? No; it was impossible. To her mother she could never speak. And yet, to remain enveloped in the present mystery, she was sensible, was equally insufferable. All she asked, all she wanted to know, was he alive? If he were alive, then, although she could not see him, though she might never see him, she could exist upon his idea; she could conjure up romances of future existence with him; she could live upon the fond hope of some day calling him father, and receiving from his hands the fervid blessing he had already breathed to her in song. In the meantime her remaining parent commanded all her affections. Even if he were no more, blessed was her lot with such a mother! Lady Annabel seemed only to exist to attend upon her daughter. No lover ever watched with such devotion the wants or even the caprices of his mistress. A thousand times every day Venetia found herself expressing her fondness and her gratitude. It seemed that the late dreadful contingency of losing her daughter had developed in Lady Annabel's heart even additional powers of maternal devotion; and Venetia, the fond and grateful Venetia, ignorant of the strange past, which she believed she so perfectly comprehended, returned thanks to Heaven that her mother was at least spared the mortification of knowing that her daughter, in her absence, had surreptitiously invaded the sanctuary of her secret sorrow. CHAPTER X. When Venetia had so far recovered that, leaning on her mother's arm, she could resume her walks upon the terrace, Doctor Masham persuaded his friends, as a slight and not unpleasant change of scene, to pay him a visit at Marringhurst. Since the chamber scene, indeed, Lady Annabel's tie to Cherbury was much weakened. There were certain feelings of pain, and fear, and mortification, now associated with that place which she could not bear to dwell upon, and which greatly balanced those sentiments of refuge and repose, of peace and love, with which the old hall, in her mind, was heretofore connected. Venetia ever adopted the slightest intimations of a wish on the part of her mother, and so she readily agreed to fall into the arrangement. It was rather a long and rough journey to Marringhurst, for they were obliged to use the old chariot; but Venetia forgot her fatigues in the cordial welcome of their host, whose sparkling countenance well expressed the extreme gratification their arrival occasioned him. All that the tenderest solicitude could devise for the agreeable accommodation of the invalid had been zealously concerted; and the constant influence of Dr. Masham's cheerful mind was as beneficial to Lady Annabel as to her daughter. The season was gay, the place was pleasant; and although they were only a few miles from home, in a house with which they were familiar, and their companion one whom they had known intimately all their lives, and of late almost daily seen; yet such is the magic of a change in our habits, however slight, and of the usual theatre of their custom, that this visit to Marringhurst assumed quite the air of an adventure, and seemed at first almost invested with the charm and novelty of travel. The surrounding country, which, though verdant, was flat, was well adapted to the limited exertions and still feeble footsteps of an invalid, and Venetia began to study botany with the Doctor, who indeed was not very profound in his attainments in this respect, but knew quite enough to amuse his scholar. By degrees also, as her strength daily increased, they extended their walks; and at length she even mounted her pony, and was fast recovering her elasticity both of body and mind. There were also many pleasant books with which she was unacquainted; a cabinet of classic coins, prints, and pictures. She became, too, interested in the Doctor's rural pursuits; would watch him with his angle, and already meditated a revolution in his garden. So time, on the whole, flew cheerfully on, certainly without any weariness; and the day seldom passed that they did not all congratulate themselves on the pleasant and profitable change. In the meantime Venetia, when alone, still recurred to that idea that was now so firmly rooted in her mind, that it was quite out of the power of any social discipline to divert her attention from it. She was often the sole companion of the Doctor, and she had long resolved to seize a favourable opportunity to appeal to him on the subject of her father. It so happened that she was walking alone with him one morning in the neighbourhood of Marringhurst, having gone to visit the remains of a Roman encampment in the immediate vicinity. When they had arrived at the spot, and the Doctor had delivered his usual lecture on the locality, they sat down together on a mound, that Venetia might rest herself. 'Were you ever in Italy, Doctor Masham?' said Venetia. 'I never was out of my native country,' said the Doctor. 'I once, indeed, was about making the grand tour with a pupil of mine at Oxford, but circumstances interfered which changed his plans, and so I remain a regular John Bull.' 'Was my father at Oxford?' said Venetia, quietly. 'He was,' replied the Doctor, looking confused. 'I should like to see Oxford much,' said Venetia. 'It is a most interesting seat of learning,' said the Doctor, quite delighted to change the subject. 'Whether we consider its antiquity, its learning, the influence it has exercised upon the history of the country, its magnificent endowments, its splendid buildings, its great colleges, libraries, and museums, or that it is one of the principal head-quarters of all the hope of England, our youth, it is not too much to affirm that there is scarcely a spot on the face of the globe of equal interest and importance.' 'It is not for its colleges, or libraries, or museums, or all its splendid buildings,' observed Venetia, 'that I should wish to see it. I wish to see it because my father was once there. I should like to see a place where I was quite certain my father had been.' 'Still harping of her father,' thought the Doctor to himself, and growing uneasy; yet, from his very anxiety to turn the subject, quite incapable of saying an appropriate word. 'Do you remember my father at Oxford, Doctor Masham?' said Venetia. 'Yes! no, yes!' said the Doctor, rather colouring; 'that he must have been there in my time, I rather think.' 'But you do not recollect him?' said Venetia, pressing question. 'Why,' rejoined the Doctor, a little more collected, 'when you remember that there are between two and three thousand young men at the university, you must not consider it very surprising that I might not recollect your father.' 'No,' said Venetia, 'perhaps not: and yet I cannot help thinking that he must always have been a person who, if once seen, would not easily have been forgotten.' 'Here is an Erica vagans,' said the Doctor, picking a flower; 'it is rather uncommon about here;' and handing it at the same time to Venetia. 'My father must have been very young when he died?' said Venetia, scarcely looking at the flower. 'Yes, your father was very young,' he replied. 'Where did he die?' 'I cannot answer that question.' 'Where was he buried?' 'You know, my dear young lady, that the subject is too tender for any one to converse with your poor mother upon it. It is not in my power to give you the information you desire. Be satisfied, my dear Miss Herbert, that a gracious Providence has spared to you one parent, and one so inestimable.' 'I trust I know how to appreciate so great a blessing,' replied Venetia; 'but I should be sorry if the natural interest which all children must take in those who have given them birth, should be looked upon as idle and unjustifiable curiosity.' 'My dear young lady, you misapprehend me.' 'No, Doctor Masham, indeed I do not,' replied Venetia, with firmness. 'I can easily conceive that the mention of my father may for various reasons be insupportable to my mother; it is enough for me that I am convinced such is the case: my lips are sealed to her for ever upon the subject; but I cannot recognise the necessity of this constraint to others. For a long time I was kept in ignorance whether I had a father or not. I have discovered, no matter how, who he was. I believe, pardon me, my dearest friend, I cannot help believing, that you were acquainted, or, at least, that you know something of him; and I entreat you! yes,' repeated Venetia with great emphasis, laying her hand upon his arm, and looking with earnestness in his face, 'I entreat you, by all your kind feelings to my mother and myself, by all that friendship we so prize, by the urgent solicitation of a daughter who is influenced in her curiosity by no light or unworthy feeling; yes! by all the claims of a child to information which ought not to be withheld from her, tell me, tell me all, tell me something! Speak, Dr. Masham, do speak!' 'My dear young lady,' said the Doctor, with a glistening eye, 'it is better that we should both be silent.' 'No, indeed,' replied Venetia, 'it is not better; it is not well that we should be silent. Candour is a great virtue. There is a charm, a healthy charm, in frankness. Why this mystery? Why these secrets? Have they worked good? Have they benefited us? O! my friend, I would not say so to my mother, I would not be tempted by any sufferings to pain for an instant her pure and affectionate heart; but indeed, Doctor Masham, indeed, indeed, what I tell you is true, all my late illness, my present state, all, all are attributable but to one cause, this mystery about my father!' 'What can I tell you?' said the unhappy Masham. 'Tell me only one fact. I ask no more. Yes! I promise you, solemnly I promise you, I will ask no more. Tell me, does he live?' 'He does!' said the Doctor. Venetia sank upon his shoulder. 'My dear young lady, my darling young lady!' said the Doctor; 'she has fainted. What can I do?' The unfortunate Doctor placed Venetia in a reclining posture, and hurried to a brook that was nigh, and brought water in his hand to sprinkle on her. She revived; she made a struggle to restore herself. 'It is nothing,' she said, 'I am resolved to be well. I am well. I am myself again. He lives; my father lives! I was confident of it! I will ask no more. I am true to my word. O! Doctor Masham, you have always been my kind friend, but you have never yet conferred on me a favour like the one you have just bestowed.' 'But it is well,' said the Doctor, 'as you know so much, that you should know more.' 'Yes! yes!' 'As we walk along,' he continued, 'we will converse, or at another time; there is no lack of opportunity.' 'No, now, now!' eagerly exclaimed Venetia, 'I am quite well. It was not pain or illness that overcame me. Now let us walk, now let us talk of these things. He lives?' 'I have little to add,' said Dr. Masham, after a moment's thought; 'but this, however painful, it is necessary for you to know, that your father is unworthy of your mother, utterly; they are separated; they never can be reunited.' 'Never?' said Venetia. 'Never,' replied Dr. Masham; 'and I now warn you; if, indeed, as I cannot doubt, you love your mother; if her peace of mind and happiness are, as I hesitate not to believe, the principal objects of your life, upon this subject with her be for ever silent. Seek to penetrate no mysteries, spare all allusions, banish, if possible, the idea of your father from your memory. Enough, you know he lives. We know no more. Your mother labours to forget him; her only consolation for sorrows such as few women ever experienced, is her child, yourself, your love. Now be no niggard with it. Cling to this unrivalled parent, who has dedicated her life to you. Soothe her sufferings, endeavour to make her share your happiness; but, of this be certain, that if you raise up the name and memory of your father between your mother and yourself, her life will be the forfeit!' 'His name shall never pass my lips,' said Venetia; 'solemnly I vow it. That his image shall be banished from my heart is too much to ask, and more than it is in my power to grant. But I am my mother's child. I will exist only for her; and if my love can console her, she shall never be without solace. I thank you, Doctor, for all your kindness. We will never talk again upon the subject; yet, believe me, you have acted wisely, you have done good.' CHAPTER XI. Venetia observed her promise to Doctor Masham with strictness. She never alluded to her father, and his name never escaped her mother's lips. Whether Doctor Masham apprised Lady Annabel of the conversation that had taken place between himself and her daughter, it is not in our power to mention. The visit to Marringhurst was not a short one. It was a relief both to Lady Annabel and Venetia, after all that had occurred, to enjoy the constant society of their friend; and this change of life, though apparently so slight, proved highly beneficial to Venetia. She daily recovered her health, and a degree of mental composure which she had not for some time enjoyed. On the whole she was greatly satisfied with the discoveries which she had made. She had ascertained the name and the existence of her father: his very form and appearance were now no longer matter for conjecture; and in a degree she had even communicated with him. Time, she still believed, would develope even further wonders. She clung to an irresistible conviction that she should yet see him; that he might even again be united to her mother. She indulged in dreams as to his present pursuits and position; she repeated to herself his verses, and remembered his genius with pride and consolation. They returned to Cherbury, they resumed the accustomed tenour of their lives, as if nothing had occurred to disturb it. The fondness between the mother and her daughter was unbroken and undiminished. They shared again the same studies and the same amusements. Lady Annabel perhaps indulged the conviction that Venetia had imbibed the belief that her father was no more, and yet in truth that father was the sole idea on which her child ever brooded. Venetia had her secret now; and often as she looked up at the windows of the uninhabited portion of the building, she remembered with concealed, but not less keen exultation, that she had penetrated their mystery. She could muse for hours over all that chamber had revealed to her, and indulge in a thousand visions, of which her father was the centre. She was his 'own Venetia.' Thus he had hailed her at her birth, and thus he might yet again acknowledge her. If she could only ascertain where he existed! What if she could, and she were to communicate with him? He must love her. Her heart assured her he must love her. She could not believe, if they were to meet, that his breast could resist the silent appeal which the sight merely of his only child would suffice to make. Oh! why had her parents parted? What could have been his fault? He was so young! But a few, few years older than herself, when her mother must have seen him for the last time. Yes! for the last time beheld that beautiful form, and that countenance that seemed breathing only with genius and love. He might have been imprudent, rash, violent; but she would not credit for an instant that a stain could attach to the honour or the spirit of Marmion Herbert. The summer wore away. One morning, as Lady Annabel and Venetia were sitting together, Mistress Pauncefort bustled into the room with a countenance radiant with smiles and wonderment. Her ostensible business was to place upon the table a vase of flowers, but it was evident that her presence was occasioned by affairs of far greater urgency. The vase was safely deposited; Mistress Pauncefort gave the last touch to the arrangement of the flowers; she lingered about Lady Annabel. At length she said, 'I suppose you have heard the news, my lady?' 'Indeed, Pauncefort, I have not,' replied Lady Annabel. 'What news?' 'My lord is coming to the abbey.' 'Indeed!' 'Oh! yes, my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'I am not at all surprised your ladyship should be so astonished. Never to write, too! Well, I must say he might have given us a line. But he is coming, I am certain sure of that, my lady. My lord's gentleman has been down these two days; and all his dogs and guns too, my lady. And the keeper is ordered to be quite ready, my lady, for the first. I wonder if there is going to be a party. I should not be at all surprised.' 'Plantagenet returned!' said Lady Annabel. 'Well, I shall be very glad to see him again.' 'So shall I, my lady,' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'but I dare say we shall hardly know him again, he must be so grown. Trimmer has been over to the abbey, my lady, and saw my lord's valet. Quite the fine gentleman, Trimmer says. I was thinking of walking over myself this afternoon, to see poor Mrs. Quin, my lady; I dare say we might be of use, and neighbours should be handy, as they say. She is a very respectable woman, poor Mrs. Quin, and I am sure for my part, if your ladyship has no objection, I should be very glad to be of service to her.' 'I have of course no objection, Pauncefort, to your being of service to the housekeeper, but has she required your assistance?' 'Why no, my lady, but poor Mrs. Quin would hardly like to ask for anything, my lady; but I am sure we might be of very great use, for my lord's gentleman seems very dissatisfied at his reception, Trimmer says. He has his hot breakfast every morning, my lady, and poor Mrs. Quin says--' 'Well, Pauncefort, that will do,' said Lady Annabel, and the functionary disappeared. 'We have almost forgotten Plantagenet, Venetia,' added Lady Annabel, addressing herself to her daughter. 'He has forgotten us, I think, mamma,' said Venetia. END OF BOOK II BOOK III. CHAPTER I. Five years had elapsed since Lord Cadurcis had quitted the seat of his fathers, nor did the fair inhabitants of Cherbury hear of his return without emotion. Although the intercourse between them during this interval had from the first been too slightly maintained, and of late years had entirely died off, his return was, nevertheless, an event which recalled old times and revived old associations. His visit to the hall was looked forward to with interest. He did not long keep his former friends in suspense; for although he was not uninfluenced by some degree of embarrassment from the consciousness of neglect on his side, rendered more keen now that he again found himself in the scene endeared by the remembrance of their kindness, he was, nevertheless, both too well bred and too warm-hearted to procrastinate the performance of a duty which the regulations of society and natural impulse alike assured him was indispensable. On the very morning, therefore, after his arrival, having sauntered awhile over the old abbey and strolled over the park, mused over his mother's tomb with emotion, not the less deep because there was no outward and visible sign of its influence, he ordered his horses, and directed his way through the accustomed woods to Cherbury. Five years had not passed away without their effects at least upon the exterior being of Cadurcis. Although still a youth, his appearance was manly. A thoughtful air had become habitual to a countenance melancholy even in his childhood. Nor was its early promise of beauty unfulfilled; although its expression was peculiar, and less pleasing than impressive. His long dark locks shaded a pale and lofty brow that well became a cast of features delicately moulded, yet reserved and haughty, and perhaps even somewhat scornful. His figure had set into a form of remarkable slightness and elegance, and distinguished for its symmetry. Altogether his general mien was calculated to attract attention and to excite interest. His vacations while at Eton had been spent by Lord Cadurcis in the family of his noble guardian, one of the king's ministers. Here he had been gradually initiated in the habits and manners of luxurious and refined society. Since he had quitted Eton he had passed a season, previous to his impending residence at Cambridge, in the same sphere. The opportunities thus offered had not been lost upon a disposition which, with all its native reserve, was singularly susceptible. Cadurcis had quickly imbibed the tone and adopted the usages of the circle in which he moved. Naturally impatient of control, he endeavoured by his precocious manhood to secure the respect and independence which would scarcely have been paid or permitted to his years. From an early period he never permitted himself to be treated as a boy; and his guardian, a man whose whole soul was concentred in the world, humoured a bent which he approved and from which he augured the most complete success. Attracted by the promising talents and the premature character of his ward, he had spared more time to assist the development of his mind and the formation of his manners than might have been expected from a minister of state. His hopes, indeed, rested with confidence on his youthful relative, and he looked forward with no common emotion to the moment when he should have the honour of introducing to public life one calculated to confer so much credit on his tutor, and shed so much lustre on his party. The reader will, therefore, not be surprised if at this then unrivalled period of political excitement, when the existence of our colonial empire was at stake, Cadurcis, with his impetuous feelings, had imbibed to their fullest extent all the plans, prejudices, and passions of his political connections. He was, indeed, what the circumstances of the times and his extreme youth might well excuse, if not justify, a most violent partisan. Bold, sanguine, resolute, and intolerant, it was difficult to persuade him that any opinions could be just which were opposed to those of the circle in which he lived; and out of that pale, it must be owned, he was as little inclined to recognise the existence of ability as of truth. As Lord Cadurcis slowly directed his way through the woods and park of Cherbury, past years recurred to him like a faint yet pleasing dream. Among these meads and bowers had glided away the only happy years of his boyhood, the only period of his early life to which he could look back without disgust. He recalled the secret exultation with which, in company with his poor mother, he had first repaired to Cadurcis, about to take possession of what, to his inexperienced imagination, then appeared a vast and noble inheritance, and for the first time in his life to occupy a position not unworthy of his rank. For how many domestic mortifications did the first sight of that old abbey compensate! How often, in pacing its venerable galleries and solemn cloisters, and musing over the memory of an ancient and illustrious ancestry, had he forgotten those bitter passages of daily existence, so humbling to his vanity and so harassing to his heart! Ho had beheld that morn, after an integral of many years, the tomb of his mother. That simple and solitary monument had revived and impressed upon him a conviction that too easily escaped in the various life and busy scenes in which he had since moved, the conviction of his worldly desolation and utter loneliness. He had no parents, no relations; now that he was for a moment free from the artificial life in which he had of late mingled, he felt that he had no friends. The image of his mother came back to him, softened by the magical tint of years; after all she was his mother, and a deep sharer in all his joys and woes. Transported to the old haunts of his innocent and warm-hearted childhood. He sighed for a finer and a sweeter sympathy than was ever yielded by the roof which he had lately quitted; a habitation, but not a home. He conjured up the picture of his guardian, existing in a whirl of official bustle and social excitement. A dreamy reminiscence of finer impulses stole over the heart of Cadurcis. The dazzling pageant of metropolitan splendour faded away before the bright scene of nature that surrounded him. He felt the freshness of the fragrant breeze; he gazed with admiration on the still and ancient woods, and his pure and lively blood bubbled beneath the influence of the golden sunbeams. Before him rose the halls of Cherbury, that roof where he had been so happy, that roof to which he had appeared so ungrateful. The memory of a thousand acts of kindness, of a thousand soft and soothing traits of affection, recurred to him with a freshness which startled as much as it pleased him. Not to him only, but to his mother, that mother whose loss he had lived to deplore, had the inmates of Cherbury been ministering angels of peace and joy. Oh! that indeed had been a home; there indeed had been days of happiness; there indeed he had found sympathy, and solace, and succour! And now he was returning to them a stranger, to fulfil one of the formal duties of society in paying them his cold respects; an attention which he could scarcely have avoided offering had he been to them the merest acquaintance, instead of having found within those walls a home not merely in words, but friendship the most delicate and love the most pure, a second parent, and the only being whom he had ever styled sister! The sight of Cadurcis became dim with emotion as the associations of old scenes and his impending interview with Venetia brought back the past with a power which he had rarely experienced in the playing-fields of Eton, or the saloons of London. Five years! It was an awful chasm in their acquaintance. He despaired of reviving the kindness which had been broken by such a dreary interval, and broken on his side so wilfully; and yet he began to feel that unless met with that kindness he should be very miserable. Sooth to say, he was not a little embarrassed, and scarcely knew which contingency he most desired, to meet, or to escape from her. He almost repented his return to Cadurcis, and yet to see Venetia again he felt must be exquisite pleasure. Influenced by these feelings he arrived at the hall steps, and so, dismounting and giving his horse to his groom, Cadurcis, with a palpitating heart and faltering hand, formally rang the bell of that hall which in old days he entered at all seasons without ceremony. Never perhaps did a man feel more nervous; he grew pale, paler even than usual, and his whole frame trembled as the approaching footstep of the servant assured him the door was about to open. He longed now that the family might not be at home, that he might at least gain four-and-twenty hours to prepare himself. But the family were at home and he was obliged to enter. He stopped for a moment in the hall under the pretence of examining the old familiar scene, but it was merely to collect himself, for his sight was clouded; spoke to the old servant, to reassure himself by the sound of his own voice, but the husky words seemed to stick in his throat; ascended the staircase with tottering steps, and leant against the banister as he heard his name announced. The effort, however, must be made; it was too late to recede; and Lord Cadurcis, entering the terrace-room, extended his hand to Lady Annabel Herbert. She was not in the least changed, but looked as beautiful and serene as usual. Her salutation, though far from deficient in warmth, was a little more dignified than that which Plantagenet remembered; but still her presence reassured him, and while he pressed her hand with earnestness he contrived to murmur forth with pleasing emotion, his delight at again meeting her. Strange to say, in the absorbing agitation of the moment, all thought of Venetia had vanished; and it was when he had turned and beheld a maiden of the most exquisite beauty that his vision had ever lighted on, who had just risen from her seat and was at the moment saluting him, that he entirely lost his presence of mind; he turned scarlet, was quite silent, made an awkward bow, and then stood perfectly fixed. 'My daughter,' said Lady Annabel, slightly pointing to Venetia; 'will not you be seated?' Cadurcis fell into a chair in absolute confusion. The rare and surpassing beauty of Venetia, his own stupidity, his admiration of her, his contempt for himself, the sight of the old chamber, the recollection of the past, the minutest incidents of which seemed all suddenly to crowd upon his memory, the painful consciousness of the revolution which had occurred in his position in the family, proved by his first being obliged to be introduced to Venetia, and then being addressed so formally by his title by her mother; all these impressions united overcame him; he could not speak, he sat silent and confounded; and had it not been for the imperturbable self-composure and delicate and amiable consideration of Lady Annabel, it would have been impossible for him to have remained in a room where he experienced agonising embarrassment. Under cover, however, of a discharge of discreet inquiries as to when he arrived, how long he meant to stay, whether he found Cadurcis altered, and similar interrogations which required no extraordinary exertion of his lordship's intellect to answer, but to which he nevertheless contrived to give inconsistent and contradictory responses, Cadurcis in time recovered himself sufficiently to maintain a fair though not very brilliant conversation, and even ventured occasionally to address an observation to Venetia, who was seated at her work perfectly composed, but who replied to all his remarks with the same sweet voice and artless simplicity which had characterised her childhood, though time and thought had, by their blended influence, perhaps somewhat deprived her of that wild grace and sparkling gaiety for which she was once so eminent. These great disenchanters of humanity, if indeed they had stolen away some of the fascinating qualities of infancy, had amply recompensed Venetia Herbert for the loss by the additional and commanding charms which they had conferred on her. From a beautiful child she had expanded into a most beautiful woman. She had now entirely recovered from her illness, of which the only visible effect was the addition that it had made to her stature, already slightly above the middle height, but of exquisite symmetry. Like her mother, she did not wear powder, then usual in society; but her auburn hair, of the finest texture, descended in long and luxuriant tresses far over her shoulders, braided with ribands, perfectly exposing her pellucid brow, here and there tinted with an undulating vein, for she had retained, if possible with increased lustre, the dazzling complexion of her infancy. If the rose upon the cheek were less vivid than of yore, the dimples were certainly more developed; the clear grey eye was shadowed by long dark lashes, and every smile and movement of those ruby lips revealed teeth exquisitely small and regular, and fresh and brilliant as pearls just plucked by a diver. Conversation proceeded and improved. Cadurcis became more easy and more fluent. His memory, which seemed suddenly to have returned to him with unusual vigour, wonderfully served him. There was scarcely an individual of whom he did not contrive to inquire, from Dr. Masham to Mistress Pauncefort; he was resolved to show that if he had neglected, he had at least not forgotten them. Nor did he exhibit the slightest indication of terminating his visit; so that Lady Annabel, aware that he was alone at the abbey and that he could have no engagement in the neighbourhood, could not refrain from inviting him to remain and dine with them. The invitation was accepted without hesitation. In due course of time Cadurcis attended the ladies in their walk; it was a delightful stroll in the park, though he felt some slight emotion when he found himself addressing Venetia by the title of 'Miss Herbert.' When he had exhausted all the topics of local interest, he had a great deal to say about himself in answer to the inquiries of Lady Annabel. He spoke with so much feeling and simplicity of his first days at Eton, and the misery he experienced on first quitting Cherbury, that his details could not fail of being agreeable to those whose natural self-esteem they so agreeably mattered. Then he dwelt upon his casual acquaintance with London society, and Lady Annabel was gratified to observe, from many incidental observations, that his principles were in every respect of the right tone; and that he had zealously enlisted himself in the ranks of that national party who opposed themselves to the disorganising opinions then afloat. He spoke of his impending residence at the university with the affectionate anticipations which might have been expected from a devoted child of the ancient and orthodox institutions of his country, and seemed perfectly impressed with the responsible duties for which he was destined, as an hereditary legislator of England. On the whole, his carriage and conversation afforded a delightful evidence of a pure, and earnest, and frank, and gifted mind, that had acquired at an early age much of the mature and fixed character of manhood, without losing anything of that boyish sincerity and simplicity too often the penalty of experience. The dinner passed in pleasant conversation, and if they were no longer familiar, they were at least cordial. Cadurcis spoke of Dr. Masham with affectionate respect, and mentioned his intention of visiting Marringhurst on the following day. He ventured to hope that Lady Annabel and Miss Herbert might accompany him, and it was arranged that his wish should be gratified. The evening drew on apace, and Lady Annabel was greatly pleased when Lord Cadurcis expressed his wish to remain for their evening prayers. He was indeed sincerely religious; and as he knelt in the old chapel that had been the hallowed scene of his boyish devotions, he offered his ardent thanksgivings to his Creator who had mercifully kept his soul pure and true, and allowed him, after so long an estrangement from the sweet spot of his childhood, once more to mingle his supplications with his kind and virtuous friends. Influenced by the solemn sounds still lingering in his ear, Cadurcis bade them farewell for the night, with an earnestness of manner and depth of feeling which he would scarcely have ventured to exhibit at their first meeting. 'Good night, dear Lady Annabel,' he said, as he pressed her hand; 'you know not how happy, how grateful I feel, to be once more at Cherbury. Good night, Venetia!' That last word lingered on his lips; it was uttered in a tone at once mournful and sweet, and her hand was unconsciously retained for a moment in his; but for a moment; and yet in that brief instant a thousand thoughts seemed to course through his brain. Before Venetia retired to rest she remained for a few minutes in her mother's room. 'What do you think of him, mamma?' she said; 'is he not very changed?' 'He is, my love,' replied Lady Annabel; 'what I sometimes thought he might, what I always hoped he would, be.' 'He really seemed happy to meet us again, and yet how strange that for years he should never have communicated with us.' 'Not so very strange, my love! He was but a child when we parted, and he has felt embarrassment in resuming connections which for a long interval had been inevitably severed. Remember what a change his life had to endure; few, after such an interval, would have returned with feelings so kind and so pure!' 'He was always a favourite of yours, mamma!' 'I always fancied that I observed in him the seeds of great virtues and great talents; but I was not so sanguine that they would have flourished as they appear to have done.' In the meantime the subject of their observations strolled home on foot, for he had dismissed his horses, to the abbey. It was a brilliant night, and the white beams of the moon fell full upon the old monastic pile, of which massy portions were in dark shade while the light gracefully rested on the projecting ornaments of the building, and played, as it were, with the fretted and fantastic pinnacles. Behind were the savage hills, softened by the hour; and on the right extended the still and luminous lake. Cadurcis rested for a moment and gazed upon the fair, yet solemn scene. The dreams of ambition that occasionally distracted him were dead. The surrounding scene harmonised with the thoughts of purity, repose, and beauty that filled his soul. Why should he ever leave this spot, sacred to him by the finest emotions of his nature? Why should he not at once quit that world which he had just entered, while he could quit it without remorse? If ever there existed a being who was his own master, who might mould his destiny at his will, it seemed to be Cadurcis. His lone yet independent situation, his impetuous yet firm volition, alike qualified him to achieve the career most grateful to his disposition. Let him, then, achieve it here; here let him find that solitude he had ever loved, softened by that affection for which he had ever sighed, and which here only he had ever found. It seemed to him that there was only one being in the world whom he had ever loved, and that was Venetia Herbert: it seemed to him that there was only one thing in this world worth living for, and that was the enjoyment of her sweet heart. The pure-minded, the rare, the gracious creature! Why should she ever quit these immaculate bowers wherein she had been so mystically and delicately bred? Why should she ever quit the fond roof of Cherbury, but to shed grace and love amid the cloisters of Cadurcis? Her life hitherto had been an enchanted tale; why should the spell ever break? Why should she enter that world where care, disappointment, mortification, misery, must await her? He for a season had left the magic circle of her life, and perhaps it was well. He was a man, and so he should know all. But he had returned, thank Heaven! he had returned, and never again would he quit her. Fool that he had been ever to have neglected her! And for a reason that ought to have made him doubly her friend, her solace, her protector. Oh! to think of the sneers or the taunts of the world calling for a moment the colour from that bright cheek, or dusking for an instant the radiance of that brilliant eye! His heart ached at the thought of her unhappiness, and he longed to press her to it, and cherish her like some innocent dove that had flown from the terrors of a pursuing hawk. CHAPTER II. 'Well, Pauncefort,' said Lord Cadurcis, smiling, as he renewed his acquaintance with his old friend, 'I hope you have not forgotten my last words, and have taken care of your young lady.' 'Oh! dear, my lord,' said Mistress Pauncefort, blushing and simpering. 'Well to be sure, how your lordship has surprised us all! I thought we were never going to see you again!' 'You know I told you I should return; and now I mean never to leave you again.' 'Never is a long word, my lord,' said Mistress Pauncefort, looking very archly. 'Ah! but I mean to settle, regularly to settle here,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Marry and settle, my lord,' said Mistress Pauncefort, still more arch. 'And why not?' inquired Lord Cadurcis, laughing. 'That is just what I said last night,' exclaimed Mistress Pauncefort, eagerly. 'And why not? for I said, says I, his lordship must marry sooner or later, and the sooner the better, say I: and to be sure he is very young, but what of that? for, says I, no one can say he does not look quite a man. And really, my lord, saving your presence, you are grown indeed.' 'Pish!' said Lord Cadurcis, turning away and laughing, 'I have left off growing, Pauncefort, and all those sort of things.' 'You have not forgotten our last visit to Marringhurst?' said Lord Cadurcis to Venetia, as the comfortable mansion of the worthy Doctor appeared in sight. 'I have forgotten nothing,' replied Venetia with a faint smile; 'I do not know what it is to forget. My life has been so uneventful that every past incident, however slight, is as fresh in my memory as if it occurred yesterday.' 'Then you remember the strawberries and cream?' said Lord Cadurcis. 'And other circumstances less agreeable,' he fancied Venetia observed, but her voice was low. 'Do you know, Lady Annabel,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'that I was very nearly riding my pony to-day? I wish to bring back old times with the utmost possible completeness; I wish for a moment to believe that I have never quitted Cherbury.' 'Let us think only of the present now,' said Lady Annabel in a cheerful voice, 'for it is very agreeable. I see the good Doctor; he has discovered us.' 'I wonder whom he fancies Lord Cadurcis to be?' said Venetia. 'Have you no occasional cavalier for whom at a distance I may be mistaken?' inquired his lordship in a tone of affected carelessness, though in truth it was an inquiry that he made not without anxiety. 'Everything remains here exactly as you left it,' replied Lady Annabel, with some quickness, yet in a lively tone. 'Happy Cherbury!' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis. 'May it indeed never change!' They rode briskly on; the Doctor was standing at his gate. He saluted Lady Annabel and Venetia with his accustomed cordiality, and then stared at their companion as if waiting for an introduction. 'You forget an old friend, my dear Doctor,' said Cadurcis. 'Lord Cadurcis!' exclaimed Dr. Masham. His lordship had by this time dismounted and eagerly extended his hand to his old tutor. Having quitted their horses they all entered the house, nor was there naturally any want of conversation. Cadurcis had much information to give and many questions to answer. He was in the highest spirits and the most amiable mood; gay, amusing, and overflowing with kind-heartedness. The Doctor seldom required any inspiration, to be joyous, and Lady Annabel was unusually animated. Venetia alone, though cheerful, was calmer than pleased Cadurcis. Time, he sorrowfully observed, had occasioned a greater change in her manner than he could have expected. Youthful as she still was, indeed but on the threshold of womanhood, and exempted, as it seemed she had been, from anything to disturb the clearness of her mind, that enchanting play of fancy which had once characterised her, and which he recalled with a sigh, appeared in a great degree to have deserted her. He watched her countenance with emotion, and, supremely beautiful as it undeniably was, there was a cast of thoughtfulness or suffering impressed upon the features which rendered him mournful he knew not why, and caused him to feel as if a cloud had stolen unexpectedly over the sun and made him shiver. But there was no time or opportunity for sad reflections; he had to renew his acquaintance with all the sights and curiosities of the rectory, to sing to the canaries, and visit the gold fish, admire the stuffed fox, and wonder that in the space of five years the voracious otter had not yet contrived to devour its prey. Then they refreshed themselves after their ride with a stroll in the Doctor's garden; Cadurcis persisted in attaching himself to Venetia, as in old days, and nothing would prevent him from leading her to the grotto. Lady Annabel walked behind, leaning on the Doctor's arm, narrating, with no fear of being heard, all the history of their friend's return. 'I never was so surprised in my life,' said the Doctor; 'he is vastly improved; he is quite a man; his carriage is very finished.' 'And his principles,' said Lady Annabel. 'You have no idea, my dear Doctor, how right his opinions seem to be on every subject. He has been brought up in a good school; he does his guardian great credit. He is quite loyal and orthodox in all his opinions; ready to risk his life for our blessed constitution in Church and State. He requested, as a favour, that he might remain at our prayers last night. It is delightful for me to see him turn out so well!' In the meantime Cadurcis and Venetia entered the grotto. 'The dear Doctor!' said Cadurcis: 'five years have brought no visible change even to him; perhaps he may be a degree less agile, but I will not believe it. And Lady Annabel; it seems to me your mother is more youthful and beautiful than ever. There is a spell in our air,' continued his lordship, with a laughing eye; 'for if we have changed, Venetia, ours is, at least, an alteration that bears no sign of decay. We are advancing, but they have not declined; we are all enchanted.' 'I feel changed,' said Venetia gravely. 'I left you a child and I find you a woman,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'a change which who can regret?' 'I would I were a child again,' said Venetia. 'We were happy,' said Lord Cadurcis, in a thoughtful tone; and then in an inquiring voice he added, 'and so we are now?' Venetia shook her head. 'Can you be unhappy?' 'To be unhappy would be wicked,' said Venetia; 'but my mind has lost its spring.' 'Ah! say not so, Venetia, or you will make even me gloomy. I am happy, positively happy. There must not be a cloud upon your brow.' 'You are joyous,' said Venetia, 'because you are excited. It is the novelty of return that animates you. It will wear off; you will grow weary, and when you go to the university you will think yourself happy again.' 'I do not intend to go to the university,' said Cadurcis. 'I understood from you that you were going there immediately.' 'My plans are changed,' said Cadurcis; 'I do not intend ever to leave home again.' 'When you go to Cambridge,' said Dr. Masham, who just then reached them, 'I shall trouble you with a letter to an old friend of mine whose acquaintance you may find valuable.' Venetia smiled; Cadurcis bowed, expressed his thanks, and muttered something about talking over the subject with the Doctor. After this the conversation became general, and at length they all returned to the house to partake of the Doctor's hospitality, who promised to dine at the hall on the morrow. The ride home was agreeable and animated, but the conversation on the part of the ladies was principally maintained by Lady Annabel, who seemed every moment more delighted with the society of Lord Cadurcis, and to sympathise every instant more completely with his frank exposition of his opinions on all subjects. When they returned to Cherbury, Cadurcis remained with them as a matter of course. An invitation was neither expected nor given. Not an allusion was made to the sports of the field, to enjoy which was the original purpose of his visit to the abbey; and he spoke of to-morrow as of a period which, as usual, was to be spent entirely in their society. He remained with them, as on the previous night, to the latest possible moment. Although reserved in society, no one could be more fluent with those with whom he was perfectly unembarrassed. He was indeed exceedingly entertaining, and Lady Annabel relaxed into conversation beyond her custom. As for Venetia, she did not speak often, but she listened with interest, and was evidently amused. When Cadurcis bade them good-night Lady Annabel begged him to breakfast with them; while Venetia, serene, though kind, neither seconded the invitation, nor seemed interested one way or the other in its result. CHAPTER III. Except returning to sleep at the abbey, Lord Cadurcis was now as much an habitual inmate of Cherbury Hall as in the days of his childhood. He was there almost with the lark, and never quitted its roof until its inmates were about to retire for the night. His guns and dogs, which had been sent down from London with so much pomp of preparation, were unused and unnoticed; and he passed his days in reading Richardson's novels, which he had brought with him from town, to the ladies, and then in riding with them about the country, for he loved to visit all his old haunts, and trace even the very green sward where he first met the gipsies, and fancied that he had achieved his emancipation from all the coming cares and annoyances of the world. In this pleasant life several weeks had glided away: Cadurcis had entirely resumed his old footing in the family, nor did he attempt to conceal the homage he was paying to the charms of Venetia. She indeed seemed utterly unconscious that such projects had entered, or indeed could enter, the brain of her old playfellow, with whom, now that she was habituated to his presence, and revived by his inspiriting society, she had resumed all her old familiar intimacy, addressing him by his Christian name, as if he had never ceased to be her brother. But Lady Annabel was not so blind as her daughter, and had indeed her vision been as clouded, her faithful minister, Mistress Pauncefort, would have taken care quickly to couch it; for a very short time had elapsed before that vigilant gentlewoman, resolved to convince her mistress that nothing could escape her sleepless scrutiny, and that it was equally in vain for her mistress to hope to possess any secrets without her participation, seized a convenient opportunity before she bid her lady good night, just to inquire 'when it might be expected to take place?' and in reply to the very evident astonishment which Lady Annabel testified at this question, and the expression of her extreme displeasure at any conversation on a circumstance for which there was not the slightest foundation, Mistress Pauncefort, after duly flouncing about with every possible symbol of pettish agitation and mortified curiosity, her cheek pale with hesitating impertinence, and her nose quivering with inquisitiveness, condescended to admit with a sceptical sneer, that, of course, no doubt her ladyship knew more of such a subject than she could; it was not her place to know anything of such business; for her part she said nothing; it was not her place, but if it were, she certainly must say that she could not help believing that my lord was looking remarkably sweet on Miss Venetia, and what was more, everybody in the house thought the same, though for her part, whenever they mentioned the circumstance to her, she said nothing, or bid them hold their tongues, for what was it to them; it was not their business, and they could know nothing; and that nothing would displease her ladyship more than chattering on such subjects, and many's the match as good as finished, that's gone off by no worse means than the chitter-chatter of those who should hold their tongues. Therefore she should say no more; but if her ladyship wished her to contradict it, why she could, and the sooner, perhaps, the better. Lady Annabel observed to her that she wished no such thing, but she desired that Pauncefort would make no more observations on the subject, either to her or to any one else. And then Pauncefort bade her ladyship good night in a huff, catching up her candle with a rather impertinent jerk, and gently slamming the door, as if she had meant to close it quietly, only it had escaped out of her fingers. Whatever might be the tone, whether of surprise or displeasure, which Lady Annabel thought fit to assume to her attendant on her noticing Lord Cadurcis' attentions to her daughter, there is no doubt that his conduct had early and long engaged her ladyship's remark, her consideration, and her approval. Without meditating indeed an immediate union between Cadurcis and Venetia, Lady Annabel pleased herself with the prospect of her daughter's eventual marriage with one whom she had known so early and so intimately; who was by nature of a gentle, sincere, and affectionate disposition, and in whom education had carefully instilled the most sound and laudable principles and opinions; one apparently with simple tastes, moderate desires, fair talents, a mind intelligent, if not brilliant, and passions which at the worst had been rather ill-regulated than violent; attached also to Venetia from her childhood, and always visibly affected by her influence. All these moral considerations seemed to offer a fair security for happiness; and the material ones were neither less promising, nor altogether disregarded by the mother. It was an union which would join broad lands and fair estates; which would place on the brow of her daughter one of the most ancient coronets in England; and, which indeed was the chief of these considerations, would, without exposing Venetia to that contaminating contact with the world from which Lady Annabel recoiled, establish her, without this initiatory and sorrowful experience, in a position superior to which even the blood of the Herberts, though it might flow in so fair and gifted a form as that of Venetia, need not aspire. Lord Cadurcis had not returned to Cherbury a week before this scheme entered into the head of Lady Annabel. She had always liked him; had always given him credit for good qualities; had always believed that his early defects were the consequence of his mother's injudicious treatment; and that at heart he was an amiable, generous, and trustworthy being, one who might be depended on, with a naturally good judgment, and substantial and sufficient talents, which only required cultivation. When she met him again after so long an interval, and found her early prognostics so fairly, so completely fulfilled, and watched his conduct and conversation, exhibiting alike a well-informed mind, an obliging temper, and, what Lady Annabel valued even above all gifts and blessings, a profound conviction of the truth of all her own opinions, moral, political, and religious, she was quite charmed; she was moved to unusual animation; she grew excited in his praise; his presence delighted her; she entertained for him the warmest affection, and reposed in him unbounded confidence. All her hopes became concentred in the wish of seeing him her son-in-law; and she detected with lively satisfaction the immediate impression which Venetia had made upon his heart; for indeed it should not be forgotten, that although Lady Annabel was still young, and although her frame and temperament were alike promising of a long life, it was natural, when she reflected upon the otherwise lone condition of her daughter, that she should tremble at the thought of quitting this world without leaving her child a protector. To Doctor Masham, from whom Lady Annabel had no secrets, she confided in time these happy but covert hopes, and he was not less anxious than herself for their fulfilment. Since the return of Cadurcis the Doctor contrived to be a more frequent visitor at the hall than usual, and he lost no opportunity of silently advancing the object of his friend. As for Cadurcis himself, it was impossible for him not quickly to discover that no obstacle to his heart's dearest wish would arise on the part of the parent. The demeanour of the daughter somewhat more perplexed him. Venetia indeed had entirely fallen into her old habits of intimacy and frankness with Plantagenet; she was as affectionate and as unembarrassed as in former days, and almost as gay; for his presence and companionship had in a great degree insensibly removed that stillness and gravity which had gradually influenced her mind and conduct. But in that conduct there was, and he observed it with some degree of mortification, a total absence of the consciousness of being the object of the passionate admiration of another. She treated Lord Cadurcis as a brother she much loved, who had returned to his home after a long absence. She liked to listen to his conversation, to hear of his adventures, to consult over his plans. His arrival called a smile to her face, and his departure for the night was always alleviated by some allusion to their meeting on the morrow. But many an ardent gaze on the part of Cadurcis, and many a phrase of emotion, passed unnoticed and unappreciated. His gallantry was entirely thrown away, or, if observed, only occasioned a pretty stare at the unnecessary trouble he gave himself, or the strange ceremony which she supposed an acquaintance with society had taught him. Cadurcis attributed this reception of his veiled and delicate overtures to her ignorance of the world; and though he sighed for as passionate a return to his strong feelings as the sentiments which animated himself, he was on the whole not displeased, but rather interested, by these indications of a pure and unsophisticated spirit. CHAPTER IV. Cadurcis had proposed, and Lady Annabel had seconded the proposition with eager satisfaction, that they should seek some day at the abbey whatever hospitality it might offer; Dr. Masham was to be of the party, which was, indeed, one of those fanciful expeditions where the same companions, though they meet at all times without restraint and with every convenience of life, seek increased amusement in the novelty of a slight change of habits. With the aid of the neighbouring town of Southport, Cadurcis had made preparations for his friends not entirely unworthy of them, though he affected to the last all the air of a conductor of a wild expedition of discovery, and laughingly impressed upon them the necessity of steeling their minds and bodies to the experience and endurance of the roughest treatment and the most severe hardships. The morning of this eventful day broke as beautifully as the preceding ones. Autumn had seldom been more gorgeous than this year. Although he was to play the host, Cadurcis would not deprive himself of his usual visit to the hall; and he appeared there at an early hour to accompany his guests, who were to ride over to the abbey, to husband all their energies for their long rambles through the demesne. Cadurcis was in high spirits, and Lady Annabel scarcely less joyous. Venetia smiled with her usual sweetness and serenity. They congratulated each other on the charming season; and Mistress Pauncefort received a formal invitation to join the party and go a-nutting with one of her fellow-servants and his lordship's valet. The good Doctor was rather late, but he arrived at last on his stout steed, in his accustomed cheerful mood. Here was a party of pleasure which all agreed must be pleasant; no strangers to amuse, or to be amusing, but formed merely of four human beings who spent every day of their lives in each other's society, between whom there was the most complete sympathy and the most cordial good-will. By noon they were all mounted on their steeds, and though the air was warmed by a meridian sun shining in a clear sky, there was a gentle breeze abroad, sweet and grateful; and moreover they soon entered the wood and enjoyed the shelter of its verdant shade. The abbey looked most picturesque when they first burst upon it; the nearer and wooded hills, which formed its immediate background, just tinted by the golden pencil of autumn, while the meads of the valley were still emerald green; and the stream, now lost, now winding, glittered here and there in the sun, and gave a life and sprightliness to the landscape which exceeded even the effect of the more distant and expansive lake. They were received at the abbey by Mistress Pauncefort, who had preceded them, and who welcomed them with a complacent smile. Cadurcis hastened to assist Lady Annabel to dismount, and was a little confused but very pleased when she assured him she needed no assistance but requested him to take care of Venetia. He was just in time to receive her in his arms, where she found herself without the slightest embarrassment. The coolness of the cloisters was grateful after their ride, and they lingered and looked upon the old fountain, and felt the freshness of its fall with satisfaction which all alike expressed. Lady Annabel and Venetia then retired for a while to free themselves from their riding habits, and Cadurcis affectionately taking the arm of Dr. Masham led him a few paces, and then almost involuntarily exclaimed, 'My dear Doctor, I think I am the happiest fellow that ever lived!' 'That I trust you may always be, my dear boy,' said Dr. Masham; 'but what has called forth this particular exclamation?' 'To feel that I am once more at Cadurcis; to feel that I am here once more with you all; to feel that I never shall leave you again.' 'Not again?' 'Never!' said Cadurcis. 'The experience of these last few weeks, which yet have seemed an age in my existence, has made me resolve never to quit a society where I am persuaded I may obtain a degree of happiness which what is called the world can never afford me.' 'What will your guardian say?' 'What care I?' 'A dutiful ward!' 'Poh! the relations between us were formed only to secure my welfare. It is secured; it will be secured by my own resolution.' 'And what is that?' inquired Dr. Masham. 'To marry Venetia, if she will accept me.' 'And that you do not doubt.' 'We doubt everything when everything is at stake,' replied Lord Cadurcis. 'I know that her consent would ensure my happiness; and when I reflect, I cannot help being equally persuaded that it would secure hers. Her mother, I think, would not be adverse to our union. And you, my dear sir, what do you think?' 'I think,' said Dr. Masham, 'that whoever marries Venetia will marry the most beautiful and the most gifted of God's creatures; I hope you may marry her; I wish you to marry her; I believe you will marry her, but not yet; you are too young, Lord Cadurcis.' 'Oh, no! my dear Doctor, not too young to marry Venetia. Remember I have known her all my life, at least so long as I have been able to form an opinion. How few are the men, my dear Doctor, who are so fortunate as to unite themselves with women whom they have known, as I have known Venetia, for more than seven long years!' 'During five of which you have never seen or heard of her.' 'Mine was the fault! And yet I cannot help thinking, as it may probably turn out, as you yourself believe it will turn out, that it is as well that we have been separated for this interval. It has afforded me opportunities for observation which I should never have enjoyed at Cadurcis; and although my lot either way could not have altered the nature of things, I might have been discontented, I might have sighed for a world which now I do not value. It is true I have not seen Venetia for five years, but I find her the same, or changed only by nature, and fulfilling all the rich promise which her childhood intimated. No, my dear Doctor, I respect your opinion more than that of any man living; but nobody, nothing, can persuade me that I am not as intimately acquainted with Venetia's character, with all her rare virtues, as if we had never separated.' 'I do not doubt it,' said the Doctor; 'high as you may pitch your estimate you cannot overvalue her.' 'Then why should we not marry?' 'Because, my dear friend, although you may be perfectly acquainted with Venetia, you cannot be perfectly acquainted with yourself.' 'How so?' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis in a tone of surprise, perhaps a little indignant. 'Because it is impossible. No young man of eighteen ever possessed such precious knowledge. I esteem and admire you; I give you every credit for a good heart and a sound head; but it is impossible, at your time of life, that your character can be formed; and, until it be, you may marry Venetia and yet be a very miserable man.' 'It is formed,' said his lordship firmly; 'there is not a subject important to a human being on which my opinions are not settled.' 'You may live to change them all,' said the Doctor, 'and that very speedily.' 'Impossible!' said Lord Cadurcis. 'My dear Doctor, I cannot understand you; you say that you hope, that you wish, even that you believe that I shall marry Venetia; and yet you permit me to infer that our union will only make us miserable. What do you wish me to do?' 'Go to college for a term or two.' 'Without Venetia! I should die.' 'Well, if you be in a dying state you can return.' 'You joke, my dear Doctor.' 'My dear boy, I am perfectly serious.' 'But she may marry somebody else?' 'I am your only rival,' said the Doctor, with a smile; 'and though even friends can scarcely be trusted under such circumstances, I promise you not to betray you.' 'Your advice is not very pleasant,' said his lordship. 'Good advice seldom is,' said the Doctor. 'My dear Doctor, I have made up my mind to marry her, and marry her at once. I know her well, you admit that yourself. I do not believe that there ever was a woman like her, that there ever will be a woman like her. Nature has marked her out from other women, and her education has not been less peculiar. Her mystic breeding pleases me. It is something to marry a wife so fair, so pure, so refined, so accomplished, who is, nevertheless, perfectly ignorant of the world. I have dreamt of such things; I have paced these old cloisters when a boy and when I was miserable at home, and I have had visions, and this was one. I have sighed to live alone with a fair spirit for my minister. Venetia has descended from heaven for me, and for me alone. I am resolved I will pluck this flower with the dew upon its leaves.' 'I did not know I was reasoning with a poet,' said the Doctor, with a smile. 'Had I been conscious of it, I would not have been so rash.' 'I have not a grain of poetry in my composition,' said his lordship; 'I never could write a verse; I was notorious at Eton for begging all their old manuscripts from boys when they left school, to crib from; but I have a heart, and I can feel. I love Venetia, I have always loved her, and, if possible, I will marry her, and marry her at once.' CHAPTER V. The reappearance of the ladies at the end of the cloister terminated this conversation, the result of which was rather to confirm Lord Cadurcis in his resolution of instantly urging his suit, than the reverse. He ran forward to greet his friends with a smile, and took his place by the side of Venetia, whom, a little to her surprise, he congratulated in glowing phrase on her charming costume. Indeed she looked very captivating, with a pastoral hat, then much in fashion, and a dress as simple and as sylvan, both showing to admirable advantage her long descending hair, and her agile and springy figure. Cadurcis proposed that they should ramble over the abbey, he talked of projected alterations, as if he really had the power immediately to effect them, and was desirous of obtaining their opinions before any change was made. So they ascended the staircase which many years before Venetia had mounted for the first time with her mother, and entered that series of small and ill-furnished rooms in which Mrs. Cadurcis had principally resided, and which had undergone no change. The old pictures were examined; these, all agreed, never must move; and the new furniture, it was settled, must be in character with the building. Lady Annabel entered into all the details with an interest and animation which rather amused Dr. Masham. Venetia listened and suggested, and responded to the frequent appeals of Cadurcis to her judgment with an unconscious equanimity not less diverting. 'Now here we really can do something,' said his lordship as they entered the saloon, or rather refectory; 'here I think we may effect wonders. The tapestry must always remain. Is it not magnificent, Venetia? But what hangings shall we have? We must keep the old chairs, I think. Do you approve of the old chairs, Venetia? And what shall we cover them with? Shall it be damask? What do you think, Venetia? Do you like damask? And what colour shall it be? Shall it be crimson? Shall it be crimson damask, Lady Annabel? Do you think Venetia would like crimson damask? Now, Venetia, do give us the benefit of your opinion.' Then they entered the old gallery; here was to be a great transformation. Marvels were to be effected in the old gallery, and many and multiplied were the appeals to the taste and fancy of Venetia. 'I think,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'I shall leave the gallery to be arranged when I am settled. The rooms and the saloon shall be done at once, I shall give orders for them to begin instantly. Whom do you recommend, Lady Annabel? Do you think there is any person at Southport who could manage to do it, superintended by our taste? Venetia, what do you think?' Venetia was standing at the window, rather apart from her companions, looking at the old garden. Lord Cadurcis joined her. 'Ah! it has been sadly neglected since my poor mother's time. We could not do much in those days, but still she loved this garden. I must depend upon you entirely to arrange my garden, Venetia. This spot is sacred to you. You have not forgotten our labours here, have you, Venetia? Ah! those were happy days, and these shall be more happy still. This is your garden; it shall always be called Venetia's garden.' 'I would have taken care of it when you were away, but--' 'But what?' inquired Lord Cadurcis anxiously. 'We hardly felt authorised,' replied Venetia calmly. 'We came at first when you left Cadurcis, but at last it did not seem that our presence was very acceptable.' 'The brutes!' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis. 'No, no; good simple people, they were unused to orders from strange masters, and they were perplexed. Besides, we had no right to interfere.' 'No right to interfere! Venetia, my little fellow-labourer, no right to interfere! Why all is yours! Fancy your having no right to interfere at Cadurcis!' Then they proceeded to the park and wandered to the margin of the lake. There was not a spot, not an object, which did not recall some adventure or incident of childhood. Every moment Lord Cadurcis exclaimed, 'Venetia! do you remember this?' 'Venetia! have you forgotten that?' and every time Venetia smiled, and proved how faithful was her memory by adding some little unmentioned trait to the lively reminiscences of her companion. 'Well, after all,' said Lord Cadurcis with a sigh, 'my poor mother was a strange woman, and, God bless her! used sometimes to worry me out of my senses! but still she always loved you. No one can deny that. Cherbury was a magic name with her. She loved Lady Annabel, and she loved you, Venetia. It ran in the blood, you see. She would be happy, quite happy, if she saw us all here together, and if she knew--' 'Plantagenet,' said Lady Annabel, 'you must build a lodge at this end of the park. I cannot conceive anything more effective than an entrance from the Southport road in this quarter.' 'Certainly, Lady Annabel, certainly we must build a lodge. Do not you think so, Venetia?' 'Indeed I think it would be a great improvement,' replied Venetia; 'but you must take care to have a lodge in character with the abbey.' 'You shall make a drawing for it,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'it shall be built directly, and it shall be called Venetia Lodge.' The hours flew away, loitering in the park, roaming in the woods. They met Mistress Pauncefort and her friends loaded with plunder, and they offered to Venetia a trophy of their success; but when Venetia, merely to please their kind hearts, accepted their tribute with cordiality, and declared there was nothing she liked better, Lord Cadurcis would not be satisfied unless he immediately commenced nutting, and each moment he bore to Venetia the produce of his sport, till in time she could scarcely sustain the rich and increasing burden. At length they bent their steps towards home, sufficiently wearied to look forward with welcome to rest and their repast, yet not fatigued, and exhilarated by the atmosphere, for the sun was now in its decline, though in this favoured season there were yet hours enough remaining of enchanting light. In the refectory they found, to the surprise of all but their host, a banquet. It was just one of those occasions when nothing is expected and everything is welcome and surprising; when, from the unpremeditated air generally assumed, all preparation startles and pleases; when even ladies are not ashamed to eat, and formality appears quite banished. Game of all kinds, teal from the lake, and piles of beautiful fruit, made the table alike tempting and picturesque. Then there were stray bottles of rare wine disinterred from venerable cellars; and, more inspiriting even than the choice wine, a host under the influence of every emotion, and swayed by every circumstance that can make a man happy and delightful. Oh! they were very gay, and it seemed difficult to believe that care or sorrow, or the dominion of dark or ungracious passions, could ever disturb sympathies so complete and countenances so radiant. At the urgent request of Cadurcis, Venetia sang to them; and while she sang, the expression of her countenance and voice harmonising with the arch hilarity of the subject, Plantagenet for a moment believed that he beheld the little Venetia of his youth, that sunny child so full of mirth and grace, the very recollection of whose lively and bright existence might enliven the gloomiest hour and lighten the heaviest heart. Enchanted by all that surrounded him, full of hope, and joy, and plans of future felicity, emboldened by the kindness of the daughter, Cadurcis now ventured to urge a request to Lady Annabel, and the request was granted, for all seemed to feel that it was a day on which nothing was to be refused to their friend. Happy Cadurcis! The child had a holiday, and it fancied itself a man enjoying a triumph. In compliance, therefore, with his wish, it was settled that they should all walk back to the hall; even Dr. Masham declared he was competent to the exertion, but perhaps was half entrapped into the declaration by the promise of a bed at Cherbury. This consent enchanted Cadurcis, who looked forward with exquisite pleasure to the evening walk with Venetia. CHAPTER VI. Although the sun had not set, it had sunk behind the hills leading to Cherbury when our friends quitted the abbey. Cadurcis, without hesitation, offered his arm to Venetia, and whether from a secret sympathy with his wishes, or merely from some fortunate accident, Lady Annabel and Dr. Masham strolled on before without busying themselves too earnestly with their companions. 'And how do you think our expedition to Cadurcis has turned out?' inquired the young lord, of Venetia, 'Has it been successful?' 'It has been one of the most agreeable days I ever passed,' was the reply. 'Then it has been successful,' rejoined his lordship; 'for my only wish was to amuse you.' 'I think we have all been equally amused,' said Venetia. 'I never knew mamma in such good spirits. I think ever since you returned she has been unusually light-hearted.' 'And you: has my return lightened only her heart, Venetia?' 'Indeed it has contributed to the happiness of every one.' 'And yet, when I first returned, I heard you utter a complaint; the first that to my knowledge ever escaped your lips.' 'Ah! we cannot be always equally gay.' 'Once you were, dear Venetia.' 'I was a child then.' 'And I, I too was a child; yet I am happy, at least now that I am with you.' 'Well, we are both happy now.' 'Oh! say that again, say that again, Venetia; for indeed you made me miserable when you told me that you had changed. I cannot bear that you, Venetia, should ever change.' 'It is the course of nature, Plantagenet; we all change, everything changes. This day that was so bright is changing fast.' 'The stars are as beautiful as the sun, Venetia.' 'And what do you infer?' 'That Venetia, a woman, is as beautiful as Venetia, a little girl; and should be as happy.' 'Is beauty happiness, Plantagenet?' 'It makes others happy, Venetia; and when we make others happy we should be happy ourselves.' 'Few depend upon my influence, and I trust all of them are happy.' 'No one depends upon your influence more than I do.' 'Well, then, be happy always.' 'Would that I might! Ah, Venetia! can I ever forget old days? You were the solace of my dark childhood; you were the charm that first taught me existence was enjoyment. Before I came to Cherbury I never was happy, and since that hour--Ah, Venetia! dear, dearest Venetia! who is like to you?' 'Dear Plantagenet, you were always too kind to me. Would we were children once more!' 'Nay, my own Venetia! you tell me everything changes, and we must not murmur at the course of nature. I would not have our childhood back again, even with all its joys, for there are others yet in store for us, not less pure, not less beautiful. We loved each other then, Venetia, and we love each other now.' 'My feelings towards you have never changed, Plantagenet; I heard of you always with interest, and I met you again with heartfelt pleasure.' 'Oh, that morning! Have you forgotten that morning? Do you know, you will smile very much, but I really believe that I expected to see my Venetia still a little girl, the very same who greeted me when I first arrived with my mother and behaved so naughtily! And when I saw you, and found what you had become, and what I ought always to have known you must become, I was so confused I entirely lost my presence of mind. You must have thought me very awkward, very stupid?' 'Indeed, I was rather gratified by observing that you could not meet us again without emotion. I thought it told well for your heart, which I always believed to be most kind, at least, I am sure, to us.' 'Kind! oh, Venetia! that word but ill describes what my heart ever was, what it now is, to you. Venetia! dearest, sweetest Venetia! can you doubt for a moment my feelings towards your home, and what influence must principally impel them? Am I so dull, or you so blind, Venetia? Can I not express, can you not discover how much, how ardently, how fondly, how devotedly, I, I, I love you?' 'I am sure we always loved each other, Plantagenet.' 'Yes! but not with this love; not as I love you now!' Venetia stared. 'I thought we could not love each other more than we did, Plantagenet,' at length she said. 'Do you remember the jewel that you gave me? I always wore it until you seemed to forget us, and then I thought it looked so foolish! You remember what is inscribed on it: 'TO VENETIA, FROM HER AFFECTIONATE BROTHER, PLANTAGENET.' And as a brother I always loved you; had I indeed been your sister I could not have loved you more warmly and more truly.' 'I am not your brother, Venetia; I wish not to be loved as a brother: and yet I must be loved by you, or I shall die.' 'What then do you wish?' inquired Venetia, with great simplicity. 'I wish you to marry me,' replied Lord Cadurcis. 'Marry!' exclaimed Venetia, with a face of wonder. 'Marry! Marry you! Marry you, Plantagenet!' 'Ay! is that so wonderful? I love you, and if you love me, why should we not marry?' Venetia was silent and looked upon the ground, not from agitation, for she was quite calm, but in thought; and then she said, 'I never thought of marriage in my life, Plantagenet; I have no intention, no wish to marry; I mean to live always with mamma.' 'And you shall always live with mamma, but that need not prevent you from marrying me,' he replied. 'Do not we all live together now? What will it signify if you dwell at Cadurcis and Lady Annabel at Cherbury? Is it not one home? But at any rate, this point shall not be an obstacle; for if it please you we will all live at Cherbury.' 'You say that we are happy now, Plantagenet; oh! let us remain as we are.' 'My own sweet girl, my sister, if you please, any title, so it be one of fondness, your sweet simplicity charms me; but, believe me, it cannot be as you wish; we cannot remain as we are unless we marry.' 'Why not?' 'Because I shall be wretched and must live elsewhere, if indeed I can live at all.' 'Oh, Plantagenet! indeed I thought you were my brother; when I found you after so long a separation as kind as in old days, and kinder still, I was so glad; I was so sure you loved me; I thought I had the kindest brother in the world. Let us not talk of any other love. It will, indeed it will, make mamma so miserable!' 'I am greatly mistaken,' replied Lord Cadurcis, who saw no obstacles to his hopes in their conversation hitherto, 'if, on the contrary, our union would not prove far from disagreeable to your mother, Venetia; I will say our mother, for indeed to me she has been one.' 'Plantagenet,' said Venetia, in a very earnest tone, 'I love you very much; but, if you love me, press me on this subject no more at present. You have surprised, indeed you have bewildered me. There are thoughts, there are feelings, there are considerations, that must be respected, that must influence me. Nay! do not look so sorrowful, Plantagenet. Let us be happy now. To-morrow, only to-morrow, and to-morrow we are sure to meet, we will speak further of all this; but now, now, for a moment let us forget it, if we can forget anything so strange. Nay! you shall smile!' He did. Who could resist that mild and winning glance! And indeed Lord Cadurcis was scarcely disappointed, and not at all mortified at his reception, or, as he esteemed it, the progress of his suit. The conduct of Venetia he attributed entirely to her unsophisticated nature and the timidity of a virgin soul. It made him prize even more dearly the treasure that he believed awaited him. Silent, then, though for a time they both struggled to speak on different subjects, silent, and almost content, Cadurcis proceeded, with the arm of Venetia locked in his and ever and anon unconsciously pressing it to his heart. The rosy twilight had faded away, the stars were stealing forth, and the moon again glittered. With a soul softer than the tinted shades of eve and glowing like the heavens, Cadurcis joined his companions as they entered the gardens of Cherbury. When they had arrived at home it seemed that exhaustion had suddenly succeeded all the excitement of the day. The Doctor, who was wearied, retired immediately. Lady Annabel pressed Cadurcis to remain and take tea, or, at least to ride home; but his lordship, protesting that he was not in the slightest degree fatigued, and anticipating their speedy union on the morrow, bade her good night, and pressing with fondness the hand of Venetia, retraced his steps to the now solitary abbey. CHAPTER VII. Cadurcis returned to the abbey, but not to slumber. That love of loneliness which had haunted him from his boyhood, and which ever asserted its sway when under the influence of his passions, came over him now with irresistible power. A day of enjoyment had terminated, and it left him melancholy. Hour after hour he paced the moon-lit cloisters of his abbey, where not a sound disturbed him, save the monotonous fall of the fountain, that seems by some inexplicable association always to blend with and never to disturb our feelings; gay when we are joyful, and sad amid our sorrow. Yet was he sorrowful! He was gloomy, and fell into a reverie about himself, a subject to him ever perplexing and distressing. His conversation of the morning with Doctor Masham recurred to him. What did the Doctor mean by his character not being formed, and that he might yet live to change all his opinions? Character! what was character? It must be will; and his will was violent and firm. Young as he was, he had early habituated himself to reflection, and the result of his musings had been a desire to live away from the world with those he loved. The world, as other men viewed it, had no charms for him. Its pursuits and passions seemed to him on the whole paltry and faint. He could sympathise with great deeds, but not with bustling life. That which was common did not please him. He loved things that were rare and strange; and the spell that bound him so strongly to Venetia Herbert was her unusual life, and the singular circumstances of her destiny that were not unknown to him. True he was young; but, lord of himself, youth was associated with none of those mortifications which make the juvenile pant for manhood. Cadurcis valued his youth and treasured it. He could not conceive love, and the romantic life that love should lead, without the circumambient charm of youth adding fresh lustre to all that was bright and fair, and a keener relish to every combination of enjoyment. The moonbeam fell upon his mother's monument, a tablet on the cloister wall that recorded the birth and death of KATHERINE CADURCIS. His thoughts flew to his ancestry. They had conquered in France and Palestine, and left a memorable name to the annalist of his country. Those days were past, and yet Cadurcis felt within him the desire, perhaps the power, of emulating them; but what remained? What career was open in this mechanical age to the chivalric genius of his race? Was he misplaced then in life? The applause of nations, there was something grand and exciting in such a possession. To be the marvel of mankind what would he not hazard? Dreams, dreams! If his ancestors were valiant and celebrated it remained for him to rival, to excel them, at least in one respect. Their coronet had never rested on a brow fairer than the one for which he destined it. Venetia then, independently of his passionate love, was the only apparent object worth his pursuit, the only thing in this world that had realised his dreams, dreams sacred to his own musing soul, that even she had never shared or guessed. And she, she was to be his. He could not doubt it: but to-morrow would decide; to-morrow would seal his triumph. His sleep was short and restless; he had almost out-watched the stars, and yet he rose with the early morn. His first thought was of Venetia; he was impatient for the interview, the interview she promised and even proposed. The fresh air was grateful to him; he bounded along to Cherbury, and brushed the dew in his progress from the tall grass and shrubs. In sight of the hall, he for a moment paused. He was before his accustomed hour; and yet he was always too soon. Not to-day, though, not to-day; suddenly he rushes forward and springs down the green vista, for Venetia is on the terrace, and alone! Always kind, this morning she greeted him with unusual affection. Never had she seemed to him so exquisitely beautiful. Perhaps her countenance to-day was more pale than wont. There seemed a softness in her eyes usually so brilliant and even dazzling; the accents of her salutation were suppressed and tender. 'I thought you would be here early,' she remarked, 'and therefore I rose to meet you.' Was he to infer from this artless confession that his image had haunted her in her dreams, or only that she would not delay the conversation on which his happiness depended? He could scarcely doubt which version to adopt when she took his arm and led him from the terrace to walk where they could not be disturbed. 'Dear Plantagenet,' she said, 'for indeed you are very dear to me; I told you last night that I would speak to you to-day on your wishes, that are so kind to me and so much intended for my happiness. I do not love suspense; but indeed last night I was too much surprised, too much overcome by what occurred, that exhausted as I naturally was by all our pleasure, I could not tell you what I wished; indeed I could not, dear Plantagenet.' 'My own Venetia!' 'So I hope you will always deem me; for I should be very unhappy if you did not love me, Plantagenet, more unhappy than I have even been these last two years; and I have been very unhappy, very unhappy indeed, Plantagenet.' 'Unhappy, Venetia! my Venetia unhappy?' 'Listen! I will not weep. I can control my feelings. I have learnt to do this; it is very sad, and very different to what my life once was; but I can do it.' 'You amaze me!' Venetia sighed, and then resumed, but in a tone mournful and low, and yet to a degree firm. 'You have been away five years, Plantagenet.' 'But you have pardoned that.' 'I never blamed you; I had nothing to pardon. It was well for you to be away; and I rejoice your absence has been so profitable to you.' 'But it was wicked to have been so silent.' 'Oh! no, no, no! Such ideas never entered into my head, nor even mamma's. You were very young; you did as all would, as all must do. Harbour not such thoughts. Enough, you have returned and love us yet.' 'Love! adore!' 'Five years are a long space of time, Plantagenet. Events will happen in five years, even at Cherbury. I told you I was changed.' 'Yes!' said Lord Cadurcis, in a voice of some anxiety, with a scrutinising eye. 'You left me a happy child; you find me a woman, and a miserable one.' 'Good God, Venetia! this suspense is awful. Be brief, I pray you. Has any one--' Venetia looked at him with an air of perplexity. She could not comprehend the idea that impelled his interruption. 'Go on,' Lord Cadurcis added, after a short pause; 'I am indeed all anxiety.' 'You remember that Christmas which you passed at the hall and walking at night in the gallery, and--' 'Well! Your mother, I shall never forget it.' 'You found her weeping when you were once at Marringhurst. You told me of it.' 'Ay, ay!' 'There is a wing of our house shut up. We often talked of it.' 'Often, Venetia; it was a mystery.' 'I have penetrated it,' replied Venetia in a solemn tone; 'and never have I known what happiness is since.' 'Yes, yes!' said Lord Cadurcis, very pale, and in a whisper. 'Plantagenet, I have a father.' Lord Cadurcis started, and for an instant his arm quitted Venetia's. At length he said in a gloomy voice, 'I know it.' 'Know it!' exclaimed Venetia with astonishment. 'Who could have told you the secret?' 'It is no secret,' replied Cadurcis; 'would that it were!' 'Would that it were! How strange you speak, how strange you look, Plantagenet! If it be no secret that I have a father, why this concealment then? I know that I am not the child of shame!' she added, after a moment's pause, with an air of pride. A tear stole down the cheek of Cadurcis. 'Plantagenet! dear, good Plantagenet! my brother! my own brother! see, I kneel to you; Venetia kneels to you! your own Venetia! Venetia that you love! Oh! if you knew the load that is on my spirit bearing me down to a grave which I would almost welcome, you would speak to me; you would tell me all. I have sighed for this; I have longed for this; I have prayed for this. To meet some one who would speak to me of my father; who had heard of him, who knew him; has been for years the only thought of my being, the only object for which I existed. And now, here comes Plantagenet, my brother! my own brother! and he knows all, and he will tell me; yes, that he will; he will tell his Venetia all, all!' 'Is there not your mother?' said Lord Cadurcis, in a broken tone. 'Forbidden, utterly forbidden. If I speak, they tell me her heart will break; and therefore mine is breaking.' 'Have you no friend?' 'Are not you my friend?' 'Doctor Masham?' 'I have applied to him; he tells me that he lives, and then he shakes his head.' 'You never saw your father; think not of him.' 'Not think of him!' exclaimed Venetia, with extraordinary energy. 'Of what else? For what do I live but to think of him? What object have I in life but to see him? I have seen him, once.' 'Ah!' 'I know his form by heart, and yet it was but a shade. Oh, what a shade! what a glorious, what an immortal shade! If gods were upon earth they would be like my father!' 'His deeds, at least, are not godlike,' observed Lord Cadurcis dryly, and with some bitterness. 'I deny it!' said Venetia, her eyes sparkling with fire, her form dilated with enthusiasm, and involuntarily withdrawing her arm from her companion. Lord Cadurcis looked exceedingly astonished. 'You deny it!' he exclaimed. 'And what should you know about it?' 'Nature whispers to me that nothing but what is grand and noble could be breathed by those lips, or fulfilled by that form.' 'I am glad you have not read his works,' said Lord Cadurcis, with increased bitterness. 'As for his conduct, your mother is a living evidence of his honour, his generosity, and his virtue.' 'My mother!' said Venetia, in a softened voice; 'and yet he loved my mother!' 'She was his victim, as a thousand others may have been.' 'She is his wife!' replied Venetia, with some anxiety. 'Yes, a deserted wife; is that preferable to being a cherished mistress? More honourable, but scarcely less humiliating.' 'She must have misunderstood him,' said Venetia. 'I have perused the secret vows of his passion. I have read his praises of her beauty. I have pored over the music of his emotions when he first became a father; yes, he has gazed on me, even though but for a moment, with love! Over me he has breathed forth the hallowed blessing of a parent! That transcendent form has pressed his lips to mine, and held me with fondness to his heart! And shall I credit aught to his dishonour? Is there a being in existence who can persuade me he is heartless or abandoned? No! I love him! I adore him! I am devoted to him with all the energies of my being! I live only on the memory that he lives, and, were he to die, I should pray to my God that I might join him without delay in a world where it cannot be justice to separate a child from a father.' And this was Venetia! the fair, the serene Venetia! the young, the inexperienced Venetia! pausing, as it were, on the parting threshold of girlhood, whom, but a few hours since, he had fancied could scarcely have proved a passion; who appeared to him barely to comprehend the meaning of his advances; for whose calmness or whose coldness he had consoled himself by the flattering conviction of her unknowing innocence. Before him stood a beautiful and inspired Moenad, her eye flashing supernatural fire, her form elevated above her accustomed stature, defiance on her swelling brow, and passion on her quivering lip! Gentle and sensitive as Cadurcis ever appeared to those he loved, there was in his soul a deep and unfathomed well of passions that had been never stirred, and a bitter and mocking spirit in his brain, of which he was himself unconscious. He had repaired this hopeful morn to Cherbury to receive, as he believed, the plighted faith of a simple and affectionate, perhaps grateful, girl. That her unsophisticated and untutored spirit might not receive the advances of his heart with an equal and corresponding ardour, he was prepared. It pleased him that he should watch the gradual development of this bud of sweet affections, waiting, with proud anxiety, her fragrant and her full-blown love. But now it appeared that her coldness or her indifference might be ascribed to any other cause than the one to which he had attributed it, the innocence of an inexperienced mind. This girl was no stranger to powerful passions; she could love, and love with fervency, with devotion, with enthusiasm. This child of joy was a woman of deep and thoughtful sorrows, brooding in solitude over high resolves and passionate aspirations. Why were not the emotions of such a tumultuous soul excited by himself? To him she was calm and imperturbable; she called him brother, she treated him as a child. But a picture, a fantastic shade, could raise in her a tempestuous swell of sentiment that transformed her whole mind, and changed the colour of all her hopes and thoughts. Deeply prejudiced against her father, Cadurcis now hated him, and with a fell and ferocious earnestness that few bosoms but his could prove. Pale with rage, he ground his teeth and watched her with a glance of sarcastic aversion. 'You led me here to listen to a communication which interested me,' he at length said. 'Have I heard it?' His altered tone, the air of haughtiness which he assumed, were not lost upon Venetia. She endeavoured to collect herself, but she hesitated to reply. 'I repeat my inquiry,' said Cadurcis. 'Have you brought me here only to inform me that you have a father, and that you adore him, or his picture?' 'I led you here,' replied Venetia, in a subdued tone, and looking on the ground, 'to thank you for your love, and to confess to you that I love another.' 'Love another!' exclaimed Cadurcis, in a tone of derision. Simpleton! The best thing your mother can do is to lock you up in the chamber with the picture that has produced such marvellous effects.' 'I am no simpleton, Plantagenet,' rejoined Venetia, quietly, 'but one who is acting as she thinks right; and not only as her mind, but as her heart prompts her.' They had stopped in the earlier part of this conversation on a little plot of turf surrounded by shrubs; Cadurcis walked up and down this area with angry steps, occasionally glancing at Venetia with a look of mortification and displeasure. 'I tell you, Venetia,' he at length said, 'that you are a little fool. What do you mean by saying that you cannot marry me because you love another? Is not that other, by your own account, your father? Love him as much as you like. Is that to prevent you from loving your husband also?' 'Plantagenet, you are rude, and unnecessarily so,' said Venetia. 'I repeat to you again, and for the last time, that all my heart is my father's. It would be wicked in me to marry you, because I cannot love you as a husband should be loved. I can never love you as I love my father. However, it is useless to talk upon this subject. I have not even the power of marrying you if I wished, for I have dedicated myself to my father in the name of God; and I have offered a vow, to be registered in heaven, that thenceforth I would exist only for the purpose of being restored to his heart.' 'I congratulate you on your parent, Miss Herbert.' 'I feel that I ought to be proud of him, though, alas I can only feel it. But, whatever your opinion may be of my father, I beg you to remember that you are speaking to his child.' 'I shall state my opinion respecting your father, madam, with the most perfect unreserve, wherever and whenever I choose; quite convinced that, however you esteem that opinion, it will not be widely different from the real sentiments of the only parent whom you ought to respect, and whom you are bound to obey.' 'And I can tell you, sir, that whatever your opinion is on any subject it will never influence mine. If, indeed, I were the mistress of my own destiny, which I am not, it would have been equally out of my power to have acted as you have so singularly proposed. I do not wish to marry, and marry I never will; but were it in my power, or in accordance with my wish, to unite my fate for ever with another's, it should at least be with one to whom I could look up with reverence, and even with admiration. He should be at least a man, and a great man; one with whose name the world rung; perhaps, like my father, a genius and a poet.' 'A genius and a poet!' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, in a fury, stamping with passion; 'are these fit terms to use when speaking of the most abandoned profligate of his age? A man whose name is synonymous with infamy, and which no one dares to breathe in civilised life; whose very blood is pollution, as you will some day feel; who has violated every tie, and derided every principle, by which society is maintained; whose life is a living illustration of his own shameless doctrines; who is, at the same time, a traitor to his king and an apostate from his God!' Curiosity, overpowering even indignation, had permitted Venetia to listen even to this tirade. Pale as her companion, but with a glance of withering scorn, she exclaimed, 'Passionate and ill-mannered boy! words cannot express the disgust and the contempt with which you inspire me.' She spoke and she disappeared. Cadurcis was neither able nor desirous to arrest her flight. He remained rooted to the ground, muttering to himself the word 'boy!' Suddenly raising his arm and looking up to the sky, he exclaimed, 'The illusion is vanished! Farewell, Cherbury! farewell, Cadurcis! a wider theatre awaits me! I have been too long the slave of soft affections! I root them out of my heart for ever!' and, fitting the action to the phrase, it seemed that he hurled upon the earth all the tender emotions of his soul. 'Woman! henceforth you shall be my sport! I have now no feeling but for myself. When she spoke I might have been a boy; I am a boy no longer. What I shall do I know not; but this I know, the world shall ring with my name; I will be a man, and a great man!' CHAPTER VIII. The agitation of Venetia on her return was not unnoticed by her mother; but Lady Annabel ascribed it to a far different cause than the real one. She was rather surprised when the breakfast passed, and Lord Cadurcis did not appear; somewhat perplexed when her daughter seized the earliest opportunity of retiring to her own chamber; but, with that self-restraint of which she was so complete a mistress, Lady Annabel uttered no remark. Once more alone, Venetia could only repeat to herself the wild words that had burst from Plantagenet's lips in reference to her father. What could they mean? His morals might be misrepresented, his opinions might be misunderstood; stupidity might not comprehend his doctrines, malignity might torture them; the purest sages have been accused of immorality, the most pious philosophers have been denounced as blasphemous: but, 'a traitor to his king,' that was a tangible, an intelligible proposition, one with which all might grapple, which could be easily disproved if false, scarcely propounded were it not true. 'False to his God!' How false? Where? When? What mystery involved her life? Unhappy girl! in vain she struggled with the overwhelming burden of her sorrows. Now she regretted that she had quarrelled with Cadurcis; it was evident that he knew everything and would have told her all. And then she blamed him for his harsh and unfeeling demeanour, and his total want of sympathy with her cruel and perplexing situation. She had intended, she had struggled to be so kind to him; she thought she had such a plain tale to tell that he would have listened to it in considerate silence, and bowed to her necessary and inevitable decision without a murmur. Amid all these harassing emotions her mind tossed about like a ship without a rudder, until, in her despair, she almost resolved to confess everything to her mother, and to request her to soothe and enlighten her agitated and confounded mind. But what hope was there of solace or information from such a quarter? Lady Annabel's was not a mind to be diverted from her purpose. Whatever might have been the conduct of her husband, it was evident that Lady Annabel had traced out a course from which she had resolved not to depart. She remembered the earnest and repeated advice of Dr. Masham, that virtuous and intelligent man who never advised anything but for their benefit. How solemnly had he enjoined upon her never to speak to her mother upon the subject, unless she wished to produce misery and distress! And what could her mother tell her? Her father lived, he had abandoned her, he was looked upon as a criminal, and shunned by the society whose laws and prejudices he had alike outraged. Why should she revive, amid the comparative happiness and serenity in which her mother now lived, the bitter recollection of the almost intolerable misfortune of her existence? No! Venetia was resolved to be a solitary victim. In spite of her passionate and romantic devotion to her father she loved her mother with perfect affection, the mother who had dedicated her life to her child, and at least hoped she had spared her any share in their common unhappiness. And this father, whoso image haunted her dreams, whose unknown voice seemed sometimes to float to her quick ear upon the wind, could he be that abandoned being that Cadurcis had described, and that all around her, and all the circumstances of her life, would seem to indicate? Alas! it might be truth; alas! it seemed like truth: and for one so lost, so utterly irredeemable, was she to murmur against that pure and benevolent parent who had cherished her with such devotion, and snatched her perhaps from disgrace, dishonour, and despair! And Cadurcis, would he return? With all his violence, the kind Cadurcis! Never did she need a brother more than now; and now he was absent, and she had parted with him in anger, deep, almost deadly: she, too, who had never before uttered a harsh word to a human being, who had been involved in only one quarrel in her life, and that almost unconsciously, and which had nearly broken her heart. She wept, bitterly she wept, this poor Venetia! By one of those mental efforts which her strange lot often forced her to practise, Venetia at length composed herself, and returned to the room where she believed she would meet her mother, and hoped she should see Cadurcis. He was not there: but Lady Annabel was seated as calm and busied as usual; the Doctor had departed. Even his presence would have proved a relief, however slight, to Venetia, who dreaded at this moment to be alone with her mother. She had no cause, however, for alarm; Lord Cadurcis never appeared, and was absent even from dinner; the day died away, and still he was wanting; and at length Venetia bade her usual good night to Lady Annabel, and received her usual blessing and embrace without his name having been even mentioned. Venetia passed a disturbed night, haunted by painful dreams, in which her father and Cadurcis were both mixed up, and with images of pain, confusion, disgrace, and misery; but the morrow, at least, did not prolong her suspense, for just as she had joined her mother at breakfast, Mistress Pauncefort, who had been despatched on some domestic mission by her mistress, entered with a face of wonder, and began as usual: 'Only think, my lady; well to be sure, who have thought it? I am quite confident, for my own part, I was quite taken aback when I heard it; and I could not have believed my ears, if John had not told me himself, and he had it from his lordship's own man.' 'Well, Pauncefort, what have you to say?' inquired Lady Annabel, very calmly. 'And never to send no note, my lady; at least I have not seen one come up. That makes it so very strange.' 'Makes what, Pauncefort?' 'Why, my lady, doesn't your la'ship know his lordship left the abbey yesterday, and never said nothing to nobody; rode off without a word, by your leave or with your leave? To be sure he always was the oddest young gentleman as ever I met with; and, as I said to John: John, says I, I hope his lordship has not gone to join the gipsies again.' Venetia looked into a teacup, and then touched an egg, and then twirled a spoon; but Lady Annabel seemed quite imperturbable, and only observed, 'Probably his guardian is ill, and he has been suddenly summoned to town. I wish you would bring my knitting-needles, Pauncefort.' The autumn passed, and Lord Cadurcis never returned to the abbey, and never wrote to any of his late companions. Lady Annabel never mentioned his name; and although she seemed to have no other object in life but the pleasure and happiness of her child, this strange mother never once consulted Venetia on the probable occasion of his sudden departure, and his strange conduct. BOOK IV. CHAPTER I. Party feeling, perhaps, never ran higher in England than during the period immediately subsequent to the expulsion of the Coalition Ministry. After the indefatigable faction of the American war, and the flagrant union with Lord North, the Whig party, and especially Charles Fox, then in the full vigour of his bold and ready mind, were stung to the quick that all their remorseless efforts to obtain and preserve the government of the country should terminate in the preferment and apparent permanent power of a mere boy. Next to Charles Fox, perhaps the most eminent and influential member of the Whig party was Lady Monteagle. The daughter of one of the oldest and most powerful peers in the kingdom, possessing lively talents and many fascinating accomplishments, the mistress of a great establishment, very beautiful, and, although she had been married some years, still young, the celebrated wife of Lord Monteagle found herself the centre of a circle alike powerful, brilliant, and refined. She was the Muse of the Whig party, at whose shrine every man of wit and fashion was proud to offer his flattering incense; and her house became not merely the favourite scene of their social pleasures, but the sacred, temple of their political rites; here many a manoeuvre was planned, and many a scheme suggested; many a convert enrolled, and many a votary initiated. Reclining on a couch in a boudoir, which she was assured was the exact facsimile of that of Marie Antoinette, Lady Monteagle, with an eye sparkling with excitement and a cheek flushed with emotion, appeared deeply interested in a volume, from which she raised her hand as her husband entered the room. 'Gertrude, my love,' said his lordship, 'I have asked the new bishop to dine with us to-day.' 'My dear Henry,' replied her ladyship, 'what could induce you to do anything so strange?' 'I suppose I have made a mistake, as usual,' said his lordship, shrugging his shoulders, with a smile. 'My dear Henry, you know you may ask whomever you like to your house. I never find fault with what you do. But what could induce you to ask a Tory bishop to meet a dozen of our own people?' 'I thought I had done wrong directly I had asked him,' rejoined his lordship; 'and yet he would not have come if I had not made such a point of it. I think I will put him off.' 'No, my love, that would be wrong; you cannot do that.' 'I cannot think how it came into my head. The fact is, I lost my presence of mind. You know he was my tutor at Christchurch, when poor dear Herbert and I were such friends, and very kind he was to us both; and so, the moment I saw him, I walked across the House, introduced myself, and asked him to dinner.' 'Well, never mind,' said Lady Monteagle, smiling. 'It is rather ridiculous: but I hope nothing will be said to offend him.' 'Oh! do not be alarmed about that: he is quite a man of the world, and, although he has his opinions, not at all a partisan. I assure you poor dear Herbert loved him to the last, and to this very moment has the greatest respect and affection for him.' 'How very strange that not only your tutor, but Herbert's, should be a bishop,' remarked the lady, smiling. 'It is very strange,' said his lordship, 'and it only shows that it is quite useless in this world to lay plans, or reckon on anything. You know how it happened?' 'Not I, indeed; I have never given a thought to the business; I only remember being very vexed that that stupid old Bangerford should not have died when we were in office, and then, at any rate, we should have got another vote.' 'Well, you know,' said his lordship, 'dear old Masham, that is his name, was at Weymouth this year; with whom do you think, of all people in the world?' 'How should I know? Why should I think about it, Henry?' 'Why, with Herbert's wife.' 'What, that horrid woman?' 'Yes, Lady Annabel.' 'And where was his daughter? Was she there?' 'Of course. She has grown up, and a most beautiful creature they say she is; exactly like her father.' 'Ah! I shall always regret I never saw him,' said her ladyship. 'Well, the daughter is in bad health; and so, after keeping her shut up all her life, the mother was obliged to take her to Weymouth; and Masham, who has a living in their neighbourhood, which, by-the-bye, Herbert gave him, and is their chaplain and counsellor, and friend of the family, and all that sort of thing, though I really believe he has always acted for the best, he was with them. Well, the King took the greatest fancy to these Herberts; and the Queen, too, quite singled them out; and, in short, they were always with the royal family. It ended by his Majesty making Masham his chaplain; and now he has made him a bishop.' 'Very droll indeed,' said her ladyship; 'and the drollest thing of all is, that he is now coming to dine here.' 'Have you seen Cadurcis to-day?' said Lord Monteagle. 'Of course,' said her ladyship. 'He dines here?' 'To be sure. I am reading his new poem; it will not be published till to-morrow.' 'Is it good?' 'Good! What crude questions you do always ask, Henry!' exclaimed Lady Monteagle. 'Good! Of course it is good. It is something better than good.' 'But I mean is it as good as his other things? Will it make as much noise as his last thing?' 'Thing! Now, Henry, you know very well that if there be anything I dislike in the world, it is calling a poem a thing.' 'Well, my dear, you know I am no judge of poetry. But if you are pleased, I am quite content. There is a knock. Some of your friends. I am off. I say, Gertrude, be kind to old Masham, that is a dear creature!' Her ladyship extended her hand, to which his lordship pressed his lips, and just effected his escape as the servant announced a visitor, in the person of Mr. Horace Pole. 'Oh! my dear Mr. Pole, I am quite exhausted,' said her ladyship; 'I am reading Cadurcis' new poem; it will not he published till to-morrow, and it really has destroyed my nerves. I have got people to dinner to-day, and I am sure I shall not be able to encounter them.' 'Something outrageous, I suppose,' said Mr. Pole, with a sneer. 'I wish Cadurcis would study Pope.' 'Study Pope! My dear Mr. Pole, you have no imagination.' 'No, I have not, thank Heaven!' drawled out Mr. Pole. 'Well, do not let us have a quarrel about Cadurcis,' said Lady Monteagle. 'All you men are jealous of him.' 'And some of you women, I think, too,' said Mr. Pole. Lady Monteagle faintly smiled. 'Poor Cadurcis!' she exclaimed; 'he has a very hard life of it. He complains bitterly that so many women are in love with him. But then he is such an interesting creature, what can he expect?' 'Interesting!' exclaimed Mr. Pole. 'Now I hold he is the most conceited, affected fellow that I ever met,' he continued with unusual energy. 'Ah! you men do not understand him,' said Lady Monteagle, shaking her head. 'You cannot,' she added, with a look of pity. 'I cannot, certainly,' said Mr. Pole, 'or his writings either. For my part I think the town has gone mad.' 'Well, you must confess,' said her ladyship, with a glance of triumph, 'that it was very lucky for us that I made him a Whig.' 'I cannot agree with you at all on that head,' said Mr. Pole. 'We certainly are not very popular at this moment, and I feel convinced that a connection with a person who attracts so much notice as Cadurcis unfortunately does, and whose opinions on morals and religion must be so offensive to the vast majority of the English public, must ultimately prove anything but advantageous to our party.' 'Oh! my dear Mr. Pole,' said her ladyship, in a tone of affected deprecation, 'think what a genius he is!' 'We have very different ideas of genius, Lady Monteagle, I suspect,' said her visitor. 'You cannot deny,' replied her ladyship, rising from her recumbent posture, with some animation, 'that he is a poet?' 'It is difficult to decide upon our contemporaries,' said Mr. Pole dryly. 'Charles Fox thinks he is the greatest poet that ever existed,' said her ladyship, as if she were determined to settle the question. 'Because he has written a lampoon on the royal family,' rejoined Mr. Pole. 'You are a very provoking person,' said Lady Monteagle; 'but you do not provoke me; do not flatter yourself you do.' 'That I feel to be an achievement alike beyond my power and my ambition,' replied Mr. Pole, slightly bowing, but with a sneer. 'Well, read this,' said Lady Monteagle, 'and then decide upon the merits of Cadurcis.' Mr. Pole took the extended volume, but with no great willingness, and turned over a page or two and read a passage here and there. 'Much the same as his last effusion, I think' he observed, as far as I can judge from so cursory a review. Exaggerated passion, bombastic language, egotism to excess, and, which perhaps is the only portion that is genuine, mixed with common-place scepticism and impossible morals, and a sort of vague, dreamy philosophy, which, if it mean anything, means atheism, borrowed from his idol, Herbert, and which he himself evidently does not comprehend.' 'Monster!' exclaimed Lady Monteagle, with a mock assumption of indignation, 'and you are going to dine with him here to-day. You do not deserve it.' 'It is a reward which is unfortunately too often obtained by me,' replied Mr. Pole. 'One of the most annoying consequences of your friend's popularity, Lady Monteagle, is that there is not a dinner party where one can escape him. I met him yesterday at Fanshawe's. He amused himself by eating only biscuits, and calling for soda water, while we quaffed our Burgundy. How very original! What a thing it is to be a great poet!' 'Perverse, provoking mortal!' exclaimed Lady Monteagle. 'And on what should a poet live? On coarse food, like you coarse mortals? Cadurcis is all spirit, and in my opinion his diet only makes him more interesting.' 'I understand,' said Mr. Pole, 'that he cannot endure a woman to eat at all. But you are all spirit, Lady Monteagle, and therefore of course are not in the least inconvenienced. By-the-bye, do you mean to give us any of those charming little suppers this season?' 'I shall not invite you,' replied her ladyship; 'none but admirers of Lord Cadurcis enter this house.' 'Your menace effects my instant conversion,' replied Mr. Pole. 'I will admire him as much as you desire, only do not insist upon my reading his works.' 'I have not the slightest doubt you know them by heart,' rejoined her ladyship. Mr. Pole smiled, bowed, and disappeared; and Lady Monteagle sat down to write a billet to Lord Cadurcis, to entreat him to be with her at five o'clock, which was at least half an hour before the other guests were expected. The Monteagles were considered to dine ridiculously late. CHAPTER II. Marmion Herbert, sprung from one of the most illustrious families in England, became at an early age the inheritor of a great estate, to which, however, he did not succeed with the prejudices or opinions usually imbibed or professed by the class to which he belonged. While yet a boy, Marmion Herbert afforded many indications of possessing a mind alike visionary and inquisitive, and both, although not in an equal degree, sceptical and creative. Nature had gifted him with precocious talents; and with a temperament essentially poetic, he was nevertheless a great student. His early reading, originally by accident and afterwards by an irresistible inclination, had fallen among the works of the English freethinkers: with all their errors, a profound and vigorous race, and much superior to the French philosophers, who were after all only their pupils and their imitators. While his juvenile studies, and in some degree the predisposition of his mind, had thus prepared him to doubt and finally to challenge the propriety of all that was established and received, the poetical and stronger bias of his mind enabled him quickly to supply the place of everything he would remove and destroy; and, far from being the victim of those frigid and indifferent feelings which must ever be the portion of the mere doubter, Herbert, on the contrary, looked forward with ardent and sanguine enthusiasm to a glorious and ameliorating future, which should amply compensate and console a misguided and unhappy race for the miserable past and the painful and dreary present. To those, therefore, who could not sympathise with his views, it will be seen that Herbert, in attempting to fulfil them, became not merely passively noxious from his example, but actively mischievous from his exertions. A mere sceptic, he would have been perhaps merely pitied; a sceptic with a peculiar faith of his own, which he was resolved to promulgate, Herbert became odious. A solitary votary of obnoxious opinions, Herbert would have been looked upon only as a madman; but the moment he attempted to make proselytes he rose into a conspirator against society. Young, irresistibly prepossessing in his appearance, with great eloquence, crude but considerable knowledge, an ardent imagination and a subtle mind, and a generous and passionate soul, under any circumstances he must have obtained and exercised influence, even if his Creator had not also bestowed upon him a spirit of indomitable courage; but these great gifts of nature being combined with accidents of fortune scarcely less qualified to move mankind, high rank, vast wealth, and a name of traditionary glory, it will not be esteemed surprising that Marmion Herbert, at an early period, should have attracted around him many enthusiastic disciples. At Christchurch, whither he repaired at an unusually early age, his tutor was Doctor Masham; and the profound respect and singular affection with which that able, learned, and amiable man early inspired his pupil, for a time controlled the spirit of Herbert; or rather confined its workings to so limited a sphere that the results were neither dangerous to society nor himself. Perfectly comprehending and appreciating the genius of the youth entrusted to his charge, deeply interested in his spiritual as well as worldly welfare, and strongly impressed with the importance of enlisting his pupil's energies in favour of that existing order, both moral and religious, in the truth and indispensableness of which he was a sincere believer, Doctor Masham omitted no opportunity of combating the heresies of the young inquirer; and as the tutor, equally by talent, experience, and learning, was a competent champion of the great cause to which he was devoted, his zeal and ability for a time checked the development of those opinions of which he witnessed the menacing influence over Herbert with so much fear and anxiety. The college life of Marmion Herbert, therefore, passed in ceaseless controversy with his tutor; and as he possessed, among many other noble qualities, a high and philosophic sense of justice, he did not consider himself authorised, while a doubt remained on his own mind, actively to promulgate those opinions, of the propriety and necessity of which he scarcely ever ceased to be persuaded. To this cause it must be mainly attributed that Herbert was not expelled the university; for had he pursued there the course of which his cruder career at Eton had given promise, there can be little doubt that some flagrant outrage of the opinions held sacred in that great seat of orthodoxy would have quickly removed him from the salutary sphere of their control. Herbert quitted Oxford in his nineteenth year, yet inferior to few that he left there, even among the most eminent, in classical attainments, and with a mind naturally profound, practised in all the arts of ratiocination. His general knowledge also was considerable, and he was a proficient in those scientific pursuits which were then rare. Notwithstanding his great fortune and position, his departure from the university was not a signal with him for that abandonment to the world, and that unbounded self-enjoyment naturally so tempting to youth. On the contrary, Herbert shut himself up in his magnificent castle, devoted to solitude and study. In his splendid library he consulted the sages of antiquity, and conferred with them on the nature of existence and of the social duties; while in his laboratory or his dissecting-room he occasionally flattered himself he might discover the great secret which had perplexed generations. The consequence of a year passed in this severe discipline was unfortunately a complete recurrence to those opinions that he had early imbibed, and which now seemed fixed in his conviction beyond the hope or chance of again faltering. In politics a violent republican, and an advocate, certainly a disinterested one, of a complete equality of property and conditions, utterly objecting to the very foundation of our moral system, and especially a strenuous antagonist of marriage, which he taught himself to esteem not only as an unnatural tie, but as eminently unjust towards that softer sex, who had been so long the victims of man; discarding as a mockery the received revelation of the divine will; and, if no longer an atheist, substituting merely for such an outrageous dogma a subtle and shadowy Platonism; doctrines, however, which Herbert at least had acquired by a profound study of the works of their great founder; the pupil of Doctor Masham at length deemed himself qualified to enter that world which he was resolved to regenerate; prepared for persecution, and steeled even to martyrdom. But while the doctrines of the philosopher had been forming, the spirit of the poet had not been inactive. Loneliness, after all, the best of Muses, had stimulated the creative faculty of his being. Wandering amid his solitary woods and glades at all hours and seasons, the wild and beautiful apparitions of nature had appealed to a sympathetic soul. The stars and winds, the pensive sunset and the sanguine break of morn, the sweet solemnity of night, the ancient trees and the light and evanescent flowers, all signs and sights and sounds of loveliness and power, fell on a ready eye and a responsive ear. Gazing on the beautiful, he longed to create it. Then it was that the two passions which seemed to share the being of Herbert appeared simultaneously to assert their sway, and he resolved to call in his Muse to the assistance of his Philosophy. Herbert celebrated that fond world of his imagination, which he wished to teach men to love. In stanzas glittering with refined images, and resonant with subtle symphony, he called into creation that society of immaculate purity and unbounded enjoyment which he believed was the natural inheritance of unshackled man. In the hero he pictured a philosopher, young and gifted as himself; in the heroine, his idea of a perfect woman. Although all those peculiar doctrines of Herbert, which, undisguised, must have excited so much odium, were more or less developed and inculcated in this work; nevertheless they were necessarily so veiled by the highly spiritual and metaphorical language of the poet, that it required some previous acquaintance with the system enforced, to be able to detect and recognise the esoteric spirit of his Muse. The public read only the history of an ideal world and of creatures of exquisite beauty, told in language that alike dazzled their fancy and captivated their ear. They were lost in a delicious maze of metaphor and music, and were proud to acknowledge an addition to the glorious catalogue of their poets in a young and interesting member of their aristocracy. In the meanwhile Herbert entered that great world that had long expected him, and hailed his advent with triumph. How long might have elapsed before they were roused by the conduct of Herbert to the error under which they were labouring as to his character, it is not difficult to conjecture; but before he could commence those philanthropic exertions which apparently absorbed him, he encountered an individual who most unconsciously put his philosophy not merely to the test, but partially even to the rout; and this was Lady Annabel Sidney. Almost as new to the world as himself, and not less admired, her unrivalled beauty, her unusual accomplishments, and her pure and dignified mind, combined, it must be confessed, with the flattering admiration of his genius, entirely captivated the philosophical antagonist of marriage. It is not surprising that Marmion Herbert, scarcely of age, and with a heart of extreme susceptibility, resolved, after a struggle, to be the first exception to his system, and, as he faintly flattered himself, the last victim of prejudice. He wooed and won the Lady Annabel. The marriage ceremony was performed by Doctor Masham, who had read his pupil's poem, and had been a little frightened by its indications; but this happy union had dissipated all his fears. He would not believe in any other than a future career for him alike honourable and happy; and he trusted that if any wild thoughts still lingered in Herbert's mind, that they would clear off by the same literary process; so that the utmost ill consequences of his immature opinions might be an occasional line that the wise would have liked to blot, and yet which the unlettered might scarcely be competent to comprehend. Mr. and Lady Annabel Herbert departed after the ceremony to his castle, and Doctor Masham to Marringhurst, a valuable living in another county, to which his pupil had just presented him. Some months after this memorable event, rumours reached the ear of the good Doctor that all was not as satisfactory as he could desire in that establishment, in the welfare of which he naturally took so lively an interest. Herbert was in the habit of corresponding with the rector of Marringhurst, and his first letters were full of details as to his happy life and his perfect consent; but gradually these details had been considerably abridged, and the correspondence assumed chiefly a literary or philosophical character. Lady Annabel, however, was always mentioned with regard, and an intimation had been duly given to the Doctor that she was in a delicate and promising situation, and that they were both alike anxious that he should christen their child. It did not seem very surprising to the good Doctor, who was a man of the world, that a husband, six months after marriage, should not speak of the memorable event with all the fulness and fondness of the honeymoon; and, being one of those happy tempers that always anticipate the best, he dismissed from his mind, as vain gossip and idle exaggerations, the ominous whispers that occasionally reached him. Immediately after the Christmas ensuing his marriage, the Herberts returned to London, and the Doctor, who happened to be a short time in the metropolis, paid them a visit. His observations were far from unsatisfactory; it was certainly too evident that Marmion was no longer enamoured of Lady Annabel, but he treated her apparently with courtesy, and even cordiality. The presence of Dr. Masham tended, perhaps, a little to revive old feelings, for he was as much a favourite with the wife as with the husband; but, on the whole, the Doctor quitted them with an easy heart, and sanguine that the interesting and impending event would, in all probability, revive affection on the part of Herbert, or at least afford Lady Annabel the only substitute for a husband's heart. In due time the Doctor heard from Herbert that his wife had gone down into the country, but was sorry to observe that Herbert did not accompany her. Even this disagreeable impression was removed by a letter, shortly after received from Herbert, dated from the castle, and written in high spirits, informing him that Annabel had made him the happy father of the most beautiful little girl in the world. During the ensuing three months Mr. Herbert, though he resumed his residence in London, paid frequent visits to the castle, where Lady Annabel remained; and his occasional correspondence, though couched in a careless vein, still on the whole indicated a cheerful spirit; though ever and anon were sarcastic observations as to the felicity of the married state, which, he said, was an undoubted blessing, as it kept a man out of all scrapes, though unfortunately under the penalty of his total idleness and inutility in life. On the whole, however, the reader may judge of the astonishment of Doctor Masham when, in common with the world, very shortly after the receipt of this letter, Mr. Herbert having previously proceeded to London, and awaiting, as was said, the daily arrival of his wife and child, his former tutor learned that Lady Annabel, accompanied only by Pauncefort and Venetia, had sought her father's roof, declaring that circumstances had occurred which rendered it quite impossible that she could live with Mr. Herbert any longer, and entreating his succour and parental protection. Never was such a hubbub in the world! In vain Herbert claimed his wife, and expressed his astonishment, declaring that he had parted from her with the expression of perfect kind feeling on both sides. No answer was given to his letter, and no explanation of any kind conceded him. The world universally declared Lady Annabel an injured woman, and trusted that she would eventually have the good sense and kindness to gratify them by revealing the mystery; while Herbert, on the contrary, was universally abused and shunned, avoided by his acquaintances, and denounced as the most depraved of men. In this extraordinary state of affairs Herbert acted in a manner the best calculated to secure his happiness, and the very worst to preserve his character. Having ostentatiously shown himself in every public place, and courted notice and inquiry by every means in his power, to prove that he was not anxious to conceal himself or avoid any inquiry, he left the country, free at last to pursue that career to which he had always aspired, and in which he had been checked by a blunder, from the consequences of which he little expected that he should so speedily and strangely emancipate himself. It was in a beautiful villa on the lake of Geneva that he finally established himself, and there for many years he employed himself in the publication of a series of works which, whether they were poetry or prose, imaginative or investigative, all tended to the same consistent purpose, namely, the fearless and unqualified promulgation of those opinions, on the adoption of which he sincerely believed the happiness of mankind depended; and the opposite principles to which, in his own case, had been productive of so much mortification and misery. His works, which were published in England, were little read, and universally decried. The critics were always hard at work, proving that he was no poet, and demonstrating in the most logical manner that he was quite incapable of reasoning on the commonest topic. In addition to all this, his ignorance was self-evident; and though he was very fond of quoting Greek, they doubted whether he was capable of reading the original authors. The general impression of the English public, after the lapse of some years, was, that Herbert was an abandoned being, of profligate habits, opposed to all the institutions of society that kept his infamy in check, and an avowed atheist; and as scarcely any one but a sympathetic spirit ever read a line he wrote, for indeed the very sight of his works was pollution, it is not very wonderful that this opinion was so generally prevalent. A calm inquirer might, perhaps, have suspected that abandoned profligacy is not very compatible with severe study, and that an author is seldom loose in his life, even if he be licentious in his writings. A calm inquirer might, perhaps, have been of opinion that a solitary sage may be the antagonist of a priesthood without absolutely denying the existence of a God; but there never are calm inquirers. The world, on every subject, however unequally, is divided into parties; and even in the case of Herbert and his writings, those who admired his genius, and the generosity of his soul, were not content without advocating, principally out of pique to his adversaries, his extreme opinions on every subject, moral, political, and religious. Besides, it must be confessed, there was another circumstance which was almost as fatal to Herbert's character in England as his loose and heretical opinions. The travelling English, during their visits to Geneva, found out that their countryman solaced or enlivened his solitude by unhallowed ties. It is a habit to which very young men, who are separated from or deserted by their wives, occasionally have recourse. Wrong, no doubt, as most things are, but it is to be hoped venial; at least in the case of any man who is not also an atheist. This unfortunate mistress of Herbert was magnified into a seraglio; the most extraordinary tales of the voluptuous life of one who generally at his studies out-watched the stars, were rife in English society; and Hoary marquises and stripling dukes, who were either protecting opera dancers, or, still worse, making love to their neighbours' wives, either looked grave when the name of Herbert was mentioned in female society, or affectedly confused, as if they could a tale unfold, were they not convinced that the sense of propriety among all present was infinitely superior to their sense of curiosity. The only person to whom Herbert communicated in England was Doctor Masham. He wrote to him immediately on his establishment at Geneva, in a calm yet sincere and serious tone, as if it were useless to dwell too fully on the past. Yet he declared, although now that it was all over he avowed his joy at the interposition of his destiny, and the opportunity which he at length possessed of pursuing the career for which he was adapted, that he had to his knowledge given his wife no cause of offence which could authorise her conduct. As for his daughter, he said he should not be so cruel as to tear her from her mother's breast; though, if anything could induce him to such behaviour, it would be the malignant and ungenerous menace of his wife's relatives, that they would oppose his preferred claim to the guardianship of his child, on the plea of his immoral life and atheistical opinions. With reference to pecuniary arrangements, as his chief seat was entailed on male heirs, he proposed that his wife should take up her abode at Cherbury, an estate which had been settled on her and her children at her marriage, and which, therefore, would descend to Venetia. Finally, he expressed his satisfaction that the neighbourhood of Marringhurst would permit his good and still faithful friend to cultivate the society and guard over the welfare of his wife and daughter. During the first ten years of Herbert's exile, for such indeed it might be considered, the Doctor maintained with him a rare yet regular correspondence; but after that time a public event occurred, and a revolution took place in Herbert's life which terminated all communication between them; a termination occasioned, however, by such a simultaneous conviction of its absolute necessity, that it was not attended by any of those painful communications which are too often the harrowing forerunners of a formal disruption of ancient ties. This event was the revolt of the American colonies; and this revolution in Herbert's career, his junction with the rebels against his native country. Doubtless it was not without a struggle, perhaps a pang, that Herbert resolved upon a line of conduct to which it must assuredly have required the strongest throb of his cosmopolitan sympathy, and his amplest definition of philanthropy to have impelled him. But without any vindictive feelings towards England, for he ever professed and exercised charity towards his enemies, attributing their conduct entirely to their ignorance and prejudice, upon this step he nevertheless felt it his duty to decide. There seemed in the opening prospects of America, in a world still new, which had borrowed from the old as it were only so much civilisation as was necessary to create and to maintain order; there seemed in the circumstances of its boundless territory, and the total absence of feudal institutions and prejudices, so fair a field for the practical introduction of those regenerating principles to which Herbert had devoted all the thought and labour of his life, that he resolved, after long and perhaps painful meditation, to sacrifice every feeling and future interest to its fulfilment. All idea of ever returning to his native country, even were it only to mix his ashes with the generations of his ancestors; all hope of reconciliation with his wife, or of pressing to his heart that daughter, often present to his tender fancy, and to whose affections he had feelingly appealed in an outburst of passionate poetry; all these chances, chances which, in spite of his philosophy, had yet a lingering charm, must be discarded for ever. They were discarded. Assigning his estate to his heir upon conditions, in order to prevent its forfeiture, with such resources as he could command, and which were considerable, Marmion Herbert arrived at Boston, where his rank, his wealth, his distinguished name, his great talents, and his undoubted zeal for the cause of liberty, procured him an eminent and gratifying reception. He offered to raise a regiment for the republic, and the offer was accepted, and he was enrolled among the citizens. All this occurred about the time that the Cadurcis family first settled at the abbey, and this narrative will probably throw light upon several slight incidents which heretofore may have attracted the perplexed attention of the reader: such as the newspaper brought by Dr. Masham at the Christmas visit; the tears shed at a subsequent period at Marringhurst, when he related to her the last intelligence that had been received from America. For, indeed, it is impossible to express the misery and mortification which this last conduct of her husband occasioned Lady Annabel, brought up, as she had been, with feelings of romantic loyalty and unswerving patriotism. To be a traitor seemed the only blot that remained for his sullied scutcheon, and she had never dreamed of that. An infidel, a profligate, a deserter from his home, an apostate from his God! one infamy alone remained, and now he had attained it; a traitor to his king! Why, every peasant would despise him! General Herbert, however, for such he speedily became, at the head of his division, soon arrested the attention, and commanded the respect, of Europe. To his exertions the successful result of the struggle was, in a great measure, attributed; and he received the thanks of Congress, of which he became a member. His military and political reputation exercised a beneficial influence upon his literary fame. His works were reprinted in America, and translated into French, and published at Geneva and Basle, whence they were surreptitiously introduced into France. The Whigs, who had become very factious, and nearly revolutionary, during the American war, suddenly became proud of their countryman, whom a new world hailed as a deliverer, and Paris declared to be a great poet and an illustrious philosopher. His writings became fashionable, especially among the young; numerous editions of them appeared, and in time it was discovered that Herbert was now not only openly read, and enthusiastically admired, but had founded a school. The struggle with America ceased about the time of Lord Cadurcis' last visit to Cherbury, when, from his indignant lips, Venetia first learnt the enormities of her father's career. Since that period some three years had elapsed until we introduced our readers to the boudoir of Lady Monteagle. During this period, among the Whigs and their partisans the literary fame of Herbert had arisen and become established. How they have passed in regard to Lady Annabel Herbert and her daughter, on the one hand, and Lord Cadurcis himself on the other, we will endeavour to ascertain in the following chapter. CHAPTER III. From the last departure of Lord Cadurcis from Cherbury, the health of Venetia again declined. The truth is, she brooded in solitude over her strange lot, until her nerves became relaxed by intense reverie and suppressed feeling. The attention of a mother so wrapt up in her child as Lady Annabel, was soon attracted to the increasing languor of our heroine, whose eye each day seemed to grow less bright, and her graceful form less lithe and active. No longer, fond of the sun and breeze as a beautiful bird, was Venetia seen, as heretofore, glancing in the garden, or bounding over the lawns; too often might she be found reclining on the couch, in spite of all the temptations of the spring; while her temper, once so singularly sweet that it seemed there was not in the world a word that could ruffle it, and which required so keenly and responded so quickly to sympathy, became reserved, if not absolutely sullen, or at times even captious and fretful. This change in the appearance and demeanour of her daughter filled Lady Annabel with anxiety and alarm. In vain she expressed to Venetia her conviction of her indisposition; but Venetia, though her altered habits confirmed the suspicion, and authorised the inquiry of her parent, persisted ever in asserting that she had no ailment. Her old medical attendant was, however, consulted, and, being perplexed with the case, he recommended change of air. Lady Annabel then consulted Dr. Masham, and he gave his opinion in favour of change of air for one reason: and that was, that it would bring with it what he had long considered Venetia to stand in need of, and that was change of life. Dr. Masham was right; but then, to guide him in forming his judgment, he had the advantage of some psychological knowledge of the case, which, in a greet degree, was a sealed book to the poor puzzled physician. We laugh very often at the errors of medical men; but if we would only, when we consult them, have strength of mind enough to extend to them something better than a half-confidence, we might be cured the sooner. How often, when the unhappy disciple of Esculapius is perplexing himself about the state of our bodies, we might throw light upon his obscure labours by simply detailing to him the state of our minds! The result of these consultations in the Herbert family was a final resolution, on the part of Lady Annabel, to quit Cherbury for a while. As the sea air was especially recommended to Venetia, and as Lady Annabel shrank with a morbid apprehension from society, to which nothing could persuade her she was not an object either of odium or impertinent curiosity, she finally resolved to visit Weymouth, then a small and secluded watering-place, and whither she arrived and settled herself, it not being even the season when its few customary visitors were in the habit of gathering. This residence at Weymouth quite repaid Lady Annabel for all the trouble of her new settlement, and for the change in her life very painful to her confirmed habits, which she experienced in leaving for the first time for such a long series of years, her old hall; for the rose returned to the cheek of her daughter, and the western breezes, joined with the influence of the new objects that surrounded her, and especially of that ocean, and its strange and inexhaustible variety, on which she gazed for the first time, gradually, but surely, completed the restoration of Venetia to health, and with it to much of her old vivacity. When Lady Annabel had resided about a year at Weymouth, in the society of which she had invariably made the indisposition of Venetia a reason for not entering, a great revolution suddenly occurred at this little quiet watering-place, for it was fixed upon as the summer residence of the English court. The celebrated name, the distinguished appearance, and the secluded habits of Lady Annabel and her daughter, had rendered them the objects of general interest. Occasionally they were met in a seaside walk by some fellow-wanderer over the sands, or toiler over the shingles; and romantic reports of the dignity of the mother and the daughter's beauty were repeated by the fortunate observers to the lounging circle of the public library or the baths. The moment that Lady Annabel was assured that the royal family had positively fixed upon Weymouth for their residence, and were even daily expected, she resolved instantly to retire. Her stern sense of duty assured her that it was neither delicate nor loyal to obtrude before the presence of an outraged monarch the wife and daughter of a traitor; her haughty, though wounded, spirit shrank from the revival of her husband's history, which must be the consequence of such a conjunction, and from the startling and painful remarks which might reach the shrouded ear of her daughter. With her characteristic decision, and with her usual stern volition, Lady Annabel quitted Weymouth instantly, but she was in some degree consoled for the regret and apprehensiveness which she felt at thus leaving a place that had otherwise so happily fulfilled all her hopes and wishes, and that seemed to agree so entirely with Venetia, by finding unexpectedly a marine villa, some few miles further up the coast, which was untenanted, and which offered to Lady Annabel all the accommodation she could desire. It so happened this summer that Dr. Masham paid the Herberts a visit, and it was his habit occasionally to ride into Weymouth to read the newspaper, or pass an hour in that easy lounging chat, which is, perhaps, one of the principal diversions of a watering-place. A great dignitary of the church, who was about the King, and to whom Dr. Masham was known not merely by reputation, mentioned his presence to his Majesty; and the King, who was fond of the society of eminent divines, desired that Dr. Masham should be presented to him. Now, so favourable was the impression that the rector of Marringhurst made upon his sovereign, that from that moment the King was scarcely ever content unless he was in attendance. His Majesty, who was happy in asking questions, and much too acute to be baffled when he sought information, finally elicited from the Doctor all that, in order to please Lady Annabel, he long struggled to conceal; but when the King found that the deserted wife and daughter of Herbert were really living in the neighbourhood, and that they had quitted Weymouth on his arrival, from a feeling of delicate loyalty, nothing would satisfy the kind-hearted monarch but personally assuring them of the interest he took in their welfare; and accordingly, the next day, without giving Lady Annabel even the preparation of a notice, his Majesty and his royal consort, attended only by a lord in waiting, called at the marine villa, and fairly introduced themselves. An acquaintance, occasioned by a sentiment of generous and condescending sympathy, was established and strengthened into intimacy, by the personal qualities of those thus delicately honoured. The King and Queen were equally delighted with the wife and daughter of the terrible rebel; and although, of course, not an allusion was made to his existence, Lady Annabel felt not the less acutely the cause to which she was indebted for a notice so gratifying, but which she afterwards ensured by her own merits. How strange are the accidents of life! Venetia Herbert, who had been bred up in unbroken solitude, and whose converse had been confined to two or three beings, suddenly found herself the guest of a king, and the visitor to a court! She stepped at once from solitude into the most august circle of society; yet, though she had enjoyed none of that initiatory experience which is usually held so indispensable to the votaries of fashion, her happy nature qualified her to play her part without effort and with success. Serene and graceful, she mingled in the strange and novel scene, as if it had been for ever her lot to dazzle and to charm. Ere the royal family returned to London, they extracted from Lady Annabel a compliance with their earnest wishes, that she should fix her residence, during the ensuing season, in the metropolis, and that she should herself present Venetia at St. James's. The wishes of kings are commands; and Lady Annabel, who thus unexpectedly perceived some of the most painful anticipations of her solitude at once dissipated, and that her child, instead of being subjected on her entrance into life to all the mortifications she had imagined, would, on the contrary, find her first introduction under auspices the most flattering and advantageous, bowed a dutiful assent to the condescending injunctions. Such were the memorable consequences of this visit to Weymouth! The return of Lady Annabel to the world, and her intended residence in the metropolis, while the good Masham preceded their arrival to receive a mitre. Strange events, and yet not improbable! In the meantime Lord Cadurcis had repaired to the university, where his rank and his eccentric qualities quickly gathered round him a choice circle of intimates, chiefly culled from his old schoolfellows. Of these the great majority were his seniors, for whose society the maturity of his mind qualified him. It so happened that these companions were in general influenced by those liberal opinions which had become in vogue during the American war, and from which Lord Cadurcis had hitherto been preserved by the society in which he had previously mingled in the house of his guardian. With the characteristic caprice and impetuosity of youth, Cadurcis rapidly and ardently imbibed all these doctrines, captivated alike by their boldness and their novelty. Hitherto the child of prejudice, he flattered himself that he was now the creature of reason, and, determined to take nothing for granted, he soon learned to question everything that was received. A friend introduced him to the writings of Herbert, that very Herbert whom he had been taught to look upon with so much terror and odium. Their perusal operated a complete revolution of his mind; and, in little more than a year from his flight from Cherbury, he had become an enthusiastic votary of the great master, for his violent abuse of whom he had been banished from those happy bowers. The courage, the boldness, the eloquence, the imagination, the strange and romantic career of Herbert, carried the spirit of Cadurcis captive. The sympathetic companions studied his works and smiled with scorn at the prejudice of which their great model had been the victim, and of which they had been so long the dupes. As for Cadurcis, he resolved to emulate him, and he commenced his noble rivalship by a systematic neglect of all the duties and the studies of his college life. His irregular habits procured him constant reprimands in which he gloried; he revenged himself on the authorities by writing epigrams, and by keeping a bear, which he declared should stand for a fellowship. At length, having wilfully outraged the most important regulations, he was expelled; and he made his expulsion the subject of a satire equally personal and philosophic, and which obtained applause for the great talent which it displayed, even from those who lamented its want of judgment and the misconduct of its writer. Flushed with success, Cadurcis at length found, to his astonishment, that Nature had intended him for a poet. He repaired to London, where he was received with open arms by the Whigs, whose party he immediately embraced, and where he published a poem, in which he painted his own character as the hero, and of which, in spite of all the exaggeration and extravagance of youth, the genius was undeniable. Society sympathised with a young and a noble poet; his poem was read by all parties with enthusiasm; Cadurcis became the fashion. To use his own expression, 'One morning he awoke, and found himself famous.' Young, singularly handsome, with every gift of nature and fortune, and with an inordinate vanity that raged in his soul, Cadurcis soon forgot the high philosophy that had for a moment attracted him, and delivered himself up to the absorbing egotism which had ever been latent in his passionate and ambitious mind. Gifted with energies that few have ever equalled, and fooled to the bent by the excited sympathies of society, he poured forth his creative and daring spirit with a license that conquered all obstacles, from the very audacity with which he assailed them. In a word, the young, the reserved, and unknown Cadurcis, who, but three years back, was to have lived in the domestic solitude for which he alone felt himself fitted, filled every heart and glittered in every eye. The men envied, the women loved, all admired him. His life was a perpetual triumph; a brilliant and applauding stage, on which he ever played a dazzling and heroic part. So sudden and so startling had been his apparition, so vigorous and unceasing the efforts by which he had maintained his first overwhelming impression, and not merely by his writings, but by his unusual manners and eccentric life, that no one had yet found time to draw his breath, to observe, to inquire, and to criticise. He had risen, and still flamed, like a comet as wild as it was beautiful, and strange is it was brilliant. CHAPTER IV. We must now return to the dinner party at Lord Monteagle's. When the Bishop of ---- entered the room, he found nearly all the expected guests assembled, and was immediately presented by his host to the lady of the house, who received him with all that fascinating address for which she was celebrated, expressing the extreme delight which she felt at thus becoming formally acquainted with one whom her husband had long taught her to admire and reverence. Utterly unconscious who had just joined the circle, while Lord Monteagle was introducing his newly-arrived guest to many present, and to all of whom he was unknown except by reputation, Lord Cadurcis was standing apart, apparently wrapt in his own thoughts; but the truth is, in spite of all the excitement in which he lived, he had difficulty in overcoming the natural reserve of his disposition. 'Watch Cadurcis,' said Mr. Horace Pole to a fine lady. 'Does not he look sublime?' 'Show me him,' said the lady, eagerly. 'I have never seen him yet; I am actually dying to know him. You know we have just come to town.' 'And have caught the raging epidemic, I see,' said Mr. Pole, with a sneer. 'However, there is the marvellous young gentleman! "Alone in a crowd," as he says in his last poem. Very interesting!' 'Wonderful creature!' exclaimed the dame. 'Charming!' said Mr. Pole. 'If you ask Lady Monteagle, she will introduce him to you, and then, perhaps, you will be fortunate enough to be handed to dinner by him.' 'Oh! how I should like it!' 'You must take care, however, not to eat; he cannot endure a woman who eats.' 'I never do,' said the lady, simply; 'at least at dinner.' 'Ah! then you will quite suit him; I dare say he will write a sonnet to you, and call you Thyrza.' 'I wish I could get him to write some lines in my book, said the lady; 'Charles Fox has written some; he was staying with us in the autumn, and he has written an ode to my little dog.' 'How amiable!' said Mr. Pole; 'I dare say they are as good as his elegy on Mrs. Crewe's cat. But you must not talk of cats and dogs to Cadurcis. He is too exalted to commemorate any animal less sublime than a tiger or a barb.' 'You forget his beautiful lines on his Newfoundland,' said the lady. 'Very complimentary to us all,' said Mr. Horace Pole. 'The interesting misanthrope!' 'He looks unhappy.' 'Very,' said Mr. Pole. 'Evidently something on his conscience.' 'They do whisper very odd things,' said the lady, with great curiosity. 'Do you think there is anything in them?' 'Oh! no doubt,' said Mr. Pole; 'look at him; you can detect crime in every glance.' 'Dear me, how shocking! I think he must be the most interesting person that ever lived. I should so like to know him! They say he is so very odd.' 'Very,' said Mr. Pole. 'He must be a man of genius; he is so unlike everybody; the very tie of his cravat proves it. And his hair, so savage and dishevelled; none but a man of genius would not wear powder. Watch him to-day, and you will observe that he will not condescend to perform the slightest act like an ordinary mortal. I met him at dinner yesterday at Fanshawe's, and he touched nothing but biscuits and soda-water. Fanshawe, you know, is famous for his cook. Complimentary and gratifying, was it not?' 'Dear me!' said the lady, 'I am delighted to see him; and yet I hope I shall not sit by him at dinner. I am quite afraid of him.' 'He is really awful!' said Mr. Pole. In the meantime the subject of these observations slowly withdrew to the further end of the saloon, apart from every one, and threw himself upon a couch with a somewhat discontented air. Lady Monteagle, whose eye had never left him for a moment, although her attentions had been necessarily commanded by her guests, and who dreaded the silent rages in which Cadurcis constantly indulged, and which, when once assumed for the day, were with difficulty dissipated, seized the first opportunity to join and soothe him. 'Dear Cadurcis,' she said, 'why do you sit here? You know I am obliged to speak to all these odious people, and it is very cruel of you.' 'You seemed to me to be extremely happy,' replied his lordship, in a sarcastic tone. 'Now, Cadurcis, for Heaven's sake do not play with my feelings,' exclaimed Lady Monteagle, in a deprecating tone. 'Pray be amiable. If I think you are in one of your dark humours, it is quite impossible for me to attend to these people; and you know it is the only point on which Monteagle ever has an opinion; he insists upon my attending to his guests.' 'If you prefer his guests to me, attend to them.' 'Now, Cadurcis! I ask you as a favour, a favour to me, only for to-day. Be kind, be amiable, you can if you like; no person can be more amiable; now, do!' 'I am amiable,' said his lordship; 'I am perfectly satisfied, if you are. You made me dine here.' 'Now, Cadurcis!' 'Have I not dined here to satisfy you?' 'Yes! It was very kind.' 'But, really, that I should be wearied with all the common-places of these creatures who come to eat your husband's cutlets, is too much,' said his lordship. 'And you, Gertrude, what necessity can there be in your troubling yourself to amuse people whom you meet every day of your life, and who, from the vulgar perversity of society, value you in exact proportion as you neglect them?' 'Yes, but to-day I must be attentive; for Henry, with his usual thoughtlessness, has asked this new bishop to dine with us.' 'The Bishop of----?' inquired Lord Cadurcis, eagerly. 'Is he coming?' 'He has been in the room this quarter of an hour?' 'What, Masham! Doctor Masham!' continued Lord Cadurcis. 'Assuredly.' Lord Cadurcis changed colour, and even sighed. He rose rather quickly, and said, 'I must go and speak to him.' So, quitting Lady Monteagle, he crossed the room, and with all the simplicity of old days, which instantly returned on him, those melancholy eyes sparkling with animation, and that languid form quick with excitement, he caught the Doctor's glance, and shook his extended hand with a heartiness which astonished the surrounding spectators, accustomed to the elaborate listlessness of his usual manner. 'My dear Doctor! my dear Lord! I am glad to say,' said Cadurcis, 'this is the greatest and the most unexpected pleasure I ever received. Of all persons in the world, you are the one whom I was most anxious to meet.' The good Bishop appeared not less gratified with the rencounter than Cadurcis himself; but, in the midst of their mutual congratulations, dinner was announced and served; and, in due order, Lord Cadurcis found himself attending that fine lady, whom Mr. Horace Pole had, in jest, suggested should be the object of his services; while Mr. Pole himself was seated opposite to him at table. The lady, remembering all Mr. Pole's intimations, was really much frightened; she at first could scarcely reply to the casual observations of her neighbour, and quite resolved not to eat anything. But his lively and voluble conversation, his perfectly unaffected manner, and the nonchalance with which he helped himself to every dish that was offered him, soon reassured her. Her voice became a little firmer, her manner less embarrassed, and she even began meditating a delicate assault upon a fricassee. 'Are you going to Ranelagh to-night?' inquired Lord Cadurcis; 'I think I shall take a round. There is nothing like amusement; it is the only thing worth living for; and I thank my destiny I am easily amused. We must persuade Lady Monteagle to go with us. Let us make a party, and return and sup. I like a supper; nothing in the world more charming than a supper, A lobster salad, and champagne and chat. That is life, and delightful. Why, really, my dear madam, you eat nothing. You will never be able to endure the fatigues of a Ranelagh campaign on the sustenance of a pâté. Pole, my good fellow, will you take a glass of wine? We had a pleasant party yesterday at Fanshawe's, and apparently a capital dinner. I was sorry that I could not play my part; but I have led rather a raking life lately. We must go and dine with him again.' Lord Cadurcis' neighbour and Mr. Pole exchanged looks; and the lady, emboldened by the unexpected conduct of her cavalier and the exceeding good friends which he seemed resolved to be with her and every one else, began to flatter herself that she might yet obtain the much-desired inscription in her volume. So, after making the usual approaches, of having a great favour to request, which, however, she could not flatter herself would be granted, and which she even was afraid to mention; encouraged by the ready declaration of Lord Cadurcis, that he should think it would be quite impossible for any one to deny her anything, the lady ventured to state, that Mr. Fox had written something in her book, and she should be the most honoured and happiest lady in the land if--' 'Oh! I shall be most happy,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'I really esteem your request quite an honour: you know I am only a literary amateur, and cannot pretend to vie with your real authors. If you want them, you must go to Mrs. Montagu. I would not write a line for her, and no the blues have quite excommunicated me. Never mind; I leave them to Miss Hannah More; but you, you are quite a different sort of person. What shall I write?' 'I must leave the subject to you,' said his gratified friend. 'Well, then,' said his lordship, 'I dare say you have got a lapdog or a broken fan; I don't think I could soar above them. I think that is about my tether.' This lady, though a great person, was not a beauty, and very little of a wit, and not calculated in any respect to excite the jealousy of Lady Monteagle. In the meantime that lady was quite delighted with the unusual animation of Lord Cadurcis, who was much the most entertaining member of the party. Every one present would circulate throughout the world that it was only at the Monteagle's that Lord Cadurcis condescended to be amusing. As the Bishop was seated on her right hand, Lady Monteagle seized the opportunity of making inquiries as to their acquaintance; but she only obtained from the good Masham that he had once resided in his lordship's neighbourhood, and had known him as a child, and was greatly attached to him. Her ladyship was anxious to obtain some juvenile anecdotes of her hero; but the Bishop contrived to be amusing without degenerating into gossip. She did not glean much, except that all his early friends were more astonished at his present career than the Bishop himself, who was about to add, that he always had some misgivings, but, recollecting where he was, he converted the word into a more gracious term. But if Lady Monteagle were not so successful as she could wish in her inquiries, she contrived still to speak on the, to her, ever-interesting subject, and consoled herself by the communications which she poured into a guarded yet not unwilling ear, respecting the present life and conduct of the Bishop's former pupil. The worthy dignitary had been prepared by public fame for much that was dazzling and eccentric; but it must be confessed he was not a little astonished by a great deal to which he listened. One thing, however, was clear that whatever might be the demeanour of Cadurcis to the circle in which he now moved, time, and the strange revolutions of his life, had not affected his carriage to his old friend. It gratified the Bishop while he listened to Lady Monteagle's details of the haughty, reserved, and melancholy demeanour of Cadurcis, which impressed every one with an idea that some superior being had, as a punishment, been obliged to visit their humble globe, to recall the apparently heartfelt cordiality with which he had resumed his old acquaintance with the former rector of Marringhurst. And indeed, to speak truth, the amiable and unpretending behaviour of Cadurcis this day was entirely attributable to the unexpected meeting with this old friend. In the hurry of society he could scarcely dwell upon the associations which it was calculated to call up; yet more than once he found himself quite absent, dwelling on sweet recollections of that Cherbury that he had so loved. And ever and anon the tones of a familiar voice caught his ear, so that they almost made him start: they were not the less striking, because, as Masham was seated on the same side of the table as Cadurcis, his eye had not become habituated to the Bishop's presence, which sometimes he almost doubted. He seized the first opportunity after dinner of engaging his old tutor in conversation. He took him affectionately by the arm, and led him, as if unintentionally, to a sofa apart from the rest of the company, and seated himself by his side. Cadurcis was agitated, for he was about to inquire of some whom he could not mention without emotion. 'Is it long since you have seen our friends?' said his lordship, 'if indeed I may call them mine.' 'Lady Annabel Herbert?' said the Bishop. Cadurcis bowed. 'I parted from her about two months back,' continued the Bishop. 'And Cherbury, dear Cherbury, is it unchanged?' 'They have not resided there for more than two years.' 'Indeed!' 'They have lived, of late, at Weymouth, for the benefit of the sea air.' 'I hope neither Lady Annabel nor her daughter needs it?' said Lord Cadurcis, in a tone of much feeling. 'Neither now, God be praised!' replied Masham; 'but Miss Herbert has been a great invalid.' There was a rather awkward silence. At length Lord Cadurcis said, 'We meet rather unexpectedly, my dear sir.' 'Why, you have become a great man,' said the Bishop, with a smile; 'and one must expect to meet you.' 'Ah! my dear friend,' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, with a sigh, 'I would willingly give a whole existence of a life like this for one year of happiness at Cherbury.' 'Nay!' said the Bishop, with a look of good-natured mockery, 'this melancholy is all very well in poetry; but I always half-suspected, and I am quite sure now, that Cherbury was not particularly adapted to you.' 'You mistake me,' said Cadurcis, mournfully shaking his head. 'Hitherto I have not been so very wrong in my judgment respecting Lord Cadurcis, that I am inclined very easily to give up my opinion,' replied the Bishop. 'I have often thought of the conversation to which you allude,' replied Lord Cadurcis; 'nevertheless, there is one opinion I never changed, one sentiment that still reigns paramount in my heart.' 'You think so,' said his companion; but, perhaps, were it more than a sentiment, it would cease to flourish.' 'No,' said Lord Cadurcis firmly; 'the only circumstance in the world of which I venture to feel certain is my love for Venetia.' 'It raged certainly during your last visit to Cherbury,' said the Bishop, 'after an interval of five years; it has been revived slightly to-day, after an interval of three more, by the sight of a mutual acquaintance, who has reminded you of her. But what have been your feelings in the meantime? Confess the truth, and admit you have very rarely spared a thought to the person to whom you fancy yourself at this moment so passionately devoted.' 'You do not do me justice,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'you are prejudiced against me.' 'Nay! prejudice is not my humour, my good lord. I decide only from what I myself observe; I give my opinion to you at this moment as freely as I did when you last conversed with me at the abbey, and when I a little displeased you by speaking what you will acknowledge has since turned out to be the truth.' 'You mean, then, to say,' said his lordship, with some excitement, 'that you do not believe that I love Venetia?' 'I think you do, at this moment,' replied Masham; 'and I think,' he continued, smiling, 'that you may probably continue very much in love with her, even during the rest of the week.' 'You mock me!' 'Nay! I am sincerely serious.' 'What, then, do you mean?' 'I mean that your imagination, my lord, dwelling for the moment with great power upon the idea of Venetia, becomes inflamed, and your whole mind is filled with her image.' 'A metaphysical description of being in love,' said Lord Cadurcis, rather dryly. 'Nay!' said Masham, 'I think the heart has something to do with that.' 'But the imagination acts upon the heart,' rejoined his companion. 'But it is in the nature of its influence not to endure. At this moment, I repeat, your lordship may perhaps love Miss Herbert; you may go home and muse over her memory, and even deplore in passionate verses your misery in being separated from her; but, in the course of a few days, she will be again forgotten.' 'But were she mine?' urged Lord Cadurcis, eagerly. 'Why, you would probably part from her in a year, as her father parted from Lady Annabel.' 'Impossible! for my imagination could not conceive anything more exquisite than she is.' 'Then it would conceive something less exquisite,' said the Bishop. 'It is a restless quality, and is ever creative, either of good or of evil.' 'Ah! my dear Doctor, excuse me for again calling you Doctor, it is so natural,' said Cadurcis, in a tone of affection. 'Call me what you will, my dear lord,' said the good Bishop, whose heart was moved; 'I can never forget old days.' 'Believe me, then,' continued Cadurcis, 'that you misjudge me in respect of Venetia. I feel assured that, had we married three years ago, I should have been a much happier man.' 'Why, you have everything to make you happy,' said the Bishop; 'if you are not happy, who should be? You are young, and you are famous: all that is now wanted is to be wise.' Lord Cadurcis shrugged his shoulders. I am tired of this life,' he said; 'I am wearied of the same hollow bustle, and the same false glitter day after day. Ah! my dear friend, when I remember the happy hours when I used to roam through the woods of Cherbury with Venetia, and ramble in that delicious park, both young, both innocent, lit by the sunset and guided by the stars; and then remember that it has all ended in this, and that this is success, glory, fame, or whatever be the proper title to baptize the bubble, the burthen of existence is too great for me.' 'Hush, hush!' said his friend, rising from the sofa; 'you will be happy if you be wise.' 'But what is wisdom?' said Lord Cadurcis. 'One quality of it, in your situation, my lord, is to keep your head as calm as you can. Now, I must bid you good night.' The Bishop disappeared, and Lord Cadurcis was immediately surrounded by several fine ladies, who were encouraged by the flattering bulletin that his neighbour at dinner, who was among them, had given of his lordship's temper. They were rather disappointed to find him sullen, sarcastic, and even morose. As for going to Ranelagh, he declared that, if he had the power of awarding the punishment of his bitterest enemy, it would be to consign him for an hour to the barbarous infliction of a promenade in that temple of ennui; and as for the owner of the album, who, anxious about her verses, ventured to express a hope that his lordship would call upon her, the contemptuous bard gave her what he was in the habit of styling 'a look,' and quitted the room, without deigning otherwise to acknowledge her hopes and her courtesy. CHAPTER V. We must now return to our friends the Herberts, who, having quitted Weymouth, without even revisiting Cherbury, are now on their journey to the metropolis. It was not without considerable emotion that Lady Annabel, after an absence of nearly nineteen years, contemplated her return to the scene of some of the most extraordinary and painful occurrences of her life. As for Venetia, who knew nothing of towns and cities, save from the hasty observations she had made in travelling, the idea of London, formed only from books and her imagination, was invested with even awful attributes. Mistress Pauncefort alone looked forward to their future residence simply with feelings of self-congratulation at her return, after so long an interval, to the theatre of former triumphs and pleasures, and where she conceived herself so eminently qualified to shine and to enjoy. The travellers entered town towards nightfall, by Hyde Park Corner, and proceeded to an hotel in St. James's Street, where Lady Annabel's man of business had engaged them apartments. London, with its pallid parish lamps, scattered at long intervals, would have presented but a gloomy appearance to the modern eye, habituated to all the splendour of gas; but to Venetia it seemed difficult to conceive a scene of more brilliant bustle; and she leant back in the carriage, distracted with the lights and the confusion of the crowded streets. When they were once safely lodged in their new residence, the tumult of unpacking the carriages had subsided, and the ceaseless tongue of Pauncefort had in some degree refrained from its wearying and worrying chatter, a feeling of loneliness, after all this agitation and excitement, simultaneously came over the feelings of both mother and daughter, though they alike repressed its expression. Lady Annabel was lost in many sad thoughts, and Venetia felt mournful, though she could scarcely define the cause. Both were silent, and they soon sought refuge from fatigue and melancholy in sleep. The next morning, it being now April, was fortunately bright and clear. It certainly was a happy fortune that the fair Venetia was not greeted with a fog. She rose refreshed and cheerful, and joined her mother, who was, however, not a little agitated by an impending visit, of which Venetia had been long apprised. This was from Lady Annabel's brother, the former ambassador, who had of late returned to his native country. The brother and sister had been warmly attached in youth, but the awful interval of time that had elapsed since they parted, filled Venetia's mother with many sad and serious reflections. The Earl and his family had been duly informed of Lady Annabel's visit to the metropolis, and had hastened to offer her the hospitality of their home; but the offer had been declined, with feelings, however, not a little gratified by the earnestness with which it had been proffered. Venetia was now, for the first time in her life, to see a relative. The anticipated meeting excited in her mind rather curiosity than sentiment. She could not share the agitation of her mother, and yet she looked forward to the arrival of her uncle with extreme inquisitiveness. She was not long kept in suspense. Their breakfast was scarcely finished, when he was announced. Lady Annabel turned rather pale; and Venetia, who felt herself as it were a stranger to her blood, would have retired, had not her mother requested her to remain; so she only withdrew to the back of the apartment. Her uncle was ten years the senior of his sister, but not unlike her. Tall, graceful, with those bland and sympathising manners that easily win hearts, he entered the room with a smile of affection, yet with a composure of deportment that expressed at the same time how sincerely delighted he was at the meeting, and how considerately determined, at the same time, not to indulge in a scene. He embraced his sister with tenderness, assured her that she looked as young as ever, softly chided her for not making his house her home, and hoped that they should never part again; and he then turned to his niece. A fine observer, one less interested in the scene than the only witnesses, might have detected in the Earl, notwithstanding his experienced breeding, no ordinary surprise and gratification at the sight of the individual whose relationship he was now to claim for the first time. 'I must claim an uncle's privilege,' he said, in a tone of sweetness and some emotion, as he pressed with his own the beautiful lips of Venetia. 'I ought to be proud of my niece. Why, Annabel! if only for the honour of our family, you should not have kept this jewel so long enshrined in the casket of Cherbury.' The Earl remained with them some hours, and his visit was really prolonged by the unexpected pleasure which he found in the society of his relations. He would not leave them until they promised to dine with him that day, and mentioned that he had prevented his wife from calling with him that morning, because he thought, after so long a separation, it might be better to meet thus quietly. Then they parted with affectionate cordiality on both sides; the Earl enchanted to find delightful companions where he was half afraid he might only meet tiresome relatives; Lady Annabel proud of her brother, and gratified by his kindness; and Venetia anxious to ascertain whether all her relations were as charming as her uncle. CHAPTER VI. When Lady Annabel and her daughter returned from their morning drive, they found the visiting ticket of the Countess on the table, who had also left a note, with which she had provided herself in case she was not so fortunate as to meet her relations. The note was affectionate, and expressed the great delight of the writer at again meeting her dear sister, and forming an acquaintance with her charming niece. 'More relations!' said Venetia, with a somewhat droll expression of countenance. At this moment the Bishop of----, who had already called twice upon them unsuccessfully, entered the room. The sight of this old and dear friend gave great joy. He came to engage them to dine with him the next day, having already ineffectually endeavoured to obtain them for permanent guests. They sat chatting so long with him, that they were obliged at last to bid him an abrupt adieu, and hasten and make their toilettes for their dinner. Their hostess received her relations with a warmth which her husband's praises of her sister-in-law and niece had originally prompted, but which their appearance and manners instantly confirmed. As all the Earl's children were married, their party consisted to-day only of themselves; but it was a happy and agreeable meeting, for every one was desirous of being amiable. To be sure they had not many recollections or associations in common, and no one recurred to the past; but London, and the history of its fleeting hours, was an inexhaustible source of amusing conversation; and the Countess seemed resolved that Venetia should have a brilliant season; that she should be much amused and much admired. Lady Annabel, however, put in a plea for moderation, at least until Venetia was presented; but that the Countess declared must be at the next drawing-room, which was early in the ensuing week. Venetia listened to glittering narratives of balls and routs, operas and theatres, breakfasts and masquerades, Ranelagh and the Pantheon, with the same smiling composure as if she had been accustomed to them all her life, instead of having been shut up in a garden, with no livelier or brighter companions than birds and flowers. After dinner, as her aunt and uncle and Lady Annabel sat round the fire, talking of her maternal grandfather, a subject which did not at all interest her, Venetia stole from her chair to a table in a distant part of the room, and turned over some books and music that were lying upon it. Among these was a literary journal, which she touched almost by accident, and which opened, with the name of Lord Cadurcis on the top of its page. This, of course, instantly attracted her attention. Her eye passed hastily over some sentences which greatly astonished her, and, extending her arm for a chair without quitting the book, she was soon deeply absorbed by the marvels which rapidly unfolded themselves to her. The article in question was an elaborate criticism as well of the career as the works of the noble poet; for, indeed, as Venetia now learnt, they were inseparably blended. She gathered from these pages a faint and hasty yet not altogether unfaithful conception of the strange revolution that had occurred in the character, pursuits, and position of her former companion. In that mighty metropolis, whose wealth and luxury and power had that morning so vividly impressed themselves upon her consciousness, and to the history of whose pleasures and brilliant and fantastic dissipation she had recently been listening with a lively and diverted ear, it seemed that, by some rapid and magical vicissitude, her little Plantagenet, the faithful and affectionate companion of her childhood, whose sorrows she had so often soothed, and who in her pure and devoted love had always found consolation and happiness, had become 'the observed of all observers;' the most remarkable where all was striking, and dazzling where all were brilliant! His last visit to Cherbury, and its strange consequences, then occurred to her; his passionate addresses, and their bitter parting. Here was surely matter enough for a maiden's reverie, and into a reverie Venetia certainly fell, from which she was roused by the voice of her uncle, who could not conceive what book his charming niece could find so interesting, and led her to feel what an ill compliment she was paying to all present. Venetia hastily closed the volume, and rose rather confused from her seat; her radiant smile was the best apology to her uncle: and she compensated for her previous inattention, by playing to him on the harpsichord. All the time, however, the image of Cadurcis flitted across her vision, and she was glad when her mother moved to retire, that she might enjoy the opportunity of pondering in silence and unobserved over the strange history that she had read. London is a wonderful place! Four-and-twenty hours back, with a feeling of loneliness and depression amounting to pain, Venetia had fled to sleep as her only refuge; now only a day had passed, and she had both seen and heard many things that had alike startled and pleased her; had found powerful and charming friends; and laid her head upon her pillow in a tumult of emotion that long banished slumber from her beautiful eyes. CHAPTER VII. Venetia soon found that she must bid adieu for ever, in London, to her old habits of solitude. She soon discovered that she was never to be alone. Her aunt called upon them early in the morning, and said that the whole day must be devoted to their court dresses; and in a few minutes they were all whirled off to a celebrated milliner's. After innumerable consultations and experiments, the dress of Venetia was decided on; her aunt and Lady Annabel were both assured that it would exceed in splendour and propriety any dress at the drawing-room. Indeed, as the great artist added, with such a model to work from it would reflect but little credit on the establishment, if any approached Miss Herbert in the effect she must inevitably produce. While her mother was undergoing some of those attentions to which Venetia had recently submitted, and had retired for a few minutes into an adjoining apartment, our little lady of Cherbury strolled about the saloon in which she had been left, until her attention was attracted by a portrait of a young man in an oriental dress, standing very sublimely amid the ruins of some desert city; a palm tree in the distance, and by his side a crouching camel, and some recumbent followers slumbering amid the fallen columns. 'That is Lord Cadurcis, my love,' said her aunt, who at the moment joined her, 'the famous poet. All the young ladies are in love with him. I dare say you know his works by heart.' 'No, indeed, aunt,' said Venetia; 'I have never even read them; but I should like very much.' 'Not read Lord Cadurcis' poems! Oh! we must go and get them directly for you. Everybody reads them. You will be looked upon quite as a little barbarian. We will stop the carriage at Stockdale's, and get them for you.' At this moment Lady Annabel rejoined them; and, having made all their arrangements, they re-entered the carriage. 'Stop at Stockdale's,' said her ladyship to the servant; 'I must get Cadurcis' last poem for Venetia. She will be quite back in her learning, Annabel.' 'Cadurcis' last poem!' said Lady Annabel; 'do you mean Lord Cadurcis? Is he a poet?' 'To he sure! Well, you are countrified not to know Lord Cadurcis!' 'I know him very well,' said Lady Annabel, gravely; 'but I did not know he was a poet.' The Countess laughed, the carriage stopped, the book was brought; Lady Annabel looked uneasy, and tried to catch her daughter's countenance, but, strange to say, for the first time in her life was quite unsuccessful. The Countess took the book, and immediately gave it Venetia. 'There, my dear,' said her aunt, 'there never was anything so charming. I am so provoked that Cadurcis is a Whig.' 'A Whig!' said Lady Annabel; 'he was not a Whig when I knew him.' 'Oh! my dear, I am afraid he is worse than a Whig. He is almost a rebel! But then he is such a genius! Everything is allowed, you know, to a genius!' said the thoughtless sister-in-law. Lady Annabel was silent; but the stillness of her emotion must not be judged from the stillness of her tongue. Her astonishment at all she had heard was only equalled by what we may justly term her horror. It was impossible that she could have listened to any communication at the same time so astounding, and to her so fearful. 'We knew Lord Cadurcis when he was very young, aunt,' said Venetia, in a quiet tone. 'He lived near mamma, in the country.' 'Oh! my dear Annabel, if you see him in town bring him to me; he is the most difficult person in the world to get to one's house, and I would give anything if he would come and dine with me.' The Countess at last set her relations down at their hotel. When Lady Annabel was once more alone with her daughter, she said, 'Venetia, dearest, give me that book your aunt lent you.' Venetia immediately handed it to her, but her mother did not open it; but saying, 'The Bishop dines at four, darling; I think it is time for us to dress,' Lady Annabel left the room. To say the truth, Venetia was less surprised than disappointed by this conduct of her mother's; but she was not apt to murmur, and she tried to dismiss the subject from her thoughts. It was with unfeigned delight that the kind-hearted Masham welcomed under his own roof his two best and dearest friends. He had asked nobody to meet them; it was settled that they were to be quite alone, and to talk of nothing but Cherbury and Marringhurst. When they were seated at table, the Bishop, who had been detained at the House of Lords, and been rather hurried to be in time to receive his guests, turned to his servant and inquired whether any one had called. 'Yes, my lord, Lord Cadurcis,' was the reply. 'Our old companion,' said the Bishop to Lady Annabel, with a smile. 'He has called upon me twice, and I have on both occasions unfortunately been absent.' Lady Annabel merely bowed an assent to the Bishop's remark. Venetia longed to speak, but found it impossible. 'What is it that represses me?' she asked herself. 'Is there to be another forbidden subject insensibly to arise between us? I must struggle against this indefinable despotism that seems to pervade my life.' 'Have you met Lord Cadurcis, sir?' at length asked Venetia. 'Once; we resumed our acquaintance at a dinner party one day; but I shall soon see a great deal of him, for he has just taken his seat. He is of age, you know.' 'I hope he has come to years of discretion in every sense,' said Lady Annabel; 'but I fear not.' 'Oh, my dear lady!' said the Bishop, 'he has become a great man; he is our star. I assure you there is nobody in London talked of but Lord Cadurcis. He asked me a great deal after you and Cherbury. He will be delighted to see you.' 'I cannot say,' replied Lady Annabel, 'that the desire of meeting is at all mutual. From all I hear, our connections and opinions are very different, and I dare say our habits likewise.' 'My aunt lent us his new poem to-day,' said Venetia, boldly. 'Have you read it?' asked the Bishop. 'I am no admirer of modern poetry,' said Lady Annabel, somewhat tartly. 'Poetry of any kind is not much in my way,' said the Bishop, 'but if you like to read his poems, I will lend them to you, for he gave me a copy; esteemed a great honour, I assure you.' 'Thank you, my lord,' said Lady Annabel, 'both Venetia and myself are much engaged now; and I do not wish her to read while she is in London. When we return to Cherbury she will have abundance of time, if desirable.' Both Venetia and her worthy host felt that the present subject of conversation was not agreeable to Lady Annabel, and it was changed. They fell upon more gracious topics, and in spite of this somewhat sullen commencement the meeting was quite as delightful as they anticipated. Lady Annabel particularly exerted herself to please, and, as was invariably the case under such circumstances with this lady, she was eminently successful; she apparently endeavoured, by her remarkable kindness to her daughter, to atone for any unpleasant feeling which her previous manner might for an instant have occasioned. Venetia watched her beautiful and affectionate parent, as Lady Annabel now dwelt with delight upon the remembrance of their happy home, and now recurred to the anxiety she naturally felt about her daughter's approaching presentation, with feelings of love and admiration, which made her accuse herself for the recent rebellion of her heart. She thought only of her mother's sorrows, and her devotion to her child; and, grateful for the unexpected course of circumstances which seemed to be leading every member of their former little society to honour and happiness, she resolved to persist in that career of duty and devotion to her mother, from which it seemed to her she had never deviated for a moment but to experience sorrow, misfortune, and remorse. Never did Venetia receive her mother's accustomed embrace and blessing with more responsive tenderness and gratitude than this night. She banished Cadurcis and his poems from her thoughts, confident that, so long as her mother approved neither of her continuing his acquaintance, nor perusing his writings, it was well that the one should be a forgotten tie, and the other a sealed book. CHAPTER VIII. Among the intimate acquaintances of Lady Annabel's brother was the nobleman who had been a minister during the American war, and who had also been the guardian of Lord Cadurcis, of whom, indeed, he was likewise a distant relative. He had called with his wife on Lady Annabel, after meeting her and her daughter at her brother's, and had cultivated her acquaintance with great kindness and assiduity, so that Lady Annabel had found it impossible to refuse his invitation to dinner. This dinner occurred a few days after the visit of the Herberts to the Bishop, and that excellent personage, her own family, and some others equally distinguished, but all of the ministerial party, were invited to meet her. Lady Annabel found herself placed at table between a pompous courtier, who, being a gourmand, was not very prompt to disturb his enjoyment by conversation, and a young man whom she found very agreeable, and who at first, indeed, attracted her attention by his resemblance to some face with which she felt she was familiar, and yet which she was not successful in recalling. His manners were remarkably frank and ingenuous, yet soft and refined. Without having any peculiar brilliancy of expression, he was apt and fluent, and his whole demeanour characterised by a gentle modesty that was highly engaging. Apparently he had travelled a great deal, for he more than once alluded to his experience of foreign countries; but this was afterwards explained by Lady Annabel discovering, from an observation he let fall, that he was a sailor. A passing question from an opposite guest also told her that he was a member of parliament. While she was rather anxiously wishing to know who he might be, and congratulating herself that one in whose favour she was so much prepossessed should be on the right side, their host saluted him from the top of the table, and said, 'Captain Cadurcis, a glass of wine.' The countenance was now explained. It was indeed Lord Cadurcis whom he resembled, though his eyes were dark blue, and his hair light brown. This then was that cousin who had been sent to sea to make his fortune, and whom Lady Annabel had a faint recollection of poor Mrs. Cadurcis once mentioning. George Cadurcis had not exactly made his fortune, but he had distinguished himself in his profession, and especially in Rodney's victory, and had fought his way up to the command of a frigate. The frigate had recently been paid off, and he had called to pay his respects to his noble relative with the hope of obtaining his interest for a new command. The guardian of his cousin, mortified with the conduct of his hopeful ward, was not very favourably impressed towards any one who bore the name of Cadurcis; yet George, with no pretence, had a winning honest manner that made friends; his lordship took a fancy to him, and, as he could not at the moment obtain him a ship, he did the next best thing for him in his power; a borough was vacant, and he put him into parliament. 'Do you know,' said Lady Annabel to her neighbour, 'I have been fancying all dinner time that we had met before; but I find it is that you only resemble one with whom I was once acquainted.' 'My cousin!' said the Captain; 'he will be very mortified when I go home, if I tell him your ladyship speaks of his acquaintance as one that is past.' 'It is some years since we met,' said Lady Annabel, in a more reserved tone. 'Plantagenet can never forget what he owes to you,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'How often has he spoken to me of you and Miss Herbert! It was only the other night; yes! not a week ago; that he made me sit up with him all night, while he was telling stories of Cherbury: you see I am quite familiar with the spot,' he added, smiling. 'You are very intimate with your cousin, I see,' said Lady Annabel. 'I live a great deal with him,' said George Cadurcis. 'You know we had never met or communicated; and it was not Plantagenet's fault, I am sure; for of all the generous, amiable, lovable beings, Cadurcis is the best I ever met with in this world. Ever since we knew each other he has been a brother to me; and though our politics and opinions are so opposed, and we naturally live in such a different circle, he would have insisted even upon my having apartments in his house; nor is it possible for me to give you the slightest idea of the delicate and unceasing kindness I experience from him. If we had lived together all our lives, it would be impossible to be more united.' This eulogium rather softened Lady Annabel's heart; she even observed, 'I always thought Lord Cadurcis naturally well disposed; I always hoped he would turn out well; but I was afraid, from what I heard, he was much changed. He shows, however, his sense and good feeling in selecting you for his friend; for you are his natural one,' she added, after a momentary pause. 'And then you know,' he continued, 'it is so purely kind of him; for of course I am not fit to be a companion for Cadurcis, and perhaps, as far as that, no one is. Of course we have not a thought in common. I know nothing but what I have picked up in a rough life; and he, you know, is the cleverest person that ever lived, at least I think so.' Lady Annabel smiled. 'Well, he is very young,' she observed, 'much your junior, Captain Cadurcis; and I hope he will yet prove a faithful steward of the great gifts that God has given him.' 'I would stake all I hold dear,' said the Captain, with great animation, 'that Cadurcis turns out well. He has such a good heart. Ah! Lady Annabel, if he be now and then a little irregular, only think of the temptations that assail him. Only one-and-twenty, his own master, and all London at his feet. It is too much for any one's head. But say or think what the world may, I know him better than they do; and I know there is not a finer creature in existence. I hope his old friends will not desert him,' added Captain Cadurcis, with a smile which, seemed to deprecate the severity of Lady Annabel; 'for in spite of all his fame and prosperity, perhaps, after all, this is the time when he most needs them.' 'Very possibly,' said her ladyship rather dryly. While the mother was engaged in this conversation with her neighbour respecting her former interesting acquaintance, such was the fame of Lord Cadurcis then in the metropolis, that he also formed the topic of conversation at another part of the table, to which the daughter was an attentive listener. The tone in which he was spoken of, however, was of a very different character. While no one disputed his genius, his principles, temper, and habits of life were submitted to the severest scrutiny; and it was with blended feelings of interest and astonishment that Venetia listened to the detail of wild opinions, capricious conduct, and extravagant and eccentric behaviour ascribed to the companion of her childhood, who had now become the spoiled child of society. A shrewd gentleman, who had taken an extremely active part in this discussion, inquired of Venetia, next to whom he was seated, whether she had read his lordship's last poem. He was extremely surprised when Venetia answered in the negative; but he seized the opportunity of giving her an elaborate criticism on the poetical genius of Cadurcis. 'As for his style,' said the critic, 'no one can deny that is his own, and he will last by his style; as for his philosophy, and all these wild opinions of his, they will pass away, because they are not genuine, they are not his own, they are borrowed. He will outwrite them; depend upon it, he will. The fact is, as a friend of mine observed the other day, Herbert's writings have turned his head. Of course you could know nothing about them, but there are wonderful things in them, I can tell you that.' 'I believe it most sincerely,' said Venetia. The critic stared at his neighbour. 'Hush!' said he, 'his wife and daughter are here. We must not talk of these things. You know Lady Annabel Herbert? There she is; a very fine woman too. And that is his daughter there, I believe, that dark girl with a turned-up nose. I cannot say she warrants the poetical address to her: My precious pearl the false and glittering world Has ne'er polluted with, its garish light! She does not look much like a pearl, does she? She should keep in solitude, eh?' The ladies rose and relieved Venetia from her embarrassment. After dinner Lady Annabel introduced George Cadurcis to her daughter; and, seated by them both, he contrived without effort, and without the slightest consciousness of success, to confirm the pleasing impression in his favour which he had already made, and, when they parted, it was even with a mutual wish that they might meet again. CHAPTER IX. It was the night after the drawing-room. Lord Cadurcis was at Brookes' dining at midnight, having risen since only a few hours. Being a malcontent, he had ceased to attend the Court, where his original reception had been most gracious, which he had returned by some factious votes, and a caustic lampoon. A party of young men entered, from the Court Ball, which in those days always terminated at midnight, whence the guests generally proceeded to Ranelagh; one or two of them seated themselves at the table at which Cadurcis was sitting. They were full of a new beauty who had been presented. Their violent and even extravagant encomiums excited his curiosity. Such a creature had never been seen, she was peerless, the most radiant of acknowledged charms had been dimmed before her. Their Majesties had accorded to her the most marked reception. A Prince of the blood had honoured her with his hand. Then they began to expatiate with fresh enthusiasm on her unparalleled loveliness. 'O Cadurcis,' said a young noble, who was one of his extreme admirers, 'she is the only creature I ever beheld worthy of being one of your heroines.' 'Whom are you talking about?' asked Cadurcis in a rather listless tone. 'The new beauty, of course.' 'And who may she be?' 'Miss Herbert, to be sure. Who speaks or thinks of any one else?' 'What, Ve----, I mean Miss Herbert?' exclaimed Cadurcis, with no little energy. 'Yes. Do you know her?' 'Do you mean to say--' and Cadurcis stopped and rose from the table, and joined the party round the fire. 'What Miss Herbert is it?' he added, after a short pause. 'Why _the_ Miss Herbert; Herbert's daughter, to be sure. She was presented to-day by her mother. 'Lady Annabel?' 'The same.' 'Presented to-day!' said Cadurcis audibly, yet speaking as it were to himself. 'Presented to-day! Presented! How strange!' 'So every one thinks; one of the strangest things that ever happened,' remarked a bystander. 'And I did not even know they were in town,' continued Cadurcis, for, from his irregular hours, he had not seen his cousin since the party of yesterday. He began walking up and down the room, muttering, 'Masham, Weymouth, London, presented at Court, and I know nothing. How life changes! Venetia at Court, my Venetia!' Then turning round and addressing the young nobleman who had first spoken to him, he asked 'if the ball were over.' 'Yes; all the world are going to Ranelagh. Are you inclined to take a round?' 'I have a strange fancy,' said Cadurcis, 'and if you will go with me, I will take you in my vis-à-vis. It is here.' This was an irresistible invitation, and in a few minutes the companions were on their way; Cadurcis, apparently with no peculiar interest in the subject, leading the conversation very artfully to the presentation of Miss Herbert. His friend was heartily inclined to gratify his curiosity. He gave him ample details of Miss Herbert's person: even of her costume, and the sensation both produced; how she was presented by her mother, who, after so long an estrangement from the world, scarcely excited less impression, and the remarkable cordiality with which both mother and daughter were greeted by the sovereign and his royal consort. The two young noblemen found Ranelagh crowded, but the presence of Lord Cadurcis occasioned a sensation the moment he was recognised. Everywhere the whisper went round, and many parties crowded near to catch a glimpse of the hero of the day. 'Which is he? That fair, tall young man? No, the other to be sure. Is it really he? How distinguished! How melancholy! Quite the poet. Do you think he is really so unhappy as he looks? I would sooner see him than the King and Queen. He seems very young, but then he has seen so much of the world! Fine eyes, beautiful hair! I wonder who is his friend? How proud he must be! Who is that lady he bowed to? That is the Duke of ---- speaking to him,' Such were the remarks that might be caught in the vicinity of Lord Cadurcis as he took his round, gazed at by the assembled crowd, of whom many knew him only by fame, for the charm of Ranelagh was that it was rather a popular than a merely fashionable assembly. Society at large blended with the Court, which maintained and renewed its influence by being witnessed under the most graceful auspices. The personal authority of the aristocracy has decreased with the disappearance of Ranelagh and similar places of amusement, where rank was not exclusive, and luxury by the gratification it occasioned others seemed robbed of half its selfism. In his second round, Lord Cadurcis recognised the approach of the Herberts. They formed the portion of a large party. Lady Annabel was leaning on her brother, whom Cadurcis knew by sight; Venetia was at the side of her aunt, and several gentlemen were hovering about them; among them, to his surprise, his cousin, George Cadurcis, in his uniform, for he had been to Court and to the Court Ball. Venetia was talking with animation. She was in her Court dress and in powder. Her appearance was strange to him. He could scarcely recognise the friend of his childhood; but without any doubt in all that assembly, unrivalled in the whole world for beauty, grace, and splendour, she was without a parallel; a cynosure on which all eyes were fixed. So occupied were the ladies of the Herbert party by the conversation of their numerous and brilliant attendants, that the approach of any one else but Lord Cadurcis might have been unnoticed by them, but a hundred tongues before he drew nigh had prepared Venetia for his appearance. She was indeed most anxious to behold him, and though she was aware that her heart fluttered not slightly as the moment was at hand, she commanded her gaze, and her eyes met his, although she was doubtful whether he might choose or care to recognise her. He bowed almost to the ground; and when Venetia had raised her responsive head he had passed by. 'Why, Cadurcis, you know Miss Herbert?' said his friend in a tone of some astonishment. 'Well; but it is a long time since I have seen her.' 'Is she not beautiful?' 'I never doubted on that subject; I tell you, Scrope, we must contrive to join her party. I wish we had some of our friends among them. Here comes the Monteagle; aid me to escape her.' The most fascinating smile failed in arresting the progress of Cadurcis; fortunately, the lady was the centre of a brilliant band; all that he had to do, therefore, was boldly to proceed. 'Do you think my cousin is altered since you knew him?' inquired George Cadurcis of Venetia. 'I scarcely had time to observe him,' she replied. 'I wish you would let me bring him to you. He did not know until this moment you were in town. I have not seen him since we met yesterday.' 'Oh, no,' said Venetia. 'Do not disturb him.' In time, however, Lord Cadurcis was again in sight; and now without any hesitation he stopped, and falling into the line by Miss Herbert, he addressed her: 'I am proud of being remembered by Miss Herbert,' he said. 'I am most happy to meet you,' replied Venetia, with unaffected sincerity. 'And Lady Annabel, I have not been able to catch her eye: is she quite well? I was ignorant that you were in London until I heard of your triumph this night.' The Countess whispered her niece, and Venetia accordingly presented Lord Cadurcis to her aunt. This was a most gratifying circumstance to him. He was anxious, by some means or other, to effect his entrance into her circle; and he had an irresistible suspicion that Lady Annabel no longer looked upon him with eyes of favour. So he resolved to enlist the aunt as his friend. Few persons could be more winning than Cadurcis, when he willed it; and every attempt to please from one whom all emulated to gratify and honour, was sure to be successful. The Countess, who, in spite of politics, was a secret votary of his, was quite prepared to be enchanted. She congratulated herself on forming, as she had long wished, an acquaintance with one so celebrated. She longed to pass Lady Monteagle in triumph. Cadurcis improved his opportunity to the utmost. It was impossible for any one to be more engaging; lively, yet at the same time gentle, and deferential with all his originality. He spoke, indeed, more to the aunt than to Venetia, but when he addressed the latter, there was a melting, almost a mournful tenderness in his tones, that alike affected her heart and charmed her imagination. Nor could she be insensible to the gratification she experienced as she witnessed, every instant, the emotion his presence excited among the passers-by, and of which Cadurcis himself seemed so properly and so utterly unconscious. And this was Plantagenet! Lord Cadurcis spoke of his cousin, who, on his joining the party, had assisted the arrangement by moving to the other side; and he spoke of him with a regard which pleased Venetia, though Cadurcis envied him his good fortune in having the advantage of a prior acquaintance with Miss Herbert in town; 'but then we are old acquaintances in the country,' he added, half in a playful, half in a melancholy tone, 'are we not?' 'It is a long time that we have known each other, and it is a long time since we have met,' replied Venetia. 'A delicate reproach,' said Cadurcis; 'but perhaps rather my misfortune than my fault. My thoughts have been often, I might say ever, at Cherbury.' 'And the abbey; have you forgotten the abbey?' 'I have never been near it since a morning you perhaps remember,' said his lordship in a low voice. 'Ah! Miss Herbert,' he continued, with a sigh, 'I was young then; I have lived to change many opinions, and some of which you then disapproved.' The party stopped at a box just vacant, and in which the ladies seated themselves while their carriages were inquired for. Lord Cadurcis, with a rather faltering heart, went up to pay his respects to Venetia's mother. Lady Annabel received him with a courtesy, that however was scarcely cordial, but the Countess instantly presented him to her husband with an unction which a little astonished her sister-in-law. Then a whisper, but unobserved, passed between the Earl and his lady, and in a minute Lord Cadurcis had been invited to dine with them on the next day, and meet his old friends from the country. Cadurcis was previously engaged, but hesitated not a moment in accepting the invitation. The Monteagle party now passed by; the lady looked a little surprised at the company in which she found her favourite, and not a little mortified by his neglect. What business had Cadurcis to be speaking to that Miss Herbert? Was it not enough that the whole day not another name had scarcely crossed her ear, but the night must even witness the conquest of Lord Cadurcis by the new beauty? It was such bad ton, it was so unlike him, it was so underbred, for a person of his position immediately to bow before the new idol of the hour, and a Tory girl too! It was the last thing she could have expected from him. She should, on the contrary, have thought that the universal admiration which this Miss Herbert commanded, would have been exactly the reason why a man like Cadurcis would have seemed almost unconscious of her existence. She determined to remonstrate with him; and she was sure of a speedy opportunity, for he was to dine with her on the morrow. CHAPTER X. Notwithstanding Lady Annabel's reserved demeanour, Lord Cadurcis, supported by the presence of his cousin, whom he had discovered to be a favourite of that lady, ventured to call upon her the next day, but she was out. They were to meet, however, at dinner, where Cadurcis determined to omit no opportunity to propitiate her. The Countess had a great deal of tact, and she contrived to make up a party to receive him, in which there were several of his friends, among them his cousin and the Bishop of----, and no strangers who were not, like herself, his great admirers; but if she had known more, she need not have given herself this trouble, for there was a charm among her guests of which she was ignorant, and Cadurcis went determined to please and to be pleased. At dinner he was seated next to Lady Annabel, and it was impossible for any person to be more deferential, soft, and insinuating. He spoke of old days with emotion which he did not attempt to suppress; he alluded to the present with infinite delicacy. But it was very difficult to make way. Lady Annabel was courteous, but she was reserved. His lively reminiscences elicited from her no corresponding sentiment; and no art would induce her to dwell upon the present. If she only would have condescended to compliment him, it would have given him an opportunity of expressing his distaste of the life which he now led, and a description of the only life which he wished to lead; but Lady Annabel studiously avoided affording him any opening of the kind. She treated him like a stranger. She impressed upon him without effort that she would only consider him an acquaintance. How Cadurcis, satiated with the incense of the whole world, sighed for one single congratulation from Lady Annabel! Nothing could move her. 'I was so surprised to meet you last night,' at length he again observed. 'I have made so many inquiries after you. Our dear friend the Bishop was, I fear, almost wearied with my inquiries after Cherbury. I know not how it was, I felt quite a pang when I heard that you had left it, and that all these years, when I have been conjuring up so many visions of what was passing under that dear roof, you were at Weymouth.' 'Yes. We were at Weymouth some time.' 'But do not you long to see Cherbury again? I cannot tell you how I pant for it. For my part, I have seen the world, and I have seen enough of it. After all, the end of all our exertions is to be happy at home; that is the end of everything; don't you think so?' 'A happy home is certainly a great blessing,' replied Lady Annabel; 'and a rare one.' 'But why should it be rare?' inquired Lord Cadurcis. 'It is our own fault,' said Lady Annabel; 'our vanity drives us from our hearths.' 'But we soon return again, and calm and cooled. For my part, I have no object in life but to settle down at the old abbey, and never to quit again our woods. But I shall lead a dull life without my neighbours,' he added, with a smile, and in a tone half-coaxing. 'I suppose you never see Lord ---- now?' said Lady Annabel, mentioning his late guardian. There was, as Cadurcis fancied, some sarcasm in the question, though not in the tone in which it was asked. 'No, I never see him,' his lordship answered firmly; 'we differ in our opinions, and I differ from him with regret; but I differ from a sense of duty, and therefore I have no alternative.' 'The claims of duty are of course paramount,' observed Lady Annabel. 'You know my cousin?' said Cadurcis, to turn the conversation. 'Yes, and I like him much; he appears to be a sensible, amiable person, of excellent principles.' 'I am not bound to admire George's principles,' said Lord Cadurcis, gaily; 'but I respect them, because I know that they are conscientious. I love George; he is my only relation, and he is my friend.' 'I trust he will always be your friend, for I think you will then, at least, know one person on whom you can depend.' 'I believe it. The friendships of the world are wind.' 'I am surprised to hear you say so,' said Lady Annabel. 'Why, Lady Annabel?' 'You have so many friends.' Lord Cadurcis smiled. 'I wish,' he said, after a little hesitation, 'if only for "Auld lang syne," I might include Lady Annabel Herbert among them.' 'I do not think there is any basis for friendship between us, my lord,' she said, very dryly. 'The past must ever be with me,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'and I should have thought a sure and solid one.' 'Our opinions on all subjects are so adverse, that I must believe that there could be no great sympathy in our feelings.' 'My feelings are beyond my control,' he replied; 'they are, and must ever be, totally independent of my opinions.' Lady Annabel did not reply. His lordship felt baffled, but he was resolved to make one more effort. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I can scarcely believe myself in London to-day? To be sitting next to you, to see Miss Herbert, to hear Dr. Masham's voice. Oh! does it not recall Cherbury, or Marringhurst, or that day at Cadurcis, when you were so good as to smile over my rough repast? Ah! Lady Annabel, those days were happy! those were feelings that can never die! All the glitter and hubbub of the world can never make me forget them, can never make you, I hope, Lady Annabel, quite recall them with an effort. We were friends then: let us be friends now.' 'I am too old to cultivate new friendships,' said Lady Annabel; 'and if we are to be friends, Lord Cadurcis, I am sorry to say that, after the interval that has occurred since we last parted, we should have to begin again.' 'It is a long time,' said Cadurcis, mournfully, 'a very long time, and one, in spite of what the world may think, to which I cannot look back with any self-congratulation. I wished three years ago never to leave Cadurcis again. Indeed I did; and indeed it was not my fault that I quitted it.' 'It was no one's fault, I hope. Whatever the cause may have been, I have ever remained quite ignorant of it. I wished, and wish, to remain ignorant of it. I, for one, have ever considered it the wise dispensation of a merciful Providence.' Cadurcis ground his teeth; a dark look came over him which, when once it rose on his brow, was with difficulty dispelled; and for the remainder of the dinner he continued silent and gloomy. He was, however, not unobserved by Venetia. She had watched his evident attempts to conciliate her mother with lively interest; she had witnessed their failure with sincere sorrow. In spite of that stormy interview, the results of which, in his hasty departure, and the severance of their acquaintance, she had often regretted, she had always retained for him the greatest affection. During these three years he had still, in her inmost heart, remained her own Plantagenet, her adopted brother, whom she loved, and in whose welfare her feelings were deeply involved. The mysterious circumstances of her birth, and the discoveries to which they had led, had filled her mind with a fanciful picture of human nature, over which she had long brooded. A great poet had become her ideal of a man. Sometimes she had sighed, when musing over her father and Plantagenet on the solitary seashore at Weymouth, that Cadurcis, instead of being the merely amiable, and somewhat narrow-minded being that she supposed, had not been invested with those brilliant and commanding qualities which she felt could alone master her esteem. Often had she, in those abstracted hours, played with her imagination in combining the genius of her father with the soft heart of that friend to whom she was so deeply attached. She had wished, in her reveries, that Cadurcis might have been a great man; that he might have existed in an atmosphere of glory amid the plaudits and admiration of his race; and that then he might have turned from all that fame, so dear to them both, to the heart which could alone sympathise with the native simplicity of his childhood. The ladies withdrew. The Bishop and another of the guests joined them after a short interval. The rest remained below, and drank their wine with the freedom not unusual in those days, Lord Cadurcis among them, although it was not his habit. But he was not convivial, though he never passed the bottle untouched. He was in one of those dark humours of which there was a latent spring in his nature, but which in old days had been kept in check by his simple life, his inexperienced mind, and the general kindness that greeted him, and which nothing but the caprice and perversity of his mother could occasionally develope. But since the great revolution in his position, since circumstances had made him alike acquainted with his nature, and had brought all society to acknowledge its superiority; since he had gained and felt his irresistible power, and had found all the world, and all the glory of it, at his feet, these moods had become more frequent. The slightest reaction in the self-complacency that was almost unceasingly stimulated by the applause of applauded men and the love of the loveliest women, instantly took the shape and found refuge in the immediate form of the darkest spleen, generally, indeed, brooding in silence, and, if speaking, expressing itself only in sarcasm. Cadurcis was indeed, as we have already described him, the spoiled child of society; a froward and petted darling, not always to be conciliated by kindness, but furious when neglected or controlled. He was habituated to triumph; it had been his lot to come, to see, and to conquer; even the procrastination of certain success was intolerable to him; his energetic volition could not endure a check. To Lady Annabel Herbert, indeed, he was not exactly what he was to others; there was a spell in old associations from which he unconsciously could not emancipate himself, and from which it was his opinion he honoured her in not desiring to be free. He had his reasons for wishing to regain his old, his natural influence, over her heart; he did not doubt for an instant that, if Cadurcis sued, success must follow the condescending effort. He had sued, and he had been met with coldness, almost with disdain. He had addressed her in those terms of tenderness which experience had led him to believe were irresistible, yet to which he seldom had recourse, for hitherto he had not been under the degrading necessity of courting. He had dwelt with fondness on the insignificant past, because it was connected with her; he had regretted, or affected even to despise, the glorious present, because it seemed, for some indefinite cause, to have estranged him from her hearth. Yes! he had humbled himself before her; he had thrown with disdain at her feet all that dazzling fame and expanding glory which seemed his peculiar and increasing privilege. He had delicately conveyed to her that even these would be sacrificed, not only without a sigh, but with cheerful delight, to find himself once more living, as of old, in the limited world of her social affections. Three years ago he had been rejected by the daughter, because he was an undistinguished youth. Now the mother recoiled from his fame. And who was this woman? The same cold, stern heart that had alienated the gifted Herbert; the same narrow, rigid mind that had repudiated ties that every other woman in the world would have gloried to cherish and acknowledge. And with her he had passed his prejudiced youth, and fancied, like an idiot, that he had found sympathy! Yes, so long as he was a slave, a mechanical, submissive slave, bowing his mind to all the traditionary bigotry which she adored, never daring to form an opinion for himself, worshipping her idol, custom, and labouring by habitual hypocrisy to perpetuate the delusions of all around her! In the meantime, while Lord Cadurcis was chewing the cud of these bitter feelings, we will take the opportunity of explaining the immediate cause of Lady Annabel's frigid reception of his friendly advances. All that she had heard of Cadurcis, all the information she had within these few days so rapidly acquired of his character and conduct, were indeed not calculated to dispose her to witness the renewal of their intimacy with feelings of remarkable satisfaction. But this morning she had read his poem, the poem that all London was talking of, and she had read it with horror. She looked upon Cadurcis as a lost man. With her, indeed, since her marriage, an imaginative mind had become an object of terror; but there were some peculiarities in the tone of Cadurcis' genius, which magnified to excess her general apprehension on this head. She traced, in every line, the evidences of a raging vanity, which she was convinced must prompt its owner to sacrifice, on all occasions, every feeling of duty to its gratification. Amid all the fervour of rebellious passions, and the violence of a wayward mind, a sentiment of profound egotism appeared to her impressed on every page she perused. Great as might have been the original errors of Herbert, awful as in her estimation were the crimes to which they had led him, they might in the first instance be traced rather to a perverted view of society than of himself. But self was the idol of Cadurcis; self distorted into a phantom that seemed to Lady Annabel pregnant not only with terrible crimes, but with the basest and most humiliating vices. The certain degradation which in the instance of her husband had been the consequence of a bad system, would, in her opinion, in the case of Cadurcis, be the result of a bad nature; and when she called to mind that there had once been a probability that this individual might have become the husband of her Venetia, her child whom it had been the sole purpose of her life to save from the misery of which she herself had been the victim; that she had even dwelt on the idea with complacency, encouraged its progress, regretted its abrupt termination, but consoled herself by the flattering hope that time, with even more favourable auspices, would mature it into fulfilment; she trembled, and turned pale. It was to the Bishop that, after dinner, Lady Annabel expressed some of the feelings which the reappearance of Cadurcis had occasioned her. 'I see nothing but misery for his future,' she exclaimed; 'I tremble for him when he addresses me. In spite of the glittering surface on which he now floats, I foresee only a career of violence, degradation, and remorse.' 'He is a problem difficult to solve,' replied Masham; 'but there are elements not only in his character, but his career, so different from those of the person of whom we were speaking, that I am not inclined at once to admit, that the result must necessarily be the same.' 'I see none,' replied Lady Annabel; 'at least none of sufficient influence to work any material change.' 'What think you of his success?' replied Masham. 'Cadurcis is evidently proud of it. With all his affected scorn of the world, he is the slave of society. He may pique the feelings of mankind, but I doubt whether he will outrage them.' 'He is on such a dizzy eminence,' replied Lady Annabel, 'that I do not believe he is capable of calculating so finely. He does not believe, I am sure, in the possibility of resistance. His vanity will tempt him onwards.' 'Not to persecution,' said Masham. 'Now, my opinion of Cadurcis is, that his egotism, or selfism, or whatever you may style it, will ultimately preserve him from any very fatal, from any irrecoverable excesses. He is of the world, worldly. All his works, all his conduct, tend only to astonish mankind. He is not prompted by any visionary ideas of ameliorating his species. The instinct of self-preservation will serve him as ballast.' 'We shall see,' said Lady Annabel; 'for myself, whatever may be his end, I feel assured that great and disgraceful vicissitudes are in store for him.' 'It is strange after what, in comparison with such extraordinary changes, must be esteemed so brief an interval,' observed Masham, with a smile, 'to witness such a revolution in his position. I often think to myself, can this indeed be our little Plantagenet?' 'It is awful!' said Lady Annabel; 'much more than strange. For myself, when I recall certain indications of his feelings when he was last at Cadurcis, and think for a moment of the results to which they might have led, I shiver; I assure you, my dear lord, I tremble from head to foot. And I encouraged him! I smiled with fondness on his feelings! I thought I was securing the peaceful happiness of my child! What can we trust to in this world! It is too dreadful to dwell upon! It must have been an interposition of Providence that Venetia escaped.' 'Dear little Venetia,' exclaimed the good Bishop; 'for I believe I shall call her little Venetia to the day of my death. How well she looks to-night! Her aunt is, I think, very fond of her! See!' 'Yes, it pleases me,' said Lady Annabel; but I do wish my sister was not such an admirer of Lord Cadurcis' poems. You cannot conceive how uneasy it makes me. I am quite annoyed that he was asked here to-day. Why ask him?' 'Oh! there is no harm,' said Masham; 'you must forget the past. By all accounts, Cadurcis is not a marrying man. Indeed, as I understood, marriage with him is at present quite out of the question. And as for Venetia, she rejected him before, and she will, if necessary, reject him again. He has been a brother to her, and after that he can be no more. Girls never fall in love with those with whom they are bred up.' 'I hope, I believe there is no occasion for apprehension,' replied Lady Annabel; 'indeed, it has scarcely entered my head. The very charms he once admired in Venetia can have no sway over him, as I should think, now. I should believe him as little capable of appreciating Venetia now, as he was when last at Cherbury, of anticipating the change in his own character.' 'You mean opinions, my dear lady, for characters never change. Believe me, Cadurcis is radically the same as in old days. Circumstances have only developed his latent predisposition.' 'Not changed, my dear lord! what, that innocent, sweet-tempered, docile child--' 'Hush! here he comes.' The Earl and his guests entered the room; a circle was formed round Lady Annabel; some evening visitors arrived; there was singing. It had not been the intention of Lord Cadurcis to return to the drawing-room after his rebuff by Lady Annabel; he had meditated making his peace at Monteagle House; but when the moment of his projected departure had arrived, he could not resist the temptation of again seeing Venetia. He entered the room last, and some moments after his companions. Lady Annabel, who watched the general entrance, concluded he had gone, and her attention was now fully engaged. Lord Cadurcis remained at the end of the room alone, apparently abstracted, and looking far from amiable; but his eye, in reality, was watching Venetia. Suddenly her aunt approached her, and invited the lady who was conversing with Miss Herbert to sing; Lord Cadurcis immediately advanced, and took her seat. Venetia was surprised that for the first time in her life with Plantagenet she felt embarrassed. She had met his look when he approached her, and had welcomed, or, at least, intended to welcome him with a smile, but she was at a loss for words; she was haunted with the recollection of her mother's behaviour to him at dinner, and she looked down on the ground, far from being at ease. 'Venetia!' said Lord Cadurcis. She started. 'We are alone,' he said; 'let me call you Venetia when we are alone.' She did not, she could not reply; she felt confused; the blood rose to her cheek. 'How changed is everything!' continued Cadurcis. 'To think the day should ever arrive when I should have to beg your permission to call you Venetia!' She looked up; she met his glance. It was mournful; nay, his eyes were suffused with tears. She saw at her side the gentle and melancholy Plantagenet of her childhood. 'I cannot speak; I am agitated at meeting you,' she said with her native frankness. 'It is so long since we have been alone; and, as you say, all is so changed.' 'But are you changed, Venetia?' he said in a voice of emotion; 'for all other change is nothing.' 'I meet you with pleasure,' she replied; 'I hear of your fame with pride. You cannot suppose that it is possible I should cease to be interested in your welfare.' 'Your mother does not meet me with pleasure; she hears of nothing that has occurred to me with pride; your mother has ceased to take an interest in my welfare; and why should you be unchanged?' 'You mistake my mother.' 'No, no,' replied Cadurcis, shaking his head, 'I have read her inmost soul to-day. Your mother hates me; me, whom she once styled her son. She was a mother once to me, and you were my sister. If I have lost her heart, why have I not lost yours?' 'My heart, if you care for it, is unchanged,' said Venetia. 'O Venetia, whatever you may think, I never wanted the solace of a sister's love more than I do at this moment.' 'I pledged my affection to you when we were children,' replied Venetia; 'you have done nothing to forfeit it, and it is yours still.' 'When we were children,' said Cadurcis, musingly; 'when we were innocent; when we were happy. You, at least, are innocent still; are you happy, Venetia?' 'Life has brought sorrows even to me, Plantagenet.' The blood deserted his heart when she called him Plantagenet; he breathed with difficulty. 'When I last returned to Cherbury,' he said, 'you told me you were changed, Venetia; you revealed to me on another occasion the secret cause of your affliction. I was a boy then, a foolish ignorant boy. Instead of sympathising with your heartfelt anxiety, my silly vanity was offended by feelings I should have shared, and soothed, and honoured. Ah, Venetia! well had it been for one of us that I had conducted myself more kindly, more wisely.' 'Nay, Plantagenet, believe me, I remember that interview only to regret it. The recollection of it has always occasioned me great grief. We were both to blame; but we were both children then. We must pardon each other's faults.' 'You will hear, that is, if you care to listen, Venetia, much of my conduct and opinions,' continued Lord Cadurcis, 'that may induce you to believe me headstrong and capricious. Perhaps I am less of both in all things than the world imagines. But of this be certain, that my feelings towards you have never changed, whatever you may permit them to be; and if some of my boyish judgments have, as was but natural, undergone some transformation, be you, my sweet friend, in some degree consoled for the inconsistency, since I have at length learned duly to appreciate one of whom we then alike knew little, but whom a natural inspiration taught you, at least, justly to appreciate: I need not say I mean the illustrious father of your being.' Venetia could not restrain her tears; she endeavoured to conceal her agitated countenance behind the fan with which she was fortunately provided. 'To me a forbidden subject,' said Venetia, 'at least with them I could alone converse upon it, but one that my mind never deserts.' 'O Venetia!' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis with a sigh, 'would we were both with him!' 'A wild thought,' she murmured, 'and one I must not dwell upon.' 'We shall meet, I hope,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'we must meet, meet often. I called upon your mother to-day, fruitlessly. You must attempt to conciliate her. Why should we be parted? We, at least, are friends, and more than friends. I cannot exist unless we meet, and meet with the frankness of old days.' 'I think you mistake mamma; I think you may, indeed. Remember how lately she has met you, and after how long an interval! A little time, and she will resume her former feelings, and believe that you have never forfeited yours. Besides, we have friends, mutual friends. My aunt admires you, and here I naturally must be a great deal. And the Bishop, he still loves you; that I am sure he does: and your cousin, mamma likes your cousin. I am sure if you can manage only to be patient, if you will only attempt to conciliate a little, all will be as before. Remember, too, how changed your position is,' Venetia added with a smile; 'you allow me to forget you are a great man, but mamma is naturally restrained by all this wonderful revolution. When she finds that you really are the Lord Cadurcis whom she knew such a very little boy, the Lord Cadurcis who, without her aid, would never have been able even to write his fine poems, oh! she must love you again. How can she help it?' Cadurcis smiled. 'We shall see,' he said. 'In the meantime do not you desert me, Venetia.' 'That is impossible,' she replied; 'the happiest of my days have been passed with you. You remember the inscription on the jewel? I shall keep to my vows.' 'That was a very good inscription so far as it went,' said Cadurcis; and then, as if a little alarmed at his temerity, he changed the subject. 'Do you know,' said Venetia, after a pause, 'I am treating you all this time as a poet, merely in deference to public opinion. Not a line have I been permitted to read; but I am resolved to rebel, and you must arrange it all.' 'Ah!' said the enraptured Cadurcis; 'this is fame!' At this moment the Countess approached them, and told Venetia that her mother wished to speak to her. Lady Annabel had discovered the tête-à-tête, and resolved instantly to terminate it. Lord Cadurcis, however, who was quick as lightning, read all that was necessary in Venetia's look. Instead of instantly retiring, he remained some little time longer, talked to the Countess, who was perfectly enchanted with him, even sauntered up to the singers, and complimented them, and did not make his bow until he had convinced at least the mistress of the mansion, if not her sister-in-law, that it was not Venetia Herbert who was his principal attraction in this agreeable society. CHAPTER XI. The moment he had quitted Venetia, Lord Cadurcis returned home. He could not endure the usual routine of gaiety after her society; and his coachman, often waiting until five o'clock in the morning at Monteagle House, could scarcely assure himself of his good fortune in this exception to his accustomed trial of patience. The vis-à-vis stopped, and Lord Cadurcis bounded out with a light step and a lighter heart. His table was covered with letters. The first one that caught his eye was a missive from Lady Monteagle. Cadurcis seized it like a wild animal darting on its prey, tore it in half without opening it, and, grasping the poker, crammed it with great energy into the fire. This exploit being achieved, Cadurcis began walking up and down the room; and indeed he paced it for nearly a couple of hours in a deep reverie, and evidently under a considerable degree of excitement, for his gestures were violent, and his voice often audible. At length, about an hour after midnight, he rang for his valet, tore off his cravat, and hurled it to one corner of the apartment, called for his robe de chambre, soda water, and more lights, seated himself, and began pouring forth, faster almost than his pen could trace the words, the poem that he had been meditating ever since he had quitted the roof where he had met Venetia. She had expressed a wish to read his poems; he had resolved instantly to compose one for her solitary perusal Thus he relieved his heart: I. Within a cloistered pile, whose Gothic towers Rose by the margin of a sedgy lake, Embosomed in a valley of green bowers, And girt by many a grove and ferny brake Loved by the antlered deer, a tender youth Whom Time to childhood's gentle sway of love Still spared; yet innocent as is the dove, Nor mounded yet by Care's relentless tooth; Stood musing, of that fair antique domain The orphan lord! And yet, no childish thought With wayward purpose holds its transient reign In his young mind, with deeper feelings fraught; Then mystery all to him, and yet a dream, That Time has touched with its revealing beam. II. There came a maiden to that lonely boy, And like to him as is the morn to night; Her sunny face a very type of joy, And with her soul's unclouded lustre bright. Still scantier summers had her brow illumed Than that on which she threw a witching smile, Unconscious of the spell that could beguile His being of the burthen it was doomed By his ancestral blood to bear: a spirit, Rife with desponding thoughts and fancies drear, A moody soul that men sometimes inherit, And worse than all the woes the world may bear. But when he met that maiden's dazzling eye, He bade each gloomy image baffled fly. III. Amid the shady woods and sunny lawns The maiden and the youth now wander, gay As the bright birds, and happy as the fawns, Their sportive rivals, that around them play; Their light hands linked in love, the golden hours Unconscious fly, while thus they graceful roam, And careless ever till the voice of home Recalled them from their sunshine find their flowers; For then they parted: to his lonely pile The orphan-chief, for though his woe to lull, The maiden called him brother, her fond smile Gladdened another hearth, while his was dull Yet as they parted, she reproved his sadness, And for his sake she gaily whispered gladness. IV. She was the daughter of a noble race, That beauteous girl, and yet she owed her name To one who needs no herald's skill to trace His blazoned lineage, for his lofty fame Lives in the mouth of men, and distant climes Re-echo his wide glory; where the brave Are honoured, where 'tis noble deemed to save A prostrate nation, and for future times Work with a high devotion, that no taunt, Or ribald lie, or zealot's eager curse, Or the short-sighted world's neglect can daunt, That name is worshipped! His immortal verse Blends with his god-like deeds, a double spell To bind the coming age he loved too well! V. For, from his ancient home, a scatterling, They drove him forth, unconscious of their prize, And branded as a vile unhallowed thing, The man who struggled only to be wise. And even his hearth rebelled, the duteous wife, Whose bosom well might soothe in that dark hour, Swelled with her gentle force the world's harsh power, And aimed her dart at his devoted life. That struck; the rest his mighty soul might scorn, But when his household gods averted stood, 'Twas the last pang that cannot well be borne When tortured e'en to torpor: his heart's blood Flowed to the unseen blow: then forth he went, And gloried in his ruthless banishment. VI. A new-born pledge of love within his home, His alien home, the exiled father left; And when, like Cain, he wandered forth to roam, A Cain without his solace, all bereft, Stole down his pallid cheek the scalding tear, To think a stranger to his tender love His child must grow, untroubled where might rove His restless life, or taught perchance to fear Her father's name, and bred in sullen hate, Shrink from his image. Thus the gentle maid, Who with her smiles had soothed an orphan's fate, Had felt an orphan's pang; yet undismayed, Though taught to deem her sire the child of shame, She clung with instinct to that reverent name! VII. Time flew; the boy became a man; no more His shadow falls upon his cloistered hall, But to a stirring world he learn'd to pour The passion of his being, skilled to call From the deep caverns of his musing thought Shadows to which they bowed, and on their mind To stamp the image of his own; the wind, Though all unseen, with force or odour fraught, Can sway mankind, and thus a poet's voice, Now touched with sweetness, now inflamed with rage, Though breath, can make us grieve and then rejoice: Such is the spell of his creative page, That blends with all our moods; and thoughts can yield That all have felt, and yet till then were sealed. VIII. The lute is sounding in a chamber bright With a high festival; on every side, Soft in the gleamy blaze of mellowed light, Fair women smile, and dancers graceful glide; And words still sweeter than a serenade Are breathed with guarded voice and speaking eyes, By joyous hearts in spite of all their sighs; But byegone fantasies that ne'er can fade Retain the pensive spirit of the youth; Reclined against a column he surveys His laughing compeers with a glance, in sooth, Careless of all their mirth: for other days Enchain him with their vision, the bright hours Passed with the maiden in their sunny bowers. IX. Why turns his brow so pale, why starts to life That languid eye? What form before unseen, With all the spells of hallowed memory rife, Now rises on his vision? As the Queen Of Beauty from her bed of sparkling foam Sprang to the azure light, and felt the air, Soft as her cheek, the wavy dancers bear To his rapt sight a mien that calls his home, His cloistered home, before him, with his dreams Prophetic strangely blending. The bright muse Of his dark childhood still divinely beams Upon his being; glowing with the hues That painters love, when raptured pencils soar To trace a form that nations may adore! X. One word alone, within her thrilling ear, Breathed with hushed voice the brother of her heart, And that for aye is hidden. With a tear Smiling she strove to conquer, see her start, The bright blood rising to her quivering cheek, And meet the glance she hastened once to greet, When not a thought had he, save in her sweet And solacing society; to seek Her smiles his only life! Ah! happy prime Of cloudless purity, no stormy fame His unknown sprite then stirred, a golden time Worth all the restless splendour of a name; And one soft accent from those gentle lips Might all the plaudits of a world eclipse. XI. My tale is done; and if some deem it strange My fancy thus should droop, deign then to learn My tale is truth: imagination's range Its bounds exact may touch not: to discern Far stranger things than poets ever feign, In life's perplexing annals, is the fate Of those who act, and musing, penetrate The mystery of Fortune: to whose reign The haughtiest brow must bend; 'twas passing strange The youth of these fond children; strange the flush Of his high fortunes and his spirit's change; Strange was the maiden's tear, the maiden's blush; Strange were his musing thoughts and trembling heart, 'Tis strange they met, and stranger if they part! CHAPTER XII. When Lady Monteagle discovered, which she did a very few hours after the mortifying event, where Lord Cadurcis had dined the day on which he had promised to be her guest, she was very indignant, but her vanity was more offended than her self-complacency. She was annoyed that Cadurcis should have compromised his exalted reputation by so publicly dangling in the train of the new beauty: still more that he should have signified in so marked a manner the impression which the fair stranger had made upon him, by instantly accepting an invitation to a house so totally unconnected with his circle, and where, had it not been to meet this Miss Herbert, it would of course never have entered his head to be a visitor. But, on the whole, Lady Monteagle was rather irritated than jealous; and far from suspecting that there was the slightest chance of her losing her influence, such as it might be, over Lord Cadurcis, all that she felt was, that less lustre must redound to her from its possession and exercise, if it were obvious to the world that his attentions could be so easily attracted and commanded. When Lord Cadurcis, therefore, having dispatched his poem to Venetia, paid his usual visit on the next day to Monteagle House, he was received rather with sneers than reproaches, as Lady Monteagle, with no superficial knowledge of society or his lordship's character, was clearly of opinion that this new fancy of her admirer was to be treated rather with ridicule than indignation; and, in short, as she had discovered that Cadurcis was far from being insensible to mockery, that it was clearly a fit occasion, to use a phrase then very much in vogue, for _quizzing_. 'How d'ye do?' said her ladyship, with an arch smile, 'I really could not expect to see you!' Cadurcis looked a little confused; he detested scenes, and now he dreaded one. 'You seem quite distrait,' continued Lady Monteagle, after a moment's pause, which his lordship ought to have broken. 'But no wonder, if the world be right.' 'The world cannot be wrong,' said Cadurcis sarcastically. 'Had you a pleasant party yesterday?' 'Very.' 'Lady ---- must have been quite charmed to have you at last,' said Lady Monteagle. 'I suppose she exhibited you to all her friends, as if you were one of the savages that went to Court the other day.' 'She was courteous.' 'Oh! I can fancy her flutter! For my part, if there be one character in the world more odious than another, I think it is a fussy woman. Lady ----, with Lord Cadurcis dining with her, and the new beauty for a niece, must have been in a most delectable state of bustle.' 'I thought she was rather quiet,' said her companion with provoking indifference. 'She seemed to me an agreeable person.' 'I suppose you mean Miss Herbert?' said Lady Monteagle. 'Oh! these are moderate expressions to use in reference to a person like Miss Herbert.' 'You know what they said of you two at Ranelagh?' said her ladyship. 'No,' said Lord Cadurcis, somewhat changing colour, and speaking through his teeth; 'something devilish pleasant, I dare say.' 'They call you Sedition and Treason,' said Lady Monteagle. 'Then we are well suited,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'She certainly is a beautiful creature,' said her ladyship. 'I think so,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Rather too tall, I think.' 'Do you?' 'Beautiful complexion certainly; wants delicacy, I think.' 'Do you?' 'Fine eyes! Grey, I believe. Cannot say I admire grey eyes. Certain sign of bad temper, I believe, grey eyes?' 'Are they?' 'I did not observe her hand. I dare say a little coarse. Fair people who are tall generally fail in the hand and arm. What sort of a hand and arm has she?' 'I did not observe anything coarse about Miss Herbert.' 'Ah! you admire her. And you have cause. No one can deny she is a fine girl, and every one must regret, that with her decidedly provincial air and want of style altogether, which might naturally be expected, considering the rustic way I understand she has been brought up (an old house in the country, with a methodistical mother), that she should have fallen into such hands as her aunt. Lady ---- is enough to spoil any girl's fortune in London.' 'I thought that the ---- were people of high consideration,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Consideration!' exclaimed Lady Monteagle. 'If you mean that they are people of rank, and good blood, and good property, they are certainly people of consideration; but they are Goths, Vandals, Huns, Calmucks, Canadian savages! They have no fashion, no style, no ton, no influence in the world. It is impossible that a greater misfortune could have befallen your beauty than having such an aunt. Why, no man who has the slightest regard for his reputation would be seen in her company. She is a regular quiz, and you cannot imagine how everybody was laughing at you the other night.' 'I am very much obliged to them,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'And, upon my honour,' continued Lady Monteagle, 'speaking merely as your friend, and not being the least jealous (Cadurcis do not suppose that), not a twinge has crossed my mind on that score; but still I must tell you that it was most ridiculous for a man like you, to whom everybody looks up, and from whom the slightest attention is an honour, to go and fasten yourself the whole night upon a rustic simpleton, something between a wax doll and a dairymaid, whom every fool in London was staring at; the very reason why you should not have appeared to have been even aware of her existence.' 'We have all our moments of weakness, Gertrude,' said Lord Cadurcis, charmed that the lady was so thoroughly unaware and unsuspicious of his long and intimate connection with the Herberts. 'I suppose it was my cursed vanity. I saw, as you say, every fool staring at her, and so I determined to show that in an instant I could engross her attention.' 'Of course, I know it was only that; but you should not have gone and dined there, Cadurcis,' added the lady, very seriously, 'That compromised you; but, by cutting them in future in the most marked manner, you may get over it.' 'You really think I may?' inquired Lord Cadurcis, with some anxiety. 'Oh! I have no doubt of it,' said Lady Monteagle. 'What it is to have a friend like you, Gertrude,' said Cadurcis, 'a friend who is neither a Goth, nor a Vandal, nor a Hun, nor a Calmuck, nor a Canadian savage; but a woman of fashion, style, ton, influence in the world! It is impossible that a greater piece of good fortune could have befallen me than having you for a friend.' 'Ah, méchant! you may mock,' said the lady, triumphantly, for she was quite satisfied with the turn the conversation had taken; 'but I am glad for your sake that you take such a sensible view of the case.' Notwithstanding, however, this sensible view of the case, after lounging an hour at Monteagle House, Lord Cadurcis' carriage stopped at the door of Venetia's Gothic aunt. He was not so fortunate as to meet his heroine; but, nevertheless, he did not esteem his time entirely thrown away, and consoled himself for the disappointment by confirming the favourable impression he had already made in this establishment, and cultivating an intimacy which he was assured must contribute many opportunities of finding himself in the society of Venetia. From this day, indeed, he was a frequent guest at her uncle's, and generally contrived also to meet her several times in the week at some great assembly; but here, both from the occasional presence of Lady Monteagle, although party spirit deterred her from attending many circles where Cadurcis was now an habitual visitant, and from the crowd of admirers who surrounded the Herberts, he rarely found an opportunity for any private conversation with Venetia. His friend the Bishop also, notwithstanding the prejudices of Lady Annabel, received him always with cordiality, and he met the Herberts more than once at his mansion. At the opera and in the park also he hovered about them, in spite of the sarcasms or reproaches of Lady Monteagle; for the reader is not to suppose that that lady continued to take the same self-complacent view of Lord Cadurcis' acquaintance with the Herberts which she originally adopted, and at first flattered herself was the just one. His admiration of Miss Herbert had become the topic of general conversation; it could no longer be concealed or disguised. But Lady Monteagle was convinced that Cadurcis was not a marrying man, and persuaded herself that this was a fancy which must evaporate. Moreover, Monteagle House still continued his spot of most constant resort; for his opportunities of being with Venetia were, with all his exertions, limited, and he had no other resource which pleased him so much as the conversation and circle of the bright goddess of his party. After some fiery scenes therefore with the divinity, which only led to his prolonged absence, for the profound and fervent genius of Cadurcis revolted from the base sentiment and mock emotions of society, the lady reconciled herself to her lot, still believing herself the most envied woman in London, and often ashamed of being jealous of a country girl. The general result of the fortnight which elapsed since Cadurcis renewed his acquaintance with his Cherbury friends was, that he had become convinced of his inability of propitiating Lady Annabel, was devotedly attached to Venetia, though he had seldom an opportunity of intimating feelings, which the cordial manner in which she ever conducted herself to him gave him no reason to conclude desperate; at the same time that he had contrived that a day should seldom elapse, which did not under some circumstances, however unfavourable, bring them together, while her intimate friends and the circles in which she passed most of her life always witnessed his presence with favour. CHAPTER XIII. We must, however, endeavour to be more intimately acquainted with the heart and mind of Venetia in her present situation, so strongly contrasting with the serene simplicity of her former life, than the limited and constrained opportunities of conversing with the companion of his childhood enjoyed by Lord Cadurcis could possibly enable him to become. Let us recur to her on the night when she returned home, after having met with Plantagenet at her uncle's, and having pursued a conversation with him, so unexpected, so strange, and so affecting! She had been silent in the carriage, and retired to her room immediately. She retired to ponder. The voice of Cadurcis lingered in her ear; his tearful eye still caught her vision. She leant her head upon her hand, and sighed! Why did she sigh? What at this instant was her uppermost thought? Her mother's dislike of Cadurcis. 'Your mother hates me.' These had been his words; these were the words she repeated to herself, and on whose fearful sounds she dwelt. 'Your mother hates me.' If by some means she had learnt a month ago at Weymouth, that her mother hated Cadurcis, that his general conduct had been such as to excite Lady Annabel's odium, Venetia might have for a moment been shocked that her old companion in whom she had once been so interested, had by his irregular behaviour incurred the dislike of her mother, by whom he had once been so loved. But it would have been a transient emotion. She might have mused over past feelings and past hopes in a solitary ramble on the seashore; she might even have shed a tear over the misfortunes or infelicity of one who had once been to her a brother; but, perhaps, nay probably, on the morrow the remembrance of Plantagenet would scarcely have occurred to her. Long years had elapsed since their ancient fondness; a considerable interval since even his name had met her ear. She had heard nothing of him that could for a moment arrest her notice or command her attention. But now the irresistible impression that her mother disliked this very individual filled, her with intolerable grief. What occasioned this change in her feelings, this extraordinary difference in her emotions? There was, apparently, but one cause. She had met Cadurcis. Could then a glance, could even the tender intonations of that unrivalled voice, and the dark passion of that speaking eye, work in an instant such marvels? Could they revive the past so vividly, that Plantagenet in a moment resumed his ancient place in her affections? No, it was not that: it was less the tenderness of the past that made Venetia mourn her mother's sternness to Cadurcis, than the feelings of the future. For now she felt that her mother's heart was not more changed towards this personage than was her own. It seemed to Venetia that even before they met, from the very moment that his name had so strangely caught her eye in the volume on the first evening she had visited her relations, that her spirit suddenly turned to him. She had never heard that name mentioned since without a fluttering of the heart which she could not repress, and an emotion she could ill conceal. She loved to hear others talk of him, and yet scarcely dared speak of him herself. She recalled her emotion at unexpectedly seeing his portrait when with her aunt, and her mortification when her mother deprived her of the poem which she sighed to read. Day after day something seemed to have occurred to fix her brooding thoughts with fonder earnestness on his image. At length they met. Her emotion when she first recognised him at Ranelagh and felt him approaching her, was one of those tumults of the heart that form almost a crisis in our sensations. With what difficulty had she maintained herself! Doubtful whether he would even formally acknowledge her presence, her vision as if by fascination had nevertheless met his, and grew dizzy as he passed. In the interval that had elapsed between his first passing and then joining her, what a chaos was her mind! What a wild blending of all the scenes and incidents of her life! What random answers had she made to those with whom she had been before conversing with ease and animation! And then, when she unexpectedly found Cadurcis at her side, and listened to the sound of that familiar voice, familiar and yet changed, expressing so much tenderness in its tones, and in its words such deference and delicate respect, existence felt to her that moment affluent with a blissful excitement of which she had never dreamed! Her life was a reverie until they met again, in which she only mused over his fame, and the strange relations of their careers. She had watched the conduct of her mother to him at dinner with poignant sorrow; she scarcely believed that she should have an opportunity of expressing to him her sympathy. And then what had followed? A conversation, every word of which had touched her heart; a conversation that would have entirely controlled her feelings even if he had not already subjected them. The tone in which he so suddenly had pronounced 'Venetia,' was the sweetest music to which she had ever listened. His allusion to her father had drawn tears, which could not be restrained even in a crowded saloon. Now she wept plenteously. It was so generous, so noble, so kind, so affectionate! Dear, dear Cadurcis, is it wonderful that you should be loved? Then falling into a reverie of sweet and unbroken stillness, with her eyes fixed in abstraction on the fire, Venetia reviewed her life from the moment she had known Plantagenet. Not an incident that had ever occurred to them that did not rise obedient to her magical bidding. She loved to dwell upon the time when she was the consolation of his sorrows, and when Cherbury was to him a pleasant refuge! Oh! she felt sure her mother must remember those fond days, and love him as she once did! She pictured to herself the little Plantagenet of her childhood, so serious and so pensive when alone or with others, yet with her at times so gay and wild, and sarcastic; forebodings all of that deep and brilliant spirit, which had since stirred up the heart of a great nation, and dazzled the fancy of an admiring world. The change too in their mutual lots was also, to a degree, not free from that sympathy that had ever bound them together. A train of strange accidents had brought Venetia from her spell-bound seclusion, placed her suddenly in the most brilliant circle of civilisation, and classed her among not the least admired of its favoured members. And whom had she come to meet? Whom did she find in this new and splendid life the most courted and considered of its community, crowned as it were with garlands, and perfumed with the incense of a thousand altars? Her own Plantagenet. It was passing strange. The morrow brought the verses from Cadurcis. They greatly affected her. The picture of their childhood, and of the singular sympathy of their mutual situations, and the description of her father, called forth her tears; she murmured, however, at the allusion to her other parent. It was not just, it could not be true. These verses were not, of course, shown to Lady Annabel. Would they have been shown, even if they had not contained the allusion? The question is not perplexing. Venetia had her secret, and a far deeper one than the mere reception of a poem; all confidence between her and her mother had expired. Love had stept in, and, before his magic touch, the discipline of a life expired in an instant. From all this an idea may be formed of the mood in which, during the fortnight before alluded to, Venetia was in the habit of meeting Lord Cadurcis. During this period not the slightest conversation respecting him had occurred between her mother and herself. Lady Annabel never mentioned him, and her brow clouded when his name, as was often the case, was introduced. At the end of this fortnight, it happened that her aunt and mother were out together in the carriage, and had left her in the course of the morning at her uncle's house. During this interval, Lord Cadurcis called, and having ascertained, through a garrulous servant, that though his mistress was out, Miss Herbert was in the drawing-room, he immediately took the opportunity of being introduced. Venetia was not a little surprised at his appearance, and, conscious of her mother's feelings upon the subject, for a moment a little agitated, yet, it must be confessed, as much pleased. She seized this occasion of speaking to him about his verses, for hitherto she had only been able to acknowledge the receipt of them by a word. While she expressed without affectation the emotions they had occasioned her, she complained of his injustice to her mother: this was the cause of an interesting conversation of which her father was the subject, and for which she had long sighed. With what deep, unbroken attention she listened to her companion's enthusiastic delineation of his character and career! What multiplied questions did she not ask him, and how eagerly, how amply, how affectionately he satisfied her just and natural curiosity! Hours flew away while they indulged in this rare communion. 'Oh, that I could see him!' sighed Venetia. 'You will,' replied Plantagenet; 'your destiny requires it. You will see him as surely as you beheld that portrait that it was the labour of a life to prevent you beholding.' Venetia shook her head; 'And yet,' she added musingly, 'my mother loves him.' 'Her life proves it,' said Cadurcis bitterly. 'I think it does,' replied Venetia, sincerely. 'I pretend not to understand her heart,' he answered; 'it is an enigma that I cannot solve. I ought not to believe that she is without one; but, at any rate, her pride is deeper than her love.' 'They were ill suited,' said Venetia, mournfully; 'and yet it is one of my dreams that they may yet meet.' 'Ah, Venetia!' he exclaimed, in a voice of great softness, 'they had not known each other from their childhood, like us. They met, and they parted, alike in haste.' Venetia made no reply; her eyes were fixed in abstraction on a handscreen, which she was unconscious that she held. 'Tell me,' said Cadurcis, drawing his chair close to hers; 'tell me, Venetia, if--' At this moment a thundering knock at the door announced the return of the Countess and her sister-in-law. Cadurcis rose from his seat, but his chair, which still remained close to that on which Venetia was sitting, did not escape the quick glance of her mortified mother. The Countess welcomed Cadurcis with extreme cordiality; Lady Annabel only returned his very courteous bow. 'Stop and dine with us, my dear lord,' said the Countess. 'We are only ourselves, and Lady Annabel and Venetia.' 'I thank you, Clara,' said Lady Annabel, 'but we cannot stop to-day.' 'Oh!' exclaimed her sister. 'It will be such a disappointment to Philip. Indeed you must stay,' she added, in a coaxing tone; 'we shall be such an agreeable little party, with Lord Cadurcis.' 'I cannot indeed, my dear Clara,' replied Lady Annabel; 'not to-day, indeed not to-day. Come Venetia!' CHAPTER XIV. Lady Annabel was particularly kind to Venetia on their return to their hotel, otherwise her daughter might have fancied that she had offended her, for she was silent. Venetia did not doubt that the presence of Lord Cadurcis was the reason that her mother would not remain and dine at her uncle's. This conviction grieved Venetia, but she did not repine; she indulged the fond hope that time would remove the strong prejudice which Lady Annabel now so singularly entertained against one in whose welfare she was originally so deeply interested. During their simple and short repast Venetia was occupied in a reverie, in which, it must be owned, Cadurcis greatly figured, and answered the occasional though kind remarks of her mother with an absent air. After dinner, Lady Annabel drew her chair towards the fire, for, although May, the weather was chill, and said, 'A quiet evening at home, Venetia, will be a relief after all this gaiety.' Venetia assented to her mother's observation, and nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed without another word being spoken. Venetia had taken up a book, and Lady Annabel was apparently lost in her reflections. At length she said, somewhat abruptly, 'It is more than three years, I think, since Lord Cadurcis left Cherbury?' 'Yes; it is more than three years,' replied Venetia. 'He quitted us suddenly.' 'Very suddenly,' agreed Venetia. 'I never asked you whether you knew the cause, Venetia,' continued her mother, 'but I always concluded that you did. I suppose I was not in error?' This was not a very agreeable inquiry. Venetia did not reply to it with her previous readiness and indifference. That indeed was impossible; but, with her accustomed frankness, after a moment's hesitation, she answered, 'Lord Cadurcis never specifically stated the cause to me, mamma; indeed I was myself surprised at his departure, but some conversation had occurred between us on the very morning he quitted Cadurcis, which, on reflection, I could not doubt occasioned that departure.' 'Lord Cadurcis preferred his suit to you, Venetia, and you rejected him?' said Lady Annabel. 'It is as you believe,' replied Venetia, not a little agitated. 'You did wisely, my child, and I was weak ever to have regretted your conduct.' 'Why should you think so, dearest mamma?' 'Whatever may have been the cause that impelled your conduct then,' said Lady Annabel, 'I shall ever esteem your decision as a signal interposition of Providence in your favour. Except his extreme youth, there was apparently no reason which should not have induced you to adopt a different decision. I tremble when I think what might have been the consequences.' 'Tremble, dearest mother?' 'Tremble, Venetia. My only thought in this life is the happiness of my child. It was in peril. 'Nay, I trust not that, mamma: you are prejudiced against Plantagenet. It makes me very unhappy, and him also.' 'He is again your suitor?' said Lady Annabel, with a scrutinising glance. 'Indeed he is not.' 'He will be,' said Lady Annabel. 'Prepare yourself. Tell me, then, are your feelings the same towards him as when he last quitted us?' 'Feelings, mamma!' said Venetia, echoing her mother's words; for indeed the question was one very difficult to answer; 'I ever loved Plantagenet; I love him still.' 'But do you love him now as then? Then you looked upon him as a brother. He has no soul now for sisterly affections. I beseech you tell me, my child, me, your mother, your friend, your best, your only friend, tell me, have you for a moment repented that you ever refused to extend to him any other affection?' 'I have not thought of the subject, mamma; I have not wished to think of the subject; I have had no occasion to think of it. Lord Cadurcis is not my suitor now.' 'Venetia!' said Lady Annabel, 'I cannot doubt you love me.' 'Dearest mother!' exclaimed Venetia, in a tone of mingled fondness and reproach, and she rose from her seat and embraced Lady Annabel. 'My happiness is an object to you, Venetia?' continued Lady Annabel. 'Mother, mother,' said Venetia, in a deprecatory tone. 'Do not ask such cruel questions? Whom should I love but you, the best, the dearest mother that ever existed? And what object can I have in life that for a moment can be placed in competition with your happiness?' 'Then, Venetia, I tell you,' said Lady Annabel, in a solemn yet excited voice, 'that that happiness is gone for ever, nay, my very life will be the forfeit, if I ever live to see you the bride of Lord Cadurcis.' 'I have no thought of being the bride of any one,' said Venetia. 'I am happy with you. I wish never to leave you.' 'My child, the fulfilment of such a wish is not in the nature of things,' replied Lady Annabel. 'The day will come when we must part; I am prepared for the event; nay, I look forward to it not only with resignation, but delight, when I think it may increase your happiness; but were that step to destroy it, oh! then, then I could live no more. I can endure my own sorrows, I can struggle with my own bitter lot, I have some sources of consolation which enable me to endure my own misery without repining; but yours, yours, Venetia, I could not bear. No! if once I were to behold you lingering in life as your mother, with blighted hopes and with a heart broken, if hearts can break, I should not survive the spectacle; I know myself, Venetia, I could not survive it.' 'But why anticipate such misery? Why indulge in such gloomy forebodings? Am I not happy now? Do you not love me?' Venetia had drawn her chair close to that of her mother; she sat by her side and held her hand. 'Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, after a pause of some minutes, and in a low voice, 'I must speak to you on a subject on which we have never conversed. I must speak to you;' and here Lady Annabel's voice dropped lower and lower, but still its tones were distinct, although she expressed herself with evident effort: 'I must speak to you about--your father.' Venetia uttered a faint cry, she clenched her mother's hand with a convulsive grasp, and sank upon her bosom. She struggled to maintain herself, but the first sound of that name from her mother's lips, and all the long-suppressed emotions that it conjured up, overpowered her. The blood seemed to desert her heart; still she did not faint; she clung to Lady Annabel, pallid and shivering. Her mother tenderly embraced her, she whispered to her words of great affection, she attempted to comfort and console her. Venetia murmured, 'This is very foolish of me, mother; but speak, oh! speak of what I have so long desired to hear.' 'Not now, Venetia.' 'Now, mother! yes, now! I am quite composed. I could not bear the postponement of what you were about to say. I could not sleep, dear mother, if you did not speak to me. It was only for a moment I was overcome. See! I am quite composed.' And indeed she spoke in a calm and steady voice, but her pale and suffering countenance expressed the painful struggle which it cost her to command herself. 'Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, 'it has been one of the objects of my life, that you should not share my sorrows.' Venetia pressed her mother's hand, but made no other reply. 'I concealed from you for years,' continued Lady Annabel, 'a circumstance in which, indeed, you were deeply interested, but the knowledge of which could only bring you unhappiness. Yet it was destined that my solicitude should eventually be baffled. I know that it is not from my lips that you learn for the first time that you have a father, a father living.' 'Mother, let me tell you all!' said Venetia, eagerly. 'I know all,' said Lady Annabel. 'But, mother, there is something that you do not know; and now I would confess it.' 'There is nothing that you can confess with which I am not acquainted, Venetia; and I feel assured, I have ever felt assured, that your only reason for concealment was a desire to save me pain.' 'That, indeed, has ever been my only motive,' replied Venetia, 'for having a secret from my mother.' 'In my absence from Cherbury you entered the chamber,' said Lady Annabel, calmly. 'In the delirium of your fever I became acquainted with a circumstance which so nearly proved fatal to you.' Venetia's cheek turned scarlet. 'In that chamber you beheld the portrait of your father,' continued Lady Annabel. 'From our friend you learnt that father was still living. That is all?' said Lady Annabel, inquiringly. 'No, not all, dear mother; not all. Lord Cadurcis reproached me at Cherbury with, with, with having such a father,' she added, in a hesitating voice. 'It was then I learnt his misfortunes, mother; his misery.' 'I thought that misfortunes, that misery, were the lot of your other parent,' replied Lady Annabel, somewhat coldly. 'Not with my love,' said Venetia, eagerly; 'not with my love, mother. You have forgotten your misery in my love. Say so, say so, dearest mother.' And Venetia threw herself on her knees before Lady Annabel, and looked up with earnestness in her face. The expression of that countenance had been for a moment stern, but it relaxed into fondness, as Lady Annabel gently bowed her head, and pressed her lips to her daughter's forehead. 'Ah, Venetia!' she said, 'all depends upon you. I can endure, nay, I can forget the past, if my child be faithful to me. There are no misfortunes, there is no misery, if the being to whom I have consecrated the devotion of my life will only be dutiful, will only be guided by my advice, will only profit by my sad experience.' 'Mother, I repeat I have no thought but for you,' said Venetia. 'My own dearest mother, if my duty, if my devotion can content you, you shall be happy. But wherein have I failed?' 'In nothing, love. Your life has hitherto been one unbroken course of affectionate obedience.' 'And ever shall be,' said Venetia. 'But you were speaking, mother, you were speaking of, of my, my father!' 'Of him!' said Lady Annabel, thoughtfully. 'You have seen his picture?' Venetia kissed her mother's hand. 'Was he less beautiful than Cadurcis? Was he less gifted?' exclaimed Lady Annabel, with animation. 'He could whisper in tones as sweet, and pour out his vows as fervently. Yet what am I? O my child!' continued Lady Annabel, 'beware of such beings! They bear within them a spirit on which all the devotion of our sex is lavished in vain. A year, no! not a year, not one short year! and all my hopes were blighted! O Venetia! if your future should be like my bitter past! and it might have been, and I might have contributed to the fulfilment! can you wonder that I should look upon Cadurcis with aversion?' 'But, mother, dearest mother, we have known Plantagenet from his childhood. You ever loved him; you ever gave him credit for a heart, most tender and affectionate.' 'He has no heart.' 'Mother!' 'He cannot have a heart. Spirits like him are heartless. It is another impulse that sways their existence. It is imagination; it is vanity; it is self, disguised with glittering qualities that dazzle our weak senses, but selfishness, the most entire, the most concentrated. We knew him as a child: ah! what can women know? We are born to love, and to be deceived. We saw him young, helpless, abandoned; he moved our pity. We knew not his nature; then he was ignorant of it himself. But the young tiger, though cradled at our hearths and fed on milk, will in good time retire to its jungle and prey on blood. You cannot change its nature; and the very hand that fostered it will be its first victim.' 'How often have we parted!' said Venetia, in a deprecating tone; 'how long have we been separated! and yet we find him ever the same; he ever loves us. Yes! dear mother, he loves you now, the same as in old days. If you had seen him, as I have seen him, weep when he recalled your promise to be a parent to him, and then contrasted with such sweet hopes your present reserve, oh! you would believe he had a heart, you would, indeed!' 'Weep!' exclaimed Lady Annabel, bitterly, 'ay! they can weep. Sensibility is a luxury which they love to indulge. Their very susceptibility is our bane. They can weep; they can play upon our feelings; and our emotion, so easily excited, is an homage to their own power, in which they glory. 'Look at Cadurcis,' she suddenly resumed; 'bred with so much care; the soundest principles instilled into him with such sedulousness; imbibing them apparently with so much intelligence, ardour, and sincerity, with all that fervour, indeed, with which men of his temperament for the moment pursue every object; but a few years back, pious, dutiful, and moral, viewing perhaps with intolerance too youthful all that differed from the opinions and the conduct he had been educated to admire and follow. And what is he now? The most lawless of the wild; casting to the winds every salutary principle of restraint and social discipline, and glorying only in the abandoned energy of self. Three years ago, you yourself confessed to me, he reproached you with your father's conduct; now he emulates it. There is a career which such men must run, and from which no influence can divert them; it is in their blood. To-day Cadurcis may vow to you eternal devotion; but, if the world speak truth, Venetia, a month ago he was equally enamoured of another, and one, too, who cannot be his. But grant that his sentiments towards you are for the moment sincere; his imagination broods upon your idea, it transfigures it with a halo which exists only to his vision. Yield to him; become his bride; and you will have the mortification of finding that, before six mouths have elapsed, his restless spirit is already occupied with objects which may excite your mortification, your disgust, even your horror!' 'Ah, mother! it is not with Plantagenet as with my father; Plantagenet could not forget Cherbury, he could not forget our childhood,' said Venetia. 'On the contrary, while you lived together these recollections would be wearisome, common-place to him; when you had separated, indeed, mellowed by distance, and the comparative vagueness with which your absence would invest them, they would become the objects of his muse, and he would insult you by making the public the confidant of all your most delicate domestic feelings.' Lady Annabel rose from her seat, and walked up and down the room, speaking with an excitement very unusual with her. 'To have all the soft secrets of your life revealed to the coarse wonder of the gloating multitude; to find yourself the object of the world's curiosity, still worse, their pity, their sympathy; to have the sacred conduct of your hearth canvassed in every circle, and be the grand subject of the pros and cons of every paltry journal, ah, Venetia! you know not, you cannot understand, it is impossible you can comprehend, the bitterness of such a lot.' 'My beloved mother!' said Venetia, with streaming eyes, 'you cannot have a feeling that I do not share.' 'Venetia, you know not what I had to endure!' exclaimed Lady Annabel, in a tone of extreme bitterness. 'There is no degree of wretchedness that you can conceive equal to what has been the life of your mother. And what has sustained me; what, throughout all my tumultuous troubles, has been the star on which I have ever gazed? My child! And am I to lose her now, after all my sufferings, all my hopes that she at least might be spared my miserable doom? Am I to witness her also a victim?' Lady Annabel clasped her hands in passionate grief. 'Mother! mother!' exclaimed Venetia, in agony, 'spare yourself, spare me!' 'Venetia, you know how I have doted upon you; you know how I have watched and tended you from your infancy. Have I had a thought, a wish, a hope, a plan? has there been the slightest action of my life, of which you have not been the object? All mothers feel, but none ever felt like me; you were my solitary joy.' Venetia leant her face upon the table at which she was sitting and sobbed aloud. 'My love was baffled,' Lady Annabel continued. 'I fled, for both our sakes, from the world in which my family were honoured; I sacrificed without a sigh, in the very prime of my youth, every pursuit which interests woman; but I had my child, I had my child!' 'And you have her still!' exclaimed the miserable Venetia. 'Mother, you have her still!' 'I have schooled my mind,' continued Lady Annabel, still pacing the room with agitated steps; 'I have disciplined my emotions; I have felt at my heart the constant the undying pang, and yet I have smiled, that you might be happy. But I can struggle against my fate no longer. No longer can I suffer my unparalleled, yes, my unjust doom. What have I done to merit these afflictions? Now, then, let me struggle no more; let me die!' Venetia tried to rise; her limbs refused their office; she tottered; she fell again into her seat with an hysteric cry. 'Alas! alas!' exclaimed Lady Annabel, 'to a mother, a child is everything; but to a child, a parent is only a link in the chain of her existence. It was weakness, it was folly, it was madness to stake everything on a resource which must fail me. I feel it now, but I feel it too late.' Venetia held forth her arms; she could not speak; she was stifled with her emotion. 'But was it wonderful that I was so weak?' continued her mother, as it were communing only with herself. 'What child was like mine? Oh! the joy, the bliss, the hours of rapture that I have passed, in gazing upon my treasure, and dreaming of all her beauty and her rare qualities! I was so happy! I was so proud! Ah, Venetia! you know not how I have loved you!' Venetia sprang from her seat; she rushed forward with convulsive energy; she clung to her mother, threw her arms round her neck, and buried her passionate woe in Lady Annabel's bosom. Lady Annabel stood for some minutes supporting her speechless and agitated child; then, as her sobs became fainter, and the tumult of her grief gradually died away, she bore her to the sofa, and seated herself by her side, holding Venetia's hand in her own, and ever and anon soothing her with soft embraces, and still softer words. At length, in a faint voice, Venetia said, 'Mother, what can I do to restore the past? How can we be to each other as we were, for this I cannot bear?' 'Love me, my Venetia, as I love you; be faithful to your mother; do not disregard her counsel; profit by her errors.' 'I will in all things obey you,' said Venetia, in a low voice; 'there is no sacrifice I am not prepared to make for your happiness.' 'Let us not talk of sacrifices, my darling child; it is not a sacrifice that I require. I wish only to prevent your everlasting misery.' 'What, then, shall I do?' 'Make me only one promise; whatever pledge you give, I feel assured that no influence, Venetia, will ever induce you to forfeit it.' 'Name it, mother.' 'Promise me never to marry Lord Cadurcis,' said Lady Annabel, in a whisper, but a whisper of which not a word was lost by the person to whom it was addressed. 'I promise never to marry, but with your approbation,' said Venetia, in a solemn voice, and uttering the words with great distinctness. The countenance of Lady Annabel instantly brightened; she embraced her child with extreme fondness, and breathed the softest and the sweetest expressions of gratitude and love. CHAPTER XV. When Lady Monteagle discovered that of which her good-natured friends took care she should not long remain ignorant, that Venetia Herbert had been the companion of Lord Cadurcis' childhood, and that the most intimate relations had once subsisted between the two families, she became the prey of violent jealousy; and the bitterness of her feelings was not a little increased, when she felt that she had not only been abandoned, but duped; and that the new beauty, out of his fancy for whom she had flattered herself she had so triumphantly rallied him, was an old friend, whom he always admired. She seized the first occasion, after this discovery, of relieving her feelings, by a scene so violent, that Cadurcis had never again entered Monteagle House; and then repenting of this mortifying result, which she had herself precipitated, she overwhelmed him with letters, which, next to scenes, were the very things which Lord Cadurcis most heartily abhorred. These, now indignant, now passionate, now loading him with reproaches, now appealing to his love, and now to his pity, daily arrived at his residence, and were greeted at first only with short and sarcastic replies, and finally by silence. Then the lady solicited a final interview, and Lord Cadurcis having made an appointment to quiet her, went out of town the day before to Richmond, to a villa belonging to Venetia's uncle, and where, among other guests, he was of course to meet Lady Annabel and her daughter. The party was a most agreeable one, and assumed an additional interest with Cadurcis, who had resolved to seize this favourable opportunity to bring his aspirations to Venetia to a crisis. The day after the last conversation with her, which we have noticed, he had indeed boldly called upon the Herberts at their hotel for that purpose, but without success, as they were again absent from home. He had been since almost daily in the society of Venetia; but London, to a lover who is not smiled upon by the domestic circle of his mistress, is a very unfavourable spot for confidential conversations. A villa life, with its easy, unembarrassed habits, its gardens and lounging walks, to say nothing of the increased opportunities resulting from being together at all hours, and living under the same roof, was more promising; and here he flattered himself he might defy even the Argus eye and ceaseless vigilance of his intended mother-in-law, his enemy, whom he could not propitiate, and whom he now fairly hated. His cousin George, too, was a guest, and his cousin George was the confidant of his love. Upon this kind relation devolved the duty, far from a disagreeable one, of amusing the mother; and as Lady Annabel, though she relaxed not a jot of the grim courtesy which she ever extended to Lord Cadurcis, was no longer seriously uneasy as to his influence after the promise she had exacted from her daughter, it would seem that these circumstances combined to prevent Lord Cadurcis from being disappointed at least in the first object which he wished to obtain, an opportunity. And yet several days elapsed before this offered itself, passed by Cadurcis, however, very pleasantly in the presence of the being he loved, and very judiciously too, for no one could possibly be more amiable and ingratiating than our friend. Every one present, except Lady Annabel, appeared to entertain for him as much affection as admiration: those who had only met him in throngs were quite surprised how their superficial observation and the delusive reports of the world had misled them. As for his hostess, whom it had ever been his study to please, he had long won her heart; and, as she could not be blind to his projects and pretensions, she heartily wished him success, assisted him with all her efforts, and desired nothing more sincerely than that her niece should achieve such a conquest, and she obtain so distinguished a nephew. Notwithstanding her promise to her mother, Venetia felt justified in making no alteration in her conduct to one whom she still sincerely loved; and, under the immediate influence of his fascination, it was often, when she was alone, that she mourned with a sorrowing heart over the opinion which her mother entertained of him. Could it indeed be possible that Plantagenet, the same Plantagenet she had known so early and so long, to her invariably so tender and so devoted, could entail on her, by their union, such unspeakable and inevitable misery? Whatever might be the view adopted by her mother of her conduct, Venetia felt every hour more keenly that it was a sacrifice, and the greatest; and she still indulged in a vague yet delicious dream, that Lady Annabel might ultimately withdraw the harsh and perhaps heart-breaking interdict she had so rigidly decreed. 'Cadurcis,' said his cousin to him one morning, 'we are all going to Hampton Court. Now is your time; Lady Annabel, the Vernons, and myself, will fill one carriage; I have arranged that. Look out, and something may be done. Speak to the Countess.' Accordingly Lord Cadurcis hastened to make a suggestion to a friend always flattered by his notice. 'My dear friend,' he said in his softest tone, 'let you and Venetia and myself manage to be together; it will be so delightful; we shall quite enjoy ourselves.' The Countess did not require this animating compliment to effect the object which Cadurcis did not express. She had gradually fallen into the unacknowledged conspiracy against her sister-in-law, whose prejudice against her friend she had long discovered, and had now ceased to combat. Two carriages, and one filled as George had arranged, accordingly drove gaily away; and Venetia, and her aunt, and Lord Cadurcis were to follow them on horseback. They rode with delight through the splendid avenues of Bushey, and Cadurcis was never in a lighter or happier mood. The month of May was in its decline, and the cloudless sky and the balmy air such as suited so agreeable a season. The London season was approaching its close; for the royal birthday was, at the period of our history, generally the signal of preparation for country quarters. The carriages arrived long before the riding party, for they had walked their steeds, and they found a messenger who requested them to join their friends in the apartments which they were visiting. 'For my part,' said Cadurcis, 'I love the sun that rarely shines in this land. I feel no inclination to lose the golden hours in these gloomy rooms. What say you, ladies fair, to a stroll in the gardens? It will be doubly charming after our ride.' His companions cheerfully assented, and they walked away, congratulating themselves on their escape from the wearisome amusement of palace-hunting, straining their eyes to see pictures hung at a gigantic height, and solemnly wandering through formal apartments full of state beds and massy cabinets and modern armour. Taking their way along the terrace, they struck at length into a less formal path. At length the Countess seated herself on a bench. 'I must rest,' she said, 'but you, young people, may roam about; only do not lose me.' 'Come, Venetia!' said Lord Cadurcis. Venetia was hesitating; she did not like to leave her aunt alone, but the Countess encouraged her, 'If you will not go, you will only make me continue walking,' she said. And so Venetia proceeded, and for the first time since her visit was alone with Plantagenet. 'I quite love your aunt,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'It is difficult indeed not to love her,' said Venetia. 'Ah, Venetia! I wish your mother was like your aunt,' he continued. It was an observation which was not heard without some emotion by his companion, though it was imperceptible. 'Venetia,' said Cadurcis, 'when I recollect old days, how strange it seems that we now never should be alone, but by some mere accident, like this, for instance.' 'It is no use thinking of old days,' said Venetia. 'No use! said Cadurcis. 'I do not like to hear you say that, Venetia. Those are some of the least agreeable words that were ever uttered by that mouth. I cling to old days; they are my only joy and my only hope.' 'They are gone,' said Venetia. 'But may they not return?' said Cadurcis. 'Never,' said Venetia, mournfully. They had walked on to a marble fountain of gigantic proportions and elaborate workmanship, an assemblage of divinities and genii, all spouting water in fantastic attitudes. 'Old days,' said Plantagenet, 'are like the old fountain at Cadurcis, dearer to me than all this modern splendour.' 'The old fountain at Cadurcis,' said Venetia, musingly, and gazing on the water with an abstracted air, 'I loved it well!' 'Venetia,' said her companion, in a tone of extreme tenderness, yet not untouched with melancholy, 'dear Venetia, let us return, and return together, to that old fountain and those old days!' Venetia shook her head. 'Ah, Plantagenet!' she exclaimed in a mournful voice, 'we must not speak of these things.' 'Why not, Venetia?' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, eagerly. 'Why should we be estranged from each other? I love you; I love only you; never have I loved another. And you, have you forgotten all our youthful affection? You cannot, Venetia. Our childhood can never be a blank.' 'I told you, when first we met, my heart was unchanged,' said Venetia. 'Remember the vows I made to you when last at Cherbury,' said Cadurcis. 'Years have flown on, Venetia; but they find me urging the same. At any rate, now I know myself; at any rate, I am not now an obscure boy; yet what is manhood, and what is fame, without the charm of my infancy and my youth! Yes, Venetia! you must, you will he mine?' 'Plantagenet,' she replied, in a solemn tone, 'yours I never can be.' 'You do not, then, love me?' said Cadurcis reproachfully, and in a voice of great feeling. 'It is impossible for you to be loved more than I love you,' said Venetia. 'My own Venetia!' said Cadurcis; 'Venetia that I dote on! what does this mean? Why, then, will you not be mine?' 'I cannot; there is an obstacle, an insuperable obstacle.' 'Tell it me,' said Cadurcis eagerly; 'I will overcome it.' 'I have promised never to marry without the approbation of my mother; her approbation you never can obtain.' Cadurcis' countenance fell; this was an obstacle which he felt that even he could not overcome. 'I told you your mother hated me, Venetia.' And then, as she did not reply, he continued, 'You confess it, I see you confess it. Once you flattered me I was mistaken; but now, now you confess it.' 'Hatred is a word which I cannot understand,' replied Venetia. 'My mother has reasons for disapproving my union with you; not founded on the circumstances of your life, and therefore removable (for I know what the world says, Plantagenet, of you), but I have confidence in your love, and that is nothing; but founded on your character, on your nature; they may be unjust, but they are insuperable, and I must yield to them.' 'You have another parent, Venetia,' said Cadurcis, in a tone of almost irresistible softness, 'the best and greatest of men! Once you told me that his sanction was necessary to your marriage. I will obtain it. O Venetia! be mine, and we will join him; join that ill-fated and illustrious being who loves you with a passion second only to mine; him who has addressed you in language which rests on every lip, and has thrilled many a heart that you even can never know. My adored Venetia! picture to yourself, for one moment, a life with him; resting on my bosom, consecrated by his paternal love! Let us quit this mean and miserable existence, which we now pursue, which never could have suited us; let us shun for ever this dull and degrading life, that is not life, if life be what I deem it; let us fly to those beautiful solitudes where he communes with an inspiring nature; let us, let us be happy!' He uttered these last words in a tone of melting tenderness; he leant forward his head, and his gaze caught hers, which was fixed upon the water. Her hand was pressed suddenly in his; his eye glittered, his lip seemed still speaking; he awaited his doom. The countenance of Venetia was quite pale, but it was disturbed. You might see, as it were, the shadowy progress of thought, and mark the tumultuous passage of conflicting passions. Her mind, for a moment, was indeed a chaos. There was a terrible conflict between love and duty. At length a tear, one solitary tear, burst from her burning eye-ball, and stole slowly down her cheek; it relieved her pain. She pressed Cadurcis hand, and speaking in a hollow voice, and with a look vague and painful, she said, 'I am a victim, but I am resolved. I never will desert her who devoted herself to me.' Cadurcis quitted her hand rather abruptly, and began walking up and down on the turf that surrounded the fountain. 'Devoted herself to you!' he exclaimed with a fiendish laugh, and speaking, as was his custom, between his teeth. 'Commend me to such devotion. Not content with depriving you of a father, now forsooth she must bereave you of a lover too! And this is a mother, a devoted mother! The cold-blooded, sullen, selfish, inexorable tyrant!' 'Plantagenet!' exclaimed Venetia with great animation. 'Nay, I will speak. Victim, indeed! You have ever been her slave. She a devoted mother! Ay! as devoted as a mother as she was dutiful as a wife! She has no heart; she never had a feeling. And she cajoles you with her love, her devotion, the stern hypocrite!' 'I must leave you,' said Venetia; 'I cannot bear this.' 'Oh! the truth, the truth is precious,' said Cadurcis, taking her hand, and preventing her from moving. 'Your mother, your devoted mother, has driven one man of genius from her bosom, and his country. Yet there is another. Deny me what I ask, and to-morrow's sun shall light me to another land; to this I will never return; I will blend my tears with your father's, and I will publish to Europe the double infamy of your mother. I swear it solemnly. Still I stand here, Venetia; prepared, if you will but smile upon me, to be her son, her dutiful son. Nay! her slave like you. She shall not murmur. I will be dutiful; she shall be devoted; we will all be happy,' he added in a softer tone. 'Now, now, Venetia, my happiness is on the stake, now, now.' 'I have spoken,' said Venetia. 'My heart may break, but my purpose shall not falter.' 'Then my curse upon your mother's head?' said Cadurcis, with terrible vehemency. 'May heaven rain all its plagues upon her, the Hecate!' 'I will listen no more,' exclaimed Venetia indignantly, and she moved away. She had proceeded some little distance when she paused and looked back; Cadurcis was still at the fountain, but he did not observe her. She remembered his sudden departure from Cherbury; she did not doubt that, in the present instance, he would leave them as abruptly, and that he would keep his word so solemnly given. Her heart was nearly breaking, but she could not bear the idea of parting in bitterness with the being whom, perhaps, she loved best in the world. She stopt, she called his name in a voice low indeed, but in that silent spot it reached him. He joined her immediately, but with a slow step. When he had reached her, he said, without any animation and in a frigid tone, 'I believe you called me?' Venetia burst into tears. 'I cannot bear to part in anger, Plantagenet. I wished to say farewell in kindness. I shall always pray for your happiness. God bless you, Plantagenet!' Lord Cadurcis made no reply, though for a moment he seemed about to speak; he bowed, and, as Venetia approached her aunt, he turned his steps in a different direction. CHAPTER XVI. Venetia stopped for a moment to collect herself before she joined her aunt, but it was impossible to conceal her agitation from the Countess. They had not, however, been long together before they observed their friends in the distance, who had now quitted the palace. Venetia made the utmost efforts to compose herself, and not unsuccessful ones. She was sufficiently calm on their arrival, to listen, if not to converse. The Countess, with all the tact of a woman, covered her niece's confusion by her animated description of their agreeable ride, and their still more pleasant promenade; and in a few minutes the whole party were walking back to their carriages. When they had arrived at the inn, they found Lord Cadurcis, to whose temporary absence the Countess had alluded with some casual observation which she flattered herself was very satisfactory. Cadurcis appeared rather sullen, and the Countess, with feminine quickness, suddenly discovered that both herself and her niece were extremely fatigued, and that they had better return in the carriages. There was one vacant place, and some of the gentlemen must ride outside. Lord Cadurcis, however, said that he should return as he came, and the grooms might lead back the ladies' horses; and so in a few minutes the carriages had driven off. Our solitary equestrian, however, was no sooner mounted than he put his horse to its speed, and never drew in his rein until he reached Hyde Park Corner. The rapid motion accorded with his tumultuous mood. He was soon at home, gave his horse to a servant, for he had left his groom behind, rushed into his library, tore up a letter of Lady Monteagle's with a demoniac glance, and rang his bell with such force that it broke. His valet, not unused to such ebullitions, immediately appeared. 'Has anything happened, Spalding?' said his lordship. 'Nothing particular, my lord. Her ladyship sent every day, and called herself twice, but I told her your lordship was in Yorkshire.' 'That was right; I saw a letter from her. When did it come?' 'It has been here several days, my lord.' 'Mind, I am at home to nobody; I am not in town.' The valet bowed and disappeared. Cadurcis threw himself into an easy chair, stretched his legs, sighed, and then swore; then suddenly starting up, he seized a mass of letters that were lying on the table, and hurled them to the other end of the apartment, dashed several books to the ground, kicked down several chairs that were in his way, and began pacing the room with his usual troubled step; and so he continued until the shades of twilight entered his apartment. Then he pulled down the other bell-rope, and Mr. Spalding again appeared. 'Order posthorses for to-morrow,' said his lordship. 'Where to, my lord?' 'I don't know; order the horses.' Mr. Spalding again bowed and disappeared. In a few minutes he heard a great stamping and confusion in his master's apartment, and presently the door opened and his master's voice was heard calling him repeatedly in a very irritable tone. 'Why are there no bells in this cursed room?' inquired Lord Cadurcis. 'The ropes are broken, my lord.' 'Why are they broken?' 'I can't say, my lord,' 'I cannot leave this house for a day but I find everything in confusion. Bring me some Burgundy.' 'Yes, my lord. There is a young lad, my lord, called a few minutes back, and asked for your lordship. He says he has something very particular to say to your lordship. I told him your lordship was out of town. He said your lordship would wish very much to see him, and that he had come from the Abbey.' 'The Abbey!' said Cadurcis, in a tone of curiosity. 'Why did you not show him in?' 'Your lordship said you were not at home to anybody.' 'Idiot! Is this anybody? Of course I would have seen him. What the devil do I keep you for, sir? You seem to me to have lost your head.' Mr. Spalding retired. 'The Abbey! that is droll,' said Cadurcis. 'I owe some duties to the poor Abbey. I should not like to quit England, and leave anybody in trouble at the Abbey. I wish I had seen the lad. Some son of a tenant who has written to me, and I have never opened his letters. I am sorry.' In a few minutes Mr. Spalding again entered the room. 'The young lad has called again, my lord. He says he thinks your lordship has come to town, and he wishes to see your lordship very much.' 'Bring lights and show him up. Show him up first.' Accordingly, a country lad was ushered into the room, although it was so dusky that Cadurcis could only observe his figure standing at the door. 'Well, my good fellow,' said Cadurcis; 'what do you want? Are you in any trouble?' The boy hesitated. 'Speak out, my good fellow; do not be alarmed. If I can serve you, or any one at the Abbey, I will do it.' Here Mr. Spalding entered with the lights. The lad held a cotton handkerchief to his face; he appeared to be weeping; all that was seen of his head were his locks of red hair. He seemed a country lad, dressed in a long green coat with silver buttons, and he twirled in his disengaged hand a peasant's white hat. 'That will do, Spalding,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Leave the room. Now, my good fellow, my time is precious; but speak out, and do not be afraid.' 'Cadurcis!' said the lad in a sweet and trembling voice. 'Gertrude, by G--d!' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis, starting. 'What infernal masquerade is this?' 'Is it a greater disguise than I have to bear every hour of my life?' exclaimed Lady Monteagle, advancing. 'Have I not to bear a smiling face with a breaking heart?' 'By Jove! a scene,' exclaimed Cadurcis in a piteous tone. 'A scene!' exclaimed Lady Monteagle, bursting into a flood of indignant tears. 'Is this the way the expression of my feelings is ever to be stigmatised? Barbarous man!' Cadurcis stood with his back to the fireplace, with his lips compressed, and his hands under his coat-tails. He was resolved that nothing should induce him to utter a word. He looked the picture of dogged indifference. 'I know where you have been,' continued Lady Monteagle. 'You have been to Richmond; you have been with Miss Herbert. Yes! I know all. I am a victim, but I will not be a dupe. Yorkshire indeed! Paltry coward!' Cadurcis hummed an air. 'And this is Lord Cadurcis!' continued the lady. 'The sublime, ethereal Lord Cadurcis, condescending to the last refuge of the meanest, most commonplace mind, a vulgar, wretched lie! What could have been expected from such a mind? You may delude the world, but I know you. Yes, sir! I know you. And I will let everybody know you. I will tear away the veil of charlatanism with which you have enveloped yourself. The world shall at length discover the nature of the idol they have worshipped. All your meanness, all your falsehood, all your selfishness, all your baseness, shall be revealed. I may be spurned, but at any rate I will be revenged!' Lord Cadurcis yawned. 'Insulting, pitiful wretch!' continued the lady. 'And you think that I wish to hear you speak! You think the sound of that deceitful voice has any charm for me! You are mistaken, sir! I have listened to you too long. It was not to remonstrate with you that I resolved to see you. The tones of your voice can only excite my disgust. I am here to speak myself; to express to you the contempt, the detestation, the aversion, the scorn, the hatred, which I entertain for you!' Lord Cadurcis whistled. The lady paused; she had effected the professed purport of her visit; she ought now to have retired, and Cadurcis would most willingly have opened the door for her, and bowed her out of his apartment. But her conduct did not exactly accord with her speech. She intimated no intention of moving. Her courteous friend retained his position, and adhered to his policy of silence. There was a dead pause, and then Lady Monteagle, throwing herself into a chair, went into hysterics. Lord Cadurcis, following her example, also seated himself, took up a book, and began to read. The hysterics became fainter and fainter; they experienced all those gradations of convulsive noise with which Lord Cadurcis was so well acquainted; at length they subsided into sobs and sighs. Finally, there was again silence, now only disturbed by the sound of a page turned by Lord Cadurcis. Suddenly the lady sprang from her seat, and firmly grasping the arm of Cadurcis, threw herself on her knees at his side. 'Cadurcis!' she exclaimed, in a tender tone, 'do you love me?' 'My dear Gertrude,' said Lord Cadurcis, coolly, but rather regretting he had quitted his original and less assailable posture, 'you know I like quiet women.' 'Cadurcis, forgive me!' murmured the lady. 'Pity me! Think only how miserable I am!' 'Your misery is of your own making,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'What occasion is there for any of these extraordinary proceedings? I have told you a thousand times that I cannot endure scenes. Female society is a relaxation to me; you convert it into torture. I like to sail upon a summer sea; and you always will insist upon a white squall.' 'But you have deserted me!' 'I never desert any one,' replied Cadurcis calmly, raising her from her supplicating attitude, and leading her to a seat. 'The last time we met, you banished me your presence, and told me never to speak to you again. Well, I obeyed your orders, as I always do.' 'But I did not mean what I said,' said Lady Monteagle. 'How should I know that?' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Your heart ought to have assured you,' said the lady. 'The tongue is a less deceptive organ than the heart,' replied her companion. 'Cadurcis,' said the lady, looking at her strange disguise, 'what do you advise me to do?' 'To go home; and if you like I will order my vis-à-vis for you directly,' and he rose from his seat to give the order. 'Ah!' you are sighing to get rid of me!' said the lady, in a reproachful, but still subdued tone. 'Why, the fact is, Gertrude, I prefer calling upon you, to your calling upon me. When I am fitted for your society, I seek it; and, when you are good-tempered, always with pleasure; when I am not in the mood for it, I stay away. And when I am at home, I wish to see no one. I have business now, and not very agreeable business. I am disturbed by many causes, and you could not have taken a step which could have given me greater annoyance than the strange one you have adopted this evening.' 'I am sorry for it now,' said the lady, weeping. 'When shall I see you again?' 'I will call upon you to-morrow, and pray receive me with smiles.' 'I ever will,' said the lady, weeping plenteously. 'It is all my fault; you are ever too good. There is not in the world a kinder and more gentle being than yourself. I shall never forgive myself for this exposure. 'Would you like to take anything?' said Lord Cadurcis: 'I am sure you must feel exhausted. You see I am drinking wine; it is my only dinner to-day, but I dare say there is some salvolatile in the house; I dare say, when my maids go into hysterics, they have it!' 'Ah, mocker!' said Lady Monteagle; 'but I can pardon everything, if you will only let me see you.' 'Au revoir! then,' said his lordship; 'I am sure the carriage must be ready. I hear it. Come, Mr. Gertrude, settle your wig; it is quite awry. By Jove! we might as well go to the Pantheon, as you are ready dressed. I have a domino.' And so saying, Lord Cadurcis handed the lady to his carriage, and pressed her lightly by the hand, as he reiterated his promise of calling at Monteagle House the next day. CHAPTER XVII. Lord Cadurcis, unhappy at home, and wearied of the commonplace resources of society, had passed the night in every species of dissipation; his principal companion being that same young nobleman in whose company he had been when he first met Venetia at Ranelagh. The morn was breaking when Cadurcis and his friend arrived at his door. They had settled to welcome the dawn with a beaker of burnt Burgundy. 'Now, my dear Scrope,' said Cadurcis, 'now for quiet and philosophy. The laughter of those infernal women, the rattle of those cursed dice, and the oaths of those ruffians are still ringing in my ears. Let us compose ourselves, and moralise.' Accustomed to their master's habits, who generally turned night into day, the household were all on the alert; a blazing fire greeted them, and his lordship ordered instantly a devil and the burnt Burgundy. 'Sit you down here, my Scrope; that is the seat of honour, and you shall have it. What is this, a letter? and marked "Urgent," and in a man's hand. It must be read. Some good fellow nabbed by a bailiff, or planted by his mistress. Signals of distress! We must assist our friends.' The flame of the fire fell upon Lord Cadurcis' face as he read the letter; he was still standing, while his friend was stretched out in his easy chair, and inwardly congratulating himself on his comfortable prospects. The countenance of Cadurcis did not change, but he bit his lip, and read the letter twice, and turned it over, but with a careless air; and then he asked what o'clock it was. The servant informed him, and left the room. 'Scrope,' said Lord Cadurcis, quietly, and still standing, 'are you very drunk?' 'My dear fellow, I am as fresh as possible; you will see what justice I shall do to the Burgundy.' '"Burgundy to-morrow," as the Greek proverb saith,' observed Lord Cadurcis. 'Read that.' His companion had the pleasure of perusing a challenge from Lord Monteagle, couched in no gentle terms, and requesting an immediate meeting. 'Well, I never heard anything more ridiculous in my life,' said Lord Scrope. 'Does he want satisfaction because you have planted her?' 'D--n her!' said Lord Cadurcis. 'She has occasioned me a thousand annoyances, and now she has spoilt our supper. I don't know, though; he wants to fight quickly, let us fight at once. I will send him a cartel now, and then we can have our Burgundy. You will go out with me, of course? Hyde Park, six o'clock, and short swords.' Lord Cadurcis accordingly sat down, wrote his letter, and dispatched it by Mr. Spalding to Monteagle House, with peremptory instructions to bring back an answer. The companions then turned to their devil. 'This is a bore, Cadurcis,' said Lord Scrope. 'It is. I cannot say I am very valorous in a bad cause. I do not like to fight "upon compulsion," I confess. If I had time to screw my courage up, I dare say I should do it very well. I dare say, for instance, if ever I am publicly executed, I shall die game.' 'God forbid!' said Lord Scrope. 'I say, Cadurcis, I would not drink any Burgundy if I were you. I shall take a glass of cold water.' 'Ah! you are only a second, and so you want to cool your valour,' said Cadurcis. 'You have all the fun.' 'But how came this blow-up?' inquired Lord Scrope. 'Letters discovered, eh? Because I thought you never saw her now?' 'By Jove! my dear fellow, she has been the whole evening here masquerading it like a very vixen, as she is; and now she has committed us both. I have burnt her letters, without reading them, for the last month. Now I call that honourable; because, as I had no longer any claim on her heart, I would not think of trenching on her correspondence. But honour, what is honour in these dishonourable days? This is my reward. She contrived to enter my house this evening, dressed like a farmer's boy, and you may imagine what ensued; rage, hysterics, and repentance. I am sure if Monteagle had seen me, he would not have been jealous. I never opened my mouth, but, like a fool, sent her home in my carriage; and now I am going to be run through the body for my politeness.' In this light strain, blended, however, with more decorous feeling on the part of Lord Scrope, the young men conversed until the messenger's return with Lord Monteagle's answer. In Hyde Park, in the course of an hour, himself and Lord Cadurcis, attended by their friends, were to meet. 'Well, there is nothing like having these affairs over,' said Cadurcis; 'and to confess the truth, my dear Scrope, I should not much care if Monteagle were to despatch me to my fathers; for, in the whole course of my miserable life, and miserable, whatever the world may think, it has been, I never felt much more wretched than I have during the last four-and-twenty hours. By Jove! do you know I was going to leave England this morning, and I have ordered my horses, too.' 'Leave England!' 'Yes, leave England; and where I never intended to return.' 'Well, you are the oddest person I ever knew, Cadurcis. I should have thought you the happiest person that ever existed. Everybody admires, everybody envies you. You seem to have everything that man can desire. Your life is a perpetual triumph.' 'Ah! my dear Scrope, there is a skeleton in every house. If you knew all, you would not envy me.' 'Well, we have not much time,' said Lord Scrope; 'have you any arrangements to make?' 'None. My property goes to George, who is my only relative, without the necessity of a will, otherwise I should leave everything to him, for he is a good fellow, and my blood is in his veins. Just you remember, Scrope, that I will be buried with my mother. That is all; and now let us get ready.' The sun had just risen when the young men went forth, and the day promised to be as brilliant as the preceding one. Not a soul was stirring in the courtly quarter in which Cadurcis resided; even the last watchman had stolen to repose. They called a hackney coach at the first stand they reached, and were soon at the destined spot. They were indeed before their time, and strolling by the side of the Serpentine, Cadurcis said, 'Yesterday morning was one of the happiest of my life, Scrope, and I was in hopes that an event would have occurred in the course of the day that might have been my salvation. If it had, by-the-bye, I should not have returned to town, and got into this cursed scrape. However, the gods were against me, and now I am reckless.' Now Lord Monteagle and his friend, who was Mr. Horace Pole, appeared. Cadurcis advanced, and bowed; Lord Monteagle returned his bow, stiffly, but did not speak. The seconds chose their ground, the champions disembarrassed themselves of their coats, and their swords crossed. It was a brief affair. After a few passes, Cadurcis received a slight wound in his arm, while his weapon pierced his antagonist in the breast. Lord Monteagle dropped his sword and fell. 'You had better fly, Lord Cadurcis,' said Mr. Horace Pole. 'This is a bad business, I fear; we have a surgeon at hand, and he can help us to the coach that is waiting close by.' 'I thank you, sir, I never fly,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and I shall wait here until I see your principal safely deposited in his carriage; he will have no objection to my friend, Lord Scrope, assisting him, who, by his presence to-day, has only fulfilled one of the painful duties that society imposes upon us.' The surgeon gave an unfavourable report of the wound, which he dressed on the field. Lord Monteagle was then borne to his carriage, which was at hand, and Lord Scrope, the moment he had seen the equipage move slowly off, returned to his friend. 'Well Cadurcis,' he exclaimed in an anxious voice, 'I hope you have not killed him. What will you do now?' 'I shall go home, and await the result, my dear Scrope. I am sorry for you, for this may get you into trouble. For myself, I care nothing.' 'You bleed!' said Lord Scrope. 'A scratch. I almost wish our lots had been the reverse. Come, Scrope, help me on with my coat. Yesterday I lost my heart, last night I lost my money, and perhaps to-morrow I shall lose my arm. It seems we are not in luck. CHAPTER XVIII. It has been well observed, that no spectacle is so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. But, once in six or seven years, our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare, with great pride, the high standard of morals established in England, with the Parisian laxity. At length, our anger is satiated, our victim is ruined and heart-broken, and our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years more. These observations of a celebrated writer apply to the instance of Lord Cadurcis; he was the periodical victim, the scapegoat of English morality, sent into the wilderness with all the crimes and curses of the multitude on his head. Lord Cadurcis had certainly committed a great crime: not his intrigue with Lady Monteagle, for that surely was not an unprecedented offence; not his duel with her husband, for after all it was a duel in self-defence; and, at all events, divorces and duels, under any circumstances, would scarcely have excited or authorised the storm which was now about to burst over the late spoiled child of society. But Lord Cadurcis had been guilty of the offence which, of all offences, is punished most severely: Lord Cadurcis had been overpraised. He had excited too warm an interest; and the public, with its usual justice, was resolved to chastise him for its own folly. There are no fits of caprice so hasty and so violent as those of society. Society, indeed, is all passion and no heart. Cadurcis, in allusion to his sudden and singular success, had been in the habit of saying to his intimates, that he 'woke one morning and found himself famous.' He might now observe, 'I woke one morning and found myself infamous.' Before twenty-four hours had passed over his duel with Lord Monteagle, he found himself branded by every journal in London, as an unprincipled and unparalleled reprobate. The public, without waiting to think or even to inquire after the truth, instantly selected as genuine the most false and the most flagrant of the fifty libellous narratives that were circulated of the transaction. Stories, inconsistent with themselves, were all alike eagerly believed, and what evidence there might be for any one of them, the virtuous people, by whom they were repeated, neither cared nor knew. The public, in short, fell into a passion with their darling, and, ashamed of their past idolatry, nothing would satisfy them but knocking the divinity on the head. Until Lord Monteagle, to the great regret of society, who really wished him to die in order that his antagonist might commit murder, was declared out of danger, Lord Cadurcis never quitted his house, and he was not a little surprised that scarcely a human being called upon him except his cousin, who immediately flew to his succour. George, indeed, would gladly have spared Cadurcis any knowledge of the storm that was raging against him, and which he flattered himself would blow over before Cadurcis was again abroad; but he was so much with his cousin, and Cadurcis was so extremely acute and naturally so suspicious, that this was impossible. Moreover, his absolute desertion by his friends, and the invectives and the lampoons with which the newspapers abounded, and of which he was the subject, rendered any concealment out of the question, and poor George passed his life in running about contradicting falsehoods, stating truth, fighting his cousin's battles, and then reporting to him, in the course of the day, the state of the campaign. Cadurcis, being a man of infinite sensibility, suffered tortures. He had been so habituated to panegyric, that the slightest criticism ruffled him, and now his works had suddenly become the subject of universal and outrageous attack; having lived only in a cloud of incense, he suddenly found himself in a pillory of moral indignation; his writings, his habits, his temper, his person, were all alike ridiculed and vilified. In a word, Cadurcis, the petted, idolised, spoiled Cadurcis, was enduring that charming vicissitude in a prosperous existence, styled a reaction; and a conqueror, who deemed himself invincible, suddenly vanquished, could scarcely be more thunderstruck, or feel more impotently desperate. The tortures of his mind, however, which this sudden change in his position and in the opinions of society, were of themselves competent to occasion to one of so impetuous and irritable a temperament, and who ever magnified both misery and delight with all the creative power of a brooding imagination, were excited in his case even to the liveliest agony, when he reminded himself of the situation in which he was now placed with Venetia. All hope of ever obtaining her hand had now certainly vanished, and he doubted whether even her love could survive the quick occurrence, after his ardent vows, of this degrading and mortifying catastrophe. He execrated Lady Monteagle with the most heartfelt rage, and when he remembered that all this time the world believed him the devoted admirer of this vixen, his brain was stimulated almost to the verge of insanity. His only hope of the truth reaching Venetia was through the medium of his cousin, and he impressed daily upon Captain Cadurcis the infinite consolation it would prove to him, if he could contrive to make her aware of the real facts of the case. According to the public voice, Lady Monteagle at his solicitation had fled to his house, and remained there, and her husband forced his entrance into the mansion in the middle of the night, while his wife escaped disguised in Lord Cadurcis' clothes. She did not, however, reach Monteagle House in time enough to escape detection by her lord, who had instantly sought and obtained satisfaction from his treacherous friend. All the monstrous inventions of the first week had now subsided into this circumstantial and undoubted narrative; at least this was the version believed by those who had been Cadurcis' friends. They circulated the authentic tale with the most considerate assiduity, and shook their heads, and said it was too bad, and that he must not be countenanced. The moment Lord Monteagle was declared out of danger, Lord Cadurcis made his appearance in public. He walked into Brookes', and everybody seemed suddenly so deeply interested in the newspapers, that you might have supposed they had brought intelligence of a great battle, or a revolution, or a change of ministry at the least. One or two men spoke to him, who had never presumed to address him at any other time, and he received a faint bow from a distinguished nobleman, who had ever professed for him the greatest consideration and esteem. Cadurcis mounted his horse and rode down to the House of Lords. There was a debate of some public interest, and a considerable crowd was collected round the Peers' entrance. The moment Lord Cadurcis was recognised, the multitude began hooting. He was agitated, and grinned a ghastly smile at the rabble. But he dismounted, without further annoyance, and took his seat. Not a single peer of his own party spoke to him. The leader of the Opposition, indeed, bowed to him, and, in the course of the evening, he received, from one or two more of his party, some formal evidences of frigid courtesy. The tone of his reception by his friends could not be concealed from the ministerial party. It was soon detected, and generally whispered, that Lord Cadurcis was cut. Nevertheless, he sat out the debate and voted. The house broke up. He felt lonely; his old friend, the Bishop of----, who had observed all that had occurred, and who might easily have avoided him, came forward, however, in the most marked manner, and, in a tone which everybody heard, said, 'How do you do, Lord Cadurcis? I am very glad to see you,' shaking his hand most cordially. This made a great impression. Several of the Tory Lords, among them Venetia's uncle, now advanced and sainted him. He received their advances with a haughty, but not disdainful, courtesy; but when his Whig friends, confused, now hurried to encumber him with their assistance, he treated them with the scorn which they well deserved. 'Will you take a seat in my carriage home, Lord Cadurcis?' said his leader, for it was notorious that Cadurcis had been mobbed on his arrival. 'Thank you, my lord,' said Cadurcis, speaking very audibly, 'I prefer returning as I came. We are really both of us such unpopular personages, that your kindness would scarcely be prudent.' The house had been full; there was a great scuffle and confusion as the peers were departing; the mob, now considerable, were prepared for the appearance of Lord Cadurcis, and their demeanour was menacing. Some shouted out his name; then it was repeated with odious and vindictive epithets, followed by ferocious yells. A great many peers collected round Cadurcis, and entreated him not to return on horseback. It must be confessed that genuine and considerable feeling was now shown by all men of all parties. And indeed to witness this young, and noble, and gifted creature, but a few days back the idol of the nation, and from whom a word, a glance even, was deemed the greatest and most gratifying distinction, whom all orders, classes, and conditions of men had combined to stimulate with multiplied adulation, with all the glory and ravishing delights of the world, as it were, forced upon him, to see him thus assailed with the savage execrations of all those vile things who exult in the fall of everything that is great, and the abasement of everything that is noble, was indeed a spectacle which might have silenced malice and satisfied envy! 'My carriage is most heartily at your service, Lord Cadurcis,' said the noble leader of the government in the upper house; 'you can enter it without the slightest suspicion by these ruffians.' 'Lord Cadurcis; my dear lord; my good lord, for our sakes, if not for your own; Cadurcis, dear Cadurcis, my good Cadurcis, it is madness, folly, insanity; a mob will do anything, and an English mob is viler than all; for Heaven's sake!' Such were a few of the varied exclamations which resounded on all sides, but which produced on the person to whom they were addressed only the result of his desiring the attendant to call for his horses. The lobby was yet full; it was a fine thing in the light of the archway to see Cadurcis spring into his saddle. Instantly there was a horrible yell. Yet in spite of all their menaces, the mob were for a time awed by his courage; they made way for him; he might even have rode quickly on for some few yards, but he would not; he reined his fiery steed into a slow but stately pace, and, with a countenance scornful and composed, he continued his progress, apparently unconscious of impediment. Meanwhile, the hooting continued without abatement, increasing indeed, after the first comparative pause, in violence and menace. At length a bolder ruffian, excited by the uproar, rushed forward and seized Cadurcis' bridle. Cadurcis struck the man over the eyes with his whip, and at the same time touched his horse with his spur, and the assailant was dashed to the ground. This seemed a signal for a general assault. It commenced with hideous yells. His friends at the house, who had watched everything with the keenest interest, immediately directed all the constables who were at hand to rush to his succour; hitherto they had restrained the police, lest their interference might stimulate rather than repress the mob. The charge of the constables was well timed; they laid about them with their staves; you might have heard the echo of many a broken crown. Nevertheless, though they dispersed the mass, they could not penetrate the immediate barrier that surrounded Lord Cadurcis, whose only defence indeed, for they had cut off his groom, was the terrors of his horse's heels, and whose managed motions he regulated with admirable skill, now rearing, now prancing, now kicking behind, and now turning round with a quick yet sweeping motion, before which the mob retreated. Off his horse, however, they seemed resolved to drag him; and it was not difficult to conceive, if they succeeded, what must be his eventual fate. They were infuriate, but his contact with his assailants fortunately prevented their co-mates from hurling stones at him from the fear of endangering their own friends. A messenger to the Horse Guards had been sent from the House of Lords; but, before the military could arrive, and fortunately (for, with their utmost expedition, they must have been too late), a rumour of the attack got current in the House of Commons. Captain Cadurcis, Lord Scrope, and a few other young men instantly rushed out; and, ascertaining the truth, armed with good cudgels and such other effective weapons as they could instantly obtain, they mounted their horses and charged the nearly-triumphant populace, dealing such vigorous blows that their efforts soon made a visible diversion in Lord Cadurcis' favour. It is difficult, indeed, to convey an idea of the exertions and achievements of Captain Cadurcis; no Paladin of chivalry ever executed such marvels on a swarm of Paynim slaves; and many a bloody coxcomb and broken limb bore witness in Petty France that night to his achievements. Still the mob struggled and were not daunted by the delay in immolating their victim. As long as they had only to fight against men in plain clothes, they were valorous and obstinate enough; but the moment that the crests of a troop of Horse Guards were seen trotting down Parliament Street, everybody ran away, and in a few minutes all Palace-yard was as still as if the genius of the place rendered a riot impossible. Lord Cadurcis thanked his friends, who were profuse in their compliments to his pluck. His manner, usually playful with his intimates of his own standing, was, however, rather grave at present, though very cordial. He asked them home to dine with him; but they were obliged to decline his invitation, as a division was expected; so, saying 'Good-bye, George, perhaps I shall see you to-night,' Cadurcis rode rapidly off. With Cadurcis there was but one step from the most exquisite sensitiveness to the most violent defiance. The experience of this day had entirely cured him of his previous nervous deference to the feelings of society. Society had outraged him, and now he resolved to outrage society. He owed society nothing; his reception at the House of Lords and the riot in Palace-yard had alike cleared his accounts with all orders of men, from the highest to the lowest. He had experienced, indeed, some kindness that he could not forget, but only from his own kin, and those who with his associations were the same as kin. His memory dwelt with gratification on his cousin's courageous zeal, and still more on the demonstration which Masham had made in his favour, which, if possible, argued still greater boldness and sincere regard. That was a trial of true affection, and an instance of moral courage, which Cadurcis honoured, and which he never could forget. He was anxious about Venetia; he wished to stand as well with her as he deserved; no better; but he was grieved to think she could believe all those infamous tales at present current respecting himself. But, for the rest of the world, he delivered them all to the most absolute contempt, disgust, and execration; he resolved, from this time, nothing should ever induce him again to enter society, or admit the advances of a single civilised ruffian who affected to be social. The country, the people, their habits, laws, manners, customs, opinions, and everything connected with them, were viewed with the same jaundiced eye; and his only object now was to quit England, to which he resolved never to return. CHAPTER XIX. Venetia was, perhaps, not quite so surprised as the rest of her friends, when, on their return to Richmond, Lord Cadurcis was not again seen. She was very unhappy: she recalled the scene in the garden at Cherbury some years back; and, with the knowledge of the impetuosity of his temper, she believed she should never see him again. Poor Plantagenet, who loved her so much, and whose love she so fully returned! why might they not be happy? She neither doubted the constancy of his affection, nor their permanent felicity if they were united. She shared none of her mother's apprehensions or her prejudices, but she was the victim of duty and her vow. In the course of four-and-twenty hours, strange rumours were afloat respecting Lord Cadurcis; and the newspapers on the ensuing morning told the truth, and more than the truth. Venetia could not doubt as to the duel or the elopement; but, instead of feeling indignation, she attributed what had occurred to the desperation of his mortified mind; and she visited on herself all the fatal consequences that had happened. At present, however, all her emotions were quickly absorbed in the one terrible fear that Lord Monteagle would die. In that dreadful and urgent apprehension every other sentiment merged. It was impossible to conceal her misery, and she entreated her mother to return to town. Very differently, however, was the catastrophe viewed by Lady Annabel. She, on the contrary, triumphed in her sagacity and her prudence. She hourly congratulated herself on being the saviour of her daughter; and though she refrained from indulging in any open exultation over Venetia's escape and her own profound discretion, it was, nevertheless, impossible for her to conceal from her daughter her infinite satisfaction and self-congratulation. While Venetia was half broken-hearted, her mother silently returned thanks to Providence for the merciful dispensation which had exempted her child from so much misery. The day after their return to town, Captain Cadurcis called upon them. Lady Annabel never mentioned the name of his cousin; but George, finding no opportunity of conversing with Venetia alone, and being, indeed, too much excited to speak on any other subject, plunged at once into the full narrative; defended Lord Cadurcis, abused the Monteagles and the slanderous world, and, in spite of Lady Annabel's ill-concealed dissatisfaction, favoured her with an exact and circumstantial account of everything that had happened, how it happened, when it happened, and where it happened; concluding by a declaration that Cadurcis was the best fellow that ever lived; the most unfortunate, and the most ill-used; and that, if he were to be hunted down for an affair like this, over which he had no control, there was not a man in London who could be safe for ten minutes. All that George effected by his zeal, was to convince Lady Annabel that his cousin had entirely corrupted, him; she looked upon her former favourite as another victim; but Venetia listened in silence, and not without solace. Two or three days after the riot at the House of Lords, Captain Cadurcis burst into his cousin's room with a triumphant countenance. 'Well, Plantagenet!' he exclaimed, 'I have done it; I have seen her alone, and I have put you as right as possible. Nothing can be better.' 'Tell me, my dear fellow,' said Lord Cadurcis, eagerly. 'Well, you know, I have called half-a-dozen times,' said George, 'but either Lady Annabel was there, or they were not at home, or something always occurred to prevent any private communication. But I met her to-day with her aunt; I joined them immediately, and kept with them the whole morning. I am sorry to say she, I mean Venetia, is devilish ill; she is, indeed. However, her aunt now is quite on your side, and very kind, I can tell you that. I put her right at first, and she has fought our battle bravely. Well, they stopped to call somewhere, and Venetia was so unwell that she would not get out, and I was left alone in the carriage with her. Time was precious, and I opened at once. I told her how wretched you were, and that the only thing that made you miserable was about her, because you were afraid she would think you so profligate, and all that. I went through it all; told her the exact truth, which, indeed, she had before heard; but now I assured her, on my honour, that it was exactly what happened; and she said she did not doubt it, and could not, from some conversation which you had together the day we were all at Hampton Court, and that she felt that nothing could have been premeditated, and fully believed that everything had occurred as I said; and, however she deplored it, she felt the same for you as ever, and prayed for your happiness. Then she told me what misery the danger of Lord Monteagle had occasioned her; that she thought his death must have been the forerunner of her own; but the moment he was declared out of danger seemed the happiest hour of her life. I told her you were going to leave England, and asked her whether she had any message for you; and she said, "Tell him he is the same to me that he has always been." So, when her aunt returned, I jumped out and ran on to you at once.' 'You are the best fellow that ever lived, George,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and now the world may go to the devil!' This message from Venetia acted upon Lord Cadurcis like a charm. It instantly cleared his mind. He shut himself up in his house for a week, and wrote a farewell to England, perhaps the most masterly effusion of his powerful spirit. It abounded in passages of overwhelming passion, and almost Satanic sarcasm. Its composition entirely relieved his long-brooding brain. It contained, moreover, a veiled address to Venetia, delicate, tender, and irresistibly affecting. He appended also to the publication, the verses he had previously addressed to her. This volume, which was purchased with an avidity exceeding even the eagerness with which his former productions had been received, exercised extraordinary influence on public opinion. It enlisted the feelings of the nation on his side in a struggle with a coterie. It was suddenly discovered that Lord Cadurcis was the most injured of mortals, and far more interesting than ever. The address to the unknown object of his adoration, and the verses to Venetia, mystified everybody. Lady Monteagle was universally abused, and all sympathised with the long-treasured and baffled affection of the unhappy poet. Cadurcis, however, was not to be conciliated. He left his native shores in a blaze of glory, but with the accents of scorn still quivering on his lip. END OF BOOK IV. BOOK V. CHAPTER I. The still waters of the broad and winding lake reflected the lustre of the cloudless sky. The gentle declinations of the green hills that immediately bordered the lake, with an undulating margin that now retired into bays of the most picturesque form, now jutted forth into woody promontories, and then opened into valleys of sequestered beauty, which the eye delighted to pursue, were studded with white villas, and cottages scarcely less graceful, and occasionally with villages, and even towns; here and there rose a solitary chapel; and, scarcely less conspicuous, the black spire of some cypress strikingly contrasting with the fair buildings or the radiant foliage that in general surrounded them. A rampart of azure mountains raised their huge forms behind the nearer hills; and occasionally peering over these, like spectres on some brilliant festival, were the ghastly visages of the Alpine glaciers. It was within an hour of sunset, and the long shadows had fallen upon the waters; a broad boat, with a variegated awning, rowed by two men, approached the steps of a marble terrace. The moment they had reached their point of destination, and had fastened the boat to its moorings, the men landed their oars, and immediately commenced singing a simple yet touching melody, wherewith it was their custom to apprise their employers of their arrival. 'Will they come forth this evening, think you, Vittorio?' said one boatman to the other. 'By our holy mother, I hope so!' replied his comrade, 'for this light air that is now rising will do the young signora more good than fifty doctors.' 'They are good people,' said Vittorio. 'It gives me more pleasure to row them than any persons who ever hired us.' 'Ay, ay!' said his comrade, 'It was a lucky day when we first put an oar in the lake for them, heretics though they be.' 'But they may he converted yet,' said his companion; 'for, as I was saying to Father Francisco last night, if the young signora dies, it is a sad thing to think what will become of her.' 'And what said the good Father?' 'He shook his head,' said Vittorio. 'When Father Francisco shakes his head, he means a great deal,' said his companion. At this moment a servant appeared on the terrace, to say the ladies were at hand; and very shortly afterwards Lady Annabel Herbert, with her daughter leaning on her arm, descended the steps, and entered the boat. The countenances of the boatmen brightened when they saw them, and they both made their inquiries after the health of Venetia with tenderness and feeling. 'Indeed, my good friends,' said Venetia, 'I think you are right, and the lake will cure me after all.' 'The blessing of the lake be upon you, signora,' said the boatmen, crossing themselves. Just as they were moving off, came running Mistress Pauncefort, quite breathless. 'Miss Herbert's fur cloak, my lady; you told me to remember, my lady, and I cannot think how I forgot it. But I really have been so very hot all day, that such a thing as furs never entered my head. And for my part, until I travelled, I always thought furs were only worn in Russia. But live and learn, as I say.' They were now fairly floating on the calm, clear waters, and the rising breeze was as grateful to Venetia as the boatmen had imagined. A return of those symptoms which had before disquieted Lady Annabel for her daughter, and which were formerly the cause of their residence at Weymouth, had induced her, in compliance with the advice of her physicians, to visit Italy; but the fatigue of travel had exhausted the energies of Venetia (for in those days the Alps were not passed in luxurious travelling carriages) on the very threshold of the promised land; and Lady Annabel had been prevailed upon to take a villa on the Lago Maggiore, where Venetia had passed two months, still suffering indeed from great debility, but not without advantage. There are few spots more favoured by nature than the Italian lakes and their vicinity, combining, as they do, the most sublime features of mountainous scenery with all the softer beauties and the varied luxuriance of the plain. As the still, bright lake is to the rushing and troubled cataract, is Italy to Switzerland and Savoy. Emerging from the chaotic ravines and the wild gorges of the Alps, the happy land breaks upon us like a beautiful vision. We revel in the sunny light, after the unearthly glare of eternal snow. Our sight seems renovated as we throw our eager glance over those golden plains, clothed with such picturesque trees, sparkling with such graceful villages, watered by such noble rivers, and crowned with such magnificent cities; and all bathed and beaming in an atmosphere so soft and radiant! Every isolated object charms us with its beautiful novelty: for the first time we gaze on palaces; the garden, the terrace, and the statue, recall our dreams beneath a colder sky; and we turn from these to catch the hallowed form of some cupolaed convent, crowning the gentle elevation of some green hill, and flanked by the cypress or the pine. The influence of all these delightful objects and of this benign atmosphere on the frame and mind of Venetia had been considerable. After the excitement of the last year of her life, and the harassing and agitating scenes with which it closed, she found a fine solace in this fair land and this soft sky, which the sad perhaps can alone experience. Its repose alone afforded a consolatory contrast to the turbulent pleasure of the great world. She looked back upon those glittering and noisy scenes with an aversion which was only modified by her self-congratulation at her escape from their exhausting and contaminating sphere. Here she recurred, but with all the advantages of a change of scene, and a scene so rich in novel and interesting associations, to the calm tenor of those days, when not a thought ever seemed to escape from Cherbury and its spell-bound seclusion. Her books, her drawings, her easel, and her harp, were now again her chief pursuits; pursuits, however, influenced by the genius of the land in which she lived, and therefore invested with a novel interest; for the literature and the history of the country naturally attracted her attention; and its fair aspects and sweet sounds, alike inspired her pencil and her voice. She had, in the society of her mother, indeed, the advantage of communing with a mind not less refined and cultivated than her own. Lady Annabel was a companion whose conversation, from reading and reflection, was eminently suggestive; and their hours, though they lived in solitude, never hung heavy. They were always employed, and always cheerful. But Venetia was not more than cheerful. Still very young, and gifted with an imaginative and therefore sanguine mind, the course of circumstances, however, had checked her native spirit, and shaded a brow which, at her time of life and with her temperament, should have been rather fanciful than pensive. If Venetia, supported by the disciplined energies of a strong mind, had schooled herself into not looking back to the past with grief, her future was certainly not tinged with the Iris pencil of Hope. It seemed to her that it was her fate that life should bring her no happier hours than those she now enjoyed. They did not amount to exquisite bliss. That was a conviction which, by no process of reflection, however ingenious, could she delude herself to credit. Venetia struggled to take refuge in content, a mood of mind perhaps less natural than it should be to one so young, so gifted, and so fair! Their villa was surrounded by a garden in the ornate and artificial style of the country. A marble terrace overlooked the lake, crowned with many a statue and vase that held the aloe. The laurel and the cactus, the cypress and the pine, filled the air with their fragrance, or charmed the eye with their rarity and beauty: the walks were festooned with the vine, and they could raise their hands and pluck the glowing fruit which screened them, from the beam by which, it was ripened. In this enchanted domain Venetia might be often seen, a form even fairer than the sculptured nymphs among which she glided, catching the gentle breeze that played upon the surface of the lake, or watching the white sail that glittered in the sun as it floated over its purple bosom. Yet this beautiful retreat Venetia was soon to quit, and she thought of her departure with a sigh. Her mother had been warned to avoid the neighbourhood of the mountains in the winter, and the autumn was approaching its close. If Venetia could endure the passage of the Apennines, it was the intention of Lady Annabel to pass the winter on the coast of the Mediterranean; otherwise to settle in one of the Lombard cities. At all events, in the course of a few weeks they were to quit their villa on the lake. CHAPTER II. A very few days after this excursion on the lake, Lady Annabel and her daughter were both surprised and pleased with a visit from a friend whose appearance was certainly very unexpected; this was Captain Cadurcis. On his way from Switzerland to Sicily, he had heard of their residence in the neighbourhood, and had crossed over from Arona to visit them. The name of Cadurcis was still dear to Venetia, and George had displayed such gallantry and devotion in all his cousin's troubles, that she was personally attached to him; he had always been a favourite of her mother; his arrival, therefore, was welcomed by each of the ladies with great cordiality. He accepted the hospitality which Lady Annabel offered him, and remained with them a week, a period which they spent in visiting the most beautiful and interesting spots of the lake, with which they were already sufficiently familiar to allow them to prove guides as able as they were agreeable. These excursions, indeed, contributed to the pleasure and happiness of the whole party. There was about Captain Cadurcis a natural cheerfulness which animated every one in his society; a gay simplicity, difficult to define, but very charming, and which, without effort, often produced deeper impressions than more brilliant and subtle qualities. Left alone in the world, and without a single advantage save those that nature had conferred upon him, it had often been remarked, that in whatever circle he moved George Cadurcis always became the favourite and everywhere made friends. His sweet and engaging temper had perhaps as much contributed to his professional success as his distinguished gallantry and skill. Other officers, no doubt, were as brave and able as Captain Cadurcis, but his commanders always signalled him out for favourable notice; and, strange to say, his success, instead of exciting envy and ill-will, pleased even his less fortunate competitors. However hard another might feel his own lot, it was soothed by the reflection that George Cadurcis was at least more fortunate. His popularity, however, was not confined to his profession. His cousin's noble guardian, whom George had never seen until he ventured to call upon his lordship on his return to England, now looked upon him almost as a son, and omitted no opportunity of advancing his interests in the world. Of all the members of the House of Commons he was perhaps the only one that everybody praised, and his success in the world of fashion had been as remarkable as in his profession. These great revolutions in his life and future prospects had, however, not produced the slightest change in his mind and manners; and this was perhaps the secret spell of his prosperity. Though we are most of us the creatures of affectation, simplicity has a great charm, especially when attended, as in the present instance, with many agreeable and some noble qualities. In spite of the rough fortunes of his youth, the breeding of Captain Cadurcis was high; the recollection of the race to which he belonged had never been forgotten by him. He was proud of his family. He had one of those light hearts, too, which enable their possessors to acquire accomplishments with facility: he had a sweet voice, a quick ear, a rapid eye. He acquired a language as some men learn an air. Then his temper was imperturbable, and although the most obliging and kindest-hearted creature that ever lived, there was a native dignity about him which prevented his goodnature from being abused. No sense of interest either could ever induce him to act contrary to the dictates of his judgment and his heart. At the risk of offending his patron, George sided with his cousin, although he had deeply offended his guardian, and although the whole world was against him. Indeed, the strong affection that Lord Cadurcis instantly entertained for George is not the least remarkable instance of the singular, though silent, influence that Captain Cadurcis everywhere acquired. Lord Cadurcis had fixed upon him for his friend from the first moment of their acquaintance; and though apparently there could not be two characters more dissimilar, there were at bottom some striking points of sympathy and some strong bonds of union, in the generosity and courage that distinguished both, and in the mutual blood that filled their veins. There seemed to be a tacit understanding between the several members of our party that the name of Lord Cadurcis was not to be mentioned. Lady Annabel made no inquiry after him; Venetia was unwilling to hazard a question which would annoy her mother, and of which the answer could not bring her much satisfaction; and Captain Cadurcis did not think fit himself to originate any conversation on the subject. Nevertheless, Venetia could not help sometimes fancying, when her eyes met his, that their mutual thoughts were the same, and both dwelling on one who was absent, and of whom her companion would willingly have conversed. To confess the truth, indeed, George Cadurcis was on his way to join his cousin, who had crossed over from Spain to Barbary, and journeyed along the African coast from Tangiers to Tripoli. Their point of reunion was to be Sicily or Malta. Hearing of the residence of the Herberts on the lake, he thought it would be but kind to Plantagenet to visit them, and perhaps to bear to him some message from Venetia. There was nothing, indeed, on which Captain Cadurcis was more intent than to effect the union between his cousin and Miss Herbert. He was deeply impressed with the sincerity of Plantagenet's passion, and he himself entertained for the lady the greatest affection and admiration. He thought she was the only person whom he had ever known, who was really worthy to be his cousin's bride. And, independent of her personal charms and undoubted talents, she had displayed during the outcry against Lord Cadurcis so much good sense, such a fine spirit, and such modest yet sincere affection for the victim, that George Cadurcis had almost lost his own heart to her, when he was endeavouring to induce her not utterly to reject that of another; and it became one of the dreams of his life, that in a little time, when all, as he fondly anticipated, had ended as it should, and as he wished it, he should be able to find an occasional home at Cadurcis Abbey, and enjoy the charming society of one whom he had already taught himself to consider as a sister. 'And to-night you must indeed go?' said Venetia, as they were walking together on the terrace. It was the only time that they had been alone together during his visit. 'I must start from Arona at daybreak,' replied George; 'and I must travel quickly, for in less than a month I must be in Sicily.' 'Sicily! Why are you going to Sicily?' Captain Cadurcis smiled. 'I am going to join a friend of ours,' he answered. 'Plantagenet?' she said. Captain Cadurcis nodded assent. 'Poor Plantagenet!' said Venetia. 'His name has been on my lips several times,' said George. 'I am sure of that,' said Venetia. 'Is he well?' 'He writes to me in fair spirits,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'He has been travelling in Spain, and now he is somewhere in Africa; we are to meet in Sicily or Malta. I think travel has greatly benefited him. He seems quite delighted with his glimpse of Oriental manners, and I should scarcely be surprised if he were now to stretch on to Constantinople.' 'I wonder if he will ever return to England,' said Venetia, thoughtfully. 'There is only one event that would induce him,' said Captain Cadurcis. And then after a pause he added, 'You will not ask me what it is?' 'I wish he were in England, and were happy,' said Venetia. 'It is in your power to effect both results,' said her companion. 'It is useless to recur to that subject,' said Venetia. 'Plantagenet knows my feelings towards him, but fate has forbidden our destinies to be combined.' 'Then he will never return to England, and never be happy. Ah, Venetia! what shall I tell him when we meet? What message am I to bear him from you?' 'Those regards which he ever possessed, and has never forfeited,' said Venetia. 'Poor Cadurcis!' said his cousin, shaking his head, 'if any man ever had reason to be miserable, it is he.' 'We are none of us very happy, I think,' said Venetia, mournfully. 'I am sure when I look back to the last few years of my life it seems to me that there is some curse hanging over our families. I cannot penetrate it; it baffles me.' 'I am sure,' said Captain Cadurcis with great animation, 'nay, I would pledge my existence cheerfully on the venture, that if Lady Annabel would only relent towards Cadurcis, we should all be the happiest people in the world.' 'Heigho!' said Venetia. 'There are other cares in our house besides our unfortunate acquaintance with your cousin. We were the last people in the world with whom he should ever have become connected.' 'And yet it was an intimacy that commenced auspiciously,' said her friend. 'I am sure I have sat with Cadurcis, and listened to him by the hour, while he has told me of all the happy days at Cherbury when you were both children; the only happy days, according to him, that he ever knew.' 'Yes! they were happy days,' said Venetia. 'And what connection could have offered a more rational basis for felicity than your union?' he continued. 'Whatever the world may think, I, who know Cadurcis to the very bottom of his heart, feel assured that you never would have repented for an instant becoming the sharer of his life; your families were of equal rank, your estates joined, he felt for your mother the affection of a son. There seemed every element that could have contributed to earthly bliss. As for his late career, you who know all have already, have always indeed, viewed it with charity. Placed in his position, who could have acted otherwise? I know very well that his genius, which might recommend him to another woman, is viewed by your mother with more than apprehension. It is true that a man of his exquisite sensibility requires sympathies as refined to command his nature. It is no common mind that could maintain its hold over Cadurcis, and his spirit could not yield but to rare and transcendent qualities. He found them, Venetia, he found them in her whom he had known longest and most intimately, and loved from his boyhood. Talk of constancy, indeed! who has been so constant as my cousin? No, Venetia! you may think fit to bow to the feelings of your mother, and it would be impertinence in me to doubt for an instant the propriety of your conduct: I do not doubt it; I admire it; I admire you, and everything you have done; none can view your behaviour throughout all these painful transactions with more admiration, I might even say with more reverence, than myself; but, Venetia, you never can persuade me, you have never attempted to persuade me, that you yourself are incredulous of the strength and permanency of my cousin's love.' 'Ah, George! you are our friend!' said Venetia, a tear stealing down her cheek. 'But, indeed, we must not talk of these things. As for myself, I think not of happiness. I am certain I am not born to be happy. I wish only to live calmly; contentedly, I would say; but that, perhaps, is too much. My feelings have been so harrowed, my mind so harassed, during these last few years, and so many causes of pain and misery seem ever hovering round my existence, that I do assure you, my dear friend, I have grown old before my time. Ah! you may smile, George, but my heart is heavy; it is indeed.' 'I wish I could lighten it,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'I fear I am somewhat selfish in wishing you to marry my cousin, for then you know I should have a permanent and authentic claim to your regard. But no one, at least I think so, can feel more deeply interested in your welfare than I do. I never knew any one like you, and I always tell Cadurcis so, and that I think makes him worse, but I cannot help it.' Venetia could not refrain from smiling at the simplicity of this confession. 'Well,' continued her companion,' everything, after all, is for the best. You and Plantagenet are both very young; I live in hopes that I shall yet see you Lady Cadurcis.' Venetia shook her head, but was not sorry that their somewhat melancholy conversation should end in a livelier vein. So they entered the villa. The hour of parting was painful, and the natural gaiety of Captain Cadurcis deserted him. He had become greatly attached to the Herberts. Without any female relatives of his own, their former intimacy and probable connection with his cousin had taught him to look upon them in some degree in the light of kindred. He had originally indeed become acquainted with them in all the blaze of London society, not very calculated to bring out the softer tints and more subdued tones of our character, but even then the dignified grace of Lady Annabel and the radiant beauty of Venetia, had captivated him, and he had cultivated their society with assiduity and extreme pleasure. The grand crisis of his cousin's fortunes had enabled him to become intimate with the more secret and serious qualities of Venetia, and from that moment he had taken the deepest interest in everything connected with her. His happy and unexpected meeting in Italy had completed the spell; and now that he was about to leave them, uncertain even if they should ever meet again, his soft heart trembled, and he could scarcely refrain from tears as he pressed their hands, and bade them his sincere adieus. The moon had risen, ere he entered his boat, and flung a rippling line of glittering light on the bosom of the lake. The sky was without a cloud, save a few thin fleecy vapours that hovered over the azure brow of a distant mountain. The shores of the lake were suffused with the serene effulgence, and every object was so distinct, that the eye was pained by the lights of the villages, that every instant became more numerous and vivid. The bell of a small chapel on the opposite shore, and the distant chant of some fishermen still working at their nets, were the only sounds that broke the silence which they did not disturb. Reclined in his boat, George Cadurcis watched the vanishing villa of the Herberts, until the light in the principal chamber was the only sign that assured him of its site. That chamber held Venetia, the unhappy Venetia! He covered his face with his hand when even the light of her chamber vanished, and, full of thoughts tender and disconsolate, he at length arrived at Arona. CHAPTER III. Pursuant to their plans, the Herberts left the Lago Maggiore towards the end of October, and proceeded by gentle journeys to the Apennines. Before they crossed this barrier, they were to rest awhile in one of the Lombard cities; and now they were on the point of reaching Arquâ, which Venetia had expressed a strong desire to visit. At the latter part of the last century, the race of tourists, the offspring of a long peace, and the rapid fortunes made during the war, did not exist. Travelling was then confined to the aristocracy, and though the English, when opportunity offered, have ever been a restless people, the gentle bosom of the Euganean Hills was then rarely disturbed amid its green and sequestered valleys. There is not perhaps in all the Italian region, fertile as it is in interesting associations and picturesque beauty, a spot that tradition and nature have so completely combined to hallow, as the last residence of Petrarch. It seems, indeed, to have been formed for the retirement of a pensive and poetic spirit. It recedes from the world by a succession of delicate acclivities clothed with vineyards and orchards, until, winding within these hills, the mountain hamlet is at length discovered, enclosed by two ridges that slope towards each other, and seem to shut out all the passions of a troubled race. The houses are scattered at intervals on the steep sides of these summits, and on a little knoll is the mansion of the poet, built by himself, and commanding a rich and extensive view, that ends only with the shores of the Adriatic sea. His tomb, a sarcophagus of red marble, supported by pillars, doubtless familiar to the reader, is at hand; and, placed on an elevated site, gives a solemn impression to a scene, of which the character would otherwise be serenely cheerful. Our travellers were surprised to find that the house of the poet was inhabited by a very different tenant to the rustic occupier they had anticipated. They heard that a German gentleman had within the last year fixed upon it as the residence of himself and his wife. The peasants were profuse in their panegyrics of this visitor, whose arrival had proved quite an era in the history of their village. According to them, a kinder and more charitable gentleman never breathed; his whole life was spent in studying and contributing to the happiness of those around him. The sick, the sorrowful, and the needy were ever sure of finding a friend in him, and merit a generous patron. From him came portions to the portionless; no village maiden need despair of being united to her betrothed, while he could assist her; and at his own cost he had sent to the academy of Bologna, a youth whom his father would have made a cowherd, but whom nature predisposed to be a painter. The inhabitants believed this benevolent and generous person was a physician, for he attended the sick, prescribed for their complaints, and had once even performed an operation with great success. It seemed that, since Petrarch, no one had ever been so popular at Arquâ as this kind German. Lady Annabel and Venetia were interested with the animated narratives of the ever-active beneficence of this good man, and Lady Annabel especially regretted that his absence deprived her of the gratification of becoming acquainted with a character so rare and so invaluable. In the meantime they availed themselves of the offer of his servants to view the house of Petrarch, for their master had left orders, that his absence should never deprive a pilgrim from paying his homage to the shrine of genius. The house, consisting of two floors, had recently been repaired by the present occupier. It was simply furnished. The ground-floor was allotted to the servants. The upper story contained five rooms, three of which were of good size, and two closets. In one of these were the traditionary chair and table of Petrarch, and here, according to their guides, the master of the house passed a great portion of his time in study, to which, by their account, he seemed devoted. The adjoining chamber was his library; its windows opened on a balcony looking on two lofty and conical hills, one topped with a convent, while the valley opened on the side and spread into a calm and very pleasant view. Of the other apartments, one served as a saloon, but there was nothing in it remarkable, except an admirably painted portrait of a beautiful woman, which the servant informed them was their mistress. 'But that surely is not a German physiognomy?' said Lady Annabel. 'The mistress is an Italian,' replied the servant. 'She is very handsome, of whatever nation she may be,' replied Lady Annabel. 'Oh! how I should have liked to have met these happy people, mamma,' said Venetia, 'for happy they surely must be.' 'They seem to be good people,' said Lady Annabel. 'It really lightened my heart to hear of all this gentleman's kind deeds.' 'Ah! if the signora only knew the master,' said their guide, 'she would indeed know a good man.' They descended to the garden, which certainly was not like the garden of their villa; it had been but lately a wilderness of laurels, but there were evidences that the eye and hand of taste were commencing its restoration with effect. 'The master did this,' said their guide. 'He will allow no one to work in the garden but himself. It is a week since he went to Bologna, to see our Paulo. He gained a prize at the academy, and his father begged the master to be present when it was conferred on him; he said it would do his son so much good! So the master went, though it is the only time he has quitted Quâ since he came to reside here.' 'And how long has he resided here?' inquired Venetia. ''Tis the second autumn,' said the guide, 'and he came in the spring. If the signora would only wait, we expect the master home to-night or to-morrow, and he would be glad to see her.' 'We cannot wait, my friend,' said Lady Annabel, rewarding the guide; 'but you will thank your master in our names, for the kindness we have experienced. You are all happy in such a friend.' 'I must write my name in Petrarch's house,' said Venetia. 'Adieu, happy Arquâ! Adieu, happy dwellers in this happy valley!' CHAPTER IV. Just as Lady Annabel and her daughter arrived at Rovigo, one of those sudden and violent storms that occasionally occur at the termination of an Italian autumn raged with irresistible fury. The wind roared with a noise that overpowered the thunder; then came a rattling shower of hail, with stones as big as pigeons' eggs, succeeded by rain, not in showers, but literally in cataracts. The only thing to which a tempest of rain in Italy can be compared is the bursting of a waterspout. Venetia could scarcely believe that this could be the same day of which the golden morning had found her among the sunny hills of Arquâ. This unexpected vicissitude induced Lady Annabel to alter her plans, and she resolved to rest at Rovigo, where she was glad to find that they could be sheltered in a commodious inn. The building had originally been a palace, and in its halls and galleries, and the vast octagonal vestibule on which the principal apartments opened, it retained many noble indications of the purposes to which it was formerly destined. At present, a lazy innkeeper who did nothing; his bustling wife, who seemed equally at home in the saloon, the kitchen, and even the stable; and a solitary waiter, were the only inmates, except the Herberts, and a travelling party, who had arrived shortly after them, and who, like them, had been driven by stress of weather to seek refuge at a place where otherwise they had not intended to remain. A blazing fire of pine wood soon gave cheerfulness to the vast and somewhat desolate apartment into which our friends had been ushered; their sleeping-room was adjoining, but separated. In spite of the lamentations of Pauncefort, who had been drenched to the skin, and who required much more waiting upon than her mistress, Lady Annabel and Venetia at length produced some degree of comfort. They drew the table near the fire; they ensconced themselves behind an old screen; and, producing their books and work notwithstanding the tempest, they contrived to domesticate themselves at Rovigo. 'I cannot help thinking of Arquâ and its happy tenants, mamma,' said Venetia. 'And yet, perhaps, they may have their secret sorrows,' said Lady Annabel. 'I know not why, I always associate seclusion with unhappiness.' Venetia remembered Cherbury. Their life at Cherbury was like the life of the German at Arquâ. A chance visitor to Cherbury in their absence, viewing the beautiful residence and the fair domain, and listening to the tales which they well might hear of all her mother's grace and goodness, might perhaps too envy its happy occupiers. But were they happy? Had they no secret sorrows? Was their seclusion associated with unhappiness? These were reflections that made Venetia grave; but she opened her journal, and, describing the adventures and feelings of the morning, she dissipated some mournful reminiscences. The storm still raged, Venetia had quitted the saloon in which her mother and herself had been sitting, and had repaired to the adjoining chamber to fetch a book. The door of this room opened, as all the other entrances of the different apartments, on to the octagonal vestibule. Just as she was quitting the room, and about to return to her mother, the door of the opposite chamber opened, and there came forward a gentleman in a Venetian dress of black velvet. His stature was much above the middle height, though his figure, which was remarkably slender, was bowed; not by years certainly, for his countenance, though singularly emaciated, still retained traces of youth. His hair, which he wore very long, descended over his shoulders, and must originally have been of a light golden colour, but now was severely touched with grey. His countenance was very pallid, so colourless indeed that its aspect was almost unearthly; but his large blue eyes, that were deeply set in his majestic brow, still glittered with fire, and their expression alone gave life to a visage, which, though singularly beautiful in its outline, from its faded and attenuated character seemed rather the countenance of a corpse than of a breathing being. The glance of the stranger caught that of Venetia, and seemed to fascinate her. She suddenly became motionless; wildly she stared at the stranger, who, in his turn, seemed arrested in his progress, and stood still as a statue, with his eyes fixed with absorbing interest on the beautiful apparition before him. An expression of perplexity and pain flitted over the amazed features of Venetia; and then it seemed that, by some almost supernatural effort, confusion amounting to stupefaction suddenly brightened and expanded into keen and overwhelming intelligence. Exclaiming in a frenzied tone, 'My father!' Venetia sprang forward, and fell senseless on the stranger's breast. Such, after so much mystery, so many aspirations, so much anxiety, and so much suffering, such was the first meeting of Venetia Herbert with her father! Marmion Herbert, himself trembling and speechless, bore the apparently lifeless Venetia into his apartment. Not permitting her for a moment to quit his embrace, he seated himself, and gazed silently on the inanimate and unknown form he held so strangely within his arms. Those lips, now closed as if in death, had uttered however one word which thrilled to his heart, and still echoed, like a supernatural annunciation, within his ear. He examined with an eye of agitated scrutiny the fair features no longer sensible of his presence. He gazed upon that transparent brow, as if he would read some secret in its pellucid veins; and touched those long locks of golden hair with a trembling finger, that seemed to be wildly seeking for some vague and miraculous proof of inexpressible identity. The fair creature had called him 'Father.' His dreaming reveries had never pictured a being half so beautiful! She called him 'Father!' Tha word had touched his brain, as lightning cuts a tree. He looked around him with a distracted air, then gazed on the tranced form he held with a glance which would have penetrated her soul, and murmured unconsciously the wild word she had uttered. She called him 'Father!' He dared not think who she might be. His thoughts were wandering in a distant land; visions of another life, another country, rose before him, troubled and obscure. Baffled aspirations, and hopes blighted in the bud, and the cherished secrets of his lorn existence, clustered like clouds upon his perplexed, yet creative, brain. She called him, 'Father!' It was a word to make him mad. 'Father!' This beautiful being had called him 'Father,' and seemed to have expired, as it were, in the irresistible expression. His heart yearned to her; he had met her embrace with an inexplicable sympathy; her devotion had seemed, as it were, her duty and his right. Yet who was she? He was a father. It was a fact, a fact alike full of solace and mortification, the consciousness of which never deserted him. But he was the father of an unknown child; to him the child of his poetic dreams, rather than his reality. And now there came this radiant creature, and called him 'Father!' Was he awake, and in the harsh busy world; or was it the apparition of au over-excited imagination, brooding too constantly on one fond idea, on which he now gazed so fixedly? Was this some spirit? Would that she would speak again! Would that those sealed lips would part and utter but one word, would but again call him 'Father,' and he asked no more! 'Father!' to be called 'Father' by one whom he could not name, by one over whom he mused in solitude, by one to whom he had poured forth all the passion of his desolate soul; to be called 'Father' by this being was the aspiring secret of his life. He had painted her to himself in his loneliness, he had conjured up dreams of ineffable loveliness, and inexpressible love; he had led with her an imaginary life of thrilling tenderness; he had indulged in a delicious fancy of mutual interchange of the most exquisite offices of our nature; and then, when he had sometimes looked around him, and found no daughter there, no beaming countenance of purity to greet him with its constant smile, and receive the quick and ceaseless tribute of his vigilant affection, the tears had stolen down his lately-excited features, all the consoling beauty of his visions had vanished into air, he had felt the deep curse of his desolation, and had anathematised the cunning brain that made his misery a thousand-fold keener by the mockery of its transporting illusions. And now there came this transcendent creature, with a form more glowing than all his dreams; a voice more musical than a seraphic chorus, though it had uttered but one thrilling word: there came this transcendent creature, beaming with grace, beauty, and love, and had fallen upon his heart, and called him 'Father!' Herbert looked up to heaven as if waiting for some fresh miracle to terminate the harrowing suspense of his tortured mind; Herbert looked down upon his mysterious companion; the rose was gradually returning to her cheek, her lips seemed to tremble with reviving breath. There was only one word more strange to his ear than that which she had uttered, but an irresistible impulse sent forth the sound. 'Venetia!' he exclaimed. The eyes of the maiden slowly opened; she stared around her with a vague glance of perplexity, not unmingled with pain; she looked up; she caught the rapt gaze of her father, bending over her with fondness yet with fear; his lips moved, for a moment they refused to articulate, yet at length they again uttered, 'Venetia!' And the only response she made was to cling to him with nervous energy, and hide her face in his bosom. Herbert pressed her to his heart. Yet even now he hesitated to credit the incredible union. Again he called her by her name, but added with rising confidence, 'My Venetia!' 'Your child, your child,' she murmured. 'Your own Venetia.' He pressed his lips to hers; he breathed over her a thousand blessings; she felt his tears trickling on her neck. At length Venetia looked up and sighed; she was exhausted by the violence of her emotions: her father relaxed his grasp with infinite tenderness, watching her with delicate solicitude; she leaned her arm upon his shoulder with downcast eyes. Herbert gently took her disengaged hand, and pressed it to his lips. 'I am as in a dream,' murmured Venetia. 'The daughter of my heart has found her sire,' said Herbert in an impassioned voice. 'The father who has long lived upon her fancied image; the father, I fear, she has been bred up to hate.' 'Oh! no, no!' said Venetia, speaking rapidly and with a slight shiver; 'not hate! it was a secret, his being was a secret, his name was never mentioned; it was unknown.' 'A secret! My existence a secret from my child, my beautiful fond child!' exclaimed Herbert in a tone even more desolate than bitter. 'Why did they not let you at least hate me!' 'My father!' said Venetia, in a firmer voice, and with returning animation, yet gazing around her with a still distracted air, 'Am I with my father? The clouds clear from my brain. I remember that we met. Where was it? Was it at Arquâ? In the garden? I am with my father!' she continued in a rapid tone and with a wild smile. 'Oh! let me look on him;' and she turned round, and gazed upon Herbert with a serious scrutiny. 'Are you my father?' she continued, in a still, small voice. 'Your hair has grown grey since last I saw you; it was golden then, like mine. I know you are my father,' she added, after a pause, and in a tone almost of gaiety. 'You cannot deceive me. I know your name. They did not tell it me; I found it out myself, but it made me very ill, very; and I do not think I have ever been quite well since. You are Marmion Herbert. My mother had a dog called Marmion, when I was a little girl, but I did not know I had a father then.' 'Venetia!' exclaimed Herbert, with streaming eyes, as he listened with anguish to these incoherent sentences. 'My Venetia loves me!' 'Oh! she always loved you,' replied Venetia; always, always. Before she knew her father she loved him. I dare say you think I do not love you, because I am not used to speak to a father. Everything must be learnt, you know,' she said, with a faint, sad smile; 'and then it was so sudden! I do not think my mother knows it yet. And after all, though I found you out in a moment, still, I know not why, I thought it was a picture. But I read your verses, and I knew them by heart at once; but now my memory has worn out, for I am ill, and everything has gone cross with me. And all because my father wrote me verses. 'Tis very strange, is not it?' 'Sweet lamb of my affections,' exclaimed Herbert to himself, 'I fear me much this sudden meeting with one from whose bosom you ought never to have been estranged, has been for the moment too great a trial for this delicate brain.' 'I will not tell my mother,' said Venetia; 'she will be angry.' 'Your mother, darling; where is your mother?' said Herbert, looking, if possible, paler than he was wont. She was at Arquâ with me, and on the lake for months, but where we are now, I cannot say. If I could only remember where we are now,' she added with earnestness, and with a struggle to collect herself, 'I should know everything.' 'This is Rovigo, my child, the inn of Rovigo. You are travelling with your mother. Is it not so?' 'Yes! and we came this morning, and it rained. Now I know everything,' said Venetia, with an animated and even cheerful air. 'And we met in the vestibule, my sweet,' continued Herbert, in a soothing voice; 'we came out of opposite chambers, and you knew me; my Venetia knew me. Try to tell me, my darling,' he added, in a tone of coaxing fondness, 'try to remember how Venetia knew her father.' 'He was so like his picture at Cherbury,' replied Venetia. 'Cherbury!' exclaimed Herbert, with a deep-drawn sigh. 'Only your hair has grown grey, dear father; but it is long, quite as long as in your picture.' 'Her dog called Marmion!' murmured Herbert to himself, 'and my portrait, too! You saw your father's portrait, then, every day, love?' 'Oh, no! said Venetia, shaking her head, 'only once, only once. And I never told mamma. It was where no one could go, but I went there one day. It was in a room that no one ever entered except mamma, but I entered it. I stole the key, and had a fever, and in my fever I confessed all. But I never knew it. Mamma never told me I confessed it, until many, many years afterwards. It was the first, the only time she ever mentioned to me your name, my father.' 'And she told you to shun me, to hate me? She told you I was a villain, a profligate, a demon? eh? eh? Was it not so, Venetia?' 'She told me that you had broken her heart,' said Venetia; 'and she prayed to God that her child might not be so miserable.' 'Oh, my Venetia!' exclaimed Herbert, pressing her to his breast, and in a voice stifled with emotion, 'I feel now we might have been happy!' In the meantime the prolonged absence of her daughter surprised Lady Annabel. At length she rose, and walked into their adjoining apartment, but to her surprise Venetia was not there. Returning to her saloon, she found Pauncefort and the waiter arranging the table for dinner. 'Where is Miss Herbert, Pauncefort?' inquired Lady Annabel. 'I am sure, my lady, I cannot say. I have no doubt she is in the other room.' 'She is not there, for I have just quitted it,' replied Lady Annabel. 'How very strange! You have not seen the signora?' inquired Lady Annabel of the waiter. 'The signora is in the room with the gentleman.' 'The gentleman!' exclaimed Lady Annabel. 'Tell me, good man, what do you mean? I am inquiring for my daughter.' 'I know well the signora is talking of her daughter,' replied the waiter. 'But do you know my daughter by sight? Surely you you must mean some one else.' 'Do I know the signora's daughter?' said the waiter. 'The beautiful young lady, with hair like Santa Marguerita, in the church of the Holy Trinity! I tell the signora, I saw her carried into numero 4, in the arms of the Signor Forestiere, who arrived this morning.' 'Venetia is ill,' said Lady Annabel. 'Show me to the room, my friend.' Lady Annabel accordingly, with a hurried step, following her guide, quitted the chamber. Pauncefort remained fixed to the earth, the very picture of perplexity. 'Well, to be sure!' she exclaimed, 'was anything ever so strange! In the arms of Signor Forestiere! Forestiere. An English name. There is no person of the name of Forest that I know. And in his arms, too! I should not wonder if it was my lord after all. Well, I should be glad if he were to come to light again, for, after all, my lady may say what she likes, but if Miss Venetia don't marry Lord Cadurcis, I must say marriages were never made in heaven!' CHAPTER V. The waiter threw open the door of Mr. Herbert's chamber, and Lady Annabel swept in with a majesty she generally assumed when about to meet strangers. The first thing she beheld was her daughter in the arms of a man whose head was bent, and who was embracing her. Notwithstanding this astounding spectacle, Lady Annabel neither started nor screamed; she only said in an audible tone, and one rather expressing astonishment than agitation, 'Venetia!' Immediately the stranger looked up, and Lady Annabel beheld her husband! She was rooted to the earth. She turned deadly pale; for a moment her countenance expressed only terror, but the terror quickly changed into aversion. Suddenly she rushed forward, and exclaimed in a tone in which decision conquered dismay, 'Restore me my child!' The moment Herbert had recognised his wife he had dexterously disengaged himself from the grasp of Venetia, whom he left on the chair, and meeting Lady Annabel with extended arms, that seemed to deprecate her wrath, he said, 'I seek not to deprive you of her; she is yours, and she is worthy of you; but respect, for a few moments, the feelings of a father who has met his only child in a manner so unforeseen.' The presence of her mother instantaneously restored Venetia to herself. Her mind was in a moment cleared and settled. Her past and peculiar life, and all its incidents, recurred to her with their accustomed order, vividness, and truth. She thoroughly comprehended her present situation. Actuated by long-cherished feelings and the necessity of the occasion, she rose and threw herself at her mother's feet and exclaimed, 'O mother! he is my father, love him!' Lady Annabel stood with an averted countenance, Venetia clinging to her hand, which she had caught when she rushed forward, and which now fell passive by Lady Annabel's side, giving no sign, by any pressure or motion, of the slightest sympathy with her daughter, or feeling for the strange and agonising situation in which they were both placed. 'Annabel,' said Herbert, in a voice that trembled, though the speaker struggled to appear calm, 'be charitable! I have never intruded upon your privacy; I will not now outrage it. Accident, or some diviner motive, has brought us together this day. If you will not treat me with kindness, look not upon me with aversion before our child.' Still she was silent and motionless, her countenance hidden from her husband and her daughter, but her erect and haughty form betokening her inexorable mind. 'Annabel,' said Herbert, who had now withdrawn to some distance, and leant against a pillar, 'will not then nearly twenty years of desolation purchase one moment of intercourse? I have injured you. Be it so. This is not the moment I will defend myself. But have I not suffered? Is not this meeting a punishment deeper even than your vengeance could devise? Is it nothing to behold this beautiful child, and feel that she is only yours? Annabel, look on me, look on me only one moment! My frame is bowed, my hair is grey, my heart is withered; the principle of existence waxes faint and slack in this attenuated frame. I am no longer that Herbert on whom you once smiled, but a man stricken with many sorrows. The odious conviction of my life cannot long haunt you; yet a little while, and my memory will alone remain. Think of this, Annabel; I beseech you, think of it. Oh! believe me, when the speedy hour arrives that will consign me to the grave, where I shall at least find peace, it will not be utterly without satisfaction that you will remember that we met if even by accident, and parted at least not with harshness!' 'Mother, dearest mother!' murmured Venetia, 'speak to him, look on him!' 'Venetia,' said her mother, without turning her head, but in a calm, firm tone, 'your father has seen you, has conversed with you. Between your father and myself there can be nothing to communicate, either of fact or feeling. Now let us depart.' 'No, no, not depart!' said Venetia franticly. 'You did not say depart, dear mother! I cannot go,' she added in a low and half-hysterical voice. 'Desert me, then,' said the mother. 'A fitting consequence of your private communications with your father,' she added in a tone of bitter scorn; and Lady Annabel moved to depart, but Venetia, still kneeling, clung to her convulsively. 'Mother, mother, you shall not go; you shall not leave me; we will never part, mother,' continued Venetia, in a tone almost of violence, as she perceived her mother give no indication of yielding to her wish. 'Are my feelings then nothing?' she then exclaimed. 'Is this your sense of my fidelity? Am I for ever to be a victim?' She loosened her hold of her mother's hand, her mother moved on, Venetia fell upon her forehead and uttered a faint scream. The heart of Lady Annabel relented when she fancied her daughter suffered physical pain, however slight; she hesitated, she turned, she hastened to her child; her husband had simultaneously advanced; in the rapid movement and confusion her hand touched that of Herbert. 'I yield her to you, Annabel,' said Herbert, placing Venetia in her mother's arms. 'You mistake me, as you have often mistaken me, if you think I seek to practise on the feelings of this angelic child. She is yours; may she compensate you for the misery I have caused you, but never sought to occasion!' 'I am not hurt, dear mother,' said Venetia, as her mother tenderly examined her forehead. 'Dear, dear mother, why did you reproach me?' 'Forget it,' said Lady Annabel, in a softened tone; 'for indeed you are irreproachable.' 'O Annabel!' said Herbert, 'may not this child be some atonement, this child, of whom I solemnly declare I would not deprive you, though I would willingly forfeit my life for a year of her affection; and your, your sufferance,' he added. 'Mother! speak to him,' said Venetia, with her head on her mother's bosom, who still, however, remained rigidly standing. But Lady Annabel was silent. 'Your mother was ever stern and cold, Venetia,' said Herbert, the bitterness of his heart at length expressing itself. 'Never,' said Venetia, with great energy; 'never; you know not my mother. Was she stern and cold when she visited each night in secret your portrait?' said Venetia, looking round upon her astonished father, with her bright grey eye. 'Was she stern and cold when she wept over your poems, those poems whose characters your own hand had traced? Was she stern and cold when she hung a withered wreath on your bridal bed, the bed to which I owe my miserable being? Oh, no, my father! sad was the hour of separation for my mother and yourself. It may have dimmed the lustre of her eye, and shaded your locks with premature grey; but whatever may have been its inscrutable cause, there was one victim of that dark hour, less thought of than yourselves, and yet a greater sufferer than both, the being in whose heart you implanted affections, whose unfulfilled tenderness has made that wretched thing they call your daughter.' 'Annabel!' exclaimed Herbert, rapidly advancing, with an imploring gesture, and speaking in a tone of infinite anguish, 'Annabel, Annabel, even now we can be happy!' The countenance of his wife was troubled, but its stern expression had disappeared. The long-concealed, yet at length irrepressible, emotion of Venetia had touched her heart. In the conflict of affection between the claims of her two parents, Lady Annabel had observed with a sentiment of sweet emotion, in spite of all the fearfulness of the meeting, that Venetia had not faltered in her devotion to her mother. The mental torture of her child touched her to the quick. In the excitement of her anguish, Venetia had expressed a profound sentiment, the irresistible truth of which Lady Annabel could no longer withstand. She had too long and too fondly schooled herself to look upon the outraged wife as the only victim. There was then, at length it appeared to this stern-minded woman, another. She had laboured in the flattering delusion that the devotion of a mother's love might compensate to Venetia for the loss of that other parent, which in some degree Lady Annabel had occasioned her; for the worthless husband, had she chosen to tolerate the degrading connection, might nevertheless have proved a tender father. But Nature, it seemed, had shrunk from the vain effort of the isolated mother. The seeds of affection for the father of her being were mystically implanted in the bosom of his child. Lady Annabel recalled the harrowing hours that this attempt by her to curb and control the natural course and rising sympathies of filial love had cost her child, on whom she had so vigilantly practised it. She recalled her strange aspirations, her inspired curiosity, her brooding reveries, her fitful melancholy, her terrible illness, her resignation, her fidelity, her sacrifices: there came across the mind of Lady Annabel a mortifying conviction that the devotion to her child, on which she had so rated herself, might after all only prove a subtle form of profound selfishness; and that Venetia, instead of being the idol of her love, might eventually be the martyr of her pride. And, thinking of these things, she wept. This evidence of emotion, which in such a spirit Herbert knew how to estimate, emboldened him to advance; he fell on one knee before her and her daughter; gently he stole her hand, and pressed it to his lips. It was not withdrawn, and Venetia laid her hand upon theirs, and would have bound them together had her mother been relentless. It seemed to Venetia that she was at length happy, but she would not speak, she would not disturb the still and silent bliss of the impending reconciliation. Was it then indeed at hand? In truth, the deportment of Herbert throughout the whole interview, so delicate, so subdued, so studiously avoiding the slightest rivaly with his wife in the affections of their child, and so carefully abstaining from attempting in the slightest degree to control the feelings of Venetia, had not been lost upon Lady Annabel. And when she thought of him, so changed from what he had been, grey, bent, and careworn, with all the lustre that had once so fascinated her, faded, and talking of that impending fate which his wan though spiritual countenance too clearly intimated, her heart melted. Suddenly the door burst open, and there stalked into the room a woman of eminent but most graceful stature, and of a most sovereign and voluptuous beauty. She was habited in the Venetian dress; her dark eyes glittered with fire, her cheek was inflamed with no amiable emotion, and her long black hair was disordered by the violence of her gesture. 'And who are these?' she exclaimed in a shrill voice. All started; Herbert sprang up from his position with a glance of withering rage. Venetia was perplexed, Lady Annabel looked round, and recognised the identical face, however distorted by passion, that she had admired in the portrait at Arquâ. 'And who are these?' exclaimed the intruder, advancing. 'Perfidious Marmion! to whom do you dare to kneel?' Lady Annabel drew herself up to a height that seemed to look down even upon this tall stranger. The expression of majestic scorn that she cast upon the intruder made her, in spite of all her violence and excitement, tremble and be silent: she felt cowed she knew not why. 'Come, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel with all her usual composure, 'let me save my daughter at least from this profanation,' 'Annabel!' said Herbert, rushing after them, 'be charitable, be just!' He followed them to the threshold of the door; Venetia was silent, for she was alarmed. 'Adieu, Marmion!' said Lady Annabel, looking over her shoulder with a bitter smile, but placing her daughter before her, as if to guard her. 'Adieu, Marmion! adieu for ever!' CHAPTER VI. The moon shone brightly on the house of Petrarch, and the hamlet slept in peace. Not a sound was heard, save the shrill voice of the grasshoppers, so incessant that its monotony blended, as it were, with the stillness. Over the green hills and the far expanse of the sheeny plain, the beautiful light of heaven fell with all the magical repose of the serene hour, an hour that brought to one troubled breast, and one distracted spirit, in that still and simple village, no quietude. Herbert came forth into the balcony of his residence, and leaning over the balustrade, revolved in his agitated mind the strange and stirring incidents of the day. His wife and his child had quitted the inn of Rovigo instantly after that mortifying rencounter that had dashed so cruelly to the ground all his sweet and quickly-rising hopes. As for his companion, she had by his peremptory desire returned to Arquâ alone; he was not in a mood to endure her society; but he had conducted himself to her mildly, though with firmness; he had promised to follow her, and, in pursuance of his pledge, he rode home alone. He was greeted on his return by his servant, full of the the visit of the morning. With an irresistible curiosity, Herbert had made him describe every incident that had occurred, and repeat a hundred times every word that the visitors had uttered. He listened with some consolation, however mournful, to his wife's praises of the unknown stranger's life; he gazed with witching interest upon the autograph of his daughter on the wall of his library. He had not confessed to his mistress the relation which the two strangers bore to him; yet he was influenced in concealing the real circumstances, only by an indefinite sentiment, that made him reluctant to acknowledge to her ties so pure. The feelings of the parent overpowered the principles of the philosopher. This lady indeed, although at the moment she had indulged in so violent an ebullition of temper, possessed little influence over the mind of her companion. Herbert, however fond of solitude, required in his restricted world the graceful results of feminine superintendence. Time had stilled his passions, and cooled the fervour of his soul. The age of his illusions had long passed. This was a connection that had commenced in no extravagant or romantic mood, and perhaps for that reason had endured. He had become acquainted with her on his first unknown arrival in Italy, from America, now nearly two years back. It had been maintained on his side by a temper naturally sweet, and which, exhausted by years of violent emotion, now required only repose; seeking, in a female friend, a form that should not outrage an eye ever musing on the beautiful, and a disposition that should contribute to his comfort, and never ruffle his feelings. Separated from his wife by her own act, whatever might have been its impulse, and for so long an interval, it was a connection which the world in general might have looked upon with charity, which in her calmer hours one would imagine even Lady Annabel might have glanced over without much bitterness. Certainly it was one which, under all the circumstances of the case, could scarcely be esteemed by her as an outrage or an insult; but even Herbert felt, with all his philosophy and proud freedom from prejudice, that the rencounter of the morning was one which no woman could at the moment tolerate, few eventually excuse, and which of all incidents was that which would most tend to confirm his wife in her stoical obduracy. Of his offences towards her, whatever were their number or their quality, this surely was the least, and yet its results upon his life and fortunes would in all probability only be equalled by the mysterious cause of their original separation. But how much more bitter than that original separation was their present parting! Mortifying and annoying as had been the original occurrence, it was one that many causes and considerations combined to enable Herbert to support. He was then in the very prime of youth, inexperienced, sanguine, restless, and adventurous, with the whole world and its unknown results before him, and freedom for which he ever sighed to compensate for the loss of that domestic joy that he was then unable to appreciate. But now twenty years, which, in the career of such a spirit, were equal to a century of the existence of coarser clay, had elapsed; he was bowed with thought and suffering, if not by time; his conscience was light, but it was sad; his illusions had all vanished; he knew the world, and all that the world could bring, and he disregarded them; and the result of all his profound study, lofty aspirations, and great conduct was, that he sighed for rest. The original catastrophe had been merely a separation between a husband and a wife; the one that had just happened, involved other feelings; the father was also separated from his child, and a child of such surpassing qualities, that his brief acquaintance with her had alone sufficed to convert his dream of domestic repose into a vision of domestic bliss. Beautiful Venetia! so fair, and yet so dutiful; with a bosom teeming with such exquisite sensibilities, and a mind bright with such acute and elevated intelligence! An abstract conception of the sentiments that might subsist between a father and a daughter, heightened by all the devices of a glowing imagination, had haunted indeed occasionally the solitary musing of Marmion Herbert; but what was this creation of his poetic brain compared with the reality that now had touched his human heart? Vainly had he believed that repose was the only solace that remained for his exhausted spirit. He found that a new passion now swayed his soul; a passion, too, that he had never proved; of a nature most peculiar; pure, gentle, refined, yet ravishing and irresistible, compared with which all former transports, no matter how violent, tumultuous, and exciting, seemed evanescent and superficial: they were indeed the wind, the fire, and the tempest that had gone before, but this was the still small voice that followed, excelled, and survived their might and majesty, unearthly and eternal! His heart melted to his daughter, nor did he care to live without her love and presence. His philosophical theories all vanished. He felt how dependent we are in this world on our natural ties, and how limited, with all his arrogance, is the sphere of man. Dreaming of philanthropy, he had broken his wife's heart, and bruised, perhaps irreparably, the spirit of his child; he had rendered those miserable who depended on his love, and for whose affection his heart now yearned to that degree, that he could not contemplate existence without their active sympathy. Was it then too late! Was it then impossible to regain that Paradise he had forfeited so weakly, and of whose amaranthine bowers, but a few hours since, he had caught such an entrancing glimpse, of which the gate for a moment seemed about to re-open! In spite of all, then, Annabel still loved him, loved him passionately, visited his picture, mused over the glowing expression of their loves, wept over the bridal bed so soon deserted! She had a dog, too, when Venetia was a child, and called it Marmion. The recollection of this little trait, so trifling, yet so touching, made him weep even with wildness. The tears poured down his cheeks in torrents, he sobbed convulsively, his very heart seemed to burst. For some minutes he leant over the balustrade in a paroxysm of grief. He looked up. The convent hill rose before him, bright in the moon; beneath was his garden; around him the humble roofs that he made happy. It was not without an effort that he recalled the locality, that he remembered he was at Arquâ. And who was sleeping within the house? Not his wife, Annabel was far away with their daughter. The vision of his whole life passed before him. Study and strife, and fame and love; the pride of the philosopher, the rapture of the poet, the blaze of eloquence, the clash of arms, the vows of passion, the execration and the applause of millions; both once alike welcome to his indomitable soul! And what had they borne to him? Misery. He called up the image of his wife, young, beautiful, and noble, with a mind capable of comprehending his loftiest and his finest moods, with a soul of matchless purity, and a temper whose winning tenderness had only been equalled by her elevated sense of self-respect; a woman that might have figured in the days of chivalry, soft enough to be his slave, but too proud to be his victim. He called up her image in the castle of his fathers, exercising in a domain worthy of such a mistress, all those sweet offices of life which here, in this hired roof in a strange land, and with his crippled means, he had yet found solacing. He conjured before him a bud by the side of that beauteous flower, sharing all her lustre and all her fragrance, his own Venetia! What happiness might not have been his? And for what had he forfeited it? A dream, with no dream-like beauty; a perturbed, and restless, and agitated dream, from which he had now woke shattered and exhausted. He had sacrificed his fortune, he had forfeited his country, he had alienated his wife, and he had lost his child; the home of his heroic ancestry, the ancient land whose fame and power they had created, the beauteous and gifted woman who would have clung for ever to his bosom, and her transcendant offspring worthy of all their loves! Profound philosopher! The clock of the convent struck the second hour after midnight. Herbert started. And all this time where were Annabel and Venetia? They still lived, they were in the same country, an hour ago they were under the same roof, in the same chamber; their hands had joined, their hearts had opened, for a moment he had dared to believe that all that he cared for might be regained. And why was it not? The cause, the cause? It recurred to him with associations of dislike, of disgust, of wrath, of hatred, of which one whose heart was so tender, and whose reason was so clear, could under the influence of no other feelings have been capable. The surrounding scene, that had so often soothed his mournful soul, and connected it with the last hours of a spirit to whom he bore much resemblance, was now looked upon with aversion. To rid himself of ties, now so dreadful, was all his ambition. He entered the house quickly, and, seating himself in his closet, he wrote these words: 'You beheld this morning my wife and child; we can meet no more. All that I can effect to console you under this sudden separation shall be done. My banker from Bologna will be here in two days; express to him all your wishes.' It was written, sealed, directed, and left upon the table at which they had so often been seated. Herbert descended into the garden, saddled his horse, and in a few minutes, in the heart of night, had quitted Arquâ. CHAPTER VII. The moment that the wife of Marmion Herbert re-entered her saloon, she sent for her courier and ordered horses to her carriage instantly. Until they were announced as ready, Lady Annabel walked up and down the room with an impatient step, but was as completely silent as the miserable Venetia, who remained weeping on the sofa. The confusion and curiosity of Mistress Pauncefort were extraordinary. She still had a lurking suspicion that the gentleman was Lord Cadurcis and she seized the first opportunity of leaving the room, and flouncing into that of the stranger, as if by mistake, determined to catch a glimpse of him; but all her notable skill was baffled, for she had scarcely opened the door before she was met by the Italian lady, who received Mistress Pauncefort's ready-made apology, and bowed her away. The faithful attendant then hurried downstairs to crossexamine the waiter, but, though she gained considerable information from that functionary, it was of a perplexing nature; for from him she only learnt that the stranger lived at Arquâ. 'The German gentleman!' soliloquised Mistress Pauncefort; 'and what could he have to say to Miss Venetia! and a married man, too! Well, to be sure, there is nothing like travelling for adventures! And I must say, considering all that I know, and how I have held my tongue for nearly twenty years, I think it is very strange indeed of my lady to have any secrets from me. Secrets, indeed! Poh!' and Mistress Pauncefort flounced again into Lady Annabel's room, with a face of offended pride, knocking the books about, dashing down writing cases, tossing about work, and making as much noise and disturbance as if she had a separate quarrel with every single article under her superintendence. In the meantime the carriage was prepared, to which they were obliged almost to carry Venetia, feeble and stupefied with grief. Uncertain of her course, but anxious, in the present state of her daughter, for rest and quiet, Lady Annabel ordered the courier to proceed to Padua, at which city they arrived late at night, scarcely a word having been interchanged during the whole journey between Lady Annabel and her child, though infinite were the soft and soothing attentions which the mother lavished upon her. Night, however, brought no rest to Venetia; and the next day, her state appeared so alarming to Lady Annabel, that she would have instantly summoned medical assistance, had it not been for Venetia's strong objections. 'Indeed, dear mother,' she said, 'it is not physicians that I require. They cannot cure me. Let me be quiet.' The same cause, indeed, which during the last five years had at intervals so seriously menaced the existence of this unhappy girl, was now at work with renovated and even irresistible influence. Her frame could no longer endure the fatal action of her over-excited nerves. Her first illness, however alarming, had been baffled by time, skill, and principally by the vigour of an extremely youthful frame, then a stranger to any serious indisposition. At a later period, the change of life induced by their residence at Weymouth had permitted her again to rally. She had quitted England with renewed symptoms of her former attack, but a still more powerful change, not only of scene, but of climate and country, and the regular and peaceful life she had led on the Lago Maggiore, had again reassured the mind of her anxious mother. This last adventure at Rovigo, however, prostrated her. The strange surprise, the violent development of feeling, the agonising doubts and hopes, the terrible suspense the profound and bitter and overwhelming disappointment, all combined to shake her mind to its very foundations. She felt for the first time, that she could no longer bear up against the torture of her singular position. Her energy was entirely exhausted; she was no longer capable of making the slightest exertion; she took refuge in that torpid resignation that results from utter hopelessness. Lying on her sofa with her eyes fixed in listless abstraction, the scene at Rovigo flitted unceasingly before her languid vision. At length she had seen that father, that unknown and mysterious father, whose idea had haunted her infancy as if by inspiration; to gain the slightest knowledge of whom had cost her many long and acute suffering; and round whose image for so many years every thought of her intelligence, and every feeling of her heart, had clustered like spirits round some dim and mystical altar, At length she had beheld him; she had gazed on that spiritual countenance; she had listened to the tender accents of that musical voice; within his arms she had been folded with rapture, and pressed to a heart that seemed to beat only for her felicity. The blessing of her father, uttered by his long-loved lips, had descended on her brow, and been sealed with his passionate embrace. The entrance of her mother, that terrible contest of her lacerated heart, when her two parents, as it were, appealed to her love, which they would not share; the inspiration of her despair, that so suddenly had removed the barriers of long years, before whose irresistible pathos her father had bent a penitent, and her mother's inexorable pride had melted; the ravishing bliss that for a moment had thrilled through her, being experienced too for the first time, when she felt that her parents were again united and bound by the sweet tie of her now happy existence; this was the drama acted before her with an almost ceaseless repetition of its transporting incidents; and when she looked round, and beheld her mother sitting alone, and watching her with a countenance almost of anguish, it was indeed with extreme difficulty that Venetia could persuade herself that all had not been a reverie; and she was only convinced of the contrary by that heaviness of the heart which too quickly assures us of the reality of those sorrows of which fancy for a moment may cheat us into scepticism. And indeed her mother was scarcely less miserable. The sight of Herbert, so changed from the form that she remembered; those tones of heart-rending sincerity, in which he had mournfully appealed to the influence of time and sorrow on his life, still greatly affected her. She had indulged for a moment in a dream of domestic love, she had cast to the winds the inexorable determination of a life, and had mingled her tears with those of her husband and her child. And how had she been repaid? By a degrading catastrophe, from whose revolting associations her mind recoiled with indignation and disgust. But her lingering feeling for her husband, her own mortification, were as nothing compared with the harrowing anxiety she now entertained for her daughter. To converse with Venetia on the recent occurrence was impossible. It was a subject which admitted of no discussion. They had passed a week at Padua, and the slightest allusion to what had happened had never been made by either Lady Annabel or her child. It was only by her lavish testimonies of affection that Lady Annabel conveyed to Venetia how deeply she sympathised with her, and how unhappy she was herself. She had, indeed, never quitted for a moment the side of her daughter, and witnessed each day, with renewed anguish, her deplorable condition; for Venetia continued in a state which, to those unacquainted with her, might have been mistaken for insensibility, but her mother knew too well that it was despair. She never moved, she never sighed, nor wept; she took no notice of anything that occurred; she sought relief in no resources. Books, and drawings, and music, were quite forgotten by her; nothing amused, and nothing annoyed her; she was not even fretful; she had, apparently, no physical ailment; she remained pale and silent, plunged in an absorbing paroxysm of overwhelming woe. The unhappy Lady Annabel, at a loss how to act, at length thought it might be advisable to cross over to Venice. She felt assured now, that it would be a long time, if ever, before her child could again endure the fatigue of travel; and she thought that for every reason, whether for domestic comfort or medical advice, or those multifarious considerations which interest the invalid, a capital was by far the most desirable residence for them. There was a time when a visit to the city that had given her a name had been a favourite dream of Venetia; she had often sighed to be within The sea-born city's walls; the graceful towers Loved by the bard. Those lines of her father had long echoed in her ear; but now the proposition called no light to her glazed eye, nor summoned for an instant the colour back to her cheek. She listened to her mother's suggestion, and expressed her willingness to do whatever she desired. Venice to her was now only a name; for, without the presence and the united love of both her parents, no spot on earth could interest, and no combination of circumstances affect her. To Venice, however, they departed, having previously taken care that every arrangement should be made for their reception. The English ambassador at the Ducal court was a relative of Lady Annabel, and therefore no means or exertions were spared to study and secure the convenience and accommodation of the invalid. The barge of the ambassador met them at Fusina; and when Venetia beheld the towers and cupolas of Venice, suffused with a golden light and rising out of the bright blue waters, for a moment her spirit seemed to lighten. It is indeed a spectacle as beautiful as rare, and one to which the world offers few, if any, rivals. Gliding over the great Lagune, the buildings, with which the pictures at Cherbury had already made her familiar, gradually rose up before her: the mosque-like Church of St. Marc, the tall Campanile red in the sun, the Moresco Palace of the Doges, the deadly Bridge of Sighs, and the dark structure to which it leads. Venice had not then fallen. The gorgeous standards of the sovereign republic, and its tributary kingdoms, still waved in the Place of St. Marc; the Bucentaur was not rotting in the Arsenal, and the warlike galleys of the state cruised without the Lagune; a busy and picturesque population swarmed in all directions; and the Venetian noble, the haughtiest of men, might still be seen proudly moving from the council of state, or stepping into a gondola amid a bowing crowd. All was stirring life, yet all was silent; the fantastic architecture, the glowing sky, the flitting gondolas, and the brilliant crowd gliding about with noiseless step, this city without sound, it seemed a dream! CHAPTER VIII The ambassador had engaged for Lady Annabel a palace on the Grand Canal, belonging to Count Manfrini. It was a structure of great size and magnificence, and rose out of the water with a flight of marble steps. Within was a vast gallery, lined with statues and busts on tall pedestals; suites of spacious apartments, with marble floors and hung with satin; ceilings painted by Tintoretto and full of Turkish trophies; furniture alike sumptuous and massy; the gilding, although of two hundred years' duration, as bright and burnished as if it had but yesterday been touched with the brush; sequin gold, as the Venetians tell you to this day with pride. But even their old furniture will soon not be left to them, as palaces are now daily broken up like old ships, and their colossal spoils consigned to Hanway Yard and Bond Street, whence, re-burnished and vamped up, their Titantic proportions in time appropriately figure in the boudoirs of May Fair and the miniature saloons of St. James'. Many a fine lady now sits in a doge's chair, and many a dandy listens to his doom from a couch that has already witnessed the less inexorable decrees of the Council of Ten. Amid all this splendour, however, one mournful idea alone pervaded the tortured consciousness of Lady Annabel Herbert. Daily the dark truth stole upon her with increased conviction, that Venetia had come hither only to die. There seemed to the agitated ear of this distracted mother a terrible omen even in the very name of her child; and she could not resist the persuasion that her final destiny would, in some degree, be connected with her fanciful appellation. The physicians, for hopeless as Lady Annabel could not resist esteeming their interference, Venetia was now surrounded with physicians, shook their heads, prescribed different remedies and gave contrary opinions; each day, however, their patient became more languid, thinner and more thin, until she seemed like a beautiful spirit gliding into the saloon, leaning on her mother's arm, and followed by Pauncefort, who had now learnt the fatal secret from, her mistress, and whose heart was indeed almost broken at the prospect of the calamity that was impending over them. At Padua, Lady Annabel, in her mortified reveries, outraged as she conceived by her husband, and anxious about her daughter, had schooled herself into visiting her fresh calamities on the head of the unhappy Herbert, to whose intrusion and irresistible influence she ascribed all the illness of her child; but, as the indisposition of Venetia gradually, but surely, increased, until at length it assumed so alarming an aspect that Lady Annabel, in the distraction of her mind, could no longer refrain from contemplating the most fatal result, she had taught herself bitterly to regret the failure of that approaching reconciliation which now she could not but believe would, at least, have secured her the life of Venetia. Whatever might be the risk of again uniting herself with her husband, whatever might be the mortification and misery which it might ultimately, or even speedily, entail upon her, there was no unhappiness that she could herself experience, which for one moment she could put in competition with the existence of her child. When that was the question, every feeling that had hitherto impelled her conduct assumed a totally different complexion. That conduct, in her view, had been a systematic sacrifice of self to secure the happiness of her daughter; and the result of all her exertions was, that not only her happiness was destroyed, but her life was fast vanishing away. To save Venetia, it now appeared to Lady Annabel that there was no extremity which she would not endure; and if it came to a question, whether Venetia should survive, or whether she should even be separated from her mother, her maternal heart now assured her that she would not for an instant hesitate in preferring an eternal separation to the death of her child. Her terror now worked to such a degree upon her character, that she even, at times, half resolved to speak to Venetia upon the subject, and contrive some method of communicating her wishes to her father; but pride, the habitual repugnance of so many years to converse upon the topic, mingled also, as should be confessed, with an indefinite apprehension of the ill consequences of a conversation of such a character on the nervous temperament of her daughter, restrained her. 'My love!' said Lady Annabel, one day to her daughter, 'do you think you could go out? The physicians think it of great importance that you should attempt to exert yourself, however slightly.' 'Dear mother, if anything could annoy me from your lips, it would be to hear you quote these physicians,' said Venetia. 'Their daily presence and inquiries irritate me. Let me be at peace. I wish to see no one but you.' 'But Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, in a voice of great emotion, 'Venetia--,' and here she paused; 'think of my anxiety.' 'Dear mother, it would be ungrateful for me ever to forget that. But you, and you alone, know that my state, whatever it may be, and to whatever it may be I am reconciled, is not produced by causes over which these physicians have any control, over which no one has control--now,' added Venetia, in a tone of great mournfulness. For here we must remark that so inexperienced was Venetia in the feelings of others, and so completely did she judge of the strength and purity of their emotions from her own, that reflection, since the terrible adventure of Rovigo, had only convinced her that it was no longer in her mother's power to unite herself again with her other parent. She had taught herself to look upon her father's burst of feeling towards Lady Annabel as the momentary and inevitable result of a meeting so unexpected and overpowering, but she did not doubt that the stranger whose presence had ultimately so fatally clouded that interview of promise, possessed claims upon Marmion Herbert which he would neither break, nor, upon reflection, be desirous to question. It was then the conviction that a reconciliation between her parents was now impossible, in which her despair originated, and she pictured to herself her father once more at Arquâ disturbed, perhaps, for a day or two, as he naturally must be, by an interview so sudden and so harassing; shedding a tear, perhaps, in secret to the wife whom he had injured, and the child whom he had scarcely seen; but relapsing, alike from the force of habit and inclination, into those previous and confirmed feelings, under whose influence, she was herself a witness, his life had been so serene, and even so laudable. She was confirmed in these opinions by the circumstance of their never having heard since from him. Placed in his situation, if indeed an irresistible influence were not controlling him, would he have hesitated for a moment to have prevented even their departure, or to have pursued them; to have sought at any rate some means of communicating with them? He was plainly reconciled to his present position, and felt that under these circumstances silence on his part was alike kindest and most discreet. Venetia had ceased, therefore, to question the justice or the expediency, or even the abstract propriety, of her mother's conduct. She viewed their condition now as the result of stern necessity. She pitied her mother, and for herself she had no hope. There was then much meaning in that little monosyllable with which Venetia concluded her reply to her mother. She had no hope 'now.' Lady Annabel, however, ascribed it to a very different meaning; she only believed that her daughter was of opinion that nothing would induce her now to listen to the overtures of her father. Prepared for any sacrifice of self, Lady Annabel replied, 'But there is hope, Venetia; when your life is in question, there is nothing that should not be done.' 'Nothing can be done,' said Venetia, who, of course, could not dream of what was passing in her mother's mind. Lady Annabel rose from her seat and walked to the window; apparently her eye watched only the passing gondolas, but indeed she saw them not; she saw only her child stretched perhaps on the couch of death. 'We quitted, perhaps, Rovigo too hastily,' said Lady Annabel, in a choking voice, and with a face of scarlet. It was a terrible struggle, but the words were uttered. 'No, mother,' said Venetia, to Lady Annabel's inexpressible surprise, 'we did right to go.' 'Even my child, even Venetia, with all her devotion to him, feels the absolute necessity of my conduct,' thought Lady Annabel. Her pride returned; she felt the impossibility of making an overture to Herbert; she looked upon their daughter as the last victim of his fatal career. CHAPTER IX. How beautiful is night in Venice! Then music and the moon reign supreme; the glittering sky reflected in the waters, and every gondola gliding with sweet sounds! Around on every side are palaces and temples, rising from the waves which they shadow with their solemn forms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, and softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city too is poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching the surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron gleam in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound that is not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders, and the responsive chorus of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh, light, joyous, and yet musical, bursts forth from some illuminated coffee-house, before which a buffo disports, a tumbler stands on his head, or a juggler mystifies; and all for a sequin! The Place of St. Marc, at the period of our story, still presented the most brilliant spectacle of the kind in Europe. Not a spot was more distinguished for elegance, luxury, and enjoyment. It was indeed the inner shrine of the temple of pleasure, and very strange and amusing would be the annals of its picturesque arcades. We must not, however, step behind their blue awnings, but content ourselves with the exterior scene; and certainly the Place of St. Marc, with the variegated splendour of its Christian mosque, the ornate architecture of its buildings, its diversified population, a tribute from every shore of the midland sea, and where the noble Venetian, in his robe of crimson silk, and long white peruque, might be jostled by the Sclavonian with his target, and the Albanian in his kilt, while the Turk, sitting cross-legged on his Persian carpet, smoked his long chibouque with serene gravity, and the mild Armenian glided by him with a low reverence, presented an aspect under a Venetian moon such as we shall not easily find again in Christendom, and, in spite of the dying glory and the neighbouring vice, was pervaded with an air of romance and refinement, compared with which the glittering dissipation of Paris, even in its liveliest and most graceful hours, assumes a character alike coarse and commonplace. It is the hour of love and of faro; now is the hour to press your suit and to break a bank; to glide from the apartment of rapture into the chamber of chance. Thus a noble Venetian contrived to pass the night, in alternations of excitement that in general left him sufficiently serious for the morrow's council. For more vulgar tastes there was the minstrel, the conjuror, and the story-teller, goblets of Cyprus wine, flasks of sherbet, and confectionery that dazzled like diamonds. And for every one, from the grave senator to the gay gondolier, there was an atmosphere in itself a spell, and which, after all, has more to do with human happiness than all the accidents of fortune and all the arts of government. Amid this gay and brilliant multitude, one human being stood alone. Muffled in his cloak, and leaning against a column in the portico of St. Marc, an expression of oppressive care and affliction was imprinted on his countenance, and ill accorded with the light and festive scene. Had he been crossed in love, or had he lost at play? Was it woman or gold to which his anxiety and sorrow were attributable, for under one or other of these categories, undoubtedly, all the miseries of man may range. Want of love, or want of money, lies at the bottom of all our griefs. The stranger came forward, and leaving the joyous throng, turned down the Piazzetta, and approached the quay of the Lagune. A gondolier saluted him, and he entered his boat. 'Whither, signor?' said the gondolier. 'To the Grand Canal,' he replied. Over the moonlit wave the gondola swiftly skimmed! The scene was a marvellous contrast to the one which the stranger had just quitted; but it brought no serenity to his careworn countenance, though his eye for a moment kindled as he looked upon the moon, that was sailing in the cloudless heaven with a single star by her side. They had soon entered the Grand Canal, and the gondolier looked to his employer for instructions. 'Row opposite to the Manfrini palace,' said the stranger, 'and rest upon your oar.' The blinds of the great window of the palace were withdrawn. Distinctly might be recognised a female figure bending over the recumbent form of a girl. An hour passed away and still the gondola was motionless, and still the silent stranger gazed on the inmates of the palace. A servant now came forward and closed the curtain of the chamber. The stranger sighed, and waving his hand to the gondolier, bade him return to the Lagune. CHAPTER X. It is curious to recall our feelings at a moment when a great event is impending over us, and we are utterly unconscious of its probable occurrence. How often does it happen that a subject which almost unceasingly engages our mind, is least thought of at the very instant that the agitating suspense involved in its consideration is perhaps about to be terminated for ever! The very morning after the mysterious gondola had rested so long before the Manfrini Palace, Venetia rose for the first time since the flight from Rovigo, refreshed by her slumbers, and tranquil in her spirit. It was not in her power to recall her dreams; but they had left a vague and yet serene impression. There seemed a lightness in her heart, that long had been unusual with her, and she greeted her mother with a smile, faint indeed, yet natural. Perhaps this beneficial change, slight but still delightful, might be attributed to the softness and the splendour of the morn. Before the approach of winter, it seemed that the sun was resolved to remind the Venetians that they were his children; and that, although his rays might be soon clouded for a season, they were not to believe that their parent had deserted them. The sea was like glass, a golden haze suffused the horizon, and a breeze, not strong enough to disturb the waters, was wafted at intervals from the gardens of the Brenta, fitful and sweet. Venetia had yielded to the suggestion of her mother, and had agreed for the first time to leave the palace. They stepped into their gondola, and were wafted to an island in the Lagune where there was a convent, and, what in Venice was more rare and more delightful, a garden. Its scanty shrubberies sparkled in the sun; and a cypress flanked by a pine-tree offered to the eye unused to trees a novel and picturesque group. Beneath its shade they rested, watching on one side the distant city, and on the other the still and gleaming waters of the Adriatic. While they were thus sitting, renovated by the soft air and pleasant spectacle, a holy father, with a beard like a meteor, appeared and addressed them. 'Welcome to St. Lazaro!' said the holy father, speaking in English; 'and may the peace that reigns within its walls fill also your breasts!' 'Indeed, holy father,' said Lady Annabel to the Armenian monk, 'I have long heard of your virtues and your happy life.' 'You know that Paradise was placed in our country,' said the monk with a smile. 'We have all lost Paradise, but the Armenian has lost his country too. Nevertheless, with God's blessing, on this islet we have found an Eden, pure at least and tranquil.' 'For the pious, Paradise exists everywhere,' said Lady Annabel. 'You have been in England, holy father?' said Venetia. 'It has not been my good fortune,' replied the monk. 'Yet you speak our tongue with a facility and accent that surprise me.' 'I learnt it in America where I long resided,' rejoined the Armenian. 'This is for your eye, lady,' continued the monk, drawing a letter from his bosom. Lady Annabel felt not a little surprised; but the idea immediately occurred to her that it was some conventual memorial appealing to her charity. She took the paper from the monk, who immediately moved away; but what was the agitation of Lady Annabel when she recognised the handwriting of her husband! Her first thought was to save Venetia from sharing that agitation. She rose quickly; she commanded herself sufficiently to advise her daughter, in a calm tone, to remain seated, while for a moment she refreshed herself by a stroll. She had not quitted Venetia many paces, when she broke the seal and read these lines: 'Tremble not, Annabel, when you recognise this handwriting. It is that of one whose only aspiration is to contribute to your happiness; and although the fulfilment of that fond desire may be denied him, it never shall be said, even by you, that any conduct of his should now occasion you annoyance. I am in Venice at the peril of my life, which I only mention because the difficulties inseparable from my position are the principal cause that you did not receive this communication immediately after our strange meeting. I have gazed at night upon your palace, and watched the forms of my wife and our child; but one word from you, and I quit Venice for ever, and it shall not be my fault if you are ever again disturbed by the memory of the miserable Herbert. 'But before I go, I will make this one appeal if not to your justice, at least to your mercy. After the fatal separation of a life, we have once more met: you have looked upon me not with hatred; my hand has once more pressed yours; for a moment I indulged the impossible hope, that this weary and exhausted spirit might at length be blessed. With agony I allude to the incident that dispelled the rapture of this vision. Sufficient for me most solemnly to assure you that four-and-twenty hours had not elapsed without that feeble and unhallowed tie being severed for ever! It vanished instantaneously before the presence of my wife and my child. However you decide, it can never again subsist: its utter and eternal dissolution was the inevitable homage to your purity. 'Whatever may have been my errors, whatever my crimes, for I will not attempt to justify to you a single circumstance of my life, I humble myself in the dust before you, and solicit only mercy; yet whatever may have been my career, ah! Annabel, in the infinite softness of your soul was it not for a moment pardoned? Am I indeed to suffer for that last lamentable intrusion? You are a woman, Annabel, with a brain as clear as your heart is pure. Judge me with calmness, Annabel; were there no circumstances in my situation to extenuate that deplorable connection? I will not urge them; I will not even intimate them; but surely, Annabel, when I kneel before you full of deep repentance and long remorse, if you could pardon the past, it is not that incident, however mortifying to you, however disgraceful to myself, that should be an impassable barrier to all my hopes! 'Once you loved me; I ask you not to love me now. There is nothing about me now that can touch the heart of woman. I am old before my time; bent with the blended influence of action and of thought, and of physical and moral suffering. The play of my spirit has gone for ever. My passions have expired like my hopes. The remaining sands of my life are few. Once it was otherwise: you can recall a different picture of the Marmion on whom you smiled, and of whom you were the first love. O Annabel! grey, feeble, exhausted, penitent, let me stagger over your threshold, and die! I ask no more; I will not hope for your affection; I will not even count upon your pity; but endure my presence; let your roof screen my last days!' It was read; it was read again, dim as was the sight of Lady Annabel with fast-flowing tears. Still holding the letter, but with hands fallen, she gazed upon the shining waters before her in a fit of abstraction. It was the voice of her child that roused her. 'Mother,' said Venetia in a tone of some decision, 'you are troubled, and we have only one cause of trouble. That letter is from my father.' Lady Annabel gave her the letter in silence. Venetia withdrew almost unconsciously a few paces from her mother. She felt this to be the crisis of her life. There never was a moment which she believed required more fully the presence of all her energies. Before she had addressed Lady Annabel, she had endeavoured to steel her mind to great exertion. Yet now that she held the letter, she could not command herself sufficiently to read it. Her breath deserted her; her hand lost its power; she could not even open the lines on which perhaps her life depended. Suddenly, with a rapid effort, she glanced at the contents. The blood returned to her check; her eye became bright with excitement; she gasped for breath; she advanced to Lady Annabel. 'Ah! mother,' she exclaimed, 'you will grant all that it desires!' Still gazing on the wave that laved the shore of the island with an almost inperceptible ripple, Lady Annabel continued silent. 'Mother,' said Venetia, 'my beloved mother, you hesitate.' She approached Lady Annabel, and with one arm round her neck, she grasped with the other her mother's hand. 'I implore you, by all that affection which you lavish on me, yield to this supplication. O mother! dearest mother! it has been my hope that my life has been at least a life of duty; I have laboured to yield to all your wishes. I have struggled to make their fulfilment the law of my being. Yes! mother, your memory will assure you, that when the sweetest emotions of my heart were the stake, you appealed to me to sacrifice them, and they were dedicated to your will. Have I ever murmured? I have sought only to repay your love by obedience. Speak to me, dearest mother! I implore you speak to me! Tell me, can you ever repent relenting in this instance? O mother! you will not hesitate; you will not indeed; you will bring joy and content to our long-harassed hearth! Tell me so; I beseech you tell me so! I wish, oh! how I wish, that you would comply from the mere impulse of your own heart! But, grant that it is a sacrifice; grant that it may be unwise; that it may be vain; I supplicate you to make it! I, your child, who never deserted you, who will never desert you, pledging my faith to you in the face of heaven; for my sake, I supplicate you to make it. You do not hesitate; you cannot hesitate; mother, you cannot hesitate. Ah! you would not if you knew all; if you knew all the misery of my life, you would be glad; you would be cheerful; you would look upon this as an interposition of Providence in favour of your Venetia; you would, indeed, dear mother!' 'What evil fortune guided our steps to Italy?' said Lady Annabel in a solemn tone, and as if in soliloquy. 'No, no, mother; not evil fortune; fortune the best and brightest,' exclaimed her daughter, 'We came here to be happy, and happiness we have at length gained. It is in our grasp; I feel it. It was not fortune, dear mother! it was fate, it was Providence, it was God. You have been faithful to Him, and He has brought back to you my father, chastened and repentant. God has turned his heart to all your virtues. Will you desert him? No, no, mother, you will not, you cannot; for his sake, for your own sake, and for your child's, you will not!' 'For twenty years I have acted from an imperious sense of duty,' said Lady Annabel, 'and for your sake, Venetia, as much as for my own. Shall the feelings of a moment--' 'O mother! dearest mother! say not these words. With me, at least, it has not been the feeling of a moment. It haunted my infancy; it harassed me while a girl; it has brought me in the prime of womanhood to the brink of the grave. And with you, mother, has it been the feeling of a moment? Ah! you ever loved him, when his name was never breathed by those lips. You loved him when you deemed he had forgotten you; when you pictured him to yourself in all the pride of health and genius, wanton and daring; and now, now that he comes to you penitent, perhaps dying, more like a remorseful spirit than a breathing being, and humbles himself before you, and appeals only to your mercy, ah! my mother, you cannot reject, you could not reject him, even if you were alone, even if you had no child!' 'My child! my child! all my hopes were in my child,' murmured Lady Annabel. 'Is she not by your side?' said Venetia. 'You know not what you ask; you know not what you counsel,' said Lady Annabel. 'It has been the prayer and effort of my life that you should never know. There is a bitterness in the reconciliation which follows long estrangement, that yields a pang more acute even than the first disunion. Shall I be called upon to mourn over the wasted happiness of twenty years? Why did he not hate us?' 'The pang is already felt, mother,' said Venetia. 'Reject my father, but you cannot resume the feelings of a month back. You have seen him; you have listened to him. He is no longer the character which justified your conduct, and upheld you under the trial. His image has entered your soul; your heart is softened. Bid him quit Venice without seeing you, and you will remain the most miserable of women.' 'On his head, then, be the final desolation,' said Lady Annabel; 'it is but a part of the lot that he has yielded me.' 'I am silent,' said Venetia, relaxing her grasp. 'I see that your child is not permitted to enter into your considerations.' She turned away. 'Venetia!' said her mother. 'Mother!' said Venetia, looking back, but not returning. 'Return one moment to me.' Venetia slowly rejoined her. Lady Annabel spoke in a kind and gentle, though serious tone. 'Venetia,' she said, 'what I am about to speak is not the impulse of the moment, but has been long revolved in my mind; do not, therefore, misapprehend it. I express without passion what I believe to be truth. I am persuaded that the presence of your father is necessary to your happiness; nay, more, to your life. I recognise the mysterious influence which he has ever exercised over your existence. I feel it impossible for me any longer to struggle against a power to which I bow. Be happy, then, my daughter, and live. Fly to your father, and be to him as matchless a child as you have been to me.' She uttered these last words in a choking voice. 'Is this, indeed, the dictate of your calm judgment, mother?' said Venetia. 'I call God to witness, it has of late been more than once on my lips. The other night, when I spoke of Rovigo, I was about to express this.' 'Then, mother!' said Venetia, 'I find that I have been misunderstood. At least I thought my feelings towards yourself had been appreciated. They have not; and I can truly say, my life does not afford a single circumstance to which I can look back with content. Well will it indeed be for me to die?' 'The dream of my life,' said Lady Annabel, in a tone of infinite distress, 'was that she, at least, should never know unhappiness. It was indeed a dream.' There was now a silence of several minutes. Lady Annabel remained in exactly the same position, Venetia standing at a little distance from her, looking resigned and sorrowful. 'Venetia,' at length said Lady Annabel, 'why are you silent?' 'Mother, I have no more to say. I pretend not to act in this life; it is my duty to follow you.' 'And your inclination?' inquired Lady Annabel. 'I have ceased to have a wish upon any subject,' said Venetia. 'Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, with a great effort, 'I am miserable.' This unprecedented confession of suffering from the strong mind of her mother, melted Venetia to the heart. She advanced, and threw her arms round her mother's neck, and buried her weeping face in Lady Annabel's bosom. 'Speak to me, my daughter,' said Lady Annabel; 'counsel me, for my mind trembles; anxiety has weakened it. Nay, I beseech you, speak. Speak, speak, Venetia. What shall I do?' 'Mother, I will never say anything again but that I love you!' 'I see the holy father in the distance. Let us walk to him, my child, and meet him.' Accordingly Lady Annabel, now leaning on Venetia, approached the monk. About five minutes elapsed before they reached him, during which not a word was spoken. 'Holy father,' said Lady Annabel, in a tone of firmness that surprised her daughter and made her tremble with anticipation, 'you know the writer of this letter?' 'He is my friend of many years, lady,' replied the Armenian; 'I knew him in America. I owe to him my life, and more than my life. There breathes not his equal among men.' A tear started to the eye of Lady Annabel; she recalled the terms in which the household at Arquâ had spoken of Herbert. 'He is in Venice?' she inquired. 'He is within these walls,' the monk replied. Venetia, scarcely able to stand, felt her mother start. After a momentary pause, Lady Annabel said, 'Can I speak with him, and alone?' Nothing but the most nervous apprehension of throwing any obstacle in the way of the interview could have sustained Venetia. Quite pale, with her disengaged hand clenched, not a word escaped her lips. She hung upon the answer of the monk. 'You can see him, and alone,' said the monk. 'He is now in the sacristy. Follow me.' 'Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, 'remain in this garden. I will accompany this holy man. Stop! embrace me before I go, and,' she added, in a whisper, 'pray for me.' It needed not the admonition of her mother to induce Venetia to seek refuge in prayer, in this agony of her life. But for its salutary and stilling influence, it seemed to her that she must have forfeited all control over her mind. The suspense was too terrible for human aid to support her. Seated by the sea-side, she covered her face with her hands, and invoked the Supreme assistance. More than an hour passed away. Venetia looked up. Two beautiful birds, of strange form and spotless plumage, that perhaps had wandered from the Aegean, were hovering over her head, bright and glancing in the sun. She accepted their appearance as a good omen. At this moment she heard a voice, and, looking up, observed a monk in the distance, beckoning to her. She rose, and with a trembling step approached him. He retired, still motioning to her to follow him. She entered, by a low portal, a dark cloister; it led to an ante-chapel, through which, as she passed, her ear caught the solemn chorus of the brethren. Her step faltered; her sight was clouded; she was as one walking in a dream. The monk opened a door, and, retiring, waved his hand, as for her to enter. There was a spacious and lofty chamber, scantily furnished, some huge chests, and many sacred garments. At the extreme distance her mother was reclined on a bench, her head supported by a large crimson cushion, and her father kneeling by her mother's side. With a soundless step, and not venturing even to breathe, Venetia approached them, and, she knew not how, found herself embraced by both her parents. END OF BOOK V. BOOK VI. CHAPTER I. In a green valley of the Apennines, close to the sea-coast between Genoa and Spezzia, is a marine villa, that once belonged to the Malaspina family, in olden time the friends and patrons of Dante. It is rather a fantastic pile, painted in fresco, but spacious, in good repair, and convenient. Although little more than a mile from Spezzia, a glimpse of the blue sea can only be caught from one particular spot, so completely is the land locked with hills, covered with groves of chestnut and olive orchards. From the heights, however, you enjoy magnificent prospects of the most picturesque portion of the Italian coast; a lofty, undulating, and wooded shore, with an infinite variety of bays and jutting promontories; while the eye, wandering from Leghorn on one side towards Genoa on the other, traces an almost uninterrupted line of hamlets and casinos, gardens and orchards, terraces of vines, and groves of olive. Beyond them, the broad and blue expanse of the midland ocean, glittering in the meridian blaze, or about to receive perhaps in its glowing waters the red orb of sunset. It was the month of May, in Italy, at least, the merry month of May, and Marmion Herbert came forth from the villa Malaspina, and throwing himself on the turf, was soon lost in the volume of Plato which he bore with him. He did not move until in the course of an hour he was roused by the arrival of servants, who brought seats and a table, when, looking up, he observed Lady Annabel and Venetia in the portico of the villa. He rose to greet them, and gave his arm to his wife. 'Spring in the Apennines, my Annabel,' said Herbert, 'is a happy combination. I am more in love each day with this residence. The situation is so sheltered, the air so soft and pure, the spot so tranquil, and the season so delicious, that it realises all my romance of retirement. As for you, I never saw you look so well; and as for Venetia, I can scarcely believe this rosy nymph could have been our pale-eyed girl, who cost us such anxiety!' 'Our breakfast is not ready. Let us walk to our sea view,' said Lady Annabel. 'Give me your book to carry, Marmion.' 'There let the philosopher repose,' said Herbert, throwing the volume on the turf. 'Plato dreamed of what I enjoy.' 'And of what did Plato dream, papa?' said Venetia. 'He dreamed of love, child.' Venetia took her father's disengaged arm. They had now arrived at their sea view, a glimpse of the Mediterranean between two tall crags. 'A sail in the offing,' said Herbert. 'How that solitary sail tells, Annabel!' 'I feel the sea breeze, mother. Does not it remind you of Weymouth?' said Venetia. 'Ah! Marmion,' said Lady Annabel, 'I would that you could see Masham once more. He is the only friend that I regret.' 'He prospers, Annabel; let that be our consolation: I have at least not injured him.' They turned their steps; their breakfast was now prepared. The sun had risen above the hill beneath whose shade they rested, and the opposite side of the valley sparkled in light. It was a cheerful scene. 'I have a passion for living in the air,' said Herbert; 'I always envied the shepherds in Don Quixote. One of my youthful dreams was living among mountains of rosemary, and drinking only goat's milk. After breakfast I will read you Don Quixote's description of the golden age. I have often read it until the tears came into my eyes.' 'We must fancy ourselves in Spain,' said Lady Annabel; 'it is not difficult in this wild green valley; and if we have not rosemary, we have scents as sweet. Nature is our garden here, Venetia; and I do not envy even the statues and cypresses of our villa of the lake.' 'We must make a pilgrimage some day to the Maggiore, Annabel,' said Herbert. 'It is hallowed ground to me now.' Their meal was finished, the servants brought their work, and books, and drawings; and Herbert, resuming his natural couch, re-opened his Plato, but Venetia ran into the villa, and returned with a volume. 'You must read us the golden age, papa,' she said, as she offered him, with a smile, his favourite Don Quixote. 'You must fancy the Don looking earnestly upon a handful of acorns,' said Herbert, opening the book, 'while he exclaims, "O happy age! which our first parents called the age of gold! not because gold, so much adored in this iron age, was then easily purchased, but because those two fatal words, _meum_ and _tuum_, were distinctions unknown to the people of those fortunate times; for all things were in common in that holy age: men, for their sustenance, needed only to lift their hands, and take it from the sturdy oak, whose spreading arms liberally invited them to gather the wholesome savoury fruit; while the clear springs, and silver rivulets, with luxuriant plenty, afforded them their pure refreshing water. In hollow trees, and in the clefts of rocks, the labouring and industrious bees erected their little commonwealths, that men might reap with pleasure and with ease the sweet and fertile harvest of their toils, The tough and strenuous cork-trees did, of themselves, and without other art than their native liberality, dismiss and impart their broad light bark, which served to cover those lowly huts, propped up with rough-hewn stakes, that were first built as a shelter against the inclemencies of the air. All then was union, all peace, all love and friendship in the world. As yet no rude ploughshare presumed with violence to pry into the pious bowels of our mother earth, for she without compulsion kindly yielded from every part of her fruitful and spacious bosom, whatever might at once satisfy, sustain, and indulge her frugal children. Then was the time when innocent, beautiful young sheperdesses went tripping over the hills and vales; their lovely hair sometimes plaited, sometimes loose and flowing, clad in no other vestment but what the modesty of nature might require. The Tyrian dye, the rich glossy hue of silk, martyred and dissembled into every colour, which are now esteemed so fine and magnificent, were unknown to the innocent simplicity of that age; yet, bedecked with more becoming leaves and flowers, they outshone the proudest of the vaindressing ladies of our times, arrayed in the most magnificent garbs and all the most sumptuous adornings which idleness and luxury have taught succeeding pride. Lovers then expressed the passion of their souls in the unaffected language of the heart, with the native plainness and sincerity in which they were conceived, and divested of all that artificial contexture which enervates what it labours to enforce. Imposture, deceit, and malice had not yet crept in, and imposed themselves unbribed upon mankind in the disguise of truth: justice, unbiassed either by favour or interest, which now so fatally pervert it, was equally and impartially dispensed; nor was the judge's fancy law, for then there were neither judges nor causes to be judged. The modest maid might then walk alone. But, in this degenerate age, fraud and a legion of ills infecting the world, no virtue can be safe, no honour be secure; while wanton desires, diffused into the hearts of men, corrupt the strictest watches and the closest retreats, which, though as intricate, and unknown as the labyrinth of Crete, are no security for chastity. Thus, that primitive innocence being vanished, the oppression daily prevailing, there was a necessity to oppose the torrent of violence; for which reason the order of knighthood errant was instituted, to defend the honour of virgins, protect widows, relieve orphans, and assist all that are distressed. Now I myself am one of this order, honest friends and though all people are obliged by the law of nature to be kind to persons of my character, yet since you, without knowing anything of this obligation, have so generously entertained me, I ought to pay you my utmost acknowledgment, and accordingly return you my most hearty thanks." 'There,' said Herbert, as he closed the book. 'In my opinion, Don Quixote was the best man that ever lived.' 'But he did not ever live,' said Lady Annabel, smiling. 'He lives to us,' said Herbert. 'He is the same to this age as if he had absolutely wandered over the plains of Castile and watched in the Sierra Morena. We cannot, indeed, find his tomb; but he has left us his great example. In his hero, Cervantes has given us the picture of a great and benevolent philosopher, and in his Sancho, a complete personification of the world, selfish and cunning, and yet overawed by the genius that he cannot comprehend: alive to all the material interests of existence, yet sighing after the ideal; securing his four young foals of the she-ass, yet indulging in dreams of empire.' 'But what do you think of the assault on the windmills, Marmion?' said Lady Annabel. 'In the outset of his adventures, as in the outset of our lives, he was misled by his enthusiasm,' replied Herbert, 'without which, after all, we can do nothing. But the result is, Don Quixote was a redresser of wrongs, and therefore the world esteemed him mad.' In this vein, now conversing, now occupied with their pursuits, and occasionally listening to some passage which Herbert called to their attention, and which ever served as the occasion for some critical remarks, always as striking from their originality as they were happy in their expression, the freshness of the morning disappeared; the sun now crowned the valley with his meridian beam, and they re-entered the villa. The ladies returned to their cool saloon, and Herbert to his study. It was there he amused himself by composing the following lines: SPRING IN THE APENNINES. I. Spring in the Apennine now holds her court Within an amphitheatre of hills, Clothed with the blooming chestnut; musical With murmuring pines, waving their light green cones Like youthful Bacchants; while the dewy grass, The myrtle and the mountain violet, Blend their rich odours with the fragrant trees, And sweeten the soft air. Above us spreads The purple sky, bright with the unseen sun The hills yet screen, although the golden beam Touches the topmost boughs, and tints with light The grey and sparkling crags. The breath of morn Still lingers in the valley; but the bee With restless passion hovers on the wing, Waiting the opening flower, of whose embrace The sun shall be the signal. Poised in air, The winged minstrel of the liquid dawn, The lark, pours forth his lyric, and responds To the fresh chorus of the sylvan doves, The stir of branches and the fall of streams, The harmonies of nature! II Gentle Spring! Once more, oh, yes! once more I feel thy breath, And charm of renovation! To the sky Thou bringest light, and to the glowing earth A garb of grace: but sweeter than the sky That hath no cloud, and sweeter than the earth With all its pageantry, the peerless boon Thou bearest to me, a temper like thine own; A springlike spirit, beautiful and glad! Long years, long years of suffering, and of thought Deeper than woe, had dimmed the eager eye Once quick to catch thy brightness, and the ear That lingered on thy music, the harsh world Had jarred. The freshness of my life was gone, And hope no more an omen in thy bloom Found of a fertile future! There are minds, Like lands, but with one season, and that drear Mine was eternal winter! III. A dark dream Of hearts estranged, and of an Eden lost Entranced my being; one absorbing thought Which, if not torture, was a dull despair That agony were light to. But while sad Within the desert of my life I roamed, And no sweet springs of love gushed for to greet My wearied heart, behold two spirits came Floating in light, seraphic ministers, The semblance of whose splendour on me fell As on some dusky stream the matin ray, Touching the gloomy waters with its life. And both were fond, and one was merciful! And to my home long forfeited they bore My vagrant spirit, and the gentle hearth. I reckless fled, received me with its shade And pleasant refuge. And our softened hearts Were like the twilight, when our very bliss Calls tears to soothe our rapture; as the stars Steal forth, then shining smiles their trembling ray Mixed with our tenderness; and love was there In all his manifold forms; the sweet embrace, And thrilling pressure of the gentle hand, And silence speaking with the melting eye! IV. And now again I feel thy breath, O spring! And now the seal hath fallen from my gaze, And thy wild music in my ready ear Finds a quick echo! The discordant world Mars not thy melodies; thy blossoms now Are emblems of my heart; and through my veins The flow of youthful feeling, long pent up, Glides like thy sunny streams! In this fair scene, On forms still fairer I my blessing pour; On her the beautiful, the wise, the good, Who learnt the sweetest lesson to forgive; And on the bright-eyed daughter of our love, Who soothed a mother, and a father saved! CHAPTER II. Between the reconciliation of Lady Annabel Herbert with her husband, at the Armenian convent at Venice, and the spring morning in the Apennines, which we have just described, half a year had intervened. The political position of Marmion Herbert rendered it impossible for him to remain in any city where there was a representative of his Britannic Majesty. Indeed, it was scarcely safe for him to be known out of America. He had quitted that country shortly after the struggle was over, chiefly from considerations for his health. His energies had been fast failing him; and a retired life and change of climate had been recommended by his physicians. His own feelings induced him to visit Italy, where he had once intended to pass his life, and where he now repaired to await death. Assuming a feigned name, and living in strict seclusion, it is probable that his presence would never have been discovered; or, if detected, would not have been noticed. Once more united with his wife, her personal influence at the court of St. James', and her powerful connections, might secure him from annoyance; and Venetia had even indulged in a vague hope of returning to England. But Herbert could only have found himself again in his native country as a prisoner on parole. It would have been quite impossible for him to mix in the civil business of his native land, or enjoy any of the rights of citizenship. If a mild sovereign in his mercy had indeed accorded him a pardon, it must have been accompanied with rigorous and mortifying conditions; and his presence, in all probability, would have been confined to his country residence and its immediate neighbourhood. The pride of Lady Annabel herself recoiled from this sufferance; and although Herbert, keenly conscious of the sacrifice which a permanent estrangement from England entailed upon his wife and child, would have submitted to any restrictions, however humiliating, provided they were not inconsistent with his honour, it must be confessed that, when he spoke of this painful subject to his wife, it was with no slight self-congratulation that he had found her resolution to remain abroad under any circumstances was fixed with her habitual decision. She communicated both to the Bishop of ---- and to her brother the unexpected change that had occurred in her condition, and she had reason to believe that a representation of what had happened would be made to the Royal family. Perhaps both the head of her house and her reverend friend anticipated that time might remove the barrier that presented itself to Herbert's immediate return to England: they confined their answers, however, to congratulations on the reconciliation, to their confidence in the satisfaction it would occasion her, and to the expression of their faithful friendship; and neither alluded to a result which both, if only for her sake, desired. The Herberts had quitted Venice a very few days after the meeting on the island of St. Lazaro; had travelled by slow journeys, crossing the Apennines, to Genoa; and only remained in that city until they engaged their present residence. It combined all the advantages which they desired: seclusion, beauty, comfort, and the mild atmosphere that Venetia had seemed to require. It was not, however, the genial air that had recalled the rose to Venetia's cheek and the sunny smile to her bright eye, or had inspired again that graceful form with all its pristine elasticity. It was a heart content; a spirit at length at peace. The contemplation of the happiness of those most dear to her that she hourly witnessed, and the blissful consciousness that her exertions had mainly contributed to, if not completely occasioned, all this felicity, were remedies of far more efficacy than all the consultations and prescriptions of her physicians. The conduct of her father repaid her for all her sufferings, and realised all her dreams of domestic tenderness and delight. Tender, grateful, and affectionate, Herbert hovered round her mother like a delicate spirit who had been released by some kind mortal from a tedious and revolting thraldom, and who believed he could never sufficiently testify his devotion. There was so much respect blended with his fondness, that the spirit of her mother was utterly subdued by his irresistible demeanour. All her sadness and reserve, her distrust and her fear, had vanished; and rising confidence mingling with the love she had ever borne to him, she taught herself even to seek his opinion, and be guided by his advice. She could not refrain, indeed, from occasionally feeling, in this full enjoyment of his love, that she might have originally acted with too much precipitation; and that, had she only bent for a moment to the necessity of conciliation, and condescended to the excusable artifices of affection, their misery might have been prevented. Once when they were alone, her softened heart would have confessed to Herbert this painful conviction, but he was too happy and too generous to permit her for a moment to indulge in such a remorseful retrospect. All the error, he insisted, was his own; and he had been fool enough to have wantonly forfeited a happiness which time and experience had now taught him to appreciate. 'We married too young, Marmion,' said his wife. 'It shall be that then, love,' replied Herbert; 'but for all that I have suffered. I would not have avoided my fate on the condition of losing the exquisite present!' It is perhaps scarcely necessary to remark, that Herbert avoided with the most scrupulous vigilance the slightest allusion to any of those peculiar opinions for which he was, unhappily, too celebrated. Musing over the singular revolutions which had already occurred in his habits and his feelings towards herself, Lady Annabel, indeed, did not despair that his once self-sufficient soul might ultimately bow to that blessed faith which to herself had ever proved so great a support, and so exquisite a solace. It was, indeed, the inexpressible hope that lingered at the bottom of her heart; and sometimes she even indulged in the delightful fancy that his mild and penitent spirit had, by the gracious mercy of Providence, been already touched by the bright sunbeam of conviction. At all events, his subdued and chastened temperament was no unworthy preparation for still greater blessings. It was this hallowed anticipation which consoled, and alone consoled, Lady Annabel for her own estrangement from the communion of her national church. Of all the sacrifices which her devotion to Herbert entailed upon her, this was the one which she felt most constantly and most severely. Not a day elapsed but the chapel at Cherbury rose before her; and when she remembered that neither herself nor her daughter might again kneel round the altar of their God, she almost trembled at the step which she had taken, and almost esteemed it a sacrifice of heavenly to earthly duty, which no consideration, perhaps, warranted. This apprehension, indeed, was the cloud in her life, and one which Venetia, who felt all its validity, found difficulty in combating. Otherwise, when Venetia beheld her parents, she felt ethereal, and seemed to move in air; for her life, in spite of its apparent tranquillity, was to her all excitement. She never looked upon her father, or heard his voice, without a thrill. His society was as delightful as his heart was tender. It seemed to her that she could listen to him for ever. Every word he spoke was different from the language of other men; there was not a subject on which his richly-cultivated mind could not pour forth instantaneously a flood of fine fancies and deep intelligence. He seemed to have read every book in every language, and to have mused over every line he had read. She could not conceive how one, the tone of whose mind was so original that it suggested on every topic some conclusion that struck instantly by its racy novelty, could be so saturated with the learning and the views of other men. Although they lived in unbroken solitude, and were almost always together, not a day passed that she did not find herself musing over some thought or expression of her father, and which broke from his mind without effort, and as if by chance. Literature to Herbert was now only a source of amusement and engaging occupation. All thought of fame had long fled his soul. He cared not for being disturbed; and he would throw down his Plato for Don Quixote, or close his Aeschylus and take up a volume of Madame de Sévigné without a murmur, if reminded by anything that occurred of a passage which might contribute to the amusement and instruction of his wife and daughter. Indeed, his only study now was to contribute to their happiness. For him they had given up their country and society, and he sought, by his vigilant attention and his various accomplishments, to render their hours as light and pleasant as, under such circumstances, was possible. His muse, too, was only dedicated to the celebration of any topic which their life or themselves suggested. He loved to lie under the trees, and pour forth sonnets to Lady Annabel; and encouraged Venetia, by the readiness and interest with which he invariably complied with her intimations, to throw out every fancy which occurred to her for his verse. A life passed without the intrusion of a single evil passion, without a single expression that was not soft, and graceful, and mild, and adorned with all the resources of a most accomplished and creative spirit, required not the distractions of society. It would have shrunk from it, from all its artificial excitement and vapid reaction. The days of the Herberts flowed on in one bright, continuous stream of love, and literature, and gentle pleasures. Beneath them was the green earth, above them the blue sky. Their spirits were as clear, and their hearts as soft as the clime. The hour of twilight was approaching, and the family were preparing for their daily walk. Their simple repast was finished, and Venetia held the verses which her father had written in the morning, and which he had presented to her. 'Let us descend to Spezzia,' said Herbert to Lady Annabel; 'I love an ocean sunset.' Accordingly they proceeded through their valley to the craggy path which led down to the bay. After passing through a small ravine, the magnificent prospect opened before them. The sun was yet an hour above the horizon, and the sea was like a lake of molten gold; the colour of the sky nearest to the sun, of a pale green, with two or three burnished streaks of vapour, quite still, and so thin you could almost catch the sky through them, fixed, as it were, in this gorgeous frame. It was now a dead calm, but the sail that had been hovering the whole morning in the offing had made the harbour in time, and had just cast anchor near some coasting craft and fishing-boats, all that now remained where Napoleon had projected forming one of the arsenals of the world. Tracing their way down a mild declivity, covered with spreading vineyards, and quite fragrant with the blossom of the vine, the Herberts proceeded through a wood of olives, and emerged on a terrace raised directly above the shore, leading to Spezzia, and studded here and there with rugged groups of aloes. 'I have often observed here,' said Venetia, 'about a mile out at sea; there, now, where I point; the water rise. It is now a calm, and yet it is more troubled, I think, than usual. Tell me the cause, dear father, for I have often wished to know.' 'It passes my experience,' said Herbert; 'but here is an ancient fisherman; let us inquire of him.' He was an old man, leaning against a rock, and smoking his pipe in contemplative silence; his face bronzed with the sun and the roughness of many seasons, and his grey hairs not hidden by his long blue cap. Herbert saluted him, and, pointing to the phenomenon, requested an explanation of it. ''Tis a fountain of fresh water, signor, that rises in our gulf,' said the old fisherman, 'to the height of twenty feet.' 'And is it constant?' inquired Herbert. ''Tis the same in sunshine and in storm, in summer and in winter, in calm or in breeze,' said the old fisherman. 'And has it always been so?' 'It came before my time.' 'A philosophic answer,' said Herbert, 'and deserves a paul. Mine was a crude question. Adio, good friend.' 'I should like to drink of that fountain of fresh water, Annabel,' said Herbert. 'There seems to me something wondrous fanciful in it. Some day we will row there. It shall be a calm like this.' 'We want a fountain in our valley,' said Lady Annabel. 'We do,' said Herbert; 'and I think we must make one; we must inquire at Genoa. I am curious in fountains. Our fountain should, I think, be classical; simple, compact, with a choice inscription, the altar of a Naiad.' 'And mamma shall make the design, and you shall write the inscription,' said Venetia. 'And you shall be the nymph, child,' said Herbert. They were now within a bowshot of the harbour, and a jutting cliff of marble, more graceful from a contiguous bed of myrtles, invited them to rest, and watch the approaching sunset. 'Say what they like,' said Herbert, 'there is a spell in the shores of the Mediterranean Sea which no others can rival. Never was such a union of natural loveliness and magical associations! On these shores have risen all that interests us in the past: Egypt and Palestine, Greece, Rome, and Carthage, Moorish Spain, and feodal Italy. These shores have yielded us our religion, our arts, our literature, and our laws. If all that we have gained from the shores of the Mediterranean was erased from the memory of man, we should be savages. Will the Atlantic ever be so memorable? Its civilisation will be more rapid, but will it be as refined? and, far more important, will it be as permanent? Will it not lack the racy vigour and the subtle spirit of aboriginal genius? Will not a colonial character cling to its society, feeble, inanimate, evanescent? What America is deficient in is creative intellect. It has no nationality. Its intelligence has been imported, like its manufactured goods. Its inhabitants are a people, but are they a nation? I wish that the empire of the Incas and the kingdom of Montezuma had not been sacrificed. I wish that the republic of the Puritans had blended with the tribes of the wilderness.' The red sun was now hovering over the horizon; it quivered for an instant, and then sank. Immediately the high and undulating coast was covered with a crimson flush; the cliffs, the groves, the bays and jutting promontories, each straggling sail and tall white tower, suffused with a rosy light. Gradually that rosy tint became a bright violet, and then faded into purple. But the glory of the sunset long lingered in the glowing west, streaming with every colour of the Iris, while a solitary star glittered with silver light amid the shifting splendour. 'Hesperus rises from the sunset like the fountain of fresh water from the sea,' said Herbert. 'The sky and the ocean have two natures, like ourselves,' At this moment the boat of the vessel, which had anchored about an hour back, put to shore. 'That seems an English brig,' said Herbert. 'I cannot exactly make out its trim; it scarcely seems a merchant vessel.' The projection of the shore hid the boat from their sight as it landed. The Herberts rose, and proceeded towards the harbour. There were some rude steps cut in the rock which led from the immediate shore to the terrace. As they approached these, two gentlemen in sailors' jackets mounted suddenly. Lady Annabel and Venetia simultaneously started as they recognised Lord Cadurcis and his cousin. They were so close that neither party had time to prepare themselves. Venetia found her hand in that of Plantagenet, while Lady Annabel saluted George. Infinite were their mutual inquiries and congratulations, but it so happened that, with one exception, no name was mentioned. It was quite evident, however, to Herbert, that these were very familiar acquaintances of his family; for, in the surprise of the moment, Lord Cadurcis had saluted his daughter by her Christian name. There was no slight emotion, too, displayed on all sides. Indeed, independently of the agitation which so unexpected a rencounter was calculated to produce, the presence of Herbert, after the first moments of recognition, not a little excited the curiosity of the young men, and in some degree occasioned the embarrassment of all. Who was this stranger, on whom Venetia and her mother were leaning with such fondness? He was scarcely too old to be the admirer of Venetia, and if there were a greater disparity of years between them than is usual, his distinguished appearance might well reconcile the lady to her lot, or even justify her choice. Had, then, Cadurcis again met Venetia only to find her the bride or the betrothed of another? a mortifying situation, even an intolerable one, if his feelings remained unchanged; and if the eventful year that had elapsed since they parted had not replaced her image in his susceptible mind by another more cherished, and, perhaps, less obdurate. Again, to Lady Annabel the moment was one of great awkwardness, for the introduction of her husband to those with whom she was recently so intimate, and who were then aware that the name of that husband was never even mentioned in her presence, recalled the painful past with a disturbing vividness. Venetia, indeed, did not share these feelings fully, but she thought it ungracious to anticipate her mother in the announcement. The Herberts turned with Lord Cadurcis and his cousin; they were about to retrace their steps on the terrace, when Lady Annabel, taking advantage of the momentary silence, and summoning all her energy, with a pale cheek and a voice that slightly faltered, said, 'Lord Cadurcis, allow me to present you to Mr. Herbert, my husband,' she added with emphasis. 'Good God!' exclaimed Cadurcis, starting; and then, outstretching his hand, he contrived to add, 'have I, indeed, the pleasure of seeing one I have so long admired?' 'Lord Cadurcis!' exclaimed Herbert, scarcely less surprised. 'Is it Lord Cadurcis? This is a welcome meeting.' Everyone present felt overwhelmed with confusion or astonishment; Lady Annabel sought refuge in presenting Captain Cadurcis to her husband. This ceremony, though little noticed even by those more immediately interested in it, nevertheless served, in some degree, as a diversion. Herbert, who was only astonished, was the first who rallied. Perhaps Lord Cadurcis was the only man in existence whom Herbert wished to know. He had read his works with deep interest; at least, those portions which foreign journals had afforded him. He was deeply impressed with his fame and genius; but what perplexed him at this moment, even more than his unexpected introduction to him, was the singular, the very extraordinary circumstance, that the name of their most celebrated countryman should never have escaped the lips either of his wife or his daughter, although they appeared, and Venetia especially, to be on terms with him of even domestic intimacy. 'You arrived here to day, Lord Cadurcis?' said Herbert. 'From whence?' 'Immediately from Naples, where we last touched,' replied his lordship; 'but I have been residing at Athens.' 'I envy you,' said Herbert. 'It would be a fit residence for you,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'You were, however, in some degree, my companion, for a volume of your poems was one of the few books I had with me. I parted with all the rest, but I retained that. It is in my cabin, and full of my scribblement. If you would condescend to accept it, I would offer it to you.' Mr. Herbert and Lord Cadurcis maintained the conversation along the terrace. Venetia, by whose side her old companion walked, was quite silent. Once her eyes met those of Cadurcis; his expression of mingled archness and astonishment was irresistible. His cousin and Lady Annabel carried on a more suppressed conversation, but on ordinary topics. When they had reached the olive-grove Herbert said, 'Here lies our way homeward, my lord. If you and your cousin will accompany us, it will delight Lady Annabel and myself.' 'Nothing, I am sure, will give George and myself greater pleasure,' he replied. 'We had, indeed, no purpose when you met us but to enjoy our escape from imprisonment, little dreaming we should meet our kindest and oldest friends,' he added. 'Kindest and oldest friends!' thought Herbert to himself. 'Well, this is strange indeed.' 'It is but a slight distance,' said Lady Annabel, who thought it necessary to enforce the invitation. 'We live in the valley, of which yonder hill forms a part.' 'And there we have passed our winter and our spring,' added Venetia, 'almost as delightfully as you could have done at Athens.' 'Well,' thought Cadurcis to himself, 'I have seen many of the world's marvels, but this day is a miracle.' When they had proceeded through the olive-wood, and mounted the acclivity, they arrived at a path which permitted the ascent of only one person at a time. Cadurcis was last, and followed Venetia. Unable any longer to endure the suspense, he was rather irritated that she kept so close to her father; he himself loitered a few paces behind, and, breaking off a branch of laurel, he tossed it at her. She looked round and smiled; he beckoned to her to fall back. 'Tell me, Venetia,' he said, 'what does all this mean?' 'It means that we are at last all very happy,' she replied. 'Do you not see my father?' 'Yes; and I am very glad to see him; but this company is the very last in which I expected to have that pleasure.' 'It is too long a story to tell now; you must imagine it.' 'But are you glad to see me?' 'Very.' 'I don't think you care for me the least.' 'Silly Lord Cadurcis!' she said, smiling. 'If you call me Lord Cadurcis, I shall immediately go back to the brig, and set sail this night for Athens.' 'Well then, silly Plantagenet!' He laughed, and they ran on. CHAPTER III. 'Well, I am not surprised that you should have passed your time delightfully here,' said Lord Cadurcis to Lady Annabel, when they had entered the villa; 'for I never beheld so delightful a retreat. It is even more exquisite than your villa on the lake, of which George gave me so glowing a description. I was almost tempted to hasten to you. Would you have smiled on me!' he added, rather archly, and in a coaxing tone. 'I am more gratified that we have met here,' said Lady Annabel. 'And thus,' added Cadurcis. 'You have been a great traveller since we last met?' said Lady Annabel, a little embarrassed. 'My days of restlessness are over,' said Cadurcis. 'I desire nothing more dearly than to settle down in the bosom of these green hills as you have done.' 'This life suits Mr. Herbert,' said Lady Annabel. 'He is fond of seclusion, and you know I am accustomed to it.' 'Ah! yes,' said Cadurcis, mournfully. 'When I was in Greece, I used often to wish that none of us had ever left dear Cherbury; but I do not now.' 'We must forget Cherbury,' said Lady Annabel. 'I cannot: I cannot forget her who cherished my melancholy childhood. Dear Lady Annabel,' he added in a voice of emotion, and offering her his hand, 'forget all my follies, and remember that I was your child, once as dutiful as you were affectionate.' Who could resist this appeal? Lady Annabel, not without agitation, yielded him her hand, which he pressed to his lips. 'Now I am again happy,' said Cadurcis; 'now we are all happy. Sweetest of friends, you have removed in a moment the bitterness of years.' Although lights were in the saloon, the windows opening on the portico were not closed. The evening air was soft and balmy, and though the moon had not risen, the distant hills were clear in the starlight. Venetia was standing in the portico conversing with George Cadurcis. 'I suppose you are too much of a Turk to drink our coffee, Lord Cadurcis,' said Herbert. Cadurcis turned and joined him, together with Lady Annabel. 'Nay,' said Lord Cadurcis, in a joyous tone, 'Lady Annabel will answer for me that I always find everything perfect under her roof.' Captain Cadurcis and Venetia now re-entered the villa; they clustered round the table, and seated themselves. 'Why, Venetia,' said Cadurcis, 'George met me in Sicily and quite frightened me about you. Is it the air of the Apennines that has worked these marvels? for, really, you appear to me exactly the same as when we learnt the French vocabulary together ten years ago.' '"The French vocabulary together, ten years ago!"' thought Herbert; 'not a mere London acquaintance, then. This is very strange.' 'Why, indeed, Plantagenet,' replied Venetia, 'I was very unwell when George visited us; but I really have quite forgotten that I ever was an invalid, and I never mean to be again.' '"Plantagenet!"' soliloquised Herbert. 'And this is the great poet of whom I have heard so much! My daughter is tolerably familiar with him.' 'I have brought you all sorts of buffooneries from Stamboul,' continued Cadurcis; 'sweetmeats, and slippers, and shawls, and daggers worn only by sultanas, and with which, if necessary, they can keep "the harem's lord" in order. I meant to have sent them with George to England, for really I did not anticipate our meeting here.' '"Sweetmeats and slippers,"' said Herbert to himself, '"shawls and daggers!" What next?' 'And has George been with you all the time?' inquired Venetia. 'Oh! we quarrelled now and then, of course. He found Athens dull, and would stay at Constantinople, chained by the charms of a fair Perote, to whom he wanted me to write sonnets in his name. I would not, because I thought it immoral. But, on the whole, we got on very well; a sort of Pylades and Orestes, I assure you; we never absolutely fought.' 'Come, come,' said George, 'Cadurcis is always ashamed of being amiable. We were together much more than I ever intended or anticipated. You know mine was a sporting tour; and therefore, of course, we were sometimes separated. But he was exceedingly popular with all parties, especially the Turks, whom he rewarded for their courtesy by writing odes to the Greeks to stir them up to revolt.' 'Well, they never read them,' said Cadurcis. 'All we, poor fellows, can do,' he added, turning to Herbert, 'is to wake the Hellenistic raptures of May Fair; and that they call fame; as much like fame as a toadstool is like a truffle.' 'Nevertheless, I hope the muse has not slumbered,' said Herbert; 'for you have had the happiest inspiration in the climes in which you have resided; not only are they essentially poetic, but they offer a virgin vein.' 'I have written a little,' replied Cadurcis; 'I will give it you, if you like, some day to turn over. Yours is the only opinion that I really care for. I have no great idea of the poetry; but I am very strong in my costume. I feel very confident about that. I fancy I know how to hit off a pasha, or touch in a Greek pirate now. As for all the things I wrote in England, I really am ashamed of them. I got up my orientalism from books, and sultans and sultanas at masquerades,' he added, archly. 'I remember I made my heroines always wear turbans; only conceive my horror when I found that a Turkish woman would as soon think of putting my hat on as a turban, and that it was an article of dress entirely confined to a Bond Street milliner.' The evening passed in interesting and diverting conversation; of course, principally contributed by the two travellers, who had seen so much. Inspirited by his interview with Lady Annabel, and her gracious reception of his overtures, Lord Cadurcis was in one of those frolic humours, which we have before noticed was not unnatural to him. He had considerable powers of mimicry, and the talent that had pictured to Venetia in old days, with such liveliness, the habits of the old maids of Morpeth, was now engaged on more considerable topics; an interview with a pasha, a peep into a harem, a visit to a pirate's isle, the slave-market, the bazaar, the barracks of the janissaries, all touched with irresistible vitality, and coloured with the rich phrases of unrivalled force of expression. The laughter was loud and continual; even Lady Annabel joined zealously in the glee. As for Herbert, he thought Cadurcis by far the most hearty and amusing person he had ever known, and could not refrain from contrasting him with the picture which his works and the report of the world had occasionally enabled him to sketch to his mind's eye; the noble, young, and impassioned bard, pouring forth the eloquent tide of his morbid feelings to an idolising world, from whose applause he nevertheless turned with an almost misanthropic melancholy. It was now much past the noon of night, and the hour of separation, long postponed, was inevitable. Often had Cadurcis risen to depart, and often, without regaining his seat, had he been tempted by his friends, and especially Venetia, into fresh narratives. At last he said, 'Now we must go. Lady Annabel looks good night. I remember the look,' he said, laughing, 'when we used to beg for a quarter of an hour more. O Venetia! do not you remember that Christmas when dear old Masham read Julius Caesar, and we were to sit up until it was finished. When he got to the last act I hid his spectacles. I never confessed it until this moment. Will you pardon me, Lady Annabel?' and he pressed his hands together in a mockery of supplication. 'Will you come and breakfast with us to-morrow?' said Lady Annabel. 'With delight,' he answered. 'I am used, you know, to walks before breakfast. George, I do not think George can do it, though. George likes his comforts; he is a regular John Bull. He was always calling for tea when we were in Turkey!' At this moment Mistress Pauncefort entered the room, ostensibly on some little affair of her mistress, but really to reconnoitre. 'Ah! Mistress Pauncefort; my old friend, Mistress Pauncefort, how do you do?' exclaimed his lordship. 'Quite well, my lord, please your lordship; and very glad to see your lordship again, and looking so well too.' 'Ah! Mistress Pauncefort, you always flattered me!' 'Oh! dear, my lord, your lordship, no,' said Mistress Pauncefort, with a simper. 'But you, Pauncefort,' said Cadurcis, 'why there must be some magic in the air here. I have been complimenting your lady and Miss Venetia; but really, you, I should almost have thought it was some younger sister.' 'Oh! my lord, you have such a way,' said Mistress Pauncefort, retreating with a slow step that still lingered for a remark. 'Pauncefort, is that an Italian cap?' said Lord Cadurcis; 'you know, Pauncefort, you were always famous for your caps.' Mistress Pauncefort disappeared in a fluster of delight. And now they had indeed departed. There was a pause of complete silence after they had disappeared, the slight and not painful reaction after the mirthful excitement of the last few hours. At length Herbert, dropping, as was his evening custom, a few drops of orange-flower into a tumbler of water, said, 'Annabel, my love, I am rather surprised that neither you nor Venetia should have mentioned to me that you knew, and knew so intimately, a man like Lord Cadurcis.' Lady Annabel appeared a little confused; she looked even at Venetia, but Venetia's eyes were on the ground. At length she said, 'In truth, Marmion, since we met we have thought only of you.' 'Cadurcis Abbey, papa, is close to Cherbury,' said Venetia. 'Cherbury!' said Herbert, with a faint blush. 'I have never seen it, and now I shall never see it. No matter, my country is your mother and yourself. Some find a home in their country, I find a country in my home. Well,' he added, in a gayer tone, 'it has gratified me much to meet Lord Cadurcis. We were happy before, but now we are even gay. I like to see you smile, Annabel, and hear Venetia laugh. I feel, myself, quite an unusual hilarity. Cadurcis! It is very strange how often I have mused over that name. A year ago it was one of my few wishes to know him; my wishes, then, dear Annabel, were not very ambitious. They did not mount so high as you have since permitted them. And now I do know him, and under what circumstances! Is not life strange? But is it not happy? I feel it so. Good night, sweet wife; my darling daughter, a happy, happy night!' He embraced them ere they retired; and opening a volume composed his mind after the novel excitement of the evening. CHAPTER IV. Cadurcis left the brig early in the morning alone, and strolled towards the villa. He met Herbert half-way to Spezzia, who turned back with him towards home. They sat down on a crag opposite the sea; there was a light breeze, the fishing boats wore out, and the view was as animated as the fresh air was cheering. 'There they go,' said Cadurcis, smiling, 'catching John Dory, as you and I try to catch John Bull. Now if these people could understand what two great men were watching them, how they would stare! But they don't care a sprat for us, not they! They are not part of the world the three or four thousand civilised savages for whom we sweat our brains, and whose fetid breath perfumed with musk is fame. Pah!' Herbert smiled. 'I have not cared much myself for this same world.' 'Why, no; you have done something, and shown your contempt for them. No one can deny that. I will some day, if I have an opportunity. I owe it them; I think I can show them a trick or two still.[A] I have got a Damascus blade in store for their thick hides. I will turn their flank yet.' [Footnote A: I think I know a trick or two would turn Your flanks. _Don Juan_.] 'And gain a victory where conquest brings no glory. You are worth brighter laurels, Lord Cadurcis.' 'Now is not it the most wonderful thing in the world that you and I have met?' said Cadurcis. 'Now I look upon ourselves as something like, eh! Fellows with some pith in them. By Jove, if we only joined together, how we could lay it on! Crack, crack, crack; I think I see them wincing under the thong, the pompous poltroons! If you only knew how they behaved to me! By Jove, sir, they hooted me going to the House of Lords, and nearly pulled me off my horse. The ruffians would have massacred me if they could; and then they all ran away from a drummer-boy and a couple of grenadiers, who were going the rounds to change guard. Was not that good? Fine, eh? A brutish mob in a fit of morality about to immolate a gentleman, and then scampering off from a sentry. I call that human nature!' 'As long as they leave us alone, and do not burn us alive, I am content,' said Herbert. 'I am callous to what they say.' 'So am I,' said Cadurcis. 'I made out a list the other day of all the persons and things I have been compared to. It begins well, with Alcibiades, but it ends with the Swiss giantess or the Polish dwarf, I forget which. Here is your book. You see it has been well thumbed. In fact, to tell the truth, it was my cribbing book, and I always kept it by me when I was writing at Athens, like a gradus, a _gradus ad Parnassum_, you know. But although I crib, I am candid, and you see I fairly own it to you.' 'You are welcome to all I have ever written,' said Herbert. 'Mine were but crude dreams. I wished to see man noble and happy; but if he will persist in being vile and miserable, I must even be content. I can struggle for him no more.' 'Well, you opened my mind,' said Cadurcis. 'I owe you everything; but I quite agree with you that nothing is worth an effort. As for philosophy and freedom, and all that, they tell devilish well in a stanza; but men have always been fools and slaves, and fools and slaves they always will be.' 'Nay,' said Herbert, 'I will not believe that. I will not give up a jot of my conviction of a great and glorious future for human destinies; but its consummation will not be so rapid as I once thought, and in the meantime I die.' 'Ah, death!' said Lord Cadurcis, 'that is a botherer. What can you make of death? There are those poor fishermen now; there will be a white squall some day, and they will go down with those lateen sails of theirs, and be food for the very prey they were going to catch; and if you continue living here, you may eat one of your neighbours in the shape of a shoal of red mullets, when it is the season. The great secret, we cannot penetrate that with all our philosophy, my dear Herbert. "All that we know is, nothing can be known." Barren, barren, barren! And yet what a grand world it is! Look at this bay, these blue waters, the mountains, and these chestnuts, devilish fine! The fact is, truth is veiled, but, like the Shekinah over the tabernacle, the veil is of dazzling light!' 'Life is the great wonder,' said Herbert, 'into which all that is strange and startling resolves itself. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the miracle of our being. Mankind are constantly starting at events which they consider extraordinary. But a philosopher acknowledges only one miracle, and that is life. Political revolutions, changes of empire, wrecks of dynasties and the opinions that support them, these are the marvels of the vulgar, but these are only transient modifications of life. The origin of existence is, therefore, the first object which a true philosopher proposes to himself. Unable to discover it, he accepts certain results from his unbiassed observation of its obvious nature, and on them he establishes certain principles to be our guides in all social relations, whether they take the shape of laws or customs. Nevertheless, until the principle of life be discovered, all theories and all systems of conduct founded on theory must be considered provisional.' 'And do you believe that there is a chance of its being discovered?' inquired Cadurcis. 'I cannot, from any reason in my own intelligence, find why it should not,' said Herbert. 'You conceive it possible that a man may attain earthly immortality?' inquired Cadurcis. 'Undoubtedly.' 'By Jove,' said Cadurcis, 'if I only knew how, I would purchase an immense annuity directly.' 'When I said undoubtedly,' said Herbert, smiling, 'I meant only to express that I know no invincible reason to the contrary. I see nothing inconsistent with the existence of a Supreme Creator in the annihilation of death. It appears to me an achievement worthy of his omnipotence. I believe in the possibility, but I believe in nothing more. I anticipate the final result, but not by individual means. It will, of course, be produced by some vast and silent and continuous operation of nature, gradually effecting some profound and comprehensive alteration in her order, a change of climate, for instance, the great enemy of life, so that the inhabitants of the earth may attain a patriarchal age. This renovated breed may in turn produce a still more vigorous offspring, and so we may ascend the scale, from the threescore and ten of the Psalmist to the immortality of which we speak. Indeed I, for my own part, believe the operation has already commenced, although thousands of centuries may elapse before it is consummated; the threescore and ten of the Psalmist is already obsolete; the whole world is talking of the general change of its seasons and its atmosphere. If the origin of America were such as many profound philosophers suppose, viz., a sudden emersion of a new continent from the waves, it is impossible to doubt that such an event must have had a very great influence on the climate of the world. Besides, why should we be surprised that the nature of man should change? Does not everything change? Is not change the law of nature? My skin changes every year, my hair never belongs to me a month, the nail on my hand is only a passing possession. I doubt whether a man at fifty is the same material being that he is at five-and-twenty.' 'I wonder,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'if a creditor brought an action against you at fifty for goods delivered at five-and-twenty, one could set up the want of identity as a plea in bar. It would be a consolation to an elderly gentleman.' 'I am afraid mankind are too hostile to philosophy,' said Herbert, smiling, 'to permit so desirable a consummation.' 'Should you consider a long life a blessing?' said Cadurcis. 'Would you like, for instance, to live to the age of Methusalem?' 'Those whom the gods love die young,' said Herbert. 'For the last twenty years I have wished to die, and I have sought death. But my feelings, I confess, on that head are at present very much modified.' 'Youth, glittering youth!' said Cadurcis in a musing tone; 'I remember when the prospect of losing my youth frightened me out of my wits; I dreamt of nothing but grey hairs, a paunch, and the gout or the gravel. But I fancy every period of life has its pleasures, and as we advance in life the exercise of power and the possession of wealth must be great consolations to the majority; we bully our children and hoard our cash.' 'Two most noble occupations!' said Herbert; 'but I think in this world there is just as good a chance of being bullied by our children first, and paying their debts afterwards.' 'Faith! you are right,' said Cadurcis, laughing, 'and lucky is he who has neither creditors nor offspring, and who owes neither money nor affection, after all the most difficult to pay of the two.' 'It cannot be commanded, certainly,' said Herbert 'There is no usury for love.' 'And yet it is very expensive, too, sometimes, said Cadurcis, laughing. 'For my part, sympathy is a puzzler.' 'You should read Cabanis,' said Herbert, 'if indeed, you have not. I think I may find it here; I will lend it you. It has, from its subject, many errors, but it is very suggestive.' 'Now, that is kind, for I have not a book here, and, after all, there is nothing like reading. I wish I had read more, but it is not too late. I envy you your learning, besides so many other things. However, I hope we shall not part in a hurry; we have met at last,' he said, extending his hand, 'and we were always friends.' Herbert shook his hand very warmly. 'I can assure you, Lord Cadurcis, you have not a more sincere admirer of your genius. I am happy in your society. For myself, I now aspire to be nothing better than an idler in life, turning over a page, and sometimes noting down a fancy. You have, it appears, known my family long and intimately, and you were, doubtless, surprised at finding me with them. I have returned to my hearth, and I am content. Once I sacrificed my happiness to my philosophy, and now I have sacrificed my philosophy to my happiness.' 'Dear friend!' said Cadurcis, putting his arm affectionately in Herbert's as they walked along, 'for, indeed, you must allow me to style you so; all the happiness and all the sorrow of my life alike flow from your roof!' In the meantime Lady Annabel and Venetia came forth from the villa to their morning meal in their amphitheatre of hills. Marmion was not there to greet them as usual. 'Was not Plantagenet amusing last night?' said Venetia; 'and are not you happy, dear mother, to see him once more?' 'Indeed I am now always happy,' said Lady Annabel. 'And George was telling me last night, in this portico, of all their life. He is more attached to Plantagenet than ever. He says it is impossible for any one to have behaved with greater kindness, or to have led, in every sense, a more calm and rational life. When he was alone at Athens, he did nothing but write. George says that all his former works are nothing to what he has written now.' 'He is very engaging,' said Lady Annabel. 'I think he will be such a delightful companion for papa. I am sure papa must like him. I hope he will stay some time; for, after all, poor dear papa, he must require a little amusement besides our society. Instead of being with his books, he might be walking and talking with Plantagenet. I think, dearest mother, we shall be happier than ever!' At this moment Herbert, with Cadurcis leaning on his arm, and apparently speaking with great earnestness, appeared in the distance. 'There they are,' said Venetia; 'I knew they would be friends. Come, dearest mother, let us meet them.' 'You see, Lady Annabel,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'it is just as I said: Mr. George is not here; he is having tea and toast on board the brig.' 'I do not believe it,' said Venetia, smiling. They seated themselves at the breakfast-table. 'You should have seen our Apennine breakfasts in the autumn, Lord Cadurcis,' said Herbert. 'Every fruit of nature seemed crowded before us. It was indeed a meal for a poet or a painter like Paul Veronese; our grapes, our figs, our peaches, our mountain strawberries, they made a glowing picture. For my part, I have an original prejudice against animal food which I have never quite overcome, and I believe it is only to please Lady Annabel that I have relapsed into the heresy of cutlets.' 'Do you think I have grown fatter, Lady Annabel?' said Lord Cadurcis, starting up; 'I brought myself down at Athens to bread and olives, but I have been committing terrible excesses lately, but only fish.' 'Ah! here is George!' said Lady Annabel. And Captain Cadurcis appeared, followed by a couple of sailors, bearing a huge case. 'George,' said Venetia, 'I have been defending you against Plantagenet; he said you would not come.' 'Never mind, George, it was only behind your back,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and, under those legitimate circumstances, why even our best friends cannot expect us to spare them.' 'I have brought Venetia her toys,' said Captain Cadurcis, 'and she was right to defend me, as I have been working for her.' The top of the case was knocked off, and all the Turkish buffooneries, as Cadurcis called them, made their appearance: slippers, and shawls, and bottles of perfumes, and little hand mirrors, beautifully embroidered; and fanciful daggers, and rosaries, and a thousand other articles, of which they had plundered the bazaars of Constantinople. 'And here is a Turkish volume of poetry, beautifully illuminated; and that is for you,' said Cadurcis giving it to Herbert. 'Perhaps it is a translation of one of our works. Who knows? We can always say it is.' 'This is the second present you have made me this morning. Here is a volume of my works,' said Herbert, producing the book that Cadurcis had before given him. 'I never expected that anything I wrote would be so honoured. This, too, is the work of which I am the least ashamed for my wife admired it. There, Annabel, even though Lord Cadurcis is here, I will present it to you; 'tis an old friend.' Lady Annabel accepted the book very graciously, and, in spite of all the temptations of her toys, Venetia could not refrain from peeping over her mother's shoulder at its contents. 'Mother,' she whispered, in a voice inaudible save to Lady Annabel, 'I may read this!' Lady Annabel gave it her. 'And now we must send for Pauncefort, I think,' said Lady Annabel, 'to collect and take care of our treasures.' 'Pauncefort,' said Lord Cadurcis, when that gentlewoman appeared, 'I have brought you a shawl, but I could not bring you a turban, because the Turkish ladies do not wear turbans; but if I had thought we should have met so soon, I would have had one made on purpose for you.' 'La! my lord, you always are so polite!' CHAPTER V. When the breakfast was over, they wandered about the valley, which Cadurcis could not sufficiently admire. Insensibly he drew Venetia from the rest of the party, on the pretence of showing her a view at some little distance. They walked along by the side of a rivulet, which glided through the hills, until they were nearly a mile from the villa, though still in sight. 'Venetia,' he at length said, turning the conversation to a more interesting topic, 'your father and myself have disburthened our minds to each, other this morning; I think we know each other now as well as if we were as old acquaintances as myself and his daughter.' 'Ah! I knew that you and papa must agree,' said Venetia; 'I was saying so this morning to my mother.' 'Venetia,' said Cadurcis, with a laughing eye, 'all this is very strange, is it not?' 'Very strange, indeed, Plantagenet; I should not be surprised if it appeared to you as yet even incredible.' 'It is miraculous,' said Cadurcis, 'but not incredible; an angel interfered, and worked the miracle. I know all.' Venetia looked at him with a faint flush upon her cheek; she gathered a flower and plucked it to pieces. 'What a singular destiny ours has been, Venetia! 'said Cadurcis. 'Do you know, I can sit for an hour together and muse over it.' 'Can you, Plantagenet?' 'I have such an extraordinary memory; I do not think I ever forgot anything. We have had some remarkable conversations in our time, eh, Venetia? Do you remember my visit to Cherbury before I went to Cambridge, and the last time I saw you before I left England? And now it all ends in this! What do you think of it, Venetia?' 'Think of what, Plantagenet?' 'Why, of this reconciliation?' 'Dear Plantagenet, what can I think of it but what I have expressed, that it is a wonderful event, but the happiest in my life.' 'You are quite happy now?' 'Quite.' 'I see you do not care for me the least.' 'Plantagenet, you are perverse. Are you not here?' 'Did you ever think of me when I was away?' 'You know very well, Plantagenet, that it is impossible for me to cease to be interested in you. Could I refrain from thinking of such a friend?' 'Friend! poh! I am not your friend; and, as for that, you never once mentioned my name to your father, Miss Venetia.' 'You might easily conceive that there were reasons for such silence,' said Venetia. 'It could not arise on my part from forgetfulness or indifference; for, even if my feelings were changed towards you, you are not a person that one would, or even could, avoid speaking of, especially to papa, who must have felt such interest in you! I am sure, even if I had not known you, there were a thousand occasions which would have called your name to my lips, had they been uncontrolled by other considerations.' 'Come, Venetia, I am not going to submit to compliments from you,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'no blarney. I wish you only to think of me as you did ten years ago. I will not have our hearts polluted by the vulgarity of fame. I want you to feel for me as you did when we were children. I will not be an object of interest, and admiration, and fiddlestick to you; I will not submit to it.' 'Well, you shall not,' said Venetia, laughing. 'I will not admire you the least; I will only think of you as a good little boy.' 'You do not love me any longer, I see that,' said Cadurcis. 'Yes I do, Plantagenet.' 'You do not love me so much as you did the night before I went to Eton, and we sat over the fire? Ah! how often I have thought of that night when I was at Athens!' he added in a tone of emotion. 'Dear Plantagenet,' said Venetia, 'do not be silly. I am in the highest spirits in the world; I am quite gay with happiness, and all because you have returned. Do not spoil my pleasure.' 'Ah, Venetia! I see how it is; you have forgotten me, or worse than forgotten me.' 'Well, I am sure I do not know what to say to satisfy you,' said Venetia. 'I think you very unreasonable, and very ungrateful too, for I have always been your friend, Plantagenet, and I am sure you know it. You sent me a message before you went abroad.' 'Darling!' said Lord Cadurcis, seizing her hand, 'I am not ungrateful, I am not unreasonable. I adore you. You were very kind then, when all the world was against me. You shall see how I will pay them off, the dogs! and worse than dogs, their betters far; dogs are faithful. Do you remember poor old Marmion? How we were mystified, Venetia! Little did we think then who was Marmion's godfather.' Venetia smiled; but she said, 'I do not like this bitterness of yours, Plantagenet. You have no cause to complain of the world, and you magnify a petty squabble with a contemptible coterie into a quarrel with a nation. It is not a wise humour, and, if you indulge it, it will not be a happy one.' 'I will do exactly what you wish on every subject, said Cadurcis, 'if you will do exactly what I wish on one.' 'Well!' said Venetia. 'Once you told me,' said Cadurcis, 'that you would not marry me without the consent of your father; then, most unfairly, you added to your conditions the consent of your mother. Now both your parents are very opportunely at hand; let us fall down upon our knees, and beg their blessing.' 'O! my dear Plantagenet, I think it will be much better for me never to marry. We are both happy now; let us remain so. You can live here, and I can be your sister. Will not that do?' 'No, Venetia, it will not.' 'Dear Plantagenet!' said Venetia with a faltering voice, 'if you knew how much I had suffered, dear Plantagenet!' 'I know it; I know all,' said Cadurcis, taking her arm and placing it tenderly in his. 'Now listen to me, sweet girl; I loved you when a child, when I was unknown to the world, and unknown to myself; I loved you as a youth not utterly inexperienced in the world, and when my rising passions had taught me to speculate on the character of women; I loved you as a man, Venetia, with that world at my feet, that world which I scorn, but which I will command; I have been constant, Venetia; your heart assures you, of that. You are the only being in existence who exercises over me any influence; and the influence you possess is irresistible and eternal. It springs from some deep and mysterious sympathy of blood which I cannot penetrate. It can neither be increased nor diminished by time. It is entirely independent of its action. I pretend not to love you more at this moment than when I first saw you, when you entered the terrace-room at Cherbury and touched my cheek. From that moment I was yours. I declare to you, most solemnly I declare to you, that I know not what love is except to you. The world has called me a libertine; the truth is, no other woman can command my spirit for an hour. I see through them at a glance. I read all their weakness, frivolity, vanity, affectation, as if they were touched by the revealing rod of Asmodeus. You were born to be my bride. Unite yourself with me, control my destiny, and my course shall be like the sun of yesterday; but reject me, reject me, and I devote all my energies to the infernal gods; I will pour my lava over the earth until all that remains of my fatal and exhausted nature is a black and barren cone surrounded by bitter desolation.' 'Plantagenet; be calm!' 'I am perfectly calm, Venetia. You talk to me of your sufferings. What has occasioned them? A struggle against nature. Nature has now triumphed, and you are happy. What necessity was there for all this misery that has fallen on your house? Why is your father an exile? Do not you think that if your mother had chosen to exert her influence she might have prevented the most fatal part of his career? Undoubtedly despair impelled his actions as much as philosophy, though I give him credit for a pure and lofty spirit, to no man more. But not a murmur against your mother from me. She received my overtures of reconciliation last night with more than cordiality. She is your mother, Venetia, and she once was mine. Indeed, I love her; indeed, you would find that I would study her happiness. For after all, sweet, is there another woman in existence better qualified to fill the position of my mother-in-law? I could not behave unkindly to her; I could not treat her with neglect or harshness; not merely for the sake of her many admirable qualities, but from other considerations, Venetia, considerations we never can forget. By heavens! I love your mother; I do, indeed, Venetia! I remember so many things; her last words to me when I went to Eton. If she would only behave kindly to me, you would see what a son-in-law I should make. You would be jealous, that you should, Venetia. I can bear anything from you, Venetia, but, with others, I cannot forget who I am. It makes me bitter to be treated as Lady Annabel treated me last year in London: but a smile and a kind word and I recall all her maternal love; I do indeed, Venetia; last night when she was kind I could have kissed her!' Poor Venetia could not answer, her tears were flowing so plenteously. 'I have told your father all, sweetest,' said Cadurcis; 'I concealed nothing.' 'And what said he?' murmured Venetia. 'It rests with your mother. After all that has passed, he will not attempt to control your fate. And he is right. Perhaps his interference in my favour might even injure me. But there is no cause for despair; all I wanted was to come to an understanding with you; to be sure you loved me as you always have done. I will not be impatient. I will do everything to soothe and conciliate and gratify Lady Annabel; you will see how I will behave! As you say, too, we are happy because we are together; and, therefore, it would be unreasonable not to be patient. I never can be sufficiently grateful for this meeting. I concluded you would be in England, though we were on our way to Milan to inquire after you. George has been a great comfort to me in all this affair, Venetia; he loves you, Venetia, almost as much as I do. I think I should have gone mad during that cursed affair in England, had it not been for George. I thought you would hate me; but, when George brought me your message, I cared for nothing; and then his visit to the lake was so devilish kind! He is a noble fellow and a true friend. My sweet, sweet Venetia, dry your eyes. Let us rejoin them with a smile. We have not been long away, I will pretend we have been violet hunting,' said Cadurcis, stooping down and plucking up a handful of flowers. 'Do you remember our violets at home, Venetia? Do you know, Venetia, I always fancy every human being is like some object in nature; and you always put me in mind of a violet so fresh and sweet and delicate!' CHAPTER VI. 'We have been exploring the happy valley,' said Lord Cadurcis to Lady Annabel, 'and here is our plunder,' and he gave her the violets. 'You were always fond of flowers,' said Lady Annabel. 'Yes, I imbibed the taste from you,' said Cadurcis, gratified by the gracious remark. He seated himself at her feet, examined and admired her work, and talked of old times, but with such infinite discretion, that he did not arouse a single painful association. Venetia was busied with her father's poems, and smiled often at the manuscript notes of Cadurcis. Lying, as usual, on the grass, and leaning his head on his left arm, Herbert was listening to Captain Cadurcis, who was endeavouring to give him a clear idea of the Bosphorus. Thus the morning wore away, until the sun drove them into the villa. 'I will show you my library, Lord Cadurcis,' said Herbert. Cadurcis followed him into a spacious apartment, where he found a collection so considerable that he could not suppress his surprise. 'Italian spoils chiefly,' said Herbert; 'a friend of mine purchased an old library at Bologna for me, and it turned out richer than I imagined: the rest are old friends that have been with me, many of them at least, at college. I brought them back with me from America, for then they were my only friends.' 'Can you find Cabanis?' said Lord Cadurcis. Herbert looked about. It is in this neighbourhood, I imagine,' he said. Cadurcis endeavoured to assist him. 'What is this?' he said; 'Plato!' 'I should like to read Plato at Athens,' said Herbert. 'My ambition now does not soar beyond such elegant fortune.' 'We are all under great obligations to Plato,' said Cadurcis. 'I remember, when I was in London, I always professed myself his disciple, and it is astonishing what results I experienced. Platonic love was a great invention.' Herbert smiled; but, as he saw Cadurcis knew nothing about the subject, he made no reply. 'Plato says, or at least I think he says, that life is love,' said Cadurcis. 'I have said it myself in a very grand way too; I believe I cribbed it from you. But what does he mean? I am sure I meant nothing; but I dare say you did.' 'I certainly had some meaning,' said Herbert, stopping in his search, and smiling, 'but I do not know whether I expressed it. The principle of every motion, that is of all life, is desire or love: at present; I am in love with the lost volume of Cabanis, and, if it were not for the desire of obtaining it, I should not now be affording any testimony of my vitality by looking after it.' 'That is very clear,' said Cadurcis, 'but I was thinking of love in the vulgar sense, in the shape of a petticoat. Certainly, when I am in love with a woman, I feel love is life; but, when I am out of love, which often happens, and generally very soon, I still contrive to live.' 'We exist,' said Herbert, 'because we sympathise. If we did not sympathise with the air, we should die. But, if we only sympathised with the air, we should be in the lowest order of brutes, baser than the sloth. Mount from the sloth to the poet. It is sympathy that makes you a poet. It is your desire that the airy children of your brain should be born anew within another's, that makes you create; therefore, a misanthropical poet is a contradiction in terms.' 'But when he writes a lampoon?' said Cadurcis. 'He desires that the majority, who are not lampooned, should share his hate,' said Herbert. 'But Swift lampooned the species,' said Cadurcis. 'For my part, I think life is hatred.' 'But Swift was not sincere, for he wrote the Drapier's Letters at the same time. Besides, the very fact of your abusing mankind proves that you do not hate them; it is clear that you are desirous of obtaining their good opinion of your wit. You value them, you esteem them, you love them. Their approbation causes you to act, and makes you happy. As for sexual love,' said Herbert, 'of which you were speaking, its quality and duration depend upon the degree of sympathy that subsists between the two persons interested. Plato believed, and I believe with him, in the existence of a spiritual antitype of the soul, so that when we are born, there is something within us which, from the instant we live and move, thirsts after its likeness. This propensity develops itself with the development of our nature. The gratification of the senses soon becomes a very small part of that profound and complicated sentiment, which we call love. Love, on the contrary, is an universal thirst for a communion, not merely of the senses, but of our whole nature, intellectual, imaginative, and sensitive. He who finds his antitype, enjoys a love perfect and enduring; time cannot change it, distance cannot remove it; the sympathy is complete. He who loves an object that approaches his antitype, is proportionately happy, the sympathy is feeble or strong, as it may be. If men were properly educated, and their faculties fully developed,' continued Herbert, 'the discovery of the antitype would be easy; and, when the day arrives that it is a matter of course, the perfection of civilisation will be attained.' 'I believe in Plato,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'and I think I have found my antitype. His theory accounts for what I never could understand.' CHAPTER VII. In the course of the evening Lady Annabel requested Lord Cadurcis and his cousin to take up their quarters at the villa. Independent of the delight which such an invitation occasioned him, Cadurcis was doubly gratified by its being given by her. It was indeed her unprompted solicitation; for neither Herbert nor even Venetia, however much they desired the arrangement, was anxious to appear eager for its fulfilment. Desirous of pleasing her husband and her daughter; a little penitent as to her previous treatment of Cadurcis, now that time and strange events had combined to soften her feelings; and won by his engaging demeanour towards herself, Lady Annabel had of mere impulse resolved upon the act; and she was repaid by the general air of gaiety and content which it diffused through the circle. Few weeks indeed passed ere her ladyship taught herself even to contemplate the possibility of an union between her daughter and Lord Cadurcis. The change which had occurred in her own feelings and position had in her estimation removed very considerable barriers to such a result. It would not become her again to urge the peculiarity of his temperament as an insuperable objection to the marriage; that was out of the question, even if the conscience of Lady Annabel herself, now that she was so happy, were perfectly free from any participation in the causes which occasioned the original estrangement between Herbert and herself. Desirous too, as all mothers are, that her daughter should be suitably married, Lady Annabel could not shut her eyes to the great improbability of such an event occurring, now that Venetia had, as it were, resigned all connection with her native country. As to her daughter marrying a foreigner, the very idea was intolerable to her; and Venetia appeared therefore to have resumed that singular and delicate position which she occupied at Cherbury in earlier years, when Lady Annabel had esteemed her connection with Lord Cadurcis so fortunate and auspicious. Moreover, while Lord Cadurcis, in birth, rank, country, and consideration, offered in every view of the ease so gratifying an alliance, he was perhaps the only Englishman whose marriage into her family would not deprive her of the society of her child. Cadurcis had a great distaste for England, which he seized every opportunity to express. He continually declared that he would never return there; and his habits of seclusion and study so entirely accorded with those of her husband, that Lady Annabel did not doubt they would continue to form only one family; a prospect so engaging to her, that it would perhaps have alone removed the distrust which she had so unfortunately cherished against the admirer of her daughter; and although some of his reputed opinions occasioned her doubtless considerable anxiety, he was nevertheless very young, and far from emancipated from the beneficial influence of his early education. She was sanguine that this sheep would yet return to the fold where once he had been tended with so much solicitude. When too she called to mind the chastened spirit of her husband, and could not refrain from feeling that, had she not quitted him, he might at a much earlier period have attained a mood so full of promise and to her so cheering, she could not resist the persuasion that, under the influence of Venetia, Cadurcis might speedily free himself from the dominion of that arrogant genius to which, rather than to any serious conviction, the result of a studious philosophy, she attributed his indifference on the most important of subjects. On the whole, however, it was with no common gratification that Lady Annabel observed the strong and intimate friendship that arose between her husband and Cadurcis. They were inseparable companions. Independently of the natural sympathy between two highly imaginative minds, there were in the superior experience, the noble character, the vast knowledge, and refined taste of Herbert, charms of which Cadurcis was very susceptible Cadurcis had not been a great reader himself, and he liked the company of one whose mind was at once so richly cultured and so deeply meditative: thus he obtained matter and spirit distilled through the alembic of another's brain. Jealousy had never had a place in Herbert's temperament; now he was insensible even to emulation. He spoke of Cadurcis as he thought, with the highest admiration; as one without a rival, and in whose power it was to obtain an imperishable fame. It was his liveliest pleasure to assist the full development of such an intellect, and to pour to him, with a lavish hand, all the treasures of his taste, his learning, his fancy, and his meditation. His kind heart, his winning manners, his subdued and perfect temper, and the remembrance of the relation which he bore to Venetia, completed the spell which bound Cadurcis to him with all the finest feelings of his nature. It was, indeed, an intercourse peculiarly beneficial to Cadurcis, whose career had hitherto tended rather to the development of the power, than the refinement of his genius; and to whom an active communion with an equal spirit of a more matured intelligence was an incident rather to be desired than expected. Herbert and Cadurcis, therefore, spent their mornings together, sometimes in the library, sometimes wandering in the chestnut woods, sometimes sailing in the boat of the brig, for they were both fond of the sea: in these excursions, George was in general their companion. He had become a great favourite with Herbert, as with everybody else. No one managed a boat so well, although Cadurcis prided himself also on his skill in this respect; and George was so frank and unaffected, and so used to his cousin's habits, that his presence never embarrassed Herbert and Cadurcis, and they read or conversed quite at their ease, as if there were no third person to mar, by his want of sympathy, the full communion of their intellect. The whole circle met at dinner, and never again parted until at a late hour of night. This was a most agreeable life; Cadurcis himself, good humoured because he was happy, doubly exerted himself to ingratiate himself with Lady Annabel, and felt every day that he was advancing. Venetia always smiled upon him, and praised him delightfully for his delightful conduct. In the evening, Herbert would read to them the manuscript poem of Cadurcis, the fruits of his Attic residence and Grecian meditations. The poet would sometimes affect a playful bashfulness on this head, perhaps not altogether affected, and amuse Venetia, in a whisper, with his running comments; or exclaim with an arch air, 'I say, Venetia, what would Mrs. Montague and the Blues give for this, eh? I can fancy Hannah More in decent ecstasies!' CHAPTER VIII. 'It is an odd thing, my dear Herbert,' said Cadurcis to his friend, in one of these voyages, 'that destiny should have given you and me the same tutor.' 'Masham!' said Herbert, smiling. 'I tell you what is much more singular, my dear Cadurcis; it is, that, notwithstanding being our tutor, a mitre should have fallen upon his head.' 'I am heartily glad,' said Cadurcis. 'I like Masham very much; I really have a sincere affection for him. Do you know, during my infernal affair about those accursed Monteagles, when I went to the House of Lords, and was cut even by my own party; think of that, the polished ruffians! Masham was the only person who came forward and shook hands with me, and in the most marked manner. A bishop, too! and the other side! that was good, was it not? But he would not see his old pupil snubbed; if he had waited ten minutes longer, he might have had a chance of seeing him massacred. And then they complain of my abusing England, my mother country; a step-dame, I take it.' 'Masham is in politics a Tory, in religion ultra-orthodox,' Herbert. 'He has nothing about him of the latitudinarian; and yet he is the most amiable man with whom I am acquainted. Nature has given him a kind and charitable heart, which even his opinions have not succeeded in spoiling.' 'Perhaps that is exactly what he is saying of us two at this moment,' said Cadurcis. 'After all, what is truth? It changes as you change your clime or your country; it changes with the century. The truth of a hundred years ago is not the truth of the present day, and yet it may have been as genuine. Truth at Rome is not the truth of London, and both of them differ from the truth of Constantinople. For my part, I believe everything.' 'Well, that is practically prudent, if it be metaphysically possible,' said Herbert. 'Do you know that I have always been of opinion, that Pontius Pilate has been greatly misrepresented by Lord Bacon in the quotation of his celebrated question. 'What is truth?' said jesting Pilate, and would not wait for an answer. Let us be just to Pontius Pilate, who has sins enough surely to answer for. There is no authority for the jesting humour given by Lord Bacon. Pilate was evidently of a merciful and clement disposition; probably an Epicurean. His question referred to a declaration immediately preceding it, that He who was before him came to bear witness to the truth. Pilate inquired what truth?' 'Well, I always have a prejudice against Pontius Pilate,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and I think it is from seeing him, when I was a child, on an old Dutch tile fireplace at Marringhurst, dressed like a burgomaster. One cannot get over one's early impressions; but when you picture him to me as an Epicurean, he assumes a new character. I fancy him young, noble, elegant, and accomplished; crowned with a wreath and waving a goblet, and enjoying his government vastly.' 'Before the introduction of Christianity,' said Herbert, 'the philosophic schools answered to our present religious sects. You said of a man that he was a Stoic or an Epicurean, as you say of a man now that he is a Calvinist or a Wesleyan.' 'I should have liked to have known Epicurus,' said Cadurcis. 'I would sooner have known him and Plato than any of the ancients,' said Herbert. 'I look upon Plato as the wisest and the profoundest of men, and upon Epicurus as the most humane and gentle.' 'Now, how do you account for the great popularity of Aristotle in modern ages?' said Cadurcis; 'and the comparative neglect of these, at least his equals? Chance, I suppose, that settles everything.' 'By no means,' said Herbert. 'If you mean by chance an absence of accountable cause, I do not believe such a quality as chance exists. Every incident that happens, must be a link in a chain. In the present case, the monks monopolised literature, such as it might be, and they exercised their intellect only in discussing words. They, therefore, adopted Aristotle and the Peripatetics. Plato interfered with their heavenly knowledge, and Epicurus, who maintained the rights of man to pleasure and happiness, would have afforded a dangerous and seducing contrast to their dark and miserable code of morals.' 'I think, of the ancients,' said Cadurcis; 'Alcibiades and Alexander the Great are my favourites. They were young, beautiful, and conquerors; a great combination.' 'And among the moderns?' inquired Herbert. 'They don't touch my fancy,' said Cadurcis. 'Who are your heroes?' 'Oh! I have many; but I confess I should like to pass a day with Milton, or Sir Philip Sidney.' 'Among mere literary men,' said Cadurcis; 'I should say Bayle.' 'And old Montaigne for me,' said Herbert. 'Well, I would fain visit him in his feudal chateau,' said Cadurcis. 'His is one of the books which give a spring to the mind. Of modern times, the feudal ages of Italy most interest me. I think that was a springtide of civilisation, all the fine arts nourished at the same moment.' 'They ever will,' said Herbert. 'All the inventive arts maintain a sympathetic connection between each other, for, after all, they are only various expressions of one internal power, modified by different circumstances either of the individual or of society. It was so in the age of Pericles; I mean the interval which intervened between the birth of that great man and the death of Aristotle; undoubtedly, whether considered in itself, or with reference to the effects which it produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilised man, the most memorable in the history of the world.' 'And yet the age of Pericles has passed away,' said Lord Cadurcis mournfully, 'and I have gazed upon the mouldering Parthenon. O Herbert! you are a great thinker and muse deeply; solve me the problem why so unparalleled a progress was made during that period in literature and the arts, and why that progress, so rapid and so sustained, so soon received a check and became retrograde?' 'It is a problem left to the wonder and conjecture of posterity,' said Herbert. 'But its solution, perhaps, may principally be found in the weakness of their political institutions. Nothing of the Athenians remains except their genius; but they fulfilled their purpose. The wrecks and fragments of their subtle and profound minds obscurely suggest to us the grandeur and perfection of the whole. Their language excels every other tongue of the Western world; their sculptures baffle all subsequent artists; credible witnesses assure us that their paintings were not inferior; and we are only accustomed to consider the painters of Italy as those who have brought the art to its highest perfection, because none of the ancient pictures have been preserved. Yet of all their fine arts, it was music of which the Greeks were themselves most proud. Its traditionary effects were far more powerful than any which we experience from the compositions of our times. And now for their poetry, Cadurcis. It is in poetry, and poetry alone, that modern nations have maintained the majesty of genius. Do we equal the Greeks? Do we even excel them?' 'Let us prove the equality first,' said Cadurcis. 'The Greeks excelled in every species of poetry. In some we do not even attempt to rival them. We have not a single modern ode, or a single modern pastoral. We have no one to place by Pindar, or the exquisite Theocritus. As for the epic, I confess myself a heretic as to Homer; I look upon the Iliad as a remnant of national songs; the wise ones agree that the Odyssey is the work of a later age. My instinct agrees with the result of their researches. I credit their conclusion. The Paradise Lost is, doubtless, a great production, but the subject is monkish. Dante is national, but he has all the faults of a barbarous age. In general the modern epic is framed upon the assumption that the Iliad is an orderly composition. They are indebted for this fallacy to Virgil, who called order out of chaos; but the Aeneid, all the same, appears to me an insipid creation. And now for the drama. You will adduce Shakspeare?' 'There are passages in Dante,' said Herbert, 'not inferior, in my opinion, to any existing literary composition, but, as a whole, I will not make my stand on him; I am not so clear that, as a lyric poet, Petrarch may not rival the Greeks. Shakspeare I esteem of ineffable merit.' 'And who is Shakspeare?' said Cadurcis. 'We know of him as much as we do of Homer. Did he write half the plays attributed to him? Did he ever write a single whole play? I doubt it. He appears to me to have been an inspired adapter for the theatres, which were then not as good as barns. I take him to have been a botcher up of old plays. His popularity is of modern date, and it may not last; it would have surprised him marvellously. Heaven knows, at present, all that bears his name is alike admired; and a regular Shaksperian falls into ecstasies with trash which deserves a niche in the Dunciad. For my part, I abhor your irregular geniuses, and I love to listen to the little nightingale of Twickenham.' 'I have often observed,' said Herbert, 'that writers of an unbridled imagination themselves, admire those whom the world, erroneously, in my opinion, and from a confusion of ideas, esteems correct. I am myself an admirer of Pope, though I certainly should not ever think of classing him among the great creative spirits. And you, you are the last poet in the world, Cadurcis, whom one would have fancied his votary.' 'I have written like a boy,' said Cadurcis. 'I found the public bite, and so I baited on with tainted meat. I have never written for fame, only for notoriety; but I am satiated; I am going to turn over a new leaf.' 'For myself,' said Herbert, 'if I ever had the power to impress my creations on my fellow-men, the inclination is gone, and perhaps the faculty is extinct. My career is over; perhaps a solitary echo from my lyre may yet, at times, linger about the world like a breeze that has lost its way. But there is a radical fault in my poetic mind, and I am conscious of it. I am not altogether void of the creative faculty, but mine is a fragmentary mind; I produce no whole. Unless you do this, you cannot last; at least, you cannot materially affect your species. But what I admire in you, Cadurcis, is that, with all the faults of youth, of which you will free yourself, your creative power is vigorous, prolific, and complete; your creations rise fast and fair, like perfect worlds.' 'Well, we will not compliment each other,' said Cadurcis; 'for, after all, it is a miserable craft. What is poetry but a lie, and what are poets but liars?' 'You are wrong, Cadurcis,' said Herbert, 'poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.' 'I see the towers of Porto Venere,' said Cadurcis directing the sail; 'we shall soon be on shore. I think, too, I recognise Venetia. Ah! my dear Herbert, your daughter is a poem that beats all our inspiration!' CHAPTER IX. One circumstance alone cast a gloom over this happy family, and that was the approaching departure of Captain Cadurcis for England. This had been often postponed, but it could be postponed no longer. Not even the entreaties of those kind friends could any longer prevent what was inevitable. The kind heart, the sweet temper, and the lively and companionable qualities of Captain Cadurcis, had endeared him to everyone; all felt that his departure would occasion a blank in their life, impossible to be supplied. It reminded the Herberts also painfully of their own situation, in regard to their native country, which they were ever unwilling to dwell upon. George talked of returning to them, but the prospect was necessarily vague; they felt that it was only one of those fanciful visions with which an affectionate spirit attempts to soothe the pang of separation. His position, his duties, all the projects of his life, bound him to England, from which, indeed, he had been too long absent. It was selfish to wish that, for their sakes, he should sink down into a mere idler in Italy; and yet, when they recollected how little his future life could be connected with their own, everyone felt dispirited. 'I shall not go boating to-day,' said George to Venetia; 'it is my last day. Mr. Herbert and Plantagenet talk of going to Lavenza; let us take a stroll together.' Nothing can be refused to those we love on the last day, and Venetia immediately acceded to his request. In the course of the morning, therefore, herself and George quitted the valley, in the direction of the coast towards Genoa. Many a white sail glittered on the blue waters; it was a lively and cheering scene; but both Venetia and her companion were depressed. 'I ought to be happy,' said George, and sighed. 'The fondest wish of my heart is attained. You remember our conversation on the Lago Maggiore, Venetia? You see I was a prophet, and you will be Lady Cadurcis yet.' 'We must keep up our spirits,' said Venetia; 'I do not despair of our all returning to England yet. So many wonders have happened, that I cannot persuade myself that this marvel will not also occur. I am sure my uncle will do something; I have a secret idea that the Bishop is all this time working for papa; I feel assured I shall see Cherbury and Cadurcis again, and Cadurcis will be your home.' 'A year ago you appeared dying, and Plantagenet was the most miserable of men,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'You are both now perfectly well and perfectly happy, living even under the same roof, soon, I feel, to be united, and with the cordial approbation of Lady Annabel. Your father is restored to you. Every blessing in the world seems to cluster round your roof. It is selfish for me to wear a gloomy countenance.' 'Ah! dear George, you never can be selfish,' said Venetia. 'Yes, I am selfish, Venetia. What else can make me sad?' 'You know how much you contribute to our happiness,' said Venetia, 'and you feel for our sufferings at your absence.' 'No, Venetia, I feel for myself,' said Captain Cadurcis with energy; 'I am certain that I never can be happy, except in your society and Plantagenet's. I cannot express to you how I love you both. Nothing else gives me the slightest interest.' 'You must go home and marry,' said Venetia, smiling 'You must marry an heiress.' 'Never,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'Nothing shall ever induce me to marry. No! all my dreams are confined to being the bachelor uncle of the family.' 'Well, now I think,' said Venetia, 'of all the persons I know, there is no one so qualified for domestic happiness as yourself. I think your wife, George, would be a very fortunate woman, and I only wish I had a sister, that you might marry her.' 'I wish you had, Venetia; I would give up my resolution against marriage directly.' 'Alas!' said Venetia, 'there is always some bitter drop in the cup of life. Must you indeed go, George?' 'My present departure is inevitable,' he replied; 'but I have some thoughts of giving up my profession and Parliament, and then I will return, never to leave you again.' 'What will Lord ---- say? That will never do,' said Venetia. 'No; I should not be content unless you prospered in the world, George. You are made to prosper, and I should be miserable if you sacrificed your existence to us. You must go home, and you must marry, and write letters to us by every post, and tell us what a happy man you are. The best thing for you to do would be to live with your wife at the abbey; or Cherbury, if you liked. You see I settle everything.' 'I never will marry,' said Captain Cadurcis, seriously. 'Yes you will,' said Venetia. 'I am quite serious, Venetia. Now, mark my words, and remember this day. I never will marry. I have a reason, and a strong and good one, for my resolution.' 'What is it?' 'Because my marriage will destroy the intimacy that subsists between me and yourself, and Plantagenet,' he added. 'Your wife should be my friend,' said Venetia. 'Happy woman!' said George. 'Let us indulge for a moment in a dream of domestic bliss,' said Venetia gaily. 'Papa and mamma at Cherbury; Plantagenet and myself at the abbey, where you and your wife must remain until we could build you a house; and Dr. Masham coming down to spend Christmas with us. Would it not be delightful? I only hope Plantagenet would be tame. I think he would burst out a little sometimes.' 'Not with you, Venetia, not with you,' said George 'you have a hold over him which nothing can ever shake. I could always put him in an amiable mood in an instant by mentioning your name.' 'I wish you knew the abbey, George,' said Venetia. 'It is the most interesting of all old places. I love it. You must promise me when you arrive in England to go on a pilgrimage to Cadurcis and Cherbury, and write me a long account of it.' 'I will indeed; I will write to you very often.' 'You shall find me a most faithful correspondent, which, I dare say, Plantagenet would not prove.' 'Oh! I beg your pardon,' said George; 'you have no idea of the quantity of letters he wrote me when he first quitted England. And such delightful ones! I do not think there is a more lively letter-writer in the world! His descriptions are so vivid; a few touches give you a complete picture; and then his observations, they are so playful! I assure you there is nothing in the world more easy and diverting than a letter from Plantagenet.' 'If you could only see his first letter from Eton to me?' said Venetia. 'I have always treasured it. It certainly was not very diverting; and, if by easy you mean easy to decipher,' she added laughing, 'his handwriting must have improved very much lately. Dear Plantagenet, I am always afraid I never pay him sufficient respect; that I do not feel sufficient awe in his presence; but I cannot disconnect him from the playfellow of my infancy; and, do you know, it seems to me, whenever he addresses me, his voice and air change, and assume quite the tone and manner of childhood.' 'I have never known him but as a great man,' said Captain Cadurcis; 'but he was so frank and simple with me from the very first, that I cannot believe that it is not two years since we first met.' 'Ah! I shall never forget that night at Ranelagh,' said Venetia, half with a smile and half with a sigh. 'How interesting he looked! I loved to see the people stare at him, and to hear them whisper his name.' Here they seated themselves by a fountain, overshadowed by a plane-tree, and for a while talked only of Plantagenet. 'All the dreams of my life have come to pass,' said Venetia. 'I remember when I was at Weymouth, ill and not very happy, I used to roam about the sands, thinking of papa, and how I wished Plantagenet was like him, a great man, a great poet, whom all the world admired. Little did I think that, before a year had passed, Plantagenet, my unknown Plantagenet, would be the admiration of England; little did I think another year would pass, and I should be living with my father and Plantagenet together, and they should be bosom friends. You see, George, we must never despair.' 'Under this bright sun,' said Captain Cadurcis, 'one is naturally sanguine, but think of me alone and in gloomy England.' 'It is indeed a bright sun,' said Venetia; 'how wonderful to wake every morning, and be sure of meeting its beam.' Captain Cadurcis looked around him with a sailor's eye. Over the Apennines, towards Genoa, there was a ridge of dark clouds piled up with such compactness, that they might have been mistaken in a hasty survey for part of the mountains themselves. 'Bright as is the sun,' said Captain Cadurcis, 'we may have yet a squall before night.' 'I was delighted with Venice,' said his companion, not noticing his observation; 'I think of all places in the world it is one which Plantagenet would most admire. I cannot believe but that even his delicious Athens would yield to it.' 'He did lead the oddest life at Athens you can conceive,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'The people did not know what to make of him. He lived in the Latin convent, a fine building which he had almost to himself, for there are not half a dozen monks. He used to pace up and down the terrace which he had turned into a garden, and on which he kept all sorts of strange animals. He wrote continually there. Indeed he did nothing but write. His only relaxation was a daily ride to Piraeus, about five miles over the plain; he told me it was the only time in his life he was ever contented with himself except when he was at Cherbury. He always spoke of London with disgust.' 'Plantagenet loves retirement and a quiet life,' said Venetia; 'but he must not be marred with vulgar sights and common-place duties. That is the secret with him.' 'I think the wind has just changed,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'It seems to me that we shall have a sirocco. There, it shifts again! We shall have a sirocco for certain.' 'What did you think of papa when you first saw him?' said Venetia. 'Was he the kind of person you expected to see?' 'Exactly,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'So very spiritual! Plantagenet said to me, as we went home the first night, that he looked like a golden phantom. I think him very like you, Venetia; indeed, there can be no doubt you inherited your face from your father.' 'Ah! if you had seen his portrait at Cherbury, when he was only twenty!' said Venetia. 'That was a golden phantom, or rather he looked like Hyperion. What are you staring at so, George?' 'I do not like this wind,' muttered Captain Cadurcis. 'There it goes.' 'You cannot see the wind, George?' 'Yes, I can, Venetia, and I do not like it at all. Do you see that black spot flitting like a shade over the sea? It is like the reflection of a cloud on the water; but there is no cloud. Well, that is the wind, Venetia, and a very wicked wind too.' 'How strange! Is that indeed the wind?' 'We had better return home,' said Captain Cadurcis I wish they had not gone to Lavenza.' 'But there is no danger?' said Venetia. 'Danger? No! no danger, but they may get a wet jacket.' They walked on; but Captain Cadurcis was rather distrait: his eye was always watching the wind; at last he said, 'I tell you, Venetia, we must walk quickly; for, by Jove, we are going to have a white squall.' They hurried their pace, Venetia mentioned her alarm again about the boat; but her companion reassured her; yet his manner was not so confident as his words. A white mist began to curl above the horizon, the blueness of the day seemed suddenly to fade, and its colour became grey; there was a swell on the waters that hitherto had been quite glassy, and they were covered with a scurfy foam. 'I wish I had been with them,' said Captain Cadurcis, evidently very anxious. 'George, you are alarmed,' said Venetia, earnestly. 'I am sure there is danger.' 'Danger! How can there be danger, Venetia? Perhaps they are in port by this time. I dare say we shall find them at Spezzia. I will see you home and run down to them. Only hurry, for your own sake, for you do not know what a white squall in the Mediterranean is. We have but a few moments.' And even at this very instant, the wind came roaring and rushing with such a violent gush that Venetia could scarcely stand; George put his arm round her to support her. The air was filled with thick white vapour, so that they could no longer see the ocean, only the surf rising very high all along the coast. 'Keep close to me, Venetia,' said Captain Cadurcis; 'hold my arm and I will walk first, for we shall not be able to see a yard before us in a minute. I know where we are. We are above the olive wood, and we shall soon be in the ravine. These Mediterranean white squalls are nasty things; I had sooner by half be in a south-wester; for one cannot run before the wind in this bay, the reefs stretch such a long way out.' The danger, and the inutility of expressing fears which could only perplex her guide, made Venetia silent, but she was terrified. She could not divest herself of apprehension about her father and Plantagenet. In spite of all he said, it was evident that her companion was alarmed. They had now entered the valley; the mountains had in some degree kept off the vapour; the air was more clear. Venetia and Captain Cadurcis stopped a moment to breathe. 'Now, Venetia, you are safe,' said Captain Cadurcis. 'I will not come in; I will run down to the bay at once.' He wiped the mist off his face: Venetia perceived him deadly pale. 'George,' she said, 'conceal nothing from me; there is danger, imminent danger. Tell me at once.' 'Indeed, Venetia,' said Captain Cadurcis, 'I am sure everything will be quite right. There is some danger, certainly, at this moment; but of course, long ago, they have run into harbour. I have no doubt they are at Spezzia at this moment. Now, do not be alarmed; indeed there is no cause. God bless you!' he said, and bounded away. 'No cause,' thought he to himself, as the wind sounded like thunder, and the vapour came rushing up the ravine. 'God grant I may be right; but neither between the Tropics nor on the Line have I witnessed a severer squall than this! What open boat can live in this weather Oh! that I had been with them. I shall never forgive myself!' CHAPTER X. Venetia found her mother walking up and down the room, as was her custom when she was agitated. She hurried to her daughter. 'You must change your dress instantly, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel. 'Where is George?' 'He has gone down to Spezzia to papa and Plantagenet; it is a white squall; it comes on very suddenly in this sea. He ran down to Spezzia instantly, because he thought they would be wet,' said the agitated Venetia, speaking with rapidity and trying to appear calm. 'Are they at Spezzia?' inquired Lady Annabel, quickly. 'George has no doubt they are, mother,' said Venetia. 'No doubt!' exclaimed Lady Annabel, in great distress. 'God grant they may be only wet.' 'Dearest mother,' said Venetia, approaching her, but speech deserted her. She had advanced to encourage Lady Annabel, but her own fear checked the words on her lips. 'Change your dress, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel; 'lose no time in doing that. I think I will send down to Spezzia at once,' 'That is useless now, dear mother, for George is there.' 'Go, dearest,' said Lady Annabel; 'I dare say, we have no cause for fear, but I am exceedingly alarmed about your father, about them: I am, indeed. I do not like these sudden squalls, and I never liked this boating; indeed, I never did. George being with them reconciled me to it. Now go, Venetia; go, my love.' Venetia quitted the room. She was so agitated that she made Pauncefort a confidant of her apprehensions. 'La! my dear miss,' said Mistress Pauncefort, 'I should never have thought of such a thing! Do not you remember what the old man said at Weymouth, "there is many a boat will live in a rougher sea than a ship;" and it is such an unlikely thing, it is indeed, Miss Venetia. I am certain sure my lord can manage a boat as well as a common sailor, and master is hardly less used to it than he. La! miss, don't make yourself nervous about any such preposterous ideas. And I dare say you will find them in the saloon when you go down again. Really I should not wonder. I think you had better wear your twill dress; I have put the new trimming on.' They had not returned when Venetia joined her mother. That indeed she could scarcely expect. But, in about half an hour, a message arrived from Captain Cadurcis that they were not at Spezzia, but from something he had heard, he had no doubt they were at Sarzana, and he was going to ride on there at once. He felt sure, however, from what he had heard, they were at Sarzana. This communication afforded Lady Annabel a little ease, but Venetia's heart misgave her. She recalled the alarm of George in the morning, which it was impossible for him to disguise, and she thought she recognised in this hurried message and vague assurances of safety something of the same apprehension, and the same fruitless efforts to conceal it. Now came the time of terrible suspense. Sarzana was nearly twenty miles distant from Spezzia. The evening must arrive before they could receive intelligence from Captain Cadurcis. In the meantime the squall died away, the heavens became again bright, and, though the waves were still tumultuous, the surf was greatly decreased. Lady Annabel had already sent down more than one messenger to the bay, but they brought no intelligence; she resolved now to go herself, that she might have the satisfaction of herself cross-examining the fishermen who had been driven in from various parts by stress of weather. She would not let Venetia accompany her, who, she feared, might already suffer from the exertions and rough weather of the morning. This was a most anxious hour, and yet the absence of her mother was in some degree a relief to Venetia; it at least freed her from the perpetual effort of assumed composure. While her mother remained, Venetia had affected to read, though her eye wandered listlessly over the page, or to draw, though the pencil trembled in her hand; anything which might guard her from conveying to her mother that she shared the apprehensions which had already darkened her mother's mind. But now that Lady Annabel was gone, Venetia, muffling herself up in her shawl, threw herself on a sofa, and there she remained without a thought, her mind a chaos of terrible images. Her mother returned, and with a radiant countenance, Venetia sprang from the sofa. 'There is good news; O mother! have they returned?' 'They are not at Spezzia,' said Lady Annabel, throwing herself into a chair panting for breath; 'but there is good news. You see I was right to go, Venetia. These stupid people we send only ask questions, and take the first answer. I have seen a fisherman, and he says he heard that two persons, Englishmen he believes, have put into Lerici in an open boat.' 'God be praised!' said Venetia. 'O mother, I can now confess to you the terror I have all along felt.' 'My own heart assures me of it, my child,' said Lady Annabel weeping; and they mingled their tears together, but tears not of sorrow. 'Poor George!' said Lady Annabel, 'he will have a terrible journey to Sarzana, and be feeling so much for us! Perhaps he may meet them.' 'I feel assured he will,' said Venetia; 'and perhaps ere long they will all three be here again. Joy! joy!' 'They must never go in that boat again,' said Lady Annabel. 'Oh! they never will, dearest mother, if you ask them not,' said Venetia. 'We will send to Lerici,' said Lady Annabel. 'Instantly,' said Venetia; 'but I dare say they already sent us a messenger.' 'No!' said Lady Annabel; 'men treat the danger that is past very lightly. We shall not hear from them except in person.' Time now flew more lightly. They were both easy in their minds. The messenger was despatched to Lerici; but even Lerici was a considerable distance, and hours must elapse before his return. Still there was the hope of seeing them, or hearing from them in the interval. 'I must go out, dear mother,' said Venetia. 'Let us both go out. It is now very fine. Let us go just to the ravine, for indeed it is impossible to remain here.' Accordingly they both went forth, and took up a position on the coast which commanded a view on all sides. All was radiant again, and comparatively calm. Venetia looked upon the sea, and said, 'Ah! I never shall forget a white squall in the Mediterranean, for all this splendour.' It was sunset: they returned home. No news yet from Lerici. Lady Annabel grew uneasy again. The pensive and melancholy hour encouraged gloom; but Venetia, who was sanguine, encouraged her mother. 'Suppose they were not Englishmen in the boat,' said Lady Annabel. 'It is impossible, mother. What other two persons in this neighbourhood could have been in an open boat? Besides, the man said Englishmen. You remember, he said Englishmen. You are quite sure he did? It must be they. I feel as convinced of it as of your presence.' 'I think there can be no doubt,' said Lady Annabel. 'I wish that the messenger would return.' The messenger did return. No two persons in an open boat had put into Lerici; but a boat, like the one described, with every stitch of canvas set, had passed Lerici just before the squall commenced, and, the people there doubted not, had made Sarzana. Lady Annabel turned pale, but Venetia was still sanguine. 'They are at Sarzana,' she said; 'they must be at Sarzana: you see George was right. He said he was sure they were at Sarzana. Besides, dear mother, he heard they were at Sarzana.' 'And we heard they were at Lerici,' said Lady Annabel in a melancholy tone. And so they were, dear mother; it all agrees. The accounts are consistent. Do not you see how very consistent they are? They were seen at Lerici, and were off Lerici, but they made Sarzana; and George heard they were at Sarzana. I am certain they are at Sarzana. I feel quite easy; I feel as easy as if they were here. They are safe at Sarzana. But it is too far to return to-night. We shall see them at breakfast to-morrow, all three.' 'Venetia, dearest! do not you sit up,' said her mother. 'I think there is a chance of George returning; I feel assured he will send to-night; but late, of course. Go, dearest, and sleep.' 'Sleep!' thought Venetia to herself; but to please her mother she retired. 'Good-night, my child,' said Lady Annabel. 'The moment any one arrives, you shall be aroused.' CHAPTER XI. Venetia, without undressing, lay down on her bed, watching for some sound that might give her hope of George's return. Dwelling on every instant, the time dragged heavily along, and she thought that the night had half passed when Pauncefort entered her room, and she learnt, to her surprise, that only an hour had elapsed since she had parted from her mother. This entrance of Pauncefort had given Venetia a momentary hope that they had returned. 'I assure you, Miss Venetia, it is only an hour,' said Pauncefort, 'and nothing could have happened. Now do try to go to sleep, that is a dear young lady, for I am certain sure that they will all return in the morning, as I am here. I was telling my lady just now, I said, says I, I dare say they are all very wet, and very fatigued.' 'They would have returned, Pauncefort,' said Venetia, 'or they would have sent. They are not at Sarzana.' 'La! Miss Venetia, why should they be at Sarzana? Why should they not have gone much farther on! For, as Vicenzo was just saying to me, and Vicenzo knows all about the coast, with such a wind as this, I should not be surprised if they were at Leghorn.' 'O Pauncefort!' said Venetia, 'I am sick at heart!' 'Now really, Miss Venetia, do not take on so!' said Pauncefort; 'for do not you remember when his lordship ran away from the abbey, and went a gipsying, nothing would persuade poor Mrs. Cadurcis that he was not robbed and murdered, and yet you see he was as safe and sound all the time, as if he had been at Cherbury.' 'Does Vicenzo really think they could have reached Leghorn?' said Venetia, clinging to every fragment of hope. 'He is morally sure of it, Miss Venetia,' said Pauncefort, 'and I feel quite as certain, for Vicenzo is always right.' 'I had confidence about Sarzana,' said Venetia; 'I really did believe they were at Sarzana. If only Captain Cadurcis would return; if he only would return, and say they were not at Sarzana, I would try to believe they were at Leghorn.' 'Now, Miss Venetia,' said Pauncefort, 'I am certain sure that they are quite safe; for my lord is a very good sailor; he is, indeed; all the men say so; and the boat is as seaworthy a boat as boat can be. There is not the slightest fear, I do assure you, miss.' 'Do the men say that Plantagenet is a good sailor?' inquired Venetia. 'Quite professional!' said Mistress Pauncefort; 'and can command a ship as well as the best of them. They all say that.' 'Hush! Pauncefort, I hear something.' 'It's only my lady, miss. I know her step,' 'Is my mother going to bed?' said Venetia. 'Yes,' said Pauncefort, 'my lady sent me here to see after you. I wish I could tell her you were asleep.' 'It is impossible to sleep,' said Venetia, rising up from the bed, withdrawing the curtain, and looking at the sky. 'What a peaceful night! I wish my heart were like the sky. I think I will go to mamma, Pauncefort!' 'Oh! dear, Miss Venetia, I am sure I think you had better not. If you and my lady, now, would only just go to sleep, and forget every thing till morning, it would be much better for you. Besides, I am sure if my lady knew you were not gone to bed already, it would only make her doubly anxious. Now, really, Miss Venetia, do take my advice, and just lie down, again. You may be sure the moment any one arrives I will let you know. Indeed, I shall go and tell my lady that you are lying down as it is, and very drowsy;' and, so saying, Mistress Pauncefort caught up her candle, and bustled out of the room. Venetia took up the volume of her father's poems, which Cadurcis had filled with his notes. How little did Plantagenet anticipate, when he thus expressed at Athens the passing impressions of his mind, that, ere a year had glided away, his fate would be so intimately blended with that of Herbert! It was impossible, however, for Venetia to lose herself in a volume which, under any other circumstances, might have compelled her spirit! the very associations with the writers added to the terrible restlessness of her mind. She paused each instant to listen for the wished-for sound, but a mute stillness reigned throughout the house and household. There was something in this deep, unbroken silence, at a moment when anxiety was universally diffused among the dwellers beneath that roof, and the heart of more than one of them was throbbing with all the torture of the most awful suspense, that fell upon Venetia's excited nerves with a very painful and even insufferable influence. She longed for sound, for some noise that might assure her she was not the victim of a trance. She closed her volume with energy, and she started at the sound she had herself created. She rose and opened the door of her chamber very softly, and walked into the vestibule. There were caps, and cloaks, and whips, and canes of Cadurcis and her father, lying about in familiar confusion. It seemed impossible but that they were sleeping, as usual, under the same roof. And where were they? That she should live and be unable to answer that terrible question! When she felt the utter helplessness of all her strong sympathy towards them, it seemed to her that she must go mad. She gazed around her with a wild and vacant stare. At the bottom of her heart there was a fear maturing into conviction too horrible for expression. She returned to her own chamber, and the exhaustion occasioned by her anxiety, and the increased coolness of the night, made her at length drowsy. She threw herself on the bed and slumbered. She started in her sleep, she awoke, she dreamed they had come home. She rose and looked at the progress of the night. The night was waning fast; a grey light was on the landscape; the point of day approached. Venetia stole softly to her mother's room, and entered it with a soundless step. Lady Annabel had not retired to bed. She had sat up the whole night, and was now asleep. A lamp on a small table was burning at her side, and she held, firmly grasped in her hand, the letter of her husband, which he had addressed to her at Venice, and which she had been evidently reading. A tear glided down the cheek of Venetia as she watched her mother retaining that letter with fondness even in her sleep, and when she thought of all the misery, and heartaches, and harrowing hours that had preceded its receipt, and which Venetia believed that letter had cured for ever. What misery awaited them now? Why were they watchers of the night? She shuddered when these dreadful questions flitted through her mind. She shuddered and sighed. Her mother started, and woke. 'Who is there?' inquired Lady Annabel. 'Venetia.' 'My child, have you not slept?' 'Yes, mother, and I woke refreshed, as I hope you do.' 'I wake with trust in God's mercy,' said Lady Annabel. 'Tell me the hour.' 'It is just upon dawn, mother.' 'Dawn! no one has returned, or come.' 'The house is still, mother.' 'I would you were in bed, my child.' 'Mother, I can sleep no more. I wish to be with you;' and Venetia seated herself at her mother's feet, and reclined her head upon her mother's knee. 'I am glad the night has passed, Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, in a suppressed yet solemn tone. 'It has been a trial.' And here she placed the letter in her bosom. Venetia could only answer with a sigh. 'I wish Pauncefort would come,' said Lady Annabel; 'and yet I do not like to rouse her, she was up so late, poor creature! If it be the dawn I should like to send out messengers again; something may be heard at Spezzia.' 'Vicenzo thinks they have gone to Leghorn, mother.' 'Has he heard anything!' said Lady Annabel, eagerly. 'No, but he is an excellent judge,' said Venetia, repeating all Pauncefort's consolatory chatter. 'He knows the coast so well. He says he is sure the wind would carry them on to Leghorn; and that accounts, you know, mother, for George not returning. They are all at Leghorn.' 'Would that George would return,' murmured Lady Annabel; 'I wish I could see again that sailor who said they were at Lerici. He was an intelligent man.' 'Perhaps if we send down to the bay he may be there,' said Venetia.' 'Hush! I hear a step!' said Lady Annabel. Venetia sprung up and opened the door, but it was only Pauncefort in the vestibule. 'The household are all up, my lady,' said that important personage entering; ''tis a beautiful morning. Vicenzo has run down to the bay, my lady; I sent him off immediately. Vicenzo says he is certain sure they are at Leghorn, my lady; and, this time three years, the very same thing happened. They were fishing for anchovies, my lady, close by, my lady, near Sarzana; two young men, or rather one about the same age as master, and one like my lord; cousins, my lady, and just in the same sort of boat, my lady; and there came on a squall, just the same sort of squall, my lady; and they did not return home; and everyone was frightened out of their wits, my lady, and their wives and families quite distracted; and after all they were at Leghorn; for this sort of wind always takes your open boats to Leghorn, Vicenzo says.' The sun rose, the household were all stirring, and many of them abroad; the common routine of domestic duty seemed, by some general yet not expressed understanding, to have ceased. The ladies descended below at a very early hour, and went forth into the valley, once the happy valley. What was to be its future denomination? Vicenzo returned from the bay, and he contrived to return with cheering intelligence. The master of a felucca who, in consequence of the squall had put in at Lerici, and in the evening dropped down to Spezzia, had met an open boat an hour before he reached Sarzana, and was quite confident that, if it had put into port, it must have been, from the speed at which it was going, a great distance down the coast. No wrecks had been heard of in the neighbourhood. This intelligence, the gladsome time of day, and the non-arrival of Captain Cadurcis, which according to their mood was always a circumstance that counted either for good or for evil, and the sanguine feelings which make us always cling to hope, altogether reassured our friends. Venetia dismissed from her mind the dark thought which for a moment had haunted her in the noon of night; and still it was a suspense, a painful, agitating suspense, but only suspense that yet influenced them. 'Time! said Lady Annabel. 'Time! we must wait.' Venetia consoled her mother; she affected even a gaiety of spirit; she was sure that Vicenzo would turn out to be right, after all; Pauncefort said he always was right, and that they were at Leghorn. The day wore apace; the noon arrived and passed; it was even approaching sunset. Lady Annabel was almost afraid to counterorder the usual meals, lest Venetia should comprehend her secret terror; the very same sentiment influenced Venetia. Thus they both had submitted to the ceremony of breakfast, but when the hour of dinner approached they could neither endure the mockery. They looked at each other, and almost at the same time they proposed that, instead of dining, they should walk down to the bay. 'I trust we shall at least hear something before the night,' said Lady Annabel. 'I confess I dread the coming night. I do not think I could endure it.' 'The longer we do not hear, the more certain I am of their being at Leghorn,' said Venetia. 'I have a great mind to travel there to-night,' said Lady Annabel. As they were stepping into the portico, Venetia recognised Captain Cadurcis in the distance. She turned pale; she would have fallen had she not leaned on her mother, who was not so advanced, and who had not seen him. 'What is the matter, Venetia!' said Lady Annabel, alarmed. 'He is here, he is here!' 'Marmion?' 'No, George. Let me sit down.' Her mother tried to support her to a chair. Lady Annabel took off her bonnet. She had not strength to walk forth. She could not speak. She sat down opposite Venetia, and her countenance pictured distress to so painful a degree, that at any other time Venetia would have flown to her, but in this crisis of suspense it was impossible. George was in sight; he was in the portico; he was in the room. He looked wan, haggard, and distracted. More than once he essayed to speak, but failed. Lady Annabel looked at him with a strange, delirious expression. Venetia rushed forward and seized his arm, and gazed intently on his face. He shrank from her glance; his frame trembled. CHAPTER XII. In the heart of the tempest Captain Cadurcis traced his way in a sea of vapour with extreme danger and difficulty to the shore. On his arrival at Spezzia, however, scarcely a house was visible, and the only evidence of the situation of the place was the cessation of an immense white surf which otherwise indicated the line of the sea, but the absence of which proved his contiguity to a harbour. In the thick fog he heard the cries and shouts of the returning fishermen, and of their wives and children responding from the land to their exclamations. He was forced, therefore, to wait at Spezzia, in an agony of impotent suspense, until the fury of the storm was over and the sky was partially cleared. At length the objects became gradually less obscure; he could trace the outline of the houses, and catch a glimpse of the water half a mile out, and soon the old castles which guard the entrance of the strait that leads into the gulf, looming in the distance, and now and then a group of human beings in the vanishing vapour. Of these he made some inquiries, but in vain, respecting the boat and his friends. He then made the brig, but could learn nothing except their departure in the morning. He at length obtained a horse and galloped along the coast towards Lerici, keeping a sharp look out as he proceeded and stopping at every village in his progress for intelligence. When he had arrived in the course of three hours at Lerici, the storm had abated, the sky was clear, and no evidence of the recent squall remained except the agitated state of the waves. At Lerici he could hear nothing, so he hurried on to Sarzana, where he learnt for the first time that an open boat, with its sails set, had passed more than an hour before the squall commenced. From Sarzana he hastened on to Lavenza, a little port, the nearest sea-point to Massa, and where the Carrara marble is shipped for England. Here also his inquiries were fruitless, and, exhausted by his exertions, he dismounted and rested at the inn, not only for repose, but to consider over the course which he should now pursue. The boat had not been seen off Lavenza, and the idea that they had made the coast towards Leghorn now occurred to him. His horse was so wearied that he was obliged to stop some time at Lavenza, for he could procure no other mode of conveyance; the night also was fast coming on, and to proceed to Leghorn by this dangerous route at this hour was impossible. At Lavenza therefore he remained, resolved to hasten to Leghorn at break of day. This was a most awful night. Although physically exhausted, Captain Cadurcis could not sleep, and, after some vain efforts, he quitted his restless bed on which he had laid down without undressing, and walked forth to the harbour. Between anxiety for Herbert and his cousin, and for the unhappy women whom he had left behind, he was nearly distracted. He gazed on the sea, as if some sail in sight might give him a chance of hope. His professional experience assured him of all the danger of the squall. He could not conceive how an open boat could live in such a sea, and an instant return to port so soon as the squall commenced, appeared the only chance of its salvation. Could they have reached Leghorn? It seemed impossible. There was no hope they could now be at Sarzana, or Lerici. When he contemplated the full contingency of what might have occurred, his mind wandered, and refused to comprehend the possibility of the terrible conclusion. He thought the morning would never break. There was a cavernous rock by the seashore, that jutted into the water like a small craggy promontory. Captain Cadurcis climbed to its top, and then descending, reclined himself upon an inferior portion of it, which formed a natural couch with the wave on each side. There, lying at his length, he gazed upon the moon and stars whose brightness he thought would never dim. The Mediterranean is a tideless sea, but the swell of the waves, which still set in to the shore, bore occasionally masses of sea-weed and other marine formations, and deposited them around him, plashing, as it broke against the shore, with a melancholy and monotonous sound. The abstraction of the scene, the hour, and the surrounding circumstances brought, however, no refreshment to the exhausted spirit of George Cadurcis. He could not think, indeed he did not dare to think; but the villa of the Apennines and the open boat in the squall flitted continually before him. His mind was feeble though excited, and he fell into a restless and yet unmeaning reverie. As long as he had been in action, as long as he had been hurrying along the coast, the excitement of motion, the constant exercise of his senses, had relieved or distracted the intolerable suspense. But this pause, this inevitable pause, overwhelmed him. It oppressed his spirit like eternity. And yet what might the morning bring? He almost wished that he might remain for ever on this rock watching the moon and stars, and that the life of the world might never recommence. He started; he had fallen into a light slumber; he had been dreaming; he thought he had heard the voice of Venetia calling him; he had forgotten where he was; he stared at the sea and sky, and recalled his dreadful consciousness. The wave broke with a heavy plash that attracted his attention: it was, indeed, that sound that had awakened him. He looked around; there was some object; he started wildly from his resting-place, sprang over the cavern, and bounded on the beach. It was a corpse; he is kneeling by its side. It is the corpse of his cousin! Lord Cadurcis was a fine swimmer, and had evidently made strong efforts for his life, for he was partly undressed. In all the insanity of hope, still wilder than despair, George Cadurcis seized the body and bore it some yards upon the shore. Life had been long extinct. The corpse was cold and stark, the eyes closed, an expression of energy, however, yet lingering in the fixed jaw, and the hair sodden with the sea. Suddenly Captain Cadurcis rushed to the inn and roused the household. With a distracted air, and broken speech and rapid motion, he communicated the catastrophe. Several persons, some bearing torches, others blankets and cordials, followed him instantly to the fatal spot. They hurried to the body, they applied all the rude remedies of the moment, rather from the impulse of nervous excitement than with any practical purpose; for the case had been indeed long hopeless. While Captain Cadurcis leant over the body, chafing the extremities in a hurried frenzy, and gazing intently on the countenance, a shout was heard from one of the stragglers who had recently arrived. The sea had washed on the beach another corpse: the form of Marmion Herbert. It would appear that he had made no struggle to save himself, for his hand was locked in his waistcoat, where, at the moment, he had thrust the Phaedo, showing that he had been reading to the last, and was meditating on immortality when he died. END OF BOOK VI. BOOK VII CHAPTER I. It was the commencement of autumn. The verdure of summer still lingered on the trees; the sky, if not so cloudless, was almost as refulgent as Italy; and the pigeons, bright and glancing, clustered on the roof of the hall of Cherbury. The steward was in attendance; the household, all in deep mourning, were assembled; everything was in readiness for the immediate arrival of Lady Annabel Herbert. ''Tis nearly four years come Martinmas,' said the grey-headed butler, 'since my lady left us.' 'And no good has come of it,' said the housekeeper. 'And for my part I never heard of good coming from going to foreign parts.' 'I shall like to see Miss Venetia again,' said a housemaid. 'Bless her sweet face.' 'I never expected to see her Miss Venetia again from all we heard,' said a footman. 'God's will be done!' said the grey-headed butler; 'but I hope she will find happiness at home. 'Tis nigh on twenty years since I first nursed her in these arms.' 'I wonder if there is any new Lord Cadurcis,' said the footman. 'I think he was the last of the line.' 'It would have been a happy day if I had lived to have seen the poor young lord marry Miss Venetia,' said the housekeeper. 'I always thought that match was made in heaven.' 'He was a sweet-spoken young gentleman,' said the housemaid. 'For my part,' said the footman, 'I should like to have seen our real master, Squire Herbert. He was a famous gentleman by all accounts.' 'I wish they had lived quietly at home,' said the housekeeper. 'I shall never forget the time when my lord returned,' said the grey-headed butler. 'I must say I thought it was a match.' 'Mistress Pauncefort seemed to think so,' said the housemaid. 'And she understands those things,' said the footman. 'I see the carriage,' said a servant who was at a window in the hall. All immediately bustled about, and the housekeeper sent a message to the steward. The carriage might be just discovered at the end of the avenue. It was some time before it entered the iron gates that were thrown open for its reception. The steward stood on the steps with his hat off, the servants were ranged in order at the entrance. Touching their horses with the spur, and cracking their whips, the postilions dashed round the circular plot and stopped at the hall-door. Under any circumstances a return home after an interval of years is rather an awful moment; there was not a servant who was not visibly affected. On the outside of the carriage was a foreign servant and Mistress Pauncefort, who was not so profuse as might have been expected in her recognitions of her old friends; her countenance was graver than of yore. Misfortune and misery had subdued even Mistress Pauncefort. The foreign servant opened the door of the carriage; a young man, who was a stranger to the household, but who was in deep mourning, alighted, and then Lady Annabel appeared. The steward advanced to welcome her, the household bowed and curtseyed. She smiled on them for a moment graciously and kindly, but her countenance immediately reassumed a serious air, and whispering one word to the strange gentleman, she entered the hall alone, inviting the steward to follow her. 'I hope your ladyship is well; welcome home, my lady; welcome again to Cherbury; a welcome return, my lady; hope Miss Venetia is quite well; happy to see your ladyship amongst us again, and Miss Venetia too, my lady.' Lady Annabel acknowledged these salutations with kindness, and then, saying that Miss Herbert was not very well and was fatigued with her journey, she dismissed her humble but trusty friends. Lady Annabel then turned and nodded to her fellow-traveller. Upon this Lord Cadurcis, if we must indeed use a title from which he himself shrank, carried a shrouded form in his arms into the hall, where the steward alone lingered, though withdrawn to the back part of the scene; and Lady Annabel, advancing to meet him, embraced his treasured burden, her own unhappy child. 'Now, Venetia! dearest Venetia!' she said, ''tis past; we are at home.' Venetia leant upon her mother, but made no reply. 'Upstairs, dearest,' said Lady Annabel: 'a little exertion, a very little.' Leaning on her mother and Lord Cadurcis, Venetia ascended the staircase, and they reached the terrace-room. Venetia looked around her as she entered the chamber; that scene of her former life, endeared to her by so many happy hours, and so many sweet incidents; that chamber where she had first seen Plantagenet. Lord Cadurcis supported her to a chair, and then, overwhelmed by irresistible emotion, she sank back in a swoon. No one was allowed to enter the room but Pauncefort. They revived her; Lord Cadurcis holding her hand, and touching, with a watchful finger, her pulse. Venetia opened her eyes, and looked around her. Her mind did not wander; she immediately recognised where she was, and recollected all that had happened. She faintly smiled, and said, in a low voice 'You are all too kind, and I am very weak. After our trials, what is this, George?' she added, struggling to appear animated; 'you are at length at Cherbury.' Once more at Cherbury! It was, indeed, an event that recalled a thousand associations. In the wild anguish of her first grief, when the dreadful intelligence was broken to her, if anyone had whispered to Venetia that she would yet find herself once more at Cherbury, she would have esteemed the intimation as mockery. But time and hope will struggle with the most poignant affliction, and their influence is irresistible and inevitable. From her darkened chamber in their Mediterranean villa, Venetia had again come forth, and crossed mountains, and traversed immense plains, and journeyed through many countries. She could not die, as she had supposed at first that she must, and therefore she had exerted herself to quit, and to quit speedily, a scene so terrible as their late abode. She was the very first to propose their return to England, and to that spot where she had passed her early life, and where she now wished to fulfil, in quiet and seclusion, the allotment of her remaining years; to meditate over the marvellous past, and cherish its sweet and bitter recollections. The native firmness of Lady Annabel, her long exercised control over her emotions, the sadness and subdued tone which the early incidents of her career had cast over her character, her profound sympathy with her daughter, and that religious consolation which never deserted her, had alike impelled and enabled her to bear up against the catastrophe with more fortitude than her child. The arrow, indeed, had struck Venetia with a double barb. She was the victim; and all the cares of Lady Annabel had been directed to soothe and support this stricken lamb. Yet perhaps these unhappy women must have sunk under their unparalleled calamities, had it not been for the devotion of their companion. In the despair of his first emotions, George Cadurcis was nearly plunging himself headlong into the wave that had already proved so fatal to his house. But when he thought of Lady Annabel and Venetia in a foreign land, without a single friend in their desolation, and pictured them to himself with the dreadful news abruptly communicated by some unfeeling stranger; and called upon, in the midst of their overwhelming agony, to attend to all the heart-rending arrangements which the discovery of the bodies of the beings to whom they were devoted, and in whom all their feelings were centred, must necessarily entail upon them, he recoiled from what he contemplated as an act of infamous desertion. He resolved to live, if only to preserve them from all their impending troubles, and with the hope that his exertions might tend, in however slight a degree, not to alleviate, for that was impossible; but to prevent the increase of that terrible woe, the very conception of which made his brain stagger. He carried the bodies, therefore, with him to Spezzia, and then prepared for that fatal interview, the commencement of which we first indicated. Yet it must be confessed that, though the bravest of men, his courage faltered as he entered the accustomed ravine. He stopped and looked down on the precipice below; he felt it utterly impossible to meet them; his mind nearly deserted him. Death, some great and universal catastrophe, an earthquake, a deluge, that would have buried them all in an instant and a common fate, would have been hailed by George Cadurcis, at that moment, as good fortune. He lurked about the ravine for nearly three hours before he could summon up heart for the awful interview. The position he had taken assured him that no one could approach the villa, to which he himself dared not advance. At length, in a paroxysm of energetic despair, he had rushed forward, met them instantly, and confessed with a whirling brain, and almost unconscious of his utterance, that 'they could not hope to see them again in this world.' What ensued must neither be attempted to be described, nor even remembered. It was one of those tragedies of life which enfeeble the most faithful memories at a blow shatter nerves beyond the faculty of revival, cloud the mind for ever, or turn the hair grey in an instant. They carried Venetia delirious to her bed. The very despair, and almost madness, of her daughter forced Lady Annabel to self-exertion, of which it was difficult to suppose that even she was capable. And George, too, was obliged to leave them. He stayed only the night. A few words passed between Lady Annabel and himself; she wished the bodies to be embalmed, and borne to England. There was no time to be lost, and there was no one to be entrusted except George. He had to hasten to Genoa to make all these preparations, and for two days he was absent from the villa. When he returned, Lady Annabel saw him, but Venetia was for a long time invisible. The moment she grew composed, she expressed a wish to her mother instantly to return to Cherbury. All the arrangements necessarily devolved upon George Cadurcis. It was his study that Lady Annabel should be troubled upon no point. The household were discharged, all the affairs were wound up, the felucca hired which was to bear them to Genoa, and in readiness, before he notified to them that the hour of departure had arrived. The most bitter circumstance was looking again upon the sea. It seemed so intolerable to Venetia, that their departure was delayed more than one day in consequence; but it was inevitable; they could reach Genoa in no other manner. George carried Venetia in his arms to the boat, with her face covered with a shawl, and bore her in the same manner to the hotel at Genoa, where their travelling carriage awaited them. They travelled home rapidly. All seemed to be impelled, as it were, by a restless desire for repose. Cherbury was the only thought in Venetia's mind. She observed nothing; she made no remark during their journey; they travelled often throughout the night; but no obstacles occurred, no inconveniences. There was one in this miserable society whose only object in life was to support Venetia under her terrible visitation. Silent, but with an eye that never slept, George Cadurcis watched Venetia as a nurse might a child. He read her thoughts, he anticipated her wishes without inquiring them; every arrangement was unobtrusively made that could possibly consult her comfort. They passed through London without stopping there. George would not leave them for an instant; nor would he spare a thought to his own affairs, though they urgently required his attention. The change in his position gave him no consolation; he would not allow his passport to be made out with his title; he shuddered at being called Lord Cadurcis; and the only reason that made him hesitate about attending them to Cherbury was its contiguity to his ancestral seat, which he resolved never to visit. There never in the world was a less selfish and more single-hearted man than George Cadurcis. Though the death of his cousin had invested him with one of the most ancient coronets in England, a noble residence and a fair estate, he would willingly have sacrificed his life to have recalled Plantagenet to existence, and to have secured the happiness of Venetia Herbert. CHAPTER II. The reader must not suppose, from the irresistible emotion that overcame Venetia at the very moment of her return, that she was entirely prostrated by her calamities. On the contrary, her mind had been employed, during the whole of her journey to England, in a silent effort to endure her lot with resignation. She had resolved to bear up against her misery with fortitude, and she inherited from her mother sufficient firmness of mind to enable her to achieve her purpose. She came back to Cherbury to live with patience and submission; and though her dreams of happiness might be vanished for ever, to contribute as much as was in her power to the content of that dear and remaining relative who was yet spared to her, and who depended in this world only upon the affection of her child. The return to Cherbury was a pang, and it was over. Venetia struggled to avoid the habits of an invalid; she purposed resuming, as far as was in her power, all the pursuits and duties of her life; and if it were neither possible, nor even desirable, to forget the past, she dwelt upon it neither to sigh nor to murmur, but to cherish in a sweet and musing mood the ties and affections round which all her feelings had once gathered with so much enjoyment and so much hope. She rose, therefore, on the morning after her return to Cherbury, at least serene; and she took an early opportunity, when George and her mother were engaged, and absent from the terrace-room, to go forth alone and wander amid her old haunts. There was not a spot about the park and gardens, which had been favourite resorts of herself and Plantagenet in their childhood, that she did not visit. They were unchanged; as green, and bright, and still as in old days, but what was she? The freshness, and brilliancy, and careless happiness of her life were fled for ever. And here he lived, and here he roamed, and here his voice sounded, now in glee, now in melancholy, now in wild and fanciful amusement, and now pouring into her bosom all his domestic sorrows. It was but ten years since he first arrived at Cherbury, and who could have anticipated that that little, silent, reserved boy should, ere ten years had passed, have filled a wide and lofty space in the world's thought; that his existence should have influenced the mind of nations, and his death eclipsed their gaiety! His death! Terrible and disheartening thought! Plantagenet was no more. But he had not died without a record. His memory was embalmed in immortal verse, and he had breathed his passion to his Venetia in language that lingered in the ear, and would dwell for ever on the lips, of his fellow-men. Among these woods, too, had Venetia first mused over her father; before her rose those mysterious chambers, whose secret she had penetrated at the risk of her life. There were no secrets now. Was she happier? Now she felt that even in her early mystery there was delight, and that hope was veiled beneath its ominous shadow. There was now no future to ponder over; her hope was gone, and memory alone remained. All the dreams of those musing hours of her hidden reveries had been realised. She had seen that father, that surpassing parent, who had satisfied alike her heart and her imagination; she had been clasped to his bosom; she had lived to witness even her mother yield to his penitent embrace. And he too was gone; she could never meet him again in this world; in this world in which they had experienced such exquisite bliss; and now she was once more at Cherbury! Oh! give her back her girlhood, with all its painful mystery and harassing doubt! Give her again a future! She returned to the hall; she met George on the terrace, she welcomed him with a sweet, yet mournful smile. 'I have been very selfish,' she said, 'for I have been walking alone. I mean to introduce you to Cherbury, but I could not resist visiting some old spots.' Her voice faltered in these last words. They re-entered the terrace-room together, and joined her mother. 'Nothing is changed, mamma,' said Venetia, in a more cheerful tone. 'It is pleasant to find something that is the same.' Several days passed, and Lord Cadurcis evinced no desire to visit his inheritance. Yet Lady Annabel was anxious that he should do so, and had more than once impressed upon him the propriety. Even Venetia at length said to him, 'It is very selfish in us keeping you here, George. Your presence is a great consolation, and yet, yet, ought you not to visit your home?' She avoided the name of Cadurcis. 'I ought, dear Venetia.' said George, 'and I will. I have promised Lady Annabel twenty times, but I feel a terrible disinclination. To-morrow, perhaps.' 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,' murmured Venetia to herself, 'I scarcely comprehend now what to-morrow means.' And then again addressing him, and with more liveliness, she said, 'We have only one friend in the world now, George, and I think that we ought to be very grateful that he is our neighbour.' 'It is a consolation to me,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'for I cannot remain here, and otherwise I should scarcely know how to depart.' 'I wish you would visit your home, if only for one morning,' said Venetia; 'if only to know how very near you are to us.' 'I dread going alone,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'I cannot ask Lady Annabel to accompany me, because--' He hesitated. 'Because?' inquired Venetia. 'I cannot ask or wish her to leave you.' 'You are always thinking of me, dear George,' said Venetia, artlessly. 'I assure you, I have come back to Cherbury to be happy. I must visit your home some day, and I hope I shall visit it often. We will all go, soon,' she added. 'Then I will postpone my visit to that day,' said George. 'I am in no humour for business, which I know awaits me there. Let me enjoy a little more repose at dear Cherbury.' 'I have become very restless of late, I think,' said Venetia, 'but there is a particular spot in the garden that I wish to see. Come with me, George.' Lord Cadurcis was only too happy to attend her. They proceeded through a winding walk in the shrubberies until they arrived at a small and open plot of turf, where Venetia stopped. 'There are some associations,' she said, 'of this spot connected with both those friends that we have lost. I have a fancy that it should be in some visible manner consecrated to their memories. On this spot, George, Plantagenet once spoke to me of my father. I should like to raise their busts here; and indeed it is a fit place for such a purpose; for poets,' she added, faintly smiling, 'should be surrounded with laurels.' 'I have some thoughts on this head that I am revolving in my fancy myself,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'but I will not speak of them now.' 'Yes, now, George; for indeed it is a satisfaction for me to speak of them, at least with you, with one who understood them so well, and loved them scarcely less than I did.' George tenderly put his arm into hers and led her away. As they walked along, he explained to her his plans, which yet were somewhat crude, but which greatly interested her; but they were roused from their conversation by the bell of the hall sounding as if to summon them, and therefore they directed their way immediately to the terrace. A servant running met them; he brought a message from Lady Annabel. Their friend the Bishop of ---- had arrived. CHAPTER III. 'Well, my little daughter,' said the good Masham, advancing as Venetia entered the room, and tenderly embracing her. The kind-hearted old man maintained a conversation on indifferent subjects with animation for some minutes; and thus a meeting, the anticipation of which would have cost Venetia hours of pain and anxiety, occurred with less uneasy feelings. Masham had hastened to Cherbury the moment he heard of the return of the Herberts to England. He did not come to console, but to enliven. He was well aware that even his eloquence, and all the influence of his piety, could not soften the irreparable past; and knowing, from experience, how in solitude the unhappy brood over sorrow, he fancied that his arrival, and perhaps his arrival only, might tend in some degree at this moment to their alleviation and comfort. He brought Lady Annabel and Venetia letters from their relations, with whom he had been staying at their country residence, and who were anxious that their unhappy kinsfolk should find change of scene under their roof. 'They are very affectionate,' said Lady Annabel, 'but I rather think that neither Venetia nor myself feel inclined to quit Cherbury at present.' 'Indeed not, mamma,' said Venetia. 'I hope we shall never leave home again.' 'You must come and see me some day,' said the Bishop; then turning to George, whom he was glad to find here, he addressed him in a hearty tone, and expressed his delight at again meeting him. Insensibly to all parties this arrival of the good Masham exercised a beneficial influence on their spirits. They could sympathise with his cheerfulness, because they were convinced that he sympathised with their sorrow. His interesting conversation withdrew their minds from the painful subject on which they were always musing. It seemed profanation to either of the three mourners when they were together alone, to indulge in any topic but the absorbing one, and their utmost effort was to speak of the past with composure; but they all felt relieved, though at first unconsciously, when one, whose interest in their feelings could not be doubted, gave the signal of withdrawing their reflections from vicissitudes which it was useless to deplore. Even the social forms which the presence of a guest rendered indispensable, and the exercise of the courtesies of hospitality, contributed to this result. They withdrew their minds from the past. And the worthy Bishop, whose tact was as eminent as his good humour and benevolence, evincing as much delicacy of feeling as cheerfulness of temper, a very few days had elapsed before each of his companions was aware that his presence had contributed to their increased content. 'You have not been to the abbey yet, Lord Cadurcis,' said Masham to him one day, as they were sitting together after dinner, the ladies having retired. 'You should go.' 'I have been unwilling to leave them,' said George, 'and I could scarcely expect them to accompany me. It is a visit that must revive painful recollections.' 'We must not dwell on the past,' said Masham; 'we must think only of the future.' 'Venetia has no future, I fear,' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Why not?' said Masham; 'she is yet a girl, and with a prospect of a long life. She must have a future, and I hope, and I believe, it will yet be a happy one.' 'Alas!' said Lord Cadurcis, 'no one can form an idea of the attachment that subsisted between Plantagenet and Venetia. They were not common feelings, or the feelings of common minds, my dear lord.' 'No one knew them both better than I did,' said Masham, 'not even yourself: they were my children.' 'I feel that,' said George, 'and therefore it is a pleasure to us all to see you, and to speak with you.' 'But we must look for consolation,' said Masham; 'to deplore is fruitless. If we live, we must struggle to live happily. To tell you the truth, though their immediate return to Cherbury was inevitable, and their residence here for a time is scarcely to be deprecated, I still hope they will not bury themselves here. For my part, after the necessary interval, I wish to see Venetia once more in the world.' Lord Cadurcis looked very mournful, and shook his head. 'As for her dear mother, she is habituated to sorrow and disappointment,' said Masham. 'As long as Venetia lives Lady Annabel will be content. Besides, deplorable as may be the past, there must be solace to her in the reflection that she was reconciled to her husband before his death, and contributed to his happiness. Venetia is the stricken lamb, but Venetia is formed for happiness, and it is in the nature of things that she will be happy. We must not, however, yield unnecessarily to our feelings. A violent exertion would be unwise, but we should habituate ourselves gradually to the exercise of our duties, and to our accustomed pursuits. It would be well for you to go to Cadurcis. If I were you I would go to-morrow. Take advantage of my presence, and return and give a report of your visit. Habituate Venetia to talk of a spot with which ultimately she must renew her intimacy.' Influenced by this advice, Lord Cadurcis rose early on the next morning and repaired to the seat of his fathers, where hitherto his foot had never trod. When the circle at Cherbury assembled at their breakfast table he was missing, and Masham had undertaken the office of apprising his friends of the cause of his absence. He returned to dinner, and the conversation fell naturally upon the abbey, and the impressions he had received. It was maintained at first by Lady Annabel and the Bishop, but Venetia ultimately joined in it, and with cheerfulness. Many a trait and incident of former days was alluded to; they talked of Mrs. Cadurcis, whom George had never seen; they settled the chambers he should inhabit; they mentioned the improvements which Plantagenet had once contemplated, and which George must now accomplish. 'You must go to London first,' said the Bishop; 'you have a great deal to do, and you should not delay such business. I think you had better return with me. At this time of the year you need not be long absent; you will not be detained; and when you return, you will find yourself much more at ease; for, after all, nothing is more harassing than the feeling, that there is business which must be attended to, and which, nevertheless, is neglected.' Both Lady Annabel and Venetia enforced this advice of their friend; and so it happened that, ere a week had elapsed, Lord Cadurcis, accompanying Masham, found himself once more in London. CHAPTER IV. Venetia was now once more alone with her mother; it was as in old times. Their life was the same as before the visit of Plantagenet previous to his going to Cambridge, except indeed that they had no longer a friend at Marringhurst. They missed the Sabbath visits of that good man; for, though his successor performed the duties of the day, which had been a condition when he was presented to the living, the friend who knew all the secrets of their hearts was absent. Venetia continued to bear herself with great equanimity, and the anxiety which she observed instantly impressed on her mother's countenance, the moment she fancied there was unusual gloom on the brow of her child, impelled Venetia doubly to exert herself to appear resigned. And in truth, when Lady Annabel revolved in her mind the mournful past, and meditated over her early and unceasing efforts to secure the happiness of her daughter, and then contrasted her aspirations with the result, she could not acquit herself of having been too often unconsciously instrumental in forwarding a very different conclusion than that for which she had laboured. This conviction preyed upon the mother, and the slightest evidence of reaction in Venetia's tranquilised demeanour occasioned her the utmost remorse and grief. The absence of George made both Lady Annabel and Venetia still more finely appreciate the solace of his society. Left to themselves, they felt how much they had depended on his vigilant and considerate attention, and how much his sweet temper and his unfailing sympathy had contributed to their consolation. He wrote, however, to Venetia by every post, and his letters, if possible, endeared him still more to their hearts. Unwilling to dwell upon their mutual sorrows, yet always expressing sufficient to prove that distance and absence had not impaired his sympathy, he contrived, with infinite delicacy, even to amuse their solitude with the adventures of his life of bustle. The arrival of the post was the incident of the day; and not merely letters arrived; one day brought books, another music; continually some fresh token of his thought and affection reached them. He was, however, only a fortnight absent; but when he returned, it was to Cadurcis. He called upon them the next day, and indeed every morning found him at Cherbury; but he returned to his home at night; and so, without an effort, from their guest he had become their neighbour. Plantagenet had left the whole of his property to his cousin: his mother's fortune, which, as an accessory fund, was not inconsiderable, besides the estate. And George intended to devote a portion of this to the restoration of the abbey. Venetia was to be his counsellor in this operation, and therefore there were ample sources of amusement for the remainder of the year. On a high ridge, which was one of the beacons of the county, and which, moreover, marked the junction of the domains of Cherbury and Cadurcis, it was his intention to raise a monument to the united memories of Marmion Herbert and Plantagenet Lord Cadurcis. He brought down a design with him from London, and this was the project which he had previously whispered to Venetia. With George for her companion, too, Venetia was induced to resume her rides. It was her part to make him acquainted with the county in which he was so important a resident. Time therefore, at Cherbury, on the whole, flowed on in a tide of tranquil pleasure; and Lady Annabel observed, with interest and fondness, the continual presence beneath her roof of one who, from the first day she had met him, had engaged her kind feelings, and had since become intimately endeared to her. The end of November was, however, now approaching, and Parliament was about to reassemble. Masham had written more than once to Lord Cadurcis, impressing upon him the propriety and expediency of taking his seat. He had shown these letters, as he showed everything, to Venetia, who was his counsellor on all subjects, and Venetia agreed with their friend. 'It is right,' said Venetia; 'you have a duty to perform, and you must perform it. Besides, I do not wish the name of Cadurcis to sink again into obscurity. I shall look forward with interest to Lord Cadurcis taking the oaths and his seat. It will please me; it will indeed.' 'But Venetia,' said George, 'I do not like to leave this place. I am happy, if we may be happy. This life suits me. I am a quiet man. I dislike London. I feel alone there.' 'You can write to us; you will have a great deal to say. And I shall have something to say to you now. I must give you a continual report how they go on at the abbey. I will be your steward, and superintend everything.' 'Ah!' said George, 'what shall I do in London without you, without your advice? There will be something occurring every day, and I shall have no one to consult. Indeed I shall feel quite miserable; I shall indeed.' 'It is quite impossible that, with your station, and at your time of life, you should bury yourself in the country,' said Venetia. 'You have the whole world before you, and you must enjoy it. It is very well for mamma and myself to lead this life. I look upon ourselves as two nuns. If Cadurcis is an abbey, Cherbury is now a convent.' 'How can a man wish to be more than happy? I am quite content here,' said George, 'What is London to me?' 'It may be a great deal to you, more than you think,' said Venetia. 'A great deal awaits you yet. However, there can be no doubt you should take your seat. You can always return, if you wish. But take your seat, and cultivate dear Masham. I have the utmost confidence in his wisdom and goodness. You cannot have a friend more respectable. Now mind my advice, George.' 'I always do, Venetia.' CHAPTER V. Time and Faith are the great consolers, and neither of these precious sources of solace were wanting to the inhabitants of Cherbury. They were again living alone, but their lives were cheerful; and if Venetia no longer indulged in a worldly and blissful future, nevertheless, in the society of her mother, in the resources of art and literature, in the diligent discharge of her duties to her humble neighbours, and in cherishing the memory of the departed, she experienced a life that was not without its tranquil pleasures. She maintained with Lord Cadurcis a constant correspondence; he wrote to her every day, and although they were separated, there was not an incident of his life, and scarcely a thought, of which she was not cognisant. It was with great difficulty that George could induce himself to remain in London; but Masham, who soon obtained over him all the influence which Venetia desired, ever opposed his return to the abbey. The good Bishop was not unaware of the feelings with which Lord Cadurcis looked back to the hall of Cherbury, and himself of a glad and sanguine temperament, he indulged in a belief in the consummation of all that happiness for which his young friend, rather sceptically, sighed. But Masham was aware that time could alone soften the bitterness of Venetia's sorrow, and prepare her for that change of life which he felt confident would alone ensure the happiness both of herself and her mother. He therefore detained Lord Cadurcis in London the whole of the sessions that, on his return to Cherbury, his society might be esteemed a novel and agreeable incident in the existence of its inhabitants, and not be associated merely with their calamities. It was therefore about a year after the catastrophe which had so suddenly changed the whole tenor of their lives, and occasioned so unexpected a revolution in his own position, that Lord Cadurcis arrived at his ancestral seat, with no intention of again speedily leaving it. He had long and frequently apprised his friends of his approaching presence, And, arriving at the abbey late at night, he was at Cherbury early on the following morning. Although no inconsiderable interval had elapsed since Lord Cadurcis had parted from the Herberts, the continual correspondence that had been maintained between himself and Venetia, divested his visit of the slightest embarrassment. They met as if they had parted yesterday, except perhaps with greater fondness. The chain of their feelings was unbroken. He was indeed welcomed, both by Lady Annabel and her daughter, with warm affection; and his absence had only rendered him dearer to them by affording an opportunity of feeling how much his society contributed to their felicity. Venetia was anxious to know his opinion of the improvements at the abbey, which she had superintended; but he assured her that he would examine nothing without her company, and ultimately they agreed to walk over to Cadurcis. It was a summer day, and they walked through that very wood wherein we described the journey of the child Venetia, at the commencement of this very history. The blue patches of wild hyacinths had all disappeared, but there were flowers as sweet. What if the first feelings of our heart fade, like the first flowers of spring, succeeding years, like the coming summer, may bring emotions not less charming, and, perchance, far more fervent! 'I can scarcely believe,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'that I am once more with you. I know not what surprises me most, Venetia, that we should be walking once more together in the woods of Cherbury, or that I ever should have dared to quit them.' 'And yet it was better, dear George,' said Venetia. 'You must now rejoice that you have fulfilled your duty, and yet you are here again. Besides, the abbey never would have been finished if you had remained. To complete all our plans, it required a mistress.' 'I wish it always had one,' said George. 'Ah, Venetia! once you told me never to despair.' 'And what have you to despair about, George?' 'Heigh ho!' said Lord Cadurcis, 'I never shall be able to live in this abbey alone.' 'You should have brought a wife from London,' said Venetia. 'I told you once, Venetia, that I was not a marrying man,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'and certainly I never shall bring a wife from London.' 'Then you cannot accustom yourself too soon to a bachelor's life,' said Venetia. 'Ah, Venetia!' said George, 'I wish I were clever; I wish I were a genius; I wish I were a great man.' 'Why, George?' 'Because, Venetia, perhaps,' and Lord Cadurcis hesitated, 'perhaps you would think differently of me? I mean perhaps your feelings towards me might; ah, Venetia! perhaps you might think me worthy of you; perhaps you might love me.' 'I am sure, dear George, if I did not love you, I should be the most ungrateful of beings: you are our only friend.' 'And can I never be more than a friend to you, Venetia?' said Lord Cadurcis, blushing very deeply. 'I am sure, dear George, I should be very sorry for your sake, if you wished to be more,' said Venetia. 'Why?' said Lord Cadurcis. 'Because I should not like to see you unite your destiny with that of a very unfortunate, if not a very unhappy, person.' 'The sweetest, the loveliest of women!' said Lord Cadurcis. 'O Venetia! I dare not express what I feel, still less what I could hope. I think so little of myself, so highly of you, that I am convinced my aspirations are too arrogant for me to breathe them.' 'Ah! dear George, you deserve to be happy,' said Venetia. 'Would that it were in my power to make you!' 'Dearest Venetia! it is, it is,' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis; then checking himself, as if frightened by his boldness, he added in a more subdued tone, 'I feel I am not worthy of you.' They stood upon the breezy down that divided the demesnes of Cherbury and the abbey. Beneath them rose, 'embosomed in a valley of green bowers,' the ancient pile lately renovated under the studious care of Venetia. 'Ah!' said Lord Cadurcis, 'be not less kind to the master of these towers, than to the roof that you have fostered. You have renovated our halls, restore our happiness! There is an union that will bring consolation to more than one hearth, and baffle all the crosses of adverse fate. Venetia, beautiful and noble-minded Venetia, condescend to fulfil it!' Perhaps the reader will not be surprised that, within a few months of this morning walk, the hands of George, Lord Cadurcis, and Venetia Herbert were joined in the chapel at Cherbury by the good Masham. Peace be with them. 
7713	----	This eBook was produced by David Widger BOOK TWELFTH. INITIAL CHAPTER. WHEREIN THE CAXTON FAMILY REAPPEAR. "Again," quoth my father,--"again behold us! We who greeted the commencement of your narrative, who absented ourselves in the midcourse when we could but obstruct the current of events, and jostle personages more important,--we now gather round the close. Still, as the chorus to the drama, we circle round the altar with the solemn but dubious chant which prepares the audience for the completion of the appointed destinies; though still, ourselves, unaware how the skein is to be unravelled, and where the shears are to descend." So there they stood, the Family of Caxton,--all grouping round me, all eager officiously to question, some over-anxious prematurely to criticise. "Violante can't have voluntarily gone off with that horrid count," said my mother; "but perhaps she was deceived, like Eugenia by Mr. Bellamy, in the novel of 'CAMILLA'." "Ha!" said my father, "and in that case it is time yet to steal a hint from Clarissa Harlowe, and make Violante die less of a broken heart than a sullied honour. She is one of those girls who ought to be killed! All things about her forebode an early tomb!" "Dear, dear!" cried Mrs. Caxton, "I hope not!" "Pooh, brother," said the captain, "we have had enough of the tomb in the history of poor Nora. The whole story grows out of a grave, and if to a grave it must return--if, Pisistratus, you must kill somebody-- kill Levy." "Or the count," said my mother, with unusual truculence. "Or Randal Leslie," said Squills. "I should like to have a post-mortem cast of his head,--it would be an instructive study." Here there was a general confusion of tongues, all present conspiring to bewilder the unfortunate author with their various and discordant counsels how to wind up his story and dispose of his characters. "Silence!" cried Pisistratus, clapping his hands to both ears. "I can no more alter the fate allotted to each of the personages whom you honour with your interest than I can change your own; like you, they must go where events lead there, urged on by their own characters and the agencies of others. Providence so pervadingly governs the universe, that you cannot strike it even out of a book. The author may beget a character, but the moment the character comes into action, it escapes from his hands,--plays its own part, and fulfils its own inevitable doom." "Besides," said Squills, "it is easy to see, from the phrenological development of the organs in those several heads which Pisistratus has allowed us to examine, that we have seen no creations of mere fiction, but living persons, whose true history has set in movement their various bumps of Amativeness, Constructiveness, Acquisitiveness, Idealty, Wonder, Comparison, etc. They must act, and they must end, according to the influences of their crania. Thus we find in Randal Leslie the predominant organs of Constructiveness, Secretiveness, Comparison, and Eventuality, while Benevolence, Conscientiousness, Adhesiveness, are utterly nil. Now, to divine how such a man must end, we must first see what is the general composition of the society in which he moves, in short, what other gases are brought into contact with his phlogiston. As to Leonard, and Harley, and Audley Egerton, surveying them phrenologically, I should say that--" "Hush!" said my father, "Pisistratus has dipped his pen in the ink, and it seems to me easier for the wisest man that ever lived to account for what others have done than to predict what they should do. Phrenologists discovered that Mr. Thurtell had a very fine organ of Conscientiousness; yet, somehow or other, that erring personage contrived to knock the brains out of his friend's organ of Individuality. Therefore I rise to propose a Resolution,--that this meeting be adjourned till Pisistratus has completed his narrative; and we shall then have the satisfaction of knowing that it ought, according to every principle of nature, science, and art, to have been completed differently. Why should we deprive ourselves of that pleasure?" "I second the motion," said the captain; "but if Levy be not hanged, I shall say that there is an end of all poetical justice." "Take care of poor Helen," said Blanche, tenderly: "nor, that I would have you forget Violante." "Pish! and sit down, or they shall both die old maids." Frightened at that threat, Blanche, with a deprecating look, drew her stool quietly near me, as if to place her two /proteges/ in an atmosphere mesmerized to matrimonial attractions; and my mother set hard to work--at a new frock for the baby. Unsoftened by these undue female influences, Pisistratus wrote on at the dictation of the relentless Fates. His pen was of iron, and his heart was of granite. He was as insensible to the existence of wife and baby as if he had never paid a house bill, nor rushed from a nursery at the sound of an infant squall. O blessed privilege of Authorship! "O testudinis aureae Dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas! O mutis quoque piscibus Donatura cyeni, si libeat, sonum!" ["O Muse, who dost temper the sweet sound of the golden shell of the tortoise, and couldst also give, were it needed, to silent fishes the song of the swan."] CHAPTER II. It is necessary to go somewhat back in the course of this narrative, and account to the reader for the disappearance of Violante. It may be remembered that Peschiera, scared by the sudden approach of Lord L'Estrange, had little time for further words to the young Italian, than those which expressed his intention to renew the conference, and press for her decision. But the next day, when he re-entered the garden, secretly and stealthily, as before, Violante did not appear. And after watching round the precincts till dusk, the count retreated, with an indignant conviction that his arts had failed to enlist on his side either the heart or the imagination of his intended victim. He began now to revolve and to discuss with Levy the possibilities of one of those bold and violent measures, which were favoured by his reckless daring and desperate condition. But Levy treated with such just ridicule any suggestion to abstract Violante by force from Lord Lansmere's house, so scouted the notions of nocturnal assault, with the devices of scaling windows and rope-ladders, that the count reluctantly abandoned that romance of villany so unsuited to our sober capital, and which would no doubt have terminated in his capture by the police, with the prospect of committal to the House of Correction. Levy himself found his invention at fault, and Randal Leslie was called into consultation. The usurer had contrived that Randal's schemes of fortune and advancement were so based upon Levy's aid and connivance, that the young man, with all his desire rather to make instruments of other men, than to be himself their instrument, found his superior intellect as completely a slave to Levy's more experienced craft, as ever subtle Genius of air was subject to the vulgar Sorcerer of earth. His acquisition of the ancestral acres, his anticipated seat in parliament, his chance of ousting Frank from the heritage of Hazeldean, were all as strings that pulled him to and fro, like a puppet in the sleek, filbert-nailed fingers of the smiling showman, who could exhibit him to the admiration of a crowd, or cast him away into dust and lumber. Randal gnawed his lip in the sullen wrath of a man who bides his hour of future emancipation, and lent his brain to the hire of the present servitude, in mechanical acquiescence. The inherent superiority of the profound young schemer became instantly apparent over the courage of Peschiera and the practised wit of the baron. "Your sister," said Randal, to the former, "must be the active agent in the first and most difficult part of your enterprise. Violante cannot be taken by force from Lord Lansmere's,--she must be induced to leave it with her own consent. A female is needed here. Woman can best decoy woman." "Admirably said," quoth the count; "but Beatrice has grown restive, and though her dowry, and therefore her very marriage with that excellent young Hazeldean, depend on my own alliance with my fair kinswoman, she has grown so indifferent to my success that I dare not reckon on her aid. Between you and me, though she was once very eager to be married, she now seems to shrink from the notion; and I have no other hold over her." "Has she not seen some one, and lately, whom she prefers to poor Frank?" "I suspect that she has; but I know not whom, unless it be that detested L'Estrange." "Ah, well, well. Interfere with her no further yourself, but have all in readiness to quit England, as you had before proposed, as soon as Violante be in your power." "All is in readiness," said the count. "Levy has agreed to purchase a famous sailing-vessel of one of his clients. I have engaged a score or so of determined outcasts, accustomed to the sea,--Genoese, Corsicans, Sardinians, ex-Carbonari of the best sort,--no silly patriots, but liberal cosmopolitans, who have iron at the disposal of any man's gold. I have a priest to perform the nuptial service, and deaf to any fair lady's 'No.' Once at sea, and wherever I land, Violante will lean on my arm as Countess of Peschiera." "But Violante," said Randal, doggedly, determined not to yield to the disgust with which the count's audacious cynicism filled even him--"but Violante cannot be removed in broad daylight at once to such a vessel, nor from a quarter so populous as that in which your sister resides." "I have thought of that too," said the count; "my emissaries have found me a house close by the river, and safe for our purpose as the dungeons of Venice." "I wish not to know all this," answered Randal, quickly; "you will instruct Madame di Negra where to take Violante.--my task limits itself to the fair inventions that belong to intellect; what belongs to force is not in my province. I will go at once to your sister, whom I think I can influence more effectually than you can; though later I may give you a hint to guard against the chance of her remorse. Meanwhile as, the moment Violante disappears, suspicion would fall upon you, show yourself constantly in public surrounded by your friends. Be able to account for every hour of your time--" "An alibi?" interrupted the ci-devant solicitor. "Exactly so, Baron. Complete the purchase of the vessel, and let the count man it as he proposes. I will communicate with you both as soon as I can put you into action. To-day I shall have much to do; it will be done." As Randal left the room, Levy followed him. "What you propose to do will be well done, no doubt," quoth the usurer, linking his arm in Randal's; "but take care that you don't get yourself into a scrape, so as to damage your character. I have great hopes of you in public life; and in public life character is necessary,--that is, so far as honour is concerned." "I damage my character!--and for a Count Peschiera!" said Randal, opening his eyes. "I! What do you take me for?" The baron let go his hold. "This boy ought to rise very high," said he to himself, as he turned back to the count. CHAPTER III. Randal's acute faculty of comprehension had long since surmised the truth that Beatrice's views and temper of mind had been strangely and suddenly altered by some such revolution as passion only can effect; that pique or disappointment had mingled with the motive which had induced her to accept the hand of his rash young kinsman; and that, instead of the resigned indifference with which she might at one time have contemplated any marriage that could free her from a position that perpetually galled her pride, it was now with a repugnance, visible to Randal's keen eye, that she shrank from the performance of that pledge which Frank had so dearly bought. The temptations which the count could hold out to her to become his accomplice in designs of which the fraud and perfidy would revolt her better nature had ceased to be of avail. A dowry had grown valueless, since it would but hasten the nuptials from which she recoiled. Randal felt that he could not secure her aid, except by working on a passion so turbulent as to confound her judgment. Such a passion he recognized in jealousy. He had once doubted if Harley were the object of her love; yet, after all, was it not probable? He knew, at least, of no one else to suspect. If so, he had but to whisper, "Violante is your rival. Violante removed, your beauty may find its natural effect; if not, you are an Italian, and you will be at least avenged." He saw still more reason to suppose that Lord L'Estrange was indeed the one by whom he could rule Beatrice, since, the last time he had seen her, she had questioned him with much eagerness as to the family of Lord Lansmere, especially as to the female part of it. Randal had then judged it prudent to avoid speaking of Violante, and feigned ignorance; but promised to ascertain all particulars by the time he next saw the marchesa. It was the warmth with which she had thanked him that had set his busy mind at work to conjecture the cause of her curiosity so earnestly aroused, and to ascribe that cause to jealousy. If Harley loved Violante (as Randal himself had before supposed), the little of passion that the young man admitted to himself was enlisted in aid of Peschiera's schemes. For though Randal did not love Violante, he cordially disliked L'Estrange, and would have gone as far to render that dislike vindictive, as a cold reasoner, intent upon worldly fortunes, will ever suffer mere hate to influence him. "At the worst," thought Randal, "if it be not Harley, touch the chord of jealousy, and its vibration will direct me right." Thus soliloquizing, he arrived at Madame di Negra's. Now, in reality the marchesa's inquiries as to Lord Lansmere's family had their source in the misguided, restless, despairing interest with which she still clung to the image of the young poet, whom Randal had no reason to suspect. That interest had become yet more keen from the impatient misery she had felt ever since she had plighted herself to another. A wild hope that she might yet escape, a vague regretful thought that she had been too hasty in dismissing Leonard from her presence,--that she ought rather to have courted his friendship, and contended against her unknown rival,--at times drew her wayward mind wholly from the future to which she had consigned herself. And, to do her justice, though her sense of duty was so defective, and the principles which should have guided her conduct were so lost to her sight, still her feelings towards the generous Hazeldean were not so hard and blunted but what her own ingratitude added to her torment; and it seemed as if the sole atonement she could make to him was to find an excuse to withdraw her promise, and save him from herself. She had caused Leonard's steps to be watched; she had found that he visited at Lord Lansmere's; that he had gone there often, and stayed there long. She had learned in the neighbourhood that Lady Lansmere had one or two young female guests staying with her. Surely this was the attraction--here was the rival! Randal found Beatrice in a state of mind that answered his purpose; and first turning his conversation on Harley, and noting that her countenance did not change, by little and little he drew forth her secret. Then said Randal, gravely, "If one whom you honour with a tender thought visits at Lord Lansmere's house, you have, indeed, cause to fear for yourself, to hope for your brother's success in the object which has brought him to England; for a girl of surpassing beauty is a guest in Lord Lansmere's house, and I will now tell you that that girl is she whom Count Peschiera would make his bride." As Randal thus spoke, and saw how his listener's brow darkened and her eye flashed, he felt that his accomplice was secured. Violante! Had not Leonard spoken of Violante, and with such praise? Had not his boyhood been passed under her eyes? Who but Violante could be the rival? Beatrice's abrupt exclamations, after a moment's pause, revealed to Randal the advantage he had gained. And partly by rousing her jealousy into revenge, partly by flattering her love with assurances that, if Violante were fairly removed from England, were the wife of Count Peschiera, it would be impossible that Leonard could remain insensible to her own attractions; that he, Randal, would undertake to free her honourably from her engagement to Frank Hazeldean, and obtain from her brother the acquittal of the debt which had first fettered her hand to that confiding suitor,--he did not quit the marchesa until she had not only promised to do all that Randal might suggest, but impetuously urged him to mature his plans, and hasten the hour to accomplish them. Randal then walked some minutes musing and slow along the streets, revolving the next meshes in his elaborate and most subtle web. And here his craft luminously devised its masterpiece. It was necessary, during any interval that might elapse between Violante's disappearance and her departure from England, in order to divert suspicion from Peschiera (who might otherwise be detained), that some cause for her voluntary absence from Lord Lansmere's should be at least assignable; it was still more necessary that Randal himself should stand wholly clear from any surmise that he could have connived at the count's designs, even should their actual perpetrator be discovered or conjectured. To effect these objects, Randal hastened to Norwood, and obtained an interview with Riccabocca. In seeming agitation and alarm, he informed the exile that he had reason to know that Peschiera had succeeded in obtaining a secret interview with Violante, and he feared had made a certain favourable impression on her mind; and speaking as if with the jealousy of a lover, he entreated Riccabocca to authorize Randal's direct proposals to Violante, and to require her consent to their immediate nuptials. The poor Italian was confounded with the intelligence conveyed to him; and his almost superstitious fears of his brilliant enemy, conjoined with his opinion of the susceptibility to outward attractions common to all the female sex, made him not only implicitly credit, but even exaggerate, the dangers that Randal intimated. The idea of his daughter's marriage with Randal, towards which he had lately cooled, he now gratefully welcomed. But his first natural suggestion was to go, or send, for Violante, and bring her to his own house. This, however, Randal artfully opposed. "Alas! I know," said he, "that Peschiera has discovered your retreat, and surely she would be far less safe here than where she is now!" "But, diavolo! you say the man has seen her where she is now, in spite of all Lady Lansmere's promises and Harley's precautions." "True. Of this Peschiera boasted to me. He effected it not, of course, openly, but in some disguise. I am sufficiently, however, in his confidence--any man may be that with so audacious a braggart--to deter him from renewing his attempt for some days. Meanwhile, I or yourself will leave discovered some surer home than this, to which you can remove, and then will be the proper time to take back your daughter. And for the present, if you will send by me a letter to enjoin her to receive me as her future bridegroom, it will necessarily divert all thought at once from the count; I shall be able to detect by the manner in which she receives me, how far the count has overstated the effect he pretends to have produced. You can give me also a letter to Lady Lansmere, to prevent your daughter coming hither. Oh, sir, do not reason with me. Have indulgence for my lover's fears. Believe that I advise for the best. Have I not the keenest interest to do so?" Like many a man who is wise enough with pen and paper before him, and plenty of time wherewith to get up his wisdom, Riccabocca was flurried, nervous, and confused when that wisdom was called upon for any ready exertion. From the tree of knowledge he had taken grafts enough to serve for a forest; but the whole forest could not spare him a handy walking- stick. The great folio of the dead Machiavelli lay useless before him,-- the living Machiavelli of daily life stood all puissant by his side. The Sage was as supple to the Schemer as the Clairvoyant is to the Mesmerist; and the lean slight fingers of Randal actually dictated almost the very words that Riccabocca wrote to his child and her hostess. The philosopher would have liked to consult his wife; but he was ashamed to confess that weakness. Suddenly he remembered Harley, and said, as Randal took up the letters which Riccabocca had indited, "There, that will give us time; and I will send to Lord L'Estrange and talk to him." "My noble friend," replied Randal, mournfully, "may I entreat you not to see Lord L'Estrange until at least I have pleaded my cause to your daughter,--until, indeed, she is no longer under his father's roof?" "And why?" "Because I presume that you are sincere when you deign to receive me as a son-in-law, and because I am sure that Lord L'Estrange would hear with distaste of your disposition in my favour. Am I not right?" Riccabocca was silent. "And though his arguments would fail with a man of your honour and discernment, they might have more effect on the young mind of your child. Think, I beseech you, the more she is set against me, the more accessible she may be to the arts of Peschiera. Speak not, therefore, I implore you, to Lord L'Estrange till Violante has accepted my hand, or at least until she is again under your charge; otherwise take back your letter,-- it would be of no avail." "Perhaps you are right. Certainly Lord L'Estrange is prejudiced against you; or rather, he thinks too much of what I have been, too little of what I am." "Who can see you, and not do so? I pardon him." After kissing the hand which the exile modestly sought to withdraw froin that act of homage, Randal pocketed the letters; and, as if struggling with emotion, rushed from the house. Now, O curious reader, if thou wilt heedfully observe to what uses Randal Leslie put those letters,--what speedy and direct results he drew forth from devices which would seem to an honest simple understanding the most roundabout, wire-drawn wastes of invention,--I almost fear that in thine admiration for his cleverness, thou mayest half forget thy contempt for his knavery. But when the head is very full, it does not do to have the heart very empty; there is such a thing as being top-heavy! CHAPTER IV. Helen and Violante had been conversing together, and Helen had obeyed her guardian's injunction, and spoken, though briefly, of her positive engagement to Harley. However much Violante had been prepared for the confidence, however clearly she had divined that engagement, however before persuaded that the dream of her childhood was fled forever, still the positive truth, coming from Helen's own lips, was attended with that anguish which proves how impossible it is to prepare the human heart for the final verdict which slays its future. She did not, however, betray her emotion to Helen's artless eyes; sorrow, deep-seated, is seldom self- betrayed. But, after a little while, she crept away; and, forgetful of Peschiera, of all things that could threaten danger (what danger could harm her more!) she glided from the house, and went her desolate way under the leafless wintry trees. Ever and anon she paused, ever and anon she murmured the same words: "If she loved him, I could be consoled; but she does not! or how could she have spoken to me so calmly! how could her very looks have been so sad! Heartless! heartless!" Then there came on her a vehement resentment against poor Helen, that almost took the character of scorn or hate,--its excess startled herself. "Am I grown so mean?" she said; and tears that humbled her rushed to her eyes. "Can so short a time alter one thus? Impossible!" Randal Leslie rang at the front gate, inquired for Violante, and, catching sight of her form as he walked towards the house, advanced boldly and openly. His voice startled her as she leaned against one of the dreary trees, still muttering to herself,--forlorn. "I have a letter to you from your father, Signorina," said Randal; "but before I give it to your hands, some explanation is necessary. Condescend, then, to hear me." Violante shook her head impatiently, and stretched forth her hand for the letter. Randal observed her countenance with his keen, cold, searching eye; but he still withheld the letter, and continued, after a pause, "I know that you were born to princely fortunes; and the excuse for my addressing you now is, that your birthright is lost to you, at least unless you can consent to a union with the man who has despoiled you of your heritage,--a union which your father would deem dishonour to yourself and him. Signorina, I might have presumed to love you, but I should not have named that love, had your father not encouraged me by his assent to my suit." Violante turned to the speaker, her face eloquent with haughty surprise. Randal met the gaze unmoved. He continued, without warmth, and in the tone of one who reasons calmly, rather than of one who feels acutely, "The man of whom I spoke is in pursuit of you. I have cause to believe that this person has already intruded himself upon you. Ah, your countenance owns it; you have seen Peschiera? This house is, then, less safe than your father deemed it. No house is safe for you but a husband's. I offer to you my name,--it is a gentleman's; my fortune, which is small; the participation in my hopes of the future, which are large. I place now your father's letter in your hand, and await your answer." Randal bowed slightly, gave the letter to Violante, and retired a few paces. It was not his object to conciliate Violante's affection, but rather to excite her repugnance, or at least her terror,--we must wait to discover why; so he stood apart, seemingly in a kind of self-confident indifference, while the girl read the following letter: "My child, receive with favour Mr. Leslie. He has my consent to address you as a suitor. Circumstances of which it is needless now to inform you render it essential to my very peace and happiness that your marriage should he immediate. In a word, I have given my promise to Mr. Leslie, and I confidently leave it to the daughter of my House to redeem the pledge of her anxious and tender father." The letter dropped from Violante's hand. Randal approached, and restored it to her. Their eyes met. Violante recoiled. "I cannot marry you," said she, passionately. "Indeed?" answered Randal, dryly. "Is it because you cannot love me?" "Yes." "I did not expect that you would as yet, and I still persist in my suit. I have promised to your father that I would not recede before your first unconsidered refusal." "I will go to my father at once." "Does he request you to do so in his letter? Look again. Pardon me, but he foresaw your impetuosity; and I have another note for Lady Lansmere, in which he begs her ladyship not to sanction your return to him (should you so wish) until he come or send for you himself. He will do so whenever your word has redeemed his own." "And do you dare to talk to me thus, and yet pretend to love me?" Randal smiled ironically. "I pretend but to wed you. Love is a subject on which I might have spoken formerly, or may speak hereafter. I give you some little time to consider. When I next call, let me hope that we may fix the day for our wedding." "Never!" "You will be, then, the first daughter of your House who disobeyed a father; and you will have this additional crime; that you disobeyed him in his sorrow, his exile, and his fall." Violante wrung her hands. "Is there no choice, no escape?" "I see none for either. Listen to me. I love you, it is true; but it is not for my happiness to marry one who dislikes me, nor for my ambition to connect myself with one whose poverty is greater than my own. I marry but to keep my plighted faith with your father, and to save you from a villain you would hate more than myself, and from whom no walls are a barrier, no laws a defence. One person, indeed, might perhaps have preserved you from the misery you seem to anticipate with me; that person might defeat the plans of your father's foe,--effect, it might be, terms which could revoke his banishment and restore his honours; that person is--" "Lord L'Estrange?" "Lord L'Estrange!" repeated Randal, sharply, and watching her pale parted lips and her changing colour; "Lord L'Estrange! What could he do? Why did you name him?" Violante turned aside. "He saved my father once," said she, feelingly. "And has interfered, and trifled, and promised, Heaven knows what, ever since: yet to what end? Pooh! The person I speak of your father would not consent to see, would not believe if he saw her; yet she is generous, noble, could sympathize with you both. She is the sister of your father's enemy, the Marchesa di Negra. I am convinced that she has great influence with her brother,--that she has known enough of his secrets to awe him into renouncing all designs on yourself; but it is idle now to speak of her." "No, no," exclaimed Violante. "Tell me where she lives--I will see her." "Pardon me, I cannot obey you; and, indeed, her own pride is now aroused by your father's unfortunate prejudices against her. It is too late to count upon her aid. You turn from me,--my presence is unwelcome. I rid you of it now. But welcome or unwelcome, later you must endure it--and for life." Randal again bowed with formal ceremony, walked towards the house, and asked for Lady Lansmere. The countess was at home. Randal delivered Riccabocca's note, which was very short, implying that he feared Peschiera had discovered his retreat, and requesting Lady Lansmere to retain Violante, whatever her own desire, till her ladyship heard from him again. The countess read, and her lip curled in disdain. "Strange!" said she, half to herself. "Strange!" said Randal, "that a man like your correspondent should fear one like the Count di Peschiera. Is that it?" "Sir," said the countess, a little surprised, "strange that any man should fear another in a country like ours!" "I don't know," said Randal, with his low soft laugh; "I fear many men, and I know many who ought to fear me; yet at every turn of the street one meets a policeman!" "Yes," said Lady Lansmere. "But to suppose that this profligate foreigner could carry away a girl like Violante against her will, --a man she has never seen, and whom she must have been taught to hate!" "Be on your guard, nevertheless, I pray you, madam; 'Where there's a will there's a way'!" Randal took his leave, and returned to Madame di Negra's. He stayed with her an hour, revisited the count, and then strolled to Limmer's. "Randal," said the squire, who looked pale and worn, but who scorned to confess the weakness with which he still grieved and yearned for his rebellious son, "Randal, you have nothing now to do in London; can you come and stay with me, and take to farming? I remember that you showed a good deal of sound knowledge about thin sowing." "My dear sir, I will come to you as soon as the general election is over." "What the deuce have you got to do with the general election?" "Mr. Egerton has some wish that I should enter parliament; indeed, negotiations for that purpose are now on foot." The squire shook his head. "I don't like my half-brother's politics." "I shall be quite independent of them," cried Randal, loftily; "that independence is the condition for which I stipulate." "Glad to hear it; and if you do come into parliament, I hope you'll not turn your back on the land?" "Turn my back on the land!" cried Randal, with devout horror. "Oh, sir, I am not so unnatural!" "That's the right way to put it," quoth the credulous squire; "it is unnatural! It is turning one's back on one's own mother. The land is a mother--" "To those who live by her, certainly,--a mother," said Randal, gravely. "And though, indeed, my father starves by her rather than lives, and Rood Hall is not like Hazeldean, still--I--" "Hold your tongue," interrupted the squire; "I want to talk to you. Your grandmother was a Hazeldean." "Her picture is in the drawing-room at Rood. People think me very like her." "Indeed!" said the squire. "The Hazeldeans are generally inclined to be stout and rosy, which you are certainly not. But no fault of yours. We are all as Heaven made us. However, to the point. I am going to alter my will,"--(said with a choking gulp). "This is the rough draft for the lawyers to work upon." "Pray, pray, sir, do not speak to me on such a subject. I cannot bear to contemplate even the possibility of--of--" "My death? Ha, ha! Nonsense. My own son calculated on the date of it by the insurance-tables. Ha, ha, ha! A very fashionable son, eh! Ha, ha!" "Poor Frank! do not let him suffer for a momentary forgetfulness of right feeling. When he comes to be married to that foreign lady, and be a father himself, he--" "Father himself!" burst forth the squire. "Father to a swarm of sallow- faced Popish tadpoles! No foreign frogs shall hop about my grave in Hazeldean churchyard. No, no. But you need not look so reproachful,-- I 'm not going to disinherit Frank." "Of course not," said Randal, with a bitter curve in the lip that rebelled against the joyous smile which he sought to impose on it. "No; I shall leave him the life-interest in the greater part of the property; but if he marry a foreigner, her children will not succeed,-- you will stand after him in that case. But--now don't interrupt me--but Frank looks as if he would live longer than you, so small thanks to me for my good intentions, you may say. I mean to do more for you than a mere barren place in the entail. What do you say to marrying?" "Just as you please," said Randal, meekly. "Good. There's Miss Sticktorights disengaged,--great heiress. Her lands run onto Rood. At one time I thought of her for that graceless puppy of mine. But I can manage more easily to make up the match for you. There's a mortgage on the property; old Sticktorights would be very glad to pay it off. I 'll pay it out of the Hazeldean estate, and give up the Right of Way into the bargain. You understand? "So come down as soon as you can, and court the young lady yourself." Randal expressed his thanks with much grateful eloquence; and he then delicately insinuated, that if the squire ever did mean to bestow upon him any pecuniary favours (always without injury to Frank), it would gratify him more to win back some portions of the old estate of Rood, than to have all the acres of the Sticktorights, however free from any other incumbrance than the amiable heiress. The squire listened to Randal with benignant attention. This wish the country gentleman could well understand and sympathize with. He promised to inquire into the matter, and to see what could be done with old Thornhill. Randal here let out that Mr. Thornhill was about to dispose of a large slice of the ancient Leslie estate through Levy, and that he, Randal, could thus get it at a more moderate price than would be natural, if Mr. Thornhill knew that his neighbour the squire would bid for the purchase. "Better say nothing about it either to Levy or Thornhill." "Right," said the squire. "No proprietor likes to sell to another proprietor, in the same shire, as largely acred as hinmself: it spoils the balance of power. See to the business yourself; and if I can help you with the purchase (after that boy is married,--I can attend to nothing before), why, I will." Randal now went to Egerton's. The statesman was in his library, settling the accounts of his house-steward, and giving brief orders for the reduction of his establishment to that of an ordinary private gentleman. "I may go abroad if I lose my election," said Egerton, condescending to assign to his servant a reason for his economy; "and if I do not lose it, still, now I am out of office, I shall live much in private." "Do I disturb you, sir?" said Randal, entering. "No; I have just done." The house-steward withdrew, much surprised and disgusted, and meditating the resignation of his own office,--in order, not like Egerton, to save, but to spend. The house steward had private dealings with Baron Levy, and was in fact the veritable X. Y. of the "Times," for whom Dick Avenel had been mistaken. He invested his wages and perquisites in the discount of bills; and it was part of his own money that had (though unknown to himself) swelled the last L5,000 which Egerton had borrowed from Levy. "I have settled with our committee; and, with Lord Lansmere's consent," said Egerton, briefly, "you will stand for the borough, as we proposed, in conjunction with myself. And should any accident happen to me,--that is, should I vacate this seat from any cause,--you may succeed to it, very shortly perhaps. Ingratiate yourself with the electors, and speak at the public-houses for both of us. I shall stand on my dignity, and leave the work of the election to you. No thanks,--you know how I hate thanks. Good-night." "I never stood so near to fortune and to power," said Randal, as he slowly undressed. "And I owe it but to knowledge,--knowledge of men, life, of all that books can teach us." So his slight thin fingers dropped the extinguisher on the candle, and the prosperous Schemer laid himself down to rest in the dark. Shutters closed, curtains drawn--never was rest more quiet, never was room more dark! That evening, Harley had dined at his father's. He spoke much to Helen, scarcely at all to Violante. But it so happened that when later, and a little while before he took his leave, Helen, at his request, was playing a favourite air of his, Lady Lausmere, who had been seated between him and Violante, left the room, and Violante turned quickly towards Harley. "Do you know the Marchesa di Negra?" she asked, in a hurried voice. "A little. Why do you ask?" "That is my secret," answered Violante, trying to smile with her old frank, childlike archness. "But, tell me, do you think better of her than of her brother?" "Certainly. I believe her heart to be good, and that she is not without generous qualities." "Can you not induce my father to see her? Would you not counsel him to do so?" "Any wish of yours is a law to me," answered Harley, gallantly. "You wish your father to see her? I will try and persuade him to do so. Now, in return, confide to me your secret. What is your object?" "Leave to return to my Italy. I care not for honours, for rank; and even my father has ceased to regret their loss. But the land, the native land---Oh, to see it once more! Oh, to die there!" "Die! You children have so lately left heaven, that ye talk as if ye could return there, without passing through the gates of sorrow, infirmity, and age! But I thought you were content with England. Why so eager to leave it? Violante, you are unkind to us,--to Helen, who already loves you so well." As Harley spoke, Helen rose from the piano, and approaching Violante, placed her hand caressingly on the Italian's shoulder. Violante shivered, and shrunk away. The eyes both of Harley and Helen followed her. Harley's eyes were very grave and thoughtful. "Is she not changed--your friend?" said he, looking down. "Yes, lately; much changed. I fear there is something on her mind,-- I know not what." "Ah," muttered Harley, "it may be so; but at your age and hers, nothing rests on the mind long. Observe, I say the mind,--the heart is more tenacious." Helen sighed softly, but deeply. "And therefore," continued Harley, half to himself, "we can detect when something is on the mind,--some care, some fear, some trouble. But when the heart closes over its own more passionate sorrow, who can discover, who conjecture? Yet you at least, my pure, candid Helen,--you might subject mind and heart alike to the fabled window of glass." "Oh, no!" cried Helen, involuntarily. "Oh, yes! Do not let me think that you have one secret I may not know, or one sorrow I may not share. For, in our relationship, that would be deceit." He pressed her hand with more than usual tenderness as he spoke, and shortly afterwards left the house. And all that night Helen felt like a guilty thing,--more wretched even than Violante. CHAPTER V. Early the next morning, while Violante was still in her room, a letter addressed to her came by the post. The direction was in a strange hand. She opened it, and read, in Italian, what is thus translated:-- I would gladly see you, but I cannot call openly at the house in which you live. Perhaps I may have it in my power to arrange family dissensions,--to repair any wrongs your father may have sustained. Perhaps I may be enabled to render yourself an essential service. But for all this it is necessary that we should meet and confer frankly. Meanwhile time presses, delay is forbidden. Will you meet me, an hour after noon, in the lane, just outside the private gate of your gardens? I shall be alone, and you cannot fear to meet one of your own sex, and a kinswoman. Ah, I so desire to see you! Come, I beseech you. BEATRICE. Violante read, and her decision was taken. She was naturally fearless, and there was little that she would not have braved for the chance of serving her father. And now all peril seemed slight in comparison with that which awaited her in Randal's suit, backed by her father's approval. Randal had said that Madame di Negra alone could aid her in escape from himself. Harley had said that Madame di Negra had generous qualities; and who but Madame di Negra would write herself a kinswoman, and sign herself "Beatrice"? A little before the appointed hour, she stole unobserved through the trees, opened the little gate, and found herself in the quiet, solitary lane. In a few minutes; a female figure came up, with a quick, light step; and throwing aside her veil, said, with a sort of wild, suppressed energy, "It is you! I was truly told. Beautiful! beautiful! And oh! what youth and what bloom!" The voice dropped mournfully; and Violante, surprised by the tone, and blushing under the praise, remained a moment silent; then she said, with some hesitation, "You are, I presume, the Marchesa di Negra? And I have heard of you enough to induce me to trust you." "Of me! From whom?" asked Beatrice, almost fiercely. "From Mr Leslie, and--and--" "Go on; why falter?" "From Lord L'Estrange." "From no one else?" "Not that I remember." Beatrice sighed heavily, and let fall her veil. Some foot-passengers now came up the lane; and seeing two ladies, of mien so remarkable, turned round, and gazed curiously. "We cannot talk here," said Beatrice, impatiently; "and I have so much to say, so much to know. Trust me yet more; it is for yourself I speak. My carriage waits yonder. Come home with me,--I will not detain you an hour; and I will bring you back." This proposition startled Violante. She retreated towards the gate with a gesture of dissent. Beatrice laid her hand on the girl's arm, and again lifting her veil, gazed at her with a look half of scorn, half of admiration. "I, too, would once have recoiled from one step beyond the formal line by which the world divides liberty from woman. Now see how bold I am. Child, child, do not trifle with your destiny. You may never again have the same occasion offered to you. It is not only to meet you that I am here; I must know something of you,--something of your heart. Why shrink? Is not the heart pure?" Violante made no answer; but her smile, so sweet and so lofty, humbled the questioner it rebuked. "I may restore to Italy your father," said Beatrice, with an altered voice. "Come!" Violante approached, but still hesitatingly. "Not by union with your brother?" "You dread that so much then?" "Dread it? No. Why should I dread what is in my, power to reject. But if you can really restore my father, and by nobler means, you may save me for--" Violante stopped abruptly; the marchesa's eyes sparkled. "Save you for--ah! I can guess what you leave unsaid. But come, come! more strangers, see; you shall tell me all at my own house. And if you can make one sacrifice, why, I will save you all else. Come, or farewell forever!" Violante placed her hand in Beatrice's, with a frank confidence that brought the accusing blood into the marchesa's cheek. "We are women both," said Violante; "we descend from the same noble House; we have knelt alike to the same Virgin Mother; why should I not believe and trust you?" "Why not?" muttered Beatrice, feebly; and she moved on, with her head bowed on her breast, and all the pride of her step was gone. They reached a carriage that stood by the angle of the road. Beatrice spoke a word apart to the driver, who was an Italian, in the pay of the count; the man nodded, and opened the carriage door. The ladies entered. Beatrice pulled down the blinds; the man remounted his box, and drove on rapidly. Beatrice, leaning back, groaned aloud. Violante drew nearer to her side. "Are you in pain?" said she, with her tender, melodious voice; "or can I serve you as you would serve me?" "Child, give me your hand, and be silent while I look at you. Was I ever so fair as this? Never! And what deeps--what deeps roll between her and me!" She said this as of some one absent, and again sank into silence; but continued still to gaze on Violante, whose eyes, veiled by their long fringes, drooped beneath the gaze. Suddenly Beatrice started, exclaiming, "No, it shall not be!" and placed her hand on the check-string. "What shall not be?" asked Violante, surprised by the cry and the action. Beatrice paused; her breast heaved visibly under her dress. "Stay," she said slowly. "As you say, we are both women of the same noble House; you would reject the suit of my brother, yet you have seen him; his the form to please the eye, his the arts that allure the fancy. He offers to you rank, wealth, your father's pardon and recall. If I could remove the objections which your father entertains, prove that the count has less wronged him than he deems, would you still reject the rank and the wealth and the hand of Giulio Franzini?" "Oh, yes, yes; were his hand a king's!" "Still, then, as woman to woman--both, as you say, akin, and sprung from the same lineage--still, then, answer me, answer me, for you speak to one who has loved--Is it not that you love another? Speak." "I do not know. Nay, not love,--it was a romance; it is a thing impossible. Do not question,--I cannot answer." And the broken words were choked by sudden tears. Beatrice's face grew hard and pitiless. Again she lowered her veil, and withdrew her hand from the check-string; but the coachman had felt the touch, and halted. "Drive on," said Beatrice, "as you were directed." Both were now long silent,--Violante with great difficulty recovering from her emotion, Beatrice breathing hard, and her arms folded firmly across her breast. Meanwhile the carriage had entered London; it passed the quarter in which Madame di Negra's house was situated; it rolled fast over a bridge; it whirled through a broad thoroughfare, then through defiles of lanes, with tall blank dreary houses on either side. On it went, and on, till Violante suddenly took alarm. "Do you live so far?" she said, drawing up the blind, and gazing in dismay on the strange, ignoble suburb. "I shall be missed already. Oh, let us turn back, I beseech you!" "We are nearly there now. The driver has taken this road in order to avoid those streets in which we might have been seen together,--perhaps by my brother himself. Listen to me, and talk of-of the lover whom you rightly associate with a vain romance. 'Impossible,'--yes, it is impossible!" Violante clasped her hands before her eyes, and bowed down her head. "Why are you so cruel?" said she. "This is not what you promised. How are you to serve my father, how restore him to his country? This is what you promised!" "If you consent to one sacrifice, I will fulfil that promise. We are arrived." The carriage stopped before a tall, dull house, divided from other houses by a high wall that appeared to enclose a yard, and standing at the end of a narrow lane, which was bounded on the one side by the Thames. In that quarter the river was crowded with gloomy, dark-looking vessels and craft, all lying lifeless under the wintry sky. The driver dismounted and rang the bell. Two swarthy Italian faces presented themselves at the threshold. Beatrice descended lightly, and gave her hand to Violante. "Now, here we shall be secure," said she; "and here a few minutes may suffice to decide your fate." As the door closed on Violante, who, now waking to suspicion, to alarm, looked fearfully round the dark and dismal hall, Beatrice turned: "Let the carriage wait." The Italian who received the order bowed and smiled; but when the two ladies had ascended the stairs he re-opened the street-door, and said to the driver, "Back to the count, and say, 'All is safe.'" The carriage drove off. The man who had given this order barred and locked the door, and, taking with him the huge key, plunged into the mystic recesses of the basement and disappeared. The hall, thus left solitary, had the grim aspect of a prison,--the strong door sheeted with iron, the rugged stone stairs, lighted by a high window grimed with the dust of years, and jealously barred, and the walls themselves abutting out rudely here and there, as if against violence even from within. CHAPTER VI. It was, as we have seen, without taking counsel of the faithful Jemima that the sage recluse of Norwood had yielded to his own fears and Randal's subtle suggestions, in the concise and arbitrary letter which he had written to Violante; but at night, when churchyards give up the dead, and conjugal hearts the secrets hid by day from each other, the wise man informed his wife of the step he had taken. And Jemima then--who held English notions, very different from those which prevail in Italy, as to the right of fathers to dispose of their daughters without reference to inclination or repugnance--so sensibly yet so mildly represented to the pupil of Machiavelli that he had not gone exactly the right way to work, if he feared that the handsome count had made some impression on Violante, and if he wished her to turn with favour to the suitor he recommended,--that so abrupt a command could only chill the heart, revolt the will, and even give to the audacious Peschiera some romantic attraction which he had not before possessed,--as effectually to destroy Riccabocca's sleep that night. And the next day he sent Giacomo to Lady Lansmere's with a very kind letter to Violante and a note to the hostess, praying the latter to bring his daughter to Norwood for a few hours, as he much wished to converse with both. It was on Giacomo's arrival at Knightsbridge that Violante's absence was discovered. Lady Lansmere, ever proudly careful of the world and its gossip, kept Giacomo from betraying his excitement to her servants, and stated throughout the decorous household that the young lady had informed her she was going to visit some friends that morning, and had no doubt gone through the garden gate, since it was found open; the way was more quiet there than by the high-road, and her friends might have therefore walked to meet her by the lane. Lady Lansmere observed that her only surprise was that Violante had gone earlier than she had expected. Having said this with a composure that compelled belief, Lady Lansmere ordered the carriage, and, taking Giacomo with her, drove at once to consult her son. Harley's quick intellect had scarcely recovered from the shock upon his emotions before Randal Leslie was announced. "Ah," said Lady Lansmere, "Mr. Leslie may know something. He came to her yesterday with a note from her father. Pray let him enter." The Austrian prince approached Harley. "I will wait in the next room," he whispered. "You may want me if you have cause to suspect Peschiera in all this." Lady Lansmere was pleased with the prince's delicacy, and, glancing at Leonard, said, "Perhaps you, too, sir, may kindly aid us, if you would retire with the prince. Mr. Leslie may be disinclined to speak of affairs like these, except to Harley and myself." "True, madam, but beware of Mr. Leslie." As the door at one end of the room closed on the prince and Leonard, Randal entered at the other, seemingly much agitated. "I have just been to your house, Lady Lansmere. I heard you were here; pardon me if I have followed you. I have called at Knightsbridge to see Violante, learned that she had left you. I implore you to tell me how or wherefore. I have the right to ask: her father has promised me her hand." Harley's falcon eye had brightened tip at Randal's entrance. It watched steadily the young man's face. It was clouded for a moment by his knitted brows at Randal's closing words; but he left it to Lady Lansmere to reply and explain. This the countess did briefly. Randal clasped his hands. "And has she not gone to her father's? Are you sure of that?" "Her father's servant has just come from Norwood." "Oh, I am to blame for this! It is my rash suit, her fear of it, her aversion! I see it all! "Randal's voice was hollow with remorse and despair. "To save her from Peschiera, her father insisted on her immediate marriage with myself. His orders were too abrupt, my own wooing too unwelcome. I knew her high spirit; she has fled to escape from me. But whither, if not to Norwood,--oh, whither? What other friends has she, what relations?" "You throw a new light on this mystery," said Lady Lansmere; "perhaps she may have gone to her father's after all, and the servant may have crossed, but missed her on the way. I will drive to Norwood at once." "Do so,--do; but if she be not there, be careful not to alarm Riccabocca with the news of her disappearance. Caution Giacomo not to do so. He would only suspect Peschiera, and be hurried to some act of violence." "Do not you, then, suspect Peschiera, Mr. Leslie?" asked Harley, suddenly. "Ha! is it possible? Yet, no. I called on him this morning with Frank Hazeldean, who is to marry his sister. I was with him till I went on to Knightsbridge, at the very time of Violante's disappearance. He could not then have been a party to it." "You saw Violante yesterday. Did you speak to her of Madame di Negra?" asked Harley, suddenly recalling the questions respecting the marchesa which Violante had addressed to him. In spite of himself, Randal felt that he changed countenance. "Of Madame di Negra? I do not think so. Yet I might. Oh, yes, I remember now. She asked me the marchesa's address; I would not give it." "The address is easily found. Can she have gone to the marchesa's house?" "I will run there, and see," cried Randal, starting up. "And I with you. Stay, my dear mother. Proceed, as you propose, to Norwood, and take Mr. Leslie's advice. Spare our friend the news of his daughter's loss--if lost she be--till she is restored to him. He can be of no use mean while. Let Giacomo rest here; I may want him." Harley then passed into the next room, and entreated the prince and Leonard to await his return, and allow Giacomo to stay in the same room. He then went quickly back to Randal. Whatever might be his fears or emotions, Harley felt that he had need of all his coolness of judgment and presence of mind. The occasion made abrupt demand upon powers which had slept since boyhood, but which now woke with a vigour that would have made even Randal tremble, could he have detected the wit, the courage, the electric energies, masked under that tranquil self-possession. Lord L'Estrange and Randal soon reached the marchesa's house, and learned that she had been out since morning in one of Count Peschiera's carriages. Randal stole an alarmed glance at Harley's face. Harley did not seem to notice it. "Now, Mr. Leslie, what do you advise next?" "I am at a loss. Ah, perhaps, afraid of her father, knowing how despotic is his belief in paternal rights, and how tenacious he is of his word once passed, as it has been to me, she may have resolved to take refuge in the country, perhaps at the Casino, or at Mrs. Dale's, or Mrs. Hazeldean's. I will hasten to inquire at the coach-office. Meanwhile, you--" "Never mind me, Mr. Leslie. Do what you think best. But, if your surmises be just, you must have been a very rude wooer to the high-born lady you aspired to win." "Not so; but perhaps an unwelcome one. If she has indeed fled from me, need I say that my suit will be withdrawn at once? I am not a selfish lover, Lord L'Estrange." "Nor I a vindictive man. Yet, could I discover who has conspired against this lady, a guest under my father's roof, I would crush him into the mire as easily as I set my foot upon this glove. Good-day to you, Mr. Leslie." Randal stood still for a few moments as Harley strided on; then his lip sneered as it muttered, "Insolent! But does he love her? If so, I am avenged already." CHAPTER VII. Harley went straight to Peschiera's hotel. He was told that the count had walked out with Mr. Frank Hazeldean and some other gentlemen who had breakfasted with him. He had left word, in case any one called, that he had gone to Tattersall's to look at some horses that were for sale. To Tattersall's went Harley. The count was in the yard leaning against a pillar, and surrounded by fashionable friends. Lord L'Estrange paused, and, with an heroic effort at self-mastery, repressed his rage. "I may lose all if I show that I suspect him; and yet I must insult and fight him rather than leave his movements free. Ah, is that young Hazeldean? A thought strikes me!" Frank was standing apart from the group round the count, and looking very absent and very sad. Harley touched him on the shoulder, and drew him aside unobserved by the count. "Mr. Hazeldean, your uncle Egerton is my dearest friend. Will you be a friend to me? I want you." "My Lord--" "Follow me. Do not let Count Peschiera see us talking together." Harley quitted the yard, and entered St. James's Park by the little gate close by. In a very few words he informed Frank of Violante's disappearance and of his reasons for suspecting the count. Frank's first sentiment was that of indignant disbelief that the brother of Beatrice could be so vile; but as he gradually called to mind the cynical and corrupt vein of the count's familiar conversation, the hints to Peschiera's prejudice that had been dropped by Beatrice herself, and the general character for brilliant and daring profligacy which even the admirers of the count ascribed to him, Frank was compelled to reluctant acquiescence in Harley's suspicions; and he said, with an earnest gravity very rare to him, "Believe me, Lord L'Estrange, if I can assist you in defeating a base and mercenary design against this poor young lady, you have but to show me how. One thing is clear, Peschicra was not personally engaged in this abduction, since I have been with him all day; and--now I think of it--I begin to hope that you wrong him; for he has invited a large party of us to make an excursion with him to Boulogne next week, in order to try his yacht, which he could scarcely do if--" "Yacht, at this time of the year! a man who habitually resides at Vienna --a yacht!" "Spendquick sells it a bargain, on account of the time of year and other reasons; and the count proposes to spend next summer in cruising about the Ionian Isles. He has some property on those isles, which he has never yet visited." "How long is it since he bought this yacht?" "Why, I am not sure that it is already bought,--that is, paid for. Levy was to meet Spendquick this very morning to arrange the matter. Spendquick complains that Levy screws him." "My dear Mr. Hazeldean, you are guiding me through the maze. Where shall I find Lord Spendquick?" "At this hour, probably in bed. Here is his card." "Thanks. And where lies the vessel?" "It was off Blackwall the other day. I went to see it, 'The Flying Dutchman,'--a fine vessel, and carries guns." "Enough. Now, heed me. There can be no immediate danger to Violante, so long as Peschiera does not meet her, so long as we know his movements. You are about to marry his sister. Avail yourself of that privilege to keep close by his side. Refuse to be shaken off. Make what excuses for the present your invention suggests. I will give you an excuse. Be anxious and uneasy to know where you can find Madame di Negra." "Madame di Negra!" cried Frank. "What of her? Is she not in Curzon Street?" "No; she has gone out in one of the count's carriages. In all probability the driver of that carriage, or some servant in attendance on it, will come to the count in the course of the day; and in order to get rid of you, the count will tell you to see this servant, and ascertain yourself that his sister is safe. Pretend to believe what the man says, but make him come to your lodgings on pretence of writing there a letter for the marchesa. Once at your lodgings, and he will be safe; for I shall see that the officers of justice secure him. The moment he is there, send an express for me to my hotel." "But," said Frank, a little bewildered, "if I go to my lodgings, how can I watch the count?" "It will nor then be necessary. Only get him to accompany you to your lodgings, and part with him at the door." "Stop, stop! you cannot suspect Madame di Negra of connivance in a scheme so infamous. Pardon me, Lord L'Estrange; I cannot act in this matter,--cannot even hear you except as your foe, if you insinuate a word against the honour of the woman I love." "Brave gentleman, your hand. It is Madame di Negra I would save, as well as my friend's young child. Think but of her, while you act as I entreat, and all will go well. I confide in you. Now, return to the count." Frank walked back to join Peschiera, and his brow was thoughtful, and his lips closed firmly. Harley had that gift which belongs to the genius of Action. He inspired others with the light of his own spirit and the force of his own will. Harley next hastened to Lord Spendquick, remained with that young gentleman some minutes, then repaired to his hotel, where Leonard, the prince, and Giacomo still awaited him. "Come with me, both of you. You, too, Giacomo. I must now see the police. We may then divide upon separate missions." "Oh, my dear Lord," cried Leonard, "you must have had good news. You seem cheerful and sanguine." "Seem! Nay, I am so! If I once paused to despond--even to doubt--I should go mad. A foe to baffle, and an angel to save! Whose spirits would not rise high, whose wits would not move quick to the warm pulse of his heart?" CHAPTER VIII. Twilight was dark in the room to which Beatrice had conducted Violante. A great change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt beside Violante, hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante, striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such cause as no woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, and still sweetly assured forgiveness. Beatrice had learned, after quick and fierce questions, which at last compelled the answers that cleared away every doubt, that her jealousy had been groundless, that she had no rival in Violante. From that moment the passions that had made her the tool of guilt abruptly vanished, and her conscience startled her with the magnitude of her treachery. Perhaps had Violante's heart been wholly free, or she had been of that mere commonplace, girlish character which women like Beatrice are apt to despise, the marchesa's affection for Peschiera, and her dread of him, might have made her try to persuade her young kinswoman at least to receive the count's visit,--at least to suffer him to make his own excuses, and plead his own cause. But there had been a loftiness of spirit in which Violante had first defied the mareliesa's questions, followed by such generous, exquisite sweetness, when the girl perceived how that wild heart was stung and maddened, and such purity of mournful candour when she had overcome her own virgin bashfulness sufficiently to undeceive the error she detected, and confess where her own affections were placed, that Beatrice bowed before her as mariner of old to some fair saint that had allayed the storm. "I have deceived you!" she cried, through her sobs; "but I will now save you at any cost. Had you been as I deemed,--the rival who had despoiled all the hopes of my future life,--I could without remorse have been the accomplice I am pledged to be. But now you--Oh, you, so good and so noble--you can never, be the bride of Peschiera. Nay, start not; he shall renounce his designs forever, or I will go myself to our emperor, and expose the dark secrets of his life. Return with me quick to the home from which I ensnared you." Beatrice's hand was on the door while she spoke. Suddenly her face fell, her lips grew white; the door was locked from without. She called,--no one answered; the bell-pull in the room gave no sound; the windows were high and barred,--they did not look on the river, nor the street, but on a close, gloomy, silent yard, high blank walls all round it; no one to hear the cry of distress, rang it ever so loud and sharp. Beatrice divined that she herself had been no less ensnared than her companion; that Peschiera, distrustful of her firmness in evil, had precluded her from the power of reparation. She was in a house only tenanted by his hirelings. Not a hope to save Violante from a fate that now appalled her seemed to remain. Thus, in incoherent self-reproaches and frenzied tears, Beatrice knelt beside her victim, communicating more and more the terrors that she felt, as the hours rolled on, and the room darkened, till it was only by the dull lamp which gleamed through the grimy windows from the yard without, that each saw the face of the other. Night came on; they heard a clock from some distant church strike the hours. The dim fire had long since burned out, and the air became intensely cold. No one broke upon their solitude,--not a voice was heard in the house. They felt neither cold nor hunger,--they felt but the solitude, and the silence, and the dread of something that was to come. At length, about midnight, a bell rang at the street door; then there was the quick sound of steps, of sullen bolts withdrawn, of low, murmured voices. Light streamed through the chinks of the door to the apartment, the door itself opened. Two Italians bearing tapers entered, and the Count di Peschiera followed. Beatrice sprang up, and rushed towards her brother. He laid his hand gently on her lips, and motioned to the Italians to withdraw. They placed the lights on the table, and vanished without a word. Peschiera then, putting aside his sister, approached Violante. "Fair kinswoman," said he, with an air of easy but resolute assurance, "there are things which no man can excuse, and no woman can pardon, unless that love, which is beyond all laws, suggests excuse for the one, and obtains pardon for the other. In a word, I have sworn to win you, and I have had no opportunities to woo. Fear not; the worst that can befall you is to be my bride! Stand aside, my sister, stand aside." "Giulio Franzini, I stand between you and her; you shall strike me to the earth before you can touch even the hem of her robe!" "What, my sister! you turn against me?" "And unless you instantly retire and leave her free, I will unmask you to the emperor." "Too late, /mon enfant!/ You will sail with us. The effects you may need for the voyage are already on board. You will be witness to our marriage, and by a holy son of the Church. Then tell the emperor what you will." With a light and sudden exertion of his strength, the count put away Beatrice, and fell on his knee before Violante, who, drawn to her full height, death-like pale, but untrembling, regarded him with unutterable disdain. You scorn me now," said he, throwing into his features an expression of humility and admiration, "and I cannot wonder at it. But, believe me, that until the scorn yield to a kinder sentiment, I will take no advantage of the power I have gained over your fate." "Power!" said Violante, haughtily. "You have ensnared me into this house, you have gained the power of a day; but the power over my fate, --no!" "You mean that your friends have discovered your disappearance, and are on your track. Fair one, I provide against your friends, and I defy all the laws and police of England. The vessel that will bear you from these shores waits in the river hard by. Beatrice, I warn you,--be still, unhand me. In that vessel will be a priest who shall join our hands, but not before you will recognize the truth, that she who flies with Giulio Peschiera must become his wife or quit him as the disgrace of her House, and the scorn of her sex." "O villain! villain!" cried Beatrice. "Peste, my sister, gentler words. You, too, would marry. I tell no tales of you. Signorina, I grieve to threaten force. Give me your hand; we must be gone." Violante eluded the clasp that would have profaned her, and darting across the room, opened the door, and closed it hastily behind her. Beatrice clung firmly to the count to detain him from pursuit. But just without the door, close, as if listening to what passed within, stood a man wrapped from head to foot in a large boat cloak. The ray of the lamp that beamed on the man glittered on the barrel of a pistol which he held in his right hand. "Hist!" whispered the man in English, and passing his arm round her; "in this house you are in that ruffian's power; out of it, safe. Ah, I am by your side,--I, Violante!" The voice thrilled to Violante's heart. She started, looked up, but nothing was seen of the man's face, what with the hat and cloak, save a mass of raven curls, and a beard of the same hue. The count now threw open the door, dragging after him his sister, who still clung round him. "Ha, that is well!" he cried to the man, in Italian. "Bear the lady after me, gently; but if she attempt to cry out, why, force enough to silence her, not more. As for you, Beatrice, traitress that you are, I could strike you to the earth, but--No, this suffices." He caught his sister in his arms as he spoke, and regardless of her cries and struggles, sprang down the stairs. The hall was crowded with fierce, swarthy men. The count turned to one of them, and whispered; in an instant the marchesa was seized and gagged. The count cast a look over his shoulder; Violante was close behind, supported by the man to whom Peschiera had consigned her, and who was pointing to Beatrice, and appeared warning Violante against resistance. Violante was silent, and seemed resigned. Peschiera smiled cynically, and, preceded by some of his hirelings, who held torches, descended a few steps that led to an abrupt landing-place between the hall and the basement story. There a small door stood open, and the river flowed close by. A boat was moored on the bank, round which grouped four men, who had the air of foreign sailors. At the appearance of Peschiera, three of these men sprang into the boat, and got ready their oars. The fourth carefully re-adjusted a plank thrown from the boat to the wharf, and offered his arm obsequiously to Peschiera. The count was the first to enter, and, humming a gay opera air, took his place by the helm. The two females were next lifted in, and Violante felt her hand pressed almost convulsively by the man who stood by the plank. The rest followed, and in another minute the boat bounded swiftly over the waves towards a vessel that lay several furlongs adown the river, and apart from all the meaner craft that crowded the stream. The stars struggled pale through the foggy atmosphere; not a word was heard within the boat, --no sound save the regular splash of the oars. The count paused from his lively tune, and gathering round him the ample fold of his fur pelisse, seemed absorbed in thought. Even by the imperfect light of the stars, Peschiera's face wore an air of sovereign triumph. The result had justified that careless and insolent confidence in himself and in fortune, which was the most prominent feature in the character of the man, who, both bravo and gamester, had played against the world with his rapier in one hand and cogged dice in the other. Violante, once in a vessel filled by his own men, was irretrievably in his power. Even her father must feel grateful to learn that the captive of Peschiera had saved name and repute in becoming Peschiera's wife. Even the pride of sex in Violante herself must induce her to confirm what Peschiera, of course, intended to state,--namely, that she was a willing partner in a bridegroom's schemes of flight towards the altar rather than the poor victim of a betrayer, and receiving his hand but from his mercy. He saw his fortune secured, his success envied, his very character rehabilitated by his splendid nuptials. Ambition began to mingle with his dreams of pleasure and pomp. What post in the Court or the State too high for the aspirations of one who had evinced the most incontestable talent for active life,--the talent to succeed in all that the will had undertaken? Thus mused the count, half-forgetful of the present, and absorbed in the golden future, till he was aroused by a loud hail from the vessel and the bustle on board the boat, as the sailors caught at the rope flung forth to them. He then rose and moved towards Violante. But the man who was still in charge of her passed the count lightly, half-leading, half-carrying his passive prisoner. "Pardon, Excellency," said the man, in Italian, "but the boat is crowded, and rocks so much that your aid would but disturb our footing." Before Peschiera could reply, Violante was already on the steps of the vessel, and the count paused till, with elated smile, he saw her safely standing on the deck. Beatrice followed, and then Peschiera himself; but when the Italians in his train also thronged towards the sides of the boat, two of the sailors got before them, and let go the rope, while the other two plied their oars vigorously, and pulled back towards shore. The Italians burst into an amazed and indignant volley of execra tions. "Silence," said the sailor who had stood by the plank, "we obey orders. If you are not quiet, we shall upset the boat. We can swim; Heaven and Monsignore San Giacomo pity you if you cannot!" Meanwhile, as Peschiera leaped upon deck, a flood of light poured upon him from lifted torches. That light streamed full on the face and form of a man of commanding stature, whose arm was around Violante, and whose dark eyes flashed upon the count more luminously than the torches. On one side this man stood the Austrian prince; on the other side (a cloak, and a profusion of false dark locks, at his feet) stood Lord L'Estrange, his arms folded, and his lips curved by a smile in which the ironical humour native to the man was tempered with a calm and supreme disdain. The count strove to speak, but his voice faltered. All around him looked ominous and hostile. He saw many Italian faces, but they scowled at him with vindictive hate; in the rear were English mariners, peering curiously over the shoulders of the foreigners, and with a broad grin on their open countenances. Suddenly, as the count thus stood perplexed, cowering, stupefied, there burst from all the Italians present a hoot of unutterable scorn, "Il traditore! il traditore!" (the traitor! the traitor!) The count was brave, and at the cry he lifted his head with a certain majesty. At that moment Harley, raising his hand as if to silence the hoot, came forth from the group by which he had been hitherto standing, and towards him the count advanced with a bold stride. "What trick is this?" he said, in French, fiercely. "I divine that it is you whom I can single out for explanation and atonement." "/Pardieu, Monsieur le Comte,/" answered Harley, in the same language, which lends itself so well to polished sarcasm and high-bred enmity, "let us distinguish. Explanation should come from me, I allow; but atonement I have the honour to resign to yourself. This vessel--" "Is mine!" cried the count. "Those men, who insult me, should be in my pay." "The men in your pay, Monsieur le Comte, are on shore, drinking success to your voyage. But, anxious still to procure you the gratification of being amongst your own countrymen, those whom I have taken into my pay are still better Italians than the pirates whose place they supply; perhaps not such good sailors; but then I have taken the liberty to add to the equipment of a vessel which cost me too much to risk lightly, some stout English seamen, who are mariners more practised than even your pirates. Your grand mistake, Monsieur le Comte, is in thinking that the 'Flying Dutchman' is yours. With many apologies for interfering with your intention to purchase it, I beg to inform you that Lord Spendquick has kindly sold it to me. Nevertheless, Monsieur le Comte, for the next few weeks I place it--men and all--at your service." Peschiera smiled scornfully. "I thank your Lordship; but since I presume that I shall no longer have the travelling companion who alone could make the voyage attractive, I shall return to shore, and will simply request you to inform me at what hour you can receive the friend whom I shall depute to discuss that part of the question yet untouched, and to arrange that the atonement, whether it be due from me or yourself, may be rendered as satisfactory as you have condescended to make the explanation." "Let not that vex you, Monsieur le Comte; the atonement is, in much, made already; so anxious have I been to forestall all that your nice sense of honour would induce so complete a gentleman to desire. You have ensnared a young heiress, it is true; but you see that it was only to restore her to the arms of her father. You have juggled an illustrious kinsman out of his heritage; but you have voluntarily come on board this vessel, first, to enable his Highness the Prince Von ------, of whose rank at the Austrian Court you are fully aware, to state to your emperor that he himself has been witness of the manner in which you interpreted his Imperial Majesty's assent to your nuptials with a child of one of the first subjects in his Italian realm; and, next, to commence by an excursion to the seas of the Baltic the sentence of banishment which I have no doubt will accompany the same act that restores to the chief of your House his lands and his honours." The count started. "That restoration," said the Austrian prince, who had advanced to Harley's side, "I already guarantee. Disgrace that you are, Giulio Franzini, to the nobles of the Empire, I will not leave my royal master till his hand strike your name from the roll. I have here your own letters, to prove that your kinsman was duped by yourself into the revolt which you would have headed as a Catiline, if it had not better suited your nature to betray it as a Judas. In ten days from this time, these letters will be laid before the emperor and his Council." "Are you satisfied, Monsieur le Comte," said Harley, "with your atonement so far? If not, I have procured you the occasion to render it yet more complete. Before you stands the kinsman you have wronged. He knows now, that though, for a while, you ruined his fortunes, you failed to sully his hearth. His heart can grant you pardon, and hereafter his hand may give you alms. Kneel then, Giulio Franzini, kneel at the feet of Alphonso, Duke of Serrano." The above dialogue had been in French, which only a few of the Italians present understood, and that imperfectly; but at the name with which Harley concluded his address to the count, a simultaneous cry from those Italians broke forth. "Alphonso the Good! Alphonso the Good! Viva, viva, the good Duke of Serrano!" And, forgetful even of the count, they crowded round the tall form of Riccabocca, striving who should first kiss his hand, the very hem of his garment. Riccabocca's eyes overflowed. The gaunt exile seemed transfigured into another and more kingly man. An inexpressible dignity invested him. He stretched forth his arms, as if to bless his countrymen. Even that rude cry, from humble men, exiles like himself, consoled him for years of banishment and penury. "Thanks, thanks," he continued; "thanks! Some day or other, you will all perhaps return with me to the beloved land!" The Austrian prince bowed his head, as if in assent to the prayer. "Giulio Franzini," said the Duke of Serrano,--for so we may now call the threadbare recluse of the Casino,--"had this last villanous design of yours been allowed by Providence, think you that there is one spot on earth on which the ravisher could have been saved from a father's arm? But now, Heaven has been more kind. In this hour let me imitate its mercy;" and with relaxing brow the duke mildly drew near to his guilty kinsman. From the moment the Austrian prince had addressed him, the count had preserved a profound silence, showing neither repentance nor shame. Gathering himself up, he had stood firm, glaring round him like one at bay. But as the duke now approached, he waved his hand, and exclaimed, "Back, pedant; back; you have not triumphed yet. And you, prating German, tell your tales to our emperor. I shall be by his throne to answer,--if, indeed, you escape from the meeting to which I will force you by the way." He spoke, and made a rush towards the side of the vessel. But Harley's quick wit had foreseen the count's intention, and Harley's quick eye had given the signal by which it was frustrated. Seized in the gripe of his own watchful and indignant countrymen, just as he was about to plunge into the stream, Peschiera was dragged back, pinioned clown. Then the expression of his whole countenance changed; the desperate violence of the inborn gladiator broke forth. His great strength enabled him to break loose more than once, to dash more than one man to the floor of the deck; but at length, overpowered by numbers, though still struggling, all dignity, all attempt at presence of mind gone, uttering curses the most plebeian, gnashing his teeth, and foaming at the mouth, nothing seemed left of the brilliant Lothario but the coarse fury of the fierce natural man. Then still preserving that air and tone of exquisite imperturbable irony, which the highest comedian might have sought to imitate in vain, Harley bowed low to the storming count. "Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! The vessel which you have honoured me by entering is bound to Norway. The Italians who accompany you were sent by yourself into exile, and, in return, they now kindly promise to enliven you with their society, whenever you feel somewhat tired of your own. Conduct the count to his cabin. Gently there, gently. Adieu, Monsieur le Comte, adieu! et bon voyage." Harley turned lightly on his heel, as Peschiera, in spite of his struggles, was now fairly carried down to the cabin. "A trick for the trickster," said L'Estrange to the Austrian prince. "The revenge of a farce on the would-be tragedian." "More than that,-he is ruined." "And ridiculous," quoth Harley. "I should like to see his look when they land him in Norway." Harley then passed towards the centre of the vessel, by which, hitherto partially concealed by the sailors, who were now busily occupied, stood Beatrice,--Frank Hazeldean, who had first received her on entering the vessel, standing by her side; and Leonard, a little apart from the two, in quiet observation of all that had passed around him. Beatrice appeared but little to heed Frank; her dark eyes were lifted to the dim starry skies, and her lips were moving as if in prayer; yet her young lover was speaking to her in great emotion, low and rapidly. "No, no, do not think for a moment that we suspect you, Beatrice. I will answer for your honour with my life. Oh, why will you turn from me; why will you not speak?" "A moment later," said Beatrice, softly. "Give me one moment yet." She passed slowly and falteringly towards Leonard, placed her hand, that trembled, on his arm, and led him aside to the verge of the vessel. Frank, startled by her movement, made a step as if to follow, and then stopped short and looked on, but with a clouded and doubtful countenance. Harley's smile had gone, and his eye was also watchful. It was but a few words that Beatrice spoke, it was but a sentence or so that Leonard answered; and then Beatrice extended her hand, which the young poet bent over, and kissed in silence. She lingered an instant; and even by the starlight, Harley noted the blush that overspread her face. The blush faded as Beatrice returned to Frank. Lord L'Estrange would have retired,--she signed to him to stay. "My Lord," she said, very firmly, "I cannot accuse you of harshness to my sinful and unhappy brother. His offence might perhaps deserve a heavier punishment than that which you inflict with such playful scorn. But whatever his penance, contempt now or poverty later, I feel that his sister should be by his side to share it. I am not innocent if he be guilty; and, wreck though he be, nothing else on this dark sea of life is now left to me to cling to. Hush, my Lord! I shall not leave this vessel. All that I entreat of you is, to order your men to respect my brother, since a woman will be by his side." "But, Marchesa, this cannot be; and--" "Beatrice, Beatrice--and me!--our betrothal? Do you forget me?" cried Frank, in reproachful agony. "No, young and too noble lover; I shall remember you ever in my prayers. But listen. I have been deceived, hurried on, I might say, by others, but also, and far more, by my own mad and blinded heart,--deceived, hurried on, to wrong you and to belie myself. My shame burns into me when I think that I could have inflicted on you the just anger of your family, linked you to my own ruined fortunes,--my own--" "Your own generous, loving heart!--that is all I asked!" cried Frank. "Cease, cease! that heart is mine still!" Tears gushed from the Italian's eyes. "Englishman, I never loved you; this heart was dead to you, and it will be dead to all else forever. Farewell. You will forget me sooner than you think for,--sooner than I shall forget you, as a friend, as a brother--if brothers had natures as tender and as kind as yours! Now, my Lord, will you give me your arm? I would join the count." "Stay; one word, Madame," said Frank, very pale, and through his set teeth, but calmly, and with a pride on his brow which had never before dignified its habitual careless expression,--"one word. I may not be worthy of you in anything else, but an honest love, that never doubted, never suspected, that would have clung to you though all the world were against,--such a love makes the meanest man of worth. One word, frank and open. By all that you hold most sacred in your creed, did you speak the truth when you said that you never loved me?" Beatrice bent down her head; she was abashed before this manly nature that she had so deceived, and perhaps till then undervalued. "Pardon, pardon," she said, in reluctant accents, half-choked by the rising of a sob. At her hesitation, Frank's face lighted as if with sudden hope. She raised her eyes, and saw the change in him, then glanced where Leonard stood, mournful and motionless. She shivered, and added firmly, "Yes, pardon; for I spoke the truth, and I had no heart to give. It might have been as wax to another,--it was of granite to you." She paused, and muttered inly, "Granite, and--broken!" Frank said not a word more. He stood rooted to the spot, not even gazing after Beatrice as she passed on, leaning on the arm of Lord L'Estrange. He then walked resolutely away, and watched the boat that the men were now lowering from the side of the vessel. Beatrice stopped when she came near the place where Violante stood, answering in agitated whispers her father's anxious questions. As she stopped, she leaned more heavily upon Harley. "It is your arm that trembles now, Lord L'Estrange," said she, with a mournful smile, and, quitting him ere he could answer, she bowed down her head meekly before Violante. "You have pardoned me already," she said, in a tone that reached only the girl's ear, "and my last words shall not be of the past. I see your future spread bright before me under those steadfast stars. Love still; hope and trust. These are the last words of her who will soon die to the world. Fair maid, they are prophetic!" Violante shrunk back to her father's breast, and there hid her glowing face, resigning her hand to Beatrice, who pressed it to her bosom. The marchesa then came back to Harley, and disappeared with him in the interior of the vessel. When Harley again came on deck, he seemed much flurried and disturbed. He kept aloof from the duke and Violante, and was the last to enter the boat, that was now lowered into the water. As he and his companions reached the land, they saw the vessel in movement, gliding slowly down the river. "Courage, Leonard, courage!" murmured Harley. "You grieve, and nobly. But you have shunned the worst and most vulgar deceit in civilized life; you have not simulated love. Better that yon poor lady should be, awhile, the sufferer from a harsh truth, than the eternal martyr of a flattering lie! Alas, my Leonard! with the love of the poet's dream are linked only the Graces; with the love of the human heart come the awful Fates!" "My Lord, poets do not dream when they love. You will learn how the feelings are deep in proportion as the fancies are vivid, when you read that confession of genius and woe which I have left in your hands." Leonard turned away. Harley's gaze followed him with inquiring interest, and suddenly encountered the soft dark grateful eyes of Violante. "The Fates, the Fates!" murmured Harley. CHAPTER IX. We are at Norwood in the sage's drawing-room. Violante has long since retired to rest. Harley, who had accompanied the father and daughter to their home, is still conversing with the former. "Indeed, my dear Duke," said Harley "Hush, hush! Diavolo, don't call me Duke yet; I am at home here once more as Dr. Riccabocca." "My dear doctor, then, allow me to assure you that you overrate my claim to your thanks. Your old friends, Leonard and Frank Hazeldean, must come in for their share. Nor is the faithful Giacomo to be forgotten." "Continue your explanation." "In the first place, I learned, through Frank, that one Baron Levy, a certain fashionable money-lender, and general ministrant to the affairs of fine gentlemen, was just about to purchase a yacht from Lord Spendquick on behalf of the count. A short interview with Spendquick enabled me to outbid the usurer, and conclude a bargain by which the yacht became mine,--a promise to assist Spendquick in extricating himself from the claws of the money-lender (which I trust to do by reconciling him with his father, who is a man of liberality and sense) made Spendquick readily connive at my scheme for outwitting the enemy. He allowed Levy to suppose that the count might take possession of the vessel; but affecting an engagement, and standing out for terms, postponed the final settlement of the purchase-money till the next day. I was thus master of the vessel, which I felt sure was destined to serve Peschiera's infamous design. But it was my business not to alarm the count's suspicions; I therefore permitted the pirate crew he had got together to come on board. I knew I could get rid of them when necessary. Meanwhile, Frank undertook to keep close to the count until he could see and cage within his lodgings the servant whom Peschiera had commissioned to attend his sister. If I could but apprehend this servant, I had a sanguine hope that I could discover and free your daughter before Peschiera could even profane her with his presence. But Frank, alas! was no pupil of Machiavelli. Perhaps the count detected his secret thoughts under his open countenance, perhaps merely wished to get rid of a companion very much in his way; but, at all events, he contrived to elude our young friend as cleverly as you or I could have done,--told him that Beatrice herself was at Roehampton, had borrowed the count's carriage to go there, volunteered to take Frank to the house, took him. Frank found himself in a drawing-room; and after waiting a few minutes, while the count went out on pretence of seeing his sister, in pirouetted a certain distinguished opera-dancer! Meanwhile the count was fast back on the road to London, and Frank had to return as he could. He then hunted for the count everywhere, and saw him no more. It was late in the day when Frank found me out with this news. I became seriously alarmed. Peschiera might perhaps learn my counter-scheme with the yacht, or he might postpone sailing until he had terrified or entangled Violante into some---In short, everything was to be dreaded from a man of the count's temper. I had no clew to the place to which your daughter was taken, no excuse to arrest Peschiera, no means even of learning where he was. He had not returned to Mivart's. The Police was at fault, and useless, except in one valuable piece of information. They told me where some of your countrymen, whom Peschiera's perfidy had sent into exile, were to be found. I commissioned Giacomo to seek these men out, and induce them to man the vessel. It might be necessary, should Peschiera or his confidential servants come aboard, after we had expelled or drawn off the pirate crew, that they should find Italians whom they might well mistake for their own hirelings. To these foreigners I added some English sailors who had before served in the same vessel, and on whom Spendquick assured me I could rely. Still these precautions only availed in case Peschiera should resolve to sail, and defer till then all machinations against his captives. While, amidst my fears and uncertainties, I was struggling still to preserve presence of mind, and rapidly discussing with the Austrian prince if any other steps could be taken, or if our sole resource was to repair to the vessel and take the chance of what might ensue, Leonard suddenly and quietly entered my room. You know his countenance, in which joy or sadness is not betrayed so much by the evidence of the passions as by variations in the intellectual expression. It was but by the clearer brow and the steadier eye that I saw he had good tidings to impart." "Ah," said Riccabocca,--for so, obeying his own request, we will yet call the sage,--"ah, I early taught that young man the great lesson inculcated by Helvetius. 'All our errors arise from our ignorance or our passions.' Without ignorance and without passions, we should be serene, all- penetrating intelligences." "Mopsticks," quoth Harley, "have neither ignorance nor passions; but as for their intelligence--" "Pshaw!" interrupted Riccabocca,--"proceed." "Leonard had parted from us some hours before. I had commissioned him to call at Madame di Negra's, and, as he was familiarly known to her servants, seek to obtain quietly all the information he could collect, and, at all events, procure (what in my haste I had failed to do) the name and description of the man who had driven her out in the morning, and make what use he judged best of every hint he could gather or glean that might aid our researches. Leonard only succeeded in learning the name and description of the coachman, whom he recognized as one Beppo, to whom she had often given orders in his presence. None could say where he then could be found, if not at the count's hotel. Leonard went next to that hotel. The man had not been there all the day. While revolving what next he should do, his eye caught sight of your intended son-in-law, gliding across the opposite side of the street. One of those luminous, inspiring conjectures, which never occur to you philosophers, had from the first guided Leonard to believe that Randal Leslie was mixed up in this villanous affair." "Ha! He?" cried Riccabocca. "Impossible! For what interest, what object?" "I cannot tell, neither could Leonard; but we had both formed the same conjecture. Brief: Leonard resolved to follow Randal Leslie, and track all his movements. He did then follow him, unobserved,--and at a distance, first to Audley Egerton's house, then to Eaton Square, thence to a house in Bruton Street, which Leonard ascertained to be Baron Levy's. Suspicious that, my clear sage?" "Diavolo, yes!" said Riccabocca, thoughtfully. "At Levy's, Randal stayed till dusk. He then came out, with his cat- like, stealthy step, and walked quickly into the neighbourhood of Leicester Square. Leonard saw him enter one of those small hotels which are appropriated to foreigners. Wild, outlandish fellows were loitering about the door and in the street. Leonard divined that the count or the count's confidants were there." "If that can be proved," cried Riccabocca, "if Randal could have been thus in communication with Peschiera, could have connived at such perfidy, I am released from my promise. Oh, to prove it!" "Proof will come later, if we are on the right track. Let me go on. While waiting near the door of this hotel, Beppo himself, the very man Leonard was in search of, came forth, and, after speaking a few words to some of the loitering foreigners, walked briskly towards Piccadilly. Leonard here resigned all further heed of Leslie, and gave chase to Beppo, whom he recognized at a glance. Coming up to him, he said quietly, 'I have a letter for the Marchesa di Negra. She told me I was to send it to her by you. I have been searching for you the whole day.' The man fell into the trap, and the more easily, because--as he since owned in excuse for a simplicity which, I dare say, weighed on his conscience more than any of the thousand-and-one crimes he may have committed in the course of his illustrious life--he had been employed by the marchesa as a spy upon Leonard, and, with an Italian's acumen in affairs of the heart, detected her secret." "What secret?" asked the innocent sage. "Her love for the handsome young poet. I betray that secret, in order to give her some slight excuse for becoming Peschiera's tool. She believed Leonard to be in love with your daughter, and jealousy urged her to treason. Violante, no doubt, will explain this to you. Well, the man fell into the trap. 'Give me the letter, Signor, and quick.' "'It is at a hotel close by; come there, and you will have a guinea for your trouble.' "So Leonard walked our gentleman into my hotel; and having taken him into my dressing-room, turned the key and there left him. On learning this capture, the prince and myself hastened to see our prisoner. He was at first sullen and silent; but when the prince disclosed his rank and name (you know the mysterious terror the meaner Italians feel for an Austrian magnate), his countenance changed, and his courage fell. What with threats and what with promises, we soon obtained all that we sought to know; and an offered bribe, which I calculated at ten times the amount the rogue could ever expect to receive from his spendthrift master, finally bound him cheerfully to our service, soul and body. Thus we learned the dismal place to which your noble daughter had been so perfidiously ensnared. We learned also that the count had not yet visited her, hoping much from the effect that prolonged incarceration might have in weakening her spirit and inducing her submission. Peschiera was to go to the house at midnight, thence to transport her to the vessel. Beppo had received orders to bring the carriage to Leicester Square, where Peschiera would join him. The count (as Leonard surmised) had taken skulking refuge at the hotel in which Randal Leslie had disappeared. The prince, Leonard, Frank (who was then in the hotel), and myself held a short council. Should we go at once to the house, and, by the help of the police, force an entrance, and rescue your daughter? This was a very hazardous resource. The abode, which, at various times, had served for the hiding-place of men haunted by the law, abounded, according to our informant, in subterranean vaults and secret passages, and had more than one outlet on the river. At our first summons at the door, therefore, the ruffians within might not only escape themselves, but carry off their prisoner. The door was strong, and before our entrance could be forced, all trace of her we sought might be lost. Again, too, the prince was desirous of bringing Peschiera's guilty design home to him,--anxious to be able to state to the emperor, and to the great minister his kinsman, that he himself had witnessed the count's vile abuse of the emperor's permission to wed your daughter. In short, while I only thought of Violante, the prince thought also of her father's recall to his dukedom. Yet, still to leave Violante in that terrible house, even for an hour, a few minutes, subjected to the actual presence of Peschiera, unguarded save by the feeble and false woman who had betrayed and might still desert her--how contemplate that fearful risk? What might not happen in the interval between Peschiera's visit to the house and his appearance with his victim on the vessel? An idea flashed on me: Beppo was to conduct the count to the house; if I could accompany Beppo in disguise, enter the house, myself be present?--I rushed back to our informant, now become our agent; I found the plan still more feasible than I had at first supposed. Beppo had asked the count's permission to bring with him a brother accustomed to the sea, and who wished to quit England. I might personate that brother. You know that the Italian language, in most of its dialects and varieties of patois--Genoese, Piedmontese, Venetian--is as familiar tome as Addison's English! Alas! rather more so. Presto! the thing was settled. I felt my heart, from that moment, as light as a feather, and my sense as keen as the dart which a feather wings. My plans now were formed in a breath, and explained in a sentence. It was right that you should be present on board the vessel, not only to witness your foe's downfall, but to receive your child in a father's arms. Leonard set out to Norwood for you, cautioned not to define too precisely for what object you were wanted, till on board. "Frank, accompanied by Beppo (for there was yet time for these preparations before midnight), repaired to the yacht, taking Giacomo by the way. There our new ally, familiar to most of that piratical crew, and sanctioned by the presence of Frank, as the count's friend and prospective brother-in-law, told Peschiera's hirelings that they were to quit the vessel, and wait on shore under Giacomo's auspices till further orders; and as soon as the decks were cleared of these ruffians (save a few left to avoid suspicion, and who were afterwards safely stowed down in the hold), and as soon as Giacomo had lodged his convoy in a public house, where he quitted them drinking his health over unlimited rations of grog, your inestimable servant quietly shipped on board the Italians pressed into the service, and Frank took charge of the English sailors. "The prince, promising to be on board in due time, then left me to make arrangements for his journey to Vienna by the dawn. I hastened to a masquerade warehouse, where, with the help of an ingenious stagewright artificer, I disguised myself into a most thorough-paced-looking cut- throat, and then waited the return of my friend Beppo with the most perfect confidence." "Yet, if that rascal had played false, all these precautions were lost. /Cospetto!/ you were not wise," said the prudent philosopher. "Very likely not. You would have been so wise, that by this time your daughter would have been lost to you forever." "But why not employ the police?" "First, Because I had already employed them to little purpose; secondly, Because I no longer wanted them; thirdly, Because to use them for my final catastrophe would be to drag your name, and your daughter's perhaps, before a police court,--at all events, before the tribunal of public gossip; and lastly, Because, having decided upon the proper punishment, it had too much of equity to be quite consistent with law; and in forcibly seizing a man's person, and shipping him off to Norway, my police would have been sadly in the way. Certainly my plan rather savours of Lope de Vega than of Blackstone. However, you see success atones for all irregularities. I resume: Beppo came back in time to narrate all the arrangements that had been made, and to inform me that a servant from the count had come on board just as our new crew were assembled there, to order the boat to be at the place where we found it. The servant it was deemed prudent to detain and secure. Giacomo undertook to manage the boat. "I am nearly at the close of my story. Sure of my disguise, I got on the coach-box with Beppo. The count arrived at the spot appointed, and did not even honour myself with a question or glance. 'Your brother?' he said to Beppo; 'one might guess that; he has the family likeness. Not a handsome race yours! Drive on.' "We arrived at the house. I dismounted to open the carriage-door. The count gave me one look. 'Beppo says you have known the sea.' "'Excellency, yes. I am a Genoese.' "'Ha! how is that? Beppo is a Lombard.'--Admire the readiness with which I redeemed my blunder. "'Excellency, it pleased Heaven that Beppo should be born in Lombardy, and then to remove my respected parents to Genoa, at which city they were so kindly treated that my mother, in common gratitude, was bound to increase its population. It was all she could do, poor woman. You see she did her best.' "The count smiled, and said no more. The door opened, I followed him; your daughter can tell you the rest." "And you risked your life in that den of miscreants! Noble friend!" "Risked my life,--no; but I risked the count's. There was one moment when my hand was on my trigger, and my soul very near the sin of justifiable homicide. But my tale is done. The count is now on the river, and will soon be on the salt seas, though not bound to Norway, as I had first intended. I could not inflict that frigid voyage on his sister. So the men have orders to cruise about for six days, keeping aloof from shore, and they will then land the count and the marchesa, by boat, on the French coast. That delay will give time for the prince to arrive at Vienna before the count could follow him." "Would he have that audacity?" "Do him more justice! Audacity, faith! he does not want for that. But I dreaded not his appearance at Vienna with such evidence against him. I dreaded his encountering the prince on the road, and forcing a duel, before his character was so blasted that the prince could refuse it; and the count is a dead shot of course,--all such men are!" "He will return, and you--" "I! Oh, never fear; he has had enough of me. And now, my dear friend, --now that Violante is safe once more under your own roof; now that my honoured mother must long ere this have been satisfied by Leonard, who left us to go to her, that our success has been achieved without danger, and, what she will value almost as much, without scandal; now that your foe is powerless as a reed floating on the water towards its own rot, and the Prince Von -------is perhaps about to enter his carriage on the road to Dover, charged with the mission of restoring to Italy her worthiest son,--let me dismiss you to your own happy slumbers, and allow me to wrap myself in my cloak, and snatch a short sleep on the sofa, till yonder gray dawn has mellowed into riper day. My eyes are heavy, and if you stay here three minutes longer, I shall be out of reach of hearing, in the land of dreams. /Buona notte!/" "But there is a bed prepared for you." Harley shook his head in dissent, and composed himself at length on the sofa. Riccabocca, bending, wrapped the cloak round his guest, kissed him on the forehead, and crept out of the room to rejoin Jemima, who still sat up for him, nervously anxious to learn from him those explanations which her considerate affection would not allow her to ask from the agitated and exhausted Violante. "Not in bed!" cried the sage, on seeing her. "Have you no feelings of compassion for my son that is to be? Just, too, when there is a reasonable probability that we can afford a son?" Riccabocca here laughed merrily, and his wife threw herself on his shoulder, and cried for joy. But no sleep fell on the lids of Harley L'Estrange. He started up when his host had left him, and paced the apartment, with noiseless but rapid strides. All whim and levity had vanished from his face, which, by the light of the dawn, seemed death-like pale. On that pale face there was all the struggle and all the anguish of passion. "These arms have clasped her," he murmured; "these lips have inhaled her breath! I am under the same roof, and she is saved,--saved evermore from danger and from penury, and forever divided from me. Courage, courage! Oh, honour, duty; and thou, dark memory of the past,--thou that didst pledge love at least to a grave,--support, defend me! Can I be so weak!" The sun was in the wintry skies when Harley stole from the house. No one was stirring except Giacomo, who stood by the threshold of the door, which he had just unbarred, feeding the house-dog. "Good-day," said the servant, smiling. "The dog has not been of much use, but I don't think the padrone will henceforth grudge him a breakfast. I shall take him to Italy, and marry him there, in the hope of improving the breed of our native Lombard dogs." "Ah," said Harley, "you will soon leave our cold shores. May sunshine settle on you all!" He paused, and looked up at the closed windows wistfully. "The signorina sleeps there," said Giacomo, in a husky voice, "just over the room in which you slept." "I knew it," muttered Harley. "An instinct told me of it. Open the gate; I must go home. My excuses to your lord, and to all." He turned a deaf ear to Giacomo's entreaties to stay till at least the signorina was up,--the signorina whom he had saved. Without trusting himself to speak further, he quitted the demesne, and walked with swift strides towards London. CHAPTER X. Harley had not long reached his hotel, and was still seated before his untasted breakfast, when Mr. Randal Leslie was announced. Randal, who was in the firm belief that Violante was now on the wide seas with Peschiera, entered, looking the very personation of anxiety and fatigue. For like the great Cardinal Richelieu, Randal had learned the art how to make good use of his own delicate and somewhat sickly aspect. The cardinal, when intent on some sanguinary scheme requiring unusual vitality and vigour, contrived to make himself look a harmless sufferer at death's door. And Randal, whose nervous energies could at that moment have whirled him from one end of this huge metropolis to the other, with a speed that would have outstripped a prize pedestrian, now sank into a chair with a jaded weariness that no mother could have seen without compassion. He seemed since the last night to have galloped towards the last stage of consumption. "Have you discovered no trace, my Lord? Speak, speak!" "Speak! certainly. I am too happy to relieve your mind, Mr. Leslie. What fools we were! Ha, ha!" "Fools--how?" faltered Randal. "Of course; the young lady was at her father's house all the time." "Eh? what?" "And is there now." "It is not possible!" said Randal, in the hollow, dreamy tone of a somnambulist. "At her father's house, at Norwood! Are you sure?" "Sure." Randal made a desperate and successful effort at self-control. "Heaven be praised!" he cried. "And just as I had begun to suspect the count, the marchesa; for I find that neither of them slept at home last night; and Levy told me that the count had written to him, requesting the baron to discharge his bills, as he should be for some time absent from England." "Indeed! Well, that is nothing to us,--very much to Baron Levy, if he executes his commission, and discharges the bills. What! are you going already?" "Do you ask such a question? How can I stay? I must go to Norwood,-- must see Violante with my own eyes! Forgive my emotion--I--I--" Randal snatched at his hat and hurried away. The low scornful laugh of Harley followed him as he went. "I have no more doubt of his guilt than Leonard has. Violante at least shall not be the prize of that thin-lipped knave. What strange fascination can he possess, that he should thus bind to him the two men I value most,--Audley Egerton and Alphonso di Serrano? Both so wise too!-- one in books, one in action. And both suspicious men! While I, so imprudently trustful and frank--Ah, that is the reason; our natures are antipathetic; cunning, simulation, falsehood, I have no mercy, no pardon for these. Woe to all hypocrites if I were a grand Inquisitor!" "Mr. Richard Avenel," said the waiter, throwing open the door. Harley caught at the arm of the chair on which he sat, and grasped it nervously, while his eyes became fixed intently on the form of the gentleman who now advanced into the room. He rose with an effort. "Mr. Avenel!" he said falteringly. "Did I hear your name aright? Avenel!" "Richard Avenel, at your service, my Lord," answered Dick. "My family is not unknown to you; and I am not ashamed of my family, though my parents were small Lansmere tradesfolks, and I am--ahem!--a citizen of the world, and well-to-do!" added Dick, dropping his kid gloves into his hat, and then placing the hat on the table, with the air of an old acquaintance who wishes to make himself at home. Lord L'Estrange bowed and said, as be reseated himself (Dick being firmly seated already), "You are most welcome, sir; and if there be anything I can do for one of your name--" "Thank you, my Lord," interrupted Dick. "I want nothing of any man. A bold word to say; but I say it. Nevertheless, I should not have presumed to call on your Lordship, unless, indeed, you had done me the honour to call first at my house, Eaton Square, No. --- I should not have presumed to call if it had not been on business,--public business, I may say-- NATIONAL business!" Harley bowed again. A faint smile flitted for a moment to his lip, but, vanishing, gave way to a mournful, absent expression of countenance, as he scanned the handsome features before him, and, perhaps, masculine and bold though they were, still discovered something of a family likeness to one whose beauty had once been his ideal of female loveliness; for suddenly he stretched forth his hand, and said, with more than his usual cordial sweetness, "Business or not business, let us speak to each other as friends,--for the sake of a name that takes me back to Lansmere, to my youth. I listen to you with interest." Richard Avenel, much surprised by this unexpected kindliness, and touched, he knew not why, by the soft and melancholy tone of Harley's voice, warmly pressed the hand held out to him; and seized with a rare fit of shyness, coloured and coughed and hemmed and looked first down, then aside, before he could find the words which were generally ready enough at his command. "You are very good, Lord L'Estrange; nothing can be handsomer. I feel it here, my Lord," striking his buff waistcoat,--"I do, 'pon my honour. But not to waste your time (time's money), I come to the point. It is about the borough of Lansmere. Your family interest is very strong in that borough; but excuse me if I say that I don't think you are aware that I too have cooked up a pretty considerable interest on the other side. No offence,--opinions are free. And the popular tide runs strong with us-- I mean with me--at the impending crisis,--that is, at the next election. Now, I have a great respect for the earl your father, and so have those who brought me into the world--my father, John, was always a regular good Blue,--and my respect for yourself since I came into this room has gone up in the market a very great rise indeed,--considerable. So I should just like to see if we could set our heads together, and settle the borough between us two, in a snug private way, as public men ought to do when they get together, nobody else by, and no necessity for that sort of humbug, which is so common in this rotten old country. Eh, my Lord?" "Mr. Avenel," said Harley, slowly, recovering himself from the abstraction with which he had listened to Dick's earlier sentences, "I fear I do not quite understand you; but I have no other interest in the next election for the borough of Lansmere than as may serve one whom, whatever be your politics, you must acknowledge to be--" "A humbug!" "Mr. Avenel, you cannot mean the person I mean. I speak of one of the first statesmen of our time,--of Mr. Audley Egerton, of--" "A stiff-necked, pompous--" "My earliest and dearest friend." The rebuke, though gently said, sufficed to silence Dick for a moment; and when he spoke again, it was in an altered tone. "I beg your pardon, my Lord, I am sure. Of course, I can say nothing disrespectful of your friend,--very sorry that he is your friend. In that case, I am almost afraid that nothing is to be done. But Mr. Audley Egerton has not a chance. "Let me convince you of this." And Dick pulled out a little book, bound neatly in red. "Canvass book, my Lord. I am no aristocrat. I don't pretend to carry a free and independent constituency in my breeches' pocket. Heaven forbid! But as a practical man of business, what I do is done properly. Just look at this book. "Well kept, eh? Names, promises, inclinations, public opinions, and private interests of every individual Lansmere elector! Now, as one man of honour to another, I show you this book, and I think you will see that we have a clear majority of at least eighty votes as against Mr. Egerton." "That is your view of the question," said Harley, taking the book and glancing over the names catalogued and ticketed therein. But his countenance became serious as he recognized many names familiar to his boyhood as those of important electors on the Lansmere side, and which he now found transferred to the hostile. "But surely there are persons here in whom you deceive yourself,--old friends of my family, stanch supporters of our party." "Exactly so. But this new question has turned all old things topsy- turvy. No relying on any friend of yours. No reliance except in this book!" said Dick, slapping the red cover with calm but ominous emphasis. "Now, what I want to propose is this: Don't let the Lansmere interest be beaten; it would vex the old earl,--go to his heart, I am sure." Harley nodded. "And the Lansmere interest need not be beaten, if you'll put up another man instead of this red-tapist. (Beg pardon.) You see I only want to get in one man, you want to get in another. Why not? Now, there 's a smart youth,--connection of Mr. Egerton's,--Randal Leslie. I have no objection to him, though he is of your colours. Withdraw Mr. Egerton, and I 'll withdraw my second man before it comes to the poll; and so we shall halve the borough slick between us. That's the way to do business,--eh, my Lord?" "Randal Leslie! Oh, you wish to bring in Mr. Leslie? But he stands with Egerton, not against him." "Ah," said Dick, smiling as if to himself, "so I hear; and we could bring him in over Egerton without saying a word to you. But all our family respect yours, and so I have wished to do the thing handsome and open. Let the earl and your party be content with young Leslie." "Young Leslie has spoken to you?" "Not as to my coming here. Oh, no, that's a secret,--private and confidential, my Lord. And now, to make matters still more smooth, I propose that my man shall be one to your Lordship's own heart. I find you have been very kind to my nephew; does you credit, my Lord,--a wonderful young man, though I say it. I never guessed there was so much in him. Yet all the time he was in my house, he had in his desk the very sketch of an invention that is now saving me from ruin,--from positive ruin,--Baron Levy, the King's Bench, and almighty smash! Now, such a young man ought to be in parliament. I like to bring forward a relation,--that is, when he does one credit; 't is human nature and sacred ties--one's own flesh and blood; and besides, one hand rubs the other, and one leg helps on the other, and relations get on best in the world when they pull together; that is, supposing that they are the proper sort of relations, and pull one on, not down. I had once thought of standing for Lansmere myself,--thought of it very lately. The country wants men like me, I know that; but I have an idea that I had better see to my own business. The country may, or may not, do without me, stupid old thing that she is! But my mill and my new engines--there is no doubt that they cannot do without me. In short, as we are quite alone, and, as I said before, there 's no kind of necessity for that sort of humbug which exists when other people are present, provide elsewhere for Mr. Egerton, whom I hate like poison,--I have a right to do that, I suppose, without offence to your Lordship,--and the two younkers, Leonard Fairfield and Randal Leslie, shall be members for the free and independent borough of Lansmere!" "But does Leonard wish to come into parliament?" "No, he says not; but that's nonsense. If your Lordship will just signify your wish that he should not lose this noble opportunity to raise himself in life, and get something handsome out of the nation, I'm sure he owes you too much to hesitate,--'specially when 't is to his own advantage. And besides, one of us Avenels ought to be in parliament; and if I have not the time and learning, and so forth, and he has, why, it stands to reason that he should be the man. And if he can do something for me one day--not that I want anything--but still a baronetcy or so would be a compliment to British Industry, and be appreciated as such by myself and the public at large,--I say, if he could do something of that sort, it would keep up the whole family; and if he can't, why, I'll forgive him." "Avenel," said Harley, with that familiar and gracious charm of manner which few ever could resist, "Avenel, if as a great personal favour to myself--to me your fellow-townsman (I was born at Lansmere)--if I asked you to forego your grudge against Audley Egerton, whatever that grudge be, and not oppose his election, while our party would not oppose your nephew's, could you not oblige me? Come, for the sake of dear Lansmere, and all the old kindly feelings between your family and mine, say 'yes, so shall it be.'" Richard Avenel was almost melted. He turned away his face; but there suddenly rose to his recollection the scornful brow of Audley Egerton, the lofty contempt with which he, then the worshipful Mayor of Screwstown, had been shown out of the minister's office-room; and the blood rushing over his cheeks, he stamped his foot on the floor, and exclaimed angrily, "No; I swore that Audley Egerton should smart for his insolence to me, as sure as my name be Richard Avenel; and all the soft soap in the world will not wash out that oath. So there is nothing for it but for you to withdraw that man, or for me to defeat him. And I would do so, ay,--and in the way that could most gall him,--if it cost me half my fortune. But it will not cost that," said Dick, cooling, "nor anything like it; for when the popular tide runs in one's favour, 't is astonishing how cheap an election may be. It will cost him enough though, and all for nothing,--worse than nothing. Think of it, my Lord." "I will, Mr. Avenel. And I say, in my turn, that my friendship is as strong as your hate; and that if it costs me, not half, but my whole fortune, Audley Egerton shall come in without a shilling of expense to himself, should we once decide that he stand the contest." "Very well, my Lord,--very well," said Dick, stiffly, and drawing on his kid gloves; "we'll see if the aristocracy is always to ride over the free choice of the people in this way. But the people are roused, my Lord. The March of Enlightenment is commenced, the Schoolmaster is abroad, and the British Lion--" "Nobody here but ourselves, my dear Avenel. Is not this rather what you call--humbug?" Dick started, stared, coloured, and then burst out laughing, "Give us your hand again, my Lord. You are a good fellow, that you are. And for your sake--" "You'll not oppose Egerton?" "Tooth and nail, tooth and nail!" cried Dick, clapping his hands to his ears, and fairly running out of the room. There passed over Harley's countenance that change so frequent to it,-- more frequent, indeed, to the gay children of the world than those of consistent tempers and uniform habits might suppose. There is many a man whom we call friend, and whose face seems familiar to us as our own; yet, could we but take a glimpse of him when we leave his presence, and he sinks back into his chair alone, we should sigh to see how often the smile on the frankest lip is but a bravery of the drill, only worn when on parade. What thoughts did the visit of Richard Avenel bequeath to Harley? It were hard to define them. In his place, an Audley Egerton would have taken some comfort from the visit, would have murmured, "Thank Heaven! I have not to present to the world that terrible man as my brother-in-law." But probably Harley had escaped, in his revery, from Richard Avenel altogether. Even as the slightest incident in the daytime causes our dreams at night, but is itself clean forgotten, so the name, so the look of the visitor, might have sufficed but to influence a vision, as remote from its casual suggester as what we call real life is from that life much more real, that we imagine, or remember, in the haunted chambers of the brain. For what is real life? How little the things actually doing around us affect the springs of our sorrow or joy; but the life which our dulness calls romance,--the sentiment, the remembrance, the hope, or the fear, that are never seen in the toil of our hands, never heard in the jargon on our lips,--from that life all spin, as the spider from its entrails, the web by which we hang in the sunbeam, or glide out of sight into the shelter of home. "I must not think," said Harley, rousing himself with a sigh, "either of past or present. Let me hurry on to some fancied future. 'Happiest are the marriages,' said the French philosopher, and still says many a sage, 'in which man asks only the mild companion, and woman but the calm protector.' I will go to Helen." He rose; and as he was about to lock up his escritoire, he remembered the papers which Leonard had requested him to read. He took them from their deposit, with a careless hand, intending to carry them with him to his father's house. But as his eye fell upon the characters, the hand suddenly trembled, and he recoiled some paces, as if struck by a violent blow. Then, gazing more intently on the writing, a low cry broke from his lips. He reseated himself, and began to read. CHAPTER XI. Randal--with many misgivings at Lord L'Estrange's tone, in which he was at no loss to detect a latent irony--proceeded to Norwood. He found Riccabocca exceedingly cold and distant; but he soon brought that sage to communicate the suspicions which Lord L'Estrange had instilled into his mind, and these Randal was as speedily enabled to dispel. He accounted at once for his visits to Levy and Peschiera. Naturally he had sought Levy, an acquaintance of his own,--nay, of Audley Egerton's,--but whom he knew to be professionally employed by the count. He had succeeded in extracting from the baron Peschiera's suspicious change of lodgment from Mivart's Hotel to the purlieus of Leicester Square; had called there on the count, forced an entrance, openly accused him of abstracting Violante; high words had passed between them,--even a challenge. Randal produced a note from a military friend of his, whom he had sent to the count an hour after quitting the hotel. This note stated that arrangements were made for a meeting near Lord's Cricket Ground, at seven o'clock the next morning. Randal then submitted to Riccabocca another formal memorandum from the same warlike friend, to the purport that Randal and himself had repaired to the ground, and no count had been forthcoming. It must be owned that Randal had taken all suitable precautions to clear himself. Such a man is not to blame for want of invention, if he be sometimes doomed to fail. "I, then, much alarmed," continued Randal, "hastened to Baron Levy, who informed me that the count had written him word that he should be for some time absent from England. Rushing thence, in despair, to your friend Lord L'Estrange, I heard that your daughter was safe with you. And though, as I have just proved, I would have risked my life against so notorious a duellist as the count, on the mere chance of preserving Violante from his supposed designs, I am rejoiced to think that she had no need of my unskilful arm. But how and why can the count have left England after accepting a challenge? A man so sure of his weapon, too,-- reputed to be as fearless of danger as he is blunt in conscience. Explain,--you who know mankind so well,--explain. I cannot." The philosopher could not resist the pleasure of narrating the detection and humiliation of his foe, the wit, ingenuity, and readiness of his friend. So Randal learned, by little and little, the whole drama of the preceding night. He saw, then, that the exile had all reasonable hope of speedy restoration to rank and wealth. Violante, indeed; would be a brilliant prize,--too brilliant, perhaps, for Randal, but not to be sacrificed without an effort. Therefore wringing convulsively the hand of his meditated father-in-law, and turning away his head as if to conceal his emotions, the ingenuous young suitor faltered forth that now Dr. Riccabocca was so soon to vanish into the Duke di Serrano, he--Randal Leslie of Rood, born a gentleman, indeed, but of fallen fortunes--had no right to claim the promise which had been given to him while a father had cause to fear for a daughter's future; with the fear ceased the promise. Alight Heaven bless father and daughter both! This address touched both the heart and honour of the exile. Randal Leslie knew his man. And though, before Randal's visit, Riccabocca was not quite so much a philosopher but what he would have been well pleased to have found himself released, by proof of the young man's treachery, from an alliance below the rank to which he had all chance of early restoration, yet no Spaniard was ever more tenacious of plighted word than this inconsistent pupil of the profound Florentine. And Randal's probity being now clear to him, he repeated, with stately formalities, his previous offer of Violante's hand. "But," still falteringly sighed the provident and far-calculating Randal --"but your only child, your sole heiress! Oh, might not your consent to such a marriage (if known before your recall) jeopardize your cause? Your lands, your principalities, to devolve on the child of an humble Englishman! I dare not believe it. Ah, would Violante were not your heiress!" "A noble wish," said Riccabocca, smiling blandly, "and one that the Fates will realize. Cheer up; Violante will not be my heiress." "Ah," cried Randal, drawing a long breath--"ah, what do I hear?" "Hist! I shall soon a second time be a father. And, to judge by the unerring researches of writers upon that most interesting of all subjects, parturitive science, I shall be the father of a son. He will, of course, succeed to the titles of Serrano. And Violante--" "Will have nothing, I suppose?" exclaimed Randal, trying his best to look overjoyed till he had got his paws out of the trap into which he had so incautiously thrust them. "Nay, her portion by our laws--to say nothing of my affection--would far exceed the ordinary dower which the daughters of London merchants bring to the sons of British peers. Whoever marries Violante, provided I regain my estates, must submit to the cares which the poets assure us ever attend on wealth." "Oh!" groaned Randal, as if already bowed beneath the cares, and sympathizing with the poets. "And now, let me present you to your betrothed." Although poor Randal had been remorselessly hurried along what Schiller calls the "gamut of feeling," during the last three minutes, down to the deep chord of despair at the abrupt intelligence that his betrothed was no heiress after all; thence ascending to vibrations of pleasant doubt as to the unborn usurper of her rights, according to the prophecies of parturitive science; and lastly, swelling into a concord of all sweet thoughts at the assurance that, come what might, she would be a wealthier bride than a peer's son could discover in the matrimonial Potosi of Lombard Street,-- still the tormented lover was not there allowed to repose his exhausted though ravished soul. For, at the idea of personally confronting the destined bride--whose very existence had almost vanished from his mind's eye, amidst the golden showers that it saw falling divinely round her-- Randal was suddenly reminded of the exceeding bluntness with which, at their last interview, it had been his policy to announce his suit, and of the necessity of an impromptu falsetto suited to the new variations that tossed him again to and fro on the merciless gamut. However, he could not recoil from her father's proposition, though, in order to prepare Riccabocca for Violante's representation, he confessed pathetically that his impatience to obtain her consent and baffle Peschiera had made him appear a rude and presumptuous wooer. The philosopher, who was disposed to believe one kind of courtship to be much the same as another, in cases where the result of all courtships was once predetermined, smiled benignly, patted Randal's thin cheek, with a "Pooh, pooh, /pazzie!/" and left the room to summon Violante. "If knowledge be power," soliloquized Randal, "ability is certainly good luck, as Miss Edgeworth shows in that story of Murad the Unlucky, which I read at Eton; very clever story it is, too. So nothing comes amiss to me. Violante's escape, which has cost me the count's L10,000, proves to be worth to me, I dare say, ten times as much. No doubt she'll have a hundred thousand pounds at the least. And then, if her father have no other child, after all, or the child he expects die in infancy, why, once reconciled to his Government and restored to his estates, the law must take its usual course, and Violante will be the greatest heiress in Europe. As to the young lady herself, I confess she rather awes me; I know I shall be henpecked. Well, all respectable husbands are. There is something scampish and ruffianly in not being henpecked." Here Randal's smile might have harmonized well with Pluto's "iron tears;" but, iron as the smile was, the serious young man was ashamed of it. "What am I about," said he, half aloud, "chuckling to myself and wasting time, when I ought to be thinking gravely how to explain away my former cavalier courtship? Such a masterpiece as I thought it then! But who could foresee the turn things would take? Let me think; let me think. Plague on it, here she comes." But Randal had not the fine ear of your more romantic lover; and, to his great relief, the exile entered the room unaccompanied by Violante. Riccabocca looked somewhat embarrassed. "My dear Leslie, you must excuse my daughter to-day; she is still suffering from the agitation she has gone through, and cannot see you." The lover tried not to look too delighted. "Cruel!" said he; "yet I would not for worlds force myself on her presence. I hope, Duke, that she will not find it too difficult to obey the commands which dispose of her hand, and intrust her happiness to my grateful charge." "To be plain with you, Randal, she does at present seem to find it more difficult than I foresaw. She even talks of--" "Another attachment--Oh, heavens!" "Attachment, /pazzie!/ Whom has she seen? No, a convent! But leave it to me. In a calmer hour she will comprehend that a child must know no lot more enviable and holy than that of redeeming a father's honour. And now, if you are returning to London, may I ask you to convey to young Mr. Hazeldean my assurances of undying gratitude for his share in my daughter's delivery from that poor baffled swindler." It is noticeable that, now Peschiera was no longer an object of dread to the nervous father, he became but an object of pity to the philosopher, and of contempt to the grandee. "True," said Randal, "you told me Frank had a share in Lord L'Estrange's very clever and dramatic device. My Lord must be by nature a fine actor,--comic, with a touch of melodrame! Poor Frank! apparently he has lost the woman he adored,--Beatrice di Negra. You say she has accompanied the count. Is the marriage that was to be between her and Frank broken off?" "I did not know such a marriage was contemplated. I understood her to be attached to another. Not that that is any reason why she would not have married Mr. Hazeldean. Express to him my congratulations on his escape." "Nay, he must not know that I have inadvertently betrayed his confidence; but you now guess, what perhaps puzzled you before,--namely, how I came to be so well acquainted with the count and his movements. I was so intimate with my relation Frank, and Frank was affianced to the marchesa." "I am glad you give me that explanation; it suffices. After all, the marchesa is not by nature a bad woman,--that is, not worse than women generally are, so Harley says, and Violante forgives and excuses her." "Generous Violante! But it is true. So much did the marchesa appear to me possessed of fine, though ill-regulated qualities, that I always considered her disposed to aid in frustrating her brother's criminal designs. So I even said, if I remember right, to Violante." Dropping this prudent and precautionary sentence, in order to guard against anything Violante might say as to that subtle mention of Beatrice which had predisposed her to confide in the marchesa, Randal then hurried on, "But you want repose. I leave you the happiest, the most grateful of men. I will give your courteous message to Frank." CHAPTER XII. Curious to learn what had passed between Beatrice and Frank, and deeply interested in all that could oust Frank out of the squire's goodwill, or aught that could injure his own prospects by tending to unite son and father, Randal was not slow in reaching his young kinsman's lodgings. It might be supposed that having, in all probability, just secured so great a fortune as would accompany Violante's hand, Randal might be indifferent to the success of his scheme on the Hazeldean exchequer. Such a supposition would grievously wrong this profound young man. For, in the first place, Violante was not yet won, nor her father yet restored to the estates which would defray her dower; and, in the next place, Randal, like Iago, loved villany for the genius it called forth in him. The sole luxury the abstemious aspirer allowed to himself was that which is found in intellectual restlessness. Untempted by wine, dead to love, unamused by pleasure, indifferent to the arts, despising literature save as means to some end of power, Randal Leslie was the incarnation of thought hatched out of the corruption of will. At twilight we see thin airy spectral insects, all wing and nippers, hovering, as if they could never pause, over some sullen mephitic pool. Just so, methinks, hover over Acheron such gnat-like, noiseless soarers into gloomy air out of Stygian deeps, as are the thoughts of spirits like Randal Leslie's. Wings have they, but only the better to pounce down,--draw their nutriment from unguarded material cuticles; and just when, maddened, you strike, and exulting exclaim, "Caught, by Jove!" wh-irr flies the diaphanous, ghostly larva, and your blow falls on your own twice-offended cheek. The young men who were acquainted with Randal said he had not a vice! The fact being that his whole composition was one epic vice, so elaborately constructed that it had not an episode which a critic could call irrelevant. Grand young man! "But, my dear fellow," said Randal, as soon as he had learned from Frank all that had passed on board the vessel between him and Beatrice, "I cannot believe this. 'Never loved you'? What was her object, then, in deceiving not only you, but myself? I suspect her declaration was but some heroical refinement of generosity. After her brother's dejection and probable ruin, she might feel that she was no match for you. Then, too, the squire's displeasure! I see it all; just like her,--noble, unhappy woman!" Frank shook his head. "There are moments," said he, with a wisdom that comes out of those instincts which awake from the depths of youth's first great sorrow,--"moments when a woman cannot feign, and there are tones in the voice of a woman which men cannot misinterpret. She does not love me,--she never did love me; I can see that her heart has been elsewhere. No matter,--all is over. I don't deny that I am suffering an intense grief; it gnaws like a kind of sullen hunger; and I feel so broken, too, as if I had grown old, and there was nothing left worth living for. I don't deny all that." "My poor, dear friend, if you would but believe--" "I don't want to believe anything, except that I have been a great fool. I don't think I can ever commit such follies again. But I'm a man. I shall get the better of this; I should despise myself if I could not. And now let us talk of my dear father. Has he left town?" "Left last night by the mail. You can write and tell him you have given up the marchesa, and all will be well again between you." "Give her up! Fie, Randal! Do you think I should tell such a lie? She gave me up; I can claim no merit out of that." "Oh, yes! I can make the squire see all to your advantage. Oh, if it were only the marchesa! but, alas! that cursed postobit! How could Levy betray you? Never trust to usurers again; they cannot resist the temptation of a speedy profit. "They first buy the son, and then sell him to the father. And the squire has such strange notions on matters of this kind." "He is right to have them. There, just read this letter from my mother. It came to me this morning. I could hang myself if I were a dog; but I'm a man, and so I must bear it." Randal took Mrs. Hazeldean's letter from Frank's trembling hand. The poor mother had learned, though but imperfectly, Frank's misdeeds from some hurried lines which the squire had despatched to her; and she wrote as good, indulgent, but sensible, right-minded mothers alone can write. More lenient to an imprudent love than the squire, she touched with discreet tenderness on Frank's rash engagements with a foreigner, but severely on his own open defiance of his father's wishes. Her anger was, however, reserved for that unholy post-obit. Here the hearty genial wife's love overcame the mother's affection. To count, in cold blood, on that husband's death, and to wound his heart so keenly, just where its jealous, fatherly fondness made it most susceptible! "O Frank, Frank!" wrote Mrs. Hazeldean, "were it not for this, were it only for your unfortunate attachment to the Italian lady, only for your debts, only for the errors of hasty, extravagant youth, I should be with you now, my arms round your neck, kissing you, chiding you back to your father's heart. But--but the thought that between you and his heart has been the sordid calculation of his death,--that is a wall between us. I cannot come near you. I should not like to look on your face, and think how my William's tears fell over it, when I placed you, new born, in his arms, and bade him welcome his heir. What! you a mere boy still, your father yet in the prime of life, and the heir cannot wait till nature leaves him fatherless. Frank; Frank this is so unlike you. Can London have ruined already a disposition so honest and affectionate?--No; I cannot believe it. There must be some mistake. Clear it up, I implore you; or, though as a mother I pity you, as a wife I cannot forgive." Even Randal was affected by the letter; for, as we know, even Randal felt in his own person the strength of family ties. The poor squire's choler and bluffness had disguised the parental heart from an eye that, however acute, had not been willing to search for it; and Randal, ever affected through his intellect, had despised the very weakness on which he had preyed. But the mother's letter, so just and sensible (allowing that the squire's opinions had naturally influenced the wife to take what men of the world would call a very exaggerated view of the every-day occurrence of loans raised by a son, payable only at a father's death),--this letter, I say, if exaggerated according to fashionable notions, so sensible if judged by natural affections, touched the dull heart of the schemer, because approved by the quick tact of his intelligence. "Frank," said he, with a sincerity that afterwards amazed himself, "go down at once to Hazeldean; see your mother, and explain to her how this transaction really happened. The woman you loved, and wooed as wife, in danger of an arrest, your distraction of mind, Levy's counsels, your hope to pay off the debt, so incurred to the usurer, from the fortune you would shortly receive with the marchesa. Speak to your mother,--she is a woman; women have a common interest in forgiving all faults that arise from the source of their power over us men,--I mean love. Go!" "No, I cannot go; you see she would not like to look on my face. And I cannot repeat what you say so glibly. Besides, somehow or other, as I am so dependent upon my father,--and he has said as much,--I feel as if it would be mean in me to make any excuses. I did the thing, and must suffer for it. But I'm a in--an--no--I 'm not a man here." Frank burst into tears. At the sight of those tears, Randal gradually recovered from his strange aberration into vulgar and low humanity. His habitual contempt for his kinsman returned; and with contempt came the natural indifference to the sufferings of the thing to be put to use. It is contempt for the worm that makes the angler fix it on the hook, and observe with complacency that the vivacity of its wriggles will attract the bite. If the worm could but make the angler respect, or even fear it, the barb would find some other bait. Few anglers would impale an estimable silkworm, and still fewer the anglers who would finger into service a formidable hornet. "Pooh, my--dear Frank," said Randal; "I have given you my advice; you reject it. Well, what then will you do?" "I shall ask for leave of absence, and run away some where," said Frank, drying his tears. "I can't face London; I can't mix with others. I want to be by myself, and wrestle with all that I feel here--in my heart. Then I shall write to my mother, say the plain truth, and leave her to judge as kindly of me as she can." "You are quite right. Yes, leave town! Why not go abroad? You have never been abroad. New scenes will distract your mind. Run over to Paris." "Not to Paris--I don't want gayeties; but I did intend to go abroad somewhere,--any dull dismal hole of a place. Good-by! Don't think of me any more for the present." "But let me know where you go; and meanwhile I will see the squire." "Say as little of me as you can to him. I know you mean most kindly, but oh, how I wish there never had been any third person between me and my father! There: you may well snatch away your hand. What an ungrateful wretch to you I am. I do believe I am the wickedest fellow. What! you shake hands with me still! My dear Randal, you have the best heart--God bless you!" Frank turned away, and disappeared within his dressing-room. "They must be reconciled now, sooner or later,--squire and son," said Randal to himself, as he left the lodgings. "I don't see how I can prevent that,--the marchesa being withdrawn,--unless Frank does it for me. But it is well he should be abroad,--something maybe made out of that; meanwhile I may yet do all that I could reasonably hope to do,-- even if Frank had married Beatrice,--since he was not to be disinherited. Get the squire to advance the money for the Thornhill purchase, complete the affair; this marriage with Violante will help; Levy must know that; secure the borough;--well thought of. I will go to Avenel's. By-the-by, by-the-by, the squire might as well keep me still in the entail after Frank, supposing Frank die childless. This love affair may keep him long from marrying. His hand was very hot,--a hectic colour; those strong- looking fellows often go off in rapid decline, especially if anything preys on their minds,--their minds are so very small. "Ah, the Hazeldean parson,--and with Avenel! That young man, too, who is he? I have seen him before some where.--My dear Mr. Dale, this is a pleasant surprise. I thought you had returned to Hazeldean with our friend the squire?" MR. DALE.--"The squire! Has he left town, and without telling me?" RANDAL (taking aside the parson).--"He was anxious to get back to Mrs. Hazeldean, who was naturally very uneasy about her son and this foolish marriage; but I am happy to tell you that that marriage is effectually and permanently broken off." MR. DALE.---"How, how? My poor friend told me he had wholly failed to make any impression on Frank,--forbade me to mention the subject. I was just going to see Frank myself. I always had some influence with him. But, Mr. Leslie, explain this very sudden and happy event. The marriage broken off!" RANDAL.--"It is a long story, and I dare not tell you my humble share in it. Nay, I must keep that secret. Frank might not forgive me. Suffice it that you have my word that the fair Italian has left England, and decidedly refused Frank's addresses. But stay, take my advice, don't go to him; you see it was not only the marriage that has offended the squire, but some pecuniary transactions,--an unfortunate post-obit bond on the Casino property. Frank ought to be left to his own repentant reflections. They will be most salutary; you know his temper,--he don't bear reproof; and yet it is better, on the other hand, not to let him treat too lightly what has passed. Let us leave him to himself for a few days He is in an excellent frame of mind." MR. DALE (shaking Randal's hand warmly).--"You speak admirably--a post- obit!--so often as he has heard his father's opinion on such transactions. No, I will not see him; I should be too angry--" RANDAL (leading the parson back, resumes, after an exchange of salutations with Avenel, who, meanwhile, had been conferring with his nephew).--"You should not be so long away from your rectory, Mr. Dale. What will your parish do without you?" MR. DALE.--"The old fable of the wheel and the fly. I am afraid the wheel rolls on the same. But if I am absent from my parish, I am still in the company of one who does me honour as an old parishioner. You remember Leonard Fairfield, your antagonist in the Battle of the Stocks?" MR. AVENEL.--"My nephew, I am proud to say, sir." Randal bowed with marked civility, Leonard with a reserve no less marked. MR. AVENEL (ascribing his nephew's reserve to shyness).--"You should be friends, you two youngsters. Who knows but you may run together in the same harness? Ah, that reminds me, Leslie, I have a word or two to say to you. Your servant, Mr. Dale. Shall be happy to present you to Mrs. Avenel. My card,--Eaton Square, Number ---. You will call on me to-morrow, Leonard. And mind, I shall be very angry if you persist in your refusal. Such an opening!" Avenel took Randal's arm, while the parson and Leonard walked on. "Any fresh hints as to Lansmere?" asked Randal. "Yes; I have now decided on the plan of contest. You must fight two and two,--you and Egerton against me and (if I can get him to stand, as I hope) my nephew, Leonard." "What!" said Randal, alarmed; "then, after all, I can hope for no support from you?" "I don't say that; but I have reason to think Lord L'Estrange will bestir himself actively in favour of Egerton. If so, it will be a very sharp contest; and I must manage the whole election on our side, and unite all our shaky votes, which I can best do by standing myself in the first instance, reserving it to after consideration whether I shall throw up at the last; for I don't particularly want to come in, as I did a little time ago, before I had found out my nephew. Wonderful young man! with such a head,--will do me credit in the rotten old House; and I think I had best leave London, go to Screwstown, and look to my business. No, if Leonard stand, I roust first see to get him in; and next, to keep Egerton out. It will probably, therefore, end in the return of one and one or either side, as we thought of before,--Leonard on our side; and Egerton sha'n't be the man on the other. You understand?" "I do, my dear Avenel. Of course, as I before said, I can't dictate to your party whom they should prefer,--Egerton or myself. And it will be obvious to the public that your party would rather defeat so eminent an adversary as Mr. Egerton than a tyro in politics like me. Of course I cannot scheme for such a result; it would be misconstrued, and damage my character. But I rely equally on your friendly promise." "Promise! No, I don't promise. I must first see how the cat jumps; and I don't know yet how our friends may like you, nor how they can be managed. All I can say is, that Audley Egerton sha'n't be M.P. for Lansmere. Meanwhile, you will take care not to commit yourself in speaking so that our party can't vote for you consistently; they must count on having you--when you get into the House." "I am not a violent party-man at present," answered Randal, prudently. "And if public opinion prove on your side, it is the duty of a statesman to go with the times." "Very sensibly said; and I have a private bill or two, and some other little jobs, I want to get through the House, which we can discuss later, should it come to a frank understanding between us. We must arrange how to meet privately at Lansmere, if necessary. I'll see to that. I shall go down this week. I think of taking a hint from the free and glorious land of America, and establishing secret caucuses. Nothing like 'em." "Caucuses?" "Small sub-committees that spy on their men night and day, and don't suffer them to be intimidated to vote the other way." "You have an extraordinary head for public affairs, Avenel. You should come into parliament yourself; your nephew is so very young." "So are you." "Yes; but I know the world. Does he?" "The world knows him, though not by name, and he has been the making of me." "How? You surprise me." Avenel first explained about the patent which Leonard had secured to him; and next confided, upon honour, Leonard's identity with the anonymous author whom the parson had supposed to be Professor Moss. Randal Leslie felt a jealous pang. What! then--had this village boy, this associate of John Burley (literary vagabond, whom he supposed had long since gone to the dogs, and been buried at the expense of the parish)--had this boy so triumphed over birth, rearing, circumstance, that, if Randal and Leonard had met together in any public place, and Leonard's identity with the rising author had been revealed, every eye would have turned from Randal to gaze on Leonard? The common consent of mankind would have acknowledged the supreme royalty of genius when it once leaves its solitude, and strides into the world. What! was this rude villager the child of Fame, who, without an effort, and unconsciously, had inspired in the wearied heart of Beatrice di Negra a love that Randal knew, by an instinct, no arts, no craft, could ever create for him in the heart of woman? And now, did this same youth stand on the same level in the ascent to power as he, the well-born Randal Leslie, the accomplished protege of the superb Audley Egerton? Were they to be rivals in the same arena of practical busy life? Randal gnawed his quivering lip. All the while, however, the young man whom he so envied was a prey to sorrows deeper far than could ever find room or footing in the narrow and stony heart of the unloving schemer. As Leonard walked through the crowded streets with the friend and monitor of his childhood, confiding the simple tale of his earlier trials,--when, amidst the wreck of fortune and in despair of fame, the Child-angel smiled by his side, like Hope,--all renown seemed to him so barren, all the future so dark! His voice trembled, and his countenance became so sad, that his benignant listener, divining that around the image of Helen there clung some passionate grief that overshadowed all worldly success, drew Leonard gently and gently on, till the young man, long yearning for some confidant, told him all,--how, faithful through long years to one pure and ardent memory, Helen had been seen once more, the child ripened to woman, and the memory revealing itself as love. The parson listened with a mild and thoughtful brow, which expanded into a more cheerful expression as Leonard closed his story. "I see no reason to despond," said Mr. Dale. "You fear that Miss Digby does not return your attachment; you dwell upon her reserve, her distant, though kindly manner. Cheer up! All young ladies are under the influence of what phrenologists call the organ of Secretiveness, when they are in the society of the object of their preference. Just as you describe Miss Digby's manner to you, was my Carry's manner to myself." The parson here indulged in a very appropriate digression upon female modesty, which he wound up by asserting that that estimable virtue became more and more influenced by the secretive organ, in proportion as the favoured suitor approached near and nearer to a definite proposal. It was the duty of a gallant and honourable lover to make that proposal in distinct and orthodox form, before it could be expected that a young lady should commit herself and the dignity of her sex by the slightest hint as to her own inclinations. "Next," continued the parson, "you choose to torment yourself by contrasting your own origin and fortunes with the altered circumstances of Miss Digby,--the ward of Lord L'Estrange, the guest of Lady Lansmere. You say that if Lord L'Estrange could have countenanced such a union, he would have adopted a different tone with you,--sounded your heart, encouraged your hopes, and so forth. I view things differently. I have reason to do so; and from all you have told me of this nobleman's interest in your fate, I venture to make you this promise, that if Miss Digby would accept your hand, Lord L'Estrange shall ratify her choice." "My dear Mr. Dale," cried Leonard, transported, "you make me that promise?" "I do,--from what you have said, and from what I myself know of Lord L'Estrange. Go, then, at once to Knightsbridge, see Miss Digby, show her your heart, explain to her, if you will, your prospects, ask her permission to apply to Lord L'Estrange (since he has constituted himself her guardian); and if Lord L'Estrange hesitate,--which, if your happiness be set on this union, I think he will not,--let me know, and leave the rest to me." Leonard yielded himself to the parson's persuasive eloquence. Indeed, when he recalled to mind those passages in the manuscripts of the ill- fated Nora, which referred to the love that Harley had once borne to her,--for he felt convinced that Harley and the boy suitor of Nora's narrative were one and the same; and when all the interest that Harley had taken in his own fortunes was explained by his relationship to her (even when Lord L'Estrange had supposed it less close than he would now discover it to be), the young man, reasoning by his own heart, could not but suppose that the noble Harley would rejoice to confer happiness upon the son of her, so beloved by his boyhood. "And to thee, perhaps, O my mother!" thought Leonard, with swimming eyes --"to thee, perhaps, even in thy grave, I shall owe the partner of my life, as to the mystic breath of thy genius I owe the first pure aspirations of my soul." It will be seen that Leonard had not confided to the parson his discovery of Nora's manuscripts, nor even his knowledge of his real birth; for the proud son naturally shrank from any confidence that implicated Nora's fair name, until at least Harley, who, it was clear from those papers, must have intimately known his father, should perhaps decide the question which the papers themselves left so terribly vague,--namely, whether he were the offspring of a legal marriage, or Nora had been the victim of some unholy fraud. While the parson still talked, and while Leonard still mused and listened, their steps almost mechanically took the direction towards Knightsbridge, and paused at the gates of Lord Lansmere's house. "Go in, my young friend; I will wait without to know the issue," said the parson, cheeringly. "Go, and with gratitude to Heaven, learn how to bear the most precious joy that can befall mortal man; or how to submit to youth's sharpest sorrow, with the humble belief that even sorrow is but some mercy concealed." CHAPTER XIII. Leonard was shown into the drawing-room, and it so chanced that Helen was there alone. The girl's soft face was sadly changed, even since Leonard had seen it last; for the grief of natures mild and undemonstrative as hers, gnaws with quick ravages; but at Leonard's unexpected entrance, the colour rushed so vividly to the pale cheeks that its hectic might be taken for the lustre of bloom and health. She rose hurriedly, and in great confusion faltered out, "that she believed Lady Lansmere was in her room,--she would go for her," and moved towards the door, without seeming to notice the hand tremulously held forth to her; when Leonard exclaimed in uncontrollable emotions which pierced to her very heart, in the keen accent of reproach,-- "Oh, Miss Digby--oh, Helen--is it thus that you greet me,--rather thus that you shun me? Could I have foreseen this when we two orphans stood by the mournful bridge,--so friendless, so desolate, and so clinging each to each? Happy time!" He seized her hand suddenly as he spoke the last words, and bowed his face over it. "I must not hear you. Do not talk so, Leonard, you break my heart. Let me go, let me go!" "Is it that I am grown hateful to you; is it merely that you see my love and would discourage it? Helen, speak to me,--speak!" He drew her with tender force towards him; and, holding her firmly by both hands, sought to gaze upon the face that she turned from him,-- turned in such despair. "You do not know," she said at last, struggling for composure,--"you do not know the new claims on me, my altered position, how I am bound, or you would be the last to speak thus to me, the first to give me courage, and bid me--bid me--" "Bid you what?" "Feel nothing here but duty!" cried Helen, drawing from his clasp both her hands, and placing them firmly on her breast. "Miss Digby," said Leonard, after a short pause of bitter reflection, in which he wronged, while he thought to divine, her meaning, "you speak of new claims on you, your altered position--I comprehend. You may retain some tender remembrance of the past; but your duty now is to rebuke my presumption. It is as I thought and feared. This vain reputation which I have made is but a hollow sound,--it gives me no rank, assures me no fortune. I have no right to look for the Helen of old in the Helen of to-day. Be it so--forget what I have said, and forgive me." This reproach stung to the quick the heart to which it appealed. A flash brightened the meek, tearful eyes, almost like the flash of resentment; her lips writhed in torture, and she felt as if all other pain were light compared with the anguish that Leonard could impute to her motives which to her simple nature seemed so unworthy of her, and so galling to himself. A word rushed as by inspiration to her lip, and that word calmed and soothed her. "Brother!" she said touchingly, "brother!" The word had a contrary effect on Leonard. Sweet as it was, tender as the voice that spoke it, it imposed a boundary to affection, it came as a knell to hope. He recoiled, shook his head mournfully: "Too late to accept that tie,--too late even for friendship. Henceforth--for long years to come--henceforth, till this heart has ceased to beat at your name to thrill at your presence, we two--are strangers." "Strangers! Well--yes, it is right--it must be so; we must not meet. Oh, Leonard Fairfield, who was it that in those days that you recall to me, who was it that found you destitute and obscure; who, not degrading you by charity, placed you in your right career; opened to you, amidst the labyrinth in which you were well-nigh lost, the broad road to knowledge, independence, fame? Answer me,--answer! Was it not the same who reared, sheltered your sister orphan? If I could forget what I have owed to him, should I not remember what he has done for you? Can I hear of your distinction, and not remember it? Can I think how proud she may be who will one day lean on your arm, and bear the name you have already raised beyond all the titles of an hour,--can I think of this, and not remember our common friend, benefactor, guardian? Would you forgive me, if I failed to do so?" "But," faltered Leonard, fear mingling with the conjectures these words called forth--"but is it that Lord L'Estrange would not consent to our union? Or of what do you speak? You bewilder me." Helen felt for some moments as if it were impossible to reply; and the words at length were dragged forth as if from the depth of her very soul. "He came to me, our noble friend. I never dreamed of it. He did not tell me that he loved me. He told me that he was unhappy, alone; that in me, and only in me, he could find a comforter, a soother--He, he! And I had just arrived in England, was under his mother's roof, had not then once more seen you; and--and--what could I answer? Strengthen me, strengthen me, you whom I look up to and revere. Yes, yes, you are right. We must see each other no more. I am betrothed to another,--to him! Strengthen me!" All the inherent nobleness of the poet's nature rose at once at this appeal. "Oh, Helen--sister--Miss Digby, forgive me. You need no strength from me; I borrow it from you. I comprehend you, I respect. Banish all thought of me. Repay our common benefactor. Be what he asks of you,-- his comforter, his soother; be more,--his pride and his joy. Happiness will come to you, as it comes to those who confer happiness and forget self. God comfort you in the passing struggle; God bless you, in the long years to come. Sister, I accept the holy name now, and will claim it hereafter, when I too can think more of others than myself." Helen had covered her face with her hands, sobbing; but with that soft, womanly constraint which presses woe back into the heart. A strange sense of utter solitude suddenly pervaded her whole being, and by that sense of solitude she knew that he was gone. CHAPTER XIV. In another room in that same house sat, solitary as Helen, a stern, gloomy, brooding man, in whom they who had best known him from his childhood could scarcely have recognized a trace of the humane, benignant, trustful, but wayward and varying Harley, Lord L'Estrange. He had read that fragment of a memoir, in which, out of all the chasms of his barren and melancholy past, there rose two malignant truths that seemed literally to glare upon him with mocking and demon eyes. The woman whose remembrance had darkened all the sunshine of his life had loved another; the friend in whom he had confided his whole affectionate loyal soul had been his perfidious rival. He had read from the first word to the last, as if under a spell that held him breathless; and when he closed the manuscript, it was without a groan or sigh; but over his pale lips there passed that withering smile, which is as sure an index of a heart overcharged with dire and fearful passions, as the arrowy flash of the lightning is of the tempests that are gathered within the cloud. He then thrust the papers into his bosom, and, keeping his hand over them, firmly clenched, he left the room, and walked slowly on towards his father's house. With every step by the way, his nature, in the war of its elements, seemed to change and harden into forms of granite. Love, humanity, trust, vanished away. Hate, revenge, misanthropy, suspicion, and scorn of all that could wear the eyes of affection, or speak with the voice of honour, came fast through the gloom of his thoughts, settling down in the wilderness, grim and menacing as the harpies of ancient song-- "Uncaeque manus, et pallida semper Ora." "Hands armed with fangs, and lips forever pale." Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his father's house, and silently entered the apartments still set apart for him. He had arrived about an hour before Leonard; and as he stood by the hearth, with his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the ground, his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. He checked her eager inquiries after Violante, he recoiled from the touch of her hand. "Hold, madam," said he, startling her ear with the cold austerity of his tone. "I cannot heed your questions,--I am filled with the question I must put to yourself. You opposed my boyish love for Leonora Avenel. I do not blame you,--all mothers of equal rank would have done the same. Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I might have taken refusal from her own lips,--survived that grief, and now been a happy man. Years since then have rolled away,--rolled over her quiet slumbers, and my restless waking life. All this time were you aware that Audley Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel?" "Harley, Harley! do not speak to me in that cruel voice, do not look at me with those hard eyes!" "You knew it, then,--you, my mother!" continued Harley, unmoved by her rebuke; "and why did you never say, 'Son, you are wasting the bloom and uses of your life in sorrowful fidelity to a lie! You are lavishing trust and friendship on a perfidious hypocrite.'" "How could I speak to you thus; how could I dare to do so, seeing you still so cherished the memory of that unhappy girl, still believed that she had returned your affection? Had I said to you what I knew (but not till after her death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton--" "Well? You falter; go on; had you done so?" "Would you have felt no desire for revenge? Might there not have been strife between you, danger, bloodshed? Harley, Harley! Is not such silence pardonable in a mother? And why deprive you too of the only friend you seemed to prize; who alone had some influence over you; who concurred with me in the prayer and hope, that some day you would find a living partner worthy to replace this lost delusion, arouse your faculties,--be the ornament your youth promised to your country? For you wrong Audley,--indeed you do!" "Wrong him! Ah, let me not do that. Proceed." "I do not excuse him his rivalship, nor his first concealment of it. But believe me, since then, his genuine remorse, his anxious tenderness for your welfare, his dread of losing your friendship--" "Stop! It was doubtless Audley Egerton who induced you yourself to conceal what you call his 'relations' with her whom I can now so calmly name,--Leonora Avenel?" "It was so, in truth; and from motives that--" "Enough! let me hear no more." "But you will not think too sternly of what is past? You are about to form new ties. You cannot be wild and wicked enough to meditate what your brow seems to threaten. You cannot dream of revenge,--risk Audley's life or your own?" "Tut, tut, tut! What cause here for duels? Single combats are out of date; civilized men do not slay each other with sword and pistol. Tut! revenge! Does it look like revenge, that one object which brings me hither is to request my father's permission to charge myself with the care of Audley Egerton's election? What he values most in the world is his political position; and here his political existence is at stake. You know that I have had through life the character of a weak, easy, somewhat over-generous man. Such men are not revengeful. Hold! You lay your hand on my arm,--I know the magic of that light touch, Mother; but its power over me is gone. Countess of Lansmere, hear me! Ever from infancy (save in that frantic passion for which I now despise myself), I have obeyed you, I trust, as a duteous son. Now, our relative positions are somewhat altered. I have the right to exact--I will not say to command--the right which wrong and injury bestow upon all men. Madam, the injured man has prerogatives that rival those of kings. I now call upon you to question me no more; not again to breathe the name of Leonora Avenel, unless I invite the subject; and not to inform Audley Egerton by a hint, by a breath, that I have discovered--what shall I call it?--his 'pardonable deceit.' Promise me this, by your affection as mother, and on your faith as gentlewoman; or I declare solemnly, that never in life will you look upon my face again." Haughty and imperious though the countess was, her spirit quailed before Harley's brow and voice. "Is this my son,--this my gentle Harley?" she said falteringly. "Oh, put your arms round my neck; let me feel that I have not lost my child!" Harley looked softened, but he did not obey the pathetic prayer; nevertheless, he held out his hand, and turning away his face, said, in a milder voice, "Have I your promise?" "You have, you have; but on condition that there pass no words between you and Audley that can end but in the strife which--" "Strife!" interrupted Harley. "I repeat that the idea of challenge and duel between me and my friend from our school days, and on a quarrel that we could explain to no seconds, would be a burlesque upon all that is grave in the realities of life and feeling. I accept your promise and seal it thus--" He pressed his lips to his mother's forehead, and passively received her embrace. "Hush," he said, withdrawing from her arms, "I hear my father's voice." Lord Lansmere threw open the door widely, and with a certain consciousness that a door by which an Earl of Lansmere entered ought to be thrown open widely. It could not have been opened with more majesty if a huissier or officer of the Household had stood on either side. The countess passed by her lord with a light step, and escaped. "I was occupied with my architect in designs for the new infirmary, of which I shall make a present to our county. I have only just heard that you were here, Harley. What is all this about our fair Italian guest? Is she not coming back to us? Your mother refers me to you for explanations." "You shall have them later, my dear father; at present I can think only of public affairs." "Public affairs! they are indeed alarming. I am rejoiced to hear you express yourself so worthily. An awful crisis, Harley! And, gracious Heaven! I have heard that a low man, who was born in Lansmere, but made a fortune in America, is about to contest the borough. They tell me he is one of the Avenels,--a born Blue; is it possible?" "I have come here on that business. As a peer you cannot, of course, interfere; but I propose, with your leave, to go down myself to Lansmere, and undertake the superintendence of, the election. It would be better, perhaps, if you were not present; it would give us more liberty of action." "My dear Harley, shake hands; anything you please. You know how I have wished to see you come forward, and take that part in life which becomes your birth." "Ah, you think I have sadly wasted my existence hitherto." "To be frank with you, yes, Harley," said the earl, with a pride that was noble in its nature, and not without dignity in its expression. "The more we take from our country, the more we owe to her. From the moment you came into the world as the inheritor of lands and honours, you were charged with a trust for the benefit of others, that it degrades one of our order of gentleman not to discharge." Harley listened with a sombre brow, and made no direct reply. "Indeed," resumed the earl, "I would rather you were about to canvass for yourself than for your friend Egerton. But I grant he is an example that it is never too late to follow. Why, who that had seen you both as youths, notwithstanding Audley had the advantage of being some years your senior--who could have thought that he was the one to become distinguished and eminent, and you to degenerate into the luxurious idler, averse to all trouble and careless of all fame? You, with such advantages, not only of higher fortunes, but, as every one said, of superior talents; you, who had then so much ambition, so keen a desire for glory, sleeping with Plutarch's Lives under your pillow, and only, my wild son, only too much energy. But you are a young man still; it is not too late to redeem the years you have thrown away." "The years are nothing,--mere dates in an almanac; but the feelings, what can give me back those?--the hope, the enthusiasm, the--No matter! feelings do not, help men to rise in the world. Egerton's feelings are not too lively. What I might have been, leave it to me to remember; let us talk of the example you set before me,--of Audley Egerton." "We must get him in," said the earl, sinking his voice into a whisper. "It is of more importance to him than I even thought for. But you know his secrets. Why did you not confide to me frankly the state of his affairs?" "His affairs? Do you mean that they are seriously embarrassed? This interests me much. Pray speak; what do you know?" "He has discharged the greater part of his establishment. That in itself is natural on quitting office; but still it set people talking; and it has got wind that his estates are not only mortgaged for more than they are worth, but that he has been living upon the discount of bills; in short, he has been too intimate with a man whom we all know by sight,-- a man who drives the finest horses in London, and they tell me (but that I cannot believe) lives in the familiar society of the young puppies he snares to perdition. What's the man's name? Levy, is it not?--yes, Levy." "I have seen Levy with him," said Harley; and a sinister joy lighted up his falcon eyes. "Levy--Levy--it is well." "I hear but the gossip of the clubs," resumed the earl; but they do say that Levy makes little disguise of his power over our very distinguished friend, and rather parades it as a merit with our party (and, indeed, with all men--for Egerton has personal friends in every party) that he keeps sundry bills locked up in his desk until Egerton is once more safe in parliament. Nevertheless if, after all, our friend were to lose his election, and Levy were then to seize on his effects, and proclaim his ruin, it would seriously damage, perhaps altogether destroy, Audley's political career." "So I conclude," said Harley. "A Charles Fox might be a gamester, and a William Pitt be a pauper. But Audley Egerton is not of their giant stature; he stands so high because he stands upon heaps of respectable gold. Audley Egerton, needy and impoverished, out of parliament, and, as the vulgar slang has it, out at elbows, skulking from duns, perhaps in the Bench--" "No, no; our party would never allow that; we would subscribe--" "Worse than all, living as the pensioner of the party he aspired to lead! You say truly, his political prospects would be blasted. A man whose reputation lay in his outward respectability! Why, people would say that Audley Egerton has been--a solemn lie; eh, my father?" "How can you talk with such coolness of your friend? You need say nothing to interest me in his election--if you mean that. Once in parliament, he must soon again be in office,--and learn to live on his salary. You must get him to submit to me the schedule of his liabilities. I have a head for business, as you know. I will arrange his affairs for him. And I will yet bet five to one, though I hate wagers, that he will be prime minister in three years. He is not brilliant, it is true; but just at this crisis we want a safe, moderate, judicious, conciliatory man; and Audley has so much tact, such experience of the House, such knowledge of the world, and," added the earl, emphatically summing up his eulogies, "he is so thorough a gentleman!" "A thorough gentleman, as you say,--the soul of honour! But, my dear father, it is your hour for riding; let me not detain you. It is settled, then; you do not come yourself to Lansmere. You put the house at my disposal, and allow me to invite Egerton, of course, and what other guests I may please; in short, you leave all to me?" "Certainly; and if you cannot get in your friend, who can? That borough, it is an awkward, ungrateful place, and has been the plague of my life. So much as I have spent there, too,--so much as I have done to its trade! "And the earl, with an indignant sigh, left the room. Harley seated himself deliberately at his writing-table, leaning his face on his hand, and looking abstractedly into space from under knit and lowering brows. Harley L'Estrange was, as we have seen, a man singularly tenacious of affections and impressions. He was a man, too, whose nature was eminently bold, loyal, and candid; even the apparent whim and levity which misled the world, both as to his dispositions and his powers, might be half ascribed to that open temper which, in its over-contempt for all that seemed to savour of hypocrisy, sported with forms and ceremonials, and extracted humour, sometimes extravagant, sometimes profound, from "the solemn plausibilities of the world." The shock he had now received smote the very foundations of his mind, and, overthrowing all the airier structures which fancy and wit had built upon its surface, left it clear as a new world for the operations of the darker and more fearful passions. When a man of a heart so loving and a nature so irregularly powerful as Harley's suddenly and abruptly discovers deceit where he had most confided, it is not (as with the calmer pupils of that harsh teacher, Experience) the mere withdrawal of esteem and affection from the one offender; it is, that trust in everything seems gone; it is, that the injured spirit looks back to the Past, and condemns all its kindlier virtues as follies that conduced to its own woe; and looks on to the Future as to a journey beset with smiling traitors, whom it must meet with an equal simulation, or crush with a superior force. The guilt of treason to men like these is incalculable,--it robs the world of all the benefits they would otherwise have lavished as they passed; it is responsible for all the ill that springs from the corruption of natures whose very luxuriance, when the atmosphere is once tainted, does but diffuse disease,--even as the malaria settles not over thin and barren soils, not over wastes that have been from all time desolate, but over the places in which southern suns had once ripened delightful gardens, or the sites of cities, in which the pomp of palaces has passed away. It was not enough that the friend of his youth, the confidant of his love, had betrayed his trust,--been the secret and successful rival; not enough that the woman his boyhood had madly idolized, and all the while be had sought her traces with pining, remorseful heart-believing she but eluded his suit from the emulation of a kindred generosity, desiring rather to sacrifice her own love than to cost to his the sacrifice of all which youth rashly scorns and the world so highly estimates,--not enough that all this while her refuge had been the bosom of another. This was not enough of injury. His whole life had been wasted on a delusion; his faculties and aims, the wholesome ambition of lofty minds, had been arrested at the very onset of fair existence; his heart corroded by a regret for which there was no cause; his conscience charged with the terror that his wild chase had urged a too tender victim to the grave, over which he had mourned. What years that might otherwise have been to himself so serene, to the world so useful, had been consumed in objectless, barren, melancholy dreams! And all this while to whom had his complaints been uttered?--to the man who knew that his remorse was an idle spectre and his faithful sorrow a mocking self-deceit. Every thought that could gall man's natural pride, every remembrance that could sting into revenge a heart that had loved too deeply not to be accessible to hate, conspired to goad those maddening Furies who come into every temple which is once desecrated by the presence of the evil passions. In that sullen silence of the soul, vengeance took the form of justice. Changed though his feelings towards Leonora Avenel were, the story of her grief and her wrongs embittered still more his wrath against his rival. The fragments of her memoir left naturally on Harley's mind the conviction that she had been the victim of an infamous fraud, the dupe of a false marriage. His idol had not only been stolen from the altar,--it had been sullied by the sacrifice; broken with remorseless hand, and thrust into dishonoured clay; mutilated, defamed; its very memory a thing of contempt to him who had ravished it from worship. The living Harley and the dead Nora--both called aloud to their joint despoiler, "Restore what thou hast taken from us, or pay the forfeit!" Thus, then, during the interview between Helen and Leonard, thus Harley L'Estrange sat alone! and as a rude irregular lump of steel, when wheeled round into rapid motion, assumes the form of the circle it describes, so his iron purpose, hurried on by his relentless passion, filled the space into which he gazed with optical delusions, scheme after scheme revolving and consummating the circles that clasped a foe. CHAPTER XV. The entrance of a servant, announcing a name which Harley, in the absorption of his gloomy revery, did not hear, was followed by that of a person on whom he lifted his eyes in the cold and haughty surprise with which a man much occupied greets and rebukes the intrusion of an unwelcome stranger. "It is so long since your Lordship has seen me," said the visitor, with mild dignity, "that I cannot wonder you do not recognize my person, and have forgotten my name." "Sir," answered Harley, with an impatient rudeness, ill in harmony with the urbanity for which he was usually distinguished,--"sir, your person is strange to me, and your name I did not hear; but, at all events, I am not now at leisure to attend to you. Excuse my plainness." "Yet pardon me if I still linger. My name is Dale. I was formerly curate at Lansmere; and I would speak to your Lordship in the name and the memory of one once dear to you,--Leonora Avenel." HARLEY (after a short pause).--"Sir, I cannot conjecture your business. But be seated. I remember you now, though years have altered both, and I have since heard much in your favour from Leonard Fairfield. Still let me pray, that you will be brief." MR. DALE.---"May I assume at once that you have divined the parentage of the young man you call Fairfield? When I listened to his grateful praises of your beneficence, and marked with melancholy pleasure the reverence in which he holds you, my heart swelled within me. I acknowledged the mysterious force of nature." HARLEY.---"Force of nature! You talk in riddles." MR. DALE (indignantly).--"Oh, my Lord, how can you so disguise your better self? Surely in Leonard Fairfield you have long since recognized the son of Nora Avenel?" Harley passed his hand over his face. "Ah," thought he, "she lived to bear a son then,--a son to Egerton! Leonard is that son. I should have known it by the likeness, by the fond foolish impulse that moved me to him. This is why he confided to me these fearful memoirs. He seeks his father,--he shall find him." MR. DALE (mistaking the cause of Harley's silence).--"I honour your compunction, my Lord. Oh, let your heart and your conscience continue to speak to your worldly pride." HARLEY.--"My compunction, heart, conscience! Mr. Dale, you insult me!" MR. DALE (sternly).---"Not so; I am fulfilling my mission, which bids me rebuke the sinner. Leonora Avenel speaks in me, and commands the guilty father to acknowledge the innocent child!" Harley half rose, and his eyes literally flashed fire; but he calmed his anger into irony. "Ha!" said he, with a sarcastic smile, "so you suppose that I was the perfidious seducer of Nora Avenel,--that I am the callous father of the child who came into the world without a name. Very well, sir, taking these assumptions for granted, what is it you demand from me on behalf of this young man?" "I ask from you his happiness," replied Mr. Dale, imploringly; and yielding to the compassion with which Leonard inspired him, and persuaded that Lord L'Estrange felt a father's love for the boy whom he had saved from the whirlpool of London, and guided to safety and honourable independence, he here, with simple eloquence, narrated all Leonard's feelings for Helen,--his silent fidelity to her image, though a child's, his love when he again beheld her as a woman, the modest fears which the parson himself had combated, the recommendation that Mr. Dale had forced upon him, to confess his affection to Helen, and plead his cause. "Anxious, as you may believe, for his success," continued the parson, "I waited without your gates till he came from Miss Digby's presence. And oh, my Lord, had you but seen his face!--such emotion and such despair! I could not learn from him what had passed. He escaped from me and rushed away. All that I could gather was from a few broken words, and from those words I formed the conjecture (it may be erroneous) that the obstacle to his happiness was not in Helen's heart, my Lord, but seemed to me as if it were in yourself. Therefore, when he had vanished from my sight, I took courage, and came at, once to you. If he be your son, and Helen Digby be your ward,--she herself an orphan, dependent on your bounty,--why should they be severed? Equals in years, united by early circumstance, congenial, it seems, in simple habits and refined tastes,--what should hinder their union, unless it be the want of fortune? And all men know your wealth, none ever questioned your generosity. My Lord, my Lord, your look freezes me. If I have offended, do not visit my offence on him,--on Leonard!" "And so," said Harley, still controlling his rage, "so this boy--whom, as you say, I saved from that pitiless world which has engulfed many a nobler genius--so, in return for all, he has sought to rob me of the last affection, poor and lukewarm though it was, that remained to me in life? He presume to lift his eyes to my affianced bride! He! And for aught I know, steal from me her living heart, and leave to me her icy hand!" "Oh, my Lord, your affianced bride! I never dreamed of this. I implore your pardon. The very thought is so terrible, so unnatural! the son to woo the father's! Oh, what sin have I fallen into! The sin was mine,--I urged and persuaded him to it. He was ignorant as myself. Forgive him, forgive him!" "Mr. Dale," said Harley, rising, and extending his hand, which the poor parson felt himself--unworthy to take,--"Mr. Dale, you are a good man,-- if, indeed, this universe of liars contains some man who does not cheat our judgment when we deem him honest. Allow me only to ask why you consider Leonard Fairfield to be my son." "Was not your youthful admiration for poor Nora evident to me? Remember I was a frequent guest at Lansmere Park; and it was so natural that you, with all your brilliant gifts, should captivate her refined fancy, her affectionate heart." "Natural--you think so,--go on." "Your mother, as became her, separated you. It was not unknown to me that you still cherished a passion which your rank forbade to be lawful. Poor girl! she left the roof of her protectress, Lady Jane. Nothing was known of her till she came to her father's house to give birth to a child, and die. And the same day that dawned on her corpse, you hurried from the place. Ah, no doubt your conscience smote you; you have never returned to Lansmere since." Harley's breast heaved, he waved his hand; the parson resumed, "Whom could I suspect but you? I made inquiries: they confirmed my suspicions." "Perhaps you inquired of my friend, Mr. Egerton? He was with me when-- when--as you say, I hurried from the place." "I did, my Lord." "And he?" "Denied your guilt; but still, a man of honour so nice, of heart so feeling, could not feign readily. His denial did not deceive me." "Honest man!" said Harley; and his hand griped at the breast over which still rustled, as if with a ghostly sigh, the records of the dead. "He knew she had left a son, too?" "He did, my Lord; of course, I told him that." "The son whom I found starving in the streets of London! Mr. Dale, as you see, your words move me very much. I cannot deny that he who wronged, it may be with no common treachery, that young mother--for Nora Avenel was not one to be lightly seduced into error--" "Indeed, no!" "And who then thought no more of the offspring of her anguish and his own crime--I cannot deny that that man deserves some chastisement,--should render some atonement. Am I not right here? Answer with the plain speech which becomes your sacred calling." "I cannot say otherwise, my Lord," replied the parson, pitying what appeared to him such remorse. "But if he repent--" "Enough," interrupted Harley. "I now invite you to visit me at Lansmere; give me your address, and I will apprise you of the day on which I will request your presence. Leonard Fairfield shall find a father--I was about to say, worthy of himself. For the rest--stay; reseat yourself. For the rest"--and again the sinister smile broke from Harley's eye and lip--"I will not yet say whether I can, or ought to, resign to a younger and fairer suitor the lady who has accepted my own hand. I have no reason yet to believe that she prefers him. But what think you, meanwhile, of this proposal? Mr. Avenel wishes his nephew to contest the borough of Lansmere, has urged me to obtain the young man's consent. True, that he may thus endanger the seat of Mr. Audley Egerton. What then? Mr. Audley Egerton is a great man, and may find another seat; that should not stand in the way. Let Leonard obey his uncle. If he win the election, why, he 'll be a more equal match, in the world's eye, for Miss Digby, that is, should she prefer him to myself; and if she do not, still, in public life, there is a cure for all private sorrow. That is a maxim of Mr. Audley Egerton's; and he, you know, is a man not only of the nicest honour, but the deepest worldly wisdom. Do you like my proposition?" "It seems to me most considerate, most generous." "Then you shall take to Leonard the lines I am about to write." LORD L'ESTRANGE TO LEONARD FAIRFIELD. I have read the memoir you intrusted to me. I will follow up all the clews that it gives me. Meanwhile I request you to suspend all questions; forbear all reference to a subject which, as you may well conjecture, is fraught with painful recollections to myself. At this moment, too, I am compelled to concentre my thoughts upon affairs of a public nature, and yet which may sensibly affect yourself. There are reasons why I urge you to comply with your uncle's wish, and stand for the borough of Lansmere at the approaching election. If the exquisite gratitude of your nature so overrates what I may have done for you that you think you owe me some obligations, you will richly repay them on the day in which I bear you hailed as member for Lansmere. Relying on that generous principle of self-sacrifice, which actuates all your conduct, I shall count upon your surrendering your preference to private life, and entering the arena of that noble ambition which has conferred such dignity on the name of my friend Audley Egerton. He, it is true, will be your opponent; but he is too generous not to pardon my zeal for the interests of a youth whose career I am vain enough to think that I have aided. And as Mr. Randal Leslie stands in coalition with Egerton, and Mr. Avenel believes that two candidates of the same party cannot both succeed, the result may be to the satisfaction of all the feelings which I entertain for Audley Egerton, and for you, who, I have reason to think, will emulate his titles to my esteem. Yours, L'ESTRANGE. "There, Mr. Dale," said Harley, sealing his letter, and giving it into the parson's hands,--"there, you shall deliver this note to your friend. But no; upon second thoughts, since he does not yet know of your visit to me, it is best that he should be still in ignorance of it. For should Miss Digby resolve to abide by her present engagements, it were surely kind to save Leonard the pain of learning that you had communicated to me that rivalry he himself had concealed. Let all that has passed between us be kept in strict confidence." "I will obey you, my Lord," answered the parson, meekly, startled to find that he who had come to arrogate authority was now submitting to commands; and all at fault what judgment he could venture to pass upon the man whom he had regarded as a criminal, who had not even denied the crime imputed to him, yet who now impressed the accusing priest with something of that respect which Mr. Dale had never before conceded but to Virtue. Could he have then but looked into the dark and stormy heart, which he twice misread! "It is well,--very well," muttered Harley, when the door had closed upon the parson. "The viper and the viper's brood! So it was this man's son that I led from the dire Slough of Despond; and the son unconsciously imitates the father's gratitude and honour--Ha, ha!" Suddenly the bitter laugh was arrested; a flash of almost celestial joy darted through the warring elements of storm and darkness. If Helen returned Leonard's affection, Harley L'Estrange was free! And through that flash the face of Violante shone upon him as an angel's. But the heavenly light and the angel face vanished abruptly, swallowed up in the black abyss of the rent and tortured soul. "Fool!" said the unhappy man, aloud, in his anguish--"fool! what then? Were I free, would it be to trust my fate again to falsehood? If, in all the bloom and glory of my youth, I failed to win the heart of a village girl; if, once more deluding myself, it is in vain that I have tended, reared, cherished, some germ of woman's human affection in the orphan I saved from penury,--how look for love in the brilliant princess, whom all the sleek Lotharios of our gaudy world will surround with their homage when once she alights on their sphere! If perfidy be my fate--what hell of hells, in the thought!--that a wife might lay her head in my bosom, and--oh, horror! horror! No! I would not accept her hand were it offered, nor believe in her love were it pledged to me. Stern soul of mine, wise at last, love never more,--never more believe in truth!" CHAPTER XVI. As Harley quitted the room, Helen's pale sweet face looked forth from a door in the same corridor. She advanced towards him timidly. "May I speak with you?" she said, in almost inaudible accents; "I have been listening for your footstep." Harley looked at her steadfastly. Then, without a word, he followed her into the room she had left, and closed the door. "I, too," said he, "meant to seek an interview with yourself--but later. You would speak to me, Helen,--say on. Ah, child, what mean you? Why this?"--for Helen was kneeling at his feet. "Let me kneel," she said, resisting the hand that sought to raise her. "Let me kneel till I have explained all, and perhaps won your pardon. You said something the other evening. It has weighed on my heart and my conscience ever since. You said 'that I should have no secret from you; for that, in our relation to each other, would be deceit.' I have had a secret; but oh, believe me! it was long ere it was clearly visible to myself. You honoured me with a suit so far beyond my birth, my merits. You said that I might console and comfort you. At those words, what answer could I give,--I, who owe you so much more than a daughter's duty? And I thought that my affections were free,--that they would obey that duty. But--but--but--" continued Helen, bowing her head still lowlier, and in a voice far fainter--"I deceived myself. I again saw him who had been all in the world to me, when the world was so terrible, and then-- and then--I trembled. I was terrified at my own memories, my own thoughts. Still I struggled to banish the past, resolutely, firmly. Oh, you believe me, do you not? And I hoped to conquer. Yet ever since those words of yours, I felt that I ought to tell you even of the struggle. This is the first time we have met since you spoke them. And now--now--I have seen him again, and--and--though not by a word could she you had deigned to woo as your bride encourage hope in another; though there--there where you now stand--he bade me farewell, and we parted as if forever,--yet--yet O Lord L'Estrange! in return for your rank, wealth, your still nobler gifts of nature, what should I bring?--Something more than gratitude, esteem; reverence,--at least an undivided heart, filled with your image, and yours alone. And this I cannot give. Pardon me,-- not for what I say now, but for not saying it before. Pardon me, O my benefactor, pardon me!" "Rise, Helen," said Harley, with relaxing brow, though still unwilling to yield to one softer and holier emotion. "Rise!" And he lifted her up, and drew her towards the light. "Let me look at your face. There seems no guile here. These tears are surely honest. If I cannot be loved, it is my fate, and not your crime. Now, listen to me. If you grant me nothing else, will you give me the obedience which the ward owes to the guardian, the child to the parent?" "Yes, oh, yes!" murmured Helen. "Then while I release you from all troth to me, I claim the right to refuse, if I so please it, my assent to the suit of--of the person you prefer. I acquit you of deceit, but I reserve to myself the judgment I shall pass on him. Until I myself sanction that suit, will you promise not to recall in any way the rejection which, if I understand you rightly, you have given to it?" "I promise." "And if I say to you, 'Helen, this man is not worthy of you '" "No, no! do not say that,--I could not believe you." Harley frowned, but resumed calmly, "If, then, I say, 'Ask me not wherefore, but I forbid you to be the wife of Leonard Fairfield, I what would be your answer?'" "Ah, my Lord, if you can but comfort him, do with me as you will! but do not command me to break his heart." "Oh, silly child," cried Harley, laughing scornfully, "hearts are not found in the race from which that man sprang. But I take your promise, with its credulous condition. Helen, I pity you. I have been as weak as you, bearded man though I be. Some day or other, you and I may live to laugh at the follies at which you weep now. I can give you no other comfort, for I know of none." He moved to the door, and paused at the threshold: "I shall not see you again for some days, Helen. Perhaps I may request my mother to join me at Lansmere; if so, I shall pray you to accompany her. For the present, let all believe that our position is unchanged. The time will soon come when I may--" Helen looked up wistfully through her tears. "I may release you from all duties to me," continued Harley, with grave and severe coldness; "or I may claim your promise in spite of the condition; for your lover's heart will not be broken. Adieu!" CHAPTER XVII. As Harley entered London, he came suddenly upon Randal Leslie, who was hurrying from Eaton Square, having not only accompanied Mr. Avenel in his walk, but gone home with him, and spent half the day in that gentleman's society. He was now on his way to the House of Commons, at which some disclosure as to the day for the dissolution of parliament was expected. "Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, "I must stop you. I have been to Norwood, and seen our noble friend. He has confided to me, of course, all that passed. How can I express my gratitude to you! By what rare talent, with what signal courage, you have saved the happiness--perhaps even the honour--of my plighted bride!" "Your bride! The duke, then, still holds to the promise you were fortunate enough to obtain from Dr. Riccabocca?" "He confirms that promise more solemnly than ever. You may well be surprised at his magnanimity." "No; he is a philosopher,--nothing in him can surprise me. But he seemed to think, when I saw him, that there were circumstances you might find it hard to explain." "Hard! Nothing so easy. Allow me to tender to you the same explanations which satisfied one whom philosophy itself has made as open to truth as he is clear-sighted to imposture." "Another time, Mr. Leslie. If your bride's father be satisfied, what right have I to doubt? By the way, you stand for Lansmere. Do me the favour to fix your quarters at the Park during the election. You will, of course, accompany Mr. Egerton." "You are most kind," answered Randal, greatly surprised. "You accept? That is well. We shall then have ample opportunity for those explanations which you honour me by offering; and, to make your visit still more agreeable, I may perhaps induce our friends at Norwood to meet you. Good-day." Harley walked on, leaving Randal motionless in amaze, but tormented with suspicion. What could such courtesies in Lord L'Estrange portend? Surely no good. "I am about to hold the balance of justice," said Harley to himself. "I will cast the light-weight of that knave into the scale. Violante never can be mine; but I did not save her from a Peschiera to leave her to a Randal Leslie. Ha, ha! Audley Egerton has some human feeling,-- tenderness for that youth whom he has selected from the world, in which he left Nora's child to the jaws of Famine. Through that side I can reach at his heart, and prove him a fool like myself, where he esteemed and confided! Good." Thus soliloquizing, Lord L'Estrange gained the corner of Bruton Street, when he was again somewhat abruptly accosted. "My dear Lord L'Estrange, let me shake you by the hand; for Heaven knows when I may see you again, and you have suffered me to assist in one good action." "Frank Hazeldean, I am pleased indeed to meet you. Why do you indulge in that melancholy doubt as to the time when I may see you again?" "I have just got leave of absence. I am not well, and I am rather hipped, so I shall go abroad for a few weeks." In spite of himself, the sombre, brooding man felt interest and sympathy in the dejection that was evident in Frank's voice and countenance. "Another dupe to affection," thought he, as if in apology to himself,-- "of course, a dupe; he is honest and artless--at present." He pressed kindly on the arm which he had involuntarily twined within his own. "I conceive how you now grieve, my young friend," said he; "but you will congratulate yourself hereafter on what this day seems to you an affliction." "My dear Lord--" "I am much older than you, but not old enough for such formal ceremony. Pray call me L'Estrange." "Thank you; and I should indeed like to speak to you as a friend. There is a thought on my mind which haunts me. I dare say it is foolish enough, but I am sure you will not laugh at me. You heard what Madame di Negra said to me last night. I have been trifled with and misled, but I cannot forget so soon how dear to me that woman was. I am not going to bore you with such nonsense; but from what I can understand, her brother is likely to lose all his fortune; and, even if not, he is a sad scoundrel. I cannot bear the thought that she should be so dependent on him, that she may come to want. After all, there must be good in her,-- good in her to refuse my hand if she did not love me. A mercenary woman so circumstanced would not have done that." "You are quite right. But do not torment yourself with such generous fears. Madame di Negra shall not come to want, shall not be dependent on her infamous brother. The first act of the Duke of Serrano, on regaining his estates, will be a suitable provision for his kinswoman. I will answer for this." "You take a load off my mind. I did mean to ask you to intercede with Riccabocca,--that is, the duke (it is so hard to think he can be a duke!)--I, alas! have nothing in my power to bestow upon Madame di Negra. I may, indeed, sell my commission; but then I have a debt which I long to pay off, and the sale of the commission would not suffice even for that; and perhaps my father might be still more angry if I do sell it. Well, good-by. I shall now go away happy,--that is, comparatively. One must bear things like--a man!" "I should like, however, to see you again before you go abroad. I will call on you. Meanwhile, can you tell me the number of one Baron Levy? He lives in this street, I know." "Levy! Oh, have no dealings with him, I advise, I entreat you! He is the most plausible, dangerous rascal; and, for Heaven's sake! pray be warned by me, and let nothing entangle you into--a POST-OBIT!" "Be re-assured, I am more accustomed to lend money than borrow it; and as to a post-obit, I have a foolish prejudice against such transactions." "Don't call it foolish, L'Estrange; I honour you for it. How I wish I had known you earlier--so few men of the world are like you. Even Randal Leslie, who is so faultless in most things, and never gets into a scrape himself, called my own scruples foolish. However--" "Stay--Randal Leslie! What! He advised you to borrow on a post-obit, and probably shared the loan with you?" "Oh, no; not a shilling." "Tell me all about it, Frank. Perhaps, as I see that Levy is mixed up in the affair, your information may be useful to myself, and put me on my guard in dealing with that popular gentleman." Frank, who somehow or other felt himself quite at home with Harley, and who, with all his respect for Randal Leslie's talents, had a vague notion that Lord L'Estrange was quite as clever, and, from his years and experience, likely to be a safer and more judicious counsellor, was noways loath to impart the confidence thus pressed for. He told Harley of his debts, his first dealings with Levy, the unhappy post-obit into which he had been hurried by the distress of Madame di Negra; his father's anger, his mother's letter, his own feelings of mingled shame and pride, which made him fear that repentance would but seem self-interest, his desire to sell his commission, and let its sale redeem in part the post-obit; in short, he made what is called a clean breast of it. Randal Leslie was necessarily mixed up with this recital; and the subtle cross-questionings of Harley extracted far more as to that young diplomatist's agency in all these melancholy concerns than the ingenuous narrator himself was aware of. "So then," said Harley, "Mr. Leslie assured you of Madame di Negra's affection, when you yourself doubted of it?" "Yes; she took him in, even more than she did me." "Simple Mr. Leslie! And the same kind friend?--who is related to you, did you say?" "His grandmother was a Hazeldean." "Humph. The same kind relation led you to believe that you could pay off this bond with the marchesa's portion, and that he could obtain the consent of your parents to your marriage with that lady?" "I ought to have known better; my father's prejudices against foreigners and Papists are so strong." "And now Mr. Leslie concurs with you, that it is best for you to go abroad, and trust to his intercession with your father. He has evidently, then, gained a great influence over Mr. Hazeldean." "My father naturally compares me with him,--he so clever, so promising, so regular in his habits, and I such a reckless scapegrace." "And the bulk of your father's property is unentailed; Mr. Hazeldean might disinherit you?" "I deserve it. I hope he will." "You have no brothers nor sisters,--no relation, perhaps, after your parents, nearer to you than your excellent friend Mr. Randal Leslie?" "No; that is the reason he is so kind to me, otherwise I am the last person to suit him. You have no idea how well-informed and clever he is," added Frank, in a tone between admiration and awe. "My dear Hazeldean, you will take my advice, will you not?" "Certainly. You are too good." "Let all your family, Mr. Leslie included, suppose you to be gone abroad; but stay quietly in England, and within a day's journey of Lansmere Park. I am obliged to go thither for the approaching election. I may ask you to come over. I think I see a way to serve you; and if so, you will soon hear from me. Now, Baron Levy's number?" "That is the house with the cabriolet at the door. How such a fellow can have such a horse!--'t is out of all keeping!" "Not at all; horses are high-spirited, generous, unsuspicious animals. They never know if it is a rogue who drives them. I have your promise, then, and you will send me your address?" "I will. Strange that I feel more confidence in you than I do even in Randal. Do take care of Levy." Lord L'Estrange and Frank here shook hands, and Frank, with an anxious groan, saw L'Estrange disappear within the portals of the sleek destroyer. CHAPTER XVII. Lord L'Estrange followed the spruce servant into Baron Levy's luxurious study. The baron looked greatly amazed at his unexpected visitor; but he got up, handed a chair to my Lord with a low bow. "This is an honour," said he. "You have a charming abode here," said Lord L'Estrange, looking round. "Very fine bronzes,--excellent taste. Your reception-rooms above are, doubtless, a model to all decorators?" "Would your Lordship condescend to see them?" said Levy, wondering, but flattered. "With the greatest pleasure." "Lights!" cried Levy, to the servant who answered his bell. "Lights in the drawing-rooms,--it is growing dark." Lord L'Estrange followed the usurer upstairs; admired everything,--pictures, draperies, Sevres china, to the very shape of the downy fauteuils, to the very pattern of the Tournay carpets. Reclining then on one of the voluptuous sofas, Lord L'Estrange said smilingly, "You are a wise man: there is no advantage in being rich, unless one enjoys one's riches." "My own maxim, Lord L'Estrange." "And it is something, too, to have a taste for good society. Small pride would you have, my dear baron, in these rooms, luxurious though they are, if filled with guests of vulgar exterior and plebeian manners. It is only in the world in which we move that we find persons who harmonize, as it were, with the porcelain of Sevres, and these sofas that might have come from Versailles." "I own," said Levy, "that I have what some may call a weakness in a /parvenu/ like myself. I have a love for the /beau monde/. It is indeed a pleasure to me when I receive men like your Lordship." "But why call yourself a /parvenu/? Though you are contented to honour the name of Levy, we, in society, all know that you are the son of a long-descended English peer. Child of love, it is true; but the Graces smile on those over whose birth Venus presided. Pardon my old-fashioned mythological similes,--they go so well with these rooms--Louis Quinze." "Since you have touched on my birth," said Levy, his colour rather heightening, not with shame, but with pride, "I don't deny that it has had some effect on my habits and tastes in life. In fact--" "In fact, own that you would be a miserable man, in spite of all your wealth, if the young dandies, who throng to your banquets, were to cut you dead in the streets; if, when your high-stepping horse stopped at your club, the porter shut the door in your face; if, when you lounged into the opera-pit, handsome dog that you are, each spendthrift rake in 'Fop's Alley,' who now waits but the scratch of your pen to endorse /billets doux/ with the charm that can chain to himself for a month some nymph of the Ballet, spinning round in a whirlwind of tulle, would shrink from the touch of your condescending forefinger with more dread of its contact than a bailiff's tap in the thick of Pall Mall could inspire; if, reduced to the company of city clerks, parasite led-captains--" "Oh, don't go on, my dear Lord," cried Levy, laughing affectedly. "Impossible though the picture be, it is really appalling. Cut me off from May Fair and St. James's, and I should go into my strong closet and hang myself." "And yet, my dear baron, all this may happen if I have the whim just to try; all this will happen, unless, ere I leave your house, you concede the conditions I come here to impose." "My Lord!" exclaimed Levy, starting up, and pulling down his waistcoat with nervous passionate fingers, "if you were not under my own roof, I would--" "Truce with mock heroics. Sit down, sir, sit down. I will briefly state my threat, more briefly my conditions. You will be scarcely more prolix in your reply. Your fortune I cannot touch, your enjoyment of it I can destroy. Refuse my conditions, make me your enemy,--and war to the knife! I will interrogate all the young dupes you have ruined. I will learn the history of all the transactions by which you have gained the wealth that it pleases you to spend in courting the society and sharing the vices of men who--go with these rooms, Louis Quinze. Not a roguery of yours shall escape me, down even to your last notable connivance with an Italian reprobate for the criminal abduction of an heiress. All these particulars I will proclaim in the clubs to which you have gained admittance, in every club in London which you yet hope to creep into; all these I will impart to some such authority in the Press as Mr. Henry Norreys; all these I will, upon the voucher of my own name, have so published in some journals of repute, that you must either tacitly submit to the revelations that blast you, or bring before a court of law actions that will convert accusations into evidence. It is but by sufferance that you are now in society; you are excluded when one man like me comes forth to denounce you. You try in vain to sneer at my menace--your white lips show your terror. I have rarely in life drawn any advantage from my rank and position; but I am thankful that they give me the power to make my voice respected and my exposure triumphant. Now, Baron Levy, will you go into your strong closet and hang yourself, or will you grant me my very moderate conditions? You are silent. I will relieve you, and state those conditions. Until the general election, about to take place, is concluded, you will obey me to the letter in all that I enjoin,--no demur and no scruple. And the first proof of obedience I demand is, your candid disclosure of all Mr. Audley Egerton's pecuniary affairs." "Has my client, Mr. Egerton, authorized you to request of me that disclosure?" "On the contrary, all that passes between us you will conceal from your client." "You would save him from ruin? Your trusty friend, Mr. Egerton!" said the baron, with a livid sneer. "Wrong again, Baron Levy. If I would save him from ruin, you are scarcely the man I should ask to assist me." "Ah, I guess. You have learned how he--" "Guess nothing, but obey in all things. Let us descend to your business room." Levy said not a word until he had reconducted his visitor into his den of destruction, all gleaming with /spoliaria/ in rosewood. Then he said this: "If, Lord L'Estrange, you seek but revenge on Audley Egerton, you need not have uttered those threats. I too--hate the man." Harley looked at him wistfully, and the nobleman felt a pang that he had debased himself into a single feeling which the usurer could share. Nevertheless, the interview appeared to close with satisfactory arrangements, and to produce amicable understanding. For as the baron ceremoniously followed Lord L'Estrange through the hall, his noble visitor said, with marked affability, "Then I shall see you at Lansmere with Mr. Egerton, to assist in conducting his election. It is a sacrifice of your time worthy of your friendship; not a step farther, I beg. Baron, I have the honour to wish you good-evening." As the street door opened on Lord L'Estrange he again found himself face to face with Randal Leslie, whose hand was already lifted to the knocker. "Ha, Mr. Leslie!--you too a client of Baron Levy's,--a very useful, accommodating man." Randal stared and stammered. "I come in haste from the House of Commons on Mr. Egerton's business. Don't you hear the newspaper vendors crying out 'Great News, Dissolution of Parliament'?" "We are prepared. Levy himself consents to give us the aid of his talents. Kindly, obliging, clever person!" Randal hurried into Levy's study, to which the usurer had shrunk back, and was now wiping his brow with his scented handkerchief, looking heated and haggard, and very indifferent to Randal Leslie. "How is this?" cried Randal. "I come to tell you first of Peschiera's utter failure, the ridiculous coxcomb, and I meet at your door the last man I thought to find there,--the man who foiled us all, Lord L'Estrange. What brought him to you? Ah, perhaps his interest in Egerton's election?" "Yes," said Levy, sulkily. "I know all about Peschiera. I cannot talk to you now; I must make arrangements for going to Lansmere." "But don't forget my purchase from Thornhill. I shall have the money shortly from a surer source than Peschiera." "The squire?" "Or a rich father-in-law." In the mean while, as Lord L'Estrange entered Bond Street, his ears were stunned by vociferous cries from the Stentors employed by "Standard," "Sun," and "Globe," --"Great News! Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" The gas-lamps were lighted; a brown fog was gathering over the streets, blending itself with the falling shades of night. The forms of men loomed large through the mist. The lights from the shops looked red and lurid. Loungers usually careless as to politics were talking eagerly and anxiously of King, Lords, Commons, "Constitution at stake," "Triumph of liberal opinions,"--according to their several biases. Hearing, and scorning-- unsocial, isolated--walked on Harley L'Estrange. With his direr passions had been roused up all the native powers that made them doubly dangerous. He became proudly conscious of his own great faculties, but exulted in them only so far as they could minister to the purpose which had invoked them. "I have constituted myself a Fate," he said inly; "let the gods be but neutral, while I weave the meshes. Then, as Fate itself when it has fulfilled its mission, let me pass away into shadow, with the still and lonely stride that none may follow,-- "'Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness.' How weary I am of this world of men!" And again the cry "Great News-- National Crisis--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" rang through the jostling throng. Three men, arm-in-arm, brushed by Harley, and were stopped at the crossing by a file of carriages. The man in the centre was Audley Egerton. His companions were an ex-minister like himself, and one of those great proprietors who are proud of being above office, and vain of the power to make and unmake Governments. "You are the only man to lead us, Egerton," said this last personage. "Do but secure your seat, and as soon as this popular fever has passed away, you must be something more than the leader of Opposition,--you must be the first man in England." "Not a doubt of that," chimed in the fellow ex-minister, a worthy man, perfect red-tapist, but inaudible in the reporters' gallery. "And your election is quite safe, eh? All depends on that. You must not be thrown out at such a time, even for a month or two. I hear that you will have a contest--some townsmen of the borough, I think. But the Lansmere interest must be all-powerful; and I suppose L'Estrange will come out and canvass for you. You are not the man to have lukewarm friends!" "Don't be alarmed about my election. I am as sure of that as of L'Estrange's friendship." Harley heard, with a grim smile, and passing his hand within his vest, laid it upon Nora's memoir. "What could we do in parliament without you?" said the great proprietor, almost piteously. "Rather what could I do without parliament? Public life is the only existence I own. Parliament is all in all to me. But we may cross now." Harley's eye glittered cold as it followed the tall form of the statesman, towering high above all other passers-by. "Ay," he muttered, "ay, rest as sure of my friendship as I was of thine! And be Lansmere our field of Philippi! There where thy first step was made in the only life that thou own'st as existence, shall the ladder itself rot from under thy footing. There, where thy softer victim slunk to death from the deceit of thy love, shall deceit like thine own dig a grave for thy frigid ambition. I borrow thy quiver of fraud; its still arrows shall strike thee; and thou too shalt say, when the barb pierces home, 'This comes from the hand of a friend.' Ay, at Lansmere, at Lansmere, shall the end crown the whole! Go, and dot on the canvas the lines for a lengthened perspective, where my eyes note already the vanishing point of the picture." Then through the dull fog and under the pale gas-lights Harley L'Estrange pursued his noiseless way, soon distinguished no more amongst the various, motley, quick-succeeding groups, with their infinite sub- divisions of thought, care, and passion; while, loud over all their low murmurs, or silent hearts, were heard the tramp of horses and din of wheels, and the vociferous discordant cry that had ceased to attract and interest in the ears it vexed, "Great News, Great News--Dissolution of Parliament--Great News!" CHAPTER XIX. The scene is at Lansmere Park,--a spacious pile, commenced in the reign of Charles II.; enlarged and altered in the reign of Anne. Brilliant interval in the History of our National Manners, when even the courtier dreaded to be dull, and Sir Fopling raised himself on tiptoe to catch the ear of a wit; when the names of Devonshire and Dorset, Halifax and Carteret, Oxford and Bolingbroke, unite themselves, brotherlike, with those of Hobbes and of Dryden, of Prior and Bentley, of Arbuthnot, Gay, Pope, and Swift; and still, wherever we turn, to recognize some ideal of great Lord or fine Gentleman, the Immortals of Literature stand by his side. The walls of the rooms at Lansmere were covered with the portraits of those who illustrate that time which Europe calls the Age of Louis XIV. A L'Estrange, who had lived through the reigns of four English princes (and with no mean importance through all) had collected those likenesses of noble contemporaries. As you passed through the chambers--opening one on the other in that pomp of parade introduced with Charles II. from the palaces of France, and retaining its mode till Versailles and the Trianon passed, themselves, out of date--you felt you were in excellent company. What saloons of our day, demeaned to tailed coats and white waistcoats, have that charm of high breeding which speaks out from the canvas of Kneller and Jervis, Vivien and Rigaud? And withal, notwithstanding lace and brocade--the fripperies of artificial costume--still those who give interest or charm to that day look from their portraits like men,--raking or debonair, if you will, never mincing nor feminine. Can we say as much of the portraits of Lawrence? Gaze there on fair Marlborough; what delicate perfection of features, yet how easy in boldness, how serene in the conviction of power! So fair and so tranquil he might have looked through the cannon reek at Ramillies and Blenheim, suggesting to Addison the image of an angel of war. Ah, there, Sir Charles Sedley, the Lovelace of wits! Note that strong jaw and marked brow; do you not recognize the courtier who scorned to ask one favour of the king with whom he lived as an equal, and who stretched forth the right hand of man to hurl from a throne the king who had made his daughter--a countess? [Sedley was so tenacious of his independence that when his affairs were most embarrassed, he refused all pecuniary aid from Charles II. His bitter sarcasm, in vindication of the part he took in the deposition of James II., who had corrupted his daughter, and made her Countess of Dorchester, is well known. "As the king has made my daughter a countess, the least I can do, in common gratitude, is to assist in making his Majesty's daughter--a queen!"] Perhaps, from his childhood thus surrounded by the haunting faces--that spoke of their age as they looked from the walls--that age and those portraits were not without influence on the character of Harley L'Estrange. The whim and the daring, the passion for letters and reverence for genius, the mixture of levity and strength, the polished sauntering indolence, or the elastic readiness of energies once called into action,--all might have found their prototypes in the lives which those portraits rekindled. The deeper sentiment, the more earnest nature, which in Harley L'Estrange were commingled with the attributes common to a former age,--these, indeed, were of his own. Our age so little comprehended, while it colours us from its atmosphere! so full of mysterious and profound emotions, which our ancestors never knew!---will those emotions be understood by our descendants? In this stately house were now assembled, as Harley's guests, many of the more important personages whom the slow length of this story has made familiar to the reader. The two candidates for the borough in the True Blue interest,--Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie; and Levy,--chief among the barons to whom modern society grants a seignorie of pillage, which, had a baron of old ever ventured to arrogate, burgess and citizen, socman and bocman, villein and churl, would have burned him alive in his castle; the Duke di Serrano, still fondly clinging to his title of Doctor and pet name of Riccabocca; Jemima, not yet with the airs of a duchess, but robed in very thick silks, as the chrysalis state of a duchess; Violante, too, was there, sadly against her will, and shrinking as much as possible into the retirement of her own chamber. The Countess of Lansmere had deserted her lord, in order to receive the guests of her son; my lord himself, ever bent on being of use in some part of his country, and striving hard to distract his interest from his plague of a borough, had gone down into Cornwall to inquire into the social condition of certain troglodytes who worked in some mines which the earl had lately had the misfortune to wring from the Court of Chancery, after a lawsuit commenced by his grandfather; and a Blue Book, issued in the past session by order of parliament, had especially quoted the troglodytes thus devolved on the earl as bipeds who were in considerable ignorance of the sun, and had never been known to wash their feet since the day when they came into the world,--their world underground, chipped off from the Bottomless Pit! With the countess came Helen Digby, of course; and Lady Lansmere, who had hitherto been so civilly cold to the wife elect of her son, had, ever since her interview with Harley at Knightsbridge, clung to Helen with almost a caressing fondness. The stern countess was tamed by fear; she felt that her own influence over Harley was gone; she trusted to the influence of Helen--in case of what?--ay, what? It was because the danger was not clear to her that her bold spirit trembled: superstitions, like suspicions, are "as bats among birds, and fly by twilight." Harley had ridiculed the idea of challenge and strife between Audley and himself; but still Lady Lansmere dreaded the fiery emotions of the last, and the high spirit and austere self-respect which were proverbial to the first. Involuntarily she strengthened her intimacy with Helen. In case her alarm should appear justified, what mediator could be so persuasive in appeasing the angrier passions, as one whom courtship and betrothal sanctified to the gentlest? On arriving at Lansmere, the countess, however, felt somewhat relieved. Harley had received her, if with a manner less cordial and tender than had hitherto distinguished it, still with easy kindness and calm self- possession. His bearing towards Audley Egerton still more reassured her: it was not marked by an exaggeration of familiarity or friendship, which would at once have excited her apprehensions of some sinister design,-- nor; on the other hand, did it betray, by covert sarcasms, an ill- suppressed resentment. It was exactly what, under the circumstances, would have been natural to a man who had received an injury from an intimate friend, which, in generosity or discretion, he resolved to overlook, but which those aware of it could just perceive had cooled or alienated the former affection. Indefatigably occupying himself with all the details of the election, Harley had fair pretext for absenting himself from Audley, who, really looking very ill, and almost worn out, pleaded indisposition as an excuse for dispensing with the fatigues of a personal canvass, and, passing much of his time in his own apartments, left all the preparations for contest to his more active friends. It was not till he had actually arrived at Lansmere that Audley became acquainted with the name of his principal opponent. Richard Avenel! the brother of Nora! rising up from obscurity, thus to stand front to front against him in a contest on which all his fates were cast. Egerton quailed as before an appointed avenger. He would fain have retired from the field; he spoke to Harley. "How can you support all the painful remembrances which the very name of my antagonist must conjure up?" "Did you not tell me," answered Harley, "to strive against such remembrances,--to look on them as sickly dreams? I am prepared to brave them. Can you be more sensitive than I?" Egerton durst not say more. He avoided all further reference to the subject. The strife raged around him, and he shut himself out from it, --shut himself up in solitude with his own heart. Strife enough there! Once, late at night, he stole forth and repaired to Nora's grave. He stood there, amidst the rank grass and under the frosty starlight, long, and in profound silence. His whole past life seemed to rise before him; and, when he regained his lonely room, and strove to survey the future, still he could behold only that past and that grave. In thus declining all active care for an election, to his prospects so important, Audley Egerton was considered to have excuse, not only in the state of his health, but in his sense of dignity. A statesman so eminent, of opinions so well known, of public services so incontestable, might well be spared the personal trouble that falls upon obscurer candidates. And besides, according to current report, and the judgment of the Blue Committee, the return of Mr. Egerton was secure. But though Audley himself was thus indulgently treated, Harley and the Blue Committee took care to inflict double work upon Randal. That active young spirit found ample materials for all its restless energies. Randal Leslie was kept on his legs from sunrise to starlight. There does not exist in the Three Kingdoms a constituency more fatiguing to a candidate than that borough of Lansmere. As soon as you leave the High Street, wherein, according to immemorial usage, the Blue canvasser is first led, in order to put him into spirits for the toils that await him (delectable, propitious, constitutional High Street, in which at least two-thirds of the electors, opulent tradesmen employed at the Park, always vote for "my lord's man," and hospitably prepare wine and cakes in their tidy back-parlours!)--as soon as you quit this stronghold of the party, labyrinths of lanes and defiles stretch away into the farthest horizon; level ground is found nowhere; it is all up hill and down hill, --now rough, craggy pavements that blister the feet, and at the very first tread upon which all latent corns shook prophetically; now deep, muddy ruts, into which you sink ankle-deep, oozing slush creeping into the pores, and moistening the way for catarrh, rheum, cough, sore throat, bronchitis, and phthisis; black sewers and drains Acherontian, running before the thresholds, and so filling the homes behind with effluvia, that, while one hand clasps the grimy paw of the voter, the other instinctively guards from typhus and cholera your abhorrent nose. Not in those days had mankind ever heard of a sanitary reform! and, to judge of the slow progress which that reform seems to make, sewer and drain would have been much the same if they had. Scot-and-lot voters were the independent electors of Lansmere, with the additional franchise of Freemen. Universal suffrage could scarcely more efficiently swamp the franchises of men who care a straw what becomes of Great Britain! With all Randal Leslie's profound diplomacy, all his art in talking over, deceiving, and (to borrow Dick Avenel's vernacular phrase) "humbugging" educated men, his eloquence fell flat upon minds invulnerable to appeals, whether to State or to Church, to Reform or to Freedom. To catch a Scot- and-lot voter by such frivolous arguments--Randal Leslie might as well have tried to bring down a rhinoceros by a pop-gun charged with split peas! The young man who so firmly believed that "knowledge was power" was greatly disgusted. It was here the ignorance that foiled him. When he got hold of a man with some knowledge, Randal was pretty sure to trick him out of a vote. Nevertheless, Randal Leslie walked and talked on, with most creditable perseverance. The Blue Committee allowed that he was an excellent canvasser. They conceived a liking for him, mingled with pity. For, though sure of Egerton's return, they regarded Randal's as out of the question. He was merely there to keep split votes from going to the opposite side; to serve his patron, the ex-minister; shake the paws, and smell the smells which the ex-minister was too great a man to shake and to smell. But, in point of fact, none of that Blue Committee knew anything of the prospects of the election. Harley received all the reports of each canvass-day. Harley kept the canvass-book locked up from all eyes but his own, or it might be Baron Levy's, as Audley Egerton's confidential, if not strictly professional adviser, Baron Levy, the millionaire, had long since retired from all acknowledged professions. Randal, however--close, observant, shrewd--perceived that he himself was much stronger than the Blue Committee believed; and, to his infinite surprise, he owed that strength to Lord L'Estrange's exertions on his behalf. For though Harley, after the first day, on which he ostentatiously showed himself in the High Street, did not openly canvass with Randal, yet when the reports were brought in to him, and he saw the names of the voters who gave one vote to Audley, and withheld the other from Randal, he would say to Randal, dead beat as that young gentleman was, "Slip out with me, the moment dinner is over, and before you go the round of the public-houses; there are some voters we must get for you to-night." And sure enough a few kindly words from the popular heir of the Lansmere baronies usually gained over the electors, from whom, though Randal had proved that all England depended on their votes in his favour, Randal would never have extracted more than a "Wu'll, I shall waute gin the Dauy coomes!" Nor was this all that Harley did for the younger candidate. If it was quite clear that only one vote could be won for the Blues, and the other was pledged to the Yellows, Harley would say, "Then put it down to Mr. Leslie,"--a request the more readily conceded, since Audley Egerton was considered so safe by the Blues, and alone worth a fear by the Yellows. Thus Randal, who kept a snug little canvass-book of his own, became more and more convinced that he had a better chance than Egerton, even without the furtive aid he expected from Avenel; and he could only account for Harley's peculiar exertions in his favour by supposing that Harley, unpractised in elections, and deceived by the Blue Committee, believed Egerton to be perfectly safe, and sought, for the honour of the family interest, to secure both the seats. Randal's public cares thus deprived him of all opportunity of pressing his courtship on Violante; and, indeed, if ever he did find a moment in which he could steal to her reluctant side, Harley was sure to seize that very moment to send him off to canvass an hesitating freeman, or harangue in some public-house. Leslie was too acute not to detect some motive hostile to his wooing, however plausibly veiled in the guise of zeal for his election, in this officiousness of Harley's. But Lord L'Estrange's manner to Violante was so little like that of a jealous lover, and he was so well aware of her engagement to Randal, that the latter abandoned the suspicion he had before conceived, that Harley was his rival. And he was soon led to believe that Lord L'Estrange had another, more disinterested, and less formidable motive for thus stinting his opportunities to woo the heiress. "Mr. Leslie," said Lord L'Estrange, one day, "the duke has confided to me his regret at his daughter's reluctance to ratify his own promise; and knowing the warm interest I take in her welfare, for his sake and her own; believing, also, that some services to herself, as well as to the father she so loves, give me a certain influence over her inexperienced judgment, he has even requested me to speak a word to her in your behalf!" "Ah, if you would!" said Randal, surprised. "You must give me the power to do so. You were obliging enough to volunteer to me the same explanations which you gave to the duke, his satisfaction with which induced him to renew or confirm the promise of his daughter's hand. Should those explanations content me, as they did him, I hold the duke bound to fulfil his engagement, and I am convinced that his daughter would, in that case, not be inflexible to your suit. But, till such explanations be given, my friendship for the father, and my interest in the child, do not allow me to assist a cause which, however, at present suffers little by delay." "Pray, listen at once to those explanations." "Nay, Mr. Leslie, I can now only think of the election. As soon as that is over, rely on it you shall have the amplest opportunity to dispel any doubts which your intimacy with Count di Peschiera and Madame di Negra may have suggested.--/a propos/ of the election, here is a list of voters you must see at once in Fish Lane. Don't lose a moment." In the mean while, Richard Avenel and Leonard had taken up their quarters in the hotel appropriated to the candidates for the Yellows; and the canvass on that side was prosecuted with all the vigour which might be expected from operations conducted by Richard Avenel, and backed by the popular feeling. The rival parties met from time to time in the streets and lanes, in all the pomp of war,--banners streaming, fifes resounding (for bands and colours were essential proofs of public spirit, and indispensable items in a candidate's bills, in those good old days). When they thus encountered, very distant bows were exchanged between the respective chiefs; but Randal, contriving ever to pass close to Avenel, had ever the satisfaction of perceiving that gentleman's countenance contracted into a knowing wink, as much as to say, "All right, in spite of this tarnation humbug." But now that both parties were fairly in the field, to the private arts of canvassing were added the public arts of oratory. The candidates had to speak, at the close of each day's canvass, out from wooden boxes, suspended from the windows of their respective hotels, and which looked like dens for the exhibition of wild beasts. They had to speak at meetings of Committees, meetings of electors, go the nightly round of enthusiastic public-houses, and appeal to the sense of an enlightened people through wreaths of smoke and odours of beer. The alleged indisposition of Audley Egerton had spared him the excitement of oratory, as well as the fatigue of canvassing. The practised debater had limited the display of his talents to a concise, but clear and masterly exposition of his own views on the leading public questions of the day, and the state of parties, which, on the day after his arrival at Lansmere, was delivered at a meeting of his general Committee, in the great room of their hotel, and which was then printed and circulated amongst the voters. Randal, though he expressed himself with more fluency and self-possession than are usually found in the first attempts of a public speaker, was not effective in addressing an unlettered crowd; for a crowd of this kind is all heart--and we know that Randal Leslie's heart was as small as heart could be. If he attempted to speak at his own intellectual level, he was so subtle and refining as to be incomprehensible; if he fell into the fatal error--not uncommon to inexperienced orators--of trying to lower himself to the intellectual level of his audience, he was only elaborately stupid. No man can speak too well for a crowd,--as no man can write too well for the stage; but in neither case should he be rhetorical, or case in periods the dry bones of reasoning. It is to the emotions or to the humours that the speaker of a crowd must address himself; his eye must brighten with generous sentiment, or his lip must expand in the play of animated fancy or genial wit. Randal's voice, too, though pliant and persuasive in private conversation, was thin and poor when strained to catch the ear of a numerous assembly. The falsehood of his nature seemed to come out when he raised the tones which had been drilled into deceit. Men like Randal Leslie may become sharp debaters, admirable special pleaders; they can no more become orators than they can become poets. Educated audiences are essential to them, and the smaller the audience (that is, the more the brain supersedes the action of the heart) the better they can speak. Dick Avenel was generally very short and very pithy in his addresses. He had two or three favourite topics, which always told. He was a fellow- townsman,--a man who had made his own way in life; he wanted to free his native place from aristocratic usurpation; it was the battle of the electors, not his private cause, etc. He said little against Randal,-- "Pity a clever young man should pin his future to two yards of worn-out red tape;" "He had better lay hold of the strong rope, which the People, in compassion to his youth, were willing yet to throw out to save him from sinking," etc. But as for Audley Egerton, "the gentleman who would not show, who was afraid to meet the electors, who could only find his voice in a hole-and-corner meeting, accustomed all his venal life to dark and nefarious jobs"--Dick, upon that subject, delivered philippics truly Demosthenian. Leonard, on the contrary, never attacked Harley's friend, Mr. Egerton; but he was merciless against the youth who had filched reputation from John Burley, and whom he knew that Harley despised as heartily as himself. And Randal did not dare to retaliate (though boiling over with indignant rage), for fear of offending Leonard's uncle. Leonard was unquestionably the popular speaker of the three. Though his temperament was a writer's, not an orator's; though he abhorred what he considered the theatrical exhibition of self, which makes what is called "delivery" more effective than ideas; though he had little interest at any time in party politics; though at this time his heart was far away from the Blues and Yellows of Lansmere, sad and forlorn,--yet, forced into action, the eloquence that was natural to his conversation poured itself forth. He had warm blood in his veins; and his dislike to Randal gave poignancy to his wit, and barbed his arguments with impassioned invective. In fact, Leonard could conceive no other motive for Lord L'Estrange's request to take part in the election than that nobleman's desire to defeat the man whom they both regarded as an impostor; and this notion was confirmed by some inadvertent expressions which Avenel let fall, and which made Leonard suspect that, if he were not in the field, Avenel would have exerted all his interest to return Randal instead of Egerton. With Dick's dislike to that statesman Leonard found it impossible to reason; nor, on the other hand, could all Dick's scoldings or coaxings induce Leonard to divert his siege on Randal to an assault upon the man who, Harley had often said, was dear to him as a brother. In the mean while, Dick kept the canvass-book of the Yellows as closely as Harley kept that of the Blues; and in despite of many pouting fits and gusts of displeasure, took precisely the same pains for Leonard as Harley took for Randal. There remained, however, apparently unshaken by the efforts on either side, a compact body of about a Hundred and Fifty voters, chiefly freemen. Would they vote Yellow? Would they vote Blue? No one could venture to decide; but they declared that they would all vote the same way. Dick kept his secret "caucuses," as he called them, constantly nibbling at this phalanx. A hundred and fifty voters!---they had the election in their hands! Never were hands so cordially shaken, so caressingly clung to, so fondly lingered upon! But the votes still stuck as firm to the hands as if a part of the skin, or of the dirt,-- which was much the same thing! CHAPTER XX. Whenever Audley joined the other guests of an evening--while Harley was perhaps closeted with Levy and committeemen, and Randal was going the round of the public-houses--the one with whom he chiefly conversed was Violante. He had been struck at first, despite his gloom, less perhaps by her extraordinary beauty than by something in the expression of her countenance which, despite differences in feature and complexion, reminded him of Nora; and when, by his praises of Harley, he drew her attention, and won into her liking, he discovered, perhaps, that the likeness which had thus impressed him came from some similarities in character between the living and the lost one,--the same charming combination of lofty thought and childlike innocence, the same enthusiasm, the same rich exuberance of imagination and feeling. Two souls that resemble each other will give their likeness to the looks from which they beam. On the other hand, the person with whom Harley most familiarly associated, in his rare intervals of leisure, was Helen Digby. One day, Audley Egerton, standing mournfully by the window of the sitting-room appropriated to his private use, saw the two, whom he believed still betrothed, take their way across the park, side by side. "Pray Heaven, that she may atone to him for all!" murmured Audley. "But ah, that it had been Violante! Then I might have felt assured that the Future would efface the Past,--and found the courage to tell him all. And when last night I spoke of what Harley ought to be to England, how like were Violante's eyes and smile to Nora's, when Nora listened in delighted sympathy to the hopes of my own young ambition." With a sigh he turned away, and resolutely sat down to read and reply to the voluminous correspondence which covered the table of the busy public man. For Audley's return to parliament being considered by his political party as secure, to him were transmitted all the hopes and fears of the large and influential section of it whose members looked up to him as their future chief, and who in that general election (unprecedented for the number of eminent men it was fated to expel from parliament, and the number of new politicians it was fated to send into it) drew their only hopes of regaining their lost power from Audley's sanguine confidence in the reaction of that Public Opinion which he had hitherto so profoundly comprehended; and it was too clearly seen, that the seasonable adoption of his counsels would have saved the existence and popularity of the late Administration, whose most distinguished members could now scarcely show themselves on the hustings. Meanwhile Lord L'Estrange led his young companion towards a green hill in the centre of the park, on which stood a circular temple; that commanded a view of the country round for miles. They had walked in silence till they gained the summit of the sloped and gradual ascent; and then, as they stood still, side by side, Harley thus spoke, "Helen, you know that Leonard is in the town, though I cannot receive him at the Park, since he is standing in opposition to my guests, Egerton and Leslie." HELEN.--"But that seems to me so strange. How--how could Leonard do anything that seems hostile to you?" HARLEY.--"Would his hostility to me lower him in your opinion? If he know that I am his rival, does not rivalry include hate?" HELEN.--"Oh, Lord L'Estrange, how can you speak thus; how so wrong yourself? Hate--hate to you! and from Leonard Fairfield!" HARLEY.--"You evade my question. Would his hate or hostility to me affect your sentiments towards him?" HELEN (looking down).--"I could not force myself to believe in it." HARLEY.--"Why?" HELEN.--"Because it would be so unworthy of him." HARLEY.--"Poor child! You have the delusion of your years. You deck a cloud in the hues of the rainbow, and will not believe that its glory is borrowed from the sun of your own fancy. But here, at least, you are not deceived. Leonard obeys but my wishes, and, I believe, against his own will. He has none of man's noblest attribute, Ambition." HELEN.--"No ambition!" HARLEY.--"It is vanity that stirs the poet to toil,--if toil the wayward chase of his own chimeras can be called. Ambition is a more masculine passion." Helen shook her head gently, but made no answer. HARLEY.--"If I utter a word that profanes one of your delusions, you shake your head and are incredulous. Pause: listen one moment to my counsels,--perhaps the last I may ever obtrude upon you. Lift your eyes; look around. Far as your eye can reach, nay, far beyond the line which the horizon forms in the landscape, stretch the lands of my inheritance. Yonder you see the home in which my forefathers for many generations lived with honour, and died lamented. All these, in the course of nature, might one day have been your own, had you not rejected my proposals. I offered you, it is true, not what is commonly called Love; I offered you sincere esteem, and affections the more durable for their calm. You have not been reared by the world in the low idolatry of rank and wealth; but even romance cannot despise the power of serving others, which rank and wealth bestow. For myself, hitherto indolence, and lately disdain, rob fortune of these nobler attributes. But she who will share my fortune may dispense it so as to atone for my sins of omission. On the other side, grant that there is no bar to your preference for Leonard Fairfield, what does your choice present to you? Those of his kindred with whom you will associate are unrefined and mean. His sole income is derived from precarious labours; the most vulgar of all anxieties--the fear of bread itself for the morrow--must mingle with all your romance, and soon steal from love all its poetry. You think his affection will console you for every sacrifice. Folly! the love of poets is for a mist, a moonbeam, a denizen of air, a phantom that they call an Ideal. They suppose for a moment that they have found that Ideal in Chloe or Phyllis, Helen or a milkmaid. Bah! the first time you come to the poet with the baker's bill, where flies the Ideal? I knew one more brilliant than Leonard, more exquisitely gifted by nature; that one was a woman; she saw a man hard and cold as that stone at your feet,--a false, hollow, sordid worldling; she made him her idol, beheld in him all that history would not recognize in a Caesar, that mythology would scarcely grant to an Apollo: to him she was the plaything of an hour; she died, and before the year was out he had married for money! I knew another instance,--I speak of myself. I loved before I was your age. Had an angel warned me then, I would have been incredulous as you. How that ended, no matter: but had it not been for that dream of maudlin delirium, I had lived and acted as others of my kind and my sphere,--married from reason and judgment, been now a useful and happy man. Pause, then. Will you still reject me for Leonard Fairfield? For the last time you have the option, --me and all the substance of waking life, Leonard Fairfield and the shadows of a fleeting dream. Speak! You hesitate. Nay, take time to decide." HELEN.--"Ah, Lord L'Estrange, you who have felt what it is to love, how can you doubt my answer; how think that I could be so base, so ungrateful as take from yourself what you call the substance of waking life, while my heart was far away, faithful to what you call a dream?" HARLEY.--"But can you not dispel the dream?" HELEN (her whole face one flush).--"It was wrong to call it dream! It is the reality of life to me. All things else are as dreams." HARLEY (taking her hand and kissing it with respect).--"Helen, you have a noble heart, and I have tempted you in vain. I regret your choice, though I will no more oppose it. I regret it, though I shall never witness your disappointment. As the wife of that man, I shall see and know you no more." HELEN.--"Oh, no! do not say that. Why? Wherefore?" HARLEY (his brows meeting).--"He is the child of fraud and of shame. His father is my foe, and my hate descends to the son. He, too, the son, filches from me--But complaints are idle. When the next few days are over, think of me but as one who abandons all right over your actions, and is a stranger to your future fate. Pooh! dry your tears: so long as you love Leonard or esteem me, rejoice that our paths do not cross." He walked on impatiently; but Helen, alarmed and wondering, followed close, took his arm timidly, and sought to soothe him. She felt that he wronged Leonard,--that he knew not how Leonard had yielded all hope when he learned to whom she was affianced. For Leonard's sake she conquered her bashfulness, and sought to explain. But at her first hesitating, faltered words, Harley, who with great effort suppressed the emotions which swelled within him, abruptly left her side, and plunged into the recesses of thick, farspreading groves, that soon wrapped him from her eye. While this conversation occurred between Lord L'Estrange and his ward, the soi-disant Riccabocca and Violante were walking slowly through the gardens. The philosopher, unchanged by his brightening prospects,--so far as the outer man was concerned,--still characterized by the red umbrella and the accustomed pipe,--took the way mechanically towards the sunniest quarter of the grounds, now and then glancing tenderly at Violante's downcast, melancholy face, but not speaking; only, at each glance, there came a brisker cloud from the pipe, as if obedient to a fuller heave of the heart. At length, in a spot which lay open towards the south, and seemed to collect all the gentlest beams of the November sun, screened from the piercing east by dense evergreens, and flanked from the bleak north by lofty walls, Riccabocca paused and seated himself. Flowers still bloomed on the sward in front, over which still fluttered the wings of those later and more brilliant butterflies that, unseen in the genial days of our English summer, come with autumnal skies, and sport round the mournful steps of the coming winter,--types of those thoughts which visit and delight the contemplation of age, while the current yet glides free from the iron ice, and the leaves yet linger on the boughs; thoughts that associate the memories of the departed summer with messages from suns that shall succeed the winter, and expand colours the most steeped in light and glory, just as the skies through which they gleam are darkening, and the flowers on which they hover fade from the surface of the earth, dropping still seeds, that sink deep out of sight below. "Daughter," said Riccabocca, drawing Violante to his side with caressing arm,--"Daughter! Mark how they who turn towards the south can still find the sunny side of the land scape! In all the seasons of life, how much of chill or of warmth depends on our choice of the aspect! Sit down: let us reason." Violante sat down passively, clasping her father's hand in both her own. Reason! harsh word to the ears of Feeling! "You shrink," resumed Riccabocca, "from even the courtship, even the presence of the suitor in whom my honour binds me to recognize your future bridegroom." Violante drew away her hands, and placed them before her eyes shudderingly. "But" continued Riccabocca, rather peevishly, "this is not listening to reason. I may object to Mr. Leslie, because he has not an adequate rank or fortune to pretend to a daughter of my house; that would be what every one would allow to be reasonable in a father; except, indeed," added the poor sage, trying hard to be sprightly, and catching hold of a proverb to help him--"except, indeed, those wise enough to recollect that admonitory saying, 'Casa il figlio quando vuoi, e la figlia quando puoi,'--[Marry your son when you will, your daughter when you can]. Seriously, if I overlook those objections to Mr. Leslie, it is not natural for a young girl to enforce them. What is reason in you is quite another thing from reason in me. Mr. Leslie is young, not ill-looking, has the air of a gentleman, is passionately enamoured of you, and has proved his affection by risking his life against that villanous Peschiera,--that is, he would have risked it had Peschiera not been shipped out of the way. If, then, you will listen to reason, pray what can reason say against Mr. Leslie?" "Father, I detest him!" "/Cospetto!/" persisted Riccabocca, testily, "you have no reason to detest him. If you had any reason, child, I am sure that I should be the last person to dispute it. How can you know your own mind in such a matter? It is not as if you had seen anyone else you could prefer. Not another man of your own years do you even know,--except, indeed, Leonard Fairfield, whom, though I grant he is handsomer, and with more imagination and genius than Mr. Leslie, you still must remember as the boy who worked in my garden. Ah, to be sure, there is Frank Hazeldean; fine lad, but his affections are pre-engaged. In short," continued the sage, dogmatically, "there is no one else you can, by any possible caprice, prefer to Mr. Leslie; and for a girl who has no one else in her head to talk of detesting a well-looking, well-dressed, clever young man, is--a nonsense--'Chi lascia il poco per haver l'assai ne l'uno, ne l'altro avera mai'--which may be thus paraphrased,--The young lady who refuses a mortal in the hope of obtaining an angel, loses the one, and will never fall in with the other. So now, having thus shown that the darker side of the question is contrary to reason, let us look to the brighter. In the first place--" "Oh, Father, Father!" cried Violante, passionately, "you to whom I once came for comfort in every childish sorrow do not talk to me with this cutting levity. See, I lay my head upon your breast, I put my arms around you; and now, can you reason me into misery?" "Child, child, do not be so wayward. Strive, at least, against a prejudice that you cannot defend. My Violante, my darling, this is no trifle. Here I must cease to be the fond, foolish father, whom you can do what you will with. Here I am Alphonso, Duke di Serrano; for here my honour as noble and my word as man are involved. I, then, but a helpless exile, no hope of fairer prospects before me, trembling like a coward at the wiles of my unscrupulous kinsman, grasping at all chances to save you from his snares,--self offered your hand to Randal Leslie,--offered, promised, pledged it; and now that my fortunes seem assured, my rank in all likelihood restored, my foe crushed, my fears at rest, now, does it become me to retract what I myself have urged? It is not the noble, it is the /parvenu/, who has only to grow rich, in order to forget those whom in poverty he hailed as his friends. Is it for me to make the poor excuse, never heard on the lips of an Italian prince, 'that I cannot command the obedience of my child;' subject myself to the galling answer, 'Duke of Serrano, you could once command that obedience, when, in exile, penury, and terror you offered me a bride without a dower'? Child, Violante, daughter of ancestors on whose honour never slander set a stain, I call on you to redeem your father's plighted word." "Father, must it be so? Is not even the convent open to me? Nay, look not so coldly on me. If you could but read my heart! And oh! I feel so assured of your own repentance hereafter,--so assured that this man is not what you believe him. I so suspect that he has been playing throughout some secret and perfidious part." "Ha!" interrupted Riccabocca, "Harley has perhaps infected you with that notion." "No, no! But is not Harley, is not Lord L'Estrange one whose opinion you have cause to esteem? And if he distrusts Mr. Leslie--" "Let him make good his distrust by such proof as will absolve my word, and I shall share your own joy. I have told him this. I have invited him to make good his suspicions, he puts me off. He cannot do so," added Riccabocca, in a dejected tone; "Randal has already so well explained all that Harley deemed equivocal. Violante, my name and my honour rest in your hands. Cast them away if you will; I cannot constrain you, and I cannot stoop to implore. Noblesse oblige! With your birth you took its duties. Let them decide between your vain caprice and your father's solemn remonstrance." Assuming a sternness that he was far from feeling, and putting aside his daughter's arms, the exile walked away. Violante paused a moment, shivered, looked round as if taking a last farewell of joy and peace and hope on earth, and then approaching her father with a firm step, she said, "I never rebelled, Father; I did but entreat. What you say is my law now, as it has ever been; and come what may, never shall you hear complaint or murmur from me. Poor Father, you will suffer more than I shall. Kiss me!" About an hour afterwards, as the short day closed in, Harley, returning from his solitary wanderings, after he had parted from Helen, encountered on the terrace, before the house, Lady Lansmere and Audley Egerton arm in arm. Harley had drawn his hat over his brows, and his eyes were fixed on the ground, so that he did not see the group upon which he came unawares, until Audley's voice startled him from his revery. "My dear Harley," said the ex-minister, with a faint smile, "you must not pass us by, now that you have a moment of leisure from the cares of the election. And, Harley, though we are under the same roof, I see you so little." Lord L'Estrange darted a quick glance towards his mother,--a glance that seemed to say, "You leaning on Audley's arm! Have you kept your promise?" And the eye that met his own reassured him. "It is true," said Harley; "but you, who know that, once engaged in public affairs, one has no heart left for the ties of private life, will excuse me. And this election is so important!" "And you, Mr. Egerton," said Lady Lansmere, "whom the election most concerns, seem privileged to be the only one who appears indifferent to success." "Ay; but you are not indifferent?" said Lord L'Estrange, abruptly. "No. How can I be so, when my whole future career may depend on it?" Harley drew Egerton aside. "There is one voter you ought at least to call upon and thank. He cannot be made to comprehend that, for the sake of any relation, even for the sake of his own son, he is to vote against the Blues,--against you; I mean, of course, Nora's father, John Avenel. His vote and his son-in-law's gained your majority at your first election." EGERTON.--"Call on John Avenel! Have you called?" HARLEY (calmly).--"Yes. Poor old man, his mind has been affected ever since Nora's death. But your name as the candidate for the borough at that time,--the successful candidate for whose triumph the joy-bells chimed with her funeral knell,--your name brings up her memory; and he talks in a breath of her and of you. Come, let us walk together to his house; it is close by the Park Lodge." The drops stood on Audley's brow! He fixed his dark handsome eyes, in mournful amaze, upon Harley's tranquil face. "Harley, at last, then, you have forgotten the Past." "No; but the Present is more imperious. All my efforts are needed to requite your friendship. You stand against her brother,--yet her father votes for you. And her mother says to her son, 'Let the old man alone. Conscience is all that is well alive in him; and he thinks if he were to vote against the Blues, he would sin against bonour.' 'An electioneering prejudice,' some sceptics would say. But you must be touched by this trait of human nature,--in her father, too,--you, Audley Egerton, who are the soul of honour. What ails you?" EGERTON.--"Nothing; a spasm at the heart; my old complaint. Well, I will call on the poor man later, but not now,--not with you. Nay, nay, I will not,--I cannot. Harley, just as you joined us, I was talking to your mother." HARLEY.--"Ay, and what of?" EGERTON.--"Yourself. I saw you from my windows walking with your betrothed. Afterwards I observed her coming home alone; and by the glimpse I caught of her gentle countenance, it seemed sad. Harley, do you deceive us?" HARLEY.--"Deceive! I! How?" EGERTON.--"DO you really feel that your intended marriage will bestow on you the happiness, which is my prayer, as it must be your mother's?" HARLEY.--"Happiness, I hoped so. But perhaps--" EGERTON.--"Perhaps what?" HARLEY.---"Perhaps the marriage may not take place. Perhaps I have a rival; not an open one,--a secret, stealthy wooer, in one, too, whom I have loved, served, trusted. Question me not now. Such instances of treachery make one learn more how to prize a friendship honest, devoted, faithful as your own, Audley Egerton. But here comes your protege, released awhile from his canvass, and your confidential adviser, Baron Levy. He accompanied Randal through the town to-day. So anxious is he to see that that young man does not play false, and regard his own interest before yours! Would that surprise you?" EGERTON.--"You are too severe upon Randal Leslie. He is ambitious, worldly, has no surplus of affection at the command of his heart--" HARLEY.--"Is it Randal Leslie you describe?" EGERTON (with a languid smile).--"Yes, you see I do not flatter. But he is born and reared a gentleman; as such he would scarcely do anything mean. And, after all, it is with me that he must rise or fall. His very intellect must tell him that. But again I ask, do not strive to prepossess me against him. I am a man who could have loved a son. I have none. Randal, such as he is, is a sort of son. He carries on my projects and my interest in the world of men beyond the goal of the tomb." Audley turned kindly to Randal. "Well, Leslie, what report of the canvass?" "Levy has the book, sir. I think we have gained ten fresh votes for you, and perhaps seven for me." "Let me rid you of your book, Baron Levy," said Harley. Just at this time Riccabocca and Violante approached the house, both silent. The Italian caught sight of Randal, and made him a sign to join them. The young lover glanced fearfully towards Harley, and then with alacrity bounded forward, and was soon at Violante's side. But scarce had Harley, surprised by Leslie's sudden disappearance, remarked the cause, than with equal abruptness he abandoned the whispered conference he had commenced with Levy, and hastening to Randal, laid hand on the young man's shoulder, exclaiming, "Ten thousand pardons to all three! But I cannot allow this waste of time, Mr. Leslie. You have yet an hour before it grows dark. There are three out-voters six miles off, influential farmers, whom you must canvass in person with my father's steward. Hasten to the stables; choose your own horse. To saddle, to saddle! Baron Levy, go and order my Lord's steward, Mr. Smart, to join Mr. Leslie at the stables; then come back to me,--quick. What! loitering still, Mr. Leslie! You will make me throw up your whole cause in disgust at your indolence and apathy." Alarmed at this threat, Randal lifted his accusing eyes to heaven and withdrew. Meanwhile Audley had drawn close to Lady Lansmere, who was leaning, in thought, over the balustrade of the terrace. "Do you note," said Audley, whispering, "how Harley sprang forward when the fair Italian came in sight? Trust me, I was right. I know little of the young lady, but I have conversed with her. I have gazed on the changes in her face. If Harley ever love again, and if ever love influence and exalt his mind, wish with me that his choice may yet fall where I believe that his heart inclines it." LADY LANSMERE.--"Ah, that it were so! Helen, I own, is charming; but-- but--Violante is equal in birth! Are you not aware that she is engaged to your young friend Mr. Leslie?" AUDLEY.--"Randal told me so; but I cannot believe it. In fact, I have taken occasion to sound that fair creature's inclinations, and if I know aught of women, her heart is not with Randal. I cannot believe her to be one whose affections are so weak as to be easily constrained; nor can I suppose that her father could desire to enforce a marriage that is almost a misalliance. Randal must deceive himself; and from something Harley just let fall, in our painful but brief conversation, I suspect that his engagement with Miss Digby is broken off. He promises to tell me more later. Yes," continued Audley, mournfully, "observe Violante's countenance, with its ever-varying play; listen to her voice, to which feeling seems to give the expressive music, and tell me whether you are not sometimes reminded of--of---In one word, there is one who, even without rank or fortune, would be worthy to replace the image of Leonora, and be to Harley--what Leonora could not; for sure I am that Violante loves him." Harley, meanwhile, had lingered with Riccabocca and Violante, speaking but on indifferent subjects, obtaining short answers from the first, and none from the last, when the sage drew him a little aside, and whispered, "She has consented to sacrifice herself to my sense of honour. But, O Harley! if she be unhappy, it will break my heart. Either you must give me sufficient proof of Randal's unworthiness, to absolve me from my promise, or I must again entreat, you to try and conciliate the poor child in his favour. All you say has weight with her; she respects you as--a second father." Harley did not seem peculiarly flattered by that last assurance; but he was relieved from an immediate answer by the appearance of a man who came from the direction of the stables, and whose dress, covered with dust, and travel-stained, seemed like that of a foreign courier. No sooner did Harley catch sight of this person, than he sprang forward, and accosted him briefly and rapidly. "You have been quick; I did not expect you so soon. You discovered the trace? You gave my letter--" "And have brought back the answer, my Lord," replied the man, taking the letter from a leathern pouch at his side. Harley hastily broke open the seal, and glanced over the contents, which were comprised in a few lines. "Good. Say not whence you came. Do not wait here; return at once to London." Harley's face seemed so unusually cheerful as he rejoined the Italians, that the duke exclaimed,-- "A despatch from Vienna? My recall!" "From Vienna, my dear friend! Not possible yet. I cannot calculate on hearing from the prince till a day or two before the close of this election. But you wish me to speak to Violante. Join my mother yonder. What can she be saying to Mr. Egerton? I will address a few words apart to your fair daughter, that may at least prove the interest in her fate taken by--her second father." "Kindest of friends!" said the unsuspecting pupil of Machiavelli, and he walked towards the terrace. Violante was about to follow. Harley detained her. "Do not go till you have thanked me; for you are not the noble Violante for whom I take you, unless you acknowledge gratitude to any one who delivers you from the presence of an admirer in Mr. Randal Leslie." VIOLANTE.--"Ought I to hear this of one whom--whom--" HARLEY.---"One whom your father obstinately persists in obtruding on your repugnance? Yet, O dear child, you who, when almost an infant, ere yet you knew what snares and pitfalls, for all who trust to another, lie under the sward at our feet, even when decked the fairest with the flowers of spring; you who put your small hands around my neck, and murmured in your musical voice, 'Save us,--save my father,'--you at least I will not forsake, in a peril worse than that which menaced you then,-- a peril which affrights you more than that which threatened you in the snares of Peschiera. Randal Leslie may thrive in his meaner objects of ambition; those I fling to him in scorn: but you! the presuming varlet!" Harley paused a moment, half stifled with indignation. He then resumed, calmly, "Trust to me, and fear not. I will rescue this hand from the profanation of Randal Leslie's touch; and then farewell, for life, to every soft emotion. Before me expands the welcome solitude. The innocent saved, the honest righted, the perfidious stricken by a just retribution,--and then--what then? Why, at least I shall have studied Machiavelli with more effect than your wise father; and I shall lay him aside, needing no philosophy to teach me never again to be deceived." His brow darkened; he turned abruptly away, leaving Violante lost in amaze, fear, and a delight, vague, yet more vividly felt than all. CHAPTER XXI. That night, after the labours of the day, Randal had gained the sanctuary of his own room, and seated himself at his table, to prepare the heads of the critical speech he would have now very soon to deliver on the day of nomination,--critical speech when, in the presence of foes and friends, reporters from London, and amidst all the jarring interests that he sought to weave into the sole self-interest of Randal Leslie, he would be called upon to make the formal exposition of his political opinions. Randal Leslie, indeed, was not one of those speakers whom either modesty, fastidiousness, or conscientious desire of truth predisposes towards the labour of written composition. He had too much cleverness to be in want of fluent period or ready commonplace,--the ordinary materials of oratorical impromptu; too little taste for the Beautiful to study what graces of diction will best adorn a noble sentiment; too obtuse a conscience to care if the popular argument were purified from the dross which the careless flow of a speech wholly extemporaneous rarely fails to leave around it. But this was no ordinary occasion. Elaborate study here was requisite, not for the orator, but the hypocrite. Hard task, to please the Blues, and not offend the Yellows; appear to side with Audley Egerton, yet insinuate sympathy with Dick Avenel; confront, with polite smile, the younger opponent whose words had lodged arrows in his vanity, which rankled the more gallingly because they had raised the skin of his conscience. He had dipped his pen into the ink and smoothed the paper before him, when a knock was heard at the door. "Come in," said he, impatiently. Levy entered saunteringly. "I am come to talk over matters with you, mon cher," said the baron, throwing himself on the sofa. "And, first, I wish you joy of your prospects of success." Randal postponed his meditated composition with a quick sigh, drew his chair towards the sofa, and lowered his voice into a whisper. "You think with me, that the chance of my success--is good?" "Chance! Why, it is a rubber of whist, in which your partner gives you all the winnings, and in which the adversary is almost sure to revoke. Either Avenel or his nephew, it is true, must come in; but not both. Two parvenus aspiring to make a family seat of an earl's borough! Bah! too absurd!" "I hear from Riccabocca (or rather the Duke di Serrano) that this same young Fairfield is greatly indebted to the kindness of Lord L'Estrange. Very odd that he should stand against the Lansmere interest." "Ambition, /mon cher/. You yourself are under some obliga tions to Mr. Egerton. Yet, in reality, he has more to apprehend from you than from Mr. Fairfield." "I disown obligations to Mr. Egerton. And if the electors prefer me to him (whom, by-the-by, they once burned in effigy), it is no fault of mine: the fault, if any, will rest with his own dearest friend, L'Estrange. I do not understand how a man of such clear sense as L'Estrange undoubtedly possesses, should be risking Egerton's election in his zeal for mine. Nor do his formal courtesies to myself deceive me. He has even implied that he suspects me of connivance with Peschiera's schemes on Violante. But those suspicions he cannot support. For of course, Levy, you would not betray me--" "I! What possible interest could I serve in that?" "None that I can discover, certainly," said Randal, relaxing into a smile. "And when I get into parliament, aided by the social position which my marriage will give me, I shall have so many ways to serve you. No, it is certainly your interest not to betray me; and I shall count on you as a witness, if a witness can be required." "Count on me, certainly, my dear fellow," said the baron. "And I suppose there will be no witness the other way. Done for eternally is my poor dear friend Peschiera, whose cigars, by-the-by, were matchless;--I wonder if there will be any for sale. And if he were not so done for, it is not you, it is L'Estrange, that he would be tempted to do for!" "We may blot Peschiera out of the map of the future," rejoined Randal. "Men from whom henceforth we have nothing to hope or to fear are to us as the races before the deluge." "Fine remark," quoth the baron, admiringly. "Peschiera, though not without brains, was a complete failure. And when the failure of one I have tried to serve is complete, the rule I have adopted through life is to give him up altogether." "Of course," said Randal. "Of course," echoed the baron. "On the other hand, you know that I like pushing forward young men of mark and promise. You really are amazingly clever; but how comes it you don't speak better? Do you know, I doubt whether you will do in the House of Commons all that I expected from your address and readiness in private life." "Because I cannot talk trash vulgar enough for a mob? Pooh! I shall succeed wherever knowledge is really power. Besides, you must allow for my infernal position. You know, after all, that Avenel, if he can only return himself or his nephew, still holds in his hands the choice of the candidate upon our side. I cannot attack him; I cannot attack his insolent nephew--" "Insolent!--not that, but bitterly eloquent. He hits you hard. You are no match for him, Randal, before a popular audience; though, /en petit comite/, the devil himself were hardly a match for you. But now to a somewhat more serious point. Your election you will win, your bride is promised to you; but the old Leslie lands, in the present possession of Squire Thornhill, you have not gained,---and your chance of gaining them is in great jeopardy. I did not like to tell you this morning,--it would have spoiled your temper for canvassing; but I have received a letter from Thornhill himself. He has had an offer for the property, which is only L1000 short of what he asks. A city alderman, called Jobson, is the bidder; a man, it seems, of large means and few words. The alderman has fixed the date on which he must have a definite answer; and that date falls on the --th, two days after that fixed for the poll at Lansmere. The brute declares he will close with another investment, if Thornhill does not then come in to his terms. Now, as Thornhill will accept these terms unless I can positively promise him better, and as those funds on which you calculated (had the marriage of Peschiera with Violante, and Frank Hazeldean with Madame di Negra, taken place) fail you, I see no hope for your being in time with the money,--and the old lands of the Leslies must yield their rents to a Jobson." "I care for nothing on earth like those old lands of my forefathers," said Randal, with unusual vehemence; "I reverence so little amongst the living, and I do reverence the dead. And my marriage will take place so soon; and the dower would so amply cover the paltry advance required." "Yes; but the mere prospect of a marriage to the daughter of a man whose lands are still sequestered would be no security to a money-lender." "Surely," said Randal, "you, who once offered to assist me when my fortunes were more precarious, might now accommodate me with this loan, as a friend, and keep the title-deeds of the estate as--" "As a money-lender," added the baron, laughing pleasantly. "No, /mon cher/, I will still lend you half the sum required in advance, but the other half is more than I can afford as friend, or hazard as money- lender; and it would damage my character,--be out of all rule,--if, the estates falling by your default of payment into my own hands, I should appear to be the real purchaser of the property of my own distressed client. But, now I think of it, did not Squire Hazeldean promise you his assistance in this matter?" "He did so," answered Randal, "as soon as the marriage between Frank and Madame di Negra was off his mind. I meant to cross over to Hazeldean immediately after the election. How can I leave the place till then?" "If you do, your election is lost. But why not write to the squire?" "It is against my maxim to write where I can speak. However, there is no option; I will write at once. Meanwhile, communicate with Thornhill; keep up his hopes; and be sure, at least, that he does not close with this greedy alderman before the day fixed for decision." "I have done all that already, and my letter is gone. Now, do your part: and if you write as cleverly as you talk, you would coax the money out from a stonier heart than poor Mr. Hazeldean's. I leave you now; good- night." Levy took up his candlestick, nodded, yawned, and went. Randal still suspended the completion of his speech, and indited the following epistle:-- MY DEAR MR. HAZELDEAN,--I wrote to you a few hasty lines on leaving town, to inform you that the match you so dreaded was broken off, and proposing to defer particulars till I could visit your kind and hospitable roof, which I trusted to do for a few hours during my stay at Lansmere, since it is not a day's journey hence to Hazeldean. But I did not calculate on finding so sharp a contest. In no election throughout the kingdom do I believe that a more notable triumph, or a more stunning defeat, for the great landed interest can occur. For in this town--so dependent on agriculture-- we are opposed by a low and sordid manufacturer, of the most revolutionary notions, who has, moreover, the audacity to force his own nephew--that very boy whom I chastised for impertinence on your village green, son of a common carpenter--actually the audacity, I say, to attempt to force this peasant of a nephew, as well as himself, into the representation of Lansmere, against the earl's interest, against your distinguished brother,--of myself I say nothing. You should hear the language in which these two men indulge against all your family! If we are beaten by such persons in a borough supposed to be so loyal as Lansmere, every one with a stake in the country may tremble at such a prognostic of the ruin that must await not only our old English Constitution, but the existence of property itself. I need not say that on such an occasion I cannot spare myself. Mr. Egerton is ill too. All the fatigue of the canvass devolves on me. I feel, my dear and revered friend, that I am a genuine Hazeldean, fighting your battle; and that thought carries me through all. I cannot, therefore, come to you till the election is over; and meanwhile you, and my dear Mrs. Hazeldean, must be anxious to know more about the affair that so preyed on both your hearts than I have yet informed you, or can well trust to a letter. Be assured, however, that the worst is over; the lady has gone abroad. I earnestly entreated Frank (who showed me Mrs. Hazeldean's most pathetic letter to him) to hasten at once to the Hall and relieve your minds. Unfortunately he would not be ruled by me, but talked of going abroad too--not, I trust (nay, I feel assured), in pursuit of Madame di Negra; but still--In short, I should be so glad to see you, and talk over the whole. Could you not come hither--I pray do. And now, at the risk of your thinking that in this I am only consulting my own interest (but no--your noble English heart will never so misiudge me!), I will add with homely frankness, that if you could accommodate me immediately with the loan you not long since so generously offered, you would save those lands once in my family from passing away from us forever. A city alderman--one Jobson--is meanly taking advantage of Thornhill's necessities, and driving a hard bargain for those lands. He has fixed the --th inst. for Thornhill's answer, and Levy (who is here assisting Mr. Egerton's election) informs me that Thornhill will accept his offer, unless I am provided with L10,000 beforehand; the other L10,000, to complete the advance required, Levy will lend me. Do not be surprised at the usurer's liberality; he knows that I am about shortly to marry a very great heiress (you will be pleased when you learn whom, and will then be able to account for my indifference to Miss Sticktorights), and her dower will amply serve to repay his loan and your own, if I may trust to your generous affection for the grandson of a Hazeldean! I have the less scruple in this appeal to you, for I know bow it would grieve you that a Jobson, who perhaps never knew a grandmother, should foist your own kinsman from the lands of his fathers. Of one thing I am convinced,--we squires and sons of squires must make common cause against those great moneyed capitalists, or they will buy us all out in a few generations. The old race of country gentlemen is already much diminished by the grasping cupidity of such leviathans; and if the race be once extinct, what will become of the boast and strength of England? Yours, my dear Mr. Hazeldean, with most affectionate and grateful respect, RANDAL LESLIE. CHAPTER XXII. Nothing to Leonard could as yet be more distasteful or oppressive than his share in this memorable election. In the first place, it chafed the secret sores of his heart to be compelled to resume the name of Fairfeld, which was a tacit disavowal of his birth. It had been such delight to him that the same letters which formed the name of Nora should weave also that name of Oran, to which he had given distinction, which he had associated with all his nobler toils, and all his hopes of enduring fame,--a mystic link between his own career and his mother's obscurer genius. It seemed to him as if it were rendering to her the honours accorded to himself,--subtle and delicate fancy of the affections, of which only poets would be capable, but which others than poets may perhaps comprehend! That earlier name of Fairfield was connected in his memory with all the ruder employments, the meaner trials of his boyhood; the name of Oran, with poetry and fame. It was his title in the ideal world, amongst all fair shapes and spirits. In receiving the old appellation, the practical world, with its bitterness and strife, returned to him as at the utterance of a spell. But in coming to Lansmere he had no choice. To say nothing of Dick, and Dick's parents. with whom his secret would not be safe, Randal Leslie knew that he had gone by the name of Fairfield,--knew his supposed parentage, and would be sure to proclaim them. How account for the latter name without setting curiosity to decipher the anagram it involved, and perhaps guiding suspicion to his birth from Nora, to the injury of her memory, yet preserved from stain? His feelings as connected with Nora--sharpened and deepened as they all had been by his discovery of her painful narrative-were embittered still more by coming in contact with her parents. Old John was in the same helpless state of mind and body as before,--neither worse nor better; but waking up at intervals with vivid gleams of interest in the election at the wave of a blue banner, at the cry of "Blue forever!" It was the old broken-clown charger, who, dozing in the meadows, starts at the roll of the drum. No persuasions Dick could employ would induce his father to promise to vote even one Yellow. You might as well have expected the old Roman, with his monomaniac cry against Carthage, to have voted for choosing Carthaginians for consuls. But poor John, nevertheless, was not only very civil, but very humble to Dick,--"very happy to oblige the gentleman." "Your own son!" bawled Dick; "and here is your own grandson." "Very happy to serve you both; but you see you are the wrong colour." Then as he gazed at Leonard, the old man approached him with trembling knees, stroked his hair, looked into his face, piteously. "Be thee my grandson?" he faltered. "Wife, wife, Nora had no son, had she? My memory begins to fail me, sir; pray excuse it; but you have a look about the eyes that--" Old John began to weep, and his wife led him away. "Don't come again," she said to Leonard, harshly, when she returned. "He'll not sleep all night now." And then, observing that the tears stood in Leonard's eyes, she added, in softened tones, "I am glad to see you well and thriving, and to hear that you have been of great service to my son Richard, who is a credit and an honour to the family, though poor John cannot vote for him or for you against his conscience; and he should not be asked," she added, firing up; "and it is a sin to ask it, and he so old, and no one to defend him but me. But defend him I will while I have life!" The poet recognized woman's brave, loving, wife-like heart here, and would have embraced the stern grandmother, if she had not drawn back from him; and, as she turned towards the room to which she had led her husband, she said over her shoulder,-- "I'm not so unkind as I seem, boy; but it is better for you, and for all, that you should not come to this house again,--better that you had not come into the town." "Fie, Mother!" said Dick, seeing that Leonard, bending his head, silently walked from the room. "You should be prouder of your grandson than you are of me." "Prouder of him who may shame us all yet?" "What do you mean?" But Mrs. Avenel shook her head and vanished. "Never mind her, poor old soul," said Dick, as he joined Leonard at the threshold; "she always had her tempers. And since there is no vote to be got in this house, and one can't set a caucus on one's own father,--at least in this extraordinary rotten and prejudiced old country, which is quite in its dotage,--we'll not come here to be snubbed any more. Bless their old hearts, nevertheless!" Leonard's acute sensibility in all that concerned his birth, deeply wounded by Mrs. Avenel's allusions, which he comprehended better than his uncle did, was also kept on the edge by the suspense to which he was condemned by Harley's continued silence as to the papers confided to that nobleman. It seemed to Leonard almost unaccountable that Harley should have read those papers, be in the same town with himself, and yet volunteer no communication. At length he wrote a few lines to Lord L'Estrange, bringing the matter that concerned him so deeply before Harley's recollection, and suggesting his own earnest interest in any information that could supply the gaps and omissions of the desultory fragments. Harley, in replying to this note, said, with apparent reason, "that it would require a long personal interview to discuss the subject referred to, and that such an interview, in the thick of the contest between himself and a candidate opposed to the Lansmere party, would be sure to get wind, be ascribed to political intrigues, be impossible otherwise to explain, and embarrass all the interests confided to their respective charge. That for the rest, he had not been unmindful of Leonard's anxiety, which must now mainly be to see justice done to the dead parent, and learn the name, station, and character of the parent yet surviving. And in this Harley trusted to assist him as soon as the close of the poll would present a suitable occasion." The letter was unlike Harley's former cordial tone: it was hard and dry. Leonard respected L'Estrange too much to own to himself that it was unfeeling. With all his rich generosity of nature, he sought excuses for what he declined to blame. Perhaps something in Helen's manner or words had led Harley to suspect that she still cherished too tender an interest in the companion of her childhood; perhaps under this coldness of expression there lurked the burning anguish of jealousy. And, oh, Leonard so well understood, and could so nobly compassionate even in his prosperous rival, that torture of the most agonizing of human passions, in which all our reasonings follow the distorted writhings of our pain. And Leonard himself, amidst his other causes of disquiet, was at once so gnawed and so humbled by his own jealousy. Helen, he knew, was still under the same roof as Harley. They, the betrothed, could see each other daily, hourly. He would soon hear of their marriage. She would be borne afar from the very sphere of his existence,--carried into a loftier region, accessible only to his dreams. And yet to be jealous of one to whom both Helen and himself were under such obligations debased him in his own esteem,--jealousy here was so like ingratitude. But for Harley, what could have become of Helen, left to his boyish charge,--he who had himself been compelled, in despair, to think of sending her from his side, to be reared into smileless youth in his mother's humble cottage, while he faced famine alone, gazing on the terrible river, from the bridge by which he had once begged for very alms,--begged of that Audley Egerton to whom he was now opposed as an equal; or flying from the fiend that glared at him under the lids of the haunting Chatterton? No, jealousy here was more than agony,--it was degradation, it was crime! But, all! if Helen were happy in these splendid nuptials! Was he sure even of that consolation? Bitter was the thought either way,--that she should wholly forget him, in happiness from which he stood excluded as a thing of sin; or sinfully herself remember, and be wretched! With that healthful strength of will which is more often proportioned to the susceptibility of feeling than the world suppose, the young man at last wrenched himself for awhile from the iron that had entered into his soul, and forced his thoughts to seek relief in the very objects from which they otherwise would have the most loathingly recoiled. He aroused his imagination to befriend his reason; he strove to divine some motive not explained by Harley, not to be referred to the mere defeat, by counter-scheme, of the scheming Randal, nor even to be solved by any service to Audley Egerton, which Harley might evolve from the complicated meshes of the election,--some motive that could more interest his own heart in the contest, and connect itself with Harley's promised aid in clearing up the mystery of his parentage. Nora's memoir had clearly hinted that his father was of rank and station far beyond her own. She had thrown the glow of her glorious fancies over the ambition and the destined career of the lover in whom she had merged her ambition as poetess, and her career as woman. Possibly the father might be more disposed to own and to welcome the son, if the son could achieve an opening, and give promise of worth, in that grand world of public life in which alone reputation takes precedence of rank. Possibly, too, if the son thus succeeded, and became one whom a proud father could with pride acknowledge, possibly he might not only secure a father's welcome, but vindicate a mother's name. This marriage, which Nora darkly hinted she had been led to believe was fraudulent, might, after all, have been legal,--the ceremony concealed, even till now, by worldly shame at disparity of rank. But if the son could make good his own footing--there where rank itself owned its chiefs in talent--that shame might vanish. These suppositions were not improbable; nor were they uncongenial to Leonard's experience of Harley's delicate benignity of purpose. Here, too, the image of Helen allied itself with those of his parents, to support his courage and influence his new ambition. True, that she was lost to him forever. No worldly success, no political honours, could now restore her to his side. But she might hear him named with respect in those circles in which alone she would hereafter move, and in which parliamentary reputation ranks higher than literary fame. And perhaps in future years, when love, retaining its tenderness, was purified from its passion, they might thus meet as friends. He might without a pang take her children on his knees, and say, perhaps in their old age, when he had climbed to a social equality even with her high-born lord, "It was the hope to regain the privilege bestowed on our childhood, that strengthened me to seek distinction when you and happiness forsook my youth." Thus regarded, the election, which had before seemed to him so poor and vulgar an exhibition of vehement passions for petty objects, with its trumpery of banners and its discord of trumpets, suddenly grew into vivid interest, and assumed dignity and importance. It is ever thus with all mortal strife. In proportion as it possesses, or is void of, the diviner something that quickens the pulse of the heart, and elevates the wing of the imagination, it presents a mockery to the philosopher, or an inspiration to the bard. Feel that something, and no contest is mean! Feel it not, and, like Byron, you may class with the slaughter of Cannae that field which, at Waterloo, restored the landmarks of nations; or may jeer with Juvenal at the dust of Hannibal, because he sought to deliver Carthage from ruin, and free a world from Rome. CHAPTER XXIII. Once then, grappling manfully with the task he had undertaken, and constraining himself to look on what Riccabocca would have called "the southern side of things," whatever there was really great in principle or honourable to human nature, deep below the sordid details and pitiful interests apparent on the face of the agitated current, came clear to his vision. The ardour of those around him began to be contagious: the generous devotion to some cause apart from self, which pervades an election, and to which the poorest voter will often render sacrifices that may be called sublime; the warm personal affection which community of zeal creates for the defender of beloved opinions,--all concurred to dispel that indifference to party politics, and counteract that disgust of their baser leaven, which the young poet had first conceived. He even began to look with complacency, for itself, on a career of toil and honours strange to his habitual labours and intellectual ambition. He threw the poetry of idea within him (as poets ever do) into the prose of action to which he was hurried forward. He no longer opposed Dick Avenel when that gentleman represented how detrimental it would be to his business at Screwstown if he devoted to his country the time and the acumen required by his mill and its steamengine; and how desirable it would be, on all accounts, that Leonard Fairfield should become the parliamentary representative of the Avenels. "If, therefore," said Dick, "two of us cannot come in, and one must retire, leave it to me to arrange with the Committee that you shall be the one to persist. Oh, never fear but what all scruples of honour shall be satisfied. I would not for the sake of the Avenels have a word said against their representative." "But," answered Leonard, "if I grant this, I fear that you have some intention of suffering the votes that your resignation would release to favour Leslie at the expense of Egerton." "What the deuce is Egerton to you?" "Nothing, except through my gratitude to his friend Lord L'Estrange." "Pooh! I will tell you a secret. Levy informs me privately that L'Estrange will be well satisfied if the choice of Lansmere fall upon Leslie instead of Egerton; and I think I convinced my Lord--for I saw him in London--that Egerton would have no chance, though Leslie might." "I must think that Lord L'Estrange would resist to the utmost any attempt to prefer Leslie--whom he despises--to Egerton, whom he honours. And, so thinking, I too would resist it, as you may judge by the speeches which have so provoked your displeasure." "Let us cut short a yarn of talk which, when it comes to likings and dislikings, might last to almighty crack: I'll ask you to do nothing that Lord L'Estrange does not sanction. Will that satisfy you?" "Certainly, provided I am assured of the sanction." And now, the important day preceding the poll, the day in which the candidates were to be formally nominated, and meet each other in all the ceremony of declared rivalship, dawned at last. The town-hall was the place selected for the occasion; and before sunrise, all the streets were resonant with music, and gay with banners. Audley Egerton felt that he could not--without incurring some just sarcasm on his dread to face the constituency he had formerly represented, and by the malcontents of which he had been burned in effigy--absent himself from the townhall, as he had done from balcony and hostel. Painful as it was to confront Nora's brother, and wrestle in public against all the secret memories that knit the strife of the present contest with the anguish that recalled the first,--still the thing must be done; and it was the English habit of his life to face with courage whatever he had to do. CHAPTER XXIV. The chiefs of the Blue party went in state from Lansmere Park; the two candidates in open carriages, each attended with his proposer and seconder. Other carriages were devoted to Harley and Levy, and the principal members of the Committee. Riccabocca was seized with a fit of melancholy or cynicism, and declined to join the procession. But just before they started, as all were assembling without the front door, the postman arrived with his welcome bag. There were letters for Harley, some for Levy, many for Egerton, one for Randal Leslie. Levy, soon hurrying over his own correspondence, looked, in the familiar freedom wherewith he usually treated his particular friends, over Randal's shoulder. "From the squire?" said he. "Ah, he has written at last! What made him delay so long? Hope he relieves your mind?" "Yes," cried Randal, giving way to a joy that rarely lighted up his close and secret countenance,--"yes, he does not write from Hazeldean,--not there when my letter arrived, in London, could not rest at the Hall,--the place reminded him too much of Frank;--went again to town, on the receipt of my first letter concerning the rupture of the marriage, to see after his son, and take up some money to pay off his post-obit. Read what he says:-- "'So, while I was about a mortgage--never did I guess that I should be the man to encumber the Hazeldean estate--I thought I might as well add L20,000 as L10,000 to the total. Why should you be indebted at all to that Baron Levy? Don't have dealings with money- lenders. Your grandmother was a Hazeldean; and from a Hazeldean you shall have the whole sum required in advance for those Rood lands,-- good light soil some of them. As to repayment, we'll talk of that later. If Frank and I come together again, as we did of old, why, my estates will be his some day, and he'll not grudge the mortgage, so fond as he always was of you; and if we don't come together, what do I care for hundreds or thousands, either more or less? So I shall be down at Lansmere the day after to-morrow, just in the thick of your polling. Beat the manufacturer, my boy, and stick up for the land. Tell Levy to have all ready. I shall bring the money down in good bank-notes, and a brace of pistols in my coat pocket to take care of them in ease robbers get scent of the notes and attack me on the road, as they did my grandfather sixty years ago, come next Michaelmas. A Lansmere election puts one in mind of pistols. I once fought a duel with an officer in his Majesty's service, R.N., and had a ball lodged in my right shoulder, on account of an election at Lansmere; but I have forgiven Audley his share in that transaction. Remember me to him kindly. Don't get into a duel yourself; but I suppose manufacturers don't fight,--not that I blame them for that--far from it.'" The letter then ran on to express surprise, and hazard conjecture, as to the wealthy marriage which Randal had announced as a pleasing surprise to the squire. "Well," said Levy, returning the letter, "you must have written as cleverly as you talk, or the squire is a booby indeed." Randal smiled, pocketed his letter, and responding to the impatient call of his proposer, sprang lightly into the carriage. Harley, too, seemed pleased with the letters delivered to himself, and now joined Levy, as the candidates drove slowly off. "Has not Mr. Leslie received from the squire an answer to that letter of which you informed me?" "Yes, my Lord, the squire will be here to-morrow." "To-morrow? Thank you for apprising me; his rooms shall be prepared." "I suppose he will only stay to see Leslie and myself, and pay the money." "Aha! Pay the money. Is it so, then?" "Twice the sum, and, it seems, as a gift, which Leslie only asked as a loan. Really, my Lord, Mr. Leslie is a very clever man; and though I am at your commands, I should not like to injure him. With such matrimonial prospects, he could be a very powerful enemy; and if he succeed in parliament, still more so." "Baron, these gentlemen are waiting for you. I will follow by myself." CHAPTER XXV. In the centre of the raised platform in the town-hall sat the mayor. On either hand of that dignitary now appeared the candidates of the respective parties,--to his right, Audley Egerton and Leslie; to his left, Dick Avenel and Leonard. The place was as full as it could hold. Rows of grimy faces peeped in, even from the upper windows outside the building. The contest was one that created intense interest, not only from public principles, but local passions. Dick Avenel, the son of a small tradesman, standing against the Right Honourable Audley Egerton, the choice of the powerful Lansmere aristocratic party,--standing, too, with his nephew by his side; taking, as he himself was wont to say, "the tarnation Blue Bull by both its oligarchical horns!"--there was a pluck and gallantry in the very impudence of the attempt to convert the important borough--for one member of which a great earl had hitherto striven, "with labour dire and weary woe" into two family seats for the House of Avenel and the triumph of the Capelocracy. This alone would have excited all the spare passions of a country borough; but, besides this, there was the curiosity that attached to the long-deferred public appearance of a candidate so renowned as the ex-minister,--a man whose career had commenced with his success at Lansmere, and who now, amidst the popular tempest that scattered his colleagues, sought to refit his vessel in the same harbour from which it had first put forth. New generations had grown up since the name of Audley Egerton had first fluttered the dovecotes in that Corioli. The questions that had then seemed so important were, for the most part, settled and at rest. But those present who remembered Egerton in the former day, were struck to see how the same characteristics of bearing and aspect which had distinguished his early youth revived their interest in the mature and celebrated man. As he stood up for a few moments, before he took his seat beside the mayor, glancing over the assembly, with its uproar of cheers and hisses, there was the same stately erectness of form and steadfastness of look, the same indefinable and mysterious dignity of externals, that imposed respect, confirmed esteem, or stilled dislike. The hisses involuntarily ceased. The preliminary proceedings over, the proposers and seconders commenced their office. Audley was proposed, of course, by the crack man of the party,--a gentleman who lived on his means in a white house in the High Street, had received a University education, and was a cadet of a "County Family." This gentleman spoke much about the Constitution, something about Greece and Rome; compared Egerton with William Pitt, also with Aristides; and sat down, after an oration esteemed classical by the few, and pronounced prosy by the many. Audley's seconder, a burly and important maltster, struck a bolder key. He dwelt largely upon the necessity of being represented by gentlemen of wealth and rank, and not by "upstarts and adventurers." (Cheers and groans.) "Looking at the candidates on the other side, it was an insult to the respectability of Lansmere to suppose its constituents could elect a man who had no pretensions whatever to their notice, except that he had once been a little boy in the town, in which his father kept a shop,--and a very noisy, turbulent, dirty little boy he was!" Dick smoothed his spotless shirt-front, and looked daggers, while the Blues laughed heartily, and the Yellows cried "Shame!" "As for the other candidate on the same side, he [the maltster] had nothing to say against him.--He was, no doubt, seduced into presumption by his uncle and his own inexperience. It was said that that candidate, Mr. Fairfield, was an author and a poet; if so, he was unknown to fame, for no bookseller in the town had ever even heard of Mr. Fairfield's works. Then it was replied Mr. Fairfield had written under another name. What would that prove? Either that he was ashamed of his name, or that the works did him no credit. For his part, he [the maltster] was an Englishman; he did not like anonymous scribblers; there was something not right in whatever was concealed. A man should never be afraid to put his name to what be wrote. But grant that Mr. Fairfield was a great author and a great poet, what the borough of Lansinere wanted was, not a member who would pass his time in writing sonnets to Peggy or Moggy, but a practical man of business,--a statesman,--such a man as Mr. Audley Egerton, a gentleman of ancient birth, high standing, and princely fortune. The member for such a place as Lansmere should have a proper degree of wealth." ("Hear, hear!" from the Hundred and Fifty Hesitators, who all stood in a row at the bottom of the hall; and "Gammon!" "Stuff!" from some revolutionary but incorruptible Yellows.) Still the allusion to Egerton's private fortune had considerable effect with the bulk of the audience, and the maltster was much cheered on concluding. Mr. Avenel's proposer and seconder--the one a large grocer, the other the proprietor of a new shop for ticketed prints, shawls, blankets, and counterpanes,-- a man, who, as he boasted, dealt with the People for ready money, and no mistake, at least none that he ever rectified--next followed. Both said much the same thing. Mr. Avenel had made his fortune by honest industry, was a fellow-townsman, must know the interests of the town better than strangers, upright public principles, never fawn on governments, would see that the people had their rights, and cut down army, navy, and all other jobs of a corrupt aristocracy, etc. Randal Leslie's proposer, a captain on half-pay, undertook a long defence of army and navy, from the unpatriotic aspersions of the preceding speakers, which defence diverted him from the due praise of Randal, until cries of "Cut it short," recalled him to that subject; and then the topics he selected for eulogium were "amiability of character, so conspicuous in the urbane manners of his young friend;" "coincidence in the opinions of that illustrious statesman with whom he was conjoined;" "early tuition in the best principles; only fault, youth,--and that was a fault which would diminish every day." Randal's seconder was a bluff yeoman, an outvoter of weight with the agricultural electors. He was too straightforward by half,--adverted to Audley Egerton's early desertion of questions espoused by landed interest, hoped he had had enough of the large towns; and he (the yeoman) was ready to forgive and forget, but trusted that there would be no chance of burning their member again in effigy. As to the young gentleman, whose nomination he had the pleasure to second, did not know much about him; but the Leslies were an old family in the neighbouring county, and Mr. Leslie said he was nearly related to Squire Hazeldean,--as good a man as ever stood upon shoe leather. He (the yeoman) liked a good breed in sheep and bullocks; and a good breed in men he supposed was the same thing. He (the yeoman) was not for abuses,--he was for King and Constitution. He should have no objection, for instance, to have tithes lowered, and the malt-tax repealed,--not the least objection. Mr. Leslie seemed to him a likely young chap, and uncommon well-spoken; and, on the whole, for aught he (the yeoman) could see, would do quite as well in parliament as nine-tenths of the gentlemen sent there. The yeoman sat down, little cheered by the Blues, much by the Yellows, and with a dim consciousness that somehow or other he had rather damaged than not the cause of the party he had been chosen to advocate. Leonard was not particularly fortunate in his proposer, a youngish gentleman, who, having tried various callings, with signal unsuccess, had come into a small independence, and set up for a literary character. This gentleman undertook the defence of poets, as the half- pay captain had undertaken that of the army and navy; and after a dozen sentences spoken through the nose, about the "moonlight of existence," and "the oasis in the desert," suddenly broke down, to the satisfaction of his impatient listeners. This failure was, however, redeemed by Leonard's seconder, a master tailor, a practised speaker and an earnest, thinking man, sincerely liking and warmly admiring Leonard Fairfield. His opinions were delivered with brief simplicity, and accompanied by expressions of trust in Leonard's talents and honesty, that were effective, because expressed with feeling. These preparatory orations over, a dead silence succeeded, and Audley Egerton arose. At the first few sentences, all felt they were in the presence of one accustomed to command attention, and to give to opinions the weight of recognized authority. The slowness of the measured accents, the composure of the manly aspect, the decorum of the simple gestures,--all bespoke and all became the minister of a great empire, who had less agitated assemblies by impassioned eloquence, than compelled their silent respect to the views of sagacity and experience. But what might have been formal and didactic in another was relieved in Egerton by that air, tone, bearing of gentleman, which have a charm for the most plebeian audience. He had eminently these attributes in private life; but they became far more conspicuous whenever he had to appear in public. The "senatorius decor" seemed a phrase coined for him. Audley commenced with notice of his adversaries in that language of high courtesy which is so becoming to superior station, and which augurs better for victory than the most pointed diatribes of hostile declamation. Inclining his head towards Avenel, he expressed regret that he should be opposed by a gentleman whose birth naturally endeared him to the town, of which he was a distinguished native, and whose honourable ambition was in itself a proof of the admirable nature of that Constitution, which admitted the lowliest to rise to its distinctions, while it compelled the loftiest to labour and compete for those honours which were the most coveted, because they were derived from the trust of their countrymen, and dignified by the duties which the sense of responsibility entailed. He paid a passing but generous compliment to the reputed abilities of Leonard Fairfield; and alluding with appropriate grace to the interest he had ever taken in the success of youth striving for place in the van of the new generation that marched on to replace the old, he implied that he did not consider Leonard as opposed to himself, but rather as an emulous competitor for a worthy prize with his "own young and valued friend, Mr. Randal Leslie." "They are happy at their years!" said the statesman, with a certain pathos. "In the future they see nothing to fear, in the past they have nothing to defend. It is not so with me." And then, passing on to the vague insinuations or bolder charges against himself and his policy proffered by the preceding speakers, Audley gathered himself up, and paused; for his eye here rested on the Reporters seated round the table just below him; and he recognized faces not unfamiliar to his recollection when metropolitan assemblies had hung on the words which fell from lips then privileged to advise a king. And involuntarily it occurred to the ex-minister to escape altogether from this contracted audience,--this election, with all its associations of pain,--and address himself wholly to that vast and invisible Public, to which those Reporters would transmit his ideas. At this thought his whole manner gradually changed. His eye became fixed on the farthest verge of the crowd; his tones grew more solemn in their deep and sonorous swell. He began to review and to vindicate his whole political life. He spoke of the measures he had aided to pass, of his part in the laws which now ruled the land. He touched lightly, but with pride, on the services he had rendered to the opinions he had represented. He alluded to his neglect of his own private fortunes; but in what detail, however minute, in the public business committed to his charge, could even an enemy accuse him of neglect? The allusion was no doubt intended to prepare the public for the news that the wealth of Audley Egerton was gone. Finally, he came to the questions that then agitated the day; and made a general but masterly exposition of the policy which, under the changes he foresaw, he should recommend his party to adopt. Spoken to the motley assembly in that town-hall, Audley's speech extended to a circle of interest too wide for their sympathy. But that assembly he heeded not,--he forgot it. The reporters understood him, as their flying pens followed words which they presumed neither to correct nor to abridge. Audley's speech was addressed to the nation,--the speech of a man in whom the nation yet recognized a chief, desiring to clear all misrepresentation from his past career; calculating, if life were spared to him, on destinies higher than he had yet fulfilled; issuing a manifesto of principles to be carried later into power, and planting a banner round which the divided sections of a broken host might yet rally for battle and for conquest. Or perhaps, in the deeps of his heart (not even comprehended by reporters, nor to be divined by the public), the uncertainty of life was more felt than the hope of ambition; and the statesman desired to leave behind him one full vindication of that public integrity and honour, on which, at least, his conscience acknowledged not a stain. "For more than twenty years," said Audley, in conclusion, "I have known no day in which I have not lived for my country. I may at times have opposed the wish of the People,--I may oppose it now; but, so far as I can form a judgment, only because I prefer their welfare to their wish. And if--as I believe--there have been occasions on which, as one amongst men more renowned, I have amended the laws of England, confirmed her safety, extended her commerce, upheld her honour, I leave the rest to the censure of my enemies, and [his voice trembled] to the charity of my friends." Before the cheers that greeted the close of this speech were over, Richard Avenel arose. What is called "the more respectable part" of an audience--namely, the better educated and better clad, even on the Yellow side of the question--winced a little for the credit of their native borough, when they contemplated the candidate pitted against the Great Commoner, whose lofty presence still filled the eye, and whose majestic tones yet sounded in the ear. But the vast majority on both sides, Blue and Yellow, hailed the rise of Dick Avenel as a relief to what, while it had awed their attention, had rather strained their faculties. The Yellows cheered and the Blues groaned; there was a tumultuous din of voices, and a reel to and fro of the whole excited mass of unwashed faces and brawny shoulders. But Dick had as much pluck as Audley himself; and by degrees, his pluck and his handsome features, and the curiosity to hear what he had to say, obtained him a hearing; and that hearing Dick having once got, he contrived to keep. His self-confidence was backed by a grudge against Egerton, that attained to the elevation of malignity. He had armed himself for this occasion with an arsenal of quotations from Audley's speeches, taken out of Hansard's Debates; and, garbling these texts in the unfairest and most ingenious manner, he contrived to split consistency into such fragments of inconsistency--to cut so many harmless sentences into such unpopular, arbitrary, tyrannical segments of doctrine--that he made a very pretty case against the enlightened and incorruptible Egerton, as shuffler and trimmer, defender of jobs, and eulogist of Manchester massacres, etc. And all told the more because it seemed courted and provoked by the ex-minister's elaborate vindication of himself. Having thus, as he declared, "triumphantly convicted the Right Honourable Gentleman out of his own mouth," Dick considered himself at liberty to diverge into what he termed "the just indignation of a freeborn Briton;" in other words, into every variety of abuse which bad taste could supply to acrimonious feeling. But he did it so roundly and dauntlessly, in such true hustings style, that for the moment, at least, he carried the bulk of the crowd along with him sufficiently to bear down all the resentful murmurs of the Blue Committee men, and the abashed shakes of the head with which the more aristocratic and well-bred among the Yellows signified to each other that they were heartily ashamed of their candidate. Dick concluded with an emphatic declaration that the Right Honourable Gentleman's day was gone by; that the people had been pillaged and plundered enough by pompous red-tapists, who only thought of their salaries, and never went to their offices except to waste the pen, ink, and paper which they did not pay for; that the Right Honourable Gentleman had boasted he had served his country for twenty years. Served his country!--he should have said served her out! (Much laughter.) Pretty mess his country was in now. In short, for twenty years the Right Honourable Gentleman had put his hands into his country's pockets. "And I ask you," bawled Dick, "whether any of you are a bit the better for all that he has taken out of them!" The Hundred and Fifty Hesitators shook their heads. "Noa, that we ben't!" cried the Hundred and Fifty, dolorously. "You hear THE PEOPLE!" said Dick, turning majestically to Egerton, who, with his arms folded on his breast, and his upper lip slightly curved, sat like "Atlas unremoved,"--"you hear THE PEOPLE! They condemn you and the whole set of you. I repeat here what I once vowed on a less public occasion, 'As sure as my name is Richard Avenel, you shall smart for'--Dick hesitated--'smart for your contempt of the just rights, honest claims, and enlightened aspirations of your indignant countrymen. The schoolmaster is abroad, and the British Lion is aroused!'" Dick sat down. The curve of contempt had passed from Egerton's lip; at the name of Avenel, thus harshly spoken, he had suddenly shaded his face with his hand. But Randal Leslie next arose, and Audley slowly raised his eyes, and looked towards his /protege/ with an expression of kindly interest. What better /debut/ could there be for a young man warmly attached to an eminent patron who had been coarsely assailed,--for a political aspirant vindicating the principles which that patron represented? The Blues, palpitating with indignant excitement, all prepared to cheer every sentence that could embody their sense of outrage, even the meanest amongst the Yellows, now that Dick had concluded, dimly aware that their orator had laid himself terribly open, and richly deserved (more especially from the friend of Audley Egerton) whatever punishing retort could vibrate from the heart of a man to the tongue of an orator. A better opportunity for an honest young /debutant/ could not exist; a more disagreeable, annoying, perplexing, unmanageable opportunity for Randal Leslie, the malice of the Fates could not have contrived. How could he attack Dick Avenel,--he who counted upon Dick Avenel to win his election? How could he exasperate the Yellows, when Dick's solemn injunction had been, "Say nothing to make the Yellows not vote for you"? How could he identify himself with Egerton's policy, when it was his own policy to make his opponents believe him an unprejudiced, sensible youth, who would come all right and all Yellow one of these days? Demosthenes himself would have had a sore throat worse than when he swallowed the golden cup of Harpalus, had Demosthenes been placed in so cursed a fix. Therefore Randal Leslie may well be excused if he stammered and boggled, if he was appalled by a cheer when he said a word in vindication of Egerton, and looked cringing and pitiful when he sneaked out a counter civility to Dick. The Blues were sadly disappointed, damped; the Yellows smirked and took heart. Audley Egerton's brows darkened. Harley, who was on the platform, half seen behind the front row, a quiet listener, bent over and whispered dryly to Audley, "You should have given a lesson beforehand to your clever young friend. His affection for you overpowers him!" Audley made no rejoinder, but tore a leaf out of his pocketbook, and wrote, in pencil, these words, "Say that you may well feel embarrassed how to reply to Mr. Avenel, because I had especially requested you not to be provoked to one angry expression against a gentleman whose father and brother-in-law gave the majority of two by which I gained my first seat in parliament; then plunge at once into general politics." He placed this paper in Randal's hand, just as that unhappy young man was on the point of a thorough breakdown. Randal paused, took breath, read the words attentively, and amidst a general titter; his presence of mind returned to him; he saw a way out of the scrape, collected himself, suddenly raised his head, and in tones unexpectedly firm and fluent, enlarged on the text afforded to him,--enlarged so well that he took the audience by surprise, pleased the Blues by an evidence of Audley's generosity, and touched the Yellows by so affectionate a deference to the family of their two candidates. Then the speaker was enabled to come at once to the topics on which he had elaborately prepared himself, and delivered a set harangue, very artfully put together,--temporizing it is true, and trimming, but full of what would have been called admirable tact and discretion in an old stager who did not want to commit himself to anybody or to anything. On the whole, the display became creditable, at least as an evidence of thoughtful reserve, rare in a man so young; too refining and scholastic for oratory, but a very good essay,--upon both sides of the question. Randal wiped his pale forehead and sat down, cheered, especially by the lawyers present, and self-contented. It was now Leonard's turn to speak. Keenly nervous, as men of the literary temperament are, constitutionally shy, his voice trembled as he began. But he trusted, unconsciously, less to his intellect than his warm heart and noble temper; and the warm heart prompted his words, and the noble temper gradually dignified his manner. He took advantage of the sentences which Audley had put into Randal's mouth, in order to efface the impression made by his uncle's rude assault. "Would that the Right Honourable Gentleman had himself made that generous and affecting allusion to the services which he had deigned to remember, for, in that case, he [Leonard] was confident that Mr. Avenel would have lost all the bitterness which political contest was apt to engender in proportion to the earnestness with which political opinions were entertained. Happy it was when some such milder sentiment as that which Mr. Egerton had instructed Mr. Leslie to convey, preceded the sharp encounter, and reminded antagonists, as Mr. Leslie had so emphatically done, that every shield had two sides, and that it was possible to maintain the one side to be golden, without denying the truth of the champion who asserted the other side to be silver." Then, without appearing to throw over his uncle, the young speaker contrived to insinuate an apology on his uncle's behalf, with such exquisite grace and good feeling, that he was loudly cheered by both parties; and even Dick did not venture to utter the dissent which struggled to his lips. But if Leonard dealt thus respectfully with Egerton, he had no such inducement to spare Randal Leslie. With the intuitive penetration of minds accustomed to analyze character and investigate human nature, he detected the varnished insincerity of Randal's artful address. His colour rose, his voice swelled, his fancy began to play, and his wit to sparkle, when he came to take to pieces his younger antagonist's rhetorical mosaic. He exposed the falsehood of its affected moderation; he tore into shreds the veil of words, with their motley woof of yellow and blue, and showed that not a single conviction could be discovered behind it. "Mr. Leslie's speech," said he, "puts me in mind of a ferry- boat; it seems made for no purpose but to go from one side to the other." The simile hit the truth so exactly that it was received with a roar of laughter: even Egerton smiled. "For myself," concluded Leonard, as he summed up his unsparing analysis, "I am new to party warfare; yet if I were not opposing Mr. Leslie as a candidate for your suffrages, if I were but an elector,--belonging, as I do, to the people by my condition and my labours,--I should feel that he is one of those politicians in whom the welfare, the honour, the moral elevation of the people, find no fitting representative." Leonard sat down amidst great applause, and after a speech that raised the Yellows in their own estimation, and materially damaged Randal Leslie in the eyes of the Blues. Randal felt this, with a writhing of the heart, though a sneer on the lips. He glanced furtively towards Dick Avenel, on whom, after all, his election, in spite of the Blues, might depend. Dick answered the furtive glance by an encouraging wink. Randal turned to Egerton, and whispered to him, "How I wish I had had more practice in speaking, so that I could have done you more justice!" "Thank you, Leslie; Mr. Fairfield has supplied any omission of yours, so far as I am concerned. And you should excuse him for his attack on yourself, because it may serve to convince you where your fault as a speaker lies." "Where?" asked Leslie, with jealous sullenness. "In not believing a single word that you say," answered Egerton, very dryly; and then turning away, be said aloud to his proposer, and with a slight sigh, "Mr. Avenel maybe proud of his nephew! I wish that young man were on our side; I could train him into a great debater." And now the proceedings were about to terminate with a show of hands, when a tall, brawny elector in the middle of the hall suddenly arose, and said he had some questions to put. A thrill ran through the assembly, for this elector was the demagogue of the Yellows,--a fellow whom it was impossible to put down, a capital speaker, with lungs of brass. "I shall be very short," said the demagogue. And therewith, under the shape of questions to the two Blue candidates, he commenced a most furious onslaught on the Earl of Lansmere, and the earl's son, Lord L'Estrange, accusing the last of the grossest intimidation and corruption, and citing instances thereof as exhibited towards various electors in Fish Lane and the Back Slums, who had been turned from Yellow promises by the base arts of Blue aristocracy, represented in the person of the noble lord, whom he now dared to reply. The orator paused, and Harley suddenly passed into the front of the platform, in token that he accepted the ungracious invitation. Great as had been the curiosity to hear Audley Egerton, yet greater, if possible, was the curiosity to hear Lord L'Estrange. Absent from the place for so many years, heir to such immense possessions, with a vague reputation for talents that he had never proved,--strange, indeed, if Blue and Yellow had not strained their ears and hushed their breaths to listen. It is said that the poet is born, and the orator made,--a saying only partially true. Some men have been made poets, and some men have been born orators. Most probably Harley L'Estrange had hitherto never spoken in public; and he had not now spoken five minutes before all the passions and humours of the assembly were as much under his command as the keys of the instrument are under the hands of the musician. He had taken from nature a voice capable of infinite variety of modulation, a countenance of the most flexible play of expression; and he was keenly alive (as profound humourists are) equally to the ludicrous and the graver side of everything presented to his vigorous understanding. Leonard had the eloquence of a poet, Audley Egerton that of a parliamentary debater; but Harley had the rarer gift of eloquence in itself, apart from the matter it conveys or adorns,--that gift which Demosthenes meant by his triple requisite of an orator, which has been improperly translated "action," but means in reality "the acting," "the stage-play." Both Leonard and Audley spoke well, from the good sense which their speeches contained; but Harley could have talked nonsense, and made it more effective than sense,--even as a Kemble or Macready could produce effects from the trash talked by "The Stranger," which your merely accomplished performer would fail to extract from the beauties of Hamlet. The art of oratory, indeed, is allied more closely to that of the drama than to any other; and throughout Harley's whole nature there ran, as the reader may have noted (though quite unconsciously to Harley himself), a tendency towards that concentration of thought, action, and circumstance on a single purpose, which makes the world form itself into a stage, and gathers various and scattered agencies into the symmetry and compactness of a drama. This tendency, though it often produces effects that appear artificially theatrical, is not uncommon with persons the most genuine and single- minded. It is, indeed, the natural inclination of quick energies springing from warm emotions. Hence the very history of nations in their fresh, vigorous, half-civilized youth always shapes itself into dramatic forms; while, as the exercise of sober reason expands with civilization, to the injury of the livelier faculties and more intuitive impulses, people look to the dramatic form of expression, whether in thought or in action, as if it were the antidote to truth, instead of being its abstract and essence. But to return from this long and somewhat metaphysical digression: whatever might be the cause why Harley L'Estrange spoke so wonderfully well, there could be no doubt that wonderfully well he did speak. He turned the demagogue and his attack into the most felicitous ridicule, and yet with the most genial good-humour; described that virtuous gentleman's adventures in search of corruption through the pure regions of Fish Lane and the Back Slums; and then summed up the evidences on which the demagogue had founded his charge, with a humour so caustic and original that the audience were convulsed with laughter. From laughter Harley hurried his audience almost to the pathos of tears,--for he spoke of the insinuations against his father so that every son and every father in the assembly felt moved as at the voice of Nature. A turn in a sentence, and a new emotion seized the assembly. Harley was identifying himself with the Lansmere electors. He spoke of his pride in being a Lansmere man, and all the Lansmere electors suddenly felt proud of him. He talked with familiar kindness of old friends remembered in his schoolboy holidays, rejoicing to find so many alive and prospering. He had a felicitous word to each. "Dear old Lansmere!" said he, and the simple exclamation won him the hearts of all. In fine, when he paused, as if to retire, it was amidst a storm of acclamation. Audley grasped his hand, and whispered, "I am the only one here not surprised, Harley. Now you have discovered your powers, never again let them slumber. What a life may be yours if you no longer waste it!" Harley extricated his hand, and his eye glittered. He made a sign that he had more to say, and the applause was hushed. "My Right Honourable friend chides me for the years that I have wasted. True; my years have been wasted,--no matter how nor wherefore! But his! how have they been spent? In such devotion to the public that those who know him not as I do, have said that he had not one feeling left to spare to the obscurer duties and more limited affections, by which men of ordinary talents and humble minds rivet the links of that social order which it is the august destiny of statesmen--like him who now sits beside me--to cherish and defend. But, for my part, I think that there is no being so dangerous as the solemn hypocrite, who, because he drills his cold nature into serving mechanically some conventional abstraction,-- whether he calls it 'the Constitution' or 'the Public,'--holds himself dispensed from whatever, in the warm blood of private life, wins attachment to goodness, and confidence to truth. Let others, then, praise my Right Honourable friend as the incorruptible politician. Pardon me if I draw his likeness as the loyal sincere man, who might say with the honest priest 'that he could not tell a lie to gain heaven by it!'--and with so fine a sense of honour, that he would hold it a lie merely to conceal the truth." Harley then drew a brilliant picture of the type of chivalrous honesty,--of the ideal which the English attach to the phrase of "a perfect gentleman," applying each sentence to his Right Honourable friend with an emphasis that seemed to burst from his heart. To all of the audience, save two, it was an eulogium which the fervent sincerity of the eulogist alone saved from hyperbole. But Levy rubbed his hands, and chuckled inly; and Egerton hung his head, and moved restlessly on his seat. Every word that Harley uttered lodged an arrow in Audley's breast. Amidst the cheers that followed this admirable sketch of the "loyal man," Harley recognized Leonard's enthusiastic voice. He turned sharply towards the young man: "Mr. Fairfield cheers this description of integrity, and its application; let him imitate the model set before him, and he may live to hear praise as genuine as mine from some friend who has tested his worth as I have tested Mr. Egerton's. Mr. Fairfield is a poet: his claim to that title was disputed by one of the speakers who preceded me!--unjustly disputed! Mr. Fairfield is every inch a poet. But, it has been asked, 'Are poets fit for the business of senates? Will they not be writing sonnets to Peggy and Moggy, when you want them to concentrate their divine imagination on the details of a beer bill?' Do not let Mr. Fairfield's friends be alarmed. At the risk of injury to the two candidates whose cause I espouse, truth compels me to say, that poets, when they stoop to action, are not less prosaic than the dullest amongst us; they are swayed by the same selfish interests, they are moved by the same petty passions. It is a mistake to suppose that any detail in common life, whether in public or private, can be too mean to seduce the exquisite pliances of their fancy. Nay, in public life, we may trust them better than other men; for vanity is a kind of second conscience, and, as a poet has himself said,-- "'Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to shame.' In private life alone we do well to be on our guard against these children of fancy, for they so devote to the Muse all their treasury of sentiment, that we can no more expect them to waste a thought on the plain duties of men, than we can expect the spendthrift, who dazzles the town, 'to fritter away his money in paying his debts.' But all the world are agreed to be indulgent to the infirmities of those who are their own deceivers and their own chastisers. Poets have more enthusiasm, more affection, more heart than others; but only for fictions of their own creating. It is in vain for us to attach them to ourselves by vulgar merit, by commonplace obligations, strive and sacrifice as we may. They are ungrateful to us, only because gratitude is so very unpoetical a subject. We lose them the moment we attempt to bind. Their love-- "'Light as air, at sight of human ties, Spreads its light wings, and in a moment flies.' "They follow their own caprices, adore their own delusions, and, deeming the forms of humanity too material for their fantastic affections, conjure up a ghost, and are chilled to death by its embrace!" Then, suddenly aware that he was passing beyond the comprehension of his audience, and touching upon the bounds of his bitter secret (for here he was thinking, not of Leonard, but of Nora), Harley gave a new and more homely direction to his terrible irony,--turned into telling ridicule the most elevated sentiments Leonard's speech had conveyed, hastened on to a rapid view of political questions in general, defended Leslie with the same apparent earnestness and latent satire with which he had eulogized Audley, and concluded a speech which, for popular effect, had never been equalled in that hall, amidst a diapason of cheers that threatened to bring down the rafters. In a few minutes more the proceedings were closed, a show of hands taken. The show was declared by the Mayor, who was a thorough Blue, in favour of the Right Hon. Audley Egerton and Randal Leslie, Esquire. Cries of "No," "Shame," "Partial," etc., a poll demanded on behalf of the other two candidates, and the crowd began to pour out of the hall. Harley was the first who vanished, retreating by the private entrance. Egerton followed; Randal lingering, Avenel came up and shook hands with him openly, but whispered privately, "Meet me to-night in Lansmere Park, in the oak copse, about three hundred yards from the turnstile, at the town end of the park. We must see how to make all right. What a confounded humbug this has been!" CHAPTER XXVI. If the vigour of Harley's address had taken by surprise both friend and foe, not one in that assembly--not even the conscience-stricken Egerton-- felt its effect so deeply as the assailed and startled Leonard. He was at first perfectly stunned by sarcasms which he so ill deserved; nor was it till after the assembly had broken up, that Leonard could even conjecture the cause which had provoked the taunt and barbed its dart. Evidently Harley had learned (but learned only in order to misconceive and to wrong) Leonard's confession of love to Helen Digby. And now those implied accusations of disregard to the duties of common life not only galled the young man's heart, but outraged his honour. He felt the generous indignation of manhood. He must see Lord L'Estrange at once, and vindicate himself,--vindicate Helen; for thus to accuse one was tacitly to asperse the other. Extricating himself from his own enthusiastic partisans, Leonard went straight on foot towards Lansmere House. The Park palings touched close upon the town, with a shall turnstile for foot passengers. And as Leonard, availing himself of this entrance, had advanced some hundred yards or so through the park, suddenly, in the midst of that very copse in which Avenel had appointed to meet Leslie, he found himself face to face with Helen Digby herself. Helen started, with a faint cry. But Leonard, absorbed in his own desire to justify both, hailed the sight, and did not pause to account for his appearance, nor to soothe her agitation. "Miss Digby!" he exclaimed, throwing into his voice and manner that respect which often so cruelly divides the past familiarity from the present alienation, "Miss Digby, I rejoice to see you,--rejoice to ask your permission to relieve myself from a charge that in truth wounds even you, while levelled but at me. Lord L'Estrange has just implied, in public, that I--I--who owe him so much, who have honoured him so truly, that even the just resentment I now feel half seems to me the ingratitude with which he charges me, has implied that--ah! Miss Digby, I can scarcely command words to say what it so humiliates me to have heard. But you know how false is all accusation that either of us could deceive our common benefactor. Suffer me to repeat to your guardian what I presumed to say to you when we last met, what you answered, and state how I left your presence." "Oh, Leonard! yes; clear yourself in his eyes. Go! Unjust that he is, ungenerous Lord L'Estrange!" "Helen Digby!" cried a voice, close at hand. "Of whom do you speak thus?" At the sound of that voice Helen and Leonard both turned, and beheld Violante standing before them, her young beauty rendered almost sublime by the noble anger that lit her eyes, glowed in her cheeks, animated her stately form. "Is it you who thus speak of Lord L'Estrange? You, Helen Digby,--you!" From behind Violante now emerged Mr. Dale. "Softly, children," he said; and placing one hand on Violante's shoulder, he extended the other to Leonard. "What is this? Come hither to me, Leonard, and explain." Leonard walked aside with the parson, and in a few sentences gave vent to his swelling heart. The parson shared in Leonard's resentment; and having soon drawn from him all that had passed in his memorable interview with Helen, exclaimed,-- "Enough! Do not yet seek Lord L'Estrange yourself; I am going to see him,--I am here at his request. His summons, indeed, was for to-morrow; but the squire having written me a hurried line, requesting me to meet him at Lansmere tomorrow and proceed with him afterwards in search of poor Frank, I thought I might have little time for communications with Lord L'Estrange, unless I forestalled his invitation and came to-day. Well that I did so! I only arrived an hour since, found he was gone to the town-hall, and joined the young ladies in the Park. Miss Digby, thinking it natural that I might wish to say something in private to my old young friend Violante, walked a few paces in advance. Thus, fortunately, I chanced to be here, to receive your account, and I trust to remove misunderstanding. Lord L'Estrange must now be returned. I will go back to the house. You, meanwhile, return to the town, I beseech you. I will come to you afterwards at your inn. Your very appearance in these grounds, even the brief words that have passed between Helen and you, might only widen the breach between yourself and your benefactor. I cannot bear to anticipate this. Go back, I entreat you. I will explain all, and Lord L'Estrange shall right you! That is,--that must be his intention!" "IS--must be his intention--when he has just so wronged me!" "Yes, yes," faltered the poor parson, mindful of his promise to L'Estrange not to reveal his own interview with that nobleman, and yet not knowing otherwise how to explain or to soothe; but still believing Leonard to be Harley's son, and remembering all that Harley had so pointedly said of atonement, in apparent remorse for crime, Mr. Dale was wholly at a loss himself to understand why Harley should have thus prefaced atonement by an insult. Anxious, however, to prevent a meeting between Harley and Leonard while both were under the influence of such feelings towards each other, he made an effort over himself, and so well argued in favour of his own diplomacy, that Leonard reluctantly consented to wait for Mr. Dale's report. "As to reparation or excuse," said he, proudly, "it must rest with Lord L'Estrange. I ask it not. Tell him only this,--that if the instant I heard that she whom I loved and held sacred for so many years was affianced to him, I resigned even the very wish to call her mine--if that were desertion of man's duties, I am guilty. If to have prayed night and day that she who would have blessed my lonely and toilsome life may give some charm to his, not bestowed by his wealth and his greatness--if that were ingratitude, I am ungrateful; let him still condemn me. I pass out of his sphere,--a thing that has crossed it a moment, and is gone. But Helen he must not blame, suspect; even by a thought. One word more. In this election, this strife for objects wholly foreign to all my habits, unsuited to my poverty, at war with aspirations so long devoted to fairer goals, though by obscurer paths, I obeyed but his will or whim,--at a moment too when my whole soul sickened for repose and solitude. I had forced myself at last to take interest in what I had before loathed. But in every hope for the future, every stimulant to ambition, Lord L'Estrange's esteem still stood before me. Now, what do I here longer? All of his conduct, save his contempt for myself, is an enigma. And sinless he repeat a wish, which I would fain still regard as a law, I retire from the contest he has embittered; I renounce the ambition he has poisoned; and, mindful of those humble duties which he implies that I disdain, I return to my own home." The parson nodded assent to each of these sentences; and Leonard, passing by Violante and Helen, with a salutation equally distant to both, retraced his steps towards the town. Meanwhile Violante and Helen had also been in close conference, and that conference had suddenly endeared each to the other; for Helen, taken by surprise, agitated, overpowered, had revealed to Violante that confession of another attachment, which she had made to Lord L'Estrange, the rupture of her engagement with the latter. Violante saw that Harley was free. Harley, too, had promised to free herself. By a sudden flash of conviction, recalling his words, looks, she felt that she was beloved,-- deemed that honour alone (while either was yet shackled) had forbidden him to own that love. Violante stood a being transformed, "blushing celestial rosy red," heaven at her heart, joy in her eyes,--she loved so well, and she trusted so implicitly! Then from out the overflow of her own hope and bliss she poured forth such sweet comfort to Helen, that Helen's arm stole around her; cheek touched cheek,--they were as sisters. At another moment, Mr. Dale might have felt some amazement at the sudden affection which had sprung up between these young persons; for in his previous conversation with Violante, he had, as he thought, very artfully, and in a pleasant vein, sounded the young Italian as to her opinion of her fair friend's various good qualities, and Violante had rather shrunk from the title of "friend;" and though she had the magnanimity to speak with great praise of Helen, the praise did not sound cordial. But the good man was at this moment occupied in preparing his thoughts for his interview with Harley; he joined the two girls in silence, and, linking an arm of each within his own, walked slowly towards the house. As he approached the terrace he observed Riccabocca and Randal pacing the gravel walk side by side. Violante, pressing his arm, whispered, "Let us go round the other way; I would speak with you a few minutes undisturbed." Mr. Dale, supposing that Violante wished to dispense with the presence of Helen, said to the latter, "My dear young lady, perhaps you will excuse me to Dr. Riccabocca,--who is beckoning to me, and no doubt very much surprised to see me here,--while I finish what I was saying to Violante when we were interrupted." Helen left them, and Violante led the parson round through the shrubbery, towards the side door in another wing of the house. "What have you to say to me?" asked Mr. Dale, surprised that she remained silent. "You will see Lord L'Estrange. Be sure that you convince him of Leonard's honour. A doubt of treachery so grieves his noble heart that perhaps it may disturb his judgment." "You seem to think very highly of the heart of this Lord L'Estrange, child!" said the parson, in some surprise. Violante blushed, but went on firmly, and with serious earnestness: "Some words which he-that is, Lord L'Estrange--said to me very lately, make me so glad that you are here,-- that you will see him; for I know how good you are, and how wise, dear, dear Mr. Dale! He spoke as one who had received some grievous wrong, which had abruptly soured all his views of life. He spoke of retirement, solitude,--he on whom his country has so many claims. I know not what he can mean, unless it be that his--his marriage with Helen Digby is broken off." "Broken off! Is that so?" "I have it from herself. You may well be astonished that she could even think of another after having known him!" The parson fixed his eyes very gravely on the young enthusiast. But though her cheek glowed, there was in her expression of face so much artless, open innocence, that Mr. Dale contented himself with a slight shake of the head, and a dry remark,-- "I think it quite natural that Helen Digby should prefer Leonard Fairfield. A good girl, not misled by vanity and ambition,--temptations of which it behoves us all to beware; nor least, perhaps, young ladies suddenly brought in contact with wealth and rank. As to this nobleman's merits, I know not yet whether to allow or to deny them; I reserve my judgment till after our interview. This is all you have to say to me?" Violante paused a moment. "I cannot think," she said, half smiling,-- "I cannot think that the change that has occurred in him,--for changed he is,--that his obscure hints as to injury received, and justice to be done, are caused merely by his disappointment with regard to Helen. But you can learn that; learn if he be so very much disappointed. Nay, I think not!" She slipped her slight hand from the parson's arm, and darted away through the evergreens. Half concealed amidst the laurels, she turned back, and Mr. Dale caught her eye, half arch, half melancholy; its light came soft through a tear. "I don't half like this," muttered the parson; "I shall give Dr. Riccabocca a caution." So muttering, he pushed open the side door, and finding a servant, begged admittance to Lord L'Estrange. Harley at that moment was closeted with Levy, and his countenance was composed and fearfully stern. "So, so, by this time to-morrow," said he, "Mr. Egerton will be tricked out of his election by Mr. Randal Leslie! good! By this time to-morrow his ambition will be blasted by the treachery of his friends! good! By this time to-morrow the bailiffs will seize his person,--ruined, beggared, pauper, and captive,--all because he has trusted and been deceived! good! And if he blame you, prudent Baron Levy, if he accuse smooth Mr. Randal Leslie, forget not to say, 'We were both but the blind agents of your friend Harley L'Estrange. Ask him why you are so miserable a dupe.'" "And might I now ask your Lordship for one word of explanation?" "No, sir!--it is enough that I have spared you. But you were never my friend; I have no revenge against a man whose hand I never even touched." The baron scowled, but there was a power about his tyrant that cowed him into actual terror. He resumed, after a pause, "And though Mr. Leslie is to be member for Lansmere,--thanks to you,--you still desire that I should--" "Do exactly as I have said. My plans now never vary a hair's breadth." The groom of the chambers entered. "My Lord, the Reverend Mr. Dale wishes to know if you can receive him." "Mr. Dale! he should have come to-morrow. Say that I did not expect him to-day; that I am unfortunately engaged till dinner, which will be earlier than usual. Show him into his room; he will have but little time to change his dress. By the way, Mr. Egerton dines in his own apartment." CHAPTER XXVII. The leading members of the Blue Committee were invited to dine at the Park, and the hour for the entertainment was indeed early, as there might be much need yet of active exertion on the eve of a poll in a contest expected to be so close, and in which the inflexible Hundred and Fifty "Waiters upon Providence" still reserved their very valuable votes. The party was gay and animated, despite the absence of Audley Egerton, who, on the plea of increased indisposition, had shut himself up in his rooms the instant that he had returned from the town-hall, and sent word to Harley that he was too unwell to join the party at dinner. Randal was really in high spirits, despite the very equivocal success of his speech. What did it signify if a speech failed, provided the election was secure? He was longing for the appointment with Dick Avenel which was to make "all right!" The squire was to bring the money for the purchase of the coveted lands the next morning. Riccabocca had assured him, again and again, of Violante's hand. If ever Randal Leslie could be called a happy man, it was as he sat at that dinner taking wine with Mr. Mayor and Mr. Alderman, and looking, across the gleaming silver plateau, down the long vista into wealth and power. The dinner was scarcely over, when Lord L'Estrauge, in a brief speech, reminded his guests of the work still before them; and after a toast to the health of the future members for Lansmere, dismissed the Committee to their labours. Levy made a sign to Randal, who followed the baron to his own room. "Leslie, your election is in some jeopardy. I find, from the conversation of those near me at dinner, that Egerton has made such way amongst the Blues by his speech, and they are so afraid of losing a man who does them so much credit, that the Committee men not only talk of withholding from you their second votes and of plumping Egerton, but of subscribing privately amongst themselves to win over that coy body of a Hundred and Fifty, upon whom I know that Avenel counts in whatever votes he may be able to transfer to you." "It would be very unhandsome in the Committee, which pretends to act for both of us, to plump Egerton," said Randal, with consistent anger; "but I don't think they can get those Hundred and Fifty without the most open and exortant bribery,--an expense which Egerton will not pay, and which it would be very discreditable to Lord L'Estrange or his father to countenance." "I told them flatly," returned Levy, "that, as Mr. Egerton's agent, I would allow no proceedings that might vitiate the election, but that I would undertake the management of these men myself; and I am going into the town in order to do so. I have also persuaded the leading Committee men to reconsider their determination to plump Egerton; they have decided to do as L'Estrange directs, and I know what he will say. You may rely on me," continued the baron, who spoke with a dogged seriousness, unusual to his cynical temper, "to obtain for you the preference over Audley, if it be in my power to do so. Meanwhile, you should really see Avenel this very night." "I have an appointment with him at ten o'clock; and judging by his speech against Egerton, I cannot doubt on his aid to me, if convinced by his poll-books that he is not able to return both himself and his impertinent nephew. My speech, however sarcastically treated by Mr. Fairfield, must at least have disposed the Yellow party to vote rather for me than for a determined opponent like Egerton." "I hope so; for your speech and Fairfield's answer have damaged you terribly with the Blues. However, your main hope rests on my power to keep those Hundred and Fifty rascals from splitting their votes on Egerton, and to induce them, by all means short of bringing myself before a Committee of the House of Commons for positive bribery,--which would hurt most seriously my present social position,--to give one vote to you. I shall tell them, as I have told the Committee, that Egerton is safe, and will pay nothing; but that you want the votes, and that I--in short, if they can be bought upon tick, I will buy them. Avenel, however, can serve you best here; for as they are all Yellows at heart, they make no scruple of hinting that they want twice as much for voting Blue as they will take for voting Yellow. And Avenel being a townsman, and knowing their ways, could contrive to gain them, and yet not bribe." RANDAL (shaking his head incredulously).--"Not bribe!" LEVY.--"Pooh! Not bribe so as to be found out." There was a knock at the door. A servant entered and presented Mr. Egerton's compliments to Baron Levy, with a request that the baron would immediately come to his rooms for a few minutes. "Well," said Levy, when the servant had withdrawn, "I must go to Egerton, and the instant I leave him I shall repair to the town. Perhaps I may pass the night there." So saying, he left Randal, and took his way to Audley's apartment. "Levy," said the statesman, abruptly, upon the entrance of the baron, "have you betrayed my secret--my first marriage--to Lord L'Estrange?" "No, Egerton; on my honour, I have not betrayed it." "You heard his speech! Did you not detect a fearful irony under his praises, or is it but--but-my conscience?" added the proud man, through his set teeth. "Really," said Levy, "Lord L'Estrange seemed to me to select for his praise precisely those points in your character which any other of your friends would select for panegyric." "Ay, any other of my friends!--What friends?" muttered Egerton, gloomily. Then, rousing himself, he added, in a voice that had none of its accustomed clear firmness of tone, "Your presence here in this house, Levy, surprised me, as I told you at the first; I could not conceive its necessity. Harley urged you to come,--he with whom you are no favourite! You and he both said that your acquaintance with Richard Avenel would enable you to conciliate his opposition. I cannot congratulate you on your success." "My success remains to be proved. The vehemence of his attack may be but a feint to cover his alliance to-morrow." Audley went on without notice of the interruption. "There is a change in Harley,--to me and to all; a change, perhaps, not perceptible to others-- but I have known him from a boy." "He is occupied for the first time with the practical business of life. That would account for a much greater change than you remark." "Do you see him familiarly, converse with him often?" "No, and only on matters connected with the election. Occasionally, indeed, he consults me as to Randal Leslie, in whom, as your special protege, he takes considerable interest." "That, too, surprises me. Well, I am weary of perplexing myself. This place is hateful; after to-morrow I shall leave it, and breathe in peace. You have seen the reports of the canvass; I have had no heart to inspect them. Is the election as safe as they say?" "If Avenel withdraws his nephew, and the votes thus released split off to you, you are secure." "And you think his nephew will be withdrawn? Poor young man! defeat at his age, and with such talents, is hard to bear." Audley sighed. "I must leave you now, if you have nothing important to say," said the baron, rising. "I have much to do, as the election is yet to be won, and--to you the loss of it would be--" "Ruin, I know. Well, Levy, it is, on the whole, to your advantage that I should not lose. There may be more to get from me yet. And, judging by the letters I received this morning, my position is rendered so safe by the absolute necessity of my party to keep me up, that the news of my pecuniary difficulties will not affect me so much as I once feared. Never was my career so free from obstacle, so clear towards the highest summit of ambition; never, in my day of ostentatious magnificence, as it is now, when I am prepared to shrink into a lodging, with a single servant." "I am glad to hear it; and I am the more anxious to secure your election, upon which this career must depend, because--nay, I hardly like to tell you--" "Speak on." "I have been obliged, by a sudden rush on all my resources, to consign some of your bills and promissory notes to another, who, if your person should not be protected from arrest by parliamentary privilege, might be harsh and--" "Traitor!" interrupted Egerton, fiercely, all the composed contempt with which he usually treated the usurer giving way, "say no more. How could I ever expect otherwise! You have foreseen my defeat, and have planned my destruction. Presume no reply! Sir, begone from my presence!" "You will find that you have worse friends than myself," said the baron, moving to the door; "and if you are defeated, if your prospects for life are destroyed, I am the last man you will think of blaming. But I forgive your anger, and trust that to-morrow you will receive those explanations of my conduct which you are now in no temper to bear. I go to take care of the election." Left alone, Audley's sudden passion seemed to forsake him. He gathered together, in that prompt and logical precision which the habit of transacting public business bestows, all his thoughts, and sounded all his fears; and most vivid of every thought, and most intolerable of every fear, was the belief that the baron had betrayed him to L'Estrange. "I cannot bear this suspense," he cried aloud and abruptly. "I will see Harley myself. Open as he is, the very sound of his voice will tell me at once if I am a bankrupt even of human friendship. If that friendship be secure, if Harley yet clasp my hand with the same cordial warmth, all other loss shall not wring from my fortitude one complaint." He rang the bell; his valet, who was waiting in the anteroom, appeared. "Go and see if Lord L'Estrange is engaged. I would speak with him." The servant came back in less than two minutes. "I find that my Lord is now particularly engaged, since he has given strict orders that he is not to be disturbed." "Engaged! on what, whom with?" "He is in his own room, sir, with a clergyman, who arrived, and dined here, to-day. I am told that he was formerly curate of Lansmere." "Lansmere! curate! His name, his name! Not Dale?" "Yes, sir, that is the name,--the Reverend Mr. Dale." "Leave me," said Audley, in a faint voice. "Dale! the man who suspected Harley, who called on me in London, spoke of a child,--my child,--and sent me to find but another grave! He closeted with Harley,--he!" Audley sank back on his chair, and literally gasped for breath. Few men in the world had a more established reputation for the courage that dignifies manhood, whether the physical courage or the moral. But at that moment it was not grief, not remorse, that paralyzed Audley,--it was fear. The brave man saw before him, as a thing visible and menacing, the aspect of his own treachery,--that crime of a coward; and into cowardice he was stricken. What had he to dread? Nothing save the accusing face of an injured friend,--nothing but that. And what more terrible? The only being, amidst all his pomp of partisans, who survived to love him, the only being for whom the cold statesman felt the happy, living, human tenderness of private affection, lost to him forever! He covered his face with both hands, and sat in suspense of something awful, as a child sits in the dark, the drops on his brow, and his frame trembling. CHAPTER XXVIII. Meanwhile Harley had listened to Mr. Dale's vindication of Leonard with cold attention. "Enough," said he, at the close. "Mr. Fairfield (for so we will yet call him) shall see me to-night; and if apology be due to him, I will make it. At the same time, it shall be decided whether he continue this contest or retire. And now, Mr. Dale, it was not to hear how this young man wooed, or shrunk from wooing, my affianced bride, that I availed myself of your promise to visit me at this house. We agreed that the seducer of Nora Avenel deserved chastisement, and I promised that Nora Avenel's son should find a father. Both these assurances shall be fulfilled to- morrow. And you, sir," continued Harley, rising, his whole form gradually enlarged by the dignity of passion, "who wear the garb appropriated to the holiest office of Christian charity; you who have presumed to think that, before the beard had darkened my cheek, I could first betray the girl who had been reared under this roof, then abandon her,--sneak like a dastard from the place in which my victim came to die, leave my own son, by the woman thus wronged, without thought or care, through the perilous years of tempted youth, till I found him, by chance, an outcast in a desert more dread than Hagar's,--you, sir, who have for long years thus judged of me, shall have the occasion to direct your holy anger towards the rightful head; and in me, you who have condemned the culprit shall respect the judge." Mr. Dale was at first startled, and almost awed, by this unexpected burst. But, accustomed to deal with the sternest and the darkest passions, his calm sense and his habit of authority over those whose souls were bared to him, nobly recovered from their surprise. "My Lord," said he, "first, with humility I bow to your rebuke, and entreat your pardon for my erring, and, as you say, my uncharitable opinions. We dwellers in a village and obscure pastors of a humble flock, we, mercifully removed from temptation, are too apt, perhaps, to exaggerate its power over those whose lots are cast in that great world which has so many gates ever open to evil. This is my sole excuse if I was misled by what appeared to me strong circumstantial evidence. But forgive me again if I warn you not to fall into an error perhaps little lighter than my own. Your passion, when you cleared yourself from reproach, became you. But ah, my Lord, when with that stern brow and those flashing eyes, you launched your menace upon another over whom you would constitute yourself the judge, forgetful of the divine precept, 'Judge not,' I felt that I was listening no longer to honest self-vindication,--I felt that I was listening to fierce revenge!" "Call it revenge, or what you will," said Harley, with sullen firmness; "but I have been stung too deeply not to sting. Frank with all, till the last few days, I have ever been. Frank to you, at least, even now, this much I tell you: I pretend to no virtue in what I still hold to be justice; but no declamations nor homilies tending to prove that justice is sinful will move my resolves. As man I have been outraged, and as man I will retaliate. The way and the mode, the true criminal and his fitting sentence, you will soon learn, sir. I have much to do to-night; forgive me if I adjourn for the present all further conference." "No, no; do not dismiss me. There is something, in spite of your present language, which so commands my interest; I see that there has been so much suffering where there is now so much wrath,--that I would save you from the suffering worse than all,--remorse. Oh, pause, my dear Lord, pause and answer me but two questions; then I will leave your after course to yourself." "Say on, sir," said Lord L'Estrange, touched, and with respect. "First; then, analyze your own feelings. Is this anger merely to punish an offender and to right the living,--for who can pretend to right the dead? Or is there not some private hate that stirs and animates and confuses all?" Harley remained silent. Mr. Dale renewed, "You loved this poor girl. Your language even now reveals it. You speak of treachery: perhaps you had a rival who deceived you; I know not, guess not, whom. But if you would strike the rival, must you not wound the innocent son? And, in presenting Nora's child to his father, as you pledge yourself to do, can you mean some cruel mockery that, under seeming kindness, implies some unnatural vengeance?" "You read well the heart of man," said Harley; "and I have owned to you that I am but man. Pass on; you have another question." "And one more solemn and important. In my world of a village, revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble! but Christ's religion, which is the sublime Civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble a man; and nothing so debases him as revenge. Look into your own heart, and tell me whether, since you have cherished this passion, you have not felt all sense of right and wrong confused,--have not felt that whatever would before have seemed to you mean and base, appears now but just means to your heated end. Revenge is ever a hypocrite: rage, at least, strikes with the naked sword; but revenge, stealthy and patient, conceals the weapon of the assassin. My Lord, your colour changes. What is your answer to my question?" "Oh," exclaimed Harley, with a voice thrilling in its mournful anguish, "it is not since I have cherished the revenge that I am changed, that right and wrong grow dark to me, that hypocrisy seems the atmosphere fit for earth. No; it is since the discovery that demands the vengeance. It is useless, sir," he continued impetuously,--" useless to argue with me. Were I to sit down, patient and impotent, under the sense of the wrong which I have received, I should feel, indeed, that debasement which you ascribe to the gratification of what you term revenge. I should never regain the self-esteem which the sentiment of power now restores to me; I should feel as if the whole world could perceive and jeer at my meek humiliation. I know not why I have said so much,--why I have betrayed to you so much of my secret mind, and stooped to vindicate my purpose. I never meant it. Again I say, we must close this conference." Harley here walked to the door, and opened it significantly. "One word more, Lord L'Estrange,--but one. You will not hear me. I am a comparative stranger, but you have a friend, a friend dear and intimate, now under the same roof. Will you consent, at least, to take counsel of Mr. Audley Egerton? None can doubt his friendship for you; none can doubt that whatever he advise will be that which best becomes your honour. What, my Lord, you hesitate,--you feel ashamed to confide to your dearest friend a purpose which his mind would condemn? Then I will seek him, I will implore him to save you from what can but entail repentance." "Mr. Dale, I must forbid you to see Mr. Egerton. What has passed beween us ought to be as sacred to you as a priest of Rome holds confession. This much, however, I will say to content you: I promise that I will do nothing that shall render me unworthy of Mr. Audley Egerton's friendship, or which his fine sense of honour shall justify him in blaming. Let that satisfy you." "Ah, my Lord," cried Mr. Dale, pausing irresolute at the doorway, and seizing Harley's hand, "I should indeed be satisfied if you would submit yourself to higher counsel than mine,--than Mr. Egerton's, than man's. Have you never felt the efficacy of prayer?" "My life has been wasted," replied Harley, "and I dare not, therefore, boast that I have found prayer efficacious. But, so far back as I can remember, it has at least been my habit to pray to Heaven, night and morning, until at least--until--" The natural and obstinate candour of the man forced out the last words, which implied reservation. He stopped short. "Until you have cherished revenge? You have not dared to pray since? Oh, reflect what evil there is within us, when we dare not come before Heaven,--dare not pray for what we wish. You are moved. I leave you to your own thoughts." Harley inclined his head, and the parson passed him by, and left him alone,--startled indeed; but was he softened? As Mr. Dale hurried along the corridor, much agitated, Violante stole from a recess formed by a large bay window, and linking her arm in his, said anxiously, but timidly: "I have been waiting for you, dear Mr. Dale; and so long! You have been with Lord L'Estrange?" "Well!" "Why do you not speak? You have left him comforted, happier?" "Happier! No." "What!" said Violante, with a look of surprise, and a sadness not unmixed with petulance in her quick tone. "What! does he then so grieve that Helen prefers another?" Despite the grave emotions that disturbed his mind, Mr. Dale was struck by Violante's question, and the voice in which it was said. He loved her tenderly. "Child, child," said he, "I am glad that Helen has escaped Lord L'Estrange. Beware, oh, beware how he excite any gentler interest in yourself. He is a dangerous man,--more dangerous for glimpses of a fine original nature. He may well move the heart of the innocent and inexperienced, for he has strangely crept into mine. But his heart is swollen with pride and ire and malice." "You mistake; it is false!" cried Violante, impetuously. "I cannot believe one word that would asperse him who has saved my father from a prison, or from death. You have not treated him gently. He fancies he has been wronged by Leonard, received ingratitude from Helen. He has felt the sting in proportion to his own susceptible and generous heart, and you have chided where you should have soothed. Poor Lord L'Estrange! And you have left him still indignant and unhappy?" "Foolish girl! I have left him meditating sin; I have left him afraid to pray; I have left him on the brink of some design--I know not what--but which involves more than Leonard in projects of revenge; I have left him so, that if his heart be really susceptible and generous, he will wake from wrath to be the victim of long and unavailing remorse. If your father has influence over him, tell Dr. Riccabocca what I say, and bid him seek, and in his turn save, the man who saved himself. He has not listened to religion,--he maybe more docile to philosophy. I cannot stay here longer,--I must go to Leonard." Mr. Dale broke from Violante and hurried down the corridor; Violante stood on the same spot, stunned and breathless. Harley on the brink of some strange sin! Harley to wake, the victim of remorse! Harley to be saved, as he had saved her father! Her breast heaved, her colour went and came, her eyes were raised, her lips murmured. She advanced with soft footsteps up the corridor; she saw the lights gleaming from Harley's room, and suddenly they were darkened, as the inmate of the room shut to the door, with angry and impatient hand. An outward act often betrays the inward mind. As Harley had thus closed the door, so had he sought to shut his heart from the intrusion of softer and holier thoughts. He had turned to his hearthstone, and stood on it, resolved and hardened. The man who had loved with such pertinacious fidelity far so many years could not at once part with hate. A passion once admitted to his breast, clung to it with such rooted force! But woe, woe to thee, Harley L'Estrange, if tomorrow at this hour thou stand at the hearthstone, thy designs accomplished, knowing that, in the fulfilment of thy blind will, thou hast met falsehood with falsehood, and deception with deceit! What though those designs now seem so consummate, so just, so appropriate, so exquisite a revenge,--seem to thee the sole revenge wit can plan and civilized life allow: wilt thou ever wash from thy memory the stain that will sully thine honour? Thou, too, professing friendship still, and masking perfidy under smiles! Grant that the wrong be great as thou deem it,--be ten times greater: the sense of thy meanness, O gentleman and soldier, will bring the blush to thy cheek in the depth of thy solitude. Thou, who now thinkest others unworthy a trustful love, wilt feel thyself forever unworthy theirs. Thy seclusion will know not repose. The dignity of man will forsake thee. Thy proud eye will quail from the gaze. Thy step will no longer spurn the earth that it treads on. He who has once done a base thing is never again wholly reconciled to honour. And woe--thrice woe, if thou learn too late that thou hast exaggerated thy fancied wrong: that there is excuse, where thou seest none; that thy friend may have erred, but that his error is venial compared to thy fancied retribution! Thus, however, in the superb elation of conscious power, though lavished on a miserable object,--a terrible example of what changes one evil and hateful thought, cherished to the exclusion of all others, can make in the noblest nature, stood, on the hearth of his fathers, and on the abyss of a sorrow and a shame from which there could be no recall, the determined and scornful man. A hand is on the door,--he does not hear it; a form passes the threshold,-he does not see it; a light step pauses, a soft eye gazes. Deaf and blind still to both. Violante came on, gathering courage, and stood at the hearth by his side. CHAPTER XXIX. "LORD L'ESTRANGE, noble friend!" "You!--and here--Violante? Is it I whom you seek? For what? Good heavens! what has happened? Why are you so pale; why tremble?" "Have you forgiven Helen?" asked Violante, beginning with evasive question, and her cheek was pale no more. "Helen, the poor child! I have nothing in her to forgive, much to thank her for. She has been frank and honest." "And Leonard--whom I remember in my childhood--you have forgiven him?" "Fair mediator," said Harley, smiling, though coldly, "happy is the man who deceives another; all plead for him. And if the man deceived cannot forgive, no one will sympathize or excuse." "But Leonard did not deceive you?" "Yes, from the first. It is a long tale, and not to be told to you; but I cannot forgive him." "Adieu! my Lord. Helen must, then, still be very dear to you!" Violante turned away. Her emotion was so artless, her very anger so charming, that the love, against which, in the prevalence of his later and darker passions, he had so sternly struggled, rushed back upon Harley's breast; but it came only in storm. "Stay, but talk not of Helen!" he exclaimed. "Ah, if Leonard's sole offence had been what you appear to deem it, do you think I could feel resentment? No; I should have gratefully hailed the hand that severed a rash and ungenial tie. I would have given my ward to her lover with such a dower as it suits my wealth to bestow. But his offence dates from his very birth. To bless and to enrich the son of a man who--Violante, listen to me. We may soon part, and forever. Others may misconstrue my actions; you, at least, shall know from what just principle they spring. There was a man whom I singled out of the world as more than a brother. In the romance of my boyhood I saw one who dazzled my fancy, captivated my heart. It was a dream of Beauty breathed into waking life. I loved, --I believed myself beloved. I confided all my heart to this friend,-- this more than brother; he undertook to befriend and to aid my suit. On that very pretext he first saw this ill-fated girl, saw, betrayed, destroyed her; left me ignorant that her love, which I had thought mine, had been lavished so wildly on another; left me to believe that my own suit she had fled, but in generous self-sacrifice,--for she was poor and humbly born; that--oh, vain idiot that I was!--the self-sacrifice had been too strong for a young human heart, which had broken in the struggle; left me to corrode my spring of life in remorse; clasped my hand in mocking comfort, smiled at my tears of agony--not one tear himself for his own poor victim! And suddenly, not long since, I learned all this. And in the father of Leonard Fairfield, you behold the man who has poisoned all the well-spring of joy to me. You weep! Oh, Violante! the Past he has blighted and embittered,--that I could forgive; but the Future is blasted too. For just ere this treason was revealed to me, I had begun to awake from the torpor of my dreary penance, to look with fortitude towards the duties I had slighted, to own that the pilgrimage before me was not barren. And then, oh then, I felt that all love was not buried in a grave. I felt that you, had fate so granted, might have been all to my manhood which youth only saw through the delusion of its golden mists. True, I was then bound to Helen; true, that honour to her might forbid me all hope. But still, even to know that my heart was not all ashes, that I could love again, that that glorious power and privilege of our being was still mine, seemed to me so heavenly sweet. But then this revelation of falsehood burst on me, and all truth seemed blotted from the universe. I am freed from Helen; ah, freed, forsooth,-- because not even rank and wealth, and benefits and confiding tenderness, could bind to me one human heart! Free from her; but between me and your fresh nature stands Suspicion as an Upas tree. Not a hope that would pass through the tainted air and fly to you, but falls dead under the dismal boughs. I love! "Ha, ha! I--I, whom the past has taught the impossibility to be loved again. No: if those soft lips murmured 'Yes' to the burning prayer that, had I been free but two short weeks ago, would have rushed from the frank deeps of my heart, I should but imagine that you deceived yourself,--a girl's first fleeting delusive fancy,--nothing more! Were you my bride, Violante, I should but debase your bright nature by my own curse of distrust. At each word of tenderness, my heart would say, 'How long will this last; when will the deception come?' Your beauty, your gifts, would bring me but jealous terror, eternally I should fly from the Present to the Future, and say. 'These hairs will be gray, while flattering youth will surround her in the zenith of her charms.' Why then do I hate and curse my foe? Why do I resolve upon revenge? I comprehend it now. I knew that there was something more imperious than the ghost of the Past that urged me on. Gazing on you, I feel that it was the dim sense of a mighty and priceless loss; it is not the dead Nora,--it is the living Violante. Look not at me with those reproachful eyes: they cannot reverse my purpose; they cannot banish suspicion from my sickened soul; they cannot create a sunshine in the midst of this ghastly twilight. Go, go; leave me to the sole joy that bequeaths no disappointment, the sole feeling that unites me to social man; leave me to my revenge." "Revenge! Oh, cruel!" exclaimed Violante, laying her hand on his arm. "And in revenge, it is your own life that you will risk!" "My life, simple child! This is no contest of life against life. Could I bare to all the world my wrongs for their ribald laughter, I should only give to my foe the triumph to pity my frenzy, to shun the contest; or grant it, if I could find a second--and then fire in the air. And all the world would say, 'Generous Egerton! soul of honour!'" "Egerton, Mr. Egerton! He cannot be this foe? It is not on him you can design revenge,--you who spend all your hours in serving his cause, you to whom he trusts so fondly, you who leaned yesterday on his shoulder, and smiled so cheeringly in his face?" "Did I? Hypocrisy against hypocrisy, snare against snare: that is my revenge." "Harley, Harley! Cease, cease!" The storm of passion rushed on unheeding. "I seem to promote his ambition but to crush it into the mire. I have delivered him from the gentler gripe of an usurer, so that he shall hold at my option alms or a prison--" "Friend, friend! Hush, hush!" "I have made the youth he has reared and fostered into treachery like his own (your father's precious choice, Randal Leslie) mine instrument in the galling lesson how ingratitude can sting. His very son shall avenge the mother, and be led to his father's breast as victor, with Randal Leslie, in the contest that deprives sire and benefactor of all that makes life dear to ambitious egotism. And if, in the breast of Audley Egerton, there can yet lurk one memory of what I was to him and to truth, not his least punishment will be the sense that his own perfidy has so changed the man whose very scorn of falsehood has taught him to find in fraud itself the power of retribution." "If this be not a terrible dream," murmured Violante, recoiling, "it is not your foe alone that you will deprive of all that makes life dear. Act thus--and what, in the future, is left to me?" "To you? Oh, never fear. I may give Randal Leslie a triumph over his patron, but in the same hour I will unmask his villany, and sweep him forever from your path. What in the future is left to you?---your birthright and your native land; hope, joy, love, felicity. Could it be possible that in the soft but sunny fancy which plays round the heart of maiden youth, but still sends no warmth into its deeps,--could it be possible that you had Honoured me with a gentler thought, it will pass away, and you will be the pride and delight of one of your own years, to whom the vista of Time is haunted by no chilling spectres, one who can look upon that lovely face, and not turn away to mutter, 'Too fair, too fair for me!'" "Oh, agony!" exclaimed Violante, with sudden passion. "In my turn hear me. If, as you promise, I am released from the dreadful thought that he, at whose touch I shudder, can claim this hand, my choice is irrevocably made. The altars which await me will not be those of a human love. But oh, I implore you--by all the memories of your own life, hitherto, if sorrowful, unsullied, by the generous interest you yet profess for me, whom you will have twice saved from a danger to which death were mercy-- leave, oh, leave to me the right to regard your image as I have done from the first dawn of childhood. Leave me the right to honour and revere it. Let not an act accompanied with a meanness--oh that I should say the word!--a meanness and a cruelty that give the lie to your whole life-- make even a grateful remembrance of you an unworthy sin. When I kneel within the walls that divide me from the world, oh, let me think that I can pray for you as the noblest being that the world contains! Hear me! hear me!" "Violante!" murmured Harley, his whole frame heaving with emotion, "bear with me. Do not ask of me the sacrifice of what seems to me the cause of manhood itself,--to sit down, meek and patient, under a wrong that debases me, with the consciousness that all my life I have been the miserable dupe to affections I deemed so honest, to regrets that I believed so holy. Ah, I should feel more mean in my pardon than you can think me in revenge! Were it an acknowledged enemy, I could open my arms to him at your bidding; but the perfidious friend!--ask it not. My cheek burns at the, thought, as at the stain of a blow. Give me but to-morrow --one day--I demand no more--wholly to myself and to the past, and mould me for the future as you will. Pardon, pardon the ungenerous thoughts that extended distrust to you. I retract them; they are gone,--dispelled before those touching words, those ingenuous eyes. At your feet, Violante, I repent and I implore! Your father himself shall banish your sordid suitor. Before this hour to-morrow you will be free. Oh, then, then! will you not give me this hand to guide me again into the paradise of my youth? Violante, it is in vain to wrestle with myself, to doubt, to reason, to be wisely fearful! I love, I love you! I trust again in virtue and faith. I place my fate in your keeping." If at times Violante may appear to have ventured beyond the limit of strict maiden bashfulness, much may be ascribed to her habitual candour, her solitary rearing, and remoteness from the world, the very innocence of her soul, and the warmth of heart which Italy gives its daughters. But now that sublimity of thought and purpose which pervaded her nature, and required only circumstances to develop, made her superior to all the promptings of love itself. Dreams realized which she had scarcely dared to own; Harley free, Harley at her feet; all the woman struggling at her heart, mantling in her blushes, still stronger than love, stronger than the joy of being loved again, was the heroic will,--will to save him, who in all else ruled her existence, from the eternal degradation to which passion had blinded his own confused and warring spirit. Leaving one hand in his impassioned clasp, as he still knelt before her, she raised on high the other. "Ah," she said, scarce audibly,--"ah, if heaven vouchsafe me the proud and blissful privilege to be allied to your fate, to minister to your happiness, never should I know one fear of your distrust. No time, no change, no sorrow--not even the loss of your affection--could make me forfeit the right to remember that you had once confided to me a heart so noble. But"--here her voice rose in its tone, and the glow fled from her cheek--"but, O Thou the Ever Present, hear and receive the solemn vow. If to me he refuse to sacrifice the sin that would debase him, that sin be the barrier between us evermore; and may my life, devoted to Thy service, atone for the hour in which he belied the nature he received from Thee! Harley, release me! I have spoken: firm as yourself, I leave the choice to you." "You judge me harshly," said Harley, rising, with sullen anger; "but at least I have not the meanness to sell what I hold as justice, though the bribe may include my last hope of happiness." "Meanness! Oh, unhappy, beloved Harley!" exclaimed Violante, with such a gush of exquisite reproachful tenderness, that it thrilled him as the voice of the parting guardian angel. "Meanness! But it is that from which I implore you to save yourself. You cannot judge, you cannot see. You are dark, dark. Lost Christian that you are, what worse than heathen darkness to feign the friendship the better to betray; to punish falsehood by becoming yourself so false; to accept the confidence even of your bitterest foe, and then to sink below his own level in deceit? And oh, worse than all--to threaten that a son--son of the woman you professed to love--should swell your vengeance against a father! No! it was not you that said this,--it was the Fiend!" "Enough!" exclaimed Harley, startled, conscience-stricken, and rushing into resentment, in order to escape the sense of shame. "Enough! you insult the man you professed to honour." "I honoured the prototype of gentleness and valour. I honoured one who seemed to me to clothe with life every grand and generous image that is born from the souls of poets. Destroy that ideal, and you destroy the Harley whom I honoured. He is dead to me forever. I will mourn for him as his widow, faithful to his memory, weeping over the thought of what he was." Sobs choked her voice; but as Harley, once more melted, sprang forward to regain her side, she escaped with a yet quicker movement, gained the door, and darting down the corridor, vanished from his sight. Harley stood still one moment, thoroughly irresolute, nay, almost subdued. Then sternness, though less rigid than before, gradually came to his brow. The demon had still its hold in the stubborn and marvellous pertinacity with which the man clung to all that once struck root at his heart. With a sudden impulse that still withheld decision, yet spoke of sore-shaken purpose, he strode to his desk, drew from it Nora's manuscript, and passed from his room. Harley had meant never to have revealed to Audley the secret he had gained until the moment when revenge was consuminated. He had contemplated no vain reproach. His wrath would have spoken forth in deeds, and then a word would have sufficed as the key to all. Willing, perhaps, to hail some extenuation of perfidy, though the possibility of such extenuation he had never before admitted, he determined on the interview which he had hitherto so obstinately shunned, and went straight to the room in which Audley Egerton still sat, solitary and fearful. CHAPTER XXX. Egerton heard the well-known step advancing near and nearer up the corridor, heard the door open and reclose; and he felt, by one of those strange and unaccountable instincts which we call forebodings, that the hour he had dreaded for so many secret years had come at last. He nerved his courage, withdrew his hands from his face, and rose in silence. No less silent, Harley stood before him. The two men gazed on each other; you might have heard their breathing. "You have seen Mr. Dale?" said Egerton, at length. "You know--" "All!" said Harley, completing the arrested sentence. Audley drew a long sigh. "Be it so; but no, Harley, you deceive yourself; you cannot know all, from any one living, save myself." "My knowledge comes from the dead," answered Harley, and the fatal memoir dropped from his hand upon the table. The leaves fell with a dull, low sound, mournful and faint as might be the tread of a ghost, if the tread gave sound. They fell, those still confessions of an obscure, uncomprehended life, amidst letters and documents eloquent of the strife that was then agitating millions,--the fleeting, turbulent fears and hopes that torture parties and perplex a nation; the stormy business of practical public life, so remote from individual love and individual sorrow. Egerton's eye saw them fall. The room was but partially lighted. At the distance where he stood, he did not recognize the characters; but involuntarily he shivered, and involuntarily drew near. "Hold yet awhile," said Harley. "I produce my charge, and then I leave you to dispute the only witness that I bring. Audley Egerton, you took from me the gravest trust one man can confide to another. You knew how I loved Leonora Avenel. I was forbidden to see and urge my suit; you had the access to her presence which was denied to myself. I prayed you to remove scruples that I deemed too generous, and to woo her not to dishonour, but to be my wife. Was it so? Answer." "It is true," said Audley, his hand clenched at his heart. "You saw her whom I thus loved,--her thus confided to your honour. You wooed her for yourself. Is it so?" "Harley, I deny it not. Cease here. I accept the penalty; I resign your friendship; I quit your roof; I submit to your contempt; I dare not implore your pardon. Cease; let me go hence, and soon!" The strong man gasped for breath. Harley looked at him steadfastly, then turned away his eyes, and went on. "Nay," said he, "is that ALL? You wooed her for yourself,--you won her. Account to me for that life which you wrenched from mine. You are silent. I will take on myself your task; you took that life and destroyed it." "Spare me, spare me!" "What was the fate of her who seemed so fresh from heaven when these eyes beheld her last? A broken heart, a dishonoured name, an early doom, a forgotten gravestone!" "No, no--forgotten,--no!" "Not forgotten! Scarce a year passed, and you were married to another. I aided you to form those nuptials which secured your fortunes. You have had rank and power and fame. Peers call you the type of English gentlemen; priests hold you as a model of Christian honour. Strip the mask, Audley Egerton; let the world know you for what you are!" Egerton raised his head, and folded his arms calmly; but he said, with a melancholy humility, "I bear all from you; it is just. Say on." "You took from me the heart of Nora Avenel. You abandoned her, you destroyed. And her memory cast no shadow over your daily sunshine; while over my thoughts, over my life--oh, Egerton--Audley, Audley--how could you have deceived me thus!" Here the inherent tenderness under all this hate, the fount imbedded under the hardening stone, broke out. Harley was ashamed of his weakness, and hurried on, "Deceived,--not for an hour, a day, but through blighted youth, through listless manhood,--you suffered me to nurse the remorse that should have been your own; her life slain, mine wasted,--and shall neither of us have revenge?" "Revenge! Ah, Harley, you have had it!" "No, but I await it! Not in vain from the charnel have come to me the records I produce. And whom did fate select to discover the wrongs of the mother, whom appoint as her avenger? Your son,--your own son; your abandoned, nameless son!" "Son! son!" "Whom I delivered from famine, or from worse; and who, in return, has given into my hands the evidence which proclaims in you the perjured friend of Harley L'Estrange, and the fraudulent seducer, under mock marriage forms--worse than all franker sin--of Leonora Avenel." "It is false! false!" exclaimed Egerton, all his stateliness and all his energy restored to him. "I forbid you to speak thus to me. I forbid you by one word to sully the memory of my lawful wife!" "Ah!" said Harley, startled. "Ah! false? prove that, and revenge is over! Thank Heaven!" "Prove it! What so easy? And wherefore have I delayed the proof; wherefore concealed, but from tenderness to you,--dread, too--a selfish but human dread--to lose in you the sole esteem that I covet; the only mourner who would have shed one tear over the stone inscribed with some lying epitaph, in which it will suit a party purpose to proclaim the gratitude of a nation. Vain hope. I resign it! But you spoke of a son. Alas, alas! you are again deceived. I heard that I had a son,--years, long years ago. I sought him, and found a grave. But bless you, Harley, if you succoured one whom you even erringly suspect to be Leonora's child!" He stretched forth his hands as he spoke. "Of your son we will speak later," said Harley, strangely softened. "But before I say more of him, let me ask you to explain; let me hope that you can extenuate what--" "You are right," interrupted Egerton, with eager quickness. "You would know from my own lips at last the plain tale of my own offence against you. It is due to both. Patiently hear me out." Then Egerton told all,--his own love for Nora, his struggles against what he felt as treason to his friend, his sudden discovery of Nora's love for him; on that discovery, the overthrow of all his resolutions; their secret marriage, their separation; Nora's flight, to which Audley still assigned but her groundless vague suspicion that their nuptials had not been legal, and her impatience of his own delay in acknowledging the rite. His listener interrupted him here with a few questions, the clear and prompt replies to which enabled Harley to detect Levy's plausible perversion of the facts; and he vaguely guessed the cause of the usurer's falsehood, in the criminal passion which the ill-fated bride had inspired. "Egerton," said Harley, stifling with an effort his own wrath against the vile deceiver both of wife and husband, "if, on reading those papers, you find that Leonora had more excuse for her suspicions and flight than you now deem, and discover perfidy in one to whom you trusted your secret, leave his punishment to Heaven. All that you say convinces me more and more that we cannot even see through the cloud, much less guide the thunderbolt. But proceed." Audley looked surprised and startled, and his eye turned wistfully towards the papers; but after a short pause he continued his recital. He came to Nora's unexpected return to her father's house, her death, his conquest of his own grief, that he might spare Harley the abrupt shock of learning her decease. He had torn himself from the dead, in remorseful sympathy with the living. He spoke of Harley's illness, so nearly fatal, repeated Harley's jealous words, "that he would rather mourn Nora's death, than take comfort from the thought that she had loved another." He spoke of his journey to the village where Mr. Dale had told him Nora's child was placed--"and, hearing that child and mother were alike gone, whom now could I right by acknowledging a bond that I feared would so wring your heart?" Audley again paused a moment, and resumed in short, nervous, impressive sentences. This cold, austere man of the world for the first time bared his heart,--unconscious, perhaps, that he did so; unconscious that he revealed how deeply, amidst State cares and public distinctions, he had felt the absence of affections; how mechanical was that outer circle in the folds of life which is called a "career;" how valueless wealth had grown--none to inherit it. Of his gnawing and progressive disease alone he did not speak; he was too proud and too masculine to appeal to pity for physical ills. He reminded Harley how often, how eagerly, year after year, month after month, he had urged his friend to rouse himself from mournful dreams, devote his native powers to his country, or seek the surer felicity of domestic ties. "Selfish in these attempts I might be," said Egerton; "it was only if I saw you restored to happiness that I could believe you could calmly hear my explanation of the past, and on the floor of some happy home grant me your forgiveness. I longed to confess, and I dared not. Often have the words rushed to my lips,--as often some chance sentence from you repelled me. In a word, with you were so entwined all the thoughts and affections of my youth--even those that haunted the grave of Nora--that I could not bear to resign your friendship, and, surrounded by the esteem and honour of a world I cared not for, to meet the contempt of your reproachful eye." Amidst all that Audley said, amidst all that admitted of no excuse, two predominant sentiments stood clear, in unmistakable and touching pathos, --remorseful regret for the lost Nora, and self-accusing, earnest, almost feminine tenderness for the friend he had deceived. Thus, as he continued to speak, Harley more and more forgot even the remembrance of his own guilty and terrible interval of hate; the gulf that had so darkly yawned between the two closed up, leaving them still standing side by side, as in their schoolboy days. But he remained silent, listening, shading his face from Audley, and as if under some soft but enthralling spell, till Egerton thus closed, "And now, Harley, all is told. You spoke of revenge?" "Revenge!" muttered Harley, starting. "And believe me," continued Egerton, "were revenge in your power, I should rejoice at it as an atonement. To receive an injury in return for that which, first from youthful passion, and afterwards from the infirmity of purpose that concealed the wrong, I have inflicted upon you --why, that would soothe my conscience, and raise my lost self-esteem. The sole revenge you can bestow takes the form which most humiliates me, --to revenge is to pardon." Harley groaned; and still hiding his face with one hand, stretched forth the other, but rather with the air of one who entreats than who accords forgiveness. Audley took and pressed the hand thus extended. "And NOW, Harley, farewell. With the dawn I leave this house. I cannot now accept your aid in this election. Levy shall announce my resignation. Randal Leslie, if you so please it, may be returned in my stead. He has abilities which, under safe guidance, may serve his country; and I have no right to reject from vain pride whatever will promote the career of one whom I undertook, and have failed, to serve." "Ay, ay," muttered Harley; "think not of Randal Leslie; think but of your son." "My son! But are you sure that he still lives? You smile; you--you--oh, Harley, I took from you the mother,--give to me the son; break my heart with gratitude. Your revenge is found!" Lord L'Estrange rose with a sudden start, gazed on Audley for a moment,-- irresolute, not from resentment, but from shame. At that moment he was the man humbled; he was the man who feared reproach, and who needed pardon. Audley, not divining what was thus passing in Harley's breast, turned away. "You think that I ask too much; and yet all that I can give to the child of my love and the heir of my name is the worthless blessing of a ruined man. Harley, I say no more. I dare not add, 'You too loved his mother! and with a deeper and a nobler love than mine.'" He stopped short, and Harley flung himself on his breast. "Me--me--pardon me, Audley! Your offence has been slight to mine. You have told me your offence; never can I name to you my own. Rejoice that we have both to exchange forgiveness, and in that exchange we are equal still, Audley, brothers still. Look up! look up! think that we are boys now as we were once,--boys who have had their wild quarrel, and who, the moment it is over, feel dearer to each other than before." "Oh, Harley, this is revenge! It strikes home," murmured Egerton, and tears gushed fast from eyes that could have gazed unwinking on the rack. The clock struck; Harley sprang forward. "I have time yet," he cried. "Much to do and to undo. You are saved from the grasp of Levy; your election will be won; your fortunes in much may be restored; you have before you honours not yet achieved; your career as yet is scarce begun; your son will embrace you to-morrow. Let me go--your hand again! Ah, Audley, we shall be so happy yet!" CHAPTER XXXI. "There is a hitch," said Dick, pithily, when Randal joined him in the oak copse at ten o'clock. "Life is full of hitches." RANDAL.--"The art of life is to smooth them away. What hitch is this, my dear Avenel?" DICK.--"Leonard has taken huff at certain expressions of Lord L'Estrange's at the nomination to-day, and talks of retiring from the contest." RANDAL (with secret glee).--"But his resignation would smooth a hitch, --not create one. The votes promised to him would thus be freed, and go to--" DICK.--"The Right Honourable Red-Tapist!" RANDAL.--"Are you serious?" DICK.--"As an undertaker! The fact is, there are two parties among the Yellows as there are in the Church,--High Yellow and Low Yellow. Leonard has made great way with the High Yellows, and has more influence with them than I; and the High Yellows infinitely preferred Egerton to yourself. They say, 'Politics apart, he would be an honour to the borough.' Leonard is of the same opinion; and if he retires, I don't think I could coax either him or the Highflyers to make you any the better by his resignation." RANDAL.--"But surely your nephew's sense of gratitude to you would induce him not to go against your wishes?" DICK.--"Unluckily, the gratitude is all the other way. It is I who am under obligations to him,--not he to me. As for Lord L'Estrange, I can't make head or tail of his real intentions; and why he should have attacked Leonard in that way puzzles me more than all, for he wished Leonard to stand; and Levy has privately informed me that, in spite of my Lord's friendship for the Right Honourable, you are the man he desires to secure." RANDAL.--"He has certainly shown that desire throughout the whole canvass." DICK.--"I suspect that the borough-mongers have got a seat for Egerton elsewhere; or, perhaps, should his party come in again, he is to be pitchforked into the Upper House." RANDAL (smiling).--"Ah, Avenel, you are so shrewd; you see through everything. I will also add that Egerton wants some short respite from public life, in order to nurse his health and attend to his affairs, otherwise I could not even contemplate the chance of the electors preferring me to him, without a pang." DICK.--"Pang! stuff--considerable. The oak-trees don't hear us! You want to come into parliament, and no mistake. If I am the man to retire,--as I always proposed, and had got Leonard to agree to, before this confounded speech of L'Estrange's,--come into parliament you will, for the Low Yellows I can twist round my finger, provided the High Yellows will not interfere; in short, I could transfer to you votes promised to me, but I can't answer for those promised to Leonard. Levy tells me you are to marry a rich girl, and will have lots of money; so, of course, you will pay my expenses if you come in through my votes." RANDAL.--"My dear Avenel, certainly I will." DICK.--" And I have two private bills I want to smuggle through parliament." RANDAL.--"They shall be smuggled, rely on it. Mr. Fairfield being on one side of the House, and I on the other, we two could prevent all unpleasant opposition. Private bills are easily managed,--with that tact which I flatter myself I possess." DICK.--"And when the bills are through the House, and you have had time to look about you, I dare say you will see that no man can go against Public Opinion, unless he wants to knock his own head against a stone wall; and that Public Opinion is decidedly Yellow." RANDAL (with candour).--"I cannot deny that Public Opinion is Yellow; and at my age, it is natural that I should not commit myself to the policy of a former generation. Blue is fast wearing out. But, to return to Mr. Fairfield: you do not speak as if you had no hope of keeping him straight to what I understand to be his agreement with yourself. Surely his honour is engaged to it?" DICK.--"I don't know as to honour; but he has now taken a fancy to public life,--at least so he said no later than this morning before we went into the hall; and I trust that matters will come right. Indeed, I left him with Parson Dale, who promised me that he would use all his best exertions to reconcile Leonard and my Lord, and that Leonard should do nothing hastily." RANDAL.--"But why should Mr. Fairfield retire because Lord L'Estrange wounds his feelings? I am sure Mr. Fairfield has wounded mine, but that does not make me think of retiring." DICK.--"Oh, Leonard is a poet, and poets are quite as crotchety as L'Estrange said they were. And Leonard is under obligations to Lord L'Estrange, and thought that Lord L'Estrange was pleased by his standing; whereas, now--In short, it is all Greek to me, except that Leonard has mounted his high horse, and if that throws him, I am afraid it will throw you. But still I have great confidence in Parson Dale,--a good fellow who has much influence with Leonard. And though I thought it right to be above-board, and let you know where the danger lies, yet one thing I can promise,--if I resign, you shall come in; so shake hands on it." RANDAL.--"My dear Avenel! And your wish is to resign?" DICK.--"Certainly. I should do so a little time after noon, contriving to be below Leonard on the poll. You know Emanuel Trout, the captain of the Hundred and Fifty 'Waiters on Providence,' as they are called?" RANDAL.--"To be sure I do." DICK.--"When Emanuel Trout comes into the booth, you will know how the election turns. As he votes, all the Hundred and Fifty will vote. Now I must go back. Good-night. "You'll not forget that my expenses are to be paid. Point of honour. Still, if they are not paid, the election can be upset,--petition for bribery and corruption; and if they are paid, why, Lansmere may be your seat for life." RANDAL.--"Your expenses shall be paid the moment my marriage gives me the means to pay them,--and that must be very soon." DICK.--"So Levy says. And my little jobs--the private bills?" RANDAL.--"Consider the bills passed and the jobs done." DICK.--"And one must not forget one's country. One must do the best one can for one's principles. Egerton is infernally Blue. You allow Public Opinion--is--" RANDAL.--"Yellow. Not a doubt of it." DICK.--"Good-night. Ha, ha! humbug, eh?" RANDAL.--"Humbug! Between men like us,--oh, no. Good-night, my dear friend, I rely on you." DICK.--"Yes; but mind, I promise nothing if Leonard Fairfield does not stand." RANDAL.--"He must stand; keep him to it. Your affairs, your business, your mill--" DICK.--"Very true. He must stand. I have great faith in Parson Dale." Randal glided back through the park. When he came on the terrace, he suddenly encountered Lord L'Estrange. "I have just been privately into the town, my dear Lord, and heard a strange rumour, that Mr. Fairfield was so annoyed by some remarks in your Lordship's admirable speech, that he talks of retiring from the contest. That would give a new feature to the election, and perplex all our calculations; and I fear, in that case, there might be some secret coalition between Avenel's friends and our Committee, whom, I am told, I displeased by the moderate speech which your Lordship so eloquently defended,--a coalition by which Avenel would come in with Mr. Egerton, whereas, if we all four stand, Mr. Egerton, I presume, will be quite safe,--and I certainly think I have an excellent chance." LORD L'ESTRANGE.---"SO Mr. Fairfield would retire in consequence of my remarks! I am going into the town, and I intend to apologize for those remarks, and retract them." RANDAL (joyously).--"Noble!" Lord L'Estrange looked at Leslie's face, upon which the stars gleamed palely. "Mr. Egerton has thought more of your success than of his own," said he, gravely, and hurried on. Randal continued on the terrace. Perhaps Harley's last words gave him a twinge of compunction. His head sunk musingly on his breast, and he paced to and fro the long gravel-walk, summoning up all his intellect to resist every temptation to what could injure his self-interest. "Skulking knave!" muttered Harley. "At least there will be nothing to repent, if I can do justice on him. That is not revenge. Come, that must be a fair retribution. Besides, how else can I deliver Violante?" He laughed gayly, his heart was so light; and his foot bounded on as fleet as the deer that he startled amongst the fern. A few yards from the turnstile he overtook Richard Avenel, disguised in a rough great-coat and spectacles. Nevertheless, Harley's eye detected the Yellow candidate at the first glance. He caught Dick familiarly by the arm. "Well met! I was going to you. We have the election to settle." "On the terms I mentioned to your Lordship?" said Dick, startled. "I will agree to return one of your candidates; but it must not be Audley Egerton." Harley whispered close in Avenel's ear. Avenel uttered an exclamation of amazement. The two gentlemen walked on rapidly, and conversing with great eagerness. "Certainly," said Avenel, at length, stopping short, "one would do a great deal to serve a family connection,--and a connection that does a man so much credit; and how can one go against one's own brother-in-law, --a gentleman of such high standing, pull up the whole family! How pleased Mrs. Richard Avenel will be! Why the devil did not I know it before? And poor--dear--dear Nora. Ah, that she were living!" Dick's voice trembled. "Her name will be righted; and I will explain why it was my fault that Egerton did not before acknowledge his marriage, and claim you as a brother. Come, then, it is all fixed and settled." "No, my Lord; I am pledged the other way. I don't see how I can get off my word--to Randal Leslie. I'm not over nice, nor what is called Quixotic; but still my word is given that if I retire from the election, I will do my best to return Leslie instead of Egerton." "I know that through Baron Levy. But if your nephew retires?" "Oh, that would solve all difficulties. But the poor boy has now a wish to come into parliament; and he has done me a service in the hour of need." "Leave it to me. And as to Randal Leslie, he shall have an occasion himself to acquit you and redeem himself; and happy, indeed, will it be for him if he has yet one spark of gratitude, or one particle of honour!" The two continued to converse for a few moments, Dick seeming to forget the election itself, and ask questions of more interest to his heart, which Harley answered so, that Dick wrung L'Estrange's hand with great emotion, and muttered, "My poor mother! I understand now why she would never talk to me of Nora. When may I tell her the truth?" "To-morrow evening, after the election, Egerton shall embrace you all." Dick started, and saying, "See Leonard as soon as you can,--there is no time to lose," plunged into a lane that led towards the obscurer recesses of the town. Harley continued his way with the same light elastic tread which (lost during his abnegation of his own nature) was now restored to the foot, that seemed loath to leave a print upon the mire. At the commencement of the High Street he encountered Mr. Dale and Fairfield, walking slowly, arm-in-arm. HARLEY.--"Leonard, I was coming to you. Give me your hand. Forget for the present the words that justly stung and offended you. I will do more than apologize,--I will repair the wrong. Excuse me, Mr. Dale, I have one word to say in private to Leonard." He drew Fairfield aside. "Avenel tells me that if you were to retire from this contest, it would be a sacrifice of inclination. Is it so?" "My Lord, I have sorrows that I would fain forget; and though I at first shrunk from the strife in which I have been since engaged, yet now a literary career seems to me to have lost its old charm; and I find that, in public life, there is a distraction to the thoughts which embitter solitude, that books fail to bestow. Therefore, if you still wish me to continue this contest, though I know not your motive, it will not be as it was to begin it,--a reluctant and a painful obedience to your request." "I understand. It was a sacrifice of inclination to begin the contest; it would be now a sacrifice of inclination to withdraw?" "Honestly, yes, my Lord." "I rejoice to hear it, for I ask that sacrifice,--a sacrifice which you will recall hereafter with delight and pride; a sacrifice sweeter, if I read your nature aright--oh, sweeter far, than all which commonplace ambition could bestow! And when you learn why I make this demand, you will say, 'This, indeed, is reparation for the words that wounded my affections, and wronged my heart.'" 'My Lord, my Lord!" exclaimed Leonard, "the injury is repaired already. You give me back your esteem, when you so well anticipate my answer. Your esteem!--life smiles again. I can return to my more legitimate career without a sigh. I have no need of distraction from thought now. You will believe that, whatever my past presumption, I can pray sincerely for your happiness." "Poet, you adorn your career; you fulfil your mission, even at this moment; you beautify the world; you give to the harsh form of Duty the cestus of the Graces," said Harley, trying to force a smile to his quivering lips. "But we must hasten back to the prose of existence. I accept your sacrifice. As for the time and mode I must select in order to insure its result, I will ask you to abide by such instructions as I shall have occasion to convey through your uncle. Till then, no word of your intentions,--not even to Mr. Dale. Forgive me if I would rather secure Mr. Egerton's election than yours. Let that explanation suffice for the present. What think you, by the way, of Audley Egerton?" "I thought when I heard him speak and when he closed with those touching words,--implying that he left all of his life not devoted to his country 'to the charity of his friends,'--how proudly, even as his opponent, I could have clasped his hand; and if he had wronged me in private life, I should have thought it ingratitude to the country he had so served to remember the offence." Harley turned away abruptly, and joined Mr. Dale. "Leave Leonard to go home by himself; you see that I have healed whatever wounds I inflicted on him." PARSON.--"And, your better nature thus awakened, I trust, my dear Lord, that you have altogether abandoned the idea of--" HARLEY.--"Revenge?--no. And if you do not approve that revenge to-morrow, I will never rest till I have seen you--a bishop!" MR. DALE (much shocked).--"My Lord, for shame!" HARLEY (seriously).--"My levity is but lip-deep, my dear Mr. Dale. But sometimes the froth on the wave shows the change in the tide." The parson looked at him earnestly, and then seized him by both hands with holy gladness and affection. "Return to the Park now," said Harley, smiling; "and tell Violante, if it be not too late to see her, that she was even more eloquent than you." Lord L'Estrange bounded forward. Mr. Dale walked back through the park to Lansmere House. On the terrace he found Randal, who was still pacing to and fro, sometimes in the starlight, sometimes in the shadow. Leslie looked up, and seeing Mr. Dale, the close astuteness of his aspect returned; and stepping out of the starlight deep into the shadow, he said, "I was sorry to learn that Mr. Fairfield had been so hurt by Lord L'Estrange's severe allusions. Pity that political differences should interfere with private friendships; but I hear that you have been to Mr. Fairfield,--and, doubtless, as the peacemaker. Perhaps you met Lord L'Estrange by the way? He promised me that he would apologize and retract." "Good young man!" said the unsuspecting parson, "he has done so." "And Mr. Leonard Fairfield will, therefore, I presume, continue the contest?" "Contest--ah, this election! I suppose so, of course. But I grieve that he should stand against you, who seem to be disposed towards him so kindly." "Oh," said Randal, with a benevolent smile, "we have fought before, you know, and I beat him then. I may do so again!" And he walked into the house, arm-in-arm with the parson. Mr. Dale sought Violante; Leslie retired to his own room, and felt his election was secured. Lord L'Estrange had gained the thick of the streets--passing groups of roaring enthusiasts--Blue and Yellow--now met with a cheer, now followed by a groan. Just by a public-house that formed the angle of a lane with the High Street, and which was all ablaze with light and all alive with clamour, he beheld the graceful baron leaning against the threshold, smoking his cigar, too refined to associate its divine vapour with the wreaths of shag within, and chatting agreeably with a knot of females, who were either attracted by the general excitement, or waiting to see husband, brother, father, or son, who were now joining in the chorus of "Blue forever!" that rang from tap-room to attic of the illumined hostelry. Levy, seeing Lord L'Estrange, withdrew his cigar from his lips, and hastened to join him. "All the Hundred and Fifty are in there," said the baron, with a backward significant jerk of his thumb towards the inn. "I have seen them all privately, in tens at a time; and I have been telling the ladies without that it will be best for the interest of their families to go home, and let us lock up the Hundred and Fifty safe from the Yellows, till we bring them to the poll. But I am afraid," continued Levy, "that the rascals are not to be relied upon unless I actually pay them beforehand; and that would be disreputable, immoral,--and, what is more, it would upset the election. Besides, if they are paid beforehand, query, is it quite sure how they will vote afterwards?" "Mr. Avenel, I dare say, can manage them," said Harley. "Pray do nothing immoral, and nothing that will upset the election. I think you might as well go home." "Home! No, pardon me, my Lord; there must be some head to direct the Committee, and keep our captains at their posts upon the doubtful electors. A great deal of mischief may be done between this and the morrow; and I would sit up all night--ay, six nights a week for the next three months--to prevent any awkward mistake by which Audley Egerton can be returned." "His return would really grieve you so much?" said Harley. "You may judge of that by the zeal with which I enter into all your designs." Here there was a sudden and wondrously loud shout from another inn,-- a Yellow inn, far down the lane, not so luminous as the Blue hostelry; on the contrary, looking rather dark and sinister, more like a place for conspirators or felons than honest, independent electors,--"Avenel forever! Avenel and the Yellows!" "Excuse me, my Lord, I must go back and watch over my black sheep, if I would have them blue!" said Levy; and he retreated towards the threshold. But at that shout of "Avenel forever!" as if at a signal, various electors of the redoubted Hundred and Fifty rushed from the Blue hostelry, sweeping past Levy, and hurrying down the lane to the dark little Yellow inn, followed by the female stragglers, as small birds follow an owl. It was not, however, very easy to get into that Yellow inn; Yellow Reformers, eminent for their zeal on behalf of purity of election, were stationed outside the door, and only strained in one candidate for admittance at a time. "After all," thought the baron, as be passed into the principal room of the Blue tavern, and proposed the national song of "Rule Britannia,"--"after all, Avenel hates Egerton as much as I do, and both sides work to the same end." And thrumming on the table, he joined with a fine lass in the famous line, "For Britons never will be slaves!" In the interim, Harley had disappeared within the Lansmere Arms, which was the headquarters of the Blue Committee. Not, however, mounting to the room in which a few of the more indefatigable were continuing their labours, receiving reports from scouts, giving orders, laying wagers, and very muzzy with British principles and spirits, Harley called aside the landlord, and inquired if the stranger, for whom rooms had been prepared, was yet arrived. An affirmative answer was given, and Harley followed the host up a private stair, to a part of the house remote from the rooms devoted to the purposes of the election. He remained with this stranger about half an hour, and then walked into the Committee-room, got rid of the more excited, conferred with the more sober, issued a few brief directions to such of the leaders as he felt he could most rely upon, and returned home as rapidly as he had quitted it. Dawn was gray in the skies when Harley sought his own chamber. To gain it, he passed by the door of Violante's. His heart suffused with grateful ineffable tenderness, he paused and kissed the threshold. When he stood within his room (the same that he had occupied in his early youth), he felt as if the load of years were lifted from his bosom. The joyous, divine elasticity of spirit, that in the morning of life springs towards the Future as a bird soars into heaven, pervaded his whole sense of being. A Greek poet implies that the height of bliss is the sudden relief of pain: there is a nobler bliss still,--the rapture of the conscience at the sudden release from a guilty thought. By the bedside at which he had knelt in boyhood, Harley paused to kneel once more. The luxury of prayer, interrupted since he had nourished schemes of which his passions had blinded him to the sin, but which, nevertheless, he dared not confess to the All-Merciful, was restored to him. And yet, as he bowed his knee, the elation of spirits he had before felt forsook him. The sense of the danger his soul had escaped, the full knowledge of the guilt to which the fiend had tempted, came dread before his clearing vision; he shuddered in horror of himself. And he who but a few hours before had deemed it so impossible to pardon his fellow-man, now felt as if years of useful and beneficent deeds could alone purify his own repentant soul from the memory of one hateful passion. CHAPTER XXXII But while Harley had thus occupied the hours of night with cares for the living, Audley Egerton had been in commune with the dead. He had taken from the pile of papers amidst which it had fallen, the record of Nora's silenced heart. With a sad wonder he saw how he had once been loved. What had all which successful ambition had bestowed on the lonely statesman to compensate for the glorious empire he had lost,--such realms of lovely fancy; such worlds of exquisite emotion; that infinite which lies within the divine sphere that unites spiritual genius with human love? His own positive and earthly nature attained, for the first time, and as if for its own punishment, the comprehension of that loftier and more ethereal visitant from the heavens, who had once looked with a seraph's smile through the prison-bars of his iron life; that celestial refinement of affection, that exuberance of feeling which warms into such varieties of beautiful idea, under the breath of the earth-beautifier, Imagination,--all from which, when it was all his own, he had turned half weary and impatient, and termed the exaggerations of a visionary romance, now that the world had lost them evermore, he interpreted aright as truths. Truths they were, although illusions. Even as the philosopher tells us that the splendour of colours which deck the universe is not on the surface whereon we think to behold it, but in our own vision; yet, take the colours from the universe, and what philosophy can assure us that the universe has sustained no loss? But when Audley came to that passage in the fragment which, though but imperfectly, explained the true cause of Nora's flight; when he saw how Levy, for what purpose he was unable to conjecture, had suggested to his bride the doubts that had offended him,--asserted the marriage to be a fraud, drawn from Audley's own brief resentful letters to Nora proof of the assertion, misled so naturally the young wife's scanty experience of actual life, and maddened one so sensitively pure into the conviction of dishonour,--his brow darkened, and his hand clenched. He rose and went at once to Levy's room. He found it deserted, inquired, learned that Levy was gone forth, and had left word he might not be at home for the night. Fortunate, perhaps, for Audley, fortunate for the baron, that they did not then meet. Revenge, in spite of his friend's admonition, might at that hour have been as potent an influence on Egerton as it had been on Harley, and not, as with the latter, to be turned aside. Audley came back to his room and finished the tragic record. He traced the tremor of that beloved hand through the last tortures of doubt and despair; he saw where the hot tears had fallen; he saw where the hand had paused, the very sentence not concluded; mentally he accompanied his-- fated bride in the dismal journey to her maiden home, and beheld her before him as he had last seen, more beautiful even in death than the face of living woman had ever since appeared to him; and as he bent over the last words, the blank that they left on the leaf, stretching pale beyond the quiver of the characters and the blister of the tears,--pale and blank as the void which departed love leaves behind it,--he felt his Heart suddenly stand still, its course arrested as the record closed. It beat again, but feebly,--so feebly! His breath became labour and pain, his sight grew dizzy; but the constitutional firmness and fortitude of the man clung to him in the stubborn mechanism of habit, his will yet fought against his disease, life rallied as the light flickers up in the waning taper. The next morning, when Harley came into his friend's room, Egerton was asleep. But the sleep seemed much disturbed; the breathing was hard and difficult; the bed-clothes were partially thrown off, as if in the tossing of disturbed dreams; the sinewy strong arm, the broad athletic breast, were partly bare. Strange that so deadly a disease within should leave the frame such apparent power that, to the ordinary eye, the sleeping sufferer seemed a model of healthful vigour. One hand was thrust with uneasy straining over the pillows,--it had its hold on the fatal papers; a portion of the leaves was visible; and where the characters had been blurred by Nora's tears, were the traces, yet moist, of tears perhaps more bitter. Harley felt deeply affected; and while he still stood by the bed, Egerton sighed heavily and woke. He stared round him, as if perplexed and confused, till his eyes resting on Harley, he smiled and said, "So early! Ah, I remember, it is the day for our great boat-race. We shall have the current against us; but you and I together--when did we ever lose?" Audley's mind was wandering; it had gone back to the old Eton days. But Harley thought that he spoke in metaphorical allusion to the present more important contest. "True, my Audley,--you and I together--when did we ever lose? But will you rise? I wish you would be at the polling-place to shake hands with your voters as they come up. By four o'clock you will be released, and the election won." "The election! How! what!" said Egerton, recovering himself. "I recollect now. Yes,--I accept this last kindness from you. I always said I would die in harness. Public life--I have no other. Ah, I dream again! Oh, Harley my son, my son!" "You shall see him after four o'clock. You will be proud of each other. But make haste and dress. Shall I ring the bell for your servant?" "Do," said Egerton, briefly, and sinking back. Harley quitted the room, and joined Randal and some of the more important members of the Blue Committee, who were already hurrying over their breakfast. All were anxious and nervous except Harley, who dipped his dry toast into his coffee, according to his ordinary abstemious Italian habit, with serene composure. Randal in vain tried for an equal tranquillity. But though sure of his election, there would necessarily follow a scene trying to the nerve of his hypocrisy. He would have to affect profound chagrin in the midst of vile joy; have to act the part of decorous high- minded sorrow, that by some untoward chance, some unaccountable cross- splitting, Randal Leslie's gain should be Audley Egerton's loss. Besides, he was flurried in the expectation of seeing the squire, and of appropriating the money which was to secure the dearest object of his ambition. Breakfast was soon despatched. The Committee-men, bustling for their hats, and looking at their watches, gave the signal for departure; yet no Squire Hazeldean had made his appearance. Harley, stepping from the window upon the terrace, beckoned to Randal, who took his hat and followed. "Mr. Leslie," said Harley, leaning against the balustrade, and carelessly patting Nero's rough, honest head, "you remember that you were good enough to volunteer to me the explanation of certain circumstances in connection with the Count di Peschiera, which you gave to the Duke di Serrano; and I replied that my thoughts were at present engaged on the election, but as soon as that was over, I should be very willing to listen to any communications affecting yourself and my old friend the duke, with which you might be pleased to favour me." This address took Randal by surprise, and did not tend to calm his nerves. However, he replied readily, "Upon that, as upon any other matter that may influence the judgment you form of me, I shall be but too eager to remove a single doubt that, in your eyes, can rest upon my honour." "You speak exceedingly well, Mr. Leslie; no man can express himself more handsomely; and I will claim your promise with the less scruple because the duke is powerfully affected by the reluctance of his daughter to ratify the engagement that binds his honour, in case your own is indisputably cleared. I may boast of some influence over the young lady, since I assisted to save her from the infamous plot of Peschiera; and the duke urges me to receive your explanation, in the belief that, if it satisfy me, as it has satisfied him, I may conciliate his child in favour of the addresses of a suitor who would have hazarded his very life against so redoubted a duellist as Peschiera." "Lord L'Estrange," replied Randal, bowing, "I shall indeed owe you much if you can remove that reluctance on the part of my betrothed bride, which alone clouds my happiness, and which would at once put an end to my suit, did I not ascribe it to an imperfect knowledge of myself, which I shall devote my life to improve into confidence and affection." "No man can speak more handsomely," reiterated Harley, as if with profound admiration; and indeed he did eye Randal as we eye some rare curiosity. "I am happy to inform you, too," continued L'Estrange, "that if your marriage with the Duke of Serrano's daughter take place--" "If!" echoed Randal. "I beg pardon for making an hypothesis of what you claim the right to esteem a certainty,--I correct my expression: when your marriage with that young lady takes place, you will at least escape the rock on which many young men of ardent affections have split at the onset of the grand voyage. You will form no imprudent connection. In a word, I received yesterday a despatch from Vienna, which contains the full pardon and formal restoration of Alphonso, Duke di Serrano. And I may add, that the Austrian government (sometimes misunderstood in this country) is bound by the laws it administers, and can in no way dictate to the duke, once restored, as to the choice of his son-in-law, or as to the heritage that may devolve on his child." "And does the duke yet know of his recall?" exclaimed Randal, his cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkling. "No. I reserve that good news, with other matters, till after the election is over. But Egerton keeps us waiting sadly. Ah, here comes his valet." Audley's servant approached. "Mr. Egerton feels himself rather more poorly than usual, my Lord; he begs you will excuse his going with you into the town at present. He will come later if his presence is absolutely necessary." "No. Pray tell him to rest and nurse himself. I should have liked him to witness his own triumph,--that is all. Say I will represent him at the polling-place. Gentlemen, are you ready? We will go on." The polling booth was erected in the centre of the marketplace. The voting had already commenced; and Mr. Avenel and Leonard were already at their posts, in order to salute and thank the voters in their cause who passed before them. Randal and L'Estrange entered the booth amidst loud hurrahs, and to the national air of "See the Conquering Hero comes." The voters defiled in quick succession. Those who voted entirely according to principle or colour--which came to much the same thing--and were therefore above what is termed "management," flocked in first, voting straightforwardly for both Blues or both Yellows. At the end of the first half-hour the Yellows were About ten ahead of the Blues. Then sundry split votes began to perplex conjecture as to the result; and Randal, at the end of the first hour, had fifteen majority over Audley Egerton, two over Dick Avenel, Leonard Fairfield heading the poll by five. Randal owed his place in the lists to the voters that Harley's personal efforts had procured for him; and he was well pleased to see that Lord L'Estrange had not withdrawn from him a single promise so obtained. This augured well for Harley's ready belief in his appointed "explanations." In short, the whole election seemed going just as he had calculated. But by twelve o'clock there were some changes in the relative position of the candidates. Dick Avenel had gradually gained ground,--passing Randal, passing even Leonard. He stood at the head of the poll by a majority of ten. Randal came next. Audley was twenty behind Randal, and Leonard four behind Audley. More than half the constituency had polled, but none of the Committee on either side, nor one of the redoubted corps of a Hundred and Fifty. The poll now slackened sensibly. Randal, looking round, and longing for an opportunity to ask Dick whether he really meant to return himself instead of his nephew, saw that Harley had disappeared; and presently a note was brought to him requesting his presence in the Committee-room. Thither he hastened. As he forced his way through the bystanders in the lobby, towards the threshold of the room, Levy caught hold of him and whispered, "They begin to fear for Egerton. They want a compromise in order to secure him. They will propose to you to resign, if Avenel will withdraw Leonard. Don't be entrapped. L'Estrange may put the question to you; but--a word in your ear--he would be glad enough to throw over Egerton. Rely upon this, and stand firm." Randal made no answer, but, the crowd giving way for him, entered the room. Levy followed. The doors were instantly closed. All the Blue Committee were assembled. They looked heated, anxious, eager. Lord L'Estrange, alone calm and cool, stood at the head of the long table. Despite his composure, Harley's brow was thoughtful. "Yes," said he to himself, "I will give this young man the fair occasion to prove gratitude to his benefactor; and if he here acquit himself, I will spare him, at least, public exposure of his deceit to others. So young, he must have some good in him,--at least towards the man to whom he owes all." "Mr. Leslie," said L'Estrange, aloud, "you see the state of the poll. Our Committee believe that, if you continue to stand, Egerton must be beaten. They fear that, Leonard Fairfield having little chance, the Yellows will not waste their second votes on him, but will transfer them to you, in order to keep out Egerton. If you retire, Egerton will be safe. There is reason to suppose that Leonard would, in that case, also be withdrawn." "You can hope and fear nothing more from Egerton," whispered Levy. "He is utterly ruined; and, if he lose, will sleep in a prison. The bailiffs are waiting for him." Randal was still silent, and at that silence an indignant murmur ran through the more influential members of the Committee. For, though Audley was not personally very popular, still a candidate so eminent was necessarily their first object, and they would seem very small to the Yellows, if their great man was defeated by the very candidate introduced to aid him,--a youth unknown. Vanity and patriotism both swelled that murmur. "You see, young sir," cried a rich, blunt master-butcher, "that it was an honourable understanding that Mr. Egerton was to be safe. You had no claim on us, except as fighting second to him. And we are all astonished that you don't say at once, 'Save Egerton, of course.' Excuse my freedom, sir. No time for palaver." "Lord L'Estrange," said Randal, turning mildly from the butcher, "do you, as the first here in rank and influence, and as Mr. Egerton's especial friend, call upon me to sacrifice my election, and what appear to be the inclinations of the majority of the constituents, in order to obtain what is, after all, a doubtful chance of returning Mr. Egerton in my room? "I do not call upon you, Mr. Leslie. It is a matter of feeling or of honour, which a gentleman can very well decide for himself." "Was any such compact made between your Lordship and myself, when you first gave me your interest and canvassed for me in person?" "Certainly not. Gentlemen, be silent. No such compact was mentioned by me." "Neither was it by Mr. Egerton. Whatever might be the understanding spoken of by the respected elector who addressed me, I was no party to it. I am persuaded that Mr. Egerton is the last person who would wish to owe his election to a trick upon the electors in the midst of the polling, and to what the world would consider a very unhandsome treatment of myself, upon whom all the toil of the canvass has devolved." Again the murmur rose; but Randal had an air so determined, that it quelled resentment, and obtained a continued, though most chilling and half-contemptuous hearing. "Nevertheless," resumed Randal, "I would at once retire were I not under the firm persuasion that I shall convince all present, who now seem to condemn me, that I act precisely according to Mr. Egerton's own private inclinations. That gentleman, in fact, has never been amongst you, has not canvassed in person, has taken no trouble, beyond a speech, that was evidently meant to be but a general defence of his past political career. What does this mean? Simply that his standing has been merely a form, to comply with the wish of his party, against his own desire." The Committee-men looked at each other amazed and doubtful. Randal saw he had gained an advantage; he pursued it with a tact and ability which showed that, in spite of his mere oratorical deficiencies, he had in him the elements of a dexterous debater. "I will be plain with you, gentlemen. My character, my desire to stand well with you all, oblige me to be so. Mr. Egerton does not wish to come into parliament at present. His health is much broken; his private affairs need all his time and attention. I am, I may say, as a son to him. He is most anxious for my success; Lord L'Estrange told me but last night, very truly, 'more anxious for my success than his own.' Nothing could please him more than to think I were serving in parliament, however humbly, those great interests which neither health nor leisure will, in this momentous crisis, allow himself to defend with his wonted energy. Later, indeed, no doubt, he will seek to return to an arena in which he is so distinguished; and when the popular excitement, which produces the popular injustice of the day, is over, what constituency will not be proud to return such a man? In support and proof of what I have thus said, I now appeal to Mr. Egerton's own agent,--a gentleman who, in spite of his vast fortune and the rank he holds in society, has consented to act gratuitously on behalf of that great statesman. I ask you, then, respectfully, Baron Levy, Is not Mr. Egerton's health much broken, and in need of rest?" "It is," said Levy. "And do not his affairs necessitate his serious and undivided attention?" "They do indeed," quoth the baron. "Gentlemen, I have nothing to urge in behalf of my distinguished friend as against the statement of his adopted son, Mr. Leslie." "Then all I can say," cried the butcher, striking his huge fist on the table, "is, that Mr. Egerton has behaved d---d unhandsome to us, and we shall be the laughing-stock of the borough." "Softly, softly," said Harley. "There is a knock at the door behind. Excuse me." Harley quitted the room, but only for a minute or two. On his return he addressed himself to Randal. "Are we then to understand, Mr. Leslie, that your intention is not to resign?" "Unless your Lordship actually urge me to the contrary, I should say, Let the election go on, and all take our chance. That seems to me the fair, manly, ENGLISH [great emphasis on the last adjective], honourable course." "Be it so," replied Harley;" 'let all take their chance.' Mr. Leslie, we will no longer detain you. Go back to the polling-place,--one of the candidates should be present; and you, Baron Levy, be good enough to go also, and return thanks to those who may yet vote for Mr. Egerton." Levy bowed, and went out arm-in-arm with Randal. "Capital, capital," said the baron. "You have a wonderful head." "I did not like L'Estrange's look, nevertheless. But he can't hurt me now; the votes he got for me instead of for Egerton have already polled. The Committee, indeed, may refuse to vote for me; but then there is Avenel's body of reserve. Yes, the election is virtually over. When we get back, Hazeldean will have arrived with the money for the purchase of my ancestral property; Dr. Riccabocca is already restored to the estates and titles of Serrano; what do I care further for Lord L'Estrange? Still, I do not like his look." "Pooh, you have done just what he wished. I am forbidden to say more. Here we are at the booth. A new placard since we left. How are the numbers? Avenel forty ahead of you; you thirty above Egerton; and Leonard Fairfield still last on the poll. But where are Avenel and Fairfield?" Both those candidates had disappeared, perhaps gone to their own Committee-room. Meanwhile, as soon as the doors had closed on Randal and the baron, in the midst of the angry hubbub succeeding to their departure, Lord L'Estrange sprang upon the table. The action and his look stilled every sound. "Gentlemen, it is in our hands to return one of our candidates, and to make our own choice between the two. You have heard Mr. Leslie and Baron Levy. To their statement I make but this reply,--Mr. Egerton is needed by the country; and whatever his health or his affairs, he is ready to respond to that call. If he has not canvassed, if he does not appear before you at this moment, the services of more than twenty years plead for him in his stead. Which, then, of the two candidates do you choose as your member,--a renowned statesman, or a beardless boy? Both have ambition and ability; the one has identified those qualities with the history of a country, and (as it is now alleged to his prejudice) with a devotion that has broken a vigorous frame and injured a princely fortune. The other evinces his ambition by inviting you to prefer him to his benefactor, and proves his ability by the excuses he makes for ingratitude. Choose between the two,--an Egerton or a Leslie." "Egerton forever!" cried all the assembly, as with a single voice, followed by a hiss for Leslie. "But," said a grave and prudent Committee-man, "have we really the choice? Does not that rest with the Yellows? Is not your Lordship too sanguine?" "Open that door behind; a deputation from our opponents waits in the room on the other side the passage. Admit them." The Committee were hushed in breathless silence while Harley's order was obeyed. And soon, to their great surprise, Leonard Fairfield himself, attended by six of the principal members of the Yellow party, entered the room. LORD L'ESTRANGE.--"You have a proposition to make to us, Mr. Fairfield, on behalf of yourself and Mr. Avenel, and with the approval of your Committee?" LEONARD (advancing to the table).--"I have. We are convinced that neither party can carry both its candidates. Mr. Avenel is safe. The only question is, which of the two candidates on your side it best becomes the honour of this constituency to select. My resignation, which I am about to tender, will free sufficient votes to give the triumph either to Mr. Egerton or to Mr. Leslie." "Egerton forever!" cried once more the excited Blues. "Yes, Egerton forever!" said Leonard, with a glow upon his cheek. "We may differ from his politics, but who can tell us those of Mr. Leslie? We may differ from the politician, but who would not feel proud of the senator? A great and incalculable advantage is bestowed on that constituency which returns to parliament a distinguished man. His distinction ennobles the place he represents, it sustains public spirit, it augments the manly interest in all that affects the nation. Every time his voice hushes the assembled parliament, it reminds us of our common country; and even the discussion amongst his constituents which his voice provokes, clears their perceptions of the public interest, and enlightens themselves, from the intellect which commands their interests, and compels their attention. Egerton, then, forever! If our party must subscribe to the return of one opponent, let all unite to select the worthiest. My Lord L'Estrange, when I quit this room, it will be to announce my resignation, and to solicit those who have promised me their votes to transfer them to Mr. Audley Egerton." Amidst the uproarious huzzas which followed this speech, Leonard drew near to Harley. "My Lord, I have obeyed your wishes, as conveyed to me by my uncle, who is engaged at this moment elsewhere in carrying them into effect." "Leonard," said Harley, in the same undertone, "you have insured to Audley Egerton what you alone could do,--the triumph over a perfidious dependent, the continuance of the sole career in which he has hitherto found the solace or the zest of life. He must thank you with his own lips. Come to the Park after the close of the poll. There and then shall the explanations yet needful to both be given and received." Here Harley bowed to the assembly and raised his voice: "Gentlemen, yesterday, at the nomination of the candidates, I uttered remarks that have justly pained Mr. Fairfield. In your presence I wholly retract and frankly apologize for them. In your presence I entreat his forgiveness, and say, that if he will accord me his friendship, I will place him in my esteem and affection side by side with the statesman whom he has given to his country." Leonard grasped the hand extended to him with both his own, and then, overcome by his emotions, hurried from the room; while Blues and Yellows exchanged greetings, rejoiced in the compromise that would dispel all party irritation, secure the peace of the borough, and allow quiet men, who had detested each other the day before, and vowed reciprocal injuries to trade and custom, the indulgence of all amiable and fraternal feelings--until the next general election. In the mean while the polling had gone on slowly as before, but still to the advantage of Randal. "Not two-thirds of the constituency will poll," murmured Levy, looking at his watch. "The thing is decided. Aha, Audley Egerton! you who once tortured me with the unspeakable jealousy that bequeaths such implacable hate; you who scorned my society, and called me 'scoundrel,' disdainful of the very power your folly placed within my hands,--aha, your time is up! and the spirit that administered to your own destruction strides within the circle to seize its prey!" "You shall have my first frank, Levy," said Randal, "to enclose your letter to Mr. Thornhill's solicitor. This affair of the election is over; we must now look to what else rests on our hands." "What the devil is that placard?" cried Levy, turning pale. Randal looked, and right up the market-place, followed by an immense throng, moved, high over the heads of all, a Yellow Board, that seemed marching through the air, cometlike:-- Two o'clock p.m. RESIGNATION OF FAIRFIELD. ------ YELLOWS! Vote For AVENEL AND EGERTON. (Signed) Timothy Alljack Yellow Committee Room. "What infernal treachery is this?" cried Randal, livid with honest indignation. "Wait a moment; there is Avenel!" exclaimed Levy; and at the head of another procession that emerged from the obscurer lanes of the town, walked, with grave majesty, the surviving Yellow candidate. Dick disappeared for a moment within a grocer's shop in the broadest part of the place, and then culminated at the height of a balcony on the first story, just above an enormous yellow canister, significant of the profession and the politics of the householder. No sooner did Dick, hat in hand, appear on this rostrum, than the two processions halted below, bands ceased, flags drooped round their staves, crowds rushed within hearing, and even the poll clerks sprang from the booth. Randal and Levy themselves pressed into the throng. Dick on the balcony was the /Deus ex machina/. "Freemen and electors!" said Dick, with his most sonorous accents, "finding that the public opinion of this independent and enlightened constituency is so evenly divided, that only one Yellow candidate can be returned, and only one Blue has a chance, it was my intention last night to retire from the contest, and thus put an end to all bickerings and ill-blood (Hold your tongues there, can't you!). I say honestly, I should have preferred the return of my distinguished and talented young nephew-- honourable relation--to my own; but he would not hear of it, and talked all our Committee into the erroneous but high-minded notion, that the town would cry shame if the nephew rode into parliament by breaking the back of the uncle." (Loud cheers from the mob, and partial cries of "We 'll have you both!") "You'll do no such thing, and you know it; hold your jaw," resumed Dick, with imperious good-humour. "Let me go on, can't you?--time presses. In a word, my nephew resolved to retire, if, at two o'clock this day, there was no chance of returning both of us; and there is none. Now, then, the next thing for the Yellows who have not yet voted, is to consider how they will give their second votes. If I had been the man to retire, why, for certain reasons, I should have recommended them to split with Leslie,--a clever chap, and pretty considerable sharp." "Hear, hear, hear!" cried the baron, lustily. "But I'm bound to say that my nephew has an opinion of his own,--as an independent Britisher, let him be twice your nephew, ought to have; and his opinion goes the other way, and so does that of our Committee." "Sold!" cried the baron; and some of the crowd shook their heads, and looked grave,--especially those suspected of a wish to be bought. "Sold! Pretty fellow you with the nosegay in your buttonhole to talk of selling! You who wanted to sell your own client,--and you know it. [Levy recoiled.] Why, gentlemen, that's Levy the Jew, who talks of selling! And if he asperses the character of this constituency, I stand here to defend it! And there stands the parish pump, with a handle for the arm of Honesty, and a spout for the lips of Falsehood!" At the close of this magniloquent period, borrowed, no doubt, from some great American orator, Baron Levy involuntarily retreated towards the shelter of the polling-booth, followed by some frowning Yellows with very menacing gestures. "But the calumniator sneaks away; leave him to the reproach of his conscience," resumed Dick, with a generous magnanimity. "SOLD! [the word rang through the place like the blast of a trumpet] Sold! No, believe me, not a man who votes for Egerton instead of Fairfield will, so far as I am concerned, be a penny the better-- [chilling silence]--or [with a scarce perceivable wink towards the anxious faces of the Hundred and Fifty who filled the background]--or a penny the worse. [Loud cheers from the Hundred and Fifty, and cries of 'Noble!'] I don't like the politics of Mr. Egerton. But I am not only a politician,--I am a MAN! The arguments of our respected Committee-- persons in business, tender husbands, and devoted fathers--have weight with me. I myself am a husband and a father. If a needless contest be prolonged to the last, with all the irritations it engenders, who suffer?--why, the tradesman and the operative. Partiality, loss of custom, tyrannical demands for house rent, notices to quit,--in a word, the screw!" "Hear, hear!" and "Give us the Ballot!" "The Ballot--with all my heart, if I had it about me! And if we had the Ballot, I should like to see a man dare to vote Blue. [Loud cheers from the Yellows.] But, as we have not got it, we must think of our families. And I may add, that though Mr. Egerton may come again into office, yet [added Dick solemnly] I will do my best, as his colleague, to keep him straight; and your own enlightenment (for the schoolmaster is abroad) will show him that no minister can brave public opinion, nor quarrel with his own bread and butter. [Much cheering.] In these times the aristocracy must endear themselves to the middle and working class; and a member in office has much to give away in the Stamps and Excise, in the Customs, the Post Office, and other State departments in this rotten old- --I mean this magnificent empire, by which he can benefit his constituents, and reconcile the prerogatives of aristocracy with the claims of the people,--more especially in this case, the people of the borough of Lausmere. [Hear, hear!] "And therefore, sacrificing party inclinations (since it seems that I can in no way promote them) on the Altar of General Good Feeling, I cannot oppose the resignation of my nephew,--honourable relation!--nor blind my eyes to the advantages that may result to a borough so important to the nation at large, if the electors think fit to choose my Right Honourable brother--I mean the Right Honourable Blue candidate--as my brother colleague. Not that I presume to dictate, or express a wish one way or the other; only, as a Family Man, I say to you, Electors and Freemen, having served your country in returning me, you have nobly won the right to think of the little ones at home." Dick put his hand to his heart, bowed gracefully, and retired from the balcony amidst unanimous applause. In three minutes more Dick had resumed his place in the booth in his quality of candidate. A rush of Yellow electors poured in, hot and fast. Up came Emanuel Trout, and, in a firm voice, recorded his vote, "Avenel and Egerton." Every man of the Hundred and Fifty so polled. To each question, "Whom do you vote for?" "Avenel and Egerton" knelled on the ears of Randal Leslie with "damnable iteration." The young man folded his arms across his breast in dogged despair. Levy had to shake hands for Mr. Egerton with a rapidity that took away his breath. He longed to slink away,--longed to get at L'Estrange, whom he supposed would be as wroth at this turn in the wheel of fortune as himself. But how, as Egerton's representative, escape from the continuous gripes of those horny hands? Besides, there stood the parish pump, right in face of the booth, and some huge truculent-looking Yellows loitered round it, as if ready to pounce on him the instant he quitted his present sanctuary. Suddenly the crowd round the booth receded; Lord L'Estrange's carriage drove up to the spot, and Harley, stepping from it, assisted out of the vehicle an old, gray-haired, paralytic man. The old man stared round him, and nodded smilingly to the mob. "I'm here,-I'm come; I'm but a poor creature, but I'm a good Blue to the last!" "Old John Avenel,--fine old John!" cried many a voice. And John Avenel, still leaning on Harley's arm, tottered into the booth, and plumped for "Egerton." "Shake hands, Father," said Dick, bending forward, "though you'll not vote for me." "I was a Blue before you were born," answered the old man, tremulously; "but I wish you success all the same, and God bless you, my boy!" Even the poll-clerks were touched; and when Dick, leaving his place, was seen by the crowd assisting Lord L'Estrange to place poor John again in the carriage, that picture of family love in the midst of political difference--of the prosperous, wealthy, energetic son, who, as a boy, had played at marbles in the very kennel, and who had risen in life by his own exertions, and was now virtually M. P. for his native town, tending on the broken-down, aged father, whom even the interests of a son he was so proud of could not win from the colours which he associated with truth and rectitude--had such an effect upon the rudest of the mob there present, that you might have heard a pin fall,--till the carriage drove away back to John's humble home; and then there rose such a tempest of huzzas! John Avenel's vote for Egerton gave another turn to the vicissitudes of that memorable election. As yet Avenel had been ahead of Audley; but a plumper in favour of Egerton, from Avenel's own father, set an example and gave an excuse to many a Blue who had not yet voted, and could not prevail on himself to split his vote between Dick and Audley; and, therefore, several leading tradesmen, who, seeing that Egerton was safe, had previously resolved not to vote at all, came up in the last hour, plumped for Egerton, and carried him to the head of the poll; so that poor John, whose vote, involving that of Mark Fairfield, had secured the first opening in public life to the young ambition of the unknown son-in-law, still contributed to connect with success and triumph, but also with sorrow, and, it may be, with death, the names of the high-born Egerton and the humble Avenel. The great town-clock strikes the hour of four; the returning officer declares the poll closed; the formal announcement of the result will be made later. But all the town knows that Audley Egerton and Richard Avenel are the members for Lausmere. And flags stream, and drums beat, and men shake each other by the hand heartily; and there is talk of the chairing to-morrow; and the public-houses are crowded; and there is an indistinct hubbub in street and alley, with sudden bursts of uproarious shouting; and the clouds to the west look red and lurid round the sun, which has gone down behind the church tower,--behind the yew-trees that overshadow the quiet grave of Nora Avenel. CHAPTER XXXIII. Amidst the darkening shadows of twilight, Randal Leslie walked through Lansmere Park towards the house. He had slunk away before the poll was closed,--crept through bylanes, and plunged into the leafless copses of the earl's stately pasture-grounds. Amidst the bewilderment of his thoughts--at a loss to conjecture how this strange mischance had befallen him, inclined to ascribe it to Leonard's influence over Avenel, but suspecting Harley, and half doubtful of Baron Levy--he sought to ascertain what fault of judgment he himself had committed, what wile he had forgotten, what thread in his web he had left ragged and incomplete. He could discover none. His ability seemed to him unimpeachable,-- /totus, teres, atque rotundas/. And then there came across his breast a sharp pang,--sharper than that of baffled ambition,--the feeling that he had been deceived and bubbled and betrayed. For so vital a necessity to all living men is TRUTH, that the vilest traitor feels amazed and wronged, feels the pillars of the world shaken, when treason recoils on himself. "That Richard Avenel, whom I trusted, could so deceive me!" murmured Randal, and his lip quivered. He was still in the midst of the Park, when a man with a yellow cockade in his hat, and running fast from the direction of the town, overtook him with a letter, on delivering which the messenger, waiting for no answer, hastened back the way he had come. Randal recognized Avenel's hand on the address, broke the seal, and read as follows: (Private and Confidential.) DEAR LESLIE,--Don't be down-hearted,--you will know to-night or to- morrow why I have had cause to alter my opinion as to the Right Honourable; and you will see that I could not, as a Family Man, act otherwise than I have done. Though I have not broken my word to you,--for you remember that all the help I promised was dependent on my own resignation, and would go for nothing if Leonard resigned instead,--yet I feel you must think yourself rather bamboozled. But I have been obliged to sacrifice you, from a sense of Family Duty, as you will soon acknowledge. My own nephew is sacrificed also; and I have sacrificed my own concerns, which require the whole man of me for the next year or two at Screwstown. So we are all in the same boat, though you may think you are set adrift by yourself. But I don't mean to stay in parliament. I shall take the Chiltern Hundreds, pretty considerable soon. And if you keep well with the Blues, I'll do my best with the Yellows to let you walk over the course in my stead. For I don't think Leonard will want to stand again. And so a word to the wise,--and you may yet be member for Lansmere. R. A. In this letter, Randal, despite all his acuteness, could not detect the honest compunction of the writer. He could at first only look at the worst side of human nature, and fancy that it was a paltry attempt to stifle his just anger and ensure his discretion; but, on second thoughts, it struck him that Dick might very naturally be glad to be released to his mill, and get a /quid pro quo/ out of Randal, under the comprellensive title, "repayment of expenses." Perhaps Dick was not sorry to wait until Randal's marriage gave him the means to make the repayment. Nay, perhaps Randal had been thrown over for the present, in order to wring from him better terms in a single election. Thus reasoning, he took comfort from his belief in the mercenary motives of another. True; it might be but a short disappointment. Before the next parliament was a month old, he might yet take his seat in it as member for Lansmere. But all would depend on his marriage with the heiress; he must hasten that. Meanwhile, it was necessary to knit and gather up all his thought, courage, and presence of mind. How he shrunk from return to Lansmere House,--from facing Egerton, Harley, all. But there was no choice. He would have to make it up with the Blues,--to defend the course he had adopted in the Committee-room. There, no doubt, was Squire Hazeldean awaiting him with the purchase-money for the lands of Rood; there was the Duke di Serrano, restored to wealth and honour; there was his promised bride, the great heiress, on whom depended all that could raise the needy gentleman into wealth and position. Gradually, with the elastic temper that is essential to a systematic schemer, Randal Leslie plucked himself from the pain of brooding over a plot that was defeated, to prepare himself for consummating those that yet seemed so near success. After all, should he fail in regaining Egerton's favour, Egerton was of use no more. He might rear his head, and face out what some might call "ingratitude," provided he could but satisfy the Blue Committee. Dull dogs, how could he fail to do that! He could easily talk over the Machiavellian sage. He should have small difficulty in explaining all to the content of Audley's distant brother, the squire. Harley alone--but Levy had so positively assured him that Harley was not sincerely anxious for Egerton; and as to the more important explanation relative to Peschiera, surely what had satisfied Violante's father ought to satisfy a man who had no peculiar right to demand explanations at all; and if these explanations did not satisfy, the onus to disprove them must rest with Harley; and who or what could contradict Randal's plausible assertions,-- assertions in support of which he himself could summon a witness in Baron Levy? Thus nerving himself to all that could task his powers, Randal Leslie crossed the threshold of Lansmere House, and in the hall he found the baron awaiting him. "I can't account," said Levy, "for what has gone so cross in this confounded election. It is L'Estrange that puzzles me; but I know that he hates Egerton. I know that he will prove that hate by one mode of revenge, if he has lost it in another. But it is well, Randal, that you are secure of Hazeldean's money and the rich heiress's hand; otherwise--" "Otherwise, what?" "I should wash my hands of you, /mon cher/; for, in spite of all your cleverness, and all I have tried to do for you, somehow or other I begin to suspect that your talents will never secure your fortune. A carpenter's son beats you in public speaking, and a vulgar mill-owner tricks you in private negotiation. Decidedly, as yet, Randal Leslie, you are--a failure. And, as you so admirably said, 'a man from whom we have nothing to hope or fear we must blot out of the map of the future.'" Randal's answer was cut short by the appearance of the groom of the chambers. "My Lord is in the saloon, and requests you and Mr. Leslie will do him the honour to join him there." The two gentlemen followed the servant up the broad stairs. The saloon formed the centre room of the suite of apartments. From its size, it was rarely used save on state occasions. It had the chilly and formal aspect of rooms reserved for ceremony. Riccabocca, Violante, Helen, Mr. Dale, Squire Hazeldean, and Lord L'Estrange were grouped together by the cold Florentine marble table, not littered with books and female work, and the endearing signs of habitation, that give a living smile to the face of home; nothing thereon save a great silver candelabrum, that scarcely lighted the spacious room, and brought out the portraits on the walls as a part of the assembly, looking, as portraits do look, with searching, curious eyes upon every eye that turns to them. But as soon as Randal entered, the squire detached himself from the group, and, coming to the defeated candidate, shook hands with him heartily. "Cheer up, my boy; 't is no shame to be beaten. Lord L'Estrange says you did your best to win, and man can do no more. And I'm glad, Leslie, that we don't meet for our little business till the election is over; for, after annoyance, something pleasant is twice as acceptable. I've the money in my pocket. Hush! and I say, my dear, dear boy, I cannot find out where Frank is, but it is really all off with that foreign woman, eh?" "Yes, indeed, sir, I hope so. I'll talk to you about it when we can be alone. We may slip away presently, I trust." "I'll tell you a secret scheme of mine and Harry's," said the squire, in a still low whisper. "We, must drive that marchioness, or whatever she is, out of the boy's head, and put a pretty English girl into it instead. That will settle him in life too. And I must try and swallow that bitter pill of the post-obit. Harry makes worse of it than I do, and is so hard on the poor fellow that I've been obliged to take his part. I've no idea of being under petticoat government, it is not the way with the Hazeldeans. Well, but to come back to the point: Whom do you think I mean by the pretty girl?" "Miss Sticktorights?" "Zounds, no!--your own little sister, Randal. Sweet pretty face! Harry liked her from the first, and then you'll be Frank's brother, and your sound head and good heart will keep him right. And as you are going to be married too (you must tell me all about that later), why, we shall have two marriages, perhaps, in the family on the same day." Randal's hand grasped the squire's, and with an emotion of human gratitude,--for we know that, hard to all else, he had natural feelings for his fallen family; and his neglected sister was the one being on earth whom he might almost be said to love. With all his intellectual disdain for honest simple Frank, he knew no one in the world with whom his young sister could be more secure and happy. Transferred to the roof, and improved by the active kindness, of Mrs. Hazeldean, blest in the manly affection of one not too refined to censure her own deficiencies of education, what more could he ask for his sister, as he pictured her to himself, with her hair hanging over her ears, and her mind running into seed over some trashy novel. But before he could reply, Violante's father came to add his own philosophical consolations to the squire's downright comfortings. "Who could ever count on popular caprice? The wise of all ages had despised it. In that respect, Horace and Machiavelli were of the same mind," etc. "But," said the duke, with emphatic kindnessi "perhaps your very misfortune here may serve you elsewhere. The female heart is prone to pity, and ever eager to comfort. Besides, if I am recalled to Italy, you will have leisure to come with us, and see the land where, of all others, ambition can be most readily forgotten, even" added the Italian with a sigh--"even by her own sons!" Thus addressed by both Hazeldean and the duke, Randal recovered his spirits. It was clear that Lord L'Estrange had not conveyed to them any unfavourable impression of his conduct in the Committee-room. While Randal had been thus engaged, Levy had made his way to Harley, who retreated with the baron into the bay of the great window. "Well, my Lord, do you comprehend this conduct on the part of Richard Avenel? He secure Egerton's return!--he!" "What so natural, Baron Levy,--his own brother-in-law?" The baron started, and turned very pale. "But how did he know that? I never told him. I meant indeed--" "Meant, perhaps, to shame Egerton's pride at the last by publicly declaring his marriage with a shopkeeper's daughter. A very good revenge still left to you; but revenge for what? A word with you, now, Baron, that our acquaintance is about to close forever. You know why I have cause for resentment against Egerton. I do but suspect yours; will you make it clear to me?" "My Lord, my Lord," faltered Baron Levy, "I, too, wooed Nora Avenel as my wife; I, too, had a happier rival in the haughty worldling who did not appreciate his own felicity; I too--in a word, some women inspire an affection that mingles with the entire being of a man, and is fused with all the currents of his life-blood. Nora Avenel was one of those women." Harley was startled. This burst of emotion from a man so corrupt and cynical arrested even the scorn he felt for the usurer. Levy soon recovered himself. "But our revenge is not baffled yet. Egerton, if not already in my power, is still in yours. His election may save him from arrest, but the law has other modes of public exposure and effectual ruin." "For the knave, yes,--as I intimated to you in your own house,--you who boast of your love to Nora Avenel, and know in your heart that you were her destroyer; you who witnessed her marriage, and yet dared to tell her that she was dishonoured!" "My Lord--I--how could you know--I mean, how think that--that--" faltered Levy, aghast. "Nora Avenel has spoken from her grave," replied Harley, solemnly. "Learn that, wherever man commits a crime, Heaven finds a witness!" "It is on me, then," said Levy, wrestling against a superstitious thrill at his heart--"on me that you now concentre your vengeance; and I must meet it as I may. But I have fulfilled my part of our compact. I have obeyed you implicitly--and--" "I will fulfil my part of our bond, and leave you undisturbed in your wealth." "I knew I might trust to your Lordship's honour," exclaimed the usurer, in servile glee. "And this vile creature nursed the same passions as myself; and but yesterday we were partners in the same purpose, and influenced by the same thought!" muttered Harley to himself. "Yes," he said aloud, "I dare not, Baron Levy, constitute myself your judge. Pursue your own path,-- all roads meet at last before the common tribunal. But you are not yet released from our compact; you must do some good in spite of yourself. Look yonder, where Randal Leslie stands, smiling secure, between the two dangers he has raised up for himself. And as Randal Leslie himself has invited me to be his judge, and you are aware that he cited yourself this very day as his witness, here I must expose the guilty; for here the innocent still live, and need defence." Harley turned away, and took his place by the table. "I have wished," said he, raising his voice, "to connect with the triumph of my earliest and dearest friend the happiness of others in whose welfare I feel an interest. To you, Alphonso, Duke of Serrano, I now give this despatch, received last evening by a special messenger from the Prince Von ------, announcing your restoration to your lands and honours." The squire stared with open mouth. "Rickeybockey a duke? Why, Jemima's a duchess! Bless me, she is actually crying!" And his good heart prompted him to run to his cousin and cheer her up a bit. Violante glanced at Harley, and flung herself on her father's breast. Randal involuntarily rose, and moved to the duke's chair. "And you, Mr. Randal Leslie," continued Harley, "though you have lost your election, see before you at this moment such prospects of wealth and happiness, that I shall only have to offer you congratulations to which those that greet Mr. Audley Egerton may well appear lukewarm and insipid, provided you prove that you have not forfeited the right to claim that promise which the Duke di Serrano has accorded to the suitor of his daughter's hand. Some doubts resting on my mind, you have volunteered to dispel them. I have the duke's permission to address to you a few questions, and I now avail myself of your offer to reply to them." "Now,--and here, my Lord?" said Randal, glancing round the room, as if deprecating the presence of so many witnesses. "Now,--and here. Nor are those present so strange to your explanations as your question would imply. Mr. Hazeldean, it so happens that much of what I shall say to Mr. Leslie concerns your son." Randal's countenance fell. An uneasy tremor now seized him. "My son! Frank? Oh, then, of course, Randal will speak out. Speak, my boy!" Randal remained silent. The duke looked at his working face, and drew away his chair. "Young man, can you hesitate?" said he. "A doubt is expressed which involves your honour." "'s death!" cried the squire, also gazing on Randal's cowering eye and quivering lip, "what are you afraid of?" "Afraid!" said Randal, forced into speech, and with a hollow laugh-- "afraid?--I? What of? I was only wondering what Lord L'Estrange could mean." "I will dispel that wonder at once. Mr. Hazeldean, your son displeased you first by his proposals of marriage to the Marchesa di Negra against your consent; secondly, by a post-obit bond granted to Baron Levy. Did you understand from Mr. Randal Leslie that he had opposed or favoured the said marriage,--that he had countenanced or blamed the said post-obit?" "Why, of course," cried the squire, "that he had opposed both the one and the other." "Is it so, Mr. Leslie?" "My Lord--I--I--my affection for Frank, and my esteem for his respected father--I--I--" (He nerved himself, and went on with firm voice)--"Of course, I did all I could to dissuade Frank from the marriage; and as to the post-obit, I know nothing about it." "So much at present for this matter. I pass on to the graver one, that affects your engagement with the Duke di Serrano's daughter. I understand from you, Duke, that to save your daughter from the snares of Count di Peschiera, and in the belief that Mr. Leslie shared in your dread of the count's designs, you, while in exile and in poverty, promised to that gentleman your daughter's hand? When the probabilities of restoration to your principalities seemed well-nigh certain, you confirmed that promise on learning from Mr. Leslie that he had, however ineffectively, struggled to preserve your heiress from a perfidious snare. Is it not so?" "Certainly. Had I succeeded to a throne, I could not recall the promise that I had given in penury and banishment; I could not refuse to him who would have sacrificed worldly ambition in wedding a penniless bride, the reward of his own generosity. My daughter subscribes to my views." Violante trembled, and her hands were locked together; but her gaze was fixed on Harley. Mr. Dale wiped his eyes, and thought of the poor refugee feeding on minnows, and preserving himself from debt amongst the shades of the Casino. "Your answer becomes you, Duke," resumed Harley. "But should it be proved that Mr. Leslie, instead of wooing the princess for herself, actually calculated on the receipt of money for transferring her to Count Peschiera; instead of saving her from the dangers you dreaded, actually suggested the snare from which she was delivered,--would you still deem your honour engaged to--" "Such a villain? No, surely not!" exclaimed the duke. "But this is a groundless hypothesis! Speak, Randal." "Lord L'Estrange cannot insult me by deeming it otherwise than a groundless hypothesis!" said Randal, striving to rear his head. "I understand then, Mr. Leslie, that you scornfully reject such a supposition?" "Scornfully--yes. And," continued Randal, advancing a step, "since the supposition has been made, I demand from Lord L'Estrange, as his equal (for all gentlemen are equals where honour is to be defended at the cost of life), either instant retractation--or instant proof." "That's the first word you have spoken like a man," cried the squire. "I have stood my ground myself for a less cause. I have had a ball through my right shoulder." "Your demand is just," said Harley, unmoved. "I cannot give the retractation,--I will produce the proof." He rose and rang the bell; the servant entered, received his whispered order, and retired. There was a pause painful to all. Randal, however, ran over in his fearful mind what evidence could be brought against him-- and foresaw none. The folding doors of the saloon were thrown open and the servant announced-- THE COUNT DI PESCHIERA. A bombshell, descending through the roof could not have produced a more startling sensation. Erect, bold, with all the imposing effect of his form and bearing, the count strode into the centre of the ring; and after a slight bend of haughty courtesy, which comprehended all present, reared up his lofty head, and looked round, with calm in his eye and a curve on his lip,--the self-assured, magnificent, high-bred Daredevil. "Duke di Serrano," said the count, in English, turning towards his astounded kinsman, and in a voice that, slow, clear, and firm, seemed to fill the room, "I returned to England on the receipt of a letter from my Lord L'Estrange, and with a view, it is true, of claiming at his hands the satisfaction which men of our birth accord to each other, where affront, from what cause soever, has been given or received. Nay, fair kinswoman,"--and the count, with a slight but grave smile, bowed to Violante, who had uttered a faint cry,--"that intention is abandoned. If I have adopted too lightly the old courtly maxim, that 'all stratagems are fair in love,' I am bound also to yield to my Lord L'Estrange's arguments, that the counter-stratagems must be fair also. And, after all, it becomes me better to laugh at my own sorry figure in defeat, than to confess myself gravely mortified by an ingenuity more successful than my own." The count paused, and his eye lightened with sinister fire, which ill suited the raillery of his tone and the polished ease of his bearing. "Ma foi!" he continued, "it is permitted me to speak thus, since at least I have given proofs of my indifference to danger, and my good fortune when exposed to it. Within the last six years I have had the honour to fight nine duels, and the regret to wound five, and dismiss from the world four, as gallant and worthy gentlemen as ever the sun shone upon." "Monster!" faltered the parson. The squire stared aghast, and mechanically rubbed the shoulder which had been lacerated by Captain Dashinore's bullet. Randal's pale face grew yet more pale, and the eye he had fixed upon the count's hardy visage quailed and fell. "But," resumed the count, with a graceful wave of the hand, "I have to thank my Lord L'Estrange for reminding me that a man whose courage is above suspicion is privileged not only to apologize if he has injured another, but to accompany apology with atonement. Duke of Serrano, it is for that purpose that I am here. My Lord, you have signified your wish to ask me some questions of serious import as regards the duke and his daughter; I will answer them without reserve." "Monsieur le Comte," said Harley, "availing myself of your courtesy, I presume to inquire who informed you that this young lady was a guest under my father's roof?" "My informant stands yonder,--Mr. Randal Leslie; and I call upon Baron Levy to confirm my statement." "It is true," said the baron, slowly, and as if overmastered by the tone and mien of an imperious chieftain. There came a low sound like a hiss from Randal's livid lips. "And was Mr. Leslie acquainted with your project for securing the person and hand of your young kinswoman?" "Certainly,--and Baron Levy knows it." The baron bowed assent. "Permit me to add--for it is due to a lady nearly related to myself--that it was, as I have since learned, certain erroneous representations made to her by Mr. Leslie which alone induced that lady, after my own arguments had failed, to lend her aid to a project which otherwise she would have condemned as strongly as, Duke di Serrano, I now with unfeigned sincerity do myself condemn it." There was about the count, as he thus spoke, so much of that personal dignity which, whether natural or artificial, imposes for the moment upon human judgment,--a dignity so supported by the singular advantages of his superb stature, his handsome countenance, his patrician air,--that the duke, moved by his good heart, extended his hand to the perfidious kinsman, and forgot all the Machiavellian wisdom which should have told him how little a man of the count's hardened profligacy was likely to be influenced by any purer motives, whether to frank confession or to manly repentance. The count took the hand thus extended to him, and bowed his face, perhaps to conceal the smile which would have betrayed his secret soul. Randal still remained mute, and pale as death. His tongue clove to his mouth. He felt that all present were shrinking from his side. At last, with a violent effort, he faltered out, in broken sentences, "A charge so sudden may well--may well confound me. But--but--who can credit it? Both the law and commonsense pre-suppose some motive for a criminal action; what could be my motive here? I--myself the suitor for the hand of the duke's daughter--I betray her! Absurd--absurd! Duke, Duke, I put it to your own knowledge of mankind whoever goes thus against his own interest--and--and his own heart?" This appeal, however feebly made, was not without effect on the philosopher. "That is true," said the duke, dropping his kinsman's hand; "I see no motive." "Perhaps," said Harley, "Baron Levy may here enlighten us. Do you know of any motive of self-interest that could have actuated Mr. Leslie in assisting the count's schemes?" Levy hesitated. The count took up the word. "Pardieu!" said he, in his clear tone of determination and will--"pardieu! I can have no doubt thrown on my assertion, least of all by those who know of its truth; and I call upon you, Baron Levy, to state whether, in case of my marriage with the duke's daughter, I had not agreed to present my sister with a sum, to which she alleged some ancient claim, and which would have passed through your hands?" "Certainly, that is true," said the baron. "And would Mr. Leslie have benefited by any portion of that sum?" Levy paused again. "Speak, sir," said the count, frowning. "The fact is," said the baron, "that Mr. Leslie was anxious to complete a purchase of certain estates that had once belonged to his family, and that the count's marriage with the signora, and his sister's marriage with Mr. Hazeldean, would have enabled me to accommodate Mr. Leslie with a loan to effect that purchase." "What! what!" exclaimed the squire, hastily buttoning his breast-pocket with one hand, while he seized Randal's arm with the other--"my son's marriage! You lent yourself to that, too? Don't look so like a lashed hound! Speak out like a man, if man you be!" "Lent himself to that, my good sir!" said the count. "Do you suppose that the Marchesa di Negra could have condescended to an alliance with a Mr. Hazeldean--" "Condescended! a Hazeldean of Hazeldean!" exclaimed the squire, turning fiercely, and half choked with indignation. "Unless," continued the count, imperturbably, "she had been compelled by circumstances to do that said Mr. Hazeldean the honour to accept a pecuniary accommodation, which she had no other mode to discharge? And here, sir, the family of Hazeldean, I am bound to say, owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Leslie; for it was he who most forcibly represented to her the necessity for this misalliance; and it was he, I believe, who suggested to my friend the baron the mode by which Mr. Hazeldean was best enabled to afford the accommodation my sister deigned to accept." "Mode! the post-obit!" ejaculated the squire, relinquishing his hold of Randal to lay his gripe upon Levy. The baron shrugged his shoulders. "Any friend of Mr. Frank Hazeldean's would have recommended the same, as the most economical mode of raising money." Parson Dale, who had at first been more shocked than any one present at these gradual revelations of Randal's treachery, now turning his eyes towards the young man, was so seized with commiseration at the sight of Randal's face, that he laid his hand on Harley's arm, and whispered him, "Look, look at that countenance!---and one so young! Spare him, spare him!" "Mr. Leslie," said Harley, in softened tones, "believe me that nothing short of justice to the Duke di Serrano--justice even to my young friend Mr. Hazeldean--has compelled me to this painful duty. Here let all inquiry terminate." "And," said the count, with exquisite blandness, "since I have been informed by my Lord L'Estrange that Mr. Leslie has represented as a serious act on his part that personal challenge to myself, which I understood was but a pleasant and amicable arrangement in our baffled scheme, let me assure Mr. Leslie that if he be not satisfied with the regret that I now express for the leading share I have taken in these disclosures, I am wholly at Mr. Leslie's service." "Peace, homicide," cried the parson, shuddering; and he glided to the side of the detected sinner, from whom all else had recoiled in loathing. Craft against craft, talent against talent, treason against treason--in all this Randal Leslie would have risen superior to Giulio di Peschiera. But what now crushed him was not the superior intellect,--it was the sheer brute power of audacity and nerve. Here stood the careless, unblushing villain, making light of his guilt, carrying it away from disgust itself, with resolute look and front erect. There stood the abler, subtler, profounder criminal, cowering, abject, pitiful; the power of mere intellectual knowledge shivered into pieces against the brazen metal with which the accident of constitution often arms some ignobler nature. The contrast was striking, and implied that truth so universally felt, yet so little acknowledged in actual life, that men with audacity and force of character can subdue and paralyze those far superior to themselves in ability and intelligence. It was these qualities which made Peschiera Randal's master; nay, the very physical attributes of the count, his very voice and form, his bold front and unshrinking eye, overpowered the acuter mind of the refining schemer, as in a popular assembly some burly Cleon cows into timorous silence every dissentient sage. But Randal turned in sullen impatience from the parson's whisper, that breathed comfort or urged repentance; and at length said, with clearer tones than he had yet mustered, "It is not a personal conflict with the Count di Peschiera that can vindicate my honour; and I disdain to defend myself against the accusations of a usurer, and of a mam who--" "Monsieur!" said the count, drawing himself up. "A man who," persisted Randal, though he trembled visibly, "by his own confession, was himself guilty of all the schemes in which he would represent me as his accomplice, and who now, not clearing himself, would yet convict another--" "/Cher petit monsieur!/" said the count, with his grand air of disdain, "when men like me make use of men like you, we reward them for a service if rendered, or discard them if the service be not done; and if I condescend to confess and apologize for any act I have committed, surely Mr. Randal Leslie might do the same without disparagement to his dignity. But I should never, sir, have taken the trouble to appear against you, had you not, as I learn, pretended to the hand of the lady whom I had hoped, with less presumption, to call my bride; and in this, how can I tell that you have not tricked and betrayed me? Is there anything in our past acquaintance that warrants me to believe that, instead of serving me, you sought but to serve yourself? Be that as it may, I had but one mode of repairing to the head of my house the wrongs I have done him, and that was by saving his daughter from a derogatory alliance with an impostor who had abetted my schemes for hire, and who now would filch for himself their fruit." "Duke!" exclaimed Randal. The duke turned his back. Randal extended his hands to the squire. "Mr. Hazeldean--what? you, too, condemn me, and unheard?" "Unheard!--zounds, no! If you have anything to say, speak truth, and shame the devil." "I abet Frank's marriage! I sanction the post-obit! Oh!" cried Randal, clinging to a straw, "if Frank himself were but here!" Harley's compassion vanished before this sustained hypocrisy. "You wish for the presence of Frank Hazeldean? It is just." Harley opened the door of the inner room, and Frank appeared at the entrance. "My son! my son!" cried the squire, rushing forward, and clasping Frank to his broad, fatherly breast. This affecting incident gave a sudden change to the feelings of the audience, and for a moment Randal himself was forgotten. The young man seized that moment. Reprieved, as it were, from the glare of contemptuous, accusing eyes, slowly he crept to the door, slowly and noiselessly, as the viper, when it is wounded, drops its crest and glides writhing through the grass. Levy followed him to the threshold, and whispered in his ear, "I could not help it,--you would have done the same by me. You see you have failed in everything; and when a man fails completely, we both agreed that we must give him up altogether." Randal said not a word, and the baron marked his shadow fall on the broad stairs, stealing down, down, step after step, till it faded from the stones. "But he was of some use," muttered Levy. "His treachery and his exposure will gall the childless Egerton. Some little revenge still!" The count touched the arm of the musing usurer, "J'ai bien joue mon role, n'est ce pas?"--(I have well played my part, have I not?) "Your part! Ah, but, my dear count, I do not quite understand it." "Ma foi, you are passably dull. I had just been landed in France, when a letter from L'Estrange reached me. It was couched as an invitation, which I interpreted to--the duello. Such invitations I never refuse. I replied: I came hither, took my lodgings at an inn. My Lord seeks me last night. "I begin in the tone you may suppose. Pardieu! he is clever, milord! He shows me a letter from the Prince Von ------ , Alphonse's recall, my own banishment. He places before me, but with admirable suavity, the option of beggary and ruin, or an honourable claim on Alphonso's gratitude. And as for that /petit monsieur/, do you think I could quietly contemplate my own tool's enjoyment of all I had lost myself? Nay, more, if that young Harpagon were Alphonso's son-inlaw, could the duke have a whisperer at his ear more fatal to my own interests? To be brief, I saw at a glance my best course. I have adopted it. The difficulty was to extricate myself as became a man /de sang et de jeu/. If I have done so, congratulate me. Alphonso has taken my hand, and I now leave it to him to attend to my fortunes, and clear up my repute." "If you are going to London," said Levy, "my carriage, ere this, must be at the door, and I shall be proud to offer you a seat, and converse with you on your prospects. But, /peste, mon cher/, your fall has been from a great height, and any other man would have broken his bones." "Strength is ever light," said the count, smiling; "and it does not fall; it leaps down and rebounds." Levy looked at the count, and blamed himself for having disparaged Peschiera and overrated Randal. While this conference went on, Harley was by Violante's side. "I have kept my promise to you," said he, with a kind of tender humility. "Are you still so severe on me?" "Ah," answered Violante, gazing on his noble brow, with all a woman's pride in her eloquent, admiring eyes, "I have heard from Mr. Dale that you have achieved a conquest over yourself, which makes me ashamed to think that I presumed to doubt how your heart would speak when a moment of wrath (though of wrath so just) had passed away." "No, Violante, do not acquit me yet; witness my revenge (for I have not foregone it), and then let my heart speak, and breathe its prayer that the angel voice, which it now beats to hear, may still be its guardian monitor." "What is this?" cried an amazed voice; and Harley, turning round, saw that the duke was by his side; and, glancing with ludicrous surprise, now to Harley, now to Violante, "Am I to understand that you--" "Have freed you from one suitor for this dear hand, to become myself your petitioner!" "/Corpo di Bacco!/" cried the sage, almost embracing Harley, "this, indeed, is joyful news. But I must not again make a rash pledge,--not again force my child's inclinations. And Violante; you see, is running away." The duke stretched out his arm, and detained his child. He drew her to his breast, and whispered in her ear. Violante blushed crimson, and rested her head on his shoulder. Harley eagerly pressed forward. "There," said the duke, joining Harley's hand with his daughter's, "I don't think I shall hear much more of the convent; but anything of this sort I never suspected. If there be a language in the world for which there is no lexicon nor grammar, it is that which a woman thinks in, but never speaks." "It is all that is left of the language spoken in paradise," said Harley. "In the dialogue between Eve and the serpent,--yes," quoth the incorrigible sage. "But who comes here?--our friend Leonard." Leonard now entered the room; but Harley could scarcely greet him, before he was interrupted by the count. "Milord," said Peschiera, beckoning him aside, "I have fulfilled my promise, and I will now leave your roof. Baron Levy returns to London, and offers me a seat in his carriage, which is already, I believe, at your door. The duke and his daughter will readily forgive me if I do not ceremoniously bid them farewell. In our altered positions, it does not become me too intrusively to claim kindred; it became me only to remove, as I trust I have done, a barrier against the claim. If you approve my conduct, you will state your own opinion to the duke." With a profound salutation the count turned to depart; nor did Harley attempt to stay him, but attended him down the stairs with polite formality. "Remember only, my Lord, that I solicit nothing. I may allow myself to accept,--/voilia tout/." He bowed again, with the inimitable grace of the old regime, and stepped into the baron's travelling carriage. Levy, who had lingered behind, paused to accost L'Estrange. "Your Lordship will explain to Mr. Egerton how his adopted son deserved his esteem, and repaid his kindness. For the rest, though you have bought up the more pressing and immediate demands on Mr. Egerton, I fear that even your fortune will not enable you to clear those liabilities which will leave him, perhaps, a pauper!" "Baron Levy," said Harley, abruptly, "if I have forgiven Mr. Egerton, cannot you too forgive? Me he has wronged; you have wronged him, and more foully." "No, my Lord, I cannot forgive him. You he has never humiliated, you he has never employed for his wants, and scorned as his companion. You have never known what it is to start in life with one whose fortunes were equal to your own, whose talents were not superior. Look you, Lord L'Estrange, in spite of this difference between me and Egerton, that he has squandered the wealth that he gained without effort, while I have converted the follies of others into my own ample revenues, the spendthrift in his penury has the respect and position which millions cannot bestow upon me. You would say that I am an usurer, and he is a statesman. But do you know what I should have been, had I not been born the natural son of a peer? Can you guess what I should have been if Nora Avenel had been my wife? The blot on my birth, and the blight on my youth, and the knowledge that he who was rising every year into the rank which entitled him to reject me as a guest at his table--he whom the world called the model of a gentleman--was a coward and a liar to the friend of his youth,--all this made me look on the world with contempt; and, despising Audley Egerton, I yet hated him and envied. You, whom he wronged, stretch your hand as before to the great statesman; from my touch you would shrink as pollution. My Lord, you may forgive him whom you love and pity; I cannot forgive him whom I scorn and envy. Pardon my prolixity. I now quit your house." The baron moved a step, then, turning back, said with a withering sneer,-- "But you will tell Mr. Egerton how I helped to expose the son he adopted! I thought of the childless man when your Lordship imagined I was but in fear of your threats. Ha! ha! that will sting." The baron gnashed his teeth as, hastily entering the carriage, he drew down the blinds. The post-boys cracked their whips, and the wheels rolled away. "Who can judge," thought Harley, "through what modes retribution comes home to the breast? That man is chastised in his wealth, ever gnawed by desire for what his wealth cannot buy!" He roused himself, cleared his brow, as from a thought that darkened and troubled; and, entering the saloon, laid his hand upon Leonard's shoulder, and looked, rejoicing, into the poet's mild, honest, lustrous eyes. "Leonard," said he, gently, "your hour is come at last." CHAPTER XXXIV. Audely Egerton was alone in his apartment. A heavy sleep had come over him, shortly after Harley and Randal had left the house in the early morning; and that sleep continued till late in the day. All the while the town of Lansmere had been distracted in his cause, all the while so many tumultuous passions had run riot in the contest that was to close or re-open for the statesman's ambition the Janus gates of political war, the object of so many fears and hopes, schemes and counter-schemes, had slumbered quietly as an infant in the cradle. He woke but in time to receive Harley's despatch, announcing the success of his election; and adding, "Before the night you shall embrace your son. Do not join us below when I return. Keep calm,--we will come to you." In fact, though not aware of the dread nature of Audley's complaint, with its warning symptoms, Lord L'Estrange wished to spare to his friend the scene of Randal's exposure. On the receipt of that letter Egerton rose. At the prospect of seeing his son--Nora's son--the very memory of his disease vanished. The poor, weary, over-laboured heart indeed beat loud, and with many a jerk and spasm. He heeded it not. The victory, that restored him to the sole life for which he had hitherto cared to live, was clean forgotten. Nature claimed her own,--claimed it in scorn of death, and in oblivion of renown. There sat the man, dressed with his habitual precision,--the black coat, buttoned across the broad breast; his countenance, so mechanically habituated to self-control, still revealing little of emotion, though the sickly flush came and went on the bronzed cheek, and the eye watched the hand of the clock, and the ear hungered for a foot-tread along the corridor. At length the sound was heard,--steps, many steps. He sprung to his feet, he stood on the hearth. Was the hearth to be solitary no more? Harley entered first. Egerton's eyes rested on him eagerly for a moment, and strained onward across the threshold. Leonard came next,-- Leonard Fairfield, whom he had seen as his opponent! He began to suspect, to conjecture, to see the mother's tender eyes in the son's manly face. Involuntarily he opened his arms; but, Leonard remaining still, let them fall with a deep sigh, and fancied himself deceived. "Friend," said Harley, "I give to you a son proved in adversity, and who has fought his own way to fame. Leonard, in the man to whom I prayed you to sacrifice your own ambition, of whom you have spoken with such worthy praise, whose career of honour you have promoted, and whose life, unsatisfied by those honours, you will soothe with your filial love, behold the husband of Nora Avenel! Kneel to your father! O Audley, embrace your son!" "Here, here!" exclaimed Egerton, as Leonard bent his knee,--"here to my heart! Look at me with those eyes!--kindly, forgivingly: they are your mother's!" His proud head sunk on his son's shoulder. "But this is not enough," said Harley, leading Helen, and placing her by Leonard's side. "You must open your heart for more. Take into its folds my sweet ward and daughter. What is a home without the smile of woman? They have loved each other from children. Audley, yours be the hand to join,--yours be the lips to bless." Leonard started anxiously. "Oh, sir!--oh, my father!--this generous sacrifice may not be; for he--he who has saved me for this surpassing joy--he too loves her!" "Nay, Leonard," said Harley, smiling, "I am not so neglectful of myself. Another home woos you, Audley. He whom you long so vainly sought to reconcile to life, exchanging mournful dreams for happy duties,--he, too, presents you to his bride. Love her for my sake,--for your own. She it is, not I, who presides over this hallowed reunion. But for her, I should have been a blinded, vindictive, guilty, repentant man; and--" Violante's soft hand was on his lips. "Thus," said the parson, with mild solemnity, "man finds that the Saviour's precepts, 'Let not the sun go down upon thy wrath,' and 'Love one another,' are clews that conduct us through the labyrinth of human life, when the schemes of fraud and hate snap asunder, and leave us lost amidst the maze." Egerton reared his head, as if to answer; and all present were struck and appalled by the sudden change that had come over his countenance. There was a film upon the eye, a shadow on the aspect; the words failed his lips; he sunk on the seat beside him. The left hand rested droopingly upon the piles of public papers and official documents, and the fingers played with them, as the bedridden dying sufferer plays with the coverlid he will soon exchange for the winding-sheet. But his right hand seemed to feel, as through the dark, for the recovered son; and having touched what it sought, feebly drew Leonard near and nearer. Alas! that blissful PRIVATE LIFE--that close centre round the core of being in the individual man--so long missed and pined for, slipped from him, as it were, the moment it reappeared; hurried away, as the circle on the ocean, which is scarce seen ere it vanishes amidst infinity. Suddenly both hands were still; the head fell back. Joy had burst asunder the last ligaments, so fretted away in unrevealing sorrow. Afar, their sound borne into that room, the joy-bells were pealing triumph; mobs roaring out huzzas; the weak cry of John Avenel might be blent in those shouts, as the drunken zealots reeled by his cottage door, and startled the screaming ravens that wheeled round the hollow oak. The boom which is sent from the waves on the surface of life, while the deeps are so noiseless in their march, was wafted on the wintry air into the chamber of the statesman it honoured, and over the grass sighing low upon Nora's grave. But there was one in the chamber, as in the grave, for whom the boom on the wave had no sound, and the march of the deep had no tide. Amidst promises of home, and union, and peace, and fame, Death strode into the household ring, and, seating itself, calm and still, looked life-like,--warm hearts throbbing round it; lofty hopes fluttering upward; Love kneeling at its feet; Religion, with lifted finger, standing by its side. FINAL CHAPTER. SCENE--The Hall in the Old Tower of CAPTAIN ROLAND DE CAXTON. "But you have not done?" said Augustine Caxton. PISISTRATUS.--"What remains to do?" MR. CAXTON.--"What! why, the Final Chapter!--the last news you can give us of those whom you have introduced to our liking or dislike." PISISTRATUS.--"Surely it is more dramatic to close the work with a scene that completes the main design of the plot, and leave it to the prophetic imagination of all whose flattering curiosity is still not wholly satisfied, to trace the streams of each several existence, when they branch off again from the lake in which their waters converge, and by which the sibyl has confirmed and made clear the decree that 'Conduct is Fate.'" MR. CAXTON.--"More dramatic, I grant; but you have not written a drama. A novelist should be a comfortable, garrulous, communicative, gossiping fortune-teller; not a grim, laconical, oracular sibyl. I like a novel that adopts all the old-fashioned customs prescribed to its art by the rules of the Masters,--more especially a novel which you style 'My Novel' /par/ emphasis." CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"A most vague and impracticable title 'My Novel'! It must really be changed before the work goes in due form to the public." MR. SQUILLS.--"Certainly the present title cannot be even pronounced by many without inflicting a shock upon their nervous system. Do you think, for instance, that my friend, Lady Priscilla Graves--who is a great novel-reader indeed, but holds all female writers unfeminine deserters to the standard of Man--could ever come out with, 'Pray, sir, have you had time to look at--MY Novel?'--She would rather die first. And yet to be silent altogether on the latest acquisition to the circulating libraries would bring on a functional derangement of her ladyship's organs of speech. Or how could pretty Miss Dulcet--all sentiment, it is true, but all bashful timidity--appall Captain Smirke from proposing with, 'Did not you think the parson's sermon a little too dry in--MY Novel'? It will require a face of brass, or at least a long course of citrate of iron, before a respectable lady or unassuming young gentleman, with a proper dread of being taken for scribblers, could electrify a social circle with 'The reviewers don't do justice to the excellent things in--My Novel.'" CAPTAIN ROLAND.--"Awful consequences, indeed, may arise from the mistakes such a title gives rise to. Counsellor Digwell, for instance, a lawyer of literary tastes, but whose career at the Bar was long delayed by an unjust suspicion amongst the attorneys that he had written a 'Philosophical Essay'--imagine such a man excusing himself for being late at a dinner of bigwigs, with 'I could not get away from--My Novel!' It would be his professional ruin! I am not fond of lawyers in general, but still I would not be a party to taking the bread out of the mouth of those with a family; and Digwell has children,--the tenth an innocent baby in arms." MR. CAXTON.--"As to Digwell in particular, and lawyers in general, they are too accustomed to circumlocution to expose themselves to the danger your kind heart apprehends; but I allow that a shy scholar like myself, or a grave college tutor, might be a little put to the blush, if he were to blurt forth inadvertently with, 'Don't waste your time over trash like--MY Novel.' And that thought presents to us another and more pleasing view of this critical question. The title you condemn places the work under universal protection. Lives there a man or a woman so dead to self-love as to say, 'What contemptible stuff is--MY Novel'? Would he or she not rather be impelled by that strong impulse of an honourable and virtuous heart, which moves us to stand as well as we can with our friends, to say, 'Allow that there is really a good thing now and then in--My Novel.' Moreover, as a novel aspires to embrace most of the interests or the passions that agitate mankind,--to generalize, as it were, the details of life that come home to us all,--so, in reality, the title denotes that if it be such as the author may not unworthily call his Novel, it must also be such as the reader, whoever he be, may appropriate in part to himself, representing his own ideas, expressing his own experience, reflecting, if not in full, at least in profile, his own personal identity. Thus, when we glance at the looking-glass in another man's room, our likeness for the moment appropriates the mirror; and according to the humour in which we are, or the state of our spirits and health, we say to ourselves, 'Bilious and yellow!--I might as well take care of my diet!' Or, 'Well, I 've half a mind to propose to dear Jane; I'm not such an ill-looking dog as I thought for!' Still, whatever result from that glance at the mirror, we never doubt that 't is our likeness we see; and each says to the phantom reflection, 'Thou art myself,' though the mere article of furniture that gives the reflection belongs to another. It is my likeness if it be his glass. And a narrative that is true to the Varieties of Life is every Man's Novel, no matter from what shores, by what rivers, by what bays, in what pits, were extracted the sands and the silex, the pearlash, the nitre, and quicksilver which form its materials; no matter who the craftsman who fashioned its form; no matter who the vendor that sold, or the customer who bought: still, if I but recognize some trait of myself, 't is my likeness that makes it 'My Novel.'" MR. SQUILLS (puzzled, and therefore admiring).---"Subtle, sir,--very subtle. Fine organ of Comparison in Mr. Caxton's head, and much called into play this evening!" MR. CAXTON (benignly).--"Finally, the author by this most admirable and much signifying title dispenses with all necessity of preface. He need insinuate no merits, he need extenuate no faults; for, by calling his work thus curtly 'MY Novel,' he doth delicately imply that it is no use wasting talk about faults or merits." PISISTRATUS (amazed).--"How is that, sir?" MR. CAXTON.--"What so clear? You imply that, though a better novel may be written by others, you do not expect to write a novel to which, taken as a novel, you would more decisively and unblushingly prefix that voucher of personal authorship and identity conveyed in the monosyllable 'My.' And if you have written your best, let it be ever so bad, what can any man of candour and integrity require more from you? Perhaps you will say that, if you had lived two thousand years ago, you might have called it 'The Novel,' or the 'Golden Novel,' as Lucius called his story 'The Ass;' and Apuleius, to distinguish his own more elaborate Ass from all Asses preceding it, called his tale 'The Golden Ass.' But living in the present day, such a designation--implying a merit in general, not the partial and limited merit corresponding only with your individual abilities--would be presumptuous and offensive. True, I here anticipate the observation I see Squills is about to make--" SQUILLS.--"I, Sir?" MR. CAXTON.--"You would say that, as Scarron called his work of fiction 'The Comic Novel,' so Pisistratus might have called his 'The Serious Novel,' or 'The Tragic Novel.' But, Squills, that title would not have been inviting nor appropriate, and would have been exposed to comparison with Scarron, who being dead is inimitable. Wherefore--to put the question on the irrefragable basis of mathematics--wherefore as A B 'My Novel' is not equal to B C 'The Golden Novel,' nor to D E 'The Serious or Tragic Novel,' it follows that A B 'My Novel' is equal to P C 'Pisistratus Caxton,' and P C 'Pisistratus Caxton' must therefore be just equal, neither more nor less, to A B 'My Novel,'--which was to be demonstrated." My father looked round triumphantly, and observing that Squills was dumfounded, and the rest of his audience posed, he added mildly, "And so now, 'non quieta movere,' proceed with the Final Chapter, and tell us first what became of that youthful Giles Overreach, who was himself his own Marrall?" "Ay," said the captain, "what became of Randal Leslie? Did he repent and reform?" "Nay," quoth my father, with a mournful shake of the head, "you can regulate the warm tide of wild passion, you can light into virtue the dark errors of ignorance; but where the force of the brain does but clog the free action of the heart, where you have to deal, not with ignorance misled, but intelligence corrupted, small hope of reform; for reform here will need re-organization. I have somewhere read (perhaps in Hebrew tradition) that of the two orders of fallen spirits,--the Angels of Love and the Angels of Knowledge,--the first missed the stars they had lost, and wandered back through the darkness, one by one, into heaven; but the last, lighted on by their own lurid splendours, said, 'Wherever we go, there is heaven!' And deeper and lower descending, lost their shape and their nature, till, deformed and obscene, the bottomless pit closed around them." MR. SQUILLS.--"I should not have thought, Mr. Caxton, that a book-man like you would be thus severe upon Knowledge." MR. CAXTON (in wrath).--"Severe upon knowledge! Oh, Squills, Squills, Squills! Knowledge perverted is knowledge no longer. Vinegar, which, exposed to the sun, breeds small serpents, or at best slimy eels, not comestible, once was wine. If I say to my grandchildren, 'Don't drink that sour stuff, which the sun itself fills with reptiles,' does that prove me a foe to sound sherry? Squills, if you had but received a scholastic education, you would know the wise maxim that saith, 'All things the worst are corruptions from things originally designed as the best.' Has not freedom bred anarchy, and religion fanaticism? And if I blame Marat calling for blood, or Dominic racking a heretic, am I severe on the religion that canonized Francis de Sales, or the freedom that immortalized Thrasybulus?" Mr. Squills, dreading a catalogue of all the saints in the calendar, and an epitome of Ancient History, exclaimed eagerly, "Enough, sir; I am convinced!" MR. CAXTON.--"Moreover, I have thought it a natural stroke of art in Pisistratus to keep Randal Leslie, in his progress towards the rot of the intellect unwholesomely refined, free from all the salutary influences that deter ambition from settling into egotism. Neither in his slovenly home, nor from his classic tutor at his preparatory school, does he seem to have learned any truths, religious or moral, that might give sap to fresh shoots, when the first rank growth was cut down by the knife; and I especially noted, as illustrative of Egerton, no less than of Randal, that though the statesman's occasional hints of advice to his protege are worldly wise in their way, and suggestive of honour as befitting the creed of a gentleman, they are not such as much influence a shrewd reasoner like Randal, whom the example of the playground at Eton had not served to correct of the arid self-seeking, which looked to knowledge for no object but power. A man tempted by passions like Audley, or seduced into fraud by a cold, subtle spirit like Leslie, will find poor defence in the elegant precept, 'Remember to act as a gentleman.' Such moral embroidery adds a beautiful scarf to one's armour; but it is not the armour itself! Ten o'clock, as I live! Push on, Pisistratus! and finish the chapter." MRS. CAXTON (benevolently).--"Don't hurry. Begin with that odious Randal Leslie, to oblige your father; but there are others whom Blanche and I care much more to hear about." Pisistratus, since there is no help for it, produces a supplementary manuscript, which proves that, whatever his doubt as to the artistic effect of a Final Chapter, he had foreseen that his audience would not be contented without one. Randal Leslie, late at noon the day after he quitted Lansmere Park, arrived on foot at his father's house. He had walked all the way, and through the solitudes of the winter night; but he was not sensible of fatigue till the dismal home closed round him, with its air of hopeless ignoble poverty; and then he sunk upon the floor feeling himself a ruin amidst the ruins. He made no disclosure of what had passed to his relations. Miserable man, there was not one to whom he could confide, or from whom he might hear the truths that connect repentance with consolation! After some weeks passed in sullen and almost unbroken silence, be left as abruptly as he had appeared, and returned to London. The sudden death of a man like Egerton had even in those excited times created intense, though brief sensation. The particulars of the election, that had been given in detail in the provincial papers, were copied into the London journals, among those details, Randal Leslie's conduct in the Committee-room, with many an indignant comment on selfishness and ingratitude. The political world of all parties formed one of those judgments on the great man's poor dependant, which fix a stain upon the character and place a barrier in the career of ambitious youth. The important personages who had once noticed Randal for Audley's sake, and who, on their subsequent and not long-deferred restoration to power, could have made his fortune, passed him in the streets without a nod. He did not venture to remind Avenel of the promise to aid him in another election for Lansmere, nor dream of filling up the vacancy which Egerton's death had created. He was too shrewd not to see that all hope of that borough was over,--he would have been hooted in the streets and pelted from the hustings. Forlorn in the vast metropolis as Leonard had once been, in his turn he loitered on the bridge, and gazed on the remorseless river. He had neither money nor connections,--nothing save talents and knowledge to force his way back into the lofty world in which all had smiled on him before; and talents and knowledge, that had been exerted to injure a benefactor, made him but the more despised. But even now, Fortune, that had bestowed on the pauper heir of Rood advantages so numerous and so dazzling, out of which he had cheated himself, gave him a chance, at least, of present independence, by which, with patient toil, he might have won, if not to the highest places, at least to a position in which he could have forced the world to listen to his explanations; and perhaps receive his excuses. The L5,000 that Audley designed for him, and which, in a private memorandum, the statesman had entreated Harley to see safely rescued from the fangs of the law, were made over to Randal by Lord L'Estrange's solicitor; but this sum seemed to him so small after the loss of such gorgeous hopes, and the up-hill path seemed so slow after such short cuts to power, that Randal looked upon the unexpected bequest simply as an apology for adopting no profession. Stung to the quick by the contrast between his past and his present place in the English world, he hastened abroad. There, whether in distraction from thought, or from the curiosity of a restless intellect to explore the worth of things yet untried, Randal Leslie, who had hitherto been so dead to the ordinary amusements of youth, plunged into the society of damaged gamesters and third-rate roues. In this companionship his very talents gradually degenerated, and their exercise upon low intrigues and miserable projects but abased his social character, till, sinking step after step as his funds decayed, he finally vanished out of the sphere in which even profligates still retain the habits, and cling to the caste of gentlemen. His father died; the neglected property of Rood devolved on Randal, but out of its scanty proceeds he had to pay the portions of his brother and sister, and his mother's jointure; the surplus left was scarcely visible in the executor's account. The hope of restoring the home and fortunes of his forefathers had long ceased. What were the ruined hall and its bleak wastes, without that hope which had once dignified the wreck and the desert? He wrote from St. Petersburg, ordering the sale of the property. No one great proprietor was a candidate for the unpromising investment; it was sold in lots among small freeholders and retired traders. A builder bought the hall for its material. Hall, lands, and name were blotted out of the map and the history of the county. The widow, Oliver, and Juliet removed to a provincial town in another shire. Juliet married an ensign in a marching regiment; and died of neglect after childbirth. Mrs. Leslie did not long survive her. Oliver added to his little fortune by marriage with the daughter of a retail tradesman, who had amassed a few thousand pounds. He set up a brewery, and contrived to live without debt, though a large family and his own constitutional inertness extracted from his business small profits and no savings. Nothing of Randal had been heard of for years after the sale of Rood, except that he had taken up his residence either in Australia or the United States; it was not known which, but presumed to be the latter. Still, Oliver had been brought up with so high a veneration of his brother's talents, that he cherished the sanguine belief that Randal would some day appear, wealthy and potent, like the uncle in a comedy; lift rip the sunken family, and rear into graceful ladies and accomplished gentlemen the clumsy little boys and the vulgar little girls who now crowded round Oliver's dinner-table, with appetites altogether disproportioned to the size of the joints. One winter day, when from the said dinner-table wife and children had retired, and Oliver sat sipping his half-pint of bad port, and looking over unsatisfactory accounts, a thin terrier, lying on the threadbare rug by the niggard fire, sprang up and barked fiercely. Oliver lifted his dull blue eyes, and saw opposite to him, at the window, a human face. The face was pressed close to the panes, and was obscured by the haze which the breath of its lips drew forth from the frosty rime that had gathered on the glass. Oliver, alarmed and indignant, supposing this intrusive spectator of his privacy to be some bold and lawless tramper, stepped out of the room, opened the front door, and bade the stranger go about his business; while the terrier still more inhospitably yelped and snapped at the stranger's heels. Then a hoarse voice said, "Don't you know me, Oliver? I am your brother Randal! Call away your dog and let me in." Oliver stared aghast; he could not believe his slow senses, he could not recognize his brother in the gaunt grim apparition before him; but at length he came forward, gazed into Randal's face, and, grasping his hand in amazed silence, led him into the little parlour. Not a trace of the well-bred refinement which had once characterized Randal's air and person was visible. His dress bespoke the last stage of that terrible decay which is significantly called the "shabby genteel." His mien was that of the skulking, timorous, famished vagabond. As he took off his greasy tattered hat, he exhibited, though still young in years, the signs of premature old age. His hair, once so fine and silken, was of a harsh iron-gray, bald in ragged patches; his forehead and visage were ploughed into furrows; intelligence was still in the aspect, but an intelligence that instinctively set you on your guard,--sinister, gloomy, menacing. Randal stopped short all questioning. He seized the small modicum of wine on the table, and drained it at a draught. "Poole," said he, "have you nothing that warms a man better than this?" Oliver, who felt as if under the influence of a frightful dream, went to a cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy three-parts full. Randal snatched at it eagerly, and put his lips to the mouth of the bottle. "Ah," said he, after a short pause, "this comforts; now give me food." Oliver hastened himself to serve his brother; in fact, he felt ashamed that even the slipshod maid- servant should see his visitor. When he returned with such provisions as he could extract from the larder, Randal was seated by the fire, spreading over the embers emaciated bony hands, like the talons of a vulture. He devoured the cold meat set before him with terrible voracity, and nearly finished the spirits left in the bottle; but the last had no effect in dispersing his gloom. Oliver stared at him in fear; the terrier continued to utter a low suspicious growl. "You would know my history?" at length said Randal, bluntly. "It is short. I have tried for fortune and failed, I am without a penny and without a hope. You seem poor,-- "I suppose you cannot much help me. Let me at least stay with you for a time,--I know not where else to look for bread and for shelter." Oliver burst into tears, and cordially bade his brother welcome. Randal remained some weeks at Oliver's house, never stirring out of the doors, and not seeming to notice, though he did not scruple to use, the new habiliments, which Oliver procured ready-made, and placed, without remark, in his room. But his presence soon became intolerable to the mistress of the house, and oppressive even to its master. Randal, who had once been so abstemious that he had even regarded the most moderate use of wine as incompatible with clear judgment and vigilant observation, had contracted the habit of drinking spirits at all hours of the day; but though they sometimes intoxicated him into stupor, they never unlocked his heart nor enlivened his sullen mood. If he observed less acutely than of old, he could still conceal just as closely. Mrs. Oliver Leslie, at first rather awed and taciturn, grew cold and repelling, then pert and sarcastic, at last undisguisedly and vulgarly rude. Randal made no retort; but his sneer was so galling that the wife flew at once to her husband, and declared that either she or his brother must leave the house. Oliver tried to pacify and compromise, with partial success; and a few days afterwards, he came to Randal and said timidly, "You see, my wife brought me nearly all I possess, and you don't condescend to make friends with her. Your residence here must be as painful to you as to me. But I wish to see you provided for; and I could offer you something, only it seems, at first glance, so beneath--" "Beneath what?" interrupted Randal, witheringly. "What I was--or what I am? Speak out!" "To be sure you are a scholar; and I have heard you say fine things about knowledge and so forth; and you'll have plenty of books at your disposal, no doubt; and you are still young, and may rise--and--" "Hell and torments! Be quick,--say the worst or the best!" cried Randal, fiercely. "Well, then," said poor Oliver, still trying to soften the intended proposal, "you must know that our poor sister's husband was nephew to Dr. Felpem, who keeps a very respectable school. He is not learned himself, and attends chiefly to arithmetic and book-keeping, and such matters; but he wants an usher to teach the classics, for some of the boys go to college. And I have written to him, just to sound--I did not mention your name till I knew if you would like it; but he will take my recommendation. Board, lodging, L50 a year; in short, the place is yours if you like it." Randal shivered from head to foot, and was long before he answered. "Well, be it so; I have come to that. Ha, ha! yes, knowledge is power!" He paused a few moments. "So, the old Hall is razed to the ground, and you are a tradesman in a small country town, and my sister is dead, and I henceforth am--John Smith! You say that you did not mention my name to the schoolmaster,--still keep it concealed; forget that I once was a Leslie. Our tie of brotherhood ceases when I go from your hearth. Write, then, to your head-master, who attends to arithmetic, and secure the rank of his usher in Latin and Greek for--John Smith!" Not many days afterwards, the /protege/ of Audley Egerton entered on his duties as usher in one of those large, cheap schools, which comprise a sprinkling of the sons of gentry and clergymen designed for the learned professions, with a far larger proportion of the sons of traders, intended, some for the counting-house, some for the shop and the till. There, to this day, under the name of John Smith, lives Randal Leslie. It is probably not pride alone that induces him to persist in that change of name, and makes him regard as perpetual the abandonment of the one that he took from his forefathers, and with which he had once identified his vaulting ambition; for shortly after he had quitted his brother's house, Oliver read in the weekly newspaper, to which he bounded his lore of the times in which he lived, an extract from an American journal, wherein certain mention was made of an English adventurer who, amongst other aliases, had assumed the name of Leslie,--that extract caused Oliver to start, turn pale, look round, and thrust the paper into the fire. From that time he never attempted to violate the condition Randal had imposed on him, never sought to renew their intercourse, nor to claim a brother. Doubtless, if the adventurer thus signalized was the man Oliver suspected, whatever might be imputed to Randal's charge that could have paled a brother's cheek, it was none of the more violent crimes to which law is inexorable, but rather (in that progress made by ingratitude and duplicity, with Need and Necessity urging them on) some act of dishonesty which may just escape from the law, to sink, without redemption, the name. However this be, there is nothing in Randal's present course of life which forbodes any deeper fall. He has known what it is to want bread, and his former restlessness subsides into cynic apathy. He lodges in the town near the school, and thus the debasing habit of unsocial besotment is not brought under the eyes of his superior. The drain is his sole luxury; if it be suspected, it is thought to be his sole vice. He goes through the ordinary routine of tuition with average credit; his spirit of intrigue occasionally shows itself in attempts to conciliate the favour of the boys whose fathers are wealthy, who are born to higher rank than the rest; and he lays complicated schemes to be asked home for the holidays. But when the schemes succeed, and the invitation comes, be recoils and shrinks back,--he does not dare to show himself on the borders of the brighter world he once hoped to sway; he fears that he may be discovered to be--a Leslie! On such days, when his taskwork is over, he shuts himself up in his room, locks the door, and drugs himself into insensibility. Once be found a well-worn volume running the round of delighted schoolboys, took it up, and recognized Leonard's earliest popular work, which had, many years before, seduced himself into pleasant thoughts and gentle emotions. He carried the book to his own lodgings, read it again; and when he returned it to its young owner, some of the leaves were stained with tears. Alas! perhaps but the maudlin tears of broken nerves, not of the awakened soul,--for the leaves smelt strongly of whiskey. Yet, after that re-perusal, Randal Leslie turned suddenly to deeper studies than his habitual drudgeries required. He revived and increased his early scholarship; he chalked the outline of a work of great erudition, in which the subtlety of his intellect found field in learned and acute criticism. But he has never proceeded far in this work. After each irregular and spasmodic effort, the pen drops from his hand, and he mutters, "But to what end? "I can never now raise a name. Why give reputation to--John Smith?" Thus he drags on his life; and perhaps, when he dies, the fragments of his learned work may be discovered in the desk of the usher, and serve as hints to some crafty student, who may filch ideas and repute from the dead Leslie, as Leslie had filched them from the living Burley. While what may be called poetical justice has thus evolved itself from the schemes in which Randal Leslie had wasted rare intellect in baffling his own fortunes, no outward signs of adversity evince the punishment of Providence on the head of the more powerful offender, Baron Levy. No fall in the Funds has shaken the sumptuous fabric, built from the ruined houses of other men. Baron Levy is still Baron Levy the millionaire; but I doubt if at heart he be not more acutely miserable than Randal Leslie the usher. For Levy is a man who has admitted the fiercer passions into his philosophy of life; he has not the pale blood and torpid heart which allow the scotched adder to dose away its sense of pain. Just as old age began to creep upon the fashionable usurer, he fell in love with a young opera-dancer, whose light heels had turned the lighter heads of half the eligans of Paris and London. The craft of the dancer was proof against all lesser bribes than that of marriage; and Levy married her. From that moment his house, Louis Quinze, was more crowded than ever by the high- born dandies whose society lie had long so eagerly courted. That society became his curse. The baroness was an accomplished coquette; and Levy (with whom, as we have seen, jealousy was the predominant passion) was stretched on an eternal rack. His low estimate of human nature, his disbelief in the possibility of virtue, added strength to the agony of his suspicions, and provoked the very dangers he dreaded. His self- torturing task was that of the spy upon his own hearth. His banquets were haunted by a spectre; the attributes of his wealth were as the goad and the scourge of Nemesis. His gay cynic smile changed into a sullen scowl, his hair blanched into white, his eyes were hollow with one consuming care. Suddenly he left his costly house,--left London; abjured all the society which it had been the joy of his wealth to purchase; buried himself and his wife in a remote corner of the provinces; and there he still lives. He seeks in vain to occupy his days with rural pursuits,--he to whom the excitements of a metropolis, with all its corruption and its vices, were the sole sources of the turpid stream that he called "pleasure." There, too, the fiend of jealousy still pursues him: he prowls round his demesnes with the haggard eye and furtive step of a thief; he guards his wife as a prisoner, for she threatens every day to escape. The life of the man who had opened the prison to so many is the life of a jailer. His wife abhors him, and does not conceal it; and still slavishly he dotes on her. Accustomed to the freest liberty, demanding applause and admiration as her rights; wholly uneducated, vulgar in mind, coarse in language, violent in temper, the beautiful Fury he had brought to his home makes that home a hell. Thus, what might seem to the superficial most enviable, is to their possessor most hateful. He dares not ask a soul to see how he spends his gold; he has shrunk into a mean and niggardly expenditure, and complains of reverse and poverty, in order to excuse himself to his wife for debarring her the enjoyments which she anticipated from the Money Bags she had married. A vague consciousness of retribution has awakened remorse, to add to his other stings. And the remorse coming from superstition, not religion (sent from below, not descending from above), brings with it none of the consolations of a genuine repentance. He never seeks to atone, never dreams of some redeeming good action. His riches flow around him, spreading wider and wider--out of his own reach. The Count di Peschiera was not deceived in the calculations which had induced him to affect repentance, and establish a claim upon his kinsman. He received from the generosity of the Duke di Serrano an annuity not disproportioned to his rank, and no order from his court forbade his return to Vienna. But, in the very summer that followed his visit to Lansmere, his career came to an abrupt close. At Baden-Baden he paid court to a wealthy and accomplished Polish widow; and his fine person and terrible repute awed away all rivals, save a young Frenchman, as daring as himself, and much more in love. A challenge was given and accepted. Peschiera appeared on the fatal ground, with his customary sang-froid, humming an opera air, and looking so diabolically gay that his opponent's nerves were affected in spite of his courage; and the Frenchman's trigger going off before he had even taken aim, to his own ineffable astonishment, he shot the count through the heart, dead. Beatrice di Negra lived for some years after her brother's death in strict seclusion, lodging within a convent, though she did not take the veil, as she at first proposed. In fact, the more she saw of the sisterhood, the more she found that human regrets and human passions (save in some rarely gifted natures) find their way through the barred gates and over the lofty walls. Finally, she took up her abode in Rome, where she is esteemed for a life not only marked by strict propriety, but active benevolence. She cannot be prevailed on to accept from the duke more than a fourth of the annuity that had been bestowed on her brother; but she has few wants, save those of charity; and when charity is really active, it can do so much with so little gold! She is not known in the gayer circles of the city; but she gathers round her a small society composed chiefly of artists and scholars, and is never so happy as when she can aid some child of genius,--more especially if his country be England. The squire and his wife still flourish at Hazeldean, where Captain Barnabas Higginbotham has taken up his permanent abode. The captain is a confirmed hypochondriac; but he brightens up now and then when he hears of any illness in the family of Mr. Sharpe Currie, and, at such times, is heard to murmur, "If those seven sickly children should go off, I might still have very great--EXPECTATIONS,"--for the which he has been roundly scolded by the squire, and gravely preached at by the parson. Upon both, however, he takes his revenge in a fair and gentlemanlike way, three times a week, at the whist-table, the parson no longer having the captain as his constant partner, since a fifth now generally cuts in at the table,--in the person of that old enemy and neighbour, Mr. Sticktorights. The parson, thus fighting his own battles unallied to the captain, observes with melancholy surprise that there is a long run of luck against him, and that he does not win so much as he used to do. Fortunately that is the sole trouble--except Mrs. Dale's "little tempers," to which he is accustomed--that ever disturbs the serene tenor of the parson's life. We must now explain how Mr. Sticktorights came to cut in at the Hazeldean whist-table. Frank has settled at the Casino with a wife who suits him exactly, and that wife was Miss Sticktorights. It was two years before Frank recovered the disappointment with which the loss of Beatrice saddened his spirits, but sobered his habits and awoke his reflection. An affection, however misplaced and ill-requited, if honestly conceived and deeply felt, rarely fails to advance the self- education of man. Frank became steady and serious; and, on a visit to Hazeldean, met at a county ball Miss Sticktorights, and the two young persons were instantly attracted towards each other, perhaps by the very feud that had so long existed between their houses. The marriage settlements were nearly abandoned, at the last moment, by a discussion between the parents as to the Right of Way; but the dispute was happily appeased by Mr. Dale's suggestion that as both properties would be united in the children of the proposed marriage, all cause for litigation would naturally cease, since no man would go to law with himself. Mr. Sticktorights and Mr. Hazeldean, however, agreed in the precaution of inserting a clause in the settlements (though all the lawyers declared that it could not be of any legal avail), by which it was declared, that if, in default of heritable issue by the said marriage, the Sticktorights' estate devolved on some distant scion of the Sticktorights family, the right of way from the wood across the waste land would still remain in the same state of delectable dispute in which it then stood. There seems, however, little chance of a lawsuit thus providently bequeathed to the misery of distant generations, since two sons and two daughters are already playing at hide-and-seek on the terrace where Jackeymo once watered the orange-trees, and in the belvidere where Riccabocca had studied his Machiavelli. Jackeymo, though his master has assessed the long arrears of his wages at a sum which would enable him to have orange-groves and servants of his own, still clings to his former duties, and practises his constitutional parsimony. His only apparent deviation into profusion consists in the erection of a chapel to his sainted namesake, to whom he burns many a votive taper,--the tapers are especially tall, and their sconces are wreathed with garlands, whenever a letter with the foreign postmark brings good news of the absent Violante and her English lord. Riccabocca was long before he reconciled himself to the pomp of his principalities and his title of Duke. Jemima accommodated herself much more readily to greatness; but she retained all her native Hazeldean simplicity at heart, and is adored by the villagers around her, especially by the young of both sexes, whom she is always ready to marry and to portion,--convinced, long ere this, of the redeemable qualities of the male sex by her reverence for the duke, who continues to satirize women and wedlock, and deem himself--thanks to his profound experience of the one, and his philosophical endurance of the other--the only happy husband in the world. Longer still was it before the sage, who had been so wisely anxious to rid himself of the charge of a daughter, could wean his thoughts from the remembrance of her tender voice and loving eyes,-- not, indeed, till he seriously betook himself to the task of educating the son with whom, according to his scientific prognostics, Jemima presented him shortly after his return to his native land. The sage began betimes with his Italian proverbs, full of hardhearted worldly wisdom, and the boy was scarce out of the hornbook before he was introduced to Machiavelli. But somehow or other the simple goodness of the philosopher's actual life, with his high-wrought patrician sentiments of integrity and honour, so counteract the theoretical lessons, that the Heir of Serrano is little likely to be made more wise by the proverbs, or more wicked by the Machiavelli, than those studies have practically made the progenitor, whose opinions his countrymen still shame with the title of "Alphonso the Good." The duke long cherished a strong curiosity to know what had become of Randal. He never traced the adventurer to his closing scene. But once (years before Randal had crept into his present shelter) in a visit of inspection to the hospital at Genoa, the duke, with his peculiar shrewdness of observation in all matters except those which concerned himself, was remarking to the officer in attendance, "that for one dull, honest man whom fortune drove to the hospital or the jail, he had found, on investigation of their antecedents, three sharp-witted knaves who had thereto reduced themselves"--when his eye fell upon a man asleep in one of the sick wards; and recognizing the face, not then so changed as Oliver had seen it, he walked straight up, and gazed upon Randal Leslie. "An Englishman," said the official. "He was brought hither insensible, from a severe wound on the head, inflicted, as we discovered, by a well- known chevalier d'industrie, who declared that the Englishman had outwitted and cheated him. That was not very likely, for a few crowns were all we could find on the Englishman's person, and he had been obliged to leave his lodgings for debt. He is recovering, but there is fever still." The duke gazed silently on the sleeper, who was tossing restlessly on his pallet, and muttering to himself; then he placed his purse in the official's hand. "Give this to the Englishman," said he; "but conceal my name. It is true, it is true, the proverb is very true," resumed the duke, descending the stairs, "Piu pelli di volpi the di asini vanno in Pellieciaria." (More hides of foxes than of asses find their way to the tanner's). Dr. Morgan continues to prescribe globules for grief, and to administer infinitesimally to a mind diseased. Practising what he prescribes, he swallows a globule of caustic whenever the sight of a distressed fellow- creature moves him to compassion,--a constitutional tendency which, he is at last convinced, admits of no radical cure. For the rest, his range of patients has notably expanded; and under his sage care his patients unquestionably live as long--as Providence pleases. No allopathist can say more. The death of poor John Burley found due place in the obituary of "literary men." Admirers, unknown before, came forward and subscribed for a handsome monument to his memory in Kensall Green. They would have subscribed for the relief of his widow and children, if he had left any. Writers in magazines thrived for some months on collections of his humorous sayings, anecdotes of his eccentricities, and specimens of the eloquence that had lightened through the tobacco-reek of tavern and club- room. Leonard ultimately made a selection from his scattered writings which found place in standard libraries, though their subjects were either of too fugitive an interest, or treated in too capricious a manner, to do more than indicate the value of the ore, had it been purified from its dross and subjected to the art of the mint. These specimens could not maintain their circulation as the coined money of Thought, but they were hoarded by collectors as rare curiosities. Alas, poor Burley! The Pompleys sustained a pecuniary loss by the crash of a railway company, in which the colonel had been induced to take several shares by one of his wife's most boasted "connections," whose estate the said railway proposed to traverse, on paying L400 an acre, in that golden age when railway companies respected the rights of property. The colonel was no longer able, in his own country, to make both ends meet at Christmas. He is now straining hard to achieve that feat in Boulogne, and has in the process grown so red in the face, that those who meet him in his morning walk on the pier, bargaining for fish, shake their heads and say, "Old Pompley will go off in a fit of apoplexy; a great loss to society; genteel people the Pompleys! and very highly 'connected.'" The vacancy created in the borough of Lansmere by Audley Egerton's death was filled up by our old acquaintance, Haveril Dashmore, who had unsuccessfully contested that seat on Egerton's first election. The naval officer was now an admiral, and perfectly reconciled to the Constitution, with all its alloy of aristocracy. Dick Avenel did not retire from parliament so soon as he had anticipated. He was not able to persuade Leonard, whose brief fever of political ambition was now quenched in the calm fountain of the Muse, to supply his place in the senate, and he felt that the House of Avenel needed one representative. He contrived, however, to devote, for the first year or two, much more of his time to his interests at Screwstown than to the affairs of his country, and succeeded in baffling the over-competition to which he had been subjected by taking the competitor into partnership. Having thus secured a monopoly at Screwstown, Dick, of course, returned with great ardour to his former enlightened opinions in favour of free trade. He remained some years in parliament; and though far too shrewd to venture out of his depth as an orator, distinguished himself so much by his exposure of "humbug" on an important Committee, that he acquired a very high reputation as a man of business, and gradually became so in request amongst all the members who moved for "Select Committees," that he rose into consequence; and Mrs. Avenel, courted for his sake, more than her own, obtained the wish of her heart, and was received as an acknowledged /habituee/ into the circles of fashion. Amidst these circles, however, Dick found that his home entirely vanished; and when he came home from the House of Commons, tired to death, at two in the morning, disgusted at always hearing that Mrs. Avenel was not yet returned from some fine lady's ball, he formed a sudden resolution of cutting Parliament, Fashion, and London altogether; withdrew his capital, now very large, from his business; bought the remaining estates of Squire Thornhill; and his chief object of ambition is in endeavouring to coax or bully out of their holdings all the small freeholders round, who had subdivided amongst them, into poles and furlongs, the fated inheritance of Randal Leslie. An excellent justice of the peace, though more severe than your old family proprietors generally are; a spirited landlord, as to encouraging and making, at a proper percentage, all permanent improvements on the soil, but formidable to meet if the rent be not paid to the day, or the least breach of covenant be heedlessly incurred on a farm that he could let for more money; employing a great many hands in productive labour, but exacting rigorously from all the utmost degree of work at the smallest rate of wages which competition and the poor-rate permit; the young and robust in his neighbourhood never stinted in work, and the aged and infirm, as lumber worn out, stowed away in the workhouse,--Richard Avenel holds himself an example to the old race of landlords; and, taken altogether, he is no very bad specimen of the rural civilizers whom the application of spirit and capital raise up in the new. From the wrecks of Egerton's fortune, Harley, with the aid of his father's experience in business, could not succeed in saving, for the statesman's sole child and heir, more than a few thousand pounds; and but for the bonds and bills which, when meditating revenge, he had bought from Levy, and afterwards thrown into the fire--paying dear for that detestable whistle--even this surplus would not have been forthcoming. Harley privately paid out of his own fortune the L5,000 Egerton had bequeathed to Leslie; perhaps not sorry, now that the stern duty of exposing the false wiles of the schemer was fulfilled, to afford some compensation even to the victim who had so richly deserved his fate; and pleased, though mournfully, to comply with the solemn request of the friend whose offence was forgotten in the remorseful memory of his own projects of revenge. Leonard's birth and identity were easily proved, and no one appeared to dispute them. The balance due to him as his father's heir, together with the sum Avenel ultimately paid to him for the patent of his invention, and the dowry which Harley insisted upon bestowing on Helen, amounted to that happy competence which escapes alike the anxieties of poverty, and (what to one of contemplative tastes and retired habits are often more irksome to bear) the show and responsibilities of wealth. His father's death made a deep impression upon Leonard's mind; but the discovery that he owed his birth to a statesman of so great a repute, and occupying a position in society so conspicuous, contributed not to confirm, but to still, the ambition which had for a short time diverted him from his more serene aspirations. He had no longer to win a rank which might equal Helen's. He had no longer a parent, whose affections might be best won through pride. The memories of his earlier peasant life, and his love for retirement,--in which habit confirmed the constitutional tendency,- made him shrink from what a more worldly nature would have considered the enviable advantages of a name that secured the entrance into the loftiest sphere of our social world. He wanted not that name to assist his own path to a rank far more durable than that which kings can confer. And still he retained in the works he had published, and still he proposed to bestow on the works more ambitious that he had, in leisure and competence, the facilities to design with care, and complete with patience, the name he had himself invented, and linked with the memory of the low-born mother. Therefore, though there was some wonder, in drawing-rooms and clubs, at the news of Egerton's first unacknowledged marriage, and some curiosity expressed as to what the son of that marriage might do,--and great men were prepared to welcome, and fine ladies to invite and bring out, the heir to the statesman's grave repute,--yet wonder and curiosity soon died away; the repute soon passed out of date, and its heir was soon forgotten. Politicians who fall short of the highest renown are like actors; no applause is so vivid while they are on the stage, no oblivion so complete when the curtain falls on the last farewell. Leonard saw a fair tomb rise above Nora's grave, and on the tomb was engraved the word of WIFE, which vindicated her beloved memory. He felt the warm embrace of Nora's mother, no longer ashamed to own her grandchild; and even old John was made sensible that a secret weight of sorrow was taken from his wife's stern silent heart. Leaning on Leonard's arm, the old man gazed wistfully on Nora's tomb, and muttering, "Egerton! Egerton! 'Leonora, the first wife of the Right Honourable Audley Egerton!' Ha! I voted for him. She married the right colour. Is that the date? Is it so long since she died? Well, well! I miss her sadly. But wife says we shall both now see her soon; and wife once thought we should never see her again,--never; but I always knew better. Thank you, sir. I'm a poor creature, but these tears don't pain me,-- quite otherwise. I don't know why, but I'm very happy. Where's my old woman? She does not mind how much I talk about Nora now. Oh, there she is! Thank you, sir, humbly; but I'd rather lean on my old woman,--I'm more used to it; and--wife, when shall we go to Nora?" Leonard had brought Mrs. Fairfield to see her parents, and Mrs. Avenel welcomed her with unlooked-for kindness. The name inscribed upon Nora's tomb softened the mother's heart to her surviving daughter. As poor John had said, "She could now talk about Nora;" and in that talk, she and the child she had so long neglected discovered how much they had in common. So when, shortly after his marriage with Helen, Leonard went abroad, Jane Fairfield remained with the old couple. After their death, which was within a day of each other, she refused, perhaps from pride, to take up her residence with Leonard; but she settled near the home which he subsequently found in England. Leonard remained abroad for some years. A quiet observer of the various manners and intellectual development of living races, a rapt and musing student of the monuments that revive the dead, his experience of mankind grew large in silence, and his perceptions of the Sublime and Beautiful brightened into tranquil art under their native skies. On his return to England he purchased a small house amidst the most beautiful scenes of Devonshire, and there patiently commenced a work in which he designed to bequeath to his country his noblest thoughts in their fairest forms. Some men best develop their ideas by constant exercise; their thoughts spring from their brain ready-armed, and seek, like the fabled goddess, to take constant part in the wars of men. And such are, perhaps, on the whole, the most vigorous and lofty writers; but Leonard did not belong to this class. Sweetness and serenity were the main characteristics of his genius; and these were deepened by his profound sense of his domestic happiness. To wander alone with Helen by the banks of the murmurous river; to gaze with her on the deep still sea; to feel that his thoughts, even when most silent, were comprehended by the intuition of love, and reflected on that translucent sympathy so yearned for and so rarely found by poets,--these were the Sabbaths of his soul, necessary to fit him for its labours: for the Writer has this advantage over other men, that his repose is not indolence. His duties, rightly fulfilled, are discharged to earth and men in other capacities than those of action. If he is not seen among those who act, he is all the while maturing some noiseless influence, which will guide or illumine, civilize or elevate, the restless men whose noblest actions are but the obedient agencies of the thoughts of writers. Call not, then, the Poet whom we place amidst the Varieties of Life, the sybarite of literary ease, if, returning on Summer eves, Helen's light footstep by his musing side, he greets his sequestered home, with its trellised flowers smiling out from amidst the lonely cliffs in which it is embedded; while lovers still, though wedded long, they turn to each other, with such deep joy in their speaking eyes, grateful that the world, with its various distractions and noisy conflicts, lies so far from their actual existence,--only united to them by the happy link that the writer weaves invisibly with the hearts that he moves and the souls that he inspires. No! Character and circumstance alike unfitted Leonard for the strife of the thronged literary democracy; they led towards the development of the gentler and purer portions of his nature,--to the gradual suppression of the more combative and turbulent. The influence of the happy light under which his genius so silently and calmly grew, was seen in the exquisite harmony of its colours, rather than the gorgeous diversities of their glow. His contemplation, intent upon objects of peaceful beauty, and undisturbed by rude anxieties and vehement passions, suggested only kindred reproductions to the creative faculty by which it was vivified; so that the whole man was not only a poet, but, as it were, a poem,--a living idyl, calling into pastoral music every reed that sighed and trembled along the stream of life. And Helen was so suited to a nature of this kind, she so guarded the ideal existence in which it breathes! All the little cares and troubles of the common practical life she appropriated so quietly to herself,--the stronger of the two, as should be a poet's wife, in the necessary household virtues of prudence and forethought. Thus if the man's genius made the home a temple, the woman's wisdom gave to the temple the security of the fortress. They have only one child,--a girl; they call her Nora. She has the father's soul-lit eyes, and the mother's warm human smile. She assists Helen in the morning's noiseless domestic duties; she sits in the evening at Leonard's feet, while he reads or writes. In each light grief of childhood she steals to the mother's knee; but in each young impulse of delight, or each brighter flash of progressive reason, she springs to the father's breast. Sweet Helen, thou hast taught her this, taking to thyself the shadows even of thine infant's life, and leaving to thy partner's eyes only its rosy light! But not here shall this picture of Helen close. Even the Ideal can only complete its purpose by connection with the Real; even in solitude the writer must depend upon mankind. Leonard at last has completed the work, which has been the joy and the labour of so many years,--the work which he regards as the flower of all his spiritual being, and to which he has committed all the hopes that unite the creature of today with the generations of the future. The work has gone through the press, each line lingered over with the elaborate patience of the artist, loath to part with the thought he has sculptured into form, while an improving touch can be imparted by the chisel. He has accepted an invitation from Norreys. In the restless excitement (strange to him since his first happy maiden effort) he has gone to London. Unrecognized in the huge metropolis, he has watched to see if the world acknowledge the new tie he has woven between its busy life and his secluded toil. And the work came out in an unpropitious hour; other things were occupying the public; the world was not at leisure to heed him, and the book did not penetrate into the great circle of readers. But a savage critic has seized on it, and mangled, distorted, deformed it, confounding together defect and beauty in one mocking ridicule; and the beauties have not yet found an exponent, nor the defects a defender; and the publisher shakes his head, points to groaning shelves, and delicately hints that the work which was to be the epitome of the sacred life within life does not hit the taste of the day. Leonard thinks over the years that his still labour has cost him, and knows that he has exhausted the richest mines of his intellect, and that long years will elapse before he can recruit that capital of ideas which is necessary to sink new shafts and bring to light fresh ore; and the deep despondency of intellect, frustrated in its highest aims, has seized him, and all he has before done is involved in failure by the defeat of the crowning effort. Failure, and irrecoverable, seems his whole ambition as writer; his whole existence in the fair Ideal seems to have been a profitless dream, and the face of the Ideal itself is obscured. And even Norreys frankly, though kindly, intimates that the life of a metropolis is essential to the healthful intuition of a writer in the intellectual wants of his age, since every great writer supplies a want in his own generation, for some feeling to be announced, some truth to be revealed. And as this maxim is generally sound, as most great writers have lived in cities, Leonard dares not dwell on the exception; it is only success that justifies the attempt to be an exception to the common rule; and with the blunt manhood of his nature, which is not a poet's, Norreys sums up with, "What then? One experiment has failed; fit your life to your genius, and try again." Try again! Easy counsel enough to the man of ready resource and quick combative mind; but to Leonard, how hard and how harsh! "Fit his life to his genius!"--renounce contemplation and Nature for the jostle of Oxford Street! Would that life not scare away the genius forever? Perplexed and despondent, though still struggling for fortitude, he returns to his home; and there at his hearth awaits the Soother, and there is the voice that repeats the passages most beloved, and prophesies so confidently of future fame; and gradually all around smiles from the smile of Helen. And the profound conviction that Heaven places human happiness beyond the reach of the world's contempt or praise, circulates through his system and restores its serene calm. And he feels that the duty of the intellect is to accomplish and perfect itself,--to harmonize its sounds into music that may be heard in heaven, though it wake not an echo on the earth. If this be done, as with some men, best amidst the din and the discord, be it so; if, as with him, best in silence, be it so too. And the next day he reclines with Helen by the seashore, gazing calmly as before on the measureless sunlit ocean; and Helen, looking into his face, sees that it is sunlit as the deep. His hand steals within her own, in the gratitude that endears beyond the power of passion, and he murmurs gently, "Blessed be the woman who consoles." The work found its way at length into fame, and the fame sent its voices loud to the poet's home. But the applause of the world had not a sound so sweet to his ear, as, when, in doubt, humiliation, and sadness, the lips of his Helen had whispered "Hope! and believe!" Side by side with this picture of Woman the Consoler, let me place the companion sketch. Harley L'Estrange, shortly after his marriage with Violante, had been induced, whether at his bride's persuasions, or to dissipate the shadow with which Egerton's death still clouded his wedded felicity, to accept a temporary mission, half military, half civil, to one of our colonies. On this mission he had evinced so much ability and achieved so signal a success, that on his return to England he was raised to the peerage, while his father yet lived to rejoice that the son who would succeed to his honours had achieved the nobler dignity of honours not inherited, but won. High expectations were formed of Harley's parliamentary success; but he saw that such success, to be durable, must found itself on the knowledge of wearisome details, and the study of that practical business which jarred on his tastes, though it suited his talents. Harley had been indolent for so many years,--and there is so much to make indolence captivating to a man whose rank is secured, who has nothing to ask from fortune, and who finds at his home no cares from which he seeks a distraction; so he laughed at ambition in the whim of his delightful humours, and the expectations formed from his diplomatic triumph died away. But then came one of those political crises, in which men ordinarily indifferent to politics rouse themselves to the recollection that the experiment of legislation is not made upon dead matter, but on the living form of a noble country; and in both Houses of Parliament the strength of party is put forth. It is a lovely day in spring, and Harley is seated by the window of his old room at Knightsbridge,--now glancing to the lively green of the budding trees; now idling with Nero, who, though in canine old age, enjoys the sun like his master; now repeating to himself, as he turns over the leaves of his favourite Horace, some of those lines that make the shortness of life the excuse for seizing its pleasures and eluding its fatigues, which formed the staple morality of the polished epicurean; and Violante (into what glorious beauty her maiden bloom has matured!) comes softly into the room, seats herself on a low stool beside him, leaning her face on her hands, and looking up at him through her dark, clear, spiritual eyes; and as she continues to speak, gradually a change comes over Harley's aspect, gradually the brow grows thoughtful, and the lips lose their playful smile. There is no hateful assumption of the would-be "superior woman," no formal remonstrance, no lecture, no homily which grates upon masculine pride; but the high theme and the eloquent words elevate unconsciously of themselves, and the Horace is laid aside, --a Parliamentary Blue Book has been, by some marvel or other, conjured there in its stead; and Violante now moves away as softly as she entered. Harley's hand detains her. "Not so. Share the task, or I quit it. Here is an extract I condemn you to copy. Do you think I would go through this labour if you were not to halve the success?--halve the labour as well!" And Violante, overjoyed, kisses away the implied rebuke, and sits down to work, so demure and so proud, by his side. I do not know if Harley made much way in the Blue Book that morning; but a little time after he spoke in the Lords, and surpassed all that the most sanguine had hoped from his talents. The sweetness of fame and the consciousness of utility once fully tasted, Harley's consummation of his proper destinies was secure. A year later, and his voice was one of the influences of England. His boyish love of glory revived,--no longer vague and dreamy, but ennobled into patriotism, and strengthened into purpose. One night, after a signal triumph, he returned home, with his father, who had witnessed it, and Violante--who all lovely, all brilliant, though she was, never went forth in her lord's absence, to lower among fops and flatterers the dignity of the name she so aspired to raise--sprang to meet him. Harley's eldest son--a boy yet in the nursery--had been kept up later than usual; perhaps Violante had anticipated her husband's triumph, and wished the son to share it. The old earl beckoned the child to him, and laying his hand on the infant's curly locks, said with unusual seriousness, "My boy, you may see troubled times in England before these hairs are as gray as mine; and your stake in England's honour and peace will be great. Heed this hint from an old man who had no talents to make a noise in the world, but who yet has been of some use in his generation. Neither sounding titles, nor wide lands, nor fine abilities, will give you real joy, unless you hold yourself responsible for all to your God and to your country; and when you are tempted to believe that the gifts you may inherit from both entail no duties, or that duties are at war with true pleasure, remember how I placed you in your father's arms, and said, 'Let him be as proud of you some day as I at this hour am of him.'" The boy clung to his father's breast, and said manfully, "I will try!" Harley bent his fair smooth brow over the young earnest face, and said softly, "Your mother speaks in you!" Then the old countess, who had remained silent and listening on her elbow-chair, rose and kissed the earl's hand reverently. Perhaps in that kiss there was the repentant consciousness how far the active goodness she had often secretly undervalued had exceeded, in its fruits, her own cold unproductive powers of will and mind. Then passing on to Harley, her brow grew elate, and the pride returned to her eye. "At last," she said, laying on his shoulder that light firm hand, from which he no longer shrunk,--"at last, O my noble son, you have fulfilled all the promise of your youth!" "If so," answered Harley, "it is because I have found what I then sought in vain." He drew his arm around Violante, and added, with half tender, half solemn smile, "Blessed is the woman who exalts!" So, symbolled forth in these twin and fair flowers which Eve saved for Earth out of Paradise, each with the virtue to heal or to strengthen, stored under the leaves that give sweets to the air; here, soothing the heart when the world brings the trouble; here, recruiting the soul which our sloth or our senses enervate, leave we Woman, at least in the place Heaven assigns to her amidst the multiform "Varieties of Life." Farewell to thee, gentle Reader; and go forth to the world, O MY NOVEL! THE END. 
13996	----	Team THE DIVINE FIRE by MAY SINCLAIR Author of _Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson_, _Two Sides of a Question_, etc. etc. 1904 Mr. OWEN SEAMAN in _Punch_ says:-- "Miss Sinclair is always quietly sure of herself. That is why she will not be hurried, but moves through her gradual scheme with so leisured a serenity; why her style, fluent and facile, never forces its natural eloquence; why her humour plays with a diffused light over all her work and seldom needs the advertisement of scintillating epigrams. Judged by almost every standard to which a comedy like this should be referred, I find her book, 'The Divine Fire' the most remarkable that I have read for many years." BY THE SAME AUTHOR _TWO SIDES OF A QUESTION_ CONTENTS BOOK I DISJECTA MEMBRA POETAE BOOK II LUCIA'S WAY BOOK III THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE BOOK IV THE MAN HIMSELF BOOK I DISJECTA MEMBRA POETAE CHAPTER I Horace Jewdwine had made the most remarkable of his many remarkable discoveries. At least he thought he had. He could not be quite sure, which was his excuse for referring it to his cousin Lucia, whose instinct (he would not call it judgement) in these matters was infallible--strangely infallible for so young a girl. What, he wondered, would she say to Savage Keith Rickman? On Saturday, when he first came down into Devonshire, he would have been glad to know. But to-day, which was a Tuesday, he was not interested in Rickman. To eat strawberries all morning; to lie out in the hammock all afternoon, under the beach-tree on the lawn of Court House; to let the peace of the old green garden sink into him; to look at Lucia and forget, utterly forget, about his work (the making of discoveries), that was what he wanted. But Lucia wanted to talk, and to talk about Rickman earnestly as if he were a burning question, when even lying in the hammock Jewdwine was so hot that it bothered him to talk at all. He was beginning to be sorry that he had introduced him--the exciting topic, that is to say, not the man; for Rickman you could scarcely introduce, not at any rate to Lucia Harden. "Well, Lucia?" He pronounced her name in the Italian manner, "Loo-chee-a," with a languid stress on the vowels, and his tone conveyed a certain weary but polite forbearance. Lucia herself, he noticed, had an ardent look, as if a particularly interesting idea had just occurred to her. He wished it hadn't. An idea of Lucia's would commit him to an opinion of his own; and at the moment Jewdwine was not prepared to abandon himself to anything so definite and irretrievable. He had not yet made up his mind about Rickman, and did not want to make it up now. Certainty was impossible owing to his somewhat embarrassing acquaintance with the man. That, again, was where Lucia had come in. Her vision of him would be free and undisturbed by any suggestion of his bodily presence. Meanwhile, Rickman's poem, or rather the first two Acts of his neo-classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_, lay on Lucia's lap. Jewdwine had obtained it under protest and with much secrecy. He had promised Rickman, solemnly, not to show it to a soul; but he had shown it to Lucia. It was all right, he said, so long as he refrained from disclosing the name of the person who had written it. Not that she would have been any the wiser if he had. "And it was you who discovered him?" Her voice lingered with a peculiarly tender and agreeable vibration on the "you." He closed his eyes and let that, too, sink into him. "Yes," he murmured, "nobody else has had a hand in it--as yet." "And what are you going to do with him now you have discovered him?" He opened his eyes, startled by the uncomfortable suggestion. It had not yet occurred to him that the discovery of Rickman could entail any responsibility whatever. "I don't know that I'm going to do anything with him. Unless some day I use him for an article." "Oh, Horace, is that the way you treat your friends?" He smiled. "Yes Lucy, sometimes, when they deserve it." "You haven't told me your friend's name?" "No. I betrayed his innocent confidence sufficiently in showing you his play. I can't tell you his name." "After all, his name doesn't matter." "No, it doesn't matter. Very likely you'll hear enough of it some day. You haven't told me what you think of him." "I don't know what I think--But then, I don't know him." "No," he said, roused to interest by her hesitation, "you don't know him. That's the beauty of it." She gave the manuscript back into his hands. "Take him away. He makes me feel uncomfortable." "To tell the truth, Lucy, he makes me feel uncomfortable, too." "Why?" "Well, when you think you've got hold of a genius, and you take him up and stake your reputation on him--and all the time you can't be sure whether it's a spark of the divine fire or a mere flash in the pan. It happens over and over again. The burnt critic dreads the divine fire." His eyes were fixed on the title page as if fascinated by the words, _Helen in Leuce_. "But this is not bad--it's _not_ bad for two and twenty." "Only two and twenty?" "That's all. It looks as if he were made for immortality." She turned to him that ardent gaze which made the hot day hotter. "Dear Horace, you're going to do great things for him." The worst of having a cousin who adores you is that magnificence is expected of you, regularly and as a matter of course. He was not even sure that Lucia did not credit him with power to work miracles. The idea was flattering but also somewhat inconvenient. "I don't know about great things. I should like to do something. The question is what. He's a little unfortunate in--in his surroundings, and he's been ill, poor fellow. If one could give him a change. If one were only rich and could afford to send him abroad for a year. I _had_ thought of asking him down to Oxford." "And why didn't you?" "Well, you know, one gets rather crowded up with things in term time." Lucia looked thoughtfully at the refined, luxurious figure in the hammock. Horace was entitled to the hammock, for he had been ill. He was entitled also to the ministrations of his cousin Lucia. Lucia spent her time in planning and doing kind things, and, from the sudden luminous sweetness of her face, he gathered that something of the sort was in preparation now. It was. "Horace," she said, "would you like to ask him here?" "No, Lucy, I wouldn't. I don't think it would do." "But why not--if he's your friend?" "If he's my friend." "You _said_ he was your friend. You did, you know." (Another awkward consequence of a cousin's adoration; she is apt to remember and attach importance to your most trivial utterances.) "Pardon me, I said he was my find." "Where did you find him?" "I found him in the City--in a shop." She smiled at the rhythmic utterance. The tragedy of the revelation was such that it could be expressed only in blank verse. "The shop doesn't matter." "No, but he does. You couldn't stand him, Lucia. You see, for one thing, he sometimes drops his aitches." "Well, if he does,--he'll be out all day, and there's the open country to drop them in. I really don't mind, if you'd like to ask him. Do you think he'd like to be asked?" "There's no possible doubt about that." "Then ask him. Ask him now. You can't do it when father's not at home." Jewdwine repressed a smile. Even now, from the windows of the east wing, there burst, suddenly, the sound of fiddling, a masterly fiddling inspired by infernal passion, controlled by divine technique. It was his uncle, Sir Frederick, and he wished him at the devil. If all accounts were true, Sir Frederick, when not actually fiddling, was going there with a celerity that left nothing to be desired; he was, if you came to think of it, a rather amazing sort of chaperone. And yet, but for that fleeting and tumultuous presence, Horace himself would not be staying at Court House. Really, he reflected. Lucia ought to get some lady to live with her. It was the correct thing, and therefore it was not a little surprising that Lucia did not do it. An expression of disapproval passed over his pale, fastidious face. "Father won't mind," she said. "No, but I should." He said it in a tone which was meant to settle the question. She sat still, turning over the pages of the manuscript which she had again taken on her lap. "I suppose he is very dreadful. Still, I think we ought to do something for him." "And what would you propose to do?" There was an irritating smile on her cousin's face. He was thinking, "So she wants to patronize him, does she?" He did not say what he thought; with Lucia that was unnecessary, for she always knew. He only said, "I don't exactly see you playing Beatrice to his Dante." Lucia coloured, and Horace felt that he had been right. The Hardens had always been patronizing; his mother and sister were the most superbly patronizing women he knew. And Rickman might or might not be a great man, but Lucia, even at three and twenty, was a great lady in her way. Why shouldn't she patronize him, if she liked? And he smiled again more irritatingly than ever. Nobody could be more irritating than this Oxford don when he gave his mind to it. "Lucy--if you only knew him, I don't think you'd suggest my bringing him down here." He was smiling still, while his imagination dallied with the monstrous vision. "I wouldn't have suggested it," she said coldly, "if I hadn't thought you'd like it." Horace felt a little ashamed of himself. He knew he had only to think about Lucia in her presence to change the colour on her cheeks, and his last thought had left a stain there like the mark of a blow. Never had he known any woman so sensitive as his cousin Lucia. "So I should like it, dear, if it were possible, or rather if _he_ were not impossible. His manners have not that repose which distinguishes his _Helen_. Really, for two and twenty, he is marvellously restrained." "Restrained? Do you think so?" "Certainly," he said, his thought gaining precision in opposition to her vagueness, "his _Helen_ is pure Vere de Vere. You might read me some of it." She read, and in the golden afternoon her voice built up the cold, polished marble of the verse. She had not been able to tell him what she thought of Rickman; but her voice, in its profound vibrations, made apparent that which she, and she only, had discerned in him, the troubled pulse of youth, the passion of the imprisoned and tumultuous soul, the soul which Horace had assured her inhabited the body of an aitchless shopman. Lucia might not have the intuition of genius, but she had the genius of intuition; she had seen what the great Oxford critic had not been able to see. The sound of the fiddling ceased as suddenly as it had begun; and over the grey house and the green garden was the peace of heaven and of the enfolding hills. Jewdwine breathed a sigh of contentment at the close of the great chorus in the second Act. After all, Rickman was the best antidote to Rickman. But Lucia was looking ardent again, as if she were about to speak. "Don't, Lucy," he murmured. "Don't what?" "Don't talk any more about him now. It's too hot. Wait till the cool of the evening." "I thought you wanted me to play to you then." Jewdwine looked at her; he noted the purity of her face, the beautiful pose of her body, stretched in the deck-chair, her fine white hands and arms that hung there, slender, inert and frail. He admired these things so much that he failed to see that they expressed not only beauty but a certain delicacy of physique, and that her languor which appealed to him was the languor of fatigue. "You might play to me, now," he said. She looked at him again, a lingering, meditative look, a look in which, if adoration was quiescent, there was no criticism and no reproach, only a melancholy wonder. And he, too, wondered; wondered what she was thinking of. She was thinking a dreadful thought. "Is Horace selfish? Is Horace selfish?" a little voice kept calling at the back of her brain and would not be quiet. At last she answered it to her own satisfaction. "No, he is not selfish, he is only ill." And presently, as if on mature consideration, she rose and went into the house. His eyes followed, well pleased, the delicate undulations of her figure. Horace Jewdwine was the most exacting, the most fastidious of men. His entire nature was dominated by the critical faculty in him; and Lucia satisfied its most difficult demands. Try as he would, there was really nothing in her which he could take exception to, barring her absurd adoration of his uncle Frederick; and even that, when you came to think of it, flowed from the innocence which was more than half her charm. He could not say positively wherein her beauty consisted, therefore he was always tempted to look at her in the hope of finding out. There was nothing insistent and nothing obvious about it. Some women, for instance, irritated your admiration by the capricious prettiness of one or two features, or fatigued it by the monotonous regularity of all. The beauty of others was vulgarized by the flamboyance of some irrelevant detail, such as hair. Lucia's hair was merely dark; and it made, as hair should make, the simplest adornment for her head, the most perfect setting for her face. As for her features, (though it was impossible to think of them, or anything about her as incorrect) they eluded while they fascinated him by their subtlety. Lucia's beauty, in short, appealed to him, because it did not commit him to any irretrievable opinion. But nothing, not even her beauty, pleased him better than the way in which she managed her intellect, divining by some infallible instinct how much of it was wanted by any given listener at a given time. She had none of the nasty tricks that clever women have, always on the look out to go one better, and to catch you tripping. Her lucidity was remarkable; but it served to show up other people's strong points rather than her own. Lucia did not impress you as being clever, and Jewdwine, who had a clever man's natural distaste for clever women, admired his cousin's intellect, as well he might, for it was he who had taught her how to use it. Her sense of humour, too (for Lucia was dangerously gifted), that sense which more than any of her senses can wreck a woman--he would have liked her just as well if she had had none; but some, no doubt, she needed, if only to save her from the situations to which her kindness and her innocence exposed her; and she had just the right amount and no more. Heavens! Supposing, without it, she had met Keith Rickman and had yielded to the temptation to be kind to him! Even in the heat Jewdwine shivered at the thought. He put it from him, he put Rickman altogether from his mind. It was not to think about Rickman that he came down to Court House. On a day as hot as this, he wanted nothing but to keep cool. The gentle oscillation of the hammock in the green shadows of the beech-tree symbolized this attitude towards Rickman and all other ardent questions. Still, it was not disagreeable to know that if he could only make up his mind to something very definite and irretrievable indeed, Court House would one day be his. It was the only house in England that came up to his idea of what a country house should be. A square Tudor building with two short, gable-ended wings, thrown out at right angles to its front; three friendly grey walls enclosing a little courtyard made golden all day long with sunshine from the south. Court House was older than anything near it except Harmouth Bridge and the Parish Church. Standing apart in its own green lands, it looked older than the young red earth beneath it, a mass upheaved from the grey foundations of the hills. Its face, turned seawards, was rough and pitted with the salt air; thousands upon thousands of lichens gave it a greenish bloom, with here and there a rusty patch on groin and gable. It contained the Harden Library, _the_ Harden Library, one of the finest private collections in the country. It contained also his cousin Lucia. He had always loved Court House, but not always his cousin Lucia. The scholarly descendant of a long line of scholars, Jewdwine knew that he had been a favourite with his grandfather, Sir Joseph Harden, the Master of Lazarus, he was convinced (erroneously) that he was a Harden by blood and by temperament, and of course if he had only been a Harden by name, and not a Jewdwine, Court House and the great Harden Library would have been his instead of his cousin Lucia's. He knew that his grandfather had wished them to be his. Lucia's mother was dead long ago; and when his uncle Sir Frederick definitely renounced the domestic life, Lucia and Lucia alone stood between him and the inheritance that should have been his. This hardly constituted a reason for being fond of Lucia. His grandfather had wished him to be fond of her. But not until Jewdwine was five and twenty and began to feel the primordial manhood stirring in his scholarly blood did he perceive that his cousin Lucia was not a hindrance but a way. The way was so obvious that it was no wonder that he did not see it all at once. He did not really see it till Sir Joseph sent for him on his death-bed. "There's been some mistake, Horace," Sir Joseph had then said. "Your mother should have been the boy and your uncle Frederick the girl. Then Lucia would have been a Jewdwine, and you a Harden." And Horace had said, "I'm afraid I can't be a Harden, sir; but is there any reason why Lucia--?" "I was coming to that," said Sir Joseph. But he never came to it. Horace, however, was in some way aware that the same idea had occurred to both of them. Whatever it was, the old man had died happy in it. There was no engagement, only a something altogether intangible and vague, understood to be an understanding. And Lucia adored him. If she had not adored him he might have been urged to something irretrievable and definite. As it was, there was no need, and nothing could have been more soothing than the golden concord of that understanding. Needless to say if Lucia had been anybody but Lucia, such a solution would have been impossible. He was fastidious. He would not have married a woman simply because his grandfather wished it; and he could not have married a woman simply because she inherited property that ought to have been his. And he could not have married any woman who would have suspected him of such brutality. He could only marry a woman who was consummately suitable to him, in whom nothing jarred, nothing offended; and his cousin Lucia was such a woman. The very fact that she was his cousin was an assurance of her rightness. It followed that, love being the expression of that perfect and predestined harmony, he could only marry for love. Not for a great estate, for Court House and the Harden Library. No, to do him justice, his seeking of Lucia was independent of his reflection that these things would be added unto him. Still, once married to Lucia, there was only Sir Frederick and his infernal fiddle between him and ultimate, inviolable possession; and Sir Frederick, to use his own phrase, had "about played himself out." From what a stage and to what mad music! From the east wing came the sound, not of his uncle's fiddle, but of the music he desired, the tremendous and difficult music that, on a hot July afternoon, taxed the delicate player's strength to its utmost. Lucia began with Scarlatti and Bach; wandered off through Schumann into Chopin, a moonlit enchanted wilderness of sound; paused, and wound up superbly with Beethoven, the "Sonata Appassionata." And as she came back to him over the green lawn she seemed to Jewdwine to be trailing tumultuous echoes of her music; the splendour and the passion of her playing hung about her like a luminous cloud. He rose and went to meet her, and in his eyes there was a light, a light of wonder and of worship. "I think," she said, "you do look a little happier." "I am tolerably happy, thanks." "So am I." "Yes, but _you_ don't look it. What are you thinking of?" She turned, and they walked together towards the house. "I was thinking--it's quite cool, now, Horace--of what you said--about that friend of yours." "Lucy! Was I rude? Did I make you unhappy?" "Not you. Don't you see that it's just because I'm happy that I want to be kind to him?" "Just like your sweetness. But, dear child, you can't be kind to everybody. It really doesn't do." She said no more; she had certainly something else to think about. That was on a Tuesday, a hot afternoon in July, eighteen ninety-one. CHAPTER II It was Wednesday evening in April, eighteen ninety-two. Spring was coming up on the south wind from the river; spring was in the narrow streets and in the great highway of the Strand, and in a certain bookseller's shop in the Strand. And it was Easter, not to say Bank Holiday, already in the soul of the young man who sat there compiling the Quarterly Catalogue. For it was in the days of his obscurity. The shop, a corner one, was part of a gigantic modern structure, with a decorated façade in pinkish terra-cotta, and topped by four pinkish cupolas. It was brutally, tyrannously imposing. It towered above its neighbours, dwarfing the long sky-line of the Strand; its flushed cupolas mocked the white and heavenly soaring of St. Mary's. Whether you approached it from the river, or from the City, or from the west, you could see nothing else, so monstrous was it, so flagrant and so new. Though the day was not yet done, the electric light streamed over the pavement from the huge windows of the ground floor; a coronal of dazzling globes hung over the doorway at the corner; there, as you turned, the sombre windows of the second-hand department stretched half way down the side street; here, in the great thoroughfare, the newest of new books stood out, solicitous and alluring, in suits of blazing scarlet and vivid green, of vellum and gilt, of polished leather that shone like amber and malachite and lapis lazuli. Within, a wall broken by a wide and lofty arch divided the front from the back shop. On the right of the arch was the mahogany pew of the cashier, on the left, a tall pillar stove radiating intolerable heat. Four steps led through the arch into the back shop, the floor of which was raised in a sort of platform. On the platform was a table, and at the table sat the young man compiling the Quarterly Catalogue. Front shop and back shop reeked with the smells of new mahogany, dust, pillar-stove, gum, hot-pressed paper and Russia leather. He sat in the middle of them, in an atmosphere so thick that it could be seen hanging about him like an aura, luminous in the glare of the electric light. His slender, nervous hands worked rapidly, with a business-like air of dexterity and dispatch. But every now and then he raised his head and stared for quite a long time at the round, white, foolish face of the clock, and whenever he did this his eyes were the eyes of a young man who has no adequate sense of his surroundings. The remarkable thing about the new shop was that already, like a bar or a restaurant, it drew to it a certain group of young men, punctually, irresistibly. A small group--you could almost count them on the fingers of one hand--they came from Fleet Street, from the Temple, from the Junior Journalists' Club over the way. They were never seen looking in at the windows or hanging about the counter; they were not the least bit of good to the shop, those customers. But they were evidently some good to the young man. Whatever they did or did not do, they always ended by drifting to the platform, to his table. They sat on it in friendly attitudes and talked to him. He was so glad to be talked to, so frankly, engagingly, beautifully glad, that the pathos of it would have been too poignant, the obligation it almost forced on you too unbearable, but for his power, his monstrous, mysterious, personal glamour. It lay partly, no doubt, in his appearance; not, no, not at all, in his make-up. He wore, like a thousand city clerks, a high collar, a speckled tie, a straight, dark blue serge suit. But in spite of the stiffness thus imposed on him, he had, unaccountably, the shy, savage beauty of an animal untamed, uncaught. He belonged to the slender, nervous, fair type; but the colour proper to it had been taken out of him by the shop. His head presented the utmost clearness of line compatible with irregularity of outline; and his face (from its heavy square forehead to its light square jaw) was full of strange harmonies, adjustments, compensations. His chin, rather long in a front view, rather prominent in profile, balanced the powerful proportions of his forehead. His upper lip, in spite of its slender arch, betrayed a youthful eagerness of the senses; but this effect was subtilized by the fineness of his lower lip, and, when they closed, it disappeared in the sudden, serious straightening of the lines. Even his nose (otherwise a firm feature, straight in the bridge and rather broad at the end) became grave or eager as the pose of the head hid or revealed the nostrils. He had queer eyes, of a thick dark blue, large, though deep set, showing a great deal of iris and very little white. Without being good-looking he was good to look at, when you could look long enough to find all these things out. He did not like being looked at. If you tried to hold him that way, his eyes were all over the place, seeking an escape; but they held _you_, whether you liked it or not. It was uncanny, that fascination. If he had chosen to exert it in the interests of his shop he could presumably have cleaned those friendly young men out any day. But he never did exert it. Surrounded by wares whose very appearance was a venal solicitation, he never hinted by so much as the turn of a phrase that there was anything about him to be bought. And after what had passed between them, they felt that to hint it themselves--to him--would have been the last indelicacy. If they ever asked the price of a book it was to propitiate the grim grizzled fellow, so like a Methodist parson, who glared at them from the counter. They kept their discovery to themselves, as if it had been something too precious to be handled, as if its charm, the poetry, the pathos of it must escape under discussion. But any of them who did compare notes agreed that their first idea had been that the shop was absurdly too big for the young man; their next that the young man was too big for the shop, miles, oh miles too big for it; their final impression being the tragedy of the disproportion, the misfit. Then, sadly, with lowered voices, they admitted that he had one flaw; when the poor fellow got excited, don't you know, he sometimes dropt--no--no, he skipped--his aitches. It didn't happen often, but they felt it terrible that it should happen at all--to him. They touched it tenderly; if it was not exactly part of his poetry it was part of his pathos. The shop was responsible for it. He ought never, never to have been there. And yet, bad as it was, they felt that he must be consoled, sustained by what he knew about himself, what it was inconceivable that he should not know. He may, indeed, have reflected with some complacency that in spite of everything, his great classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_, was lying finished in the dressing-table drawer in his bedroom, and that for the last month those very modern poems that he called _Saturnalia_ had been careering through the columns of _The Planet_. But at the moment he was mainly supported by the coming of Easter. CHAPTER III The scene of the tragedy, that shop in the Strand, was well-lit and well-appointed. But he, Savage Keith Rickman, had much preferred the dark little second-hand shop in the City where he had laboured as a boy. There was something soothing in its very obscurity and retirement. He could sit there for an hour at a time, peacefully reading his Homer. In that agreeable dusty twilight, outward forms were dimmed with familiarity and dirt. His dreams took shape before him, they came and went at will, undisturbed by any gross collision with reality. There was hardly any part of it that was not consecrated by some divine visitation. It was in the corner by the window, standing on a step-ladder and fumbling in the darkness for a copy of Demosthenes, _De Corona_, that he lit on his first Idea. From his seat behind the counter, staring, as was his custom, into the recess where the coal-scuttle was, he first saw the immortal face of Helen in Leuce. Here, all that beautiful world of thought lay open to the terrific invasion of things. His dreams refused to stand out with sufficient distinctness from a background of coloured bindings, plate glass and mahogany. They were liable at any moment to be broken by the violent contours of customers. A sight of Helen in Leuce could be obtained only by dint of much concentrated staring at the clock; and as often as not Mr. Rickman's eye dropt its visionary freight on encountering the cashier's eye in its passage from the clock to the paper. But (as he reflected with some humour) though Mr. Rickman's ideas so frequently miscarried, owing to that malignant influence, his genius, like Nature irresistible and indestructible, compelled him perpetually to bring forth. Exposed on his little daïs or platform, in hideous publicity, he suffered the divine labour and agony of creation. He was the slave of his passion and his hour. CHAPTER IV A wave of heat broke from the pillar-stove and spread through the shop, strewing the heavier smells like a wrack behind it. And through it all, with every swing of the great mahogany doors, there stole into his young senses a something delicious and disturbing, faintly discernible as the Spring. He thrust his work from him, tilted back his chair at a dangerous angle, and began reviewing his engagements for the coming Bank Holiday. He was only three and twenty, and at three and twenty an infinite measure of life can be pressed into the great three days. He saw in fancy the procession of the hours, the flight of the dreams, of all the gorgeous intellectual pageants that move through the pages of _Saturnalia_. For in ninety-two Savage Keith Rickman was a little poet about town, a cockney poet, the poet not only of neo-classic drama, but of green suburban Saturday noons, and flaming Saturday nights, and of a great many things besides. He had made his plans long beforehand, and was prepared to consign to instant perdition the person or thing that should interfere with them. Good Friday morning, an hour's cycling before breakfast in Regent's Park, by way of pumping some air into his lungs, then, ten hours at least of high Parnassian leisure, of dalliance in Academic shades; he saw himself wooing some reluctant classic, or, far more likely, flirting with his own capricious and bewildering muse. (In a world of prose it is only by such divine snatches that poets are made) Friday evening, dinner at his club, the Junior Journalists'. Saturday morning, recovery from dinner at the Junior Journalists'. Saturday afternoon, to Hampstead or the Hippodrome with Flossie Walker, the little clerk, who lived in his boarding-house and never had any fun to speak of. Saturday night, supper with--well, with Miss Poppy Grace of the Jubilee Variety Theatre. He had a sudden vision of Poppy as he was wont to meet her in delightful intimacy, instantaneously followed by her image that flaunted on the posters out there in the Strand, Poppy as she appeared behind the foot-lights, in red silk skirts and black silk stockings, skimming, whirling, swaying, and deftly shaking her foot at him. Midnight and morning merging into one. Sunday, to Richmond, probably, with Poppy and some others. Monday, up the river with Himself. Not for worlds, that is to say, not for any amount of Poppies, would he have broken his appointment with that brilliant and yet inscrutable companion who is so eternally fascinating at twenty-three. Monday was indistinct but luminous, a restless, shimmering background for ideas. Ideas! They swarmed like motes in the blue air; they loomed, they floated, vague, and somewhat supernaturally large, all made out of Mr. Rickman's brain. And in the midst of the ideas a figure insanely whirled, till it became a mere wheel of flying skirts and tossing limbs. At this point Mr. Rickman caught the cashier's eye looking at him over the little mahogany rails of his pew, and he began wondering how on earth the cashier would behave when they loosed him out for the Bank Holiday. Then he set to and wrote hard at the Quarterly Catalogue. In all London there was not a more prolific or versatile writer than Savage Keith Rickman. But if in ninety-two you had asked him for his masterpiece, his _magnum opus_, his life-work, he would mention nothing that he had written, but refer you, soberly and benignly, to that colossal performance, the Quarterly Catalogue. "Vandam: Amours of Great Men (a little soiled). Rare. 30s." He was in the middle of the Vs now and within measurable distance of the end. Business being slack in the front shop, he finished earlier than usual, and actually found himself with nearly a whole hour upon his hands before dinner. He had half a mind to spend it at his club, the Junior Journalists', in the side street over the way. Only half a mind; for Mr. Rickman entertained the most innocent beliefs with regard to that club of his. He was not yet sure whether it belonged to him or he to it; but in going to the Junior Journalists' he conceived himself to be going into society. So extreme was his illusion. Mr. Rickman's place was in the shop and his home was in a boarding house, and for years he had thought of belonging to that club; but quite hopelessly, as of a thing beyond attainment. It had never occurred to him that anything could come of those invasions of the friendly young men. Yet this was what had come of them. He was friends, under the rose, that is to say, over the counter, with Horace Jewdwine of Lazarus College, Oxford. Jewdwine had proposed him on his own merits, somebody else had seconded him (he supposed) on Jewdwine's, and between them they had smuggled him in. This would be his first appearance as a Junior Journalist. And he might well feel a little diffident about it; for, though some of the members knew him, he could not honestly say he knew any of them, except Rankin (of _The Planet_) who possibly mightn't, and Jewdwine who certainly wouldn't, be there. But the plunge had to be made some time; he might as well make it now. From the threshold of the Junior Journalists' he looked back across the side street, as across a gulf, at the place he had just left. His eyes moved from the jutting sign-board at the corner, announcing _Gentlemen's Libraries Purchased_, to the legend that ran above the window, blazoned in letters of gold: _Isaac Rickman: New & Second-Hand Bookseller._ His connexion with it was by no means casual and temporary. It was his father's shop. CHAPTER V The little booksellers of the Strand, in their death struggle against Rickman's, never cursed that house more heartily than did the Junior Journalists, in their friendly, shabby little den, smelling of old leather and tobacco and the town. They complained that it cut on two-thirds of the light from the front windows of the reading-room. Not that any of them were ever known to read in it. They used it chiefly as a place to talk in, for which purpose little illumination was required. To-night one of the windows in question was occupied by a small group of talkers isolated from the rest. There was Mackinnon, of _The Literary Observer_. There were the three wild young spirits of _The Planet_, Stables, who had launched it with frightful impetus into space (having borrowed a sum sufficient for the purpose), Maddox, who controlled its course, and Rankin, whose brilliance made it twinkle so brightly in the firmament. With them, but emphatically not of them, was Horace Jewdwine, of Lazarus, who had come up from Oxford to join the staff of _The Museion_. Jewdwine and Mackinnon, both secure of a position and a salary, looked solemn and a little anxious; but the men of _The Planet_, having formed themselves into a sort of unlimited liability company, and started a brand new "weekly" of their own (upon no sort of security beyond their bare brains) were as persons without a single care, worry or responsibility. They were exchanging ideas in an off-hand and light-hearted manner, the only stipulation being that the ideas must be new; for, by some unwritten law of the club, the conversational currency was liable at any moment to be called in. This evening, however, they had hit on a topic almost virgin from the mint. "S.K.R.? _Who_ is he? _What_ is he?" said Mackinnon. "I can't tell you what he _is_; but I can pretty soon tell you what he's not," said Stables. He was a very young man with a white face and red eyelids, who looked as if he sat up all night and went to bed in the day-time, as indeed he generally did. "_Omnis negatio est determinatio_," murmured Jewdwine, without looking up from the letter he was trying to write. "What has he done?" persisted Mackinnon. "He's done a great many remarkable things," said Rankin; "things almost as remarkable as himself." "Who unearthed him?" "I did," said Rankin, so complacently that the deep lines relaxed round the five copper-coloured bosses that were his chin and cheeks and brow. (The rest of Rankin's face was spectacles and moustache.) "Oh, did you?" said Maddox. Maddox was a short man with large shoulders; heavy browed, heavy jowled, heavy moustached. Maddox's appearance belied him; he looked British when he was half Celt; he struck you as overbearing when he was only top-heavy; he spoke as if he was angry when he was only in fun, as you could see by his eyes. Little babyish blue eyes they were with curly corners, a gay light in the sombre truculence of his face. They looked cautiously round. "I can tell you a little tale about S.K.R. You know the last time Smythe was ill--?" "You mean drunk." "Well--temporarily extinguished. S.K.R., who knows his music-halls, was offered Smythe's berth. We delicately intimated to him that if he liked at any time to devote a little paragraph to Miss Poppy Grace, he was at perfect liberty to do so." "A liberty he interpreted as poetic licence." "Nothing of the sort. He absolutely declined the job." "Why?" "Well--the marvellous boy informed me that he was too intimate with the lady to write about her. At any rate with that noble impartiality which distinguishes the utterances of _The Planet_." "Steady, man. He _never_ told ye _that_!" said Mackinnon. "I didn't say he _told_ me, I said he informed me." "And whar's the differ'nce? I don't see it at all." "Trepan him, trepan him." Stables took out his penknife and indicated by dumb show a surgical operation on Mackinnon's dome-like head. "I gathered it," continued Maddox suavely, "from his manner. I culled his young thought like a flower." "Perhaps," Rankin suggested, "he was afraid of compromising Poppy." "He might have left that subtle consideration to Pilkington." "That was it. He scented Dicky's hand in it, and wasn't particularly anxious to oblige him. The point of the joke is that he happens to owe Dicky a great deal more than he can conveniently pay. That'll give you some faint notion of the magnificence of his cheek." Stables was impressed. He wondered what sort of young man it could be who had the moral courage to oppose Dicky Pilkington at such a moment. He could not have done it himself. Dicky Pilkington was the great and mysterious power at the back of _The Planet_. "But this isn't the end of it. I told him, for his future guidance and encouragement, that he had mistaken cause and effect--that little variety _artistes_, like other people, are not popular because they are written about, but written about because they are popular--that _The Planet_ is the organ of public opinion, not of private opinions; in short, that he wasn't in it, at all. I thought I'd sat on him till he was about flat--and the very next week he comes bounding in with his _Saturnalia_, as he calls them." "That was your moment. Why didn't you rise up in your majesty and r-r-reject them?" "Couldn't. They were too damned good." Maddox smiled at the reminiscence. "I wasn't going to let him sign them, but he took the wind out of my sails by stating beforehand that he didn't want to--that if I didn't mind--_mind_, if you please--he'd very much rather not. It's only the last week (when the _Saturnalia_ were getting better and better) that he graciously permitted his initials to appear. S.K.R.--Savage Keith Rickman." "Good Lord!" said Rankin; "what must he be like?" "Ask Jewdwine," said Stables; "he's Jewdwine's man." "Excuse _me_," said Maddox, "he is _mine_. I say, Jewdwine, what _is_ he like?" Jewdwine did not respond very eagerly; he wanted to get on with his letter. But the club had another unwritten law as to writing. If a majority of members desired to write, silence was vigorously insisted on. Any number short of a majority wrote as best they could. For this unfortunate scribe there could be no concession; he was in a minority of one. "If"--said he, "you can imagine the soul of a young Sophocles, battling with that of a--of a junior journalist in the body of a dissipated little Cockney--" "Can't," said Stables. "Haven't got enough imagination." "The child of 'Ellas and of Ollywell Street'--innocent of--er--the rough breathing," suggested Maddox. As it was now seven o'clock, and the Junior Journalists were dropping off one by one to the dining-room below, the young men of _The Planet_ began to stretch their legs, and raise their voices, and behave like young men who believe their privacy to be inviolable and complete. They soon had the place to themselves, except for one person whose entrance had been covered by the outgoing stream; and he had delicately turned his back on them, and taken a seat in the farthest window, where his unobtrusive presence could be no possible hindrance to conversation. "I've seen him after supper," said Maddox. He was obliged to speak rather loudly, because of the noise that came up from the overcrowded dining-room. "Well, then, how did he strike you?" Maddox's eyes curled with limpid, infantile devilry. "Well, I daresay he might be a bit of a bounder when he's sober, but he's a perfect little gentleman when he's drunk. Softens him down somehow." "_In vino veritas_--a true gentleman at heart." "One of Nature's gentlemen. _I_ know 'em," said Stables. "One of Art's gentlemen," interposed Jewdwine severely, "and a very fine gentleman too, if you take him that way." Jewdwine raised his head from his letter and looked round uneasily. Personalities were not altogether to his taste; besides, he was really anxious to finish that letter. He caught sight of a back at the other window. "I think," said he quietly, "this conversation had better cease." The owner of the back had moved, a little ostentatiously. He now got up and crossed the room. The back was still towards the group of talkers. Jewdwine followed its passage. He was fascinated. He gasped. He could have sworn to that back anywhere, with its square but slender shoulders, its defiant swing from the straight hips, the head tossed a little backwards as if to correct the student's tendency to stoop. He looked from the back to Maddox. Maddox could not see what he saw, but his face reflected the horror of Jewdwine's. Their voices were inaudible enough now. "Do you know who it is?" "I should think I did. It's the man himself." "How truly damnable," said Rankin. After those words there was a silence which Jewdwine, like the wise man he was, utilized for his correspondence. It was Maddox who recovered first. "Call him what you like," said he, in a wonderfully natural voice, between two puffs of a cigarette, "I consider him an uncommonly good sort. A bit of a bounder, but no end of a good sort." The others were evidently impressed by this bold though desperate policy. Maddox himself was inclined to think that it had saved the situation, but he was anxious to make sure. Edging his chair by slow degrees, he turned discreetly round. With the tail of his eye he could see "the man himself" standing at the far end of the room. He saw too that his own effort, though supreme, had been unavailing. It had deceived no one, least of all S.K.R. "The man himself" stood on the very hearth of the club, with his back to the fireplace. It was the attitude of mastery, a mastery the more superb because unconscious. His eyes too, were the eyes of a master, twinkling a little as to their light, but steady as to their direction, being fixed on Maddox. He was smiling. There was nothing malignant, or bitter, or sardonic about that smile. No devilry of delight at their confusion. No base abandonment of the whole countenance to mirth, but a curious one-sided smile, implying delicacies, reservations. A slow smile, reminiscent, ruminant, appreciative; it expressed (if so subtle and refined a thing could be said to express anything) a certain exquisite enjoyment of the phrases in which they had defined him. And seeing it, Maddox said to himself, "He isn't a gentleman. He's something more." In that moment the Celtic soul of Maddox had recognized its master, and had sworn to him unhesitating allegiance. CHAPTER VI It was not until Rankin and the others had left the room that Jewdwine had courage to raise his head tentatively. He had only seen that young man's back, and he still clung to the hope that it might not be Rickman's, after all. He looked up as steadily as he dared. Oh, no doubt that it was Rickman's back; no doubt, too, that it was his, Jewdwine's, duty to go up and speak to him. The young man had changed his place; he was at his window again, contemplating--as Jewdwine reflected with a pang of sympathy--the shop. So profound, so sacred almost, was his absorption that Jewdwine hesitated in his approach. "_Is_ it Rickman?" he asked, still tentative. "Mr. Jewdwine!" Rickman's soul leapt to Jewdwine's from the depths; but the "Mister" marked the space it had had to travel. "When did you come up?" "Three hours ago." ("He looks innocent," said Jewdwine to himself.) "Then you weren't prepared for that?" Jewdwine followed his fascinated gaze. He smiled faintly. "You haven't noticed our new departure? We not only purchase Gentlemen's Libraries, but we sell the works of persons who may or may not be gentlemen." Jewdwine felt profoundly uncomfortable. Rickman's face preserved its inimitable innocence, but he continued to stare fixedly before him. "Poor fellow," thought Jewdwine, "he must have heard those imbecilities." He felt horribly responsible, responsible to the Club for the behaviour of Rickman and responsible to Rickman for the behaviour of the Club. What could he do to make it up to him? Happy thought--he would ask him to dinner at--yes, at his sister's, Miss Jewdwine's, house at Hampstead. That was to say, if his cousin, Lucia Harden, did not happen to be staying there. He was not quite sure how Rickman would strike that most fastidious of young ladies. And Rankin had said he drank. In the light of Lucia Harden's and his sister's possible criticism, he considered him more carefully than he had done before. The contrast between the two men was certainly rather marked. A gentleman can be neither more nor less than a gentleman, and Rickman, in a sense not altogether intended by Maddox, was decidedly more. His individuality was too exuberant, too irrepressible. He had the restless, emphatic air of a man who has but little leisure and is too obviously anxious to make the most of what he has. He always seemed to be talking against time; and as he talked his emotions played visibly, too visibly, on his humorous, irregular face. Taking into account his remarkable firmness of physique, it struck you that this transparency must be due to some excessive radiance of soul. A soul (in Jewdwine's opinion) a trifle too demonstrative in its hospitality to vagrant impressions. The Junior Journalists may have been a little hard on him. On the whole, he left you dubious until the moment when, from pure nervousness, his speech went wild, even suffering that slight elision of the aspirate observed by some of them. But then, he had a voice of such singular musical felicity that it charmed you into forgetfulness of these enormities. It had charmed Jewdwine from the first, and Jewdwine was hard to charm. There was no room for speculation as to him. Even to the eye his type had none of the uncertainty and complexity of Rickman's. He looked neither more nor less than he was--an Oxford don, developing into a London Journalist. You divined that the process would be slow. There was no unseemly haste about Jewdwine; time had not been spared in the moulding of his body and his soul. He bore the impress of the ages; the whole man was clean-cut, aristocratic, finished, defined. You instinctively looked up to him; which was perhaps the reason why you remembered his conspicuously intellectual forehead and his pathetically fastidious nose, and forgot the vacillating mouth that drooped under a scanty, colourless moustache, hiding its weakness out of sight. Rickman had always looked up to him. For Jewdwine, as Rankin had intimated, was the man who had discovered S.K.R. He was always discovering him. Not, as he was careful to inform you, that this argued any sort of intimacy; on the contrary, it meant that he was always losing sight of him in between. These lapses in their intercourse might be shorter or longer (they were frequently immense), but they had this advantage, that each fresh encounter presented Rickman as an entirely new thing, if anything, more curious and interesting than on the day, three years ago, when he unearthed him from behind the counter of a dingy second-hand bookshop in the City. He felt responsible for that, too. Rickman was instantly aware that he was under criticism. But he mistook its nature and its grounds. "Don't suppose," said he, "I'm ashamed of the shop. It isn't that. I wasn't ashamed of our other place--that little rat 'ole in the City." Jewdwine shuddered through all his being. "--But I _am_ ashamed of this gaudy, pink concern. It's so brutally big. It can't live, you know, without sucking the life out of the little booksellers. They mayn't have made a great thing out of it, but they were happy enough before we came here." "I never thought of it in that light." "Haven't you? I have." It was evident that little Rickman was deeply moved. His sentiments did him credit, and he deserved to be asked to dinner. At Hampstead? No--no, not at Hampstead; here, at the Club. The Club was the proper thing; a public recognition of him was the _amende honorable_. Besides, after all, it was the Club, not Jewdwine, that had offended, and it was right that the Club should expiate its offence. "What are you doing at Easter?" he asked. Rickman stroked his upper lip and smiled as if cherishing a joy as secret and unborn as his moustache. He recited a selection from the tale of his engagements. "Can you dine with me here on Saturday? You're free, then, didn't you say?" Rickman hesitated. That was not what he had said. He was anything but free, for was he not engaged for that evening to Miss Poppy Grace? He was pulled two ways, a hard pull. He admired Jewdwine with simple, hero-worshipping fervour; but he also admired Miss Poppy Grace. Again, he shrank from mentioning an engagement of that sort to Jewdwine, while, on the other hand concealment was equally painful, being foreign to his nature. So he flushed a little as he replied, "Thanks awfully, I'm afraid I can't. I'm booked that night to Poppy Grace." The flush deepened. Besides his natural sensitiveness on the subject of Miss Poppy Grace, he suffered tortures not wholly sentimental whenever he had occasion to mention her by her name. Poppy Grace--he felt that somehow it did not give you a very high idea of the lady, and that in this it did her an injustice. He could have avoided it by referring to her loftily as Miss Grace; but this course, besides being unfamiliar would have savoured somewhat of subterfuge. So he blurted it all out with an air of defiance, as much as to say that when you had called her Poppy Grace you had said the worst of her. Jewdwine's face expressed, as Rickman had anticipated, an exquisite disapproval. His own taste in women was refined almost to nullity. How a poet and a scholar, even if not strictly speaking a gentleman, could care to spend two minutes in the society of Poppy Grace, was incomprehensible to Jewdwine. "I didn't know you cultivated that sort of person." "Oh--cultivate her--?"--His tone implied that the soil was rather too light for _that_. "How long have you known her?" "About six months, on and off." "Oh, only on and off." "On and off the _stage_, I mean. And that's knowledge," said Rickman. "Anybody can know them on; but it's not one man in a thousand knows them off--really knows them." "I'm very glad to hear it." He changed the subject. In Rickman the poet he was deeply interested; but at the moment Rickman the man inspired him with disgust. Jewdwine had a weak digestion. When he sat at the high table, peering at his sole and chicken, with critical and pathetic twitchings of his fastidious nose, he shuddered at the vigorous animal appetites of undergraduates in Hall. Even so he shrank now from the coarse exuberance of Rickman's youth. When it came to women, Rickman _was_ impossible. Now Jewdwine, while pursuing an inner train of thought that had Rickman for its subject, was also keeping his eye on a hansom, and wondering whether he would hail it and so reach Hampstead in time for dinner, or whether he would dine at the Club. Edith would be annoyed if he failed to keep his appointment, and the Club dinners were not good. But neither were Edith's; moreover, by dining at the Club for one-and-six, and taking a twopenny tram instead of a three-and-sixpenny cab, he would save one and tenpence. "And yet," he continued thoughtfully, "the man who wrote _Helen in Leuce_ was a poet. Or at least," he added, "one seventh part a poet." Though Jewdwine's lower nature was preoccupied, the supreme critical faculty performed its functions with precision. The arithmetical method was perhaps suggested by the other calculation. He could not be quite sure, but he believed he had summed up Savage Rickman pretty accurately. "Thanks," said Rickman, "you've got the fraction all right, anyhow. A poet one day out of seven; the other six days a potman in an infernal, stinking, flaring Gin-Palace-of-Art." As he looked up at Rickman's, blazing with all its lights, he felt that he had hit on the satisfying, the defining phrase. His face expressed a wistful desire to confer further with Jewdwine on this matter; but a certain delicacy restrained him. Something fine in Jewdwine's nature, something half-human, half-tutorial, responded to the mute appeal that said so plainly, "Won't you hear me? I've so much to ask, so much to say. So many ideas, and you're the only man that can understand them." Jewdwine impressed everybody, himself included, as a person of prodigious understanding. The question was, having understood Rickman, having discovered in him a neglected genius, having introduced him to the Club and asked him to dinner on the strength of it, how much further was he prepared to go? Why--provided he was sure of the genius, almost any length, short of introducing him to the ladies of his family. But was he sure? Savage Rickman was young, and youth is deceptive. Supposing he--Jewdwine--was deceived? Supposing the genius were to elude him, leaving him saddled with the man? What on earth should he do with him? Things had been simpler in the earlier days of their acquaintance, when the counter stood between them, and formed a firm natural barrier to closer intercourse. Nobody, not even Jewdwine, knew what that handshake across the counter had meant for Rickman; how his soul had hungered and thirsted for Jewdwine's society; how, in "the little rat'ole in the City," it had consumed itself with longing. It was his first great passion, a passion that waited upon chance; to be gratified for five minutes, ten minutes at the most. Once Jewdwine had hung about the shop for half an hour talking; the interview being broken by Rickman's incessant calls to the counter. Once, they had taken a walk together down Cheapside, which from that moment became a holy place. Then came the day when, at Jewdwine's invitation, _Helen in Leuce_ travelled down from London to Oxford, and from Oxford to Harmouth. Her neo-classic beauty appealed to Jewdwine's taste (and to the taste of Jewdwine's cousin); he recognized in Rickman a disciple, and was instantly persuaded of his genius. At one bound Rickman had leapt the barrier of the counter; and here he was, enthusiastic and devoted. To be sure, his devotion was not fed largely upon praise; for, unlike the younger man, Jewdwine admired but sparingly. Neither was it tainted with any thought of material advantage. Jewdwine was very free with his criticism and advice; but, beyond these high intellectual aids, it never occurred to Rickman that he had anything to gain by Jewdwine's friendship. Discipleship is the purest of all human relations. Jewdwine divined this purity, and was touched by it. He prepared to accept a certain amount of responsibility. He looked at his watch. He could still get to Hampstead by eight o'clock, if he took a cab--say,--twenty minutes. He could spare him another ten. The Junior Journalists were coming back from their dinner and the room would soon be crowded. He took his disciple's arm in a protecting manner and steered him into a near recess. He felt that the ten minutes he was about to give him would be decisive in the young man's career. "You've still got to find your formula. Not to have found your formula," he said solemnly, "is not to have found yourself." "Perhaps I haven't been looking in very likely places," said Rickman, nobly touched, as he always was by the more personal utterances of the master. "The Jubilee Variety Theatre, for instance. Do you go there to find the ideal, or in pursuit of the fugitive actuality?" "Whichever you like to call it. Its name on the programme is Miss Poppy Grace." "Look here, Rickman," said Jewdwine, gently; "when are you going to give up this business?" "Which business?" "Well, at the moment I referred to your situation in the Gin Palace of Art--" "I can't chuck it just yet. There's my father, you see. It would spoil all his pleasure in that new plate-glass and mahogany devilry. He's excited about it; wants to make it a big thing--" "So he puts a big man into it?" "Oh, well, I must see him started." He spoke simply, as of a thing self-evident and indisputable. Jewdwine admired. "You're quite right. You _are_ handicapped. Heavily handicapped. So, for Goodness' sake, don't weight yourself any more. If you can't drop the Gin Palace, drop Miss Poppy Grace." "Poppy Grace? She weighs about as much as a feather." "Drop her, drop her, all the same." "I can't. She wouldn't drop. She'd float." "Don't float with her." As he rose he spoke slowly and impressively. "What you've got to do is to pull yourself together. You can't afford to be dissolute, or even dissipated." Rickman looked hard at Jewdwine's boots. Irreproachable boots, well made, well polished, unspotted by the world. And the only distinguishable word in Rickman's answer was "Life." And as he said "Life" he blushed like a girl when for the first time she says "Love," a blush of rapture and of shame, her young blood sensitive to the least hint of apathy in her audience. Jewdwine's apathy was immense. "Another name for the fugitive actuality," he said. "Well, I'm afraid I haven't any more time--" He looked round the room a little vaguely, and as he did so he laid on the young man's shoulder a delicate fastidious hand. "There are one or two men here I should have liked to introduce you to, if I'd had time.--Another night, perhaps--" He piloted him downstairs and so out into the Strand. "Good night. Good night. Take my advice and leave the fugitive actuality alone." Those were Jewdwine's last words, spoken from the depths of the hansom. It carried him to the classic heights of Hampstead, to the haunts of the cultivated, the intellectual, the refined. Rickman remained a moment. His dreamy gaze was fixed on the massive pile before him, that rose, solidly soaring, flaunting a brutal challenge to the tender April sky. It stood for the vast material reality, the whole of that eternal, implacable Power which is at enmity with dreams; which may be conquered, propitiated, absorbed, but never annihilated or denied. _That_ actuality was not fugitive. CHAPTER VII Perhaps it was not to be wondered at if Mr. Rickman had not yet found himself. There were, as he sorrowfully reflected, so many Mr. Rickmans. There was Mr. Rickman of the front shop and second-hand department, known as "our Mr. Rickman." The shop was proud of him; his appearance was supposed to give it a certain _cachet_. He neither strutted nor grovelled; he moved about from shelf to shelf in an absent-minded scholarly manner. He served you, not with obsequiousness, nor yet with condescension, but with a certain remoteness and abstraction, a noble apathy. Though a bookseller, his literary conscience remained incorruptible. He would introduce you to his favourite authors with a magnificent take-it-or-leave-it air, while an almost imperceptible lifting of his eyebrows as he handed you _your_ favourite was a subtle criticism of your taste. This method of conducting business was called keeping up the tone of the establishment. The appearance and disappearance of this person was timed and regulated by circumstances beyond his own control, so that of necessity all the other Mr. Rickmans were subject to him. For there was Mr. Rickman the student and recluse, who inhabited the insides of other men's books. Owing to his habitual converse with intellects greater--really greater--than his own, he was an exceedingly humble and reverent person. A high and stainless soul. You would never have suspected his connection with Mr. Rickman, the Junior Journalist, the obscure writer of brilliant paragraphs, a fellow destitute of reverence and decency and everything except consummate impudence, a disconcerting humour and a startling style. But he was still more distantly related to Mr. Rickman the young man about town. And that made four. Besides these four there was a fifth, the serene and perfect intelligence, who from some height immeasurably far above them sat in judgement on them all. But for his abnormal sense of humour he would have been a Mr. Rickman of the pure reason, no good at all. As it was, he occasionally offered some reflection which was enjoyed but seldom acted upon. And underneath these Mr. Rickmans, though inextricably, damnably one with them, was a certain apparently commonplace but amiable young man, who lived in a Bloomsbury boarding-house and dropped his aitches. This young man was tender and chivalrous, full of little innocent civilities to the ladies of his boarding-house; he admired, above all things, modesty in a woman, and somewhere, in the dark and unexplored corners of his nature, he concealed a prejudice in favour of marriage and the sanctities of home. That made six, and no doubt they would have pulled together well enough; but the bother was that any one of them was liable at any moment to the visitation of the seventh--Mr. Rickman the genius. There was no telling whether he would come in the form of a high god or a demon, a consolation or a torment. Sometimes he would descend upon Mr. Rickman in the second-hand department, and attempt to seduce him from his allegiance to the Quarterly Catalogue. Or he would take up the poor journalist's copy as it lay on a table, and change it so that its own editor wouldn't know it again. And sometimes he would swoop down on the little bookseller as he sat at breakfast on a Sunday morning, in his nice frock coat and clean collar, and wrap his big flapping wings round him, and carry him off to the place where the divine ideas come from leaving a silent and to all appearances idiotic young gentleman in his place. Or he would sit down by that young gentleman's side and shake him out of his little innocences and complacencies, and turn all his little jokes into his own incomprehensible humour. And then the boarding-house would look uncomfortable and say to itself that Mr. Rickman had been drinking. In short, it was a very confusing state of affairs, and one that made it almost impossible for Mr. Rickman to establish his identity. Seven Rickmans--only think of it! And some reckon an eighth, Mr. Rickman drunk. But this is not altogether fair; for intoxication acted rather on all seven at once, producing in them a gentle fusion with each other and the universe. They had ceased to struggle. But Mr. Rickman was not often drunk, or at least not nearly so often as his friends supposed. So it was all very well for Jewdwine, who was not so bewilderingly constructed, to talk about finding your formula and pulling yourself together. How, Mr. Rickman argued, could you hope to find the formula of a fellow who could only be expressed in fractions, and vulgar fractions, too? How on earth could you pull yourself together when Nature had deliberately cut you into little pieces? Never since poor Orpheus was torn to tatters by the Mænads was there a poet so horribly subdivided. Talk of being dissolute, dissipated! Those adjectives were a poor description of S.K.R. It was more than sowing a mere handful of wild oats, it was a disintegration, a scattering of Rickmans to all the winds of the world. Find himself, indeed! Still, he was perfectly willing to try; and to that end (after dining with people who were anything but cultivated, or intellectual, or refined) he turned himself loose into the streets. The streets--he was never tired of them. After nine or ten hours of sitting in a dusty second-hand bookshop, his soul was dry with thirst for the living world, and the young joy of the world, "the fugitive actuality." And her ways were in the streets. Being a young poet about town, he turned to the streets as naturally as a young poet in the country turns to the woods and fields. For in the streets, if you know how to listen, you can hear the lyric soul of things as plainly, more plainly perhaps, than in the woods or fields. Only it sings another sort of song. And going into the streets was Rickman's way (the only way open to him as yet) of going into society. The doors were thrown hospitably wide to him; one day was as good as another; the world was always at home. It was a world where he could pick and choose his acquaintance; where, indeed, out of that multitudinous, never-ending procession of persons, his power of selection was unlimited. He never had any difficulty with them; their methods were so charmingly simple and direct. In the streets the soul is surprised through the lifting of an eyelid, and the secret of the heart sits lightly on the curl of the lip. These passers by never wearied him; they flung him the flower of the mystery and--passed by. The perfection of social intercourse he conceived as a similar succession of radiant intimacies. To-night he went southwards down Gower Street, drawn by the never-ending fugitive perspective of the lamps. He went westwards down Shaftesbury Avenue to Piccadilly. The Circus was a gleaming basin filled with grey night clear as water, the floor of it alive with lights. Lights that stood still; lights that wandered from darkness into darkness; that met and parted, darting, wheeling, and crossing in their flight. Long avenues opened out of it, precipitous deep cuttings leading into the night. The steep, shadowy masses of building seemed piled sky-high, like a city of the air; here the gleam of some golden white façade, there some aerial battlement crowned with stars, with clusters, and points, and rings of flame that made a lucid twilight of the dark above them. Over all was an illusion of immensity. Nine o'clock of an April night--the time when a great city has most power over those that love her; the time when she lowers her voice and subdues her brilliance, intimating that she is not what she seems; when she makes herself unearthly and insubstantial, veiling her grossness in the half-transparent night. Like some consummate temptress, she plays the mystic, clothing herself with light and darkness, skirting the intangible, hinting at the infinities, flinging out the eternal spiritual lure, so that she may better seduce the senses through the soul. And Rickman was too young a poet to distinguish clearly between his senses and his imagination, or his imagination and his soul. He stood in Piccadilly Circus and regarded the spectacle of the night. He watched the groups gathering at the street corners, the boys that went laughing arm in arm, the young girls smiling into their lovers' eyes; here and there the faces of other women, dubious divinities of the gas-light and the pavement, passing and passing. A very ordinary spectacle. But to Rickman it had an immense significance, a rhythmic, processional resonance and grandeur. It was an unrhymed song out of _Saturnalia_, it was the luminous, passionate nocturne of the streets. Half-past nine; a young girl met him and stopped. She laughed into his face. "Pretty well pleased with yourself, aren't you?" said the young girl. He laughed back again. He was pleased with the world, so of course he was pleased with himself. They were one. The same spirit was in Mr. Rickman that was in the young girl and in the young April night. They walked together as far as the Strand, conversing innocently. CHAPTER VIII At ten o'clock he found himself in a corridor of the Jubilee Variety Theatre. The young girl had vanished. For a moment he stood debating whether he would go home and work out some ideas he had. Or whether he would pursue the young Joy, the fugitive actuality, to the very threshold of the dawn. Whether, in short, he would make a night of it. He was aroused by the sound of a box-door opening and shutting; and a shining shirt-front and a shining face darted suddenly into the light. At the same moment a voice hailed him. "Hello, Razors! That you?" Voice, face, and shining shirt-front belonged to Mr. Richard Pilkington, Financial Agent, of Shaftesbury Avenue. "Razors" was the name by which Rickman was known to his intimates in subtle allusion to his youth. He responded sulkily to the hail. Dicky Pilkington was the last person he desired to meet. For he owed Dicky a certain sum, not large, but larger than he could conveniently pay, and Dicky was objectionable for other reasons. He had mysterious relations with the Management of the Jubilee Theatre, and consequently unlimited facilities of access to Miss Poppy Grace. Besides, there was something about him that was deadly to ideas. Ideas or no ideas, Mr. Pilkington was not to be evaded. He bore down on Rickman, shining genially, and addressed him with an air of banter. "Couldn't have arranged it better. You're the very fellow I want." There was a suggestion of a chuckle in his voice which sent Rickman's thoughts flying fearfully to his last I.O.U. The alert mind of Pilkington followed their flight. He was intensely amused. He always was amused when anybody showed a marked distaste for his society. "Your business, not mine, this time, Rick. I happen to know of a ripping old library for sale down in Devonshire. Shouldn't have thought of it if I hadn't seen you." "Well?" Rickman's face expressed an utter inability to perceive the connection. Once the iron shutters had closed on Rickman's he felt that he was no more a part of it. Words could not express his abhorrence of the indecent people who insisted on talking shop out of shop hours. And Dicky never had any decency. "Well--it's practically on our hands, d'ye see? And if your people care to take over the whole lot, I can let you have it pretty reasonably." Rickman's face emptied itself of all expression whatever. "I say, you are a cool young cuss. Is this the way you generally do business?" "I'll think it over." "Wouldn't think too long if I were you. It ought to go by auction, and it might; only private contract's preferred." "Why preferred?" "Out of respect for the feelin's of the family." Rickman's eyes were wandering dreamily from the matter in hand. They had alighted on an enormous photograph of Miss Poppy Grace. For an instant thought, like a cloud, obscured the brilliance of Mr. Pilkington's face. "Anyhow I've given you the straight tip," said Pilkington. "Thanks. We'll send a fellow down to overhaul the thing." "He'd better hurry up then. It _may_ have to go by auction after all. But if you'd like the refusal of it, now's your chance." But Rickman betrayed no enthusiasm. "You'd better see the guv'nor about it." Mr. Pilkington looked Rickman up and down, and encountered an immovable determination in his gaze. "Right you are. I'll send him word to-night. Ta-ta!" He turned again in the moment of departing. "I say, he must send a good man down, you know. It'll take an expert. There's a lot of old things--Greek and Latin--that's something in _your_ line, isn't it?" But Rickman's line at present was the line of least resistance. It was ten past ten, and Poppy Grace was "on" from ten fifteen to ten forty. CHAPTER IX She was only an ordinary little variety actress, and he knew her little programme pretty well by heart. But her fascinations were independent of the glamour of the foot-lights. It was off the stage that he had first come to know her, really know her, a thing that at the first blush of it seems impossible; for the great goddess Diana is not more divinely secret and secluded than (to a young bookseller) a popular Dance and Song Artiste in private life. Poppy's rooms were next door to the boarding-house balcony, and it was the balcony that did it. Now, in the matter of balconies, if you choose to regard the receding wooden partition as a partition, and sit very far back behind it, you will have your balcony all to yourself, that is to say, you will see nothing, neither will you be seen. If, however, you prefer, as Mr. Rickman preferred, to lean forward over the railings and observe things passing in the street below, you can hardly help establishing some sort of communication with the next-door neighbour who happens to be doing the same thing. At first this communication was purely in the region of the mind, without so much as the movement of an eyelid on either side, and that made it all the more intimate and intense. But to sit there Sunday evening after Sunday evening, when the other boarders were at church, both looking at the same plane-tree opposite, or the same tail-end of a sunset flung across the chimney pots, without uttering a syllable or a sound, was at last seen by both in its true light, as a thing not only painful but absurd. So one evening the deep, full-hearted silence burst and flowered into speech. In common courtesy Mr. Rickman had to open his lips to ask her whether she objected to his smoking (she did not). Then it came to acknowledging each other in the streets; after that, to Poppy's coming out and looking over the balcony about the time when Mr. Rickman would be coming home from the shop, and to Mr. Rickman's looking to see if Poppy was looking; and so on, to that wonderful night when he saw her home from the Jubilee Theatre. The stars were out; not that Poppy cared a rap about the stars. Her first appearance to-night was in the character of a coster-girl, a part well suited to her audacity and impertinent prettiness. Poppy was the tiniest dancer that ever whirled across a stage, a circumstance that somewhat diminished the vulgarity of her impersonation, while it gave it a very engaging character of its own. Her small Cockney face, with its impudent laughing nose, its curling mouth (none too small), its big, twinkling blue eyes, was framed in a golden fringe and side curls. She wore a purple velveteen skirt, a purple velveteen jacket with a large lace collar, and a still larger purple velveteen hat with white ostrich feathers that swayed madly from the perpendicular. The secret of Poppy's popularity lay in this, that you could always depend on her; she always played the same part in the same manner; but her manner was her own. To come on the stage quietly; to look, in spite of her coster costume, the picture of suburban innocence, and pink and white propriety; to stand facing her audience for a second of time, motionless and in perfect gravity--it was a trick that, though Poppy never varied it, had a more killing effect than the most ingenious impromptu. "Sh--sh--sh--sh!" A flutter of programmes in the pit was indignantly suppressed by the gallery. There was a movement of Poppy's right eyelid which in a larger woman would have been called a wink; in Poppy it appeared as an exaggerated twinkle. It was greeted with a roar of rapturous applause. Then Poppy, with her hands on her hips, and her head on one side, raised her Cockney voice in a high-pitched song, executing between each verse a slow, swinging chassée to the stage Humorist with the concertina. "Oh, she's my fancy girl, With 'er 'air all outer curl, 'Ooks orf, eyes orf, petticoats all awry. For then she isn't shy; She gives 'er bangs a twirl, And it's--'Kiss me quick!'--and--'That's the Trick!' --and--(_dim_)--'_Wouldn't_ yer like to try?'" When the stage Humorist with the concertina stopped chasséeing, and put his finger to his nose, and observed, "That's wot you might call a dim innuender," Rickman could have kicked him. (_cresc._), 'But got up fit ter kill, In 'er velverteen an' frill, It's--'Ands orf!'--'Heyes orf!'--'Fetch yer one in the heye!'-- A strollin' down the 'Igh, With 'Enery, Alf an' Bill, It's--'None er that!'--and 'Mind my 'at!'--and (_fortissimo_)--'WOULDN'T yer like to try!'" "To try! To try!" Her chassée quickened ever so little, doubled on itself, and became a tortuous thing. Poppy's feet beat out the measure that is danced on East End pavements to the music of the concertina. In the very abandonment of burlesque Poppy remained an artist, and her dance preserved the gravity of the original ballet, designed for performance on a flagstone. Now it unfolded; it burst its bounds; it was a rhythmic stampede. Louder and louder, her clicking heels beat the furious time; higher and higher her dexterous toes flew to her feathers that bowed to meet them, and when her last superhuman kick sent her hat flying, and the Humorist caught it on his head, they had brought the house down. Rickman went out to the bar, where he found Dicky Pilkington, and at Dicky's suggestion he endeavoured to quench with brandy and soda his inextinguishable thirst. He returned to the storm and glare of the ballet, the last appearance of that small, incarnate genius of Folly. There were other dancers, but he saw none but her. He knew every pose and movement of her body, from her first tentative, preluding pirouette, to her last moon-struck dance, when she tossed her tall grenadier's cap to the back of the stage, and still spinning, shook out her hair, and flung herself backwards, till it streamed and eddied with the whirlwind of her dance. In her fantastic dress (she wore her colours, the red and black) her very womanhood had vanished, she was a mere insignificant morsel of flesh and blood, inspired by the dizzy, reckless Fury of the foot-lights. There was a noise of many boots beating the floor of the house; it grew into a thick, solid body of sound, torn at intervals by a screaming whistle from the galleries. Someone up there shouted her name--"Poppy--Poppy Grace!" and Rickman shivered. To Rickman's mind the name was an outrage; it reeked of popularity; it suggested--absurdly and abominably--a certain cheap drink of sudden and ephemeral effervescence. He never let his mind dwell on those dreadful syllables any longer than he could help; he never thought of her as Poppy Grace at all. He thought of her in undefined, extraordinary ways; now as some nameless aerial spirit, unaccountably wandering about in a world too gross for it; and now as the Young Joy, the fugitive actuality. To-night, after brandy and soda, his imagination possessed itself of Poppy, and wove round her the glory and gloom of the world. It saw in her, not the incarnation of the rosy moment, but the eternal sacrifice of woman, the tragedy of her abasement, her obedience to the world. Which, when he came to think of it, was really very clever of his imagination. Meanwhile Poppy was behaving, as she had behaved for the last fifty nights, like a lunatic humming top. Now it had steadied itself in the intensity of its speed; the little humming-top was sleeping. Poppy, as she span, seemed to be standing, her feet rooted, her body swaying delicately from the hips, like a flower rocked by the wind, the light of her flickering flamewise. There was a stir, a wave, as if the heart of the house had heaved. Pit and gallery breathed hard. Rickman leaned forward with clouded eyes and troubled forehead, while the young shop-men--the other young shop-men--thrilled with familiar and delicious emotion. Now she curtsied, as she had curtsied for the last fifty nights, bowing lower and lower till her hair fell over her face and swept the stage; and now she shook her head till the great golden whorl of hair seemed the only part of her left spinning; then Poppy folded her arms and sank, sank till she sat on her heels, herself invisible, curtained in modest and mystic fashion by her hair. "Bravo! Bravo!" "That's the trick!"--"Encore!"--"Oh, _she's_ my fancy girl!"--"Encore-ore-ore-ore-ore!" It was all over. CHAPTER X He hurried back to Bloomsbury, in the wake of her hansom, to the house of the balcony opposite the plane-trees. The plane-tree was half-withdrawn into the night, but the balcony hung out black in the yellow light from its three long windows. Poppy was not in the balcony. He went up into the room where the light was, a room that had been once an ordinary Bloomsbury drawing-room, the drawing-room of Propriety. Now it was Poppy's drawing-room. You came straight out of a desert of dreary and obscure respectability, and it burst, it blossomed into Poppy before your eyes. Portraits of Poppy on the walls, in every conceivable and inconceivable attitude. Poppy's canary in the window, in a cage hung with yellow gauze. Poppy's mandoline in an easy chair by itself. Poppy's hat on the grand piano, tumbling head over heels among a litter of coffee cups. On the tea-table a pair of shoes that could have belonged to nobody but Poppy, they were so diminutive. In the waste paper basket a bouquet that must have been Poppy's too, it was so enormous. And on the table in the window a Japanese flower-bowl that served as a handy receptacle for cigarette ash and spent vestas. Two immense mirrors facing each other reflected these objects and Poppy, when she was there, for ever and ever, in diminishing perspective. But Poppy was not there. Passing through this brilliant scene into the back room beyond, he found her finishing her supper. Poppy was not at all surprised to see him. She addressed him as "Rickets," and invited him under that name to sit down and have some supper, too. But Rickets did not want any supper. He sat down at the clear end of the table, and looked on as in a dream. And when Poppy had finished she came and sat by him on the clear end of the table, and made cigarettes, and drank champagne out of a little tumbler. "Thought you might feel a little lonely over there, Ricky-ticky," said she. Poppy was in spirits. If she had yielded to the glad impulse of her heart, she would have stood on one foot and twirled the other over Ricky-ticky's head. But she restrained herself. Somehow, before Ricky-ticky, Poppy never played any of those tricks that delighted Mr. Pilkington and other gentlemen of her acquaintance. She merely sat on the table. She was in her ballet-dress, and before sitting on the table she arranged her red skirts over her black legs with a prodigious air of propriety. Poppy herself did not know whether this meant that she wanted Ricky-ticky to think her nice, or whether she wanted to think Ricky-ticky nice. After all, it came to the same thing; for to Poppy the peculiar charm of Ricky-ticky was his innocence. The clock on St. Pancras church struck half-past eleven; in his hanging cage in the front room, behind his yellow gauze curtain, Poppy's canary woke out of his first sleep. He untucked his head from under his wing and chirrupped drowsily. "Oh, dicky," said Poppy, "it's time you were in your little bed!" He did not take the hint. He was intent on certain movements of Poppy's fingers and the tip of her tongue concerned in the making of cigarettes. He was gazing into her face as if it held for him the secret of the world. And that look embarrassed her. It had all the assurance of age and all the wonder of youth in it. Poppy's eyes were trained to look out for danger signals in the eyes of boys, for Poppy, according to those lights of hers, was honest. If she knew the secret of the world, she would not have told it to Ricky-ticky; he was much too young. Men, in Poppy's code of morality, were different. But this amazing, dreamy, interrogative look was not the sort of thing that Poppy was accustomed to, and for once in her life Poppy felt shy. "I say, Rickets, there goes a quarter to twelve. _Did_ I wake him out of his little sleep?" Poppy talked as much to the canary as to Rickets, which made it all quite proper. As for Rickman, he talked hardly at all. "You'll have to go in ten minutes, Rick." And by way of softening this announcement she gave him some champagne. He had paid no attention to that hint either, being occupied with a curious phenomenon. Though Poppy was, for her, most unusually stationary, he found that it was making him slightly giddy to look at her. He was arriving at that moment of intoxication when things lose their baldness and immobility, and the world begins to float like an enchanted island in a beautiful blood-warm haze. Nothing could be more agreeable than the first approaches of this blessed state; he encouraged it, anticipating with ecstasy each stage in the mounting of the illusion. For when he was sober he saw Poppy very much as she was; but when he was drunk she became for him a being immaculate, divine. He moved in a region of gross but glorious exaggeration, where his wretched little Cockney passion assumed the proportions of a superb romance. His soul that minute was the home of the purest, most exalted emotions. Yes, he could certainly feel it coming on. Poppy's face was growing bigger and bigger, opening out and blossoming like an enormous flower. "Nine minutes up. In another minute you go." It seemed to him that Poppy was measuring time by pouring champagne into little tumblers, and that she gave him champagne to drink. He knew it was no use drinking it, for that thirst of his was unquenchable; but he drank, for the sake of the illusion; and as he drank it seemed to him that not only was Poppy worthy of all adoration, but that his passion for her was no mere vulgar and earthly passion; it was a glorious and immortal thing. Poppy looked at him curiously. She was the soul of hospitality, but it struck her that she was being a little too liberal with the champagne. "No, Razors. No more fizz. If I were to drink a drop more it would spoil my little dance that always fetches the boys." She turned her tumbler upside down in token of renunciation and led the way into the front room. He followed her with enchanted feet. He was now moving as in an Arabian Night's dream. In the front room was a sofa--No, a divan, and on the divan the skin of a Polar bear sprawling. Rickman and Poppy sat on the top of the bear. Such a disreputable, out-of-elbow, cosmopolitan bear! His little eye-holes were screwed up in a wicked wink, a wink that repudiated any connection with his native waters of the Pole. The house was very still. Behind his yellow gauze curtain the canary stirred in his sleep. "Swe-eet," he murmured plaintively in his dream. "Swe-eet, dicky!" echoed Poppy. Then because she had nothing to say she began to sing. She sang the song of Simpson the tenor, Simpson the master of tears. "'Twas on the night our little byby died, And Bill, 'e comes, and, 'Sal,' 'e sez,'look ere, I've signed a pledge,'ser 'e, 'agains the beer. 'D'ye see?' Sez 'e. 'And wot I 'ope ter syve Will tittervyte 'is bloomin' little gryve.' Then--Well--yo' should 'ave 'eard us 'ow we cried-- Like bloomin' kids--the--night--the byby--died. "That song," said Poppy, "doesn't exactly suit my style of beauty. You should have heard Simpey sing it. _That_ 'd 'ave given you something to 'owl for." For Rickman looked depressed. The sound of Poppy's song waked the canary; he fluttered down from his perch and stretched his wings, trailing them on the floor of his cage to brush the sleep out of them. "Did you ever see such affectation," said Poppy, "look at him, striking attitudes up there, all by 'is little self!" Poppy seemed to cling to the idea of the canary as a symbol of propriety. "Do you know, Rickets, it's past twelve o'clock?" No, he didn't know. He had taken no count of time. But he knew that he had drunk a great many little tumblers of champagne, and that his love for Poppy seemed more than ever a supersensuous and immortal thing. He pulled himself together in order to tell her so; but at that moment he was confronted by an insuperable difficulty. In the tender and passionate speech that he was about to make to her, it would be necessary to address her by name. But how--in Heaven's name--could he address a divinity as Poppy? He settled the difficulty by deciding that he would not address her at all. There should be no invocation. He would simply explain. He got up and walked about the room and explained in such words as pleased him the distinction between the corruptible and the incorruptible Eros. From time to time he chanted his own poems in the intervals of explaining; for they bore upon the matter in hand. "Rickets," said Poppy, severely, "you've had too much fizz. I can see it in your eyes--most unmistakably. I know it isn't very nice of me to say so, when it's my fizz you've been drinking; but it isn't really mine, it's Dicky Pilkington's--at least he paid for it." But Rickets did not hear her. His soul, soaring on wings of champagne, was borne far away from Dicky Pilkington. "Know" (chanted Rickets) "that the Love which is my Lord most high, He changeth not with seasons and with days, His feet are shod with light in all his ways. And when he followeth none have power to fly. "He chooseth whom he will, and draweth nigh. To them alone whom he himself doth raise Unto his perfect service and his praise; Of such Love's lowliest minister am I." "If you'd asked me," said Poppy, "I should have said he had a pretty good opinion of himself. What do you say, Dicky?" "Sweet!" sang the canary in one pure, penetrating note, the voice of Innocence itself. "Isn't he rakish?" But Poppy got no answer from the sonneteer. He had wheeled round from her, carried away in the triumph and rapture of the sestette. His steps marked the beat of the iambics, he turned on his heel at the end of every line. For the moment he was sober, as men count sobriety. "For he I serve hath paced Heaven's golden floor, And chanted with the Seraphims' glad choir; Lo! All his wings are plumed with fervent fire; He hath twain that bear him upward evermore, With twain he veils his holy eyes before The mystery of his own divine desire. "Does it remind you of anything?" he asked. It struck her as odd that he seemed to realize her presence with difficulty. "No, I can't say that I ever heard anything like it in my life." "Well, the idea's bagged from Dante--I mean Dante-gabrier-rossetti. But he doesn't want it as badly as I do. In fac', I don' think he wants it at all where he is now. If he does, he can take any of mine in exchange. You bear me out, Poppy--I invite the gentleman to step down and make 's own s'lection: Nobody can say I plagiarize anyborry--anyborry but myself." "All right, don't you worry, old chappy," said Poppy soothingly. "You come here and sit quiet." He came and sat down beside her, as if the evening had only just begun. He sat down carefully, tenderly, lest he should crush so much as the hem of her fan-like, diaphanous skirts. And then he began to talk to her. He said there was no woman--no lady--in the world for whom he felt such reverence and admiration; "Pop-oppy," he said, "you're fit to dance before God on the floor of Heaven when they've swept it." "Oh come," said Poppy, "can't you go one better?" He could. He did. He intimated that though he worshipped every hair of Poppy's little head and every inch of Poppy's little body, what held him, at the moment, were the fascinations of her mind, and the positively gorgeous beauty of her soul. Yes; there could be no doubt that the object of his devotion was Poppy's imperishable soul. "Well," said Poppy, "that tykes the very tip-top macaroon!" Then she laughed; she laughed as if she would never have done. She laughed, first with her eyes, then with her throat, then with her whole body, shaking her head and rocking herself backwards and forwards. She laughed till her hair came down, and he took it and smoothed it into two sleek straight bands, and tied them in a loose knot under her chin. Then she stopped laughing. Her face between the two tight sheaths of hair seemed to close and shrink to a thin sharp bud. It closed and opened again, it grew nearer and bigger, it bent forward and put out its mouth (for it had a mouth, this extraordinary flower) and kissed him. "I sy, it's nearly one o'clock," said she. "You've got to clear out of this. Come!" She rose; she stood before him holding out her hands to help him to get up and go. She laughed again. She laughed wide-mouthed, her head flung back, her face foreshortened, her white throat swelled and quivering--the abandoned figure of Low Comedy incarnate. But that was not what he saw. To him it was as if the dark, impenetrable world had suddenly unfolded, had blossomed and flowered in the rose of her mouth; as if all the roses of all the world went to make up the petals of that rose. Her body was nothing but a shining, transparent vessel for the fire of life. It ran over; it leapt from her; the hands she stretched out to him were two shallow lamps that could hardly hold the tall, upward shooting, wind-tortured splendour of the flame. He rose unsteadily to his feet. The movement, being somewhat complicated, brought him within a yard of his own figure as presented in one of the long mirrors. He stood there, arrested, fascinated, shocked by that person in the mirror. The face he was accustomed to see in mirrors was grave, and not high coloured, and it always kept its mouth shut. This person's face was very red, and his mouth was slightly open, a detail he noticed with a peculiar disgust. He could not get away from it, either. It was held there, illuminated, insisted on, repeated for ever and ever, smaller and smaller, an endless procession of faces, all animated by one frenzy and one flame. He was appalled by this mysterious multiplication of his person, and by the flushed and brilliant infamy of his face. The face was the worst; he thought he had never seen anything so detestable as the face. He sat down and hid it in his hands. "Poor Rickets," said Poppy softly. She drew his hands from his face by a finger at a time. "Oh, Ricky-ticky, you are such a rum little fellow. I suppose that's why I like you. But for the life of me I can't think why I kissed you; unless it was to say Good-night." A kiss more or less was nothing to Poppy. And that one, she felt, had been valedictory. She had kissed, not Ricky-ticky, but his dying Innocence, the boy in him. And she had really wanted him to go. The house was stiller than ever. The canary had tucked his head under his wing and gone to sleep again. Out of the silence the clock of St. Pancras Church struck one. And yet he had not gone. CHAPTER XI A step was heard on the pavement outside; then the click of a latch-key; a step on the stairs, at the threshold, and Mr. Pilkington walked in with the air of being the master of the house and everything in it. The little laughing mask slipped from Poppy's face, her eyes were two sapphire crescents darting fright under down-dropped lids. There was a look in Dicky's face she did not care for. But Rickman--as Maddox had testified--was a perfect little gentleman when he was drunk, and at the sight of Pilkington, chivalry, immortal chivalry, leapt in his heart. He became suddenly grave, steady and coherent. "I was just going, Miss Grace. But--if you want me to stay a little longer, I'll stay." "You'd better _go_," said Miss Grace. Her eyes followed him sullenly as he went; so did Pilkington's. "Well," she said, "I suppose that's what you wanted?" "Yes, but there's no good overdoing the thing, you know. This," said Pilkington, "is a damned sight too expensive game for him to play." "He's all right. It wasn't his fault. I let him drink too much champagne." "What did you do that for? Couldn't you see he'd had enough already?" "How was I to know? He's nicer when he's drunk than other people are when they're sober." He looked at her critically. "I know all about him. What I'd like to know is what you see in him." Poppy returned his look with interest. Coarseness in Dicky Pilkington's eyes sat brilliant and unashamed. "Would you? So would I. P'raps it's wot I don't see in him." Now subtlety was the last thing Dicky expected from Poppy, and it aroused suspicion. Whatever Poppy's instructions were she had evidently exceeded them. Poppy read his thoughts with accuracy. "I only did what you told me. If you don't like it, you can finish the job yourself. I'm tired," said Poppy, wearily coiling up her hair. She was no longer in spirits. CHAPTER XII A tiny jet of gas made a glimmer in the fan-light of Mrs. Downey's boarding-house next door. Mrs. Downey kept it burning there for Mr. Rickman. Guided by this beacon, he reached his door, escaping many dangers. For the curbstone was a rocking precipice, and the street below it a grey and shimmering stream, that rolled, and flowed, and rolled, and never rested. The houses, too, were so drunk as to be dangerous. They bowed over him, swaying hideously from their foundations. They seemed to be attracted, just as he was, by that abominable slimy flow and glister of the asphalt. Another wriggle of the latch-key, and they would be over on the top of him. He approached his bedroom candle with infinite precaution. He had tried to effect a noiseless entry, but every match, as it spurted and went out, was a little fiendish spit-fire tongue betraying him. From behind a bedroom door, ajar at the dark end of the passage, the voice of Mrs. Downey gently reminded him not to forget to turn the gas out. There was a bright clear space in his brain which Pilkington's champagne had not penetrated, so intolerably clear and bright that it hurt him to look at it. In that space three figures reeled and whirled; three, yet one and the same; Poppy of the coster-dance, Poppy of the lunatic ballet, and Poppy of the Arabian night. Beyond the bright space and the figures there was a dark place that was somehow curtained off. Something had happened there, he could not see what. And in trying to see he forgot to turn the gas out. He turned it up instead. He left it blazing away at the rate of a penny an hour, a witness against him in the face of morning. But he did not forget to sit down at the bottom of the stairs and take his boots off, lest he should wake Flossie Walker, the little clerk, who worked so hard, and had to be up so early. He left them on the stairs, where Flossie tripped over them in the morning. On the first landing a young man in a frowsy sleeping suit stood waiting for him. A fresh, sober, and thoroughly wide-awake young man. "Gurra bed, Spinks," said Mr. Rickman severely to the young man. "All right, old man." Mr. Spinks lowered his voice to a discreet whisper. "I say--do you want me to help you find your legs?" "Wish you'd fin' any par' of me that is n' legs," said Mr. Rickman. And he went on to explain and to demonstrate to Mr. Spinks the resemblance (amounting to identity) between himself and the Manx arms. "Three legs, rampant, on the bend, proper. Amazin', isn't it?" "It _is_ amazin'." Feigning surprise and interest, Mr. Spinks relieved him of his candle; and under that escort Mr. Rickman managed to attain to the second floor. Mr. Rickman's room was bared to the glimmer of a lamp in the street below. He plunged and stumbled through a litter of books. The glimmer fell on the books, on many books; books that covered three walls from floor to ceiling; books ranged above and beside the little camp-bed in the corner; books piled on the table and under it. The glimmer fell, too, on the mantel-piece, reflected from the glass above it, right on to the white statuette of the Venus of Milo that supported a photograph of a dancing Poppy--Poppy, who laughed in the face of the goddess with insatiable impudence, and flung to the immortal forehead the flick of her shameless foot. White and austere gleamed the Venus (if Venus she be, for some say she is a Wingless Victory, and Rickman, when sober, inclined to that opinion). White and austere gleamed the little camp-bed in the corner. He ignored Mr. Spinks' discreet suggestion. He wasn't going to undress to please Spinks or anybody. He'd see Spinks in another world first. He wasn't going to bed like a potman; he was going to sit up like a poet and write. That's what he was going to do. This was his study. With shaking hands he lit the lamp on his study table; the wick sputtered, and the light in his head jigged horribly with the jigging of the flame. It was as if he was being stabbed with little knives of light. He plunged his head into a basin of cold water, threw open his window and leaned out into the pure regenerating night. Spinks sat down on a chair and watched him, his fresh, handsome face clouded with anxiety. He adored Rickman sober; but for Rickman drunk he had a curious yearning affection. If anything, he preferred him in that state. It seemed to bring him nearer to him. Spinks had never been drunk in his life, but that was his feeling. Rickman laid his arms upon the window sill and his head upon his arms. "'The blessed damozel leaned out,'" he said (the idea in his mind being that _he_ was a blessed damozel). "'From the gold bar of heaven.'" ("Never knew they had 'em up there," murmured Spinks.) "'Her eyes were deeper than the depth of waters stilled at even'--Oh--my--God!" A great sigh shook him, and went shuddering into the night like the passing of a lost soul. He got up and staggered to the table, and grasped it by the edge, nearly upsetting the lamp. The flare in his brain had died down as the lamp burnt steadily. Under its shade a round of light fell on his Euripides, open at the page he had been reading the night before. [Greek: ELEN�] He saw it very black, with the edges a little wavering, a little blurred, as if it had been burnt by fire into the whiteness of the page. Below, the smaller type of a chorus reeled and shook through all its lines. Set up by an intoxicated compositor. Under the Euripides was the piled up manuscript of Rickman's great neo-classic drama, _Helen in Leuce_. He implored Spinks to read it. (Spinks was a draper's assistant and uncultured.) He thrust the manuscript into his hands. "There," he said, "rea' that. Tha's the sor' o' thing I write when I'm drunk. Couldn' do it now t' save my life. Temp'rance been _my_ ruin." He threw himself on his bed. "It's all righ'. At nine o'clock to-morrow morning, no--at a quar'er pas' nine, I mean three quar'ers pas' nine, I shall be drunk. Not disgustingly and ridicklelously, as you are, Spinky, at this minute, but soo-p-p-perbubbly, loominously, divinely drunk! You don' know what I could do if I was only drunk." "Oh, come, I shouldn't complain, if I was you. You'll do pretty well as you are, I think." With an almost maternal tenderness and tact Mr. Spinks contrived to separate the poet from his poem. He then undressed him. That is to say, by alternate feats of strength, dexterity and cunning, he succeeded in disengaging him from the looser portion of his clothing. From his shirt and trousers Rickman refused to part, refused with a shake of the head, slow, gentle, and implacable, and with a smile of great sweetness and gravity and wisdom. He seemed to regard those garments with a peculiar emotion as the symbols of his dignity, and more especially, as the insignia of sobriety. Spinks sat down and stared at the object of his devotion. "Poor old chappie," he murmured tenderly. He was helpless before that slow melancholy shaking of the head, that mysterious and steadfast smile. He approached tip-toe on deprecating feet. But Rickman would none of him; his whole attitude was eloquent of rebuke. He waved Spinks away with one pathetic hand; with the other he clutched and gathered round him the last remnants of his personal majesty. And thus, in his own time and in his own fashion, he wandered to his bed. Even then he conveyed reproach and reproof by his manner of entering it; he seemed to vanish subtly, to withdraw himself, as into some sacred and inviolable retreat. Spinks crept away, saddened by the rebuff. After all, he was no nearer to Rickman drunk than to Rickman sober. Half an hour later, he was asleep in the adjoining room, dreaming a lightsome dream of ladies and _mousselines de laine_, when suddenly the dream turned to a nightmare. It seemed to him that there descended upon him a heavy rolling weight, as of a bale of woollens. He awoke and found that it was Rickman. The poet lay face downwards across the body of his friend, and was crooning into his ear the great chorus from the third act of Helen in Leuce. He said that nobody but Spinky understood it. And Spinky couldn't understand it if he wasn't drunk. Whereupon Spinks was most curiously uplifted and consoled. CHAPTER XIII He woke tired out, as well he might be, after spending half the night in the pursuit of young Joy personified in Miss Poppy Grace, young Joy, who, like that little dancer, is the swiftest of all swift things. Rickman carried into this adventure a sort of innocence that renewed itself, as by a miracle, every evening. His youth remained virgin because of its incorruptible hope. He almost disarmed criticism by the gaiety, the naïveté of the pursuit. She was always in front of him, that young Joy; but if he did not overtake her by midnight, he was all the more sure that he would find her in the morning, with the dew on her feet and the dawn on her forehead. He was convinced that it was that sweet mystic mouth of hers which would one day tell him the secret of the world. And long before the morning she would pick up her skirts and be off again, swifter than ever, carrying her secret with her. And so the chase went on. At the present moment he found himself in the society of Shame, the oldest and most haggard of all the daughters of the night. She was in no hurry to leave him. It seemed to him that she sat beside him, formless and immense, that she laid her hands about him, and that the burning on his poor forehead was her brand there; that the scorching in his poor throat was the clutch of her fingers, and the torment in all his miserable body her fine manipulation of his nerves. She knew the secret of the world; and had no sort of hesitation about telling it; it sounded to him uncommonly like something that he had heard before. He recognized her as the form and voice of his own desire, the loathsome familiar body of unutterable thoughts, sordid, virulent, accusing, with a tongue that lashed through the flesh to the obscure spirit inside him. And because he was a poet, and knew himself a poet, because he had sinned chiefly through his imagination, it was through his imagination that he suffered, so that the horror was supreme. For all the while, though Shame was there, his ideas were there too, somewhere, the divine thoughts and the proud beautiful dreams, and the great pure loves, winged and veiled; they stood a long way off and turned away their faces from him, and that was the worst punishment he had to bear. Which meant that as Savage Keith Rickman lay in bed the morning after that glorious April night, he knew that he had been making an April fool of himself. He knew it by the pain in his head and other disagreeable signs; also by the remarkable fact that he still wore the shirt and trousers of the day. And he knew that in spite of the pain he would have to get up and go down to breakfast as if nothing had happened; he would have to meet Mr. Spinks' eyes twinkling with malign intelligence, and Flossie's wondering looks, and Mrs. Downey's tender womanly concern, as he turned white over the bacon and the butter. He didn't know which were worse, the knowing eyes or the innocent ones. He had to be at the shop by nine o'clock, too, to force that poor, dizzy, aching head of his to its eight hours' work. In this unnerved, attenuated state, this mortal paleness of mind and body, it was terrible to have to face the robust reality of "Rickman's". At nine o'clock in the morning it was more real to him than any real thing; it even assumed an abominable personality; it was an all-compelling, all-consuming power that sucked from him his time, his life, his energy, and for six days out of the seven required of him his soul. That at the same time it provided him with the means of bodily subsistence only added to the horror of the thing. It was as if "Rickman's", destroyer and preserver, renewed his life every quarter day that it might draw in, devour, annihilate it as before. There was a diabolical precision in the action of the machine that made and unmade him. And yet, with its rhythm of days and weeks, it was in its turn part of a vaster system, whose revolutions brought round a longer pause--when for three days his soul would be given back to him. The only thing that kept him up at this moment was the blessed hope of the Bank holiday. While young Keith was still lying very sick and miserable in his bed, the elder Rickman, in his villa residence at Ilford in Essex, was up and eager for the day. By the time Keith had got down to breakfast Isaac had caught the early train that landed him in the City at nine. Before half-past he was in the front shop, taking a look round. And as he looked round and surveyed his possessions, his new stock on the shelves, his plate-glass and his mahogany fittings, his assistants, from the boy in shirt sleeves now washing down the great front window to the gentlemanly cashier, high collared and frock-coated, in his pew, he rubbed his hands softly, and his heart swelled with thankfulness and pride. For Isaac Rickman was a dreamer, too, in his way. There are dreams and dreams, and the incontestable merit and glory of Isaac's dreams was that they had all, or very nearly all, come true. They were of the sort that can be handed over the counter, locked up in a cash-box and lodged in the Bank. His latest dream had been carried out in plate-glass and mahogany; it towered into space and was finished off with a beautiful pink cupola at the top. There was not much of the father in the son. Keith, presumably, took after his mother, a hectic, pale-haired, woman who had died in the supreme effort of his birth. On her own birth there had been something in the nature of a slur. She had taken it to heart, and exhausted herself in the endeavour to conceal from her very respectable husband the shameful fact that she had once served as barmaid in a City restaurant, and that she was the illegitimate daughter of a village sempstress and a village squire. Isaac, before he dreamed of greatness, had met her at a Band of Hope meeting, and had married her because of her sweetness and pathetic beauty. She left to her boy her fairness, her expressive face, her own nerves and her mother's passion. Isaac and he were alike only in a certain slenderness, a fleshless refinement of physique. Coarseness in grain, usually revealed by the lower half of a man's countenance, had with the elder Rickman taken up its abode in the superior, the intellectual region. Isaac's eyes and forehead trafficked grossly with the world, while the rest of his face preserved the stern reticences and sanctities of the spirit. Isaac was a Wesleyan; and his dress (soft black felt hat, smooth black frock-coat, narrow tie, black but clerical) almost suggested that he was a minister of that persuasion. His lips were hidden under an iron grey moustache, the short grizzled beard was smoothed forward and fined to a point by the perpetual caress of a meditative hand. Such was Isaac. Impossible to deny a certain genius to the man who had raised that mighty pile, the Gin Palace of Art. Those stately premises, with their clustering lights, their carpeted floors, their polished fittings, were very different from the dark little house in Paternoster Row where Keith first saw what light there was to be seen. When Isaac grew great and moved further west, the little shop was kept on and devoted to the sale of Bibles, hymn-books and Nonconformist literature. For Isaac, life was a compromise between the pious Wesleyan he was and the successful tradesman he aspired to be. There were, in fact, two Rickman's: Rickman's in the City and Rickman's in the Strand. Rickman's in the Strand bore on its fore-front most unmistakeably the seal of the world; Rickman's in the City was sealed with the Lord's seal. So that now there was not a single need of the great book-buying, book-loving Public that Rickman's did not provide for and represent. It pandered to (Isaac said "catered for") the highest and the lowest, the spirit as well as the flesh. Only Isaac was wise enough to keep the two branches of the business separate and distinct. His right hand professed complete ignorance of the doings of his left. It may be that Isaac's heart was in his City shop. But there was something in him greater than his heart, his ambition, which was colossal. He meant, he always had meant, to be the founder of a great House, which should make the name of Rickman live after him. He aimed at nothing less than supremacy. He proposed to spread his nets till they had drawn in the greater part of the book trade of London; till Rickman's had reared its gigantic palaces in every district of the capital. In '92 there was some talk of depression in the book trade. Firms had failed. Isaac did not join in the talk, and he had his own theory of the failure. Men went smash for want of will, for want of brains, for want of courage and capital. Above all for want of capital. As if any man need want capital so long as he had the pluck to borrow, that is to say, to buy it. So ran his dream. And Isaac believed in his dream, and what was more, he had made Mr. Richard Pilkington, Financial Agent, of Shaftesbury Avenue, believe in it. "Rickman's," backed by Pilkington, would stand firm, firm as a rock. Courage and capital are great, but brains are greater. It was not only by shrewdness, energy and an incomparable audacity that Isaac Rickman had raised himself from those obscure beginnings. Isaac was an artist in his own enormous way, and he had made an exhaustive study of the Public. With incredible versatility he followed every twist and turn of the great mind; the slow colossal movements which make capital, the fitful balancing, the sudden start and mad rush forward by which, if you can but foresee and keep pace with it, you reap the golden harvest of the hour. He never took his eye off the Public. He laid his finger, as it were, on that mighty pulse and recorded its fluctuations in his ledger. But there was a region beyond those fluctuations. With new books there was always a pound's worth of risk to a pennyworth of profit; but there was no end of money to be got out of old ones, if only you knew how to set about it. And Isaac did not quite know how. In his front shop it was the Public, in his side shop it was the books that mattered, and knowledge of the one, however exhaustive, was no guide to the other. Isaac by himself cut a somewhat unfortunate figure; he stood fully equipped in the field where there was much danger and but little gain; he was helpless where the price of knowledge ruled immeasurably high. In the second-hand department audacity without education can do nothing. What he still wanted, then, was brains and yet more brains; not the raw material, mind you, he had plenty of that, but the finished product, the trained, cultured intellect. Isaac was a self-made man, a man ignorant of many things, religious, but uneducated. But he had a son, and the son had a head on his shoulders a magnificent head that boy had. Mr. Horace Jewdwine had noticed it the first minute he came into the shop. And the magnificence of Keith's head had been pointed out to Isaac long before that, when Keith couldn't have been more than ten--why, nine he was; that was the beginning of it. Isaac could remember how Sir Joseph Harden of Lazarus, the great scholar, who was one of Isaac's best customers, poking round the little dingy shop in Paternoster Row (it was all second-hand in those days), came on the young monkey perched on the step-ladder, reading Homer. Sir Joseph had made him come down and translate for him then and there. And Keith went at it, translating for twenty minutes straight on end. Sir Joseph had said nothing, but he asked him what he was going to be, and the young Turk grinned up at him and said he was going to be a poet, "like 'Omer, that was what he was going to be." Isaac had said that was just like his impudence, but Sir Joseph stood there looking at him and smiling on the side of his face that Keith couldn't see, and he told the little chap to "work hard and mind his rough breathings." Isaac had supposed that was some sort of a joke, for Keith, he tried hard to grin, though his face went red hot all over. Then Sir Joseph had turned round very serious and asked if he, Rickman, had any other sons, because, whatever he did with the rest of them, he must make this one a scholar. Isaac had said No, he hadn't any but that one boy, and he would have to be brought up to the business. He was afraid he couldn't spare the time to make much of a scholar of him. Time, said Isaac, was money. What Sir Joseph said then Isaac had never forgotten. He had said; "True, time was money, loose cash in your pockets; but brains were capital." And there wasn't a better investment for them, he had added, than a good sound classical education. Isaac was to send the boy to the City of London, then to the London University, if he couldn't rise to Oxford; but Sir Joseph's advice was Oxford. Let him try for a scholarship. He added that he would like to do something for him later on if he lived. Isaac had never forgotten it; his memory being assisted by the circumstance that Sir Joseph had that very same day bought one hundred and twenty-five pounds' worth of books for his great library down in Devonshire. The boy was sent to an "Academy," then to the City of London; Isaac had not risen to Oxford. Keith never tried for a scholarship, and if he had, Isaac would have drawn the line at a university education, as tending towards an unholy leisure and the wisdom of this world. Otherwise he had spared no expense, for he had grasped the fact that this was an investment, and he looked to have his money back again with something like fifty per cent. interest. And the boy, the boy was to come back, too, with a brain as bright as steel, all its queer little complicated parts in working order; in short, a superb machine; and Isaac would only have to touch a spring to set it going. But the question was, what spring? And that, unfortunately, was what old Rickman never could lay his finger on. Still it went, that machine of his, apparently of its own accord. It went mysteriously, capriciously, but fairly satisfactorily on the whole. And Isaac was wise; his very respect for the thing that had cost him so much prevented him from tampering with it. It was in accordance with this policy of caution that they lived apart. Isaac loved the suburbs; Keith loved the town, and it was as well for one of them to live in it, near to their place of business. Isaac had married again, and though he was proud of his boy and fond of him, he contrived to be completely happy without him. He loved his little detached villa residence at Ilford in Essex, with its little flower-garden showing from the high road, its little stable for the pony and little paddock for the cow. He loved his large smooth-faced second wife, with her large balance at the bank and still larger credit in the Wesleyan circle they lived and moved in. He loved that Wesleyan circle, the comfortable, safe community that knew only the best, the Sunday best, of him. And Keith loved none of these things. By the education he had got and which he, Isaac, had given him, by the "religion" he hadn't got, and which nothing would induce him to take, by the obscure barriers of individuality and temperament, the son was separated from the father. As for meeting each other half-way, Isaac had tried it once or twice of a Sunday, when Keith had met him indeed, but with a directness that shocked Isaac and distressed him. He was made positively uncomfortable by his son's money-bought superiority; though the boy didn't bring it out and show it, Isaac felt all the time that it was there. He was very much happier without the boy. Keith among other things suggested vividly the thoughts which the Wesleyan desired to put away from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning, thoughts of the present evil world, for which, on Sundays, he more than half suspected that he might be imperilling his immortal soul. Sometimes in the watches of the night, especially of a Sunday night, it occurred to him that (owing to the domestic arrangement which kept the boy in a place which, when all was said and done, was a place of temptation) Keith's soul, no less immortal, might be in jeopardy too. He thought of him, an innocent lad, thrown on the mercy of London, as it were. But Isaac had faith in the mercy of the Lord. Besides, he wasn't the sort, a quiet, studious young fellow like Keith wasn't. And when Isaac's conscience began to feel a little uncertain upon that point, he simply laid the case circumstantially before the Lord, who knew all his difficulties and all his sins, and was infinitely able and eternally willing to bear them for him. By casting Keith upon the Lord an immense burden of responsibility was slipped from his conscience; and by the time Monday morning came round Isaac was again convinced that he had made the very best arrangements. For not only was the state of Keith's soul a reproach to Isaac's conscience, but the brilliance of Keith's intellect was a terror to it. Any day that same swift illuminating power might be turned on to the dark places in his own soul, showing up the deplorable discrepancies between his inner and his outer life. He wanted his son and everybody else to think well of him, and Keith's lucid sincerity at times appalled him. He had not yet discovered that his protection was in the very thing he feared. Keith was so recklessly single-minded that it never occurred to him that his father could lead a double life; he never doubted for an instant that, as in his own case, the Saturday to Monday state revealed the real man. He, Keith, sat so lightly to the business and with so detached a mind, that he simply could not imagine how any human being could be so wedded to a thing in itself uninteresting as to sacrifice to it any immortal chances. The book trade was not a matter for high spiritual romance; it was simply the way they got their living, as honest a way as any other, taking it all round. The shop was one thing, and his father was another. In fact, so far from identifying them, he was inclined to pity his father as a fellow-victim of the tyranny and malignity of the shop. But when in his right mind he had no grudge whatever against the shop. He had been born over the shop, nursed behind the shop, and the shop had been his schoolroom ever since he could spell. It was books found in the shop and studied in the shop that first opened his eyes to the glory of the world, as he sat on the step-ladder, reading his Shakespeare or puzzling out his first Greek by the light of a single gas-flare; and for the sake of these things he had a tender recollection of Paternoster Row. It was to Rickman's that he owed his education. Doggedly at first and afterwards mechanically, abstractedly, he got through the work he had to do. At times he even appreciated with a certain enjoyment the exquisite irony of his fate. Perhaps, when it came to the Gin Palace of Art, he had felt that the thing was getting almost beyond a joke. He had not been prepared for that lurid departure. He did not realize that he was in it, that his father had staked, not only his hopes, but his capital on him. He simply knew that "the guv'nor" was wrapt up in the horrid thing, that he had spent enormous sums on it, and he wasn't going to throw him over at the start. But he had not the smallest intention of spending his whole life so. As always, long ago, in the darkness of the City shop, he had seen a brilliance of his own spreading around Rickman's and beyond it, shining away into the distance, so he saw it now, flinging out a broad, flaming, unmistakable path that could by no possibility lead back there. He only suffered a certain limited and unimportant part of him to be made into a machine. Meanwhile it was perhaps in the divine mercy that the workings of this machine were hidden from Isaac. He hadn't even found out that the secret spring was not in the brain but the heart of it. He would look up a little uneasily as Keith pushed through the big swinging doors and took his seat at the table on the platform, and while he wondered what Keith was thinking of him, ten to one Keith wasn't thinking of him at all. This morning, however, he _was_ thinking of him, as it happened. And when the old man saw him up there, holding his poor bursting head in his hands, and said: "'Ead achin' my boy, again? That comes of studyin' too 'ard!" he thought with a touch of compunction, "What would he say if he knew I'd gone drunk to bed last night? And if he knew about Poppy?" Isaac approached his son gingerly and with a certain fear. The only thing he had discovered about this admirable machine of his was that it went better when you left it alone. It had not been going quite so well lately though, and this morning it seemed decidedly out of order. He took a seat at the table and busied himself with a catalogue. Presently he rose and touched the boy gently on the shoulder. "Come into the office a minute, will you?" he said, with a glance at the cashier. And Keith, wondering what on earth he wanted with him, followed into a recess shut on from the shop by a plate-glass and mahogany screen. Isaac hunted among the papers on his writing-table for a letter he could not find. "You remember your old friend, Sir Joseph Harden, don't you?" "Yes." Keith was in fact devoted to Sir Joseph's memory. He had often wondered what it was, that mysterious "something" which Sir Joseph would have done for him, if he had lived, and whether, if he had done it, it would have made a difference. "Well, I got a letter from his place in Devonshire this morning. They've asked me to send them some one down to catalogue his library. They want an expert, and he must go at once and finish by the twenty-seventh, or it's no use. Dear me, where is that letter?" Keith goaded his brain to an agonizing activity. It seemed to him that some such proposal had been made to him before. But where or when he couldn't for the life of him remember. "Pilkington says he told you something about it, last night. I've heard from him this morning, too." Pilkington--he remembered now. Dicky had bothered him about a library last night; and he had wished Dicky at the devil. He beat his brains till he struck from them an illuminating flash (Lord, how it hurt too!). "He didn't say it was the Harden Library." "It is, though." Isaac's coarse forehead flushed with triumph. "He's promised me the refusal of it when it comes into the market." At any other time Keith would have been interested; but his head ached too much now. Still he was not too far gone to recognize the magnitude of the affair. "You'll have to go down and look at it," continued Isaac persuasively, "and here's the opportunity. You go on their business, and do mine at the same time, and get well paid for it, too." "I don't quite like going that way. If the thing's got to be sold why do they want it catalogued?" "That's their business, not mine." "It looks like 'their' mistake, whoever they are. Where's the letter?" "I've mislaid it. That's not my business either. My business is to send you off before they find out their mistake. You can catch the eleven express from Waterloo if you look sharp." Sharp? Never had he looked less so. Still, with his aching head he dimly perceived that his Easter was being tampered with. "And supposing they want me to stay?" "Stay then. The longer the better." "I'll go after Easter then. I can't go before. I can't possibly. It's--it's out of the question." His brain was clear enough on that point. He had suffered many things from the brutality of Rickman's; but hitherto its dealings had always been plain and above-board. It had kept him many an evening working overtime, it had even exacted an occasional Saturday afternoon; but it had never before swindled him out of a Bank holiday. The thing was incredible; it could not be. Rickman's had no rights over his Easter; whatever happened, that holy festival was indubitably, incontestably his. "Don't be afraid. You'll get your holiday, my boy, when you come back. I'll make it worth your while." "It isn't money--damn my head! It's so confoundedly inconvenient. You see, I'd made no end of engagements." "It's a foolish thing to make engagements so long beforehand. We never know the day or the hour--" "I knew both." "Well, in any case you couldn't be going to any place of amusement on the Sunday." Isaac and his conscience had agreed together to assume that young Keith walked habitually and of his own fancy in the right way. "Come," he continued, "you're not going to fling up a chance like this without rhyme or reason." "I don't know," said Keith, with a queer little one-sided smile, "I'd fling up a good many chances for a really good rhyme." As for reason, there were at least two reasons why the present chance should not lightly be let go. One was the Harden Library. If the Harden Library was not great, it was almost historic, it contained the Aldine Plato of 1513, the Neapolitan Horace of 1474, and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. The other reason was Dicky Pilkington, the Vandal into whose hands destiny had delivered it. Upon the Harden Library Pilkington was about to descend like Alaric on the treasures of Rome. Rickman's was hand in glove with Pilkington, and since the young barbarian actually offered them the chance of buying it outright for an old song, no time was to be lost. It would not do to trust too long to Dicky's ignorance. At any moment knowledge might enter into him and corrupt his soul. No; clearly, he would have to go; he didn't see how he was to get out of it. Isaac became uneasy, for the spirit of imprecation sat visibly on his son's brow. "When I said I'd make it worth your while I meant it." "I know. It isn't that--" "Wot is it? Wot is it then? Wot's the matter with you? Wot tomfoolery are you up to? Is it--" (Isaac's gross forehead flushed, his speech came thick through his stern lips.) "Is it a woman?" He had also been young; though he had denied his youth. The boy's white face quivered with a little wave of heat and pain. He clasped his forehead with his hands. "Let me think." His fingers tightened their hold, as if to grasp thought by holding the dizzy aching head that contained it. He could think of nothing but Poppy. He had seen his father's point quite steadily and clearly a minute ago; but when he thought of Poppy his brain began to turn round and round again. He gripped his forehead harder still, to stop it. His thinking drifted into a kind of moody metaphysics instead of concentrating itself on the matter in hand. "It takes a poet," he said to himself, "to create a world, and this world would disgrace a Junior Journalist." Was it, he wondered, the last effort of a cycle of transcendental decadence, melancholy, sophisticated? Or was it a cruel young jest flung off in the barbarous spring-time of creative energy? Either way it chiefly impressed him with its imbecility. He saw through it. He saw through most things, Himself included. He knew perfectly well that he had developed this sudden turn for speculative thought because he was baulked of an appointment with a little variety actress. That he should see through the little variety actress was not to be expected. Poppy was in her nature impenetrable, woman being the ultimate fact, the inexorable necessity of thought. Supposing the universe to be nothing more than a dance of fortuitous atoms, then Poppy, herself a fortuitous atom, led the dance; she was the whirligig centre towards which all things whirled. No wonder that it made him giddy to think of her. Suddenly out of its giddiness his brain conceived and instantly matured a plan. A practical plan. He would catch that eleven-thirty express all right. He would go down into Devonshire, and stay in Devonshire till Saturday. If necessary, he would sit up with those abominable books all Thursday night and Friday night. And on Saturday he would return. At the worst he would only have to go down again on Monday. He would have missed the Junior Journalists' dinner, he would be lucky if he saw the ghost of an idea on this side Whit Sunday, but he would have torn the heart out of his holiday. He rose abruptly. "All right. It's a most awful nuisance, as it happens, but I'll go." "I'm glad you're willing to oblige me. You'll not regret it." Isaac was really meditating something very handsome in the way of a commission. As he looked benignly into his son's face and saw its deep misery and repugnance, he answered his own question. "It _is_ a woman." BOOK II LUCIA'S WAY CHAPTER XIV He wondered how much longer they were going to keep him waiting. His head still ached, and every nerve was irritable. He began to suspect the servant of having failed to report his arrival; he thought of ringing for him and announcing himself a second time. Then he remembered that he was only the man who had come about the books; he was there on the Hardens' business, and their time was his time. And there were worse places to wait in than the library of Court House. He found himself in a long low room that seemed to him immense. It was lighted by four deep-set windows, one to the south, one (a smaller side lattice) to the east, two to the west, and still the corners were left in gloom. The bookcases that covered the length and height of the walls were of one blackness with the oak floor and ceiling. The scattered blues and crimsons of the carpets (repeated in duller tones in the old morocco bindings), the gilded tracery of the tooling, and here and there a blood-red lettering-piece, gave an effect as of some dim rich arabesque flung on to the darkness. At this hour the sunlight made the most of all it found there; it washed the faded carpet with a new dye; it licked every jutting angle, every polished surface, every patch of vellum; it streamed out of the great golden white busts on their pedestals in the windows, it lay in pale gleams over the eastern walls till it perished in the marble blackness of the roof and floor, sucked in as by an upper and nether abyss. This blackness intensified the glory of the April world outside whose luminous greens and blues were held like blazonry in the leaded lozenge panes. The two western windows thrown open looked over the valley to the hills; Castle Hill with its black battlement of pines, and round-topped Core; to Harmouth Gap, the great doorway of the west wind, and the straight brown flank of Muttersmoor, stretching to the sea. He seated himself by one of these open lattices, looked at the view, one of the loveliest in south Devon, and thought of Miss Poppy Grace. The vision of her that had still attended him on his journey down faded as if rebuked by the great tranquil presence of the hills. He was left supremely, magically alone. Now it may have been prescience, it may have been merely the deplorable state of his nerves, but, as he continued to look out upon that unfamiliar landscape, the beauty of it, in growing on him, became almost intolerable. It affected him with an indescribable uneasiness, a yearning, a foreboding, a terror. He gave a deep sigh and turned his back on it abruptly. He picked up a book that lay on the window seat; it was the _History of Harmouth_, and the history of Harmouth was the history of the Hardens of Court House. Court House was older than Harmouth and the Hardens were older than Court House. In early Tudor times, the chronicler informed him, the house was the court of justice for east Devon. Under Elizabeth it and the land for miles around it passed to the Hardens as a reward for their services to the Crown. The first thing they did was to pull down the gibbet on the north side and build their kitchen offices there. Next they threw out a short gable-ended wing to the east, and another to the west, enclosing a pleasant courtyard on the south. The west wing was now thrown into one with the long room that held the Harden Library. Rickman searched carefully for information under this head. He learnt that the Harden library was the work of ten generations of scholars beginning with Sir Thomas, a Jacobean maker of madrigals, and ending with Sir Joseph, the Victorian Master of Lazarus; that the founder's date is carved on the oak chimney-piece at the north end, with the Harden motto: 16 INVICTUS 20; that the late Master of Lazarus bought books by the cartload, and was obliged to break through the south wall and sacrifice the west wing (his wife's boudoir) to make room for them. But where he looked for some record of these treasures he found nothing but an elaborate description of the Harden arms with all their quarterings. The historian was not useful for Rickman's purposes. He was preoccupied with the Hardens, their antiquity and splendour; he grovelled before them; every event in their history gave him an opportunity of observing that their motto was _Invictus_. He certainly seemed to have found them so; for when he wrote of them his style took on the curious contortions and prostrations of his spirit. The poor wretch, in the pay of the local bookseller, had saturated himself with heraldry till he saw gules. To a vision thus inflamed book-collecting was simply a quaint hereditary freak, and scholarship a distinction wholly superfluous in a race that owned half the parish, and had its arms blazoned on the east windows of a church and the sign-board of a public-house. And with the last generation the hereditary passion had apparently exhausted itself. "The present owner, Sir Frederick Harden," said the chronicler, "has made no addition to the library of his ancestors." What he had done was not recorded in the history of the Hardens. It was silent also as to the ladies of that house, beyond drawing attention to the curious fact that no woman had ever been permitted to inherit the Harden Library. The inspired pen of the chronicler evoked the long procession of those Hardens whose motto was _Invictus_; crossed-legged crusading Hardens, Hardens in trunk hose, Hardens in ruff and doublet, in ruffles and periwig; Hardens in powder and patches, in the loosest of stocks and the tightest of trousers; and never a petticoat among them all. It was just as well, Rickman reflected, that Poppy's frivolous little phantom had not danced after him into the Harden library; those other phantoms might not have received it very kindly, unless indeed Sir Thomas, the maker of madrigals, had spared it a shadowy smile. He looked round and realized that his separation from Poppy would be disagreeably prolonged if he was expected to catalogue and arrange all the books in the Harden Library. Allowing so much time to so much space, (measuring by feet of bookshelf) hours ran rapidly to days, and days to weeks--why, months might pass and find him still labouring there. He would be buried in the blackness, forgotten by Poppy and the world. That was assuming that the Harden Library really belonged to the Hardens. And if it was to belong to Dicky Pilkington, what on earth had he been sent for? "You were sent in answer to my letter, I suppose?" Rickman's nervous system was still so far under the dominion of Dicky's champagne that he started violently. Double doors and double carpets deadened all sound of coming and going, and the voice seemed to have got into the room by itself. As from its softness he judged it to be still some yards distant, he suffered a further shock on finding a lady standing by his elbow. It had been growing on him lately, this habit of starting at nothing, this ridiculous spasm of shoulder-blade, eyelids and mouth. It was a cause of many smiles to the young ladies of his boarding-house; and this lady was smiling too, though after another fashion. Her smile was remote and delicately poised; it hovered in the fine, long-drawn corners of her mouth and eyes; it sobered suddenly as a second and less violent movement turned towards her his white and too expressive face. He could not say by what subtle and tender transitions it passed into indifference, nor how in passing it contrived to intimate her regret at having taken him somewhat at a disadvantage. It was all done and atoned for in the lifting of an eyelid, before he could take in what she had actually said. Her letter? He murmured some sort of assent, and entered on a dreamy and protracted search for his pocket handkerchief. He was miserably conscious that she was looking, looking down on him all the time. For this lady was tall, so tall indeed that her gaze seemed to light on his eyelids rather than his eyes. When he had found his courage and his handkerchief he looked up and their eyes met half way. Hers were brown with the tinge of hazel that makes brown eyes clear; they had a liquid surface of light divided from their darkness, and behind the darkness was more light, and the light and darkness were both unfathomable. These eyes were entirely unembarrassed by the encounter. They still swept him with their long gaze, lucid, meditative, and a little critical. "You have been very prompt." "We understood that no time was to be lost." She hesitated. "Mr. Rickman understood, did he not, that I asked for some one with experience?" Most certainly Mr. Rickman understood. "Do you think you will be able to do what I want?" Her eyes implied that he seemed to her too young to have had any experience at all. Knowing that a sense of humour was not one of the things required of him, he controlled a smile. "We understood you wanted an expert, so I came myself." "You are Mr. Rickman then?" "Well--Mr. Rickman's son." The lady puckered her brows as if trying to recall something, an idea, a memory that escaped her. She gave it up. "Have you been waiting long?" "Not more than half an hour or so." "I am sorry. Perhaps you had better stay now and see what has to be done." He was tired, he had eaten nothing all day, his nerves were out of order, and he had an abominable headache, but he intimated that he and his time were at her service. She spoke with authority, and he wondered who she was. Sir Frederick Harden's daughter? Or his sister? Or his wife? "As you see, the books are fairly well arranged. It will not take very long to sort them." Oh wouldn't it, though! His heart sank miserably as he followed her progress round the room. "They'll have to be catalogued under their subjects--alphabetically, of course." "Quite so." She continued with the same swiftness and serenity, mistress of his time and intelligence, as of her own luminous and elaborate plan. "Their size will have to be given, the edition, the place and date of publication, the number of their shelf, and their place on the shelves." Their place on the shelves indeed! If those books had got into Dicky Pilkington's clutches their place would know them no more. He wondered; did she know nothing about Dicky Pilkington? Her plan implied certainty of possession, the permanence of the Harden Library world without end. He wondered whether he ought not to remind her that it might be about to come into the market, if it were not already as good as sold? "Besides the cataloguing I want notes on all the rare or remarkable books. I believe some of them are unique." He wondered more and more, and ended by wondering whether Dicky Pilkington were really so sure of his game? "I see. You want a catalogue _raisonné_." "I want something like this." She opened a drawer and showed him one of Rickman's Special Quarterly Catalogues of a year back. He remembered; it used to be sent regularly to old Sir Joseph Harden, their best customer. "My grandfather said these catalogues were models of their kind--they could only have been done by a scholar. He wanted the library catalogued on the same lines. It was to have been done in his lifetime--" "I wish it had been. I should have liked to have worked for Sir Joseph 'Arden." Stirred by the praise, and by a sudden recollection of Sir Joseph, he spoke with a certain emotion, so that an aitch went by the board. "Are you quite sure," said she, "that you know all about this sort of work?" Had she noticed that hideous accident? And did it shake her belief in his fitness for the scholarly task? "This _is_ my work. I made that catalogue. I have to make them every quarter, so it keeps my hand in." "Are you a quick worker?" "Yes, I can be pretty quick." "Could you finish my catalogue by the twenty-seventh? That's a little more than three weeks." "Well--it would depend rather on the number of notes you wanted. Let me see--there must be about fourteen or fifteen thousand books here--" "There are fifteen thousand." "It would take three weeks to make an ordinary catalogue; and that would be quick work, even for me. I'm afraid you must give me rather more time." "I can't. I'm leaving England on the twenty-sixth." "Couldn't I go on with it in your absence?" "No, that would hardly do." "If you could only give me another week--" "I couldn't possibly. I have to join my father at Cannes on the twenty-seventh." So she was Sir Frederick Harden's daughter then, not his wife. Her last words were illuminating; they suggested the programme of a family whose affairs were in liquidation. They also revealed Sir Frederick Harden's amazing indifference to the fate of the library, an indifference that argued a certain ignorance of its commercial value. His father who had a scent keen as a hound's for business had taken in the situation. And Dicky, you might trust Dicky to be sure of his game. But if this were so, why should the Hardens engage in such a leisurely and expensive undertaking as a catalogue _raisonné_? Was the gay Sir Frederick trying to throw dust in the eyes of his creditors? "I see," he said, "Sir Frederick Harden is anxious to have the catalogue finished before you leave?" "No, he isn't anxious about it at all. He doesn't know it's being done. It is entirely my affair." So Sir Frederick's affairs and his daughter's were separate and distinct; and apparently neither knew what the other was about. Rickman's conscience reproached him for the rather low cunning which had prompted him to force her hand. It also suggested that he ought not to take advantage of her ignorance. Miss Harden was charming, but evidently she was a little rash. "If I may make the suggestion, it might perhaps be wiser to wait till your return." "If it isn't done before I go," said Miss Harden, "it may never be done at all." "And you are very anxious that it should be done?" "Yes, I am. But if you can't do it, you had better say so at once." "That would not be strictly true. I could do it, if I worked at it pretty nearly all day and half the night. Say sixteen hours out of the twenty-four." "You are thinking of one person's work?" "Yes." "But if there are two persons?" "Then, of course, it would take eight hours." "So, if _I_ worked, too--" "In that case," he replied imperturbably, "it would take twelve hours." "You said eight just now." "Assuming that the two persons worked equally hard." She crossed to a table in the middle of the room, it was littered with papers. She brought and showed him some sheets covered with delicate handwriting; her work, poor lady. "This is a rough catalogue as far as I've got. I think it will be some help." "Very great help," he murmured, stung by an indescribable compunction. He had not reckoned on this complication; and it made the ambiguity of his position detestable. It was bad enough to come sneaking into her house as his father's agent and spy, and be doing his business all the while that this adorably innocent lady believed him to be exclusively engaged on hers. But that she should work with him, toiling at a catalogue which would eventually be Rickman's catalogue, there was something in the notion extremely repulsive to his sense of honour. Under its muffling of headache his mind wrestled feebly with the situation. He wished he had not got drunk last night so that he could see the thing clearly all round. As far as he could see at present the only decent course was to back out of it. "What I have done covers the first five sections up to F." "I see," he said with a faint interest, "you are keeping the classical and modern sections distinct." "Yes, I thought that was better." "Much better." "I haven't begun the classical section yet. Can I leave that to you?" "Certainly." He felt that every assent was committing him to he knew not what. "You see a great deal of the work is done already. That makes a difference, doesn't it?" "Oh, yes; it makes all the difference." And indeed it did. "In this case you can undertake it?" "No. I think that in this case I couldn't undertake it at all." "But--why not?" she asked, as well she might. Why not, indeed? He walked two or three paces from her, trying to think it out. If only his head didn't ache so abominably! To refuse to share the work with her was of course to lay himself open to a most disgusting suspicion. He paced back again. Did she suspect him of mercenary motives? No; she suspected nothing. Her face expressed disappointment and bewilderment, so far as she allowed it to express anything. One more turn. Thank Goodness, she was not looking at him; she was giving him time. Only a second, though. She had seated herself, as much as to say she was now waiting for an explanation. He mustn't keep her waiting; he must say something, but what on earth was he going to say? And as he looked at the lady so serenely seated, there rose up before him a sudden impertinent, incongruous vision of Miss Poppy Grace's legs. They reminded him that certain affairs of his own imperatively called him back to town. Happy thought--why not say so? "I ought to have said that in any case I couldn't undertake it. I couldn't make time without giving up some very important engagements." "Could you not have thought of that before you came?" "I did think of it. I thought I could fit everything in by going up to town from Saturday to Monday. But if I'm to finish by the twenty-seventh, even--even with your help, I oughtn't to lose a day, much less three days." "I see. You are afraid of not being able to finish?" He wavered, selecting some form of expression that might shadow forth what was passing in his mind. "I'm afraid of making any promises I mightn't be able to keep." Man's vacillation is Fate's determination, and Miss Harden was as firm as Fate. He felt that the fine long hands playing with the catalogue were shaping events for him, while her eyes measured him with their meditative gaze. "I must risk that," she said. "I should lose more than three days in finding a substitute, and I think you will do the work as I want it done." "And supposing I can't do it in time?" "Will you do your best--that's all?" "Certainly; whatever I do, I shall do my best. And if I fail you--" Left unfinished, hanging in mid air, the phrase suggested the vague phantasmal contingencies for which he could find no name. "I am willing to take the risk." Her phrase too was satisfying. Its generous amplitude covered him like a cloak. "But we haven't arranged anything about terms." No, they had not. Was it in her adorable simplicity, or in the mere recklessness of her youth, that she engaged him first and talked about terms afterwards? Or did she know an honest man when she saw one? He took his note-book and pencil and made out an estimate with the rapidity of happy inspiration, a fantastic estimate, incredibly and ludicrously small. "Then," said she, "there will be your expenses." He had not thought of that difficulty; but he soared above it, still reckless and inspired. "Expenses? Oh, expenses are included." She considered the estimate with the prettiest pucker of her meditative brows. "I don't understand these things; but--it seems very little." "Our usual charge." So swiftly did the wings of his inspiration carry him into the blue ideal, high above both verbal verity and the gross material fact. She acquiesced, though with some reluctance. "Well, and when do you think you can begin?" "Whenever it's most convenient to you. I shall have to take a look round first." "You can do that at once." By this time he had forgotten that whatever he might have drunk he had eaten nothing since the dinner of last night. He had ceased to feel faint and headachy and hungry, having reached that stage of faintness, headache and hunger when the body sheds its weight and seems to walk gloriously upon air, to be possessed of supernatural energy. He went up and down library steps that were ladders, and stood perilously on the tops of them. He walked round and round the walls, making calculations, till the library began to swing slowly round too, and a thin circle of grey mist swung with it. And all the time he was obscurely aware of a delicate grey-clad figure going to and fro in the grey mist, or seated intent at the table, doing his work. He felt that her eyes followed him now and then. Heroism sustained him for an hour. At the end of the hour his progress round the room grew slower; and in passing by the table where she sat, he had to steady himself with one hand. A cold sweat broke on his forehead. He mopped it furtively. He had every reason to believe that his appearance was repulsive; and, in the same painful instant in which this conviction sank into him, she raised her head and he saw that she was beautiful. The upward look revealed her. It was as if some veil, soft but obscuring, had dropped from her face. As her eyes scanned him gently, it occurred to him that she had probably never before had an opportunity of intimately observing a gentleman suffering from the remoter effects of intoxication. "You look tired," she said. "Or are you ill?" He stood shame-faced before her; for her eyes were more disconcerting than when they had looked down on him from their height. They were tranquil now, full of kind thought and innocence and candour. Of innocence above all, a luminous innocence, a piercing purity. He was troubled by her presence; but it was not so much her womanhood that troubled him as the deep mystery of her youth. He could not look at it as it looked at him; for in looking at it he remembered last night and many nights before. Somehow it made him see the things it could not see, his drunkenness, his folly, his passion, the villainous naked body of his sin. And it was for their work, and their marks upon him, that she pitied him. "Have you had anything to _eat_?" said she. "Oh, yes, thanks," he answered vaguely. "When?" "Well--as far as I can remember it was about eight o'clock last night." "Oh--how very thoughtless of me. I am so sorry." "It's my own fault entirely. I wouldn't have mentioned it, except to account for my stupidity." She crossed the room with a quick movement of distress and rang the bell. With horror he perceived her hospitable intention. She was actually ordering his dinner and his room. He heard every word of her soft voice; it was saying that he was to have some soup, and the chicken, and the tart--no, the jelly, and a bottle of burgundy, in the morning-room. He saw the young footman standing almost on tip-toe, winged for service, fired with her enthusiasm and her secrecy. Coming on that sinister and ambiguous errand, how could he sleep under her roof? How could he eat her chicken, and drink her burgundy, and sit in her morning-room? And how could he explain that he could not? Happily she left him to settle the point with the footman. With surprise and a little concern Lucia Harden learnt that the rather extraordinary young man, Mr. Savage Keith Rickman, had betaken himself to an hotel. It appeared, that courteously, but with an earnestness that admitted of no contradiction, he had declined all hospitality whatever. CHAPTER XV It was Friday morning, and Mr. Rickman lay in bed, outwardly beholding through the open window the divinity of the sea, inwardly contemplating the phantoms of the mind. For he judged them to be phantoms (alcoholic in their origin), his scruples of last night. Strictly speaking, it was on Wednesday night that he had got drunk; but he felt as if his intoxication had prolonged itself abnormally, as if this were the first moment of indubitable sobriety. And as he lay there, he prepared himself to act the part of the cold, abstracted, supercilious man of business, the part already too horribly familiar to him as young Mr. Rickman of Rickman's. He reflected how nearly he had wrecked his prospects in that character. He bade himself beware of woman and of drink, the two things most fatal to stability of judgement. He recalled, painfully, the events of last evening. He was not quite sure what he had done, or hadn't done; but he believed he had all but flung up the chance of securing for Rickman's the great Harden Library. And he had quite a vivid and disturbing recollection of the face, the person that had inspired him with that impulse of fantastic folly. In the candid light of morning this view of his conduct presented itself as the sane thinking of a regenerated intellect. He realized, as he had not realized before, how colossal was the opportunity he had so narrowly let slip. The great Harden Library would come virgin into the market, undefiled by the touch of commerce, the breath of publicity. It had been the pure and solitary delight of scholar lovers who would have been insulted by the suggestion that they should traffic in its treasures. Everything depended on his keeping its secret inviolate. Heavens! supposing he had backed out of that catalogue, and Miss Harden had called in another expert. At this point he detected in himself a tendency to wander from the matter in hand. He reminded himself that whatever else he was there for, he was there to guard the virginal seclusion of the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He tried to shut his eyes against his vivid and disturbing vision of the lady of the library. It suggested that he was allowing that innocent person to pay fifteen pounds for a catalogue which he had some reason to believe would be of no earthly use to her. He sat up in bed, and silenced its suggestions with all the gravity of his official character. If the young lady insisted on having a catalogue made, he might as well make it as any one else; in fact, a great deal better. He tried to make himself believe that he regretted having charged her fifteen pounds when he might have got fifty. It was more than unbusiness-like; it was, even for him, an incredibly idiotic thing to do; he would never have done it if he had not been hopelessly drunk the night before. He got out of bed with a certain slow dignity and stepped into his cold bath solemnly, as into a font of regeneration. And as he bathed he still rehearsed with brilliance his appointed part. No criticism of the performance was offered by his actual self as revealed to him in the looking-glass. It stared at him with an abstracted air, conspicuous in the helpless pathos of its nakedness. It affected absorption in the intricate evolutions of the bath. Something in its manner inspired him with a vague distrust. He noticed that this morning it soaped itself with a peculiar care, that it displayed more than usual interest in the trivial details of dress. It rejected an otherwise irreproachable shirt because of a minute wine stain on the cuff. It sniffed critically at its coat and trousers, and flung them to the other end of the room. It arrayed itself finally in a brand-new suit of grey flannel, altogether inexpressive of his rôle. He could not but feel that its behaviour compromised the dignity of the character he had determined to represent. It is not in his best coat and trousers that the book-dealer sets out on the dusty quest of the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He could no longer conceal the fact that he had dressed himself elaborately for an interview with Miss Harden. But he endeavoured to adjust his mind to a new and less disturbing view of the lady. He had seen her last night through a flush of emotion that obscured her; he would see her to-day in the pure and imperturbable light of the morning, and his nerves should not play the devil with him this time. He would be cool, calm, incorruptibly impersonal, as became Rickman, the man of business, Rickman of Rickman's. Unfortunately, though the rôle was rehearsed with ease in the privacy of his bedroom, it proved impossible to sustain it under Miss Harden's candid eyes. At the first sight of them he lost all grasp and memory of his part; he broke down disgracefully, miserably. The sound of her voice revived his agony of the previous night. True, the flush of emotion had subsided, but in the fierce intellectual light that followed, his doubts and scruples showed plainer than ever. They even acquired a certain logical order and cohesion. He concealed himself behind the projecting wing of a bookcase and wrestled with them there. Dispassionately considered, the situation stood thus. He was possessed of certain knowledge relating to Sir Frederick Harden's affairs. That was neither bad nor good. He had allowed Sir Frederick Harden's daughter to engage him in a certain capacity, knowing perfectly well that she would not have done so had she herself possessed that knowledge. That was bad--distinctly bad. He was going to take advantage of that engagement to act in another capacity, not contemplated by his employer, namely, as valuer of said employer's property and possibly as the agent for its purchase, well knowing that such purchase would be effected without reference to its intrinsic or even to its market value. That was worse. These were the simple data of his problem. The problem (seen with excruciating lucidity) stated itself thus. Assuming, first of all, Miss Harden's ignorance and his own knowledge, what was the correct attitude of his knowledge to her ignorance? In other words, was it his business to enlighten her as to the state of her father's finances? No; it might be somebody else's business, but most decidedly it was not his. His business, as far as he could see it, was simply to withdraw as gracefully as possible from a position so difficult to occupy with any decency. He must then make another attempt to back out of it. No doubt it would be an uncommonly awkward thing to do. The lady had already shown a very pretty little will of her own, and supposing she insisted on holding him to his bargain? There was that estimate, too; it seemed to have clinched things, somehow, between him and Miss Harden. He did not exactly know how to deal with that high-handed innocence, but he would ask her to allow him to re-consider it. He approached her with his head tossed up a little more than usual, his way when he was about to do something disagreeable, to drive a bargain or to ask a favour. "Miss Harden, may I speak to you one moment?" She looked up. Her face and figure were radiant in the light from the south window. "What is it?" she asked. She was busy at one of the bookcases with a note-book and pencil, cataloguing on an absurd but independent plan of her own. He gave a rueful glance at her. "I'm not sure that I ought to have let you engage me last night. I wonder if I might ask you--" "To release you from your engagement?" "You must think I'm behaving very badly." She did not contradict him; neither did she assent. She held him for the moment under her long penetrating gaze. Her eyes were not of the detective sort, quick to penetrate disguises. They were (though she did not know it) eyes that possessed the power of spiritual seduction, luring souls to confession. Your falseness might escape them; but if there was any truth in you, she compelled you to be true. She compelled Rickman to be impulsive. "I'd give anything to know what I ought to do." She did not help him out. "I can't make up my mind about this work." "Is it the question of time? I thought we had made that clear? You didn't undertake to finish by the twenty-seventh." "The question is whether I should have undertaken it at all." "It might have been as well to have answered that question first." "I couldn't answer it. There were so many things--" "Do you want a longer time in town?" "I want a longer time here, to think it over, to make up my mind whether I can go on--" "And in the meanwhile?" "The work goes on just the same." "And if you decide that you can't continue it?" "I should find a substitute." "The substitute might not be just the same. For instance, he might not have so scrupulous a conscience." "You mean he might not be so eager to back out of his engagements." "I mean what I said. Your position seems to be a little difficult." "I wish to goodness, Miss Harden, I could explain it." "I don't suggest that you should explain it. It doesn't seem to be so very clear to yourself." "It isn't. I really _don't_ know what I ought to do." "No more do I. But I can tell you what you ought to have done. You ought to have made up your mind last night." "Well, the fact is--last night--I hadn't very much mind left to make up." "No, I remember. You _were_ rather done up. I don't want to bind you by last night, if it's at all unfair to you." "It isn't in the least unfair to me. But I'm not sure that it mightn't be very unfair to you; and, you see, I want to think it out." "Very well, think it out, and let me know some time to-night. Will that satisfy you?" "It ought to." And for the moment it did satisfy him. He felt that conscience, that stern guardian of his conduct, was off duty for the day. He was free (for the day) to abandon himself to the charm of Miss Harden's society. The experience, he told himself, would be altogether new and delightful. New it undoubtedly was; but he remained a little uncertain as to the delight; the immediate effect of Miss Harden's presence being an intellectual disturbance amounting almost to aberration. It showed itself, first of all, in a frightful exaltation of the consciousness of self. To Mr. Rickman, striving to be noiseless, it seemed that the sound of his boots, as he crossed the library, reverberated through the immensity of space, while the creaking of his new braces advertised in the most horrible manner his rising up and his sitting down. Things were worse when he sat down; for then his breathing, light but noticeably frequent, made him the unquiet centre of the room. In the surrounding stillness the blowing of his nose became a monstrous and appalling act. And no sooner was his attention abstracted from his nose than it settled in his throat, producing a series of spasmodic contractions which he imagined to be distinctly audible. It was really as if his body had somehow detached itself, and was rioting in a conspicuous and unseemly individuality of its own. He wondered what Miss Harden thought of its behaviour. This state of things was bad enough when he was separated from her by the entire length of the room; but their work required a certain collaboration, and there were occasions when he was established near her, when deliberately, in cold blood and of his own initiative, he was compelled to speak to her. No language could describe the anguish and difficulty of these approaches. His way was beset by obstacles and perils, by traps and snares; and at every turn there waited for him the shameful pitfall of the aitch. He whose easy courtesy charmed away the shyness of Miss Flossie Walker, whose conversation (when he deigned to converse) was the wonder and delight of the ladies of his boarding-house, now blushed to hear himself speak. The tones of his voice were hateful to him; he detected in them some subtle and abominable quality that he had not observed before. How would they appeal to Miss Harden? For this miserable consciousness of himself was pervaded, transcended by his consciousness of her. Of her beauty he grew every minute more aware. It was not of the conspicuous and conquering kind; it carried no flaming banner of triumphant sex; indeed, it demanded a kindred fineness of perception to discern it, being yet vague with the softness of her youth. Her hair was mere darkness without colour or flame, her face mere whiteness without a flush; all her colour and her light were, where her soul was, in her mouth and eyes. These showed more vivid for that toneless setting; they dominated her face. However he looked at her his gaze was led up to them. For the long dim lines of her body flowed upwards from her feet like the curves of a slender flame, mingling, aspiring, vanishing; the edges of her features were indistinct as the edges of a flame. This effect of an upward sweep was repeated in the tilt of her vivid mouth and emphasised by the arch of her eyebrows, giving a faintly interrogative expression to her face. All this he noticed. He noticed everything about her, from the fine curling flame-like edges of her mouth and the flawless rim of her ears, to her finger-tips and the slope of her small imperious feet. He caught every inflection of her voice; without looking at her, he was aware of every turn of her head, every movement of her eyelids; he watched with furtive interest her way of touching and handling things, of rising and sitting, of walking and being still. It was a new way, unlike Poppy's way, or Flossie's way, or the way of any woman he had yet seen. What struck him most was the intense quiet of her presence; it was this that made his own so noisy and obtrusive. And yet, she didn't, she really didn't appear to notice it. She might have been unaware that there was any such person as Mr. Savage Keith Rickman in the room. He wondered how on earth she achieved that serene unconsciousness; he came to the conclusion that it was not her own achievement at all, but the achievement of her race. Theirs too that something subtly imperious in her bearing, which seemed not so much the attitude of her mind as the way her head was set on her shoulders. He could not say that she betrayed any sense of his social inferiority, unless it were in a certain courtesy which he gathered to be rather more finished than any she would have shown to a man of her own class. It was not only finished, it was final. The thing was so perfect in itself that obviously it could lead no further. She would say in her exquisite voice, "Would you mind taking these five volumes back to your shelf?" or, "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but can you tell me whether this is the original binding?" Under no circumstances could he imagine himself replying, "I wouldn't mind taking fifty volumes," or "I like being interrupted." All this was a complete inversion of the rules that Keith Rickman was acquainted with as governing polite intercourse between the sexes, and he found it extremely disconcerting. It was as if some fine but untransparent veil had been hung between him and her, dividing them more effectually than a barricade. The wonder, which grew with the morning, was not so much in the things she said as in the things she didn't say. Her powers of reservation seemed to Rickman little short of miraculous. Until yesterday he had never met a woman who did not, by some look or tone or movement of her body, reveal what she was thinking about him. Whatever Miss Harden thought about him she kept it to herself. Unfortunately the same high degree of reticence was expected from him, and to Keith Rickman, when not restrained by excess of shyness, reticence came hard. It was apt to break down when a severe strain was put on it, as had been the case that morning. And it was appointed that the same thing should happen to him this afternoon. As far as he could remember it happened in this way. He was busy getting the Greek dramatists into their places, an enterprise which frequently took him to her end of the room where Sir Joseph had established his classical library. He was sitting on the top of the steps, when she approached him carrying six vellum bound volumes in her arms, Sir Joseph's edition of Euripides of which the notes exceeded the text. He dismounted and took the books from her, turning very red as he did so. "You should let me do all the carrying. These books are too heavy for you." "Thank you, I think they ought to go with the others, on this shelf." He did not answer all at once. He was absorbed in the Euripides. It was an _édition de luxe_, the Greek text exquisitely printed from a fount of semi-uncial type, the special glory of the Harden Classics. He exclaimed, "What magnificent type!" She smiled. "It's rare too. I've never seen any other specimen--in modern printing." "There is no other specimen," said she. "Yes, there is. One book at least, printed, I think, in Germany." "Is there? It was set up from a new fount specially made for this edition. I always supposed my grandfather invented it." "Oh no, he couldn't have done that. He may have adapted it. In fact, he must have adapted it." This young man had set aside a cherished tradition, as lightly as if he were blowing the dust off the leaves. She was interested. "How can you tell that?" "Oh, I know. It's very like a manuscript in the British Museum." "What manuscript?" "The Greek text of the Complutensian Polyglot." (He could not help saying to himself, 'That ought to fetch her!') "But it doesn't follow that it's the same type. Whatever it is, it's very beautiful." "It's easier to read, too, than the ordinary kind." He was still turning over the pages, handling the book as a lover handles the thing he loves. The very touch of the vellum thrilled him with an almost sensual rapture. Here and there a line flashed from a chorus and lured him deeper into the text. His impulse was still to exclaim, but a finer instinct taught him to suppress his scholarly emotion. Looking up as she spoke he saw her eyes fixed on him with a curious sympathy. And as he thought of the possible destiny of the Euripides he felt guilty as of a treachery towards her in loving the same book. "Do you read Euripides?" he asked with naïve wonder. "Yes." "And �schylus and Sophocles and Aristoph--?" Mr. Rickman became embarrassed as he recalled certain curious passages, and in his embarrassment he rushed upon his doom--"and--and 'Omer?" It was a breakdown unparalleled in his history. Never since his childhood had he neglected the aspirate in Homer. A flush made manifest his agony. He frowned, and gazed at her steadily, as if he defied her to judge him by that lapse. "Yes," said the lady; but she was not thinking of Homer. "By Jove," he murmured pensively. His eyes turned from her and devoured the text. He was torn between abject admiration of the lady and of the book. "Which do you like best?" he asked suddenly. �schylus or Sophocles? But it's an absurd question." "Why absurd?" "Because they're so different." "Are they?" To tell the truth she was not thinking of them any more than she had been thinking of Homer. He became perfectly hectic with excitement. "Rather! Can't you see the difference? Sophocles carved his tragedies. He carved them in ivory, polished them up, back and front, till you can't see the marks of the chisel. And �schylus jabbed his out of the naked granite where it stood, and left them there with the sea at their feet, and the mist round their heads, and the fire at their hearts." "But--but he left the edges a little rough." "He did. God leaves them so sometimes when he's making a big thing." Something like a faint ripple of light passed over her face under the obscuring veil it wore for him. "But Sophocles is perfect," said she. She was not thinking of Sophocles one bit; she was thinking that when God made Mr. Rickman he had left the edges rough, and wondering whether it was possible that he had made "a big thing." "Oh yes, he's perfect." He began to quote softly and fluently, to her uttermost surprise. His English was at times a thing to shudder at, but his Greek was irreproachable, perfect in its modulation and its flow. Freed from all flaws of accent, the musical quality of his voice declared itself indubitably, marvellously pure. The veil lifted. Her smile was a flash of intelligence, the sexless, impersonal intelligence of the scholar. This maker of catalogues, with the tripping tongue that Greek made golden, he had touched the electric chain that linked them under the deep, under the social gulf. "Did you ever hear such a chorus? Pure liquid gold, every line of it. Still, you can read Sophocles with your hair on. I should have thought most worn--most ladies would like Euripides best?" "Why? Because they understand him best?" "No. Because he understood them best." "Did he understand them? Euripides," said the young lady with decision, "was a decadent." "Was he? How about the _Bacchæ_? Of course, it's worth all the rest of his plays put together; they're not in the same street with it. It's a thing to dream about, to go mad about." "My grandfather says it's not Euripidean." "Good Lord! How do we know it isn't the most Euripidean of the lot?" "Well, it stands alone, doesn't it?" "Yes. And he stands with it." "Does he? My grandfather was judging him by his average." "His average? Oh, I say, you know, you could reduce some very great poets to mediocrity by striking their average. Wouldn't you allow a man to be at least as great as his greatest achievement?" "I wonder--" "Anyhow, those are ripping good notes in that edition." "They ought to be. They were by a good scholar--his greatest achievement." He put down the Harden Euripides; and it struck Lucia that if Sir Joseph had been there this truthful young man would not have hesitated to put him down too. She laid her hand on the book with an air of possession and protection, which was a lesson in tact for the truthful young man. He leaned up against the bookcase with his hands in his pockets. "I say," said he, "I hope you don't mind my talking like this to you?" "No. Why shouldn't you?" "Well, it isn't exactly what I'm here for." That exciting conversation had lasted barely fifteen minutes; but it had set him for the time being at his ease. He had at any rate proved himself a scholar, and he was so far happier. He felt that he was beginning to get on with Miss Harden, to see a little way across the gulf, discerning the outlines of the further shore where that high lady walked unveiled. Then suddenly, owing to a most humiliating incident, the gulf yawned again. It was five o'clock, and he was left alone in the company of a fascinating little tea-table, laid, as if for a guest, with fine white linen, silk embroidered, with early Georgian silver and old china. It was laid for him, that little tea-table. He had delayed a little before beginning his repast, and it happened that when Miss Harden appeared again she found him holding a tea-cup to his lips with one hand, while the other groped in a dish of cream cakes, abstractedly, and without the guidance of a selective eye. Both eyes indeed were gazing dreamily over the rim of the tea-cup at her empty chair. He was all right; so why, oh why did he turn brick-red and dash his cup down and draw back his innocent hand? That was what he had seen the errand boy at Rickman's do, when he caught him eating lunch in a dark passage. He always had compassion on that poor pariah and left him to finish his meal in privacy; and with the same delicacy Miss Harden, perceiving his agony, withdrew. He was aware that the incident had marked him. He stood exactly where he stood before. Expert knowledge was nothing. Mere conversational dexterity was nothing. He could talk to her about Euripides and Sophocles till all was blue; he could not blow his nose before her, or eat and drink before her, like a gentleman, without shame and fear. They talked no more that evening. CHAPTER XVI At seven he again refused Miss Harden's hospitality and withdrew to his hotel. He was to return before nine to let her know his decision, and as yet he had done nothing towards thinking it out. A letter had come for him by the evening post. It had been forwarded from his rooms and ran thus. "My dear Rickets: "I haven't forgotten about your little supper, so mind you turn up at our little pic-nic before Dicky drinks all the champagne. It's going to be awfully select. "Ever your own and nobody else's, "Poppy Grace. "P.S.--How is your poor head?" There are many ways of being kind and that was Poppy's way. She wanted to tell him not to be cut up about Wednesday night; that, whatever Dicky Pilkington thought of his pretensions, she still reckoned him in the number of the awfully select. And lest he should have deeper grounds for uneasiness her postscript hinted in the most delicate manner possible that she had not taken him seriously, attributing his utterances to their true cause. And yet she was his own and nobody else's. She was a good sort, Poppy, taking her all round. He tried to think about Poppy and found it difficult. His mind wandered; not into the realms of fancy, but into paths strange and humiliating for a scholar and a poet. He caught himself murmuring, "Harmouth--Harcombe--Homer--Harden." He had got them all right. He never dreamed of--of dropping them when he wasn't excited. It was only in the beaten tracks where his father had gone before him that he was apt to slide. He was triumphant over Harmouth where he might have tripped over Hammersmith. Homer and Hesiod were as safe with him as with Horace Jewdwine. (He couldn't think how he had managed to come to grief over Homer just now. It was nerves, or luck, or pure accident, the sort of thing that might have happened to anybody.) Thank Heaven, his tongue was almost virgin to the aitch in Harden. Harden--Lucia Harden. He knew her name and how to pronounce it; for he had seen it written in the fly-leaf of a book, and heard it spoken by the footman who called her Miss Loocher. This he took to be a corruption of the Italian form. Here he again tried to evoke a vivid image of Poppy; but without success. And then he remembered that he had still to think it out. First of all, then, he would eliminate sentiment. Sentiment apart, he was by no means sure that he would do well to act on the impulse of the morning and decamp. After all, what _was_ he sure of? Was he sure that Sir Frederick Harden's affairs, including his library, were involved beyond redemption? Put it that there was an off-chance of Sir Frederick's financial recovery. From the bare, uninteresting, financial point of view that event would entail some regrettable consequences for himself. He had been extremely rash. He had undertaken to accomplish three weeks' expert work to the value of fifty pounds for which he had charged fifteen, an estimate that at Rickman's would have been considered ridiculous for a man's bare time. He had not so much as mentioned his fare; he had refused board and lodging; and on the most sanguine computation his fees would only cover his expenses by about five pounds. The difference between fifteen pounds and fifty would have to be refunded out of his own private pocket. When it came to settling accounts with Rickman's his position would be, to say the least of it, embarrassing. It was difficult to unravel the mental process that had led him into it; but it was not the first time that these luxurious subtleties of conscience had caused him to run short of ready money. It was only another of those innumerable occasions when he and his father failed to see face to face, and when he had had to pay for the pleasure of supporting a fantastic personal view. Only the view in this case was so hideously complicated and--and exaggerated. And this time in order to clear himself he would be compelled to borrow again from Dicky Pilkington. There was no other way. No sooner did Sir Frederick's head appear rising above water than he saw his own hopelessly submerged. Nevertheless it was this prospect that he found himself contemplating with all the ardour of desire. It justified not only his presence in the Harden Library, but Miss Harden's presence as his collaborator. With all its unpleasantness it was infinitely preferable to the other alternative. He let his mind dwell on it until the off-chance began to look like an absolute certainty. Put it then that Sir Frederick recovered. In this case the Hardens scored. Since he had charged Miss Harden fifteen where he was entitled to fifty, the best part of his labour might be considered a free gift to the lady. What was more, in the matter of commission, he stood to lose a very considerable sum. Put it that the chances were even, and the whole business resolved itself into a game of pitch and toss. Heads, Miss Harden lost; tails, she won; and he wasn't responsible for the tossing. But put it that Sir Frederick did not recover. Then he, Keith Rickman, was in a position most unpleasant for himself; but he could not make things a bit pleasanter for Miss Harden by wriggling out of it. The library would be sold whether he stayed there or not; and by staying he might possibly protect her interests in the sale. It wasn't a nice thing to have to be keeping his eye all the time on the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde; but he would only be doing what must be done by somebody in any case. Conclusion; however unpleasant for him to be the agent for the sale, it would be safer for Miss Harden. And how about those confounded profits, represented by his commission? That was easily settled. He would have nothing to do with the filthy things. He wouldn't touch his commission with the end of the poker. Unfortunately he would never be able to explain all this to her, and Heaven only knew what she would think of him when it all came out in the long-run, as it was bound to come. Well, it wouldn't matter what she thought of him so long as he knew that his hands were clean. Rickman's' hands might not be so presentable, but they were not human hands as his were; they were the iron, irresponsible hands of a machine. There remained his arrangements for the Bank holiday. They seemed to have been made so long ago that they hardly counted. Still, there was that engagement to Poppy Grace, and he had promised to take poor Flossie to the Hippodrome. Poor Flossie would be disappointed if he did not take her to the Hippodrome. At the moment Flossie's disappointment presented itself as considerably more vital than his own. To-morrow, then, being Saturday, he would go up to town; and on Monday he would return to his ambiguous post. He had thought it out. CHAPTER XVII "There's a lot of rot," said Mr. Rickman, "talked about Greek tragedy. But really, if you come to think of it, it's only in Sophocles you get the tragedy of Fate. There isn't any such thing in �schylus, you know." He had gone up to acquaint Miss Harden with his decision and had been led off into this hopeful track by the seductions that still lurked in the Euripides. "There's Nemesis, which is the same thing," said she. "Not at all the same thing. Nemesis is simply the horrid jealousy of the gods; and the responsibility lies with the person who provokes them, whether it's Prometheus, or Agamemnon, or Agamemnon's great great grandfather. It's the tragedy of human responsibility, the most brutal tragedy of all. All these people are crumpled up with it, they go about tearing their hair over it, and howling out [Greek: drasanti pathein]. There isn't any Fate in that, you know. Is there?" He did not wait for an answer. "In Sophocles now, it's all the other way about. His people aren't responsible in the least. They're just a thundering lot of lunatics. They go knocking their poor heads against the divine law, and trying to see which is the hardest, till they end by breaking both. There's no question of paying for the damage. It's pure Fate." "Well--and Euripides?" "Oh, Euripides goes on another tack altogether. There aren't any laws to break, yet everybody's miserable all round, and nobody's responsible. It's [Greek: tô pathonti pathein]. They suffer because they suffer, and there's an end of it. And it's the end of Fate in Greek tragedy. I know this isn't the orthodox view of it." He paused, a little out of breath, for he had talked as usual against time, leaving behind him a luminous trail of ideas struck out furiously as he rushed along. His excitement was of the strong-winged kind that carried him triumphantly over all obstacles, even the barrier of the aitch. Was she listening? She was; but as she listened she looked down, and her fingers played with the slender gold chain that went twice round her throat and fell among the laces of her gown. On her mouth there was the same smile he had seen when he first saw her; he took it for a smile of innermost amusement. It didn't lurk; there was nothing underhand about it. It hovered, delicately poised for flight. "Euripides," she said, "had the deeper insight, then. He knew that character is destiny." "That character is destiny? Whose character? For all I know your character may be my destiny." It was one of those unconsidered speeches, flashed out in the heat of argument, which nevertheless, once uttered are felt to be terrific and momentous. He wondered how Miss Harden would take it. She took it (as she seemed to take most things) calmly. "No character could have any power over you except through your own." "Perhaps not. All the same, you are not me, you are something outside. You would be my destiny." He paused again. Personalities were pitfalls which he must avoid. No such danger existed for the lady; she simply ignored it; her mind never touched those deeper issues of the discussion where his floundered, perilously immersed. Still she was not unwilling to pursue the theme. "It all depends," said she, "on what you mean by destiny." "Well, say I mean the end, the end I'm moving towards, the end I ultimately arrive at--" "Surely that depends on your character, your character, of course, as a whole." "It may or mayn't. It may depend on what I eat or don't eat for dinner, on the paper I take in or the pattern of my waistcoat. And the end may be utterly repellent to my character as a whole. Say I end by adopting an unsuitable profession. Is that my character or my destiny?" "Your character, I think, or you wouldn't have adopted it." "H'm. Supposing it adopts me?" "It couldn't--against your will." "No. But my will in this instance might not be the expression of my character as a whole. Why, I may be doing violence to my character as a whole by--by the unique absurdity that dishes me. That's destiny, if you like, but it's not character--not my character, anyhow." Personalities again. Whither could he flee from their presence? Even the frigid realm of abstractions was shaken by the beating of his own passionate heart. Her eyes had the allurements of the confessional; he hovered, fascinated, round the holy precincts, for ever on the brink of revelation. It was ungovernable, this tendency to talk about himself. In another minute--But no, most decidedly that was not what he was there for. If it came to that, what _was_ he there for? It was so incredible that he should be there at all. And yet there he was going to stay, for three weeks, and more. He had come to tell her so. Miss Harden received the announcement as if it had been a foregone conclusion. "It is settled, then?" said she, "you will have no more scruples?" "None." "There's only one thing. I must ask you not to give anybody any information about the library. We don't want to be bothered with dealers and collectors. Some of the books are so valuable that we should never have any peace if their whereabouts became known. Can you keep the secret?" His heart sank as he remembered the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. But he pledged himself to absolute discretion, an inviolable secrecy. Why not? He was a dealer himself and obviously it was his interest to keep other dealers in the dark. It was an entirely sensible and business-like pledge. And yet in giving it he felt that he was committing himself to something unique, something profound, and intimate and irrevocable. He had burnt his ships, severed himself body and soul from Rickman's. If it were Miss Harden's interest that he should defend that secret from his own father, he would have to defend it. He had given his word; and for the life of him he could not tell why. In the same way he felt that in spite of his many ingenious arguments his determination to stay had in it something mysterious and unforeseen. He had said to her, "Your character may be my destiny." And perhaps it was. He felt that tremendous issues hung upon his decision, and that all along he had been forced into it somehow from outside himself, rather than from within. And yet, as he sat there feeling all this, while he worked at the abominable catalogue _raisonné_, he decided further that he would not go away at all. He would not go back to town to-morrow. He could not afford the time. He must and would finish that catalogue _raisonné_ by the twenty-seventh. He had as good as pledged his word to Miss Harden. Supposing the pledge had a purely ideal, even fantastic value, he was none the less bound by it, in fact considerably more. For he and she could only meet in an ideal and fantastic region, and he served her in an ideal and fantastic capacity, on the wholly ideal and fantastic assumption that the library was hers. Such a pledge would, he imagined, be held supreme in the world where honour and Miss Harden met face to face. And on him it was conceivably more binding than the promise to take Flossie to the Hippodrome on Saturday, or to intoxicate himself on Sunday with champagne in the society of Miss Poppy Grace. Its sovereignty cancelled the priority of the more trivial and the grosser claim. His word to Miss Harden was one of those fine immortal things that can only be redeemed at the cost of the actual. To redeem it he was prepared for sacrifice, even the sacrifice of the great three days. He worked late that night and she told him of a short cut to the town by the river path at the bottom of the garden. Half-way to the river he stopped and looked back. The beech tree dreamed, silent on a slope of glimmering lawn. The house loomed in the background, a grey mass with blurred outlines. From a window open in the east wing he could hear the sound of a piano. He stood still and listened. All around was the tender, indescribable Devonshire night; it hung about him with warm scented breath; he felt its heart beat in the innumerable pulses of the stars. Behind the blue transparent darkness the music throbbed like a dawn; it swayed and sank, piano, pianissimo, and streamed out again into the night, dividing the darkness. It flowed on in a tumult, a tremendous tumult, rhythmic and controlled. What was she playing? If he stayed till midnight he must hear it through. Night sheltered him, and he drew nearer lest he should lose a note. He stretched himself on the lawn, and, with his head on his arms, he lay under the beech-tree, under the stars, dreaming, while Lucia Harden played to him the Sonata Appassionata. It was good to be there; but he did not know, and the music did not tell him why he was there and what he was there for. And yet it was the Sonata Appassionata. CHAPTER XVIII It was the afternoon of Saturday the fourth that Mr. Rickman, looking up from his table, saw a brilliant apparition coming across the lawn. He dreaded afternoon callers, he dreaded the post, he dreaded every person and every thing which reminded him that Lucia Harden had a life that he knew not and that knew not him. "Lucia--Lucia!" Mr. Rickman looked up and saw the brilliant apparition standing in the south window. "Lu-chee-a!--" it pleaded. "You can't say you're out when I can see perfectly well that you're in." "Go away Kitty, I'm busy." "You've no business to be busy at five o'clock in the afternoon." Miss Kitty Palliser's body was outside the window, but her head, crowned with a marvellous double-peaked hat of Parma violets, was already within the room. "I'm dying of thirst," she said; "take me in and be kind to me and give me tea." Lucia rose and went to the window, reluctant but resigned. Scraps of their conversation floated down to Mr. Rickman's end of the room. "Yes, you may well look at my hat." "I wasn't looking at it, I was looking through it." "Well, if you can see through my hat, Lucia, you can see through me. What do you think of it?" "Of the hat? Oh, the hat is a poem." "Isn't it? Did you ever see anything so inspired, so impassioned?" "Inspired, but--don't you think--just a little, a little meaningless?" "Meaningless? It's _packed_ with meaning." "I should like to know what it means." "If it means nothing else it means that I've been going to and fro the whole blessed afternoon, paying calls in Harmouth for my sins." "Poor Kitty." "The last three times I paid calls in Harmouth," said poor Kitty, "I sported a cycling skirt, the blousiest of blouses, and a tam-o'shanter over my left ear. Of course everybody was in. So I thought if I went like this--brand new frock--swagger hat--white gloves--that everybody would be out." "And were they?" "No. Just like my luck--they were all--all in!" "And yet you have the audacity to come here and ask for tea?" "For Goodness' sake, don't talk of tea." "I thought you were so thirsty." "So I am. I thirst for amusement." "Kitty! You've been amusing yourself all afternoon--at other people's expense." "Yes. It's cheap--awfully cheap, but fatiguing. I don't want to amuse myself; I want to be amused." Mr. Rickman took a longer look at the brilliant apparition. Now, at a little distance, Miss Palliser passed as merely an ordinary specimen of a brilliant but conventional type. This effect was an illusion produced by her irreproachably correct attire. As she drew nearer it became apparent that convention could never have had very much to do with her. Tailor and milliner were responsible for the general correctness of Miss Palliser's appearance, Miss Palliser herself for the riot and confusion of the details. Her coat, flung open, displayed a tangle of laces disposed after her own fancy. Her skirts, so flawless and sedate, swept as if inspired by the storm of her long-legged impetuous stride. Under her too, too fashionable hat her brown hair was twisted in a way entirely her own; and fashion had left untouched the wild originality of her face. Bumpy brows, jutting eyebrows, and nose long in the bridge, wide in the nostril, tilted in a gentle gradient; a wide full-lipped nervous mouth, and no chin to speak of. A thin face lit by restless greenish eyes; stag-like, dog-like, humorous and alert. Miss Palliser sent the gaze of those eyes round the room. The hungry, Satanic humour in them roved, seeking what it might devour. It fell upon Mr. Rickman. "What have you got there?" Miss Harden's reply was inaudible. "Let me in. I want to look at it." "Don't, Kitty." Apparently an explanation followed from Miss Harden. It also was inaudible. "Lu-_chee_-a.! Where is Miss Roots, B.A.?" "Please, _please_, Kitty. Do go into the morning-room." This painful scene was cut short by Robert, who announced that tea was served. "Oh joy!" said Miss Palliser, and disappeared. Lucia, following, found her examining the tea-tray. "Only two cups," said Miss Palliser. "Isn't it going to get any tea then?" "Isn't what going to get any tea?" "It. The man thing you keep in there." "Yes. But it doesn't get it here." "I think you might ask it in. It might amuse me." Lucia ignored the suggestion. "I haven't talked," said Miss Palliser, "to a man thing for ages." "It hasn't come to be talked to. It's much too busy." "Mayn't it come in, just for a treat?" Lucia shook her head. "What's it like? Is it nice to look at?" "No--yes--no." "What? Haven't you made up your mind yet?" "I haven't thought about it." "Lucia, you're a perfect dog in the manger. You don't care a rap about the creature yourself, and yet you refuse to share it with your friend. I put it to you. Here we are, you and I, living in a howling wilderness untrodden by the foot of man, where even curates are at a premium--is it right, is it fair of you, to have a presentable man-thing in the house and to keep it to yourself?" "Well--you see, it--it isn't so very presentable." "Rubbish, I saw it. It looked perfectly all right." "That," said Lucia, "is illusion. You haven't heard it speak." "What's wrong with it?" "Nothing--nothing. Only it isn't exactly what you'd call a gentleman." "Oh. Well, I think you might have told me that before." "I've been trying to tell you." Kitty reflected a moment. "So it's making a catalogue, is it? Whose bright idea is that?" "It was grandpapa's. It's mine now." She did not mention that it was also Horace Jewdwine's. "And what will your little papa say?" "He won't say anything. He never does. The library's mine--mine to do as I like with." "You've broken the spell. Isn't there some weird legend about women never inheriting it?" "Well, they never have. I shall be the first." "I say, if I were you, I should feel a little creepy." "I do--sometimes. That's one reason why I want to get this thing made in my lifetime, before I go away." "Good gracious. You're not going away to die." "I don't know what I'm going away to do. Anyhow, the catalogue will be done. All ready for Horace when he steps into my shoes." "Unless--happy thought--you marry him. That, I suppose, is _another_ pair of shoes?" There was a pause, during which Miss Palliser gazed thoughtfully at her friend. "What have you been doing to yourself? You look most awfully tired." "I've been sitting up rather late the last few nights, cataloguing." "What on earth did you do that for?" "Because I want to finish by the twenty-seventh." There was a pause while Miss Palliser ate tea-cake. "Is Horace coming down before you go?" "No. He's too busy. Besides, he never comes when father isn't here." "Oh dear no, he doesn't think it proper. It's odd," said Miss Palliser, looking down at her tea-cake with an air of profound philosophic reflection. "You can't ask your cousin to stay with you, because it's improper; but it isn't improper to sit up making catalogues with young Mr. Thing-um-a-jig till all hours of the night." "Why should it be improper?" "For Goodness' sake don't ask me. How should _I_ know? Don't you find yourself wishing sometimes that Mr. Thing-um-a-jig was Mr. Jewdwine?" "More tea, Kitty?" "Rather! I'm going into the library to choose a book when I've finished my tea. I shall take the opportunity of observing for myself whether Mr.--Mr.--" "Mr. Savage Keith Rickman." "Good Lord deliver us! Whether Mr. Savage Keith Rickman is a proper person for you to know. That reminds me. Dearest, do you know what they talk about in Harmouth? They talk about _you_. Conversation jiggers round you like a silly moth round a candle. Would you like to know what Harmouth thinks of you?" "No. I haven't the smallest curiosity." "I shall tell you all the same, because it's good for you to see yourself as others see you. They say, dear, that you do put on such a thundering lot of side. They say that attitude is absurd in one so young. They say you ought to marry, that if you don't marry you can't possibly hope to keep it up, and they say you never will marry if you continue to be so exclusive. Exclusive was the word. But before I left they'd married you to Mr. Jewdwine. You see dear, you're so exclusive that you're bound to marry into your own family, no other family being good enough." "It's certainly a new light on my character." "I ought to tell you that Mrs. Crampton takes a charitable view. She says she doesn't believe you really mean it, dear, she thinks that you are only very, _very_ shy. She has heard _so_ much about you, and is _dying_ to know you. Don't be frightened, Lucia, I was most discreet." "How did you show your discretion?" "I told her not to die. I tried to persuade her that she wouldn't love you so much if she did know you." "Kitty, that wasn't very kind." "It was the kindest thing I could think of. It must soothe her to feel that this exclusiveness doesn't imply any reflection on her social position, but merely a weird unaccountable dislike. How is it that some people can't understand that your social position is like your digestion or the nose on your face, you're never aware of either, unless there's something wrong with it." "Kitty, you're not in a nice mood this afternoon." "I know I'm not. I've been in Harmouth. Lucy, there are moments when I loathe my fellow-creatures." "Poor things. Whatever have they been doing now?" "Oh, I don't know. The same old thing. They make my life a burden to me?" "But how?" "They're always bothering me, always trying to get at you through me. They're always asking me to tea to meet people in the hope that I'll ask them back to meet you. I'm worn out with keeping them off you. Some day all Harmouth will come bursting into your drawing-room over my prostrate form, flattened out upon the door-mat." "Never mind." "I wouldn't, sweetheart, if they really cared about you. But they don't. If you lost your money and your social position to-morrow they wouldn't care a rap. That's why I hate them." "Why do you visit them if you hate them?" "Because, as I told you, I hunger and thirst for amusement, and they do amuse me when they don't make me ill." "Dear Kitty, I'm sure they're nicer than you think. Most people are, you know." "If you think so, why don't _you_ visit them?" snapped Kitty. "I would, if--" "If they ceased to be amusing; if they broke their legs or lost their money, or if they got paralytic strokes, or something. You'd visit them in their affliction, but not in the ordinary playful circumstances of life. That's because you're an angel. _I_," said Miss Palliser sententiously, "am not. Why do I always come to you when I feel most hopelessly the other thing?" Lucia said something that had a very soothing effect; it sounded like "Skittles!" but the word was "Kitti-kin!" "Lucy, I shouldn't be such a bad sort if I lived with you. I've been here exactly twenty minutes, and I've laid in enough goodness to last me for a week. And now," said Miss Palliser with decision, "I'm going." Lucia looked up in some trepidation. "Where are you going to?" "I am going--to choose that book." "Oh, Kitty, do be careful." "I am always careful," said Miss Palliser, "in choosing a book." In about ten minutes' time she returned. Her chastened mood had vanished. "Lucia," said she, "you have an immense regard for that young man." "How do you know that I have an immense regard for him?" "I suppose you expect me to say that I can tell by your manner. I can't. Your manner is perfection. It's by Robert's manner that I judged. Robert's manner is not perfection; for a footman, you know, it's a shade too eager, too emotional." "That, to my mind, is the charm of Robert." "Still, there are drawbacks. A footman's face ought not to betray the feelings of his mistress. That's how I knew that Mabel Flosser was cooling off--by the increasing frostiness of Blundell. I shall feel sure of you, Lucia, as long as Robert continues to struggle against his fascinating smile. Take my advice--if you should ever cherish a secret passion, get rid of Robert, for, sure as fate, he'll give you away. Perhaps," she added meditatively, it _was_ a little mean of me." "Kitty, what have you been up to?" "It was your fault. You shouldn't be so mysterious. Wishing to ascertain your real opinion of Mr. Savage Keith Rickman, I watched Robert as he was bringing in his tea." "I hope he was properly attentive." "Attentive isn't the word for it. He may have felt that my eye was upon him, and so got flustered, but it struck me that he overdid the thing. He waited on Mr. Rickman as if he positively loved him. That won't do, you know. He'll be raising fatal hopes in the bosom of the Savage Keith. Let us hope that Mr. Rickman is not observant." "He is, as it happens, excessively observant." "So I found out. I found out all sorts of things." "What things?" "Well, in the first place, that he is conscientious. He doesn't waste time. He writes with one hand while he takes his tea with the other; which of course is very clever of him. He's marvellously ambidexterous so long as he doesn't know you're looking at him. Unfortunately, my eye arrested him in the double act. Lucy, my eye must have some horrible malignant power, for it instantly gave him St. Vitus's dance. Have you ever noticed anything peculiar about my eye?" "What a shame." "Yes. I'm afraid he'll have to do a little re-copying." "Oh, Kitty, why couldn't you leave the poor thing in peace?" "There wasn't any peace to leave him in. Really, you'd have thought that taking afternoon tea was an offence within the meaning of the Act. He couldn't have been more excited if I'd caught him in his bath. Mr. Rickman suffers from excess of modesty." "Mr. Rickman could hardly say the same of you. You might have had the decency to go away." "There wouldn't have been any decency in going away. Flight would have argued that I shared the theory of his guilt. I stayed where I was for two seconds just to reassure him; then I went away--to the other end of the room." "You should have gone away altogether." "Why? The library is big enough for two. It's so big that you could take a bath or do a murder at one end without anybody being aware of it at the other. I went away; I wandered round the bookcases; I even hummed a tune, not so much to show that I was at my ease as to set him at his." "In fact, you behaved as like a dreadful young person as you possibly could." "I thought that would set him at his ease sooner than anything. I did it on purpose. I am nothing if not subtle. _You_ would have crushed him with a delicate and ladylike retreat; _I_ left him as happy as he could be, smiling dreamily to himself over the catalogue." "And then?" "Then, I admit, I felt it might be time to go. But before I went I made another discovery. You know, Lucia, he really is rather nice to look at. Adieu, my exclusive one." CHAPTER XIX The chronicler who recorded that no woman had ever inherited the Harden Library contented himself with the bare statement of the fact. It was not his business to search into its causes, which belonged to the obscurer regions of psychology. Sir Joseph Harden and those book-lovers who went before him had the incurable defects of their qualities. Hereditary instinct, working in them with a force as of some blind fatality, drove too many of them to espouse their opposites. Their wives were not expected to do anything noteworthy, beyond sitting for their portraits to the masters of their day; though, as a matter of fact, many of them contrived to achieve a far less enviable distinction. The portraits have immortalized their faces and their temperaments. Ladies of lax fibre, with shining lips and hazy eyes; ladies of slender build, with small and fragile foreheads, they hang for ever facing their uniformly heavy-browed and serious lords. Looking at those faces you cannot wonder that those old scholars had but a poor opinion of woman, the irrational and mutable element in things, or that the library had been handed down from father to son, from uncle to nephew, evading the cosmic vanity by devious lines of descent. It was a tradition in the family that its men should be scholars and its women beauties, occasionally frail. And scholarship, in obedience to the family tradition, ran superbly in the male line for ten generations, when it encountered an insuperable obstacle in the temperament of Sir Frederick. Then came Sir Frederick's daughter, and between them they made short work of the family tradition. Sir Frederick had appropriated the features of one of his great grandmothers, her auburn hair, her side-long eyes, her fawn-like, tilted lip, her perfect ease of manners and of morals. By a still more perverse hereditary freak the Harden intellect which had lapsed in Sir Frederick appeared again in his daughter, not in its well-known austere and colourless form, but with a certain brilliance and passion, a touch of purely feminine uncertainty and charm. The Harden intellect had changed its sex. It was Horace Jewdwine who had found that out, counting it as the first of his many remarkable discoveries. Being (in spite of his conviction to the contrary) a Jewdwine rather than a Harden, he had felt a certain malignant but voluptuous satisfaction in drawing the attention of the Master of Lazarus to this curious lapse in the family tradition. Now in the opinion of the Master of Lazarus the feminine intellect was simply a contradiction in terms. Having engaged the best masters in the county, whose fees together with their fares (second class from Exeter to Harmouth) he had himself punctually paid, he had declined to take any further interest in his grand-daughter. He had no objection to her taking up music, a study which, being no musician, he was unable to regard as in any sense intellectual. He supported his view by frequent allusions to the brainlessness of song-birds; in fact, he had been always a little bitter on the subject, having before his eyes the flagrant instance of his son Frederick. Frederick was no scholar. He despised his forefathers as a race of pedants, and boasted that he never opened a book, barring the book of life, in which he flattered himself he could have stood a very stiff examination. He used a certain unbowdlerized edition which he was careful to conceal from the ladies of his family. Before he was forty Frederick had fiddled away the family tradition, and not only the family tradition, but the family splendour and the family credit. When Lucia at seventeen was studying the classics under Horace Jewdwine, Frederick's debts came rolling in; at about the same period old Sir Joseph's health showed signs of failing, and Frederick took to raising money on his expectations. He had just five years to do it in. It was then that Lucia first began to notice a change in her grandfather's manner towards her. Sometimes she would catch his eyes fixed on her with a curious, scrutinizing gaze, and once or twice she thought she detected in them a profound sadness. Whenever at these moments they happened to meet her eyes they were immediately averted. Sir Joseph had not been given to betraying emotion, save only on points of scholarship, and it was evident that he had something on his mind. What he had on his mind was the thought that at the rate Frederick was living he might at any moment cease to live, and then what would become of Lucia? And what would become of the Harden Library? What of the family tradition? By much pondering on the consequences of Frederick's decease Sir Joseph had considerably hastened his own. Lucia knew nothing of all this. She was only aware that her grandfather had sent for Horace Jewdwine on his death-bed. What had passed between them remained known only to Horace. But part of a sum of money left by Sir Joseph's will towards the founding of a Harden scholarship was transferred by a codicil to Lucia for her education. The task begun by Horace Jewdwine was continued by a learned lady, Miss Sophia Roots, B.A.; and Miss Roots did her work so well that when Sir Frederick assumed his rightful guardianship of his daughter he pronounced her the worst educated young woman in Europe. Of all that Miss Roots had so laboriously imparted to her she retained, not a smattering, but a masterly selection. And now at four and twenty she had what is called a beautiful view of life; with that exciting book which her father kept so sedulously out of her reach she was acquainted as it were through anthologies and translations. For anything Lucia knew to the contrary, life might be all bursts of lyric rapture and noble sequences of selected prose. She was even in danger of trusting too much to her own inspired version of certain passages. But anthologies are not always representative, and nobody knew better than Lucia that the best translations sometimes fail to give the spirit of the original. Something of this spirit she caught from her father's brilliant and disturbing presence. Lucia adored her father. He brought into her life an element of uncertainty and freedom that saved it from the tyranny of books. It was a perpetual coming and going. A dozen times in a year Sir Frederick hurled himself from Harmouth to London, from London to the Continent, and from the Continent back again to Harmouth, to recruit. The very transience of his appearances and Lucia's ignorance of all that lay behind them preserved her in her attitude of adoration. Sir Frederick took precious good care that it should not be disturbed by the familiarity born of frequent intercourse, that she should see him only in his moods of unnatural sobriety. And as he left Lucia to the library so much, it was to be supposed that, in defiance of the family tradition, he would leave the library to Lucia. But after all Sir Frederick had some respect for the family tradition. When it seemed only too likely that a woman would inherit the Harden Library, he stepped in and saved it from that supreme disgrace by the happy expedient of a bill of sale. Otherwise his natural inclination would have been to leave it to his daughter, for whom he had more or less affection, rather than to his nephew, for whom he had none. As it happened, it was Horace Jewdwine who was responsible for the labour which Lucia had so impetuously undertaken. Lucia was aware that her grandfather's desire had been to rearrange and catalogue the library. When she came of age and found herself mistress of a tiny income (derived from capital left by her mother, carefully tied up to keep it from Sir Frederick, and enlarged by regular accumulations at compound interest) her first idea was to carry out her grandfather's wishes; but it was not until Horace Jewdwine's last visit that her idea became a determination. Horace had been strolling round the library, turning over the books, not exactly with the covetous eye of the heir apparent, but with that peculiar air of appropriation which he affected in all matters of the intellect. In that mood Lucia had found him irritating, and it had appeared that Horace had been irritated, too. He had always felt a little sore about the library; not that he really wanted it himself, but that he hated to see it in the possession of such a rank barbarian as his uncle Frederick. A person who, if his life depended on it, could not have told an Aldine from an Elzevir. A person, incapable not only of appreciating valuable books, but of taking ordinary decent care of them. There were gaps on the shelves, a thing that he hated to see. Lucia, too; Lucia would take books out by tens and twenties at a time and leave them lying all over the house, and they would be stuck in again anywhere and anyhow. No sort of method in their arrangement. No blinds, no glass doors to protect them. He had pointed this out to Lucia, suggesting that it was not a good thing to let too much dust accumulate on the tops of books, neither was it altogether desirable that a strong south-westerly light should play upon them all day long. Had she ever noticed how the bindings were cracking and fading? For all this he seemed to be blaming Lucia; and this, Lucia tried to persuade herself, was no great matter; but when he asked for a catalogue, and she calmly told him that there was none, he became involved in a sentence about a scandal and a Vandal in which his opinion of his uncle Frederick unmistakably appeared. He even forgot himself so far as to reflect on the sanity of the late Master of Lazarus, at which point Lucia had left him to his reflections. She had not yet forgiven Horace for his interference that day, nor for his remark about the scandal and the Vandal. As for his other observations, they were insufferably rue. Hence her desperate efforts to set the library in order before she went abroad; hence the secrecy and haste with which she had applied to Rickman's, without asking Horace's advice as she naturally would have done; hence, too, her vast delight at the success of her unassisted scheme. Mr. Rickman was turning out splendidly. If she had looked all through London she could not have found a better man. CHAPTER XX It was Easter Sunday and Lucia's heart was glad, for she had had a letter from her father. There never was such a father and there never were such letters as, once in a blue moon and when the fancy seized him, he wrote to his adorable Lucy. Generally speaking they were all about himself and his fiddle, the fiddle that when he was at home he played from morning to night. But this letter was more exciting. It was full of all the foolish and delightful things they were to do together in Cannes, in Venice and in Florence and in Rome. He was always in one or other of these places, but this was the first time he had proposed that his adorable Lucy should join him. "You're too young to see the world," he used to say. "You wouldn't enjoy it, Lucy, you really wouldn't. The world is simply wasted on any woman under five and thirty." Lucia was not quite five and twenty. She was not very strong, and she felt that if she didn't see the world soon she might not enjoy it very much when she did see it. And it was barely a month now till the twenty-seventh. Lucia went singing downstairs and into the library to throw all its four windows open to the delicious spring, and there, to her amazement (for it was Sunday), she came upon Mr. Rickman cataloguing hard. She felt a little pang of self-reproach at the sight of him. There was something pathetic in his attitude, in his bowed head and spread elbows, the whole assiduous and devoted figure. How hard he was working, with what a surprising speed in his slender nervous hands. She had not meant him to give up the whole of his three days' holiday to her, and she really could not take his Easter Sunday, poor little man. So, with that courtesy which was Mr. Rickman's admiration and despair, she insisted on restoring it to him, and earnestly advised his spending it in the open air. In the evening he could have the library to himself, to read or write or rest in; he would, she thought, be more comfortable there than in the inn. Mr. Rickman admitted that he would like to have a walk to stretch his legs a bit, and as she opened the south window she had a back view of him stretching them across the lawn. He walked as rapidly as he wrote, holding his head very high in the air. He wore a light grey suit and a new straw hat with a dull olive green ribbon on it, poor dear. She was glad that it was a fine day for the hat. She watched him till the beech-tree hid him from her sight; then she opened the west windows, and the south wind that she had just let in tried to rush out again by them, and in its passage it lifted up the leaves of Mr. Rickman's catalogue and sent them flying. The last of them, escaping playfully from her grasp, careered across the room and hid itself under a window curtain. Stooping to recover it, she came upon a long slip of paper printed on one side. It was signed S.K.R., and Savage Keith Rickman was the name she had seen on Mr. Rickman's card. The headline, _Helen in Leuce_, drew her up with a little shock of recognition. The title was familiar, so was the motto from Euripides, [Greek: su Dios ephus, ô HElena thugatêr,] and she read, The wonder and the curse of friend and foe, She watched the ranks of battle cloud and shine, And heard, Achilles, that great voice of thine, That thundered in the trenches far below. Tears upon tears, woe upon mortal woe, Follow her feet and funeral fire on fire, While she, that phantom of the heart's desire, Flies thither, where all dreams and phantoms go. Oh Strength unconquerable, Achilles! Thee She follows far into the shadeless land Of Leuce, girdled by the gleaming sand, Amidst the calm of an enchanted sea, Where, children of the Immortals, hand in hand, Ye share one golden immortality. It was a voice from the sad modern world she knew so well, and in spite of its form (which was a little too neo-classic and conventional to please her) she felt it to be a cry from the heart of a living man. That man she had identified with the boy her grandfather had found, years ago, in a City bookshop. There had been no room for doubt on that point when she saw him in the flush of his intellectual passion, bursting so joyously, so preposterously, into Greek. He had, therefore, already a certain claim on her attention. Besides, he seemed to be undergoing some incomprehensible struggle which she conceived to be of a moral nature, and she had been sorry for him on that account. But, if he were also--Was it possible that her grandfather's marvellous boy had grown into her cousin's still more marvellous man? Horace, too, had made his great discovery in a City shop. _Helen in Leuce_ and a City shop--it hardly amounted to proof; but, if it did, what then? Oh then, she was still more profoundly sorry for him. For then he was a modern poet, which in the best of circumstances is to be marked for suffering. And to Mr. Rickman circumstances had not been exactly kind. A modern poet, was he? One whom the gods torment with inspired and hopeless passion; a lover of his own "fugitive and yet eternal bride," the Helen of Homer, of �schylus and Euripides, the Helen of Marlowe and Goethe, the Helen of them all. And for Mr. Rickman, unhappy Mr. Rickman, perdition lurked darkly in her very name. What, oh what must it feel like, to be capable of eliding the aitch in "Helen" and yet divinely and deliriously in love with her? Here Lucia was wrong, for Mr. Rickman was entirely happy with the aitch in Helen. She was so sorry for him. But she did not see at the moment what she could do for him besides being sorry. And yet, if he were Horace's friend, she must do more. She was aware that she had been sorry for him chiefly because he was not a gentleman. Well, she had seen men before who were not gentlemen and she had been very far from feeling any sort of sorrow for them. But she had never in all her life seen anything like this inspired young Cockney, with his musical voice and afflicting accent, a person whose emotions declared themselves publicly and painfully, whose thoughts came and went as transparently as the blood in his cheeks, who yet contrived somehow to remain in the last resort impenetrable. She could not ignore him. Apart from Horace he had established his claim; and if he _was_ Horace's friend he had another and a stronger title to consideration. But was he? She had really no proof. She wondered whether Mr. Rickman had missed his sonnet. She laid it almost tenderly in a conspicuous place on his table, and put a bronze head of Pallas Athene on it to keep it down. Then she wondered again whether he enjoyed the bookshop, whether he enjoyed making catalogues _raisonnés_, whether he enjoyed himself generally, and she hoped that at any rate he would enjoy his Easter Sunday. Poor little man. Lucia was so happy herself that she wanted Mr. Rickman to be happy too. CHAPTER XXI Mr. Rickman was anything but happy as he set out for his walk that glorious April morning. Outside the gate of Court House he stood and looked about him, uncertain of the way he would go. All ways were open to him, and finally, avoiding the high road, he climbed up a steep and stony lane to the great eastern rampart which is Harcombe Hill. Beneath him lay Harmouth, at the red mouth of the valley where the river Hare trickles into the sea through a barrier of shingle. Two gigantic and flaming cliffs dwarf the little town to the proportions of a hamlet. In any other situation Harmouth might have preserved its elegant Regency air, but sprawling on the beach and scattered on the hillsides it has a haphazard appearance, as if it had been dropped there when those two huge arms of the upland stretched out and opened to the sea. But Nature on the whole has been kind to Harmouth, though the first thing that strikes the stranger in that place is her amazing and apparently capricious versatility. Nature, round about Harmouth, is never in the same mood for a mile together. The cliffs change their form and colour with every dip in the way; now they are red like blood, and now a soft and powdery pink with violet shadows in their seams. Inland, it is a medley of fields and orchards, beech-woods, pine-woods, dark moorland and sallow down, cut by the deep warm lanes where hardly a leaf stirs on a windy day. It is not so much a landscape as the fragments of many landscapes, samples in little of the things that Nature does elsewhere on a grand scale. The effect on a stranger is at first alluring, captivating, like the caprices of a beautiful woman; then it becomes disconcerting, maddening, fatiguing; and a great longing seizes him for vast level spaces, for sameness, for the infinity where he may lose himself and rest. Then one day he climbs to the top of Harcombe or Muttersmoor and finds the immensity he longed for. As far as his sight can reach, the shoulders of the hills and the prone backs of the long ridges are all of one height; the combes and valleys are mere rifts and dents in a great moor that has no boundary but the sky. The country has revealed its august, eternal soul. He is no longer distracted by its many moods; he loves it the more for them, as a man loves the mutable ways of the woman whose soul he knows. Rickman stood upon a vantage ground, looking over the valley and the bay. To him it was as if the soul of this land, like the soul of Lucia Harden, had put on a veil. The hillside beneath him dropped steeply to the valley and the town. Down there, alone and apart from Harmouth, divided from the last white Regency villa by half a mile of meadow-land, stood Court House; and as he looked at it he became more acutely conscious of his misery. He sat down among the furze and heather and bracken; he could think of nothing better than to sit there and stare into the face of Nature, not like a poet whom love makes lyrical, but like a quite ordinary person whom it makes dumb. And Nature never turned to a poet a lovelier and more appealing face. It had rained in the night. From the enfolding blue, sky blue and sea blue, blue of the aerial hills, the earth flung out her colours, new washed, radiantly, immaculately pure. Bared to the sea, she flamed from rose pink to rose red. Only the greater hills and the dark flank of Muttersmoor waited for their hour, the hour of the ling and the heather; the valleys and the lower slopes were glad with green. There was an art in Nature's way; for, lest a joyousness so brimming and so tender should melt and overflow into mere pathos, it was bounded and restrained by that solemn and tragic line of Muttersmoor drawn straight against the sky. It was the same scene that had troubled him when he first looked at it, and it troubled him still; not with that thrill of prescient delight and terror, but with a feeling more mysterious and baffling, an exquisite and indefinable reproach. He stared, as if he could hope by staring to capture the meaning of the beautiful tender face; but beyond that inscrutable reproach it had no meaning for him and no expression. He had come to a land prophetic of inspiration, where, if anywhere, he might have hoped to hear the lyric soul of things; and the lyric soul of things absolutely refused to sing to him. It had sung loud enough in the streets last Wednesday; it had hymned the procession of his dreams and the loud tumultuous orgy of his passions; and why could he not hear it now? For here his senses were satisfied to the full. Never had Nature's material loveliness been more vividly, piercingly present to him. The warm air was like a touch, palpable yet divine. He lay face downwards on the earth and pressed it with his hands; he smelt the good smell of the grass and young bracken, and the sweet almond-scented blossom of the furze. And he suffered all the torment of the lover who possesses the lips and body of his mistress, and knows that her heart is far from him and that her soul is not for him. He felt himself to be severed from the sources of his inspiration; estranged, profoundly and eternally, from the beauty he desired. And that conviction, melancholy in itself, was followed by an overpowering sense of intellectual dissolution, the corruption and decay of the poetic faculty in him. He was aware, feverishly aware, of a faint flowing measure, the reverberation of dead songs; of ideas, a miserable attenuated procession, trailing feebly in the dark of his brain, which when he tried to grasp them would be gone. They were only the ghosts of the ideas that he had brought with him from London, that had died on the journey down. The beauty of this place was devilish and malign. He looked into Harmouth valley as if it had been a graveyard. They were all buried down there, his dead dreams and his dead power, buried without hope of any resurrection. Rickman's genius, the only thing he genuinely trusted, had forsaken him. It may be that every poet once in his lifetime has to come to this Calvary, to hang through his black hour on the cross, and send out after the faithless deity his Lama Sabachthani. For Rickman no agony could compare with that isolation and emptiness of soul. He could see nothing beyond that hour, for he had never felt anything like it before, not even on waking in the morning after getting drunk. His ideas had always come back again when he was in a fit state to receive them. But this time, though he had not been drinking, he felt that they had gone for ever, and that all his songs were sung. And over his head high up in the sky, a lark, a little fiend of a lark, had chosen that moment for bursting into music. With diabolical ease and maddening ecstasy, he flung out his perfect and incommunicable song. A song of joy and mockery and triumph. He did not know how old that skylark was, but here was he, Savage Keith Rickman, played out at three and twenty. Was it, he wondered, the result, not of ordinary inebriety, but of the finer excesses of the soul? Was he a precocious genius? Had he taken to the immortal drink too early and too hard? Or was it, as Jewdwine had suggested, that there were too many Rickmans, and that this poor seventh part of him had been crushed by the competition of the other six? The horrible thing was that they would live on for years, eating and getting drunk and falling in love and buying suits of clothes, while the poet in him was dead, like Keats, at three and twenty. Then suddenly, for no reason whatever, a vision of Lucia Harden rose before him like a light and refused to leave him. It wrought in him, as he contemplated it, a gradual burning illumination. He perceived that it was he himself who was responsible for all this. He perceived the real nature of the things he had pursued so passionately, the thing he called pleasure, the thing he called love, and the thing he called his imagination. His notion of pleasure was getting drunk and making love to Miss Poppy Grace; the love he made was better described by a stronger and coarser monosyllable, and he had used his imagination to glorify it. Oh yes, because he had imagination, because he was a poet, he had not gone down into the clay-pits and wallowed in the clay; neither had he been content to dabble in it; he had taken it up in his hands and moulded it into the form of a divinity, and then fallen down and worshipped it. Fallen down and worshipped at the feet, the gaily twirling feet of Miss Poppy Grace. Poor Poppy, if he could have thought of her at all, he might have felt a sort of pity for her transience, the transience of the feeling she inspired. But he did not think of her; he did not even try to think of her. Her image, once so persistent, had dropped clean out of his mind, which was one reason why it was so empty. It had not been much to boast of, that infatuation for Poppy, and yet somehow, after living so intimately with it, he felt quite lost without it. It was a little odd, if you came to think of it, that the thing he called his genius, and the thing he called his love, should have chosen the same moment to abandon him. Was it--was it possible--that there was some vital connection between them? As the singing of birds in the pairing season, was his genius merely a rather peculiar symptom of the very ordinary condition known as falling in love? So that, failing that source of inspiration--? That no doubt _was_ what was the matter with him. His imagination languished because his passion for Poppy was played out, and he had nothing to put in its place. Well, yes, there was something; something that was not an instinct or a passion, but an acquired taste. To be sure he had acquired it very quickly, it had only taken him three days. In those three days he had developed a preference for the society of ladies (the women of his own class were not ladies but "young ladies," a distinction he now appreciated for the first time). It was a preference that, as things stood, he would never be able to gratify; there was something about it ruinous and unhappy, like a craze for first editions in an impecunious scholar, for ever limited to the twopenny bundle and the eighteenpenny lot. He could not hope to enjoy Miss Harden's society for more than three weeks at the outside. He only enjoyed it at all through an accident too extraordinary, too fantastic to occur again. Between him and her there stood the barrier of the counter. The barrier itself was not insuperable: he might get over the counter, so might Miss Harden; but there were other things that she never could get over. Though in some ways he was all right, in others, again, he was not--he could see very well that he was not--what Miss Harden would call a gentleman. He was, through that abominable nervousness of his, an impossible person, hopelessly, irredeemably involved in social solecisms. Or if not impossible, he was, at any rate, highly improbable. Perceiving all this, he was still unable to perceive the meaning of his insight and his misery. He did not know, and there was nobody to tell him, that this emptiness of his was the emptiness created by the forerunners and servants of Love, who sweep and purify the death-chamber where a soul has died and another soul is waiting to be born. For in the house of Love there is only one chamber for birth and for dying; and into that clean, unfurnished place the soul enters unattended and endures its agony alone. There is no Mother-soul to bear for it the birth-pains of the new life. But Mr. Rickman was young, and youth's healthy instinct urged him to vigorous exercise as the best means of shaking off his misery. He crossed the road that runs along the top of Harcombe Hill and made for the cliffs in a south-easterly direction across the fields. He then kept along the coast-line, dipping into Harcombe valley, climbing again to Easton Down. Here the coast was upheaved into terraces of grey limestone, topped by a layer of sand riddled with rabbit holes. Before one of these two young hawks were watching, perched on a projecting boulder. So intent was their gaze and they so motionless that the air seemed to stand still and wait for the sweep of their wings. Mr. Rickman, whom youth made reckless, lay flat on his stomach and peered over the edge of the cliff. He was fascinated, breathlessly absorbed. He pressed the turf a little closer in his eagerness, and so loosened a large stone that rolled down, starting a cataract of sand and rubble. He had just time to throw himself back sideways, as the hollow fringe of turf gave way and plunged down the cliff-side. So far from taking his escape with becoming seriousness, he amused himself by trying to feel as he would have felt if he had actually gone over the cliff. He found that his keenest emotion was a thrill of horror, as he imagined Miss Harden a possible spectator of the ridiculous evolutions performed by his person in its passage through the air. After an hour of dipping and climbing he reached a small fishing village. Here he dined and rested, and it was mid-afternoon before he turned again towards Harmouth. There was no chance of missing his way; he had nothing to do but follow the coast-line as he had done before. There were signs in the valley of the white fog that sometimes, even in April, comes in before sunset; already a veil of liquid air was drawn across the hills, and when he crossed Easton Down (if it was Easton Down) again the sea's face was blurred with mist. As he went on westwards the mist kept pace with him, gradually diminishing the view he had hoped to see. And as it shifted and closed round him, his movements became labyrinthine, then circular. And now his view was all foreground; he was simply walking through circles of moor, enclosed by walls of fine grey fog. He passed through these walls, like a spirit, into smaller and smaller circles; then, hopelessly bewildered, he stopped, turned, and walked in what he took to be a contrary direction, feeling that the chance of going over the cliff-side lent an agreeable excitement to a pastime that threatened to become monotonous. This was assuming the cliff-side to be somewhere near; and he was beginning to feel that it might be anywhere, under his feet for all he knew, when the fog lifted a little from the high ground, and he saw that he had lost his bearings altogether. He had been going round and round through these circles without returning to the point he started from. He went forward less cautiously in a larger round, and then he suddenly stood still. He was not alone. His foreground had widened slightly and a figure stood in the middle of it. There was something familiar in the blurred outlines, traced as if by a watery finger on the wall of mist. An idea had taken shape stealthily behind him and flung its shadow there. The idea was Lucia Harden. The fog hung in her hair in drops like rain; it made her grey dress cling close about her straight, fine limbs; it gave its own grandeur and indistinctness to her solitary figure. She turned, unstartled, but with an air of imperfect recognition. He raised his hat; the hat with the green ribbon on it. "I beg your pardon, but can you tell me the shortest cut to Harmouth? I think I've lost my way." She answered absently. "You are all right. Turn to the left, and you'll find the path along the cliff. It will bring you out on to Harmouth beach." He followed the path she had pointed out. Still absently she looked after him, a dim figure going down into the fog, and it occurred to her that she had sent him on a dangerous way. There were rabbit wires and pitfalls on that path; places where the cliff was eaten away under its curling edge of turf, and for Mr. Rickman, who didn't know his ground, a single step might mean death. She could not see him now. She called to him; "Mr. Rickman!" but there was no answer; only the sound of Mr. Rickman going down deeper. She called again, a little imperiously, and yet again. The last time her voice carried well, for there was the vibrating note of terror in it. He turned and saw her coming down the path towards him. "I forgot," she said, still with the slight tremor of fear in her voice. It seemed to draw out and intensify its sweetness. "That path isn't safe in a fog like this. You had better go round by the road." "Oh, thanks. You shouldn't have troubled. I should have got on all right." They were climbing up the moor together. "I'm afraid you wouldn't. I wasn't thinking, or I would never have sent you that way." "Why not? It was a very good way." "Yes. But you were going down into the thick of the fog. You might easily have walked over the cliff--and broken your neck." He laughed as if that was the most delightfully humorous idea. "I don't know," said he, "that it would have mattered very much if I had." She said nothing. She never did when he made these excursions into the personal. Of course it would not have mattered to Miss Harden if he had gone over the cliff. He had been guilty, not only of an unpardonable social solecism, but of a still more unpardonable platitude. They had reached the top of the cliff, and Lucia stood still. "Isn't there another short cut cut across the valley?" he asked. "There is; but I don't advise you to try it. And there is a way round by the road--if you can find it." He smiled. Had he tried to approach her too soon, and was she reminding him that short cuts are dangerous? There was a way round--if he could find it. If indeed! "Oh, I shall find it all right," said he, inspired by his double meaning. "I don't think you will, if the fog lasts. I am going that way and I had better show you." Show him? Was it possible? She led the way, all too swiftly, yet with a certain leisure in her haste. He followed with a shy delight. He was familiar enough by this time with her indoor aspect, with her unique and perfect manner of sitting still; now he saw that her beauty was of that rare kind that is most beautiful in movement. He would have liked that walk to last for ever, for the pure pleasure of following, now the delicate poise of her head, now the faint ripple of her shoulders under her thin coat, now the lines of her skirt breaking and flowing with the almost imperceptible swinging of her hips. Her beauty, as he now reflected, was of the sort that dwells less in the parts than in the whole, it was subtle, pervading, and profound. It rejected all but the finer elements of sex. In those light vanishing curves her womanhood was more suggested than defined; it dawned on him in tender adumbration rather than in light. Such beauty is eloquent and prophetic through its richness of association, its kindred with all forms of loveliness. As Lucia moved she parted with some of that remoter quality that had first fascinated, then estranged him; she took on the grace of the creatures that live free in the sunlight and in the open air. The mist shut them in with its grey walls. There was nothing to be seen but the patch of grass trodden by her feet, and her moving figure, grey on grey. The walk was somewhat lacking in incident and conversational openings. Such as occurred seemed, like Kitty Palliser's hat, to be packed with meaning. There was the moment, the dreadful moment, when he lagged behind and lost sight of her. The moment, his opportunity, when an enormous bramble caught and pinned her by the feet and skirt. She tried to tread on it with one foot and walk away from it with the other, a thing manifestly impossible and absurd. Besides, it hurt--horribly. He knelt before her on the wet moor, unconscious of his brand-new trousers, conscious of nothing but the exquisite moment; and, with hands that trembled violently, freed first her delicate feet and then her skirt. He breathed hard, for the operation was intricate and took time. That bramble seemed to have neither beginning nor end, it branched out in all directions and was set with multitudinous and powerful thorns. Lucia stood still, being indeed unable to move, and watched his long, slender fingers adroitly disentangling her. "I'm afraid you're hurting yourself," said she. "Not at all," said Mr. Rickman gallantly, though the thorns tortured his hands, drawing drops of blood. His bliss annihilated pain. "Take care," said she, "you are letting yourself get terribly torn." He took no notice; but breathed harder than ever. "There, I've got it all off now, I think." "Thank you very much." She drew her skirt gently from his detaining grasp. "No--wait--please. There's a great hulking brute of a thorn stuck in the hem." She waited. "Confound my clumsiness! I've done it now!" "Done what?" She looked down; on the dainty hem there appeared three distinct crimson stains. Mr. Rickman's face was crimson, too, with a flush of agony. Whatever he did for her his clumsiness made wrong. "I'm awfully sorry, but I've ruined your--your pretty dress, Miss Harden." For it was a pretty, a very pretty, a charming dress. And he was making matters worse by rubbing it with his pocket-handkerchief. "Please--please don't bother," said she, "it doesn't matter." (How different from the behaviour of Miss Walker when Spinks spilt the melted butter on her shoulder!) "You've hurt your own hands more than my dress." The episode seemed significant of the perils that awaited him in his intercourse with Miss Harden. She went on. The narrow hill-track ended in the broad bridle-path that goes straight up Harcombe (not Harmouth) valley. He wondered, with quite painful perplexity, whether he ought still to follow at a discreet distance, or whether he might now walk beside her. She settled the question by turning round and waiting for him to come up with her. So they went up the valley together, and together climbed the steep road that leads out of it and back in the direction they had just left. The mist was thinner here at the top of the hill, and Rickman recognized the road he had crossed when he had turned eastwards that morning. He could now have found his way back perfectly well; but he did not say so. A few minutes' walk brought them to the place where he had sat down in his misery and looked over Harmouth valley. Here they stopped, each struck by the strange landscape now suddenly revealed to them. They stood in clear air above the fog. It had come rolling in from the south, submerging the cliffs, and the town, and the valley; and now it lay smooth and cold and blue-white, like the sea under a winter sky. They might have been looking down on some mysterious world made before man. No land was to be seen save the tops of the hills lashed by the torn edges of the mist. Westward, across the bay, the peaks of the cliffs showed like a low, flat coast, a dull purplish line tormented by a livid surf. The flooded valley had become an arm of that vague sea. And from under the fog, immeasurably far below, there came the muffled sound of the mother sea, as if it were beating on the invisible floor of the world. "I say, that's rather uncanny, isn't it?" So uncanny did it seem to him that he felt that it called for remark. She looked at him with that faintly interrogative lifting of the eyebrows, which always seemed familiar to him. He remembered afterwards that Horace Jewdwine had the same trick. But in her, accompanied as it was by a pretty lifting of the corners of her mouth, it expressed friendly interest, in Jewdwine, apathy and a certain insolence. And yet all the time she was wondering how she should break it to him that their ways must now diverge. "There's a horrible unconsciousness about it," he went on, pursuing as usual his own fancy. "If you _could_ get bare nature without spirit, it would look like that." "It _doesn't_ look quite real," she admitted. (After that, there must be no more concessions. They must separate.) "It hasn't any reality but what we give it." "Hasn't it?" (A statement so sweeping challenged contradiction.) "You think that's only my Cockney view?" "I think it isn't Nature. It's your own idea." "It isn't even my own idea; I bagged it from Coleridge. P'raps you'll say he muddled himself with opium till he couldn't tell which was Nature and which was Coleridge; but there was old Wordsworth, as sober as a churchwarden, and he knew. What you call my Cockney view is the view of the modern poets. They don't--they can't distinguish between Nature and the human soul. Talk of getting near to Nature--we wouldn't know Nature if we saw it now. Those everlasting poets have got so near it that they've blocked the view for themselves and everybody else." "Really, you talk as if they were a set of trippers." "So they are! Wordsworth was nothing but a tripper, a glorified tripper. Nature never looked the same since he ran his Excursion-train through the Lake country--special service to Tintern and Yarrow." "This is slightly profane." "No--it only means that if you want Nature you musn't go to the poets of Nature. They've humanized it. I wouldn't mind that, if they hadn't womanized it, too." "That only means that they loved it," she said softly. "It means that they've demoralized it; and that now it demoralizes us. Nature is the supreme sentimentalist. It's all their fault. They've been flinging themselves on the bosom of Mother Earth, and sitting and writing Stanzas in Dejection on it, and lying down like a tired child on it, and weeping away their lives of care, that they have borne and yet must bear on it, till they've saturated it with their beastly pathos. There isn't a dry comfortable place left for anybody else." "Perhaps that's just the way Nature inspires poets, by giving out the humanity it absorbs." "Perhaps. I can't say it inspires me." "Are you a poet?" she asked. She was beginning to think it must be a case of mistaken identity; for this was not what she had expected of him. He did not answer at first, neither did he look at her. He looked at the beautiful face of Nature (the sentimentalist), and a wave of hot colour rushed again over his own. "I don't know whether I am or not." "Let us hope not, since you want to make a clean sweep of them." "I'd make a clean sweep of myself if I stood in my own light. Anything for a good view. But I'm afraid it's too late." His tone dropped from the extreme of levity to an almost tragic earnest. "We've done our work, and it can't be undone. We've given Nature a human voice, and now we shall never--never hear anything else." "That's rather dreadful; I wish you hadn't." "Oh, no, you don't. It's not the human voice you draw the line at--it's the Cockney accent." Lucia's smile flickered and went out, extinguished by the waves of her blush. She was not prepared to have her thoughts read--and read aloud to her--in this way; and that particular thought was one she would have preferred him not to read. "I daresay Keats had a Cockney accent, if we did but know; and I daresay a good many people never heard anything else." "I'm afraid you'd have heard it yourself, Miss Harden, if you'd met him." "Possibly. It isn't what I should have remembered him by, though. That reminds me. I came upon a poem--a sonnet--of yours--if it was yours--this morning. It was lying on the library floor. You will find it under the bronze Pallas on the table." Mr. Rickman stooped, picked up a sod and examined it carefully. "Thank you very much. It _was_ mine. I was afraid it was lost." "It would have been a great pity if it had been." Mr. Rickman dropped his sod. She answered the question that appeared in his eyes, though not on his tongue. "Yes, I read it. It was printed, you see. I read it before I could make up my mind whether I might or not." "It was all right. But I wish you hadn't." To look at Mr. Rickman you would have said that all his mind was concentrated on the heel of his boot, as it slowly but savagely ground the sod to dust. Even so, the action seemed to say, even so could he have destroyed that sonnet. "What did you think of it?" He had looked up, when she least expected, with his disarming and ingenuous smile. Lucia felt that he had laid an ambush for her by his abstraction; the question and the smile shot, flashed, out of it with a directness that made subterfuge impossible. The seriousness of the question was what made it so awkward for a lady with the pleasure-giving instinct. If Mr. Rickman had merely asked her if she liked his new straw hat with the olive green ribbon (supposing them to be on terms that made such a question possible) she would probably have said "Yes," whether she liked it or not; because she wanted to give pleasure, because she didn't care a straw about his straw hat. But when Mr. Rickman asked her how she liked his sonnet, he was talking about the things that really mattered; and in the things that really mattered Lucia was sincerity itself. "I thought," said she, "I thought the first dozen lines extremely beautiful." "In a sonnet _every_ line should be beautiful--should be perfect." "Oh--if you're aiming at perfection." "Why, what else in Heaven's name should I aim at?" Lucia was silent; and he mistook her silence for distrust. "I don't want you to judge me by that sonnet." "But I shouldn't dream of judging you by that sonnet, any more than I should judge that sonnet by its last two lines. They're not the last you'll ever write." "They're the last you will ever read." "Well, it's something to have written one good sonnet." "One swallow doesn't make a spring." "No; but it tells us spring is coming, and the other swallows." "There won't be any other swallows. All my swallows have flown." "Oh, they'll fly back again, you'll see, if you wait till next spring." "You weren't serious just now when you asked me if I was a poet. _I_ was serious enough when I said I didn't know." Something passed over Lucia's face, a ripple of shadow and flame, some moving of the under currents of the soul that told him that he was understood, that something had happened there, something that for the moment permitted him to be personal. "What made you say so?" "I can't tell you. Not natural modesty. I'm modest about some things, but not about that." "Yet surely you must know?" "I did yesterday." "Yesterday?" "Yesterday--last night; in fact up to eleven o'clock this morning I firmly believed that I had genius, or something uncommonly like it. I still believe that I _had_ it." He seemed to himself to have become almost grossly personal; but to Lucia he had ceased to be personal at all; he had passed into the region of realities; and in so passing had become intensely interesting. To Lucia, with the blood of ten generations of scholars in her veins, the question of a man's talent was supremely important; the man himself might not matter, but his talent mattered very much; to discuss it with him was entirely natural and proper. So she never once stopped to ask herself why she was standing on Harcombe Hill, holding this really very intimate conversation with Mr. Rickman. "The things," he continued, "the things I've written prove it. I can say so without the smallest conceit, because I haven't it now, and never shall have it again. I feel as if it had belonged to somebody else." Mr. Rickman was losing all likeness to his former self. He spoke no longer impulsively, but in the steady deliberate tones of unalterable conviction. And Lucia no longer heard the Cockney accent in this voice that came to her out of a suffering so lucid and so profound. She forgot that it came from the other side of the social gulf. If at any point in that conversation she had thought of dismissing him, she could not have dismissed him now. There was very little use in having saved his neck if she abandoned him to his misery. Instead of abandoning him she sat down on a rough seat by the roadside to consider Mr. Rickman's case in all its bearings. In doing so she found herself for the first time contemplating his personal appearance as such; and that not altogether with disapproval. Though it was not in the least what she would have expected, he showed to advantage in the open air. She began to perceive the secret of his extravagant and preposterous charm. There was something about him--something that he had no right to have about him, being born a dweller in cities, which none the less he undeniably and inevitably had, something that made him one with this moorland setting, untamed and beautiful and shy. The great natural features of the landscape did him no wrong; for he was natural too. Well, she had found his sonnet for him; but could she help him to recover what he had lost now? "I hope you won't mind my asking, but don't you know any one who can help you?" "Not any one who can help me out of this." "I believe it must have been you Sir Joseph Harden used to talk about. I think he saw you once when you were a boy. I know if he were alive he would have been glad to help you." "He did help me. I owe my education to the advice he gave my father." "Is that the case? I am very glad." She paused, exultant; she felt that she was now upon the right track. "You said you had written other things. What have you written?" "A lyrical drama for one thing. That sonnet was meant for a sort of motto to it." A lyrical drama? She was right, then; he was Horace Jewdwine's great "find." If so, the subject was fenced around with difficulty. She must on no account give Horace away. Mr. Rickman had seemed annoyed because she had read his sonnet (which was printed); he would be still more annoyed if he knew that she had read his lyrical drama in manuscript. He was inclined to be reticent about his writings. Lucia was wrong. Mr. Rickman had never been less inclined to reticence in his life. He wished she had read his drama instead of his sonnet. His spring-time was there; the swift unreturning spring-time of his youth. If she had read his drama she would have believed in his pursuit of the intangible perfection. As it was, she never would believe. "I wonder," she said, feeling her ground carefully, "if my cousin Horace Jewdwine would be any good to you?" "Mr. Jewdwine?" "Do you know him?" "Yes, slightly. That is--he knows--he knows what I can do. I mean what I've done." "Really?" The chain of evidence was now complete. "Well, what does he say?" Rickman laughed as he recalled his last conversation with the critic. "He says I'm one-seventh part a poet. "Does he? Then you may be very sure you are a great deal more. My cousin is most terribly exacting. I should be glad if I succeeded in satisfying him; but I don't think I should be seriously unhappy if--if I failed. Did he say anything to discourage, to depress you?" "Not he. I don't think I should have minded if he had. I felt strong enough for anything then. It was this morning. I was sitting out here, looking at all this beautiful inspiring scenery, when it came to me, that notion that I should never do anything again." "Is it--" her hesitations were delightful to him--"is it the want of recognition that disheartens you?" He laughed again, a healthy honest laugh. "Oh, dear me, no! I don't worry about recognition. That would be all right if I could go on. But I can't go on." "Have you ever felt like this before?" "N--no. No, never. And for the life of me I can't think why I should now." "And yet you've been making catalogues for years, haven't you?" Lucia had said to herself, "It's that catalogue _raisonné_, I know." "Do you like making catalogues?" "Well, under ordinary circumstances it isn't exactly what you'd call exciting. But I'm afraid that hasn't got anything to do with it this time." "It may have everything to do with it--such a dreadful kind of work." "No. It isn't the work that's dreadful." "Then perhaps it's the worry? And I'm afraid I'm responsible for that." He started, shaken out of his admirable self-possession by that glaring personality. "How could you be?" "By insisting on engaging you as I did. From what you told me it's very evident that you had something on your mind, and that the work has been very dreadful, very difficult." "I _have_ something on my mind and--it _has_ been difficult--all the same--" "I wouldn't have pressed you if I had really known. I'm very sorry. Is it too late? Would it be any good if I released you now?" If she released him! "Miss Harden, you are most awfully good to me." "_Would_ that help you?" He looked at her. Over her face there ran again that little ripple of thought and sympathy, like shadow and flame. One fear was removed from him. Whatever happened Miss Harden would never misunderstand him. At the same time he realized that any prospect, however calamitous, would be more endurable than the course she now proposed. "It wouldn't help me. The best thing I can do is to stay where I am and finish." "Is that the truth?" "Nothing but the truth." ("But not the whole truth," thought Lucia.) "Well," she said, rising, "whatever you do, don't lose heart." He smiled drearily. It was all very well to say that, when his heart was lost already. "Wait--wait till next spring comes." He could put what meaning he liked into that graceful little commonplace. But it dismissed at the same time that it reassured him. The very ease and delicacy with which it was done left him no doubt on that point. He was not going to accept his dismissal then and there. A bold thought leapt in his brain. Could he--might he--? She had read his sonnet; would it do to ask her to read his drama also? To be sure the sonnet had but fourteen lines, while the drama had twice as many hundred. But the drama, the drama, his beautiful _Helen in Leuce_, was his ultimate achievement, the highest, completest expression of his soul. And what he required of Lucia Harden was not her praise, but fuller, more perfect comprehension. He stood in a cruel and false position, and he longed for her to know the finest and the best of him, before she knew (as she must know) the worst. She was turning away; but there was a closed gate between her and the hill-path that led down into the valley. "Miss Harden--" "Yes?" She turned. His heart beat violently. He was afraid to look up lest his face should betray his emotion; it must seem so disproportioned to its cause. And yet he was going to ask her for leave to put his drama, the fine offspring of his soul, into her hands. "May I send you the drama I spoke of? I would like you to see it." "Nothing would give me greater pleasure." He tried to stammer out some words of thanks; but they died before utterance. "You know your way now, don't you?" said she. "Yes, thanks." Her hand was on the gate; he opened it to let her pass. He also made a movement as though he would have held out his hand, but thought better of it, raising his hat instead. He stood uncovered until she had passed. He walked up and down the road, giving her time to get well out of sight. Then he returned to the place where he had suffered, and stood a long while looking over the valley. He knew now the meaning of his great misery; and it was misery no longer. The veil was lifted from the face of Nature; and it was a face that he had never yet seen. It had lost that look of mysterious, indefinable reproach. It was as if the beauty of the land, seeking after the heart that should love it, was appeased and reconciled. He could hear the lyric soul of things most clearly and unmistakably, and it was singing a new song. A strange, double-burdened contradictory song. There was sorrow in it, such sorrow as her children drink from the breast of the tragic earth; and through it all and over it the laughter as of some yet virgin and imperishable joy. For Nature sings to every poet the song of his own soul. He spent the last of that Easter Sunday in his shabby little bedroom in the Marine Hotel, where with windows open to the wind and sea he sat writing long past midnight. And hope rose again in him as he surveyed the first rough draft--that wild battlefield and slaughter-ground of lines, lines shooting and flying in all directions, lines broken and scattered and routed by other lines, over-ridden and trampled down by word upon triumphing word. Above the hideous confusion at least two verses shone luminous and clear; they had come swinging into the pure ether, full-formed and golden from their birth. And over the whole he wrote in legible characters, "_On Harcombe Hill_." His doubt had died there; and on Easter Monday he awoke exulting in another blessed day. CHAPTER XXII Lucia had yielded recklessly to her pleasure-giving instinct, and was only half contented. She had given pleasure to her father by writing him a long letter; she was in a fair way of giving pleasure to Horace Jewdwine by undertaking this monstrous labour of the catalogue; and she had given pleasure to herself in giving pleasure to them. But there was one person to whom she had not given pleasure; and that person was Horace Jewdwine's friend. On the contrary, she had robbed the poor man of the one solitary pleasure he had anticipated in his three days' holiday; with what disastrous results she had just witnessed. It was impossible for Lucia to do anybody a wrong, however innocently, without making up for it. On that Sunday evening she conceived a great idea. She had deprived Mr. Rickman of a small opportunity; she would give him a large one. Restitution was to be on a noble scale. Lucia had a small sum left to her by her grandfather, and even when Mr. Rickman was paid for his four weeks' work on the catalogue that sum would only be reduced to £285. On the strength of it she now proposed to offer Mr. Rickman the post of secretary to herself, for one year, at a salary of a hundred, the remainder to be devoted to his travelling and household expenses. As secretary he would assist her in editing Sir Joseph's unpublished works, while she secured him abundant leisure for his own. For one year he would be free from all sordid demands on his time and energy. He would be free, for one year, from the shop and the Quarterly Catalogue. He would enrich his mind, and improve his manners, with travel, for one year. At the end of that year he would know if there was anything in him. In other words she would give the little man his chance. The plan had the further advantage that it would have given her grandfather pleasure if he could have known it. It was also to be presumed that it would give pleasure to Horace Jewdwine, since it was the very thing he himself had said he wished to do for Rickman. Of all conceivable ways of spending Sir Joseph's money it was the fittest and most beautiful. In its lesser way it was in line with the best traditions of the family; for the Hardens had been known for generations as the patrons of poor scholars and struggling men of letters. And as Lucia inherited the intellect of her forefathers in a more graceful, capricious and spontaneous form, so what in them had been heavy patronage, appeared in her as the pleasure-giving instinct. If she had inherited a large fortune along with it she would have been a lady of lavish and indiscreet munificence. By way of discretion she slept on her programme before finally committing herself to it. In the morning discretion suggested that she had better wait a week. She decided to act on that suggestion; at the same time she stifled the inner voice which kept telling her that the thing she was doing "to please Horace" would not really please him at all. She had already ignored the advice he had given her on one point; for Horace had long ago told her plainly that there was no use in editing their grandfather's posthumous works; that on any subject other than textual criticism, Sir Joseph was absurd. Meanwhile, by sympathy perhaps, Rickman also had become discreet. He entered on his new week a new man. As if he had divined that he was on his trial, he redoubled his prodigious efforts, he applied himself to his hideous task with silent and concentrated frenzy. He seemed to live and move and have his being in the catalogue _raisonné_. Whenever Lucia had occasion to look up at him he was assiduous, rapid, absorbed, He never stopped to talk about �schylus and Euripides. Now and then they exchanged a necessary word, but not more than once or twice in the morning. If Lucia by any chance gave him an opening he ignored it. He maintained a silence that was almost stern. Mr. Rickman was undergoing a process of regeneration. He would not have called it by so fine a name. In fact, in its earlier stages he seemed to himself to be merely pushing to the point of mania a strong predilection for personal cleanliness. He was first of all possessed, recklessly, ruinously, by a passion for immaculate shirts. He had telegraphed to Spinks to send down all of his linen that he could lay his hands on; meanwhile he had supplied deficiencies at the local haberdashers. At Mrs. Downey's there was a low standard for the more slender particulars of the toilette, and Mr. Rickman had compared favourably with his fellow-boarders. Now he looked back with incredulity and horror to his former self. Since his person had been brought into daily contact with Miss Harden he had begun to bestow on it a solemn, almost religious care. In the matter of the pocket handkerchief he practised an extreme ritual, permitting himself none but the finest lawn, which he changed after the first trivial crumpling. The pocket-handkerchief being thus glorified and exalted in the hierarchy of dress, one source of painful misgiving was removed. For the first few days he had been merely formal in this cult of the person. Piety was appeased with external rites and symbols, with changes of vestment, excessive lustrations, and the like. Now he had grown earnest, uncompromising, in his religion; and consistency entailed a further step. Clearly his person, the object of such superstitious veneration, must be guarded from all unbecoming and ridiculous accidents; such an accident, for instance, as getting drunk. If you came to think of it, few things could be more compromising to the person than that (Heavens! if Miss Harden had seen it last Wednesday night!). And since any friendship with ladies of doubtful character might be considered equally derogatory from its dignity, he further resolved to eliminate (absolutely) Miss Poppy Grace. He took no credit for these acts of renunciation. They seemed to him no more morally meritorious than the removal of dust from his coat sleeves, or of ink-stains from his hands. But though he exterminated the devil in him with so light a touch, it was gravely, tragically almost, that he turned to the expulsion of the Cockney. Intoxication was an unlucky casualty; so, if you came to think of it, was a violent infatuation for Miss Poppy Grace; infinitely more disastrous, more humiliating, were the fatal habits of his speech. Take the occasional but terrific destruction of the aitch. It was worse than drink; it wrecked a man more certainly, more utterly beyond redemption and excuse. It was anxiety on this point that partly accounted for his reserve. He simply dared not talk about �schylus or Euripides, because such topics were exciting, and excitement was apt to induce this lapse. But most of all he dreaded the supreme agitation of love. For he knew now perfectly well what had happened to him; though he had never known it happen to him in this manner before. It was love as his heart had imagined it in the days before he became the thrall of Miss Poppy Grace. He had known the feeling, but until now he had not known the woman who could inspire it. It was as if his heart had renewed its primal virginity in preparation for some divine experience. The night of Sunday beheld the withdrawal of Mr. Rickman into the immensity of his preposterous dream. From this blessed state he emerged on Monday morning, enlightened as to the whole comedy and tragedy of his passion. To approach Lucia Harden required nothing less than a change of spirit; and Mr. Rickman doubted whether he could manage that. He could only change his shirts. And at this point there arose the hideous fear lest love itself might work to hinder and betray him. As it turned out, love proved his ally, not his enemy. So far from exciting him, it produced a depression that rendered him disinclined for continuous utterance. In this it did him good service. It prevented him from obtruding his presence unduly on Miss Harden. In his seat at the opposite table he had achieved something of her profound detachment, her consummate calm. And Lucia said to herself, "Good. He can keep quiet for a whole day at a time, which is what I doubted." Six days had passed in this manner, and he had not yet attempted to penetrate the mystery and seclusion of the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He turned away his eyes from that corner of the bookcase where he had good reason to suppose them to be. He would have to look at them some time, meanwhile he shrank from approaching them as from some gross impiety. His father had written to him several times, making special inquiries after the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace, and the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. He replied with generalities in a guarded manner. He was kept very busy, and was as yet unable to send him any more detailed information. He had begun to feel it strange that these questions should be put, to marvel at the assumption that they could in any way concern him. Rickman's had ceased altogether to exist for him. He was beginning to lose all sense of strangeness in his position. The six days might have been six years and Court House the home of his infancy, Lucia's presence filled it with so warm an atmosphere of kindness and of love. The very servants had learnt something of her gentle, considerate ways. He was at home there as he had never been at home before. He knew every aspect of the library, through all the changes of the light, from the first waking of its blues and crimsons in the early morning to the broad and golden sweep of noonday through the south window; from the quick rushing flame of the sunset to its premature death among the rafters. Then the lamps; a little light in the centre where they sat, and the thick enclosing darkness round about them. Each of those six days was like a Sunday, and Sunday to Rickman was always a day of beatitude, being the day of dreams. And she, in her sweet unfamiliar beauty, only half real, though so piercingly present to him, was an incarnate dream. She always sat with her back to the south window, so that her head and shoulders appeared somewhat indistinct against the outer world, a background of flower-beds and green grass and sky, covered with the criss-cross of the leaded lozenge panes and the watery shimmer of the glass. The outline of her head was indicated by a little line of light that threaded her hair and tipped the curve of her small ears. He knew every change of her face, from its serene, faint-tinted morning look, to its flower-like pallor in the dusk. He knew only too well its look under the lamp-light after a hard day's work; the look that came with a slight blurring of its soft contours, and a drooping of tired eyelids over pathetic eyes. He saw what Jewdwine had failed to see, that Lucia was not strong. Six days, and three days before that, nine days in all; and it was as if he had known that face all his life; he could not conceive a time when he had not known it. As for the things he had known, horrible, curious and incredible things, such as Rickman's, Mrs. Downey's, St. Pancras Church, and the editor of _The Museion_ (whose last letter he had left unanswered), they belonged to an infinitely remote and unimaginable past. It seemed the entirely obvious and natural thing that he should be sitting there alone with Lucia Harden. He was never very far from her. The east window looked across the courtyard to the window of her drawing-room; he could see her there, sitting in the lamp-light; he could hear the music that she made. Her bedroom was above the library; it was pleasant to him to know that when she left him it was to sleep there overhead. The deep quiet of his passion had drawn him again into his dream. And then all of a sudden, he woke up and broke the silence. It was ten o'clock on Saturday evening. Lucia had shifted the shade of the lamp. From where he sat her face was in twilight and her body in darkness. He had got up to put a book into its place, when he saw her leaning back and covering her eyes with her hand. The sight was too much for him. He came up and stood beside her. "Miss Harden, I don't like this. I--I can't stand it any longer." She looked up. She had been unaware of Mr. Rickman for the last hour, and certainly did not expect to find him there. "What is it that you can't stand?" "To see you working from morning to night. It--it isn't right, you know. You're paying me for this, and doing the half of it yourself." "I'm not doing a quarter of it. You forget that you're working three times as fast as I can." "And you forget that you're working three times as hard." "No. I'm leaving the hard work to you." "I wish you'd leave it all to me." "In that case we should never have finished," said the lady. He smiled. "Perhaps not. At any rate you've worked so hard that I can finish it now by myself." She looked round the room. Undisguised fatigue was in the look. What they had done was nothing to what they had yet to do. "You can't," she said. "I can. Easily. I miscalculated the time it would take." She said nothing, for she knew that he had lied. His miscalculation was all the other way. She bent again over her work. It was all that he could do not to lift her arms gently but firmly from the table, to take away her pen and ink, and put out her lamp. He would have liked to have done some violence to the catalogue. "I say, you know, you'll make yourself ill. You're burning the candle at both ends. May I suggest that the game isn't worth the candle?" "Have you very much more to do?" "About two hours' work. Would it be impertinent to say that I could do it better by myself?" She looked at her watch and ignored his last question. "You can't do two hours' work. It's twenty minutes past your time already." Past his time, indeed! As if he hadn't been working past his time every night since he came. She had grown mighty particular all of a sudden! "The presence of these engaging little Elzevirs is a terrible temptation to a second-hand bookseller, still I believe you can trust me with them alone." From the expression of her face he gathered that this remark was even more impertinent than the other. He had meant it to be. "I really think," said the lady, "that you had better go." "Just as you please; I shall only have to sit up two hours later to-morrow night." He walked to his place with his head thrown farther back and his chin thrust farther forward than ever. He began to sort and arrange his papers preparatory to his departure. It took him five minutes. At the end of the five minutes he was aware that Lucia had risen and was bidding him Good-night. "You were quite right," she was saying. "I _am_ tired, and I had better leave off. If you had rather stay and finish, please stay." At those words Mr. Rickman was filled with a monstrous and amazing courage. He made for the door, crossing without a tremor the whole length of the library. He reached the door before Miss Harden, and opened it. He returned her good-night with a hope that she would be rested in the morning. And as he went back to his solitary labour he smiled softly to himself, a smile of self-congratulation. He had meant her to go--and she had gone. Upstairs in her room overhead Lucia communed with her own face in the glass. "My private secretary?" The face in the glass looked dubious. "Of course I would rather have a gentleman for my private secretary. Some people would say he isn't a gentleman." (She had said it herself the other day.) The face in the glass smiled dimly, between two parted veils of hair. "What _is_ a gentleman?" The face in the glass suggested that this was indeed a subtle and a difficult question. "It was not his business if I chose to tire myself. Would it have been his business if he'd been a gentleman?" The face in the glass offered no opinion. "I think I like him best when he's impertinent. He is so _very_ funny, poor dear, when he tries to be polite." The face in the glass, framed by two white arms raising a column of hair, was suffused with rosy mirth. "I wonder what Horace really thinks of him?" The face, triumphantly crowned with its dark coil, looked grave. "He _is_ a gentleman. At least, he lied like one." By this time Lucia was in bed, and there was no face in the glass to dispute or corroborate that statement. CHAPTER XXIII The next morning he gave into her hands the manuscript of _Helen in Leuce_. It had arrived two or three days ago, packed by Spinks between his new shirts. She had expected to feel a little guilty as she received the familiar sheets; but as she glanced over them she saw that they were anything but familiar; what she had to deal with was a clean new draft. She had a fairly clear recollection of the outline of the play. In Act I Helen lands in the enchanted island of Leuce, and is found watching the ship that brought her sailing away with the dead Menelaus, for he, being altogether mortal, may not follow her there. The Chorus tells the story of Helen, her rape by Theseus, her marriage with Menelaus, her flight with Paris, the tragedy of Troy and her return to Argos. It tells how through all her adventures the godhead in her remained pure, untouched, holding itself apart. In Act II Helen is asleep, for the soul of Leda still troubles her divinity, and her mortality is heavy upon her. Helen rises out of her sleep; her divinity is seen struggling with her mortality, burning through the beauty of her body. Desire wakens in Achilles, and in Helen terror and anguish, as of one about to enter again into the pain of mortal life. But he may not touch her till he, too, has put on immortality. Helen prays for deliverance from the power of Aphrodite. She rouses in Achilles a great anger against Aphrodite by reminding him of the death of Patroclus; so that he calls down upon the goddess the curses of all the generations of men. It was this Act that lived in Lucia's memory. Act III she had not yet read, but she had gathered from the argument that Pallas Athene was there to appear to Achilles and divest him of his mortality; that she was to lead him to Helen, whose apotheosis was supposed to be complete; the Act concluding with two choruses, an epithalamium celebrating the wedding of Helen and Achilles, and a Hymn in praise of Athene. She remembered how when Horace had first told her of the subject, Helen in Leuce, she had looked it up in Lemprière, found a reference in Homer and another in Euripides, had shaken her head and said, "What can he make of that?" Now for the first time she saw what he had made of it. Rickman's Helen was to the Helena of Euripides what Shelley's Prometheus is to the Prometheus of �schylus. Rickman had done what seemed good in his own eyes. He had made his own metres, his own myth and his own drama. A drama of flesh and blood, a drama of spirit, a drama of dreams. Only a very young poet could have had the courage to charge it with such a weight of symbolism; but he had contrived to breathe into his symbols the breath of life; the phantoms of his brain, a shadowy Helen and Achilles, turned into flesh and blood under his hands. It was as if their bodies, warm, throbbing, full-formed, instinct with irresistible and violent life, had come crashing through the delicate fabric of his dream. As she read Lucia's mind was troubled, shaken out of its critical serenity. She heard a new music; she felt herself in the grasp of a new power, a new spirit. It was not the classic spirit. There was too much tumult in its harmonies, as if the music of a whole orchestra had been torn from its instruments and flung broadcast, riding triumphantly on the wings of a great wind. There were passages (notably the Hymn to Aphrodite in the second Act) that brought the things of sense and the terrible mysteries of flesh and blood so near to her that she flinched. Rickman had made her share the thrilling triumph, the flushed passion of his youth. And when she was most hurt and bruised under the confusion of it, he lifted her up and carried her away into the regions of spiritual beauty and eternal strength. It was all over; the tumult of the flesh and the agony of the spirit; over, too, the heaven-piercing singing, the rapture of spirit and of flesh made one. Rickman had ended his amazing drama with the broad majestic music of his Hymn to Athene. Lucia had borne up under the parting of Helen and Menelaus; but she was young, and at that touch of superb and ultimate beauty, two tears, the large and heavy tears of youth, fell upon Rickman's immaculate manuscript, where their marks remain to this day. The sight of them had the happy effect of making her laugh, and then, and not till then, she thought of Rickman--Mr. Rickman. She thought of him living a dreadful life among dreadful people; she thought of him sitting in his father's shop, making catalogues _raisonnés_; she thought of him sitting in the library making one at that very moment. And this was the man she had had the impertinence to pity; whom Horace would say she now proposed to patronize. As she stood contemplating the pile of manuscript before her, Miss Lucia Harden felt (for a great lady) quite absurdly small. In that humble mood she was found by Miss Palliser. "What's up?" said Kitty. "Kitty, that little man in there--he's written the most beautiful play. It's so terribly sad." "What, the play?" "No, the little man. It's a classic, Kitty--it'll live." "Then I'm sure you needn't pity him. Let's have a look at the thing." Miss Palliser dipped into the manuscript, and was lost. "By Jove," she said, "it does look ripping. Where does the sadness come in?" "He thinks he'll never write another." "Well, perhaps he won't." "He will--think of it--he's a genius, the real thing, this time. Only--he has to stand behind a counter and make catalogues." Miss Palliser meditated. "Does he--does he by any chance drop his aitches?" "Kitty, he _does_." "Then Lucy, dear child, beware, beware, his flashing eyes, his floating hair--" "Don't. That little man is on my mind." "I shouldn't let him stop there too long, if I were you. He might refuse to get on." "I must do something for him, and I must do it now. What _can_ I do?" "Not much, I imagine." "I--I think I'll ask him to dinner." "I wouldn't. You said he drops his aitches. Weave," said Miss Palliser, "a circle round him thrice, and close your eyes with holy dread, but whatever you do, don't ask him to dinner." "Why not?" "Because ten to one it would make him most horribly uncomfortable. Not that that matters so much. But wouldn't the faithful Robert think it a little odd?" "Robert is too faithful to think anything at all." "I'm not so sure of that. Personally, I wish you _would_ ask him to dinner--I seem to foresee a certain amount of amusing incident." "Well, I don't think I will ask him--to dinner. Perhaps he wouldn't enjoy it. But as I've got to talk over his play with him, I should like to ask him to something." "Ask him to coffee afterwards." "Coffee hardly seems enough." "It depends. Serve it festively--on a table, and pour it out yourself. Offer him strange and bewitching forms of food. Comfort him with--with angel cake--and savoury sandwiches and bread and butter." "I see--a sort of compromise?" "Exactly. Society, my child, is based on compromise." "Very well, then, I'll write him a note." She wrote it, and sent Robert with it to the library. "I suppose," said she, "it's about time to dress for dinner?" "Don't make yourself too pretty, dear." Lucia looked back through the doorway. "I shall make myself as pretty as ever I can. He has had nothing but ugly things to look at all his life." Miss Palliser apostrophized the departing figure of her friend. "Oh Lucy, Lucy, what an angelic little fool you _are_!" CHAPTER XXIV Half-past six, and Miss Harden had not yet appeared in the library. It was the first time that Rickman had passed a whole day without seeing her. He began to be uneasy, to wonder whether she were really ill. At seven he was leaving the house as usual for his hotel when Robert brought him a little three-cornered note. "Dear Mr. Rickman," it said (Dear Mr. Rickman!) "you see I have taken your advice, and given myself a holiday. I have spent it very pleasantly--reading _Helen in Leuce_. It would give me much pleasure if you would come in for coffee this evening, about eight o'clock. We can then talk it over. "Very truly yours, "LUCIA HARDEN. "You need only send a verbal answer." A verbal answer? No. That would never do. He could not trust himself with speech, but in writing he knew he was impeccable. "Dear Miss Harden. How very kind of you! But I am sorry that you did not give yourself a complete rest. I should be sorrier, if I were not so grateful for the trouble you have taken. It will give me great pleasure to come in this evening at the time you name. "With many thanks, yours very truly, "S.K. RICKMAN." He was not pleased with it; it erred on the side of redundancy; he had not attained the perfect utterance, the supreme simplicity. But he was obliged to let it go. Two hours later Robert announced that coffee was served in the drawing-room. It seemed that to reach the drawing-room you had to cross the whole length of the house from west to east. In this passage he realized (what his mind had not greatly dwelt upon), the antiquity of the Hardens, and the march of their splendid generations. Going from the Tudor Library into the grim stone hall of the Court House, he took a cold plunge backward into time. Thence his progress was straightforward, bringing him into the Jacobean picture gallery that cut the house from north to south. Here he paused, perceiving that the double line of portraits began with a Vandyck and a Lely. Robert stood with his hand on the brass rose knob of an oak door; in his eternal attitude of affection, mingled with immobile respect, he waited for the moment when Mr. Rickman should elect to tear himself from the Lely and the Vandyck. The moment came, and Mr. Rickman heard himself announced in a clear high voice as he passed over the threshold. He found himself in a long oak-panelled room; that room whose west window looked out across the courtyard to the east window of the library. It was almost dark except for a small fire-lit, lamp-lit, square at the far end. Lucia was sitting in a low chair by the fireplace, under the tall shaded lamp, where the light fell full on her shoulders. She was not alone. On a settee by the other side of the open hearth sat the young lady who had intruded on his solitude in the library. The presence of the young lady filled him with anxiety and dismay. He had to cross a vast, dim space before he reached that lighted region. With what seemed to him a reeling and uncertain gait, he approached over the perilously slippery parquet. Miss Harden rose and came forward, mercifully cutting short that frightful passage from the threshold to her chair. Lucia had not carried out the intention she had announced to Kitty. She had dressed in haste; but in Rickman's eyes the effect was that which Kitty had seen fit to deprecate. She had made herself very pretty indeed. He could not have given a very clear account of it, could not have said whether the thing she wore, that floating, sweeping, curling, trailing, folding and caressing garment were made of grey gossamer in white or white in grey, but he was aware that it showed how divinely her slender body carried its flower, her head; showed that her arms, her throat, and the first sweep and swell of her shoulders, were of one tone with the luminous pallor of her face. Something in the dress, in her bearing and manner of approach, gave her the assured charm of womanhood for the unfinished loveliness of youth. She introduced him to her friend Miss Palliser, whose green eyes smiled in recognition. He bowed with the stiffness of a back unaccustomed to that form of salutation. He hardly knew what happened after that, till he found himself backing, nervously, ridiculously backing into a lonely seat in the middle of the room. The three were now grouped in a neat geometrical figure, Mr. Rickman, on the chair of his choice, forming the apex of a prolonged triangle, having the hearthrug for its base. He was aware that Miss Harden and Miss Palliser were saying something; but he had no idea of what they said. He sat there wondering whether he ought to be seated at all, whether he ought not rather to be hovering about that little table, ready to wait upon Miss Palliser. He was still wondering when Miss Palliser got up with the evident intention of waiting upon him. That, he knew, was all wrong; it was not to be permitted for a moment. Inspired by a strange, unnatural courage, he advanced and took his coffee from her hand, retreating with it to his remote and solitary position. He sat silent, moodily looking at his coffee, stirring it from time to time and wondering whether he would ever be brave enough to drink it. He waited for an opportunity of dispatching it unperceived. The presence of Miss Palliser paralysed him. He wondered whether he ought to say anything to her or to Miss Harden, or to neither or to both; he tried to think of something suitable to say. Meanwhile Miss Palliser talked for all three. It seemed that she had dined with her friend on her way to an "at home" in Harmouth. "Bread and butter?" said she judicially "N--no, I think not, thanks. I've got to eat jellies and sandwiches and things for two hours straight on end. It sounds horrible, but I shall be driven to it. At the Flossers," she explained for her friend's benefit, "you must either eat or talk; and if you can't talk scandal you're not expected to talk at all." And still talking Miss Palliser slowly bore down upon Mr. Rickman with a plate of bread and butter. Mr. Rickman's earnest and chivalrous endeavour to forestall her caused a rug to slide under his feet. It slid, and Mr. Rickman with it, for quite a considerable distance; and though Mr. Rickman, indeed, preserved the erect attitude by a series of complicated movements (a superb triumph of muscular ingenuity, but somewhat curious and fantastic as a spectacle), his coffee cup flung itself violently on its side, and poured out its contents at the lady's feet. He looked at Miss Harden. She was smiling; for who wouldn't have smiled? But her smile became almost tender in her perception of his distress. Miss Palliser continued to talk. "Ah," said Miss Palliser, "I was waiting for that to happen. I've been wondering which of us would do it first. I rather thought it would be me; but for pure, delightful unexpectedness, give me a parquet floor. I wouldn't mop it up with my pocket handkerchief, if I were you." "No--please--it doesn't matter. It happens every day." "And it puts a visitor on an agreeable footing at once. You _can't_ keep up any stiffness or formality, when what you took for a drawing-room turns itself into a skating rink." "Quite so," said Rickman, "and if you fall, it breaks the ice." He was entering shyly into her humour. "I'm afraid my be-h-haviour wasn't quite so h-happy and spontaneous as it might have been." "I assure you it was extremely naïve and natural, as far as it went," said Kitty, laughing. "I think you were very clever to keep your balance," said Lucia. "Too clever by half. If you'd been a really genial person, Mr. Rickman, you'd have lost it." Thus lightly did they cover his confusion, thus adroitly turn the malignant hand of circumstance. "Kitty," said Lucia, "I don't want to hurry you, but it's past nine, and you'll _have_ to hurry if you don't want to be late." "But I do want to be late. I mean to be late. I can't eat sandwiches for more than two hours." And Kitty flung herself on her settee again in crosslegged, unpremeditated ease, and there she conversed with Mr. Rickman as if she had known him all her life. Kitty was amused at last. So was Mr. Rickman. He found himself answering with appropriate light-heartedness; he heard himself laughing in the manner of one infinitely at ease. It was impossible to be anything else in Kitty Palliser's society. He was, in fact, surprised. Though it was only by immense expenditure of thought and effort that he managed to secure the elusive aspirate, still he secured it. Never for a moment did he allow himself to be cheated into the monstrous belief that its absence was, or could be unperceived. But though he was grateful to Miss Palliser, he wished all the time that she would go. At last she rose and drew her fur-collared cloak about her with a slow, reluctant air. "Well, I suppose I must be off. I shall be back before eleven, Lucy. Good-night, Mr. Rickman, if I don't see you again." He was alone with Lucia Harden. It was one thing to be alone with Lucia Harden in the library or on Harcombe Moor, and quite another thing to be left with her in that lamp-lit, fire-lit room. The library belonged to her race and to their historic past; the moor to nature and to all time; this room to her and to the burning present. There was no sign or suggestion of another presence. A kindly room (barring that parquet floor!); a beautiful room; full of warm lights, and broad and pleasing shadows; furnished with an extreme simplicity, such bareness as musicians love. He was struck by that absence of all trivial decoration, all disturbing and irrelevant detail. In such a room, the divinity of the human form was not dwarfed or obscured by excess of furniture. Such a room, he reflected, was also eminently disadvantageous to any figure that was not entirely sure of its divinity. But for two persons who desired to know each other better there couldn't be a better place. It left them so securely, so intimately alone. For the first time, then, he was alone with Lucia Harden. She had risen and had unlocked a drawer in the writing-table near her, and taken out the thick pile of manuscript. He noticed that she detached from it some loose pencilled sheets and put them back into the drawer. She seated herself in her old place and signed to him to take the low chair beside her. He approached her (for the first time) without nervousness or embarrassment; for he saw his _Helen_ lying on her knees and knew that she held his dreams in her soul. He had made her acquainted with the best and highest in him, and she would judge him by that alone. In her sight his genius would stand apart from all in him that was jarring and obscure. It at least was untouched by the accident of his birth, the baseness of his false position. "I sent for you," said she, "because I wanted to talk to you about this, while it is all fresh in my mind. I thought we could talk better here." "Thanks. I want awfully to know what you have to say." "I can't have anything to say that you don't know already." "I--I know nothing." (What a hypocrite he felt as he said it!) "Nor I. As far as knowledge goes I haven't any right to speak. Only--the other evening, you expressed such absolute disbelief in yourself--" "I was perfectly sincere." "I know you were. That's what made me believe in you." (Well then, if _that_ was what made her believe in him he would continue to express disbelief in himself.) She paused. "It's the little men, isn't it, the men of talent, that are always so self-conscious and so sure? I don't know much about it, but it seems to me that genius isn't bound to be like that. It might be so different from your ordinary self that you couldn't be aware of it in the ordinary way. There would always be a sort of divine uncertainty about it." "I'm afraid I don't agree with you. All the great geniuses have been not only aware of themselves, but most uncommonly certain." "Still, their genius may have been the part of themselves they understood least. If they had tried to understand it, they would have doubted too." "There's something in that. You mean genius understands everything--except itself? "I think that's what I meant." "Yes; but whether genius understands itself or not, whatever it does, you see, it doesn't doubt." "Doesn't it? Have you read Keats' letters? _He_ doubted." "Only when he was in love with Fanny Brawne." He paused abruptly. He was seized by an idea, a rushing irresistible idea that lifted him off his feet and whirled him suddenly into a region of light, tumultuous and profound. Keats was in love when he doubted. Could that be the explanation of his own misgiving? "That," he said hastily, "that's another thing altogether. Any way, if you don't believe in yourself, you'll have some difficulty in making other people believe in you." "And if other people _do_ believe in you, before you believe in yourself?" "Before? It might be done before, but not after. You may make a man conceited, but you can't give him back the conceit he had on Saturday, if he's lost it all by Monday." "That means that you know you've written a beautiful thing and you only think you'll never write another." "Perhaps it does." (He had to keep it up for the pleasure of hearing her say she believed in him.) "Well, I don't suppose you will write another _Helen in Leuce_." "I'm afraid not." He went on to tell her that the wonder was how he wrote the thing at all. It had been done anyhow, anywhere, in successive bursts or spasms of creative energy; the circumstances of his life (he referred to them with some diffidence) not being exactly favourable to sustained effort. "How did _you_ feel about it?" he inquired. "I can hardly tell you. I think I felt as you feel about anything beautiful that comes to you for the first time. I don't know what it is you've done. It's as if something had been done to me, as if I'd been given a new sense. It's like hearing Beethoven or Wagner for the first time." As she spoke she saw the swift blood grow hot in his face, she saw the slight trembling of the hand that propped his chin and she thought, "Poor fellow, so much emotion for a little praise?" "What did you mean by it?" she said. He considered a moment--as who should say "What the dickens did I mean by it?" Lucia leaned back now, for the first time, in the breathing space he gave her, attentively watching the man she proposed to make her secretary; and as she watched him she found herself defending him against her own criticism. If he dropped his aitches it was not grossly as the illiterate do; she wouldn't go so far as to say he _dropped_ them; he slipped them, slided them; it was no more than a subtle slur, a delicate elision. And that only in the commoner words, the current coin of his world. He was as right as possible, she noticed, in all words whose acquaintance he had made on his own account. And his voice--his voice pleaded against her prejudice with all its lyric modulations. Much may be forgiven to such voices. And there were other points in his favour. Kitty was right. He was nice to look at. She was beginning to know the changes of his face; she liked it best when, as now, its features became suddenly subtle and serious and straight. At the moment his eyes, almost opaque from the thickness of their blue, were dull under the shadow of the eye-bone. But when he grew excited (as he frequently did) they had a way of clearing suddenly, they flashed first colour at you, then light, then fire. That was what they were doing now; for now he let himself go. His Helen, he said, was the eternal Beauty, the eternal Dream. Beauty perpetually desirous of incarnation, perpetually unfaithful to flesh and blood; the Dream that longs for the embrace of reality, that wanders never satisfied till it finds a reality as immortal as itself. Helen couldn't stay in the house of Theseus, or the house of Menelaus or the house of Priam. Theseus was a fool if he thought he would take her by force, and Paris was a fool if he thought he could keep her for pleasure; and Menelaus was the biggest fool of all if he expected her to bear him children and to mind his house. They all do violence to the divinity in her, and she vindicates it by eluding them. Her vengeance is the vengeance of an immortal made victim to mortality. Helen of Argos and Troy is the Dream divorced from reality. "Yes--yes. I see." She leaned back in her chair, fascinated, while the wonderful voice went on, covering its own offences with exquisite resonances and overtones. "This divorce is the cause of all the evil that can happen to men and women. Because of it Helen becomes an instrument in the hands of Aphrodite--Venus Genetrix--do you see? She's the marriage-breaker, the destroyer of men. She brings war and pestilence and death. She is the supreme illusion. But _Helen in Leuce_ is the true Helen. In Leuce, you know, she appears as she is, in her divine form, freed from the tyranny of perpetual incarnation. I can't explain it, but that's the idea. Don't you see how the chorus in praise of Aphrodite breaks off into a prayer for deliverance from her? And at the end I make Athene bring Helen to Achilles, who was her enemy in Troy.--That's part of the idea, too." "And Achilles?" "Achilles is strength, virility, indestructible _will_." It seemed that while trivial excitement corrupted, intense feeling purified his speech, and as he pronounced these words every accent was irreproachable. A lyric exaltation seemed to have seized him as it had seized him in the reading of Sophocles. "The idea is reconciliation, the wedding of the Dream to reality. I haven't made up my mind whether the last chorus will be the Epithalamium or the Hymn to Pallas Athene." He paused for reflection, and in reflection the lyric rapture died. He added pensively. "The 'Ymn, I think." Lucia averted her ardent gaze before the horror in his young blue eyes. They were the eyes of some wild winged creature dashed down from its soaring and frenzied by the fall. Lucia could have wept for him. "Then this," said she, feigning an uninterrupted absorption in the manuscript, "this is not what my cousin saw?" "No, h--he only saw the first draft of the two first Acts. It was horribly stiff and cold. He said it was classical; I don't know what he'd say it is now. I began it that way, and it finished itself this way, and then I re-wrote the beginning." "I see. I see. Something happened to you." As she spoke she still kept her eyes fixed on the manuscript, as if she were only reading what was written there. "You woke up--in the middle of the second Act, wasn't it?--and came to life. You heard the world--the real world--calling to you, and Helen and Achilles and all the rest of them turned to flesh and blood on your hands." "Yes," he said, "they were only symbols and I'd no notion what they meant till they left off meaning it." She looked from the manuscript to him. "You know in your heart you _must_ be certain of yourself. And yet--I suspect the trouble with you is that _your_ dream is divorced from reality." He stared in amazement at the young girl who thus interpreted him to herself. At this rate he saw no end to her powers of divination. There were depths in his life where her innocence could not penetrate, but she had seized on the essential. It had been as she had said. That first draft was the work of the young scholar poet, the adorer of classic form, the dreamer who found in his dreams escape from the grossness of his own lower nature and from the brutalities of the world he lived in. A great neo-classic drama was to be his protest against modernity and actuality. Then came an interval of a year in which he learnt many things that are not to be found in books, or adequately expressed through neo-classic drama; and the thing was finished and re-written at a time when, as she had said, something had happened to him; when that same gross actual world was making its claims felt through all his senses. And he was suffering now the deep melancholy of perspicuous youth, unable to part with its dreams but aware that its dreams are hopelessly divorced from reality. That was so; but how on earth did she know it? "It's hardly a divorce," he said, laughing. "I think it's separation by mutual consent." "That's a pity," said she, "life is so lovable." "I don't always find it either lovable or loving. But then it's life in a fifth-rate boarding-house in Bloomsbury--if you know what that is." She did not know what that was, and her silence suggested that she conceived it to be something too unpleasant to discuss with him. "I work eight hours a day in my father's shop--" "And when your work is done?" "I go back to the boarding-house and dine." "And after dinner?" Mr. Rickman became visibly embarrassed. "Oh, after dinner, there are the streets, and the theatres, and--and things." "Nothing else?" "Nothing. Except a club I belong to." "That's something, isn't it? You make friends." "I don't know anybody in it, except Mr. Jewdwine; and I don't really know him. It's the shop, you know. You forget the shop." "No I don't forget it; but I wish you would. If only you could get away from it, away from everything. If you could get away from London altogether for a while." "If--if? I shall never get away." "Why not? I've been thinking it over. I wonder whether things could not be made a little easier for you? You ought to make your peace with the world, you know. Supposing you could go and live where the world happens to be beautiful, in Rome or Florence or Venice, wouldn't that reconcile you to reality?" "It might. But I don't see how I'm to go and live there. You see there's the shop. There always is the shop." "Would it be impossible to leave it for a little while?" "Not impossible, perhaps; but"--he smiled, "well--highly imprudent." "But if something else were open to you?" "Nothing else is, at present. Most doors seem closed pretty tight except the one marked Tradesmen's Entrance." "You can't 'arrive' by that." "Not, I admit, with any dignity. My idea was to walk up the steps--there are a great many steps, I know--to the big front door and keep on knocking at it till they let me in." "I'm afraid the front door isn't always open very early in the day. But there may be side doors." "I don't know where to find them. And if I did, they would be bolted, too." "Not the one I am thinking of. Would you like to go abroad, to Italy?" "There are a great many things I should like to do, and not the remotest chance of doing them." "Supposing that you got the chance, some way--even if it wasn't quite the best way--would you take it?" "The chance? I wish I saw one!" "I think I told you I was going abroad to join my father. We shall be in Italy for some time. When we are settled, in Rome, for the winter, I shall want a secretary. I'm thinking of editing my grandfather's unpublished writings, and I can't do this without a scholar's help. It struck me that if you want to go abroad, and nothing better turns up, you might care to take this work for a year. For the sake of seeing Italy." Seeing Italy? Italy that he had once desired with all his heart to see. And now it was nothing to him that he would see Italy; the point was that he would see her. Talk of open doors! It was dawning on him that the door of heaven was being opened to him. He could say nothing. He leaned forward staring at his own loosely clasped hands. She mistook his silence for hesitation, and it was her turn to become diffident and shy. "The salary would not be very large, I'm afraid--" The salary? He smiled. She had opened the door of heaven for him and she actually proposed to pay him for walking in! "But there would be no expenses, and you would have space and time. I should not want your help for more than three or four hours in the morning. After that you would be absolutely free." And still he said nothing. But the fine long nervous hands tortured each other in their clasp. So this was what came of keeping up the farce? "Of course," she said, "you must think it over." "Miss Harden, I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what to say." "Don't say anything. Think." "I don't know what to think." But he was thinking hard; trying to realize where he was and what was being proposed to him. To have entertained the possibility of such a proposal in the middle of last week would have argued that he was drunk. And here he was indubitably, conspicuously sober. Sober? Well, not exactly. He ought never to have taken that little cup of black coffee! Was there any difference between drinking champagne with Miss Poppy Grace and drinking coffee with Lucia Harden, when the effect was so indistinguishably the same? Or rather, for completeness and splendour of hallucination there was no comparison. He was drunk, drunk as he had never been drunk before, most luminously, most divinely intoxicated with that little cup of black coffee. And yet her scheme was entirely in keeping with that ideal and fantastic world he lived in; a world which in the last six days had yet, for him, the illusion of reality. He was aware that it _was_ illusion. An illusion which she blindly shared. He was overcome by the appalling extent of his knowledge and her ignorance. She thought she was rich; he knew that she was in all probability poor. She thought a hundred a year (or thereabouts) an insignificant sum; he knew that before long she might have less than that to live on. She thought herself at the present moment a wise and understanding woman. He knew that she was a child. A child playing with its own beautiful imagination. He wondered how much of him she understood. Should he tell her that she did not understand him at all; that she was engaging as her private secretary a young man who drank, who was quite shockingly drunk no longer ago than the middle of last week; a young man who was an intimate friend of a lady whom it was impossible to describe accurately in her presence? Or did she understand him better than he understood himself? Had she, with her child's innocence, the divine lucidity of a child? Did she fail to realize his baser possibilities because they were the least real part of him? Or was she, in this, ideal and fantastic too? Whichever it was, her fascination was so persuasive that he found himself yielding to her proposal as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He accepted it as humbly, as gratefully, as gravely, as if it were a thing actually in her power to bestow. If he could have suspected her of any intention to patronize him, he could not have resented it, knowing as he did its pathetic impotence. "I know it isn't the best way," she said, "but it _is_ a way. "It's a glorious way." "I don't know about the glory. But you will see Florence and Venice and Rome, and they are glorious." Yes, he would see them, if she said so. Why not? In this ideal and fantastic world, could any prospect be more ideal and fantastic than another? "And you will have plenty of time to yourself. You will be a great deal alone. Too much alone perhaps. You must think of that. It might really be better for you to stay in London where you are beginning to make friends." Was she trying to break it to him as gently, as delicately as possible that there would be no intimacy between him and her? That as her private secretary his privacy would be painfully unbroken? She saw it and corrected herself. "Friends, I mean, who may be able to help you more. You must choose between the two advantages. It will be a complete break with your old life." "That would be the best thing that could happen to me." This time she did not see. "Well--don't be in a hurry. There isn't any hurry. Remember, it means a whole year out of your life." A whole year out of his life? Was that the way she looked at it? Yes. She was giving him his chance; but she did not conceive herself to be giving him anything more. She understood him sufficiently to trust him; her insight went so far and no farther. She actually believed that there could be a choice for him between seeing her every day for a whole year and never seeing her again. Evidently she had not the remotest conception of his state of mind. He doubted whether it could have occurred to her to allow for the possibility of her private secretary falling in love with her in the innermost privacy of his secretaryship. He saw that hers was not the order of mind that entertains such possibilities on an intimate footing. She was generous, large-sighted; he understood that she would let herself be carried away on the superb sweep of the impersonal, reckless of contingencies. He also understood that with this particular private secretary she would consider herself safe. The social difference was as much her protection as some preposterous incompatibility of age. And as if that were not enough, in their thoughts they were so akin that she might feel herself guarded from him by some law of spiritual consanguinity. "Oh, my life--" he said with a queer short laugh that sounded like a sob,--"well, I must be getting back to my work." "You are _not_ going to work again to-night?" "I must." Yet he did not get up to go. He seemed to be waiting to say something. "I--I haven't thanked you. I don't know how to." "Don't try. I've done nothing. There is little that one person can do for another." "There's something that you might do for me--some day--if I might ask--if you would." "What is that?" She followed his gaze as it travelled into the depth of the room beyond the circle of the lamp-light, where the grand piano stood. Its keyboard shone in an even band of white, its massive body merged in the gleaming darkness. "If you would play to me--some day." "I will play to you with pleasure." Her voice sounded as if she were breathing more freely; perhaps she had wondered what on earth he was going to say. "Now, if you like." Why not? If she had enjoyed his music, had he not a right to enjoy hers? Why should she not give him that little pleasure, he who had so few? "What shall I play?" "I should like to hear that thing you were playing the other night." "Let me think. Oh, the Sonata Appassionata." "Yes, if it isn't too late." The moment he had said it he reflected that that was a scruple that might have been better left to the lady. He watched her grey-white figure departing into the dusk of the room. He longed to follow, but some fear restrained him. He remained where he was, leaning back in the deep chair under the lamp while she sat down there in the dusk, playing to him the Sonata Appassionata. The space around the lamp grew dim to him; she had gathered into herself all the whiteness of the flame; the music was a part of her radiance, it was the singing of her pulses, the rhythm of her breath. When she had stopped playing he rose and held out his hand to say good-night. "Thank you. I don't think so badly of my life now. You've given me one perfect moment." "Are you so fond of music?" She was about to ring when he prevented her. "Please don't ring. I can find my way. I'd rather." She judged that he desired to keep the perfection of his moment unimpaired. She understood his feeling about it, for the Sonata Appassionata is a most glorious and moving composition, and she had played it well. It was true that he desired to be alone; and he took advantage of his solitude to linger in the picture gallery. He went down the double row of portraits that began with Sir Thomas, the maker of madrigals, and ended with Sir Frederick, the father of Lucia. He paused at each, searching for Lucia's likeness in the likeness of those dead and gone gentlemen and ladies; gentlemen with grave and intellectual faces, some peevish, others proud (rather like Jewdwine), ladies with faces joyous, dreamy, sad, voluptuous, tender and insipid, faces alike only in their indestructible racial distinction. Lucia had taken nothing from them but what was beautiful and fine; hers was the deep-drawn unconscious beauty of the race; beauty of flesh and blood purified, spiritualized in its passage through the generations, beauty that gives the illusion of eternity, being both younger and older than the soul. It was as if Nature had become Art in the making of Lucia, forming her by the subtlest processes of selection and rejection. Having gone the round of the gallery, he paused before the modern portraits which brought him again to the door of the drawing-room. Sir Frederick held him with his joyous satyr-face, for it was curiously, incredibly like his daughter's (to be sure, Sir Frederick had blue eyes and reddish hair, which made a difference). His eyebrows had a far-off hint of her; she lingered in the tilted corners of his mouth and eyes. And if there could be any likeness between a thing so gross and a thing so spiritual, his upper lip took a sweep that suggested Lucia's with its long-drawn subtle curve. He was startled out of these reflections by the opening of the door. Lucia stood beside him. She had a lamp in her hand which she raised for an instant, so that the light fell full upon the portrait. Her own face appeared as if illuminated from within by the flaming spirit of love. "That is my father," she said simply, and passed on. He looked again at the portrait, but the likeness had vanished. In the frank sensuality of Sir Frederick's crimson smirk he could find no affinity to Lucia's grave and tender smile. "There are some things," he said to himself, "that she could never see." CHAPTER XXV If Lucia was not, as her father had pronounced her, the worst educated young woman in Europe, there was a sense (not intended by Sir Frederick) in which her education might be called incomplete. She had learnt the things that she liked, and she had left unlearnt the things that she did not like. It was the method of discreet skipping; and it answered so well in the world of books that she had applied it to the world of men and women. She knew the people she liked, and she left unknown those whom she did not like. Here in Harmouth her peculiar art or instinct of selection earned for her, as Kitty Palliser had lately told her, the character of exclusiveness. This, by the way was family tradition again. From time immemorial there had been a certain well-recognized distance between Court House and the little Georgian town. And when Harmouth was discovered by a stock-broker and became a watering-place, and people began to talk about Harmouth society, Court House remained innocently unaware that anything of the sort existed. Lucia selected her friends elsewhere with such supreme fastidiousness that she could count them on the fingers of one hand, her instinct, like all great natural gifts, being entirely spontaneous and unconscious. And now it seemed she had added Mr. Savage Keith Rickman to the list. She owned quite frankly that in spite of everything she liked him. But Rickman was right. Lucia with all her insight had not the remotest conception of his state of mind. The acquaintance had arisen quite naturally out of her desire to please Horace, and if on this there supervened a desire to please Mr. Rickman, there was not a particle of vanity in it. She had no thought of being Mr. Rickman's inspiration; her attitude to his genius was humbly reverent, her attitude to his manhood profoundly unconscious. She had preserved a most formidable innocence. There had been nothing in Horace Jewdwine's slow and well-regulated courtship to stir her senses, or give her the smallest inkling of her own power that way. Kitty's suggestion seemed to her preposterous; it was only the Kittishness of Kitty, and could have no possible application to herself. All this was not humility on her part--nothing of the sort. So far from being humble, Miss Lucia Harden held the superb conviction that any course she adopted was consecrated by her adoption. It was as if she had been aware that her nature was rich, and that she could afford to do what other women couldn't; "there were ways," she would say, "of doing them." And in Mr. Savage Keith Rickman she had divined a nature no less generously gifted. He could afford to take what she could afford to offer; better still, he would take just so much and no more. With some people certain possibilities were moral miracles; and her instinct told her that this man's mind was incapable of vulgar misconception. She was safe with him. These things she pondered during that brief time when Rickman lingered in the portrait gallery. He saw her again that night for yet another moment. Lucia was called back into the picture gallery by the voice of Kitty Palliser, whose return coincided with his departure. Kitty, from the safe threshold of the drawing-room, looked back after his retreating figure. "Poor darling, he has dressed himself with care." "He always does. He has broken every literary convention." Lucia drew Kitty into the room and shut the door. "Has he been trying any more experiments in diminished friction on polished surfaces?" "No; there was a good deal more repose about him after you left. The friction was decidedly diminished. What do you think of him?" "Oh, I rather like the way he drops his aitches. It gives a pathetic piquancy to his conversation." "Don't Kitty." "I won't. But, after all, how do we know that this young man is not a fraud?" "How do we know anything?" "Oh, if you're going to be metaphysical, _I_'m off to my little bed." "Not yet, Kitty. Sit down and toast your toes. I want to talk to you." "All right, fire away." But Lucia hesitated; Kitty was in an unpropitious mood. "What do you think I've done?" she said. Kitty's green eyes danced merrily; but in spite of their mockery Lucia told her tale. "It was the best I could do," said she. Kitty's eyes had left off dancing. "Lucia, you _can't_. It's impossible. You must _not_ go on being so kind to people. Remember, dear, if he is a heaven-born genius, he's not--he really _is_ not a gentleman." "I know. I've thought of that. But if he isn't a gentleman, he isn't the other thing. He's something by himself. "I admit he's a genius, but--he drops his aitches." "He doesn't drop half as many as he did. He only does it when he's flustered. And I won't let him be flustered. I shall be very kind to him." "Oh," groaned Kitty, "there's no possible doubt about that." "On the whole I think I'm rather glad he isn't a gentleman. He would be much more likely to get in my way if he were. I don't believe this little man would get in my way. He's got eyes at the back of his head, and nerves all over him; he'd see in a minute when I didn't want him. He'd see it before I did, and be off." "You don't know. You might have to be very unpleasant to him before you said good-bye." "No, I should never have to be unpleasant to him; because he would know that would be very unpleasant for me." "All this might mean that he was a gentleman; but I'm afraid it only means that he's a genius." "Genius of that sort," said Lucia, "comes to very much the same thing." And Kitty reluctantly admitted that it did. She sat silent for some minutes gazing into the fire. "Lucia, does it never occur to you that in your passion for giving pleasure you may be giving a great deal of pain?" "It doesn't occur to me that I'm giving either in this case; and it will not occur to him. He knows I'm only giving him his chance. I owe it him. Kitty--when you only think what I've done. I've taken this wonderful, beautiful, delicate thing and set it down to the most abominable drudgery for three weeks. No wonder he was depressed. And I took his Easter from him--Kitty--think--his one happy breathing-time in the whole hateful year." "Whitsuntide and Christmas yet remain." "They're not at all the same thing." "That's you, Lucy, all over; you bagged his Bank Holiday, and you think you've got to give him a year in Italy to make up." "Not altogether to make up." "Well, I don't know what to say. There's no doubt you can do a great many things other women can't; still, it certainly seems a risky thing to do." "How risky?" "I don't want to be coarse, but--I'm not humbugging this time--supposing, merely supposing--he falls in love with you, what then?" "But he won't." "How do you know?" "Because he's in love already, in love with perfection." "But as he'll be sure to identify perfection with you--" "He will see very little of me." "Then he's all the more likely to." "Kitty, _am_ I the sort of woman who allows that sort of thing to happen--with that sort of man?" "My dear, you're the sort of woman who treats men as if they were disembodied spirits, and that's the most dangerous sort I know. If I'm not mistaken Mr. Savage Keith Rickman's spirit is very much embodied." "What _is_ the good of trying to make me uncomfortable when it's all settled? I can't go back on my word." "No, I suppose you've got to stick to it. Unless, of course, your father interferes." "Father never interferes. Did you ever know him in his life refuse me anything I wanted?" "I can't say I ever did." Kitty's tone intimated that perhaps it would have been better if he sometimes had. "Still, Sir Frederick objects strongly to people who interfere with him, and he may not care to have the young Savage poet, or poet Savage, hanging about." "Father? He won't mind a bit. He says he's going to take part of the Palazzo Barberini for six months. It's big enough to hold fifty poets." "Not big enough to hold one like Mr. Savage Keith Rickman." Kitty rose to her feet; she stood majestic, for the spirit of prophecy was upon her; she gathered herself together for the deliverance of her soul. "You say he won't be in the way. He will. He'll be most horribly in the way. He'll go sliding and falling all over the place, and dashing cups of coffee on the marble floor of the Palazzo; he'll wind his feet in the tails of your best gowns, not out of any malice, but in sheer nervous panic; he'll do unutterable things with soup--I can see him doing them." "I can't." "No. I know you can't. I don't say you've no imagination; but I _do_ say you're deficient in a certain kind of profane fancy." CHAPTER XXVI It was extraordinary; if he had given himself time to reflect on it he might even have considered it uncanny, the peace that had settled on him with regard to the Harden Library. It remained absolutely unshaken by the growing agitation of his father's letters. Isaac wrote reproachfully, irritably, frantically, and received only the briefest, most unsatisfactory replies. "I can't tell you anything more than I have. But I wouldn't be in a hurry to make any arrangements with Pilkington, if I were you." Not the smallest reference to the Aldine Plato, the Neapolitan Horace or the _Aurea Legenda_ of Wynkyn de Worde. Why indeed should he trouble himself? He couldn't understand his father's state of mind. He had now a positive intuition that Sir Frederick would recover in the manner of a gentleman whose motto was _Invictus_; an infinite assurance was conveyed by that tilted faun-like smile. He even found himself believing in his own delightful future as Miss Harden's private secretary, so entirely had he submitted to the empire of divine possibility. Meanwhile he redoubled his attentions to the catalogue. (Could there be anything more unreasonable than that catalogue _raisonné_?) He had frequently got up and worked at it for an hour or two before breakfast, lifted out of bed by the bounding of his heart. But whereas he had been in the habit of leaving it at any time between nine o'clock and midnight, he now sat up with it till the small hours of the morning. This extreme devotion was necessary if he was to finish it by the twenty-seventh. It was now the fifteenth. He had told Miss Harden that he could work better by himself, and apparently she had taken him at his word; she had left him to finish the catalogue alone. As it happened he didn't work a bit better by himself. What with speculating on the chance of her appearing, listening for her voice and her footsteps on the stairs, or the distant sound of her playing, to say nothing of his desperate efforts not to stare out of the windows when he knew her to be in the garden, Lucia absent was even more disturbing than Lucia on the spot. He tried to console himself with the reflection that she was no longer overworking herself; and herein appeared the great purity and self-abnegation of Mr. Rickman's love. Rather than see her making herself ill, he was actually manoeuvring so as not to see her at all. He kept his vigils secret, having a suspicion that if she heard of them she would insist on returning to her hideous task. To this end he devised an ingenious system of deceit. He left off work for an hour every afternoon, alleging his need of air and exercise. He then asked permission to sit up a little later than usual by way of making good the time thus lost. He knew that by eleven the lights would be out, and Lucia and the servants all in bed. He demanded black coffee to keep him awake and the key of the side door to let himself out. All on the understanding that he would leave the house by half-past eleven or twelve at the latest. He could thus put in a good five hours extra without any one being any the wiser; and four o'clock would find Mr. Rickman stealing back to his hotel over the grey and dewy grass. For three days and three nights love's miraculous energy sustained him. On the fourth night he was overcome by a slight fatigue, and at one o'clock he lay down on the hearth rug to sleep, registering in his brain his intention to wake punctually at two. And for three days and three nights Lucia hardly gave a thought to Mr. Rickman. She was busy with preparations for her departure, trying to see as much of Kitty Palliser as possible, and thinking a great deal of that adorable father whom she would meet on the twenty-seventh. Lucia's room, as Mr. Rickman knew, was in the west wing, over the south-west end of the library, and from her window she could see the pale yellow green shaft of light that Mr. Rickman's lamp flung across the lawn. The clock on the stable belfry struck the hours one by one, and Lucia, fast asleep, never knew that the shaft of light lay there until the dawn. On the fourth night, the night of Thursday, the fifteenth, Lucia did not sleep so well. She dreamed, but her dreams were too light and transparent to veil the reality that lay on the waking side of them. Three times that night she started on her journey to Cannes, three times she missed her train, and three times she said to herself, "It's only a dream, so of course it doesn't matter." When, after prodigious efforts extending over interminable time, she found herself on Harmouth platform, shuddering in her nightgown before a whole train full of people, she was not in the least disconcerted, because of her perception of that reality behind her dream; no, not even when Mr. Rickman appeared just as she was saying to herself, "It doesn't matter. This is only the fifteenth and I don't really start till the twenty-sixth." His presence was so transparent, so insubstantial, that it didn't seem to matter either. He said, "Miss 'Arden, you've made a miscalculation. You must start this minute if you're to be there in time." His statement seemed to her to be founded on some solid reality; but when she asked him what he was doing there, he spoilt it all by saying that as private secretary he was in charge of the expedition. By that, and by something unnatural and absurd in his appearance, she knew that she was dreaming. Then, for more time than she could measure, she lay watching herself dream, with a curious sense of being able to foretell and control the fantastic procession of events. And now she was aware of something that moved with their movement, a trouble or a terror that hovered out there, not on the waking border but in the region of reality that lay on the other side. Almost discernible behind the transparent insubstantial walls of sleep, it waited to break through them and invade her dream. For refuge from it she plunged deeper into her dream. She came out walking on a terrace of grey grass set with strange clusters of swords, sharp-pointed and double-edged. Tall grey trees shot up into a grey white sky; they were coated with sharp scales, grey and toothed like the scales of a shark's skin; and some bore yet more swords for branches, slender and waving swords; and some, branchless, were topped with heads of curled scimitars, the blades pointing downwards. All these scaly, spiky, two-edged things stood out piercing and distinct against the grey; and she knew that they were aloes and palm-trees, and that she had come to the end of her journey and was walking in the garden of the Villa des Palmes. And the thing she dreaded was still waiting a little way beyond the garden, beyond the insubstantial walls; it was looking for her, crying after her, it stretched out its arms to draw her from her sleep. A little twilight wind came creeping over the grey grass, it covered her feet like water, it rose higher and higher above the sword points of the aloes, and she sank in it and floated, floated and sank. And now it tossed and rolled and shook the palm-trees till all their blades rattled like steel; and beyond the wind she heard the calling of the thing she feared, the thing that had hunted her from dream to dream. She feared it no longer; she too was looking and crying; all her desire was to find what she had feared; to answer it, to see it face to face. Her body was clasped tight by the arms of the wind; yet her yearning was so strong that she struggled with them and flung them from her, breaking through the bonds and barriers of sleep. Lucia was awake and accounting for her dream. The weather had changed in the night, and a cold wind was rushing through the open window on to her bed. She had been lying with her feet uncovered, and the bed-clothes heaped on to her chest. She had been waked by the rattling of a loosened lattice in the room below. She got out of bed and looked out of the window. There was a vast movement in the sky, as if the darkness were being visibly upheaved and rolled away westwards by the wind. Over the garden was the dense grey blackness of an obliterated dawn. The trees, not yet detached from the ground of night, showed like monstrous skeletons of the whole immense body of gloom, while the violent rocking of their branches made them one with that dark and wandering tumult of cloud and wind. The shaft of light no longer lay upon the lawn; Mr. Rickman's lamp was out; therefore, she argued, Mr. Rickman had gone; having, in the recklessness of his genius, forgotten to close the library windows. One of the west windows creaked and crashed by turns as it swung heavily in its leaded frame. Lucia put on her dressing gown and slippers, threw a light shawl about her shoulders, and went down to fasten the lattice. A small swinging lamp gave light to the hall and staircase. A gleam followed her into the library; it lay in a pool behind her, its thin stream lost in the blackness of the floor. She could distinguish nothing in the room but the three dim white busts on their dusky pedestals. Behind the latticework the window panes were like chequered sheets of liquid twilight let down over the face of the night. The wind held the open lattice backwards, and she had some difficulty in reaching the hasp. A shallow gust ran over the floor, chilling her half-naked feet. As she leaned out on the sill a great fear came over her, the fear that had always possessed her in childhood at the coming and passing of the night. As she struggled with the lattice, she had a sense of pulling it against some detaining hand. It swung slowly round and the figure of a man slid with it side-long, and stood behind it looking in. The figure seemed to lean forward out of the darkness; its face, pressed close against the panes, was vivid, as if seen in a strong daylight. She saw the flame of its red moustache and hair, the flicker of its faun-like tilted smile. Its eyes were fixed piercingly on hers. It stood so for the space of six heart-beats. The window slipped from her hand and swung back on its hinges. The cloud was heaved from the edges of the world, and face and figure were wiped out by the great grey sweep of the dawn. Lucia (strangely as it seemed to her afterwards) was not startled by the apparition, but by the aspect of the world it had appeared in. She stood motionless, as if afraid of waking her own fear; she caught the lattice, drew it towards her and deliberately secured it by the hasp. She turned with relief from the terrible twilight of the windows to the darkness of the room. She crossed it with slow soft footsteps, lest she should give her terror the signal to pursue. There was a slight stir on the hearth as a mound of ashes sank and broke asunder, opening its dull red heart. Lucia turned in the direction of the sound, came forward and saw that she was not alone. Stretched on the rug in front of the fireplace with his feet towards her lay Mr. Rickman. Her first feeling was of relief, protection, deliverance. She stood looking at him, finding comfort in the sheer corporeality of his presence. But as she looked at him that emotion merged in concern for Mr. Rickman himself. He lay on his back in a deep sleep; one arm was flung above his head, the hand brushing back his damp hair; his forehead was beaded with the thick sweat of exhaustion. He must have been lying so for hours, having dropped off to sleep when the night was still warm. He had thrown back his coat and loosened his shirt-collar, and lay undefended from the draught that raked the floor. The window at this end of the room had been left open too, and the fire was almost dead. Lucia looked doubtfully at the window. She knew its ways; it sagged on its hinges and was not to be shut without the grating shriek of iron upon stone. She looked, still more doubtfully, at Mr. Rickman. His face in the strange light showed white and sharp and pathetically refined. And as she looked her heart was filled with compassion for the helpless sleeper. She moved very softly to the fireplace, where an oak chest stood open stored with wood; she gathered the embers together and laid on them a few light logs. The first log dropped through the ashes to the hearth, and Mr. Rickman heaved a deep sigh and turned on his side. Lucia knelt there motionless, till his breathing assured her that he still slept. With swift noiseless movements she went on building up the dying fire. The wood crackled; a little flame leapt up, and Mr. Rickman opened his eyes. For a moment he kept them open, fixed in sleepy wonder on the woman who knelt beside him by the hearth. He was obscurely aware that it was Lucia Harden, but his wonder was free from the more vivid and disturbing element of surprise; for he had been dreaming about her and was still under the enchantment of his dream. Never had she seemed more beautiful to him. Her head was bowed, her face turned from him and shaded by her hair; and with her hands she tended a dying flame. Her shawl had slipped from her shoulders, and he saw the delicate curve of her body as she knelt; it was overlaid by her hair that fell to her hips in a loose flat braid. He closed his eyes again, feigning abysmal sleep. He kept guard over his breath, over his eyelids, lest a tremor should startle her into shame-faced flight. Yet he knew that she had risen and that her face was set towards him; that she turned from him and then paused in her going; that she looked at the fire again to make sure of its burning, and at him to make sure of his sleep (so intently that she never noticed the white thing which had slipped from her shoulders as she stood upright); that she stooped to draw his coat more closely over him. He heard the flowing of her gown, and saw without seeing her feet shining as she went from him. And his desire went after her, and the mere bodiless idea of her became a torment to his body as it had been a joy to his soul. He took up her shawl which lay there by the hearth and looked at it; he stroked it, unfolded it, spread it out and looked at it again; he held it to his face; its whiteness and its tender texture were as flame to his sight and touch, the scarcely perceptible scent of it pierced him like a delicate pain. He gathered it up again in a heap and covered it with kisses. Then, because it made his longing for her insupportable, he flung it back, that innocent little white shawl, as if shaking off her touch and her presence. He rose to his feet and ramped up and down the room savagely, like a wild animal in a cage. With every thought of Lucia his torment returned upon him. He tried to think of the whiteness and the beauty of her soul, and he could think of nothing but the whiteness of her face and the beauty of her bending body. He sat down, stretched his arms on the table and laid his miserable head upon them, all among the pages of the catalogue _raisonné_. He had passed from his agony of desire to an agony of contrition. He felt that the very vehemence of his longing was an affront to her white unconsciousness Up till now he had not admitted that he was "in love" with Lucia; he was indeed hardly aware of it. He imagined his feeling for her to be something altogether immaterial and incorruptible. It now seemed to him that in the last few minutes he had lowered it almost to the level of the emotion inspired by Miss Poppy Grace. It was not, and it never could be, what it had been three weeks ago. Why, he could not even recall his sensations of Easter Sunday, that strange renewal of his heart's virginity his first vague imperfect vision of the dawn of love, his joy when he discerned its tender and mysterious approach. He knew that it held no rights, or held them only on the most subtle and uncertain tenure, that his soul touched the soul of Lucia Harden by the extreme tips of its wings stretched to the utmost. Still his passion for her had been, so far, satisfied by that difficult and immaterial relationship. He was bound to her by an immaterial, intangible link. But he had put an end to that relationship; he had broken the immaterial, intangible link. It was as if he had given a body to some delicate and spiritual dream, and destroyed it in a furious embrace. And in destroying it he had destroyed everything. Then he reflected that though this deed seemed to belong wholly to the present moment, it had in reality been done a long time before, when he first became the slave of that absurd and execrable passion for Miss Poppy Grace. Rickman the poet had believed in Love, the immortal and invincible, the highest of high divinities, and as such had celebrated him in song. But he had been unfortunate in his first actual experience of him. He had found him, not "pacing Heaven's golden floor," but staggering across Miss Grace's drawing-room, a most offensive, fifth-rate, disreputable little god. Of course he knew it wasn't the same thing, it wasn't the same thing at all. But he was bound by his past. He had forged a chain of infamous but irresistible association that degraded love in his eyes, that in his thoughts degraded _her_. Every hour that he had spent in the little dancer's society had its kindred with this hour. In his passion for Lucia Harden there leapt up the passion of that night--that night three weeks ago. It was then--then--that he had sinned against her. He had not meant--he had not meant to love her--like that. And yet he perceived how all along, unremittently, imperceptibly, this passion had waylaid him and misled him and found him out. It was it that had drawn him every morning across the fields to Court House, that upheld him on his giddy perch on the library steps, that chained him to his chair at the library table and kept him sweating over that abominable catalogue till four o'clock in the morning. It had looked at him with so pure and spiritual a face that he had not recognized it. But how otherwise could he have stayed here for three weeks, fooling with that unlucky conscience of his; persuading it one minute that he had nothing to do with Miss Harden, and that her father's affairs were no business of his, the next that they were so much his business that he was bound not to betray them; while as for Miss Harden, he had so much to do with her that it was his duty to stay where he was and protect her? He had had absolutely no duty in the matter except to tell her the truth and clear out. Telling the truth--it ought to have been easy for him who was so truthful, so passionately sincere. And yet almost anything would have been easier, for the next step to telling the truth was going away. Of course he had suffered in staying, but he would have suffered anything rather than go. It had been so insidious. His feet had been caught in a net so fine that he had thought it woven of the hairs split by an exceedingly acute and subtle conscience. He should have stood still and snapt them one by one; but he had struggled, until he was so entangled that he could not get out. And now he perceived that the net which seemed so fine was the strong net woven by desire. All his subtle reasonings, his chivalry, his delicacy, his sincerity itself, could be reduced to this simple and contemptible element. Positively, his whole character, as he now contemplated it seemed to slip away from him and dissolve in the irresistible stream, primeval, monstrous, indestructible. The horror of his position returned upon him, the burden of his knowledge and her ignorance. If only she knew, if only he could go to her and tell her everything, all that he knew and all that he guessed! He was still firm in his conviction that he had no moral right to his knowledge; it was a thing he almost seemed to have come by dishonestly. If Miss Harden knew nothing of her father's affairs, it was to be presumed that they had been purposely kept from her to save her pain. He had no right to tell her. No matter, he would tell her, he would tell her this morning, and having told her, he would go away. He got up and paced to and fro again. He stood before the open window till he had chilled himself through; then he came back and cowered over the fire. A white thing lay by the hearth at his feet, it was Lucia Harden's shawl, lying crumpled where he had thrown it. It was the sign and symbol of her presence there. It was also the proof of it. How would she feel if she knew that he had been aware of it all the time? The fact remained that she had risked his waking; there was comfort for him in that. She had always been kind to him, and he had never had even a momentary illusion as to the source and the nature of her kindness. He had taken it, as he had taken her extreme courtesy, for the measure of the distance that divided them. It showed her secure in her detachment, her freedom from any intimate thought of him, from any thought of him at all. But in this last act of kindness it could hardly be that she had not taken him into consideration. She could hardly have been pleased if she knew he had been awake, yet she had risked his waking. Before she risked it she must have credited him with something of her own simplicity of soul. And this was how he had repaid her. He saw her as she had knelt by him, mending the dying fire, as she had stood looking at him, as she had stooped over him to cover him, and as she had turned away; and he saw himself, sinning as he had sinned against her in his heart. He knew perfectly well that the average man would have felt no compunction whatever upon this head. To the average man his imagination (if he has any) is an unreal thing; to Rickman it was the most real thing about him. It was so young, and in its youth so ungovernably creative, that it flung out its ideas, as it were, alive and kicking. It was only partially true of him that his dream was divorced from reality. For with him the phantoms of the mind (which to the average man are merely phantoms), projected themselves with a bodily vividness and violence. Not only had they the colour and authority of accomplished fact, they were invested with an immortality denied to facts. His imagination was in this so far spiritual that it perceived desire to be the eternal soul of the deed, and the deed to be but the perishing body of desire. From this point of view, conduct may figure as comparatively unimportant; therefore this point of view is very properly avoided by the average man. Rickman, now reduced to the last degree of humility and contrition, picked up Lucia's shawl very gently and reverently, and folded it with care, smoothing out the horrid creases he had made in it. He took it to the other end of the room and laid it over the back of her chair, so that it might look to Robert as if his mistress had left it there. Would he see her again that morning? That depended on the amount of work that remained for her to do. He looked over her table; her tray was empty, the slips were pinned together in bundles in the way he had taught her, Section XII, Poetry, was complete. There was nothing now to keep her in the library. And he had only ten days' work to do. He might see her once or twice perhaps on those days; but she would not sit with him, nor work with him, and when the ten days were over she would go away and he would never see her again. Then he remembered that he had got to tell her and go away himself, at once, this very morning. Meanwhile he sat down and worked till it was time to go back to his hotel. He worked mechanically, miserably, oppressed alike by his sense of his own villainy and of the futility of his task. He did not know how, when it was ended, he was to take up this kind of work again. He had only been kept up by his joy in her presence, and in her absence by the hope of her return. But he could not bear to look into a future in which she had no part. CHAPTER XXVII He found a letter from Dicky Pilkington waiting for him at the hotel. Dicky's subtlety seemed to have divined his scruples, for he gave him the information he most wanted in terms whose terseness left very little room for uncertainty. "Look sharp," wrote Dicky, "and let me know if you've made up your great mind about that library. If Freddy Harden doesn't pay up I shall have to put my men in on the twenty-seventh. Between you and me there isn't the ghost of a chance for Freddy. I hear the unlucky devil's just cleaned himself out at Monte Carlo." The twenty-seventh? It was the day when Miss Harden was to join her father at Cannes. The coincidence of dates was significant; it amounted to proof. It meant that Sir Frederick must have long anticipated the catastrophe, and that he had the decency to spare her the last painful details. She would not have to witness the invasion of the Vandals, the overturning of the household gods, and the defilement of their sacred places. Well, he thought bitterly, they couldn't be much more defiled than they were already. He saw himself as an abominable object, a thing with a double face and an unclean and aitchless tongue, sitting there from morning to night, spying, calculating, appraising, with a view to fraud. At least that was how she would think of him when she knew; and he had got to tell her. He was on the rack again; and the wonder was how he had ever left it. It seemed to him that he could never have been long released at any time. He had had moments of comparative ease, when he could lie on it at one end of the room and see Lucia sitting at the other, and the sight of her must have soothed his agony. He had had moments of forgetfulness, of illusion, when he had gone to sleep on the rack, and had dreamed the most delicious dreams, moments even of deliverance, when his conscience, exhausted with the sheer effort of winding, had dropped to sleep too. And then had come the reckless moments, when he had yielded himself wholly to the delight of her presence; and that supreme instant when his love for Lucia seemed to have set him free. And now it was love itself, furiously accusing, that flung him back upon the torture, and stretched him out further than he had been stretched before. But Dicky's letter had to be answered at once. He settled Dicky for the present by reminding him that nothing could be done by either of them till the twenty-seventh. But he thought that if Sir Frederick or any of his family were unable to pay up, there ought to be no difficulty in arranging with his father. To his father he sent a word of warning. "For Goodness' sake don't commit yourself with Pilkington until you see me. I shall probably be back in town to-morrow afternoon!" Having settled Dicky, he breakfasted, bathed, was a little long over his dressing, taking care that nothing in his appearance should suggest the dishevelled person of the dawn. Thus he was rather later than usual in presenting himself at the library. He found Miss Harden there at his end of the table, with his note-book, busy over his pile and engaged in finishing his Section--Philosophy. Her clear and candid eyes greeted him without a shadow of remembrance. She had always this air of accepting him provisionally, for the moment only, as if her kindness had no springs in the past and could promise nothing for the future. He had always found this manner a little distressing, and it baffled him completely now. Still, in another minute he would have to tell her, whatever her manner or her mood. "Miss Harden," he began, "you've been so awfully good to me, there's something that I want most awfully to say to you." "Well, say it." But there was that in her tone which warned him not to be too long about it. "It's something I ought to have said--to have confessed--ages ago--" "Oh no, really Mr. Rickman, if it's a confession, you mustn't do it now. We shall never finish at this rate." "When may I?" "Some time in the afternoon, perhaps." Her smile, which was exceedingly subtle, disconcerted him inexpressibly. She turned at once to the business of the day. The question was whether he would begin on a new section, or finish this one with her, writing at her dictation? He too was calm, business-like, detached. He strangled a happy smile which suggested that her question was absurd. To start a new section was to work gloomily by himself, at some distant quarter of the room; to write to her dictation was to be near her, soothed by her voice and made forgetful by her eyes. Hypocritically he feigned a minute's reflection, as if it were a matter for hesitation and for choice. "Wouldn't you find it less tiring if I read and you wrote?" "No, I had better read. You can write faster than I can." So he wrote his fastest, while Lucia Harden read out titles to him in the sonorous Latin tongue. She was standing ankle-deep in Gnostics and Neo-Platonists; as for Mr. Rickman, he was, as he observed, out of his depth there altogether. "Iamblichus, _De Mysteriis Egyptiorum_. Do you know him?" Mr. Rickman smiled as he admitted that his acquaintance with Iamblichus was of the slightest; Lucia laughed as she confessed an ignorance extending to the very name. He noticed that she always seemed pleased when she had any ignorance to own up to; had she found out that this gave pleasure to other people? "Is he Philosophy, or is he Religion?" She invariably deferred to Rickman on a question of classification. She handed the book to him. "Can you tell?" "I really don't know; he seems to be both. I'd better have a look at him." He turned over the pages, glancing at the text. "I say, listen to this." He hit on a passage at random, and read out the Greek, translating fluently. "'If then the presence of the divine fire and the unspeakable form of the divine light descend upon a man, wholly filling and dominating him, and encompassing him on every side, so that he can in no way carry on his own affairs, what sense or understanding or perception of ordinary matters should he have who has received the divine fire?' Can he be referring to the business capacity of poets?" Lucia listened amused. And all the time he was thinking, "If I don't tell her now I shall never tell her. She'll sneak off with Miss Palliser somewhere in the afternoon." Neither noticed that Robert had come in and was standing by with a telegram. Robert gazed at Mr. Rickman with admiration, while he respectfully waited for the end of the paragraph; that, he judged, being the proper moment for attracting his mistress' attention. Never in all his life would Rickman forget that passage in the _De Mysteriis_ which he had not been thinking about. As Lucia took the telegram she was still looking at Rickman and the smile of amusement was still on her face. Robert respectfully withdrew. Lucia opened the envelope and Rickman looked down, apparently absorbed in Iamblichus. He was now considering in what form of words he would tell her. Then, without looking up, he knew that something had happened. His first feeling was that it had happened to himself. He could not say how or why or what was the precise moment of its happening; he only knew that she had been talking to him, listening to him, smiling at him, and that then something had swept him on one side and carried her away, he did not know where, except that it was beyond his reach. He looked up, startled by a sudden change in her breathing. She was standing opposite him; she seemed to be keeping herself upright by her hands pressed palms downwards on the table. The telegram was spread open there before her; and she was not looking at it; she was looking straight at him, but without seeing him. Her mouth was so tightly closed that it might have been the pressure of her lips that drove the blood from them; she breathed heavily through her nostrils, her small thin breast heaving without a sob. In her face there was neither sorrow nor terror, and he could see that there was no thought in her brain, and that all the life in her body was gathered into her swollen, labouring heart. And as he looked at her he was pierced with a great pang of pity. She stood there so, supporting herself by her hands for about a minute. He was certain that no sense of his presence reached her across the gulf of her unknown and immeasurable anguish. At last she drew her hands from the table, first one, then the other, slowly, as if she were dragging a weight; her body swayed, and he sprang to his feet with an inarticulate murmur, and held out one arm to steady her. At his touch her perishing will revived and her faintness passed from her. She put him gently aside and went slowly out of the room. As he turned to the table the five words of her telegram stared him in the face: "Your father died this morning." It would have been horrible if he had told her. His first thought was for her; and he thanked Heaven that had tied his tongue. Then, try as he would to realize her suffering, it eluded him; he could only feel that a moment ago she had been with him, standing there and smiling, and that now he was alone. He could still feel her hand pushing against his outstretched arm. There had been nothing to wound him in that gesture of repulse; it was as if she had accepted rather than refused his touch, as if her numbed body took from it the impetus it craved. There was a sound of hurry and confusion in the house; servants went up and downstairs, or stood about whispering in the passages. He heard footsteps in that room above him which he knew to be her room. A bell rang once; he could feel the vibration of the wire down the wall of the library. It was her bell and he wondered if she were ill. Robert rushed in with a wild white face, shaken out of his respectful calm. He was asking Rickman if he had seen this month's Bradshaw. They joined in a frenzied search for it. She was not ill; she was going away. A few minutes later he heard the sound of wheels grating on the gravel drive, of the front door being flung open, of her voice, her sweet quiet voice, then the grating of the wheels again, and she was gone. That, of course, ended it. Now for the first time he realized what Sir Frederick's death meant for himself. In thus snatching her from him in the very crisis of confession it had taken away his chance of redeeming his dishonour. If he had only told her! CHAPTER XXVIII He did not go back to town on the seventh, after all. He stayed to finish roughly, brutally almost, with the utmost possible dispatch, the disastrous catalogue, which would now be required, whatever happened. Until every book in the library had passed through his hands he was hardly in a position to give a just estimate of its value. His father had written again in some perturbation. It seemed that the old song for which he might obtain the Harden library went to the tune of one thousand pounds; but Pilkington was asking one thousand two hundred. "It's a large sum," wrote Isaac, "and without more precise information than you've given me yet, I can't tell whether we should be justified in paying it." That confirmed his worst misgivings. He answered it very precisely indeed. "We shouldn't be morally justified in paying less than four thousand for such a collection; and we should make a pretty big profit at that. But if we can't afford the price we must simply withdraw. In fact I consider that we ought to hold back in any case until we see whether Miss Harden or any of her people are going to come forward. It's only fair to give them the chance. You can expect me on the twentieth." Beside writing to his father, he had done the only honest and straightforward thing that was left for him to do. He had written to Horace Jewdwine. That was indeed what he ought to have done at the very first. He could see it now, the simple, obvious duty that had been staring him in the face all the time. He hardly cared to think what subtle but atrocious egoism of passion had prevented him from disclosing to Jewdwine the fact of his presence at Court House; even now he said nothing about the two weeks that he had spent working with Jewdwine's cousin. The catalogue _raisonné_ was so bound up with the history of his passion that the thing had become a catalogue _raisonné_ of its vicissitudes. Some instinct, not wholly selfish, told him that the least said about that the better. He wrote on the assumption that Jewdwine knew (as he might very well have done) the truth about the Harden library, briefly informing him that they, Rickman's, had been or rather would be in treaty with Mr. Pilkington for the purchase; but that he, Savage Keith Rickman, considered it was only fair to suggest that Mr. Jewdwine or some other member of Sir Frederick Harden's family should have the option of buying it, provided it could be so arranged with Mr. Pilkington. As Jewdwine was probably aware, the library represented security for one thousand pounds; whereas Rickman estimated its market value at four or even five times as much. But as Mr. Pilkington was not inclined to let it go for less than one thousand two hundred, Jewdwine had better be prepared to offer a little more than that sum. If Jewdwine felt inclined to act on this suggestion Rickman would be glad if he would let him know within the next ten days; as otherwise his father would be obliged to close with Mr. Pilkington in due form after the twenty-seventh. Would he kindly wire an acknowledgement of the letter? Jewdwine had wired from London, "Thanks. Letter received; will write." That was on the seventeenth, and it was now the twenty-seventh and Jewdwine had not written. Rickman should have been back in London long before that time; he had allowed himself four days to finish his horrible work; and he had finished it. But as it happened the end of twelve days found him still in Harmouth. Seven of them passed without his being very vividly aware of them, though up till now he had kept a strict account of time. Two weeks once struck off the reckoning, he had come down to calculating by days, by hours, by half hours, to measuring minutes as if they had been drops of some precious liquid slowly evaporating. And now he had let a whole week go by without comment, while he lay in bed in his room at the Marine Hotel, doing nothing, not even sleeping. For seven days Mr. Rickman had been ill. The broad term nervous fever was considered to have sufficiently covered all his symptoms. They were not improved by the discovery that Jewdwine had failed to give any sign; while the only reply sent by Rickman's was a brief note from his father to the effect that Keith's letter should have his very best consideration, and that by the time he saw him he would no doubt be in a better position to answer it. There was a postcard written on the twenty-first, inquiring the cause of his non-appearance on the twentieth. This had been answered by the doctor. It had been followed by a letter of purely parental solicitude, in which all mention of business was avoided. Avoided; and it was now the twenty-seventh. Rickman literally flung from his sick-bed a feverish and illegible note to Horace Jewdwine. "For God's sake, wire me what you mean to do," an effort which sent his temperature up considerably. He passed these days of convalescence in an anxious watching for the post. To the chambermaid, to the head waiter, to the landlord and landlady of the Marine Hotel, to the friendly commercial gentleman, who put his head twice a day round the door to inquire "'ow he was gettin' on," Mr. Rickman had during his seven days' illness put the same unvarying question. These persons had adopted a policy of silence, shaking their heads or twisting their mouths into the suggestion of a "No," by way of escape from the poignancy of the situation. But on the afternoon of the twenty-ninth, Mr. Rickman being for the first time up and dressed, Tom, the waiter, replied to the accustomed query with a cheerful "No sir, no letters; but a lady was inquiring for you this morning, sir." In Tom's mind a lady and a letter amounted to very much the same thing. "Do you know who it was?" "Yes sir, Miss Palliser." "Miss Parry? I don't know any Miss Parry," said Rickman wearily. "I didn't say Miss Parry, sir I said Miss Palliser, sir. Wanted to know 'ow you was; I said you was a trifle better, sir." "I? I'm all right. I think I shall go out and take a walk." The violent excitement of his veins and nerves gave him the illusion of recovered strength. His walk extended from the hotel door to a seat on the seafront opposite. He repeated it the next morning with less difficulty, and even succeeded in reaching a further seat beyond the range of the hotel windows. There he sat looking at the sea, and watching without interest the loiterers on the esplanade. At last, by sheer repetition, three figures forced themselves on his attention; two ladies, one young, the other middle-aged, and a clergyman, who walked incessantly up and down. They were talking as they passed him; he caught the man's steep-pitched organ monotone, "Yes, I shall certainly go up to the house and see her," and the girl's voice that answered in a hard bright trill, "You won't see her. She hasn't seen any body but Kitty Palliser." The blood boiled in his brain. She? She? Was it possible that they were talking about her? He sat there debating this question for ten minutes, when he was aware that he himself had become an object of intense interest to the three. The two ladies were, in fact, staring rather hard. The stare of the younger was so wide that it merely included him as an unregarded detail in the panorama of sea and sky; but the stare of the elder, a stout lady in a florid gown, was concentrated, almost passionate; it came straight at him through a double eye-glass elevated on a tortoiseshell stem. The clergyman endeavoured to suggest by his attitude that he took no part in the staring or the talk; he smiled out to sea with an air of beatific union with Nature. Harmouth beach is a safe place for scandal; for even a steep-pitched organ monotone with a brilliant feminine flourish on the top of it are lost in the accompaniment of the sea. So happily for him no word of the dialogue reached Rickman. All the same, to have a pair of blank blue eyes, and a tortoiseshell binocular levelled at him in that fashion is a little disturbing to a young man just recovering from a nervous fever; and Rickman got up and dragged himself to the other end of the esplanade out of the reach of the enemy's fire. Therefore he did not see that Miss Palliser, who had been watching the scene from a balcony on the front, had come down and joined the group; neither did he hear her cheerful replies to a volley of inquiries. "Yes; I've seen her. Nice day isn't it? What? No, I wouldn't if I were you. I say, what a swagger eye-glass! Jolly, those long stems, aren't they? You can stare for ever without pinching your nose or gouging your next door neighbour's eye out with your elbow--Oh yes, rather; he's a friend of Horace Jewdwine's. Do observe Tubs bathing; his figure is not adapted--Did you say a gentleman? Yes, no, yes; ask somebody else. It entirely depends on the point of view. He's an awfully good sort. _Really_, Tubs ought to be made to bathe before breakfast, when there's nobody about. Yes, of course she did. She gave him the work to please Mr. Jewdwine, I suppose. He's been ill, poor little beggar; I must go and speak to him." After having thus first harried, then effectually baffled the enemy, Miss Palliser started with a swinging stride in pursuit of Mr. Rickman. He sat alone in an attitude of extreme dejection, on the stones of an unfinished and forsaken jetty that marked the farthest western limit of the esplanade. Having turned his back on that public rendezvous, he was unaware of Miss Palliser's approach until she stood beside him. "Glad to see you out again," said she. He sprang to his feet and raised his hat. At the first sight of his face Miss Palliser had a shrewd idea of the cause and nature of his illness. "Thank you so much for your kind messages. I'm all right again, as you see." "I see nothing of the sort, as yet." She had meant to tell him that it was Lucia who had sent her to inquire; but she thought better of it. "Oh, well, I ought to get round in this bracing air." "Harmouth air," said Kitty, "is not particularly bracing. In fact it's very relaxing. It probably helped you to break down." "Well, I shall be out of it soon, anyway." He sighed. "Miss Palliser, can you tell me if Miss Harden has come back?" "She came back the day before yesterday." "Have you seen her?" "Yes, I've seen her." There was a long pause, filled by the insistent clamour of the sea. His next question was less audible to the outer than to the inner ear. "How is she?" Miss Palliser was seldom at a loss for a word; but this time she hesitated. "She--she is very plucky." There was another and a longer pause in which neither had the courage to look at the other. "Can I--Would it be possible for me to see her?" Miss Palliser did not answer. "I wouldn't dream of asking her, except that I've got something on my mind." "And she--my dear man, she's got everything on her mind." "I know. I--I want to see her on business." Miss Palliser's lithe figure grew rigid. She turned on him a look of indignation and contempt. "Everybody wants to see her on business. But some of them have had the grace to wait." He smiled in the faint tolerant manner of a man so steeped in the bitterness of the situation that no comment on it can add a further sting. "I can't wait. My business hasn't much to do with me; but it has a great deal to do with Miss Harden." She looked at him as he spoke. Something in his face and in his voice too made her feel that her judgement of him had been unspeakably, unpardonably coarse. "I beg your pardon," she said gently. "Oh don't. I'm not surprised that you thought that of me." "I didn't think it. I don't quite know what I'm saying. I've spent the last two days trying to keep fools from worrying her. I hate the people who want to go to her; I hate the people who keep away; I hate them all. But I'm sorry I spoke like that to you. You look horribly ill." "I'm not ill. But I'm nearly out of my mind about this business." "What is it? Tell me, has it anything to do with the library? "Yes." "Well; the library's going to be sold." "I know. That's what I want to speak to her about." "There's not a bit of good in speaking to her. There are at this moment," said Kitty incisively, "two persons in the house who call themselves the men in possession." "The brutes--" "You may as well sit down. You can't turn them out, they're two to one, and their position is, I believe, legally sound." "I must go to her at once--I knew this would happen--Miss Palliser, is any one with her?" "I am with her. I'm going back to her in a minute; but I want to talk to you first. Everybody's looking at us, but that can't be helped. Did you say you _knew_ this would happen?" "Yes--Miss Palliser, I'm in the most intolerable position with regard to Miss Harden." "You knew they were making these arrangements?" "Oh yes, I knew it all the time I was working for her. What's more, I'm supposed to be the agent for the sale." "Well--if it's got to be sold, why not?" "Well, you see, my father's only an ordinary dealer. I'm about the only person concerned who knows the real value and I know that it's been undervalued. Of course, without the smallest dishonesty on Mr. Pilkington's part." "Mr. who?" Kitty had not yet heard of Mr. Pilkington. "Pilkington." "What's his address?" He gave it her. Kitty made a note of the name and address. "Unfortunately Mr. Pilkington has an absolute right to sell it, and my father has an absolute right to buy it." "Well, somebody's got to buy it, I suppose?" "Yes, but it seems to me we oughtn't to do anything till we know whether any of Miss Harden's people will come forward." "She is the last of her people." "How about Mr. Jewdwine? He's her cousin." "On her mother's side." "Still he's her cousin. I wrote to him ten days ago; and I haven't got any answer as yet." "What did you say to him?" "I invited him to step in and buy the library over our heads." "And how much would he have had to pay for it?" "Probably more than one thousand two hundred." "Well--if you think that Mr. Jewdwine is the man to deal so lightly with two hundred pounds, let alone the thousand! Really, that's the quaintest thing you've done yet. May I ask if this is the way you generally do business?" "No, I can't say that it is." "Well, well, you were very safe." "Safe? I don't want to be safe. Don't you see how horrible it is for me? I'd give anything if he or anyone else would come in now and walk over us." "Still, I don't wonder that you got no answer to your very remarkable proposal." "It seemed to me a very simple and obvious proposal." "I don't know much about business," said Kitty, "but I can think of a much more simple and obvious one. Why can't your people buy in the library and sell it again for Miss Harden on commission?" "Do you suppose I haven't thought of that? It would be very simple and obvious if it rested with me, but I'm afraid my father mightn't see it in the same light. You see, the thing doesn't lie between Miss Harden and me, but between my father and Mr. Pilkington." "I don't understand." "It's this way. My father won't be buying the library from Miss Harden, but from Mr. Pilkington. And--my father is a man of business." "And you most certainly are not." "So he isn't likely to give any more for it than he can help." "Of course not." "Well, but--do you know what the library was valued at?" Kitty did, and she would have blurted it out had not an inner voice told her to be discreet for once. He took her silence for a confession of ignorance. "Would you think a thousand pounds an absurdly high valuation?" "I don't know." Kitty tried to banish all expression from her face. She really knew very little about business and was as yet unaware of the necessary publicity of bills of sale. The suspicion crossed her mind that Rickman, in his father's interests, might be trying to pump her as to the smallest sum that need be offered. "Because," he added, "it isn't. Miss Harden stands to lose something like three thousand pounds by it." Kitty's evil surmises vanished utterly. "Good Heavens!" she exclaimed, "how do you make that out?" "It's only the difference between what the library ought to fetch and what will be given for it. Of course no dealer could give the _full_ value; still, between one thousand and four thousand there's a considerable difference." "And who pockets it?" "My fa--the dealer, if he succeeds in selling again to the best advantage. He might not, and my father, as it happens, considers that he's taking a great risk. But I know more about it than he does, and I don't agree with him. That's why I don't want him to get hold of those books if I can help it." Kitty was thoughtful. "You see," he continued, "I know he'd like to do what he thinks generous under the circumstances, but he isn't interested in Miss Harden, and he _is_ interested in the Harden library. It's a chance that a dealer like him only gets once in a lifetime and I'm afraid it isn't in human nature to let it go." "But," said Kitty wildly, "he _must_ let it go. You must make him. Do you mean to say you're going to sit and look on calmly while Miss Harden loses three thousand pounds?" "I'm not looking on calmly. On the contrary, I've lost my head." "What's the good of losing your head, if Miss Harden loses her money? What do you propose to do _besides_ losing your head? Lose time I suppose? As if you hadn't lost enough already." "I wrote to Mr. Jewdwine as soon as I heard of Sir Frederick Harden's death. Still, you're right, I did lose time; and time was everything. You can't reproach me more than I reproach myself." "My dear man, I'm not reproaching you. I only want to know what you're going to _do_?" "Do? Is there anything left for me to do?" "Not much, that I can see." "If I'd only spoken straight out in the beginning--" "Do you mean to her?" "To her." He whispered the pronoun so softly that it sounded like a sigh. "Why didn't you?" "Why didn't I? I can see it was the one honest thing to do. But I thought I'd no business to know about her father's affairs if she didn't; and certainly no business to talk about them." "No. I don't see how you could have done it." "All the same I'd made up my mind to do it that morning--when the telegram came. That stopped me." "You were well out of it. You don't know what an awful thing it would have been to do. She worshipped her father. Is this what you've been making yourself ill about?" "I suppose so. You know how adorably kind she was to me?" "I can guess. She is adorably kind to every one," said Kitty, gentle but astute. "And, you see, I've behaved dishonourably to her." "No. I don't see that." "Don't you? Don't you? Why, my father sent me partly as his agent, and all the time she believed I was only working for her." "Did you behave as your father's agent?" "No. But I let her slave from morning till night over that catalogue." "Which she would have done in any case." "Don't you see that I ought to have backed out of it altogether, in the very beginning?" "Ah yes--if everybody did what they ought." "I tried twice, but it was no good. I suppose I didn't try hard enough." "What good would you have done by going, if she wanted you to stay?" "That's how I argued. But the fact is, I stayed because I couldn't go away. Of course, it was an abominable position, but I assure you it felt like heaven when it didn't feel like 'ell." His anguish, mercifully, was too great for him to feel the horror of his lapse. And Kitty hardly noticed it; at any rate she never felt the smallest inclination to smile, not even in recalling it afterwards. It was, if you came to think of it, an unusual, a remarkable confession. But she remembered that he had had a nervous fever; it was his nerves, then, and his fever that had cried out, a cry covered, made decent almost, by the clangour of the sea. She wondered how it came that, when her mind was as full as it could be of Lucia and her affairs, it could give such concentrated attention to him and his. If he had been what the tortoiseshell eye-glass took him for, a common man, it ought to have been easy and natural to dismiss him. But she could not dismiss him. There was some force in him, not consciously exerted, which held her there on that conspicuous seat beside him under the gaze of the tortoiseshell eye-glass. Kitty was by no means deficient in what she had called "profane fancy," and she felt to her finger tips that she was making a spectacle of herself at the end of the esplanade. Their backs at this moment she knew must be standing out very clear and bold against the sky-line. But she herself was losing the keen sense she had once had of his inappropriateness to the scenes he moved in. Wherever he was he was natural; he was (she had it in one word) sincere, as few people are sincere nowadays. He was not a common man. That was it. All along it had been the justification of their strange proceedings, this fact that he was not common, that he was indeed unique. On that ground Lucia had always met him, and she had ignored the rest. Kitty was trying to sympathize with Lucia. "But," he went on, simply, "I can't tell her that." "No, you can't tell her that, but you can tell her everything else. Look here, supposing that instead of sitting here tearing your nervous system to tatters you go straight away and do it." "What will she think of me?" "Think of you? If she thinks of you at all, she'll bless you for having spared her father's memory up to the last possible minute." "Has it occurred to you that my motives are open to the worst construction?" "Well, frankly, it has. But it won't occur to Miss Harden. Go to her and tell her everything." "After all, what am I to tell her?" "Oh, it doesn't matter much what you tell her now." "It matters a great deal to me. I don't want her to think me more dishonourable than I am." "Oh, she won't do that." "Perhaps she can't?" "Well, you see, I don't know how dishonourable you've been. I only know if I'd done a dishonourable thing--if I'd done--oh, the most disgraceful thing I can imagine, a thing I couldn't _possibly_ tell to anybody else, I wouldn't mind telling Lucia Harden. I should _have_ to tell her. It wouldn't matter. She's so perfectly good, that your own little amateur efforts in that line simply aren't in it; so when it comes to telling her things, you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. And wait a minute; you're not likely to make a lamb of your sheep; but don't go to the other extreme, and make a full-grown sheep of your lamb." "I shall not deceive her." "You couldn't. She's not only a good woman, but a very clever one, though she doesn't let you see it. Mind you, you won't find her clever about stupid things. I doubt if you'll be able to make her understand all this library affair. But she'll understand _your_ business." They rose, and walked together, forgetful of the eagerly observant group. "Could she see me to-day--this evening? I'm going to-morrow." "Yes, I'll tell her you're coming. When you _do_ see her, don't be afraid--speak out." "I'm not afraid of speaking to her--I'm afraid--" "Of what?" "Simply of _seeing_ her." "You mean you are afraid of seeing her changed?" She understood him; for it was what she herself had been afraid of. "Horribly afraid." "My dear Mr. Rickman, people in great trouble don't change to other people. They only change to themselves." He raised his hat and turned from her without speaking. Kitty felt remorseful as she looked after him, for she had not scrupled to sacrifice him to her idea. Kitty's idea was to get as high a price as possible out of Rickman Senior, and Rickman Junior was the only man who could get it. If the object was to shunt Rickman Senior altogether, Rickman Junior could be depended on for that, too. She could see that under the influence of his unhappy passion he had absolutely detached himself from his father's interests and his own. Kitty was profoundly sorry for him, and if she had yielded to her impulses of mercy and pity she would have kept him from Lucia as she would have kept a poor insane moth from the candle. It might be necessary to turn the moth out of doors in order to save it, and--well, she would have turned him out of doors, too, in sheer mercy and pity. But Kitty had a practical mind, and that practical mind perceived the services that might be rendered by a person so suicidally inspired. If she had read him aright, fire and water were nothing to what Mr. Rickman was prepared to go through for Lucia. Therefore she sent him to Lucia. But it was on his own account, for his healing and his consolation, that she advised him to make a clean breast of it. CHAPTER XXIX Lucia was in the library and alone. Everything was as she had left it that morning two weeks ago; she saw the same solid floor and ceiling, the same faded Persian rugs, the same yellow pale busts on their tall pedestals, the same bookshelves, wing after wing and row upon row. The south lattice still showed through its leaded lozenge panes the bright green lawn, the beech tree and the blue sky; the west lattice held the valley and the hills, with the river, a sinuous band of silver between the emerald and the amethyst. These things were so woven with the tissue of her mind that the sense of them had remained with her during the terrible seven days at Cannes. But now they appeared to her stripped of their air of permanence and familiarity. They were blurred and insubstantial, like things remembered rather than actually seen. All that subdued and tender loveliness belonged only to her young past, and she had been torn from it so violently, it had been flung so far behind her, that it seemed to her at the moment incredible and impossible. Life, that had hitherto dealt with her so gently and so graciously, had in the last two weeks turned hideous and brutal. She had no very clear idea of how she had got to Cannes. The going was wiped out. She had been driven through the garden of the Villa des Palmes and had recognized it as the garden of her dream. She had passed (through the doors of the Villa) into a state of stupor in which she had recognized nothing, and thence into a sequence of states which she could now too well recall. There had been a state of waking, in which she had found herself in a little gilt and velvet salon. There was another woman in it, a vast woman in a thin black dress twinkling all over with little black eyes. She had a great white powdered face, and they called her Madame. Then followed a state of hallucination, in which she believed Madame to be an innocent person, the housekeeper; a state of obsession, in which Madame, as she looked at her, seemed to grow vaster, to become immense; a state of imbecility in which her mind feebly tried to grapple with the details of her father's death as presented brokenly by Madame. Last had come a state of frenzy, in which she had freed herself from Madame. After that something had appeared to her in vivid violent illumination. So vivid and so violent that it seemed to her even now that she was still sitting in the gilt and velvet salon in the Villa des Palmes; she still saw the thin green light that came slanting through the half-closed shutters; warm southern smells floated in, they mixed with the thick stifling scent of patchouli and orris root wafted from Madame as she went to and fro, and with some other odour, bitter and sickly, that came from the room beyond. She had made out certain familiar objects in this unfamiliar scene. Her father's travelling rug lay folded on the red velvet sofa; his cap and gloves were there, just as he had flung them down; his violin, dumb in its black coffin-like case, stood propped up against the wall. Everywhere else (only gradually discerned) were things belonging to Madame, evidence of her supreme and intimate occupation of the room. And outside was the garden of sharp aloes and palms, where, as she believed, her father's spirit had gone looking for her, and had not found her. His body lay in the inner room behind the closed door. That horrible little gilt and velvet salon! Whenever she thought of it she saw Madame; she saw Madame's little dry eyes blinking in her great white powdered face; she saw the vast heaving of Madame's bust where the little jet sequins shivered and shook; she heard her voice cooing and purring voluptuous condolence; and she felt again her own passion of disgust and fear as she wrenched herself free from the warm scented body, quivering in its thin black sheath. Then she saw the inner room behind the closed door. Nothing was obscure and secret there. The slats of the shutter let in great shafts of daylight; the coffin stood in the middle of the room, raised on trestles, and covered with a white sheet. A crucifix stood at the head of the coffin, propped against a chest of drawers. Three candles, flickering in their sockets, were set on the table at its foot. On each knob of the two top-drawers hung a wreath of yellow immortelles. That long coffin, raised high on its trestles, seemed to fill the little room. Lucia saw it now, she saw the face in it turned up to the ceiling, sharp and yellow, the limp red moustache hanging like a curtain over the half-open mouth. No trace of the tilted faun-like smile. She would never get away from that terrible room. The pattern of its walls (garlands of pink rosebuds between blue stripes) was stamped upon her brain. There too, as in the salon, abode the inextinguishable odour shaken from Madame's dress, it mixed with the hot reek of carbolic and the bitter stabbing odour of the coffin. On the floor by the trestles lay a glove, a long enormous glove, Madame's glove; it was greyish white, and wrinkled like the cast skin of a snake. The finger of its fellow hung from the chest of drawers beside the crucifix. It pointed downwards at the dead man. Within the gay garlanded walls, surrounded by those symbols and souvenirs of Madame, he lay with his face turned up to the ceiling, and his mouth half open, as if it still gasped piteously for breath. One more breath to beg for forgiveness, to defend himself, explain; while bit by bit the place he had lived in gave up his secret. She could not tell whether she forgave him or not. When she stood by him there she could have implored _his_ forgiveness for having thus come upon him unawares, for having found what he had taken such pains to hide from her. It seemed somehow cruel and unfair. She did not tax him with hypocrisy, because he had so long contrived to keep himself clean in her sight; she was grateful to him for having spared her this knowledge. But whether she forgave him or not--no, looking back on it at this moment she could not tell. Lucia was too young for the great forgiveness that comes of understanding. She walked up and down the library, staring at the books, at the tables piled with papers; she stood at each window in turn and looked out on the garden, the valley and the hills, Harmouth Gap, and the long brown rampart line of Muttersmoor. It was simply impossible for her to realize their once intimate relation to her life. She was unaware that her mood was chiefly the result of physical and mental exhaustion. It seemed to her rather that she had acquired strange powers of insight, that she had pierced to the back of the illusion. Never had she possessed so luminous a sense of the unreality of things. She found this view consoling, for it is the desire of unhappy youth that there shall be no permanence where there is pain. On this unreal and insubstantial background faces came and went all day long, faces solemn and obsequious, faces glazed and feverish with emotion; Robert's face with red-rimmed eyes hiding Robert's unutterable sympathy under a thin mask of fright; Kitty's face with an entirely new expression on it; and her own face met them with an incomprehensible and tearless calm. For she was not even sure of that, not even sure of her own sorrow. She had had to do with sorrow once before, when her grandfather died, and she thought she would be sure to know it when it came to her again; but she had no name for this new feeling, and at times it seemed to her that it was not sorrow at all. Whatever it was, she had determined to bear it as far as possible alone. She was almost sorry that she had not refused Kitty's offer to stay with her; she suffered so from Kitty's inability to conceal the truth. Not that Kitty said anything; it was her unnatural silence that was so terrible. With that extraordinary acuteness that had come upon her now Lucia saw, in the involuntary hardening and flushing of Kitty's face, that in Kitty's mind her father was not only suspected, but condemned. She was afraid lest she herself should in some moments of weakness betray him; and Kitty's strange unusual tenderness inspired her with terror. She shrank even from old Mrs. Palliser, Kitty's mother, with her soft trembling face and clinging hands. Their sympathy was poignant and unnerving, and she needed all her strength for the things she had to do. She did them, too. While one half of her brain had slackened its grip of the world, the other half retained the most perfect grasp of certain necessary details. She spent the morning with her father's solicitor, while he explained to her the first principles of finance, and the inner meaning of mortgages and bills of sale. She understood clearly that the things which would naturally have come to her on her father's death belonged in a certain sense to Mr. Richard Pilkington of Shaftesbury Avenue. Mr. Schofield, poor man, had approached this branch of his subject gently and gingerly, with every delicacy of phrasing that his fancy could suggest. He leaned back in his chair and looked at her through half-closed eyes, respectfully veiling the shrewdness of his gaze. Lucia had at first displayed so little interest and intelligence that he felt himself compelled to a broader and simpler statement of the facts. With the exception of her own personal possessions, nothing in Court House remained to her, nothing, not a book, not a solitary piece of drawing-room furniture. Mr. Pilkington's bill of sale was, he grieved to say, inclusive of everything, from the Harden library and the great gallery of portraits, to the glass and china in the pantry, and the blankets on the beds. "Not even," he had said, "that little paper weight that you have in your hand, Miss Harden." And Lucia had examined the paper weight as if she saw it for the first time; she put it down and smiled. It struck her as incomprehensible, ludicrous almost that any one could spend so much passion and solemnity on things so unimportant, so irrelevant; she was not in the least surprised to hear that they did not belong to her; the inconceivable thing was that they ever had belonged to her. And as the solicitor looked at her the corners of his mouth twitched with a little spasm of pity; his eyes lost their veiled shrewdness, and when she smiled they stared in frankest fright. For a moment he supposed that the shock of his announcement had turned her brain. It never occurred to that astute intelligence that she was smiling at his own simplicity. When he had left she returned to the writing-table; she sorted and arranged a disordered heap of business letters, letters of condolence and tradesmen's bills. She pushed aside the letters of condolence--Kitty would answer those. She unlocked a drawer and took from it two open envelopes scored with many postmarks and addressed to Harmouth, to Cannes and to Harmouth again; these she scrutinized anxiously, as if they disclosed some secret guarded by their contents. Then she read the letters carefully all over again. One was from her cousin Edith Jewdwine. Edith's sympathy covered two sheets; it flowed from her pen, facile and fluent. Edith had had the influenza, otherwise Edith would have come to Lucia at once. Could not Lucia come to her instead? Edith could not bear to think of Lucia alone there in her trouble, in that great big house. She was glad that Kitty Palliser was with her. If only she had not been so unfortunate as to catch influenza, and so on! Lucia was sorry that Edith had influenza, but she was not sorry that she had not come. She did not want Edith with her. The other letter was from Horace. Horace had refined his expressions of condolence into one faultless phrase. The rest of his letter consisted of apologies and offers of service. These his close cramped handwriting confined to the centre of the sheet, leaving a broad and decent margin to suggest the inexpressible. He had heard of his uncle's death indirectly; why had she not sent for him? If she had wired to him at once he could have made arrangements to meet and take her to Cannes, or he could have joined her there and brought her home. At present he was overwhelmed with business; but he hoped to run down to Harmouth at the end of the week, and travel up to town with her. He understood that she was going to stay with Edith. Busy as he was, he would come now, at any minute, if he could be of any immediate use. She had only to wire if she wanted him. She laid down that letter, pushed it aside, took it up again, and read it a second time, as if to satisfy herself as to the writer's meaning. She was not sure as to what Horace was or was not willing to do, but there could be no doubt that he was deeply sorry for her. Why had she not sent for him? Why indeed? Her first instinct had been to send for him. She had only to let him know that she was in trouble, and he would have come to her at any inconvenience to himself. And that, of course, was why she had not sent. It would have been so impossible for him to refuse. And now she was thankful that she had spared him, and that he had not followed her to those terrible rooms in the Villa des Palmes, that he knew nothing of those seven days. She would have endured any suffering, paid any price to obliterate the memory of them. It was horrible to think how nearly Horace had been there. Horace of all people--the fastidious, the immaculate, the merciless. If she had found it hard to judge her dead father tenderly, she knew what Horace's judgement would have been. She had "only to wire if she wanted him." Oh no; he was the last person that she wanted now. Those two letters she answered without more delay. To Horace she wrote in a reassuring manner, so as to absolve him from any sense of obligation he might happen to feel. She would rather he came down a little later than he proposed. Meanwhile he was not to be anxious, for Mr. Schofield was managing her affairs extremely well. She admitted that when those wonderful affairs were settled her income would be but small (she considered that this was a thing Horace ought to be told before--before he wrote any more letters). She added that the library, the pictures and the furniture would have to be sold. And Court House, too, she was afraid. (That also was a fact that must not be concealed from him for a moment. It seemed to concern Horace so much more than it did her.) These things, which it was her duty to tell him, she told simply and plainly. But she omitted to mention that two men in possession were sitting in the housekeeper's room, in attitudes of more or less constraint. She ended by assuring Horace of her gratitude, with a fervency which suggested that he had some cause to doubt it. And indeed, at the moment, she could hardly tell whether she were more grateful to him for offering to come to her or for having stopped away. All this necessary business Lucia transacted with one half of her mind; while the other stood far off, possessed by its sense of unreality, of illusion. Next she went through the tradesmen's bills. There were a great many people to be paid, and unless Court House were sold there would be nothing to pay them with. It was at this point that Robert came in with the announcement that Mr. Rickman had called and wished to see her. At first (the active intelligence being busy with accounts), her only idea was that she owed Mr. Rickman fifteen pounds and that when all debts were paid fifteen pounds would represent a very solid portion of her income. Then her dreaming self awoke to the memory of something unachieved, an obligation rashly incurred, a promise that could never be fulfilled. Yes. She would see Mr. Rickman. CHAPTER XXX Lucia had risen and was standing in the embrasure of the south window. She had her back to the door, so that she could not see him as he came in. He wondered how on earth he was going to get over the space between the window and the door. A sudden wave of weakness went through his body; he had horrible sensations of sinking at the middle and of giving way altogether at the knees. He had been afraid of seeing her suffer; now he knew that what he was really afraid of was her fear of seeing him. He expected to see her face set in abhorrence of his sympathy, her body shrink in anticipation of a touch on her pain. Lucia spared him all the embarrassments of that approach As if she had divined his feeling, she turned, she came forward to meet him, she held out her hand and smiled as she would have smiled if nothing had happened. His hand trembled visibly as it dropped from hers. He hid it in his breast pocket, where it pretended to be looking for things. "Miss Palliser said she thought you would see me--" "Yes, I wanted to see you; I would have sent for you if you had not come. Sit down, please." She sat down herself, in her old place at the writing table. He took the chair beside her and leaned back, resting his arm on the table. She turned so as to face him. She was not so changed but that his hungry and unhappy eyes could rest on her, appeased and comforted. And yet she _was_ changed, too. Her girlhood, with all its innocence of suffering, had died in her. But the touch of that death was masterly, it had redeemed her beauty from the vagueness of its youth. Grief, that drags or sharpens or deforms the faces of older women, had given to hers the precision that it lacked. There was a faint sallow tinge in the whiteness of her skin, and her eyelids drooped as if she were tired to the point of exhaustion. He noticed, too, the pathetic tension that restrained the quivering of her mouth. It was the upper lip that trembled. "You have been ill?" she said. And as he answered that, "Oh, it was nothing," he was aware for the first time how very much it had been. She too was aware of it. She expressed her concern; she hoped that they had looked after him well at the hotel. Decidedly she had grown older and her manner had grown older too. It suggested that it was she who was the protector; that she wished, as far as possible, to spare him in an interview which must necessarily be painful. It was as if she remembered that he at any rate was young, and that these gloomy circumstances must be highly distasteful to his youth. In that she was the same as ever; every nerve in her shrank from the pain of giving pain. At least that was his first impression. And then (no consoling view being really open to him) he told himself he was a fool to suppose that in the circumstances she could think of him at all. He had nothing tangible to go upon. He could see through it. He could see perfectly through the smile, the self-possession, even the air of polite and leisurely interest in his illness. She dwelt on him because he was of all themes the one most indifferent to her. She was simply holding herself in, according to the indestructible instincts of her race. He need not have been afraid of seeing her suffer; that, at any rate, he would not see. To let him see it would have been to her an extreme personal degradation, an offence against the decencies of her class. This sorrow of hers, this invisible, yet implacable sorrow, stood between them, waving him away. It opened up again the impassable gulf. He felt himself not only a stranger, but an inferior, separated from her beyond all possibility of approach. She had not changed. She had simply reverted to her type. Her eyes waited for him to speak. But they were not the eyes he knew, the eyes that had drawn him to confession. It was borne in upon him that this (though it might be his last moment with her) was not the moment to confess. There was a positive grossness in the idea of unburdening himself in the presence of this incommunicable grief. It was like putting in a claim for consideration as an equal sufferer. He had no right to obtrude himself upon her at all. In her calm-eyed attention there was a hint--a very delicate and gentle one--that he would do well to be impersonal, business-like, and, above all, brief. "It was about the library that I wanted to see you, Miss Harden." "Was it? I was just going to ask you not to do anything more to the catalogue if you have not finished it." "I finished it ten days ago--before the twenty-seventh." She smiled faintly. "Then you kept your promise. It doesn't matter. What I most wanted to speak to you about was the secretaryship I offered you. I'm afraid we must give it up." "Oh--Miss Harden--" his tone expressed that he had always given it up, that it was not to be thought of for an instant. But evidently she was possessed with the idea that he had a claim upon her. "I'm very sorry, but as things have turned out I shan't be able to keep a secretary. In fact, as you may have heard, I'm not able to keep anything hardly--not even my promises." "Please--please don't think of it--" "There is no use thinking of it. Still, I wanted you to know that I really meant it--I believed it could be done. Of course I don't know how much you really wanted it." "Wanted it? I'd 'ave given half my life for a year of it." Lucia's hand, laid lightly on the table's edge, felt a strong vibration communicated to it from Mr. Rickman's arm. She looked up, in time to see his white face quiver before he hid it with his hand. "I'm so sorry. Did it mean so much to you?" He smiled through his agony at the cause assigned to it. "I'm not thinking of that. What it means to me--what it always will mean is your goodness--in thinking of it. In thinking of it now." It was his nearest approach to a sympathetic allusion. She did not wince (perceptibly), but she ignored the allusion. "Oh, that's nothing. You would have been of great use to me. If I thought of helping you at all, my idea was simply--how shall I put it?--to make up in some way for the harm I've done you." "What harm have you ever done me?" For one moment he thought that she had discovered his preposterous passion, and reproached herself for being a cause of pain. But she explained. "I ought to say the harm the catalogue did you. I'm afraid it was responsible for your illness." He protested. But she stuck to it. "And after all I might just as well have let you go. For the library will have to be sold. But I did not know that." "I knew it, though." "You knew it? How did you know it?" "I know Mr. Pilkington, who knows my father. He practically gave him the refusal of the library. Which is exactly what I want to speak to you about." He explained the situation to her as he had explained it to Miss Palliser, only at greater length and with considerably greater difficulty. For Lucia did not take it up as Miss Palliser had done, point by point, she laid it down, rather, dismissed it with a statement of her trust in the integrity of Rickman's. "If," she said, "the library must be sold, I'm very glad that it's your father who is going to buy it." He tried to make her see (without too deeply incriminating his father) that this was not the destiny most to be desired for it. It was in approaching this part of his subject that he most diverged from his manner of treating it before Miss Palliser. Miss Palliser had appreciated the commercial point of view. Her practical mind accepted the assumption that a dealer was but human, and that abnegation on his part in such a matter would amount to nothing less than a moral miracle. But Miss Harden would have a higher conception of human obligation than Miss Palliser; at any rate he could hardly expect her sense of honour to be less delicate than his own, and if _he_ considered that his father was morally bound to withdraw from the business she could only think one thing of his remaining in it. Therefore to suggest to Miss Harden that his father might insist upon remaining, constituted a far more terrible exposure of that person than anything he had said to Miss Palliser. "Why shouldn't he buy it?" she asked. "Because, I'm afraid, selling it in--in that way, you won't make much money over it." "Well--it's not a question of making money, it's a question of paying a debt." "How much you make--or lose--of course, depends on the amount of the debt--what it was valued at." Lucia, unlike Kitty, was neither suspicious nor discreet. She had the required fact at her fingers' ends and instantly produced it. "It was valued at exactly one thousand pounds." "And it should have been valued at four. My father can't give anything like that. We ought to be able to find somebody who can. But it might take a considerable time." "And there is no time. What do you advise me to do then?" "Well, if we could persuade Mr. Pilkington to sell by auction that would be all right. If we can't, I advise you to buy it back, or a part of it, yourself. Buy back the books that make it valuable. You've got the Aldine Plato and the Neapolitan Horace and the _Aurea Legenda_ printed by Wynken de Worde." (He positively blushed as he consummated this final act of treachery to Rickman's.) "And heaps of others equally valuable; I can give you a list of fifty or so. You can buy them for a pound a-piece and sell the lot for three thousand. If Pilkington collars the rest he'll still be paid, and there may be something over." She considered a moment. "Has Mr. Pilkington any idea of the value of those books?" "I'm certain he hasn't. Only an expert could have." "Would it be perfectly fair to him?" "To _him_? Perfectly fair. You buy them at his own valuation." "I see. I should like to do that--if--if it can be managed." "I think it can be managed. My father isn't likely to settle with Mr. Pilkington without consulting me. If he _has_ settled we must try and get him to withdraw." "Oh, surely there would be no difficulty about that?" He said nothing. It was really terrible the way she took integrity for granted. To be sure his father had a reputation with the family. He remembered how Sir Joseph used to praise him to his face as the only honest dealer in London. But Sir Joseph was in the habit of buying books, not selling them. He rose and turned away, evading her innocent eyes. "I hope not. I'll see Mr. Pilkington about it. By the way, here _is_ Mr. Pilkington. Did you expect him?" "No, I--" Her voice died away, extinguished in her horror. CHAPTER XXXI There could be no mistake about it. Mr. Pilkington was coming by the private way, stepping softly over a fair green lawn. The low golden light before sunset flooded the lawn so that Mr. Pilkington walking in it was strangely and gloriously illuminated. Everything about him shone, from his high silk hat to the tips of his varnished boots. His frock coat and trousers of grey summer suiting clung to his figure like a warm and sunny skin. All over Mr. Pilkington and round about him there hung the atmosphere of the City. Not of the actual murky labyrinth, roofed with fog, but of the City as she stands transfigured before the eyes of the young speculator, in her orient golden mood. Lucia had seen him. The light died out of her face, her lips straightened. She stood motionless, superb, intent. With such a look and in such an attitude a Roman maiden might have listened to the feet of the Vandal at the gate. He was coming very swiftly, was Dicky, as if borne by an impetus of conquest. As he caught sight of Miss Harden through the open window, though he kept his head rigidly averted, his eyes slewed round towards her, and at the same moment his fingers rose instinctively to his little fair moustache. It was the gesture of the irresistible male. "_Must_ I see him?" she asked helplessly. She had realized everything in that moment. "Not unless you like. Shall I deal with him?" "If you would be so good. But no--it doesn't matter. I shall have to see him later." She sat down again and waited. The silence was so tense that it seemed to bear the impact of her pulses; it throbbed and quivered with pain. Outside, the sound of the pebbles, crunched under Pilkington's footsteps, became a concert of shrieks. Rickman did not offer to go as Mr. Pilkington advanced; for, Heaven knew how, in some obscure and subtle way she had managed to convey to him that his presence was a protection. Mr. Pilkington entered the room with the air of a man completely assured as to his reception. He bowed to Miss Harden; an extraordinary bow. No words could have conveyed the exquisite intimations of Mr. Pilkington's spine. It was as if he had said to her, "Madam, you needn't be afraid; in your presence I am all deference and chivalry and restraint." But no sooner had Dicky achieved this admirable effect of refinement than he spoilt it all by the glance he levelled at young Rickman. _That_ expressed nothing but the crude emotion of the insolent male, baulked of his desire to find himself alone on the field. It insulted her as brutally as any words by its unblushing assumption of the attitude of sex. "I must introduce myself, Miss 'Arden," he said, ignoring Rickman. "I think I have _not_ had the pleasure--" His large mouth closed reluctantly on the unfinished phrase. He seated himself with circumstance, parting the tails of his coat very carefully. He had chosen a seat opposite the window. As if conscious of the glory of his appearance, he offered himself liberally to the light. He let it play over his figure, a figure that youth subdued to sleekness that would one day be corpulence; it drew out all the yellow in his moustache and hair; it blazed in his gold-rimmed eye-glass; thence it alighted, a pale watery splendour, on the bridge of his nose. It was a bridge where two nationalities met and contended for mastery. Mr. Pilkington's nose had started with a distinctly Semitic intention, frustrated by the Anglo-Saxon in him, its downward course being docked to the proportion of a snub. Nobody knew better than Mr. Pilkington that it was that snub that saved him. He was proud of it as a proof of his descent from the dominant race. Assisted by his reluctantly closing mouth and double eye-glass it inspired confidence, giving to Mr. Pilkington's face an expression of extreme openness and candour. He was proud of his eye-glass too. He considered that it made him look like a man of science or of letters. But it didn't. It did much better for him than that. It took all the subtlety out of his face and endowed it with an earnest and enormous stare. And as that large mouth couldn't and wouldn't close properly, his sentences had a way of dying off in a faint gasp, leaving a great deal to the imagination. All these natural characteristics were invaluable for business purposes. But if you had asked Mr. Pilkington for the secret of his success, he would have told you that he owed it to his possession of two qualities, "bounce" and "tact." To both, mind you; for tact without bounce will carry a man neither far nor high; while bounce without tact will elevate him occasionally to his own perdition. Conversationally he was furnished with tentacles sensitive to the lightest touch of an idea; he had the very subtlest discernment of shades within shades. He grasped with airy impact; he moved by a delicate contact and recoil, a process he was pleased to describe as "feelin' his way." He did not rush brutally into business, as a man of coarser fibre might have done. He removed his gloves, adjusted his eye-glass and admired the view. He shrank from the suggestion that he had come to "take possession," but clearly he could not take possession of the view. It was a safe and soothing topic. "You have a very glorious outlook here, Miss Harden." Then Mr. Pilkington perceived a shade. Miss Harden's outlook was _not_ glorious. By an almost visible recoil from his own blunder he strove to convey an impression of excessive delicacy. "Wot very exceptional weather we are enjoying--" Perceiving another and a finer shade (for evidently Miss Harden was not enjoying the weather, or indeed anything else) Mr. Pilkington again shifted his ground. He spoke of books. He noticed with approval the arrangement of the library. He admired the Harden taste in costly bindings, as if he were by no means personally concerned with any of these things. And thus by a delicate and imperceptible transition, he slid into his theme. "Now, as regards this--this sale, Miss Harden. I hope you understand--" "I understand that you are my father's chief creditor, and that the sale is necessary." "Quite so. But I'm most awfully sorry for the necessity As for time--I don't want you to feel that you're pressed or hurried in any way." Mr. Pilkington's eyes gazed up at her under their great glasses, humid and immense. His lower lip drooped in an uncertain manner. He had a great deal of nice feeling about him, had Dicky. "I hope those men aren't making a nuisance of themselves They've had strict orders to keep in the background I'm orf'ly upset," said Mr. Pilkington in a thick emotional voice, "about this affair; and I want to consider you, Miss Harden, in every possible way." "You are very kind. But I would rather you didn't consider me, in any way at all." As she said this Mr. Rickman looked at her with a grave smile, conveying (behind Mr. Pilkington's back) an unmistakable warning. Mr. Pilkington smiled too, a large and fluttering smile as of one indulgent to any little attempt at brilliance on the part of a young lady under a cloud. Lucia swept him and his smile with her long and steady gaze, a gaze which made Dicky exceedingly uncomfortable. "I think if you have any arrangements to make, you had better see my solicitor." "I have an appointment," said Dicky, not without a certain dignity, "with Mr. Schofield, to-morrow morning." "Then I suppose what you want now is to look over the house?" The question and the gaze were so direct that Dicky (who had meant to amble delicately round that point for another quarter of an hour) lost his head, dropped his eye-glass, and fairly let himself go. "Well, perhaps as I _am_ here, I'd better 'ave a look round. Of course--if--if it's in any way inconvenient--" "Not in the least. You can look round at once." She rang the bell. On her way to it she gathered up some books that were lying out of sight and laid them on the table. "These," she said to Rickman, "belong to the library. They must go with the rest." He looked at them. One was an Aldine Dante, he had seen her reading it. He took Pilkington aside and said something to him in a tone which Lucia could not hear. Her hand was on the door when Pilkington sprang forward. "One moment, Miss Harden. Everything must be sold in the regular way, but if you'll tell me of any books you've a special fancy for, I'll make a note of them and buy them in for you." He paused, awaiting the breath of inspiration. It came. "For--for a merely nominal sum." To do Dicky justice this delicate idea greatly commended itself to his good nature. Business is business, but not willingly did Dicky inflict pain, least of all upon a young and pretty woman. Besides he had an eye to his reputation; he was disposed to do this thing handsomely. Rickman envied him his inspiration, his "merely nominal sum." "Thank you. The books were not mine," said Lucia in spite of another meaning look from her ally. "Quite so. But I should disregard that if I were you. Anyhow you can think it over, and if you change your mind you can let me or Mr Rickman know before the sale." Lucia looked down at him from her height. "I shall not change my mind. If I want to keep any of the books, I can buy them from Mr. Rickman." She turned to Rickman in the doorway. "All the same, it was kind of you to think of it." She said it very distinctly, so that Mr. Pilkington could hear. Rickman followed her out of the room and closed the door behind them. She turned on him eyes positively luminous with trust. It was as if she had abandoned the leading of her intellect and flung the reins on the neck of her intuition. "I was right, wasn't I? I would so much rather buy them back from you." "From my father?" "It's the same thing, isn't it?" He smiled sadly. "I'm afraid it isn't, quite. Why didn't you accept his offer?" "I couldn't." She shuddered slightly. Her face expressed her deep and desperate repugnance. "I _can_ buy them back from you. He is really arranging with your father, isn't he?" "Yes." It was the third time that she had appealed from Pilkington to him, and there was a profound humiliation in the thought that at this precise moment the loathsome Dicky might be of more solid use to her than he. "Well then," she said almost triumphantly. "I shall be safe. You will do your best for me." It was a statement, but he met it as if it had been a question. "I will indeed." He saw that it was in identifying his father with him that she left it to their honour. CHAPTER XXXII Dicky Pilkington did not belong to the aristocracy of finance. Indeed, finance had not in any form claimed him at the first. Under the grey frock-coat and gleaming shirt-front, hidden away behind the unapparent splendours of Dicky Pilkington's attire (his undermost garments were of woven silk), in a corner of his young barbarian heart there lurked an obscure veneration for culture and for art. When his day's work was done, the time that Dicky did not spend in the promenade of the Jubilee Variety Theatre, he spent in reading Karl Pearson and Robert Louis Stevenson, with his feet on the fender. He knew the Greek characters. He _said_ he could tell Plato from Aristotle by the look of the text. Dicky had begun life as a Junior Journalist. But before that, long, long before, when he was an innocent schoolboy, Dicky had a pair of wings, dear little cherubic wings, that fluttered uneasily under his little jacket. The wings moulted as Dicky grew older; they shrank (in the course of his evolution) to mere rudimentary appendages, and poor Dicky flopped instead of flying. Finally they dropped off and Dicky was much happier without them. Rickman used to say that if you stripped him you saw the marks of them still quite plainly; and Dicky was always stripping himself and showing them. They proved to these writing fellows what he might have been if he had only chosen. He had begun by being a poet like the best of them, and in his heart of hearts Dicky believed that it was as a poet he should end. His maxim upon this head was: "When I've feathered my nest it will be time enough for me to sing." Dicky's nest was not long in feathering, and yet Dicky had not begun to sing. Still, at moments, after supper, or on a Sunday afternoon, walking in a green lane, Dicky would unbosom himself. He would tell you touching legends of his boyhood and adolescence. Then he would talk to you of women. And then he would tell you how it was that he came to forsake literature for finance. He had begun in a small way by financing little tradesmen, little journalists and actresses in temporary difficulties; lending small sums to distressed clergymen, to governesses and the mistresses of boarding-houses. By charging a moderate interest he acquired a character for fairness and straight-forwardness. Now and then he did what he called a really tip-top generous thing. "Character," said Dicky Pilkington, "is capital"; and at thirty he had managed to save enough of it to live on without bothering about earning any more. Then, by slow degrees, Dicky extended his business. He lent larger sums at correspondingly higher interest. Then he let himself go. He was caught by the glory of the thing, the poetry of finance. He soared to all the heights and sounded all the depths of speculation. He took risks with rapture. He fancied himself lending vast sums at giddy interest. "That," said Dicky to his conscience, was to "cover his risk." He hadn't forgotten that character is capital. And when it occurred to him, as it sometimes did, that he was making rather a large hole in it, he would then achieve some colossal act of generosity which set him on his legs again. So that Dicky Pilkington was always happy in his conscience as in everything else. He had been prepared to do the handsome thing by Miss Harden, only her manner had somehow "choked him off." He could have afforded it, for he considered this Freddy Harden business as his very largest deal. He held a mortgage on the land, from the river to the top of Harcombe Hill. There was any amount to be got out of the pictures and the furniture. And the library was not altogether to be sneezed at. It had been Fred Harden's last desperate resource, (rather poor security in Dicky's opinion); but if the sum advanced had not been prodigious (compared with the sums that had gone before it) the interest had been high. So that, in returning from his tour of inspection, he felt considerably elated. Rickman, as he went down the High Street that evening, saw Dicky a little way in front of him. He noticed that the financial agent was an object of considerable interest to the people of Harmouth. Men stood at shop doors and street corners, women (according to their social standing) hung out of bedroom windows or hid behind parlour curtains to look after him as he went. Here and there Rickman caught sullen and indignant glances, derisive words and laughter. Evidently the spirit of Harmouth was hostile to Dicky. A Harden was a Harden, and Sir Frederick's magnificently complete disaster had moved even the townspeople, his creditors. The excitement caused by Dicky concentrated at the windows of the London and Provincial Bank, where Sir Frederick had had a large balance--overdrawn. Harmouth High Street is a lane, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, which gives on to the esplanade between the Marine Hotel and the Bank. At a certain distance these buildings cut the view into a thin slip of grey beach and steep blue sea. The form of Dicky was now visible in the centre of that slip, top-hatted, distinct against the blue. He stood on the edge of the esplanade as on a railway platform, reading the paper and smoking a cigar. From time to time, looking up with an expression half visionary, half voluptuous, he puffed and spat in dreamy rhythmic sequence. "_Coelum, non animam_," said Rickman to himself, "they change their skies, but not their habits." When he came up with him, he found the soul of Pilkington disporting itself in its own airy element, exchanging ideas with two young damsels who frolicked on the beach below. Backwards and forwards flew the light-hearted banter, like balls of sea-foam, Mr. Pilkington the inspirer and the inspired. The after-glow of his last triumphant witticism still illuminated his countenance when he turned again to the printed page. Now, owing to its peculiar construction, Harmouth High Street acts as a funnel for the off-shore breezes; they rush through it as they rush through Windy Gap, that rift in the coast before which the wary fisherman slackens sail. Just such an air was careering seawards when Mr. Pilkington was about to perform the difficult feat of folding his paper backwards. It smote one side of the broadsheet and tore it from his grasp, making it flutter like a sail escaped from the lanyard. The breeze dropped; it hovered; it waited like the wanton that it was; and when Mr. Pilkington's free hand made a clutch at the flying columns, it seized that moment to lift his hat from his head and dash it to the ground. Then the demon of the wind entered into and possessed that high thing; the hat rolled, it curvetted, it turned brim over crown, it took wings and flew, low and eager like a cormorant; finally it struck the beach, gathering a frightful impetus from the shock, and bounded seawards, the pebbles beating from it a thin drum-like note. Never was any created thing so tortured with indecent merriment in the face of doom. The end seemed certain, for Dicky Pilkington, though he joined in the hysterics of the crowd, had not compromised his dignity by pursuit; when, just as the hat touched the foam of perdition, Molly Trick, the fat bathing woman, interposed the bulwark of her body; she stooped; she spread her wide skirts, and the maniac leapt into them as into a haven. The young men who watched this breezy incident over the blinds of the London and Provincial Bank were immensely diverted. Even Rickman laughed as Dicky turned to him his cheerful face buffeted by the wind. Mr. Pilkington had put up at the same hotel as Rickman, and they found themselves alone at the dinner-table. "Glori-orious air this," said Mr. Pilkington. "I don't know how you feel, young 'un, but there's a voice that tells me I shall dine." Mr. Pilkington was not deceived by that prophetic voice. He dined with appetite undiminished by his companion's gloom. From time to time he rallied him on his coyness under the fascinations of beef-steak, lager beer, apricots and Devonshire cream. "Well, Razors," he said at last, "and wot do you think of the Harden Library?" Rickman was discreet. "Oh, it isn't bad for a private show. Sir Frederick doesn't seem to have been much of a collector." "Wasn't he, though! In his own line he was a pretty considerable collector, quite a what d'you call 'em--virtuoso." "Not very much virtue about him, I imagine." "Well, whatever there may have been, in ten years that joker went through his capital as if it had been a paper hoop. Slap through it and out at the other side, on his feet, grinning at you." "How did he manage it?" "Cards--horses--women--everything you can name," said Dicky, "that's amusing, and at the same time expensive. They're precious slow down here in the country; but get 'em up to town, and there's nothing like 'em for going the pace, when they _do_ go it." "His velocity must have been something tremendous, to judge by the smash." Rickman was looking at the financial agent with an expression which some people might have been inclined to resent, but Dicky's gaiety was proof against criticism. "What did he die of?" Rickman asked slowly. "What a beastly question to ask at dinner. He died, like most people, of his way of living. If Freddy Harden had had opportunities equal to his talents he would have smashed up ten years ago. Talent wasn't the word for it, it was genius--genius." "I see. And when you come across a poor struggling devil with a gift like that, you long to be kind to him, don't you? To bring him forward, to remove every obstacle to his career?" "Well, yes, I suppose I did run Harden for all he was worth. Queer fish, Harden. He used to rave like a lunatic about his daughter; but I don't suppose he spent a fiver on her in his life. It's pretty rough on her, this business. But Loocher'll do. She's got cheek enough for half a dozen." Dicky chuckled at the memory of his discomfiture. "I like it. I like a girl with some bounce in her. Trust her to fall on her little tootsies anywhere you drop her." "I can't say you've made the falling very easy for her." Dicky's bright face clouded. "Wot the devil has that got to do with me? I've done _my_ level best. Why, I could have cleaned them out years ago, if I'd chosen. Now, just to show you what sort of fellow Freddy Harden was--last time I ever saw him, poor chap, he told me that girl of his was a regular musical genius, just a little more technique, you know, and she'd beat Paderewski into a cocked hat. She was wonderful. That's the way he piled it on, and it may have been all true; he could have made a fortune, fiddling, if he hadn't been as proud as Satan and as lazy as a wombat. Well, I said, if that was so, I'd take her up and run her as a pro.--for friendship, mind you. I liked Freddy, and I was orf'ly sorry for him. She could pay me if she pulled it off; if not, she could let it stand over till the day of judgement." Rickman flushed. "Did you know anything of Miss Harden, then?" "Not I. Never set eyes on her. She might have been as ugly as sin for all I knew. I risked that." "What did Sir Frederick say to your generous proposal?" Dicky's face became luminous at the recollection. "He said he'd see me d--d first. But I meant it. I'd do it to-morrow if she asked me prettily." "Have you any notion how she'll be left after all this?" "Yes. There's the house, and her mother's money. Freddy couldn't get at that. When it's all settled up she can't be so badly off, I fancy. Still it's a beastly back-hander in the face, poor girl. By Jove, she does stand up to it in form, too. Too d----d well bred to let you know she's hit. You wouldn't think she'd be plucky, to look at her, would you? It's queer how the breeding comes out in a woman." Rickman held himself in with difficulty. When pearls are cast before swine you look for depreciation as a matter of course; you would be infinitely more revolted if, instead of trampling them under their feet, the animals insisted on wearing them in their snouts. So Pilkington rootling in Miss Harden's affairs; Pilkington posing as Miss Harden's adviser; Pilkington adorning his obscene conversation with Miss Harden's name, was to Rickman an infinitely more abominable beast than Pilkington behaving according to his nature. But to quarrel with Pilkington on this head would have provoked the vulgarest of comments, and for Miss Harden's sake he restrained himself. Dicky remained unconscious. "I'm glad you put me up to offering some of those books back. It goes against me to sell them, but what the devil am I to do?" "_I_ can't tell you." "I shan't collar all this furniture, either. I'll buy in some of it and return it. The decent thing would be to give her back poor Freddy's portrait." He passed his hand over a bunch of bananas,--he selected one, pinched it, smelt it, put it down and took another. "It's a pity it's a Watts, that portrait," he murmured dreamily. He seemed to be wrestling with himself; and apparently he overcame. When he had eaten his banana his face was flushed and almost firm. "I'll not take it. He sticks in my throat, does Freddy." Rickman left the table. If he had disliked Dicky when he was callous, he loathed him when he was kind. He threw open the window, and sat on the ledge. The breeze had died down and the heat in the little hotel was stifling. Across the passage glasses clinked in the bar, sounding a suitable accompaniment to the voice of Dicky. From time to time bursts of laughter came from the billiard-room overhead. Outside there, in the night, the sea smothered these jarring human notes with its own majestic tumult. Rickman, giving up his sickened senses to the night and the sea, was fortunate enough to miss a great deal that Pilkington was saying. For Dicky, still seated at the table, talked on. He had mingled soda with whisky, and as he drank it, the veil of our earthly life lifted for Dicky, and there was revealed to him the underlying verity, the fabric of the world. In other words, Dicky had arrived at the inspired moment of the evening, and was chanting the Hymn of Finance. "Look," said Dicky, "at the Power it gives you. Now all you writing chaps, you know, you're not in it, you're not in it at all. You're simply 'opping and dodging round the outside--you 'aven't a chance of really seeing the show. Whereas--look at _me_. I go and take my seat plump down in the middle of the stage box. I've got my ear to the heart of 'Umanity and my 'and on its pulse. I've got a grip of realities. You say you want to por-tray life. Very well, por-tray it. When all's said and done you've only got a picture. And wot's a picture, if it's ever so lifelike? You 'aven't got a bit nearer to the real thing. I tell you, you aren't in it with me. I'd have been a writer myself if I'd thought it was good enough. I began that way; but as to going back to it, you might just as well expect me to go back to kissing a woman's photo when I can put my arm round her waist." And Dicky, gracefully descending on the wings of his metaphor, alighted on Miss Poppy Grace. But to Rickman the figure of Poppy, once an obsession, was now as indistinct as the figure of Dicky seen through a cloud of tobacco smoke. He was roused by a more direct appeal, and what seemed to him a violent change of theme. "Did you notice what rum eyes Miss Harden's got? They haven't taught her how to use 'em, though. Hi, Ricky! Aren't you going to join us in a drink?" "No, I'm not." His tone implied that he was not going to join Pilkington in anything. "You seem a bit cut up on Miss Harden's account." "If you mean that I think she's been most infernally treated, I do." "H'm. Well, I will say the wind is not exactly tempered to that shorn lamb. But it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. Queer how things are mixed up in this world. You wouldn't think there was much connexion between Miss Harden and Miss Poppy Grace, would you? Well, wot's Loocher's loss is Popsie's gain; if that's any consolation." "I certainly don't see the connexion." "No? I say, can't you shut the window? That d----d sea makes such a noise I can't hear myself speak. I was going to say I'd some notion of running Poppy on her own before long. And I think--I _think_ I can do it out of this haul, before she signs another contract. Of course, we expect you and your friends to back us." Dicky's voice came slightly muffled from the depths of his long tumbler. Rickman turned round. "What did you say about Bacchus?" He had turned in anger, but at the spectacle presented by Pilkington he laughed aloud in the insolence of his youth. "Shut that window, can't you? I say, if you can get at any of the papers and give them the tip--" "Well?" Rickman's hand closed fiercely over the top of a soda-water syphon. Pilkington followed the movement with an innocent, but by no means unobservant eye. Only the other day they had been rivals for the favour of Miss Poppy Grace, which seemed to be very evenly divided between them. If Rickman had her heart, he--Pilkington--held her by the power of the purse. Jealous he might be, but jealousy counted for little in the great mind of Pilkington. Human passions were the stuff he worked in. Where they raged highest it was his to ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm. If in Poppy's case they raged too high, his position as creditor gave him a tight grip of young Rickman. On the other hand, Rickman was now a full-fledged Junior Journalist, and Pilkington, amid the wreck of morals and the crash of creeds, had preserved a simple childlike faith in the omnipotence of the press. So, if it was madness for Rickman to irritate Pilkington, it was not altogether expedient for Pilkington to irritate him. "Look here, Razors," said he, "you needn't go shying any syphons about. There's nothing behind this show but business. What I do for Miss Grace I do for cold cash. See? Of course, I take an interest in the girl--" "Interest at something like a hundred and fifty per cent., I suppose?" "That's about the figure--With your permission, I'll remove that fizz-gig out of your way--What do you think of it--my idea, I mean?" "I think there's a d----d lot more interest than principle in it." "You young goat! I'm out of it. Honour bright. So if you feel inclined to slog away and boom the lady, there's no reason why you shouldn't." "Is there any reason why I should?" inquired Rickman with treacherous severity. So immense was his calm that Dicky was taken in by it and blundered. "Well, yes," said he, "in that case, we might consider our little account settled." "Our little account, Dicky, will be run up on the wrong side of the paper if you don't take care." "Wot d'you mean?" "I mean that when you've got a particularly filthy job on hand, it's as well to keep away from people who are not fond of dirt. At any rate, I advise you not to come too near me." Dicky for the first time that evening looked uncomfortable. It occurred to Dicky that whisky and soda was not the very best drink to talk business on. "I've noticed, Rickman," said he, "that since you've been living down in the country, you don't seem able to understand a joke." But Rickman had got his legs on the other side of the window ledge, and as Dicky approached him he slid down on to the esplanade and slipped into the night. CHAPTER XXXIII Hardly knowing how he got there he found himself on the top of Harcombe Hill. His head was bare and the soles of his thin slippers were cut with the flints of the hillside lane. He had walked, walked, walked, driven by a fury in his body and a fever in his feet. His first idea had been to get as far away as possible from his companion. He felt that he never could be clean again after his contact with Dicky. How had the thing happened? Yesterday London seemed as far away from Harmouth as Babylon from Arcadia, and Rickman was not more infinitely removed from Lucia than Lucia was from Poppy; yet here they were, all three tangled together in Dicky's complicated draw-net. He held them all, Lucia by her honour, Poppy by her vanity, and him, Rickman, by the lusts and follies of his youth. This was what it had led him to, that superb triumphal progress of the passions. In language as plain as he could put it, he--he--had been offered a bribe to advertise Poppy Grace for the benefit of Dicky, who kept her. To advertise a little painted--he disposed of poor Poppy in a powerful word which would have given her propriety a fit if it could have heard him. That he himself should ever have been infatuated with Poppy seemed to him now incredible, monstrous. In the last three weeks he had not only grown sober, but mature. That youth of his which once seemed immortal, had then ceased to be a part of him. He had cut himself loose from it and put it behind him with all its miseries and tumults and pollutions. But he couldn't get rid of it. Like an unclean spirit cast out of him it seemed to have entered into Dicky as into a convenient herd of swine. And in Dicky's detestable person it rose up against him and pursued him. For Dicky, though sensual as any swine, was cautious. Dicky, even with an unclean spirit in him, was not in the least likely to rush violently down any steep place into the sea and so perish out of his life. That Dicky should have appeared on his last night here seemed the vilest stroke that fate had dealt him yet. But Dicky could not follow him up Harcombe Hill. He looked before him. The lights of Harmouth opened out a thin line to the esplanade, dividing the sea from the land by fire instead of foam; strewn in the bed of the valley they revealed, as through some pure and liquid medium, its darkness and its depth. Above them the great flank of Muttersmoor stretched like the rampart of the night. Night itself was twilight against that black and tragic line. And Rickman, standing bareheaded on the hillside, was lifted up out of his immense misery and unrest. He remembered how this land that he loved so passionately had once refused him the inspiration that he sought. And now it seemed to him that it could refuse him nothing, that Nature under cover of the darkness gave up her inmost ultimate secret. And if it be true that Nature's innermost ultimate secret is known only to the pure, it was a sign of his own cleansing, this sense of comfort and reconciliation, of unspoiled communion, of profound immeasurable peace. In that moment his genius seemed to have passed behind veils upon veils of separation, to possess that tender and tragic beauty, to become one with the soul of the divine illimitable night. He was not in the least deceived as to the true source of his inspiration. In all this, if you went back far enough, his body counted; his body which he had made a house of shame and hunger and desire, shaken by its own shivering nerves and leaping desperate pulses. But what of that now? What matter, since that tumult of his blood had set throbbing such subtle, such infinite vibrations in his soul. _That_ was what counted. He could tell by it the quality and immensity of his passion, by just that spiritual resonance and response. It was the measure of Lucia's power to move him, the measure too of his nearness to her no less than of his separation. She could not take away what she had given; and among his sources of inspiration, of the unique and unforgettable secret that had passed into him with the night, on Harcombe Hill, as he looked towards Muttersmoor, she also counted. She would be always there, a part of it, a part of him, whether she would or no--if that was any consolation. CHAPTER XXXIV He had made no empty promise when he assured her that he would do his best; for there was something that could still be done. He built great hopes on the result of the coming interview with his father. His idea was to go up to town by the early morning train and talk the whole thing over as calmly as might be. He would first of all appeal to his father's better feelings; he would make him see this thing as he saw it, he would rouse in him the spirit of integrity, the spirit of mercy and pity, the spirit of justice and chivalry and honour. But if all the arts of persuasion failed to touch him, Rickman Junior had in reserve one powerful argument against which Rickman Senior would hardly be able to contend. There would no doubt be inspirations, but as to the main lines of his pleading he was already clear. He felt entirely confident and light-hearted as he rose at five the next morning to catch that early train. Rickman Senior was not in the shop when Rickman Junior arrived on the scene. He was in a great bare room on an upper floor of the second-hand department. He looked more than ever studious and ascetic, having exchanged his soft felt hat for a velvet skull-cup, and his frock coat for a thin alpaca. He was attended by a charwoman with scrubbing brush and pail, a boy with ladder and broom, and a carpenter with foot-rule, note-book and pencil. He moved among them with his most solemn, most visionary air, the air, not so much of a Wesleyan minister, as of a priest engaged in some high service of dedication. He was in fact making arrangements for the reception of no less than fifteen thousand volumes, the collection of the late Sir Joseph Harden, of Court House, Harmouth. And as he looked around him his face expressed the smooth and delicately voluptuous satisfaction of the dreamer who has touched his dream. This look of beatitude faded perceptibly when the message came that Mr. Keith was in the front shop and wished to see him. Mr. Keith, it appeared, had no time to spare. Isaac had, in fact, experienced a slight shock at the earliness of Keith's return. His first thought was that at the last moment there had been some serious hitch with Pilkington. He found Keith sitting before the counter in the attitude of a rather imperious customer; but the warm pressure of his son's hand removed this disagreeable effect of superiority. Keith's face wore signs of worry and agitation that confirmed Isaac's original fear. "Well," he said a little anxiously, "I didn't expect you back as early as this." "I haven't come to stop. I've got to catch the twelve-thirty back again. I came up because I wanted to talk to you." "Come," said Isaac, "into the office." He laid his hand on Keith's shoulder as they went. He felt very kindly towards him at that moment. His heart was big with trust in the brilliant, impetuous boy. When he touched Keith's hand he had felt that intellectual virtue had gone out of it. He guessed that there was a crisis in the affairs of the House of Rickman, and that Keith had come with warning and with help. He knew his power of swift and effectual action in a crisis. Yes, yes; Keith's wits might go wool-gathering; but he was safe enough when he had gathered his wool. "Well?" he repeated, lifting grave interrogative eyebrows. He had seated himself; but Keith remained standing, a sign with him of extreme perturbation. "I thought I could explain things better if I saw you," he began. "Quite so; quite so. I hope you haven't come to tell me there's been any 'itch." "Well, I told you as much when I wrote." "I understood you advised me to withdraw, because you thought Pilkington wanted a big price." "I didn't know what he wanted; I knew what we ought to give." "That was settled by looking in the register. You don't mean to say _he_'s going to back out of it?" Keith was so preoccupied that he failed to see the drift of his father's questioning. "You see," he continued, following his own thoughts, "it's not as if we had only ourselves to consider. There's Miss Harden." "Ah, yes, Pilkington did make some mention of a young lady." "She was good enough to say she'd rather we bought the library than anybody. I think we're bound to justify her confidence." "Certainly, most certainly, we are," said Isaac with solemnity. He was agreeably flattered by this tribute to the greatness of his house. "I thought I did right in promising that we would do our very best for her." "Of course you were. But that's all settled. Mr. Pilkington knows that I'm prepared to meet his wishes." "His wishes?" "He gave me to understand that he was anxious to have a sum to hand over to the young lady. In fact, he wrote me a most touching appeal." "What d----d impertinence! He had no business to appeal!" "Well, per'aps it wasn't strictly business-like. But I think, under the circumstances, 'e was morally--_morally_--justified. And I think he will consider I've responded very handsomely." "You've made him an offer, then?" "I made it three days ago, provisionally, and he's accepted it," said Isaac, with some heat. "Why, he's got the cheque." "For how much?" "For twelve hundred." "My dear father, you know, really, that won't do." "Do you think it was foolish to pay the two hundred extra?" Isaac gazed at him over his fine gold-rimmed spectacles; and as he gazed he kept drawing his beard slowly through one lean and meditative hand. It was thus that he grasped his son's argument and drew it to a point. "Foolish? It was--Don't you see? We--we simply can't do it." "Why, you said yourself we could go as far as four thousand five, or four thousand at the very least." Keith looked steadily at his father, who was too deeply and solemnly absorbed to perceive the meaning of the look. "That was not quite what I said. I said--if we were _not_ prepared to go so far, it was our duty to withdraw. I thought I had made that clear to you." "You 'aven't made it clear to me why you're objecting to that two hundred now." Isaac was beginning to feel that stupidity was now his refuge. "I'm not objecting to your reckless extravagance, as you seem to think. I'm trying to suggest that twelve hundred is a ridiculously small offer for a collection which can't be worth less than four thousand." "It may be worth that to a collector. It isn't worth it to me." "It's worth it to any dealer who knows his business." "Pretty business, if you have to buy at fancy prices and sell at a risk." "I allowed for the risk in the valuation--I always do. There's one point where you _are_ extravagant, if you like. What's the use of paying me for advice if you won't take it?" Isaac's stupidity increased. "'Ow do you mean--paying you for your advice?" "Paying a valuer, then, if you won't accept his valuation." So unwilling was he to admit the sharpness of his father's practice that he tried to persuade himself that they had merely disagreed on a point of connoisseurship. "My advice, if you remember, was to withdraw decently, or pay a decent price." "I've paid my price, and I'm certainly not going to withdraw." "Well, but I'm afraid, if you won't withdraw, I must. You haven't paid _my_ price, and I can't be responsible." Isaac caressed his beard gently, and looked at Keith with a gaze so clear that it might have passed for pure. He was saying to himself, as he had said once before, "There's a woman in it." "Don't you see," Keith broke out, "the atrocious position that I'm in? I promised Miss Harden that we'd do our best for her, and now we're taking advantage of the situation to drive an iniquitous bargain with her." As Keith made this powerful statement Isaac smiled, puzzled and indulgent, as at some play of diverting but incomprehensible humour. In fact, he never could clearly distinguish between Keith's sense of humour and his sense of honour; both seemed equally removed from the safe, intelligible methods of ordinary men. He wasn't sure but what there was something fine in it, something in keeping with the intellectual extravagance that distinguished his son from other people's sons. There were moments when it amused and interested him, but he did not care to have it obtruded on him in business hours. "I'm driving no bargain with the lady at all. The books aren't hers, they're Pilkington's. I'm dealing with him." "And you refuse to consider her interests?" "How can you say so when I'm paying two hundred more than I need do, on her account alone? You must explain that clearly to her." "Not I. You can explain it yourself. To me, you see, the whole thing's simply a colossal fraud. I won't have anything to do with it." "You _'aven't_ anything to do with it. I made the bargain, and I keep to it." "Very well, then, you must choose between your bargain and me." "Wot do you mean, choose between my bargain and you?" "I mean exactly what I say. I know (if you don't) that that two hundred ought to be three thousand, and if it isn't paid I shall have to shunt the business. I never meant to stay in it for ever, but in this case I shall simply clear out at once, that's all. See?" "No. I don't see. I don't see myself paying three thousand to a man who's willing to take two hundred." "See my point, I mean. If the three thousand isn't paid, I go. On the other hand, if it is paid, I stay." This was one of those inspirations on which he had counted, and it presented itself to him as a "clincher." At the same instant he realized that he was selling himself into slavery for three thousand pounds. No, not for three thousand pounds, for his honour's sake and Lucia Harden's. Isaac looked graver, alarmed even; it struck him that Keith's peculiar vein of extravagance was becoming dangerous. "You can calculate the interest at four per cent., and knock a hundred and twenty off my salary, if you like; but I'll stay. It's pretty clear, isn't it? I think, on the whole, it might be as well for you to close with the offer. It seems to me that if I'm worth anything at all, I'm worth three thousand." "I haven't priced your services yet." Isaac's gaze shifted. He was beginning to feel something of that profound discomfort he had experienced before in the presence of his son. "Now, when you spoke to Miss 'Arden, had she any notion of the value of the library?" "None whatever, till I told her." "Do you mean to stand there and say that you were fool enough to tell her?" "Certainly; I thought it only fair to her." "And did you think it was fair to me?" "Why not? If you're not dealing with her what difference could it make?" He said to himself, "I've got him there!" Isaac was indeed staggered by the blow, and lost his admirable composure. "Do you know wot you've done? You've compromised me. You've compromised the honour and the reputation of my 'Ouse. And you've done it for a woman. You can't 'ide it; you're a perfect fool where women are concerned." "If anybody's compromised, I think it's me. I pledged my word." "And wot business had you to pledge it?" "Oh, I thought it safe. I didn't think you'd dishonour my draft on your reputation." "Draft indeed! That's it. You might just as well 'ave taken my cheque-book out of the drawer there and forged my signature at the bottom. Why, it's moral forgery--that's wot it is. I can see it all. You thought you were acting very generous and grand with this young lady. I say you were mean. You did it on the cheap. You'd no expense, or risk, or responsibility at all. I know you can't see it that way, but that's 'ow it is." Keith did not defend himself against this view of his conduct, and Isaac preserved his attitude of moral superiority. "I'm not blaming you, my boy. It's my own fault. I shouldn't 'ave sent you out like that, _with_ cart blansh, so to speak, and without it. I should 'ave given you some responsibility." "Oh, thanks, I couldn't very well have done with more than I had." "Ah--you don't know the kind of responsibility I mean. You seem very ready to play fast and loose with my business. I daresay, now, you think since you 'aven't much to lose, you 'aven't much to gain?" "Well, frankly, I can't see that I have--much. But I've got to catch a train in twenty minutes, and I want to know what you're going to do? Am I worth three thousand, or am I not?" "You're worth a great deal more to me. You've got an education I 'aven't got; you've got brains; you've got tact, when you choose to use it. You've got expert knowledge, and I can't carry on my business without that. I'm not unreasonable. I can see that you can't act to advantage if you're not made responsible, if you haven't any direct interest in the business." He fixed his son with a glance that was nothing if not spiritually fine. Keith found himself struggling against an infamous, an intolerable suspicion. "And that," said Isaac, "is wot I mean to give you. I've thought it well over, and I believe it's worth my while." He went on, joining his finger-tips, like a man who fits careful thought to careful thought, suggesting the final adjustment of a plan long ago determined and approved, for something in Keith's face made him anxious that this offer should not appear to be born of the subject under discussion. "It was always my intention to take you into partnership. I didn't mean to do it quite so soon, but rather than 'ear this talk of flinging up the business, I'm prepared to do it now." "On the same conditions?" Now that Rickman's should eventually become Rickman and Son was a very natural development, and in any ordinary circumstances Isaac could hardly have made a more innocent and suitable proposal. But it was no longer possible for Keith to ignore its significance. It meant that his father was ready to buy his services at any price; to bribe him into silence. His worst misgivings had never included such a possibility. In fact, before going down to Devonshire he had never had any serious misgivings at all. His position in his father's shop had hitherto presented no difficulties to a sensitive honour. He had not been sure that his honour was particularly sensitive, not more so, he supposed, than other people's. Acting as part of the machinery of Rickman's, he had sometimes made a clever bargain; he had never, so far as he knew, driven a hard one. He was expected to make clever bargains, to buy cheap and sell dear, to watch people's faces, lowering the price by their anxiety to sell, raising it by their eagerness to buy. That was his stern duty in the second-hand department. But there had been so many occasions on which he had never done his duty; times when he was tempted to actual defiance of it, when a wistful calculating look in the eyes of some seedy scholar would knock all the moral fibre out of him, and a two and sixpenny book would go for ninepence or a shilling. And such was his conception of loyalty to Rickman's, that he generally paid for these excesses out of his own pocket, so that conscience was satisfied both ways. Therefore there had been no moral element in his dislike to Rickman's; he had shrunk from it with the half-fantastic aversion of the mind, not with this sickening hatred of the soul. After three weeks of Lucia Harden's society, he had perceived how sordid were the beginnings from which his life had sprung. As his boyish dreams had been wrought like a broidery of stars on the floor of the back-shop, so honour, an unattainable ideal, had stood out in forlorn splendour against a darker and a dirtier background. He had felt himself obscurely tainted and involved. Now he realized, as he had never realized before, that the foundations of Rickman's were laid in bottomless corruption. It was a House built, not only on every vile and vulgar art known to trade, but on many instances of such a day's work as this. And it was into this pit of infamy that his father was blandly inviting him to descend. He had such an abominably clear vision of it that he writhed and shuddered with shame and disgust; he could hardly have suffered more if he had gone down into it bodily himself. He endured in imagination the emotions that his father should have felt and apparently did not feel. He came out of his shudderings and writhings unspeakably consoled and clean; knowing that it is with such nausea and pangs that the soul of honour is born. Their eyes met; and it was the elder Rickman's turn for bitterness. It had come, the moment that he had dreaded. He was afraid to meet his son's eyes, for he knew that they had judged him. He felt that he stood revealed in that sudden illumination of the boy's radiant soul. An instinct of self-preservation now prompted him to belittle Keith's character. He had found amazing comfort in the reflection that Keith was not all that he ought to be. As far as Isaac could make out, he was always running after the women. He was a regular young profligate, an infidel he was. What right had he to sit in judgement? Shrewd even in anger, he took refuge in an adroit misconstruction of Keith's language. "I lay down _no_ conditions. I'm much too anxious about you. I want to see you in a house of your own, settled down and married to some good girl who'll keep you steady and respectable. It's a simple straightforward offer, and you take it or leave it." "I'll take it on two conditions. First, as I said before, that we either withdraw or pay over that three thousand. Second, that in the future no bargains are made without my knowledge--and consent. That means giving me the entire control of my own department." "It means reducing me to a mere cypher." "Such bargains are questions for experts, and should be left to experts." "If I were to leave them to experts like you I should be bankrupt in a fortnight." "I'm sorry, but you must choose between your methods and mine. There's ten minutes to do it in." "It won't take ten minutes to see what will ruin me quickest. As I told you before, I'm not going back on my bargain." "Nor I on mine." Isaac spent three minutes in reflection. He reflected first, that Keith had been in the past "a young profligate"; secondly, that he was at the present moment in love; thirdly, that in the future he would infallibly be hungry. He would think very differently when he had forgotten the lady; or if he didn't think differently he would behave differently when his belly pinched him. Isaac was a firm believer in the persuasive power of the primitive appetites. "Only seven minutes," murmured Keith. "I'm sorry to hurry you, father, but I really must catch that train." "Wait--steady. Do you know wot you're about? You shan't do anything rash for want of a clear understanding. Mind--as you stand there, you're nothing but a paid shop-assistant; and if you leave the shop, you leave it without a penny to your name." "Quite so. My name will hardly be any the worse for that. You're sure you've decided? You--really--do not--want--to keep me?" After all, did he want to keep him, to be unsettled in his conscience and ruined in his trade? What, after all, had Keith brought into the business but three alien and terrible spirits, the spirit of superiority, the spirit of criticism, the spirit of tempestuous youth? He would be glad to be rid of him, to be rid of those clear young eyes, of the whole brilliant and insurgent presence. Not that he believed that it would really go. He had a genial vision of the hour of Keith's humiliation and return, a vivid image of Keith crawling back on that empty belly. At that moment Keith smiled, a smile that had in it all the sweetness of his youth. It softened his father's mood, though it could not change it. "I'm afraid I can't afford to pay your price, my boy." He was the first to turn away. And Keith understood too thoroughly to condemn. That was it. His father couldn't pay his price. The question was, could he afford to pay it himself? As the great swinging doors closed behind him, he realized that whatever price he had paid for it, he had redeemed his soul. And he had bought his liberty. CHAPTER XXXV Really, as Miss Harden's solicitor pointed out to her in the presence of Miss Palliser, things looked very black against the young man. It was clear, from the letter Mr. Schofield had received from Mr. Jewdwine that morning, that the library was worth at least three times the amount these Rickmans had paid for it. Barring the fact that sale by private contract was irregular and unsatisfactory, he completely exonerated Mr. Pilkington from all blame in the matter. His valuation had evidently been made in all good faith, if in some ignorance. But the young man, who by Pilkington's account had been acting all along as his father's agent, must have been perfectly aware of the nature of the bargain he had made. There was every reason to suppose that he had known all about the bill of sale before he came down to Harmouth; and there could be no doubt he had made use of his very exceptional opportunities to inform himself precisely of the value of the books he was cataloguing. He must have known that they had been undervalued by Mr. Pilkington, and seen his chance of buying them for a mere song. So what does he do? He carefully conceals his knowledge from the persons most concerned; obviously, that he and his father may keep the market to themselves. Then at the last moment he comes and pretends to give Miss Harden a chance of forestalling the purchase, knowing well that before she can take a single step the purchase will be concluded. Then he hurries up to town; and the next thing you hear is that he's very sorry, but arrangements have unfortunately already been made with Mr. Pilkington. No doubt, as agent of the sale, that young man would pocket a very substantial commission. Clearly in the face of the evidence, it was impossible to acquit him of dishonesty; but no action could be brought against him, because the matter lay entirely between him and Mr. Pilkington. Lucia and Kitty had listened attentively to the masterly analysis of Mr. Rickman's motives; and at the end Kitty admitted that appearances were certainly against him; while Lucia protested that he was a poet and therefore constitutionally incapable of the peculiar sort of cleverness imputed to him. The man of law submitted that because he was a poet it did not follow that he was not an uncommonly knowing young man too. Whereupon Kitty pointed out one or two flaws in the legal argument. In the first place, urged Kitty, the one thing that this knowing young man did not know was the amount of security the library represented. Mr. Schofield smiled in genial forbearance with a lady's ignorance. He _must_ have known, for such information is always published for the benefit of all whom it may concern. But Kitty went on triumphantly. There was nothing to prove it, nothing to show that this knowing young man knew all the facts when he first undertook to work for Miss Harden. So far from concealing the facts later on, he had, to her certain knowledge, written at once to Mr. Jewdwine advising him to buy in the library, literally over old Rickman's head. That old Rickman's action had not followed on young Rickman's visit to town was sufficiently proved by the dates. The letter to Mr. Pilkington enclosing the cheque for twelve hundred had been written and posted at least twelve hours before his arrival. What the evidence did prove was that he had moved heaven and earth to make his father withdraw from his bargain. Mr. Schofield coldly replied that the better half of Miss Palliser's arguments rested on the statements of the young man himself, to which he was hardly inclined to attach so much importance as she did. If his main assertion was correct, that he had written to inform Mr. Jewdwine of the facts, it was a little odd, to say the least of it, that Mr. Jewdwine made no mention of having received that letter. And that he had _not_ received it might be fairly inferred from the discrepancy between young Rickman's exaggerated account of the value and Mr. Jewdwine's more moderate estimate. Lucia and Kitty first looked at each other, and then away to opposite corners of the room. And at that moment Kitty was certain, while Lucia doubted; for Kitty went by the logic of the evidence and Lucia by the intuition which was one with her desire. Surely it was more likely that Rickman had never written to Horace than that Horace should have failed her, if he knew? Meanwhile the cold legal voice went on to shatter the last point in Kitty's defence, observing that if Rickman had not had time to get up to town before his father wrote to Mr. Pilkington he had had plenty of time to telegraph. He added that the young man's moral character need not concern them now. Whatever might be thought of his conduct it was not actionable. And to the legal mind what was not actionable was irrelevant. But for Lucia, to whom at the moment material things were unrealities, the burning question was the honesty or dishonesty of Rickman; for it involved the loyalty or disloyalty, or rather, the ardour or the indifference of Horace. If Rickman were cleared of the grosser guilt, her cousin was, on a certain minor count, condemned; and there could be no doubt which of the two she was the more anxious to acquit. "I suppose you'll see him if he calls?" asked Kitty when they were alone. "See who?" "Mr. Savage Keith Rickman." Even in the midst of their misery Kitty could not forbear a smile. But for once Lucia was inaccessible to the humour of the name. "Of course I shall see him," she said gravely. CHAPTER XXXVI He called soon after six that evening, coming straight from the station to the house. Miss Palliser was in the library, but his face as he entered bore such unmistakable signs of emotion that Kitty in the kindness of her heart withdrew. He was alone there, as he had been on that evening of his first coming. He looked round at the place he had loved so well, and knew that he was looking at it now for the last time. At his feet the long shadow from the bust of Sophocles lay dusk upon the dull crimson; the level light from the west streamed over the bookshelves, lying softly on brown Russia leather and milk-white vellum, lighting up the delicate gold of the tooling, glowing in the blood-red splashes of the lettering pieces; it fell slant-wise on the black chimney piece, chiselling afresh the Harden motto: _Invictus_. There was nothing meretricious, nothing flagrantly modern there, as in that place of books he had just left; its bloom was the bloom of time, the beauty of a world already passing away. Yet how he had loved it; how he had given himself up to it; how it had soothed him with its suggestion of immortal things. And now, for this last time, he felt himself surrounded by intelligences, influences; above the voices of his anguish and his shame he heard the stately generations calling; they approved; they upheld him in his resolution. He turned and saw Lucia standing beside him. She had come in unheard, as on that evening which seemed now so long ago. She held out her hand. Not to have shaken hands with the poor fellow, would, she felt, have been to condemn him without a hearing. He did not see the offered hand, nor yet the chair it signed to him to take. As if he knew that he was on his trial, he stood rigidly before her. His eyes alone approached her, looking to hers to see if they condemned him. Lucia's eyes were strictly non-committal. They, too, seemed to stand still, to wait, wide and expectant, for his defence. Her attitude was so far judicial that she was not going to help him by a leading question. She merely relieved the torture of his visible bodily constraint by inviting him to sit down. He dropped into a chair that stood obliquely by the window, and screwed himself round in it so as to face her. "I saw my father this morning," he began. "I went up by the early train." "I know." "Then you know by this time that I was a day too late." "Mr. Pilkington sent me your father's letter." "What did you think of it?" The question, so cool, so sudden, so direct, was not what she felt she had a right to expect from him. "Well--what did you think of it yourself?" She looked at him and saw that she had said a cruel thing. "Can't you imagine what I think of it?" This again was too sudden; it took her at a disadvantage, compelling her instantly to commit herself to a theory of innocence or complicity. "If you can't," said he, "of course there's no more to be said." He said it very simply, as if he were not in the least offended, and she looked at him again. No. There was no wounded dignity about him, there was the tragic irremediable misery of a man condemned unheard. And could that be her doing--Lucia's? She who used to be so kind and just? Never in all her life had she condemned anybody unheard. But she had to choose between this man who a month ago was an utter stranger to her, and Horace who was of her own blood, her own class, her own life. Did she really want Mr. Rickman to be tainted that Horace might be clean? And she knew he trusted her; he had made his appeal to the spirit that had once divined him. He might well say, "could she not imagine what he thought of it?" "Yes," she said gently, "I think I can. If you had not told me what the library was worth, of course I should have thought your father very generous in giving as much for it as he has done." "I did tell you I was anxious he--we--should not buy it; because I knew we couldn't give you a proper price." "Yes, you told me. And I wanted you to buy it, because I thought you would do your best for me." "I know. I know. If it wasn't for that--but that's the horrible part of it." "Why? You did your best, did you not?" "Yes. I really thought it would be all right if I went up and saw him. I felt certain he would see it as I did--" "Well?" He answered with painful hesitation. "Well--he didn't see it. My father hasn't very much imagination--he couldn't realize the thing in the same way, because he wasn't in it as I was. He'd seen nobody but Pilkington, you see." Something in her face told him that this line of defence was distasteful to her, that he had no right to make a personal matter of an abstract question of justice. It was through those personalities that he had always erred. "I don't see what that has to do with it," she said. "He--he thought it was only a question of a bargain between Pilkington and him." "What you mean is that he wouldn't admit that I came into it at all?" She saw that she was putting him to the torture. He could not defend himself without exposing his father; but she meant that he should defend himself, that he should if possible stand clear. "Yes. He hadn't seen you. He wouldn't go back on his bargain, and I couldn't make him. God knows I tried hard enough! "Did you think you could do anything by trying?" "I thought I could do a good deal. I had a hold on him, you see. I happen to be extremely useful to him in this branch of his business. I was trained for it; in fact, I'm hopelessly mixed up with it. Well, he can't do very much without me, and I told him that if he didn't give up the library I should give him up. It wasn't a nice thing to have to say to your father--" "And you said it?" Her face expressed both admiration and a certain horror. "Yes. I told him he must choose between me and his bargain." "That must have been hard." "He didn't seem to find it so. Anyhow, he hasn't chosen me." "I meant hard for you to have to say it." "I assure you it came uncommonly easy at the moment." "Don't--don't." "I'm not going to defend him simply because he happens to be my father. I don't even defend myself." "You? You didn't know." "I knew quite enough. I knew he might cheat you without meaning to. I didn't think he'd do it so soon or so infamously, but, to tell the truth, I went up to town on purpose to prevent it." "I know--I know that was what you went for." She seemed to be answering some incessant voice that accused him, and he perceived that the precipitancy of his action suggested a very different interpretation. His position was odious enough in all conscience, but as yet it had not occurred to him that he could be suspected of complicity in the actual fraud. "Why didn't I do something to prevent it before?" "But--didn't you?" "I did everything I could. I wrote to my father--if that's anything; the result, as you see, was a cheque for the two hundred that should have been three thousand." "Did it never occur to you to write to anybody else, to Mr. Jewdwine, for instance?" She brought out the question shrinkingly, as if urged against her will by some intolerable compulsion, and he judged that this time they had touched what was, for her, a vital point. "Of course it occurred to me. Haven't you heard from him?" "I have. But hardly in time for him to do anything." He reflected. Jewdwine had written; therefore his intentions had been good. But he had delayed considerably in writing; evidently, then, he had been embarrassed. He had not mentioned that he had heard from him; and why shouldn't he have mentioned it? Oh, well--after all, why should he? At the back of his mind there had crawled a wriggling, worm-like suspicion of Jewdwine. He saw it wriggling and stamped on it instantly. There were signs of acute anxiety on Miss Harden's face. It was as if she implored him to say something consoling about Jewdwine, something that would make him pure in her troubled sight. A light dawned on him. "Did you write to him?" she asked. He saw what she wanted him to say, and he said it. "Yes, I wrote. But I suppose I did it too late, like everything else I've done." He had told the truth, but not the whole truth, which would have been damaging to Jewdwine. To deny altogether that he had written would have been a clumsy and unnecessary falsehood, easily detected. Something more masterly was required of him, and he achieved it without an instant's hesitation, and with his eyes open to the consequences. He knew that he was deliberately suppressing the one detail that proved his own innocence. But as their eyes met he saw that she knew it, too; that she divined him through the web that wrapped him round. "Well," she said, "if you wrote to Mr. Jewdwine, you did indeed do your best." The answer, on her part, was no less masterly in its way. He could not help admiring its significant ambiguity. It was both an act of justice, an assurance of her belief in him, and a superb intimation of her trust in Horace Jewdwine. And it was not only superb, it was almost humble in that which it further confessed and implied--her gratitude to him for having made that act of justice consistent with loyalty to her cousin. How clever of her to pack so many meanings into one little phrase! "I did it too late," he said, emphasizing the point which served for Jewdwine's vindication. "Never mind that. You did it." "Miss Harden, is it possible that you still believe in me?" The question was wrung from him; for her belief in him remained incredible. "Why should it not be possible?" "Any man of business would tell you that appearances are against me." "Well, I don't believe in appearances; and I do believe in you. You are not a man of business, you see." "Thank goodness, I'm not, now." "You never were, I think." "No. And yet, I'm so horribly mixed up with this business, that I can never think of myself as an honest man again." She seemed to be considering whether this outburst was genuine or only part of his sublime pretence. "And I could never think of you as anything else. I should say, from all I have seen of you, that you are if anything _too_ honest, too painfully sincere." ("Yes, yes," her heart cried out, "I believe in him, _because_ he didn't tell the truth about that letter to Horace." She could have loved him for that lie.) He was now at liberty to part with her on that understanding, leaving her to think him all that was disinterested and honourable and fine. But he could not do it. Not in the face of her almost impassioned declaration of belief. At that moment he was ready rather to fall at her feet in the torture of his shame. And as he looked at her, tears came into his eyes, those tears that cut through the flesh like knives, that are painful to bring forth and terrible to see. "I've not been an honest man, though. I've no right to let you believe in me." Her face was sweeter than ever with its piteous, pathetic smile struggling through the white eclipse of grief. "What have you done?" "It's not what I've done. It's what I didn't do. I told you that I knew the library was going to be sold. I told you that yesterday, and you naturally thought I only _knew_ it yesterday, didn't you?" "Well, yes, but I don't see--" She paused, and his confession dropped into the silence with an awful weight. "I knew--all the time." She leaned back in her chair, the change of bodily posture emphasizing the spiritual recoil. "All the time, and you never told me?" "All the time and I never told you. I'd _almost_ forgotten when you offered me that secretaryship, but I knew it when I let you engage me; I knew it before I came down. I never would have come if I'd realized what it meant, but when I did know, I stayed all the same." "What do you think you ought to have done?" "Of course--I ought to have gone away--since I couldn't be honest and tell you." "And why" (she said it very gently but with no change in her attitude), "why couldn't you be honest and tell me?" "I'm not sure that I'd any right to tell you what I hadn't any right to know. I'm only sure of one thing--as I did know, I oughtn't to have stayed. But," he reiterated sorrowfully, "I did stay." "You stayed to help me." "Yes; with all my dishonesty I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't made myself believe that. As it's turned out, I've helped to ruin you." "Please--please don't. As far as I'm concerned you've nothing to reproach yourself with. Your position was a very difficult one." "I ought never to have got into it." "Still, you did your best." "My best! You can't say I did what an honourable man would have done; I mean at the beginning." "No--no. I'm afraid I can't say that." He did not expect anything but sincerity from her, neither did he desire that her sense of honour should be less fine than his. But he longed for some word of absolution, some look even that should reinstate him in his self-esteem; and it seemed to him that there was none. "You can't think worse of me than I think myself," he said, and turned mournfully away. She sat suddenly upright, with one hand on the arm of her chair, as if ready to rise and cut off his retreat. "Wait," she said. "Have you any idea what you are going to do?" The question held him within a foot's length of her chair, where the light fell full on his face. "I only know I'm not going back to the shop." "You were in earnest, then? It really has come to that?" "It couldn't very well come to anything else." She looked up at him gravely, realizing for the first time, through her own sorrow, the precise nature and the consequences of his action. He had burnt his ships, parted with his means of livelihood, in a Quixotic endeavour to serve her interests, and redeem his own honour. "Forgive my asking, but for the present this leaves you stranded?" "It leaves me free." She rose. "I know what that means. You won't mind my paying my debts at once, instead of later?" He stared stupidly, as if her words had stunned him. She was seated at her writing table, and had begun filling in a cheque before he completely grasped the horrible significance of what she had said. "What are you doing?" he asked. "I'm writing thirty instead of fifteen, because that is what you ought to have asked for in the beginning. You see I am more business-like now than I was then." He smiled. "And do you really suppose I am going to take it?" He meant his smile to be bitter, but somehow it was not. After all, she was so helpless and so young. "Of course you are going to take it." "I needn't ask what you think of me." This time the smile was bitterness itself. "But it's yours--what I owe you. I'm only paying it to-day instead of some other day." "But you have not got to pay me anything. What do you think you're paying me for?" "For your work, for the catalogue, of course." "That infamous catalogue ought never to have been made--not by me at any rate." "But you made it. You made it for me. I ordered it." "You ordered it from my father. In ordinary circumstances you would have owed him fifteen pounds. But even he wouldn't take it now. I think he considers himself quite sufficiently paid." "You are mixing up two things that are absolutely distinct." "No. I'm only refusing to be mixed up with them." "But you are mixed up with them." He laughed at that shot, as a brave man laughs at a hurt. "You needn't remind me of that. I meant--any more than I can help; though it may seem to you that I haven't very much lower to sink." "Believe me, I don't associate you with this wretched business. I want you to forget it." "I can't forget it. If I could, it would only be by refusing to degrade myself further in connection with it." His words were clumsy and wild as the hasty terrified movements of a naked soul, trying to gather round it the last rags of decency and honour. "There is no connection," she added, more gently than ever, seeing how she hurt him. "Don't you see that it lies between you and me?" He saw that as she spoke she was curling the cheque into a convenient form for slipping into his hand in the moment of leave-taking. "Indeed--indeed you must," she whispered. He drew back sharply. "Miss Harden, won't you leave me a shred of self-respect?" "And what about mine?" said she. It was too much even for chivalry to bear. "That's not exactly my affair, is it?" He hardly realised the full significance of his answer, but he deemed it apt. If, as she had been so careful to point out to him, her honour and his moved on different planes, how could her self-respect be his affair? "It ought to be," she murmured in a tone whose sweetness should have been a salve to any wound. But he did not perceive its meaning any more than he had perceived his own, being still blinded by what seemed to him the cruelty and degradation of the final blow. She had stripped him; then she stabbed. To hide his shame and his hurt, he turned his face from her and left her. So strangely and so drunkenly did he go, with such a mist in his eyes, and such anguish and fury in his heart and brain, that on the threshold of the Harden library he stumbled past Miss Palliser without seeing her. She found Lucia standing where he had left her, looking at a little roll of pale green paper that her fingers curled and uncurled. "Lucia," she said, "what have you done to him?" Lucia let the little roll of paper fall from her fingers to the floor. "I don't know, Kitty. Something horrible, I think." BOOK III THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE CHAPTER XXXVII Mrs. Downey's boarding-house was the light of Tavistock Place, Bloomsbury. In the brown monotony of the street it stood out splendid, conspicuous. Its door and half its front were painted a beautiful, a remarkable pea-green, while its door knob and door-knocker were of polished brass. Mrs. Downey's boarding-house knew nothing of concealment or disguise. Every evening, at the hour of seven, through its ground-floor window it offered to the world a scene of stupefying brilliance. The blinds were up, the curtains half-drawn, revealing the allurements of the interior. From both sides of the street, the entire length of the dinner-table was visible. Above it, a handsome gilt gaselier spread out its branches, and on this gaselier as many as three gas-jets burned furiously at once. In the intense illumination the faces of the boarders could be distinctly seen. They sat, as it were, transfigured, in a nebulous whorl or glory of yellow light. It fell on the high collars, the quite remarkably high collars of the young gentlemen, and on those gay, those positively hilarious blouses which the young ladies at Mrs. Downey's wear. Beside the water-bottles and tumblers of red glass it lay like a rosy shadow on the cloth. It gave back their green again to the aspidistras that, rising from a ruche of pink paper, formed the central ornament of the table. It made a luminous body of Mrs. Downey's face. The graver values were not sacrificed to this joyous expenditure of gas-light, for the wall-paper (the design was in chocolate, on a ground of ochre) sustained the note of fundamental melancholy. At the back of the apartment, immediately behind Mrs. Downey, an immense mahogany sideboard shone wine-dark in a gorgeous gloom. On the sideboard stood a Family Bible, and on the Family Bible a tea-urn, a tea-urn that might have been silver. There was design in this arrangement; but for the Bible the tea-urn would have been obliterated by Mrs. Downey; thus elevated, it closed, it crowned the vista with a beauty that was final, monumental and supreme. You had only to glance through those windows to see that Mrs. Downey's combined the splendid publicity of an hotel with the refinements of a well-appointed home. That it offered, together with a luxurious table, the society of youthful persons of both sexes. And if everything around Mrs. Downey was on a liberal scale, so was Mrs. Downey herself. She was expansive in her person, prodigal in sympathy, exuberant in dress. If she had one eye to the main chance, the other smiled at you in pure benignity. On her round face was a festal flush, flooding and effacing the little care-worn lines and wrinkles which appeared on it by day. It wore the colour of the hour which, evening after evening, renewed for her the great drama and spectacle of the Dinner. Her table was disposed with a view to scenic effect. It was not by accident that Mrs. Downey herself was seated at the obscure or sideboard end, and that she gathered round her there the older and less attractive members of her circle. This arrangement was flattering to them, for it constituted an order of precedence and they were in the seats of honour. It had also the further advantage of giving prominence to the young people whose brilliant appearance of an evening was as good as an advertisement for Mrs. Downey's. First then, at the top of the table, sat two elderly ladies, dishevelled birds of passage, guests of a day and a night. Next, on Mrs. Downey's right, came old Miss Bramble, with old Mr. Partridge opposite on the left. The young gentleman at the extreme bottom or public end of the table was Mr. Spinks. He was almost blatantly visible from the street. At Mr. Spinks's side sat Miss Ada Bishop, the young lady in the fascinating pink blouse; and opposite him, Miss Flossie Walker, in the still more fascinating blue. To the left of Miss Bishop in the very centre of the table was a middle-aged commercial gentleman, Mr. Soper (not specially conspicuous); and facing him and on Miss Walker's right came Miss Roots, who might be any age you please between thirty and forty. Between them at the present moment, there was an empty chair. Miss Roots was the link between the melancholy decadence above the aspidistras and the glorious and triumphant youth below. As far as could be inferred with any certainty she had leanings to the side of youth. Her presence was no restraint upon its glad and frolicsome humour. It felt that it could trust her. She had never been known to betray any of the secrets that passed at the risk of their lives from Miss Bishop's side of the table to Miss Walker's. There was reason to suppose that Miss Roots was aware of the surreptitious manufacture of bread pellets by Mr. Spinks (Mr. Spinks being the spirit of youth incarnate); but when one of these missiles struck Miss Roots full in the throat, when it should have just delicately grazed the top of Miss Flossie's frizzled hair, Miss Roots not only ignored the incident at the time, but never made the faintest allusion to it afterwards. Therefore Mr. Spinks voted Miss Roots to be a brick, and a trump, and what he called a real lady. Very curious and interesting was the behaviour of these people among themselves. It was an eternal game of chivy or hide-and-seek, each person being by turn the hunter and the hunted. Mrs. Downey tried to talk to the birds of passage; but the birds of passage would talk to nobody but each other. Miss Bramble took not the slightest notice of Mr. Partridge. Mr. Partridge did everything he could to make himself agreeable to Miss Bramble; but she was always looking away over the aspidistras, towards the young end of the table, with a little air of strained attention, at once alien and alert. Mr. Spinks spent himself in perpetual endeavours to stimulate a sense of humour in Miss Walker, who hadn't quite enough of it, with very violent effects on Miss Bishop, who had it in excess; while Mr. Soper was incessantly trying to catch the eye of Miss Roots around the aspidistras, an enterprise in which he was but rarely successful; Miss Walker finally making no attempt to bridge over the space between her chair and Miss Roots. That empty seat was reserved for Mr. Rickman, who was generally late. On his arrival the blinds would be pulled down in deference to his wish for a more perfect privacy. Meanwhile they remained up, so that wandering persons in hansoms, lonely persons having furnished apartments, persons living expensively in hotels or miserably in other boarding-houses, might look in, and long to be received into Mrs. Downey's, to enjoy the luxury, the comfort, the society. The society--Yes; as Mrs. Downey surveyed her table and its guests, her imagination ignored the base commercial tie; she felt herself to be a social power, having called into existence an assembly so various, so brilliant, and so gay. One thing only interfered with Mrs. Downey's happiness, Mr. Rickman's habit of being late. Such a habit would not have mattered so much in any of the other boarders, because, remarkable as they were collectively, individually, Mrs. Downey seldom thought of them unless they happened to be there, whereas with Mr. Rickman, now, whether he was there or not, she could think of nothing else. And to-night Mr. Rickman was later than ever. "I'm really beginning to be afraid," said Mrs. Downey, "that he can't be coming." The middle-aged gentleman, Mr. Soper, was heard muttering something to the effect that he thought they could bear up if he didn't come. Whereupon Mrs. Downey begged Mr. Soper's pardon in a manner which was a challenge to him to repeat his last remark. Therefore he repeated it. "I say, I 'ope we can manage to bear up." "Speak for yourself, Mr. Soper." (This from Mr. Spinks who adored Rickman.) "Well, really, I can't think how it is you and he don't seem to hit it off together. A young fellow that can make himself so pleasant when he likes." "Ah-h! When he likes. And when he doesn't like? When he comes into the room like a young lord with his head in the air, and plumps himself down straight in front of you, and looks at you as if you were a sorter ea'wig or a centerpede? Call that pleasant?" Mr. Spinks chuckled behind his table napkin. "He means a centre piece. Wouldn't he make a handsome one!" Mr. Soper combined a certain stateliness of carriage with a restless insignificance of feature. "We all know," said Mrs. Downey, "that Mr. Rickman is a very reserved gentleman. He has his own thoughts." "Thoughts? I've got my thoughts. But they don't make me disagreeable to everybody." Mr. Spinks craned forward as far as the height of his collar permitted him. "I wouldn't be too cock-sure if I were you, Mr. Soper." The young end of the table heaved and quivered with primeval mirth. Even Flossie Walker was moved to a faint smile. For Mr. Soper, though outwardly taciturn and morose, was possessed inwardly by a perfect fury of sociability, an immortal and insatiable craving to converse. It was an instinct which, if gratified, would have undermined the whole fabric of the Dinner, being essentially egoistic, destructive and malign. Mr. Soper resented the rapidity with which Rickman had been accepted by the boarding-house; he himself, after two years' residence, only maintaining a precarious popularity by little offerings of bon-bons to the ladies. Hence the bitterness of his present mood. "There are thoughts _and_ thoughts," said Mrs. Downey severely, for the commercial gentleman had touched her in a very sensitive place. "And when Mr. Rickman is in wot I call 'is vein, there's nobody like him for making a dinner go off." Here Mr. Soper achieved a sardonic, a really sardonic smile. "Oh, of course, if you're eludin' to the young gentleman's appetite--" But this was insufferable, it was wounding Mrs. Downey in the tenderest spot of all. The rose of her face became a peony. "I'm doing no such thing. If any gentleman wishes to pay me a compliment--" her gay smile took for granted that no gentleman could be so barbarous as not to feel that wish--"let him show an appetite. As for the ladies, I wish they had an appetite to show. Mr. Partridge, let me give you a little more canary pudding. It's as light as light. No? Oh--come, Mr. Partridge." Mr. Partridge's gesture of refusal was so vast, so expressive, that it amounted to a solemn personal revelation which implied, not so much that Mr. Partridge rejected canary pudding as that he renounced pleasure, of which canary pudding was but the symbol and the sign. "Mr. Spinks then? He'll let me give him another slice, _I_ know." "You bet. Tell you wot it is, Mrs. Downey, the canary that pudding was made of, must have been an uncommonly fine bird." There was a swift step on the pavement, the determined click of a latch-key, and the clang of a closing door. "Why, here _is_ Mr. Rickman," said Mrs. Downey, betraying the preoccupation of her soul. Rickman's entrance produced a certain vibration down both sides of the table, a movement unanimous, yet discordant, as if the nerves of this social body that was "Mrs. Downey's" were being played upon every way at once. Each boarder seemed to be preparing for an experience that, whether agreeable or otherwise, would be disturbing to the last degree. The birds of passage raised their heads with a faint flutter. Miss Walker contemplated a chromo-lithograph with a dreamy air. Mr. Soper strove vainly to fix himself in an attitude of dignified detachment. The boarding-house was about to suffer the tremendous invasion of a foreign element. For a moment it was united. Mrs. Downey's face revealed a grave anxiety. She was evidently asking herself: "Was he, or was he not, in his vein?" A glance at the object of his adoration decided the question for Mr. Spinks. Rickman was, thank goodness, _not_ in his vein, in which state he was incomprehensible to anybody but Miss Roots. He was in that comparatively commonplace condition which rendered him accessible to Mr. Spinks. "Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce my friend, the lyte Mr. Ryzors. Jemima, show the deceased gentleman to his chair. Miss Walker, Mr. Ryzors. He is really 'appy to myke your acquaintance, Miss Walker, though at first sight he may not appear so. Wot you might be apt to mistyke for coldness is merely 'is intense reserve." "Oh, dry up, Spinks." No, Mr. Rickman was certainly not in his vein this evening. He made no apology whatever for his lateness. He ignored the commercial gentleman's "Good-evening, Rickman." As he slipped into his place between Miss Walker and Miss Roots he forgot his usual "Busy to-day at the Museum, Miss Roots?"--a question that recognized her as a fellow worker in the fields of literature, thus lightening the obscurity that hid her labours there. And for Miss Flossie's timid greeting (the lifting of her upper lip that just showed two dear little white teeth) he gave back a reluctant and embarrassed smile. He used to like sitting by Flossie because she was so pretty and so plump. He used to be sorry for her, because she worked so hard, and, though plump, was so pathetically anaemic and so shy. Critically considered, her body, in spite of its plumpness, was a little too small for her head, and her features were a little too small for her face, but then they were so very correct, as correct as her demeanour and the way she did her hair. She had clusters and curls and loops and coils of hair, black as her eyes, which were so black that he couldn't tell the iris from the pupil. Not that Flossie had ever let him try. And now he had forgotten whether they were black or blue, forgotten everything about them and her. Flossie might be as correct as Flossie pleased, she simply didn't matter. When she saw him smile she turned up her eyes to the chromo-lithograph again. The little clerk brought with her from the City an air of incorruptible propriety, assumed for purposes of self-protection, and at variance with her style of hair-dressing and the blueness and gaiety of her blouse. With all that it implied and took for granted, it used to strike him as pathetic. But now, he didn't find Flossie in the least pathetic. He was waiting for the question which was bound to come. It came from Spinks, and in a form more horrible than any that he had imagined. "I say, Rickets, wot did you want all those shirts for down in Devonshire?" Instead of replying Rickets blew his nose, making his pocket-handkerchief conceal as much of his face as possible. At that moment he caught Miss Bishop staring at him, and if there was one thing that Mr. Rickman disliked more than another it was being stared at. Particularly by Miss Bishop. Miss Bishop had red hair, a loose vivacious mouth, and her stare was grossly interrogative. Flossie sent out a little winged look at him like a soft dark butterfly. It skimmed and hovered about him, and flitted, too ethereal to alight. Miss Bishop however had no scruples, and put it to him point blank. "Devonshire?" said Miss Bishop, "what were you doing down there?" She planted her elbows on the table and propped her chin on her finger-tips; her stare thus tilted was partly covered by her eyelids. "If you really want," said Mr. Spinks, "to see that gentleman opposite, you'll have to take a telescope." The adoring youth conceived that it had been given to him alone of the boarders to penetrate the mind of Rickman, that he was the guardian of his mood, whose mission it was to protect him from the impertinent approaches of the rest. "A telescope? Wot d'you mean?" "Don't you think he's got a sort of a far-away look? Especially about the mouth and nose?" Whether it was from being stared at or for some other reason, but by this time Mr. Rickman had certainly become a little distant. He was not getting on well with anybody or anything, not even with Mrs. Downey's excellent dinner, nor yet with the claret, an extra ordered for his private drinking, always to Mrs. Downey's secret trepidation. She gave a half-timid, half-tender look at him and signalled to her ladies to withdraw. She herself remained behind, superintending the removal of the feast; keeping a motherly eye, too, on the poor boy and his claret. Ever since that one dreadful Sunday morning when she had found him asleep in full evening dress upon his bedroom floor, Mrs. Downey was always expecting to see him drop under the table. He had never done it yet, but there was no knowing when he mightn't. Whatever the extent of Mr. Rickman's alleged intemperance, his was not the vice of the solitary drinker, and to-night the claret was nearly all drunk by Spinks and Soper. It had the effect of waking in the commercial gentleman the demon of sociability that slept. What Mr. Soper wanted to know was whether Rickman could recommend 'Armouth as a holiday resort? Could he tell him of any first-class commercial hotel or boarding-house down there? To which Rickman replied that he really couldn't tell him anything at all. "Perhaps," said Mrs. Downey, peering over the edge of the table-cloth she was helping to fold. "Perhaps he has his reasons." The claret had made Mr. Soper not only sociable but jocose. "Reasons? That's a new name for 'em. If he don't want more than one at a time, I wish he'd introduce the rest of 'em to me." "I daresay he would be very happy, if he thought you would understand them, Mr. Soper." "Understand 'em? Why, I don't suppose they talk Greek." "Ryzors," said Spinks indignantly, "could give 'em points if they did. He speaks the language." Mr. Soper replied that in that case perhaps Mr. Rickman would oblige him with the Greek for "crumby bits." At the moment Mr. Rickman did not look like obliging Mr. Soper with anything. The provocation was certainly immense. Mr. Soper's voice inspired him with a fury of disgust. The muscles of his mouth twitched; the blood rushed visibly to his forehead; he stood looming over the table like a young pink thunder-god. Mrs. Downey and Mr. Partridge retreated in some alarm. Mr. Soper, however, was one of those people who are not roused but merely disconcerted by the spectacle of passion. Mr. Soper said he supposed he could "make a 'armless remark." And still thirsting for companionship he pursued Mrs. Downey to the drawing-room. As he went, he fingered his little box of bon-bons as if it had been a talisman or charm. Rickman poured himself out some claret which he drank slowly, with closed eyelids, leaning back in his chair. "For God's sake, Spinks," he muttered; "don't speak to me." "All right, old chappy, I won't." But he whispered, "I wouldn't go off just yet, Ryzors, if I were you" (by "going off," Mr. Spinks meant departure in a train of thought). "He'll be back in another minute." He was back already, sociable, elated, smoking a cigar. Upstairs with the ladies he and his bon-bons had met with unprecedented success. Rickman opened his eyes. "Ever try," said Mr. Soper, "a Flor di Dindigul? 'Ave one. You'll find the flavour very delicate and mild." He held it out, that Flor di Dindigul, as an olive branch to the tempestuous young man. It was not accepted. It was not even seen. Rickman rose to his feet. To his irritated vision the opposite wall seemed to heave and bulge forward, its chocolate design to become distended and to burst, spreading itself in blotches on the yellow ochre. On the face of the hideous welter swam the face of Mr. Soper, as it were bodiless and alone. He drew in his breath with a slight shudder, pushed his chair back from the table, and strode out of the room. Spinks looked after him sorrowfully. "Wy couldn't you leave him alone, Soper? You might see he didn't want to talk." "How could I see wot he wanted? One minute 'e's as chatty and sociable--and the next he's up like three dozen of bottled stout. _It's wot I sy._ You can't dee-pend on 'im with any certainty." That opinion was secretly shared by Miss Flossie Walker. CHAPTER XXXVIII Rickman, it seemed, was doomed to inspire that sense of agonizing uncertainty. It was the second evening after his return. The Dinner was not going off well. Miss Walker was depressed, Mr. Spinks was not in his accustomed spirits, and Mrs. Downey had been going about with red eyes all day. Mr. Rickman had confided to her the deplorable state of his finances. And Mrs. Downey had said to herself she had known from the first that he would not be permanent. He didn't want to be permanent. He desired to vanish, to disappear from the boarding-house and the boarders, and from Poppy Grace on the balcony next door; to get away from every face and every voice that he had known before he knew Lucia Harden's. Being convinced that he would never see her again, he wanted to be alone with his vivid and piercing memory of her. At first it was the pain that pierced. She had taken out her little two-edged sword and stabbed him. It wouldn't have mattered, he said, if the sword had been a true little sword, but it wasn't; it had snapt and left a nasty bit of steel inside him. Her last phrase was the touch that finished him. But the very sting of it created a healthy reaction. By his revolt against that solitary instance of her cruelty he had recovered his right to dwell upon her kindness. He dwelt upon it until at times he entered again into possession of the tender, beautiful, dominating dream. So intense was his hallucination, that as he walked alone in any southerly direction he still felt Muttersmoor on his right hand and Harcombe on his left, and he had waked in the morning to the sound of the sea beating upon Harmouth beach. But these feelings visited him more rarely in the boarding-house than elsewhere. That was why he wanted to get away from it. The illusion was destroyed by these irrelevant persons of the dinner-table. Not that he noticed them much; but when he did it was to discover in them some quality that he had not observed before. He found imbecility in the manners of Spinks, coarseness and violence in the figures of Mrs. Downey and Miss Bishop, insipidity in the whole person of Miss Flossie Walker. And now, as he looked round the table, he wondered how it was he ever came there. After living for four weeks with Lucia Harden or the thought of her, he had a positive difficulty in recognizing even Spinks and Flossie as people he had once intimately known. Miss Roots alone, for some inscrutable reason, seemed familiar, in keeping with that divine experience to which the actual hour did violence. It was almost as if she understood. A shrewdly sympathetic glance went out from a pair of hazel eyes set in a plain, clever, strenuous face. Miss Roots was glad, she said, to see him back again. He turned to her with the question that had never failed to flatter and delight. Was Miss Roots doing anything specially interesting now? But there was no interest in his tone. Miss Roots looked up with a smile that would have been gay if it had not been so weary. Yes, she was collecting material for a book on Antimachus of Colophon. No, not her own book. (At the mention of Antimachus of Colophon, Mr. Soper folded his arms and frowned with implacable resentment. Mr. Soper was convinced that these subjects were introduced on purpose to exclude him from the conversation.) Miss Roots, like Mr. Rickman, lived apart from the murmur of the boarding-house. She had raised a barrier of books in a bedroom six feet by nine, behind which she worked obscurely. She had never been known to converse until Mr. Rickman came. A sort of fluctuating friendship had sprung up between Mr. Rickman and Miss Roots. He had an odd feeling, half pity, half liking, for this humble servant of literature, doomed to its labour, ignorant of its delight. And yet Miss Roots had a heart which went out to the mad-cap journalist, wild with youth and the joy of letters. And now these things were coming back to her. The sources of intellectual desire had been drying up with the blood in her cheeks; but when Rickman came they began to flow again. When Rickman talked as only he could talk, Miss Roots felt a faint fervour, a reminiscent thrill. She preened her poor little thoughts as if for pairing time, when soul fluttered to soul across the dinner-table. She knew that, intellectually speaking, she had been assigned to Rickman; for Mrs. Downey held that just as Mr. Rickman was the first to rouse Miss Roots to conversation, so Miss Roots alone had the power of drawing him out to the best advantage. "Indeed?" said Rickman in a voice devoid of all intelligence. Now if anything could have drawn Mr. Rickman out it was Antimachus of Colophon. Four weeks ago he would have been more interested in Antimachus than Miss Roots herself, he would have talked about him by the hour together. So that when he said nothing but "Indeed?" she perceived that something was the matter with him. But she also perceived that he was anxious to be talked to, therefore she talked on. Miss Roots was right; though his mind was unable to take in a word she said to him, he listened, soothed by the singular refinement of her voice. It was a quality he had not noticed in it four weeks ago. Suddenly a word flashed out, dividing the evening with a line of light. "So you've been staying in Harmouth?" He started noticeably, and looked at her as if he had not heard. Miss Roots seemed unaware of having said anything specially luminous; she repeated her question with a smile. "Why?" he asked. "Have you been there?" "I've not only been there, I was born there." He looked at her. Miss Roots had always been, to say the least of it, prosaic, and now it was as if poetry had dropped from her lips, as if she had said, "I too was born in Arcadia." "I suppose," she said, "you saw that beautiful old house by the river?" "Which beautiful old house by the river?" "Court House. You see it from the bridge. You must have noticed it." "Oh, yes, I know the one you mean." "Did you happen to see or hear anything of the lady who lives in it? Miss Lucia Harden?" "I--I must have seen her, but I can't exactly say. Do you know her?" His words seemed to be torn from him in pieces, shaken by the violent beating of his heart. "Know her?" said Miss Roots. "I lived five years with her. I taught her." He looked at her again in wonder, in wonder and a sort of tenderness. For a second his heart had come to life again and leapt like a lunatic to his lips. Happily his wits were there before it. He stroked his upper lip, as if brushing away some wild phrase that sat there. "Then I'm sure," he said, contriving a smile, "that Miss Harden is an exceedingly well educated lady." Miss Roots' hazel eyes looked up at him intelligently; but as they met that unnatural smile of gallantry there was a queer compression of her shrewd and strenuous face. She changed the subject. He wondered if by any chance she knew; if she corresponded with Miss Harden; if Miss Harden had mentioned him in the days before her troubles came; if Miss Roots were trying to test him, to draw him out as she had never drawn him out before. No, it was not in the least likely that Miss Harden should have mentioned him; if she had, Miss Roots would have said so. She would never have set a trap for him; she was a kind and straightforward little lady. Her queer look meant nothing, it was only her way of dealing with a compliment. The sweat on his forehead witnessed to the hot labour of his thought. He wondered whether anybody had observed it. Mr. Soper had, and drew his own conclusions. "'E's been at it again," said Mr. Soper, with significance. But nobody took any notice of him; and upstairs in the drawing-room that night his bon-bons failed to charm. "I suppose you're pleased," said he, approaching his hostess, "now you've got Mr. Rickman back again?" A deeper flush than the Dinner could account for was Mrs. Downey's sole reply. "'is manners 'aven't improved since 'is residence in the country. I met 'im in the City to-day--wy, we were on the same slab of pavement--and 'e went past and took no more notice of me than if I'd been the Peabody statue." "Depend upon it, he was full of something." "Full of unsociability and conceit. And wot is 'e? Wot is 'e? 'Is father keeps a bookshop." "A very fine bookshop, too," said Miss Roots. It was the first time that she had ever spoken of her own accord to Mr. Soper. "He may have come out lately, but you should have seen the way 'e began, in a dirty little second 'and shop in the City. A place," said Mr. Soper, "I wouldn't 'ave put my nose into if I was paid. Crammed full of narsty, mangy, 'Olloway Street rubbish." "Look here now," said Mr. Spinks, now scarlet with fury, "you needn't throw his business in his face, for he's chucked it." "I don't think any the better of him for that." "Don't you? Well, he won't worry himself into fits about your opinion." "'Ad he got a new berth then, when he flung up the old one?" Now one thing Mrs. Downey, with all her indulgence, did not permit, and that was any public allusion to her boarders' affairs. She might not refuse to discuss them privately with Miss Bramble or Miss Roots, but that was a very different thing. Therefore she maintained a dignified silence. "Well, then, I should like to know 'ow he's going to pay 'is way." Before the grossness of this insinuation Mrs. Downey abandoned her policy of silence. "Some day," said Mrs. Downey, "Mr. Rickman will be in a very different position to wot he is now. You mark my words." (And nobody marked them but little Flossie Walker.) Two tears rolled down Mrs. Downey's face and mingled with the tartan of her blouse. A murmur of sympathy went round the room, and Mr. Soper perceived that the rest of the company were sitting in an atmosphere of emotion from which he was shut out. "I beg of you, Mr. Soper, that you will let Mr. Rickman be, for once this evening. Living together as we do, we all ought," said Mrs. Downey, "to respect each other's feelings." "Ah--feelings. Wot sort of respect does your young gentleman ever show to mine? Takes me up one day and cuts me dead the next." "He wouldn't have dreamed of such a thing if he hadn't been worried in his mind. Mr. Rickman, Mr. Soper, is in trouble." Mr. Soper was softened. "Is he? Well, really, I'm very sorry to hear it, very sorry, I'm sure." "My fear is," said Mrs. Downey, controlling her voice with difficulty, "that he may be leaving us." "If he does, Mrs. Downey, nobody will regret it more than I do." "Well, I hope it won't come to that." Mrs. Downey did not consider it politic to add that she was prepared to make any sacrifice to prevent it. It was as well that Mr. Soper should realize the consequences of an inability to pay your way. She was not prepared to make any sacrifice for the sake of keeping _him_. "But what," said Mrs. Downey to herself, "will the Dinner be without Mr. Rickman?" The Dinner was, in her imagination, a function, a literary symposium. At the present moment, if you were to believe Mrs. Downey, no dinner-table in London could show such a gathering of remarkable people. But to none of these remarkable people did Mrs. Downey feel as she felt to Mr. Rickman, who was the most remarkable of them all. By her own statement she had enjoyed exceptional opportunities for studying the ways of genius. There was a room at Mrs. Downey's which she exhibited with pride as "Mr. Blenkinsop's room." Mr. Blenkinsop was a poet, and Mr. Rickman had succeeded him. If Mrs. Downey did not immediately recognize Mr. Rickman as a genius it was because he was so utterly unlike Mr. Blenkinsop. But she had felt from the first that, as she expressed it, "there was something about him," though what it was she couldn't really say. Only from the first she had had that feeling in her heart--"He will not be permanent." The joy she had in his youth and mystery was drenched with the pathos of mutability. Mrs. Downey rebelled against mutability's decree. "Perhaps," she said, "we might come to some arrangement." All night long in her bedroom on the ground-floor, Mrs. Downey lay awake considering what arrangement could be come to. This was but a discreet way of stating her previous determination to make any sacrifice if only she could keep him. The sacrifice which Mrs. Downey (towards the small hours of the morning) found herself contemplating amounted to no less than four shillings a week. Occupying his present bed-sitting room he should remain for twenty-one shillings a week instead of twenty-five. Unfortunately, at breakfast the next morning their evil genius prompted Mr. Spinks and Mr. Soper to display enormous appetites, and Mrs. Downey, to her everlasting shame, was herself tempted of the devil. A fall of four shillings a week, serious enough in itself, was not to be contemplated with gentlemen eating their heads off in that fashion. It would have to be made up in some way, to be taken out of somebody or something. She would--yes, she would take it out of them all round by taking it out of the Dinner. And yet when it came to the point, Mrs. Downey's soul recoiled from the immorality of this suggestion. There rose before her, as in a vision, the Dinner of the future, solid in essentials but docked of its splendour, its character and its pride. No; that must not be. What the Dinner was now it must remain as long as there were eight boarders to eat it. If Mrs. Downey made any sacrifice she must make it pure. "On the condition," said Mrs. Downey by way of putting a business-like face on it, "on the condition of his permanence." But it seemed that twenty-one shillings were more than Mr. Rickman could afford to pay. Mrs. Downey spent another restless night, and again towards the small hours of the morning she decided on a plan. After breakfast she watched Mr. Soper out of the dining-room, closed the door behind him with offensive and elaborate precaution, and approached Mr. Rickman secretly. If he would promise not to tell the other gentlemen, she would let him have the third floor back for eighteen shillings. Mr. Rickman stood by the door like one in great haste to be gone. He could not afford eighteen shillings either. He would stay where he was on the old terms for a fortnight, at the end of which time, he said firmly, he would be obliged to go. Mr. Rickman's blue eyes were dark and profound with the pathos of recent illness and suffering, so that he appeared to be touched by Mrs. Downey's kindness. But he wasn't touched by it; no, not the least bit in the world. His heart inside him was like a great lump of dried leather. Mrs. Downey looked at him, sighed, and said no more. Things were more serious with him than she had supposed. Things were very serious indeed. His absence at Harmouth had entailed consequences that he had not foreseen. During those four weeks, owing to the perturbation of his mind and the incessant demands on his time, he had written nothing. True, while he was away his poems had found a publisher; but he had nothing to expect from them; it would be lucky if they paid their expenses. On his return to town he found that his place on _The Planet_ had been filled up. At the most he could only reckon on placing now and then, at infrequent intervals, an article or a poem. The places would be few, for from the crowd of popular magazines he was excluded by the very nature of his genius. To make matters worse, he owed about thirty pounds to Dicky Pilkington. The sum of two guineas, which _The Museion_ owed him for his sonnet, would, if he accepted Mrs. Downey's last offer, keep him for exactly two weeks. And afterwards? Afterwards, of course, he would have to borrow another ten pounds from Dicky, hire some den at a few shillings a week, and try his luck for as many months as his money held out. Then there would be another "afterwards," but that need not concern him now. The only thing that concerned him was the occult tie between him and Miss Roots. Up to the day fixed for his departure he was drawn by an irresistible fascination to Miss Roots. His manner to her became marked by an extreme gentleness and sympathy. Of course it was impossible to believe that it was Miss Roots who lit the intellectual flame that burnt in Lucia. Enough to know that she had sat with her in the library and in the room where she made music; that she had walked with her in the old green garden, and on Harcombe Hill and Muttersmoor. Enough to sit beside Miss Roots and know that all the time her heart was where his was, and that if he were to speak of these things she would kindle and understand. But he did not speak of them; for from the way Miss Roots had referred to Lucia Harden and to Court House, it was evident that she knew nothing of what had happened to them, and he did not feel equal to telling her. Lucia's pain was so great a part of his pain that as yet he could not touch it. But though he never openly approached the subject of Harmouth, he was for ever skirting it, keeping it in sight. He came very near to it one evening, when, finding himself alone with Miss Roots in the back drawing-room, he asked her how long it was since she had been in Devonshire. It seemed that it was no longer ago than last year. Only last year? It was still warm then, the link between her and the woman whom he loved. He found himself looking at Miss Roots, scanning the lines of her plain face as if it held for him some new and wonderful significance. For him that faced flamed transfigured as in the moment when she had first spoken of Lucia. The thin lips which had seemed to him so utterly unattractive had touched Lucia's, and were baptized into her freshness and her charm; her eyes had looked into Lucia's and carried something of their light. In her presence he drifted into a sort of mysticism peculiar to lovers, seeing the hand of a holy destiny in the chance that had seated him beside her. Though her shrewdness might divine his secret he felt that with her it would be safe. As for his other companions of the dinner-table he was obliged to admit that they displayed an admirable delicacy. After Mrs. Downey's revelation not one of them had asked him what he had been doing those four weeks. Spinks had a theory, which he kept to himself. Old Rickets had been having a high old time. He had eloped with a barmaid or an opera girl. For those four weeks, he had no doubt, Rickets had been gloriously, ruinously, on the loose. Mrs. Downey's speculations had taken the same turn. Mr. Rickman's extraordinary request that all his clean linen should be forwarded to him at once had set her mind working; it suggested a young man living in luxury beyond his means. Mrs. Downey's fancy kindled and blushed by turns as it followed him into a glorious or disreputable unknown. Whatever the adventures of those four weeks she felt that they were responsible for his awful state of impecuniosity. And yet she desired to keep him. "There is something about him," said Mrs. Downey to Miss Roots, and paused searching for the illuminating word; "something that goes to your heart without 'is knowing it." She had found it, the nameless, ineluctable charm. And so for those last days the Dinner became a high funereal ceremony, increasing in valedictory splendour that proclaimed unmistakably, "Mr. Rickman is going." In a neighbouring street he had found a room, cheap and passably clean, and (failing a financial miracle worked on his behalf) he would move into it to-morrow. He was going, now that he would have given anything to stay. In the dining-room after dinner, Spinks with a dejected countenance, sat guarding for the last time the sacred silence of Rickman. They had finished their coffee, when the door that let out the maid with empty cups let in Miss Bishop, Miss Bramble and Miss Walker. First came Miss Bishop; she advanced in a side-long and embarrassed manner, giggling, and her face for once was as red as her hair. She carried a little wooden box which with an unaccustomed shyness she asked him to accept. The sliding lid disclosed a dozen cedar pencils side by side, their points all ready sharpened, also a card with the inscription: "Mr. Rickman, with best wishes from Ada Bishop." At one corner was a date suggesting that the gift marked an epoch; at the other the letters P.T.O. The reverse displayed this legend, "If you ever want any typing done, I'll always do it for _you_ at 6d. a thou. _Only don't let on._ Yours, A.B." Now Miss Bishop's usual charge was, as he knew, a shilling per thousand. "Gentlemen," said she, explaining away her modest offering, "always like anything that saves them trouble." At this point, Miss Bishop, torn by a supreme giggle, vanished violently from the scene. Mr. Rickman smiled sadly, but his heart remained as before. He had not loved Miss Bishop. Next came Miss Bramble with her gift mysteriously concealed in silver paper. "All brain-workers," said Miss Bramble, "suffered from cold feet." So she had just knitted him a pair of socks--"_bed_-socks" (in a whisper), "that would help to keep him warm." Her poor old eyes were scarlet, not so much from knitting the bed-socks, as from contemplating the terrible possibility of his needing them. Under Mr. Rickman's waistcoat there was the least little ghost of a quiver. He had not loved Miss Bramble; but Miss Bramble had loved him. She had loved him because he was young, and because he had sometimes repeated to her the little dinner-table jests that she was too deaf to hear. Last of the three, very grave and demure, came Flossie, and she, like her friend, carried her gift uncovered. She proffered it with her most becoming air of correctness and propriety. It was a cabinet photograph of herself in her best attitude, her best mood and her best blue blouse. It was framed beautifully and appropriately in white silk, embroidered with blue forget-me-nots by Flossie's clever hands. She had sat up half the night to finish it. He took it gently from her and looked at it for what seemed to Flossie an excessively long time. He was trying to think of something particularly pretty and suitable to say. In his absorption he did not notice that he was alone with her, that as Flossie advanced Spinks and Soper had withdrawn. "I don't know whether you'll care for it," said she. She was standing very close beside him, and her face under the gas-light looked pale and tender. "Of course I'll care for it." He laid her gift on the table beside the others and stood contemplating them. She saw him smile. He was smiling at the bed-socks. "You are all much too good to me, you know." "Oh, Mr. Rickman, you've been so awfully good to me." He looked round a little anxiously and perceived that they were alone. "No, Flossie," he said, "I've not been good to anyone, I'm not very good to myself. All the same, I'm not an utter brute; I shan't forget you." Flossie's eyes had followed, almost jealously, the movement of his hand in putting down her gift; and they had rested there, fixed on her own portrait, and veiled by their large white lids. She now raised them suddenly, and over their black profundity there moved a curious golden glitter that flashed full on his face. "You didn't remember me, much, last time you went away." "I didn't remember anybody, Flossie; I had too much to think of." It struck him that this was the first time she had looked him full in the face; but it did not strike him that it was also the first time that he had found himself alone in a room with her, though they had been together many times out of doors and in crowded theatres and concert halls. Her look conveyed some accusation that he at first failed to understand. And then there came into his mind the promise he had made to her at Easter, to take her to the play, the promise broken without apology or explanation. So she still resented it, did she? Poor little Flossie, she was so plump and pretty, and she had been so dependent on him for the small pleasures of her life. "You're always thinking," said Flossie, and laughed. "I'm sorry, Flossie; it's a disgusting habit, I own. I'll make up for it some day. We'll do a lot of theatres and--and things together, when my ship comes in." "Thank you, Mr. Rickman," said she with a return to her old demeanour. "And now I suppose I'd better say good-night?" She turned. They said good-night. He sprang to open, the door for her. As she went through it, his heart, if it did not go with her, was touched, most palpably, unmistakably touched at seeing her go. He had not loved Flossie; but he might have loved her. Mr. Soper, who had been waiting all the while on the stairs, walked in through the open door. He closed it secretly. He laid his hand affectionately on Rickman's shoulder. "Rickman," he said solemnly, "while I 'ave the opportunity, I want to speak to you. If it should 'appen that a fiver would be useful to you, don't you hesitate to come to me." "Oh, Soper, thanks most awfully. Really, no, I couldn't think of it." "But I mean it. I really do. So don't you 'esitate; and there needn't be any hurry about repayment. That," said Mr. Soper, "is quite immaterial." Failing to extract from Rickman any distinct promise, he withdrew; but not before he had pressed upon his immediate acceptance a box of his favourites, the Flor di Dindigul. By this time Rickman's heart was exceedingly uncomfortable inside him. He had hated Soper. He thought it was all over, and he was glad to escape from these really very trying interviews to the quiet of his own room. There he found Spinks sitting on his bed waiting for him. Spinks had come to lay before him an offering and a scheme. The offering was no less than two dozen of gents' best all-wool knitted hose, double-toed and heeled. The scheme was for enabling Rickman thenceforward to purchase all manner of retail haberdashery at wholesale prices by the simple method of impersonating Spinks. At least in the long-run it amounted to that, and Rickman had some difficulty in persuading Spinks that his scheme, though in the last degree glorious and romantic, was, from an ethical point of view, not strictly feasible. "What a rum joker you are, Rickman. I never thought of that. I wonder--" (He mused in an unconscious endeavour to restore the moral balance between him and Rickman). "I wonder who'll put you to bed, old chappy, when you're tight." "Don't fret, Spinky. I'm almost afraid that I shall never be tight again in this world." "Oh, Gosh," said Spinks, and sighed profoundly. Then, with a slight recovery, "do you mean you won't be able to afford it?" "You can put it that way, if you like." In time Spinks left him and Rickman was alone. Just as he was wondering whether or no he would pack his books up before turning in, there was a soft rap at his door. He said, "Come in" to the rap; and to himself he said, "Who next?" It was Mrs. Downey; she glanced round the room, looked at Flossie's photograph with disapproval, and removed, not without severity, Miss Bramble's bed-socks from a chair. She had brought no gift; but she sat down heavily like a woman who has carried a burden about with her all day, and can carry it no farther. Her features were almost obliterated with emotion and glazed with tears that she made no effort to remove. "Mr. Rickman," she said, "do you reelly wish to go, or do you not?" He looked up surprised. "My dear Mrs. Downey, I don't; believe me. Did I ever say I did?" Her face grew brighter and rounder till the very glaze on it made it shine like a great red sun. "Well, we'd all been wondering, and some of us said one thing, and some another, and I didn't know what to think. But if you want to stay perhaps--we can come to some arrangement." It was the consecrated phrase. He shook his head. "Come, I've been thinking it over. You won't be paying less than five shillings a week for your empty room, perhaps more?" He would, he said, be paying six shillings. "There now! And that, with your food, makes sixteen shillings at the very least." "Well--it depends upon the food." "I should think it did depend upon it." Mrs. Downey's face literally blazed with triumph. She said to herself, "I was right. Mr. Spinks said he'd take it out of his clothes. Miss Bramble said he'd take it out of his fire. _I_ said he'd take it out of his dinner." "Now," she continued, "if you didn't mind moving into the front attic--it's a good attic--for a time, I could let you 'ave that, _and_ board you, for fifteen shillings a week, or for fourteen, I could, and welcome. As I seldom let that attic, it would be money in the pocket to me." "Come," she went on, well pleased. "I know all about it. Why, Mr. Blenkinsop, when he first started to write, he lived up there six months at a time. He had his ups, you may say, and his downs. One year in the attic and the next on the second floor, having his meals separate and his own apartments. Then up he'd go again quite cheerful, as regularly as the bills came round." Here Mrs. Downey entered at some length upon the history of the splendour and misery of Mr. Blenkinsop. "And that, I suppose," said Mrs. Downey, "is what it is to be a poet." "In fact," said Rickman relating the incident afterwards to Miss Roots, "talk to Mrs. Downey of the Attic Bee and she will thoroughly understand the allusion." After about half an hour's conversation she left him without having received any clear and definite acceptance of her proposal. That did not prevent her from announcing to the drawing-room that Mr. Rickman was not going after all. At the hour of the last post a letter was pushed under his door. It was from Horace Jewdwine, asking him to dine with him at Hampstead the next evening. Nothing more, nothing less; but the sight of the signature made his brain reel for a second. He stood staring at it. From the adjoining room came sounds made by Spinks, dancing a jig of joy which brought up Mr. Soper raging from the floor below. Jewdwine? Why, he had made up his mind that after the affair of the Harden library, Jewdwine most certainly would have nothing more to do with him. Jewdwine was another link. And at that thought his heart heaved and became alive again. CHAPTER XXXIX In the act of death, as in everything else that he had ever done, Sir Frederick Harden had hit on the most inappropriate, the most inconvenient moment--the moment, that is to say, when Horace Jewdwine had been appointed editor of _The Museion_, when every minute of his day was taken up with forming his staff and thoroughly reorganizing the business of his paper. It was, besides, the long-desired moment, for which all his years at Oxford had been a training and a consecration; it was that supreme, that nuptial moment in which an ambitious man embraces for the first time his Opportunity. The news of Lucia's trouble found him, as it were, in the ardours and preoccupations of the honeymoon. It was characteristic of Jewdwine that in this courting of Opportunity there had been no violent pursuit, no dishevelment, no seizing by the hair. He had hung back, rather; he had waited, till he had given himself value, till Opportunity had come to him, with delicate and ceremonious approach. Still, his head had swum a little at her coming, so that in the contemplation of his golden bride he had for the time being lost sight of Lucia. As for marrying his cousin, that was a question with which for the present he felt he really could not deal. No doubt it would crop up again later on to worry him. Meanwhile he gave to Lucia every minute that he could spare from the allurements of his golden bride. For more than a fortnight her affairs had been weighing on him like a nightmare. But only like a nightmare, a thing that troubled him chiefly in the watches of the night, leaving his waking thoughts free to go about the business of the day, a thing against which he felt that it was impossible to contend. For Lucia's affairs had the vagueness, the confusion of a nightmare. Details no doubt there were; but they had disappeared in the immensity of the general effect. Being powerless to deal with them himself, he had sent down his own solicitor to assist in disentangling them. But as the full meaning of the disaster sank into him he realized with the cold pang of disappointment that their marriage must now be indefinitely postponed. To be sure, what had as yet passed between them hardly amounted to an understanding. All Jewdwine's understandings had been with himself. But the very fact that he was not prepared to act on such an understanding made him feel as responsible as if it actually existed. Being conscious of something rather more than cousinly tenderness in the past, he really could not be sure that he was not already irretrievably committed. Not that Lucia's manner had ever taken anything of the sort for granted. He had nothing to fear from her. But he had much (he told himself) to fear from his own conscience and his honour. All this was the result of deliberate reflection. In the beginning of the trouble, at the first news of his uncle's death, his sympathy with Lucia had been free from any sordid anxiety for the future which he then conceived to be inseparably bound up with his own. Rickman's letter was the first intimation that anything had gone wrong. It was a shock none the less severe because it was not altogether a surprise. It was just like his uncle Frederick to raise money on the Harden Library. The shock lay in Rickman's assumption that he, Jewdwine, was prepared, instantly, at ten days' notice, to redeem it. It was what he would have liked to have done; what, if he had been a rich man, he infallibly would have done; what even now, with his limited resources, he might do if it were not for the risk. Rickman had assured him that there was no risk, had implied almost that it was an opportunity, a splendid investment for his money. He could see for himself that it was his chance of doing _the_ beautiful thing for Lucia. Looking back upon it all afterwards, long afterwards, he found consolation in the thought that his first, or nearly his first, impulse had been generous. At first, too, he had not given a thought to Rickman except as the medium, the unauthorized and somewhat curious medium, of a very startling communication. Enough that he was expected to produce at ten days' notice a sum which might be anything you pleased over one thousand two hundred pounds. It was not until he realized that he was seriously invited to contend with Rickman's in a private bid for the Harden library that he began to criticize Rickman's movement in the matter. Everything depended on Rickman's estimate of the risk, and Rickman was not infallible. In denying Rickman's infallibility he had not as yet committed himself to any harsh judgement of his friend. His first really unpleasant reflection was that Rickman's information was unsatisfactory, because vague; his next that Rickman was giving him precious little time for deliberation. He was excessively annoyed with Rickman upon both these heads, but chiefly upon the latter. He was being hurried; he might almost say that pressure was being put on him. And why? It was at this point he found himself drawn into that dangerous line, the attributing of motives. He perceived in Rickman's suggestion a readiness, an eagerness to stand back and, as it were, pass on the Harden library. Rickman was a sharp fellow; he knew pretty well what he was about. Jewdwine's mind went back to the dawn of their acquaintance, and to a certain Florio Montaigne. Rickman had got the better of him over that Florio Montaigne. Hitherto, whenever Jewdwine had thought of that little transaction he had smiled in spite of himself; he really could not help admiring the smartness of a young man who had worsted him in a bargain. Jewdwine was a terror to all the second-hand booksellers in London and Oxford; he would waste so much of their good time in cheapening a book that it was hardly worth their while to sell it to him at double the price originally asked. The idea that he had paid five shillings for a book that he should have got for four and six would keep Jewdwine awake at night. And now his thought advanced by rapid steps in the direction unfavourable to Rickman. Rickman had driven a clever bargain over that Florio Montaigne; Rickman had cheated him, yes, cheated him infamously, over that Florio Montaigne. You could see a great deal through a very small hole, and a man who would cheat you over a Florio Montaigne would cheat you over a whole library if he got the chance. Not that there was any cheating in the second-hand book-trade; it was each man for himself and the Lord for us all. The question was, what was young Rickman driving at? And what was he, Jewdwine, being let in for now? He found himself unable to accept Rickman's alleged motive in all its grand simplicity. It was too simple and too grand to be entirely probable. If young Rickman was not infallible, he was an expert in his trade. He was not likely to be grossly mistaken in his valuation. If the Harden library would be worth four or five thousand pounds to Jewdwine it would be worth as much or more to Rickman's. Young Rickman being merely old Rickman's assistant, he could hardly be acting without his father's knowledge. If young Rickman honestly thought that the library was worth that sum, it was not likely that they would let the prize slip out of their hands. The thing was not in human nature. The more he thought of it the more he was convinced that it was a put-up job. He strongly suspected that young Rickman, in the rashness of his youth, had proceeded farther than he cared to own, that Rickman's found themselves let in for a bad bargain, and were anxious to get out of it. Young Rickman had no doubt discovered that the great Harden library was not the prize they had always imagined it to be. Jewdwine remembered that there was no record, no proper catalogue, or if there ever had been, it had been mislaid or lost. He had a vision (unconsciously exaggerated) of the inconceivable disorder of the place when he had last visited it; and as he recalled those great gaps on the shelves it struck him that the library had been gutted. His uncle Frederick had not been altogether the fool he seemed to be; nothing was more likely than that he knew perfectly well the value of the volumes that were the unique glory of the collection, and had long ago turned them into ready money. The rest would be comparatively worthless. He read Rickman's letter over again and had a moment of compunction. It seemed a very simple and straightforward letter. But then, Rickman was a very clever fellow, he had the gift of expression; and there was that Florio Montaigne. He wouldn't have suspected him if only his record had been pure. So instead of committing himself by writing to Rickman, he had sent his solicitor down to look into these matters. A day or two later, in reply to his further inquiries his solicitor assured him that there could be no doubt that the library was intact. To Jewdwine in his present state of mind this information was upsetting. It not only compelled him to modify his opinion of Rickman after having formed it, but it threw him back on the agony and responsibility of decision. On the last morning of the term allowed him for reflection he received that hurried note from Rickman, who had flung all his emotions into one agonized line, "For God's sake wire me what you mean to do." The young poet, so careful of his prose style, had not perceived that what he had written was blank verse of the purest; which to Jewdwine in itself sufficiently revealed the disorder of his mind. That _cri de coeur_ rang in Jewdwine's brain for the next twenty-four hours. Then at the last moment he came forward with an offer of one thousand three hundred. The next day he heard from Lucia (what indeed he feared) that he had stepped in too late. The library was sold, to Isaac Rickman. His dominant emotion was now anger; he was furious with Rickman for not having given him more time. He forgot his own delay, his fears and vacillations; he felt that he would have done this thing if he had only had more time. He had no doubt that Rickman had meant honestly by him; but he had blundered; he could and he should have given him more time. But gradually, as the certainty of his own generosity grew on him, his indignation cooled. Reinstated in his self-esteem he could afford to do justice to Rickman. What was more, now that the danger was over he saw his risk more clearly than ever. He had a vision of his brilliant future clouded by a debt of one thousand three hundred pounds impetuously raised on the unknown, of the Harden library hung like a mill-stone round his neck. He had no doubt that Rickman, in the very ardour of his honesty, had greatly exaggerated its value. And as he surveyed the probable consequences of his own superb impulse, he was almost grateful to Rickman for not having given him time to make a fool of himself. Thanks to Rickman, he had now all the credit of that reckless offer without the risk. A week later he had a long letter from Lucia. She thanked him with much warmth and affection for his generosity; it was evident that it had touched her deeply. She assured him (as she had assured him before) that she needed no help. The library had sold for twelve hundred pounds, and two hundred had been handed over to her. Mr. Pilkington was afraid that no further sum would be forthcoming from the sale of the pictures and furniture, which had been valued over rather than under their present market price, and represented the bulk of the security. Still, she hoped to sell Court House; it could not bring in less than five thousand. That and a small part of her capital would pay off all remaining debts. It was a wearisome business; but Horace would be glad to hear that she would come out of it not owing a farthing to anybody, and would still have enough to live on. Yes. Jewdwine had his pride. He was glad that his disreputable uncle's affairs had not landed him in the Bankruptcy Court after all; but he had a movement of indignation on Lucia's account and of admiration for Lucia. No more of herself or her affairs; the rest was concerned with Rickman and his. "My dear Horace," she wrote, "we must do something for this poor little friend of yours. You were quite right about him. He is a genius; but fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, for himself, he is so much else besides. To think that _he_ of all people should be entangled in our miserable business! He has got badly hurt, too. First of all, it preyed on his mind till he worried himself into a nervous fever. Kitty Palliser, who saw him, said he was nearly off his head. It seems he considered his honour implicated. As it happens he has behaved splendidly. He did everything in his power to prevent our losing the library, or at any rate to keep it out of his father's hands; and the mere fact that he failed doesn't lessen our obligation. He has simply ruined his own prospects in the attempt. Do you know, he tried to force his father to withdraw by threatening to leave their business if he didn't; and he had to keep his word. The horrible thing is that I actually owe him money--money which he won't take. He had been working hard for three weeks on a catalogue for me, and is insulted at the bare suggestion of payment. And here he is--absolutely stranded; in debt, I believe, and without a farthing. What in the world am I to do?" "Poor Lucy!" thought Jewdwine, "as if she hadn't enough to bear without having Rickman on her shoulders." "It seems to me that as he has done all this for us, we ought to stand by him. If you _could_ do anything for him--couldn't you help him with some introductions? Or, better still, give him work, at any rate till he has found his feet? I'm sure you can count on his devotion--" "Dear Lucy, she might be recommending me a valet." "_Do_ do something for him, and you will oblige me more than I can say." That letter of Lucia's gave Jewdwine much matter for reflection and some pain. He had winced at the sale of Court House; it struck him as a personal blow. He had had a kind of tacit understanding with himself that, in that future which he had meant to share with Lucia, Court House would be the home of his retirement. Still, it must go. He had to live in town, and if at the moment he could have afforded to marry a penniless Lucia he could not have afforded two establishments. As for the redemption of the Harden library he realized with a sharp pang that risk there had been none. He saw that what young Rickman had offered him was a unique and splendid opportunity, the opportunity of doing a beautiful thing for Lucia, and that without the smallest inconvenience to himself. And this opportunity had been missed. Just because he could not make up his mind about Rickman, could not see what Lucia had always seen, what he too saw now, that positively luminous sincerity of his. He saw it even now reluctantly--though he could never veer round again to his absurd theory of Rickman's dishonesty. He would have liked, if he could, to regard him as a culpable bungler; but even this consoling view was closed to him by Lucia. It was plain from her account that Rickman's task had been beyond human power. Jewdwine, therefore, was forced to the painful conclusion that for this loss to himself and Lucia he had nothing to blame but his own vacillation. As for Rickman-- Lucia had taken a great deal of pains with that part of her subject, for she was determined to do justice to it. She was aware that it was open to her to take the ordinary practical view of Rickman as a culpable blunderer, who, by holding his tongue when he should have spoken, had involved her in the loss of much valuable property. To an ordinary practical woman the fact that this blunder had entailed such serious consequences to herself would have made any other theory impossible. But Lucia was not a woman who could be depended on for any ordinary practical view. Mere material issues could never confuse her estimate of spiritual values. To her, Rickman's conduct in that instance was a flaw in honour, and as such she had already sufficiently judged it. The significant thing was that he too should have so judged it; that he should have been capable of such profound suffering in the thought of it. And now, somehow, it didn't seem to her to count. It simply disappeared in her final pure and luminous view of Rickman's character. What really counted was the alertness of his whole attitude to honour, his readiness to follow the voice of his own ultimate vision, to repudiate the unclean thing revealed in its uncleanness; above all, what counted was his passionate sincerity. With her unerring instinct of selection Lucia had again seized on the essential. The triumph of Rickman's greater qualities appealed to her as a spectacle; it was not spoiled for her by the reflection that she personally had been more affected by his failure. If she showed her insight into Rickman's character by admitting the relative insignificance of that failure, she showed an equal insight into Jewdwine's by suppressing all mention of it now. For Horace would have regarded it as essential. It would have loomed large in his view by reason of its material consequences. Allowing for Horace's view she kept her portrait truer by omitting it. And Jewdwine accepted her portrait as the true one. It appealed irresistibly to his artistic sense. He was by profession a connoisseur of things beautifully done. Rickman's behaviour, as described by Lucia, revived his earlier amused admiration for his young disciple. It was so like him. In its spontaneity, its unexpectedness, its--its colossal impertinence, it was pure Rickman. Lucia had achieved a masterpiece of appreciation. But what helped him in his almost joyous re-discovery of his Rickman was his perception that here (in doing justice to Rickman) lay his chance of rehabilitating himself. If he could not buy back the Harden library, he could at any rate redeem his own character. He did not hold himself responsible for Lucia's father's debts, but he was willing, not to say glad, to take up Lucia's. It was certainly most improper that she should be under any obligation to Rickman. In any case, Rickman's action concerned Lucia's family as much as Lucia; that is to say, it was his (Jewdwine's) affair. And personally he disliked indebtedness. Another man might have handed Rickman a cheque for fifty pounds (the price of the catalogue _raisonné_) and washed his hands of him. But Jewdwine was incapable of that grossness. He gave the matter a fortnight's delicate consideration. At the end of that time he had made up his mind not only to invite Rickman to contribute regularly to _The Museion_ (a thing he would have done in any case) but to offer him, temporarily, the sub-editorship. Rash as this resolution seemed, Jewdwine had fenced himself carefully from any risk. The arrangement was not to be considered permanent until Rickman had proved himself both capable and steady--if then. In giving him any work at all on _The Museion_ Jewdwine felt that he was stretching a point. It was a somewhat liberal rendering of his editorial programme. _The Museion_ was the one solitary literary journal that had the courage to profess openly a philosophy of criticism. Its philosophy might be obsolete, it might be fantastic, it might be altogether wrong; the point was that it was there. Its presence was a protest against the spirit of anarchy in the world of letters. The paper had lost influence lately owing to a certain rigidity in the methods of its late editor, also to an increasing dulness in its style. It was suffering, like all old things, from the unequal competition with insurgent youth. The proprietors were almost relieved when the death of its editor provided them with a suitable opportunity for giving it over into the hands of younger men. "We want new blood," said the proprietors. The difficulty was how to combine new blood with the old spirit, and Horace Jewdwine solved their problem, presenting the remarkable combination of an old head upon comparatively young shoulders. He was responsible, authoritative, inspired by a high and noble seriousness. He had taken his Aristotle with a high and noble seriousness; and in the same spirit he had approached his Kant, his Hegel and his Schopenhauer in succession. He was equipped with the most beautiful metaphysical theory of Art, and had himself written certain _Prolegomena to �sthetics_. Metaphysics had preyed on Jewdwine like a flame. He was consumed with a passion for unity. The unity which Nature only strives after, blindly, furiously, ineffectually; the unity barely reached by the serene and luminous processes of Thought--the artist achieves it with one stroke. In him, by the twin acts of vision and creation, the worlds of Nature and the Idea are made one. He leaps at a bound into the very heart of the Absolute. He alone can be said to have attained, and (this was the point which Jewdwine insisted on) attained only by the sacrifice of his individuality. Thus Jewdwine in his _Prolegomena to �sthetics_. As that work could be regarded only as a brutal and terrific challenge to the intellect, the safer course was to praise it, and it was unanimously praised. Nobody was able to understand a word of it except the last chapter on "Individualism in Modern Art." But as criticism wisely concentrated itself on this the only comprehensible portion of the book, Jewdwine (who otherwise would have perished in his own profundity) actually achieved some journalistic notoriety as a dealer in piquant paradox and vigorous personalities. Jewdwine was ambitious. On the strength of his _Prolegomena_ he had come up from Oxford with a remarkable reputation, which he had every inducement to cherish and to guard. He was therefore the best possible editor for such a review as _The Museion_, and such a review as _The Museion_ was the best possible instrument of his ambition. His aim was to preserve the tradition of the paper as pure as on the day when it was given into his hands. He was a little doubtful as to how far young Rickman would lend himself to that. However, as the fruit of Jewdwine's meditations, Rickman received a note inviting him to dine with the editor alone, at Hampstead. Jewdwine, whose health required pure air, had settled very comfortably in that high suburb. And, as his marriage seemed likely to remain long a matter for dubious reflection, he had arranged that his sister Edith should keep house for him. In inviting Rickman to dine at Hampstead his intention was distinctly friendly; at the same time he was careful to fix an evening when Miss Jewdwine would not be there. He was willing to help Rickman in every possible way short of introducing him to the ladies of his family. But before dinner was ended he had to admit that this precaution was excessive. Rickman (barring certain dreadful possibilities of speech) was really by no means unpresentable. He was attired with perfect sanity. His methods at the dinner table, if at all unusual, erred on the side of restraint rather than of extravagance; he gave indications of a certain curious personal refinement; and in the matter of wine he was almost incredibly abstemious. It was the first time that Jewdwine had come to close quarters with his disciple, and with some surprise he saw himself going through the experience without a shock. Either he had been mistaken in Rickman, or Rickman had improved. Shy he still was, but he had lost much of his old ungovernable nervousness, and gave Jewdwine the impression of an immense reserve. He seemed to have entered into some ennobling possession which raised him above the region of small confusions and excitements. His eye, when Jewdwine caught it, no longer struggled to escape; but it seemed to be held less by him than by its own controlling inner vision. Jewdwine watched him narrowly. It never entered into his head that what he was watching was the effect of three weeks' intercourse with Lucia Harden. He attributed it to Rickman's deliverance from the shop. To be sure Rickman did not strike him as particularly happy, but this again he accounted for by the depressing state of his finances. Neither of them made the most distant allusion to Lucia. Jewdwine was not aware of the extent of Rickman's acquaintance with his cousin, neither could he well have conceived it. And for Rickman it was not yet possible either to speak or to hear of Lucia without pain. It was not until dinner was over, and Rickman was no longer eating Jewdwine's food, that they ventured on the unpleasant topic that lay before them, conspicuous, though untouched. Jewdwine felt that, as it was impossible to ignore what had passed between them since they had last met, the only thing was to refer to it as casually as might be. "By the way, Rickman," he said when they were alone in his study, "you were quite right about that library. I only wish you could have let me know a little sooner." "I wish I had," said Rickman, and his tone implied that he appreciated the painfulness of the subject. There was a pause which Rickman broke by congratulating Jewdwine on his appointment. This he did with a very pretty diffidence and modesty, which smoothed over the awkwardness of the transition, if indeed it did not convey an adroit suggestion of the insignificance of all other affairs. The editor, still observing his unconscious candidate, was very favourably impressed. He laid before him the views and aims of _The Museion_. Yes; he thought it had a future before it. He was going to make it the organ of philosophic criticism, as opposed to the mere personal view. It would, therefore, be unique. Yes; certainly it would also be unpopular. Heaven forbid that anything he was concerned in should be popular. It was sufficient that it should be impartial and incorruptible. Its tone was to be sober and scholarly, but militant. Rickman gathered that its staff were to be so many knights-errant defending the virtue of the English Language. No loose slip-shod journalistic phrase would be permitted in its columns. Its articles, besides being well reasoned, would be examples of the purity it preached. It was to set its face sternly against Democracy, Commercialism and Decadence. The disciple caught fire from the master's enthusiasm; he approved, aspired, exulted. His heart was big with belief in Jewdwine and his work. Being innocent himself of any sordid taint, he admired above all things what he called his friend's intellectual chastity. Jewdwine felt the truth of what Lucia had told him. He could count absolutely on Rickman's devotion. He arrived by well-constructed stages at the offer of the sub-editorship. Rickman looked up with a curious uncomprehending stare. When he clearly understood the proposal that was being made to him, he flushed deeply and showed unmistakable signs of agitation. "Do you think," said Jewdwine discreetly, "you'd care to try it for a time?" "I don't know, I'm sure," said Rickman thoughtfully. "Well, it's only an experiment. I'm not offering you anything permanent." "Of course, that makes all the difference." "It does; if it isn't good enough--" "You don't understand me. That's what would make it all right." "Make what all right?" "My accepting--if you really only want a stop-gap." "I see," said Jewdwine to himself, "the youth has tasted liberty, and he objects to being caught and caged." "The question is," said Rickman, sinking into thought again, "whether you really want _me_." "My dear fellow, why on earth should I say so if I didn't?" "N--no. Only I thought, after the mess I've made of things, that none of your family would ever care to have anything to do with me again." It was the nearest he had come to mentioning Lucia Harden, and the pain it cost him was visible on his face. "My family," said Jewdwine with a stiff smile, "will _not_ have anything to do with you. It has nothing to do with _The Museion_. "In that case, I don't see why I shouldn't try it, if I can be of any use to you." From the calmness of his manner you would have supposed that salaried appointments hung on every lamp-post, ready to drop into the mouths of impecunious young men of letters. "Thanks. Then we'll consider that settled for the present." Impossible to suppose that Rickman was not properly grateful. Still, instead of thanking Jewdwine, he had made Jewdwine thank him. And he had done it quite unconsciously, without any lapse from his habitual sincerity, or the least change in his becoming attitude of modesty. Jewdwine considered that what Maddox had qualified as Rickman's colossal cheek was simply his colossal ignorance; not to say his insanely perverted view of the value of salaried appointments. "Oh," said he, "I shall want you as a contributor, too. I don't know how you'll work in with the rest, but we shall see. I won't have any but picked men. The review has always stood high; but I want it to stand higher. It isn't a commercial speculation. There's no question of making it pay. It must keep up its independence whether it can afford it or not. We've been almost living on Vaughan's advertisements. All the same, I mean to slaughter those new men he's got hold of." Rickman admired this reckless policy. It did not occur to him at the moment that Jewdwine was reader to a rival publisher. "What," he said, "all of them at once?" "No--We shall work them off weekly, one at a time." Rickman laughed. "One at a time? Then you allow them the merit of individuality?" "It isn't a merit; it's a vice, _the_ vice of the age. It shrieks; it ramps. Individuality means slow disease in ethics and politics, but it's sudden death to art. When will you young men learn that art is self-restraint, not self-expansion?" "Self expansion--it seems an innocent impulse." "If it were an impulse--but it isn't. It's a pose. A cold, conscious, systematic pose. So deadly artificial; and so futile, if they did but know. After all, the individual is born, not made." "I believe you!" "Yes; but he isn't born nowadays. He belongs to the ages of inspired innocence and inspired energy. We are not inspired; we are not energetic; we are not innocent. We're deliberate and languid and corrupt. And we can't reproduce by our vile mechanical process what only exists by the grace of nature and of God. Look at the modern individual--for all their cant and rant, is there a more contemptible object on the face of this earth? Don't talk to me of individuality." "It's given us one or two artists--" "Artists? Yes, artists by the million; and no Art. To produce Art, the artist's individuality must conform to the Absolute." Jewdwine in ninety-two was a man of enormous utterances and noble truths. With him all artistic achievements stood or fell according to the canons of the _Prolegomena to �sthetics_. Therefore in ninety-two his conversation was not what you would call diverting. Yet it made you giddy; his ideas kept on circulating round and round the same icy, invisible pole. Rickman, in describing the interview afterwards, said he thought he had caught a cold in the head talking to Jewdwine; his intellect seemed to be sitting in a thorough draught. "And if the artist has a non-conforming devil in him? If he's the sort of genius who can't and won't conform? Strikes me the poor old Absolute's got to climb down." "If he's a genius--he generally isn't--he'll know that he'll express himself best by conforming. He isn't lost by it, but enlarged. Look at Greek art. There," said Jewdwine, a rapt and visionary air passing over his usually apathetic face, "the individual, the artist, is always subdued to the universal, the absolute beauty." "And in modern art, I take it, the universal absolute beauty is subdued to the individual. That seems only fair. What you've got to reckon with is the man himself." "Who wants the man himself? We want the thing itself--the reality, the pure object of art. Do any of your new men understand that?" "We _want_ it--some of us." "Do you _understand_ it?" "Not I. Do you understand it yourself? Would you know it if you met it in the street?" "It never is in the street." "How do you know? You can't say where it is or what it is. You can't say anything about it at all. But while you're all trying to find out, the most unlikely person suddenly gets up and produces it. And _he_ can't tell you where he got it. Though, if you ask him, ten to one he'll tell you he's been sitting on it all the time." "Well," said Jewdwine, "tell me when you've 'sat on' anything yourself." "I will." He rose to go, being anxious to avoid the suspicion of having pushed that question to a personal issue. It was only in reply to more searching inquiries that he mentioned (on the doorstep) that a book of his was coming out in the autumn. "What, _Helen_?" "No. _Saturnalia_ and--a lot of things you haven't seen yet." It was a rapid nervous communication, made in the moment of withdrawing his hand from Jewdwine's. "Who's your publisher?" called out Jewdwine. Rickman laughed as the night received him. "Vaughan!" he shouted from the garden gate. "Now, what on earth," said Jewdwine, "could have been his motive for not consulting me?" He had not got the clue to the hesitation and secrecy of the young man's behaviour. He did not know that there were three things which Rickman desired at any cost to keep pure--his genius, his friendship for Horace Jewdwine, and his love for Lucia Harden. CHAPTER XL The end of May found Rickman still at Mrs. Downey's, established on the second floor in a glory that exceeded the glory of Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now not only a bedroom, but a study, furnished with a simplicity that had the effect of luxury, and lined from floor to ceiling with his books. Mrs. Downey had agreed that Mr. Rickman should, whenever the mysterious fancy took him, have his meals served to him in his own apartment after the high manner of Mr. Blenkinsop; and it was under protest that she accepted any compensation for the break thus made in the triumphal order of the Dinner. Here then at last, he was absolutely alone and free. Feeling perhaps how nearly it had lost him, or impressed by the sudden change in his position, the boarding-house revered this privacy of Rickman's as a sacred thing. Not even Mr. Soper would have dared to violate his virgin leisure. The charm of it was unbroken, it was even heightened by the inaudible presence of Miss Roots in her den on the same floor. Miss Roots indeed was the tie that bound him to Mrs. Downey's; otherwise the dream of his affluence would have been chambers in Westminster or the Temple. For his income, in its leap from zero to a fluctuating two hundred a year, appeared to him as boundless affluence. To be sure, Jewdwine had expressly stated that it would not be permanent, but this he had understood to be merely a delicate way of referring to his former imperfect record of sobriety. And he had become rich not only in money but in time. Rickman's had demanded an eight or even a ten hours' day; the office of _The Museion_ claimed him but five hours of four days in the week. From five o'clock on Thursday evening till eleven on Monday morning, whatever work remained for him to do could be done in his own time and his own temper. Much of the leisure time at his disposal he spent in endeavouring to follow the Harden library in its dispersion. He attended the great auctions in the hope of intercepting some treasure in its passage from Rickman's to the home of the collector. Once, in his father's absence, he bought a dozen volumes straight over the counter from his successor there. It was also about this time that Spinks and Soper appeared in the new character of book fanciers, buying according to Rickman's instructions and selling to him on commission, a transaction which filled these gentlemen with superb importance. Thus Rickman became possessed of about twenty or thirty volumes which he ranged behind a curtain, on a shelf apart. The collection, formed gradually, included nothing of any intrinsic value; such as it was he treasured it with a view to restoring it ultimately to Lucia Harden. He was considering whether with the means at his disposal he could procure a certain Aldine Dante of his memory, when the Harden library disappeared from the market as suddenly and mysteriously as it had come. No volume belonging to it could be bought for love or money; and none were displayed in the windows of Rickman's. Keith learnt nothing by his inquiries beyond the extent of his estrangement from his father. When he called at the shop his successor regretted that he was unable to give him any information. When he visited the suburban villa Isaac refused to see him. When he wrote Isaac never answered the letters. His stepmother in an unpleasant interview gave him to understand that the separation was final and complete. He would have been more hurt by this rupture but for that other and abiding pain. The thought of Lucia Harden checked his enjoyment in the prospect of a now unimpeded career. Rickman was like some young athlete who walks on to the field stripped and strong for the race, but invisibly handicapped, having had the heart knocked out of him by some shameful incident outside the course. Apart from his own disgrace he was miserably anxious about Lucia herself, about her health, her happiness, her prospects; his misery being by no means lightened by his perception that these things were not exactly his concern. He tried to picture her living as poor ladies live; he had seen them sometimes at Mrs. Downey's. He could not see her there, or rather, seeing her he could see nothing else; he perceived that surroundings and material accessories contributed nothing to his idea of her. Still, he knew nothing; and he had to accept his ignorance as part, and the worst part, of the separation that was his punishment. Many mixed feelings, shame and passion, delicacy and pride restrained him from asking Jewdwine any question. Even if Jewdwine had not told him as much, he would have known that his acquaintance with Jewdwine's affairs would not involve acquaintance with Jewdwine's family. He had absolutely nothing to hope for from that connection. And yet he hoped. The probabilities were that if Lucia did not make her home with her cousins, she would at any rate stay with them the greater part of the year. He was always walking up to Hampstead Heath on the chance of some day seeing her there. Sometimes he would pass by the front of Jewdwine's beautiful old brown house, and glance quickly through the delicate iron gate and up at the windows. But she was never there. Sometimes he would sit for hours on one of the seats under the elm tree at the back. There was a high walk there overlooking the West Heath and shaded by the elms and by Jewdwine's garden wall. The wall had a door in it that might some day open and let out the thing he longed for. Only it never did. There was nothing to hope for from Jewdwine's house. At last his longing became intolerable, and one day, in the office, he made up his mind to approach Jewdwine himself. He had been telling him about the apparent check in the career of the Harden library, when he saw his opportunity and took it. "By the way, can you tell me where your cousin is now?" "Miss Harden," said Jewdwine coldly, "is in Germany with Miss Palliser." He added, as if he evidently felt that some explanation was necessary (not on Rickman's account, but on his own), "She was to have come to us, but we were obliged to give her up to Miss Palliser, who is living alone." "Alone?" "Yes. Mrs. Palliser is dead." Rickman turned abruptly away to the window and stared into the street below. Jewdwine from his seat by the table looked after him thoughtfully. He would have given a good deal to know what was implied in the sudden turning of Rickman's back. What on earth did it matter to Rickman if old Mrs. Palliser was dead or alive? What could he be thinking of? He was thinking of Kitty who had shown him kindness, of Kitty and the pleasant jests with which she used to cover his embarrassment; of Kitty who had understood him at the last. It was impossible not to feel some grief for the grief of Lucia's friend; but he had no business to show it. Therefore he had turned away. And then he thought of Lucia; and in his heart he cursed that other business which was his and yet not his; he cursed the making of the catalogue; he cursed the great Harden Library which had brought them together and divided them. But for that, his genius, a thing apart, might have claimed her friendship for itself. As it was, his genius, being after all bound up with his person which suffered and was ashamed, had (as far as Lucia was concerned) to accept its humiliation and dismissal. And all the time his genius, already vigorous enough in all conscience, throve on his suffering as it had thriven on his joy. In that summer of ninety-two, Rickman's _Saturnalia_ were followed by _On Harcombe Hill_ and _The Four Winds_, and that greatest poem of his lyric period, _The Song of Confession_. Upon the young poet about town there had descended, as it were out of heaven, a power hitherto undreamed of and undivined. No rapture of the body was ever so winged and flamed, or lost itself in such heights and depths of music, as that cry of the passion of his soul. CHAPTER XLI Meanwhile, of a Sunday evening, Miss Poppy Grace wondered why Ricky-ticky never by any chance appeared upon his balcony. At last, coming home about ten o'clock from one of his walks to Hampstead, he found Poppy leaning out over _her_ balcony most unmistakably on the look-out. "Come in and have some supper," said she. "No thanks, I fancy it's a little late." "Better late than never, when it's supper with _me_. Catch!" And Poppy, in defiance of all propriety, tossed her latch-key over the balcony. And somehow that latch-key had to be returned. He did not use it, but rang, with the intention of handing it to the servant; an intention divined and frustrated by Poppy, who opened the door to him herself. "Don't go away," she said, "I've got something to tell you." "Not now, I think--" Her eyes were hideous to him in their great rings of paint and bistre. "Why ever not? It'll only tyke a minute. Come in; there's nobody up there that matters." And because he had no desire to be brutal or uncivil, he went up into the room he knew so well. It being summer, the folding doors were thrown wide open, and in the room beyond they came upon a large lady in a dirty tea-gown, eating lobster. For Poppy, now that she saw respectability departing from her, held out to it a pathetic little hand, and the tea-gown, pending an engagement as heavy matron on the provincial stage, was glad enough to play Propriety in Miss Grace's drawing-room. To-night Poppy made short work of Propriety. She waited with admirable patience while the large lady (whom she addressed affectionately as Tiny) followed up the last thin trail of mayonnaise; but when Tiny showed a disposition to toy with the intricacies of an empty claw, Poppy protested. "Hurry up and clear out, there's a dear. I want to give Rickets his supper, and we haven't got a minute to spare." And Tiny, who seemed to know her business, hurried up and cleared out. But Rickets didn't want any supper, and Poppy was visibly abstracted and depressed. She mingled whipped cream with minute fragments of lobster, and finally fell to torturing a sandwich with a spoon; and all with an immense affectation of not having a minute to spare. "Well, Ryzors," she said at last (and her accent jarred him horribly), "this is very strynge behyviour." "Which?" "Which? Do you know you haven't been near me for two months?" He laughed uneasily. "I couldn't be near you when I was away." "Never said you could. But what did you go away for?" "Business." "Too busy to write, I suppose?" "Much too busy." She rose, and with one hand on his shoulder steered him into the front room. "Sit down," she said. "And don't look so sulky. I want to talk to you sensibly." He sat down where he had sat that night two months ago, on the Polar bear skin. She sat down too, with a sweeping side-long movement of her hips that drew her thin skirts close about her. She contemplated the effect a little dubiously, then with shy nervous fingers loosened and shook out the folds. He leaned back, withdrawn as far as possible into the corner of the divan. The associations of the place were unspeakably loathsome to him. "Look here, dear"--(In Poppy's world the term of endearment went for nothing; it was simply the stamp upon the current coin of comradeship. If only that had been the beginning and the end between them!) "I haven't a minute--but, I'm going to ask you something" (though Poppy hadn't a minute she was applying herself very leisurely to the making of cigarettes). "Don't go and get huffy at what I'm going to say. Do you happen to owe Dicky anything?" "Why?" "Tell you why afterwards. _Do_ you owe him anything?" "Oh, well--a certain amount--Why?" "Why? Because I think he owes _you_ something. And that's a grudge. It isn't my business, but if I were you, Rickets, I'd pay him orf and have done with him." "Oh, that's all right. I'm safe enough." "You? It's just you who isn't. Dicky's not a bad sort, in his way. All the same, he'd sell you up as soon as look at you. Unless--" (for a moment her bright eyes clouded, charged with the melancholy meanings of the world) "Unless you happened to be an orf'ly pretty woman." She laid her right leg across her left knee and struck a vesta on the heel of her shoe. "Then, of course, he'd sooner look at me." Poppy puffed at her cigarette and threw the vesta into the grate with a dexterous jerk of her white forearm. "Look at you first. Sell you up--after." Then Poppy burst into song-- "Oh, he is such a nice little boy, When there's nothing you do to annoy; But he's apt to stand aloof If you arsk him for the oof, And it's then that he looks coy. Oh, he'll show the cloven hoof, If you put him to the proof. When you want him to hand you the boodle He's _not_ such a nice little boy. "Yes, dickee, _I_ see you!" The canary, persuaded by Poppy's song that it was broad daylight, was awake and splashing in his bath. Again in Poppy's mind (how unnecessarily) he stood for the respectabilities and proprieties; he was an understudy for Tiny of the dirty tea-gown. "Going?" "Yes. I must go." "Wait." She rose and held him by the collar of his coat, a lapel in each small hand. He grasped her wrists by an instinctive movement of self-preservation, and gently slackened her hold. She gave his coat a little shake. "What's the matter with you, Rickets? You're such a howling swell." Her eyes twinkled in the old way, and he smiled in spite of himself. "Say, I'm a little nuisance, Rickets, _say_ I'm a little nuisance." "You are a little nuisance. "A d----d little nuisance." "A d----d little nuisance." "Ah, now you feel better, don't you? Poor Ricky-ticky, don't you be afraid. It's only a _little_ nuisance. It'll never be a big one. It's done growing. That is, I won't rag you any more, if you'll tell me one thing--oh, what a whopper of a sigh!--Promise me you'll pay Dicky off." "All right. I'll pay him." "To-morrow?" "To-morrow, then. Don't, Poppy. I--I've got a sore throat." For Poppy, standing on tip-toe, had made an effort to embrace him. "I sy, if you blush like that, Rickets, you'll have a fit. Poor dear! _Did_ I crumple his nice little stylish collar!" He endured while she smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle, her head very much on one side. "You see, Razors, we've been such chums. Whatever happens, I want to be all right and straight with you." "What should happen?" "Oh, anything." Again there was that troubling of the bright shallows of her eyes. "You remember larst time you were here?" (his shudder told her that he remembered well). "I _did_ try to send you away, didn't I?" "As far as I can remember, you did." "What did you think I did it for?" "I suppose, because you wanted me to go." "Stupid! I did it because I wanted you to _stay_." She looked into his eyes and the light went out of her own; among its paint and powder her audacity lay dead. It was as if she saw on his face the shadow of Lucia Harden, and knew that her hour had come. She met it laughing. "Good-night, Ricky-ticky." As he took her hand he muttered something about being "fearfully sorry." "Sorry?" Poppy conjured up a poor flickering ghost of her inimitable wink. "The champagne was bad, dear. Don't you worry." When he had left her, she flung herself face downwards on the divan. "Oh, dicky, will you hold your horrid little tongue?" But as she sobbed aloud, the canary, symbol of invincible Propriety, rocked on his perch and shook over her his piercing and exultant song. Rickman was sorry for her, but the sight and touch of her were hateful to him. He took her advice however. He had had good luck with some articles, and he called on Pilkington the next afternoon and paid him his thirty pounds with the interest. Dicky was in a good humour and inclined to be communicative. He congratulated him on his present berth, and informed him that Rickman's was "going it." The old man had just raised four thousand on the Harden library, the only security that he, Dicky, would accept. "I suppose," said Rickman simply, "you'd no idea of its value when you let him buy it?" Dicky stared through his eye-glass with his blue eyes immense and clear. "My dear fellow, do you take me for a d----d fool?" So that had been Dicky's little game? Trust Dicky. And yet for the time being, held in the opposing grip of two firm cupidities, it was safe, the great Harden library, once the joy of scholars, loved with such high intellectual passion, and now the centre of so many hot schemes and rivalries and lusts. Now that the work of sacrilege was complete, housed at last in the Gin Palace of Art, it stood, useless in its desecrated beauty, cumbering the shelves whence no sale would remove it until either Rickman's or Pilkington let go. So far the Hardens were avenged. CHAPTER XLII More than once, after that night when Rickman dined with him, Jewdwine became the prey of many misgivings. He felt that in taking Rickman up he was assuming an immense responsibility. It might have been better, happier for Rickman, poor fellow, if after all he had left him in his decent obscurity; but having dragged him out of it, he was in a manner answerable to the world for Rickman and to Rickman for the world. Supposing Rickman disappointed the world? Supposing the world disappointed Rickman? Jewdwine lived in the hope, natural to a distinguished critic, of some day lighting upon a genius. The glory of that find would go far to compensate him for his daily traffic with mediocrity. Genius was rarely to be seen, but Jewdwine felt that he would be the first to recognize it if he did see it; the first to penetrate its many curious disguises; the first to give it an introduction (if it wanted one) to his own superior world. And here was Rickman--manifestly in need of that introduction--a man who unquestionably had about him some of the marks by which a genius is identified; and yet he left you terribly uncertain. He was the very incarnation of uncertainty. Jewdwine was perfectly willing to help the man if only he were sure of the genius. But was he sure? Had it really pleased the inscrutable divine thing to take up its abode in this otherwise rather impossible person? Meanwhile Rickman seemed to be settling down fairly comfortably to the work of _The Museion_; and Jewdwine, having other things to think of, began to forget his existence. He was in fact rapidly realizing his dream. He had won for himself and his paper a position lonely and unique. The reputation of _The Museion_ was out of all proportion to its circulation, but Jewdwine was making himself heard. As an editor and critic he was respected for his incorruptibility and for the purity of his passion for literature. His utterances were considered to carry authority and weight. Just at first the weight was perhaps the more conspicuous quality of the two. Jewdwine could not be parted from his "Absolute." He had lived with it for years in Oxford, and he brought it up to town with him; it walked beside him on the London pavements and beckoned him incessantly into the vast inane. It cut a very majestic figure in his columns, till some irritable compositor docked it of its capital and compelled it to march with the rank and file of vulgar adjectives. Even thus degraded it ruled his paragraphs as it ruled his thoughts. But lately the review seemed to be making efforts to redeem itself from the charge of heaviness. In certain of its columns there was a curious radiance and agitation, as of some winged and luminous creature struggling against obscurity; and it was felt that Jewdwine was binding in a pious tradition of dulness a spirit that would otherwise have danced and flown. Whether it was his own spirit or somebody else's did not definitely appear; but now and again it broke loose altogether, and then, when people complimented him on the brilliance of his appearance that week, he smiled inscrutably. It was impossible to say how far Jewdwine's conscience approved of these outbursts of individuality. Certainly he did his best to restrain them, his desire being to give to his columns a distinguished unity of form. He saw himself the founder of a new and higher school of journalism, thus satisfying his undying tutorial instincts. He had chosen his staff from the most promising among the young band of disciples who thronged his lecture-room at Oxford; men moulded on his methods, inspired by his ideals, drenched in his metaphysics; crude young men of uncontrollable enthusiasm, whose style awaited at his hands the final polishing. He knew that he had done a risky thing in associating young Rickman with them in this high enterprise. But under all his doubts there lay a faith in the genius of his sub-editor, a faith the more fascinating because it was so far removed from any certainty. In giving Rickman his present post he conceived himself not only to be paying a debt of honour, but doing the best possible thing for _The Museion_. It was also, he considered, the best possible thing for Rickman. His work on the review would give him the discipline he most needed, the discipline he had never had. To be brought into line with an august tradition; to be caught up out of the slough of modern journalism into a rarer atmosphere; to breathe the eternal spirit of great literature (a spirit which according to Jewdwine did not blow altogether where it listed); to have his too exuberant individuality chastened and controlled, would be for Rickman an unspeakable benefit at this critical stage of his career. The chastening and controlling were difficult. Rickman's phrases were frequently more powerful than polite. Like many young writers of violent imagination he was apt to be somewhat vividly erotic in his metaphors. And he had little ways that were very irritating to Jewdwine. He was wasteful with the office paper and with string; he would use penny stamps where halfpenny ones would have served his purpose; he had once permitted himself to differ with Jewdwine on a point of scholarship in the presence of the junior clerk. There were times when Jewdwine longed to turn him out and have done with him; and yet Rickman stayed on. When all was said and done there was a charm about him. Jewdwine in fact had proved the truth of Lucia's saying; he could rely absolutely on his devotion. He could not afford to let him go. Though Rickman tampered shamelessly with the traditions of the review, it could not be said that as yet he had injured its circulation. His contributions were noticed with approval in rival columns; and they had even been quoted by Continental critics with whom _The Museion_ passed as being the only British review that had the true interests of literature at heart. But though Rickman helped to bring fame to _The Museion_, _The Museion_ brought none to him. The identity of its contributors was merged in that of its editor, and those brilliant articles were never signed. The spring of ninety-three, which found Jewdwine comfortably seated on the summit of his ambition, saw Rickman almost as obscure as in the spring of ninety-two. His poems had not yet appeared. Vaughan evidently regarded them as so many sensitive plants, and, fearing for them the boisterous seasons of autumn and spring, had kept them back till the coming May, when, as he expressed it, the market would be less crowded. This delay gave time to that erratic artist, Mordaunt Crawley, to complete the remarkable illustrations on which Vaughan relied chiefly for success. Vaughan had spared no expense, but naturally it was the artist and the printer, not the poet, whom he paid. Rickman, however, had not thought of his _Saturnalia_ as a source of revenue. It had been such a pleasure to write them that the wonder was he had not been called upon to pay for that. Happily for him he was by this time independent. As sub-editor and contributor to _The Museion_, he was drawing two small but regular incomes. He could also count on a third (smaller and more uncertain) from _The Planet_, where from the moment of his capture by Jewdwine he had been reinstated. He found it easy enough to work for both. _The Planet_ was poor, and it was out of sheer perversity that it indulged a disinterested passion for literature. In fact, Maddox and his men were trying to do with gaiety of heart what Jewdwine was doing with superb solemnity. But whenever Rickman mentioned Maddox to Jewdwine, Jewdwine would shrug his shoulders and say, "Maddox is not important"; and when he mentioned _The Museion_ to Maddox, Maddox would correct him with a laugh, "The Museum, you mean," and refer to his fellow-contributors as "a respectable collection of meiocene fossils." Maddox had conceived a jealous and violent admiration for Savage Keith Rickman. "Rickman," he said, "you shall not go over body and soul to _The Museion_." He regarded himself as the keeper and lover of Rickman's soul, and would not have been sorry to bring about a divorce between it and Jewdwine. His irregular attentions were to save it from a suicidal devotion to a joyless consort. So that Rickman was torn between Maddox's enthusiasm for him and his own enthusiasm for Jewdwine. That affection endured, being one with his impetuous and generous youth; while his genius, that thing alone and apart, escaped from Jewdwine. He knew that Jewdwine's incorruptibility left him nothing to expect in the way of approval and protection, and the knowledge did not greatly affect him. He preferred that his friend should remain incorruptible. That Jewdwine should greatly delight in his _Saturnalia_ was more than he at any time expected. For there his muse, Modernity, had begun to turn her back resolutely on the masters and the models, to fling off the golden fetters of rhyme, gird up her draperies to her naked thighs, and step out with her great swinging stride on perilous paths of her own. To be sure there were other things which Jewdwine had not seen, on which he himself felt that he might rest a pretty secure claim to immortality. Of his progress thither his friends had to accept Vaughan's announcements as the only intimation. Rickman had not called upon any of the Junior Journalists to smooth the way for him. He had not, in fact, called on any of them at all, but as April advanced he retreated more and more into a foolish privacy; and with the approaches of May he vanished. One night, however, some Junior Journalists caught him at the club, belated, eating supper. They afterwards recalled that he had then seemed to them possessed by a perfect demon of indiscretion; and when his book finally appeared on the first of May, it was felt that it could hardly have been produced under more unfavourable auspices. This reckless attitude was evidently unaffected (nobody had ever accused Rickman of affectation); and even Maddox pronounced it imprudent in the extreme. As for Jewdwine, it could not be accounted for by any motives known to him. His experience compelled him to take a somewhat cynical view of the literary character. Jewdwine among his authors was like a man insusceptible of passion, but aware of the fascinations that caused him to be pursued by the solicitations of the fair. He was flattered by the pursuit, but the pursuer inspired him with the liveliest contempt. It had not yet occurred to him that Rickman could have any delicacy in approaching him. Still less could he believe that Rickman could be indifferent to the fate of his book. His carelessness therefore did not strike him as entirely genuine. There could be no doubt however as to the genuineness of Rickman's surprise when he came upon Jewdwine in the office reading _Saturnalia_. He smiled upon him, innocent and unconscious. "Ah!" he said, "so you're reading it? You won't like it." Jewdwine crossed one leg over the other, and it was wonderful the amount of annoyance he managed to convey by the gesture. His face, too, wore a worried and uncertain look; so worried and so uncertain that Rickman was sorry for him. He felt he must make it easy for him. "At any rate, you won't admire its personal appearance." "I don't. What possessed you to give it to Vaughan?" "Some devil, I think." "You certainly might have done better." "Perhaps. If I'd taken the trouble. But I didn't." Jewdwine raised his eyebrows (whenever he did that Rickman thought of someone who used to raise her eyebrows too, but with a difference). "You see, it was last year. I let things slide." Jewdwine looked as if he didn't see. "If you had come to me, I think I could have helped you." "I didn't want to bother you. I knew you wouldn't care for the things." "Well, frankly, I don't care very much for some of them. But I should have stretched a point to keep you clear of Crawley. I'm sorry he put temptation in your way." "He didn't. They say I put temptation in his way. Horrid, isn't it, to think there's something in me that appeals to his diseased imagination?" "It's a pity. And I don't know what I can do for you. You see you've identified yourself with a school I particularly abominate. It isn't a school. A school implies a master and some attempt at discipline. It should have a formula. Crawley has none." "Oh, I don't know about that." He stood beside Jewdwine, who was gazing at the frontispiece. "Talk about absolute beauty, any fool can show you the beauty of a beautiful thing, or the ugliness of an ugly one; but it takes a clever beast like Crawley to show you beauty in anything so absolutely repulsive as that woman's face. Look at it! He's got hold of something. He's caught the lurking fascination, the--the leer of life." Jewdwine made a gesture of disgust. "Of course, it's no good as an illustration. I don't see life with a leer on its face. But he can draw. Look at the fellow's line. Did you ever see anything like the purity of it? It's a high and holy abstraction. By Jove! He's got _his_ formula. Pure line remains pure, however bestial the object it describes. I wish he'd drawn it at illustrating _me_. But I suppose if he saw it that way he had to draw it that way." Jewdwine turned over the pages gingerly, as if he feared to be polluted. He was at the moment profoundly sorry for Rickman in this marriage of his art with Mordaunt Crawley's. Whatever might be said of Rickman's radiant and impetuous genius it neither lurked nor leered; it was in no way represented by that strange and shameless figure, half Mænad, half modern courtesan, the face foreshortened, tilted back in the act of emptying a wine-cup. "At any rate," said Rickman, "he hasn't lied. He's had the courage to be his filthy self." "Still, the result isn't exactly a flattering portrait of your Muse." "She _is_ a caution. It's quite enough to make you and Hanson lump me with Letheby and that lot." This touched Jewdwine in two sensitive places at once. He objected to being "lumped" with Hanson. He also felt that his generosity had been called in question. For a moment the truth that was in him looked out of his grave and earnest eyes. "I do _not_ lump you with Letheby or anybody. On the contrary, I think you stand by yourself. Quite one half of this book is great poetry." "You really think that?" "Yes," said Jewdwine solemnly; "I do think it. That's why I deplore the appearance of the other half. But if you _had_ to publish, why couldn't you bring out your _Helen in Leuce_? It was far finer than anything you have here." "Yes. Helen's all right _now_." His tone implied only too plainly that she was not all right when Jewdwine had approved of her. "_Now?_ What on earth have you been doing to her?" "Only putting a little life into her limbs. But Vaughan wouldn't have her at any price." "My dear Rickman, you should have come to _me_. I hope to goodness Vaughan won't tempt you into any more _Saturnalia_." "After all--what's wrong with them?" Jewdwine leaned back, keenly alive to these stirrings of dissent; he withdrew, as it were, his protecting presence a foot or two farther. He spoke slowly and with emphasis. "Excess," said he; "too much of everything. Too much force, too much fire, and too much smoke with your fire. In other words, too much temperament, too much Rickman." "Too much Rickman?" "Yes; far too much. It's nothing but a flaming orgy of individuality." "And that's why it's all wrong?" He really wondered whether there might not be something in that view after all. "It seems so to me. Look here, my dear fellow. Because a poet happens to have been drunk once or twice in his life it's no reason why he should write a poem called _Intoxication_. That sort of exhibition, you know, is scandalous." Rickman hung his head. That one poem he would have given anything at the moment to recall. It _was_ scandalous if you came to think of it. Only in the joy of writing it he had not thought of it; that was all. "It's simply astounding in a splendid scholar like you, Rickman. It's such an awful waste." He looked at him as he spoke, and his soul was in his eyes. It gave him a curious likeness to his cousin, and in that moment Rickman worshipped him. "Go back. Go back to your Virgil and your Homer and your Sophocles, and learn a little more restraint. There's nothing like them. They'll take you out of this ugly, weary, modern world where you and I, Rickman, had no business to be born." "And yet," said Rickman, "there _are_ modern poets." "There are very few, and those not the greatest. By modern, I mean inspired by the modern spirit; and the modern spirit does not inspire great poetry. The greatest have been obliged to go back--back to primeval nature, back to the Middle Ages, back to Greece and Rome--but always back." "I can't go back," said Rickman. "I mayn't know what I'm working for yet, but I believe I'm on the right road. How can I go back?" "Why not? Milton went back to the Creation, and _he_ was only born in the seventeenth century. You have had the unspeakable misfortune to be born in the nineteenth. You must live on your imagination--the world has nothing for you." "I believe it _has_ something for me, if I could only find it." "Well, don't lose too much time in looking for it. Art's long and life's short, especially modern life; and that's the trouble." Rickman shook his head. "No; that's not the trouble. It's the other way about. Life's infinite and art's one. And at first, you know, it's the infinity that staggers you." He flung himself into a chair opposite Jewdwine, planted his elbows on the table, and propped his chin on his hands. He looked as if he saw the infinity he spoke of. "I can't describe to you," he said, "what it is merely to be alive out there in the streets, on a sunny day, when the air's all fine watery gold, and goes dancing and singing into your head like dry champagne. I've given up alcohol. It isn't really necessary. I got as drunk as a lord the other day going over Hampstead Heath in a west wind" (he _looked_ drunk at the mere thought of it). "Does it ever affect _you_ in that way?" Jewdwine smiled. The wind on Hampstead Heath had never affected him in that way. "No. It isn't what you think. I used to go mad about women, just as I used to drink. I don't seem to care a rap about them now." But his eyes had a peculiar large and brilliant look, as if he saw the woman of his desire approaching him. His voice softened. "Don't you know when the world--all the divine maddening beauty of it--lies naked before your eyes, and you want to get hold of it--now--this minute, and instead it gets hold of you, and pulls you every way at once--don't you know? The thing's got a thousand faces, and two thousand arms, and ten thousand devils in it." Jewdwine didn't know. How should he? He had a horror of this forcing of the sensuous and passionate note. The author of the _Prolegomena to �sthetics_ recoiled from "too much temperament." He felt, moreover, the jealous pang of the master who realizes that he has lost his hold. This was not that Rickman who used to hang all flushed and fervid on Jewdwine's words. He remembered how once on an April day, a year ago, the disciple had turned at the call of woman and of the world, the call of the Spring in his heart and in his urgent blood. And yet this was not that Rickman either. "My dear Rickman, I don't understand. Are you talking about the world? Or the flesh? Or the devils?" "All of them, if you like. And you can throw in the sun and the moon and the stars, too. There are moments, Jewdwine, when I understand God. At any rate I know how he felt the very day before creation. His world's all raw chaos to me, and I've got to make my world out of it." "I'm afraid I cannot help you _there_." As they parted he felt that perhaps he had failed to be sufficiently sympathetic. "I'll do my best," said he, "to set you right with the public." Left alone, he stood staring earnestly at the chair where Rickman had sat propping his chin in his hands. He seemed to be contemplating his phantom; the phantom that had begun to haunt him. What had he let himself in for? CHAPTER XLIII There was one man who was sure, perfectly sure; and that man was Maddox. He had read Rickman's book before Jewdwine had seen it, and while Jewdwine was still shaking his head over it in the office of the _The Museion_, its chances were being eagerly discussed in the office of _The Planet_. Maddox was disgusted with the publishers, Stables with the price, Rankin with the illustrations. "It's all very well," said Rankin; "but those borrowed plumes will have to be paid for." "Borrowed plumes with a vengeance," said Maddox. "Vaughan might just as well have turned him out tarred and feathered as illustrated by Mordaunt Crawley. Mind you, some of that tar will stick. It'll take him all his time to get it off." "Did you see," said Stables, "that Hanson bracketed him with Letheby in this morning's _Courier_?" "No, did he?" said Maddox; "I'm sorry for that. It's rough on little Rickman." "It's what you must expect," said Rankin, "if you're illustrated by Crawley." "It's what you must expect," said Stables, "if you go out of your way to offend people who can help you. You know he refused an introduction to Hanson the other day?" "No!" "Fact. And it was in his sublimest manner. He said he hadn't any use for Hanson. Hanson couldn't help him till he'd helped himself. I don't know whether any one was kind enough to tell that tale to Hanson." "Hanson," said Maddox, "is too big a man to mind it if they did." "Anyhow, he _hasn't_ helped him." "No," said Rankin; "but that's another story. Hanson was dining with Jewdwine, and Jewdwine was cracking up Rickman most extravagantly (for him). That was quite enough to make Hanson jump on him. He was bound to do it by way of asserting his independence." "I wonder if Jewdwine calculated that that would be the natural effect." "Oh, come, he's a subtle beast; but I don't suppose he's as subtle as all that." "You'll find that all the reviews will follow Hanson like a flock of sheep." "How about the _Literary Observer_? Mackinnon was friendly." Maddox smiled. "He was. But our Ricky-ticky alienated Mackinnon on the very eve of publication." "How?" "By some awful jest. Something about Mackinnon's head and the dome of the British Museum." "Well, if it was a joke, Mackinnon wouldn't see it." "No, but he'd feel it, which would be a great deal worse. Our Ricky-ticky is devoid of common prudence." "Our Ricky-ticky is a d----d fool," said Stables. "Well," said Rankin, "I suppose he knows what he's about. He's got Jewdwine at his back." Maddox shrugged his enormous shoulders. "Jewdwine? Jewdwine won't slate his own man, but he can't very well turn round and boom the set he always goes for. This," said Maddox, "is my deal. I shall sail in and discover Ricky-ticky." "He's taking precious good care to hide himself. It's a thousand pities he ever got in with those wretched decadents." "He isn't in with them." "Well, he mayn't be exactly immersed, but the tide's caught him." "The tide? You might be talking of the Atlantic." "The stream then--' the stream of tendency that makes for '--muck." "It isn't a stream, it's a filthy duck-pond in somebody's back yard. There's just enough water for the rest to drown in, but it isn't deep enough to float a man of Rickman's size. He's only got his feet wet, and that won't hurt him." "There are things," said Rankin, "in Saturnalia that lend themselves to Crawley's treatment." "And there are things in it that Crawley can't touch. And look at the later poems--The Four Winds, On Harcombe Hill, and The Song of Confession. Good God! It makes my blood boil to compare the man who wrote that with Letheby. Letheby! I could wring Vaughan's neck and Hanson's too. I should like to take their heads and knock them together. As for Letheby I'll do for him. I'll smash him in one column, and I'll give Rickman his send-off in four." (The Planet in those early days was liberal with its space.) "After all," he added in a calmer tone, "he was right. We can't help him, except by taking a back seat and letting him speak for himself. I shall quote freely. The Song of Confession is the best answer to Hanson." "It seems to me," said Stables, "you'll want a whole number at this rate." "I shall want six columns, if I'm to do him any justice," said Maddox, rising. "Poor beggar, I expect he's a bit off colour. I shall go and look him up." At eight that evening he went and looked him up. He found him in his room tranquilly reading. Thinking of him as a man of genius who had courted failure and madly fooled away his chances, and seeing him sitting there, so detached, and so unconscious, Maddox was profoundly moved. He had come with cursing and with consolation, with sympathy, with prophecy, with voluble belief. But all he could say was, "It's all right, Rickman. It's great, my son, it's great." All the same he did not conceal his doubts as to the sort of reception Rickman had to expect. That part of the business, he said, had been grossly mismanaged, and it was Rickman's own fault. "Look here," he said, "what on earth possessed you to go and refuse that introduction to Hanson? Was it just your cheek, or the devil's own pride, or what?" "Neither," said Rickman, in a tone that pathetically intimated that he was worn out. "I think it was chiefly my desire for peace and quiet. I'm writing some more poems, you see. I wouldn't have refused it at any other time." "At any other time it wouldn't have mattered so much. You should be civil to the people who can help you." "I rather distrust that sort of civility myself. I've seen too much of the dirty back stairs of Fleet Street. I've tumbled over the miserable people who sit on them all day long, and I don't mean anybody to tumble over me. When I've got my best trousers on I want to keep them clean." "It's a mistake," said Maddox, "to wear your best trousers every day." "Perhaps. But I mean to wear them." "Wear them by all means. But you must make up your mind for a certain amount of wear and tear. In your case it will probably be tear." "That's my look-out." "Quite so. I wouldn't say anything if it was only Hanson you'd offended, but you shouldn't alienate your friends." "My friends?" "Yes. Why, oh why, did you make that joke about Mackinnon's head?" "We were all making jokes about Mackinnon's head." "Yes; but we weren't all of us bringing out poems the next day. Your position, Ricky-ticky, was one of peculiar delicacy--and danger." "What does it matter?" said Rickman wearily. "I can trust my friends to speak the truth about me." "Heaven bless you, Rickman, and may your spring suitings last for ever." He added, as Jewdwine had added, "Anyhow, this friend will do his level best for you." At which Rickman's demon returned again. "Don't crack me up too much, Maddy. You might do me harm." But before midnight Maddox burst into the office and flung himself on to his desk. "Give me room!" he cried; "I mean to spread myself, to roll, to wallow, to wanton, to volupt!" Before morning he had poured out his soul, in four columns of _The Planet_, the exuberant, irrepressible soul of the Celt. He did it in an hour and twenty minutes. As he said himself afterwards (relating his marvellous achievement) he was sustained by one continuous inspiration; his passionate pen paused neither for punctuation nor for thought. The thoughts, he said, were there. As the critical notices only appeared weekly, to pause would have entailed a delay of seven days, and he meant that his panegyric should appear the very next day after the article in the _Literary Observer_, as an answer to Hanson's damnable paragraph. If Maddox was urged to these excesses by his contempt for Jewdwine's critical cowardice, Jewdwine was cooled by the spectacle of Maddox's intemperance. He had begun by feeling a little bitter towards Rickman on his own account. He was disappointed in him. Rickman had shown that he was indifferent to his opinion. That being so, Jewdwine might have been forgiven if he had had no very keen desire to help him. Still, he _had_ desired to help him; but his desire had ceased after reading Maddox's review. There was no pleasure in helping him now, since he had allowed himself to be taken up and caressed so violently by other people. The clumsy hand of Maddox had brushed the first bloom from his Rickman, that once delightful youth. He was no longer Jewdwine's Rickman, his disciple, his discovery. But though Jewdwine felt bitter, he was careful that no tinge of this personal feeling should appear in his review of Rickman's poems. It was exceedingly difficult for him to review them at all. He had to take an independent attitude, and most possible attitudes had been taken already. He could not ignore Rickman's deplorable connection with the Decadents; and yet he could not insist on it, for that was what Hanson and the rest had done. Rickman had got to stay there; he could not step in and pluck him out like a brand from the burning; for Maddox had just accomplished that heroic feat. He would say nothing that would lend countenance to the extravagance of Maddox. There was really no room for fresh appreciation anywhere. He could not give blame where Hanson had given it; and Maddox had plastered every line with praise. He would have been the first to praise Rickman, provided that he _was_ the first. Not that Jewdwine ever committed himself. As a critic his surest resource had always lain in understatement. If the swan was a goose, Jewdwine had as good as said so. If the goose proved a swan, Jewdwine had implied as much by his magnificent reserve. But this time the middle course was imposed on him less by conviction than necessity. He had to hold the balance true between Hanson and Maddox. In his efforts to hold it true, he became more than ever academic and judicial. So judicial, so impartial was he in his opinion, that he really seemed to have no opinion at all; to be merely summing up the evidence and leaving the verdict to the incorruptible jury. Every sentence sounded as though it had been passed through a refrigerator. Not a hint or a sign that he had ever recognized in Rickman the possibility of greatness. Now, if Rickman had not been connected with _The Museion_, the review would have done him neither harm nor good. As it was, it did him harm. It was naturally supposed that Jewdwine, so far from understating his admiration, had suppressed his bad opinion in the interests of friendship. Rickman's _Saturnalia_ remained where Hanson had placed it, rather low in the ranks of young Decadence. And then, just because he had suppressed the truth about him, because he felt that he had given Rickman some grounds for bitterness, Jewdwine began to feel more and more bitter himself. If Rickman felt any bitterness he never showed it. He had only two thoughts on reading Jewdwine's articles. "It wouldn't have mattered except that _she_ will see it"; and "I wouldn't have minded if it was what he really thought." Maddox, rightly judging that Rickman would be suffering more in his affection than his vanity, called on him that afternoon and dragged him out for his usual Saturday walk. As if the thought of Jewdwine dominated their movements, they found themselves on the way to Hampstead. Maddox attempted consolation. "It really doesn't matter much what Jewdwine says. These fellows come up from Oxford with wet towels round their heads to keep the metaphysics in. Jewdwine's muddled himself with the Absolute Beauty till he doesn't know a beautiful thing if you stick it under his nose." "Possibly not; if you keep it farther off he might have a better chance. Trust him to know." "Well, if he knows, he doesn't care." "Oh, doesn't he. That's where Jewdwine's great. He cares for nothing else. He cares more than any man alive--in his heart." "D--n his heart! I don't believe he has one." "Would you oblige me by not talking about him any more?" Maddox obliged him. They tramped far into the country, returning at nightfall by the great road that crosses the high ground of the Heath. Rickman loved that road; for by night, or on a misty evening, it was possible to imagine some remote resemblance between it and the long straight ridge of Harcombe Hill. They paused by common consent where the Heath drops suddenly from the edge of the road; opening out the view towards London. The hollow beneath them, filled by a thin fog, had become mysterious and immense. "By the way," said Maddox, following an apparently irrelevant train of thought, "what has become of your friendship for Miss Poppy Grace?" "It has gone," said Rickman, "where the old trousers go. Look there--" Above them heaven seemed to hang low, bringing its stars nearer. A few clouds drifted across it, drenched in the blue of the night behind them, a grey-blue, watery and opaque. Below, sunk in a night greyer and deeper, were the lights of London. The ridge they stood on was like the rampart of another world hung between the stars which are the lights of poets, and the lights which are the stars of men. Under the stars Maddox chanted softly the last verses of the _Song of Confession_ that Rickman had made. "Oh, Ricky-ticky," he said, "you know everything. How did you know it?" "Because I've been there." "But--you didn't stay?" "No--no. I didn't stay. I couldn't." "I'm still there. And for the life of me I see no way out. It's like going round in the underground railway--a vicious circle. Since you're given to confession--own up. Don't you ever want to get back there?" "Not yet. My way won't take me back if I only stick to it." Under the stars he endeavoured to account for his extraordinary choosing of the way. "I've three reasons for keeping straight. To begin with, I've got a conviction that I'll write something great if I don't go to the devil first. Then, there's Horace Jewdwine." Maddox hardened his face; he had been told not to talk about Jewdwine, and he wasn't going to. "If I go to the devil, he won't go with me. Say what you like, he's a saint compared with you and me. If he doesn't understand Songs of Confession, it's because he's never had anything to confess. The third reason--if I go to the devil--no, I can't tell you the third reason. It's also the reason why I wear my magnificent trousers. All the reasons amount to that. If I go to the devil I can't wear those trousers. Never, Maddox, believe me, never again." Maddox smiled, and, unlike Maddox, he said one thing and thought another. What he said was. "Your trousers, Ricky-ticky, are of too heavenly a pattern for this wicked world. They are such stuff as dreams are made of, and their little life--" he paused. What he thought was--"Your way, Ricky-ticky, is deuced hard for the likes of me. But I'll go with you as far as I can, my son." Under the stars they looked into each other's faces and they knew themselves aright. CHAPTER XLIV Jewdwine made up for the coldness of his published utterances by the fervour of his secret counsel. His advice to Rickman was, "Beware of the friendship of little men." This Rickman understood to be a reflection on Maddox's position in the world of letters. He did not care a rap about Maddox's position; but there were moments when it was borne in upon him that Maddox was a bigger man even than Horace Jewdwine, that his reckless manner poorly disguised a deeper insight and a sounder judgement. His work on _The Planet_ proved it every day. And though for himself he could have desired a somewhat discreeter champion, he had the highest opinion of his friend's courage in standing up for him when there was absolutely nothing to be gained by it. He had every reason therefore to be attached to Maddox. But it was true enough that he knew too many little men; men who were at home in that house of bondage from which he was for ever longing to escape; men whom he had met as he had described, sitting contentedly on the dirty back-stairs of Fleet Street; men who in rubbing shoulders with each other in that crowded thoroughfare had had to allow for a great deal of what Maddox called wear and tear. Those little men had remained invincibly, imperturbably friendly. They knew perfectly well that he thought them little men, and they delighted in their great man all the same, more than ever, in fact, since his new suit of morals provided them with a subject of eternal jest. For Maddox was but human, and he had found Rickman's phrase too pregnant with humour to be lost. They were sometimes very funny, those Junior Journalists, especially on a Saturday night. But Rickman was not interested in the unseemly obstacle race they dignified by the name of a career, and he did not care to mix too freely with young men so little concerned about removing the dirt and sweat of it. He clung to Maddox and Rankin as the strongest and the cleanest of them all. But even they had inspirations that left him cold, and they thought many things large and important that were too small for him to see. He would have died rather than let either of them know what he was doing now. He saw with dismay that they suspected him of doing something, that their suspicions excited them most horribly, that they were watching him; and he had told Maddox that what he desired most was peace and quietness. He found it in the Secret Chamber of the Muse, where he shut himself up when his work with them was done. In there, his days and nights were as the days and nights of God. There he forecast the schemes of dramas yet to be, dramas no longer neo-classic. And as his genius foresaw the approach of its maturity, it purified and emptied itself of the personal passion that obscures the dramatist's vision of the world. This it did in a sequence of Nine and Twenty sonnets, a golden chain that bound Lucia's name to his whether she would or no. They recorded nine and twenty moments in the life of his passion, from the day of its birth up to the present hour, the hour of its purification. For it was still young in him; though at this distance of time Lucia's image was no longer one and indivisible. He had come to think of her as two persons clothed mysteriously in the same garment of flesh. One carried that garment a little more conspicuously than the other; it was by her beauty that she pierced him with the pain of longing; and not by her beauty only, but by the marks of suffering that in his memory still obscured it. She came before him, and her tragic eyes reproached him with the intolerable pathos of her fate, making him suffer too, through his exceeding pity. And yet his longing had not been consumed by pity, but had mingled with it as flame in flame. Long after he had parted from her, his senses ached as they recalled the exquisite movements of her body. He had only to shut his eyes, and he was aware of the little ripple of her shoulders and the delicate swaying of her hips. To lie awake in the dark was to see her kneeling at his side, to feel the fragrance of her thick braid of hair flattened and warmed by her sleep, and the light touch of her hands as they covered him. And before that memory his shame still burnt deeper than his desire. But this Lucia had no desire for him and no pity. Her countenance, seen even in dreams, expressed a calm but immutable repugnance. No wonder, for _she_ was only acquainted with the pitiably inadequate sample of him introduced to her as Mr. Rickman of Rickman's. He was aware that she belonged exclusively not only to Jewdwine's class, but to Jewdwine himself in some way (a way unspeakably disagreeable to contemplate). If he was not to think of her as enduring the abominations of poverty, he must think of her as married to Jewdwine. Married to Jewdwine, she would make an end of his friendship as she had made an end of his peace of mind. There had been moments, at the first, when he had felt a fierce and unforgiving rage against her for the annoyance that she caused him. But now, dividing the host of turbulent and tormenting memories, there appeared a different Lucia, an invincible but intimate presence that brought with it a sense of deliverance and consolation. It was Lucia herself that saved him from Lucia. Her eyes were full of discernment and of an infinite tenderness and compassion. They kindled in him the desire that fulfils itself in its own utterance. That this Lucia was not wholly the creature of his imagination he was assured by his memory of certain passages in his life at Harmouth, a memory that had all the vividness and insistence of the other. It was the Lucia he had known before the other Lucia, the Lucia who had divined and would divine him still. In a way she was more real than the other, more real than flesh and blood, even as that part of him by which he apprehended her was more real than the rest. From her he was not and could not be divided; they belonged to each other, and by no possibility could he think of this Lucia as married to Jewdwine, or of his friendship for Jewdwine as in anyway affected by her. He was hers by right of her perfect comprehension of him; for such comprehension was of the nature of possession. It was also an assurance of her forgiveness, if indeed she had anything to forgive. He had not wronged her; it was the other Lucia he had wronged. In all this he never once thought of her as his inspiration. She would not have desired him to think of her so, being both too humble and too proud to claim any part in the genius she divined. But she could not repudiate all connection with it, because it was in the moments when his genius was most dominant that he had this untroubled assurance of her presence. And there in the Secret Chamber he bound her to him by an indestructible chain, the chain of the Nine and Twenty Sonnets. The question was what should he do with it now that it was made? To dedicate twenty-nine sonnets to Lucia was one thing, to print them was another. If it was inevitable that he should thus reveal himself after the manner of poets, it was also inevitable that she should regard a public declaration as an insult rather than an honour. And he himself shrank from exposing so sacred a thing to the pollution and violence of publicity. Therefore he took each sonnet as it was written, and hid it in a drawer. But he was not without prescience of their ultimate value, and after all this method of disposal seemed to him somehow unsatisfactory. So he determined that he would leave the manuscript to Lucia in his will, to be afterwards dealt with as she judged best, whether she chose to publish or to burn. In the former case the proceeds might be regarded as partial payment of a debt. And so two years passed and it was Spring again. CHAPTER XLV There are many ways of achieving distinction, but few are more effectual than a steady habit of punctuality. By this you may shine even in the appalling gloom of the underground railway. Among all the women who wait every morning for the City trains at Gower Street Station, there was none more conspicuously punctual than Miss Flossie Walker. The early clerk who travelled citywards was always sure of seeing that little figure on the same spot at the same moment, provided he himself were punctual and kept a sharp look-out. This you may be sure he took good care to do. To look at Flossie once was to look again and yet again. And he was fortunate indeed if his route lay between Moorgate Street Station and the Bank, for then he had the pleasure of seeing her sharply threading her way among the traffic, if that can be said of anything so soft and round as Flossie. If Flossie's figure was small and round, her face was somewhat large, a perfect oval moulded in the subtlest curves, smooth and white moreover, with a tinge of ivory sallow towards the roots of her black hair. Wonderful hair was Flossie's. In those days she parted it in the middle and waved it symmetrically on either side of her low forehead; she brought it over her ears, covering all but the tips and the delicate pink lobes; she coiled it at the back in an elaborate spiral and twisted it into innumerable little curls about the nape of her neck. Unfortunately that neck was rather short; but she wore low collars which made the most of it. And then Flossie's features were so very correct. She had a correct little nose, neither straight nor aquiline, but a distracting mixture of both, and a correct little mouth, so correct and so small that you wondered how it managed to display so many white teeth in one diminutive smile. Flossie's eyes were not as her mouth; they were large, full-lidded, long-lashed, and blacker than her hair. No wonder if the poor clerk who passed her on her way to and fro in the City rejoiced as they looked up at him. She might be going to her work as he to his, but what with her bright eyes and her blue ribbons, she looked the very genius of holiday as she went. At first she was a little subdued and awed by the Bank, and by her own position in it. But when this feeling wore off, the plump girl rolled into her place with a delicious abandonment. Flossie was one of fifty girls who sat, row after row, at long flat desks covered with green cloth. A soft monotonous light was reflected from the cream-coloured walls against which Flossie's head stood out with striking effect, like some modern study in black and morbid white. You would have picked her out among the fifty at once. Hers was the lightest of light labour, the delicate handling of thousands of cancelled notes--airy, insubstantial things, as it were the ghosts of bank-notes, released from the gross conditions of the currency. Towards the middle of the morning Flossie would be immersed in a pale agitated sea of bank-notes. The air would be full of light sounds, always the sharp brisk rustling of the notes, and now and then a human undertone, or towards lunch time, a breath that was like a sigh. A place to grow light-headed in if you began to think about it. Happily no thought was required beyond the intelligence that lives in sensitive finger-tips. It was almost mechanical labour, and for that Flossie had more than a taste, she had a positive genius. It was mechanical labour idealized and reduced to a fine art, an art in which the personality of the artist counted. The work displayed to perfection the prettiness of Flossie's hands, from the rapid play of her fingers in sifting, and their little fluttering, hovering movements in arranging, to the exquisitely soft touches of the palms when she gathered all her sheaves of notes into one sheaf, shaking, caressing, coaxing the rough edges into line. Flossie worked with the rhythm and precision of a machine; and yet humanly, self-consciously, almost coquettishly, as under the master's eye. But all this was of yesterday. To-day Flossie was different. She was not quite so precise, so punctual as she had been. Something had gone wrong with the bright little mechanism. It worked erratically, now under protest, and now with spurts of terrifying activity. The fine fly-wheels of thought had set off whirring on their own account and had got mixed up with the rest of the machinery. Flossie had begun to philosophise, to annoy destiny with questions. There was time for that in the afternoon when the worst of the sorting was done. She was in the stage of doubt so attractive in philosophers and women, asking herself: Is knowledge possible? And if so, what do I know? She was aware that there are certain insurpassable limits to human knowledge; all the same, woman-like, she raised herself on tip-toe, and tried to peep over the boundaries. What did she know? She knew that somebody pitied her, because, poor little woman, she had to earn her own living like a man. Well, she would not have to do that if he--if he--Yes, and if he didn't? And how was she to know? And yet, and yet she had an idea. Anybody may have an idea. Then the long desks became the green tables where Flossie gambled with fate; trying--trying--trying to force the invisible hand. For with Flossie it was spring-time too. Under the little clerk's correctness and demureness there ran and mingled with her blood the warm undercurrent of a dream. The dream had come to her many springs ago; and as Flossie grew plumper and rosier it grew plump and rosy too. To be married (to a person hitherto unspecified in fancy, whose features remained a blur or a blank), to be the mistress of a dear little house (the house stood out very clear in Flossie's fancy), and the mother of a dear little girl (a figure ever present to her, complete in socks and shoes and all the delicious details of its dress). Compared with that vision of Flossie's, no dream was ever so soft, so rosy and so young. And now in the Spring-time all her being moved softly under the current of the dream. Flossie's fancy did not associate it consciously with Keith Rickman (she would have blushed if the association had been made apparent to her); the Spring did that for her, mingling with her blood. Meanwhile, as Flossie dreamed, the same hour every week-day morning Rickman was awakened by the same sounds, the click of the door-latch in the bedroom overhead and the patter of a girl's feet on the stairs. He knew it was Miss Flossie Walker going down to early breakfast. And when he heard it, he turned in his bed on the side farthest from the window and sighed. Such a deep unhappy sigh. Lucia had delivered him from Lucia, but there were other troubles from which she could not save him. Not, in the warm spring days, from the newly awakened trouble of his youth; not, in the sleepless summer nights, from the brief but recurrent tyranny of sense, and not from the incessant hunger of the heart. Though it was she who had created that hunger in him, it was not (at five and twenty) to be satisfied by the mere image of her, however vividly present to him. He was only five and twenty, and the spring had come with its piercing sweetness, its irresistible delicate lure, to the great stirring, melting, and unbinding of his manhood. He could be faithful to Lucia for ever in his soul; but there were moments in this season when he was aware of a distinct cleavage between his soul and his senses. It seemed to him that Miss Flossie Walker lay in wait for him in just those moments, with the secret but infallible instinct of the creatures whom the Spring touches to its own uses. He could not blame her. Flossie was innocent, being but the unconscious handmaid of the Spring. It was not because Lucia was forever absent and Flossie forever on the spot. At first he was unaware of the danger that lurked for him in Flossie's ways, because his soul in its love for Lucia was so utterly secure. At first the sighs were all on Flossie's account; poor Flossie, who had to be up so early while he settled himself for another luxurious slumber. At first he only pitied Flossie. He thought of her at odd moments as a poor little girl (rather pretty) who worked too hard and never had any fun to speak of; but the rest of the time he never thought of her at all. And in the early days of their acquaintance, Miss Flossie Walker (then only an apprentice to a firm of type-writers in Holborn) was very much to be pitied. He could remember how she had come (a little while before that memorable Bank holiday) to Mrs. Downey's boarding-house, a plump but rather anaemic maiden, black-haired, and demure. He had begun by talking to her at table, because she sat next to him, and he had ended, if there ever is an end to these things, by taking her to matinées, picture-galleries, restaurants, and the British Museum. The girl was so young, so confiding, and so obviously respectable, that he was careful to keep to the most guileless of middle-class entertainments. A few weeks of this existence brought shy smiles and a lively play of dimples on Flossie's face. She grew plumper still, less anaemic, though hardly less demure. A few months, and Flossie's beauty flowered and expanded, she began to dress as became it, entering into rivalry with Miss Ada Bishop, until it dawned on him that Flossie was really, in her own place and way, a very engaging little creature. About this time Flossie's circumstances had improved as much as her appearance. Her father had been a clerk in the Bank of England, and on his death she obtained a post there as a sorter. That position gave Flossie both dignity and independence; it meant light work and hours which brought hope with them every day towards three o'clock. Under these circumstances Flossie's beauty went on flowering and expanding, till she became more than ever a thing of danger and disaster. Her intimacy with Mr. Rickman, which had lapsed lately, owing to his increasing passion for solitude and separation, revived suddenly in the spring of ninety-five. It happened in this manner. With the spring, Mrs. Downey's was once more agitated by the hope of the Bank holiday, and Mr. Spinks inquired of Rickman if he were going out of town for Easter. (Rickman was incautiously dining that evening at the general table.) But Rickman wasn't going out of town. He said he thought of going somewhere up the river. He had also thought, though he did not say so, that in fulfilment of an ancient promise he would take Miss Flossie to the play on Saturday afternoon. Yet when it came to the point he had some diffidence in asking her. She might not think it proper. It was Mr. Soper who precipitated his resolve. He wanted to know if Rickman had made up a party for the River, and 'ad any companion? No. He hadn't made up a party. Thanks, awfully. He was going by Himself. Mr. Soper didn't think now that was a very enjoyable way of spendin' a Bank holiday. He put it that if it was Rickman's intention to hire a row-boat, it wouldn't be at all a bad idea if he, Soper, and Mr. Spinks, say, were to join. As Soper's incredible suggestion sank into him, the expression of Rickman's face was pitiable to see. It was then that casually, as if the idea had only just occurred to him, he wondered whether Miss Walker would by any chance care for a matinée ticket for the play? He was anxious to give his offer an uncertain and impromptu character, suggesting that Miss Walker must be torn between her many engagements, and have matinée tickets in large numbers up the sleeve of her charming blouse. Flossie was so shy that when you spoke to her she never answered all at once; so shy that when she spoke to you she never turned her head to look at you, but left you to judge of the effect you made on her by the corners of her mouth and eyes. So now he had to look very carefully at her to see whether she were saying yes or no. Casually again (as if this course were not necessarily involved in acceptance) he inquired whether he might have the pleasure of taking her. Miss Bishop looked another way. Her loose mouth hung desirous. (Miss Bishop's face was flagrantly frank, devoid of all repose. None of these people had any repose about them except Flossie.) Flossie was dubious and demure. Was he quite sure it was a pleasure? He protested that in a world where few things were certain, that, at any rate, admitted of no doubt. Flossie deliberated whether this further step were or were not a departure from her ideal of propriety. And it was not until he showed signs of retracting his proposal that she intimated her consent. But as for pleasure, if Flossie were pleased she did not allow it to appear. And although her heart beat excitedly under her blue blouse, it was on the side that was not next to Mr. Rickman. Then Miss Roots began to talk of incomprehensible things excitedly. So excitedly, that she had, for the moment, quite a colour. And while they talked, all the other boarders turned in their places and watched Mr. Rickman as if he had been some wonderful enchanter; Mr. Soper alone emphasizing by an attitude his entire aloofness from the general interest. And all the time Miss Roots was talking, Flossie, without saying a word, contrived to seize upon the disengaged portion of his mind. He wondered what she was thinking about. She was thinking, first, that it really paid to put on your best blouse every evening. Next, that it wasn't worth while if he would keep on talking to the lady on his right. Then that she couldn't decide the point until she knew where he was going on Sunday. That she never knew; but she went to the play with him on Saturday, and on many Saturdays after that. There was nobody so gay that spring as Flossie. Coming fresh to Flossie after a long estrangement, Rickman couldn't recognize her from his old account of her as a poor little girl who worked too hard and never had any fun to speak of. In so describing her, no doubt he had been influenced by the melancholy of his earlier mood. But there were other reasons why he still insisted on regarding her in this pathetic light. It provided him with several very agreeable sensations, and the most agreeable of all was the voluptuous passion of pity. It kept him detached, always in the superior position of a benefactor. Benefactor, indeed! He was in a fair way of becoming Flossie's deity, her Providence, the mystic source of theatre-tickets and joy. No really brave man ever shrinks from the dangers of apotheosis, when the process involves no loss of personal dignity. And apart from the gratification of his natural healthy vanity, Rickman's heart was touched by the thought that the little thing turned to him instinctively for all her innocent pleasures. Then all at once the innocent pleasures ceased. They ceased just as Flossie's palpitating heart told her that she was really making an impression on this singularly unimpressionable young man. She knew it by the sudden softening of his voice as he spoke to her, by the curious brilliant dilation of his eyes as they followed her about the room. For after much easy practice on Mr. Spinks she knew precisely by what movements and what glances she could best produce these interesting effects. And yet nothing could be farther from Flossie's fancy than flirtation. The little clerk was nothing if not practical, even under the tender impulse of her dream. Flossie was determined that whatever else she failed in she would not fail in her woman's trade. She would have considered herself disgraced by such bankruptcy. Not that she feared it. Nature had started her with a sufficient capital of fascination, and at Mrs. Downey's she had, so to speak, established a connection. And now it seemed there had come a period of depression. It still rained tickets, more tickets than ever, but there was no Mr. Rickman to escort her to the concert or the play; Mr. Rickman always had another engagement, never specified. No Mr. Rickman to take her into the suburbs on a Sunday; Mr. Rickman was off, goodness knew where, scouring the country on his bicycle. No Mr. Rickman to talk to her at dinner; Mr. Rickman took all his meals in his own room now. For these and all other delinquencies his invariable excuse was that he was busy; and Flossie, mind you, was sharp enough to see through _that_. No. Mr. Rickman had changed, suddenly, unaccountably, without a moment's warning. First of all, the other boarders noticed that he had become most frightfully irritable in his temper. He had not been over polite to any of them lately, but to her he was insufferably rude, most ungentlemanly, she called it. He would pretend not to see her if by any chance she looked his way, not to hear her if by any chance she spoke to him. Once (they were quite alone) he had broken off in the middle of an exciting conversation and rushed out of the room, out of the house. She saw him over the balcony railings, walking up and down the street like a lunatic, with his hands thrust down into his pockets and no hat on. And he was not only ungentlemanly but positively unkind. If they met on the stairs (somehow they did this very often) he would draw himself up flat against the wall as if he was afraid of the frill of her dress touching him. If she came into the drawing-room he would walk out of it; or if he stayed, it was only to sit staring at her (poor innocent little Flossie, who was so pretty) with an ugly scowl on his face. There were times when poor innocent little Flossie said to herself that she positively believed he hated her. And she was so innocent that she couldn't think what she had done to make him hate her. She was right about the hatred. An indignant anger was certainly what he felt when he first realized that she had power to make him feel at all. Her prettiness tormented him; therefore he hated her, and everything about her. He hated the sound of her little tongue upraised among the boarders, and of her little feet running up and down the stairs. He hated every glance of her black eyes and every attitude and movement of her plump little body. More than all he hated the touch of her soft arms as they stirred against him at the tightly packed dinner-table. Therefore he avoided the dinner-table, and the drawing-room; he avoided as far as possible the house, filled as it was with the disastrous presence. He fatigued himself with excesses of walking and cycling, in the hope that when he flung himself into his bed at midnight he would be too tired to feel. And sometimes he was. At last poor Flossie, weary of conjecture, unbent so far as to seek counsel of Miss Bishop. For Miss Bishop gave you to understand that on the subject of "gentlemen" there was nothing that she did not know. It was a little humiliating, for only a month ago Flossie had said to her in strictest confidence, "I feel it in my bones, Ada, that he's going to come forward this spring." Ada laughed coarsely, but not unkindly, at the tale of her perplexity. Ada had every reason to be sympathetic; for Mr. Rickman once securely attached, Mr. Spinks would be lonely, unappropriated, free. "Don't you worry," said she, "_he's_ all right." "All right? Can't you see how frightfully rude he is to me?" "I should think I did see it. A jolly lot you know about gentlemen. You've nothing to go on when they're so everlastingly polite, but when they turn mad like that all of a sudden, you may be sure they're coming to the point. To tell you the truth, I didn't use to think you'd very much chance, Flossie; but when I saw him walk out of the room the other day, I said to myself, 'She's got 'im!'" "I wish I knew. I don't want it hanging on for ever." "It won't. If he doesn't propose in May, he will in June, when you've got a new dress and a new hat." Flossie shook her head despairingly. "I wonder," said she, "what I'd really better do. I think sometimes I'd better go away." "Well, sometimes that _does_ fetch them; and then, again, sometimes it doesn't. It's risky. Some girls," she added reflectively, "try doing their hair another way; but I wouldn't, if I was you. That's risky, too. If they're really fond of you, as often as not it only puts them off." "Then what _am_ I to do?" "If you take my advice," said Miss Bishop, "you'll not do anything. You'll just go on the same as before, as if you hadn't noticed anything out of the way." And Flossie went on just the same as before, with the result that every morning Mr. Rickman sighed more and more heavily as he heard the early patter of those feet upon the floor. CHAPTER XLVI Flossie had been working with one eye on the clock all afternoon. At the closing hour she went out into Lothbury with the other girls; but instead of going up Moorgate Street as usual, she turned out of Prince's Street to her right, and thence made her way westward as quickly as she could for the crowd. It was September, a day when it was good to be out of doors at that hour. The sunlight filtered into the dusty thoroughfare from the west, on her left the sprawling mounted legends over the shops were so many gold blazons on an endless field of grey; on her right, a little way ahead, the tall plane-tree in Wood Street hung out its green leaves over Cheapside like a signal. Thither Flossie was bound. As she sidled out of the throng into the quiet little lane, Mr. Rickman came forward, raising his hat. He had been waiting under the plane-tree for twenty minutes, and was now beguiling his sylvan solitude with a cigarette. Two years had worked a considerable change in his appearance. His face had grown graver and clearer cut. He had lost his hectic look and had more the air of a man of the world than of a young poet about town. To Flossie's admiration and delight he wore an irreproachable frock-coat and shining linen; she interpreted these changes as corresponding with the improvement in his prospects, and judged that the profession of literature was answering fairly well. They shook hands seriously, as if they attached importance to these trifles. "Am I dreadfully late?" she asked. "Dreadfully." He smiled with one corner of his mouth, holding his cigarette firmly in the other, while he took from her the little cape she carried over her arm. "I expect I've kept you waiting a good bit?" A keen observer of Flossie's face might have detected in it a faintly triumphant appreciation of the fact. "I'm awfully sorry I got behind-hand and had to stay till I'd finished up." "Never mind, Flossie, it don't matter. At any rate it's worth it." The words implied that Mr. Rickman's time was valuable, otherwise he would not have given it to Flossie. "Where shall we go, and what shall we do?" "I don't much care." "Shall we have tea somewhere while we're making up our minds?" "Well--I wouldn't mind. I hadn't time to get any at the Bank." "All right. Come along." And they plunged into Cheapside again, he breasting the stream, making a passage for her. They found a favourite confectioner's in St. Paul's Churchyard, where they had sometimes gone before. He noticed that she took her seat with rather a weary air. "Floss, you must come for a walk on the Embankment. You look as if you didn't get out enough. Why will you go up and down in that abominable underground? You're awfully white, you know." "I never had a red face." "Then what's the matter?" "Nothing, I shall be better when I've had my tea." She had her tea, which after a proper protest on her part was paid for by Rickman. Then they turned into the cathedral gardens, where it was still pleasant under the trees. Thus approached from the north-east, the building rose up before them in detached incoherent masses, the curve of its great dome broken by the line of the north transept seen obliquely from below. It turned a forbidding face citywards, a face of sallow stone blackened by immemorial grime, while the north-west columns of the portico shone almost white against the nearer gloom. "It's clever of it to look so beautiful," murmured Rickman, "when it's so infernally ugly." He stood for a few minutes, lost in admiration of its eccentricity. Thus interested, he was not aware that his own expression had grown somewhat abstracted, impersonal and cold. "I call that silly," said Flossie, looking at him out of the corner of her black eyes. Had he come there to pay attention--to the Cathedral? "Do you? Why?" "Because--I suppose you wouldn't say I was beautiful if I were--well, downright ugly?" "I might, Flossie, if your ugliness was as characteristic, as suggestive as this." Flossie shrugged her shoulders (not, he thought, a pretty action in a lady with so short a neck). To her St. Paul's was about as beautiful as the Bank and infinitely less "suggestive." Mr. Rickman interpreted her apathy as fatigue and looked about for a lonely seat. They found one under the angle of the transept. "Let's sit down here," he said; "better not exert ourselves violently so soon after tea." "For all the tea I've had, it wouldn't matter," said Flossie as if resenting an ignoble implication. Rickman laughed a little uncomfortably and blushed. Perhaps she had hardly given him the right to concern himself with these intimate matters. Yet from the very first his feeling for Flossie had shown itself in minute cares for her physical well-being. They sat for a while in silence. A man passed them smoking; he turned his head to look back at the girl, and the flying ash from his cigarette lighted on her dress. "Confound the brute!" said Rickman, trying to brush away the obnoxious powder with a touch which would have been more effectual if it had been less of a caress. She shivered slightly, and he put her cape gently about her shoulders. A curious garment, Flossie's cape, made of some thin grey-blue stuff, with gold braid on the collar, cheap, pretty and a little vulgar. "There's not much warmth in that thing," he said, feeling it with his fingers. "I don't want to be warm, thank you, a day like this," she retorted, pushing back the cape. For, though it was no longer spring, Flossie's dream tugged at her heartstrings. There was a dull anger against him in her heart. At that moment Flossie could have fought savagely for her dream. What could have made her so irritable, poor little girl? She didn't look well; or--perhaps it was her work. He was sorry for all women who worked. And Flossie--she was such an utter woman. That touch of exaggeration in the curves of her soft figure made her irresistibly, superlatively feminine. To be sure, as he had hinted in that unguarded moment, her beauty was of the kind that suggests nothing more interesting than itself. Yet there were times when it had power over him, when he was helpless and stupid before it. And now, as he leaned back looking at her, his intellect seemed to melt away gradually and merge in dreamy sense. They sat for a while, still without speaking; then he suddenly bent forward, gazing into her eyes. "What is it, Flossie? Tell me." Flossie turned away her face from the excited face approaching it. "Tell me." "It's nothing. Can't you see I'm only tired. I've 'ad a hard day." "I thought you never had hard days at the Bank?" "No. No more we do--not to speak of." "Then it's something you don't like to speak of. I say--have the other women been worrying you?" "No, I should think not indeed. Catch any one trying that on with me!" "Then I can't see what it can be." "I daresay you can't. You don't know what it is! It's not much, but it's the same thing day after day, day after day, till I'm sick and tired of it all! I don't see any end to it either." "I'm so sorry, Floss," said Rickman in a queer thick voice. She had turned her face towards him now, and its expression was inscrutable--to him. To another man it would have said that it was all very well for him to be sorry; he could put a stop to it soon enough if he liked. "Oh--you needn't be sorry." "Why not? Do you think I don't care?" Immense play of expression on Flossie's face. She bit her lip; and that meant that he might care no end, or he mightn't care a rap, how was she to know? She smiled a bitter smile as much as to say that she _didn't_ know, neither did she greatly care. Then her lips quivered, which meant that if by any chance he did care, it was a cruel shame to leave a poor girl in the dark. "Care? About the Bank?" she said at last. "You needn't. I shan't stand it much longer. I shall fling it up some of these days; see if I don't." "Would that be wise?" "I don't know whether it's wise or not. I know I can't go on like this for ever." "Yes, but would anything else be better, or even half as good? You didn't get much fun out of that last place, you know." "Well, for all the fun I get out of that old Bank, I might as well be in a ladies' boarding school. If I thought it would end in anything--but it won't." "How do you know? It may end in your marrying a big fat manager." "Don't be silly." "Supposing you knew it would end some day, not necessarily in marrying the manager, would you mind going on with it?" She looked away from him, and tears formed under her eyelashes, the vague light tears that never fall. "There's no use my talking of flinging it up. I'm fixed there for good." "Who knows?" said Rickman; and if Flossie's eyes had been candid they would have said, "You ought to know, if anybody does." Whatever they said, it made him shudder, with fear, with shame, but no, not with hatred. "Poor Flossie," he said gently; and there was a pause during which Flossie looked more demure than ever after her little outburst. She had seen the look in his eyes that foreboded flight. He rose abruptly. "Do you know, I'm awfully sorry, but I've got an appointment at half past five to meet a fellow in Fleet Street." The fellow was Maddox, but the appointment, he had made it that very minute, which was the twenty-fifth minute past five. They went their ways; he to Fleet Street, and she home. Maddox did not turn up to the appointment and Rickman had to keep it with himself. As the result of the interview he determined to try the effect of a little timely absence. He did not attempt to conceal from himself that he was really most Horribly afraid; his state of mind or rather body (for the disorder was purely physical) was such that he positively dared not remain in the same house with Flossie another day. What he needed was change of air and scene. He approached Mrs. Downey with a shame-faced air, and a tale of how he was seedy and thought if he could get away for a week it would set him up. It seemed to him that Mrs. Downey's manner conveyed the most perfect comprehension of his condition. He did not care; he was brought so low that he could almost have confided in Mrs. Downey. "Mark my words," said the wise woman to the drawing-room. "He'll be back again before the week's up." And as usual, little Flossie marked them. He walked out to Hampstead that very evening and engaged rooms there by the week, on the understanding that he might require them for a month or more. He did not certainly know how long the cure would take. Hampstead is a charming and salubrious suburb, and Jewdwine was really very decent to him while he was there, but in four days he had had more of the cure than he wanted. Or was it that he didn't want to be cured? Anyway a week was enough to prove that the flight to Hampstead was a mistake. He had now an opportunity of observing Miss Flossie from a judicious distance, with the result that her image was seen through a tender wash of atmosphere at the precise moment when it acquired relief. He began to miss her morning greetings, the soft touch of her hand when they said good-night, and the voice that seemed to be always saying, "How orf'ly good of you," "Thanks orf'ly, Mr. Rickman, I've had a lovely day." He hadn't given her many lovely days lately, poor little girl. At the end of the week, coming up from Fleet Street, instead of making straight for the Hampstead Road as he ought to have done, he found himself turning aside in the direction of Tavistock Place. The excuse that he made to himself was that he wanted a book that he had left behind at Mrs. Downey's. Now it was not in the least likely that he had left it in the dining-room, nor yet in the drawing-room, but it was in those places that he thought of looking first. Not finding what he wanted, he went on dejectedly to the second floor, feeling that he must fulfil the quest that justified his presence. And there in his study, in, yes, _in_ it, as far in as anybody could get, by the bookcase next the window, Flossie was sitting; and sitting (if you could believe it) on the floor; sitting and moving her hands along the shelves as familiarly as you please. Good Heavens! if she wasn't busy dusting his books! Flossie didn't see him, for she had her back to the door; and he stood there on the threshold for a second, just looking at her. She wore a loose dark-blue overall evidently intended to wrap her up and conceal her. But so far from concealing her, the overall, tucked in and smoothed out, and altogether adorably moulded by her crouching attitude, betrayed the full but tender outline of her body. Her face, all but the white curve of her cheek and forehead, was hidden from him, but he could see the ivory bistre at the nape of her bowed neck, with the delicate black tendrils of her curls clustering above it. Her throat, as she stooped over her task, was puckered and gathered, like some incredibly soft stuff, in little folds under her chin. He drew in his breath with a sighing sound which to Flossie was the first intimation of his presence. To say that Flossie rose to her feet would be a misleading description of her method. She held on to the edge of a bookshelf by the tips of her fingers and drew herself up from the floor, slowly, as it were by some mysterious unfolding process, not ungraceful. She turned on him the wide half-mischievous, half-frightened eyes of a child caught this time in some superb enormity. "Flossie," he said with an affectation of severity, "what _have_ you been doing?" She produced her duster gingerly. "You can see," said she, "only I didn't mean you to catch me at it." She knelt down by the fireplace and gave her duster a little flick up the chimney. "I never, never in all my life saw such a lot of dust. I can't think how you've gone on living with it." He smiled. "No more can I, Flossie. I don't know how I did it." "Well, you haven't got to do it, now. It's all perfectly sweet and clean." "It's all perfectly sweet, I know that, dear." She turned towards the door but not without a dissatisfied look back at the bookcase she had left. "Aren't you going to let me thank you?" "You needn't. I was only helping Mrs. Downey." "Oh--" "She's been having a grand turn-out while you were away." "The deuce she has--" "Oh you needn't be frightened. Nobody's touched your precious books but me. I wouldn't let them." "Why wouldn't you let them?" "Be-cause--Oh, I say, it's six o'clock; are you going to stay?" "Perhaps. Why?" "Because I'd only one more shelf to dust and then I'd 'ave finished. I--I'm in rather a hurry." "Why won't you stay and dust it now?" "Well--you know--" She took one step inside the room timidly, then another, and stood still. "Is it me you're afraid of? I'll sit outside, on the stairs, if you'd rather." "How silly!" She removed an invisible atom of dust from a chair as she spoke, as much as to say she was inspired solely by the instinct of order. The diminutive smile played about the corners of her mouth. "Miss Roots said I'd better not meddle with your books." "Did she? Then Miss Roots is a beast." "She seemed to think I didn't know how to dust them." "Perhaps she's right. I say, suppose you let me see." And Flossie, willingly cajoled, began again, and, as he saw with horror, on his hoarded relics of the Harden library. "No, Flossie," he said, with a queer change in his voice. "Not those." But Flossie's fingers moved along their tops with a delicacy born of the incessant manipulation of bank notes. All the same, she did do it wrong, for she dusted towards the backs instead of away from them. But he hadn't the heart to correct her. He watched a moment; then he pretended to be looking for the book he had pretended he wanted to find, then he sat down and pretended to write a letter whilst Flossie went on dusting, skilfully, delicately. She even managed to get through ten volumes of his own Bekker's Plato without damage to the beautiful but perishing Russia leather. That made it all the more singular that the back of the eleventh volume should come off suddenly with a rip. She gave a little cry of dismay. He looked up, and she came to him holding the book in one hand and its back in the other. She really was a little frightened. "Look," she said, "I didn't think it would have gone and done like that." "Oh, I say, Flossie--" "I'm orf'ly sorry." Her mouth dropped, not unbecomingly; her eyes were so liquid that he could have sworn they had tears in them. She looked more than ever like an unhappy child, standing beside him in her long straight overall. "And I wouldn't let anybody look at them but me." "Why wouldn't you? I've asked you that before, Flossie--why wouldn't you?" He took the book and its mutilated fragment from her, and held both her hands in his. "Because I knew you were fond enough of _them_." "And is there anything I wasn't fond enough of--do you think?" "I don't think; I know." "No, you know nothing, you know nothing at all about anything. What _did_ you think?" "I thought you hated me." "Hated you?" "Yes. Hated me like poison." He put his arms about her, gathering her to him! He drew her head down over his heart. "I hate you like this--and this--and this," he said, kissing in turn her forehead, her eyelids and her mouth. He held her at arm's length and gazed at her as if he wondered whether they were the same woman, the Flossie he had once known, and this Flossie that he had kissed. Then he led her to the sofa, and drew her down by his side, and held her hands to keep her there. And yet he felt that it was he who was being led; he who was being drawn, he who was being held--over the brink of the immeasurable, inexpiable folly. In all this his genius remained alone and apart, unmoved by anything he did or said, as if it knew that through it all the golden chain still held. Her mouth quivered. "If you didn't hate me, why were you so rude to me, then?" was the first thing she said. "Because I loved you when I didn't want to love you, and it was more than I could stand. And because--because I didn't know it. But _you_ knew it," he said almost savagely. It seemed to him that his tongue refused the guidance of his brain. "I'm sure I didn't know anything of the sort." Her mouth quivered again; but this time it was with a smile. "Why not? Because I didn't say so in a lot of stupid words? You _are_ literal. But surely you understood? Not just at first, of course; I didn't care a bit at first; I didn't care till long after." "Long after what?" Flossie was thinking of Miss Poppy Grace on the balcony next door. "Never mind what." Flossie knew all about Miss Poppy Grace, and she didn't mind at all. "Would I be here now if I didn't love you?" He still had to persuade himself that this was love. It seemed incredible. "Rubbish--you know you only came to look at those silly old books," said Flossie, nodding contemptuously towards the bookcase. "Did you imagine I was in love with them? And think of all the things we've done together. Didn't you know? Didn't you feel it coming on?" "I know you've been orf'ly good--orf'ly. But as for anything else, I'm sure I _never_ thought of it." "Then think of it now. Or--does that mean that you don't care for me?" There was an awful pause. Then Flossie said very indistinctly, so indistinctly that he had to lean his face to hers to catch the words, "No, of course it doesn't." Her voice cleared suddenly. "But if you didn't hate me, why did you go away?" "I went away because I was ill." "And are you any better?" "Yes, I think I'm better. I think I'm nearly all right now. I might say I'll undertake never to be ill again, at least, not if you'll marry me." At these words his genius turned and looked at him with eyes ominous and aghast. He had a vision of another woman kneeling beside a hearth as her hands tended a dying fire. And he hardly saw the woman at his side as he drew her to him and kissed her again because of the pain at his heart. And Flossie wondered why in that moment he did not look at her. He was looking now. And as he looked his genius hid his face. "You knew that was what I wanted?" She shook her head slowly. "What does that mean? That you didn't know? Or that you won't? But you will, Flossie?" As he drew her to him a second time the old terror woke in his heart; but only for a moment. For this time Flossie kissed him of her own accord, with a kiss, not passionate like his own, but sweet and fugitive. It was like a reminder of the transience of the thing he sought, a challenge rousing him to assert its immortality. He put her from him, and stooped over his own outstretched arms and clasped hands; staring stupidly at the floor. When he spoke again it was hardly, incisively, as a man speaks the truth he hates. "Do you know what this means? It means waiting." "Waiting?" "Yes. I'm not a bit well off, you know; I couldn't give you the sort of home you ought to have just yet. I'd no business to say anything about it; but somehow I thought you'd rather know. And of course I've no business to ask you, but--will you wait?" "Well--if we must, we must." "And if it means working at that beastly Bank for another year, do you think you can keep it up so long?" "I'll try to." She leaned towards him, and they sat there, holding each other's hands, looking into each other's eyes, hearing nothing, feeling nothing, but the beating of their own riotous hearts. It was love as nature loves to have it. It was also what men call honest love. But in the days when he had loved dishonestly, he had never slipped from Poppy Grace's side with such a sense of misery and solitude and shame. CHAPTER XLVII The game was over and Flossie had won. She had forced Fate's hand, or rather, Mr Rickman's. Not by any coarse premeditated methods; Flossie was too subtly feminine for that. She had trusted rather to the inspiration of the moment, and when her beautiful womanly emotions gave her the opening she had simply followed it, that was all. And could anything have been more correct? She had not "given herself away" once by word or look. With true maidenly modesty she had hidden her own feelings until she was perfectly sure of Mr. Rickman's. There was nothing--nothing to make her feel ashamed when she looked back upon that day; a reflection from which she derived much consolation afterwards. It gave her courage to fly downstairs to Mrs. Downey's private room where that lady sat doing her accounts, to lean over the back of Mrs. Downey's chair and to whisper into her ear, "I've been dusting Mr. Rickman's books, He caught me at it." Mrs. Downey could not have shown more excitement if Flossie had told her that the kitchen boiler had burst. "Flossie! My goodness, whatever did he say?" "He didn't mind one bit. Only--you won't tell him you told me not to touch them, will you, Mrs. Downey?" She brought her soft blushing cheek close to Mrs. Downey's and the warmth of it told her tale. And Mrs. Downey promised not to tell, pardoning the subterfuge for love's sake, which excuses all. "Has he gone, Flossie?" she inquired anxiously. "No. He's not going. He's come back for good." "There! Didn't I say he would!" "And what d'you think," said Flossie, sitting down and spreading her plump arm on the secretary all over the accounts. "He's done it. He did it up there." Mrs. Downey stared, and Flossie nodded as much as to say "Fact!" "You don't mean to say so?" "Nobody's more surprised than myself." The rest was kisses and congratulations, wholly magnanimous on Mrs. Downey's part; for the announcement of Flossie's engagement cost her one of the gayest, most desirable, and most remunerative of her brilliant circle. Mr. Spinks (regarded by himself and everybody else as permanent) gave notice and vanished from that hour, carrying with him the hopes of Miss Ada Bishop. Meanwhile Flossie (hitherto regarded from a merely decorative point of view) became a person of considerable importance in the boarding-house. It was not merely that she was an engaged young lady; for, as Miss Bishop pointed out to her with some natural asperity, anybody can be engaged; but she had now the privilege, denied to any other boarder, of going in and out of Mr. Rickman's study. She said that she went in to tidy it; but strange to say, the more Flossie tidied it the more hopeless it became. Mr. Rickman's study was never what you might call a really tidy room; but at any rate there had always been a certain repose about it. And now you could not well imagine a more unrestful place, a place more suggestive of hurry and disorder, of an utter lack of the leisure in which ideas ripen and grow great. The table had become a troubled sea of primeval manuscript, where Mr. Rickman sat with his head in his hands, brooding over the face of the waters. He had once profanely said that God's world was a chaos he had got to work on. Now it was _his_ world that was chaos. A tempestuous chaos, where things to be weltered in the wreck of things that were. Rickman's genius, like Nature, destroyed in order that it might create; yet it seemed to him that nowadays the destruction was out of all proportion to the creation. He sighed as he gazed at the piteous fragments that represented six months' labour; fragments that wept blood; the torn and mutilated limbs of living thoughts; with here and there huge torsos of blank verse, lopped and hewn in the omnipotent fury of a god at war with his world; mixed up with undeveloped and ethereal shapes, the embryos of dreams. And yet it was not altogether the divine rage of the artist that had wrought this havoc. The confusion argued a power at war with itself rather than with its creations; the very vastness of it all suggested a deity tied as to time, but apparently unshackled as to space. That was it. There really wasn't as much time as there used to be. It was in his free evenings and on Sundays that his best thoughts came to him, the beautiful shy thoughts that must be delicately courted. And now his free evenings and his Sundays were given up to the courting of Flossie. And even on a week-day this was what would happen. He would rush home early from Fleet Street and settle down for two hours' work before dinner. Then a little timid knock would be heard at the door, and Flossie would come in bringing him a cup of tea. He couldn't just swill it down like a pig and send the dear little thing away. He _had_ to let her sit and see him drink it, slowly, as if he thoroughly enjoyed it. Or he would come in (as on that blessed evening six months ago) and find Flossie dusting books; standing perhaps on two tottering hassocks and a chair, at an altitude perilous to so plump a person. And Flossie had to be lifted down from the hassocks and punished with hard kisses, and told not to do it again. And Flossie would do it again. So that a great deal of time was lost in this way. And with the touch of those soft little arms about his neck demoralization would set in for the evening. And then there was Flossie's education to be attended to; and that took more time than anything. It meant that, as the November days drew in, he had to read or talk to Flossie as she sat in his armchair with her dear little feet on his fender, and her dear little hands mending his socks and shirts and things. They might have been married for years, only they weren't; that was what made it so exciting. Flossie's hands were always mending or making something (generally something to wear), and it was rather strange that it never occurred to such a busy person that other people might be busy too. He tried to break it to her. He told her (like a brute) that he thought all his things must be mended now, and that perhaps for another week he would be better without any tea. And Flossie (very naturally offended) didn't put her dear little nose in at his door for two weeks. And for all you could get through in that time it was hardly worth while offending her. But he was very far wrong in supposing that Flossie never thought about his work. She had been thinking a great deal about it lately. One cold bright Sunday morning in November she tapped at his door and walked in dressed for the open air. "Aren't you coming for a walk," she said, "this lovely day?" "Too busy." To signify his annoyance, or to keep himself from temptation, he bent closer over the article he was writing for _The Museion_. She came and stood beside him, watching him as he worked, still with his air of passionate preoccupation. Presently he found himself drawn against his will into the following conversation. "How long does it take you to do one of those things?" "It depends." "Depends on what?" "Oh, on the amount of trouble I take over it." "And do they pay you any more for taking trouble?" "No, Flossie. I'm sorry to say they frequently pay me less." "Then why on earth do you do it?" This question seemed to him so curious that it caused him to look up, beholding for the first time the plump figure clothed entirely in a new suit of brown, and wearing on its head a fascinating hat made of something that resembled fur. He tried to look at it with disapproval, while his mind dealt independently with the amazing question put to him. "Well, Flossie, if you really care anything about style--" "Style?" She stroked down the front of her jacket with a delicious movement of her little hands. "Don't you like it?" He smiled. "I adore it. It makes you look like a dear little brown Beaver, as you are." "The Beaver" was only one of the many names he had for her; it was suggested irresistibly by her plumpness, her singularly practical intelligence, and her secretive ways. "Then what do you mean by style?" asked the Beaver in a challenging tone that forced him to lay down his pen. "What do I mean by style?" He explained, moved by the mad lust for mystification which seizes a man in the presence of adorable simplicity. "I don't mean anything in the least resembling a Beaver's coat (there really isn't any style about a Beaver's coat). And if you want me to say it's the clothing of your thoughts, I won't. The less clothing they have the better. It can't be treated as a Beaver treats its coats. You can put it on and off (I was putting it on when you came in and interrupted me); and you can mend it, and brush it up a bit; but you can't measure it, or make it to order, and when it wears out you can't get another where you got the first. Style isn't the clothing, it's the body of your thoughts, my Beaver; and in a slap-up, A 1 style, the style of the masters, _my_ style, you can't tell the body from the soul." "If you'd said you couldn't tell the body from the skirt it would sound like sense." That remark was (for the Beaver) really so witty that he leaned back in his chair and laughed at it. But the Beaver was in no laughing humour. "Look here," she said, "you _say_ that if you write those stylish things that take up such a lot of time, they only pay you less for them." "Well?" "Well, is it fair of you to go on writing them?" "Fair of _me_? My dear child, why not?" "Be-_cause_, if I buy stylish things I _have_ to pay for them. And I've been buying them long enough, just to please you." "I don't follow. But I suppose a Beaver has to reason backwards; because, you know, all its intelligence is in its tail." "Gracious, Keith! You are a silly." "I am not alone in my opinion. It's the opinion of some very eminent zoologists." He drew her gently on his knee; raised her veil and looked into her eyes. They were (as he had often had occasion to notice) of so deep and black a black that the iris was indistinguishable from the pupil, and this blackness limited the range of their expression. They could only tell you what Flossie was feeling, never what she was thinking; for thought requires a translucent medium, and the light of Flossie's eyes was all on the surface. On the other hand, the turns and movements of her body were always a sufficient indication of the attitude of her mind. At the present moment, sitting on Keith's knee, her pose was not one of pure complacency. But holding her there, that little brown Beaver, his own unyielding virile body deliciously aware of the strange, incredible softness of hers, he wondered whether it were possible for him to feel anything but tender to a creature so strangely and pathetically made. Positively she seemed to melt and grow softer by sheer contact; and presently she smiled a sweet diminutive smile that didn't uncover more than two of her little white teeth. "Oh, what a shame it is to treat a Beaver so!" said he. "When are you going to take me for a nice walk?" said she. "Any time before Christmas?" "Perhaps. But you mustn't build on it." "I don't see that I can build on anything at this rate." "I suppose a Beaver can't be happy unless it's always building? That's why some people say it hasn't any intelligence at all. They won't even allow that it can build. They think its architectural talent is all a delusion and a sham; because it builds in season and out of season. Keep it in your study, and it will make a moat round the hearthrug with tobacco pouches and manuscripts and boots--whatever it can lay its hands on. It will even take the ideas out of a man's head, if it can't find anything better. Is there any logic in an animal that can do that?" And if Flossie did not understand the drift of these remarks at least she seemed to understand the kisses that punctuated them. But before very long he obtained more light on the Beaver's logic, and owned that it was singularly sound. They managed to put in a great many nice walks between that Sunday and Christmas. Whenever he could spare time Rickman made a point of meeting Flossie at the end of her day's work. He generally waited at the corner where the long windowless wall of the Bank stretches along Prince's Street, iron and implacable. It was too cold now to sit under the shadow of St. Paul's. Sometimes they would walk home along Holborn, sometimes they would go down Ludgate Hill and thence on to the Embankment. It was certainly better for Flossie to be out of doors than in the dingy drawing-room in Tavistock Place. They could talk freely in the less crowded thorough-fares; and it was surprising the things they still found to say to each other all about nothing. Every trace of Flossie's depression had vanished; she walked with a brisk step, she chatted gaily, she laughed the happiest laughter at the poorest jokes. All was going well; and why, oh why could he not let well alone? They were walking on the Embankment one day, and she, for such a correct little person, was mad with mirth, when he broke out. "Flossie, you little lunatic! You might be going to marry a stock-broker instead of a journalist." "I'm going to marry a very rich man--for me." "For you, darling? A devilish poor one, I'm afraid." "Oh don't! We've said enough about that." "Yes, but I haven't told you everything. Do you know, I might have been fairly well off by now, if I'd only chosen." Now there was no need whatever for him to make that revelation. He was driven to it by vanity. He wanted to make an impression. He wanted Flossie to see him in all his moral beauty. "How was that?" she asked with interest. "I can't tell you much about it. It was something to do with business. I got an offer of a thumping big partnership three years ago--and I refused it." He had made an impression. Flossie turned on him a look of wonder, a look uncertain and inscrutable. "What did you do that for?" "I did it because it was right. I didn't like the business." "That's not quite the same thing, is it?" "Not always. It happened to be in this case." "Why, what sort of business was it?" "It wasn't scavenging, and it wasn't burglary--exactly. It was--" he hesitated--"only the second-hand book-trade." "I know--they make a lot of money that way." "They make too much for my taste sometimes. Besides--" "Besides what?" They had turned into an embrasure of the parapet to discuss this question. They stood close together looking over the river. "It isn't my trade. I'm only a blooming journalist." "You don't make so very much out of that, do you? Is that the reason why we have to wait?" "I'm afraid so. But I hope I shall be something more than a journalist some day." "You _like_ writing, don't you?" "Yes, Flossie; I shouldn't be much good at it, if I didn't." "I see." She was looking eastwards away from him, and her expression had changed; but it was still inscrutable. And yet by the turning of her head, he saw her mind moving towards a conclusion; but it was impossible to say whether she reached it by the slow process of induction, or by woman's rapid intuition. Anyhow she had reached it. Presently she spoke again. "Could you still get that thing, that partnership any time--if you tried?" "Any time. But I'm not going to try." She turned round abruptly with an air of almost fierce determination. "Well, if _I_ get an offer of a good place, _I_ shan't refuse it. I shall leave the Bank." She spoke as if so desperate a step would be followed by the instantaneous collapse of that institution. He was surprised to find how uneasy this threat always made him. The proverbial safety of the Bank had impressed him in more ways than one. And Flossie's post there had other obvious advantages. It brought her into contact with women of a better class than her own, with small refinements, and conventions which were not conspicuous at Mrs. Downey's. "Let me implore you not to do that. Heaven knows, I hate you having to earn your own living at all, but I'd rather you did it that way than any other." "Why, what difference would it make to you, I should like to know?" "It makes all the difference if I know you're doing easy work, not slaving yourself to death as some girls do. It _is_ an easy berth. And--and I like the look of those girls I saw you with to-day. They were nice. I'd rather think of you working with them than sitting in some horrible office like a man. Promise me you won't go looking out for anything else." "All right. I promise." "No, but--on your honour?" "Honour bright. There! Anything for a quiet life." They turned on to the street again. Rickman looked at his watch. "Look here, we're both late for dinner--supposing we go and dine somewhere and do a theatre after, eh?" "Oh no--we mustn't." All the same Flossie's eyes brightened, for she dearly loved the play. "Why not?" "Because I don't think perhaps you ought to." "You mean I can't afford it?" "Well--" "Oh, I fancy even a journalist's income will run to that." It did run to that and to a hansom afterwards, though Flossie protested, dragging at his arm. "I'd rather walk," said she, "indeed I would." "Nonsense. Come, bundle in." "Please--please let me walk." He helped her in and closed the apron sharply. He was annoyed. That was the second time she had insisted on his poverty. He thought she had a little too much the air of preparing herself to be a poor man's wife. Of course it was pretty of her; but he thought it would have been prettier still if she had let it alone. Now Flossie had never thought of him as a poor man before to-night; but somehow the idea of the good income he might have had and hadn't made him appear poor by comparison. She lay back in the hansom meditating. "If you could only write a play like that, Keith, what a lot of money you'd make." "Shouldn't I? But then, you see, I couldn't write a play like that." "Rubbish. I don't believe that author--what d'you call him?--is so very much cleverer than you." "Thanks." He bowed ironically. "Well, I mean it. And look how they clapped him--why, they made as much fuss about him as any of the actors. I say, wouldn't you like to hear them calling 'Author! Author!'? And then clapping!" "H'm!" "Oh, wouldn't you love it just; you needn't pretend! Look there, I declare I've split my glove." (That meant, as Flossie had calculated, a new pair that _she_ should not have to pay for.) "If _you_ clapped me I would, Flossie. I should need all the consolation I could get if I'd written as bad a play." "Well, if that was a bad play, I'd like to see a good one." "I'll take you to a good one some day." "Soon?" "Well, I'm afraid not very soon." He smiled; for the play he thought of taking her to was not yet written; would never be written if many of his evenings were like this. But to Flossie, meditating, his words bore only one interpretation--that Keith was really very much worse off than she had taken him to be. As they lingered on the doorstep in Tavistock Place, a young man approached them in a deprecating manner from the other side of the street, and took off his hat to Flossie. "Hallo, Spinks!" said Rickman. "That you, Razors?" said Spinks. "It is. What are you doing here?" "Oh nothing. I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd have a look at the old place." "Come in, will you? (If they don't come, Flossie, I shall _have_ to use my latch-key.") "Not to-night, thanks, it's a bit too late. I'd better be going." But he did not go. "I hope," said Flossie politely, "you're comfortable where you are now?" "Oh, very comfortable, very comfortable indeed." Yet his voice had a melancholy sound, and under the gas-light his face (a face not specially designed for pathos) looked limp and utterly dejected. "I think, Keith," said Flossie, "you'd better ring again." Ringing was a concession to propriety that Flossie insisted on and he approved. He rang again; and Mrs. Downey in a beautiful wrapper herself opened the door. At the sight of Spinks she gave a joyful exclamation and invited him into the hall. They left him there. "What's up?" asked Rickman as they parted on his landing. "Who with? Sidney? I can't tell you--really." "I wonder why he left." "I can't tell you that, either." They said good-night at the foot of the stairs, and she kissed him laughing. And the two men heard it echoing in their dreams, that mysterious laughter of woman, which is as the ripple over the face of the deep. CHAPTER XLVIII Isaac Rickman stood in his front shop at the close of a slack winter day. He looked about him with a gaze uncheered by the contemplation of his plate-glass and mahogany; and as he looked he gathered his beard into a serious meditative hand, not as of old, but with a certain agitation in the gesture. Isaac was suffering from depression; so was the book-trade. Every year the pulse of business beat more feebly, and in the present year, eighteen ninety-six, it was almost standing still. Isaac had seen the little booksellers one by one go under, but their failure put no heart into him; and now the wave of depression was swallowing him up too. He had not got the grip of the London book-trade; he would never build any more Gin Palaces of Art; he had not yet freed himself from the power of Pilkington; and more than all his depression the mortgage of the Harden Library weighed heavily on his soul. The Public in which he trusted had grown tricky; and he found that even capital and incomparable personal audacity are powerless against the malignity of events. For his own part Isaac dated his decline from the hour of his son's defection. He had not been brought to this pass by any rashness in speculation, or by any flaw whatever in his original scheme. But his original scheme had taken for granted Keith's collaboration. He had calculated to a nicety what it would cost him to build up his fortunes; and all these calculations had been based on the union of his own borrowed capital with Keith's brilliant brains. And Keith with unimaginable perfidy had removed himself and his brilliant brains at the crisis of the start. Isaac thought he had estimated pretty accurately the value of his son's contribution; but it was only in the actual experiment of separation that he realized the difference it had made. The immediate effect of the blow was to paralyse the second-hand department. As far as new books went Isaac was fairly safe. If the Public was tricky he was generally up to its tricks. But with second-hand books you never knew where you were, not unless you had made a special study of the subject. Owing to his defective education he had always been helpless in the second-hand shop; liable at any moment to be over-reached by one of those innocent, lantern-jawed student fellows who go poking their noses everywhere. And in buying he was still more at a disadvantage. He had grown nervous in the auction-room; he never knew what to do there, and when he did it, it was generally wrong. He would let himself be outbidden where Keith would have carried all before him by a superb if reckless persistence. But if business was at its worst in the second-hand department, in the front shop there was a sense of a sadder and more personal desolation. Rickman's was no longer sought after. It had ceased to be the rendezvous of affable young men from Fleet Street and the Temple. The customers who came nowadays were of another sort, and the tone of the business was changing for the worse. The spirit, that something illuminating, intimate, and immortal, had perished from the place. At first Isaac had not been able to take its departure seriously. He had never really grasped the ground of that disagreement with his son; he had put it all down to "some nonsense about a woman"; and certain hints dropped by Pilkington supported him in that belief. Keith, he had said to himself, would come back when his belly pinched him. Every day he looked to see him crawling through the big swinging doors on that empty belly. When he did it, Isaac meant to take him back instantly, unquestioned, unreproved and unreproached. His triumph would be so complete that he could afford that magnanimity. But Keith had not come back; he had never put his nose inside the shop from that day to this. He called to see his father now and again on a Sunday (for Isaac no longer refused to admit him into his house); and then, as if in obedience to the holy conventions that ruled in the little villa at Ilford in Essex, no allusion was made to the business that had driven them apart. In the same spirit Isaac sternly refrained from inquiring into the state of Keith's finances; but from his personal appearance he gathered that, if Keith returned to the shop, it would not be hunger that would send him there. And if the young man's manner had not suggested the unlikelihood of his return, a hint to that effect was conveyed by his clothes. They were the symbols of prosperity, nay more, of a social advance that there could be no going back upon. Isaac had only to look at him to realize his separation. The thing was monstrous, incomprehensible, but certain. But it was in Keith's gaze (the gaze which he could never meet, so disturbing was it in its luminous sincerity) that he read the signs of a more profound and spiritual desertion. Isaac stood pondering these things in the front shop, at the hour of closing. As he moved drearily away, the lights were turned out one by one behind him, the great iron shutters went up with a clang, and it was dark in Rickman's. That evening, instead of hailing a Liverpool Street 'bus, he crossed the Strand and walked up Bow Street, and so into Bloomsbury. It was the first time for four years that he had called in Tavistock Place. He used to go up alone to the boarding-house drawing-room, and wait there till Keith appeared and took him into his bedroom on the second floor. Now his name brought an obsequious smile to the maid's face; she attended him upstairs and ushered him with ceremony into a luxurious library. Keith was writing at a table strewn with manuscripts, and he did not look up all at once. The lamp-light fell on his fair head and boyish face, and Isaac's heart yearned towards his son. He held out his hand and smiled after his fashion, but said no word. The grip of the eager young hand gave him hope. Keith drew up two chairs to the fire. The chairs were very deep, very large, very low, comfortable beyond Isaac's dreams of comfort. Keith lay back in his, graceful in his abandoned attitude; Isaac sat up very straight and stiff, crushing in his knees the soft felt hat that made him look for ever like a Methodist parson. His eyes rested heavily on the littered table. "Well," he said, "how long have you been at it?" "Oh, ever since nine in the morning--" (Longer hours than he had in the shop); "--and--I've two more hours to put through still." (And yet he had received him gladly.) "It doesn't look quite as easy as making catalogues." "It isn't." Isaac had found the opening he desired. "I should think all this literary work was rather a 'eavy strain." "It does make you feel a bit muzzy sometimes, when you're at it from morning to night." "Is the game worth the candle? Is it worth it? Have you made your fortune at it?" "Not yet." "Well--I gave you three years." Keith smiled. "What did you give me them for? To make my fortune in?" "To learn common-sense in." Keith laughed. "It wasn't enough for that. You should have given me three hundred, at the very least!" The laugh was discouraging, and Isaac felt that he was on the wrong tack. "I'd give you as many as you like, if I could afford to wait. But I consider I've waited long enough already." "What were you waiting for?" "For you to come back--" Keith's face was radiant with innocent inquiry. "--To come back into the business." The light of innocence died out of the face as suddenly as it had kindled. "My dear father, I shall never come back. I thought I'd made that very clear to you." "You never made it clear--your behaviour to me. Not but what I 'ad an idea, which perhaps I need not name. I've never asked what there was at the bottom of that foolish business, and I've never blamed you for it. If it made you act badly to me, I've reason to believe it kept you out of worse mischief." Keith felt a queer tightening at the heart. He understood that his father was referring darkly to Lucia Harden. He was surprised to find that even this remote and shadowy allusion was more than he could bear. He must call him off that trail; and the best way of doing it was to announce his engagement. "As you seem to be rather mixed, father, I ought to tell you that I'm engaged to be married. Have been for the last eighteen months." "Married?" Isaac's face was tense with anxiety; for he could not tell what this news meant for him; whether it would remove his son farther from him, or bring him, beyond all expectation, near. "May I ask who the lady is? Any of your fine friends in Devonshire?" Keith was silent, tongue-tied with presentiment of the coming blow. It came. "I needn't ask. It's that--that Miss 'Arden. _I_'ve heard of her." "As it happens it's somebody you haven't heard of. You may have seen her, though--Miss Flossie Walker." "No. I've never seen her, not to my knowledge. How long have you known her?" "Ever since I came here. She's one of the boarders." "Ah-h. Has she any means?" "None." Isaac's heart leapt high. "Aren't you going to congratulate me?" "How can I, when I haven't seen the lady?" "You would, if you _had_ seen her." "And when is it to be? Like most young people, you're a bit impatient, I suppose?" Keith betrayed the extremity of his impatience by a painful flush. This subject of his marriage was not to be approached without a certain shame. "I suppose so; and like most young people we shall have to wait." Isaac's eyes narrowed and blinked in the manner of a man uncertain of his focus; as it happened, he was just beginning to see. "Ah--that's what's wearing you out, is it?" "I'm beginning to get a bit sick of it, I own." "What's she like to look at it, this young lady? Is she pretty?" "Very." A queer hungry look came over the boy's face. Isaac had seen that look there once or twice before. His lips widened in a rigid smile; he had to moisten them before they would stretch. He was profoundly moved by Keith's disclosure, by the thought of that imperishable and untameable desire. It held for him the promise of his own continuance. It stirred in him the strange fury of his fatherhood, a fatherhood destructive and malign, that feeds on the life of children. As he looked at his son his sickly frame trembled before that embodiment of passion and vigour and immortal youth. He longed to possess himself of these things, of the superb young intellect, of the abounding life, to possess himself and live. And he would possess them. Providence was on his side. Providence had guided him. He could not have chosen his moment better; he had come at a crisis in Keith's life. He knew the boy's nature; after all, he would be brought back to him by hunger, the invincible, implacable hunger of the flesh. "Your mother was pretty. But she lost her looks before I could marry her. I had to wait for her; so I know what you're going through. But I fancy waiting comes harder on you than it did on me." "It does," said Keith savagely. "Every day I think I'll marry to-morrow and risk it. But," he added in a gentler tone, "that might come hard on her." "You _could_ marry to-morrow, if you'd accept the proposal I came to make to you." Keith gave a keen look at his father. He had been touched by the bent figure, the wasted face; the evident signs of sickness and suffering. He had resolved to be very tender with him. But not even pity could blind him to the detestable cunning of that move. It revolted him. He had not yet realized that the old man was fighting for his life. "I'm not open to any proposals," he said coldly. "I've chosen my profession, and I mean to stick to it." "That's all very well; but you should 'ave a solid standby, over and above." "Literature doesn't leave much room for anything over and above." "That's where you're making a mistake. Wot you want is variety of occupation. There's no reason why you shouldn't combine literature with a more profitable business." "I can't make it combine with any business at all." "Well, I can understand your being proud of your profession." "Can you understand my profession being proud of me?" Isaac smiled. Yes, he could well understand it. "And," said he, "I can understand your objection to the shop." "I haven't any objection to the shop." "Well--then there's no reason why we shouldn't come to an agreement. If I don't mind owning that I can't get on without your help, you might allow that you'd get on a bit better with mine." "Why, _aren't_ you getting on, father?" "Well, considering that my second-'and business depended on you entirely--and that that's where the profits are to be made nowadays--That's where I'm 'andicapped. I can't operate without knowledge; and from hour to hour I've never any seecurity that I'm not being cheated." Isaac would gladly have recalled that word. Keith met it with silence, a silence more significant than any speech; charged as it was with reminiscence and reproof. "Now, what I propose--" "Please don't propose anything. I--I--I can't do what you want." Keith positively stammered in his nervous agitation. "Wait till you hear what I want. I'm not going to ask you to make catalogues, or stand behind the counter, or," he added almost humbly, "to do anything a gentleman doesn't do." He looked round the room. The materials of the furnishing were cheap; but Keith had appeased his sense of beauty in the simplicity of the forms and the broad harmony of the colours. Isaac was impressed and a little disheartened by the refinement of his surroundings, a refinement that might be fatal to his enterprise. "You shall 'ave your own private room fitted up on the first floor, with a writing table, and a swivel chair. You needn't come into contact with customers at all. All I want is to 'ave you on the spot to refer to. I want you to give me the use of those brains of yours. Practically you'd be a sleeping partner; but we should 'alve profits from the first." "Thanks--thanks" (his voice seemed to choke him)--"it's awfully good and--and generous of you. But I can't." "Why not?" "I've about fifteen reasons. One's enough. I don't like the business, and I won't have anything to do with it." "You--don't--like--the business?" said Isaac, with the air of considering an entirely new proposition. "No. I don't like it." "I am going to raise the tone of the business. That's wot I want you for. To raise the tone of the business." "I should have to raise the tone of the British public first." "Well--an intelligent bookseller has a good deal of influence with customers; and you with your reputation, there's nothing you couldn't do. You could make the business anything you chose. In a few years we should be at the very head of the trade. I don't deny that the house has been going down. There's been considerable depression. Still, I should be in a very different position now, Keith, if you hadn't left me. And in the second-hand department--_your_ department--there are still enormous--e_nor_mous--profits to be made." "That's precisely why I object to my department, as you call it. I don't approve of those enormous profits." "Now look 'ere. Let's have a quiet talk. We never have 'ad, for you were always so violent. If you'd stated your objections to me in a quiet reasonable manner, there'd never have been any misunderstanding. Supposing you explain why you object to those profits." "I object, because in nine cases out of ten they're got by trading on another person's ignorance." "Of course they are. Why not? If he's ignorant, it's only fair he should pay for his ignorance; and if I'm an expert, it's fair I should get an expert's profits. It's all a question of buying and selling. He can't sell what he hasn't got; and I can't sell what I haven't got. Supposing I've got knowledge that he hasn't--if I can't make a profit out of _that_, what can I make a profit out of?" "I can't say. My own experience of the business was unfortunate. It struck me, if you remember, that some of your profits meant uncommonly sharp practice." "Talk of ignorance! Really, for a clever fellow, Keith, you talk a deal of folly. There's sharp practice in every trade--in your own trade, if it comes to that. Supposing you write a silly book, and some of your friends boom it high and low, and the Public buys it for a work of genius--well--aren't you making a profit out of other people's ignorance? Of course you are." "I haven't made _much_ profit that way--yet." "Because you're unbusiness-like. Well. I'm perfectly willing to believe your objections are conscientious. But look at it another way. I'm a God-fearing, religious-minded man" (unconsciously he caressed his soft hat, the hat of a Methodist parson, as he spoke), "is it likely I'd continue in any business I couldn't reconcile to my conscience?" "I've no doubt you've reconciled it to your conscience. That's hardly a reason why I should reconcile it to mine." "That means that you'll let me be ruined for want of a little advice which I'd 'ave paid you well for?" "If my advice is all you want, you can have it any day for nothing." "Wot you get for nothing is worth just about wot you get it for. No. Mine was a fair business proposal, and either you come into it or you stay out." "Most decidedly I prefer--to stay out." "Then," said Isaac suddenly, "I shall have to give up the shop." "I'm most awfully sorry." "There's no good your being sorry if you won't help me." "I would help you--if I could." "If you could!" He paused. Prudence plucked him by the sleeve, whispering that never while he lived must he breathe the word Insolvency; but a wilder instinct urged him to disclosure. "Why--it rests with you to keep me out of the Bankruptcy Court." Keith said nothing. He had held out against the appeal to his appetites; it was harder to withstand this call on his finer feelings. But if the immediate effect of the news was to shock and distress him, the next instant he was struggling with a shameful reflection. For all his shame it was impossible not to suspect his father of some deeper, more complicated ruse. Isaac sat very still, turning on his son a look of concentrated resentment. Keith's youth was hateful to him now; it withheld pitilessly, implacably, the life that it was in its hands to give. Meanwhile Keith wrestled with his suspicion and overcame it. "Look here, father, I'll do what I can. I'll come round to-morrow and look into things for you, if that's any good." The instant he had made the offer he was aware of its futility. It was not for his business capacity that he was valued; and he never had been permitted to interfere with the finances of the shop. The suggestion roused his father to a passion that partook of terror. "Look into things?" He rose trembling. "You mind your own business. I can look into things myself. There'd 'ave been no need to look into them at all if you 'adn't robbed and deceived me. Robbed and deceived me, I said. You took your education--which _I_ gave _you_ to put into _my_ business--you took it out of the business, and set up with it on your own account. And I tell you you might as well 'ave made off with a few thousands out of my till. Robbing's wot _you've_ been guilty of in the sight of God; and you can come and talk to me about your conscience. I don't understand your kind of conscience--Keith." There was still a touch of appeal in his utterance of his son's name. "Perhaps not," said Keith sorrowfully. "I don't understand it myself." He walked with his father to Holborn, silently, through the drizzling rain. He held an umbrella over him, while they waited, still silently, for the Liverpool Street omnibus. He noticed with some anxiety that the old man walked queerly, shuffling and trailing his left foot, that he had difficulty in mounting the step of the omnibus, and was got into his seat only after much heaving and harrying on the part of the conductor. His face and attitude, as he sank crouching into his seat, were those of a man returning from the funeral of his last hope. And in Keith's heart there was sorrow, too, as for something dead and departed. CHAPTER XLIX If, much to Rickman's regret, Flossie did not take kindly to Miss Roots, very soon after her engagement she discovered her bosom friend in Miss Ada Bishop. The friendship was not founded, as are so many feminine attachments, upon fantasy or caprice, but rested securely on the enduring commonplace. If Flossie respected Ada because of her knowledge of dress, and her remarkable insight into the ways of gentlemen, Ada admired Flossie because of the engagement, which, after all, was not (like some girls' engagements) an airy possibility or a fiction, but an accomplished fact. This attachment, together with the firm possession of Keith, helped to tide Flossie over the tedium of waiting. Only one thing was wanting to complete her happiness, and even that the thoughtful gods provided. About six o'clock one evening, as Rickman was going out of the house, he was thrust violently back into the passage by some one coming in. It was young Spinks; and the luggage that he carried in his hand gave a frightful impetus to his entry. At the sight of Rickman he let go a hat-box, an umbrella and a portmanteau, and laid hold of him by both hands. "Razors--what luck! I say, I've gone and done it. Chucked them--hooked it. Stood it eighteen months--couldn't stand it any longer. On my soul I couldn't. But it's all right--I'll explain." "Explain what? To whom, you God-forsaken lunatic?" "Sh--sh--sh! To you. For Heaven's syke don't talk so loud. They'll hear you. You haven't got a train you want to catch, or an appointment, have you?" "I haven't got a train, but I have got an appointment." "You might spare a fellow five minutes, ten minutes, can't you? I shan't keep you more than ten at the outside. There's something I must tell you; but I can't do it here. And _not there_!" As Rickman opened the dining-room door Spinks drew back with a gesture of abhorrence. He then made a dash for the adjoining room; but retired precipitately backwards. "Oh damn! That's somebody's bedroom, now. How could _I_ tell?" "Look here, if you're going to make an ass of yourself, you'd better come up to my room and do it quietly." "Thanks, I've got a room somewhere; but I don't know which it is yet." Rickman could only think that the youth had broken his habit of sobriety. He closed the study door discreetly, lit the lamp and took a good look at him. He fancied he caught a suggestion of melancholy in the corners of his mouth and the lines of his high angular nose. But there was no sign of intoxication in Sidney's clear grey eye, nor trace of wasting emotion in his smooth shaven cheek. Under the searching lamp-light he looked almost as fresh, as pink, as callow, as he had done four years ago. He dropped helplessly into a low chair. Rickman took a seat opposite him and waited. While not under the direct stimulus of nervous excitement, young Spinks had some difficulty in finding utterance. At last he spoke. "I say, you must think I've acted in a very queer way." "Queer isn't the word for it. It's astounding." "D'you really think so? You mean I 'adn't any rights--it--it wasn't fair to you--to come back as I've done?" "Well, I don't know about its being very fair; it certainly wasn't very safe." "Safe? Safe? Ah--I was afraid you'd think that. Won't you let me explain?" "Certainly. I should like to know your reasons for running into me like a giddy locomotive." "Well, but I can't explain anything if you go on rotting like that." "All right. Only look sharp. I've got to meet a fellow in Baker Street at seven. If you'll get under weigh we might finish off the explanation outside, if you're going back that way." "Going back. Oh Lord--don't you know that I've come back here to stay. I've got a room--" "Oh, that's the explanation, is it?" "No, that's the thing I've got to explain. I thought you'd think I'd acted dishonourably in--in following her like this. But I couldn't stand it over there without her. I tried, but on my soul I couldn't. I shall be all right if I can only see her sometimes, at meals and--and so forth. I shan't say a word. I haven't said a word. I don't even think she knows; and if she did--So it's perfectly safe, you know, Rickman, it's perfectly safe." "Who doesn't know what? And if who did?" roared Rickman, overcome with laughter. "Sh--sh--sh--Flossie. I mean--M--miss Walker." Rickman stopped laughing and looked at young Spinks with something like compassion. "I say, old chap, what do you mean?" "I mean that I should have gone off my chump if I'd hung on at that place. I couldn't get her out of my mind, not even in the shop. I used to lie awake at nights, thinking of her. And then, you know--I couldn't eat." "In fact, you were pretty bad, were you?" "Oh, well, I just chucked it up and came here. It's all right, Razors; you needn't mind. I never had a chance with her. She never gave me so much as a thought. Not a thought. It's the queerest thing. I couldn't tell you how I got into this state--I don't know myself. Only now she's engaged and so forth, you might think that--well, you might think"--young Spinks had evidently come to the most delicate and complicated part of his explanation--"well, that I'd no right to go on getting into states. But when it doesn't make any difference to her, and it can't matter to you--" He paused; but Rickman gathered that what he wished to plead was that in those circumstances he was clearly welcome to his "state." "I mean that if it's all up with me, you know, it's all right--I mean, it's safe enough--for you." Poor Spinks became lost in the maze of his own beautiful sentiments. Adoration for Rickman (himself the soul of honour) struggled blindly with his passion for Flossie Walker. But the thought, which his brain had formed, which his tongue refused to utter, was that the hopelessness of his passion made it no disloyalty to his friend. "It can make no difference to her, my being here," he said simply. "Nonsense, you've as much right to be here as I have." "Yes, but under the circumstances, it mightn't have been perfectly fair to you. See?" "My dear Spinky, it's perfectly fair to me; but is it--you won't mind me suggesting it--is it perfectly fair to yourself?" Spinks sat silent for a minute, laying his hand upon the place of, thought, as if trying to take that idea in. "Yes," he said deliberately. "That's all right. In fact, nothing else will do my business. It sounds queer; but that's the only way to get her out of my head. You see, when I see her I don't think about her; but when I don't see her I can't think of anything else." Rickman was interested. It struck him that latterly he had been affected in precisely the opposite way. It was curious to compare young Sidney's sensations with his own. He forgot all about the man in Baker Street. "I don't mean to say I shall ever get over it. When a man goes through this sort of business it leaves its mark on him somewhere." And indeed it seemed to have stamped an expression of permanent foolishness on Spinks's comely face. Rickman smiled even while he sympathized. "Yes, I daresay. I'm sorry, old man; but if I were you I wouldn't be too down in the mouth. It's not worth it--I mean; after all, there are other things besides women in the world. It wouldn't be a bad place even if there weren't any women in it. Life is good," said the engaged man. "You had better dress for dinner." He could give no richer consolation without seeming to depreciate the unique value of Flossie. As for Spinks's present determination, he thought it decidedly risky for Spinks; but if Spinks enjoyed balancing himself in this way on the edge of perdition it was no business of his. As it happened, the event seemed to prove that Spinks knew very well what he was about. The callow youth had evidently hit on the right treatment for his own disease. In one point, however, his modesty had deceived him. His presence was far from being a matter of indifference to Flossie. A rejected lover is useful in so many ways. It may be a triumph to make one man supremely happy; but the effect is considerably heightened if you have at the same time made another man supremely wretched. Flossie found that the spectacle of young Sidney's dejection restored all its first fresh piquancy to her engagement. At Tavistock Place he more than justified his existence. True, he did not remain depressed for very long, and there was something not altogether flattering in the high rebound of his elastic youth; but, as Miss Bishop was careful to point out, his joyous presence would have a most salutary effect in disturbing that prosaic sense of security in which gentlemen's affections have been known to sleep. But Spinks was destined to serve the object of his infatuation in yet another way. It was in the second spring after Rickman's engagement. Flossie and Ada were in the drawing-room one half hour before dinner, putting their heads together over a new fashion-book. "Shouldn't wonder," said Miss Bishop, "if you saw me coming out in one of these Gloriana coats this spring. I shall get a fawn. Fawn's my colour." "I must say I love blue. I think I'm almost mad about blue; any shade of blue, I don't care what it is. I know I can't go wrong about a colour. But then there's the style--" Flossie's fingers turned over the pages with soft lingering touches, while her face expressed the gravest hesitation. "Keith likes me best in these stiff tailor-made things; but I can't bear them. I like more of a fancy style." "I see you do," said Miss Bishop solemnly. "Yes, that's because she's a bit of a fancy article herself," murmured a voice from the back drawing-room, where Mr. Spinks had concealed himself behind a curtain, and now listened with a voluptuous sense of unlawful initiation. "I sy, we shall have to stop, if he _will_ keep on listening that wy." "Don't stop, please, Miss Ada. There, I've got my fingers in my ears. On my honour, I have. You can talk as many secrets as you like now. I can't hear a word." The two girls dropped their voices to a low impassioned monotone. "You've got to dress for somebody else besides yourself now--an engaged young lady." "Oh, I don't know that he takes so much notice. But he's given me lots of things, besides my ring. I'm to have a real silver belt--a Russian--next birthday." "I sy, he's orf'ly good to you, you know. Some gentlemen get so careless once they're sure of you. D'you know, we all think you acted so honourable, giving out your engagement as soon as it was on. When do you think you'll be married?" "I can't say. I don't know yet. Never, I think, as long as I'm in that old Bank." Even with his fingers in his ears, young Sidney heard that voice, and before he could stop himself he was listening again. "Don't you like it?" said Miss Bishop. "No. I hate it." Spinks gave a cough; and Miss Bishop began reading to herself in ostentatious silence, till the provocations of the page grew irresistible. "Look here, Floss," she said excitedly. "Look at _me_. 'Fawn will be the pree-vyling colour this year, and for morning wear a plain tailor-myde costume in palest fawn is, for 'er who can stand it, most undeniably _chic_.'" Hitherto Miss Bishop had avoided that word (which she pronounced "chick") whenever she met it; but now, in its thrilling connection with the fawn-coloured costume, it was brought home to her in a peculiarly personal manner, and she pondered. "I wish I knew what that word meant. It's always coming up in my magazine." "I think," said Flossie, "it means something like smart. Stylish, you know." Young Sidney leapt suddenly from his seat. "Go it, Flossie! Give us the French for a nice little cup er tea." "Really, it's too bad we can't have a plyce to ourselves where we can talk. I'm going." And as Miss Bishop went she still pondered Flossie's rendering of the word _chic_. Little did any of them know what grave issues were to hang on it. Then Mr. Spinks emerged from his hiding-place. "Miss Walker," he said (he considered it more honourable to call her Miss Walker now whenever he could think of it; only he couldn't always think), "I didn't know you knew the French language." "And why shouldn't I know it as well as other people?" "I expect you know it a jolly sight better. Do you think, now, you could read and write it easily?" "I might," said Flossie guardedly, "if I had a little practice." "Because, if you could--You say your're tired of the Bank?" "I should think I _was_ tired of it." "Well, Flossie, do you know, a good typewriter girl who can read and write French can get twice as much as you're getting." "How do you know?" "Girl I know told me so. She's corresponding clerk for a big firm of wine merchants in the City. She's going to be married this autumn; and if you looked sharp, you might get her berth." "In a wine-merchant's shop? Mr. Rickman wouldn't hear of it." "It isn't a shop, you know, it's an office. You ask him." Flossie did not ask him; she knew a trick worth two of that. But not very long after Mr. Spinks had made his suggestion, finding Keith very snug in his study one evening, reading Anatole France, to his immense delight she whispered into his ear a little shy request that some day, when he wasn't busy, he would help her a bit with her French. The lessons were arranged for then and there, at so many kisses an hour, payable by quarterly instalments, if desired. And for several evenings (sitting very close together, as persons must sit who are looking over the same book) they read, translating turn by turn, the delicious _Livre de Mon Ami_, until Flossie's interest was exhausted. "Come, I'm not going on with any more of that stuff, so you needn't think it. I've no time to waste, if you have; and I haven't come across one word in that book yet that'll be any use to me." "What a utilitarian Beaver!" He lay back in his chair laughing at her, as he might have laughed at the fascinating folly of a child. "I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Savage; I'll get another French master, if you don't look out. Some one who'll teach me the way I want to learn." "I'll teach you any way you like, Floss, on any system; if you'll only explain what you want. What's your idea?" "My idea's this. How would it be if you and me were to write French letters to each other?" "Rather! The Beaver's intelligence is going to its head. That's the way to learn, Floss; you'll get over the ground like winking. But you know--I shall have to raise my terms." "All right. We'll see about that." He was delighted with her idea. That Flossie should have an idea at all was something so deliciously new and surprising; and what could be more heartrending than these prodigious intellectual efforts, her evident fear that her limitations constituted a barrier between them? As if it mattered! As if he wanted a literary critic for his wife. And how brutally he had criticized _her_--as if it mattered! Still, in spite of his compunction, the French lessons were not altogether a success. There was too much disagreement and discussion about terms; for the master became more and more exorbitant in his charges as the days went on, and the pupil still complained that she was learning nothing. She was thoroughly dissatisfied with his method. He would break off at the most interesting, the most instructive point, and let loose his imagination in all sorts of ridiculous histories that followed from the idea of her being a Beaver; and when she desired him to tell her such simple things as the French for "Your esteemed favour to hand," "Cheque enclosed," "We have forwarded to you to-day as per invoice," he wanted to know what on earth a beaver had to do with invoices. It was Spinks who explained the nature of the connection. Poor Spinks, who had made the suggestion with an almost suicidally honourable intention, was to his immense astonishment merely sworn at for his interference. And when Flossie brought Keith his tea that evening she found him in a most ungentlemanly humour. She waited demurely for a pause in the storm that raged round Spinks and his confounded wine-merchant. She cast a significant glance at the table strewn at that moment with the rough draft of Rickman's tragedy. (Flossie couldn't understand why he could never write a thing out clearly from the first, nor why she shouldn't write it for him at his dictation.) "It's all very well, Keith," said she, "but if _you_ can't do more, _I_ must." Before she left the room it was understood between them that Flossie would renounce her wine-merchant, and that they would be married, if possible, some time in the autumn. He felt curiously shaken by that interview. He spent the evening reading over what he had written, vainly trying to recall his inspiration, to kindle himself anew at his own flame. Last night he had had more inspiration than he could do with; his ideas had come upon him with a rush, in a singing torrent of light. His mind had been then almost intolerably luminous; now, there was twilight on its high parts and darkness over the face of its deep. His ideas, arrested in mid-air, had been flung down into the deep; and from the farther shore he caught, as it were, the flutter of a gown and the light laughter of a fugitive Muse. CHAPTER L One day, four years after the publication of _Saturnalia_, Rickman received a letter in an unknown hand; a woman's hand, but with a familiar vivid signature, the signature that is to be seen beneath the portraits of Walter Fielding, the greatest among contemporary poets, the living god of Rickman's idolatry. "Dear Sir," he wrote (or rather, some woman had written for him), "I came across your Poems the other day; by chance, I must confess, and not by choice. I have something to say to you about them, and I would therefore be glad if you could call on me here, to-morrow. I say, call on me; for I am an old man, and you, if I am not mistaken, are a young one; and I say to-morrow, because the day after to-morrow I may not have that desire to see you which I feel to-day. "Faithfully yours, "Walter Fielding. "PS.--You had better come in time for lunch at one o'clock." Rickman's hand trembled as he answered that letter. All evening he said to himself, "To-morrow I shall see Fielding"; and the beating of his heart kept him awake until the dawn of the wonderful day. And as he dressed he said to himself, "To-day I shall see Fielding." That he should see him was enough. He could hardly bear to think what Fielding had to say to him. He had risen early, so as to go down into Surrey on his bicycle. About noon he struck into the long golden road that goes straight across the high moor where the great poet had built him a house. Inside his gates, a fork of the road sloped to the shore of a large lake fringed with the crimson heather. The house stood far back on a flat stretch of moor, that looked as if it had been cut with one sweep of a gigantic scythe from the sheltering pine-woods. He saw Fielding far off, standing at the door of his house to welcome him. Fielding was seventy-five and he looked sixty. A strong straight figure, not over tall nor over slender, wearing, sanely but loosely, the ordinary dress of an English gentleman. A head with strong straight features, masses of white hair that hid the summit of the forehead, a curling moustache and beard, close-clipped, showing the line of the mouth still red as in his youth. A head to be carved in silver or bronze, its edges bitten by time, like the edges of an antique bust or coin. "So you've come, have you?" was his greeting which the grasp of his hand made friendly. He took Rickman straight into his study, where a lady sat writing at a table in the window. "First of all," said he, "I must introduce you to Miss Gurney, who introduced you to me." Miss Gurney rose and held out a slender feverish hand. She did not smile (her face narrowed so abruptly below her cheekbones that there was hardly room for a smile on it), but her eyes under their thick black brows turned on him an eager gaze. Her eyes, he thought, were too piercing to be altogether friendly. He wondered whether it was the flame in them that had consumed her face and made it so white and small. She made a few unremarkable remarks and turned again to her writing table. "Yes, Gertrude, you may go." Her sallow nervous hands had already begun gathering up her work in preparation for the word that banished her. When it came she smiled (by some miracle), and went. They had a little while to wait before luncheon. The poet offered whisky and soda, and could hardly conceal his surprise when it was refused. "You must forgive me," he said presently, "for never having heard of you till yesterday. My secretary keeps these things from me as a rule. This time she allowed herself to be corrupted." Rickman felt a sudden interest in Miss Gurney. "Your poems were sent to her by a friend of hers, with the request--a most improper one--that I should read them. I had no intention of reading them; but I was pleased with the volume at first sight. It was exactly the right length." "The right length?" "Yes, small octavo; the very best length for making cigar lighters." Rickman had heard of the sardonic, the cruel humour with which Fielding scathed his contemporaries; still, he could hardly have expected even him to deal such a violent and devilish blow. Though he flushed with the smart he bore himself bravely under it. After all, it was to see Fielding that he had come. "I am proud," said he, "to have served so luminous a purpose." His readiness seemed to have disarmed the formidable Fielding. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the young man a moment or two without speaking. Then the demon stirred in him again with a malignant twinkle of his keen eyes. "You see I was determined to treat you honourably, as you came to me through a friend of Miss Gurney's. But for her, you would have gone where your contemporaries go--into the waste-paper basket. They serve no purpose--luminous or otherwise." He chuckled ominously. "I had the knife ready for you. But if you want to know why I paused in the deed of destruction, it was because I was fascinated, positively fascinated by the abominations of your illustrator. And so, before I knew what I was doing (or I assure you I would never have done it), I had read, actually read the lines which the creature quotes at the bottom of his foul frontispiece. Why he quoted them I do not know--they have no more to do with his obscenities than I have. And then--I read the poem they were taken from." He paused. His pauses were deadly. "You have one great merit in my eyes." Rickman looked up with a courageous smile, prepared for another double-edged pleasantry more murderous than the last. "You have not imitated me." For one horrible moment Rickman was inspired to turn some phrase about the hopelessness of imitating the inimitable. He thought better of it; but not before the old man divined his flattering intention. He shook himself savagely in his chair. "Don't--please don't say what you were going to say. If you knew how I loathe my imitators. I shouldn't have sent for you if you had been one of them." His mind seemed to be diverted from his present victim by some voluptuous and iniquitous reminiscence. Then he began again. "But you and your _Saturnalia_--Ah!" He leant forward suddenly as he gave out the interjection like a growl. "Do you know you're a very terrible young man? What do you mean by setting my old cracked heart dancing to those detestable tunes? I wish I'd never read the d----d things." He threw himself back in his chair. "No, no; you haven't learnt any of those tunes from me. My Muse wears a straighter and a longer petticoat; and I flatter myself she has the manners of an English gentlewoman." Rickman blushed painfully this time. He had no reply to make to that. "I didn't mean," Fielding went on, "to talk to you about your _Saturnalia_. But _On Harcombe Hill_, and _The Song of Confession_--those are great poems." Rickman looked up, startled out of his self-possession by the unexpected words and the sudden curious vibration in the voice that uttered them. Yet he could hardly realize that Fielding was praising him. "They moved me," said Fielding, "as nothing moves me now, except the Psalms of David. I have been a great poet, as poets go nowadays; but" (he smiled radiantly) "the painful conviction is forced upon me that you will be a greater--if you live. I wanted to tell you this, because nobody else is likely to find it out until you're _dead_. You may make up your mind to that, my friend." "I had made up my mind to many things. But they don't matter--now." Fielding ignored the compliment. "_Has_ any one found it out? Except yourself?" "Only one person." "Man or woman?" He thought of Maddox, that irresponsible person. "A man. And perhaps he hardly counts." The old poet gave him a keen glance from his all-knowing eyes. "There _is_ one other person, who apparently doesn't count, either. Well, I think that was the luncheon-bell." On their way to the dining-room he remarked: "That's another reason why I sent for you. Because I hear they've not been particularly kind to you. Don't suppose I'm going to pity you for that." "I don't pity myself, sir." "No--no--you don't. That's what I like about you," he added, taking his guest by the arm and steering him to his place. At luncheon Miss Gurney took a prominent part in the conversation, which Rickman for her sake endeavoured to divert from the enthralling subject of himself. But his host (perceiving with evident amusement his modest intention) brought it up again. "Don't imagine, for a moment," said he, "that Miss Gurney admires you. She hates young poets." Miss Gurney smiled; but as Rickman saw, more in assent than polite denial. Throughout the meal she had the air of merely tolerating his presence there because it humoured the great man's eccentricity. From time to time she looked at him with an interest in which he detected a certain fear. The fear, he gathered, was lest his coming should disturb, or in any way do harm to the object of her flagrant adoration. After she had left the table Fielding reproached him for mixing water with his wine. "In one way," said he, "you're a disappointment. I should have preferred to see you drink your wine like a man." "Unfortunately," said Rickman, "it's not so easy to drink it like a man, if you've ever drunk it like a beast." "Ah-h. You're an even more remarkable person than I thought you were," said the poet, rising abruptly from the table. He proposed that they should take a walk in the garden, or rather on the moor; for the heather ran crimson to the poet's doors, and the young pines stood sentinel at his windows. They walked slowly towards the lake. On their way there Fielding stopped and drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with the pure, sweet air. "Ah! that's better." He looked round him. "After all, we're right, Rickman. It's the poets that shall judge the world; and if _we_ say it's beautiful, it _is_ beautiful. _And_ good." Happy Fielding, thought Rickman. Fielding had never suffered as he had suffered; _his_ dream had never been divorced from reality. It seemed fitting to the younger poet that his god should inhabit these pure and lofty spaces, should walk thus on golden roads through a land of crimson, in an atmosphere of crystal calm. He would have liked to talk to Fielding of Fielding; but his awe restrained him. Fielding's mind did not wander long from his companion. "Let me see," said he, "do you follow any trade or profession?" He added with a smile, "besides your own?" "I'm a journalist." Rickman mentioned his connection with _The Museion_ and _The Planet_. "Ah, I knew there was an unlucky star somewhere. Well, at any rate, you won't have to turn your Muse on to the streets to get your living. But a trade's better than a profession; and a craft's better than a trade. It doesn't monopolize the higher centres. I certainly had the impression that you had been in trade." Rickman wondered who could have given it to him. Miss Gurney's friend, he supposed. But who was Miss Gurney's friend? A hope came to him that made his heart stand still. But he answered calmly. "I was. I worked for two years in a second-hand bookshop as a bibliographical expert; and before that I stood behind the counter most of my time." "Why did you leave it? You weren't ashamed of your trade?" "Not of my trade, but of the way I had to follow it. I'm not ashamed of working for Mr. Horace Jewdwine." He brought the name in awkwardly. In bringing it in at all he had some vague hope that it might lead Fielding to disclose the identity of the friend. Horace Jewdwine was a link; if his name were familiar to Fielding there would be no proof perhaps, but a very strong presumption that what he hoped was true. "He is a friend of yours?" "Yes." His hope leapt high; but Fielding dashed it to the ground. "I never heard of him. I see," he said, "you've got a conscience. Have you also got a wife?" "Not yet--but--" "Good. So young a man as you cannot afford to keep _both_. I am so old that I may be pardoned if I give you some advice. But why should I? You won't take it." "I should like to hear it all the same, sir." "Well, well, it's cheap enough. Whatever you do, don't fritter yourself away upon the sort of women it may be your misfortune to have met." It was beautifully done, this first intimation of his consciousness of any difference between them; between Rickman who had glorified a variety actress, and Walter Fielding whose Muse had "always had the manners of an English gentlewoman." And to Rickman's heart, amid vivid images of Poppies and Flossies, the memory of Lucia Harden stirred like a dividing sword. "That is my advice," said Fielding. "But you will not take it." "These things," said Rickman, "are not always in our power." In the silence which followed he put the question that was burning in him. "May I ask who the friend was who told Miss Gurney about me?" "You may ask Miss Gurney; but I do not think she'll tell you. It seems to be a secret, and Miss Gurney, strange to say, is a young woman who can keep a secret." He led the way to a seat overlooking the lake where they sat for awhile in silence, and Rickman found his thoughts roaming from his god. Presently Fielding rose and turned back to the house. Rickman felt that the slow footsteps were measuring now the moments that he had to be with him. He was glad that they were slow. Fielding stopped at his house-door, and stood for a second gazing earnestly at the young man. "When you write anything," he said, "you may always send it to me. But no more--please--no more _Saturnalia_." "There won't be any more _Saturnalia_." "Good. I do not ask you to come again to see me." Rickman struggled for an answer, but could not think of anything better than, "It's enough for me to have seen you once," which was not at all what he had meant to say. Fielding smiled faintly; his humour pleased, Rickman fancied, with the ambiguity of his shy speech. "I'm afraid I've tired you, sir," he said impulsively. "You have not tired me. I tire myself. But here is Miss Gurney; she will look after you and give you tea." "Geniality," he continued, "is not my strong point, as you may have perceived. And any unnatural effort of the kind fatigues me. My own fault." "You have been very generous to me." "Generous? There can't be any generosity between equals. Only a simple act of justice. It is you who have been good to me." "I? To you?" "Yes. You have satisfied my curiosity. I own that sometimes I have wanted to know what sort of voice will be singing after I am dead. And now I _do_ know. Good-bye, and thank you." He pressed his hand, turned abruptly and shuffled into the house. He was noticeably the worse for his walk, and Rickman felt that he had to answer for it to Miss Gurney. "I'm afraid I've tired him. I hope I haven't done him harm." Miss Gurney glanced sharply at him, turned, and disappeared through the study window. Her manner implied that if he had harmed Fielding she would make him feel it. She came back still unsmiling. "No. You have not tired him." "Then," said he as he followed her into the drawing-room, "I am forgiven?" "Yes. But I did not say you had not done him harm." The lady paused in her amenities to pour out his tea. "Miss Gurney," he said as he took the cup from her, "can you tell me the name of the friend who sent my book to you?" "No, I'm afraid I cannot." "I see. After all, I am not forgiven?" "I am not at all sure that you ought to be." "I heard what he said to you," she went on almost fiercely. "That's why I hate young poets. He says there is only you to hate." "So, of course, you hate me?" "I think I do. I wish I had never heard of you. I wish he had never seen you. I hope you will never come again. I haven't looked at your poems that he praises so. He says they are beautiful. Very well, I shall hate them _because_ they are beautiful. He says they have more life in them than his. Do you understand _now_ why I hate them and you? He was young before you came here. You have made him feel that he is old, that he must die. I don't know what else he said to you. Shall I tell you what he said to me? He said that the world will forget him when it's listening to you." "You misunderstood him." He thought that he understood her; but it puzzled him that, adoring Fielding as she did, she yet permitted herself to doubt. "Do you suppose I thought that he grudged you your fame? Because he doesn't. But I do." "You needn't. At present it only exists in his imagination." "That's enough. If it exists there--" "You mean, it will go down the ages?" She nodded. "And you don't want it to go?" "Not unless his goes too, and goes farther." "You need hardly be afraid." "I'm _not_ afraid. Only, he has always stood alone, so high that no one has touched him. I've always seen him that way, all my life--and I can't bear to see him any other way. I can't bear any one to touch him, or even to come anywhere near him." "No one ever will touch him. Whoever comes after him, he will always stand alone. And," he added gently, "you will always see him so." "Yes," she said, but in a voice that told him she was still unconsoled. "If I had seen him when he was young, I suppose I should always see him young. Not that I care about that so much. His youth is the part of him that interests me least; perhaps because it was never in any way a part of me." He looked at her. Did she realize how far Fielding's youth, if report spoke truly, had belonged to, or in her own words, "been a part of" other women? Did she resent their part in him? He thought not. It was not so much that she was jealous of Fielding's youth, as that she shrank from any appearance of disloyalty to his age. "And yet," she said, "I feel that no one has a right to be young when he is old. I hate young poets because they are young. I hate my own youth--" Her youth? Yes, it was youth that leapt quivering in her tragic face, like a blown flame. Her body hardly counted except as fuel to the eager and incessant fire. "Don't hate it," he said. "It is the most beautiful thing you have to give him." "Ah--if I _could_ give it him!" He smiled. "You have given it him. He isn't old when he can inspire such devotion. He is to be envied." He rose and held out his hand. As she took it, Miss Gurney's flame-like gaze rested on him a moment and grew soft. "If you want to know, it was Lucia Harden who sent me your poems," said she. And he knew that for once Miss Gurney had betrayed a secret. He wondered what had made her change her mind. He wondered whether Lucia had really made a secret of it. He wondered what the secret had to do with Fielding. And wondering he went away, envying him the love that kept its own divine fire burning for him on his hearth. CHAPTER LI There were times when Rickman, harassed by his engagement, reviewed his literary position with dismay. Of success as men count success, he had none. He was recognized as a poet by perhaps a score of people; to a few hundreds he was a mere name in the literary papers; to the great mass of his fellow-countrymen he was not even a name. He had gone his own way and remained obscure; while his friends, Jewdwine and Maddox, had gone theirs and won for themselves solid reputations. As for Rankin (turned novelist) he had achieved celebrity. They had not been able to impart to him the secret of success. But the recognition and something more than recognition of the veteran poet consoled him for the years of failure, and he felt that he could go through many such on the strength of it. The incident was so momentous that he was moved to speak of it to Jewdwine and to Maddox. As everything that interested him interested Maddox, he related it to Maddox in full; but with Jewdwine (such was his exceeding delicacy) he observed a certain modest reticence. Still there was no diminution in his engaging candour, his innocent assumption that Jewdwine would be as pleased and excited as Maddox and himself. "He really seemed," said he, selecting from among Fielding's utterances, "to think the things were great." Jewdwine raised his eyebrows. "My dear Rickman, I congratulate you." He paused for so long that his next remark, thoughtfully produced, seemed to have no reference to Rickman's communication. "Fielding is getting very old." If Rickman had been in a state of mind to attend carefully to Jewdwine's manner, he might have gathered that the incident had caused him some uneasiness. It had indeed provided the editor of _The Museion_ with much matter for disagreeable thought. As it happened (after months of grave deliberation), he had lately had occasion to form a very definite opinion as to the value of Rickman the journalist. He knew that Rickman the journalist had no more deadly enemy than Rickman the poet; and at that particular moment he did not greatly care to be reminded of his existence. Jewdwine's attitude to Rickman and his confidences was the result of a change in the attitude of _The Museion_ and its proprietors. _The Museion_ was on the eve of a revolution, and to Jewdwine as its editor Rickman the journalist had suddenly become invaluable. The revolution itself was not altogether sudden. For many months the behaviour of _The Museion_ had been a spectacle of great joy to the young men of its contemporary, _The Planet_. The spirit of competition had latterly seized upon that most severely academic of reviews, and it was now making desperate efforts to be popular. It was as if a middle-aged and absent-minded don, suddenly alive to the existence of athletic sports in his neighbourhood, should insist on entering himself for all the events, clothed, uniquely, if inappropriately, in cap and gown. He would be a very moving figure in the eyes of hilarious and immortal youth. And such a figure did _The Museion_ in its latter days present. But the proprietors were going to change all that. _The Museion_ was about to be withdrawn from circulation and reissued in a new form under the new title of _Metropolis_. As if aware of the shocking incongruity it was going to fling off its cap and gown. Whatever its staying power might be, its spirit and its outward appearance should henceforth in no way differ from those of other competitors in the race for money and position. While the details of the change were being planned in the offices of _The Museion_, the burning question for the proprietors was this: would their editor, their great, their unique and lonely editor, be prepared to go with them? Or would he (and with him his brilliant and enthusiastic staff) insist on standing by the principles that had been the glory of the paper and its ruin? Mr. Jewdwine had shown himself fairly amenable so far, but would he be any use to them when it really came to the point? To Jewdwine that point was the turning-point in his career. He had had to put that burning question to himself. Was he, after all, prepared to stand by his principles? It was pretty certain that if he did, his principles would not stand by him. Was there anything in them that _would_ stand at all against the brutal pressure that was moulding literature at the present hour? No organ of philosophic criticism could (at the present hour) exist, unless created and maintained by Jewdwine single-handed and at vast expense. His position was becoming more unique and more lonely every day, quite intolerably lonely and unique. For Jewdwine after all was human. He longed for eminence, but not for such eminence as meant isolation. Isolation is not powerful; and even more than for eminence he longed for power. He longed for it with the passion of a weak will governed despotically by a strong intellect. It amounted to a positive obsession, the tyranny of a cold and sane idea. He knew perfectly well now what his position as editor of _The Museion_ was worth. Compared with that great, that noble but solitary person, even Maddox had more power. But the editor of _Metropolis_, by a few trifling concessions to the spirit of modernity, would in a very short time carry all before him. He must then either run with the race or drop out of it altogether; and between these two courses, Jewdwine, with all his genius for hesitation, could not waver. After much deliberation he had consented (not without some show of condescension) to give his name and leadership to Metropolis; and he reaped the reward of his plasticity in a substantial addition to his income. This great change in the organization of the review called for certain corresponding changes in its staff. And it was here that Rickman came in. He had been retained on _The Museion_ partly in recognition of his brilliance, partly by way of satisfying the claims of Jewdwine's magnanimity. On _The Museion_ he had not proved plastic either as sub-editor or as contributor. He did not fit in well with the traditions of the paper; for he was, to Jewdwine, modernity incarnate, the living spirit of revolt, to be bound down with difficulty by the editorial hand. Looking back on the record of the past four years Jewdwine marvelled how and why it was that he had kept him. A score of times he had been tempted to dismiss him after some fresh enormity; and a score of times Rickman had endeared himself by the seductive graces of his style. But Rickman on the staff of _Metropolis_ was, Jewdwine considered, Rickman in the right place. Not only could he now be allowed to let loose his joyous individuality without prejudice to the principles of that paper (for the paper strictly speaking would have no principles), but he was indispensable if it was to preserve the distinction which its editor still desired. Jewdwine had no need of the poet; but of the journalistic side of Rickman he had endless need. It was a baser faculty, but his care must be to develop it, to train it, to handle it judiciously, until by handling he had made it pliable to all the uses of his paper. Jewdwine had a genius for licking young men into shape. He could hardly recognize that band of awkward and enthusiastic followers in his present highly disciplined and meritorious staff. None of them were like Rickman; none of them had done anything to rouse an uneasy suspicion of their genius. Still, none of them were precisely fitted for his present purpose. Rickman the poet, of course, you could not lick into shape. His shape, plastic only under the divine fire, was fashioned by the fingers of the god. But Rickman the journalist, once get him on to the right journal, would prove to be made of less unmanageable stuff. If he had not hitherto proved manageable, that was no doubt because hitherto he had been employed on the wrong journal. And yet, when he came to discuss the change of programme with the different members of his staff (some of whom he was giving their dismissal), it was with Rickman (whom he proposed to retain) that he felt the most acute embarrassment. Rickman, although at the moment dining with Jewdwine, was so abominably direct. "I see," he said, after listening to a lengthy exposition of the proprietors' view; "they want to popularize the thing." Jewdwine winced perceptibly. "Well, hardly," said he. "In that case they would have been obliged to change their editor. We certainly want to draw a rather larger public than we have done; and to do that we must make _some_ concessions to modernity. There's no doubt that the paper's interests have suffered from its tradition. We have been too exclusive, too detached. We can no longer afford to be detached. We propose to abandon the tradition in favour of--well--of a somewhat broader attitude." He looked keenly at Rickman, as if he defied him to put it any other way. "I see. We've either got to take a more genial view of our contemporaries--or scoot." "You may put it that way if you like. It simply means that if we are to appeal to a wider public, we must take a wider view. It's surely in the interests of the public, _and_ of literature, that we should not narrow the influence of the paper any more than we can help. Not make the best criticism inaccessible." He continued to take the lofty and the noble view. The habit was inveterate. But his last remark started him on the way of self-justification. "Of course I couldn't go on with the paper if I hadn't come to see this for myself. The fact is, you cannot run a leading review on abstract principles." Rickman forbore to smile at the fulfilment of his prophecy. Jewdwine's "Absolute" had been obliged to "climb down." "Not," said Jewdwine, "if that review is really to lead public opinion." "And certainly not," said Rickman, "if public opinion is to lead the review." "In either case," said Jewdwine nobly, "the principles remain." "Only they're not applied?" "They are not applied, because there is nothing to apply them to. In the present state of literature a review like _The Museion_ has no reason for its existence." "I don't know. It was a very useful protest against some forms of modernity." "My dear fellow, modernity simply means democracy. And when once democracy has been forced on us there's no good protesting any longer." "All the same, you'll go on protesting, you know." "As a harmless private person, yes. As a critic I must accept a certain amount of defeat at the hands of the majority." "But you don't happen to believe in the majority?" "I do believe in it," said he, bitterly. "I believe that it has destroyed criticism by destroying literature. A critic only exists through the existence of great men. And there are no great men nowadays; only a great number of little men." "I see. Othello's occupation's gone." "Not at all. Othello's occupation's only beginning. You can't criticize these people, but you must review them. And I assure you it means far more labour and a finer discrimination to pick out your little man from a crowd of little men than to recognize your great man when you see him." "When you see him--" "Ah yes--_when_ I see him. But where is he? Show me," said Jewdwine, "one work of unmistakable genius published any time in the last five, the last ten years." Rickman looked at him and said nothing. And to Jewdwine his silence was singularly uncomfortable. He would have been more uneasy still but for his conviction that the serenity in Rickman's eyes was reflected from the eyes of Fielding. Rickman, he thought, was rather too obviously elated at the great man's praise; and the exhibition of elation was unpleasant to him. Worse than all, he realized that Rickman, in spite of his serenity, was hurt. On the top of that came a miserable misgiving as to the worthiness of his own attitude to his friend. As for Rickman, he had no feeling that he could have put into words, beyond owning in his heart that he was hurt. He had never before had any occasion for such a confession; he felt it to be humiliating both to Jewdwine and himself. Sometimes, in moments of depression he had suspected that it was Jewdwine's coldness that preserved his incorruptibility; but he had so sincere a desire for purity in their relations, that he had submitted without resentment to the freezing process that ensured it. He had in reserve his expectation of the day when, by some superlative achievement, he would take that soul, hitherto invincible, by storm. But now, in his inmost heart he owned that he was hurt. Jewdwine changed the subject. CHAPTER LII When Jewdwine changed the subject, it was to intimate that his friend might now expect a salary rising steadily with the fortunes of _Metropolis_. That promise to marry Flossie in the autumn had made Rickman very uneasy on this head. The sources of his income had been hitherto uncertain; for _The Planet_ might at any moment cease to be, and only indomitable hope could say that _The Museion_ would be long for this world. The amount of his income, too, depended on conditions which were, to some extent, beyond his own control. It had never sunk below a hundred and fifty, and had never risen above three hundred, even in the years when he wrote more articles than poems. Whereas, if he wrote more poems than articles, two hundred was the highest figure it had yet attained. And supposing the poems came and the articles didn't? For in these things he was in the hands of the god. Therefore he had long been a prey to devastating anxiety. But he hoped great things from the transformation of _The Museion_. It certainly promised him a larger and more certain revenue in the future, almost justifying his marriage in the autumn. It had been expressly understood that his promise to Flossie was to be fulfilled only if possible. But meanwhile he had got to make it possible, for Flossie (in spite of _her_ promise) kept the terror of her wine-merchant perpetually dangling above his head. He had visited Messrs. Vassell & Hawkins' detestable establishment; and it made him shudder to think of his pretty Beaver shut up in a little mahogany cage, with her bright eyes peeping sad and shy through the brass netting, and her dear little nostrils sniffing the villainous alcoholic air. But as the time approached and their marriage grew every day more certain and more near, the joy and excitement of the bridegroom were mingled with an inexplicable terror and misgiving. He had been disagreeably impressed by the manner of Flossie's insistence on his poverty. He had not missed the fine contempt conveyed by all her references to his profession, which she not unjustly regarded as the cause of the poverty. He was well aware that his genius was a heavy burden for so small a thing to bear; and his chivalry had determined that it should lie lightly on her lest it should crush or injure her. It was part of her engaging innocence that she knew nothing of the world in which his supremacy began and hers ended, that she had not even suspected its existence. If he had any illusions about her it was his own mind that created and controlled them. He delighted in them deliberately, as in a thing of his creating; seeing through them with that extraordinary lucidity of his, yet abandoning himself all the more. Flossie's weakness made him tender, her very faults amused him. As for his future, he could not conceive of his marriage as in any way affecting him as a poet and a man of letters. While the little suburban Eros lit his low flame upon the hearth, his genius would still stand apart, guarding with holy hands the immortal fire. For those two flames could never mingle. In that dream he saw himself travelling with ease and rapidity along two infinite lines that never touched and never diverged; a feat only possible given two Rickmans, not one Rickman. There used to be many more of him; it was something that he had reduced the quantity to two. And in dreams nothing is absurd, nothing impossible. Pity that the conditions of waking life are so singularly limited. At first it had been only a simple question of time and space. Not that Flossie took up so very much space; and he owned that she left him plenty of time for the everyday work that paid. But where was that divine solitude? Where were those long days of nebulous conception? Where the days when he removed himself, as it were, and watched his full-orbed creations careering in the intellectual void? The days when Keith Rickman was as a god? He was hardly aware how fast they were vanishing already; and where would they be in two months' time? It was on his tragedy that he based his hopes for his future; the future, in which Flossie had no part. He knew that the plea of art sounded weak before the inexorable claims of nature; he felt that something ought to be sacrificed to the supreme passion; but he couldn't give up his tragedy. He was consumed by two indomitable passions; and who was to say which of them was supreme? Still, tragedies in blank verse were a luxury; and Flossie had more than once pointed out to him he couldn't afford luxuries. He would sit up working on the tragedy till long past midnight; and when he woke in the morning his sense of guilt could not have been greater if he had been indulging in the most hateful orgies. But you can't burn even genius at both ends; and his paying work began to suffer. Jewdwine complained that it was not up to his usual level. Maddox had returned several articles. So at last he stuffed his tragedy into a drawer to wait there for a diviner hour. "That would have been a big expensive job," he said to himself. "I suppose it's possible to put as good work into the little things that pay; but I shall have to cut myself in pieces." That was what he was doing now; changing his gold into copper as fast as he could, so many pennies for one sovereign. Nobody was cheated. He knew that in his talent (his mere journalistic talent) there was a genius that no amount of journalism had as yet subdued. But he had an awful vision of the future, when he saw himself swallowed up body and soul in journalism. The gods were dead; but there were still men and columns. That would be the inevitable surrender to reality. To have no part in the triumph of the poetic legions; but to march with the rank and file, to a detestable music not his own; a mere mercenary ingloriously fighting in a foreign cause. To Jewdwine, Jewdwine once incorruptible, it seemed that Rickman was preparing himself very suitably for the new campaign. But Maddox mourned as he returned those articles; and when he heard of the approaching marriage which explained them he was frantic. He rushed up on Sunday afternoon, and marched Rickman out into the suburbs and on to a lonely place on Hampstead Heath. And there, for the space of one hour, with his arm linked in Rickman's, he wrestled with Rickman for his body and his soul. Jewdwine's cry had been, "Beware of the friendship of little men"; the burden of Maddox was, "Beware of the love of little women." "That's all you know about it, Maddy. The love of great women absorbs you, dominates you. The little women leave you free." Maddox groaned. "A fat lot of freedom you'll get, Ricky, when you're married." Rickman looked straight before him to the deep blue hills of the west, as if freedom lay on the other side of them. "Good God," he said, "what am I to do? I must marry. I can't go back to Poppy Grace, and her sort." "If that's all," said Maddox, "I don't see much difference. Except that marriage is worse. It lasts longer." Whereupon Rickman blushed, and said that wasn't all, and that Maddox was a brute. He would change his opinion when he knew Miss Walker. Before very long he had an opportunity of changing it. Rickman had been in error when he told Flossie that if she would consent to marry him he would never again be ill. For he was ill the first week in September, not two years after he had made that ill-considered statement. The Fielding episode, when the first fine stimulus was over, had left him miserable and restless. It was as if he had heard the sound of Lucia Harden's voice passing through the immeasurable darkness that divided them. And now he seemed to be suffering from something not unlike the nervous fever that had attacked him once before at Harmouth; complicated, this time, by a severe cold on the chest, caught by walking about through pouring rain in great agony of mind. For Flossie (who may have felt latterly that she had chanced upon another season of depression in her woman's trade) that illness was a piece of amazing good luck, coming as it did at the moment of Keith's misgivings. It not only drew them together, just as they were drifting insensibly apart, but it revealed them to each other in a tenderer and serener light. There was a little hard spot in Flossie which was impervious to the subtler charm of Rickman when he was well. But Rickman ill and at her mercy, confined to the bed where (so long as Flossie waited on him) he lay very quietly, with the sheet drawn tight up to his chin, in a state of touching dependence and humiliation, was a wholly different person from the stormy and incomprehensible Rickman who for more than two years had struggled so madly in her toils. And if, to the eye of Mrs. Downey, Flossie appeared untouched by the really heartrending pathos of his attitude in sleep; beholding unmoved his huddled boyish form under the blankets, one half-naked arm laid slack along the bed, the other thrust out straight into the cold outside it; if she left Mrs. Downey to cover the poor fellow up, wondering why on earth the girl could sit there and never do it; if, when he woke, she missed the extreme poignancy of appeal in the murmurs that followed her as she went Beaver-like about her business in the room, it may be that in that unaccustomed service the hidden prescient motherhood in her was awakened and appeased (Flossie being still under the dominion of her dream). As yet it struggled blindly with her invincible propriety; a struggle poor Rickman was made aware of by the half-averted manner of her approaches, the secrecy and hesitation of her touch. But the little clerk undoubtedly found that patting pillows, straightening coverlets, and making mustard plasters, was an employment more satisfying to her nature than the perpetual handling of bank notes. And to Rickman lying there with his hungry heart filled for the time quite full with its own humility and gratitude, lying in a helplessness that had in it something soothing and agreeable, feeling the soft shy woman's hands about his bed, following with affectionate, remorseful eyes her coming and going, or watching as she sat patiently mending his socks, it came with the freshness of a new discovery that she was, after all, a very engaging little Beaver. He had never for one instant glorified his love for her; he understood it too thoroughly. It was love as Nature loves to have it; honest enough, too, but of its kind singularly devoid of any inspiring quality. Flossie had never moved him to the making of sonnets or of songs. Moreover, he had discovered in her a certain lack of tenderness, or of the outward signs of tenderness. Not but what Flossie commanded all the foolish endearing language of young love; only she was apt to lavish it on little details of attire, on furniture, on things seen in shop-windows and passionately desired. But there was something very transfiguring in the firelight of his bedroom hearth. As he lay in it, enjoying the pure sweet foretaste of domestic felicity, it was as if he saw more clearly into himself and her and the life that would so soon make them one. If it was not the best life, he told himself that of its kind it would be very good. He had no doubt now that Flossie loved him. He was led to this certainty by the maternal quality in her present dealings with him, when perhaps it should have warned him rather that these cares were not for him. Flossie had somewhat elaborated her dream. Bearing the fascinating name of Muriel Maud, it had grown softer and rosier than ever. She could not any longer deny its mysterious association with Keith Rickman, though she would have died rather than that Keith should have suspected it. And now as she sat mending Keith's socks her fancy all the time was busy fashioning delicious garments for her dream. Flossie never pursued her vision of Muriel Maud beyond the period of enchanting infancy; when it outgrew the tender folly of those garments, it was dismissed from Flossie's fancy with unmaternal harshness. Therefore it appeared eternally innocent and young, mortal in a delicate immortality. In fact, viewing her life too in the light of the bedroom firelight, Flossie was herself deceived. They were both blissfully unaware that Nature cares nothing about love, but was bent upon using them for the only end she does care about, the end that gives to love the illusion of its own eternity. But Maddox saw through it in a minute. It was in the earlier stages of the poet's illness, and Maddox had happened to put his head into Rickman's room at the moment when Flossie, compelled by Mrs. Downey, was helping to put a stinging mustard plaster on his chest. They shrieked, and Maddox instantly withdrew. He painted the scene afterwards for Rankin in the lurid and symbolic colours of his Celtic fancy. "Talk of Samson among the Philistines, it's nothing to Ricky-ticky in that d----d boarding-house. There was a woman on each side of his bed. They'd got him down on it; they were pinning the poor little chap in his blankets. I could just see Ricky-ticky's face between their shoulders; it was very red; and I shall never forget the expression on it, never. The agony, Rankin, the hopeless, unutterable agony." "What were they doing to him?" "I couldn't see properly. But I think they were cutting his hair off." He declared later that he had distinctly heard the squeaking of that young Delilah's scissors. "We're not told whether Delilah was Samson's wife," said he. "But the Scriptures were never wrong on a point of human nature." At which Rankin looked depressed; for he too was thinking of getting married; though, as Maddox reminded him for his comfort, not to Miss Flossie Walker. "Is our Ricky-ticky," urged Rankin, "the man to show wisdom in choosing a wife?" "He isn't the man to marry at all." "Did you expect him to live like an anchorite, then?" "I didn't expect anything. He might have lived as he liked, provided he didn't ruin himself as he's doing now." And though Maddox now saw that young Delilah frequently, and always at her prettiest and her best, he did not change his opinion. CHAPTER LIII It was now the third week in September, and the wedding was fixed for the twenty-fifth of October. Everything was fixed, even Flossie's ideas on the subject of her trousseau. There never was a little woman so unwavering in her choice of such things as clothes and furniture. To be married in ivory white, and to go away in powder blue; to have a drawing-room furnished in imitation rosewood and tapestry, and a dining-room in stamped velvet and black oak (imitation, too), had been Flossie's firm determination from the first. It saves endless time and contention when a young woman so absolutely knows her own mind. Not but what she required approval and support in her decisions; otherwise she would have been hardly recognizable as a young woman. And for Rickman to go shopping with the Beaver in Tottenham Court Road, to follow her undeviating course through the furniture galleries, to note the infallible instinct by which she made for and seized upon the objects of her choice, to see the austerity with which she resisted the seductions of the salesman who sought to entangle her with a more expensive article, the calmness of her mind in dealing with the most intricate problems of measurement and price, was to be led a helpless captive in a triumph of practical ability. Ability, good Lord! was there ever anything like Flossie's grasp of all facts that can be expressed in figures? His brain reeled before the terrifying velocity of her mental arithmetic. What a little woman it was to do sums in the top of its head! Not that she dragged him on the chain for ever. There were idyllic resting-places, delicious, thrilling pauses in her progress; when she tried every chair in succession in the drawing-room suite; when she settled herself in the tapestry one, before the little rosewood tea-table (spread, for the heightening of the illusion, with a tea-service all complete); when she pretended to pour out tea, smiling over the tea-pot in the prettiest delight. With such a smile she would welcome him, with such a smile she would pour out his tea when he came back from Fleet Street to the home that was to be. (It did not occur to him that at the moment Flossie was only smiling at the tea-pot.) Though he stood aloof from the anticipatory scene, as he looked at her he grew positively weak with tenderness. In everything Flossie had her way. When they climbed (as they inevitably did) to the upper galleries he indeed offered some show of resistance when she insisted on choosing a terrible bedstead of brass with mother-o'-pearl ornaments. But to do him justice, it was sheer nervous terror which prompted the brutal remark that, "Really, mother-o'-pearl ornaments were more than he could stand"; for he melted and gave in at once at the sight of Flossie feeling the rosy down coverlet with her little hands. When their eyes met, Flossie's face was as rosy as the coverlet; so that the attendant spirit of commerce himself turned from them abashed. That there would, that there must be, such a moment Keith had had a horrible foreboding as he followed up the stairs. Nobody could have been more happy than Flossie following the dream in Tottenham Court Road; and Rickman was happy because she was. Happy for a whole fortnight; and then for the first time they quarrelled. And this was how it happened. They were going to live at Ealing; not because they liked it, but because the neighbourhood was cheap. Flossie had said, "When we're rich, we'll go to Kensington"; and he had answered with an odious flippancy, "Yes, and when we die we'll go to heaven"; but for the present, Flossie (wise Flossie who loved economy even more than Kensington) was content with Ealing. That she was obliged to be content with it made her feel, naturally, that she was entitled to gratification on every other point. It was not over Ealing, then, that they quarrelled, but over the choosing of the house. Flossie was all for a gay little brand-new, red-brick villa, with nice clean white paint about it, only two minutes from the tram; he for a little old-fashioned brown-brick house with jasmine all over it, and a garden all grass and lilac bushes at the back. He said the garden would be nice to sit in. She said, what was the good of sitting in a garden when you had to walk ever so far to the tram? He retorted that walking was a reason for sitting; and she that if it came to that they could sit in the house. She wouldn't hear of the old brown house, nor he of the brand-new villa. He was peculiarly sensitive to his surroundings. "The villa," said he, "is a detestable little den." "It isn't," said she, "it's got a lovely bay window in the drawing room, and a _dear_ little balcony on the top." "But there isn't a quiet place in it, dear, where I could write." "Oh, that's all you're thinking of--" "Well, there isn't, really. Whereas here" (they were going now through the little brown house), "there's a jolly big room at the back, where you can see miles away over the fields towards Harrow." "Oh, you've got time to look out of the window, have you, though you _are_ so busy?" "Never mind the window, let's look at the house. What's wrong with it?" "What's wrong with the house? It won't suit the furniture, that's what's wrong with it." "You mean the furniture won't suit it?" "The furniture's chosen and the house isn't. There's no good going back on that." "Look here, this is the room I meant." They had climbed to the top of the little brown house, and Flossie had hardly condescended to glance through the doors he had opened on their way. He opened one now at the head of the stairs, and this time she looked in. "It would make all the difference to me, Floss," he said humbly, "if I had a place like this when I want to get away to write." "When you want to get away from me, you mean." Her lips shook; she looked round her with angry eyes, as if jealous of the place, and all that he meant to do in it. It was a large room, with a wide window looking on to the garden and away across meadows and cornfields to Harrow Hill with its thin church spire. The window was guarded with iron bars. The wall-paper was designed in little circles; and in each circle there were figures of little boys and girls, absurd and gay. So many hundreds of little figures, and so absurd and gay, that to sit in that room surrounded by them, to look at them and endeavour to count them, was to go mad. But those figures fascinated Flossie. "Oh, Lord, what a beastly wall-paper," said he. "I think it's sweet," said she. And though she wasn't going to let him have the house, she was ready to quarrel with him again about the wall-paper. And then, in the corner by the window they came upon a child's toy, a little wooden horse, broken. He pointed it out to her, half-smiling. "Some kiddy must have left that there." "Of course," said she, "it's been a nursery. And, I say, Keith, I think it must have _died_." "How do you make that out?" "It couldn't have been long here. Don't you see, the wall-paper's all new." (He thought that was rather sharp of her, the practical Beaver!) "And yet," she said continuing her train of induction; "it couldn't. If it had, they'd never have left _that_ here." Ah, that was not sharp; it was something better. There was, after all, about his Beaver a certain poetry and tenderness. She picked up the little wooden horse, and held it in her hands, and adjusted its loosened mane, and mended its broken legs, fitting the edges delicately with her clever fingers. And it seemed to him that as she bent over the toy her face grew soft again. When she lifted her head her eyes rested on him, but without seeing him. Never had Flossie had so poignant a vision of Muriel Maud. He looked at her with a new wonder in his heart. For the first time he was made aware of the change that two years had worked in her. She had grown, he thought, finer in growing firmer; her body in its maturity was acquiring a strength and richness that had been wanting in its youth; as if through that time of waiting it were being fashioned for the end it waited for. But that was not all. She had clothed herself unconsciously with poetry. She stood for a moment transfigured before him; a woman with sweet eyes beholding her desired destiny from far. Her soul (for a moment) rose in her face like a star--a dim prophetic star that trembled between darkness and dawn. He knew that she saw herself now as the possible mother of his children. The anger and the jealousy were over; and all of a sudden she gave in. "You can have the house, if you like, Keith." "All right; I do like it. That's a dear little Beaver." As he approached her her glance fled. "I didn't say you could have the room. I want to keep it empty." He put his arm round her and led her to the window. "What do you want to keep it empty for, Flossie?" Her poor little thoughts, surprised and dismayed, went scurrying hither and thither, trying to hide their trail. "Oh," she said, still looking away from him. "To store things in." He drew her closer to him and kissed her tenderly. It seemed to him that a serene and happy light rested on the garden, on the empty house, and on the empty room that she had peopled already with her innocent dream. It seemed to him that in that remote gaze of her woman's eyes, abstracted from her lover, unconsciously desirous of the end beyond desire, he saw revealed the mystery, the sanctity, the purity of wedded love. And seeing it he forgave her that momentary abstraction. But the Beaver never dreamed; she was far too practical. She was building, that was all. CHAPTER LIV That evening as they sat down to dinner, it might have been noticed that Mrs Downey's face was more flushed and festal than it had been since the day was fixed for Mr. Rickman's wedding and departure. She seated herself expansively, with a gay rustling of many frills, and smiled well pleased upon the arrangements of her table. From these signs it was evident that Mrs. Downey was expecting another boarder, a boarder of whom she had reason to be proud. Rickman noticed with dismay that the stranger's place was laid beside his own. He knew them so well, these eternal, restless birds of passage, draggled with their flight from one boarding-house to another. The only tolerable thing about them was that, being here to-day, they were gone to-morrow. The new boarder was late, culpably late. But Mrs. Downey was proud of that too, as arguing that the poor bird of passage had stayed to smooth her ruffled plumage. Mrs. Downey approved of all persons who thus voluntarily acknowledged the high ceremonial character of the Dinner. She was glad that Mr. Rickman would appear to-night in full evening dress, to rush away in the middle of the meal, a splendour the more glorious, being brief. She was waiting for the delightful moment when she would explain to the visitor that the gentleman who had just left the room was Mr. Rickman, "the reviewer and dramatic critic." She would say it, as she had said it many times before, with the easy accomplished smile of the hostess familiar with celebrity. But that moment never came. The very anticipation of it was lost in the thrill of the visitor's belated entrance. Yet nothing could have been quieter than the manner of it. She (for it _was_ a lady) came into the room as if she had lived at Mrs. Downey's all her life, and knew her way already from the doorway to her chair. When she said, "I'm so sorry, I'm afraid I'm rather late," she seemed to be taking for granted their recognition of a familiar personal characteristic. Perhaps it was because she was so tall that her voice sounded like music dropped downward from a height. There was a stir, a movement down each side of the table; it was subtle, like the flutter of light and wind, and sympathetic, answering to her footfall and the flowing rhythm of her gown. As it passed, Mrs. Downey's face became if possible more luminous, Miss Bramble's figure if possible more erect. A feeble flame flickered in Mr. Partridge's cheeks; Mr. Soper began feeling nervously in his pocket for the box of bon-bons, his talisman of success; while Mr. Spinks appeared as if endeavouring to assume a mental attitude not properly his own. Miss Bishop searched, double-chinned, for any crumbs that might have lodged in the bosom of her blouse; and Flossie, oh, Flossie became more demure, more correct, more absolutely the model of all propriety. Each was so occupied with his or herself that no one noticed the very remarkable behaviour of Mr. Rickman. He rose to his feet. He turned his back on Flossie. There was a look on his face as of a man seized with sudden terror, and about to fly. In turning he found himself face to face with Lucia Harden. He had the presence of mind to stand back and draw her chair from the table for her; so that his action appeared the natural movement of politeness. Though she held out her hand by an instinct of recognition, there was a perceptible pause before she spoke. He had known that it was she before he saw her. She had to look at him twice to make quite sure. And then, being sure, she smiled; not the slow, cold smile of politeness that dies downwards on the lips, but the swift smile of pleasure that leaps to the eyes and forehead. "Mr. Rickman--? I think I should have known you anywhere else; but I didn't expect to meet you here." He looked at her courageously. And as he looked there fell from him the past five years, the long estranging years of bitterness and misery and vain desire, and the years, still more estranging, of his madness and his folly; and not the thinnest phantom shadow of time divided him from the days of Harmouth, That moment of recognition annihilated all between; a lustre of his life swept away in one sweep of her eyelids, dropped fathom deep and forgotten in the gaze of her pure and tender eyes. It was not the Lucia of their last meeting; the tragic and terrible Lucia who had been so divided from him by her suffering and her grief. As she had appeared to him on that evening, the last of his brief, incredible happiness, when he sat with her alone in the drawing-room at Court House, and she had declared her belief in him, so she appeared to him now. The unforgettable movements of her face, the sweet curve of her mouth (the upper lip so soft and fine that it seemed to quiver delicately with the rhythm of her pulses and her breath), the turn of her head, the lifting of her eyebrows, told him that she had kept no memory of his part in the things that had happened after that. And he too forgot. With Lucia sitting at his right hand, he forgot the woman sitting at his left; he forgot the house of bondage, and he forgot that other house where the wedding chamber yet waited for the bride. "I should have known you anywhere." His eyes dropped and he said no more. That act of recognition had only lasted a second; but it had made its mark. Over the dim, fluttering table was the hush of a profound astonishment. He neither saw nor felt it; nor did he hear Mrs. Downey scattering the silence with agitated apologies. "You'll excuse us beginning, Miss Harden; but it's Mr. Rickman's night at the theatre." Miss Harden looked at him again, lifting her eyebrows with that air of interested inquiry that he knew so well. And yet, beyond those first half dozen words he said nothing. "Silly boy," said Mrs. Downey to herself, "why can't he say he's sorry he has to go. I'm sure I gave him his opportunity." She was annoyed at his rudeness. Whether he were sorry or not, he went at his appointed time. He never knew how he got out of the room, nor how he had behaved before going. He had simply looked at her, held her hand and left her. And he had not said a word; or none at least that he could remember. Miss Harden was, it seemed, the guest, or the ostensible guest, of Miss Roots. And Miss Roots enjoyed herself, delighting openly in the recovery of the friend she had lost sight of for so many years. But from Mrs. Downey's point of view the Dinner that night was not exactly a success. Mr. Rickman had behaved in an extraordinary manner. Mr. Soper and Miss Bishop had never looked so--well, so out of place and common. And she could see that Mr. Spinks had taken advantage of the general consternation to help himself outrageously to ginger. Lucia took her friend aside when it was over. "You might have told me he was here," said she. "My dear, I didn't know you knew him." "Then, did he never--" Whatever Lucia was going to say she thought better of it. She did not see him till the next night, after dinner, when he came to her as she was sitting in a corner of the back drawing-room alone. And as he came, she looked at him with a curiously intent yet baffled gaze, as if trying to fit a present impression to one past. And yet she could hardly have had any difficulty in recognizing him; for his face was unforgettable, unique; but she missed something in it which used to be familiar. And now she saw that what she had missed was the restless look of youth; the sensuous eagerness that had helped to make it so irregular. It had settled into the other look that she had found there more rarely; the look that strengthened and refined the mobile features, and brought them into harmony with the clean prominent lines of the chin and of the serious level brows. Of all his looks it was the one that she used to like best. "So you've come back again?" he said. "But I never was away." "I thought you were abroad?" "Who told you that?" "I don't know. I suppose I must have dreamt it." "I think you must. I've been in town for the last six weeks." "In town?" "Yes, if Hampstead's town. I've been staying with the Jewdwines. Didn't he tell you?" "No, he never told me anything." She was silent for a moment. "So _that's_ why you never came to see me." "To see you? I didn't know--and if I had I shouldn't have thought--" He hesitated. "Of what? Of coming to see me?" "No, that you would have cared for me to come." "I think that's not a thing you ought to say. Of course I cared." "Well, but I couldn't take that for granted, could I?" "Couldn't you? Not after the messages I sent you?" "But I never got any messages." "Didn't you?" Her upper lip quivered; it was as if she winced at some thought that struck her like a blow. "Then my cousin must have forgotten to give them to you. Just like him; he is shockingly careless." Now Rickman knew it was not just like him; Jewdwine was not careless, he was in all things painfully meticulous; and he never forgot. "I don't think I can forgive him for that." "You must forgive him. He is overwhelmed with work. And he isn't really as thoughtless as you might suppose. He has given me news of you regularly. You can't think how glad I was to hear you were getting on so well. As for the latest news of all--" She lifted her face and looked at him with her sweet kind eyes. "It _is_ true that you are going to be married?" "Quite true." "I was so glad to hear that, too." "Thanks." There was a slight spasm in his throat. That thick difficult word stuck in it and choked him for the moment. "I hope I shall meet your wife some day." "You have met her." Lucia looked puzzled and he smiled, a little sadly for a bridegroom. "You sat next her at dinner. She's here somewhere." Lucia turned her head to where Flossie was sitting by a table, sitting very upright, with her little air of strained propriety. "Is it--is it that pretty lady? Do you think I might go up and speak to her? I would so like to know her." "I'll bring her to you. There's rather a crowd just now in the other room." He went to her, hardly knowing how he went. "Flossie," he said, "I want to introduce you to Miss Harden." Flossie's eyes brightened with surprise and pleasure; for she had learnt from Mrs. Downey that the visitor was the daughter of Sir Frederick Harden; and Lucia's distinction subdued her from afar. Keith, being aware of nothing but Lucia, failed to perceive, as he otherwise might have done, that he had risen in Flossie's opinion by his evident intimacy with Miss Harden. She came blushing and smiling and a little awkward, steered by Keith. But for all her awkwardness she had never looked prettier than at that moment of her approach. If Keith had wanted to know precisely where he stood in the order of Lucia's intimacies, he might have learnt it from her reception of Miss Walker. By it he might have measured, too, the height of her belief in him, the depth of her ignorance. She who had divined him was ready to take his unknown betrothed on trust; to credit her, not with vast intellect, perhaps (what did that matter?), but certainly with some rare and lovely quality of soul. He loved her; that was enough. Lucia deduced the quality from the love, not the love from the quality. His pretty lady must be lovable since he loved her. He had noticed long ago that Lucia's face had a way of growing more beautiful in the act of admiration; as if it actually absorbed the loveliness it loved to look upon. And now, as she made a place for Flossie at her side, it wore that look of wonder, ardent yet restrained, that look of shy and tentative delight with which five years ago she had approached his _Helen_. It was as if she had said to herself, "He always brought his best to show me. Five years ago he brought me his dream, to read and care for. Now he brings me the real thing, to read and care for too." She was evidently preparing to read Flossie as if she had been a new and beautiful poem. He was unaware of all this; unaware of everything except the mingled beatitude and torture of the moment. He sat leaning forward, staring over his clasped hands at Lucia's feet, where he longed to fall down and worship. He heard her telling Flossie how glad she was to meet her; how unexpected was her finding of him here, after fire years; how five years ago she had known him in Devonshire; and so on. But in his ears the music of her voice detached itself wholly from the meaning of her words. Thus he missed the assurance which, if he had only listened intelligently, they might have had for him; the assurance of an indestructible friendship that welcomed and enfolded his pretty lady for his sake. But whatever her almost joyous acceptance of the pretty lady promised for the future, it could not be said that, conversationally, Lucia was getting on very fast with Flossie in the present; and Rickman's abstraction did not make things easier. Therefore she was a little relieved when Miss Roots joined them, and Rickman, startled into consciousness, got up and left the room. He feared that lady's sympathy and shrewdness. Nothing could be hidden from her clever eyes. And now, perceiving that the conversation flagged, Miss Roots endeavoured to support it. "Have you seen _Metropolis_?" she asked in her tired voice. Lucia shook her head. "I don't know that I want to see it." "You'd better not say so before Miss Walker." "Oh, never mind me," said Miss Walker. "I haven't been yet. Is it good?" "Some people seem to think so. It depends." "Yes; there's such a difference in the way they put them on the stage, too." Miss Roots' face relaxed, and her fatigued intelligence awoke. "Who's on in it?" asked Flossie, happy and unconscious; and the spirit of mischief seized upon Miss Roots. "I can't tell you. I'm not well posted in these things. But I think you'd better not ask Mr. Rickman to take you to see _Metropolis_." Flossie was mystified, and a little indignant. If the play was so improper, why had Miss Roots taken for granted that she had seen it? "That wasn't at all nice of her, was it?" said Lucia, smiling as Miss Roots went away. Her look was a healing touch laid on Flossie's wounded vanity. "That's the sort of little trap she used to lay for me." "I suppose you mean she was rotting me. I always know when other people are rotting. But that's the worst of her; you never can tell, and she makes you look so ignorant, doesn't she?" "She makes me _feel_ ignorant, but that's another thing." "But whatever did she mean just now?" "Just now she meant that you knew all about _Metropolis_." "Why should I? Do _you_ know anything about it?" "Not much; though it is my cousin's paper. But as Mr. Rickman writes for it, you see--" "Well, how was I to know that? He's always writing for something; and he'd never think of coming to _me_ every time. I never talk shop to him, and he never talks shop to me. Of course he told me that he'd got on to some better paying thing," she added, anxious to show that she was not shut out from the secrets of his heart; "but when you said _Metropolis_ I didn't take it in." Lucia made no further attempt to converse. She said good-night and followed Sophie Roots to her tiny room. "That was rather dreadful," she said to herself. "I wonder--" But if she did not linger long over her wondering neither did she stop to find out why she was so passionately anxious to think well of the woman who was to be Keith Rickman's wife, and why it was such a relief to her to be angry with Sophie for teasing the poor child. CHAPTER LV He asked himself how it was that he had had no premonition of the thing that was about to happen to him; that the supreme moment should have come upon him so casually and with so light a step; that he went to meet it in a mood so commonplace and unprepared? (Good Heavens! He remembered that he had been eating pea soup at the time, and wishing it were artichoke.) Had he not known that she would come back again, and in just that way? Had he not looked for her coming five years ago? And what were five years, after all? How was it that he had heard no summons of the golden and reverberant hour? And what was he going to do with it, or it with him, now that it had come? That was a question that he preferred to leave unanswered for the present. It seemed that Lucia was going to stay for a week as Miss Roots' guest; and it was Mrs. Downey's hope that she would be with them for a much longer period on her own account. This hope Rickman judged to be altogether baseless; she would never be able to bear the place for more than a week. He inquired of Miss Roots early the next morning on this subject; and at the same time he found out from her what Lucia had been doing in the last five years. She had not been (as Jewdwine had allowed him to suppose) abroad all the time with Kitty Palliser. She had only lived with Miss Palliser in the holidays. The rest of the year, of the five years, she had been working for her living as music mistress in a Women's College somewhere in the south of England. To his gesture of horror Miss Roots replied that this was by no means the hideous destiny he conceived it to be. "But--for _her_--" he exclaimed. "And why not for her?" Miss Roots, B.A., retorted, stung by his undisguised repugnance. If Lucia _had_ got her post merely by interest (which Miss Roots seemed to consider as something of a blot on her career) at the end of her first year she had the pick of the students waiting for her. Unfortunately Lucia had never been strong; and this summer her health had completely broken down. At that he shuddered, and turned abruptly away. Miss Roots looked at him and wondered why. When he approached her again it was to offer her, with every delicacy and hesitation, the loan of his study for the time of Miss Harden's visit. This was not an easy thing to do; but he was helped by several inspirations. The room, he said, was simply standing empty all day. He had hardly any use for it now. He would be kept busy at the office up to the time of his marriage. And he thought it would be a little more comfortable for Miss Harden than the public drawing-room. "I want," he said (lying with a certain splendour), "to pay some attention to her. You see, she's my editor's cousin--" Miss Roots turned on him a large look that took him in, his monstrous mendacity and all. But she nodded as much as to say that the explanation passed. "One hardly likes to think of her, you know, sitting in the same room with Soper." "We all have to put up with Mr. Soper." "Yes; but if she isn't strong, she ought to have some place where she can be alone and rest. Besides, it'll be nicer for _you_. You'll see a great deal more of her, you know, that way." In the end the offer was accepted. For, as Miss Roots pointed out to her friend, it would give him far more pleasure to lend his room than to sit in it himself. Certainly it gave him pleasure, a thrilling, subtle, and perfidious pleasure, every time that he thought of Lucia occupying his room. But before she could be allowed to enter, he caused it to be thoroughly cleansed, and purified as far as possible from the tobacco smoke that lingered in the curtains and the armchairs. He tidied it up with his own hands, removing or concealing the unlovelier signs of his presence and profession. He bought several cushions (silk and down) for the sofa, and a curtain for the door to keep out the draught, and a soft rug for Lucia's feet; also a tea-table, a brass kettle and a spirit lamp, and flowers in an expensive pot. He did things to them to make them look as if they had been some little time in use. He caused a wrinkle to appear in the smooth blue cheeks of the sofa cushions. He rubbed some of the youth off the edges of the tea-table. He made the brass kettle dance lightly on the floor, until, without injury to its essential beauty, it had acquired a look of experience. It was the deceit involved in these proceedings that gave him the first clear consciousness of guilt. He persuaded himself that all these articles would come in nicely for the little house at Ealing, then remembered that he had provided most of them already. In doubt as to the propriety of these preparations, he again approached Miss Roots. "I say," said he, "you needn't tell her all these things are mine. I'm going to leave them here in case she wants to stay on afterwards. She won't have to pay so much then, you know." He hesitated. "Do you think that's a thing that can be done?" "Oh yes, it can be done," she replied with an unmistakable emphasis. "But I mayn't do it? Mayn't I? It's all right if she doesn't know, you know." Miss Roots said nothing; but he gathered that she would not betray him, that she understood. He could not explain matters half so clearly to himself. He might have wanted to lend his study to his friend's cousin; he certainly did want to lend it to Lucia for her own sake; but besides these very proper and natural desires he had other motives which would not bear too strict examination. Lucia sitting in the same room with Mr. Soper was not a spectacle that could be calmly contemplated; but he hoped that by providing her with a refuge from Mr Soper he might induce her to stay till the moment of his own departure. And there was another selfish consideration. It was impossible to see her, to talk to her with any pleasure in the public drawing-room. Lucia could not come into his study as long as it was his; but if he gave it up to her and her friend, it was just possible that he might be permitted to call on her there. That she accepted him as a friend he could not any longer doubt. There were so many things that he had to say to her, such long arrears of explanation and understanding to make up. He could see that, unlike the Lucia he used to know, she had misunderstood him; indeed she had owned as much. And for this he had to thank Horace Jewdwine. Jewdwine's behaviour gave him much matter for reflection, painful, but instructive. Jewdwine had not lied to him about Lucia's movements; but he had allowed him to remain in error. He had kept his cousin regularly posted in the news she had asked for, as concerning an unfortunate young man in whom they were both interested; but he had contrived that no sign of her solicitude should reach the object of it. It was as if he had been merely anxious to render an account of his stewardship; to assure her that the unfortunate young man was now prospering under his protection, was indeed doing so well that there was no occasion for Lucia to worry herself about him any more. Apparently he had even gone so far as to admit that there was friendship between Rickman and himself, while taking care that there should never be anything of the sort between Rickman and Lucia. He had constituted himself a way by which news of Rickman might reach Lucia; but he had sternly closed every path from Lucia to Rickman. That meant that Lucia might be depended upon; but that Rickman must be allowed no footing lest he should advance too far. In other words it meant that they acknowledged, and always would acknowledge, the genius while they judged it expedient to ignore the man. But _she_ had not always ignored him. Did it not rather mean, then, that Jewdwine would not trust her there; that, knowing her nature and how defenceless it lay before the impulses of its own kindness, he feared for her any personal communication with his friend? It did not occur to Rickman that what Jewdwine dreaded more than anything for Lucia was the influence of a unique and irresistible personal charm. As far as he could see, Jewdwine was merely desperately anxious to protect his kinswoman from what he considered an undesirable acquaintance. And five years ago his fears and his behaviour would have been justifiable; for Rickman owned that at that period he had not been fit to sit in the same room with Lucia Harden, far less, if it came to that, than poor Soper. But his life since he had known her was judged even by Jewdwine to be irreproachable. As Rickman understood the situation, he had been sacrificed to a prejudice, a convention, an ineradicable class-feeling on the part of the distinguished and fastidious don. It was not the class-feeling itself that he resented; he could have forgiven Jewdwine a sentiment over which he had apparently no control; he could have forgiven him anything, even his silence and his subterfuge, if he had only delivered Lucia's messages. That was an unpardonable cruelty. It was like holding back a cup of water from a man dying of thirst. He had consumed his heart with longing for some word or sign from her; he had tortured himself with his belief in her utter repudiation of him; and Jewdwine, who had proof of the contrary, had abandoned him to his belief. He could only think that, after taking him up so gently, Lucia had dropped him and left him where he fell. He owned that Jewdwine was not bound to tell him that Lucia had returned to England, or to provide against any false impression he might form as to her whereabouts; and it was not there, of course, that the cruelty came in. He could have borne the sense of physical separation if, instead of being forced to infer her indifference from her silence, he had known that her kind thoughts had returned to him continually; if he had known that whatever else had been taken from him, he had kept her friendship. Her friendship--it was little enough compared with what he wanted--but it had already done so much for him that he knew what he could have made of it, if he had only been certain that it was his. He could have lived those five years on the memory of her, as other men live on hope; sustained by the intangible but radiant presence, by inimitable, incommunicable ardours, by immaterial satisfactions and delights. If they had not destroyed all bodily longing, they would at least have made impossible its separation from her and transference to another woman. They would have saved him from this base concession to the folly of the flesh, this marriage which, as its hour approached, seemed to him more inevitable and more disastrous. Madness lay in the thought that his deliverance had been near him on the very day when he fixed that hour; and that at no time had it been very far away. No; not when two years ago he had stood hesitating on the edge of the inexpiable, immeasurable folly; the folly that had received, engulfed him now beyond deliverance and return. If only he had known; if he could have been sure of her friendship; if he could have seen her for one moment in many months, one hour in many years, the thing would never have begun; or, being begun, could never have been carried through. Meanwhile the friendship remained. His being married could not make it less; and his being unmarried would certainly not have made it more. As there could be neither more nor less of it, he ought to have been able to regard it as a simple, definite, solidly satisfactory thing. But he had no sooner realized that so much at least was his than he perceived that he had only the very vaguest notion as to the nature and extent of it. Of all human relations, friendship was the obscurest, the most uncertainly defined. At this point he remembered one fatal thing about her; it had always been her nature to give pleasure and be kind. The passion, he imagined, was indestructible; and with a temperament like that she might be ten times his friend without his knowing from one day to another how he really stood with her. And hitherto one means of judging had been altogether denied to him; he had never had an opportunity of observing her ways with other men. This third evening he watched her jealously, testing her dealings with him by her behaviour to the boarders, and notably to Spinks and Soper. For Lucia, whether she was afraid of hurting the feelings of these people, or whether she hesitated to establish herself altogether in Mr. Rickman's study, had determined to spend the first hours after dinner in the drawing-room. Miss Roots protested against these weak concessions to the social order. "You'll never be able to stand them, dear," she said; "they're terrible." But Lucia had her way. "You've stood them for five years," said she. "Yes, but I've had my work, and I'm used to it; and in any case I'm not Miss Lucia Harden." "Mr. Rickman stands them." "Does he? You wouldn't say so if you'd known him for five years." "I wonder why he stayed." "Do you? Perhaps Miss Flossie could enlighten you." "Of course. I was forgetting her." "Don't forget her," said Miss Roots drily; "she's important." Miss Roots went up to the study, and Lucia turned into the drawing-room. She owned to herself that what took her there was not so much an impulse of politeness as an irresistible desire to know what manner of people Keith Rickman had had to live among. In those evenings the scene had grown familiar to her; the long room with the three tall windows looking on the street; the Nottingham lace curtains tied with yellow sashes in the middle; the vivid blue-green painting of the wood-work, a bad match for the wall paper; the oleographs and pier-glasses in their gilded frames; the carpet, with its monstrous meaningless design in brown and amber; the table, secretary, and cabinet of walnut wood whose markings simulated some horrible discoloration of decay; the base company of chairs, and the villainous little maroon velvet ottoman, worn by the backs of many boarders; and beyond the blue-green folding doors the dim little chamber looking on a mews. And the boarders, growing familiar, too, to her sensitive impressionable brain; Miss Bramble, upright in her morning gown and poor little lace cap and collar; Mrs. Downey sitting, flushed and weary, in the most remote and most uncomfortable chair; Mr. Spinks reading the paper with an air of a man engaged in profound literary research; the two girls sitting together on the ottoman under the gaselier; Mr. Soper wandering uneasily among them, with his insignificant smile and his offerings of bon-bons; and Keith Rickman sitting apart, staring at his hands, or looking at Flossie with his blue, deep-set, profoundly pathetic eyes. For that pretty lady's sake, how he must have suffered in those five years. Rickman, from his retreat in the back drawing-room, watched her ways. She was kind to Miss Bramble. She was kind to that old ruffian Partridge whose neck he would willingly have wrung. She was kind, good Heavens! yes, she was kind to Soper. When the commercial gentleman approached her with his infernal box of bon-bons, she took one. He could have murdered Soper. He was profoundly depressed by the spectacle of Lucia's ways. If she behaved like that to every one, what had he to go upon? Nothing, nothing; it was just her way. And yet, he did not exactly see her sending messages to Soper. He rose and opened the grand piano that stood in the back drawing-room. He went up to her (meeting with a nervous smile Flossie's inquiring look as he passed). He stood a moment with one arm on the chimney-piece, and waited, looking down at Lucia. Presently she raised her head and smiled, as surely she could never have smiled at Soper. "Do you want me to play for you?" she said. "That is exactly what I wanted." He drew the flattering inference that, while apparently absorbed in conversation with Miss Bramble, she had been aware of his presence in the background, and of every movement he had made. "Well, I must ask our hostess first, mustn't I?" She went to that lady and bent over her with her request. If Lucia's aim was to give pleasure she had certainly achieved it. Mrs. Downey may or may not have loved music, but she was visibly excited at the prospect of hearing it. So were the boarders. They settled themselves solemnly in their seats. Spinks crushed his noisy newspaper into a ball and thrust it behind him; Miss Bramble put away her clicking needles; while Mr. Soper let himself sink into a chair with elaborate silence; one and all (with the exception of Mr. Partridge, who slept) they turned their faces, politely expectant, towards the inner room. It struck Lucia that in this the poor things were better mannered than many a more aristocratic audience. Rickman lit the candles on the piano and seated himself beside her. "I know what I have got to play." said she. "What?" "The Sonata Appassionata, isn't it?" "Fancy your remembering." "Of course I remember. It isn't every one who cares for Beethoven. I'm afraid the others won't like it, though." "They've got to like it," he said doggedly. And Lucia, with her fatal passion for giving pleasure, played. And as the stream of music flowed through the half-lit room, it swept away all sense of his surroundings, all memory of the love and truth and honour pledged to his betrothed, and every little scruple of pity or of conscience. It bore down upon the barriers that stood between him and Lucia, and swept them away too. And the secret sources of his inspiration, sealed for so many months, were opened and flowed with the flowing of the stream; and over them the deep flood of his longing and his misery rose and broke and mingled with the tumult. And through it, and high above it all, it was as if his soul made music with her; turning the Sonata Appassionata into a singing of many voices, a symphony of many strings. So lost was he that he failed to perceive the effect of her playing on the audience of the outer room. Flossie sat there, very quiet in her awe; Miss Bishop kept her loose mouth open, drinking in the sounds; Mr. Soper leaned forward breathing heavily in a stupid wonder; there, over the tops of the chairs, one up-standing ribbon on Miss Bramble's cap seemed to be beating time to the music all by itself; while Mrs. Downey flushed and swelled with pride at the astonishing capabilities of her piano. He did not notice either that, as Lucia played the tender opening bars of the Sonata, Mr. Partridge shook off the slumber that bound him at this hour; that, as she struck the thundering chords that signal the presto Finale, he raised his head like an old war-horse at the sound of the trumpet. He stared solemnly at Lucia as she came forward followed by Rickman; then he rose from his own consecrated chair, heavily but with a certain dignity suited to the moral grandeur of the act, and made a gesture of abdication. "I was a professional myself once," said he. "My instrument was the flute." There was no doubt about the spirit of Lucia's reception that night. Perhaps the finest appreciation of connoisseurs had never touched her more than did the praise of that simple audience. Rickman was the only one who did not thank her. For when her playing was over he had turned suddenly very cold, seized with a fierce shivering, the reaction from the tense fever of his nerves; and it was with difficulty that he controlled the chattering of his teeth. But before they parted for the night he asked if he might "call" some afternoon; his tone pointing the allusion to the arrangement that permitted this approach, "We can't talk very well here, can we?" he said. She answered by inviting him and Miss Walker to tea the next day. He was conscious of a base inward exultation when he heard poor Flossie say that she could only look in later for a little while. In October, work was heavy at the Bank, and the Beaver seldom got home till after tea-time. His conscience asked him sternly if he had reckoned on that too? When to-morrow came, Miss Hoots was busy also, and disappeared after tea. He had certainly reckoned on that disappearance. There was a moment of embarrassment on his part when he found himself alone with Lucia in the room (his room) that he had made ready for her. He had done his work so thoroughly well that the place looked as if it had been ready for her since the beginning of time. She was tired. He remembered how tired she used to be at Harmouth; and he noticed with a pang how little it took to tire her now. She leaned back in his chair, propped by the cushions he had chosen for her (chosen with a distinct prevision of the beauty of the white face and dark hair against that particular shade of greenish blue). She had been reading one of his books; it lay in her lap. Her feet rested on his fender, they stretched out towards the warmth of his fire. If only it were permitted to him always to buy things for her; always to give her the rest she needed; always to care for her and keep her warm and well. He wondered how things had gone with her those five years. Had she been happy in that college in the south? Had they been kind to her, those women; or had they tortured her, as only women can torture women, in some devilish, subtle way? Or would overwork account for the failure of her strength? He thought he saw signs in her tender face of some obscure, deep-seated suffering of the delicate nerves. Well, anyhow she was resting now. And in looking at her he rested, too, from the labour of conscience and the trouble of desire. Heart and senses were made quiet by her mere presence. If his hands trembled as they waited on her it was not with passion but with some new feeling, indescribable and profound. For brought so near to him as this, so near as to create the illusion of possession, she became for him something too sacred for his hands to touch. He could count on about half an hour of this illusion before Flossie appeared. Afraid of losing one moment of it, he began instantly on the thing he had to say. "All this time I've been waiting to thank you for your introduction to Fielding." "Oh," she said eagerly, "what did he say? Tell me." He told her. As she listened he could see how small a pleasure was enough to give life again to her tired face. "I am so glad," she said in the low voice of sincerity; "so very glad." She paused. "That justifies my belief in you. Not that it needed any justification." "I don't know. Your cousin, who is the best critic I know, would tell you that it did." "My cousin--perhaps. But he _does_ see that those poems are great. Only he's so made that I think no greatness reconciles him to--well, to little faults, if they are faults of taste." "Did you find many faults of taste?" She smiled. "I found some; but only in the younger poems. There were none--none at all--in the later ones. Which of course is what one might expect." "It is, indeed. Did you look at the dates? Did you notice that all those later things were written either at Harmouth, or after?" "I did." "And didn't that strike you as significant? Didn't you draw any conclusions?" "I drew the conclusion that--that the poet I knew had worked out his own salvation." "Exactly--the poet you knew. Didn't it occur to you that he might never have done it, if you hadn't known him?" He looked at her steadily. The colour on her face had deepened, but her eyes, as they met his, were grave and meditative. She seemed to be considering the precise meaning of his words before she answered. "No, I didn't." "What, never? Think. Don't you remember how you used to help me?" She shook her head. "I only remember that I meant to have helped you. And I was very sorry because I couldn't. But I see now how absurd it was of me; and how unnecessary." He knew that she was thinking now of her private secretary. "It was beautiful of you. But, you know, it couldn't have happened. It was one of those beautiful things that never can happen." "That's why I was so sorry. I thought it must look as if I hadn't meant it." "But you did mean it. Nothing can alter that, can it?" "No. You must take the will for the deed." "I do. The will is the only thing that matters." "Yes. But--it was absurd of me--but I thought you might have been counting on it?" "Did I count on it? I suppose I did; though I knew it was impossible. You forget that I knew all the time it was impossible. It was only a beautiful idea." "I'm sorry, then, that it had to remain an idea." "Don't be sorry. Perhaps that's the only way it could remain beautiful. It wouldn't have done, you know. You only thought it could because you were so kind. It was all very well for me to work for you for three weeks or so. It would have been very different when you had me on your hands for a whole year at a stretch. And it's much better for me that it never came off than if I'd had to see you sorry for it afterwards." "If I had been sorry, I should not have let you see it." "I should have seen it, though, whether you let me or not. I always see these things." "But I think, you know, that I wouldn't have been sorry." "You would! You would! You couldn't have stood me." "I think I could." "What, a person with a villainous cockney accent? Who was capable of murdering the Queen's English any day in your drawing-room?" "Oh, no; whatever you do you'll never do that." "Well, I don't know. I'm not really to be trusted unless I've got a pen in my hand. I'm better than I used to be. I've struggled against it. Still, a man who has once murdered the Queen's English always feels, you know, as if he'd got the body under the sofa. It's like homicidal mania; the poor wretch may be cured, but he lives in terror of an attack returning. He knows it doesn't matter what he is or what he does; he may live like a saint or write like an archangel; but one aitch omitted from his conversation will wreck him at the last." "You needn't be afraid; you never omit them." "You mean I never omit them now. But I did five years ago. I couldn't help it. Everybody about me did it. The only difference between them and me was that I knew it, and they didn't." "You _were_ conscious of it, then?" "Conscious? Do you know, that for every lapse of the sort in your presence I suffered the torments of the damned? Do you suppose I didn't know how terrible I was?" She shook her head, this time with disapproval. "You shouldn't say these things." "Do you mean, I shouldn't say them, or shouldn't say them to you?" "Well, I think you shouldn't say them to me. Don't you see that it sounds as if I had done or said something to make you feel like that." "You? Good Heavens! rather not! But whatever you said or did, I couldn't help knowing how you thought of me." "And how was that?" "Well, as half a poet, you know, and half a hair-dresser." "That's funny; but it's another of the things you shouldn't say. Because you know it isn't true." "I only say them because I want you to see how impossible it was." "For me to help you?" "Yes." "I do see it. It _was_ impossible--but not for any of the reasons you suppose. If it had been possible--" "What then?" "Then, perhaps, I needn't have felt so sorry and ashamed. You know I really _am_ a little bit ashamed of having asked a great poet to be my private secretary." It was thus that she extricated herself from the embarrassing position in which his clumsiness had placed her. For he saw what she meant when she told him that he should not say these things to her. He had made her feel that she ought to defend him from the charges he had brought against himself, when she knew them to be true, when her gentleness could only have spared him at the expense of her sincerity. How beautifully she had turned it off. He refrained from the obvious pretty speeches. His eyes had answered her. "If you knew that you _had_ done something for me; not a little thing but a great one--" He paused; and in the silence they heard the sound of Flossie's feet coming up the stair. He had only just time to finish his sentence--"Would it please you or annoy you?" She answered hurriedly; for as she rose, Flossie was knocking at the door. "It would please me more than I can say." "Then," he said in a voice that was too low for Flossie to hear, "you _shall_ know it." CHAPTER LVI It was impossible that Rickman's intimacy with Miss Harden should pass unnoticed by the other boarders. But it was well understood by Miss Roots, by Flossie and by all of them, that any attentions he paid to her were paid strictly to his editor's cousin. And if there was the least little shade of duplicity in this explanation, his conscience held him so far guiltless, seeing that he had adopted it more on Lucia's account than his own. Incidentally, however, he was not displeased that it had apparently satisfied Flossie. But if Flossie felt no uneasiness at the approaches of Mr. Rickman and Miss Harden, the news that Lucia was staying under the same roof with the impossible young poet could hardly be received with complacency by her relations. It threw Edith Jewdwine into an agony of alarm. Horace as yet knew nothing about it; for he was abroad. Even Edith had heard nothing until her return from her autumn holiday in Wales, when a letter from Lucia informed her that she would be staying for the next week or two with Sophie Roots in Tavistock Place. Edith was utterly unprepared for her cousin's change of plans. She had not asked Lucia to go with her to Wales; for Lucia's last idea had been to spend September and October in Devonshire with Kitty Palliser. Edith, eager for her holiday, had not stopped to see whether the arrangements with Kitty were completed; and Lucia, aware of Edith's impatience, had omitted to mention that they were not. But what made Lucia's move so particularly trying to Edith was the circumstance that relations between them had latterly been a little strained; and when Edith searched her heart she found that for this unhappy tension it was she and not Lucia who had been to blame. And now (while Lucia was resting calmly on Mr. Rickman's sofa), in the grave and beautiful drawing-room of the old brown house at Hampstead a refined and fastidious little lady walked up and down in a state of high nervous excitement. That little lady bore in her slight way a remarkable resemblance to her brother Horace. It was Horace in petticoats, diminutive and dark. There was the same clearness, the same distinction of feature, the same supercilious forehead, the same quivering of the high-bred nose, the same drooping of the unhappy mouth. Bat the flame of Edith's small steel black eyes revealed a creature of more ardour and more energy. At the moment Edith was visited with severe compunction; an intrusive uncomfortable feeling that she had never before been thus compelled to entertain. For looking back upon the past two years she perceived that her conduct as mistress of that drawing-room and house had not always been as fastidious and refined as she could wish. The house and the drawing-room were mainly the cause of it. Before Horace became editor of _The Museion_, Edith had been mistress of a minute establishment kept up with difficulty on a narrow income. In a drawing-room seventeen feet by twelve she received with difficulty a small circle of the cultured; ladies as refined and fastidious as herself, and (after superhuman efforts on the part of these ladies) occasionally a preoccupied and superlatively married man. From this position, compatible with her exclusiveness, but not with her temperament or her ambition, Edith found herself raised suddenly to a perfect eminence of culture and refinement as head of the great editor's house. She held a sort of salon, to which her brother's reputation attracted many figures if possible more distinguished than his own. She found herself the object of much flattering attention on the part of persons anxious to stand well with Horace Jewdwine. With a dignity positively marvellous in so small a woman, her head held high and made higher still by the raised roll of her black hair, Edith reigned for three years in that long drawing-room. She laid down the law grandiloquently to the young aspirants who thronged her court; she rewarded with superb compliments those who had achieved. Happily for Edith those gentlemen were masters of social legerdemain; and they conveyed their smiles up the sleeves of their dress-coats adroitly unperceived. And then, in the very flower of her small dynasty, Lucia came. Lucia, with her music and her youth and her indestructible charm. And the little court, fickle by its very nature, went over bodily to Lucia! To Lucia who did not want it, who would much rather have been without it, but must needs encourage it, play to it, sympathize with it, just to satisfy that instinct of hers which was so fatal and so blind. And Horace, who to Edith's great relief had freed himself from this most undesirable attachment, who for three years had presented every appearance of judicious apathy, Horace, perceiving that men's eyes (and women's too) loved to follow and to rest upon his cousin, discovering all over again on his own account the mysterious genius of her fascination, had ended by bowing down and worshipping too. His adoration was the more profound (and in Edith's shrewd opinion more dangerous), because he kept it to himself; because it pledged him to nothing in the eyes of Lucia and the world. But the eyes of the world, especially of the journalistic world, are exceedingly sharp; and if Lucia had not been charming in herself those literary ladies and gentlemen would have found her so, as the lady whom Horace Jewdwine was presumably about to marry. It was Hanson, Hanson of the _Courier_, who sent the rumour round, "_La reine est morte, vive la reine_." The superb despotic Edith saw herself not only deserted, but deposed; left with neither court nor kingdom; declining from the palace of royalty to the cottage of the private gentlewoman, and maintaining her imperious refinement on a revenue absurdly disproportioned to that end. Not that as yet there had been any suggestion of Edith's abdication. As yet Lucia had only spent her winter holidays at Hampstead. But when, at the end of the present summer, Lucia suddenly and unexpectedly broke down and her salary ceased with her strength, it became a question of providing her with a home for three months at the very least. Even then, the revolution was delayed; for Horace had gone abroad in the autumn. But with every month that Edith remained in power she loved power more; and in her heart she had been considering how, without scandal to the world, or annoyance to Horace, or offence to Lucia, she could put her rival delicately aside. She had long been on the look-out for easy posts for Lucia, for posts in rich and aristocratic families in the provinces, or better still for ladies in want of charming travelling companions. But now, better, a thousand times better, that Edith should have been forced to abdicate than that Lucia should have taken herself out of the way in this fashion; a fashion so hideously suggestive of social suicide; that she should be living within four miles of her fastidious and refined relations in a fifth-rate boarding-house inhabitated by goodness knows whom. If only that had been all! Of course it was intolerable to think of Lucia mixing with the sort of people whom nobody but Goodness ever does know; but, after all, she wouldn't mix with them; she hadn't had time to; and if instantly removed from the place of contamination she might yet be presented to society again without spot or taint. But it was not all. Out of the many hundred base abodes of Bloomsbury Lucia had picked out the one house she ought to have avoided, the one address which for five years her cousin Horace had been endeavouring to conceal from her; it being the address of the one disreputable, the one impossible person of his acquaintance. Rickman had appeared, as strange people sometimes did, at Edith's court; an appearance easily explained and justified by the fact that he was a genius of whom Horace Jewdwine hoped great things. But he had never been suffered in that salon when Lucia had been there. Horace had taken untold pains, he had even lied frequently and elaborately, to prevent Lucia's encountering, were it only by accident, that one impossible person; and here she was living, actually living in the same house with him. Even if Rickman could be trusted to efface himself (which wasn't very likely; for if there is anything more irrepressible than a cockney vulgarian it is a poet; and Rickman was both!), could they, could anybody trust Lucia and her idiotic impulse to be kind? To be kind at any cost. She never calculated the cost of anything; which was another irritating reflection for Miss Jewdwine. Poor as she was, she thought nothing of paying twenty-five or thirty shillings for her board and a miserable lodging, when she might--she ought--to have been living with her relations free of all expense. But there was the sting, the unspeakable sting; for it meant that Lucia would do anything, pay anything, rather than stop another week in Hampstead. And Edith knew that it was she who had made Lucia feel like that; she who had driven her to this deplorable step. Not by anything done, or said, or even implied; but by things not done, things not said, things darkly or passionately thought. For Lucia, with her terrible gift of intuition, must somehow have known all the time what Edith hardly knew, what at least she would never have recognized if she had not observed the effect on Lucia. Edith had no patience with people who were so abominably sensitive. It was all nerves, nerves, nerves. Lucia was and always had been hopelessly neurotic. And if people were to be shaken and upset by every passing current of another person's thought, it was, Edith said to herself a little pathetically, rather hard upon the other person. Nobody can help their thoughts; and there was something positively indecent in the uncanny insight that divined them. All the same, Edith, confronted with the consequences of these movements of the unfettered brain, was stung with compunction and considerable shame. Horace would be furious when he knew; more furious with Edith than Lucia. Therefore Edith was furious with Sophia Roots, the cause of this disaster, who must have known that even if Lucia was too weak-minded to refuse her most improper invitation, that invitation ought never to have been given. Edith had her pride, the pride of all the Jewdwines and the Hardens; and her private grievances gave way before a family catastrophe. She did not want Lucia at Hampstead; but at all cost to herself Lucia must be brought back to her cousin's house before anybody knew that she had ever left it. It was even better that Horace should marry her than that they should risk the scandal of a mesalliance, or even-a passing acquaintance with a man like Rickman. She would go and fetch Lucia now, this very evening. She went as fast as a hansom could take her, and was shown up into Rickman's room where she had the good luck to find Lucia alone. Lucia was too tired to go out very much; and at that moment of her cousin's entrance she was resting on Mr. Rickman's sofa. As the poor poet had been so careful to remove the more telling tokens of his occupation, Edith did not see that it was Mr. Rickman's room; and she was a little surprised to find Sophia Roots so comfortably, not to say luxuriously lodged. She lost no time in delivering her soul, lest Sophia should pop in upon them. "Lu-_chee_-a," she said with emphasis, "I think you ought to have told me." "Told you what?" "Why, that you hadn't anywhere to go to, instead of coming here." "But I didn't come here because I hadn't anywhere to go to. I came because I wanted to see something of Sophie after all these years." "You could have seen Sophie at Hampstead. I would have asked her to stay with you if I'd known you wanted her." "That would have been very nice of you. But I'm afraid she wouldn't have come. You see she can't leave her work at the Museum--ever, poor thing." "Oh. Then you don't see so much of Sophie after all?" "Not as much as I should like. But I must be somewhere; and I'm perfectly happy here." As she rose to make tea for Edith (at the poet's table, and with the poet's brass kettle), she looked, to Edith's critical eyes, most suspiciously at home. Edith's eyes, alert for literature, roamed over the bookcases before they settled on the tea-pot (the poet's tea-pot); but it was the tea-pot that brought her to her point. Did Lucia mix with the other boarders after all? "This isn't a bad room," she said. "I suppose you have all your meals up here?" "Only tea and breakfast." "But, my dear girl, where do you lunch and dine?" "Downstairs, in the dining-room." "With all the other boarders?" Lucia smiled. "Yes, all of them. You see we can't very well turn any of them out." "Really, Lucia, before you do things like this you might stop to consider how your friends must feel about it." "Why should they feel anything? It's all right, Edith, really it is." "Right for you to take your meals with these dreadful people? You can't say they're not dreadful, Lucia; for they are." "They're not half so dreadful as you might suppose. In fact you've no idea how nice they can be, some of them. Indeed I don't know one of them that isn't kind and considerate and polite in some way. Yes, polite. They're all inconceivably polite. And do you know, they all want me to stay on; and I've half a mind to stay." "Oh, no, my dear, you're not going to stay. I've come to carry you off the very minute we've finished tea. Sophia should have known better than to bring you here." "Poor little Sophie. If she can stand it, I might." "That doesn't follow at all. And if you can stand it, your relations can't. So make up your mind that you're going back with me." "It's extremely kind of you; but I should hurt Sophie's feelings terribly if I went. Why should I go?" "Because it isn't a fit place for you to be in. To begin with, I don't suppose they feed you properly." "You can't say I look the worse for it." No, certainly she couldn't; for Lucia looked better than she had done for many months. In the fine air of Hampstead she had been white and languid and depressed; here in Bloomsbury she had a faint colour, and in spite of her fatigue, looked almost vigorous. What was more, her face bore out her own account of herself. She had said she was perfectly happy, and she looked it. A horrible idea occurred to Edith. But she did not mean to speak of Rickman till she had got Lucia safe at Hampstead. "Besides," said Lucia simply, "I'm staying for the best of all possible reasons; because I want to." "Well, if it's pleasant for you, you forget that it's anything but pleasant for Horace and me. Horace--if you care what he thinks--would be exceedingly annoyed if he knew about it." "Isn't he just a little unreasonable?" "He is not. Is it nice for him to know that you prefer living with these people to staying in his house?" "What would he say if he knew that one of these people lent us this room?" The words and the smile that accompanied them challenged Edith to speak; and speak she must. But she could not bring herself to utter the abominable name. "And was that on Sophie's account or yours?" "On both our accounts; and it was beautifully done." "Oh, if it was done beautifully there's no doubt on whose account it was done. I should have thought you were the last person, Lucia, to put yourself under such an obligation." "There was no obligation. It was kinder to Mr. Rickman to take his room than refuse it, that was all." Lucia had no difficulty whatever in bringing out the name. And that, if Edith's perceptions had not been dulled by horror, would have struck her as a favourable sign. "Young Rickman!" Edith's astonishment was a master stroke in all that it ignored and in all that it implied of the impossibility of that person. "Your notions of kindness are more than I can understand. Whatever possessed you to take his room? If he'd offered it fifty times!" "But it wasn't wanted." Edith relaxed the tension of her indignant body and sank back in her chair (or rather, Mr. Rickman's chair) with an immense relief. "You mean he isn't in the house at present?" "Oh yes, he's in the house, I'm glad to say. Neither Sophie nor I could stand very much of the house without him." That admission, instead of rousing Edith to renewed indignation, appeared to crush her. "Lucia," she murmured, "you are hopeless." Another cup of tea, however, revived the spirit of remonstrance. "I know you don't see it, Lucia, but you are laying yourself under an obligation of the worst sort; the sort that puts a woman more than anything in a man's power." Lucia ignored the baser implication (so like Lucia). "I'm under so many obligations to Mr. Rickman already, that one more hardly counts." She hastened to appease the dumb distress now visible on her cousin's face. "I don't mean money obligations; though there's that, too--Horace knows all about it. I don't know if I can explain--" She laid her hands in her lap and looked at Edith and beyond her, with liquid and untroubled eyes; not seeing her, but seeing things very far off, invisible from Edith's point of view; which things she must endeavour, if possible, to make her see. "The kind of obligations I mean are so difficult to describe, because there's nothing to take hold of. Only, when you've once made a man believe in you and trust you, so that he comes to you ever afterwards expecting nothing but wonderful discernment, and irreproachable tact, and--and an almost impalpable delicacy of treatment, and you know that you failed in all these things just when he needed them most, you do feel some obligations. There's the obligation to make up for your blunders; the obligation to think about him in a certain way because no other way does justice to his idea of you; the obligation to show him the same consideration he showed to you; the obligation to take a simple kindness from him as he would have taken it from you--" "My _dear_ Lucia, you forget that a man may accept many things from a woman that she cannot possibly accept from him." "Yes, but they are quite another set of things. They don't come into it at all. That's where you make the mistake, Edith. I've got--for my own sake--to behave to that man as finely as he behaved to me. I owe him a sort of spiritual redress. I always shall owe it him; but I'm doing something towards it now." She said to herself, "I am a fool to try to explain it to her. She'll never understand. I wish Kitty were here. She would have understood in a minute." Edith did not understand. She thought that Lucia's perceptions in this matter were blunt, when they were only superlatively fine. "All this," said she, "implies an amount of intimacy that I was not aware of." "Intimacy? Yes, I suppose it _is_ intimacy, of a sort." "And how it could have happened with a man like that--" "A man like what?" "Well, my dear girl, a man that Horace wouldn't dream of allowing you to meet, even in his own house." "Horace? You talk about my being under an obligation. It was he who helped to put me under it." "And how?" "By never delivering one of my messages to him; by letting him believe that I behaved horribly to him; that I sent him away and never gave him a thought--when he had been so magnificent. There were a thousand things I wanted to explain and set right; and I asked Horace for an opportunity and he never gave it me. He can't blame me if I take it now." "If Horace did all these things, he did them for the best possible reasons. He knows rather more of this young man than you do, or could have any idea of. I don't know what he is now, but he was, at one time, thoroughly disreputable." "Whatever _did_ he do?" "Do? He did everything. He drank; he ran after the worst sort of women--he mixes now with the lowest class of journalists in town; he lived for months, Horace says, with a horrid little actress in the next house to this." Lucia's face quivered like a pale flame. "I don't believe it. I don't believe it for a moment." "It's absurd to say you don't believe what everybody knows, and what anybody here can tell you." "I never heard a word against him here. Ask Sophie She's known him for five years. Besides, _I_ know him. That's enough." "Lucy, when you once get hold of an idea you're blind to everything outside it." "I take after my family in that. But no, I'm not blind. He may have gone wrong once, at some time--but never, no, I'm sure of it, since I knew him." "Still, when a man has once lived that sort of life, the coarseness must remain." "Coarseness? There isn't any refinement, any gentleness he isn't capable of. He's fine through and through. Stay and meet him, Edith, and see for yourself." "I _have_ met him." "And yet you can't see?" "I've seen all I want to see." "Don't, Edith--" There was a sound of feet running swiftly up the stair; the door of the adjoining room opened and shut, and a man's voice was heard singing. These sounds conveyed to Edith a frightful sense of the nearness and intimacy of the young man, and of the horror of Lucia's position. As she listened she held her cousin by her two hands in a dumb agony of entreaty. "Horace is coming back," she whispered. "No, Edith, it's no good. I'm going to stay till Kitty takes me." Edith wondered whether, after all, Lucia was so very fastidious and refined; whether, indeed, in taking after her family, she did not take after the least estimable of the Hardens. There was a wild strain in them; their women had been known to do queer things, unaccountable, disagreeable, disreputable things; and Lucia was Sir Frederick's daughter. Somehow that young voice singing in the next room rubbed this impression into her. She stiffened and drew back. "And am I to tell Horace, then, that you are happy here?" "Yes. Tell him to come and see how happy I am." "Very well." As Edith opened the door to go, the voice in the next room stopped singing, and the young man became suddenly very still. CHAPTER LVII Lucia lay back in her chair, wondering, not at Edith, but at herself. Her cousin's visit had been so far effectual that it had made her aware of the attitude of her own mind. If she had been told beforehand that she could be happy in a Bloomsbury boarding-house, or within any reasonable distance of such people as Miss Bishop and Mr. Soper, the thing would have appeared to her absurd. And yet it was so. She was happy among these dreadful people, as she had not been happy at Hampstead among the cultured and refined. But when she came to examine into the nature of this happiness she found that it contained no positive element; that it consisted mainly of relief, relief from the strain of an incessant anxiety and uncertainty. That the strain had been divided between her and Horace had only made it worse, for she had had the larger share of the anxiety, he of the uncertainty. Not that he was more uncertain than in the old days at Harmouth. He was less so. But she had never been anxious then. For after all they had understood each other; and apparently it was the understanding now that failed. Yet Horace had been right when he told himself that Lucia would never imply anything, infer anything, claim anything, take anything for granted on the sanction of that understanding. She would not have hurried by a look or word the slow movements of the love which somehow he had led her to believe in. Love between man and woman to her mind was a sort of genius; and genius, as she said long ago to poor Rickman, must always have about it a divine uncertainty. Yes, love too was the wind of the divine spirit blowing where it listeth, the kindling of the divine fire. She had waited for it patiently, reverently, not altogether humbly, but with a superb possession of her soul. Better to wait for years than rush to meet it, and so be tossed by the wind and shrivelled by the fire. Then, when the crash came five years ago, though she could hardly conceive it as altering her cousin's attitude, she knew that it must alter hers. The understanding had been partly a family affair; and her side of the family was now involved in debt and poverty and dishonour. When the debts were paid off, and the poverty reduced and the honour redeemed, it would be time to re-consider the understanding. But, as it was just possible that Horace, if not exactly fascinated by her debts and all the rest of it, might feel that these very things bound him, challenged him in some sort to protection, Lucia withdrew herself from the reach of the chivalrous delivering arm. She took her stand, not quite outside the circle of the cousinly relation, but on the uttermost fringe and verge of it, where she entered more and more into her own possession. They met; they wrote long letters to each other all about art and literature and philosophy, those ancient unimpassioned themes; for, if Lucia assumed nothing herself she allowed Horace to assume that whatever interested him must necessarily interest her. In short, perceiving the horrible situation in which poor Horace had been left by that premature understanding, she did everything she could to help him out of it. And she succeeded beyond her own or Horace's expectation. After three years' hard work, when all the debts were paid, and she was independent, Lucia thought she might now trust herself to stay with Horace in his house at Hampstead. She had stayed there already with Edith when Horace was away, but that was different. And at first all was well; that is to say, there was no anxiety and no uncertainty. The calm and successful critic of _The Museion_ knew his own mind; and Lucia said to herself that she knew hers. The understanding between them was perfect now. They were simply first cousins; each was the other's best friend; and they could never be anything else. She stood very much nearer to the heart of the circle, in a place where it was warm and comfortable and safe. If Horace could only have let her stay there, all would have been well still. But a mature Lucia, a Lucia entirely self-possessed, calm and successful, too, in her lesser way; a Lucia without any drawbacks, and almost to his mind as uncertain as himself; a Lucia who might be carried off any day before his eyes by some one of the many brilliant young men whom it was impossible not to introduce to her, proved fatally disturbing to Horace Jewdwine. And it was then that the anxiety and uncertainty began. They were at their height in the sixth year, when Lucia broke down and came to Hampstead to recover. Fate (not Lucia, of course; you could not think such things about Lucia) seemed anxious to precipitate matters, and Jewdwine in his soul abhorred precipitancy. Edith, too, was secretly alarmed, and Lucia could read secrets. But it was to avoid both a grossly pathetic appeal to the emotions and an appearance of collusion with the intrigues of Fate that Lucia had feigned recovery and betaken herself to Sophie in Tavistock Place, before, and (this was subtlety again), well before the return of Horace from his holiday. And if the awful reflection visited her that this step might prove to be a more importunate appeal than any, to be a positive forcing of his hand, Edith had dissipated it by showing very plainly that the appeal was to their pride and not their pity. Lucia did not consider herself by any means an object of pity. She was happy. The absence of intolerable tension was enough to make her so. As for the society she was thrown with, after the wear of incessant subtleties and uncertainties there was something positively soothing in straightforward uninspired vulgarity. These people knew their own minds, if their minds were not worth knowing; and that was something. It seemed to her that her own mind was growing healthier every day; till, by the time Edith visited her, there was no need to feign recovery, for recovery had come. And with it had come many benign and salutary things; the old delicious joy of giving pleasure; a new sense of the redeeming and atoning pathos of the world; all manner of sweet compunctions and tender tolerances; the divine chance, she told herself, for all the charities in which she might have failed. There had come Sophie. And there had come, at last, in spite of everything, Keith Rickman. As for Keith Rickman, her interest in him was not only a strong personal matter, but it had been part of the cool intellectual game she had played, for Horace's distraction and her own deception; a game which Horace, with his subterfuges and suppressions, had not played fair. But when, seeking to excuse him, she began to consider the possible motives of her cousin's behaviour, Lucia was profoundly disturbed. It had come to this: if Horace had cared for her he might have had a right to interfere. But he did not care. Therefore, no interference, she vowed, should come between her and her friendship for the poet who had honoured her by trusting her. She could not help feeling a little bitter with Horace for the harm he had done her, or rather, might have done her in Keith Rickman's eyes. For all that she had now to make amends. CHAPTER LVIII Meanwhile the Beaver, like a sensible Beaver, went on calmly furnishing her house. She thoroughly approved of Keith's acquaintance with Miss Harden, as she approved of everything that gave importance to the man she was going to marry. If she had not yet given a thought to his work, except as a way (rather more uncertain and unsatisfactory than most ways) of making money, she thought a great deal of the consideration it brought him with that lady. She was prouder of Keith now than she ever had been before. But the Beaver was before all things a practical person; and she had perceived further that for Keith to make up to people like Miss Harden was one of the surest and quickest means of getting on. Hitherto she had been both distressed and annoyed by his backwardness in making up to anybody. And when Keith told her that he wanted to pay some attention to his editor's cousin, if she was a little surprised at this unusual display of smartness (for when had Keith been known to pay attention to any editors, let alone their cousins?), she accepted the explanation as entirely natural. She was wide awake now to the importance of _Metropolis_ and Mr. Jewdwine. By all means, then, let him cultivate Mr. Jewdwine's cousin. And if there had been no Mr. Jewdwine in the case, Flossie would still have smiled on the acquaintance; for it meant social advancement, a step nearer Kensington. So nobody was more delighted than Flossie when Miss Harden invited Keith to tea in her own room, especially as she was always included in the invitation. It was Miss Bishop, primed with all the resources of her science, who looked upon these advances with alarm. It struck Miss Bishop that Miss Harden and Mr. Rickman were going it pretty strong. She wouldn't have liked those goings on if she'd been Flossie. You might take it from her that gentlemen never knew their own minds when there were two to choose from; and Miss Bishop hadn't a doubt that it was a toss-up between Flossie and Miss Harden. Miss Harden would be willing enough; anybody could see that. Ladies don't keep on asking gentlemen to have tea with them alone in their rooms if they're not up to something. It was not only Miss Bishop's fatal science that led her to these conclusions, but the still more fatal prescience of love. When Flossie was once securely married to Mr. Rickman the heart of Spinks would turn to her for consolation, that she knew. It was a matter of common experience that gentlemen's hearts were thus caught on the rebound. But if that Miss Harden carried off Rickman, there would be nothing left for Flossie but to marry Spinks, for the preservation of her trousseau and her dignity. Therefore Miss Bishop was more than ever set on Flossie's marrying Mr. Rickman. They were turning over the trousseau, the trousseau which might play such a disastrous part in the final adjustment of Flossie's mind. "Your dresses are orfully smart and that," said Ada; "and yet somehow they don't seem to do you justice. It would have been worth your while to go to a tip-top dressmaker, my dear. You'd have a better chance than that Miss Harden any day. No, I don't like you in that powder blue; I don't, really." Miss Bishop was nothing if not frank. "I never go wrong about a colour," said Flossie passionately. "No. It isn't the colour. It's the cut. It makes her look as if she 'ad a better figure than you; and that's nonsense. You've got a bust, and she hasn't. Gentlemen don't care to look at a girl who's as flat as two boards back and front. That's what I say, it's the cut that gives her her style." "No, it isn't. It isn't her clothes at all; it's the way she carries them. She may look as if she was well dressed; but she isn't." "Anyhow I like that coat of hers better than yours." "It hasn't got the new sleeves," said Flossie, fondling her powder-blue. It was this immobile complacency of hers in the face of his own profound and sundering agitations that stirred in Rickman the first stinging of remorse. For he could see that the poor Beaver, with her blind and ineradicable instinct, was going on building--you couldn't call them castles in the air--but houses such as Beavers build, houses of mud in running water. Her ceaseless winding in and out of shops, her mad and furious buying of furniture, her wild grasping at any loose articles that came in her way, from rugs to rolling-pins, appeared to him as so many futile efforts to construct a dam. Over and over again the insane impulse came on him to seize her little hands and stop her; to tell her that it was no good, that the absurd thing could never stand, that he alone knew the strength of the stream, its sources and its currents. But he hadn't the heart to tell her, and the Beaver went on constructing her dam, without knowing that it was a dam, because she was born with the passion thus to build. She could not see that anything had happened, and Heaven forbid that he should let her see. He might abandon hope, but the Beaver he could not abandon. That was not to be thought of for an instant. He was too deeply pledged for that. Lest he should be in danger of forgetting, it was brought home to him a dozen times a day. The very moment when Flossie was making that triumphant display of her wedding finery he had caught a glimpse of her (iniquitously) as he passed her room on his way to Spinks's. She was standing, a jubilant little figure, in the line of the half-open door, shaking out and trailing before her some white, shiny, frilly thing, the sight of which made him shudder for the terror, and sigh for the pity of it. And the girls' laughter and the banging of the door as he went by, what was it but a reminder of the proprieties and decencies that bound him? A hint that he had pledged himself thrice over by that unlawful peep? It seemed to him that was the beginning of many unlawful glimpses, discoveries of things he ought never to have seen. Was it that he was more quick to see? Or that Flossie was less careful than she had been? Or was it simply the result of living in this detestable boarding-house, where, morally speaking, the doors were never shut? Propinquity, that had brought them together, had done its best for Flossie and its worst. It had revealed too little and too much. He had only to forget her for a week, to come back and see her as she really was; to wonder what he had ever seen in her. Her very prettiness offended him. Her flagrantly feminine contours, once admired, now struck him as exaggerated, as an emphasis of the charm which is most subduing when subdued. As for her mind, good Heavens! Had it taken him five years to discover that her mind was a _cul de sac_? When he came to think of it, he had to own that intellectually, conversationally even, he had advanced no farther with her than on the first day of their acquaintance. There was something compact and immovable about Flossie. In those five years he had never known her change or modify an opinion of people or of things. And yet Flossie was not stupid, or if she were her stupidity was a force; it had an invincible impetus and sweep, dragging the dead weight of character behind it. It was beginning to terrify him. In fact he was becoming painfully sensitive to everything she said or did. Her little tongue was neither sharp nor hard, and yet it hurt him every time it spoke. It did not always speak good grammar. Sometimes, in moments of flurry or excitement, an aspirate miscarried. Happily those moments were rare; for at bottom Flossie's temperament was singularly calm. Remembering his own past lapses, he felt that he was the last person to throw a stone at her; but that reflection did not prevent a shudder from going down his back every time it happened. And if her speech remained irreproachable, the offending strain ran through all her movements. He disliked the way she walked, and the way she sat down, the way she spread her skirts or gathered them, the way she carried her body and turned her head, the way her black eyes provoked a stare and then resented it, her changes of posture under observation, the perpetual movement of her hands that were always settling and resettling her hat, her hair, her veil; all the blushings and bridlings, the pruderies and impertinences of the pretty woman of her class, he disliked them all. He more than disliked, he distrusted her air of over-strained propriety. He detected in it the first note of falseness in her character. In a thousand little things her instincts, her perceptions were at fault. This was disagreeably borne in upon him that first Saturday after Lucia's arrival, when he and Flossie were in the train going down to Ealing. The compartment was packed with City men (how he wished Flossie would turn her head and not her eyes if she must look at them!); and as they got in at Earl's Court, one of them, a polite person, gave up his seat to the lady. Flossie turned an unseeing eye on the polite person, and took his seat with a superb pretence of having found it herself after much search. And when Rickman said "Thanks" to the polite person her indignant glance informed him that she had expected support in her policy of repudiation. "My dear Beaver," he said as he helped her on to the platform at Ealing, "when you take another person's seat the least you can do is to say Thank you." "I _never_ speak to gentlemen in trains and buses. That's the way they always begin." "Good Heavens, the poor man was only being civil." "Thank you. I've gone about enough to know what 'is kind of civility means. I wasn't going to lay myself open to impertinence." "I should have thought you'd gone about enough to know the difference." Flossie said nothing. She was furious with him for his failure to defend her from the insulting advances of the City gentleman. But perhaps she would hardly have taken it so seriously, if it had not been significant to her of a still more intolerable desertion. Ada Bishop had said something to her just before they started, something that had been almost too much even for Flossie's complacency. "I'm glad," she still heard Ada saying, "you're going to take him out all day. If I were you I shouldn't let him see too much of that Miss Harden." There hadn't been much to take hold of in Ada's words, but Ada's manner had made them unmistakable; and from that moment a little worm had begun to gnaw at Flossie's heart. And he, as he looked at her with that strange new sight of his that was already bringing sorrow to them both, he said to himself that he supposed it was her "going about," her sad acquaintance with unlovely manners, that had made her as she was. Only how was it that he had never noticed it before? Poor little girl; it was only last Saturday when they had come back from looking over the house at Ealing that, drawing upon all the appropriate resources of natural history, he had called her a little vesper Vole, because she lived in a Bank and only came out of it in the evening. What Flossie called him that time didn't matter; it was her parsimony in the item of endearments that provoked him to excesses of the kind. And now the thought of those things made him furious; furious with himself; furious with Fate for throwing Flossie in his way; furious with Flossie for being there. And when he was ready to damn her because she was a woman, he melted, and could have wept because she was a Beaver. Poor little girl; one day to be called a vesper Vole, the next to be forgotten altogether, the next to be remembered after this fashion. And so they went on silently together, Flossie in pain because of the little worm gnawing at her heart, he thinking many things, sad and bitter and tender things, of the woman walking by his side. From time to time she looked at him as she had looked at those City gentlemen, not turning her head, but slewing the large dark of her eye into its corner. Presently she spoke. "You don't seem to have very much to say for yourself to-day." "To-day? I'm not given to talking very much at any time." "Oh, come, you don't seem to have any difficulty in talking to Miss Harden. I've heard you. Wot a time you did sit yesterday. And you were up there an hour or more before I came, I know." "Three quarters of an hour, to be strictly accurate." "Well, that was long enough, wasn't it?" "Quite long enough for all I had to say." Now that was playing into Flossie's hands, for it meant that he had had nothing to say after her arrival. And she was sharp enough to see it. "That's all very well, Keith," said she, apparently ignoring her advantage, "but Ada says they'll be talking if she keeps on asking you up there just when she's all by herself. It's not the thing to do. I wouldn't do it if it was me, no more would Ada." "My dear child, Miss Harden may do a great many things that you and Ada mayn't. Because, you see, she knows how to do them and you don't." "Oh well, if you're satisfied. But it isn't very nice for me to 'ave you talked about, just when we're going to be married, is it?" "I think you needn't mind Ada. Miss Harden knows that I _have_ to see her sometimes, and that I can't very well see her in any other way. And I think you might know it too." "Oh, don't you go thinking I'm jealous. I know _you're_ all right." "If I'm all right, who's wrong?" "Well--of course I understand what you want with _her_; but I can't see what she wants with you." "You _little_ fool. What should she want, except to help me?" Flossie said nothing to that, for indeed her mind had not formulated any clear charge against Miss Harden. Keith had annoyed her and she wanted to punish him a little. She was also curious to see in what manner the chivalry that had deserted her would defend Miss Harden. He stood still and looked at her with brilliant, angry eyes. "You don't understand a great deal, Flossie; but there's one thing you _shall_ understand--You are not to say these things about Miss Harden. Not that you'll do her any harm, mind, by saying them. Think for one minute who and what she is, and you'll see that the only person you are harming is yourself." Flossie did think for a minute, and remembered that Lucia was the daughter of a baronet and the cousin of an editor; and she did see that this time she had gone a bit too far. "And in injuring yourself, you know, you injure me," he said more gently. "I don't know whether that will appeal at all to you." It did appeal to her in the sense in which her practical mind understood that injury. "Do you really think she'll be able to help you to a good thing?" He laughed aloud. "I think she'll help me to many good things. She has done that already. "Oh, well then, I suppose it's all right." Though he said it was all right he knew that it was all wrong; that she was all wrong too. He wondered again how it was that he had never noticed it before. It seemed to him now that he must always have seen it, and that he had struggled not to see it, as he was struggling now. Struggle as he would, he knew that he was only putting off the inevitable surrender. Putting off the moment that must face him yet, at some turning of the stair or opening of a door, as they went from room to room of the house that, empty, had once seemed to him desirable, and now, littered with the solid irrevocable results of Flossie's furnishing, inspired him with detestation and despair. How could he ever live in it? He and his dream, the dream that Lucia had told him was divorced from reality? She had told him too that his trouble all lay there, and he remembered that then as now she had advised a reconciliation. But better a divorce than reconciliation with any of the realities that faced him now. Better even illusion than these infallible perceptions. Better to be decently, charitably blind where women are concerned, than to see them so; to see poor Flossie as she was, a reality divorced from any dream. A foolish train of thought that. As if he were only a dreamer. As if it were a dream that had to do with it. As if his dream had not long ago loved, followed, and embraced a divine reality. As if it had ever fallen away after that one superb act of reconciliation. He had done poor Flossie some injustice. She suffered in his eyes because she came short, not of the dream, but of the reality. To be placed beside Lucia Harden would have been a severe test for any woman; but for Flossie it was cruelty itself. He had never subjected her to that, not even in thought; for he felt that the comparison, cruel to one woman, was profanation to the other. It was only feminine Fate who could be so unkind as to put those two side by side, that he might look well, and measure his love for Flossie by his love for Lucia, seeing it too as it was. Maddox had not been far wrong there. For anything spiritual in that emotion, he might as well have gone back to Poppy Grace. Better; since between him and Flossie that gross tie, once formed, could not be broken. Better; since there had at least been no hypocrisy in his relations with the joyous Poppy. Better anything than this baseness skulking under the superstition of morality. If a man has no other feeling for an innocent woman than that, better that a mill-stone should be hanged about his neck than that he should offend by marrying her. And yet there had been something finer and purer in this later love than in the first infatuation of his youth. On that day, seven days ago, the last day it had to live, he had been touched by something more sacred, more immortal than desire. There had been no illusion in the poetry that clothed the figure of a woman standing in an empty room, dearer to her than the bridal chamber; a woman whose face grew soft as her instinct outran the bridal terror and the bridal joy, divining beyond love the end that sanctifies it. But beyond all that again he could see that, whereas the love of all other women had torn him asunder, the love of Lucia made him whole. Poppy had drawn him by his senses; Flossie by his senses and his heart; Lucia held him by his senses, his heart, his intellect, his will, by his spirit, by his genius, by the whole man. Long after his senses had renounced their part in her, the rest of him would cling to her, satisfied and appeased. And but for Flossie it would have been so even now. Though his senses had rest in Lucia's presence, their longing for her was reawakened, not only by the thought of his approaching marriage, but by the memory of that one moment when he had realized the mystery of it, the moment of poor Flossie's transfiguration, when he had seen through the thick material veil, deep into the spiritual heart of love. With Lucia the veil had been transparent from the first. It was not with her as it was with those women who must wait for the hour of motherhood to glorify them. Of those two years of his betrothal what was there that he would care to keep? Only one immortal moment, that yet knew of the mortality before and after it. While of the last seven days Lucia had made a whole heavenly procession of ascending hours, every moment winged with the immortal fire. Flying moments; but flame touched flame in flying, and they became one life. But he was going to marry Flossie. And she, the child that was to have borne the burden of his genius and his passion, poor little blameless victim of the imagination that glorifies desire, how would it be with her in this empty house, empty of the love she had looked for and would never find? How would it be with him? Had he pledged himself to a life of falsehood, and had he yet to know what torment awaited him at the hands of the avenging truth? Truth, as he had once defined it, was the soul of the fact. It was the fact that he was going to marry Flossie; but it was not the truth. Only love could have given it a soul and made it true. If he was bound to maintain that it had a soul when it hadn't, that was where the falseness would come in. Yet no. He might go mad by thinking about it, but life after all was simpler than thought. Things righted themselves when you left off thinking about them. He would be unhappy; but that could only make Flossie unhappy if she cared for him. And in a year's time, when he had left off thinking, she would have left off caring. He had shrewdly divined that what Flossie chiefly wanted was to have children; or if she did not want it, Nature wanted it for her, which came to the same thing. As for mating her to a man of genius, that was just Nature's wanton extravagance. Maddox had once said that any man would have done as well, perhaps better; Flossie wouldn't care. Well, he would give her children, and she would care for them. Indeed, he sincerely hoped that for him she would not care. It would make things simpler. Maddox, he remembered, had also said that she was the sort of woman who would immolate her husband for her children; whereas Poppy--but then, Maddox was a beast. It never occurred for a moment to him to throw Flossie over. That, he had settled once for all, could not now be done. Circumstances conspired to make the thing irrevocable. Her utter dependence on him, the fact that she had no home but the one he offered her, no choice between marriage and earning her own living in a way she hated, the flagrant half-domestic intimacy in which they had been living, more than all, the baseness of his past love, and the inadequacy of his present feeling for her, both calling on him to atone, all these things made a promise of marriage as binding as the actual tie. Their engagement might possibly have been broken off at any of its earlier stages without profound dishonour. It was one thing to jilt a girl within a decent interval of the first congratulations; another thing altogether to abandon her with her trousseau on her hands. It had gone so far that his failure at the last moment would be the grossest insult he could offer her. Gross indeed; yet not so gross but that he could think of one still grosser--to let her marry him when he had no feeling to offer her but such indifference as marriage deepens to disgust, or such disgust as it tones down into indifference. Would he go on shuddering and wincing as he had shuddered and winced to-day? Passion that might have condoned her failings was out of the question; but would it be possible to keep up the decent appearance of respect? And yet he was going to marry her. That was impressed on him by Flossie's voice saying that if he wouldn't decide which of those two rooms was to be _their_ room, she must. Because the men wanted to put up the bedstead. It was an intimation that he was bound to her, not by any fine ties of feeling or of honour, but by a stout unbreakable chain of material facts. He looked out of the window. The vans were unloading in the street. It seemed to him that there was something almost grossly compromising in the wash-stand, dumped down there in the garden; and as the bedstead was being borne into the house in portions, reverentially, processionally, he surrendered before that supreme symbol of finality. As he had made his bed, he must lie; even if it was a brass bed with mother-o'-pearl ornaments; and he refused to listen to the inner voice which suggested that the bed was not made yet, it was not even paid for, and that he would be a fool to lie on it. He turned sad eyes on the little woman so flushed and eager over her packages. He had committed himself more deeply with every purchase they had made that day. How carefully he had laboured at his own destruction. He had gone so far with these absurd reflections, that when Flossie exclaimed, "There, after all I've forgotten the kitchen hammer," his nerves relaxed their tension, and he experienced a sense of momentary but divine release. And when she insisted on repairing her oversight as they went back, he felt that the kitchen hammer had clinched the matter; and that if only they had not bought it he might yet be free. There was something in the Beaver's building, after all. CHAPTER LIX He did not appear that evening, not even to listen to Lucia's music, for his misery was heavy upon him. Mercifully, he was able to forget it for a while in attending to the work that waited for him; an article for _The Planet_ to be written; proofs to correct and manuscripts to look through for _Metropolis_; all neglected till the last possible moment, which moment had now come. For once he reaped the benefit of his reckless habits of postponement. But four hours saw him through it; and midnight recalled him to his care. Instead of undressing he refilled his lamp, made up his fire, and drew his chair to the hearth. There was a question, put off, too, like his work, from hour to hour, and silenced by the scuffling, meaningless movements of the day. It related to the promise he had made to Lucia Harden at the end of their last interview. He had then said to her that, since she desired it, she should know what it was that she had done for him. Hitherto he had determined that she should not know it yet; not know it till death had removed from her his embarrassing, preposterous personality. The gift of knowledge that she might have refused from the man, she could then accept from the poet. The only condition that honour, that chivalry insisted on was the removal of the man. But there were other ways of getting rid of a man besides the clumsy device of death. Might he not be considered to have effaced himself sufficiently by marriage? As far as Lucia was concerned he could see very little difference between the two processes; in fact, marriage was, if anything, the safer. For the important thing was that she should know somehow; that he should hand over his gift to her before it was too late. And suppose--suppose he should fail to remove himself in time? Beholding the years as they now stretched before him, it seemed to him that he would never die. There was another consideration which concerned his honour, not as a man but as a poet. He knew what it was in him to do. The nature of the gift was such that if he brought it to her to-day she would know that he had given her his best; if he kept it till to-morrow it would be his best no longer. Besides, it was only a gift when you looked at it one way. He was giving her (as he believed) an immortal thing; but its very immortality gave it a certain material value. The thing might be sold for much, and its price might go far towards covering that debt he owed her, or it might be held by her as a sort of security. He could see that his marriage would be a hindrance to speedy payment on any other system. He rose, unlocked a drawer, and took from it the manuscript of the nine and twenty sonnets and the sealed envelope that contained his testament concerning them. He had looked at them but once since he had put them away three years ago, and that was on the night of his engagement. Looking at them again he knew he was not mistaken in his judgement, when calmly, surely, and persistently he had thought of the thing as immortal. But according to another condition that his honour had laid down, its immortality depended upon her. At this point honour itself raised the question whether it was fair to throw on her the burden of so great a decision? She might hesitate to deny him so large a part of his immortality, and yet object to being so intimately, so personally bound up with it. He could see her delicate conscience straining under the choice. But surely she knew him well enough to know that he had left her free? She would know that he could accept nothing from her pity, not even a portion of his immortality. She would trust his sincerity; for that at any rate had never failed her. And since what he had written he had written, she would see that unless he destroyed it with his own hands the decision as to publication must rest with her. It concerned her so intimately, so personally, that it could not be given to the world without her consent. Whether what he had written should have been written was another matter. If she thought not, if her refinement accused him of a sin against good taste, that would only make his problem simpler. Even if her accusation remained unspoken, he would know it, he would see it, through whatever web her tenderness wrapped round it. His genius would contend against her judgement, would not yield a point to her opinion, but his honour would take it as settling the question of publication. In no case should she be able to say or think that he had used his genius as a cover for a cowardly passion, or that by compelling her admiration he had taken advantage of her pride. But would she say it or think it? Not she. He knew her. And if his knowledge had brought much misery, it brought consolation too. Where Lucia was concerned he had never been sustained by any personal conceit; he had never walked vainly in the illusion of her love. At that supreme point his imagination had utterly broken down; he had never won from it a moment's respite from his intolerable lucidity. There was a certain dignity about his despair, in that of all the wonderful web of his dreams he had made no fine cloak to cover it. It shivered and suffered in a noble nakedness, absolutely unashamed. But one thing he knew also, that if Lucia did not love him, she loved his genius. Even when lucidity made suffering unendurable, he had still the assurance that his genius would never suffer at her hands. For did she not know that God gives the heart of a poet to be as fuel to his genius, for ever consumed and inconsumable? That of all his passions his love is the nearest akin to the divine fire? She of all women would never deny him the eternal right to utterance. Neither could she well find fault with the manner of it. He went through the sonnets again, trying to read them with her woman's eyes. There was nothing, nothing, not an image, not a word that could offend. Here was no "flaming orgy of individuality." He had chosen purposely the consecrated form that pledged him to perfection, bound him to a magnificent restraint. There still remained the scruple as to the propriety of choosing this precise moment for his gift. It was over-ridden by the invincible desire to give, the torturing curiosity to know how she would take it. One more last scruple, easily disposed of. In all this there was no disloyalty to the woman he was going to make his wife. For the Sonnets belonged to the past in which she had no part, and to the future which concerned her even less. The next day, then, at about five o'clock, the time at which Lucia had told him she would be free, he came to her, bringing his gift with him. Lucia's face gladdened when she saw the manuscript in his hand; for though they had discussed very freely what he had done once, he had been rather sadly silent, she thought, as to what he was doing now. He had seemed to her anxious to avoid any question on the subject. She had wondered whether his genius had been much affected by his other work; and had been half afraid to ask lest she should learn that it was dead, destroyed by journalism. She had heard so much of the perils of that career, that she had begun to regret her part in helping him to it. So that her glance as it lighted on the gift was, he thought, propitious. He drew up his chair near her (he had not to wait for any invitation to do that now), and she noticed the trembling of his hands as he spread the manuscript on his knees. He had always been nervous in approaching the subject of his poems, and she said to herself, "Has he not got over that?" Apparently he had not got over it; for he sat there for several perceptible moments sunk in the low chair beside her, saying nothing, only curling and uncurling the sheets with the same nervous movement of his hand. She came to his help smiling. "What is it? New poems?" "No, I don't think I can call them new. I wrote them four or five years ago." He saw that some of the gladness died out of her face, and he wondered why. "Were you going to read them to me?" "Good Heavens, no." He laughed the short laugh she had heard once or twice before that always sounded like a sob. "I don't want to read them to you. I want to give them to you--" "To read?" She held out her hand. "Yes, to read, of course, but not now." The hand was withdrawn, evidently with some distressing consciousness of its precipitancy. "You said the other night that you would have been glad to know that you had done something for me; and somehow I believe you meant it." "I did, indeed." "If you read these things you will know. There's no other way in which I could tell you; for you will see that they are part of what you did for me." "I don't understand." "You will, though, when you've read them. That," he said meditatively, "is why I don't want you to read them now." But then it struck him that he had blundered, introducing a passionate personal revelation under the dangerous veil of mystery. He had not meant to say, "What you have done for me was to make me love you," but, "I have done a great thing, and what you did for me was to make me do it." For all that she should know, or he acknowledge, the passion was the means, not the end. "I don't want to be cryptic, and perhaps I ought to explain a little. I meant that you'll see that they're the best things I've written, and that I should not have written them if it had not been for you. I don't know whether you'll forgive me for writing them, but I think you will. Because you'll understand that I had to." "Have you published any of them?" It seemed to him that the question was dictated by a sudden fear. "Rather not. I want to talk to you about that later on, when you've read them." "When will you want them back?" "I don't want them back at all. I brought them for you to keep." "To keep?" "Yes, if you care for them." "But this is the original manuscript?" She was most painfully aware of the value of the thing. He smiled. "Yes, I couldn't give you a copy, because there isn't one." "What a reckless person you are. I must make a copy, then, and keep that." "That would spoil my pleasure and my gift, too. It's only valuable because it's unique." "Whatever it is it's sure to be that." "I don't mean in that way altogether--" he hesitated, for he had touched a part of his subject which had to be handled gently; and he was aware that in handling it at all he was courting rejection of the gift. "And you are going to leave it with me now?" "Yes." She did not look up, but kept her eyes fixed on the sheets that lay in her lap, her hands lightly covering them. Was it possible that her finger-tips had caught the secret of the page beneath them and that their delicate nerves had already carried it to her brain? Was she considering what she was to do? "You will see that one page is left blank; I couldn't fill it up till I knew whether you would accept the dedication." "I?" She looked up. She was no doubt surprised; but he thought he could read something in her look that was deeper and sweeter than surprise. "If you could, it would give me great pleasure. It's the only acknowledgement I can make for all your kindness." "Please, please don't talk of my kindness." "I won't. If it were any other book, it might be merely a question of acknowledgement, but this book belongs to you." "Are you quite sure--" She was about to question his right to offer it, which was as good as questioning his honour, as good as assuming that--She paused, horrified as she realized what it was that she had almost assumed. Kitty had often told her that she erred through excess of subtlety. It wouldn't have mattered with anybody less subtle than Keith Rickman; but he would see it all. He did. "Quite sure that I oughtn't to offer it to anybody else? I am quite sure. It was written four years ago, before--before I knew anybody else. It has nothing to do with anybody else, it couldn't have been dedicated to anybody else. If you don't accept it--" "But I do." Her eagerness was the natural recoil from her hesitation. She was so anxious to atone for that shocking blunder she had made. "I say, how you do take things on trust." "Some things." "But you mustn't. You can't accept the dedication of a book you haven't read. Do you know, now I come to think of it, you've always taken me on trust? Do you remember when first I came to you--it's more than five years ago--you took me on trust then?" (Their talk had a way of running to this refrain of 'Do you remember?') "Do you remember how you said,' I must risk it'?" "Yes, I remember how I insisted on keeping you, and how very unwilling you were to be kept." "Do you mind telling me what made you want to keep me? You didn't know me in the least, you know." "I wanted to keep you _because_ you didn't want to stay. I knew then that I could trust you. But I confess that most people might not have seen it in that way." "Well, I can't let you take these sonnets on trust. For this time, your principle doesn't apply, you see. You can't say you're accepting this dedication because I don't want to give it to you." Though he laughed he rose and backed towards the door, suddenly anxious to be gone. "Isn't it enough that I want to accept it?" He shook his head, still backing, and at the door he paused to speak. "You've accepted nothing--as yet." "Of course," she said to herself, "it would have been wiser to have read them first. But I can trust him." But as she was about to read them a knock, a familiar knock at the door interrupted her. "Kitty!" She laid the manuscript hastily aside, well out of Kitty's roving sight. She had noticed how his hands had trembled as he brought it; she did not notice that her own shook a little in thus putting it away from her. Kitty Palliser, up in town for a week, had come less on her own account than as an impetuous ambassador from the now frantic Edith. She too was prepared to move heaven and earth, if only she could snatch her Lucy from Tavistock Place. But her anxiety was not wholly on Lucia's account, as presently appeared. "How can you stand it for a minute?" said she. "I'm standing it very well indeed." "But what on earth do you find to do all day long, when," said Kitty severely, "you're _not_ talking to young Rickman?" "All day long I go out, or lie down and read, or talk to Sophie." "And in the evenings?" "In the evenings sometimes I make an old man happy by playing." "And I expect you're making a young man unhappy by playing, too--a very dangerous game." "Kitty, that young man is perfectly happy. He's going to be married." "All the worse. Then you'll make a young woman unhappy as well. This little game would be dangerous enough with a man of your own set. It isn't fair to play it with him, Lucy, when you know the rules and he doesn't." "I assure you, Kitty, he knows them as well as you or I do; better." "I doubt it." Kitty's eyes roamed round the room (they had not lost their alert and hungry look) and they took in the situation at a glance. That move in the game would never have been made if he had known the rules. How could she let him make it? "Really, Lucy, for a nice woman you do the queerest things." "And, really, Kitty, for a clever woman, you say the stupidest. You're getting like Edith." "I am not like Edith. I only say stupid things. She thinks them. What's more, in thinking them she only thinks of herself and her precious family. I'm thinking of you, dear, and"--Kitty's voice grew soft--"and of him. You ought to think of him a little too." "I _do_ think of him. I've been thinking of him all the time." "I know you have. But don't let him suffer because of the insanely beautiful way you have of thinking." There was a pause, in which it was evident to Kitty that Lucia was thinking deeply, and beautifully too. "Have I made him suffer? I'm afraid I did once. He was valuable, and I damaged him." "Yes; and ever since you've been trying to put him together again; in your own way, not his. That's fatal." Lucia shook her head and followed her own train of thought. "Kitty, to be perfectly honest, I think--I'm not sure, but I think--from something he said to-day that you were right about him once. I mean about his beginning to care too much. I'm afraid it was so, at Harmouth, towards the end. But it isn't so any more. He tried to tell me just now. He did it beautifully; as if he knew that that would make me happier. At least I think that's what he meant. He didn't say much, but I'm sure he was thinking about his marriage." "Heaven help his wife then--if he got as far as that. I suppose you take a beautiful view of her, too? Drop it, for goodness' sake, drop it." "Not I. It would mean dropping him. It's all right, Kitty. You don't know the ways of poets." "Perhaps not. But I know the ways of men." Though Kitty had not accomplished her mission she so far prevailed that she carried her Lucy off to dinner. It was somewhere towards midnight, when all the house was quiet, that Lucia first looked into Keith Rickman's sonnets. She had been led to expect something in the nature of a personal revelation, and the first sonnet struck the key-note, gave her the clue. I asked the minist'ring priests who never tire In love's high service, who behold their bliss Through golden gloom of Love's dread mysteries, What heaven there be for earth's foregone desire? And they kept silence. But the gentle choir Who sing Love's praises answered me, "There is No voice to speak of these deep sanctities, For Love hath sealed his servants' lips with fire." Yet in his faithfulness put thou thy faith, Though he hath bound thee in the house of pain, And given thy body to the scourging years, And brought thee for thy thirst the drink of tears, That sorrowing thou shouldst serve him unto death; For when Love reigneth, all his saints shall reign. She kindled and flamed, her whole being one inspired and burning sympathy. She knew what it was all about. She was on the track of a Poet's Progress in quest of the beloved Perfection, Beauty and Truth in one. Of those nine and twenty sonnets she looked for a score that should make immortal the moments of triumph and of vision, the moments of rapture and fulfilment of the heart's desire. Her glance fell now on two lines that clearly pointed to the goal of those who travel on the divine way-- --Elysian calm and passion with no stain Of mortal tears, no touch of mortal pain-- She hoped he had reached it. And more than that she hoped. She was ignorant of what his life had been before he knew her; but the _Song of Confession_ had made her realize that besides this way where the poet went invincibly there was another where the man desired to go, where, as they were so ready to tell her, he had not always gone. But that was before she knew him. She hoped (taking her beautiful view) that in this gift of his he had meant to give to her who understood him some hint or sign that he had come near it also, the way of Righteousness. She looked to find many sonnets dealing with these secret matters of the soul. Therefore she approached them fearlessly, since she knew what they were all about. And since, in that curious humility of the man that went so oddly with the poet's pride, he had so exaggerated his obligation, taking, as he said, the will for the deed and making of her desire to serve him a service actually done; since his imagination had played round her for a moment as it played round all things, transforming, magnifying, glorifying, she might perhaps find one sonnet of dedication to her who had understood him. But when she had read them all, she saw, and could not help seeing, that the whole nine and twenty were one continuous dedication--and to her. If she had found what she looked for, she found also that a revelation had been made to her of things even more sacred, more personal; a revelation that was in its way unique. He had hidden nothing, kept back nothing, not one moment of that three-weeks' passion (for so she dated it). It was all laid before her as it had been; all its immortal splendour, and all its mortal suffering and its shame. Not a line (if she could have stayed to think of that), not a word that could offend her taste or hurt her pride. The thing was perfect. She understood why it had been shown to her. She understood that he wanted to tell her that he had loved her. She understood that he never would have told her if it had not been all over. It was because it was all over that he had brought her this, to show her how great a thing she had done for him, she who thought she had done nothing. As she locked the sonnets away in a safe place for the night, in her heart there was a great pride and a still greater thankfulness and joy. Joy because it was all over, pride because it had once been, and thankfulness because it had been given her to know. And in his room behind the wall that separated them the poet walked up and down, tortured by suspense; and said to himself over and over again, "I wonder how she'll take it." CHAPTER LX That was on a Thursday. It had been arranged earlier in the week that Flossie and he were to dine with Lucia on Friday evening. On Saturday and Sunday the Beaver would be let loose, and would claim him for her own. He could not hope to see Lucia alone before Monday evening; his suspense, then, would have to endure for the better part of four days. He had nothing to hope for from Friday evening. Lucia's manner was too perfect to afford any clue as to how she had taken it. If she were offended she would hardly let him see it before Flossie and Miss Roots. If she accepted, there again the occasion forbade her to give any sign to one of her guests that should exclude the other two. Still, it was just possible that he might gather something from her silence. But as it happened, he had not even that to go upon. Never had Lucia been less silent than on Friday night. Not that she talked more than usual, but that all her looks, all her gestures spoke. They spoke of her pleasure in the happiness of her friend; of tenderness to the little woman whom he loved (so little and he so great); of love that embraced them both, the great and the little, a large, understanding love that was light and warmth in one. For Lucia believed firmly that she understood. She had always desired him to be happy, to be reconciled to the beautiful and glorious world; she had tried to bring about that reconciliation; and she conceived herself to have failed. And now because the thing had been done so beautifully, so perfectly (if a little unexpectedly), by somebody else, because she was relieved of all anxiety and responsibility, Lucia was rejoicing with all her heart. He had not been five minutes in the room before he saw it all. Lucia believed that it was all over, and was letting herself go, carried away by the spectacle of a supreme and triumphal happiness. She triumphed too. Her eyes when they looked at him seemed to be saying, "Didn't I tell you so?" He saw why they had been asked to dinner. The spirit of the bridal hour was upon her, and she had made a little feast to celebrate it. Like everything she did, it was simple and beautiful and exquisite of its kind. And yet it was not with that immaculate white linen cloth, spread on Keith's writing-table, strewn with slender green foliage and set out with delicate food and fruit and wine, nor with those white flowers, nor with those six shaded candles, that she had worked the joyous tender charm. These things, in her hands and in his eyes, became sacramental, symbolic of Lucia's soul with its pure thoughts and beautiful beliefs, its inspired and burning charities. And the hero of this feast of happiness sat at her right hand, facing his little bride-elect, a miserable man consumed with anguish and remorse. He had never had so painful a sense of the pathos of his Beaver. For if anybody was happy it was she. Flossie was aware that it was her hour, and that high honour was being paid to her. Moreover, he could see for the moment that the worm had ceased to gnaw, and that she had become the almost affectionate thrall of the lady whose motto was _Invictus_. She had been forced (poor little girl) to anticipate her trousseau in order to attire herself fitly for the occasion, and was looking remarkably pretty in her way. She sat very upright, and all her demeanour was irreproachably modest, quiet and demure. Nothing could have been more correct than her smile, frequent, but so diminutive that it just lifted her upper lip and no more. No insight, no foreboding troubled her. Her face, soft and golden white in the candlelight, expressed a shy and delicate content. For Flossie was a little materialist through and through. Her smooth and over feminine body seemed to have grown smoother and more feminine still under the touch of pleasure; all that was hard and immobile in her melting in the sense of well-being. It was not merely that Flossie was on her good behaviour. His imagination (in league with his conscience) suggested that the poor child, divinely protected by the righteousness of her cause, was inspired to confound his judgement of her, to give no vantage ground to his disloyalty, to throw him defenceless on his own remorse. Or was it Lucia who inspired her? Lucia, whose loving spirit could create the thing it loved, whose sweetness was of so fine and piercing a quality that what it touched it penetrated. He could not tell, but he thanked Heaven that at least for this hour which was hers the little thing was happy. He, for his part, by unprecedented acts of subterfuge and hypocrisy, endeavoured to conceal his agony. Miss Roots alone divined it. Beyond looking festive in a black silk gown and a kind of white satin waistcoat, that clever lady took a strained and awkward part in the rejoicing. He was inclined to think that the waistcoat committed her to severity, until he became aware that she was watching him with a furtive sympathy in the clever eyes that saw through his pitiful play. How was it that Lucia, she who once understood him, could not divine him too? From this estranging mood he was roused by the innocent laughter of the Beaver. He was aware of certain thin and melancholy sounds that floated up from some room below. They struggled with the noises of the street, overcame, and rose strident and triumphant to invade the feast. They seemed to him in perfect keeping with the misery and insanity of the hour. It was Mr. Partridge playing on his flute. Miss Roots looked at Lucia. "That's you, Lucy. You've been talking to him about that flute. I suppose you told him you would love to hear him play it?" "No, Sophie, I didn't tell him that." But Lucy looked a little guilty. The flute rose as if in passionate protest against her denial. It seemed to say "You did! You know you did!" "I only said it was a pity he'd given it up, and I meant it. But oh!" and Lucy put her hands up to her ears, "I don't mean it any more." "That comes," said Rickman, "of taking things on trust." She smiled and shook her head. It was her first approach to a sign of reassurance. "That's the sort of thing she's always doing. It doesn't matter for you, Lucy. You won't have to stay on and hear him." "I don't know. I think I shall stay on. You see, Mr. Rickman, I can't part with this pretty room." "Do you like it?" "I like it very much indeed. You're all coming to dine with me here again some day." "And you must come and dine with us, Miss Harden, when we've got settled." It was Flossie who spoke. "I shall be delighted." He looked up, surprised. He could not have believed the Beaver could have done it so prettily. He had not even realized that it could be done at all. It never occurred to him that his marriage could bring him nearer to Lucia Harden. He looked kindly at the Beaver and blessed her for that thought. And then a thought bolder than the Beaver's came to him. "I hope," he said, "you'll do more than that. You must come and stay with us in the summer. You shall sit out in a deck-chair in the garden all day. That's the way to get strong." Then he remembered that she could do that just as well in someone else's garden up at Hampstead, and he looked shy and anxious as he added, "Will you come?" "Of course I'll come," said she. He saw her going through the house at Ealing and sitting in the little green garden with the lilac bushes about her all in flower. And at the thought of her coming he was profoundly moved. His eyes moistened, and under the table his knees shook violently with the agitation of his nerves. Miss Roots gave one queer little glance at him and another at Flossie, and the moment passed. And Lucia had not divined it. No, not for a moment, not even in the moment of leave-taking. She was still holding Flossie's hand in hers when her eyes met his, kind eyes that were still saying almost triumphantly, "I told you so." As she dropped Flossie's hand for his, she answered the question that he had not dared to ask. "I've read them," she said, and there was no diminution in her glad look. "When may I see you?" "To-morrow, can you? Any time after four?" CHAPTER LXI He came into Lucia's presence with a sense of doing something voluntary and yet inevitable, something sanctioned and foreappointed; a sense of carrying on a thing already begun, of returning, through a door that had never been shut, to the life wherein alone he knew himself. And yet this life, measured by days and hours and counting their times of meeting only, ran hardly to six weeks. Since times and places were of no account, he might have been coming, as he came five years ago, to hear her judgement on his neo-classic drama. Strange and great things had happened to his genius since that day. Between _Helen in Leuce_ and the Nine and Twenty Sonnets there lay the newly discovered, heavenly countries of the soul. "Well," he said, glancing at the poems, as he seated himself. "What do you think of them? Am I forgiven? Do you consent?" "So many questions? They're all answered, aren't they, if I say I consent?" "And do you?" There was acute anxiety in his voice and eyes. It struck her as painful that the man, whom she was beginning to look on as possibly the greatest poet of his age, should think it necessary to plead to her for such a little thing. "I do indeed." "Without reservations?" "What reservations should there be? Of course I could only be glad--and proud--that you should do me so much honour. If I can't say very much about it, don't think I don't feel it. I feel it more than I can say." "Do you really mean it? I was afraid that it might offend you; or that you'd think I oughtn't to have written the things; or at any rate that I'd no business to show them to you. And as for the dedication, I couldn't tell how you'd feel about that." And she, having before her eyes the greatness of his genius, was troubled by the humility and hesitation of his approach. It recalled to her the ways of his pathetic youth, his youth that obscurity made wild and shy and unassured. "I can't tell either," she replied, "I don't know whether I ought to feel proud or humble about it; but I think I feel both. Your wanting to dedicate anything to me would have been enough to make me very proud. Even if it had been a little thing--but this thing is great. In some ways it seems to me the greatest thing you've done yet. I did think just at first that I ought perhaps to refuse because of that. And then I saw that, really, that was what made it easy for me to accept. It's so great that the dedication doesn't count." "But it _does_ count. It's the only thing that counts to me. You can't take it like that and separate it from the rest. Those sonnets would still be dedicated to you even if you refused to let me write your name before them. I want you to see that they _are_ the dedication." Lucia shook her head. She had seen it. She could see nothing else when she read them. How was it that the poet's bodily presence made her inclined to ignore the reference to herself; to take these poems dedicated to her as an event, not in her life or his, but in the history of literature? "No," she said, "you must not look at them that way. If they were, it might be a reason for refusing. I know most people would think they'd less right to accept what wasn't really dedicated to them. But, you see, it's just because it isn't really dedicated to me that I can accept it." "But it is--" "No, not to me. You wouldn't be so great a poet if it were. I don't see myself here; but I see you, and your idea of me. It's--it's dedicated to that dream of yours. Didn't I tell you your dream was divorced from reality?" "You told me it would be reconciled to it." "And it is, isn't it? And the reality is worth all the dreams that ever were?" He could have told her that so it appeared to those who are bound in the house of bondage; but that in Leuce, the country of deliverance, the dream and the reality are indivisible, being both divine. He could have told her that he had known as much five years ago; even before he knew her. "After all," he said, "that's admitting that they _are_ divided. And that, if you remember, was what I said, not what you said." Lucia evaded the issue in a fashion truly feminine. "It doesn't matter a bit what either of us said then, so long as _you_ know now." "There's one thing I don't know. I don't know how you really take it; or whether you will really understand. Just now I thought you did, But after all it seems you don't. You think I'm only trying to pay you a stupid literary compliment. You think when I wrote those things I didn't mean them; my imagination was simply taking a rather more eccentric flight than usual. Isn't that so?" "I'm certainly allowing for your imagination. I can't forget that you are a poet. You won't let me forget it. I can't separate your genius from the rest of you." "And I can't separate the rest of me from it. That makes the difference, you see." He was angry as he said that. He had wondered whether she would deal as tenderly with his passion as she had dealt with his dream; and she had dealt just as tenderly. But it was because she identified the passion with the dream. He had not been prepared for that view of it; and somehow it annoyed him. But for that, he would never have spoken as he now did. "When I wondered how you would take it I thought it might possibly strike you as something rather too real, almost offensively so. Do you know, I'd rather you'd taken it that way than that you should talk about my dreams. My _dreams_." (It was shocking, the violent emphasis of disgust the poet, the dreamer, flung into that one word.) "As if I'd dreamed that I knew you. As if I'd dreamed that I cared for you. Would you rather think I dreamed it? You can if you like. Or would you rather think it was the most real thing that ever happened to me? So real that after it happened--_because_ it happened--I left off being the sort of man and the sort of poet I was, and became another sort. So real and so strong that it saved me from one or two other things, uncommonly strong and real, that had got a pretty tight hold of me, too. Would you rather think that you'd really done this for me, or that I'd dreamed it all?" She looked at his face, the unforgotten, unforgetable face, which when she first knew it had kindled and darkened so swiftly and inexplicably. She knew it now. She held the key of all its mysteries. It was the face that had turned to her five years ago with just that look; in the mouth and lifted chin that imperious impetuous determination to make her see; in the eyes that pathetic trust in her seeing. The same face; and yet it would have told her, if he had not, that he was another man. No, not another man; but of all the ways that were then open to him to take he had chosen the noblest. And so, of all the expressions that in its youth had played on that singularly expressive face, it was the finest only that had become dominant. That face had never lied to her. Why should he not plead for the sincerity of his passion, since it was all over now? Was it possible that there was some secret insincerity in her? How was it that she had made him think that she desired to ignore, to repudiate her part in him? That she preferred a meaningless compliment to the confession which was the highest honour that could be paid to any woman? Was it because the honour was so great that she was afraid to take it? "Of course I would rather think it was really so." "Then you must believe that I really cared for you; and that it is only because I cared that it is really so." "I do believe it. But I can't take it all to myself. Another person might have cared just as much, and it might have done him harm--I would never have forgiven myself if I had done you harm--I want you to see that it wasn't anything in _me_; it was something in _you_ that made the difference." He smiled sadly. "You know it _does_ sound as if you wanted to keep out of it." "Does it? If I had really been in it, do you think that I wouldn't be glad and thankful? I am, even for the little that I have done. Even though I know another woman might have done as much, or more, I'm glad I was the one. But, you see, I didn't know I was in it at all. I didn't know the sort of help you wanted. Perhaps, if I had known, I couldn't have helped you. But my knowing or not knowing doesn't matter one bit. If I _did_ help you--that way--I helped some one else too. At least I should like to think I did. I should like to think that one reason why you care for your wife so much is because you cared a little for me. There is that way of looking at it." Then, lest she should seem to be seeking some extraneous justification of a fact that in her heart she abhorred, she added, "Every way I look at it I'm glad. I'm glad that you cared. I'm glad because it's been, and glad because it's over. For if it hadn't been over--" "What were you going to say?" "I was going to say that if it hadn't been over you couldn't have given me these. I didn't say it; because it would have sounded as if that were all I cared about. As if I wouldn't have been almost as glad if you'd never written a line of them. Only in that case I should never have known." "No. You would never have known." "I think I should have been glad, even if the poems had been--not very good poems." "You wouldn't have known in that case either. I wouldn't have shown them to you if they had not been good. As it is, when I wrote them I never meant to show them to you." "Oh, but I think--" "Of course you do. But I wasn't going to print them before you'd seen them. Do you know what I'd meant to do with them--what in fact I _did_ do with them? I left them to you in my will with directions that they weren't to be published without your consent. It seems a rather unusual bequest, but you know I had a conceited hope that some time they might be valuable. I don't know whether they would have sold for three thousand pounds--I admit it was a draft on posterity that posterity might have dishonoured--but I thought they might possibly go a little way towards paying my debt." "Your debt? I don't understand." But the trembling of her mouth belied its words. "Don't you? Don't you remember?" "No, I don't. I never _have_ remembered." "Probably not. But you can hardly suppose that I've forgotten it." "What has it to do with you, or me--or this?" "Not much, perhaps; but still something, you'll admit." "I admit nothing. I can't bear your ever having thought of it. I wish you hadn't told me. It spoils everything." "Does it? Such a little thing? Surely a friend might be allowed to leave you a small legacy when he was decently dead? And it wasn't _his_ fault, was it, if it paid a debt as well?" The tears rose in her eyes to answer him. "But you see I didn't leave it. I didn't wait for that. I was afraid that my being dead would put you in a more embarrassing position than if I'd been alive. You might have hated those poems and yet you might have shrunk from suppressing them for fear of wounding the immortal vanity of a blessed spirit. Or you might have taken that horrid literary view I implored you not to take. You might have hesitated to inflict so great a loss on the literature of your country." He tried to speak lightly, as if it were merely a whimsical and extravagant notion that he should be reckoned among the poets. And yet in his heart he knew that it must be so. "But now the things can't be published unless you will accept them as they were originally meant. There's nothing gross about the transaction; nothing that need offend either you or me." "I can't--I can't--" "Well," he said gently, fearing the appearance of grossness in pressing the question, "we can settle that afterwards, can't we? Meanwhile at all events the publication rests with you." "The publication has nothing whatever to do with me--The dedication, _perhaps_." "You've accepted that. Still, you might object to your name appearing before the public with mine." Lucia looked bewildered. She thought she had followed him in all his subtleties; but she had had difficulty in realizing that he was actually proposing to suppress his poems in deference to her scruples, if she had any. Some shadowy notion of his meaning was penetrating her now. "My name," she said, "will mean nothing to the public." "Then you consent?" "Of course. It's absurd to talk about my consent. Besides, why should I mind now--when it is all over?" He was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, it was by an effort, as if he unwillingly obeyed some superior constraint. "If it hadn't been all over would you have minded then? Would you have refused your consent?" "To your publishing your own poems? How could I?" "To the dedication, I mean. If it hadn't been all over, would you have given your consent to that?" His anxiety had deepened to an agony which seemed to have made his face grow sharp and thin almost as she looked at him. She judged that this question was vital, and that the truth was required of her. "No, not to that. You see, it's only because it's all over that I've consented now." "I see; that's the condition? You would never have consented but for that." "Why should we talk about that now?" "I wanted to know the truth." "Why should you? It's a truth that has nothing to do with things as they are, only with things as they might have been. Isn't it enough to be glad that they weren't, that it is all over, and that this is the end of it?" Even as she said the words it struck her that there was something ominous in this reiteration. "But it isn't all over. This isn't the end of it." His voice was so low that she could hardly have heard it but for the intense vibration of the tones. There was a pause in which they seemed still to be throbbing, but with no meaning behind the passionate pulse of sound. "I didn't mean to tell you. I know you'd rather think it wasn't so. And I would have let you think it if it hadn't been for what you told me--what I made you tell me." "I don't understand. What did I tell you?" "You told me the truth." He spoke with a sudden savage energy. "How could I go on lying after that?" She looked at him with that almost imperceptible twitching of her soft mouth which he knew to be a sign of suffering; and in her eyes there was pain and a vague terror. "I might have gone on lying to the end, if nothing had depended on it. But if you tell me that you only give your consent to a thing on one condition, and I know that I can't possibly fulfil the condition, what am I to do? Say nothing about it, and do what you would loathe me for doing if you knew?" Till now she had left the manuscript lying in her lap, where unconsciously her hands covered it with a gentle protecting touch. But as he spoke she took it up and put it away from her with an irresistible impulse of rejection. He knew that he was answered. "If I had," he said, "in one sense I should have done you no wrong. All this would be nothing to the world which would read these poems. But when I knew that it made all the difference to _you_--" She turned, as he had seen her turn once and only Once before, in reproach that was almost anger. "To me? Do you suppose I'm thinking of myself?" "Perhaps not. That doesn't prevent my thinking of you. But I was thinking of myself, too. Supposing I had done this thing that you would have loathed; even though you had never known it, I should have felt that I had betrayed your trust, that I had taken something from you that I had no right to take, something that you would never have given me if you had known. What was I to do?" She did not answer him. Once before, he remembered, when his honour was in difficulties, she had refused to help it out, left it to struggle to the light; which was what it did now. "It would have been better to have said nothing and done nothing." He expected her to close instantly with that view of his behaviour which honour had presented as the final one, but this she did not do. "If you had said nothing you might have done what you liked." "I see. It's my saying it that makes the difference?" "That is _not_ what I meant. I meant that you were free to publish what you have written. You are not free to say these things to me." "For the life of me I don't know why I said them. It means perdition for my poems and for me. I knew that was all I had to gain by telling you the truth." "But it _isn't_ the truth. You know it isn't. You don't even think it is." "And if it were, would it be so terrible to you to hear it?" She did not answer. She only looked at him, as if by looking she could read the truth. For his face had never lied. He persisted. "If it were true, what would you think of me?" "I should think it most dishonourable of you to say so. But it isn't true." He smiled. "Therefore it can't be dishonourable of me to say so." "No, not that. You are not dishonourable; therefore it can't be true. Let us forget that you ever said it." "But I can't forget that it's true any more than I can make it untrue. You think me dishonourable, because you think I've changed. But I haven't changed. It always was so, ever since I knew you; and that's more than five years ago now. I am dishonourable; but that's not where the dishonour comes in. _The_ dishonourable thing would have been to have left off caring for you. But I never did leave off. There never was a minute when it wasn't true, nor a minute when I didn't think it. If I was sure of nothing else I was always sure of that. Where the dishonour came in was in caring for another woman, in another way." "The dishonour would come in if you'd left off caring for her. And you haven't done that. It would come in a little now, I think, if you said that you didn't care. But you don't say it; you don't even think it. Shall I tell you the truth? You've let your genius get too strong a hold over you. You've let it get hold, too, of this feeling that you had for me. And now, though you know perfectly well--as well as I do--that it's all over, your genius is trying to persuade you that the feeling is still there when it isn't." "That is not so, but you can say it is, if it makes you any happier." "It does make me happier to think that it's your genius, not you, that says these things. For I can forgive your genius; but I couldn't have forgiven you." At that moment he felt a savage jealousy of his genius, because she loved it. "And yet, you said a little while ago you couldn't separate the two." "You have obliged me to separate them, to find an excuse for you. This ought not to have happened; but it could not have happened to a man who was not a poet." All the time she was miserably aware that she was trying to defend herself with subtleties against the impact of a terrible reality. And because that reality must weigh more heavily on him than her, she was trying to defend him too, against himself, to force on him, against himself, her own subtilizing, justifying view. But his subtlety was a match for hers. "Your cousin once did me the honour to say I was one-seventh part a poet, and upon my honour I prefer his estimate to yours." "What is mine?" "That I'm nothing but a poet. That there wasn't enough of me left over to make a man." "That is not my estimate, and you know it. I think you so much a man that your heart will keep you right, even though your genius has led you very far astray." "Is that all you know about it?" "Well, I'm not sure that it is your genius, this time. I rather think it's your sense of honour. I believe you think that because you once cared for me you've got to go on caring, lest I should accuse you of being faithless to your dream." ("Surely," she said to herself, "I've made it easy for him now?") But the word was too much for him. "For Goodness' sake don't talk to me any more about my dream. You may think any mortal thing you like about me, so long as you don't do that." She smiled faintly, as if with an effort at forbearance. "Very well then, I won't talk about your dream. I'll say you were afraid lest I should think you had been faithless to _me_. It would never have occurred to you if you hadn't seen me again. It will not occur to you after I am gone. It will be all over by to-morrow." "Why to-morrow?" He spoke stupidly. Fear had made him stupid. "Why to-morrow?" "Because I am going to-morrow." Then he knew that it was indeed all over. The door which had been open to him was about to close; and once closed it would never be open to him again. "What _must_ you think of me--" "I think you have done very wrong, and that our talking about it only makes it worse. And so--I'm sorry--but I must ask you to leave me." But he did not leave her. "And I must ask you to forgive me," he said gently. "I? I have nothing to forgive. You haven't done anything to me. But I should never forgive you if I thought this foolishness could make one moment's difference to--to Flossie." "It never has made any difference to her," he replied coldly, "or to my feeling for her. I never felt towards any woman as I feel towards you. It isn't the same thing at all. Heaven knows I thought I cared enough for her to marry her. But it seems I didn't. That's why I say it makes no difference to her. Nothing is altered by it. As far as Flossie is concerned, whether I marry her or not I shall have behaved abominably. I don't know which is the more dishonourable." "Don't you?" "No. I only know which I'm going to do." She turned her head away. And that turning away was intolerable. It was the closing of the door. "Is it so very terrible to you?" he said gently. He could not see the tears in her eyes, but he heard them in her voice, and he knew that he had wounded her, Hot in her pride, but in her tenderness and honour--Lucia's honour. "To me? I'm not thinking of myself--not of myself at all. How could I think of myself? I'm thinking of _her_." She turned to him and let her tears gather in her eyes unheeded. "Don't you see what you've done?" Oh, yes; he saw very well what he had done. He had taken the friendship she had given to him to last his life and destroyed it in a moment, with his own hands. All for the sake of a subtlety, a fantastic scruple, a question asked, a thing said under some obscure compulsion. He had been moved by he knew not what insane urgency of honour. And whatever else he saw he did not see how he could have done otherwise. The only alternative was to say nothing, to do nothing. Supposing he had suppressed both his passion and the poems that immortalized it, what would she have thought of him then? Would she not have thought that he had either dedicated to her a thing that he was afterwards ashamed of, or that he had meant nothing by the dedication? "Don't you see what you have done?" she said. "You've made me wish I had never come here and that I'd never seen you again. It was only the other night--the dear little girl--she came up here and sat with me, and we had a talk. We talked about you. She told me how she came to know you, and how good you'd been to her and how long it was before either of you knew. She told me things about herself. She is very shy--very reserved--but she let me see how much she cares--and how much you care. Think what you must be to her. She has no father and no mother, she has nobody but you. She told me that. And then--she took me up to her room and showed me all her pretty things. She was so happy--and how can I look at her again? She would hate me if she knew; and I couldn't blame her, poor child. She could never understand that it was not my fault." But as she said it her conscience rose in contradiction and told her that it was her fault. Her fault in the very beginning for drawing him into an intimacy that his youth and inexperience made dangerous. Her fault for sacrificing, yes, sacrificing him to that impulse to give pleasure which had only meant giving pleasure to herself at his expense. Her fault for endlessly refining on the facts of life, till she lost all feeling of its simpler and more obvious issues. Kitty had been right when she told her that she treated men as if they were disembodied spirits. She had trusted too much to her own subtlety. That was how all her blunders, had been made. If she had been cold as well as subtle--but Lucia was capable of passionate indiscreet things to be followed by torments of her pride. Her pride had only made matters worse. It was her pride, in the beginning, that had blinded her. When she had told Kitty that she was not the sort of woman to let this sort of thing happen with this sort of man, she had summed up her abiding attitude to one particular possibility. She had trusted to the social gulf to keep her safe, apart. Afterwards, she knew that she had not trusted so much to the social gulf. She had not been quite so proud; neither, since Kitty had opened her eyes, had she been so blind; but she had been ten times more foolish. Her mind had refused to dwell upon Kitty's dreadful suggestions, because they were dreadful. Unconscious of her sex, she had remained unconscious of her power; she had trusted (unconsciously) to the power of another woman for protection. Flossie had, so to speak, detached and absorbed the passionate part of Keith Rickman; by which process the rest of him was left subtler and more pure. She had thought she could really deal with him now as a disembodied spirit. And so under the shelter of his engagement she had, after her own manner, let herself go. These thoughts swept through her brain like one thought, as she contemplated the misery she had made. They came with the surging of the blood in her cheeks, so swiftly that she had no time to see that they hardly exhausted the aspects of her case. And it was not her own case that she was thinking of. She turned to him pleading. "Don't you see that I could never forgive myself if I thought that I had hurt her? You are not going to make me so unhappy?" "Do you mean, am I going to marry her?" She said nothing; for she was conscious now, conscious and ashamed of using a power that she had no right to have; ashamed, too, of being forced to acknowledge the truth of the thing she had so passionately denied. "You needn't be afraid," he said. "Of course I am going to marry her." He turned away from her as he had turned away five years ago, with the same hopeless sense of dishonour and defeat. She called him back, as she had called him back five years ago, and for the same purpose, of delivering a final stab. Only that this time she knew it was a stab; and her own heart felt the pain as she delivered it. But the terrible thing had to be done. She had got to return the manuscript, the gift that should never have been given. She gathered the loosened sheets tenderly, like things that she was grieved to part from. He admitted that she was handling her sword with all gentleness so as to avoid as far as possible any suggestion of a thrust. "You must take them back," she said. "I can't keep them--or--or have anything to do with them after what you told me. I should feel as if I'd taken what belonged to some one else." As he took the sheets from her and pocketed them, she felt that again he was pocketing an insult as well as a stab. But the victim was no longer an inexperienced youth. So he smiled valorously, as beseemed his manhood. "And yet," he murmured, "you say it isn't true." She did not contradict him this time. And as he turned he heard behind him the closing of the door. BOOK IV THE MAN HIMSELF CHAPTER LXII After all, the wedding did not take place on the twenty-fifth; for on the twentieth Keith was summoned to Ilford by a letter from his stepmother. Mrs. Rickman said she thought he ought to know (as if Keith were seeking to avoid the knowledge!) that his father had had a slight paralytic seizure. He had recovered, but it had left him very unsettled and depressed. He kept on for ever worrying to see Keith. Mrs. Rickman hoped (not without a touch of asperity) that Keith would lose no time in coming, as his father seemed so uneasy in his mind. Very uneasy in his mind was Isaac, as upstairs in the big front bedroom, (which from its excess of glass and mahogany bore a curious resemblance to the front shop,) he lay, a strangely shrunken figure in the great bed. His face, once so reticent and regular, was drawn on one side, twisted into an oblique expression of abandonment and agony. Keith was not prepared for the change; and he broke down completely as the poor right hand (which Isaac _would_ use) opened and closed in a vain effort to clasp his. But Isaac was intolerant of sympathy, and at once rebuked all reference to his illness. Above the wreck of his austere face, his eyes, blood-shot as they were and hooded under their slack lids, defied you to notice any change in him. "I sent for you," he said, "because I wanted to talk over a little business." His utterance was thick and uncertain; the act of speech showed the swollen tongue struggling in the distorted mouth. "Oh, don't bother about business now, father," said Keith, trying hard to steady his voice. His father gave an irritable glance, as if he were repelling an accusation of mortality, conveyed in the word "now." "And why not now as well as any other time?" Keith blew his nose hard and turned away. "What's the matter with you? Do you suppose I'm ill?" "Oh no, of course not." "No. I'm just lying here to rest and get up my strength again; God willing. But _in case_ anything should happen to me, Keith, I want you to be clear as to how you stand." "Oh, that's all right," said Keith cheerfully. "It's not all right. It's not as I meant it to be. Between you and me, my big house hasn't come to much. I think if you'd stayed in it--well--we won't say any more about that. But Paternoster Row--now--that's sound. Mrs. Rickman always 'ad a fancy for the City 'ouse, and she's put money into it. You'll have your share that was settled on you when I married your poor mother. You stick to the City 'ouse, Keith, and it'll bring you in something some day. And the Name'll still go on." It was pathetic, his persistent clinging to the immortality of his name. Pathetic, too, his inability to see it otherwise than as blazoned for ever and ever over a shop-front. His son's fame (if he ever achieved it) was a mere subsidiary glory. "But Pilkington'll get the Strand 'ouse. Whatever I do I can't save it. I don't mind owning now, the Strand 'ouse was a mistake." "A very great mistake." "And Pilkington'll get the 'Arden library." "You don't know. You may get rid of him--before that time." Isaac seemed to be torn by his thoughts the more because they found no expression in his face that was bound, mouth, eye, and eyelid in its own agony. Before _what_ time? Before the day of his death, or the day of redemption? "The mortgage," he said, "'as still three years to run. But I can't raise the money." Keith was silent. He hardly liked to ask, though he would have given a great deal to know, the amount of the sum his father could not raise. A possibility, a splendid, undreamed of possibility, had risen up before him; but he turned away from it; it was infamous to entertain it, for it depended on his father's death. And yet for the life of him he could not help wondering whether the share which would ultimately come to him would by any chance cover that mortgage. To be any good it would have to come before the three years were up, though--He put the splendid horrible thought aside. He could not contemplate it. The wish was certainly not the father of that thought. But supposing the thought became the father of a wish? "That reminds me," said Isaac, "that there was something else I 'ad to say to you." He did not say it all at once. At the very thought of it his swollen tongue moved impotently without words. At last he got it out. "I've been thinking it over--that affair of the library. And I've been led to see that what I did was wrong. Wrong, I mean, in the sight of God." There was a sense he could not get rid of, in which it might still be considered superlatively right. "And wot you did--" "Oh, never mind what I did. _That's_ all right." "You did the righteous and the Christian thing." "Did I? I'm sure I don't know why I did it." "Ah--if you'd done it for the love of God, there's no doubt it'd 'ave been more pleasing to 'im." "Well, you know I didn't do it for the love--of God." "You did it for the love of woman? I was right then, after all." Isaac felt inexpressibly consoled by Keith's cheerful disclaimer of all credit. His manner did away with the solemnity of the occasion; but it certainly smoothed for him the painful path of confession. "Well, yes. If it hadn't been for Miss Harden I don't suppose I should have done it at all." He said it very simply; but not all the magnificent consolations of religion could have given Isaac greater peace. It was a little more even, the balance of righteousness between him and Keith. He had never sinned, as Keith had done, after the flesh. Of the deeds done in the body he would have but a very small account to render at the last. "And you see, you haven't got anything for it out of _her_." There was a certain satisfaction in his tone. He saw a mark of the divine displeasure in Keith's failure to marry the woman he desired. "And if I could only raise that money--" He meant it--he meant it. The balance, held in God's hands, hung steady now. "How much is it?" asked Keith; for he thought, "Perhaps he's only holding on to that share for my sake; and if he knew that I would give it up now, he might really--" "Four thousand nine with th' interest," said Isaac. "Do you think, Keith, it would have sold for five?" "Well, yes, I think it very possibly might." "Ah!" Isaac turned his face from his son. The sigh expressed a profound, an infinite repentance. CHAPTER LXIII On the twenty-fifth Isaac Rickman lay dead in his villa at Ilford. Two days after Keith's visit he had been seized by a second and more terrible paralytic stroke; and from it he did not recover. The wedding was now indefinitely postponed till such time as Keith could have succeeded in winding up his father's affairs. They proved rather less involved than he had expected. Isaac had escaped dying insolvent. Though a heavy mortgage delivered Rickman's in the Strand into Pilkington's possession, the City house was not only sound, as Isaac had said, but in a fairly flourishing condition. Some blind but wholly salutary instinct had made him hold on to that humbler and obscurer shop where first his fortunes had been made; and with its immense patronage among the Nonconformist population Rickman's in the City held a high and honourable position in the trade. The bulk of the profits had to go to the bookseller's widow as chief owner of the capital; still, the slender partnership settled on his son, if preserved intact and carefully manipulated, would yield in time a very comfortable addition to Keith's income. If Isaac had lived, his affairs (as far as he was concerned) would have been easily settled. But for his son and heir they proved most seriously complicated. For Keith was heir, not only to his father's estate, but to that very considerable debt of honour which Isaac had left unpaid. It seemed as if the Harden library, the symbol of a superb intellectual vanity, was doomed to be in eternal necessity of redemption. Until yesterday it had not occurred to Keith that it could be his destiny to redeem it. Yesterday he had refused to let his mind dally with that possibility; to-day it had become the most fitting subject of his contemplation. The thing was more easily conceived than done. His literary income amounted, all told, to about three hundred and fifty a year, but its sources were not absolutely secure. _Metropolis_ or _The Planet_ might conceivably at any moment cease to be. And there was his marriage. It was put off; but only for a matter of weeks. He had only a hundred and fifty pounds in ready money; the rest had been swallowed up by the little house at Ealing. It was impossible to redeem the Harden library unless he parted with his patrimony; which was, after all, his only safe and imperishable source of income. Still, he had not the smallest hesitation on this head. Neither he nor Flossie had taken it into their calculations when they agreed to marry, and he was not going to consider it now. The first step proved simple. Mrs. Rickman had no objection to buying him out. On the contrary, she was thankful to get rid of a most reckless and uncomfortable partner. But in the present state of the trade it was impossible to estimate his share at more than four thousand. That covered the principal; but Isaac had paid no interest for more than two years; and that interest Keith would have to pay. Though the four thousand was secure, and Pilkington had given him three years to raise the seven hundred and fifty in, it was not so easily done on an income of three hundred and fifty. Not easy in three years; and impossible in any number of years if he married. Possible only, yes, just possible, if his marriage were postponed until such time as he could have collected the money. Some brilliant stroke of luck might unexpectedly reduce the term; but three years must be allowed. _Metropolis_ and _The Planet_ were surely good for another three years. The other alternative, that of repudiating the obligation, never entered his head for an instant. He could not have touched a shilling of his father's money till this debt was cleared. There could be no doubt as to what honour demanded of him. But how would Flossie take it? The worst of it was that he was bound (in honour again) to give her the option of breaking off their engagement, if she didn't care to wait. And after all that had passed between them it might not be so easy to persuade her that he was not glad of the excuse; for he himself was so lacking in conviction. Still she was very intelligent; and she would see that it wasn't his fault if their marriage had to be put off. The situation was inevitable and impersonal, and as such it was bound to be hard on somebody. He admitted that it was particularly hard on Flossie. It would have been harder still if Flossie had been out of work; but Flossie, with characteristic prudence, had held on to her post till the very eve of her wedding-day, and had contrived to return to it when she foresaw the necessity for delay. Otherwise he would have had to insist on providing for her until she was independent again; which would have complicated matters really most horribly. It was quite horrible enough to have to explain all this to Flossie. The last time he had explained things (for he had explained them) to Flossie the result had not been exactly happy. But then the things themselves had been very different, and he had had to admit with the utmost contrition that a woman could hardly have had more reasonable grounds for resentment. That was all over and done with now. In that explanation they had explained everything away. They had left no single thread of illusion hanging round the life they were to live together. They accepted themselves and each other as they were. And in the absence of any brighter prospect for either of them there was high wisdom in that acceptance. If then there was a lack of rapture in his relations with Flossie, there would henceforth at any rate be calm. Her temperament was, he judged, essentially placid, not to say apathetic. There was a soft smoothness about the plump little lady that would be a security against friction. She was not great at understanding; but, taking it all together, she was now in an infinitely better position for understanding him than she had been two weeks ago. Besides, it was after all a simple question of figures; and Flossie's attitude to figures was, unlike his own, singularly uninfluenced by passion. She would take the sensible, practical view. The sensible practical view was precisely what Flossie did take. But her capabilities of passion he had again misjudged. He chose his moment with discretion, when time and place and Flossie's mood were most propitious. The time was Sunday evening, the place was the Regent's Park, Flossie's mood was gentle and demure. She had been very nice to him since his father's death, and had shown him many careful small attentions which, with his abiding sense of his own shortcomings towards her, he had found extremely touching. She seemed to him somehow a different woman, not perhaps so pretty as she had been, but nicer. He may have been the dupe of an illusory effect of toilette, for Flossie was in black. She had discussed the propriety of mourning with Miss Bishop, and wore it to-day for the first time with a pretty air of solemnity mingled with satisfaction in her own delicate intimation that she was one with her lover in his grief. She had not yet discovered that black was unbecoming to her, which would have been fatal to the mood. The flowers were gay in the Broad Walk, Flossie tried to be gay too; and called on him to admire their beauty. They sat down together on a seat in the embrasure of a bed of chrysanthemums. Flossie was interested in everything, in the chrysanthemums, in the weather and in the passers-by--most particularly interested, he noticed, in the family groups. Her black eyes, that glanced so restlessly at the men and so jealously at the women, sank softly on the children, happy and appeased. Poor Flossie. He had long ago divined her heart. He did his best to please her; he sat down when she told him to sit down, stared when she told him to stare, and relapsed into his now habitual attitude of dejection. A little girl toddled past him in play; stopped at his knees and touched them with her hand and rubbed her small body against them, chuckling with delight. "The dear little mite," said Flossie; "she's taken quite a fancy to you, Keith." Her face was soft and shy under her black veil, and when she looked at him she blushed. He turned his head away. He could not meet that look in Flossie's eyes when he thought of what he had to say to her. He was going to put the joy of life a little farther from her; to delay her woman's tender ineradicable hope. This was not the moment or the place to do it in. They rose and walked on, turning into the open Park. And there, sitting under a solitary tree by the path that goes towards St. John's Wood, he broke it to her gently. "Flossie," he said, "I've something to tell you that you mayn't like to hear." She made no sign of agitation beyond scraping a worn place in the grass with the tips of her little shoes. "Well," she said, with an admirable attempt at patience, "what is it _now_?" "You mean you think it's been about enough already?" "If it's really anything unpleasant, for goodness' sake let's have it out and get it over." "Right, Flossie. I'm awfully sorry, but I'm afraid we shan't be able to marry for another two years, perhaps three." "And why not?" Her black eyes darted a vindictive look at him under her soft veil. "My father's death has made a difference to me." Her lips tightened, and she drew a sharp but inaudible breath through her nostrils. He had been wrong in supposing that she had not looked for any improvement in his finances after his father's death. On the contrary, knowing of their reconciliation and deceived by the imposing appearance of Rickman's in the Strand, she had counted on a very substantial increase of income. "Do you mean to say, Keith, he hasn't left you anything?" He laughed softly--an unpleasant way he had in situations where most people would consider it only decent to keep grave. "He _has_ left me something. A bad debt." "What have you got to do with his bad debts? Nobody can come down on you to pay them." She paused. A horrible thought had struck her. "_Can_ they? You don't mean to say they can?" He shook his head and struggled with his monstrous mirth. "Keith! What 'ave you done? You surely haven't been backing any bills?" He laughed outright this time, for the sheer misery of the thing. "No, oh dear me, no. Not in your sense at least." "There _isn't_ any other sense. Either you did or you didn't; and I think you might tell me which." "It's not quite so simple, dear. I didn't back his bills, d'you see, but I backed _him_.' "Can they make you responsible? Have they got it down in black and white?" "Nobody can make me responsible, except myself. It's what they call a debt of honour, Flossie. Those debts are not always down in black and white." "Why can't you speak plain? I really can't think what you mean by that." "Can't you? I'll endeavour to explain. A debt of honour, Beaver dear, is a debt that's got to be paid whoever else goes unpaid." "A fine lot of honour about that," said she. Was it possible to make the Beaver understand? He, gave her a slight outline of the situation; and he really could not complain of any fault in the Beaver's intelligence. For, by dint of a masterly cross examination, she possessed herself of all the details, even of those which he most desired to keep from her. After their last great explanation there had been more than a tacit agreement between them that the name of Lucia Harden was never to come up again in any future discussion; and that name he would not give. She, however, readily inferred it from his silence. "You needn't tell me the lady's name," said she. "I certainly needn't. The name has nothing whatever to do with it.'" "Oh, hasn't it? You'll not make me believe that you'd 'ave taken it up this way for any one but her." "Whether I would or wouldn't doesn't affect the point of honour." "I don't see where it comes in there." "If you don't I can't make you see it." "I said I didn't see where it comes in--_there_. I know what's honourable as well as you, though I daresay my notions wouldn't agree with yours." "Upon my soul, I shouldn't wonder if they didn't!" "Look here, Keith. Did you ever make Miss Harden any promise to pay her that money when your father died?" "Of course I didn't--How could I? Do you suppose she'd have let me do anything of the sort?" "I don't know what she wouldn't have let you do. Anyhow you didn't make her any promise. Think of the promises and promises you've made to me." "I do think of them. Have I broken one of them?" "I don't say you have yet; but you want to." "I don't wa--I won't break them, I'll keep every one of the blessed lot, if you'll only give me time." "Give you time? I know what that means. It means that I'm to go back and earn my living. I can slave till I drop for all you care--while you go and throw away all that money on another woman. And I'm to give you time to do it in!" "I won't ask you to wait for me. I'm perfectly willing to release you from your engagement if you like. It seems only fair to you." "You care a lot, don't you, about what's fair to me? I believe you'd take the bread out of my mouth to give it to her." "I would, Flossie, if it was her bread. That money doesn't belong to you or me; it belongs to Miss Harden." "It seems to me," said Flossie, "that everything belongs to her. I'm sure you've as good as told me so." "I've certainly given you some right to think so. But that has nothing to do with it; and we agreed that we were going to let it alone, didn't we?" "It wasn't me that brought it up again, it was you; and it's got everything to do with it. You wouldn't have behaved like this, and you wouldn't be sitting there talking about what's honourable, if it hadn't been for Miss Harden." "That may very well be. But it doesn't mean what you think it does. It means that before I knew Miss Harden I didn't know or care very much about what's honourable. She taught me to care. I wasn't fit to speak to a decent woman before I knew her. She made me decent." "Did she sit up half the night with you to do it?". He made a gesture of miserable impatience. "You needn't tell me. I can see her." "You can't. She did it by simply being what she is. If I ever manage to do anything right it will be because of her, as you say. But it doesn't follow that it'll be for her. There's a great difference." "I don't see it." "You must try to see it. There's one thing I haven't told you about that confounded money. It was I who let her in for losing it. Isn't that enough to make me keen?" "You always were keen where she was concerned." "Look here, Flossie, I thought you were going to give up this sort of thing?" "So I was when I thought you were going to give her up. It doesn't look like it." "My dear child, how can I give up what I never had or could have?" "Well then--are you going to give up your idea?" "No, I am not. But you can either give me up or wait for me, as I said. But if you marry me, you must marry me and my idea too. You don't like my idea; but that's no reason why you shouldn't like me." "You're not taking much pains to make me like you." "I'm taking all the pains I know. But your liking or not liking me won't alter me a little bit. You'll have to take me as I am." As she looked up at him she realized at last the indomitable nature of the man she had to deal with. And yet he was not unalterable, even on his own showing. She knew some one who had altered him out of all knowledge. "Come," said she, "don't say you never change." "I don't say it. You'll have to allow for that possibility, too." "It seems to me I have to allow for a good many things." "You have indeed." "Well, are we going to sit here all night?" "I'm ready." They walked back in silence over the straight path that seemed as if it would never end. Flossie stopped half-way in it, stung by an idea. "There's something you haven't thought of. What are you going to do with the house? And with all that furniture?" "Let them to somebody. That's all right, Beaver. The house and the furniture can't run away." "No, but they'll never be the same again." Nothing would ever be the same again; that was clear. The flowers were still gay in the Broad Walk, and the children, though a little sleepier, were still adorable; but Flossie did not turn to look at them as she passed. Would she ever look at them, at anything, with pleasure again? He had made life very difficult, very cruel to this poor child, whom after all he had promised to protect and care for. "I say, Beaver dear, it _is_ hard luck on you." The look and the tone would have softened most women, at least for the time being; but the Beaver remained implacable. "I'll try to make it easier for you. I'll work like mad. I'll do anything to shorten the time." "Shorten the time? You don't know how many years you're asking me to wait." "I'm not asking you to wait. I'm asking you to choose." "Do you want me to do it now?" "No, certainly not." She was not indeed in a mood favourable to choice; and he would not influence her decision. It was mean to urge her to an arduous constancy; meaner still to precipitate her refusal. "You must think. You can, you know, when you give your mind to it." She appeared to be giving her mind to it for the rest of the way home; and her silence left him also free to think it over. After all, what had he done? He had not asked her to wait, but what if he had? Many men have to ask as much of the woman who loves them. Some men have asked even more of the woman whom they love. That was the secret. He could have asked it with a clear conscience if he had but loved her. CHAPTER LXIV Flossie was in no hurry about making up her mind. If Keith had asked her to give him time, it was only fair that he should give her time too, and since his mind was made up in any case, time could be no object to him. So days and weeks had passed on and she had conveyed to him no hint of her decision. On that Sunday evening, in the seclusion of her bedroom, Flossie said to herself that she had made one great mistake. Prudence and foresight were all very well in their way, but this time she had blundered through excess of caution. In sticking to the post that made her independent she had broken her strongest line of defence. If only she had had the courage to relinquish it at the crucial moment, she would have stood a very much better chance in her contest with Keith. She could then have appealed to his pity as she had done with such signal success two years ago, when the result of the appeal had been to bring him violently to the point. She was wise enough to know that in contending with a chivalrous man a woman's strongest defence is her defencelessness. Though she was unable to believe that pure abstract honour was or could be the sole and supreme motive of Keith's behaviour, she felt that if she could have said to him, "I've thrown up a good situation to marry you," his chivalry would not have held out against that argument. But Flossie never made mistakes. She was too consummate a diplomatist. Therefore, though appearances were against her, it was only reasonable to suppose that she had not really done so now, and that her original inspiration had been right. It was foresight so subtle, so advanced, that it outstripped the ordinary processes of calculation, and appeared afterwards as the mysterious leading of a profounder power, of the under-soul that presses the innocent intellect into the services of its own elemental instincts. The people who yield most obediently to this compulsion are said to have good luck. Flossie's good luck, however, was not yet apparent either to herself or to her fellow-boarders at Tavistock Place. Not that she had enlarged on her trouble to any of them. The whole thing had been too profoundly humiliating for that. To say nothing of being engaged to a man who had shown so very little impatience to marry her, to have taken and furnished a house and be unable to live in it, to have received congratulations and wedding presents which had all proved premature, to know, and feel that everybody else knew, that her bedroom was at this moment lumbered up with a trousseau which, whether she wore it or put it by two years, would make her equally ridiculous, was really a very trying position for any young lady, and to Flossie, whose nature was most delicately sensitive to such considerations, it was torture. But, after all, these things were material and external; and the worst of Flossie's suffering was in her soul. Before the appearance of Miss Harden, the last two years had passed for Flossie in gorgeous triumphal procession through the boarding-house. She had been the invincible heroine of Mrs. Downey's for two years, she had dragged its young hero at her chariot wheels for two years, she had filled the heart of Ada Bishop with envy and the hearts of Mr. Soper and Mr. Spinks with jealousy and anguish for two years; and now she had all these people pitying her and looking down on her because she had been so queerly treated; and this was even more intolerable to poor Flossie. She knew perfectly well what every one of them was saying. She knew that Ada Bishop had thanked Goodness she wasn't in her shoes; that Miss Bramble spoke of her persistently as "that poor young thing"; that Mrs. Downey didn't know which she pitied most, her or poor Mr. Rickman. He was poor Mr. Rickman, if you please, because he was considered to have entangled himself so inextricably with her. She knew that Miss Roots maintained that it was all her (Flossie's) own fault for holding Keith to his engagement; that Mr. Partridge had wondered why girls were in such a hurry to get married; and that Mr. Soper said she'd made a great mistake in ever taking up with a young fellow you could depend on with so little certainty. And the burden of it all was that Flossie had made a fool of herself and been made a fool of. So she was very bitter in her little heart against the man who was the cause of it all; and if she did not instantly throw Keith Rickman over, that was because Flossie was not really such a fool as for the moment she had been made to look. But there was one person of the boarding-house whose opinion was as yet unknown to Flossie or to anybody else; it was doubtful indeed if it was known altogether to himself; for Mr. Spinks conceived that honour bound him to a superb reticence on the subject. He had followed with breathless anxiety every turn in the love affairs of Flossie and his friend. He could not deny that a base and secret exultation had possessed him on the amazing advent of Miss Harden; for love had made him preternaturally keen, and he was visited with mysterious intimations of the truth. He did not encourage these visitings. He had tried hard to persuade himself that he was glad for Flossie's sake when Miss Harden went away; when, whatever there had been between Rickets and the lady, it had come to nothing; when the wedding day remained fixed, immovably fixed. But he had not been glad at all. On the contrary he had suffered horribly, and had felt the subsequent delay as a cruel prolongation of his agony. In the irony of destiny, shortly before the fatal twenty-fifth, Mr. Spinks had been made partner in his uncle's business, and was now enjoying an income superior to Rickman's not only in amount but in security. If anything could have added to his dejection it was that. His one consolation hitherto had been that after all, if Rickman did marry Flossie, as _he_ was not in a position to marry her, it came to the same thing in the long run. Now he saw himself cut off from that source of comfort by a solid four hundred a year with prospects of a rise. He could forego the obviously impossible; but in that rosy dawn of incarnation his dream appeared more than ever desirable. Whenever Mr. Spinks's imagination encountered the idea of marriage it had tried to look another way. Marriage remote and unattainable left Mr. Spinks's imagination in comparative peace; but brought within the bounds of possibility its appeal was simply maddening. And now, bringing it nearer still, so near that it was impossible to look another way, there came these disturbing suggestions of a misunderstanding between Rickman and his Beaver. The boarding-house knew nothing but that the wedding was put off because Rickman was in difficulties and could not afford to marry at the moment. Spinks would have accepted this explanation as sufficient if it had not been for the peculiar behaviour of Rickman, and the very mysterious and agitating change in Flossie's manner. Old Rickets had returned to his awful solitude. He absented himself entirely from the dinner-table. When you met him on the stairs he was incommunicative and gloomy; and whatever you asked him to do he was too busy to do it. His sole attention to poor Flossie was to take her for an occasional airing in the Park on Sunday afternoons. Spinks had come across them there walking sadly side by side. Flossie for propriety's sake would be making a little conversation as he went by; but Rickman had always the shut mouth and steady eyes of invincible determination. What was it that Razors was so determined about? To marry Flossie? Or not to marry her? That was the question which agitated poor Spinks from morning till night, or rather from night till morning. The worst of it was that the very nature of his woes compelled him as an honourable person to keep them to himself. But there was no secret which could be long concealed from the eyes of that clever lady, Miss Roots; and she had contrived in the most delicate manner to convey to the unfortunate youth that he had her sympathy. Spinks, bound by his honour, had used no words in divulging his agony; but their unspoken confidences had gone so far that Miss Roots at last permitted herself to say that it might be as well to find out whether "it was on or off." "But," said the miserable Spinks, "would that be fair to Rickman?" "I think so," said the lady, with a smile that would have been sweet had it been rather less astute. "Mind you, I'm not in their secrets; but I believe you really needn't be afraid of that." "Yes. But how in Heaven's name am I to find out? I can't ask him, and I can't ask her." "Why can't you ask them?" Spinks was unable to say why; but his delicacy shrank from either course as in some subtle way unfair. Besides he distrusted Miss Roots's counsel, for she had not been nice to Flossie. "Oh Lord," said Spinks, "what an orful mess I'm in!" He said it to himself; for he had resolved to talk no longer to Miss Roots. He could have borne it better had not the terrible preoccupation of Rickman thrown Flossie on his hands. In common decency he had to talk to her at the dinner-table. But it was chivalry (surely) that drew him to her in the drawing-room afterwards. She had to be protected (poor Flossie) from the shrewdness of Miss Roots, the impertinence of Mr. Soper, and the painful sympathy of the other boarders. With the very best and noblest intentions in the world, Mr. Spinks descended nightly into that atmosphere of gloom, and there let loose his imperishable hilarity. He was quite safe, he knew, as long as their relations could be kept upon a purely hilarious footing; but Flossie's manner intimated (what it had never intimated before) that she now realized and preferred the serious side of him; and there was no way by which the humorous Spinks was more profoundly flattered than in being taken seriously. Some nights they had the drawing-room to themselves but for the harmless presence of Mr. Partridge dozing in his chair; and then, to see Flossie struggling to keep a polite little smile hovering on a mouth too tiny to support it; to see her give up the effort and suddenly become grave; to see her turn away to hide her gravity with all the precautions another woman takes to conceal her merriment; to see her sitting there, absolutely unmoved by the diverting behaviour of Mr. Partridge in his slumber, was profoundly agitating to Mr. Spinks. "I'm sure," said Flossie one night (it was nearly three weeks after the scene with Rickman in the Park), "I'm sure I don't know why we're laughing so much. There's nothing to laugh at that I can see." Spinks could have have replied in Byron's fashion that if he laughed 'twas that he might not weep, but he restrained himself; and all he said was, "I like to see you larf." "Well, you can't say you've ever seen me cry." "No, I haven't. I shouldn't like to see _that_, Flossie. And I shouldn't like to be the one that made you." "Wouldn't you?" Flossie put her pocket handkerchief to her little nose, and under the corner of it there peeped the tail-end of a lurking smile. "No," said Spinks simply, "I wouldn't." He was thinking of Miss Roots. The theory of Rickman's bad behaviour had never entered his head. "What's more, I don't think any nice person would do it." "Don't you?" "No. Not any really nice person." "It's generally," said Flossie, sweetly meditative, "the nicest person you know who can make you cry most. Not that _I_'m crying." "No. But I can see that somebody's been annoying you, and I think I can guess pretty well who it is, too. Nothing would please me more than to 'ave five minutes' private conversation with that person." He was thinking of Miss Harden now. "You mustn't dream of it. It wouldn't do, you know; it really wouldn't. Look here, promise me you'll never say a word." "Well it's safe enough to promise. There aren't many opportunities of meeting." "No, that's the worst of it, there aren't now. Still, you might meet him any minute on the stairs, or anywhere. And if you go saying things you'll only make him angry." "Oh it's a him, is it?" (_Now_ he was thinking of Soper.) "_I_ know. Don't say Soper's been making himself unpleasant." "He's always unpleasant." "Is he? By 'Eaven, if I catch him!" "Do be quiet. It isn't Mr. Soper." "Isn't it?" "No. How could it be? You don't call Mr. Soper _nice_, do you?" Spinks was really quiet for a moment. "I say, Flossie, have you and Rickets been 'aving a bit of a tiff?" "What do you want to know that for? It's nothing to you." "Well, it isn't just my curiosity. It's because I might be able to help you, Floss, if you didn't mind telling me what it was. I'm not a clever fellow, but there's no one in this house understands old Razors as well as I do." "Then you must be pretty sharp, for I can't understand him at all. Has he been saying anything to you?" "Oh no, he wouldn't say anything. You don't talk about these things, you know." "I thought he might--to you." "Me? I'm the very last person he'd dream of talking to." "I thought you were such friends." "So we are. But you see he never talks about you to me, Flossie." "Why ever not?" "That's why. Because we're friends. Because he wouldn't think it fair--" "Fair to who?" "To me, of course." "Why shouldn't it be fair to you?" Her eyes, close-lidded, were fixed upon the floor. As long as she looked at him Spinks held himself well in hand; but the sudden withdrawing of those dangerous weapons threw him off his guard. "Because he knows I--Oh hang it all, that's what I swore I wouldn't say." "You haven't said it." "No, but I've made you see it." His handsome face stiffened with horror at his stupidity. To let fall the slightest hint of his feeling was, he felt, the last disloyalty to Rickman. He had a vague idea that he ought instantly to go. But instead of going he sat there, silent, fixing on his own enormity a mental stare so concentrated that it would have drawn Flossie's attention to it, if she had not seen it all the time. "If there's anything to see," said she, "there's no reason why I shouldn't see it." "P'raps not. There's every reason, though, why I should have held my silly tongue." "Why, what difference does it make?" "It doesn't make any difference to you, of course, and it can't make any difference--really--to him; but it's a downright dishonourable thing to do, and that makes a jolly lot of difference to me. You see, I haven't any business to go and feel like this." "Oh well, you can't help your feelings, can you?" she said softly. "Anybody may have feelings--" "Yes, but a decent chap, you know, wouldn't let on that he had any--at least, not when the girl he--he--you know what I mean, it's what I mustn't say--when she and the other fellow weren't hitting it off very well together." "Oh, you think it might make a difference then?" "No, I don't--not reelly. It's only the feeling I have about it, don't you see. It seems somehow so orf'ly mean. Razors wouldn't have done it if it had been me, you know." "But it couldn't have been you." "Of course it couldn't," said the miserable Spinks with a weak spurt of anger; "that was only my way of putting it." "What are you driving at? What ever did you think I said?" "Never mind what you said. You're making me talk about it, and I said I wouldn't." "When did you say that?" "Ages ago--when Rickets first told me you--and he--" "Oh that? That was so long ago that it doesn't matter much now." "Oh, doesn't it though, it matters a jolly sight more. You said" (there was bitterness in his tone), "you said it couldn't have been me. As if I didn't know that." "I didn't mean it couldn't have been you, not in that way. I only meant that you'd have--well, you'd have behaved very differently, if it had been you; and so I believe you would." "You don't know how I'd 'ave behaved." "I've a pretty good idea, though." She looked straight at him this time, and he grew strangely brave. "Look here, Flossie," he said solemnly, "you know--as I've just let it out--that I'm most orf'ly gone on you. I don't suppose there's anything I wouldn't do for you except--well, I really don't know what you're driving at, but if it's anything to do with Razors, I'd rather not hear about it, if you don't mind. It isn't fair, really. You see, it's putting me in such a 'orribly delicate position." "I don't think you're very kind, Sidney. You don't think of me, or what sort of a position you put me in. I'm sure I wouldn't have said a word, only you asked me to tell you all about it; you needn't say you didn't." "That was when I thought, p'raps, I could help you to patch it up. But if I can't, it's another matter." "Patch it up? Do you think I'd let you try? I don't believe in patching things up, once they're--broken off." "I say Flossie, it hasn't come to that?" "It couldn't come to anything else, the way it was going." "Oh Lord"--Spinks buried a crimson face in his hands. If only he hadn't felt such a horrible exultation! "I thought you knew. Isn't that what we've been talking about all the time?" "I didn't understand. I only thought--_he_ didn't tell me, mind you--I thought it was just put off because he couldn't afford to marry quite so soon." "Don't you think three hundred a year is enough to marry on?" "Well, I shouldn't care to marry on that myself; not if it wasn't regular. He's quite right, Flossie. You see, a man hasn't got only his wife to think of." "No--I suppose he must think of himself a little too." "Oh well, no; if he's a decent chap, he thinks of his children." Flossie's face was crimson, too, while her thoughts flew to that unfurnished room in the brown house at Ealing. She was losing sight of Keith Rickman; for behind Keith Rickman there was Sidney Spinks; and behind Sidney Spinks there was the indomitable Dream. She did not look at Spinks, therefore, but gazed steadily at the top of Mr. Partridge's head. With one word Spinks had destroyed the effect he had calculated on from his honourable reticence. Perhaps it was because Flossie's thoughts had flown so far that her voice seemed to come from somewhere a long way off, too. "What would you think enough to marry on, then?" "Well, I shouldn't care to do it much under four hundred myself," he said guardedly. "And I suppose if you hadn't it you'd expect a girl to wait for you any time until you'd made it?" "Well of course I should, if we were engaged already. But I shouldn't ask any girl to marry me unless I could afford to keep her--" "You wouldn't _ask_, but--" "No, and I wouldn't let on that I cared for her either. I wouldn't let on under four hundred--certain." "Oh," said Flossie very quietly. And Spinks was crushed under a sense of fresh disloyalty to Rickman. His defence of Rickman had been made to turn into a pleading for himself. "But Razors is different; he'll be making twice that in no time, you'll see. I shouldn't be afraid to ask any one if I was him." Vainly the honourable youth sought to hide his splendour; Flossie had drawn from him all she needed now to know. "Look, here, Floss, you say it's broken off. Would you mind telling me was it you--or was it he who did it?" His tone expressed acute anxiety on this point, for in poor Spinks's code of honour it made all the difference. But he felt that his question was clearly answered, for the silence of Razors argued sufficiently that it was he. "Well," said Flossie with a touch of maidenly dignity, "whichever it was, it wasn't likely to be Keith." Spinks's face would have fallen, but for its immense surprise. In this case Rickman ought, yes, he certainly ought to have told him. It wasn't behaving quite straight, he considered, to keep it from the man who had the best right in the world to know, a fellow who had always acted straight with him. But perhaps, poor chap, he was only waiting a little on the chance of the Beaver changing her mind. "Don't you think, Flossie, that if he tried hard he could bring it on again?" "No, he couldn't. Never. Not if he tried from now till next year. Not if he went on his bended knees to me." Spinks reflected that Rickman's knees didn't take kindly to bending. "Haven't you been a little, just a little hard on him? He's such a sensitive little chap. If I was a woman I don't think I could let him go like that. You might let him have another try." Poor Spinks was so earnest, so sincere, so unaffectedly determined not to take advantage of the situation, that it dawned on Flossie that dignity must now yield a little to diplomacy. She was not making the best possible case for herself by representing the rupture as one-sided. "To tell you the truth, Sidney, he doesn't want to try. We've agreed about it. We've both of us found we'd made a great mistake--". "I wish _I_ could be as sure of that." "Why, what difference could it make to you?" said Flossie, turning on him the large eyes of innocence, eyes so dark, so deep, that her thoughts were lost in them. "It would make all the difference in the world, if I knew you weren't making a lot bigger mistake now." He rose, "I think, if you don't mind, I'll 'ave a few words with Rickets, after all. I think I'll go up and see him now." There was no change in the expression of her eyes, but her eyelids quivered. "No, Sidney, don't. For Goodness' sake don't go and say anything." "I'm not going to say anything. I only want to know--" "I've told you everything--everything I can." "Yes; but it's what you can't tell me that I want to know." "Well, but do wait a bit. Don't you speak to him before I see him. Because I don't want him to think I've given him away." "I'll take good care he doesn't think that, Flossie. But I'm going to get this off my mind to-night." "Well then, you must just take him a message from me. Say, I've thought it over and that I've told you everything. Don't forget. I've told you everything, say. Mind you tell him that before you begin about anything else. Then he'll understand." "All right. I'll tell him." Her eyes followed him dubiously as he stumbled over Mr. Partridge's legs in his excited crossing of the room. She was by no means sure of her ambassador's discretion. His heart would make no blunder; but could she trust his head? Up to this point Flossie had played her game with admirable skill. She had, without showing one card of her own, caused Spinks to reveal his entire hand. It was not until she had drawn from him the assurance of his imperishable devotion, together with the exact amount of his equally imperishable income, that she had committed herself to a really decisive move. She was perfectly well aware of its delicacy and danger. Not for worlds would she have had Spinks guess that Rickman was still waiting for her decision. And yet, if Spinks referred rashly and without any preparation to the breaking off of the engagement, Rickman's natural reply would be that this was the first he had heard of it. Therefore did she so manoeuvre and contrive as to make Rickman suppose that Spinks was the accredited bearer of her ultimatum, while Spinks himself remained unaware that he was conveying the first intimation of it. It was an exceedingly risky thing to do. But Flossie, playing for high stakes, had calculated her risk to a nicety. She must make up her mind to lose something. As the game now stood the moral approbation of Spinks was more valuable to her than the moral approbation of Rickman; and in venturing this final move she had reckoned that the moral approbation of Rickman was all she had to lose. Unless, of course, he chose to give her away. But Rickman could be trusted not to give her away. When Spinks presented himself in Rickman's study he obtained admission in spite of the lateness of the hour. The youth's solemn agitation was not to be gainsaid. He first of all delivered himself of Flossie's message, faithfully, word for word. "Oh, so she's told you everything, has she? And what did she tell you?" "Why, that it was all over between you, broken off, you know." "And you've come to me to know if it's true, is that it?" "Well no, why should I? Of course it's true if she says so." Rickman reflected for a moment; the situation, he perceived, was delicate in the extreme, delicate beyond his power to deal with it. But the god did not forsake his own, and inspiration came to him. "You're right there, Spinky. Of course it's true if she says so." "She seemed to think you wouldn't mind her telling me. She said you'd understand." "Oh yes, I think I understand. Did she tell you she had broken it off?" (He was really anxious to know how she had put it.) "Yes, but she was most awfully nice about it. I made out--I mean she gave me the impression--that she did it, well, partly because she thought you wanted it off. But that's just what I want to be sure about. Do you want it off, or don't you?" "Is that what she wants to know?" "No. It's what I want to know. What's more, Rickets, I think I've got a fair right to know it, too." "What do you want me to say? That I don't want to marry Miss Walker or that I do?" Spinks's face flushed with the rosy dawn of an idea. It was possible that Rickets didn't want to marry her, that he was in need of protection, of deliverance. There was a great deed that he, Spinks, could do for Rickets. His eyes grew solemn as they beheld his destiny. "Look here," said he, "I want you to tell me nothing but the bally truth. It's the least you can do under the circumstances. I don't want it for her, well--yes I do--but I want it for myself, too." "All right, Spinky, you shall have the best truth I can give you at such uncommonly short notice. I can't say I don't want to marry Miss Walker, because that wouldn't be very polite to the lady. But I can say I think she's shown most admirable judgement, and that I'm perfectly satisfied with her decision. I wouldn't have her go back, on it for worlds. Will that satisfy you?" "It would if I thought you really meant it." "I do mean it, God forgive me. But that isn't her fault, poor little girl. The whole thing was the most infernal muddle and mistake." "Ah--that was what she called it--a mistake." Spinks seemed to be clinging to and cherishing this word of charm. "I'm glad for her sake that she found it out in time. I'm not the sort of man a girl like Flossie ought to marry. I ought never to have asked her." "Upon my soul, Rickets, I believe you're right there. That's not saying anything against you, or against her either." "No. Certainly not against _her_. She's all right, Spinky--" "I know, I know." Still Spinks hesitated, restraining his ardent embrace of the truth presented to him, held back by some scruple of shy unbelieving modesty. "Then you think, you really _do_ think, that there isn't any reason why I shouldn't cut in?" "No, Heaven bless you; no reason in the world, as far as I'm concerned. For God's sake cut in and win; the sooner the better. Now, this minute, if you feel like it." But still he lingered, for the worst was yet to come. He lingered, nursing a colossal scruple. Poor Spinks's honour was dear to him because it was less the gift of nature than the supreme imitative effort of his adoring heart. He loved honour because Rickman loved it; just as he had loved Flossie for the same reason. These were the only ways in which he could imitate him; and like all imitators he exaggerated the master's manner. "I say, I don't know what you'll think of me. I said I'd never let on to Flossie that I cared; and I didn't mean to, I didn't on my word. I don't know how it happened; but to-night we got talking--to tell you the truth I thought I was doing my best to get her to make it up with you--" "Thanks; that was kind," said Rickman in a queer voice which put Spinks off a bit. "I was really, Razors. I do believe I'd have died rather than let her know how I felt about her; but before I could say knife--" "She got it out of you?" "No, she didn't do anything of the sort. It was all me. Like a damn fool I let it out--some'ow." Nothing could have been more demoralizing than the spectacle of Spinks's face as he delivered himself of his immense confession; so fantastically did it endeavour to chasten rapture with remorse. Rickman controlled himself the better to enjoy it; for Spinks, taken seriously, yielded an inexhaustible vein of purest comedy. "Oh, Spinky," he said with grave reproach, "how could you?" "Well, I know it was a beastly dishonourable thing to do; but you see I was really most awkwardly situated." "I daresay you were." It was all very well to laugh; but in spite of his amusement he sympathized with Spinky's delicacy. He also had found himself in awkward situations more than once. "Still," continued Spinks with extreme dejection, "I can't think how I came to let it out." That, and the dejection, was too much for Rickman's gravity. "If you want the truth, Spinky, the pity was you ever kept it in." And his laughter, held in, piled up, monstrous, insane, ungovernable, broke forth, dispersing the last scruple that clouded the beatitude of Spinks. CHAPTER LXV Often, after half a night spent in a vain striving to shape some immense idea into the form of beauty, be had turned the thing neck and crop out of his mind and gone to sleep on it. Whenever he did this he was sure to wake up and find it there waiting for him, full-formed and perfect as he had dreamed it and desired. It had happened so often that he had grown to trust this profounder inspiration of his sleep. Hitherto it was only the problems of his heart that had been thus divinely dealt with; he had been left to struggle hopelessly with the problems of his life; and of these Flossie was the most insoluble. And now that he had given up thinking of her, had abandoned her to her own mysterious workings, it too had been solved and in the same simple, inevitable way. His contempt for Flossie's methods could not blind him to the beneficence of the result. He wrote to her that night to the effect that he gladly and entirely acquiesced in her decision; but that he should have thought that he and not Mr. Spinks had been entitled to the first intimation of it. He had no doubt, however, that she had done the best and wisest thing. He forbore to add "for both of us." His chivalry still persisted in regarding Flossie as a deeply injured person. He had wronged her from the beginning. Had he not laid on her, first the burden of his passion, and yet again the double burden of his genius and his honour? A heavier load, that, and wholly unfitted for the poor little back that would have had to bear it. It never occurred to him that he had been in any way the victim of Flossie's powerful instincts. It was Maddox who said that Mr. Spinks had made himself immortal by his marriage; that he should be put on the Civil List for his services to literature. Of Rickman's place in literature there could be no question for the next two or three years. He foresaw that the all-important thing was his place on _The Planet_, his place on _Metropolis_, his place (if he could find one) on any other paper. He had looked to journalism for the means to support a wife, and journalism alone could maintain him in his struggle with Pilkington. Whether Maddox was right or wrong in his opinion of the disastrous influence of Flossie, there could be no doubt that for the present Rickman's genius had no more formidable rival than his honour. If it is perdition to a great tragic dramatist when passion impels him to marry on three hundred a year, it can hardly be desirable that conscience should constrain him to raise seven hundred and fifty pounds in three years. Fate seemed bent in forcing him to live his tragedies rather than write them; but Rickman, free of Flossie, faced the desperate prospect with the old reckless spirit of his youth. For the first year the prospect did not look so very desperate. He had found cheap rooms unfurnished in Torrington Square where the houses are smaller and less sumptuous than Mrs. Downey's. He had succeeded in letting the little house in Ealing, where the abominable furniture that had nearly cost so dear justified its existence by adding a small sum to his income. He had benefited indirectly by Rankin's greatness; for Rankin seldom contributed anything to _The Planet_ now beyond his lively column once a week; and Rickman was frequently called on to fill his place. _The Planet_ was good for at least a solid hundred a year; _Metropolis_ (once it began to pay) for a solid two hundred and fifty or more; other papers for small and varying sums. When he totted it all up together he found that he was affluent. He could reckon on a round four hundred all told. In Torrington Square, by the practice of a little ingenious economy, he could easily live on a hundred and twenty-five; so that by the end of the first year he should have saved the considerable sum of two hundred and seventy-five pounds. At that rate, in three years--no, in two years and a--well, in rather more than two and a half years the thing would be done. By a little extra exertion he might be able to reduce it to two years; to one, perhaps, by a magnificent stroke of luck. Such luck, for instance, as a stage success, a run of a hundred nights for the tragedy whose First Act he was writing now. That, of course, it would be madness to count on; but he had some hopes from the sudden and extraordinary transformation of _The Museion_. Sudden enough, to the uninitiated, seeing that in September, ninety-seven, the organ of philosophic criticism to all appearances died, and that in October it burst into life again under a new cover and a new title, Jewdwine himself sounding the trump of resurrection. _The Museion's_ old contributors knew it no more; or failed to recognise it in _Metropolis_. On the tinted cover there was no trace of the familiar symbolic head-piece, so suggestive of an Ionic frieze, but the new title in the broadest, boldest, blackest of type proclaimed its almost wanton repudiation of the old tradition. Jewdwine's first "concession to modernity," was a long leading review of the "Art of Herbert Rankin." Herbert Rankin was so much amused with it that it kept him quiet for at least three weeks in his playground of _The Planet_. After such a handsome appreciation as that, he had to wait a decent interval before "going for Jewdwine." When he remarked to Rickman that it would have been more to the purpose if Jewdwine had devoted his six columns to the Art of S.K.R., Rickman blushed and turned his head away, as if Rankin had been guilty of some gross indelicacy. He was still virginally sensitive where Jewdwine was concerned. But, in a sense not intended by Rankin, Jewdwine was very much occupied, not to say perturbed by the art of S.K.R. Not exactly to the exclusion of every other interest; for Rickman, looking in on the great editor one afternoon, found him almost enthusiastic over his "last discovery." A new poet, according to Jewdwine, had arisen in the person of an eminent Cabinet Minister, who in ninety-seven was beguiling the tedium of office with a very pretty playing on the pastoral pipe. Mr. Fulcher's _In Arcadia_ lay on the editorial table, bound in white vellum, with the figure of the great God Pan symbolizing Mr. Fulcher, on the cover. Jewdwine's attitude to Mr. Fulcher was for Jewdwine humble, not to say reverent. He intimated to Rickman that in Fulcher he had found what he had wanted. Jewdwine in the early days of _Metropolis_ wore the hungry look of a man who, having swallowed all his formulas, finds himself unnourished. "The soul," Jewdwine used to say (perverting Emerson) "is appeased by a formula"; and it was clear that his soul would never be appeased until it had found a new one. Those who now conversed intimately with Jewdwine were entertained no longer with the Absolute, but they heard a great deal about the "Return to Nature." Mr. Fulcher's pipings, therefore, were entirely in harmony with Jewdwine's change of mood. But Rickman, who had once protested so vigorously against the Absolute, would not hear of the Return to Nature, either. That cry was only a symptom of the inevitable sickness of the academic spirit, surfeited with its own philosophy. He shook his head mournfully over Mr. Fulcher. What looked to Jewdwine like simplicity seemed to him only a more intolerably sophisticated pose than any other. "I prefer Mr. Fulcher in Downing Street to Mr. Fulcher in Arcadia. Mr. Fulcher," he said, "can no more return to Nature than he can enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born." He walked up and down the little office excitedly, while he drew for Jewdwine's benefit an unattractive picture of the poet as babe, drinking from the breasts of the bounteous mother. "You can't go for ever hanging on your mother's breasts; it isn't decent and it isn't manly. Return to Nature! It's only too easy to return, and stay. You'll do no good at all if you've never been there; but if you mean to grow up you must break loose and get away. The great mother is inclined to bug some of her children rather too tight, I fancy; and by Heaven! it's pretty tough work for some of them wriggling out of her arms." He came to a sudden standstill, and turned on Jewdwine the sudden leaping light of the blue eyes that seemed to see through Jewdwine and beyond him. No formula could ever frame and hold for him that vision of his calling which had come to him four years ago on Harcombe Hill. He had conceived and sung of Nature, not as the indomitable parent by turns tyrannous and kind, but as the virgin mystery, the shy and tender bride that waits in golden abysmal secrecy for the embrace of spirit, herself athirst for the passionate immortal hour. He foresaw the supreme and indestructible union. He saw one eternal nature and a thousand forms of art, differing according to the virile soul. And what he saw he endeavoured to describe to Jewdwine. "That means, mind you, that your poet is a grown-up man and not a slobbering infant." "Exactly. And Nature will be the mother of his art, as _I_ said." "As you didn't say--The mother _only_. There isn't any immaculate conception of truth. Don't you believe it for a moment." Jewdwine retired into himself a moment to meditate on that telling word. He wondered what lay beyond it. "And Art," continued Rickman, "is truth, just because it isn't Nature." "If you mean," said Jewdwine, seeking a formula, "that modern art is essentially subjective, I agree with you." "I mean that really virile and original art--the art, I believe of the future--must spring from the supreme surrender of Nature to the human soul." "And do you honestly believe that the art of the future will be one bit more 'virile' than the art of the present day?" "On the whole I do." "Well, I don't. I see nothing that makes for it. No art can hold out for ever against commercialism. The nineteenth century has been commercial enough in all conscience, bestially, brutally commercial; but its commercialism and brutality will be nothing to the commercialism and brutality of the twentieth. If these things are deadly to art now, they'll be ten times more deadly then. The mortality, among poets, my dear Rickman, will be something terrific." "Not a bit of it. The next century, if I'm not mistaken, will see a pretty big flare up of a revolution; and the soul will come out on top. Robespierre and Martin Luther won't be in it, Jewdwine, with the poets of that school." "I'm glad you feel able to take that view of it. I don't seem to see the poets of the twentieth century myself." "I see them all right," said Rickman, simply. "They won't be the poets of Nature, like the nineteenth century chaps; they'll be the poets of human nature--dramatic poets, to a man. Of course, it'll take a revolution to produce that sort." "A revolution? A cataclysm, you mean." "No. If you come to think of it, it's only the natural way a healthy poet grows. Look at Shakespeare. I believe, you know, that most poets would grow into dramatic poets if they lived long enough. Only sometimes they don't live; and sometimes they don't grow. Lyric poets are cases of arrested development, that's all." Jewdwine listened with considerable amusement as his subordinate propounded to him this novel view. He wondered what literary enormity Rickman might be contemplating now. That he had something at the back of his mind was pretty evident. Jewdwine meant to lie low till, from that obscure region, Rickman, as was his wont, should have brought out his monster for inspection. He produced it the next instant, blushingly, tenderly, yet with no diminution of his sublime belief. "You see--you'll think it sheer lunacy, but--I've a sort of idea that if I'm to go on at all, myself, it must be on those lines. Modern poetic drama--It's that or nothing, you know." Jewdwine's face said very plainly that he had no doubt whatever of the alternative. It also expressed a curious and indefinable relief. "Modern poetic drama? So that's your modest ambition, is it?" Rickman owned that indeed it was. "My dear fellow, modern poetic drama is a contradiction in all its terms. There are only three schools of poetry possible--the classic, the romantic and the natural. Art only exists by one of three principles, normal beauty, spiritual spontaneity, and vital mystery or charm. And none of these three is to be found in modern life." These were the laws he had laid down in the _Prolegomena to �sthetics_, which Rickman, in the insolence of his genius, had defied. Somehow the life seemed to have departed from those stately propositions, but Jewdwine clung to them in a desperate effort to preserve his critical integrity. He was soothed by the sound of his own voice repeating them. He caught as it were an echo of the majestic harmonies that once floated through his lecture-room at Lazarus. "Besides," he went on, "where will you find your drama to begin with?" "In modern men and women." "But modern men and women are essentially undramatic, _and_ unpoetic." "Still, I must take them, because, you see, there's nothing else to take. There never was or will be. The men and women of Shakespeare's time were modern to him, you know. If they seem poetic to us, that's because a poet made them so; and he made them so because he saw that--essentially--they _were_ so." Jewdwine pushed out his lips in the manner of one unwillingly dubious. "My dear Rickman, you have got to learn your limitations; or if not your limitations, the limitations made for you by the ridiculous and unlovely conditions of modern life." "I have learnt them. After all, what am I to do? I _am_ modern--modern as my hat," said Rickman, turning it in his hands. "I admit that my hat isn't even a fugitive form of the eternal and absolute beauty. It is, I'm afraid, horribly like everybody else's hat. In moments of profound insight I feel that _I_ am horribly like everybody else. If it wasn't for that I should have no hope of achieving my modest ambition." "I'm not saying anything against your modesty or your ambition. I'm not defying you to write a modern blank verse play; but I defy anybody to act one." "I know," said Rickman, "it's sad of course, but to the frivolous mind of a critic there always will be something ridiculous in the notion of blank verse spouted on the stage by a person in a frock-coat and a top-hat. But do you think you'd see that frock-coat and top-hat if once the great tragic passions got inside them?" "Where _are_ the great tragic passions?" "They exist and are poetic." "As survivals only. They are poetic but not modern. We have the passions of the divorce-court and the Stock Exchange. They are modern, if you like, but not strikingly poetic." "Well--even a stock-broker--if you insist on stockbrokers--" "I don't. Take the people--take the women I know, the women you know. Is there--honestly, is there any poetry in them?" "There is--heaps. Oceans of poetry--There always has been and will be. It's the poets, the great poets that don't turn up to time." "Well; I don't care how great a poet you may be. Modern poetic drama is the path of perdition for you. I wish," he added with an unmistakable air of turning to a subject of real interest. "I wish I knew what to do with Fulcher." "I don't know. I only know Mr. Fulcher's art hasn't much to do with nature. I'm afraid it's the illegitimate offspring of Mr. Fulcher and some young shepherdess of Covent Garden." "He seems to have proved himself pretty much at home in Arcadia." "Don't you believe him. He's only at home in Downing Street. You'd better leave him there." But Jewdwine did not leave him there. He exalted Mr. Fulcher to the seventh heaven in four and a half columns of _Metropolis_. With his journalistic scent for the alluring and the vivid phrase, he took everything notable that Rickman had said and adapted it to Mr. Fulcher. _In Arcadia_ supplying a really golden opportunity for a critical essay on "Truth to Nature," wherein Mr. Fulcher learnt, to his immense bewilderment, that there is no immaculate conception of that truth; but that to Mr. Fulcher, as poet, belonged the exultation of paternity. Jewdwine quoted Coleridge to the effect that Mr. Fulcher only received what he was pleased to give, and that in Mr. Fulcher's life alone did Nature live. And when Rankin, falling on that article, asked Maddox what it meant, Maddox replied that it meant nothing except that Mr. Fulcher was a Cabinet Minister. But within three months of the day on which Jewdwine had pronounced the modern poetic drama to be dead, Rickman had written the First Act of his tragedy which proved it (as far as a First Act can prove anything) to be very much alive. Jewdwine received the announcement of this achievement with every appearance of pleasure. He was indeed genuinely relieved to think that Rickman was thus harmlessly employed. The incessant successful production of _Saturnalia_ would have been prejudicial to the interests of _The Museion_; a series of triumphant _Helens in Leuce_ would have turned Rickman aside for ever from the columns of _Metropolis_; but Jewdwine told himself that he had nothing to fear from the rivalries of the modern Tragic Muse. Rickman the journalist would live; for Rickman the poet had set out on the path of perdition. Nobody could say that it was Jewdwine who had encouraged him to take it. CHAPTER LXVI In January, ninety-eight, _Metropolis_ began to pay, and Rickman's hopes were justified. He was now a solid man, a man of income. For eighteen months he kept strictly within the limits he had allowed himself. His nature inclined him to a riotous and absurd expenditure, and for eighteen months he wrestled with and did violence to his nature. Each sum he saved stood for some triumph of ingenious abnegation, some miracle of self-restraint. And for eighteen months Dicky Pilkington, beholding the spectacle of his heroism, laid ten to one against his ultimate success. The thing, Dicky said, was impossible; he could never keep it up. But Rickman once abandoned to a persistent and passionate economy, there was no more holding him in on that path than on any other. By the middle of the following year, out of an income of four hundred he had saved that sum. He said to himself that the worst was over now. He had paid off more than half of his debt, and the remainder had still another fourteen months to run. Only fourteen months' passionate economy and the Harden library would be redeemed. As he saw himself within measurable distance of his end, he was seized by an anxiety, an excitement that he had not been aware of at the start. The sight of the goal perturbed him; it suggested the failure that up to that moment he had not allowed himself to contemplate. Like an athlete he gathered himself together for the final spurt; and ninety-nine was a brilliant year for _The Planet_ made glorious by the poems, articles and paragraphs showered on it by S.K.R. Maddox shook his head over some of them; but he took them all and boasted, as he well might, that _The Planet_ published more Rickman--the real Rickman--in six months than _Metropolis_ would do in as many years. He distinguished between Rickman's genius and his talent; provided he got his best work, anybody else was welcome to his second-best. By anybody else he meant Jewdwine. Yet it was a nobler feeling than professional rivalry that made him abhor the poet's connection with _Metropolis_; for Maddox was if anything more jealous for Rickman's reputation than for his own. From the very beginning he had never ceased to wonder at his unaccountable affection for Horace Jewdwine; the infatuation, for it amounted to infatuation, would have been comprehensible enough in any other man, but it was unaccountable in Rickman, who was wholly destitute of reverence for the sources of his income. Jewdwine of _The Museion_ had been in Maddox's opinion a harmless philosophic crank; he had done nothing, absolutely nothing for Rickman's genius; but Jewdwine of _Metropolis_ was dangerous, for he encouraged Rickman's talent; and Rickman's talent would, he was afraid, be ultimately destructive to the higher power. So Maddox prayed to heaven for promotion, that he might make Rickman independent of Jewdwine and his journal. There were many things that he had in his mind to do for him in the day of advancement. His eyes raked the horizon, sighting promotion from afar. And in the last two years, promotion had come very near to Maddox. There were quarters, influential quarters, where he Was spoken of as a singularly original young man; and he had the knack of getting hold of singularly original young men; young men of originality too singular perhaps to make the paper pay. Still, though the orbit of _The Planet_ was hardly so vast as Maddox had anticipated, as to its brilliance there could be no two opinions. In the year ninety-eight, the year that saw Rickman first struggling in the financier's toils, Maddox had delivered his paper from the power of Pilkington. Promotion played with Maddox; it hovered round him, touching him tentatively with the tips of its wings; he lured it by every innocent art within his power, but hitherto it had always settled on some less wild and wanton head. At last it came, it kept on coming, from a quarter where, as he had every right to look for it, he had of course never dreamed of looking. Rankin's publishers, grown rich on the proceeds of Rankin's pen, were dissatisfied with their reader (the poor man had not discovered Rankin); on Rankin's advice they offered his post to Maddox (who had), and that at double his salary. They grew richer, and at a further hint from Rankin they made Maddox a director. In the same mad year they started a new monthly, and (Rankin again) appointed Maddox as their editor. His opportunity had come. On the very night of this third appointment Maddox called on Rickman and proposed on behalf of Rankin and Stables to hand over to him the editorship of _The Planet_. For Stables, he said, was too dog lazy, and Rankin too grossly prosperous to have anything to do with it. He didn't think any of them would ever make a fortune out of it; but its editor's income would be at any rate secure. He omitted to mention that it would be practically secured out of his, Maddox's, own pocket. "You may reckon," said he, "on three hundred and fifty." He named the sum modestly, humbly almost; not that he thought Rickman would be sorry to have that little addition to his income, but because he was always diffident in offering anything to Rickman, "when you thought of what he was"; and he found something startling, not to say upsetting, in the joy that leapt up in his young eyes. You never could tell how Ricky-ticky would take a thing; but if he had known he was going to take it that way he would have written him a note. He wondered whether Ricky-ticky was in a tight corner, head over ears in debt or love. Did the young lunatic want to marry after that near shave he had two years ago? You wouldn't exactly refuse three hundred and fifty; but a beggar must be brought pretty low to be crumpled up in that way by the mere mention of the sum. Maddox was not aware that no other combination of figures could have excited precisely those emotions; three hundred and fifty being the exact sum that Rickman needed for the accomplishment of his purpose. It brought his dream nearer to him by a year. A year? Why, it did more. He had only to ask and Maddox would advance the money. His dream was now, this moment, within his grasp. And all he could say was, "I say, you know, this is awfully good of you." "Good of you, Rickets, to take the thing off my hands. I can't very well run a monthly and a weekly with all my other jobs thrown in." "The question is whether I can manage two weeklies and the other things." "No, you can't. You're not built that way. But if you take _The Planet_, you can afford to chuck _Metropolis_. Tell you the truth, that's one reason why I want you to take it." Some of the joy died out of Rickman's face. "The other reason is, of course, that I can't think of a better man." "It's awfully good of you to think of me at all. But why do you want me to chuck _Metropolis_?" "Never mind why. I don't say _The Planet_ is the best imaginable place for you, nor are you the best imaginable man for _The Planet_; but I really can't think of a better." "No, but why--" "(Confound him, why can't he leave it alone? I shall lose my temper in another minute," said Maddox to himself.) "The question is, would you like it? Because, if you wouldn't, don't imagine you've got to take it to oblige me." "Of course I'd like it. There isn't anything I'd like so well." "It's settled then." It might have been, but Rickman turned on him again with his ungovernable "Why?" "If you'd like it, Ricky, there's nothing more to be said. I know it isn't exactly a sumptuous berth for you, but it's a bit better salary." "I'm not thinking of the salary. Oh, yes, I am, though; God forgive me, I'm thinking of nothing else." "Salary apart," said Maddox, with the least touch of resentment, "it's a better thing for you to edit _The Planet_ than to sub-edit _Metropolis_." "Of course it is. Still, I should like to know why you want me to throw Jewdwine over." "Hang Jewdwine. I said _Metropolis_." "I'm glad you admit the distinction." "I _don't_ admit it." "Why do you want me to throw the thing over, then? Do you mean that I can't work for you and Jewdwine at the same time?" "I never said anything about Jewdwine at all. But--if you will have it--I can't say I consider the connection desirable for the editor of _The Planet_." "I think I'm the best judge of that." "I said--for the editor of _The Planet_." "For the editor of _The Planet_ then, why not?" "Ours is a poor but honest paper," said Maddox with his devilish twinkle. "I don't see how I can very well be the editor of _The Planet_ so long as it insists on shying a dead cat every week at the editor of _Metropolis_." "We have never mentioned the editor of _Metropolis_. Still--if you can induce Rankin to give up his little jest--the cat is certainly very dead by this time." "He'll have to give it up if you make me editor." "You'd better tell him so." "I shall." "All right, Rickets; only wait till you _are_ editor. Then you can put as much side on as you like." "Good heavens, did you ever see me put on side?" "Well, I've seen you strike an attitude occasionally." "All my attitudes put together hardly amount to side." "They do, if they assume that they're going to affect the attitude of our paper." "I didn't know it had one." "It has a very decided attitude with regard to the ethics of reviewing; and whatever else you make it give up, it's not going to give up that. _The Planet_, Ricky, doesn't put on side. Side would be fatal to any freedom in the handling of dead cats. I wouldn't go so far as to say that it makes its moral being its prime care; but there are some abuses which it lives to expose, though the exposure doesn't help it much to live." "Oh, I say, Maddy! That's what keeps you going. My poems would have sunk you long ago, if it hadn't been for your thrilling personalities." "Personalities or no personalities, what I mean to rub into you is that _The Planet_ is impartial; it's _the_ only impartial review in this country. It has always reserved to itself an absolutely untrammelled hand in the shying of dead cats; and because a man happens to be a friend of the editor, it's no guarantee whatever that he won't have one slung at him the minute he deserves it. His only security is to perpetrate some crime so atrocious that we can't publish his name for fear of letting ourselves in for an action for libel. Your attitude to Mr. Jewdwine is naturally personal. Ours is not. I should have thought you'd have been the first to see that." "I don't see what you've got against him, to begin with. I wish you'd tell me plainly what it is." "If you will have it, it's simply this--he isn't honest." "What the devil _do_ you mean?" "I mean what you mean when you say a woman isn't honest. As you've so often remarked, there's such a thing as intellectual chastity. Some people have it, and some have not. You have it, my dear Rickets, in perfection, not to say excess; but most of us manage to lose it more or less as we go on. It's a deuced hard thing, I can tell you, for any editor to keep; and Jewdwine, I'm afraid, has latterly been induced to part with it to a considerable, a very considerable extent. It's a thousand pities; for Jewdwine had the makings in him of a really fine critic. He might have been a classic if he'd died soon enough." "He _is_ a classic--he's the only man whose opinion's really worth having at this moment." "Whom are we talking about? Jewdwine? Or the editor of _Metropolis_?" "I'm talking about Jewdwine. I happen to know him, if you don't." "And I'm talking about the other fellow whom you don't happen to know a little bit. Nobody cares a tuppenny damn about _his_ opinion, except the fools who read it and the knaves who buy it." "And who do you imagine those people are?" "Most of them are publishers, I believe. But a good few are authors, I regret to say." "Authors have cheek enough for most things; but I should like to see one suggesting to Jewdwine that he should sell him his opinion." "My dear fellow, anybody may suggest it. That's what he's there for, since he turned his opinion on to the streets. Whether you get a pretty opinion or not depends on the length of your purse." "Why don't you call it bribery at once?" "Because bribery's too harsh a term to apply to an editor, _mon semblable, mon frère_; but in a woman, or a parliamentary candidate, it might possibly be called corruption." "Thanks. Well, you've made me a very generous offer, Maddox, so generous that I'm glad you've explained yourself before I took it. For after that, you know, it would have been rather awkward for me to have to tell you you're a liar!" "You consider me a liar, do you?" said Maddox in a mild dispassionate voice. "Certainly I do, when you say these thing about Jewdwine." "How about Rankin? He says them." "Then Rankin's a liar, too!" "And Stables?" "_And_ Stables--if he says them." "My dear Rickman, everybody says them; only they don't say them to you. We can't all be liars." "There's a difference, I admit. Anybody who says them is a liar; and anybody who says them to _me_ is a d----d liar! That's the difference." Whereupon Maddox intimated (as honour indeed compelled him) that Rickman was the sort of young fool for which there is no salvation. And by the time Rickman had replied with suitable hyperbole; and Maddox, because of the great love he bore to Rickman, had observed that if Rickman chose to cut his confused throat he might do so without its being a matter of permanent regret to Maddox; and Rickman, because of the great love he bore to Maddox, had suggested his immediate departure for perdition, it was pretty clearly understood that Rickman himself preferred to perish, everlastingly perish, rather than be connected even remotely with Maddox and his paper. And on that understanding they separated. And when the door was closed between them, Rickman realised that his folly was even as Maddox had described it. In one night, and at a crisis of his finances, he had severed himself from a fairly permanent source of income; flung up the most desirable chance that had presented itself hitherto in his career; and quarrelled disgracefully and disagreeably with his best friend. He supposed the split was bound to come; but if he could only have staved it off for another year, till he had collected that seven hundred and fifty! There could be no doubt that that was what he ought to have done. He ought to have been prudent for Lucia's sake. And on the top of it all came the terrible reflection--Was it really worth it? Did he really believe in Jewdwine? Or had he sacrificed himself for an idea? CHAPTER LXVII Rickman could never be made to speak of the quarrel with Maddox. He merely mentioned to Jewdwine in the most casual manner that he had left _The Planet_. As for his grounds for that abrupt departure Jewdwine was entirely in the dark. It was Lucia that enlightened him. For all things, even the deep things of journalism, sooner or later come to light. Rickman, before the quarrel, had given Miss Roots an introduction to the young men of _The Planet_, and its editor had taken kindly to Miss Roots. Maddox, it is true, did his best to keep the matter quiet, until in a moment of expansion he allowed that shrewd lady to lure him into confidences. Maddox tried to take it and present it philosophically. "It was bound to happen," he said. "Our Ricky-ticky is a bad hand at serving two masters," but as to which was God and which Mammon in this connection he modestly reserved his opinion. Jewdwine's name was carefully avoided, but Miss Roots was left in no doubt as to the subject of dispute. She and Maddox were one in their inextinguishable enthusiasm for their Rickman, for Rickman had the gift, the rarest of all gifts, of uniting the hearts that loved him. If Jewdwine had showed anything like a proper appreciation of the poet, Maddox would have spared him now. So the two looked at each other, with eyes that plumbed all the depths of the unspoken and unspeakable, eyes that sent out a twinkling flash of admiration as they agreed that it was "just like Rickman." That phrase was for ever on the lips of his admirers, a testimony to the fact that Rickman was invariably true to himself. He was being true to himself now in being true to Jewdwine, and it was in that form that the tale went round. "I can't tell you all the ins and outs of it," wrote Miss Roots to Lucia, "but he is paying for his loyalty to Mr. Jewdwine;" and Lucia, with equal pride in her cousin and her friend, repeated it to Kitty Palliser, who repeated it to somebody else with the comment, "I'm not surprised to hear it"; and somebody else repeated it in a good many quarters without any comment at all. For everybody but Lucia understood that it spoke for itself. And nobody understood it better than Jewdwine when his cousin said, "You _will_ be nice to him, Horace, won't you? He is suffering for his loyalty to you." Lucia herself had adopted a theory which she now set forth (reluctantly, by reason of the horrible light it threw on human nature). Mr. Maddox (whoever he might be) was of course jealous of Horace. It was a shocking theory, but it was the only one which made these complications clear to her. But Jewdwine had no need of theories or explanations. He understood. He knew that a certain prejudice, not to say suspicion, attached to him. Ideas, not very favourable to his character as a journalist, were in the air. And as his mind (in this respect constitutionally susceptible) had seldom been able to resist ideas in the air there were moments when his own judgment wavered. He was beginning to suspect himself. He was not sure, and if he had been he would not have acted on that certainty; for he had never possessed the courage of his opinions. But it had come to this, that Jewdwine, the pure, the incorruptible, was actually uncertain whether he had or had not taken a bribe. As he lay awake in bed at four o'clock in the morning his conscience would suggest to him that he had done this thing; but at noon, in the office of _Metropolis_, his robust common sense, then like the sun, in the ascendant, boldly protested that he had done nothing of the sort. He had merely made certain not very unusual concessions to the interests of his journal. In doing so he had of course set aside his artistic conscience, an artistic conscience being a private luxury incompatible with the workings of a large corporate concern. He was bound to disregard it in loyalty to his employers and his public. They expected certain things of him and not others. It was different in the unexciting days of the old _Museion_; it would be different now if he could afford to run a paper of his own dedicated to the service of the Absolute. But Jewdwine was no longer the servant of the Absolute. He was the servant and the mouthpiece of a policy that in his heart he abhorred; irretrievably committed to a programme that was concerned with no absolute beyond the absolute necessity of increasing the circulation of _Metropolis_. Such a journal only existed on the assumption that its working expenses were covered by the advertisements of certain publishing houses. But if this necessity committed him to a more courteous attitude than he might otherwise have adopted towards the works issued by those houses, that was not saying that he was in their pay. He was, of course, in the pay of his own publishers, but so was every man who drew a salary under the same conditions; and if those gentlemen, finding their editor an even more competent person than they had at first perceived, were in the habit of increasing his salary in proportion to his competence, that was only the very correct and natural expression of their good opinion. Whatever he had thought of himself at four o'clock in the morning, by four o'clock in the afternoon Jewdwine took an extremely lenient, not to say favourable view. Unfortunately he had not the courage of that opinion either. Therefore he was profoundly touched by this final instance of Rickman's devotion, and all that it argued of reckless and inspired belief. In the six months that followed he saw more of Rickman than he had seen in as many years. Whenever he had a slack evening he would ask him to dinner, and let him sit talking on far into the night. He was afraid of being left alone with that uncomfortable doubt, that torturing suspicion. Rickman brought with him an atmosphere charged with stimulating conviction, and in his presence Jewdwine breathed freely and unafraid. He felt himself no longer the ambiguous Jewdwine that he was, but the noble incorruptible Jewdwine that he had been. Up there in the privacy of his study Jewdwine let himself go; to that listener he was free to speak as a critic noble and incorruptible. But there were moments, painful for both men, when he would pause, gripped by his doubt, in the full swing of some high deliverance; when he looked at Rickman with a pathetic anxious gaze, as if uncertain whether he were not presuming too far on a character that he held only at the mercy of his friend's belief. Though as yet he was not fully aware of the extent to which he relied on that belief, there could hardly have been a stronger tie than that which now bound him to his subordinate. He would have shrunk from loosing it lest he should cut himself off from some pure source of immortality, lest he should break the last link between his soul and the sustaining and divine reality. It was as if through Rickman he remained attached to the beauty which he still loved and to the truth which he still darkly discerned. In any case he could not have suffered him to go unrewarded. He owed that to himself, to the queer personal decency which he still managed to preserve after all his flounderings in the slough of journalism. It was intolerable to his pride that Rickman should be in any pecuniary embarrassment through his uncompromising devotion. He hardly knew whether he was the more pleased because Rickman had stuck to him or because he had thrown his other friends over. He had never quite forgiven him that divided fealty. He cared nothing for an allegiance that he had had to share with Maddox and his gang. But now that Rickman was once more exclusively, indisputably his, he was in honour bound to cherish and protect him. (Jewdwine was frequently visited by these wakenings of the feudal instinct that slept secretly in his blood.) If he could not make up to Rickman for the loss of the proposed editorship, he saw to it that he was kept well supplied with lucrative work on his own paper. As an even stronger proof of his esteem he allowed him for the first time a certain authority, and an unfettered hand. For six months Rickman luxuriated in power and increase of leisure and of pay. If the pay was insufficient to cover all his losses the leisure was invaluable; it enabled him to get on with his tragedy. Now if Rickman had been prudent he would have finished his tragedy then and there and got it published in all haste. For there is no doubt that if any work of his had been given to the world any time within those six months, Jewdwine would have declared the faith that was in him. Whatever the merits of the work he would have celebrated its appearance by a sounding Feast of Trumpets in _Metropolis_. He would have done anything to strengthen the tie that attached him to the sources of his spiritual content. But Rickman was not prudent. He let the golden hours slip by while he sat polishing up his blank verse as if he had all eternity before him. Meanwhile he did all he could for Jewdwine. Jewdwine indeed could not have done a better thing for himself than in giving Rickman that free hand. In six months there was a marked improvement in the tone of _Metropolis_ and the reputation of its editor, and, but for the unexpected which is always happening, Jewdwine might in the long run have emerged without a stain. Nothing in fact could have been more utterly unforeseen, and yet, in reviewing all the steps which led to the ultimate catastrophe, Rickman said to himself that nothing would have been more consistent and inevitable. It came about first of all through a freak, a wanton freak of Fate in the form of a beardless poet, a discovery, not of Jewdwine's nor of Rickman's but of Miss Roots'. That Miss Roots could make a discovery clearly indicated the finger of fate. Miss Roots promptly asked Rickman to dinner and presented to him the discovery, beardless, breathless also and hectic, wearing an unclean shirt and a suit of frayed shoddy. He came away from that dinner, that embarrassing, palpitating encounter, with a slender sheaf of verses in his pocket. It did not take him long to read them, nor to see (the unforeseen again!) that the verses would live longer than their maker. They were beardless, breathless, and hectic like the boy, but nobody could have been keener than Rickman to recognize the immortal adolescence, the swift panting of the pursuing god, the burning of the inextinguishable flame. He wrote a letter to him, several letters, out of the fulness of his heart. Then Maddox, to whom he had not spoken since the day of their falling out, came up to him at the Junior Journalists, shook his hand as if nothing had happened, and thanked him for his appreciation of young Paterson. He said that it had put new life into the boy. They made it up over young Paterson. And that was another step towards the inevitable conclusion. The next step was that somebody who was paying for the boy's doctor's bills paid also for the publication of his poems. They arrived (this of course was only to be expected) at the office of _Metropolis_ (the slender sheaf grown slenderer by some omissions which Rickman had advised). But it was Fate that contrived that they should arrive in the same week with a volume (by no means slender), a volume of Poems issued by the publishers of _Metropolis_ and written by a friend (and an influential friend) of the editor. Therein were the last sweet pipings of the pastoral Fulcher. No other hand but Jewdwine's, as Jewdwine sorrowfully owned, could have done anything for this work, and he meant to have devoted a flattering article to it in the next number. But in the arrangements of the unforeseen it was further provided that Jewdwine should be disabled, at what he playfully called the "critical moment," by an attack of influenza. The two volumes, the slender and the stout, were forwarded to Rickman in the same parcel, and Jewdwine in a note discreetly worded threw himself and the poems of his influential friend on Rickman's mercy. Would Rickman deal with the big book? He would see for himself that it _was_ a big book. He gave him as usual a perfectly free hand as to space, but he thought it might be well to mention that the book _was_ to have had a two-page article all to itself. He drew Rickman's attention to the fact that it was published by So and So, and hoped that he might for once at least rely on his discretion. Perhaps as he was reviewing the work of a "brother bard" it would be better to keep the article anonymous. There was nothing coarse about Jewdwine's methods. Through all his career he remained refined and fastidious, and his natural instincts forbade him to give a stronger hint. Unfortunately, in this instance, refinement had led him into a certain ambiguity of phrase! On this ambiguity Rickman leapt, with a grin of diabolical delight. He may have had some dim idea that it would be his shelter in the day of rebuke; but all he could clearly think of as he held the boy's frail palpitating volume in his hand, was that he had but that moment in which to praise him. This was his unique and perfect opportunity, the only sort of opportunity that he was not likely to let slip. _Quem Deus vult perdere prius dementat_; and it really looked as if madness had come upon Rickman in the loneliness and intoxication of his power. With those two volumes of poetry before him, a small one by a rank outsider, unknown, unkempt and unprotected; a boy from whom no more was to be expected, seeing that he was about to depart out of the world where editors are powerful; and one, a large, considerable volume by a person eminent already in that world and with many years of poetry and influence before him, he gave (reckless of all proportion) the two-page article to the slender volume and the paragraph to the stout. That was what he did--he, the sub-editor. Of the paragraph the less said the better. As for the article it was such a song of jubilation as one poet sings over the genius of another; and nothing that he had ever done for _Metropolis_ delighted him so much as the making of it. He sent the proofs to Jewdwine as usual with a note. "Here they are. I _think_ I've been discreet. I've done what I could for Mr. Fulcher, but, as you'll see, I've dealt nobly with young Paterson, as he deserves." As he heard nothing from Jewdwine, he could only suppose that the chief was satisfied, and he could not help reflecting with some complacency that no doubt old Maddox would be satisfied too. The next thing that happened was that he was cut by Maddox at the Junior Journalists. (It was on a Saturday, and _Metropolis_, _the_ number, had appeared the night before). Cut unmistakably, with a thrust from the blue eyes and an expressive turning of the enormous shoulders. A number once issued from his hands Rickman never looked at it again if he could help it, and he never troubled to look at it now. He simply regarded Maddox's behaviour as unaccountable. In the hope of lighting on some explanation he called at Tavistock Place one Sunday afternoon, at a time when he was pretty sure of finding Miss Roots alone. He wanted to know, he said, what was the matter with Maddy. Apparently Miss Roots had something the matter with her too, for her only answer was to hand him stiffly a copy of _Metropolis_ with the pages scored in blue pencil at his own article. He took it with a radiant and confiding smile, a smile that assumed such a thoroughly delightful understanding between him and Miss Roots that the little lady, who had evidently counted on a very different effect, was put to some intellectual confusion. She noticed that as he read the smile vanished and gave place, first to an expression of absolute bewilderment, and then to a furious flush, whether of shame or indignation she could not tell, but it looked (again to her confusion) uncommonly like both. "I see," he said quietly, and laid the paper aside. What he had seen was that, save for a few ingenious transpositions, the two reviews stood very much as he had written them. The only striking alteration was that Mr. Fulcher had got the article and young Paterson the paragraph. "Oh, you see, do you?" said Miss Roots bitterly. "That's more than I do." "I see there's been some astonishing mistake." For one moment he exonerated Jewdwine and embraced the wild hypothesis of a printer's error. He took back the accursed journal; as he held it his hand trembled uncontrollably. He glanced over the notices again. No. It was not after this fashion that the printers of the _Metropolis_ were wont to err. He recognized the familiar hand of the censor, though it had never before accomplished such an incredible piece of editing as this. And yet it was in strict accordance with the old tradition. The staff of _Metropolis_ knew that before a line of theirs was printed it had to pass under their editor's reforming hand; that was the understood condition on which they wrote for him at all; it was the method by which Jewdwine maintained the unity of his empire. But in the case of Rickman he either forbore to exercise his privilege, or exercised it in such a manner as preserved the individuality of the poet's style. Like some imperial conqueror Jewdwine had absorbed the literary spirit of the man he conquered, and _Metropolis_ bore the stamp of Rickman for all time. So now the style of the articles remained intact; they might have passed equally for the work of Rickman or of Jewdwine. "I suppose," he said helplessly, "it is a little short." "Short? You weren't bound to make it long; but there was no occasion to be so contemptuous." "Contemptuous? Good God!" "That's what it amounts to when you're so insufferably polite." Oh yes he recognized it, the diabolical urbanity that had seemed the very choicest method of dealing with Mr. Fulcher. "Politeness was not exactly all you led us to expect from you." He passed his hand wearily over his forehead and his eyes. Miss Roots had a moment of compunction. She thought of all that he had done for her. He had delivered her from her labours in the Museum; he had introduced her to the young men of _The Planet_, and had made Maddox send her many books to review; he had lifted her from the obscurity that threatened to engulf her. And he had done more for her than this. He had given her back her youth and intellect; he had made her life a joy instead of a terror to her. But Miss Roots was just. The agony on his face would have melted her heart, but for another agony that she saw. "If the poor boy knew that _you_ had written that paragraph--" "He needn't know unless some kind friend goes and tells him. It isn't signed." "No. I don't wonder that you were ashamed to put your name to it." He rose to go. She looked up at him with a queer little look, half penetrating and half pleading, and held out her hand. "Well," she said, "what am I to say if he asks me if you wrote it? Can you deny it?" "No," he said curtly, "I can't deny it." "And you can't explain it?" "No, and I can't explain it. Surely," he said with a horrible attempt at laughter, "it speaks for itself." "It does indeed, Keith." And Maddox, to whom Miss Roots related the substance of that interview, echoed her sentiment. "It does indeed." Of all that brilliant band of young men lured by journalism to ruin they looked on their Rickman as the most splendid, the most tragic. CHAPTER LXVIII Up till now it had never occurred to Rickman that his connection with _Metropolis_ could directly damage him, still less that Jewdwine could personally inflict a blow. But the injury now done to him was monstrous and intolerable; Jewdwine had hurt him in a peculiarly delicate and shrinking place. Because his nature was not originally magnificent in virtue of another sort, it was before all things necessary that he should perserve his intellectual chastity. That quality went deeper than the intellect; it was one with a sense of honour so fine that a touch, impalpable to ordinary men, was felt by it as a laceration and a stain. He walked up to Hampstead that Sunday evening, taking the hill at a round swinging pace. Not all the ardour and enthusiasm of his youth had ever carried him there with such an impetus as did his burning indignation against Jewdwine. And as he went the spirit of youth, the spirit of young Paterson, went beside him and breathed upon the flame. And yet he was the same man who only an hour ago had been defending Jewdwine's honour at the expense of his own; without a thought that in so defending it he was doing anything in the least quixotic or remarkable. He had done nothing. He had simply refrained at a critical moment from giving him away. Maddox was Jewdwine's enemy; and to have given Jewdwine away at that moment would have meant delivering him over to Maddox to destroy. No; when he thought of it he could hardly say he had defended his friend's honour at the expense of his own; for Jewdwine's honour was Lucia's, and Lucia's was not Jewdwine's but his, indistinguishably, inseparably his. But though he was not going to give Jewdwine up to Maddox, he was going to give him up. It might come to the same thing. He could imagine that, to anybody who chose to put two and two together, an open rupture would give him away as completely as if he had accused him in so many words. That, of course he could not help. There was a point beyond which his honour refused to identify itself with Jewdwine's. He had never felt a moment's hesitation upon that point. For in his heart he condemned his friend far more severely than Maddox could have condemned anybody. He had a greater capacity for disgust than Maddox. He would draw up, writhing at trifles over which Maddox would merely shrug his shoulders and pass on. In this instance Maddox, whose Celtic soul grew wanton at the prospect of a fight, would have fallen upon Jewdwine with an infernal joy, but he would have been the first to deprecate Rickman's decision as absurd. As for Rankin of Stables, instead of flying into a passion they would, in similar circumstances, have sat still and smiled. If it had not been for young Paterson, Rickman would have smiled too, even if he had been unable to sit still; for his vision of Fulcher pocketing the carefully selected praise intended for Paterson was purely and supremely comic; so delightful in fact, that he could have embraced Jewdwine for providing it. But Paterson, who had looked to him as to the giver of life or death, Paterson on his death-bed taking Fulcher's paragraph to himself and wondering whether it were indeed Rickman who had done this thing, the thought of Paterson was too painful to be borne. Honour or no honour, it would be impossible for him to work for Jewdwine after that. He had got to make that clear to Jewdwine; and anything more unpleasant than the coming interview he could not well conceive. Unpleasantness you would have said, was far from Jewdwine's mind that Sunday evening. He himself suggested nothing of the sort. He was in his study, sitting in an armchair with a shawl over his knees, smoking a cigarette and looking more pathetically refined than ever after his influenza, when Rickman burst in upon his peace. He was so frankly glad to see him that his greeting alone was enough to disarm prejudice. It seemed likely that he would carry off the honours of the discussion by remaining severely polite while Rickman grew more and more perturbed and heated. Rickman, however, gained at the outset by making straight for his point. As Jewdwine gave him no opening he had to make one and make it as early as possible, before the great man's amenities had time to lure him from the track. "I wish," said he abruptly, "you'd tell me what was wrong with those reviews of mine, that you found it necessary to alter them?" "The reviews? Oh, the reviews were all right--excellent material--they only wanted a little editing." "Do you mind telling me what you mean by editing?" "_That_ is the last point an editor is competent to explain." "All the same I'd like to hear what you've got to say. I think you'll admit that you owe me some explanation." "My dear fellow--sit down, won't you?--I admit nothing of the sort." Jewdwine no longer stood on his dignity, he lay back on it, lounged on it, stretched all his graceful length upon it, infinitely at ease. Time had mellowed his manners and made them incomparably gentle and humane. "You seem to think I took a liberty with your articles. I didn't. I merely exercised an ancient editorial right. I couldn't possibly have let them be printed as they stood. Conceive my feelings if I'd had to sit next to Mr. Fulcher at dinner that evening. It might easily have happened. It's all very well for you, Rickman; you're young and irresponsible, and you haven't got to sit next to Mr. Fulcher at dinner; but you'll own that it would have been rather an awkward situation for me?" "I can forgive you Fulcher, but I can't forgive you Paterson." "And I could have forgiven you Paterson, but I couldn't forgive you Fulcher. Do you see?" He allowed a few moments for reflection, and continued. "Of course, I understand your feelings. In fact I sympathize profoundly. As a rule I never dream of touching anything with your signature; I've far too great a reverence for style." "Style be d----d. For all I care you may cut up my style till you can't tell it from Fulcher's. I object to your transposing my meaning to suit your own. Honestly, Jewdwine, I'd rather write like Fulcher than write as you've made me appear to have written." "My dear Rickman, that's where you make the mistake. You don't appear at all." He smiled with urbane tolerance of the error. "The editor, as you know, is solely responsible for unsigned reviews." So far Jewdwine had come off well. He had always a tremendous advantage in his hereditary manners; however right you had been to start with, his imperturbable refinement put you grossly in the wrong. And at this point Rickman gave himself away. "What's the good of that?" said he, "if young Paterson believes I wrote them?" "Young Paterson isn't entitled to any belief in the matter." "But--he knew." There was a shade of genuine annoyance on Jewdwine's face. "Oh of course, if you've told him that you were the author. That's rather awkward for you, but it's hardly my fault. I'm sorry, Rickman, but you really _are_ a little indiscreet." "I wish I could explain your behaviour in the same way." "Come, since you're so keen on explanations, how do you propose to explain your own? I gave you certain instructions, and what right had you to go beyond them, not to say against them?" "What earthly right had you to make me say the exact opposite of what I did say? But I didn't go against your instructions. Here they are." He produced them. "You'll see that you gave me a perfectly free hand as to space." Jewdwine looked keenly at him. "You knew perfectly well what I meant. And you took advantage of--of a trifling ambiguity in my phrasing, to do--as you would say--the exact opposite. That was hardly what I expected of you." As he spoke Jewdwine drew his shawl up about his waist, thus delicately drawing attention to his enfeebled state. The gesture seemed to convict Rickman of taking advantage not only of his phrase but of his influenza, behaviour superlatively base. "I can give you a perfectly clear statement of the case. You carefully suppressed _my_ friend and you boomed your own for all you were worth. Naturally, I reversed your judgment. Of course, if you had told me you wanted to do a little log-rolling on your own account, I should have been only too delighted--but I always understood that you disapproved of the practice." "So I do. Paterson isn't a friend of mine." "He's your friend's friend then. I think Mr. Maddox might have been left to look after his own man." Rickman rose hastily, as if he were no longer able to sit still and bear it. "Jewdwine," he said, and his voice had the vibration which the master had once found so irresistible. "Have you read young Paterson's poems?" "Yes. I've read them." "And what is your honest--your private opinion of them?" "I'm not a fool, Rickman. My private opinion of them is the same as yours." "What an admission!" "But," said Jewdwine suavely, "that's not the sort of opinion my public--the public that pays for _Metropolis_--pays to have." "You mean it's the sort of opinion I'm paid to give." "Well, broadly speaking--of course there are exceptions, and Paterson in other circumstances might have been one of them--that's very much what I do mean." "Then--I'm awfully sorry, Jewdwine--but if that's so I can't go on working for _Metropolis_. I must give it up. In fact, that's really what I came to say." Jewdwine too had risen with an air of relief, being anxious to end an interview which was becoming more uncomfortable than he cared for. He had stood, gazing under drooping eyelids at his disciple's feet. Nobody would have been more surprised than Jewdwine if you had suggested to him that he could have any feeling about looking anybody in the face. But at that last incredible, impossible speech of his he raised his eyes and fixed them on Rickman's for a moment. In that moment many things were revealed to him. He turned and stood with his back to Rickman, staring through the open window. All that he saw there, the quiet walled garden, the rows of elms on the terrace beside it, the dim green of the Heath, and the steep unscaleable grey blue barrier of the sky, had taken on an unfamiliar aspect, as it were a tragic simplicity and vastness. For these things, once so restfully indifferent, had in a moment become the background of his spiritual agony, a scene where his soul appeared to him, standing out suddenly shelterless, naked and alone. No--if it _had_ only been alone; but that was the peculiar horror of it. He could have borne it but for the presence of the other man who had called forth the appalling vision, and remained a spectator of it. There was at least this much comfort for him in his pangs--he knew that a man of coarser fibre would neither have felt nor understood them. But it was impossible for Jewdwine to do an ignoble thing and not to suffer; it was the innermost delicacy of his soul that made it writhe under the destiny he had thrust upon it. And in the same instant he recognized and acknowledged the greatness of the man with whom he had to do; acknowledged, not grudgingly, not in spite of himself, but because of himself, because of that finer soul within his soul which spoke the truth in secret, being born to recognize great things and admire them. He wondered now how he could ever have mistaken Rickman. He perceived the origin and significance of his attitude of disparagement, of doubt. It dated from a certain hot July afternoon eight years ago when he lay under a beech-tree in the garden of Court House and Lucia had insisted on talking about the poet, displaying an enthusiasm too ardent to be borne. He had meant well by Rickman, but Lucia's ardour had somehow put him off. Maddox's had had the same effect, though for a totally different reason, and so it had gone on. He had said to himself that if other people were going to take Rickman that way he could no longer feel the same peculiar interest. He turned back again. "Do you really mean it?" said he. "I'm afraid I do." "You mean that you intend to give up reviewing for _Metropolis_?" "I mean that after this I can't have anything more to do with it." He means, thought Jewdwine, that he won't have anything more to do with me. And Rickman saw that he was understood. He wondered how Jewdwine would take it. He took it nobly. "Well," he said, "I'm sorry. But if you must go, you must. To tell the truth, my dear fellow, at this rate, you know, I couldn't afford to keep you. I wish I could. You are not the only thing I can't afford." He said it with a certain emotion not very successfully concealed beneath his smile. Rickman was about to go; but he detained him. "Wait one minute. Do you mind telling me whether you've any regular sources of income besides _Metropolis_?" "Well, not at the moment." "And supposing--none arise?" "I must risk it." "You seem to have a positive mania for taking risks." Yes, that was Rickman all over, he found a brilliant joy in the excitement; he was in love with danger. "Oh well, sometimes, you know, you've _got_ to take them." Happy Rickman! The things that were so difficult and complicated to Jewdwine were so simple, so incontestable to him. "Some people, Rickman, would say you were a fool." He sighed, and the sigh was a tribute his envy paid to Rickman's foolishness. "I won't offer an opinion; the event will prove." "It won't prove anything. Events never do. They merely happen." "Well, if they happen wrong, and I can help you, you've only got to come to me." Never in all his life had Jewdwine so nearly achieved the grace of humility as in this offer of his help. He would have given anything if Rickman could have accepted it, but refusal was a foregone conclusion. And yet he offered it. "Thanks--thanks awfully." It was Rickman who appeared nervous and ashamed. His mouth twitched; he held out his hand abruptly; he was desperately anxious to say good-night and get it over. It seemed to him that he had been six years taking leave of Jewdwine; each year had seen the departure of some quality he had known him by. He wanted to have done with it now for ever. But Jewdwine would not see his hand. He turned away; paced the floor; swung back on a hesitating heel and approached him, smiling. "You're not going to disappear altogether, are you? You'll turn up again, and let me know how you're getting on?" To Rickman there was something tragic and retrospective in Jewdwine's smile. It had no joy in it, but an appeal, rather, to the memory of what he had been. He found it irresistible. "Thanks. I shall get on all right; but I'll turn up again sometime." Jewdwine's smile parted with its pathos, its appeal. It conveyed a promise, an assurance that whatever else had perished in him his friendship was not dead. For there were ways, apart from the ways of journalism, in which Jewdwine could be noble still. And still, as he watched Rickman's departing back, the back that he seemed doomed to know so well, he said to himself-- "He's magnificent, but I can't afford him." CHAPTER LXIX In all this his history had only repeated itself. When six years ago he had turned his back on Rickman's he had made it inevitable that he should turn his back on Jewdwine now. On each occasion his behaviour had provoked the same melancholy admission, from Jewdwine--"He is magnificent, but I can't afford him"; from Isaac Rickman--"I can't afford to pay your price, my boy." The incredible thing was that Jewdwine should have been brought to say it. Jewdwine was changed; but Rickman was the same Rickman who had swung the shop door behind him, unmoved by the separation from his salary. But after all he could only keep half of that rash vow he had made to himself on the way to Hampstead. He must give up the Editor of _Metropolis_; but he could not give up Horace Jewdwine. It was not the first time he had been compelled to admit the distinction which Maddox for decency's sake had insisted on. When it came to the point, as now, he found himself insisting on it with even greater emphasis than Maddox. He knew that in his soul Jewdwine still loved and worshipped what was admirable, that in his soul he would have given anything to recall his injustice to young Paterson. But young Paterson was too great to have need either of Jewdwine or of him. Young Paterson had his genius to console him. His profounder pity was for the man who had inflicted such awful injuries on himself; the great man who had made himself mean; the spiritual person who had yielded to a material tyranny; the incorruptible person who had sold his soul, who only realized the value of his soul now that he had sold it. And yet he knew that there could be nothing more sundering than such meanness, such corruptibility as Jewdwine's. Their friendship could never be the same. There was a certain relief in that. There could never be any hypocrisy, any illusion in their relations now. And nobody knew that better than Jewdwine. Well, the very fact that Jewdwine had still desired and chosen that sad-hearted, clear-eyed communion argued a certain greatness in him. Therefore he resolved to spare him. It would cost him the friendship of better men than he; but that could not be helped. They must continue to think that he had sold or at any rate lent himself at interest to Jewdwine. Honour debarred him from all explanation and defence, an honour so private and personal that it must remain unsuspected by the world. In the beginning he had made himself almost unpleasantly conspicuous by the purity of his literary morals; his innocence had been a hair-lifting spectacle even to honest journalists. And now the fame he would have among them was the fame of a literary prostitute, without a prostitute's wages. On the contrary he would have to pay heavily for the spiritual luxury of that break with the editor of _Metropolis_. When he reached his comfortable room on the third floor in Torrington Square, he sat down by his writing-table, not to write but to think. It was war-time, fatal to letters. Such terrors arose before him as must arise before a young man severed by his own rash act from the sources of his income. What a moment he had chosen for the deed, too! When money was of all things the thing he most passionately desired; when to his fancy the sum of a hundred and seventy-five pounds was the form that most nearly, most divinely presented the adored perfection; when, too, that enchanting figure was almost in his grasp. A few brief spasms of economy, and ten months of _Metropolis_ would have seen him through. And yet there was no bitterness in the dismay with which he contemplated his present forlorn and impecunious state. It was inevitable that he should sever himself from the sources of his income when they were found to be impure. Much more inevitable than that he should have cut off that untainted supply which six months ago would have flowed to him through Maddox. Common prudence had not restrained him from quarrelling with Maddox over a point of honour that was shadowy compared with this. It was hardly likely that it should have restrained him now. There were few things that he would not do for Lucia Harden, but not even for her sake could he have done otherwise than he had done. It was the least that honour could require of him, the very least. His attitude to honour had in a manner changed. Eight years ago it had seemed to him the fantastic child of a preference for common honesty, coupled with a preposterous passion for Lucia Harden. He had indulged it as a man indulges the creature of fantasy and caprice, and had felt that he was thrusting a personal infatuation into a moral region where such extravagances are unknown. It belonged rather to the realm of imagination, being essentially a poet's honour, a winged and lyric creature, a creature altogether too radiant and delicate to do battle with the gross material world, a thing as mysterious and indomitable as his genius; a very embarrassing companion for a young journalist in his first start in life. And now he had grown so used to it that it seemed to him no longer mysterious and fantastic; obedience to it was as simple as the following of a natural impulse, a thing in no way conspicuous and superb. It was the men who knew nothing of such leadership who seemed to him separated from the order of the world. But to the friends who watched him Rickman's honour had been always an amazing spectacle. Like another genius it had taken possession of him and led him through what Jewdwine had called the slough of journalism, so that he went with fine fastidious feet, choosing the clean places in that difficult way. Like another genius it had lured him, laughing and reckless, along paths perilous and impossible to other men. How glad he had been to follow that bright-eyed impetuous leader. And this was where it had led him to, the radiant and delicate comrade of his youth. As he sat propping his chin up with his hands the face that confronted destiny had grown haggard in an hour. He pulled himself together, and deliberately reviewed the situation. He had at that moment three and eightpence in his pocket, and lying about somewhere in the table-drawer there was part of last week's salary and a cheque for nine pounds, the price of a recent article. He could count on five pounds at Michaelmas, the quarterly rent of the furniture in the little house at Ealing. Added to these certain sums there was that unknown incalculable amount that he might yet receive for unsolicited contributions. He had made seventy-five pounds in this way last year. The casual earnings of ninety-nine were no security for nineteen hundred; still, invincible hopefulness fixed the probabilities at that figure. But it was now January, and Dicky Pilkington's bill would be due in November. By successive triumphs of ingenious economy he had reduced that once appalling seven hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy-five. He couldn't actually count on more than twenty-six pounds three and eightpence with which to meet the liability. And he had also to live for ten months before he met it. Even invincible Hope was nervous facing those formidable figures. It did indeed suggest the presence of a shadowy army in the rear, whole columns of figures marching invincibly to his aid. They were the sums that might, that ought to be obtained by a dramatic poet in the hour of his success. But Rickman had not been born over a bookseller's shop for nothing; and an austere hereditary voice reminded him that he couldn't really count on a penny from his tragedy. He couldn't even afford to write it. The thing was, economically speaking, a crime. It would of course be finished, as it had been begun, in defiance of economy, as of all other human pieties and laws, but it would be unreasonable to expect that any financial blessing could rest on it. He had only got ten months to raise the money in. It would probably take him that time to find regular work, if he found it. There was not an editor in London to whom the initials S.K.R. conveyed the unique significance they did to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin. He now thought with regret of the introductions he had refused in the insolence of his youth. To Hanson for instance. Hanson was a good sort, and he might have come in very handy now. A few other names passed before him, men whom it would be useless for him to approach. There was old Mackinnon, though, who was a good sort, too. He had long ago forgotten that ancient jest which compared his head with the dome of the Museum. He had been the most frequent entertainer of adventitious prose. Mackinnon might be good for something. He had half a mind to look him up. The thought of Mackinnon made him feel almost cheerful again. Before he went to bed he put ten pounds into a tobacco-jar on an inaccessible shelf, keeping one pound three and eightpence for the expenses of the coming week. The next morning he looked Mackinnon up. Now Mackinnon's head was so far unlike the dome of the Museum that it was by no means impervious to light; and where Mackinnon's interests were concerned it was positively limpid in its transparency. So that Mackinnon was not slow to perceive the advantages of an alliance with impecunious brilliance. The brilliance he was already familiar with, the impecuniosity he inferred from the more than usual offhandedness of Rickman's manner. The war had hit Mackinnon also; the affairs of the _Literary Observer_ were not so flourishing as Mackinnon could have wished, and he was meditating some reductions in his staff. He reflected that young men in Rickman's mood and Rickman's circumstances were sometimes willing to do the work of two journalists for a lower salary than he had been paying to one. And when he further learnt that Rickman had left _Metropolis_, he felt that besides these solid advantages a subtler satisfaction would be his. Jewdwine, corruptible or incorruptible, had not endeared himself to other editors, and even the sober Mackinnon was unable to resist the temptation of annexing the great man's great man. But the dome-like head, impenetrable in this, betrayed none of the thoughts that were going on inside it, and in the bargaining that followed it was concealed from Rickman that his connection with _Metropolis_ had in any way increased his market value. He made the best terms he could; and the end of the interview found him retained on Mackinnon's staff as leader, writer and dramatic critic at a salary of two pounds ten a week. Mackinnon had offered two pounds, Rickman had held out for three, and they split the difference. As the poet left the room Mackinnon turned to his desk with a smile of satisfaction that seemed to illuminate the dome. He had effected a considerable saving by that little transaction. And for the poet it did not prove so bad a bargain after all. He had now a more ample leisure; and for the first time in his journalistic career he knew what it was to be left mercifully, beneficently alone. He had cut himself off from all his friends; and though at times his heart suffered, his genius profited by the isolation. It was not until he had escaped from Jewdwine that he realized what that special deliverance meant for him. He could not well have encountered a more subtle and dangerous influence than that of the author of the _Prolegomena to �sthetics_. Jewdwine had been hostile to his genius from the beginning, though he had cared for it, too, in his imperious way. He would have tamed the young, ungovernably ardent thing and wedded it to his own beautiful and passionless idea; an achievement which would have reflected some glory on Jewdwine as the matchmaker. But he had left off caring when he found that he had less to gain from Rickman's genius than from his talent, and had turned his attention to the protection and encouragement of the more profitable power. As that talent ran riot in the columns of _Metropolis_ Rickman himself was unaware how relentlessly it drew on the vitality that sustained his genius. It was Jewdwine's excuse that the vitality seemed inexhaustible. Jewdwine, as he had once said, dreaded the divine fire. He would ultimately have subdued the flame by a persistent demand for brilliance of another kind. Even Maddox (who adored his Rickman) had not seen that his Rickman, his young divinity, must change and grow. He admired his immortal adolescence; he would have him young and lyrical for ever. He had discovered everything in him but the dramatic poet he was yet to be. Thus, through the very fervour of his superstition, Maddox had proved hostile, too. But in Mackinnon Rickman found no malign disturbing influence, no influence of any kind at all. No thought of capturing his genius or exploiting his talent had ever entered into the dome-like head. Mackinnon, his mortal nature appeased by his victory over Jewdwine and further gratified by the consciousness of having secured a good man cheap, made no exorbitant claims on his contributor. Let Rickman write what he would, Mackinnon knew he had got his money's worth. Rickman squared himself nobly for the next round with fortune. And Dicky, in his attitude of enthusiastic but not uninterested spectator, cheered him on, secretly exultant. Dicky was now serenely sure of his odds. It was war-time; and Rickman could not hold out long after such an injury to his income. But Rickman, unconquered, made matters even by reducing his expenditure. It was winter, and the severity of the weather would have ruined him in coal alone had he not abandoned the superstition of a fire. With an oil-stove there was always some slight danger of asphyxia, but Rickman loved the piquancy of danger. By many such ingenious substitutions he effected so prodigious a saving that three-fifths or more of his salary went into the tobacco-jar and thence into Dicky Pilkington's pocket. He rejoiced to see it go, so completely had he subdued the lust of spending, so ardently embraced the life of poverty; if it were poverty to live on a pound a week. Was it not rather wanton, iniquitous extravagance to have allowed himself three times that amount? But for that his position at this moment would have been such that three months on the _Literary Observer_ would have cleared him. As he stood, the remainder of his debt loomed monstrous under the shadow of next November. And it was this moment (when he should have been turning his talent into ready-money by unremitting journalism), that he chose for finishing his tragedy. If he could be said to have chosen it; for it was rather the Tragic Muse that had claimed him for her own. She knew her hour, the first young hour of his deliverance, when he had ceased from hungering and thirsting after life, and from the violence and stress of living, and was no more tormented by scruple and by passion; when the flaming orgy of his individuality no longer confused the pageant of the world. He had been judging by himself when he propounded the startling theory that lyric poets must grow into dramatic poets if they grow at all. It was now, when his youth no longer sang aloud in him, that he heard the living voices of the men and women whom he made. Their flesh and blood no longer struggled violently for birth, no longer tortured the delicate tissue of the dream. His dreams themselves were brought forth incarnate, he being no longer at variance with himself as in the days of neo-classic drama. And so now, when he contemplated his poverty, he saw in it the dream-crowned head and austere countenance of an archangel destiny. In the absence of all visible and material comfort the invisible powers assumed their magnificent dominion. He gave his evenings to Mackinnon and his mornings, his fresh divine mornings, to the Tragic Muse, thus setting a blessed purifying interval of sleep between his talent and his genius. But through it all, while he slept and while he worked, and while he scribbled with a tenth part of his brain, mechanically filling in his columns of the _Literary Observer_, he felt that his genius, conscious of its hour, possessed him utterly. Not even for Lucia's sake could he resist the god who was so tyrannous and strong. In his heart he called on her to forgive him for writing unsaleable tragedies when he ought to have been making money for her. His heart kept on accusing him. "You would write tragedies if she were starving," it said. And the god, indignant at the interruption, answered it, "You wouldn't, you fool, you know you wouldn't. And she isn't starving. It's you who'll starve, if anybody does; so fire away." And he fired away; for hope, still invincible, told him that he could afford to do it, that he had in a drawer fifty pounds' worth of unpublished articles, works of the baser power, and that, war or no war, he could surely sell them. He could sell his furniture also; and if the worst came to the worst, he could sell his books (his own books, not Lucia's). Meanwhile he must get on with his tragedy. He could easily finish it in six weeks, and expiate the crime by months of journalism. He did finish it in six weeks; and when the Spring came he began another; for the hand of the god was heavy upon him. This he knew was madness, though a madness divine and irresistible. In view of its continuance he called upon Mackinnon and inquired whether at any time, if the occasion should arise, he could count upon an advance of salary. Mackinnon, solid, impenetrable, but benignant, replied that very possibly it might be so. This Rickman interpreted as a distinct encouragement to dally with the Tragic Muse. It was followed by a request from Mackinnon that Rickman on his part should oblige him with a few columns in advance. This he did. He was now, though he was blissfully unaware of it, the last man on the paper. In six months from the time of his joining its staff the _Literary Observer_ ceased from observing, and Mackinnon retired suddenly into private life. Dicky, who had watched with joy the decline of the _Literary Observer_, chuckled openly at its fall. He was sorry for old Razors, though. It was hard luck on him. Old Razors, in Dicky's opinion, was about done for now. It might have seemed so to Rickman but that the experience had sobered him. He rose from the embraces of the Tragic Muse. Yet dizzy with the august rapture, he resisted and defied the god. He thrust his tragedy from him into the hindmost obscurity of his table-drawer. Then he betook himself, in a mood more imperative than solicitous, to Hanson. Hanson who had labelled him Decadent, and lumped him with Letheby. It was no matter now. Whatever Hanson thought of his genius, there could be but one opinion of his talent. Hanson was genial and complimentary. He, like Mackinnon, knew his business too well to let Savage Keith Rickman slip through his fingers. Like Mackinnon he was pleased with the idea of securing a deserter from the insufferable Jewdwine. But the _Courier_ was full up with war news and entirely contented with its staff. Hanson was only good for occasional contributions. Rickman again overhauled his complicated accounts. By what seemed to him a series of miracles he had saved seventy-five pounds somehow during those six months with Mackinnon; but how he was going to raise a hundred in four months he did not know. That was what he meant to try for, though. It was July; and he loved more than ever the green peace of Torrington Square, and the room associated with the first austere delights of poverty and the presence of the Tragic Muse. But he could forego even peace for four months. After much search in the secret places of Bloomsbury, he found an empty attic in Howland Street. The house was clean, decent, and quiet for a wonder. Thither he removed himself and his belongings. He had parted with all but the absolutely essential, among which he reckoned all Lucia's books and a few of his own. He had stripped himself for this last round with Fortune. He would come out of it all right if he wrote nothing but articles, lived on ten shillings a week and sold the articles; which, meant that in the weeks when no articles were sold he must live on less. It meant, too, that he must make his own bed, sweep his own room, and cook his own meals when they were cooked at all; that to have clean linen he must pay the price of many meals, as he counted meals. The attic was not a nice place in July and August. Though the house was quiet, there flowed through it, in an incessant, suffocating, sickly stream, the untamed smells and noises of the street. For the sake of peace he took to working through the night and going to bed in the day-time; an eccentricity which caused him to be regarded with some suspicion by his neighbours. In spite of their apparent decency he had judged it expedient to keep his door locked, a lack of confidence that wounded them. The lodger in the garret next to his went so far as to signify by laughter her opinion of his unfriendly secrecy. Her own door was never shut except when he shut it. This interference with her liberty she once violently resented, delivering herself of a jet of oratory that bore with far-fetched fancy on his parentage and profession. For her threshold was her vantage ground. Upon it she stood and waited, listening for the footsteps of her luck. It was a marvel to him how under these conditions he could turn out the amount of work he did. For some nights were as noisy as the day. There was no sort of repose about his next-door neighbour. At times she coughed all night, at times she sang. Or again, by sounds of sobbing he gathered that the poor wretch was not prospering in her trade. Still, there were long and blessed intervals of peace when she roamed farther afield; intervals which might or might not be prolonged by alcoholic stupor after her return. It may have been owing to these influences that he began to notice a decided deterioration in his prose. Hanson had returned his last article. He had worked poor Hanson's geniality for all it was worth, and he felt that in common prudence he must withdraw from the _Courier_ for a season. Meanwhile his best prose, the articles he had by him, remained unpublished. In war-time there was no market for such wares. It was now October, and he had paid off but fifteen pounds of the hundred he still owed. The lease of the little house at Ealing was out at Michaelmas; he had the five pounds provided every quarter by the furniture. He sold his furniture and the last of his books, but when Dicky's bill fell due in November he was still fifty pounds to the bad. The fact that he had already paid three thousand and thirty-five would not prevent the sale and dispersal of part, and perhaps the most valuable part, of the Harden Library. In that event he would get the money, not the books, and it was the books, all the books, he wanted. He had persuaded himself that the actual redemption of the whole was the only legitimate means by which he could now approach Lucia Harden. The mere repayment of the money was a coarser and more difficult method. And now at the last moment the end, all but achieved, was as far from him as ever, supposing Dicky should refuse to renew his bill. But Dicky did not refuse. He gave him another two months. No longer term could be conceded; but, yes, he would give him another two months. "Just for the almighty fun of the thing. If there's one thing I like to see," said Dicky, "it's pluck." Dicky was more than ever sure of his game. He argued rightly that Rickman would never have sold his books if he could have sold his articles or borrowed from a friend; that, as he had nothing else to sell or offer as security, his end was certain. But it was so glorious to see the little fellow fighting his luck. Dicky was willing to prolong the excitement for another two months. For two months he fought it furiously. He spent many hours of many days in trying to find work; a difficult thing when a man has cut himself loose from all his friends. Strangers were not likely to consider his superior claims when the kind of work for which he was now applying could be done by anybody as well or better. He counted himself uncommonly happy if he got a stray book to review or a job at the Museum, or if Vaughan held out the promise of giving him some translation by-and-by. The conditions under which he worked were now appalling. It was hard to say whether the attic was more terrible in summer, or in the winter that forced him to the intimate and abominable companionship of his oil-stove. Nor was that all. A new horror was added to his existence. He was aware that he had become an object of peculiar interest to the woman in the next room, that she waited for him and stealthily watched his going out and his coming in. As he passed on the landing two eyes, dull or feverish, marked him through the chink of the door that never closed. By some hideous instinct of her kind she divined the days when he was in luck. By another instinct she divined also his nature. His mystic apathy held her brute soul in awe; and she no longer revenged herself by furious and vindictive song. So he stayed on, for he owed rent, and removals were expensive. He found also that there were limits to the advantages of too eccentric an asceticism in diet. No doubt the strange meals he prepared for himself on his oil-stove had proved stimulating by their very strangeness; but when the first shock and surprise of them had worn off he no longer obtained that agreeable result. Perhaps there was something cloying in so much milk and cocoa; he fancied he gained by diluting these rich foods with water. It certainly seemed to him that his veins were lighter and carried a swifter and more delicate current to his brain, that his thoughts now flowed with a remarkable fineness and lucidity. And then all of a sudden the charm stopped working. What food he ate ceased to nourish him. He grew drowsy by day, and had bad dreams at night. He had not yet reached the reconciling stage of nausea, but was forever tormented by a strong and healthy craving for a square meal. There was a poor devil on the floor below him whose state in comparison with his own was affluence. That man had a square meal every Sunday. Even she, the lady of the ever-open door, was better off than he; there was always, or nearly always, a market for her wares. His sufferings would have been unendurable if any will but his own had imposed them on him in the beginning. Not that he could continue to regard his poverty as a destiny in any way angelic. It was because hitherto he had not known the real thing, because he had seen it from very far away, that it had worn for him that divine benignant aspect. Now it was very near him; a sordid insufferable companion that dogged his elbow in the street, that sat with him by his fireless hearth, that lay beside him all night, a loathsome bedfellow, telling him a shameful, hopeless tale, and driving the blessed sleep away from him. There were times when he envied his neighbour her nirvana of gin and water; times when the gross steam of the stew prepared for the man below awoke in him acute, intolerable emotion; times when the spiritual will that dominated him, so far from being purified by abstinence, seemed merged in the will of the body made conspicuous and clamorous by hunger. There were ways in which he might have satisfied it. He could have obtained a square meal any day from Mrs. Downey or the Spinkses; but now that the value of a square meal had increased so monstrously in imagination, his delicacy shrank from approaching his friends with conscious designs upon their hospitality. Spinks was always asking him to dine at his house in Camden Town; but he had refused because he would have had abominable suspicions of his own motives in accepting. Trust Flossie to find him out too. And latterly he had hidden himself from the eye of Spinks. There were moments now when he might have been tempted to borrow fifty pounds from Spinks and end it; but he could not bring himself to borrow from Flossie's husband. The last time he had dined with them he thought she had looked at him as if she were afraid he was going to borrow money. He knew it so well, that gleam of the black eyes, half subtle and half savage. For Flossie had realized her dream, and her little hand clung passionately to the purse that provided for Muriel Maud. He couldn't borrow from Spinky. From Jewdwine? Never. From Hanson? Hardly. From Vaughan? Possibly. Vaughan was considering the expediency of publishing his tragedy, and might be induced to advance him a little on account. Such possibilities visited him in the watches of the night, but dawn revealed their obvious futility. And yet he knew all the time he had only to go to Maddox for the money, and he would get it. To Maddox or to Rankin, Rankin whose books stood open on every bookstall, whose face in its beautiful photogravure portrait smiled so impenetrably, guarding the secret of success. But he could not go to them without giving them the explanation he was determined not to give. He knew what they thought of him; therefore he would not go to them. If they had known him better they would have come to him. He was reminded of them now by seeing in _The Planet_ an obituary notice of young Paterson. Paterson had been dying slowly all the year, and December finished him. Though Rickman had been expecting the news for months, the death accomplished affected him profoundly. And at the thought of the young poet whom he had seemed to have so greatly wronged, at the touch of grief and pity and divine regret, his own genius, defied and resisted, descended on him again out of heaven. It was as if the spirit of young Paterson, appeased and reconciled, had bequeathed to him its own immortal adolescence. He finished the poem in four nights, sitting in his great coat, with his legs wrapped in his blankets, and for the last two nights drinking gin and water to keep the blood beating in his head. In the morning he felt as if it were filled with some light and crackling and infinitely brittle substance, the ashes of a brain that had kindled, flamed, and burned itself away. It was the last onslaught of the god, the last mad flaring of the divine fire. For now he could write no longer. His whole being revolted against the labour of capturing ideas, of setting words in their right order. The least effort produced some horrible sensation. Now it was of a plunging heart that suddenly reversed engines while his brain shivered with the shock; now of a little white wave that swamped his brain with one pulse of oblivion; now it was a sudden giving way of the floor of consciousness, through which his thoughts dropped downwards headlong into the abyss. He had great agony and distress in following their flight. At night as he lay in bed, watching the feeble, automatic procession of ideas, he noticed that they arrived in an order that was not the order of sanity, that if he took note of the language they clothed themselves in, he found he was listening as it were to the gabble of idiocy or aphasia. At such moments he trembled for his reason. At first these horrors would vanish in the brief brilliance that followed the act of eating; but before long, in the next stage of exhaustion, food induced nothing but a drunken drowsiness. He had once said as an excuse for refusing wine that he could get drunk on anything else as well. In these days he got dead drunk on oatmeal porridge, while he produced a perishing ecstasy on bread and milk. But of genuine intoxication the pennyworth of gin and water that sustained the immortal Elegy was his last excess. He sent the poem to Hanson. Hanson made no sign. But about the middle of January Rankin of all people broke the silence that had bound them for a year and a half. Rankin did not know his address, even Hanson had forgotten it. The letter had been forwarded by one of Hanson's clerks. "My dear Rickman," it said, "where are you? And what are you doing? I dined with Hanson the other night, and he showed me your Elegy. It's too long for _The Courier_, and he's sending it back to you with a string of compliments. If you have no other designs, can you let us have it for _The Planet_? For Paterson's sake it ought to appear at once. My dear fellow, I should like to tell you what I think of it, but I will only state my profound conviction that you have given poor Paterson the fame he should have had and couldn't get, anymore than we could get it for him; and I, as his friend, thank you for this magnificent tribute to his genius. Will you do me the honour of dining with me on Sunday if you have nothing better to do? There are many things I should like to talk over with you, and my wife is anxious to make your acquaintance. "Sincerely yours, "Herbert Rankin. "PS.--Maddox is out of town at present, but you'll meet him if you come on Sunday. By the way, I saw your friend Jewdwine the other day. He explained at my request a certain matter which I own with great regret should never have required explanation." So Jewdwine had explained. And why had not Rankin asked for the explanation sooner? Why had he had to ask for it at all? Still, it was decent of him to admit that he ought not to have required it. He supposed that he must accept Rankin's invitation to dine. Except for his hunger, which made the prospect of dining so unique and great a thing, he had no reason for refusing. Rankin had reckoned on a scruple, and removed the ground of it. He knew that there was no approaching Rickman as long as there remained the shadow of an assumption that the explanation should have come from him. The invitation had arrived just in time, before Rickman had sent the last saleable remnants of his wardrobe to the place where his dress-suit had gone before. He would have to apologize to Mrs. Rankin for its absence, but his serge suit was still presentable, for he had preserved it with much care, and there was one clean unfrayed shirt in his drawer. But when Sunday came, the first febrile excitement of anticipation was succeeded by the apathy of an immense fatigue, and at the back of it all a loathsome sense of the positive indecency of his going. It was hunger that was driving him, the importunate hunger of many months, apparent in his lean face and shrunken figure. And after all could any dinner be worth the pain of dressing for it? When at the last moment he discovered a loose button on his trousers, he felt that there was no motive, no power on earth that could urge him to the task of securing it. And when it broke from its thread and fell, and hid itself under the skirting board in a sort of malignant frenzy, he took its behaviour as a sign that he would do well to forego that dinner at Rankin's. He had hardly acquiesced in this decision when reason reasserted itself and told him that everything depended on that dinner and that the dinner depended on the button; therefore that in all God's universe there was nothing so important, so essential to him as that button. He went down on his knees and dislodged the button with a penknife, after an agonizing search. He sat feebly on the edge of his bed, and with many sad, weak blasphemies bowed himself to a miserable, ignominious struggle. All malign and adverse fortunes seemed to be concentrated in the rolling, slippery, ungovernable thing. The final victory was his, such a victory as amounted to a resurgence of the spiritual will. CHAPTER LXX All things seemed to work together to create an evening of misunderstanding rather than of reconciliation. To begin with he arrived at the Rankins' half an hour after the time appointed. Rankin lived in Sussex Square, which seemed to him an interminably long way off. The adventure with the trouser button, and a certain dizziness which precluded all swift and decided movement, would have been enough to make him late, even if he had not miscalculated the distance between Hyde Park and Bloomsbury. He had also miscalculated the distance between Rankin the junior journalist and Rankin the celebrity. Rankin had achieved celebrity in a way he had not meant. There was a time when even Jewdwine was outdone by the young men of _The Planet_ in honest contempt for the taste and judgement of the many; when it had been Rankin's task to pursue with indefatigable pleasantry the figures of popular renown. And now he was popular himself. The British public had given to him its fatal love. At first he looked on himself as a man irretrievably disgraced. However proudly he might bear himself in the company of strangers, he approached his colleagues with the air of a man made absurd by unsolicited attentions, persecuted and compromised to the last degree. The bosses of his ruddy face displayed all the quiverings and tortures and suffusions of a smiling shame. He was, however, compensated for the loss of personal dignity by a very substantial income. Not that at first he would admit the compensation. "Ricky," he would say in the voice of a man bowed and broken on the wheel of life, "you needn't envy me my thousands. They are the measure of my abasement." Yet he continued to abase himself. Nothing was more amazing than his versatility. The public could hardly keep up with the flight of Rankin's incarnations. Drawing-room comedy, pathetic pastoral, fantastic adventure, slum idyll and medieval romance, it was all one to Rankin. An infallible instinct told him which _genre_ should be chosen at any given moment; a secret tocsin sounded far-off the hour of his success. And still the spirit of Rankin held itself aloof; and underneath his many disguises he remained a junior journalist. But latterly (since his marriage with a rich City merchant's daughter) an insidious seriousness had overtaken him; he began first to tolerate, then to respect, then to revere the sources of his affluence. The old ironic spirit was there to chastise him whenever he caught himself doing it; but that spirit made discord with the elegant respectability which was now the atmosphere of his home. Rankin's drawing-room (where he was now waiting for Rickman) was furnished with the utmost correctness in the purest Chippendale, upholstered in silver and grey and lemon and rose brocade; it had grey curtains, rose-lined, with a design of true lovers' knots in silver; straight draperies of delicate immaculate white muslin veiled the window-panes; for the feet an interminable stretch of grey velvet carpet whose pattern lay on it like a soft shadow. Globes of electric light drooped clustering under voluminously fluted shades. Rankin himself looked grossly out of keeping with the scene. It was (and they both knew it) simply the correct setting for his wife, who dominated it, a young splendour of rose-pink and rose-white and jewelled laces and gold. Rickman, after many weeks' imprisonment between four dirty yellow ochre walls, was bewildered with the space, the colours, the perfumes, the illumination. He was suffering from a curious and, it seemed to him, insane illusion, the illusion of distance, the magnifying of the spaces he had got to traverse, and as he entered Mrs. Rankin's drawing-room the way from the threshold to the hearthrug stretched before him as interminably as the way from Howland Street to Sussex Square. But of any other distance he was blissfully unaware. Beside his vision of Lucia Harden Mrs. Herbert Rankin was an entirely insignificant person. Now Rankin was a little afraid of the elegant lady his wife. He had had to apologise to her many times for the curious people he brought to the house, and he was anxious that Rickman should make a good impression. He was also hungry, as hungry as a man can be who has three square meals every day of his life. Therefore he was annoyed with Rickman for being late. But his annoyance vanished at the first sight of him. His handshake was significant of atonement and immutable affection. He introduced him almost fearlessly to his wife. He had been at some pains to impress upon her that she was about to entertain a much greater man than her husband, and that it would be very charming of her if she behaved accordingly. At this she pouted prettily, as became a bride, and he pointed out that as Keith Rickman was a poet his greatness was incommensurable with that of her husband, it left him undisturbed upon his eminence as the supreme master of prose. So that Mrs. Rankin smiled dimly and deferentially as an elegant hostess must smile upon a poet who has kept her waiting. There were two other ladies there (Rankin's mother and sister from the provinces); their greeting conveyed a rustling and excited consciousness of the guest's distinction. As Rankin's family retreated, Maddox heaved himself forward and grasped Rickman's hand without a word. Rickman had no very clear idea of what happened in the brief pause before dinner. His first sensation was one of confused beatitude and warmth, of being received into an enfolding atmosphere of friendliness. He was sure it was friendliness that made Maddox pluck him by the arm and draw him down beside him on the sofa; and he was too tired to wonder why Maddy should think it necessary to whisper into his collar, "Steady, you'll be all right if you sit still, old man." The strange voices of the women confused him further, and standing made him giddy: he was glad to sit still in his corner obliterated by Maddy's colossal shoulders. It was friendliness, he knew, that made Rankin dispense with ceremony and pilot him through those never-ending spaces to the dining-room. And it must have been an exaggeration of the same feeling that made him (regardless of his wife's uplifted eyebrows) insist on placing the guest of the evening between Maddox and himself. It was later on, about the time when the wine went round, that Rickman became aware of a change, of a subtle undefined hostility in the air. He wondered whether the Rankins were annoyed with him because of his inability to take a brilliant part in the conversation or to finish any one thing that he took upon his plate. But for the life of him he couldn't help it. He was too tired to talk, and he had reached that stage of hunger when the desire to eat no longer brought with it the power of eating, when the masterpieces of Rankin's _chef_ excited only terror and repugnance. He ate sparingly as starving men must eat, and he drank more sparingly than he ate; for he feared the probable effect of unwonted stimulants. So that his glass appeared ever to be full. The hostility was more Mrs. Herbert Rankin's attitude than that of her husband, but he noticed a melancholy change in Rankin. His geniality had vanished, or lingered only in the curl of his moustache. He was less amusing than of old. His conversation was no longer that of the light-hearted junior journalist flinging himself recklessly into the tide of talk; but whatever topic was started he turned it to himself. He was exceedingly indignant on the subject of the war, which he regarded more as a personal grievance than as a national calamity. No doubt it was his eminence that constituted him the centre of so vast a range. "The worst of it is," said he, "whichever side beats it's destruction to royalties. I lost a clean thousand on Spion Kop and I can tell you I didn't recover much on Mafeking, though I worked Tommy Atkins for all he was worth. This year my sales have dropped from fifty to thirty thousand. I can't stand many more of these reverses." He paused, dubious, between two _entrées_. "If it's had that effect on _me_," said the great man, "Heaven only knows what it's done to other people. How about you, Rickman?" "Oh, I'm all right, thanks." The war had ruined him, but his ruin was not the point of view from which he had yet seriously regarded it. He was frankly disgusted with his old friend's tone. "If it goes on much longer, I shall be obliged," said Rankin solemnly, "to go out to the seat of war." Rickman felt a momentary glow. He was exhilarated by the idea of Rankin at the seat of war. He said he could see Rankin sitting on it. Rankin laughed, for he was not wholly dead to the humour of his own celebrity; but there was a faint silken rustle at the head of the table, subtle and hostile, like the stirring of a snake. Mrs. Herbert Rankin bent her fine flat brows towards the poet, with a look ominous and intent. The look was lost upon Rickman and he wondered why Maddox pressed his foot. "Have you written anything on the war, Mr. Rickman?" she asked. "No; I haven't written anything on the war." She looked at him almost contemptuously as at a fool who had neglected an opportunity. "What do you generally write on, then?" Rickman looked up with a piteous smile. He was beginning to feel very miserable and weary, and he longed to get up and go. It seemed to him that there was no end to that dinner; no end to the pitiless ingenuity of Rankin's _chef_. And he always had hated being stared at. "I don't--generally--write--on anything," he said. "Your last poem is an exception to your rule, then?" "It is. I wrote most of _that_ on gin and water," said Rickman desperately. Rankin had tugged all the geniality out of his moustache, and his face was full of anxiety and gloom. Maddox tried hard not to snigger. He was not fond of Mrs. Herbert Rankin. And Rankin's _chef_ continued to send forth his swift and fair creations. Rickman felt his forehead grow cold and damp. He leaned back and wiped it with his handkerchief. A glance passed between Maddox and Rankin. But old Mrs. Rankin looked at him and the motherhood stirred in her heart. "Won't you change places with me? I expect you're feeling that fire too much at your back." Maddox plucked his sleeve. "Better stay where you are," he whispered. Rickman rose instantly to his feet. The horrible conviction was growing on him that he was going to faint, to faint or to be ignominiously ill. That came sometimes of starving, by some irony of Nature. "Don't Maddy--I think perhaps--" Surely he was going to faint. Maddox jumped up and held him as he staggered from the room. Rankin looked at his wife and his wife looked at Rankin. "He may be a very great poet," said she, "but I hope you'll never ask him to dine here again." "Never. I can promise you," said Rankin. The mother had a kinder voice. "I think the poor fellow was feeling ill from that fire." "Well he might, too," said Rankin with all the bitterness that became the husband of elegant respectability. "Go and make him lie down and be sure and keep his head lower than his feet," said Rankin's mother. "I shouldn't be surprised if Ricky's head were considerably lower than his feet already," said Rankin. And when he said it the bosses of his face grew genial again as the old coarse junior journalistic humour possessed itself of the situation. And he went out sniggering and cursing by turns under his moustache. Rankin's mother was right. Rickman was feeling very ill indeed. Without knowing how he got there he found himself lying on a bed in Rankin's dressing-room. Maddox and Rankin were with him. Maddox had taken off his boots and loosened his collar for him, and was now standing over him contemplating the effect. "That's all very well," said Maddox, "but how the dickens am I to get him home? Especially as we don't know his address." "Ask him." "I'm afraid our Ricky-ticky's hardly in a state to give very reliable information." "Sixty-five Howland Street," said Rickman faintly, and the two smiled. "It was Torrington Square, but I forget the number." "Sixty-five Howland Street," repeated Rickman with an effort to be distinct. Maddox shook his head. Rickman had sunk low enough, but it was incredible to them that he should have sunk as low as Howland Street. His insistence on that address they regarded as a pleasantry peculiar to his state. "It's perfectly hopeless," said Maddox. "I don't see anything for it, Rankin, but to let him stay where he is." At that Rickman roused himself from his stupor. "If you'd only stop jawing and give me some brandy, I could go." "Oh my Aunt!" said Rankin, dallying with his despair. "It isn't half a bad idea. Try it." They tried it. Maddox raised the poet's head and Rankin poured the brandy into him. Rankin's hand was gentle, but there was a sternness about Maddox and his ministrations. And as the brandy brought the blood back to his brain, Rickman sat up on Rankin's bed, murmuring apologies that would have drawn pity from the nether mill-stone. But there was no sign of the tenderness that had warmed him when he came. He could see that they were anxious to get him out of the house. Since they had been so keen on reconciliation whence this change to hostility and disapproval? Oh, of course, he remembered; he had been ill (outrageously ill) in Rankin's dressing-room. Perhaps it wasn't very nice of him; still he didn't do it for his own amusement, and Rankin might have been as ill as he liked in _his_ dressing-room, if he had had one. Even admitting that the nature of his calamity was such as to place him beyond the pale of human sympathy, he thought that Rankin might have borne himself with a somewhat better grace. And why Maddox should have taken that preposterous tone-- Maddox explained himself as they left Sussex Square. Rickman did not at first take in the explanation. He was thinking how he could best circumvent Maddox's obvious intention of hailing a hansom and putting him into it. He didn't want to confess that he hadn't a shilling in his pocket. Coppers anybody may be short of, and presently he meant to borrow twopence for a bus. Later on he would have to ask for a loan of fifty pounds; for you can borrow pounds and you can borrow pennies, but not shillings. Not at any rate if you are starving. "If I were you, Ricky," Maddox was saying. "I should go straight to bed when you get home. You'll be all right in the morning." "I'm all right now. I can't think what bowled me over." "Ricky, the prevarication is unworthy of you. Without humbug, I think you might keep off it a bit before you dine with people. It doesn't matter about us, you know, but it's hardly the sort of thing Mrs. Rankin's been accustomed to." "Mrs. Rankin?" "Well yes, I said Mrs. Rankin; but it's not about her I care--it's about you. Of course you'll tell me to mind my own business, but I wish--I wish to goodness you'd give it up--altogether. You did once, why not again? Believe me the game isn't worth the candle." And he said to himself, noting the sharp lines of his friend's haggard figure, "It's killing him." "I see," said Rickman slowly. In an instant he saw it all; the monstrous and abominable suspicion that had rested upon him all the evening. It explained everything. He saw, too, how every movement of his own had lent itself to the intolerable inference. It was so complete, so satisfactory, so comprehensive, that he could not wonder that they had found no escape from it. He could find none himself. There was no way by which he could establish the fact of his sobriety; for it is the very nature of such accusations to feed upon defence. Denial, whether humorous or indignant, would but condemn him more. The very plausibility of the imputation acted on him as a despotic suggestion. He began to feel that he must have been drunk at Rankin's; that he was drunk now while he was talking to Maddox. And to have told the truth, to have said, "Maddy, I'm starving. I haven't had a square meal for four months," would have sounded too like a beggar's whine. Whatever he let out later on, it would be mean to spring all that on Maddox now, covering him with confusion and remorse. He laughed softly, aware that his very laugh would be used as evidence against him. "I see. So you all thought I'd been drinking?" "Well--if you'll forgive my saying so--" "Oh, I forgive you. It was a very natural supposition." "I think you'll have to apologise to the Rankins." "I think the Rankins'll have to apologise to me." With every foolish word he was more hopelessly immersed. He insisted on parting with Maddox at the Marble Arch. After all, he had not borrowed that fifty pounds nor yet that twopence. Luckily Rankin's brandy enabled him to walk back with less difficulty than he came. It had also warmed him, so that he did not find out all at once that he had left his overcoat at Rankin's. He could not go back for it. He could never present himself at that house again. It was a frosty night with a bitter wind rising in the east and blowing up Oxford Street. His attic under the icicled tiles was dark and narrow as the grave. And on the other side of the thin wall a Hunger, more infernal and malignant than his own, waited stealthily for its prey. CHAPTER LXXI It was five o'clock, and Dicky Pilkington was at his ease stretched before the fire in a low chair in the drawing-room of the flat he now habitually shared with Poppy Grace. It was beatitude to lie there with his legs nicely toasting, to have his tea (which he did not drink) poured out for him by the most popular little variety actress in London, and to know that she had found in him her master. This evening, his intellect in play under many genial influences, Dicky was once more raising the pæan of Finance. Under some piquant provocation, too; for Poppy had just informed him, that she "didn't fancy his business." "Now, look here," said Dicky, "you call yourself an artist. Well--this business of mine isn't a business, it's an art. Think of the delicacy we 'ave to use. To know to a hairsbreadth how far you can go with a man, to know when to give him his head with the snaffle and when to draw him in with the curb. It's a feelin' your way all along. Why, I knew a fellow, a broker--an uncommonly clever chap he was, too--ruined just for want of a little tact. He was too precipitate, began hauling his man up just when he ought to have let him go. He'd no imagination, that fellow. (Don't you go eating too much cake, Popsie, or you'll make your little nose red.) I don't know any other profession gives you such a grip of life and such a feelin' of power. You've got some young devil plungin' about, kickin' up his heels all over the shop, say. He thinks he's got the whole place to break his neck in; and you know the exact minute by your watch that you can bring him in grovellin' on your office floor. It's the iron 'and in the velvet glove," said Dicky. "I know what you're driving at, and I call it a beastly shame." "No, it isn't. I shouldn't wonder if old Rickets paid up all right, after all." "And if he doesn't?" "If he doesn't--Well--" "I say, though, think wot a lot he's paid you. Can't you let him go?" Dicky shook his head and smiled softly as at some interior vision. "You'll ruin him for a dirty fifty pounds?" "I won't ruin him. And it isn't for the money, it's for the game. I like," said Dicky, "to see a man play in first-class style. But I don't blame him if he hasn't got style so long as he's got pluck. In fact, I don't know that of the two I wouldn't rather have pluck. I've seen a good many men play this game, but I've never seen any one who came up to old Razors for pluck _and_ style. It's a treat to see him. Do you suppose I'm going to cut in now and spoil it all by giving him points? That would take all the gilt off the gingerbread. And do you suppose he'd let me? Not he; he's spreading the gilt on thick, and he'd see me d----d first." Dicky smoked, with half-closed eyes fixed on the fire, in speechless admiration. He felt that he was encouraging the display of high heroism by watching it. He singled out a beautiful writhing flame, spat at it, and continued: "No, I'll take good care that Rickets doesn't starve. But I'm going to stand by and see him finish fair. If you like, Popsie, you can back him to win. I don't care if he _doe'_ win. It would be worth it for what I've got out of him." By what he had got out of him Dicky meant, not three thousand seven hundred and odd pounds, but a spectacle beyond all comparison exciting and sublime. For that he was prepared to abandon any further advantage that might be wrung from the Harden library by a successful manipulation of the sales. Poppy did not back Rickman to win; but she determined to call on him at his rooms, and leave a little note with a cheque and a request that he would pay Dicky and have done with him. "You'd better owe it to me than to him, old chappy"; thus she wrote in the kindness and impropriety of her heart. But Rickman never got that little note. CHAPTER LXXII Of all the consequences of that terrible dinner at Rankin's there was none that Rickman resented more than the loss of his overcoat. As he lay between his blankets he still felt all the lashings of the east wind around his shivering body. He was awake all that night, and the morning found him feverish with terror of the illness that might overtake him before he attained his end. He stayed in bed all day to prevent it, and because of his weakness, and for warmth. But the next day there came a mild and merciful thaw, a tenderness of Heaven that was felt even under the tiles in Howland Street. And the morning of that day brought a thing that in all his dreams he had not yet dreamed of, a letter from Lucia. He read it kneeling on the floor of his garret, supporting himself by the edge of the table. It was only a few lines in praise of the Elegy (which had appeared in _The Planet_ the week before) and a postscript that told him she would be staying at Court House with Miss Palliser till the summer. He knelt there a long time with his head bowed upon his arms. His brains failed him when he tried to write an answer, and he put the letter into his breast-pocket, where it lay like a loving hand against his heart. And yet there was not a word of love in it. The old indomitable hope rose in his heart again and he forced himself to eat and drink, that he might have strength for the things he had to do. That night he did not sleep, but lay wrapt in his beatific passion. His longing was so intense that it created a vision of the thing it longed for. It seemed to him that he heard Lucia's soft footfall about his bed, that she came and sat beside his pillow, that she bowed her head upon his breast, and that her long hair drifted over him. For the beating of his own heart gave him the sense of a presence beside him all night long, as he lay with his right arm flung across his own starved body, guarding her letter, the letter that had not a word of love in it. In the morning he discovered that another letter had lain on his table under Lucia's. It was from Dicky Pilkington, reminding him that it wanted but seven days to the thirtieth. Dicky said nothing about any willingness to renew the bill. What did it matter? Dicky would renew it, Dicky must renew it; he felt that there was force in him to compel Dicky to renew it. He went out and bought a paper with the price of a meal of milk (he couldn't pawn his good clothes; their assistance was too valuable in interviews with possible employers). He found the advertisement of an Exeter bookseller in want of a foreman and expert cataloguer at a salary of ninety pounds. He answered it by return. In the list of his credentials he mentioned that he had catalogued the Harden library (a feat, as he knew, sufficient to constitute him a celebrity in the eyes of the Exeter man). He added that if the bookseller felt inclined to consider his application he would be obliged by a wire, as he had several other situations in view. The bookseller wired engaging him for six months. The same day came a cheque for ten pounds from _The Planet_, the honorarium for the Elegy. He sent the ten pounds to Dicky at once (by way of showing what he could do) with a curt note informing him of his appointment and requesting a renewal for three months, by which time his salary would cover the remainder still owing. Feeling that no further intellectual efforts were now required of him he went out to feed on the fresh air. As he crossed the landing an odour of hot pottage came to meet him. Through the ever-open door he caught a glimpse of a woman's form throned, as it were, above clouds of curling steam. A voice went out, hoarse with a supreme emotion. "Come in, you there, and 'ave a snack, wontcher?" it said. "No, thank you," he answered. "Garn then. I'll snack yer for a ----y fool!" And from the peaceableness of the reply he gathered that this time the lady was not soliciting patronage but conferring it. He was no longer hungry, no longer weighed upon by his exhausted body. A great restlessness had seized it, a desire to walk, to walk on and on without stopping. The young day had lured him into the Regent's Park. So gentle was the weather that, but for bare branches and blanched sky, it might have been a day in Spring. As he walked he experienced sensations of indescribable delicacy and lightness, he saw ahead of him pellucid golden vistas of metaphysical splendour, he skimmed over fields of elastic air with the ease and ecstasy of a blessed spirit. When he came in he found that the experience prolonged itself through the early night, even when he lay motionless on his bed staring at the wall. And as he stared it seemed to him that there passed upon the wall clouds upon clouds of exquisite and evanescent colour, and that strange forms appeared and moved upon the clouds. He saw a shoal of fishes (they _were_ fishes, radiant, iridescent, gorgeous fishes, with the tails of peacocks); they swam round and round the room just under the cornice, an ever-revolving, ever-floating frieze. He was immensely interested in these decorative hallucinations. His brain seemed to be lifted up, to be iridescent also, to swim round and round with the swimming fishes. He woke late in the morning with a violent sore throat and pain in all his body. He was too giddy to sit up and help himself, but he knocked weakly on the thin wall. His neighbour roused herself at the faint summons and appeared. She stood at the foot of the bed with her hands on her hips and contemplated him for a moment. He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed to be stuck burning to the roof of his mouth. He pointed to his throat. "Yes, I dessay," said she. "I said you'd get somefing and you've got it." So saying she disappeared into her own apartment. As he saw her go despair shook him. He thought that he was abandoned. But presently she returned, bringing a cup of hot tea with a dash of gin in it from her own breakfast. "I'd a seen to you afore ef you'd let me," she said. "You tyke it from me, young man, wot you wants is a good hot lining to your belly. I'd 'ave given it to you ef you'd a let me. I'm a lydy as tykes her dinner reg'ler, I am. No, you don't--" This, as he turned away his head in protest. She however secured it firmly with one filthy hand, while with the other she held the reeking cup to his lips. She had put it to her own first to test the heat and quality of the brew. Yet he was grateful. He had some difficulty in swallowing; and from time to time she wiped his mouth with her villainous apron; and he was grateful still, having passed beyond disgust. She perceived the gratitude. "Garn," said she, "wot's a cup er tea? I'd a seen to yer afore ef you'd a let me." She continued her ministrations; she brought coal in her own scuttle and after immense pains she lighted a fire in the wretched grate. Then she smoothed his bed-clothes till they were covered with her smutty trail. She would have gone for a doctor then and there, but difficulty arose. For doctors meant hospitals, and the man below threatened to sell his lodger's "sticks" if rent were not forthcoming. She cast her eyes about in search of pawnable articles. They fell upon his clothes. She took up his shirt and examined it carefully, appraising the sleeve links and the studs. But when she touched the coat, the coat that had Lucia's letter in the breast-pocket, Rickman turned in his bed and made agonizing signs, struggling with the voice that perished in his burning throat. "Wot's the good," said she, "of a suit when yer can't wear it? As I telled you wot you wa--No, the's no sorter use your making fyces at me. And you keep your ----y legs in, or I'll--" The propositions that followed were murmured in a hoarse but crooning tone such as a mother might have used to soothe a fractious child. She went away, carrying the clothes with her, and turned out the pockets in her den. On her return she sent the man below to fetch the doctor. But the man below fell in with boon companions on the way, and no doctor came. All that night the woman watched by Rickman's bedside, heedless of her luck. She kept life in him by feeding him with warm milk and gin, a teaspoonful at a time. Rickman, aware of footsteps in the room, fancied himself back again in Rankin's dressing-room. The whole scene of that evening floated before him all night long. He had a sense of presences hostile and offended, of being irretrievably disgraced. In the recurring nightmare he saw Lucia Harden instead of Mrs. Rankin. So persistently did he see her that when he woke he could not shake off the impression that she had been actually, if unaccountably, present, a spectator of his uttermost disgrace. He could never look her in the face again. No, for he was disgraced; absolutely, irredeemably, atrociously disgraced. Beyond all possibility of explanation and defence; though he sometimes caught himself explaining and pleading against those offended phantoms of his brain. Why should he suffer so? Just because of his inability to deal with Rankin's never-ending dinner, or to pay a debt of millions, many millions of figures that climbed up the wall. He was not sure which of these two obligations was laid upon him. He became by turns delirious and drowsy, and the woman fetched a doctor early the next day. He found enteric and blood-poisoning also, of which Rickman's illness at the Rankins' must have been the first warning symptoms. "He'll have to go to the hospital; but you'd better send word to his friends." "'E ain't got no friends. And _I_ dunno 'oo 'e is." The doctor said to himself, "Gone under," and looked round him for a clue. He examined a postcard from Spinks and a parcel (containing an overcoat) from Rankin, with the novelist's name and address inside the wrapper. The poet's name was familiar to the doctor, who read _Metropolis_. He first of all made arrangements for removing his patient to the hospital. Then in his uncertainty he telegraphed to Jewdwine, to Rankin and to Spinks. The news of Rickman's illness was thus spread rapidly among his friends. It brought Spinks that afternoon, and Flossie, the poor Beaver, dragged to Howland Street by her husband to see what her woman's hands could do. They entered upon a scene of indescribable confusion and clangour. Poppy Grace, arrived on her errand (for which she had attired herself in a red dress and ermine tippet), had mounted guard over the unconscious poet. "Ricky," cried Poppy, bending over him, "won't you speak to me? It's Poppy, dear. Don't you know me?" "No, 'e don't know yer, so you needn't arsk 'im." Poppy placed her minute figure defiantly between Rickman and her rival of the open door. She had exhausted her emotions in those wild cries, and was prepared to enjoy the moment which produced in her the hallucination of self-conscious virtue. The woman, voluble and fierce, began to describe Miss Grace's character in powerful but somewhat exaggerated language, appealing to the new-comers to vindicate her accuracy. Poppy seated herself on the bed and held a pocket-handkerchief to her virtuous nose. It was the dumb and dignified rebuke of Propriety in an ermine tippet, to Vice made manifest in the infamy of rags. The Beaver retreated in terror on to the landing, where she stood clutching the little basket of jellies and things which she had brought, as if she feared that it might be torn from her in the violence of the scene. Spinks, convulsed with anguish by the sight of his friend lying there unconscious, could only offer an inarticulate expostulation. It was the signal for the woman to burst into passionate self-defence. "I ain't took nothing 'cept wot the boss 'e myde me. 'Go fer a doctor?' ses 'e. 'No you don't. I don't 'ave no ----y doctor messing round 'ere an' cartin' 'im orf to the 'orspital afore 'e's paid 'is rent.' Ses 'e 'I'm--" The entrance of Maddox and Rankin checked the hideous flow. They were followed by the porters of the hospital and the nurse in charge. Her presence commanded instantaneous calm. "There are far too many people in this room," said she. Her expelling glance fell first on Poppy, throned on the bed, then on the convulsive Spinks. She turned more gently to Rankin, in whose mouth she saw remonstrance, and to Maddox, in whose eyes she read despair. "It will really be better for him to take him to the hospital." "No," cried Spinks, darting in again from the landing, "take him to my house, 45, Dalmeny Av--" but the Beaver plucked him by the sleeve; for she thought of Muriel Maud. "No, no, take him to mine, 87, Sussex Square," said Rankin, and he insisted. But in the end he suffered himself to be overruled; for he thought darkly of his wife. "I'd give half my popularity if I could save him," he said to Maddox. "Half your popularity won't save him, nor yet the whole of it," said Maddox savagely. In that moment they hated themselves and each other for the wrong they had done him. Their hearts smote them as they thought of the brutalities of Sunday night. The woman still held her ground in the centre of the room where she stood scowling at the nurse as she busied herself about the bed. "I'd a seen to 'im ef 'e'd a let me," she reiterated. Maddox dealt with her. He flicked a sovereign on to the table. "Look here," said he, "suppose you take that and go out quietly." There was a momentary glitter in her eyes, but her fingers hesitated. "I didn' fink 'e 'ad no frien's wen I come in." It was her way of intimating that what she had done she had not done for money. "All right, take it." She drew out a filthy grey flannel bag from the bosom of her gown and slipped the gold into it. And still she hesitated. She could not understand why so large a sum was offered for such slight services as she had rendered. It must have been for--Another thought stirred in her brute brain. They were raising Rickman in his bed before taking him away. His shoulders were supported on the nurse's arm, his head dropped on her breast. The posture revealed all the weakness of his slender body. The woman turned. And as she looked at the helpless figure she was visited by a dim sense of something strange and beautiful and pure, something (his helplessness perhaps) that was outraged by her presence, and called for vindication. "'E never 'ad no truck with me," she said. It struck Maddox that the denial had a sublimity and pathos of its own. She dropped the bag into her lean bosom and went out. And the porters wrapped him in his blankets, and laid him on a stretcher, and carried him out; past Maddox and Rankin who turned their heads away; past Flossie who shrank a little from the blankets, but cried softly to see him go; and past the woman standing on her threshold. And in that manner he passed Horace Jewdwine coming up the stair too late. And all that Jewdwine could do was to stand back and let him pass. It was Jewdwine's fear that made him uncover, as in the presence of the dead. CHAPTER LXXIII When Rankin, Maddox and Jewdwine stood alone in the garret whence they had seen Rickman carried away from them, remorse drove all hope of his recovery from their hearts. They learnt some of the truth about him from the woman in the next room, a keen observer of human nature. Jewdwine and Rankin, when they too had paid her for her services, were glad to escape from the intolerable scene. Maddox stayed behind, collecting what he could only think of as Rickman's literary remains. He found in the table drawer three unpublished articles, a few poems, and the First Act of the second and unfinished tragedy, saved by its obscure position at the back of the drawer. The woman owned to having lit the fire with the rest. Maddox cursed and groaned as he thought of that destruction. He knew that many poems which followed _Saturnalia_ had remained unpublished. Had they too been taken to light the fire? He turned the garret upside down in search of the missing manuscripts. At last in a cupboard, he came upon a leather bag. It was locked and he could find no key, but he wrenched it open with the poker. It contained many manuscripts; among them the Nine and Twenty Sonnets, and the testament concerning them. He read the Sonnets, but not the other document which was in a sealed envelope. He found also a bundle of Dicky Pilkington's receipts and his last letter threatening foreclosure. And when he had packed up the books (Lucia's books) and redeemed Rickman's clothes from the pawn-shop, he took all these things away with him for safety. There was little he could do for Rickman, but he promised himself the pleasure of settling Dicky's claim. But even that satisfaction was denied him. For Dicky had just renewed his bill for a nominal three months. Nominal only. Dicky had in view a magnificent renunciation, and he flatly refused to treat with Maddox or anybody else. He was completely satisfied with this conclusion; it meant that Rickman, for all his style and pluck, had lost the game and that he, Pilkington, had done the handsome thing, as he could do it when the fancy took him. For Dicky's heart had been touched by the tale that Poppy told him, and it melted altogether when he went and saw for himself poor Ricky lying in his cot in the North-Western Hospital. He had a great deal of nice feeling about him after all, had Dicky. Terrible days followed Rickman's removal to the hospital; days when his friends seemed justified in their sad conviction; days when the doctors gave up hope; days when he would relapse after some brief recovery; days when he kept them all in agonizing suspense. But Rickman did not die. As they said, it was not in him to take that exquisitely mean revenge. It was not in him to truckle to the tradition that ordains that unfortunate young poets shall starve in garrets and die in hospitals. He had always been an upsetter of conventions, and a law unto himself. So there came a day, about the middle of March, when he astonished them all by appearing among them suddenly in Maddox's rooms, less haggard than he had been that night when he sat starving at Rankin's dinner-table. And as he came back to them, to Jewdwine, to Maddox and to Rankin, they each could say no more to him than they had said five years ago. "What a fool you were, Rickman. Why didn't you come to _me_?" But when the others had left, Maddox put his hands on Rickman's shoulders and they looked each other in the face. "I say, Ricky, what did you do it for?" But that was more than Rickman could explain, even to Maddox. They had all contended which should receive him when he came out of hospital; but it was settled that for the present he should remain with Maddox in his rooms. There Dicky, absolutely prepared to do the handsome thing, called upon him at an early date. Dicky had promised himself some exquisite sensations in the moment of magnanimity; but the moment never came. Rickman remained firm in his determination that every shilling of the debt should be paid and paid by him; it was more than covered by the money Maddox advanced for his literary remains. Dicky had to own that the plucky little fellow had won his game, but he added, "You couldn't have done it, Razors, if I hadn't given you points." The great thing was that he had done it, and that the Harden library was his, was Lucia's. It only remained to tell her, and to hand it over to her. He had long ago provided for this difficult affair. He wrote, as he had planned to write, with a judicious hardness, brevity and restraint. He told her that he desired to see her on some business connected with the Harden library, in which he was endeavouring to carry out as far as possible his father's last wishes. He asked to be allowed to call on her some afternoon in the following week. He thanked her for her letter without further reference, and he remained--"sincerely"? No, "faithfully" hers. He told Maddox that he thought of going down to Devonshire to recruit. CHAPTER LXXIV Lucia was suffering from the disagreeable strain of a divided mind. To begin with she was not altogether pleased with Mr. Rickman. He had taken no notice of the friendly little letter she had written about the Elegy, her evident intention being to give him pleasure. She had written it on impulse, carried away by her ardent admiration. That was another of those passionate indiscreet things, which were followed by torments of her pride. And the torments had followed. His two months' silence had reproved her ardour, had intimated to her that he was in no mood to enter in at the door which she had closed to him three years ago. She took it that he had regarded her poor little olive branch as an audacity. And now that he _had_ written there was not a word about the subject of her letter. He had only written because business compelled him, and his tone was not only cold, but positively austere. But, she reflected, business after all did not compel him to come down and see her. Having reached this point she became aware that her heart was beating most uncomfortably at the bare idea of seeing him. For the first time this anticipation inspired her with anxiety and fear. Until their last meeting in Tavistock Place there had been in all their intercourse something intangible and rare, something that, though on her part it had lacked the warmth of love, she had acknowledged to be finer than any friendship. That beautiful intangible quality had perished in the stress of their final meeting. And even if it came to life again it could never be the same, or so she thought. She had perceived how much its permanence had depended on external barriers, on the social gulf, and on the dividing presence of another woman. She could not separate him from his genius; and his genius had long ago overleapt the social gulf. And now, without poor Flossie, without the safeguard of his engagement, she felt herself insecure and shelterless. More than ever since he had overleapt that barrier too. But though Lucia had found out all these things, she had not yet found out why it was that she had been so glad to hear that Keith Rickman was going to be married, nor why she had been so passionately eager to keep him to his engagement. In any case she could not have borne to be the cause of unhappiness to another woman; and that motive was so natural that it served for all. As things had turned out, if he had married, that, she had understood, would have been such a closing of the door as would have shut him out for ever. And now that he was knocking at the door again, now that there was no reason why, once opened, it should not remain open, she began to be afraid of what might enter in with him. She made up her mind that she would not let him in. So she sat down and wrote a cold little note to say that she was afraid she would not be able to see him next week. Could he not explain the business in writing? She took that letter to the post herself. And as each step brought her nearer to the inevitable act, the conviction grew on her that this conduct of hers was cowardly, and unworthy both of him and of herself. A refusal to see him was a confession of fear, and fear assumed the existence of the very thing his letter had ignored. It was absurd too, if he had come to see that his feeling for her was (as she persisted in believing it to be) a piece of poetic folly, an illusion of the literary imagination. She turned back and tore up that cold little note, and wrote another that said she would be very glad to see him any day next week, except Friday. There was no reason why she should have excepted Friday; but it sounded more business-like somehow. She did not take Kitty into her confidence, and in this she failed to perceive the significance of her own secrecy. She told herself that there was no need to ask Kitty's advice, because she knew perfectly well already what Kitty's advice would be. He came on Tuesday. Monday was too early for his self-respect, Wednesday too late for his impatience. He had looked to find everything altered in and about Court House; and he saw, almost with surprise, the same April flowers growing in the green garden, and the same beech-tree dreaming on the lawn. He recognized the black rifts in its trunk and the shining sweep of its branches overhead. The door was opened by Robert, and Robert remembered him. There was a shade more gravity in the affectionate welcome, but then Robert was nine years older. He was shown into the drawing-room, and it, too, was much as he had left it nine years ago. Kitty Palliser was there; she rose to meet him with her irrepressible friendliness, undiminished by nine years. There was nothing cold and business-like about Kitty. "Will you tell Miss Harden?" said she to the detached, retreating Robert. Then she held out her hand. "I am very glad to see you." But a wave of compassion rather than of gladness swept over her face as she looked at him. She made him sit down, and gave him tea. There was a marked gentleness in all her movements, unlike the hilarious lady she used to be. The minutes went by and Lucia did not appear. He could not attend to what Kitty was saying. His eyes were fixed on the door that looked as if it were never going to open. Kitty seemed to bear tenderly with his abstraction. Once he glanced round the room, recognizing familiar objects. He had expected, after Dicky's descent on Court House, to find nothing recognizable in it. Kitty was telling him how an uncle of hers had lent them the house for a year, how he had bought it furnished, and how, but for the dismantled library and portrait gallery, it was pretty much as it had been in Miss Harden's time. So unchanged was it and its atmosphere that Rickman felt himself in the presence of a destiny no less unchanging and familiar. He had come on business as he had done nine years ago; and he felt that the events of that time must in some way repeat themselves, that when he was alone with Lucia he would say to her such things as he had said before, that there would be differences, misunderstandings, as before, and that his second coming would end in misery and separation like the first. It seemed to him that Kitty, kind Kitty, had the same perception and foreboding. Thus he interpreted her very evident compassion. She meant to console him. "Robert remembers you," said she. "That's very clever of Robert," said he. "No, it's only his faithfulness. What a funny thing faithfulness is. Robert won't allow any one but Miss Harden to be mistress here. My people are interlopers, abominations of desolation. He can barely be civil to their friends. But to hers--he is as you see him. It's a good thing for me I'm her friend, or he wouldn't let me sit here and pour out tea for you." He thought over the speech. It admitted an encouraging interpretation. But Miss Palliser may have been more consoling than she had meant. She rattled on in the kindness of her heart. He was grateful for her presence; it calmed his agitation and prepared him to meet Lucia with composure when she came. But Lucia did not come; and he began to have a horrible fear that at the last moment she would fail him. He refused the second cup that Kitty pressed on him, and she looked at him compassionately again. He was so used to his appearance that he had forgotten how it might strike other people. He was conscious only of Kitty's efforts to fill up agreeably these moments of suspense. At last it ended. Lucia was in the doorway. At the sight of her his body shook and the strength in his limbs seemed to dissolve and flow downwards to the floor. His eyes never left her as she came to him with her rhythmic unembarrassed motion. She greeted him as if they had met the other day; but as she took his hand she looked down at it, startled by its slenderness. He was glad that she seated herself on his right, for he felt that the violence of his heart must be audible through his emaciated ribs. Kitty made some trivial remark, and Lucia turned to her as if her whole soul hung upon Kitty's words. Her absorption gave him time to recover himself. (It did not occur to him that that was what she had turned away for.) Her turning enabled him to look at her. He noticed that she seemed in better health than when he had seen her last, and that in sign of it her beauty was stronger, more vivid and more defined. They said little to each other. But when Kitty had left them they drew in their chairs to the hearth with something of the glad consent of those for whom the long-desired moment has arrived. He felt that old sense of annihilated time, of return to a state that had never really lapsed; and it struck him that she, too, had that feeling. It was she who spoke first. "Before you begin your business, tell me about yourself." "There isn't anything to tell." She looked as if she rather doubted the truth of that statement. "If you don't mind, I'd rather begin about the business and get it over." "Why, is it--is it at all unpleasant?" He smiled. "Not in the least, not in the very least. It's about the library." "I thought we'd agreed that that was all over and done with long ago?" "Well, you see, it hasn't anything to do with _us_. My father--" "Don't let us go back to that." "I'm sorry, but we must--a little. You know my father and I had a difference of opinion?" "I know--I know." "Well, in the end he owned that I was right. That was when he was dying." He wished she would not look at him; for he could not look at her. He was endeavouring to make his tale appear in the last degree natural and convincing. Up till now he had told nothing but the truth, but as he was about to enter on the path of perjury he became embarrassed by the intentness of her gaze. "You were with him?" she asked. "Yes." He paused a moment to command a superior kind of calm. That pause wrecked him, for it gave her also time for thought. "He wanted either to pay you the money that you should have had, or to hand over the library; and I thought--" "But the library was sold?" He explained the matter of the mortgage, carefully, but with an amount of technical detail meant to impose and mystify. "Then how," she asked, "was the library redeemed?" He repudiated an expression so charged with moral and emotional significance. He desired to lead her gently away from a line of thought that if pursued would give her intelligence the clue. "You can't call it redeemed. Nobody redeemed it. The debt, of course, had to be paid out of my father's estate." "In which case the library became yours?" He smiled involuntarily, for she had him there, and she knew it. "It became nothing of the sort, and if it had I could hardly go against my father's wishes by holding on to it." "Can't you see that it's equally impossible for me to take it?" "Why? Try and think of it as a simple matter of business." He spoke like a tired man, straining after a polite endurance of her feminine persistence and refining fantasy. "It hasn't anything to do with you or me." Thus did he turn against her the argument with which she had crushed him in another such dispute nine years ago. "I am more business-like than you are. I remember perfectly well that your father paid more than a thousand pounds for those books in the beginning." "That needn't trouble you. It has been virtually deducted. I'm sorry to say a few very valuable books were sold before the mortgage and could not be recovered." He had given himself away by that word "recovered." Her eyes searched him through and through to find his falsehood, as they had searched him once before to find his truth. "It is very, very good of you," she said. "Of _me_? Am _I_ bothering you? Don't think of me except as my father's executor." "Did you know that he wanted you to do this, or did you only think it? Was it really his express wish?" He looked her in the face and lied boldly and freely. "It was. Absolutely." And as she met that look, so luminously, so superlatively sincere, she knew that he had lied. "All the same," said she, "I can't take it. Don't think it unfriendly of me. It isn't. In fact, don't you see it's just because we have been--we are--friends that I must refuse it? I can't take advantage of that"--she was going to say "feeling," but thought better of it. "And don't you see by refusing you are compelling me to be dishonourable? If you were really my friend you would think more of my honour than of your own scruples. Or is that asking too much?" He felt that he had scored in this game of keen intelligences. "No. But it would be wrong of me to let your honour be influenced by our friendship." "Don't think of our friendship, then. It's all pure business, as brutally impersonal as you like." "If I could only see it that way." "I should have thought it was quite transparently and innocently clear." He had scored again. For now he had taxed her with stupidity. "If I could persuade you that it came from my father, you wouldn't mind. You mind because you think it comes from me. Isn't that so?" She was silent, and he knew. "How can I persuade you? I can only repeat that I've absolutely nothing to do with it." There was but little friendliness about him now. His whole manner was full of weariness and irritation. "Why should you imagine that I had?" "Because it would have been so very like you." "Then I must be lying abominably. Is that so very like me?" "I have heard you do it before--once--twice--magnificently." "When?" "About this time nine years ago." He remembered. The wonder was that she should have remembered too. "I daresay. But what possible motive could I have for lying now?" He had scored heavily this time. Far too heavily. There was a flame in Lucia's face which did not come from the glow of the fire, a flame that ran over her neck and forehead to the fine tips of her ears. For she thought, supposing all the time he had been telling her the simple truth? Why should she have raised that question? Why should she have taken for granted that any personal interest should have led him to do this thing? And in wondering she was ashamed. He saw her confusion, and attributed it to another cause. "I'm only asking you to keep the two things distinct, as I do--as I must do," he said gently. "I'll think about it, and let you know to-morrow." "But I'm going to-night." "Oh no, I can't let you do that. You must stay over the night. Your room is ready for you." He protested; she insisted; and in the end she had her way, as he meant to have his way to-morrow. He stayed, and all that evening they were very kind to him. Kitty talked gaily throughout dinner; and afterwards Lucia played to him while he rested, propped up with great cushions (she had insisted on the cushions) in her chair. Kitty, his hostess, drew back, and seemed to leave these things to Lucia as her right. He knew it was Lucia, and not Kitty, who ran up to his room to see that all was comfortable and that his fire burnt well. In everything she said and did there was a peculiar gentleness and care. It was on the same lines as Kitty's compassion, only more poignant and intense. It was, he thought, as if she knew that it was for the last time, that of all these pleasant things to-morrow would see the end. Was it kind of her to let him know what her tenderness could be when to-morrow must end it all? For he had no notion of the fear evoked by his appearance, the fear that was in both their hearts. He did not know why they looked at him with those kind glances, nor why Lucia told him that Robert was close at hand if he should want anything in the night. He slept in the room that had once been Lucia's, the room above the library, looking to the western hills. He did not know that they had given it him because it was a good room to be ill and to get well in. Lucia and Kitty sat up late that night over the fire, and they talked of him. Kitty began it. "_Do_ you remember," said she, "the things we used to say about him?" "Oh don't, Kitty; I do." "You needn't mind; it was only I who said them." "Yes, you said them; but I thought them." Then she told Kitty what had brought him there and the story that he had told her. "And, Kitty, all the time I knew he lied." "Probably. You must take it, Lucy, all the same." "How can I take it, when I know it comes out of his own poor little waistcoat pocket?" "You would, if you cared enough about him." "No. It's just _because_ I care that I can't." "You do care, then?" "Yes, of course I do." "But not in the same way as _he_ cares, Lucy." Kitty's words sounded like a statement rather than a question, so they passed unanswered. "It's all right, Kitty. It's all over, at last. He doesn't care a bit now, not a bit." "Oh doesn't he! How can you be so idiotic? All over? I assure you it's only just begun." Lucia turned her head away. "Lucy--what are you going to do with him?" Lucia smiled sadly. That was the question she had asked Horace ten years ago, making him responsible. And now the responsibility had been laid on her. "Kitty--did you notice how thin he is? He looks as if he'd just come through some awful illness. But I can't ask him about it." "Rather not. You don't know whether he's had it, or whether he's going to have it." "I wonder if you'd mind asking him to stay a week or two? It might help him to get strong." "I doubt it." "I don't. I think it's just what he wants. Oh, Kitty, could you--would you, if I wanted it, too?" "You needn't ask. But what earthly good can it do?" "If he got strong here it would be so nice to think we sent him away well. And if he's going to be ill I could look after him--" Her use of "we" and "I" did not pass unnoticed by the observant Kitty. "And then?" Lucia's face, which had been overcast with care, was now radiant. "Then I should have done something for him besides making him miserable. Will you ask him, Kitty?" "You're a fool, Lucy, and I'm another. But I'll ask him. To-morrow, though; not to-day." She waited to see what to-morrow would bring forth, for she was certain it would bring forth something. It brought forth glorious weather after the east wind, a warm languid day, half spring, half summer. Lucia and Kitty seemed bent on putting all idea of business out of their guest's head. In the morning they drove about the country. In the afternoon they all sat out in the south square under the windows of the morning-room, while Lucia talked to him about his tragedies. Kitty still held her invitation in reserve. At last she left them to themselves. It was Lucia who first returned to the subject of dispute. She had some sewing in her lap which gave her the advantage of being able to talk in a calm, detached manner and without looking up. He sat near her, watching with delight the quiet movements of her hands. "I've been thinking over what you said yesterday," said she. "I can't do what you want; but I can suggest a compromise. You seem determined on restitution. Have you forgotten that you once offered it me in another form?" "You refused it in that form--then." "I wouldn't refuse it now. If you could be content with that." "Do you remember why you refused it?" She did not answer, but a faint flush told him that she had not forgotten. "The same objection--the same reason for objecting--holds good now." "Not quite. I should not be wronging any one else." "You mean the Beaver, who dotes upon immortal verse?" She smiled a little sadly. "Yes; there's no Beaver in the question now." "You shall have the sonnets in any case. I brought them for you in place of the _Aurea Legenda_, and the Neapolitan Horace and--" She lay back in her chair and closed her eyes, as if she could shut out sound with sight. "Please--please. If you go on talking about it we shall both be very tired. Don't you feel as if you'd like some tea?" She was bringing out all her feminine reserves to conquer him. But he was not going to be conquered this time. He could afford to wait; for he also had reserves. "I'm so sorry," he said humbly. "I won't bore you any more till after tea." And Lucia knew it was an armistice only and not peace. At tea-time Kitty perceived that the moment was not yet propitious for her invitation. She was not even sure that it would ever come. Nor would it; for Rickman knew that his only chance lay in their imminent parting, in the last hour that must be his. He was counting on it when the steady, resistless flow of a stream of callers cut short his calculations. It flowed between him and Lucia. They could only exchange amused or helpless glances across it now and then. At last he found a moment and approached her. "I wanted to give you those things before I go." "Very well. We'll go into the house in one minute." He waited. She made a sign that said, "Come," and he followed her. She avoided the morning-room that looked on the courtyard with its throng of callers; hesitated, and opened the door into the library. He ran upstairs to fetch the manuscript, and joined her there. But for the empty bookshelves this room, too, was as he had left it. Lucia was sitting in a window seat. He came to her and gave the poems into her open hands, and she thanked him. "Nonsense. It's good of you to take them. But that doesn't release you from your obligations." She laid the manuscript on the window-seat, protected by her hand. He sat there facing her, and for a moment neither spoke. "I haven't very much time," he said at last. "I've got to catch the seven-forty." "You haven't. We don't want you to go like this. Now you're here you must stay a fortnight at the very least." He hung his head. He did not want her to see how immense was the temptation. He murmured some half-audible, agitated thanks, but his refusal was made quite plain. He could not give up the advantage he had counted on. "I'm afraid I must bore you again a little now. I've only got an hour." "Don't spoil it, then. See how beautiful it is." She rose and threw open the lattice, and they stood together for a moment looking out. It was about an hour before sunset, an April sunset, the golden consummation of the wedding of heaven and earth. He felt a delicate vibration in the air, the last tender resonance of the nuptial song. This April was not the April of the streets where the great wooing of the world goes on with violence and clangour; for the city is earth turned to stone and yields herself struggling and unwilling to the invasion of the sky. Here all the beautiful deep-bosomed land lay still, breathless in her escape from the wind to the sun. Up the western valley the earth gave all her greenness naked to the light; but the hills were dim with the divine approaches of her mystical union, washed by the undivided streams of blue and purple air that flowed to the thin spiritual verge, where earth is caught up and withdrawn behind heaven's inmost veil. The hour was beautiful as she had said. Its beauty had clothed itself with immortality in light; yet there was in it such mortal tenderness as drew his heart after it and melted his will in longing. He turned from the window and looked at her with all his trouble in his eyes. Lucia saw that her words had saddened him, and she sat still, devising some comfort for him in her heart. "I don't think," he said at last, "you quite know what you are doing. I'm going to tell you something that I didn't mean to tell you. When I said I'd had nothing to do with all this, it wasn't altogether true." "So I supposed," she murmured. "There was a--a certain amount of trouble and difficulty about it--" "And what did that mean?" "It only meant that I had to work rather hard to put it right. I liked it, so you needn't think anything of that. But if you persist in your refusal all my hard work goes for nothing." He was so powerless against her tender obstinacy that he had determined to appeal to her tenderness alone. "There were about three years of it, the best three years out of my life; and you are going to fling them away and make them useless. All for a little wretched scruple. This is the only argument that will appeal to you; or I wouldn't have mentioned it." "The best years out of your life--why were they the best?" "Because they were the first in which I was free." She thought of the time nine years ago when she had taken from him three days, the only days when he was free, and how she had tried to make restitution and had failed. "And whatever else I refuse," she said, "I've taken _them_? I can't get out of that?" "No. If you want to be very cruel you can say I'd no business to lay you under the obligation, but you can't get out of it." She looked away. Did she want to be very cruel? Did she want to get out of it? Might it not rather be happiness to be in it, immersed in it? Lost in it, with all her scruples and all her pride? His voice broke and trembled into passion. "And what is it that I'm asking you to take? Something that isn't mine and _is_ yours; something that it would be dishonourable of me to keep. But if it _was_ mine, it would be a little thing compared with what I wanted to give you and you wouldn't have." Her hands in her distress had fallen to their old unconscious trick of stroking and caressing the thing they held, the one thing that he had given her, that she had not refused. His eyes followed her movements. She looked up and saw the jealous hunger in them. She saw too, through his loose thin suit, that the lines of his body were sharper than ever. His face was more than ever serious and clean cut; his eyes were more than ever sunk under the shadow of his brows, darkening their blue. He was refined almost to emaciation. And she saw other things. As he sat there, with one leg crooked over the other, his wrists stretched out, his hands clasped, nursing his knee, she noticed that his cuffs, though clean, were frayed; that his coat was worn in places; that his boots were patched and broken at the sole. He changed his attitude suddenly when he became aware of her gaze. She did not know why she had not noticed these details before, nor why she noticed them now. Perhaps she would not have seen them but for that attempt to hide them which revealed their significance. She said to herself, "He is poor; and yet he has done this." And the love that had been so long hidden, sheltered and protected by her pity, came forth, and knew itself as love. And she forgot his greatness and remembered only those pitiful human things in which he had need of her. So she surrendered. "I will take everything--on one condition. That you will give me--what you said just now I wouldn't have." The eyes that she lifted to his were full of tears. For one moment he did not understand. Very slowly he realized that the thing he had dreamed and despaired of, that he dared not ask for, was being divinely offered to him as a free gift. There was no moment, not even in that night of his madness, in this room nine years ago, nor in that other night in Howland Street, when he had desired it as he desired it now. Her tears hung curved on the curved lashes of her eyes, and spilt themselves, and fell one by one on to the pages of the manuscript. He heard them fall. Before he let himself be carried away by the sweep of her impulse and his own passion he saw that not honour but common decency forbade him to take advantage of a moment's inspired tenderness. He had already made a slight appeal _ad misericordiam_; but that was for her sake not his own. He realized most completely his impossible position. He had no income, and he had damaged his health so seriously that it might be long enough before he could make one; and these facts he could not possibly mention. She suspected him of poverty; but the smallest hint of his real state would have roused her infallible instinct of divination. He had felt, as her eyes rested on his emaciated body, that they could see the course of its sufferings, its starvation. He meant that she should never know what things had happened to him in Howland Street. His chivalry revolted against the brutality of capturing her tender heart by such a lacerating haul on its compassion. All this swept through him between the falling of her ears. Last of all came the thought of what he was giving up. Was it possible that she cared for him? It could not be. The illusion lasted only for an instant. Yet while it lasted the insane longing seized him to take her at her word and risk the consequences. For she would find out afterwards that she had never loved him; and she would disguise her feeling and he would see through her disguise. He would know. There could never be any disguise, any illusion between her and him. But at least he could take her in his arms and hold her now, while her tears fell; she would be his for this moment that was now. He searched her face to see if indeed there had been any illusion. Through the tears that veiled her eyes he could not see whether it were love or pity that still shone in them; but because of the tears he thought it must be pity. She went on. "You said I had taken the best years of your life--I would like to give you all mine, instead, such as it is--if you'll take it." She said it quietly, so quietly that he thought that she had spoken so only because she did not love him. "How can I take it--now, in this way?" (Her tears stopped falling suddenly.) "I admit that I made a gross appeal to your pity." "My pity?" "Yes, your pity." His words were curt and hard because of the terrible restraint he had to put upon himself. "I did it because it was the best argument. Otherwise it would have been abominable of me to have said those things." "I wasn't thinking of anything you said, only of what you've done." "I haven't done much. But tell me the truth. Whether would you rather I had done it for your sake or for mere honour's sake?" "I would rather you had done it for honour's sake." She said it out bravely, though she knew that it was the profounder confession of her feeling. He, however, was unable to take it that way. "I thought so," he said. "Well, that _is_ why I did it." "I see. I wanted to know the truth; and now I know it." "You don't know half of it--" His passion leapt to his tongue under the torture, but he held it down. He paused, knowing that this moment in which he stood was one of those moments which have the spirit and the power of eternity, and that it was his to save or to destroy it. So admirable indeed was his control that it had taken their own significance from his words, and she read into them another meaning. Her face was white with terror because of the thing she had said; but she still looked at him without flinching. She hardly realized that he was going, that he was trying to say good-bye. "I will take the books--if you can keep them for me a little while." Some perfect instinct told her that this was the only way of atonement for her error. He thanked her as if they had been speaking of a trifling thing. She rose, holding the manuscript loosely in her clasped hands, and he half thought that she was going to give it back to him. He took it from her and threw it on the window-seat, and held her hands together for an instant in his own. He looked down at them, longing to stoop and kiss them, but forebore, because of his great love for her, and let them go. He went out quickly. He had sufficient self-command to find Kitty and thank her and take his leave. As the door closed on him Lucia heard herself calling him back, with what intention she hardly knew, unless it were to return his poems. "Keith," she said softly--"Keith." But even to her own senses it was less a name than a sound that began in a sob and ended in a sigh. Kitty found her standing in the window-place where he had left her. "Has anything happened?" she asked. "I asked him to marry me, Kitty, and he wouldn't. That was all." "Are you sure you did, dear? From the look of him I should have said it was the other way about." CHAPTER LXXV "I don't know what to think of it, Kitty. What do you think?" "I think you've been playing with fire, dear. With the divine fire. It's the most dangerous of all, and you've got your little fingers burnt." "Like Horace. He once said the burnt critic dreads the divine fire. I'm not a critic." "That you most certainly are not." "Still I used to understand him; and now I can't. I can't make it out at all." "There's only one thing," said Kitty, musing till an inspiration came. "You haven't seen him for more than three years, and you can't tell what may have happened in between. He _may_ have got entangled with another woman." Kitty would not have hazarded this conjecture if she had not believed it plausible. But she dwelt on it with a beneficent intention. No other theory, she opined, would so effectually turn and rout the invading idea of Keith Rickman. Kitty was for once mistaken in her judgement, not having all the evidence before her. The details which would have thrown light on the situation were just those which Lucia preferred to keep to herself. All that the benevolent Kitty had achieved was to fill her friend's mind with a new torment. Lucia had dreaded Rickman's coming; she had lost all sense of security in his presence. Still she had understood him. And now she felt that her very understanding was at fault; that something troubled the fine light she had always viewed him in. Was it possible that she had never really understood? Close upon Kitty's words there came back to her the tilings that Edith had said of him, that Horace had hinted; things that he had confessed to her himself. Was it possible that he was still that sort of man, the sort that she had vowed she would never marry? He was not bad; she could not think of him as bad; but was he good? Was he like her cousin Horace? No; certainly there was not the smallest resemblance between him and Horace. With Horace she had always felt--in one way--absolutely secure. If she had ever been uncertain it had not been with this obscure inexplicable dread. How was it that she had never felt it before? Never felt it in the first weeks of their acquaintance, when day after day and evening after evening she had sat working with him, here, alone? When he had appeared to her in the first flush of his exuberant youth, transparent as glass, incapable of reservation or disguise? It was in those days (he had told her) that he had not been--good. And yet her own vision of him had never been purer, her divination subtler than then. Even in that last week, after her terrible enlightenment at Cannes, when she was ready to suspect every man, even Horace, she had never suspected him. And in the second period of their friendship, when his character was ripened and full-grown, when she had lived under the same roof with him, she had never had a misgiving or a doubt. And now there was no end to her doubt. She could not tell which was the instinct she should trust, or whether she were better able to judge him then or now. What had become of her calm and lucid insight? Of the sympathy in which they had once stood each transparent to the other. For that was the worst of it; that he no longer understood her; and that she had given him cause for misunderstanding (this thought was beginning to keep her awake at night). She had made it impossible for him to respect her any more. He had his ideas of what a woman should and should not do, and he had been horrified at finding her so like, and oh, so unlike other women (here Lucia's mood rose from misery to anger). She had thought him finer, subtler than that; but he had judged her as he judged such women. And she had brought that judgement on herself. In an ecstasy of shame she recalled the various episodes of their acquaintance, from the time when she had first engaged him to work for her (against his will), to the present intolerable moment. There rose before her in an awful vision that night when she had found him sleeping in the library; when she had stayed and risked the chances of his waking. Well, he could not think any the worse of her for that; because he had not waked. But she had risked it. The more she thought of it the more she saw what she had risked. He would always think of her as a woman who did risky things. Edith had said she had put herself in his power. She remembered how she had come between him and the woman whom he would have married but for her; how she had invited him to sit with her when the Beaver was away. He had liked it, but he must have had his own opinion of her all the same. That was another of the risky things. And of course he had taken advantage of it. That was the very worst of all. He had loved her in his way; she had been one of a series. Flossie had come before her. And before Flossie? All that was fine in him had turned against Flossie because of the feeling she inspired. And it had turned against her. For now, when he had got over it, had forgotten that he had ever had that feeling, when all he wanted was to go his own way and let her go hers, she had tried to force herself upon him (Lucia was unaware of her violent distortion of the facts). He had come with his simple honourable desire for reparation; and she had committed _the_ unpardonable blunder--she had mistaken his intentions. And for the monument and crown of her dishonour, she, Lucia Harden, had proposed to him and been rejected. Her misery endured (with some merciful intermissions) for three weeks. Then Horace Jewdwine wrote and invited himself down for the first week-end in May. "_Can_ he come, Kitty?" she asked wearily. "Of course he can, dear, if you want him," "I don't want him; but I don't mind his coming." Kitty said to herself, "He has an inkling; Edith has been saying things; and it has brought him to the point." Otherwise she could not account for such an abrupt adventure on the part of the deliberate Horace. It was a Wednesday; and he proposed to come on Friday. He came on Friday. Kitty's observation was on the alert; but it could detect nothing that first evening beyond a marked improvement in Horace Jewdwine. With Lucia he was sympathetic, deferential, charming. He also laid himself out, a little elaborately, to be agreeable to Kitty. In the morning he approached Lucia with a gift, brought for her birthday ("I thought," said Lucia, "he had forgotten that I ever had a birthday"). It was an early copy of Rickman's tragedy _The Triumph of Life_, just published. His keen eyes watched her handling it. "He suspects," thought Kitty, "and he's testing her." But Lucia's equanimity survived. "Am I to read it now?" "As you like." She carried the book up to her own room and did not appear till lunch-time. In her absence Horace seemed a little uneasy; but he went on making himself agreeable to Kitty. "He must be pretty desperate," thought she, "if he thinks it worth while." Apparently he did think it worth while, though he allowed no sign of desperation to appear. Lucia, equally discreet, avoided ostentatious privacy. They sat out all afternoon under the beechtrees while she read, flaunting _The Triumph of Life_ in his very eyes. He watched every movement of her face that changed as it were to the cadence of the verse. It was always so, he remembered, when she was strongly moved. At last she finished and he smiled. "You like your birthday present?" "Very much. But Horace, he has done what you said was impossible." "Anybody would have said it was impossible. Modern drama in blank verse, you know--" "Yes. It ought to have been all wrong. But because he's both a great poet and a great dramatist, it's all right, you see. Look," she said, pointing to a passage that she dared not read. "Those are human voices. Could anything be simpler and more natural? But it's blank verse because it couldn't be more perfectly expressed in prose." "Yes, yes. I wonder how he does it." "It would have been impossible to anybody else." "It remains impossible. If it's ever played, it will be played because of Rickman's stage-craft and inimitable technique, not because of his blank verse." She put the book down; took up her work, and said no more. Horace seemed to have found his answer and to be satisfied. "A fool," thought Kitty; "but he shall have his chance." So she left them alone together that evening. But Jewdwine was very far from being satisfied, either with Lucia or himself. Lucia had refused to play to him yesterday because she had a headache; she had refused to walk with him to-day because she was tired; and to-night she would not sit up to talk to him because she had another headache. That evening he had all but succumbed to a terrible temptation. It was so long since he had been alone with Lucia, and there was something in her face, her dress, her attitude, that appealed to the authority on �sthetics. He found himself wondering how it would be if he got up and kissed her. But just then Lucia leaned back in her chair, and there was that tired look in her face which he had come to dread. He thought better of it. If he had kissed her his sense of propriety would have obliged him to propose to her and marry her. He almost wished he had yielded to that temptation, done that desperate deed. It would have at least settled the question once for all. For Jewdwine had found himself a third time at the turning of the ways. He knew where he was; but not where he was going. It had happened with Jewdwine as it had with Isaac Rickman; as it happens to every man bent on serving two masters. He had forbidden his right hand all knowledge of his left. He lived in two separate worlds. In one, lit by the high, pure light of the idea, he stood comparatively alone, cheered in his intellectual solitude by the enthusiasm of his disciples. For in the minds of a few innocent young men Horace Jewdwine's reputation remained immortal; and these made a point of visiting the Master in his house at Hampstead. He allowed the souls of these innocent young men to appear before him in an undress; for them he still kept his lamp well trimmed, handing on the sacred imperishable flame. Some suffered no painful disenchantment for their pilgrimage; and when the world that knew Jewdwine imparted to them its wisdom they smiled the mystic smile of the initiated. But many had become shaken in their faith. One of these, having achieved a little celebrity, without (as he discovered to his immense astonishment) any public assistance from the Master, had gone to Rickman and asked him diffidently for the truth about Jewdwine. Rickman had assured him that the person in the study, the inspired and inspiring person with the superhuman insight, who knew your thoughts before you had time to round your sentence, the person who in that sacred incommunicable privacy had praised your work, he was the real Jewdwine. "But," he had added, "everybody can't afford to be himself." And this had been Jewdwine's own confession and defence. But now he had gone down into Devonshire, as Rickman had once gone before him, to find himself. He had returned to Lucia as to his own purer soul. That night Jewdwine sat up face to face with himself and all his doubts; his problem being far more complicated than before. Three years ago it might have been very simply stated. Was he or was he not going to marry his cousin Lucia? But now, while personal inclination urged him to marry her, prudence argued that he would do better to marry a certain cousin of Mr. Fulcher's. His own cousin had neither money nor position. Mr. Fulcher's cousin had both. Once married to Miss Fulcher he could buy back Court House, if the Pallisers would give it up. The Cabinet Minister's cousin was in love with him, whereas he was well aware that his own cousin was not. But then he had never greatly desired her to be so. Jewdwine had neither respect nor longing for Miss Fulcher's passionate love. To his fragile temperament there was something infinitely more alluring in Lucia's virginal apathy. Her indifference (which he confused with her innocence) fascinated him; her reluctance was as a challenge to his languid blood. He was equally fascinated by her indifference to the income and position that were his. He admired that immaculate purity the more because he was not himself in these ways particularly pure. He loved money and position for their own sakes and hated himself for loving them. He would have liked to have been strong enough to despise these things as Lucia had always despised them. But he did not desire that she should go on despising them, any more than he desired that her indifference should survive the marriage ceremony. He pictured with satisfaction her gradual yielding to the modest luxury he had to offer her, just as he pictured the exquisite delaying dawn of her wifely ardour. The truth was he had lived too long with Edith. The instincts of his nature cried out (as far as anything so well-regulated could be said to cry out) in the most refined of accents for a wife, for children and a home. He had his dreams of the holy faithful spouse, a spouse with great dog-like eyes and tender breast, fit pillow for the head of a headachy, literary man. Lucia had dog-like eyes, and of her tenderness he had never had a doubt. He had never forgotten that hot June day, the year before he left Oxford, when he lay in the hammock in the green garden and Lucia ministered to him. Before that there was a blessed Long Vacation when he had over-read himself into a nervous breakdown, and Lucia had soothed his headaches with the touch of her gentle hands. For the sake of that touch he would then have borne the worst headache man ever had. And now it seemed that it was Lucia that was always having headaches. He had, in fact, begun to entertain the very gravest anxiety about her health. Her face and figure had grown thin; they were becoming less and less like the face and figure of the ideal spouse. Poor Lucia's arms offered no reliable support for a tired man. To his annoyance Jewdwine found that he had to breakfast alone with his hostess, because of Lucia's headache. "Lucia doesn't seem very strong," he said to Kitty, sternly, as if it had been Kitty's fault. "Don't you see it?" "I have seen it for some considerable time." "She wants rousing." And Jewdwine, who was himself feeling the need of exercise, roused her by taking her for a walk up Harcombe Hill. Half-way up she turned a white face to him, smiling sweetly, sat down on the hillside, and bent her head upon her knees. He sat beside her and waited for her recovery with punctilious patience. His face wore an expression of agonized concern. But she could see that the concern was not there altogether on her account. "Don't be frightened, Horace, you won't have to carry me home." He helped her to her feet, not ungently, and was very considerate in accommodating his pace to hers, and in reassuring her when she apologized for having spoilt his morning. And then it was that she thought of Keith Rickman, of his gentleness and his innumerable acts of kindness and of care; and she said to herself, "_He_ would not be impatient with me if I were ill." She rested in her room that afternoon and Kitty sat with her. Kitty could not stand, she said, more than a certain amount of Horace Jewdwine. "Lucia," she asked suddenly, "if Horace Jewdwine had asked you to marry him five years ago, would you have had him?" "I don't know. I don't really know. He's a good man." "You mean his morals are irreproachable. It's quite easy to have irreproachable morals if you have the temperament of an iceberg that has never broken loose from its Pole. Now I call Keith Rickman a saint, because he could so easily have been the other thing." Lucia did not respond; and Kitty left her. Kitty's question had set her thinking. Would she have married Horace if he had asked her five years ago? Why not? Between Horace and her there was the bond of kindred and of caste. He was a scholar; he had, or he once had, a beautiful mind full of noble thoughts of the kind she most admired. With Horace she would have felt safe from many things. All his ideas and feelings, all his movements could be relied on with an absolute assurance of their propriety. Horace would never do or say anything that could offend her feminine taste. In his love (she had been certain) there would never be anything painful, passionate, disturbing. She had dreamed of a love which should be a great calm light rather than a flame. There was no sort of flame about Horace. _Was_ Horace a good man? Yes. That is to say he was a moral man. He would have come to her clean in body and in soul. She had vowed she would never marry a certain kind of man. And yet that was the kind of man Keith Rickman had been. She had further demanded in her husband the finish of the ages. Who was more finished than Horace? Who more consummately, irreproachably refined? And yet her heart had grown more tender over Keith Rickman and his solecisms. And now it beat faster at the very thought of him, after Horace Jewdwine. For Horace's coming had brought her understanding of Keith Rickman and herself. She knew now what had troubled her once clear vision of him. It was when she had loved him least that she had divined him best. Hers was not the facile heart that believes because it desires. It desired because it believed; and now it doubted because its belief was set so high. And, knowing that she loved him, she thought of that last day when he had left her, and how he had taken her hands in his and looked at them, and she remembered and wondered and had hope. Then it occurred to her that Horace would be leaving early the next morning, and that she really ought to go down to the drawing-room and talk to him. Again by Kitty's mercy he had been given another chance. He was softened by a mood of valediction mingled with remorse. He was even inclined to be a little sentimental. Lucia, because her vision was indifferent therefore untroubled, could not but perceive the change in him. His manner had in it something of benediction and something of entreaty; his spirit brooded over, caressed and flattered hers. He deplored the necessity for his departure. "_Et ego in Arcadia_"--he quoted. "But you'll go away to-morrow and become more--more Metropolitan than ever." "Ah, Lucia, can't you leave my poor rag alone? Do you really think so badly of it?" "Well, I was prouder of my cousin when he had _The Museion_." "I didn't ask you what you thought of _me_. Perhaps I'm not very proud of myself." "I don't suppose it satisfies your ambition--I should be sorry if it did." "My _ambition_? What do you think it was?" "It was, wasn't it--To be a great critic?" "It depends on what you call great." "Well, you came very near it once." "When?" "When you were editor of _The Museion_." He smiled sadly. "The editor of _The Museion_, Lucia, was a very little man with a very big conceit of himself. I admit he made himself pretty conspicuous. So does every leader of a forlorn hope." "Still he led it. What does the editor of _Metropolis_ lead?" "Public opinion, dear. He has--although you mightn't think it--considerable power." Lucia was silent. "He can make--or kill--a reputation in twenty-four hours." "Does that satisfy your ambition?" "Yes. It satisfies my ambition. But it doesn't satisfy me." "I was afraid it didn't." "You needn't be afraid, dear; for you know perfectly well what would." "Do I know? Do you know yourself, Horace?" "Yes, Lucia," he said gently; "after ten years. You may not be proud of your cousin--" "I used to be proud of him always--or nearly always." "When were you proud of him?" "When he was himself; when he was sincere." "I ought to be very proud of _my_ cousin; for she is pitilessly sincere." "Horace--" "It is so, dear. Never mind, you needn't be proud of me, if you'll only care--" "I have always cared." "Or is it--nearly always?" "Well--nearly always." "You're right. I _am_ insincere, I was insincere when I said you needn't be proud of me. I want you, I mean you to be." "Do you mean to give up _Metropolis_, then?" "Well, no. That's asking rather too much." "I know it is." "Do you hate it so much, Lucia? I wish you didn't." "I have hated it so much, Horace, that I once wished I had been a rich woman, that you might be"--she was going to say "an honourable man." "What's wrong with it? It's a better paper than the old one. There are better men on it, and its editor's a better man." "Is he?" "Yes. He's a simpler, humbler person, and--I should have thought--more possible to like." In her heart Lucia admitted that it was so. There was a charm about this later Horace Jewdwine which was wanting in that high spirit that had essayed to move the earth. He had come down from his chilly altitudes to mix with men; he had shed the superstition of omnipotence, he was aware of his own weakness and humanized by it. The man was soiled but softened by his traffic with the world. There was moreover an indescribable pathos in the contrast presented by the remains of the old self, its loftiness, its lucidity, and the vulgarity with which he had wrapped it round. Jewdwine's intellectual splendour had never been so impressive as now when it showed thus tarnished and obscured. "At any rate," he went on, "he is infinitely less absurd. He knows his limitations. Also his mistakes. He tried to turn the republic of letters into a limited monarchy. Now he has surrendered to the omnipotence of facts." "You mean he has lowered his standard?" "My dear girl, what am I to do with my standard? Look at the rabble that are writing. I can't compare Tompkins with Shakespeare or Brown with Sophocles. I'm lucky if I can make out that Tompkins has surpassed Brown this year as Brown surpassed Tompkins last year; in other words, that Tompkins has surpassed himself." "And so you go on, looking lower and lower." "N-n-no, Lucia. I don't look lower; I look closer, I see that there is something to be said for Tompkins after all. I find subtler and subtler shades of distinction between him and Brown. I become more just, more discriminating, more humane." "I know how fine your work is, and that's just the pity of it. You might have been a great critic if you hadn't wasted yourself on little things and little men." "If a really big man came along, do you think I should look at them? But he doesn't come. I've waited for him ten years, Lucia, and he hasn't come." "Oh, Horace--" "He hasn't. Show me a big man, and I'll fall down and worship him. Only show him me." "That's your business, isn't it, not mine? Still, I can show you one, not very far off, in fact very near." "Too near for us to judge him perhaps. Who is he?" "If I'm not mistaken, he's a sort of friend of yours." "Keith Rickman? Oh--" "Do you remember the day we first talked about him?" He did indeed. He remembered how unwilling he had been to talk about him; and he was still more unwilling now. He wanted, and Lucia knew that he wanted, to talk about himself. "It's ten years ago," she said. "Have you been waiting all this time to see him?" He coloured. "I saw him before you did, Lucia. I saw him a very long way off. I was the first to see." "Were you? Then--oh Horace, if you saw all those years ago why haven't you said so?" "I have said so, many times." "Whom have you said it to?" "To you for one. To every one, I think, who knows him. They'll bear me out." "The people who know him? What was the good of that? You should have said it to the people who don't know him--to the world." "You mean I should have posed as a prophet?" "I mean that what you said you might have written." "Ah, _litera scripta manet_. It isn't safe to prophesy. Remember, I saw him a very long way off. Nobody had a notion there was anybody there." "You could have given them a notion." "I couldn't. The world, Lucia, is not like you or me. It has no imagination. It wouldn't have seen, and it wouldn't have believed. I should have been a voice crying in the wilderness; a voice and nothing behind it. And as I said prophecy is a dangerous game. In the first place, there is always a chance that your prediction may be wrong; and the world, my dear cousin, has a nasty way of stoning its prophets even when they're right." "Oh, I thought it provided them with bread and butter, plenty of butter." "It does, on the condition that they shall prophesy buttery things. When it comes to hard things, if they ask for bread the world retaliates and offers them a stone. And that stone, I need not tell you, has no butter on it." "I see. You were afraid. You haven't the courage of your opinion." "And I haven't much opinion of my courage. I own to being afraid." "Afraid to do your duty as a critic and as a friend?" "My first duty is to the public--_my_ public; not to my friends. Savage Keith Rickman may be a very great poet--I think he is--but if my public doesn't want to hear about Savage Keith Rickman, I can't insist on their hearing, can I?" "No, Horace, after all you've told me, I don't believe you can." "Mind you, it takes courage, of a sort, to own it." "I'm to admire your frankness, am I? You say you're afraid. But you said just now you had such power." "If I had taken your advice and devoted myself to the rôle of Vates I should have lost my power. Nobody would have listened to me. I began that way, by preaching over people's heads. The _Museion_ was a pulpit in the air. I stood in that pulpit for five years, spouting literary transcendentalism. Nobody listened. When I condescended to come down and talk about what people could understand then everybody listened. It wouldn't have done Rickman any good if I'd pestered people with him. But when the time comes I shall speak out." "I daresay, when the time comes--it will come too--when he has made his name with no thanks to you, then you'll be the first to say 'I told you so.' It would have been a greater thing to have helped him when he needed it." "I did help him. He wouldn't be writing now if it wasn't for me." "Do you see much of him?" "Not much. It isn't my fault," he added in answer to her reproachful eyes. "He's shut himself up with Maddox in a stuffy little house at Ealing." "Does that mean that he's very badly off?" "Well, no; I shouldn't say so. He's got an editorship. But he isn't the sort that's made for getting on. In many things he is a fool." "I admire his folly more than some people's wisdom." From the look in Lucia's eyes Jewdwine was aware that his cousin no longer adored him. Did she adore Rickman? "You're a little hard on me, I think. After all, I was the first to help him." "_And_ the last. Are you quite sure you helped him? How do you know you didn't hinder him? You kept him for years turning out inferior work for you, when he might have been giving us his best." "He might--if he'd been alive to do it." "I'm only thinking of what you might have done. The sort of thing you've done for other people--Mr. Fulcher, for instance." Jewdwine blushed as he had never blushed before. He was not given to that form of self-betrayal. "You said just now you could either kill a book in twenty-four hours, or make it--did you say?--immortal." "I might have said I could keep it alive another twenty-four hours." "You know the reputations you have made for people." "I do know them. I've made enough of them to know. The reputations I've made will not last. The only kind that does last is the kind that makes itself. Do you seriously suppose a man like Rickman needs my help? I am a journalist, and the world that journalists are compelled to live in is very poor and small. He's in another place altogether. I couldn't dream of treating him as I treat, say, Rankin or Fulcher. The best service I could do him was to leave him alone--to keep off and give him room." "Room to stand in?" "No. Room to grow in, room to fight in--" "Room to measure his length in when he falls?" "If you like. Rickman's length will cover a considerable area." Lucia looked at her cousin with genuine admiration. How clever, how amazingly clever he was! She knew and he knew that he had failed in generosity to Rickman; that he had been a more than cautious critic and a callous friend. She had been prepared to be nice to him if they had kept Rickman out of their conversation; but as the subject had arisen she had meant to give Horace a terribly bad quarter of an hour; she had meant to turn him inside out and make him feel very mean and pitiful and small. And somehow it hadn't come off. Instead of diminishing as he should have done, Horace had worked himself gradually up to her height, had caught flame from her flame, and now he was consuming her with her own fire. It was she who had taken, the view most degrading to the man she admired; she who would have dragged her poet down to earth and put him on a level with Rankin and Fulcher and such people. Horace would have her believe that his own outlook was the clearer and more heavenly; that he understood Rickman better; that he saw that side of him that faced eternity. His humility, too, was pathetic and disarmed her indignation. At the same time he made it appear that this was a lifting of the veil, a glimpse of the true Jewdwine, the soul of him in its naked simplicity and sincerity. And she was left uncertain whether it were not so. "Even so," she said gently; "think of all you will have missed." "Missed, Lucia?" "Yes, missed. I think, to have believed in any one's greatness--the greatness of a great poet--to have been allowed to hold in your hands the pure, priceless thing, before the world had touched it--to have seen what nobody else saw--to feel that through your first glorious sight of him he belonged to you as he never could belong to the world, that he was your own--that would be something to have lived for. It would be greatness of a kind." He bowed his head as it were in an attitude as humble and reverent as her own. "And yet," he said, "the world does sometimes see its poet and believe in him." "It does--when he works miracles." "Someday he will work his miracle." "And when the world runs after him you will follow." "I shall not be very far behind." CHAPTER LXXVI He wondered how it was that Lucia had seen what he could not see. As far as he understood his own attitude to Rickman, he had begun by being uncertain whether he saw or not; but he had quite honestly desired to see. Yet he had not seen; not because he was incapable of seeing but because there had come a time when he had no longer desired to see; and from not desiring to see he had gone on till he had ended by not seeing. Then because he had not seen he had persuaded himself that there was nothing to see. And now, in that last sudden flaming of Lucia's ardour, he saw what he had missed. They parted amicably, with a promise on Lucia's part that she would stay with Edith in the summer. By the time he returned to town he was very sure of what he saw. It had become a platitude to say that Keith Rickman was a great poet after the publication of _The Triumph of Life_. The interesting, the burning question was whether he were not, if anything, a greater dramatist. By the time Lucia came to Hampstead that point also had been settled, when the play had been actually running for three weeks. Its success was only sufficient to establish his position and no more. He himself required no more; but his friends still waited anxiously for what they regarded as the crucial test, the introduction of the new dramatist to a picked audience in Paris in the autumn. Lucia had come up with Kitty Palliser to see the great play. She looked wretchedly ill. Withdrawn as far as possible into the darkness of the box, she sat through the tremendous Third Act apparently without a sign of interest or emotion. Kitty watched her anxiously from time to time. She wondered whether she were over-tired, or overwrought, or whether she had expected something different and were disappointed with Keith's tragedy. Kitty herself wept openly and unashamed. But to Lucia, who knew that tragedy by heart, it was as if she were a mere spectator of a life she herself had once lived passionately and profoundly. With every word and gesture of the actors she felt that there passed from her possession something of Keith Rickman's genius, something sacred, intangible, and infinitely dear; that the triumphant movement of the drama swept between him and her, remorselessly dividing them. She was realizing for the first time that henceforth he would belong to the world and not to her. And yet the reiterated applause sounded to her absurd and meaningless. Why were these people insisting on what she had known so well, had seen so long beforehand? She was glad that Horace was not with her. But when he came out of his study to greet them on their return she turned aside into the room and called him to her. It was then that she triumphed. "Well, Horace, he has worked his miracle." "I always said he would." "You doubted--once." "Once, perhaps, Lucia. But now, like you, I believe." "Like me? I never doubted. I believed without a miracle." She leaned against the chimney-piece, and he saw that she was trembling. She turned to him a face white with trouble and anxiety. "Where is he, Horace?" "He's still with Maddox. You needn't worry, Lucy; if he scores a success like this in Paris that will mean magnificence." There was something unspeakably offensive to her in her cousin's tone. He did not perceive the disgust in her averted profile. He puzzled her. One moment he seemed to be worshipping humbly with her at the inner shrine, the next he forced her to suspect the sincerity of his conversion. She could see that now his spirit bowed basely before the possibility of the great poet's material success. "You'll meet him if you stay till next week, Lucy. He'll be dining here on the tenth." Again the tone, the manner hurt her. Horace could not conceal his pride in the intimacy he had once repudiated. He so obviously exulted in the thought that some of Rickman's celebrity, his immortality, perhaps, must through that intimacy light upon him. For her own part she felt that she could not face Keith Rickman and his celebrity. His immortality she had always faced; but his celebrity--no. It rose up before her, crushing the tender hope that still grew among her memories. She said to herself that she was as bad as Horace in attaching importance to it; she was so sure that Keith would attach none to it himself. Yet nothing should induce her to stay for that dinner on the tenth; if it were only that she shrank from the spectacle of Horace's abasement. Something of this feeling was apparent in the manner of her refusal; and Jewdwine caught the note of disaffection. He was not sure whether he still loved his cousin, but he could not bear that his self-love should thus perish through her bad opinion. It was in something of his old imperial mood that he approached her the next morning with the proofs of his great article on "Keith Rickman and the Modern Drama." There the author of the _Prolegomena to �sthetics_, the apostle of the Absolute, the opponent of Individualism, had made his recantation. He touched with melancholy irony on the rise and fall of schools; and declared, as Rickman had declared before him, that "in modern art what we have to reckon with is the Man Himself." That utterance, he flattered himself, was not unbecoming in the critic who could call himself Keith Rickman's friend. For Rickman had been his discovery in the beginning; only he had lost sight of him in between. He was immensely solemn over it. "I think that is what I should have said." "Yes, Horace; it is what you should have said long ago when he needed it; but not now." He turned from her and shut himself up in his study with his article, his eulogy of Rickman. He had had pleasure in writing it, but the reading was intolerable pain. He knew that Lucia saw both it and him with the cold eye of the Absolute. There was no softening, no condonement in her gaze; and none in his bitter judgement of himself. Up till now there had been moments in which he persuaded himself that he was justified in his changes of attitude. If his conscience joined with his enemies in calling him a time-server, what did it mean but that in every situation he had served his time? He had grown opulent in experience, espousing all the fascinating forms of truth. And did not the illuminated, the supremely philosophic mood consist in just this openness, this receptivity, this infinite adaptability, in short? Why should he, any more than Rickman, be bound by the laws laid down in the _Prolegomena to �sthetics_? The _Prolegomena to �sthetics_ was not a work that one could set aside with any levity; still, in constructing it he had been building a lighthouse for the spirit, not a prison. But now he became the prey of a sharper, more agonizing insight, an insight that oscillated between insufferable forms of doubt. Was it possible that he, the author of the _Prolegomena_, had ceased to care about the Truth? Or was it that the philosophy of the Absolute had never taken any enormous hold on him? He had desired to be consistent as he was incorruptible. Did his consistency amount to this, that he, the incorruptible, had been from first to last the slave of whatever opinion was dominant in his world? Loyal only to whatever theory best served his own ungovernable egoism? In Oxford he had cut a very imposing figure by his philosophic attitude. In London he had found that the same attitude rendered him unusual, not to say ridiculous. Had the Absolute abandoned him, or had he abandoned the Absolute, when it no longer ministered to his personal prestige? Jewdwine was aware that, however it was, his case exemplified the inevitable collapse of a soul nourished mainly upon formulas. Yet behind that moral wreckage there remained the far-off source of spiritual illumination, the inner soul that judged him, as it judged all things, holding the pellucid immaterial view. Its vision had never been bound, even by the _Prolegomena_. If he had trusted it he might have been numbered among those incorruptible spirits that preserve the immortal purity of letters. As it was, that supreme intelligence was only a light by which he saw clearly his own damnation. CHAPTER LXXVII Meanwhile the Junior Journalists found amusement in discussing whether the great dramatist were Maddox's discovery or Jewdwine's. With the readers of _Metropolis_ he passed as Jewdwine's--which was all that Jewdwine wanted. With the earnest aspiring public, striving to admire Keith Rickman because they had been told they ought to, he passed as their own. The few who had known him from the first knew also that poets like Rickman are never discovered until they discover themselves. Maddox, whom much worship had made humble, gave up the absurd pretension. Enough that he lived, and was known to live, with Rickman as his friend. They shared that little house at Ealing, which Rickman, in the ardour of his self-immolation, had once destined for the young Delilah, his bride. It had now become a temple in which Maddox served with all the religious passion of his half-Celtic soul. The poet had trusted the honour and the judgement of his friend so far as to appoint him his literary executor. Thus Maddox became possessed of the secret of the Sonnets. And here a heavy strain was put upon his judgement and his honour. Maddox had guessed that there was a power in Rickman's life more terrible than Jewdwine, who after all had never really touched him. There was, Maddox had always known, a woman somewhere. A thousand terrors beset the devotee when he noticed that since fame had lighted upon Rickman the divinity had again begun to furnish his part (the holy part) of the temple in a manner unmistakably suggestive of mortality. Maddox shuddered as he thought of the probable destination of that upper chamber which was the holiest of all. And now this terror had become a certainty. The woman existed; he knew her name; she was a cousin of the detestable Jewdwine; the Sonnets could never be given to the world as long as she withheld her consent, and apparently she did withhold it. More than this had not been revealed to Maddox, and it was in vain that he tried to penetrate the mystery. His efforts were not the most delicate imaginable. One evening, sitting with Rickman in that upper chamber, he entered on the subject thus-- "Seen anything of the Spinkses lately?" "I called there last Saturday." "How is the divine Flossie?" "Flourishing. At least there's another baby. By the way Maddy you were grossly wrong about her there. The Beaver is absolutely devoid of the maternal instinct. She's decent to the baby, but she's positively brutal to Muriel Maud. How Spinky--He protests and there are horrid scenes; but through them all I believe the poor chap's in love with her." "Curious illusion." Curious indeed. It had seemed incredible to Rickman when he had seen the Beaver pushing her first-born from her knee. "Good Heavens, Rickman, what a deliverance for you." "I wonder if he's happy." "Can't say; but possibly he holds his own. You see, Spinky's position is essentially sound. My theory is--" But Rickman had no desire for a theory of marriage as propounded by Maddox. He had always considered that in these matters Maddox was a brute. Maddox drew his own conclusions from the disgusted protest. He remembered how once, when he had warned Rickman of the love of little women, Rickman had said it was the great women who were dangerous. The lady to whom he had entrusted the immortality of his Sonnets would be one of these. As the guardian of that immortality Maddox conceived it was his duty to call on the lady and prevail on her to give them up. Under all his loyalty he had the audacity of the journalist who sticks at nothing for his own glorious end. There was after all a certain simplicity about Maddox. He considered himself admirably equipped by nature for this delicate mission. He was, besides, familiar with what he called the "society woman," and he believed that he knew how to deal with her. Maddox always had the air of being able to push his way anywhere by the aid of his mighty shoulders. He sent in his card without a misgiving. Lucia knew that Maddox was a friend of Keith Rickman's, and she received him with a courtesy that would have disarmed a man less singularly determined. It was only when he had stated his extraordinary purpose that her manner became such that (so he described it afterwards) it would have "set a worm's back up." And Maddox was no worm. It was a little while before Lucia realized that this rather overpowering visitor was requesting her to "give up" certain sonnets of Keith Rickman's, written in ninety-three. "I don't quite understand. Are you asking me to give you the manuscript or to give my consent to its publication?" "Well--both. I _have_ to ask you because he never would do it himself." "Why should he not?" "Oh, well, you know his ridiculous notions of honour." "I do indeed. I daresay some people would consider them ridiculous." It was this speech, Maddox confessed, that first set his back up. He was irritated more by the calm assumption of proprietorship in Rickman than by the implied criticism of himself. "Do you mind telling me," she continued, still imperturbably, "how you came to know anything about it?" Maddox stiffened. "I am Mr. Rickman's oldest and most intimate friend, and he has done me the honour to make me his literary executor." "Did he also give you leave to settle his affairs beforehand?" Maddox shrugged his shoulders by way of a reply. "If he did not," said Lucia, "there's nothing more to be said." "Pardon me, there is a great deal more to be said. I don't know whether you have any personal reason for objecting--" She coloured and was silent. "If it's pride, I should have thought most women would have been prouder--" (A look from Lucia warned him that he would do well to refrain from thinking.) "Oh, well, for all I know you might have fifty good reasons. The question is, are you justified in sacrificing a work of genius to any mere personal feeling?" He had her there, and she knew it. She was silently considering the question. Three years ago she would have had no personal feeling in the matter beyond pride in the simple dedication. Now that personal feeling had come in and had concentrated itself upon that work of genius, and made it a thing so sacred and so dear to her, she shrank with horror from the vision of publicity. Besides, it was all of Keith Rickman that was left to her. His other works were everybody's property; therefore she clung the more desperately to that one which, as he had said, belonged to nobody but her. And Mr. Maddox had no right to question her. Instead of answering him she moved her chair a little farther from him and from the light. Now Maddox had the coldness as well as the passion of the Celt. He was not touched by Lucia's beauty, nor yet by the signs of illness or fatigue manifest in her face and all her movements. Her manner irritated him; it seemed the feminine counterpart of her cousin's insufferable apathy. He felt helpless before her immobility. But he meant to carry his point--by brute force if necessary. But not yet. "I'm not asking you to give up a mere copy of verses. The Sonnets are unique--even for Rickman; and for one solitary lady to insist on suppressing them--well, you know, it's a large order." This time she indeed showed some signs of animation. "How do you know they are unique? Did he show you them?" "No, he did not. I found them among his papers when he was in hospital." "In hospital?" She sat up and looked at him steadily and without emotion. "Yes; I had to overhaul his things--we thought he was dying--and the Sonnets--" "Never mind the Sonnets now, please. Tell me about his illness. What was it?" Again that air of imperious proprietorship! "Enteric," he said bluntly, "and some other things." "Where was he before they took him to the hospital?" "He was--if you want to know--in a garret in a back street off Tottenham Court Road." "What was he doing there?" "To the best of my belief, he was starving. Do you find the room too close?" "No, no. Go on." Maddox went on. He was enjoying the sensation he was creating. He went on happily, piling up the agony. Since she would have it he was not reticent of detail. He related the story of the Rankins' dinner. He described with diabolically graphic touches the garret in Howland Street. "We thought he'd been drinking, you know, and all the time he was starving." "He was starving--" she repeated slowly to herself. "He was not doing it because he was a poet. It seems he had to pay some debt, or thought he had. The poor chap talked about it when he was delirious. Oh--let _me_ open that window." "Thank you. You say he was delirious. Were you with him then?" Maddox leapt to his conclusion. Miss Lucia Harden had something to conceal. He gathered it from her sudden change of attitude, from her interrogation, from her faintness and from the throbbing terror in her voice. _That_ was why she desired the suppression of the Sonnets. "Were you with him?" she repeated. "No. God forgive me!" "Nobody was with him--before they took him to the hospital?" "Nobody, my dear lady, whom you would call anybody. He owes his life to the charity of a drunken prostitute." She was woman, the eternal, predestined enemy of Rickman's genius. Therefore he had determined not to spare her, but to smite her with words like sledge-hammers. And to judge by the look of her he had succeeded. She had turned away from him to the open window. She made no sign of suffering but for the troubled rising and falling of her breast. He saw in her a woman mortally smitten, but smitten, he imagined, in her vanity. "Have I persuaded you," he said quietly, "to give up those Sonnets?" "You shall have a copy. If Mr. Rickman wants the original he must come for it himself." "Thanks." Maddox had ceased to be truculent, having gained his end. His blue eyes twinkled with their old infantile devilry. "Thanks. It's awfully nice of you. But--couldn't you make it seem a little more spontaneous? You see, I don't want Rickman to know I had to ask you for them." He had a dim perception of inconsistency in his judgement of the lady; since all along he had been trusting her generosity to shelter his indiscretion. Lucia smiled even in her anguish. "That I can well imagine. The copy shall be sent to him." And Maddox considered himself dismissed. He wondered why she called him back to ask for the number of that house in Howland Street. That afternoon she dragged herself there, that she might torture her eyes because they had not seen, and her heart because it had not felt. CHAPTER LXXVIII At Jewdwine's heart there was trouble and in his mind perfect peace. For he knew his own mind at last, though he was still a little indefinite as to the exact condition of his heart. Three days after Maddox's extraordinary disclosures Lucia had become most obviously and inconsiderately ill; and had given her cousin Edith a great deal of trouble as well as a severe fright, till Kitty, also frightened, had carried her off to Devonshire out of the house of the Jewdwines. To Horace the working of events was on the whole beneficent. Lucia's change of attitude, her illness, her abrupt departure, though too unpleasant for his fastidious mind to dwell upon, had committed that mind irretrievably to the path of prudence. So prudent was he, that of his saner matrimonial project the world in general took no note. Secure of the affections of Miss Fulcher, he had propitiated rumour by the fiction of his engagement to Lucia. Rumour, adding a touch of certainty to the story, had handed it on to Rickman by way of Maddox and Miss Roots. He there upon left off beautifying his house at Ealing, and agreed with Maddox that after Paris in November they should go on to Italy together, and that he would winter there for his health. But by November there came more rumours, rumours of the breaking off of the engagement; rumours of some mysterious illness of Lucia's as the cause. They reached Rickman in the week before the date fixed for the production of _The Triumph of Life_ in Paris. He was paying a farewell call on Miss Roots, who became inscrutable at the mention of Lucia's name. He accused her with violence of keeping the truth from him, and implored her with pathos to tell it him at once. But Miss Roots had no truth, no certain truth to tell; there were only rumours. Miss Roots knew nothing but that Lucia had been lying on her back for months; she conjectured that possibly there might be something the matter with her spine. Her mother had been delicate, and Sir Frederick, well, the less said about Sir Frederick the better. Rickman retreated, followed by Miss Roots. As for an engagement, she was not aware that there ever had been one; there was once, she admitted half-way downstairs, an understanding, probably misunderstood. He had better ask Horace Jewdwine straight out. "But," she assured him from the doorstep, "it would take an earthquake to get the truth out of _him_." He flung himself into a hansom, and was one with the driver in imprecation at the never-ending, ever-increasing gradient of the hill. The delay, however, enabled him to find Jewdwine at home and alone. He was aware that the interview presented difficulties, but none deterred him. Jewdwine, questioned as to his engagement, betrayed no surprise; for with Rickman the unusual was to be expected. He might not have condescended to answer Rickman, his obscure disciple, but he felt that some concession must be made to the illustrious dramatist. There had been, he admitted, an understanding between him and Miss Harden. It hardly amounted to an engagement; and it had been cancelled on the score of health. "Of _her_ health?" The compression of Jewdwine's lips intimated that the great poet had sinned (not for the first time) against convention. "She _is_ ill, then?" "I said on the score of health. We're first cousins, and it is not always considered advisable--" "I see. Then that's all over." "At any rate I'm not going to take any risks." Rickman pondered that saying for a while. "Do you mean you're not going to let her take any risks?" Jewdwine said nothing, but endeavoured to express by his manner a certain distaste for the conversation. ("Or does he mean," thought Rickman, "that he won't risk having a delicate wife on his hands?") "It's not as if I didn't know," he persisted, "I know she--she lies on her back and can't move. Is it her spine?" "No." "Or her heart?" "Not to my knowledge." "Is it something worse?" Jewdwine was silent. And in the silence Rickman's mind wandered free among all imaginable horrors and forebodings. At last, out of the silence, there appeared to him one more terrible than the rest. He saw what Jewdwine must have meant. He gathered it, not from anything he had said, but from what he refused to say, from the sternness of his face, from his hesitations, his reserves. Jewdwine had created the horror for him as vividly as if he had shaped it into words. "You needn't tell me what it is. Do you mind telling me whether it's curable or not?" "My _dear_ Rickman, if I knew why you are asking all these questions--" "They must seem extraordinary. And my reason for asking them is more extraordinary still." They measured each other with their eyes. "Then, I think," said Jewdwine quietly, "I must ask you for your reason." "The reason is that if you're not going to marry her I am." "That," said Jewdwine, "is by no means certain. There is not a single member of her family living except my sister and myself. Therefore I consider myself responsible. If I were her father or her brother I would not give my consent to her marrying, and I don't give it now." "Oh. And why not?" "For many reasons. Those that applied in my own case are sufficient." "You only said there was a risk, and that you weren't going to take it. Now I mean to take it. You see, those fools of doctors may be mistaken. But whether they're mistaken or not, I shall marry her just the same." "The risk, you see, involves her happiness; and judging by what I know of your temperament--" "What do you know about my temperament?" "You know perfectly well what I know about it." "I know. You don't approve of my morals. I don't altogether blame you, considering that since I knew Miss Harden I very nearly married someone else. My code is so different from yours that I should have considered marrying that woman a lapse from virtue. So the intention may count against me, if you like." "Look here, Rickman, that is not altogether what I mean. Neither of us is fit to marry Miss Harden--and _I_ have given her up." He said it with the sublime assurance of Jewdwine, the moral man. "Does it--does her illness--make all that difference? It makes none to me." "Oh, well--all right--if you think you can make her happy." "My dear Jewdwine, I don't think, I know." He smiled that smile that Jewdwine had seen once or twice before. "It may be arrogant to suppose that I'll succeed where better men might fail; still--" He rose and drew himself up to all his slender height--"in some impossible things I have succeeded." "They are not the same things." "No; but in both, you see, it all depends upon the man." With that he left him. As Rickman's back turned on him, Jewdwine perceived his own final error. As once before in judging the genius he had reckoned without the man, so now, in judging the man he had reckoned without his genius. This horrid truth came home to him in his solitude. In the interminable watches of the night Jewdwine acknowledged himself a failure; and a failure for which there was no possible excuse. He had had every conceivable advantage that a man could have. He had been born free; free from all social disabilities; free from pecuniary embarrassment; free from the passions that beset ordinary men. And he had sold himself into slavery. He had opinions; he was packed full of opinions, valuable opinions; but he had never had the courage of them. He had always been a slave to other people's opinions. Rickman had been born in slavery, and he had freed himself. When Rickman stood before him, superb in his self-mastery, he had felt himself conquered by this man, whom, as a man, he had despised. Rickman's errors had been the errors of one who risks everything, who never deliberates or counts the cost. And in their repeated rivalries he had won because he had risked everything, when he, Jewdwine, had lost because he would risk nothing. He had lost ever since the beginning. He had meant to discover this great genius; to befriend him; to protect him with his praise; eventually to climb on his shoulders into fame. And he had not discovered him; and as for climbing on his shoulders, he had been shaken off with one shrug of them. There had been risk in passing judgement on young Rickman, and he had not taken the risk. Therefore he had failed as a critic. He had waited to found an incorruptible review. It had been a risky proceeding, and he had not taken the risk. His paper was a venal paper, sold like himself to the public he despised. Of all that had ever appeared in it, nothing would live, nothing but a few immortal trifles, signed S.K.R. He had failed pretty extensively as an editor. Last of all he had wanted to marry his cousin Lucia; but there was risk in marrying her, and he would not take the risk, and Rickman would marry her. He had failed most miserably as a man. With that Jewdwine turned on his pillow, and consoled himself by thinking of Miss Fulcher and her love. CHAPTER LXXIX Lucia had been lying still all the afternoon on her couch in the drawing-room; so still that Kitty thought she had been sleeping. But Kitty was mistaken. "Kitty, it's past five, isn't it?" "Yes, dear; a quarter past." "It'll be all over by this time to-morrow. Do you think he'll be very terrible?" "No, dear. I think he'll be very kind and very gentle." "Not if he thinks I'm shamming." "He won't think that." ("I wish he could," said Kitty to herself.) They were waiting for the visit of Sir Wilfrid Spence. The Harmouth doctor had desired a higher light on the mysterious illness that kept Lucia lying for ever on her back. It might have been explained, he said, if she had suffered lately some deep mental or moral shock; but Lucia had not confessed to either, and in the absence of any mental cause it would be as well, said the Harmouth doctor, to look for a physical one. The fear at the back of the Harmouth doctor's mind was sufficiently revealed by his choice of the specialist, Sir Wilfrid Spence. "_Do_ you think I'm shamming, Kitty? Sometimes I think I am, and sometimes I'm not quite sure. You know, if you think about your spine long enough you can imagine that it's very queer. But I haven't been thinking about my spine. It doesn't interest me. Dr. Robson would have told me if he thought I was shamming, because I asked him to. There's one thing makes me think it isn't fancy. I keep on wanting to do things. I want--you don't know how I want to go to the top of Harcombe Hill. And my ridiculous legs won't let me. And all the while, Kitty, I want to play. It's such a long time since I made my pretty music." A long time indeed, as Kitty was thinking sadly. Lucia had not made her pretty music since that night six months ago when she had played to please Keith Rickman. "Things keep on singing in my head, and I want to play them. It stands to reason that I would if I could. But I _can't_. Oh, how I do talk about myself! Kitty, there must be a fine, a heavy fine, of sixpence, every time I talk about myself." "I shouldn't make much by it," said Kitty. Lucia closed her eyes, and Kitty went on with the manuscript she was copying. After a silence of twenty minutes Lucia opened her eyes again. They rested longingly on Kitty at her work. "Kitty," she said, "Do you know, I sometimes think it would be better to sell those books. I can't bear to do it when he gave them to me. But I do believe I ought to. The worst of it is I should have to ask him to do it for me." "Don't do anything in a hurry, dear. Wait and see," said Kitty cheerfully. It seemed to Lucia that there was nothing to wait for now. She wondered why Kitty said that, and whether it meant that they thought her worse than they liked to say and whether that was why Sir Wilfrid Spence was coming? "Kitty," she said again, "I want you to promise me something. Supposing--it's very unlikely--but supposing after all I were to go and die--" "I won't suppose anything of the sort. People don't go and die of nervous exhaustion. You'll probably do it fifty years hence, but that is just the reason why I won't have you harrowing my feelings this way now." "I know I've had such piles of sympathy for my nervous exhaustion that it's horrid of me to try and get more for dying, too. I only meant if I did do it, quite unexpectedly, of something else--you wouldn't tell him, would you?" "Well, dear, of course I won't mention it if you wish me not to--but he'd be sure to see it in the papers." "Kitty--you know what I mean. He couldn't see _that_ in the papers. He couldn't see it anywhere unless you told him. And if you did, it might make him very uncomfortable, you know." Poor Kitty, trying to be cheerful under the shadow of Sir Wilfrid Spence, was tortured by this conversation. She had half a mind to say, "You don't seem to think how uncomfortable you're making _me_." But she forbore. Any remark of that sort would rouse Lucia to efforts penitential in their motive, and more painful to bear than this pitiful outburst, the first in many months of patience and reserve. She remembered how Lucia had once nursed her through a long illness in Dresden. It had not been, as Kitty expressed it, "a pretty illness," and she had been distinctly irritable in her convalescence; but Lucy had been all tenderness, had never betrayed impatience by any look or word. "I shouldn't mind anything, if only I'd been with him when _he_ was ill. But perhaps he'd rather I hadn't been there. I think it's that, you know, that I really cannot bear." Kitty would have turned to comfort her, but for the timely entrance of Robert. He brought a letter for Lucia which Kitty welcomed as an agreeable distraction. It was from Horace Jewdwine. "Any news?" she asked presently. "Yes. What _do_ you think? He's going to Paris to-morrow. Then he's going on to Italy--to Alassio, with Mr. Maddox." "Horace Jewdwine and Mr. Maddox? What next?" "It isn't Horace that's going." She gave the letter to Kitty because she had shrunk lately from speaking of Keith Rickman by his name. "That's a very different tale," said Kitty "I'm so glad he's going. That was what he always wanted to do. Do you remember how I asked him to be my private secretary? Now I'm his private secretary; which is as it should be." "You mean _I_ am." "Yes. Do you think you could hurry up so that he'll get them before he goes? Poor Kitty--I can't bear your having all these things to do for me." "Why not? You'd do them for me, if it was I, not you." "I wish it were you. I mean I wish I were doing things for you. But you haven't done them all, Kitty. I did some. I forget how many." "You did three, darling." "Only three? And there are nine and twenty. Still, he'll see that I began them. Kitty--do you think he'll wonder and guess why I left off?" "Oh no, he isn't as clever as all that." "You mustn't tell him. You're writing the letter, dear, now, aren't you? You mustn't say a word about my illness. Only tell him I'm so glad to hear he's going to Alassio with Mr. Maddox." "I don't think any the better of him for that. Fancy going to Italy with that brute of a man!" "He wasn't really a brute. He only said those things because he cared for him. You can't blame him for that." "I don't blame him for that. I blame him for being a most appalling bounder." "Do you mind not talking about him any more?" "No dear, I don't a bit." Lucia lay very quiet for some time before she spoke again. "They can't say now I sacrificed his genius to my pride. You _will_ catch the post, won't you? What a plague I am, but if they're posted before seven he'll get them in the morning and he'll have time to write. Perhaps he won't be starting till the afternoon." In the morning she again betrayed her mind's preoccupation. "He must have got them by now. Kitty, did you hear how the wind blew in the night? He'll have an awful crossing." "Well then, let's hope he won't be very ill; but he isn't going by the Bay of Biscay, dear." The wind blew furiously all morning, and when it dropped a little towards evening it was followed by a pelting rain. "He's at Dover now." "In a mackintosh," said Kitty by way of consolation. But Lucia, uncomforted, lay still, listening to the rain. It danced like a thousand devils on the gravel of the courtyard. Suddenly she sat up, raising herself by her hands. "Kitty!" she cried. "He's coming. He is really. By the terrace. Can't you hear?" Kitty heard nothing but the rain dancing on the courtyard. And the terrace led into it by the other wing. It was impossible that Lucia could have heard footsteps there. "But I _know_, Kitty, I know. It's his walk. And he always came that way." She slipped her feet swiftly on to the floor, and to Kitty's amazement sat up unsupported. Kitty in terror ran to her and put her arm round her, but Lucia freed herself gently from her grasp. She was trembling in all her body. Kitty herself heard footsteps in the courtyard now. They stopped suddenly and the door-bell rang. "Do go to him, Kitty--and tell him. And send him here to me." Kitty went, and found Keith Rickman standing in the hall. Her instinct told her that Lucia must be obeyed. And as she sent him in to her, she saw through the open door that Lucia rose to her feet, and came to him and never swayed till his arms held her. She clung to him and he drew her closer and lifted her and carried her to her couch, murmuring things inarticulate yet so plain that even she could not misunderstand. "I thought you were going to Paris?" she said. "I'm not. I'm here." She sat up and laid her hands about him, feeling his shoulders and his sleeves. "How wet your coat is." He kissed her and she held her face against his that was cold with the wind and rain; she took his hands and tried to warm them in her own, piteously forgetful of herself, as if it were he, not she, who needed tenderness. "Lucy--are you very ill, darling?" "No. I am very, very well." He thought it was one of those things that people say when they mean that death is well. He gathered her to him as if he could hold her back from death. She looked smiling into his face. "Keith," she said, "you _didn't_ have a mackintosh. You must go away at once to Robert and get dry." "Not now, Lucy. Let me stay." "How long can you stay?" "As long as ever you'll let me." "Till you go to Italy?" "Very well. Till I go to Italy." "When are you going?" "Not till you're well enough to go with me." "How did you know I was ill?" "Because I saw that Kitty had had to finish what your dear little hands had begun." "Ah--you should have had them sooner--" "Why should I have had them at all? Do you think I would have published them before I knew I had dedicated them to my wife?" "Keith--dear--you mustn't talk about that yet." She hid her face on his shoulder; he lifted it and looked at it as if it could have told him what he had to know. It told him nothing; it had not changed enough for that. It was like a beautiful picture blurred, and the sweeter for the blurring. He laid his hand over her heart. At his touch it leapt and throbbed violently, suggesting a new terror. "Darling, how fast your heart beats. Am I doing it harm?" "No, it doesn't mind." "But am I tiring it?" "No, no, you're resting it." She lay still a long time without speaking, till at last he carried her upstairs and delivered her into Kitty's care. At the open door of her room he saw a nurse in uniform standing ready to receive her. Her presence there was ominous of the unutterable things he feared. "Kitty," said Lucia, when they were alone. "It looks as if I had been shamming after all. What do you think of me?" "I think perhaps Sir Wilfrid Spence needn't come down to-morrow." "Perhaps not. And yet it would be better to know. If there really is anything wrong I couldn't let him marry me. It would be awful. I want to be sure, Kitty, for his sake." Kitty felt sure enough; and her certainty grew when Lucia came down the next morning. But she was unable to impart her certainty to Keith. The most he could do was to hide his anxiety from Lucia. It wanted but a day to the coming of the great specialist; and for that day they made such a brave show of happiness that they deceived both Kitty and themselves. Kitty, firm in her conviction, left them to themselves that afternoon while she went into Harmouth to announce to Lucia's doctor the miracle of her recovery. When she had left the house a great peace fell on them. They had so much to say to each other, and so little time to say it in, when to-morrow might cut short their happiness. But Lucia was sorry for Kitty. "Poor Kitty," said she, "she's going to marry her cousin Charlie Palliser. But that won't be the same." "The same as what?" "The same as my marrying you. Oh, Keith, that's one of the things I said we weren't to say. Do you know, once Kitty was angry with me. She said I was playing with fire--the divine fire. Ought I to have been afraid of it? Just a little bit in awe?" "What? Of the divine fire? I gave it you, dearest, to play with--or to warm your little hands by." "And now you've given it me to keep, to put my hands round it--so--and take care of it and see that it never goes out. I can do that, can't I, whatever happens?" There was always that refrain: Whatever happens. "I keep forgetting it doesn't really belong to me; it belongs to everybody, to the whole world. I believe I'm jealous." "Of the British public? It doesn't really love me, Lucy, nor I it." "Whether it does or not, you _do_ remember that I loved you first--before anybody ever knew?" "I do indeed." "It _is_ a shame to be so glad because Kitty is away." Yet she continued to rejoice in the happiness that came of their solitude. It was Keith, not Kitty, who arranged her cushions for her and covered her feet; Keith, not Kitty, who poured out tea for her, and brought it her, and sat beside her afterwards, leaning over her and stroking her soft hair, as Kitty loved to do. "Lucy," he said suddenly, "can you stand living with me in a horrid little house in a suburb?" "I should love it. Dear little house." "Maddox is in it now; but we'll turn him out. You don't know Maddox?" She shuddered, and he drew the rug in closer about her. "It's such a tiny house, Lucy; it would all go into this room." "This room," said Lucy, "is much too large." "There's only room for you and me in it." "All the better, so long as there's room for me." "And the walls are all lath and plaster. When Maddox is in another room I can hear him breathing." "And when I'm in another room I shall hear you breathing; and then I shall know you're alive when I'm afraid you're not. I'm glad the walls are all lath and plaster." "But it isn't a pretty house, Lucy." "It will be a pretty house when I'm in it," said she, and was admitted to have had the best of the argument. "Then, if you really don't mind, we shan't have to wait. Not a week, if you're ready to come to me." But Lucia's face was sad. "Keith--darling--don't make plans till we know what Sir Wilfrid Spence says." "I shall, whatever he says. But I suppose I must consult him before I take you to Alassio." For still at his heart, under all its happiness, there lay that annihilating doubt; the doubt and the fear that had been sown there by Horace Jewdwine. He could see for himself that one of his terrors was baseless; but there remained that other more terrible possibility. None of them had dared to put it into words; but it was implied, reiterated, in the name of Sir Wilfrid Spence. He had moreover a feeling that this happiness of his was too perfect, that it must be taken away from him. He confided his trouble to Kitty that night, sitting up over the drawing-room fire. Lucia's doctor had come and gone. "What did he say, Kitty?" "He says there's no need for Sir Wilfrid Spence to see her at all. He is going to wire to him not to come." He gave a sigh of relief. Then his eyes clouded. "No. He must come. I'd rather he came." "But why? He isn't a nerve specialist." He shuddered. "I know. That's why I must have him. I can't trust these local men." "It will be horribly expensive, Keith. And it's throwing money away. Dr. Robson said so." "That's my affair." "Oh well, as for that, it was all arranged for." "Nobody has any right to arrange for it but me." "Much better arrange for a good time at Alassio." "No. I want to be absolutely certain. You tell me she's perfectly well, and that doctor of yours swears she is, and I think it; and yet I can't believe it. I daren't." "That's because you're not feeling very well yourself." "I know that in some ways she is getting stronger every minute; but you see, I can't help thinking what that other man said." "What other man?" "Well, the Jewdwines' doctor." "What did _he_ say?" "Nothing. It was Jewdwine. He told me--well--that was why their engagement was broken off. Because she wasn't strong enough to marry." Kitty's eyes blazed. "He told you _that_?" "Not exactly. He couldn't, you know. I only thought their doctor must have told him--something terrible." "I don't suppose he told him anything of the sort." "Oh well, you know, he didn't say so. But he let me think it." "Yes. I know exactly how it was done. He wouldn't say anything he oughtn't to. But he'd let you think it. It was just his awful selfishness. He thought there was an off chance of poor Lucy being a sort of nervous invalid, and he wouldn't risk the bother of it. But as for their engagement, there never was any. That was another of the things he let you think. I suppose he cared for Lucy as much as he could care for anybody; but the fact is he wants to marry another woman, and he couldn't bear to see her married to another man." "Oh, I say, you know--" "It sounds incredible. But you don't know how utterly I distrust that man. He's false through and through. There's nothing sound in him except his intellect. I wish you'd never known him. He's been the cause of all your--your suffering, and Lucy's too. You might have been married long ago if it hadn't been for him." "No, Kitty. I don't think that." "You might, really. If he hadn't been in the way she would have known that she cared for you and let you know it, too. But nothing that he ever did or didn't do comes up to this." "The truth is, Kitty, he thinks I'm rather a bad lot, you know." "My dear Keith, he thinks that if _he_ doesn't marry Lucy he'd rather you didn't. He certainly hit on the most effectual means of preventing it." "Oh, did he! He doesn't know me. I shall marry her whatever Sir Wilfrid Spence says. If she's ill, all the more reason why I should look after her. I'm only afraid lest--lest--" She knew what he thought and could not say--lest it should not be for very long. "There are some things," he said quietly, "that _can't_ be taken away from me." Kitty was silent; for she knew what things they were. "You can trust her to me, Kitty?" "I can indeed." And so on Sunday the great man came down. It was over in half an hour. That half-hour Keith spent in pacing up and down the library, the place of so many dear and tender and triumphant memories. They sharpened his vision of Lucy doomed, of her sweet body delivered over to the torture. He did not hear Kitty come in till she laid her hand upon his arm. He turned as if at the touch of destiny. "Don't Keith, for Goodness' sake. It's all right. Only--he wants to see you." Sir Wilfrid Spence stood in the morning-room alone. He looked very grave and grim. He had a manner, a celebrated manner that had accomplished miracles by its tremendous moral effect. It had helped to set him on his eminence and he was not going to sacrifice it now. He fixed his gaze on the poet as he entered and held him under it for the space of half a minute without speaking. He seemed, this master of the secrets of the body, to be invading despotically the province of the soul. It struck Rickman that the great specialist was passing judgement on him, to see whether in all things he were worthy of his destiny. The gaze thus prolonged became more than he could bear. "Do you mind telling me at once what's wrong with her?" "There isn't anything wrong with her. What fool ever told you that there was? She has been made ill with grief." Lucia herself came to him there and led him back into the library. They sat together in the window-seat, held silent for a little while by the passing of that shadow of their fear. "Keith," she said at last. "Is it true that you loved me when you were with me, here, ever so long ago?" He answered her. "And when you came to me and I was horrid to you, and when I sent you away? And when I never wrote to you, and Horace made you think I'd forgotten you? Did you love me then?" "Yes, more than I did before, Lucy." "But--Keith--you didn't love me when you were loving somebody else?" "I did, more than ever then. That happened because I loved you." "I can understand all the rest; but I can't understand that." "I think I'd rather you didn't understand it, darling." She sighed, puzzled over it and gave it up. "But you didn't love me when you--when I--when you wouldn't have me?" He answered her; but not with words. "And now," said she, "you're going to Paris to-morrow." "Perhaps." "You must. Perhaps they'll be calling for you." "And perhaps I shan't be there. Do you know, Lucy, you've got violets growing among the roots of your hair?" "I know you're going to Paris, to-morrow, to please me." "Perhaps. And after that we're going to Alassio, and after that to Florence and Rome; all the places where your private secretary--" "And when," said she, "is my private secretary going to take me home?" "If his play succeeds, dear, he won't have to take you to that horrid house of his." "Won't he? But I like it best of all." "Why, Lucy?" "Oh, for such a foolish reason. Because he's been in it." "I'm afraid, darling, some of the houses he's been in--" At that she fell to a sudden breathless sobbing, as if the life that had come back to her had spent itself again. In his happiness he had forgotten Howland Street; or if he thought of it at all he thought of it as an enchanted spot, the stage that had brought him nearest to the place of his delight. "Lucy, Lucy, how did you know? I never meant you to." "Some one told me. And I--I went to see it." "Good God!" "I saw your room, the room they carried you out of. If I'd only known! My darling, why didn't you come to me then? Why didn't you? I had plenty. Why didn't you send for me?" "How could I?" "You could, you could--" "But sweetest, I didn't even know where you were." "Wherever I was I would have come to you. I would have taken you away." "It was worth it, Lucy. If it hadn't been for that, I shouldn't be here now. Looking back it seems positively glorious. And whatever it was I'd go through years of it, for one hour with you here. One of those hours even when you didn't love me." "I've always loved you, all my life long. Only I didn't know it was you. Do you remember my telling you that your dream was divorced from reality? It wasn't true. That was what was wrong with me." "I'm afraid I wasn't always very faithful to my dream." "Because your dream wasn't always faithful to you. And yet it _was_ faithful." "Lucy, do you remember the things I told you? Can you forgive me for being what I was?" "It was before I knew you." "Yes, but after? That was worse; it was the worst thing I ever did, because I _had_ known you." She wondered why he asked forgiveness of her now, of all moments; and as she wondered the light dawned on her. "I forgive you everything. It was my fault. I should have been there, and I wasn't." Then he knew that after all she had understood. Her love was in her eyes, in their light and in their darkness. They gathered many flames of love into that tender tragic gaze, all pitying, half maternal. Those eyes had never held for him the sad secrets of mortality. Love in them looked upon things invisible, incorruptible; divining, even as it revealed, the ultimate mystery. He saw that in her womanhood Nature was made holy, penetrated by the spirit and the fire of God. He knelt down and laid his face against her shoulder, and her arm, caressing, held him there, as if it were she who sheltered and protected. "Keith," she whispered, "did you mean to marry me before you came this time, or after?" "Before, oh before." "You thought--that terrible thing had happened to me; you thought you would always have me dragging on you? And yet you came? It made no difference. You came." "I came because I wanted to take care of you, Lucy. I wanted nothing else. That was all." Lucia's understanding was complete. "I knew you were like that," said she; "I always knew it." She bent towards his hidden face and raised it to her own. 
8374	----	ALTON LOCKE, TAILOR AND POET An Autobiography. BY THE REV. CHARLES KINGSLEY, CANON OF WESTMINSTER, RECTOR OF EVERSLEY, AND CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO THE QUEEN AND PRINCE OF WALES, _NEW EDITION_, WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR BY THOMAS HUGHES, ESQ., Q.C., AUTHOR OF "TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS." CONTENTS. PREFATORY MEMOIR CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY PREFACE--TO THE UNDERGRADUATES OF CAMBRIDGE PREFACE--TO THE WORKING MEN OF GREAT BRITAIN CHAPTER I. A POET'S CHILDHOOD CHAPTER II. THE TAILORS' WORKROOM CHAPTER III. SANDY MACKAYE CHAPTER IV. TAILORS AND SOLDIERS CHAPTER V. THE SCEPTIC'S MOTHER CHAPTER VI. THE DULWICH GALLERY CHAPTER VII. FIRST LOVE CHAPTER VIII. LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE CHAPTER IX. POETRY AND POETS CHAPTER X. HOW FOLKS TURN CHARTISTS CHAPTER XI. "THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE" CHAPTER XII. CAMBRIDGE CHAPTER XIII. THE LOST IDOL FOUND CHAPTER XIV. A CATHEDRAL TOWN CHAPTER XV. THE MAN OF SCIENCE CHAPTER XVI. CULTIVATED WOMEN CHAPTER XVII. SERMONS IN STONES CHAPTER XVIII. MY FALL CHAPTER XIX. SHORT AND SAD CHAPTER XX. PEGASUS IN HARNESS CHAPTER XXI. THE SWEATER'S DEN CHAPTER XXII. AN EMERSONIAN SERMON CHAPTER XXIII. THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS CHAPTER XXIV. THE TOWNSMAN'S SERMON TO THE GOWNSMAN CHAPTER XXV. A TRUE NOBLEMAN CHAPTER XXVI. THE TRIUMPHANT AUTHOR CHAPTER XXVII. THE PLUSH BREECHES TRAGEDY CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MEN WHO ARE EATEN CHAPTER XXIX. THE TRIAL CHAPTER XXX. PRISON THOUGHTS CHAPTER XXXI. THE NEW CHURCH CHAPTER XXXII. THE TOWER OF BABEL CHAPTER XXXIII. A PATRIOT'S REWARD CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TENTH OF APRIL CHAPTER XXXV. THE LOWEST DEEP CHAPTER XXXVI. DREAMLAND CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TRUE DEMAGOGUE CHAPTER XXXVIII. MIRACLES AND SCIENCE CHAPTER XXXIX. NEMESIS CHAPTER XL. PRIESTS AND PEOPLE CHAPTER XLI. FREEDOM, EQUALITY, AND BROTHERHOOD PREFATORY MEMOIR. The tract appended to this preface has been chosen to accompany this reprint of _Alton Locke_ in order to illustrate, from another side, a distinct period in the life of Charles Kingsley, which stands out very much by itself. It may be taken roughly to have extended from 1848 to 1856. It has been thought that they require a preface, and I have undertaken to write it, as one of the few survivors of those who were most intimately associated with the author at the time to which the works refer. No easy task; for, look at them from what point we will, these years must be allowed to cover an anxious and critical time in modern English history; but, above all, in the history of the working classes. In the first of them the Chartist agitation came to a head and burst, and was followed by the great movement towards association, which, developing in two directions and by two distinct methods--represented respectively by the amalgamated Trades Unions, and Co-operative Societies--has in the intervening years entirely changed the conditions of the labour question in England, and the relations of the working to the upper and middle classes. It is with this, the social and industrial side of the history of those years, that we are mainly concerned here. Charles Kingsley has left other and more important writings of those years. But these are beside our purpose, which is to give some such slight sketch of him as may be possible within the limits of a preface, in the character in which he was first widely known, as the most outspoken and powerful of those who took the side of the labouring classes, at a critical time--the crisis in a word, when they abandoned their old political weapons, for the more potent one of union and association, which has since carried them so far. To no one of all those to whom his memory is very dear can this seem a superfluous task, for no writer was ever more misunderstood or better abused at the time, and after the lapse of almost a quarter of a century the misunderstanding would seem still to hold its ground. For through all the many notices of him which appeared after his death in last January, there ran the same apologetic tone as to this part of his life's work. While generally, and as a rule cordially, recognizing his merits as an author and a man, the writers seemed to agree in passing lightly over this ground. When it was touched it was in a tone of apology, sometimes tinged with sarcasm, as in the curt notice in the "Times"--"He was understood, to be the Parson Lot of those 'Politics for the People' which made no little noise in their time, and as Parson Lot he declared in burning language that to his mind the fault in the 'People's Charter' was that it did not go nearly far enough." And so the writer turns away, as do most of his brethren, leaving probably some such impression as this on the minds of most of their readers--"Young men of power and genius are apt to start with wild notions. He was no exception. Parson Lot's sayings and doings may well be pardoned for what Charles Kingsley said and did in after years; so let us drop a decent curtain over them, and pass on." Now, as very nearly a generation has passed since that signature used to appear at the foot of some of the most noble and vigorous writing of our time, readers of to-day are not unlikely to accept this view, and so to find further confirmation and encouragement in the example of Parson Lot for the mischievous and cowardly distrust of anything like enthusiasm amongst young men, already sadly too prevalent in England. If it were only as a protest against this "surtout point de zèle" spirit, against which it was one of Charles Kingsley's chief tasks to fight with all his strength, it is well that the facts should be set right. This done, readers may safely be left to judge what need there is for the apologetic tone in connection with the name, the sayings, and doings of Parson Lot. My first meeting with him was in the autumn of 1848, at the house of Mr. Maurice, who had lately been appointed Reader of Lincolns Inn. No parochial work is attached to that post, so Mr. Maurice had undertaken the charge of a small district in the parish in which he lived, and had set a number of young men, chiefly students of the Inns of Court who had been attracted by his teaching, to work in it. Once a week, on Monday evenings, they used to meet at his house for tea, when their own work was reported upon and talked over. Suggestions were made and plans considered; and afterwards a chapter of the Bible was read and discussed. Friends and old pupils of Mr. Maurice's, residing in the country, or in distant parts of London, were in the habit of coming occasionally to these meetings, amongst whom was Charles Kingsley. He had been recently appointed Rector of Eversley, and was already well known as the author of _The Saint's Tragedy_, his first work, which contained the germ of much that he did afterwards. His poem, and the high regard and admiration which Mr. Maurice had for him, made him a notable figure in that small society, and his presence was always eagerly looked for. What impressed me most about him when we first met was, his affectionate deference to Mr. Maurice, and the vigour and incisiveness of everything he said and did. He had the power of cutting out what he meant in a few clear words, beyond any one I have ever met. The next thing that struck one was the ease with which he could turn from playfulness, or even broad humour, to the deepest earnest. At first I think this startled most persons, until they came to find out the real deep nature of the man; and that his broadest humour had its root in a faith which realized, with extraordinary vividness, the fact that God's Spirit is actively abroad in the world, and that Christ is in every man, and made him hold fast, even in his saddest moments,--and sad moments were not infrequent with him,--the assurance that, in spite of all appearances, the world was going right, and would go right somehow, "Not your way, or my way, but God's way." The contrast of his humility and audacity, of his distrust in himself and confidence in himself, was one of those puzzles which meet us daily in this world of paradox. But both qualities gave him a peculiar power for the work he had to do at that time, with which the name of Parson Lot is associated. It was at one of these gatherings, towards the end of 1847 or early in 1848, when Kingsley found himself in a minority of one, that he said jokingly, he felt much as Lot must have felt in the Cities of the Plain, when he seemed as one that mocked to his sons-in-law. The name Parson Lot was then and there suggested, and adopted by him, as a familiar _nom de plume_, He used it from 1848 up to 1856; at first constantly, latterly much more rarely. But the name was chiefly made famous by his writings in "Politics for the People," the "Christian Socialist," and the "Journal of Association," three periodicals which covered the years from '48 to '52; by "Alton Locke"; and by tracts and pamphlets, of which the best known, "Cheap Clothes and Nasty," is now republished. In order to understand and judge the sayings and writings of Parson Lot fairly, it is necessary to recall the condition of the England of that day. Through the winter of 1847-8, amidst wide-spread distress, the cloud of discontent, of which Chartism was the most violent symptom, had been growing darker and more menacing, while Ireland was only held down by main force. The breaking-out of the revolution on the Continent in February increased the danger. In March there were riots in London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and other large towns. On April 7th, "the Crown and Government Security Bill," commonly called "the Gagging Act," was introduced by the Government, the first reading carried by 265 to 24, and the second a few days later by 452 to 35. On the 10th of April the Government had to fill London with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington in command, who barricaded the bridges and Downing Street, garrisoned the Bank and other public buildings, and closed the Horse Guards. When the momentary crisis had passed, the old soldier declared in the House of Lords that "no great society had ever suffered as London had during the preceding days," while the Home Secretary telegraphed to all the chief magistrates of the kingdom the joyful news that the peace had been kept in London. In April, the Lord Chancellor, in introducing the Crown and Government Security Bill in the House of Lords, referred to the fact that "meetings were daily held, not only in London, but in most of the manufacturing towns, the avowed object of which was to array the people against the constituted authority of these realms." For months afterwards the Chartist movement, though plainly subsiding, kept the Government in constant anxiety; and again in June, the Bank, the Mint, the Custom House, and other public offices were filled with troops, and the Houses of Parliament were not only garrisoned but provisioned as if for a siege. From that time, all fear of serious danger passed away. The Chartists were completely discouraged, and their leaders in prison; and the upper and middle classes were recovering rapidly from the alarm which had converted a million of them into special constables, and were beginning to doubt whether the crisis had been so serious after all, whether the disaffection had ever been more than skin deep. At this juncture a series of articles appeared in the _Morning Chronicle_ on "London Labour and the London Poor," which startled the well-to-do classes out of their jubilant and scornful attitude, and disclosed a state of things which made all fair minded people wonder, not that there had been violent speaking and some rioting, but that the metropolis had escaped the scenes which had lately been enacted in Paris, Vienna, Berlin, and other Continental capitals. It is only by an effort that one can now realize the strain to which the nation was subjected during that winter and spring, and which, of course, tried every individual man also, according to the depth and earnestness of his political and social convictions and sympathies. The group of men who were working under Mr. Maurice were no exceptions to the rule. The work of teaching and visiting was not indeed neglected, but the larger questions which were being so strenuously mooted--the points of the people's charter, the right of public meeting, the attitude of the labouring-class to the other classes--absorbed more and more of their attention. Kingsley was very deeply impressed with the gravity and danger of the crisis--more so, I think, than almost any of his friends; probably because, as a country parson, he was more directly in contact with one class of the poor than any of them. How deeply he felt for the agricultural poor, how faithfully he reflected the passionate and restless sadness of the time, may be read in the pages of "Yeast," which was then coming out in "Fraser." As the winter months went on this sadness increased, and seriously affected his health. "I have a longing," he wrote to Mr. Ludlow, "to do _something_--what, God only knows. You say, 'he that believeth will not make haste,' but I think he that believeth must _make_ haste, or get damned with the rest. But I will do anything that anybody likes--I have no confidence in myself or in anything but God. I am not great enough for such times, alas! '_nè pour faire des vers_,' as Camille Desmoulins said." This longing became so strong as the crisis in April approached, that he came to London to see what could be done, and to get help from Mr. Maurice, and those whom he had been used to meet at his house. He found them a divided body. The majority were sworn in as special constables, and several had openly sided with the Chartists; while he himself, with Mr. Maurice and Mr. Ludlow, were unable to take active part with either side. The following extract from a letter to his wife, written on the 9th of April, shows how he was employed during these days, and how he found the work which he was in search of, the first result of which was the publication of "those 'Politics for the People' which made no small noise in their times"-- "_April_ 11th, 1848.--The events of a week have been crowded into a few hours. I was up till four this morning--writing posting placards, under Maurice's auspices, one of which is to be got out to-morrow morning, the rest when we can get money. Could you not beg a few sovereigns somewhere to help these poor wretches to the truest alms?--to words, texts from the Psalms, anything which may keep even one man from cutting his brother's throat to-morrow or Friday? _Pray, pray, help us._ Maurice has given me a highest proof of confidence. He has taken me to counsel, and we are to have meetings for prayer and study, when I come up to London, and we are to bring out a new set of real "Tracts for the Times," addressed to the higher orders. Maurice is _à la hauteur des circonstances_--determined to make a decisive move. He says, if the Oxford Tracts did wonders, why should not we? Pray for us. A glorious future is opening, and both Maurice and Ludlow seem to have driven away all my doubts and sorrow, and I see the blue sky again, and my Father's face!" The arrangements for the publication of "Politics for the People" were soon made; and in one of the earliest numbers, for May, 1848, appeared the paper which furnishes what ground there is for the statement, already quoted, that "he declared, in burning language, that the People's Charter did not go far enough" It was No. 1 of "Parson Lot's Letters to the Chartists." Let us read it with its context. "I am not one of those who laugh at your petition of the 10th of April: I have no patience with those who do. Suppose there were but 250,000 honest names on that sheet--suppose the Charter itself were all stuff--yet you have still a right to fair play, a patient hearing, an honourable and courteous answer, whichever way it may be. But _my only quarrel with the Charter is that it does not go far enough in reform_. I want to see you _free_, but I do not see that what you ask for will give you what you want. I think you have fallen into just the same mistake as the rich, of whom you complain--the very mistake which has been our curse and our nightmare. I mean the mistake of fancying that _legislative_ reform is _social_ reform, or that men's hearts can be changed by Act of Parliament. If any one will tell me of a country where a Charter made the rogues honest, or the idle industrious, I will alter my opinion of the Charter, but not till then. It disappointed me bitterly when I read it. It seemed a harmless cry enough, but a poor, bald constitution-mongering cry as ever I heard. The French cry of 'organization of labour' is worth a thousand of it, but yet that does not go to the bottom of the matter by many a mile." And then, after telling how he went to buy a number of the Chartist newspaper, and found it in a shop which sold "flash songsters," "the Swell's Guide," and "dirty milksop French novels," and that these publications, and a work called "The Devil's Pulpit," were puffed in its columns, he goes on, "These are strange times. I thought the devil used to befriend tyrants and oppressors, but he seems to have profited by Burns' advice to 'tak a thought and mend.' I thought the struggling freeman's watchword was: 'God sees my wrongs.' 'He hath taken the matter into His own hands.' 'The poor committeth himself unto Him, for He is the helper of the friendless.' But now the devil seems all at once to have turned philanthropist and patriot, and to intend himself to fight the good cause, against which he has been fighting ever since Adam's time. I don't deny, my friends, it is much cheaper and pleasanter to be reformed by the devil than by God; for God will only reform society on the condition of our reforming every man his own self--while the devil is quite ready to help us to mend the laws and the parliament, earth and heaven, without ever starting such an impertinent and 'personal' request, as that a man should mend himself. _That_ liberty of the subject he will always respect."--"But I say honestly, whomsoever I may offend, the more I have read of your convention speeches and newspaper articles, the more I am convinced that too many of you are trying to do God's work with the devil's tools. What is the use of brilliant language about peace, and the majesty of order, and universal love, though it may all be printed in letters a foot long, when it runs in the same train with ferocity, railing, mad, one-eyed excitement, talking itself into a passion like a street woman? Do you fancy that after a whole column spent in stirring men up to fury, a few twaddling copybook headings about 'the sacred duty of order' will lay the storm again? What spirit is there but the devil's spirit in bloodthirsty threats of revenge?"--"I denounce the weapons which you have been deluded into employing to gain you your rights, and the indecency and profligacy which you are letting be mixed up with them! Will you strengthen and justify your enemies? Will you disgust and cripple your friends? Will you go out of your way to do wrong? When you can be free by fair means will you try foul? When you might keep the name of Liberty as spotless as the Heaven from which she comes, will you defile her with blasphemy, beastliness, and blood? When the cause of the poor is the cause of Almighty God, will you take it out of His hands to entrust it to the devil? These are bitter questions, but as you answer them so will you prosper." In Letter II. he tells them that if they have followed, a different "Reformer's Guide" from his, it is "mainly the fault of us parsons, who have never told you that the true 'Reformer's Guide,' the true poor man's book, the true 'Voice of God against tyrants, idlers, and humbugs, was the Bible.' The Bible demands for the poor as much, and more, than they demand for themselves; it expresses the deepest yearnings of the poor man's heart far more nobly, more searchingly, more daringly, more eloquently than any modern orator has done. I say, it gives a ray of hope--say rather a certain dawn of a glorious future, such as no universal suffrage, free trade, communism, organization of labour, or any other Morrison's-pill-measure can give--and yet of a future, which will embrace all that is good in these--a future of conscience, of justice, of freedom, when idlers and oppressors shall no more dare to plead parchments and Acts of Parliament for their iniquities. I say the Bible promises this, not in a few places only, but throughout; it is the thought which runs through the whole Bible, justice from God to those whom men oppress, glory from God to those whom men despise. Does that look like the invention of tyrants, and prelates? You may sneer, but give me a fair hearing, and if I do not prove my words, then call me the same hard name which I shall call any man, who having read the Bible, denies that it is the poor man's comfort and the rich man's warning." In subsequent numbers (as afterwards in the "Christian Socialist," and the "Journal of Association") he dwells in detail on the several popular cries, such as, "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work," illustrating them from the Bible, urging his readers to take it as the true Radical Reformer's Guide, if they were longing for the same thing as he was longing for--to see all humbug, idleness, injustice, swept out of England. His other contributions to these periodicals consisted of some of his best short poems: "The Day of the Lord;" "The Three Fishers;" "Old and New," and others; of a series of Letters on the Frimley murder; of a short story called "The Nun's Pool," and of some most charming articles on the pictures in the National Gallery, and the collections in the British Museum, intended to teach the English people how to use and enjoy their own property. I think I know every line which was ever published under the signature Parson Lot; and I take it upon myself to say, that there is in all that "burning language" nothing more revolutionary than the extracts given above from his letters to the Chartists. But, it may be said, apart from his writings, did not Parson Lot declare himself a Chartist in a public meeting in London; and did he not preach in a London pulpit a political sermon, which brought up the incumbent, who had invited him, to protest from the altar against the doctrine which had just been delivered? Yes! Both statements are true. Here are the facts as to the speech, those as to the sermon I will give in their place. In the early summer of 1848 some of those who felt with C. Kingsley that the "People's Charter" had not had fair play or courteous treatment, and that those who signed it had real wrongs to complain of, put themselves into communication with the leaders, and met and talked with them. At last it seemed that the time was come for some more public meeting, and one was called at the Cranbourn Tavern, over which Mr. Maurice presided. After the president's address several very bitter speeches followed, and a vehement attack was specially directed against the Church and the clergy. The meeting waxed warm, and seemed likely to come to no good, when Kingsley rose, folded his arms across his chest, threw his head back, and began--with the stammer which always came at first when he was much moved, but which fixed every one's attention at once--"I am a Church of England parson"--a long pause--"and a Chartist;" and then he went on to explain how far he thought them right in their claim for a reform of Parliament; how deeply he sympathized with their sense of the injustice of the law as it affected them; how ready he was to help in all ways to get these things set right; and then to denounce their methods, in very much the same terms as I have already quoted from his letters to the Chartists. Probably no one who was present ever heard a speech which told more at the time. I had a singular proof that the effect did not pass away. The most violent speaker on that occasion was one of the staff of the leading Chartist newspaper. I lost sight of him entirely for more than twenty years, and saw him again, a little grey shrivelled man, by Kingsley's side, at the grave of Mr. Maurice, in the cemetery at Hampstead. The experience of this meeting encouraged its promoters to continue the series, which they did with a success which surprised no one more than themselves. Kingsley's opinion of them may be gathered from the following extract from a letter to his wife:-- "_June_ 4, 1848, Evening.--A few words before bed. I have just come home from the meeting. No one spoke but working men, gentlemen I should call them, in every sense of the term. Even _I_ was perfectly astonished by the courtesy, the reverence to Maurice, who sat there like an Apollo, their eloquence, the brilliant, nervous, well-chosen language, the deep simple earnestness, the rightness and moderation of their thoughts. And these are the _Chartists_, these are the men who are called fools and knaves--who are refused the rights which are bestowed on every profligate fop.... It is God's cause, fear not He will be with us, and if He is with us, who shall be against us?" But while he was rapidly winning the confidence of the working classes, he was raising up a host of more or less hostile critics in other quarters by his writings in "Politics for the People," which journal was in the midst of its brief and stormy career. At the end of June, 1848, he writes to Mr. Ludlow, one of the editors-- "I fear my utterances have had a great deal to do with the 'Politics'' unpopularity. I have got worse handled than any of you by poor and rich. There is one comfort, that length of ears is in the donkey species always compensated by toughness of hide. But it is a pleasing prospect for me (if you knew all that has been said and written about Parson Lot), when I look forward and know that my future explosions are likely to become more and more obnoxious to the old gentlemen, who stuff their ears with cotton, and then swear the children are not screaming." "Politics for the People" was discontinued for want of funds; but its supporters, including all those who were working under Mr. Maurice--who, however much they might differ in opinions, were of one mind as to the danger of the time, and the duty of every man to do his utmost to meet that danger--were bent upon making another effort. In the autumn, Mr. Ludlow, and others of their number who spent the vacation abroad, came back with accounts of the efforts at association which were being made by the workpeople of Paris. The question of starting such associations in England as the best means of fighting the slop system--which the "Chronicle" was showing to lie at the root of the misery and distress which bred Chartists--was anxiously debated. It was at last resolved to make the effort, and to identify the new journal with the cause of Association, and to publish a set of tracts in connection with it, of which Kingsley undertook to write the first, "Cheap Clothes and Nasty." So "the Christian Socialist" was started, with Mr. Ludlow for editor, the tracts on Christian Socialism begun under Mr. Maurice's supervision, and the society for promoting working-men's associations was formed out of the body of men who were already working with Mr. Maurice. The great majority of these joined, though the name was too much for others. The question of taking it had been much considered, and it was decided, on the whole, to be best to do so boldly, even though it might cost valuable allies. Kingsley was of course consulted on every point, though living now almost entirely at Eversley, and his views as to the proper policy to be pursued may be gathered best from the following extracts from letters of his to Mr. Ludlow-- "We must touch the workman at all his points of interest. First and foremost at association--but also at political rights, as grounded both on the Christian ideal of the Church, and on the historic facts of the Anglo-Saxon race. Then national education, sanitary and dwelling-house reform, the free sale of land, and corresponding reform of the land laws, moral improvement of the family relation, public places of recreation (on which point I am very earnest), and I think a set of hints from history, and sayings of great men, of which last I have been picking up from Plato, Demosthenes, &c." 1849.--"This is a puling, quill-driving, soft-handed age--among our own rank, I mean. Cowardice is called meekness; to temporize is to be charitable and reverent; to speak truth, and shame the devil, is to offend weak brethren, who, somehow or other, never complain of their weak consciences till you hit them hard. And yet, my dear fellow, I still remain of my old mind--that it is better to say too much than too little, and more merciful to knock a man down with a pick-axe than to prick him to death with pins. The world says, No. It hates anything demonstrative, or violent (except on its own side), or unrefined." 1849.--"The question of property is one of these cases. We must face it in this age--simply because it faces us."--"I want to commit myself--I want to make others commit themselves. No man can fight the devil with a long ladle, however pleasant it may be to eat with him with one. A man never fishes well in the morning till he has tumbled into the water." And the counsels of Parson Lot had undoubtedly great weight in giving an aggressive tone both to the paper and the society. But if he was largely responsible for the fighting temper of the early movement, he, at any rate, never shirked his share of the fighting. His name was the butt at which all shafts were aimed. As Lot "seemed like one that mocked to his sons-in-law," so seemed the Parson to the most opposite sections of the British nation. As a friend wrote of him at the time, he "had at any rate escaped the curse of the false prophets, 'Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you.'" Many of the attacks and criticisms were no doubt aimed not so much at him personally as at the body of men with whom, and for whom, he was working; but as he was (except Mr. Maurice) the only one whose name was known, he got the lion's share of all the abuse. The storm broke on him from all points of the compass at once. An old friend and fellow-contributor to "Politics for the People," led the Conservative attack, accusing him of unsettling the minds of the poor, making them discontented, &c. Some of the foremost Chartists wrote virulently against him for "attempting to justify the God of the Old Testament," who, they maintained, was unjust and cruel, and, at any rate, not the God "of the people." The political economists fell on him for his anti-Malthusian belief, that the undeveloped fertility of the earth need not be overtaken by population within any time which it concerned us to think about. The quarterlies joined in the attack on his economic heresies. The "Daily News" opened a cross fire on him from the common-sense Liberal battery, denouncing the "revolutionary nonsense, which is termed Christian Socialisms"; and, after some balancing, the "Guardian," representing in the press the side of the Church to which he leant, turned upon him in a very cruel article on the republication of "Yeast" (originally written for "Fraser's Magazine"), and accused him of teaching heresy in doctrine, and in morals "that a certain amount of youthful profligacy does no real permanent harm to the character, perhaps strengthens it for a useful and religious life." In this one instance Parson Lot fairly lost his temper, and answered, "as was answered to the Jesuit of old--_mentiris impudentissime_." With the rest he seemed to enjoy the conflict and "kept the ring," like a candidate for the wrestling championship in his own county of Devon against all comers, one down another come on. The fact is, that Charles Kingsley was born a fighting man, and believed in bold attack. "No human power ever beat back a resolute forlorn hope," he used to say; "to be got rid of, they must be blown back with grape and canister," because the attacking party have all the universe behind them, the defence only that small part which is shut up in their walls. And he felt most strongly at this time that hard fighting was needed. "It is a pity" he writes to Mr. Ludlow, "that telling people what's right, won't make them do it; but not a new fact, though that ass the world has quite forgotten it; and assures you that dear sweet 'incompris' mankind only wants to be told the way to the millennium to walk willingly into it--which is a lie. If you want to get mankind, if not to heaven, at least out of hell, kick them out." And again, a little later on, in urging the policy which the "Christian Socialist" should still follow-- 1851.--"It seems to me that in such a time as this the only way to fight against the devil is to attack him. He has got it too much his own way to meddle with us if we don't meddle with him. But the very devil has feelings, and if you prick him will roar...whereby you, at all events, gain the not-every-day-of-the-week-to-be-attained benefit of finding out where he is. Unless, indeed, as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as big grasshoppers do when you chase them), and puts you on a wrong scent, by crying 'Fire!' out of saints' windows. Still, the odds are if you prick lustily enough, you make him roar unawares." The memorials of his many controversies lie about in the periodicals of that time, and any one who cares to hunt them up will be well repaid, and struck with the vigour of the defence, and still more with the complete change in public opinion, which has brought the England of to-day clean round to the side of Parson Lot. The most complete perhaps of his fugitive pieces of this kind is the pamphlet, "Who are the friends of Order?" published by J. W. Parker and Son, in answer to a very fair and moderate article in "Fraser's Mazagine." The Parson there points out how he and his friends were "cursed by demagogues as aristocrats, and by tories as democrats, when in reality they were neither." And urges that the very fact of the Continent being overrun with Communist fanatics is the best argument for preaching association here. But though he faced his adversaries bravely, it must not be inferred that he did not feel the attacks and misrepresentations very keenly. In many respects, though housed in a strong and vigorous body, his spirit was an exceedingly tender and sensitive one. I have often thought that at this time his very sensitiveness drove him to say things more broadly and incisively, because he was speaking as it were somewhat against the grain, and knew that the line he was taking would be misunderstood, and would displease and alarm those with whom he had most sympathy. For he was by nature and education an aristocrat in the best sense of the word, believed that a landed aristocracy was a blessing to the country, and that no country would gain the highest liberty without such a class, holding its own position firmly, but in sympathy with the people. He liked their habits and ways, and keenly enjoyed their society. Again, he was full of reverence for science and scientific men, and specially for political economy and economists, and desired eagerly to stand well with them. And it was a most bitter trial to him to find himself not only in sharp antagonism with traders and employers of labour, which he looked for, but with these classes also. On the other hand many of the views and habits of those with whom he found himself associated were very distasteful to him. In a new social movement, such as that of association as it took shape in 1849-50, there is certain to be great attraction for restless and eccentric persons, and in point of fact many such joined it. The beard movement was then in its infancy, and any man except a dragoon who wore hair on his face was regarded as a dangerous character, with whom it was compromising to be seen in any public place--a person in sympathy with _sansculottes_, and who would dispense with trousers but for his fear of the police. Now whenever Kingsley attended a meeting of the promoters of association in London, he was sure to find himself in the midst of bearded men, vegetarians, and other eccentric persons, and the contact was very grievous to him. "As if we shall not be abused enough," he used to say, "for what we must say and do without being saddled with mischievous nonsense of this kind." To less sensitive men the effect of eccentricity upon him was almost comic, as when on one occasion he was quite upset and silenced by the appearance of a bearded member of Council at an important deputation in a straw hat and blue plush gloves. He did not recover from the depression produced by those gloves for days. Many of the workmen, too, who were most prominent in the Associations were almost as little to his mind--windy inflated kind of persons, with a lot of fine phrases in their mouths which they did not know the meaning of. But in spite of all that was distasteful to him in some of its surroundings, the co-operative movement (as it is now called) entirely approved itself to his conscience and judgment, and mastered him so that he was ready to risk whatever had to be risked in fighting its battle. Often in those days, seeing how loath Charles Kingsley was to take in hand, much of the work which Parson Lot had to do, and how fearlessly and thoroughly he did it after all, one was reminded of the old Jewish prophets, such as Amos the herdsman of Tekoa--"I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, but I was an herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit: and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people Israel." The following short extracts from his correspondence with Mr. Ludlow, as to the conduct of the "Christian Socialist," and his own contributions to it, may perhaps serve to show how his mind was working at this time:-- _Sept., 1850_.--"I cannot abide the notion of Branch Churches or Free (sect) Churches, and unless my whole train of thought alters, I will resist the temptation as coming from the devil. Where I am I am doing God's work, and when the Church is ripe for more, the Head of the Church will put the means our way. You seem to fancy that we may have a _Deus quidam Deceptor_ over us after all. If I did I'd go and blow my dirty brains out and be rid of the whole thing at once. I would indeed. If God, when people ask Him to teach and guide them, does not; if when they confess themselves rogues and fools to Him, and beg Him to make them honest and wise, He does not, but darkens them, and deludes them into bogs and pitfalls, is he a Father? You fall back into Judaism, friend." _Dec., 1850_.--"Jeremiah is my favourite book now. It has taught me more than tongue can tell. But I am much disheartened, and am minded to speak no more words in this name (Parson Lot); and yet all these bullyings teach one, correct one, warn one--show one that God is not leaving one to go one's own way. 'Christ reigns,' quoth Luther." It was at this time, in the winter of 1850, that "Alton Locke" was published. He had been engaged on it for more than a year, working at it in the midst of all his controversies. The following extracts from his correspondence with Mr. Ludlow will tell readers more about it than any criticism, if they have at all realized the time at which it was written, or his peculiar work in that time. _February, 1849_.--"I have hopes from the book I am writing, which has revealed itself to me so rapidly and methodically that I feel it comes down from above, and that only my folly can spoil it, which I pray against daily." 1849.--"I think the notion a good one (referring to other work for the paper which he had been asked to do), but I feel no inspiration at all that way; and I dread being tempted to more and more bitterness, harsh judgment, and evil speaking. I dread it. I am afraid sometimes I shall end in universal snarling. Besides, my whole time is taken up with my book, and _that_ I do feel inspired to write. But there is something else which weighs awfully on my mind--(the first number of _Cooper's Journal_, which he sent me the other day). Here is a man of immense influence openly preaching Strausseanism to the workmen, and in a fair, honest, manly way which must tell. Who will answer him? Who will answer Strauss? [Footnote: He did the work himself. After many interviews, and a long correspondence with him, Thomas Cooper changed his views, and has been lecturing and preaching for many years as a Christian.] Who will denounce him as a vile aristocrat, robbing the poor man of his Saviour--of the ground of all democracy, all freedom, all association--of the Charter itself? _Oh, si mihi centum voces et ferrea lingua!_ Think about _that_." _January, 1850_.--"A thousand thanks for your letter, though it only shows me what I have long suspected, that I know hardly enough yet to make the book what it should be. As you have made a hole, you must help to fill it. Can you send me any publication which would give me a good notion of the Independents' view of politics, also one which would give a good notion of the Fox-Emerson-Strauss school of Blague-Unitarianism, which is superseding dissent just now. It was with the ideal of Calvinism, and its ultimate bearing on the people's cause, that I wished to deal. I believe that there must be internecine war between the people's church--_i.e._, the future development of Catholic Christianity, and Calvinism even in its mildest form, whether in the Establishment or out of it--and I have counted the cost and will give every _party_ its slap in their turn. But I will alter, as far as I can, all you dislike." _August, 1850_.--"How do you know, dearest man, that I was not right in making the Alton of the second volume different from the first? In showing the individuality of the man swamped and warped by the routine of misery and discontent? How do you know that the historic and human interest of the book was not intended to end with Mackay's death, in whom old radicalism dies, 'not having received the promises,' to make room for the radicalism of the future? How do you know that the book from that point was not intended to take a mythic and prophetic form, that those dreams come in for the very purpose of taking the story off the ground of the actual into the deeper and wider one of the ideal, and that they do actually do what they were intended to do? How do you know that my idea of carrying out Eleanor's sermons in practice were just what I could not--and if I could, dared not, give? that all that I could do was to leave them as seed, to grow by itself in many forms, in many minds, instead of embodying them in some action which would have been both as narrow as my own idiosyncrasy, gain the reproach of insanity, and be simply answered by--'If such things have been done, where are they?' and lastly, how do you know that I had not a special meaning in choosing a civilized fine lady as my missionary, one of a class which, as it does exist, God must have something for it to do, and, as it seems, plenty to do, from the fact that a few gentlemen whom I could mention, not to speak of Fowell Buxtons, Howards, Ashleys, &c., have done, more for the people in one year than they have done for themselves in fifty? If I had made her an organizer, as well as a preacher, your complaint might have been just. My dear man, the artist is a law unto himself--or rather God is a law to him, when he prays, as I have earnestly day after day about this book--to be taught how to say the right thing in the right way--and I assure you I did not get tired of my work, but laboured as earnestly at the end as I did at the beginning. The rest of your criticism, especially about the interpenetration of doctrine and action, is most true, and shall be attended to.--Your brother, "G. K." The next letter, on the same topic, in answer to criticisms on "Alton Locke," is addressed to a brother clergyman-- "EVERSLEY, _January 13, 1851_. "Rec. dear Sir,--I will answer your most interesting letter as shortly as I can, and if possible in the same spirit of honesty as that in which you have written to me. "_First_, I do not think the cry 'Get on' to be anything but a devil's cry. The moral of my book is that the working man who tries to get on, to desert his class and rise above it, enters into a lie, and leaves God's path for his own--with consequences. "_Second_, I believe that a man might be as a tailor or a costermonger, every inch of him a saint, a scholar, and a gentleman, for I have seen some few such already. I believe hundreds of thousands more would be so, if their businesses were put on a Christian footing, and themselves given by education, sanitary reforms, &c., the means of developing their own latent capabilities--I think the cry, 'Rise in Life,' has been excited by the very increasing impossibility of being anything but brutes while they struggle below. I know well all that is doing in the way of education, &c., but I do assert that the disease of degradation has been for the last forty years increasing faster than the remedy. And I believe, from experience, that when you put workmen into human dwellings, and give them a Christian education, so far from wishing discontentedly to rise out of their class, or to level others to it, exactly the opposite takes place. They become sensible of the dignity of work, and they begin to see their labour as a true calling in God's Church, now that it is cleared from the accidentia which made it look, in their eyes, only a soulless drudgery in a devil's workshop of a _World_. "_Third_, From the advertisement of an 'English Republic' you send, I can guess who will be the writers in it, &c., &c., being behind the scenes. It will come to nought. Everything of this kind is coming to nought now. The workmen are tired of idols, ready and yearning for the Church and the Gospel, and such men as your friend may laugh at Julian Harney, Feargus O'Connor, and the rest of that smoke of the pit. Only we live in a great crisis, and the Lord requires great things of us. The fields are white to harvest. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He may send forth labourers into His harvest. "_Fourth_, As to the capacities of working-men, I am afraid that your excellent friend will find that he has only the refuse of working intellects to form his induction on. The devil has got the best long ago. By the neglect of the Church, by her dealing (like the Popish Church and all weak churches) only with women, children, and beggars, the cream and pith of working intellect is almost exclusively self-educated, and, therefore, alas! infidel. If he goes on as he is doing, lecturing on history, poetry, science, and all the things which the workmen crave for, and can only get from such men as H----, Thomas Cooper, &c., mixed up with Straussism and infidelity, he will find that he will draw back to his Lord's fold, and to his lecture room, slowly, but surely, men, whose powers will astonish him, as they have astonished me. "_Fifth_, The workmen whose quarrels you mention are not Christians, or socialists either. They are of all creeds and none. We are teaching them to become Christians by teaching them gradually that true socialism, true liberty, brotherhood, and true equality (not the carnal dead level equality of the Communist, but the spiritual equality of the church idea, which gives every man an equal chance of developing and using God's gifts, and rewards every man according to his work, without respect of persons) is only to be found in loyalty and obedience to Christ. They do quarrel, but if you knew how they used to quarrel before association, the improvement since would astonish you. And the French associations do not quarrel at all. I can send you a pamphlet on them, if you wish, written by an eyewitness, a friend of mine. "_Sixth_, If your friend wishes to see what can be made of workmen's brains, let him, in God's name, go down to Harrow Weald, and there see Mr. Monro--see what he has done with his own national school boys. I have his opinion as to the capabilities of those minds, which we, alas! now so sadly neglect. I only ask him to go and ask of that man the question which you have asked of me. "_Seventh_, May I, in reference to myself and certain attacks on me, say, with all humility, that I do not speak from hearsay now, as has been asserted, from second-hand picking and stealing out of those 'Reports on Labour and the Poor,' in the 'Morning Chronicle,' which are now being reprinted in a separate form, and which I entreat you to read if you wish to get a clear view of the real state of the working classes. "From my cradle, as the son of an active clergyman, I have been brought up in the most familiar intercourse with the poor in town and country. My mother, a second Mrs. Fry, in spirit and act. For fourteen years my father has been the rector of a very large metropolitan parish--and I speak what I know, and testify that which I have seen. With earnest prayer, in fear and trembling, I wrote my book, and I trust in Him to whom I prayed that He has not left me to my own prejudices or idols on any important point relating to the state of the possibilities of the poor for whom He died. Any use which you choose you can make of this letter. If it should seem worth your while to honour me with any further communications, I shall esteem them a delight, and the careful consideration of them a duty.--Believe me, Rev. and dear Sir, your faithful and obedient servant, "C. KINGSLEY." By this time the society for promoting associations was thoroughly organized, and consisted of a council of promoters, of which Kingsley was a member, and a central board, on which the managers of the associations and a delegate from each of them sat. The council had published a number of tracts, beginning with "Cheap Clothes and Nasty," which had attracted the attention of many persons, including several of the London clergy, who connected themselves more or less closely with the movement. Mr. Maurice, Kingsley, Hansard, and others of these, were often asked to preach on social questions, and when in 1851, on the opening of the Great Exhibition, immense crowds of strangers were drawn to London, they were specially in request. For many London incumbents threw open their churches, and organized series of lectures, specially bearing on the great topic of the day. It was now that the incident happened which once more brought upon Kingsley the charge of being a revolutionist, and which gave him more pain than all other attacks put together. One of the incumbents before referred to begged Mr. Maurice to take part in his course of lectures, and to ask Kingsley to do so; assuring Mr. Maurice that he "had been reading Kingsley's works with the greatest interest, and earnestly desired to secure him as one of his lecturers." "I promised to mention this request to him," Mr. Maurice says, "though I knew he rarely came to London, and seldom preached except in his own parish. He agreed, though at some inconvenience, that he would preach a sermon on the 'Message of the Church to the Labouring Man.' I suggested the subject to him. The incumbent intimated the most cordial approval of it. He had asked us, not only with a previous knowledge of our published writings, but expressly because he had that knowledge. I pledge you my word that no questions were asked as to what we were going to say, and no guarantees given. Mr. Kingsley took precisely that view of the message of the Church to labouring men which every reader of his books would have expected him to take." Kingsley took his text from Luke iv. verses 16 to 21: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor," &c. What then was that gospel? Kingsley asks, and goes on--"I assert that the business for which God sends a Christian priest in a Christian nation is, to preach freedom, equality, and brotherhood in the fullest, deepest, widest meaning of those three great words; that in as far as he so does, he is a true priest, doing his Lord's work with his Lord's blessing on him; that in as far as he does not he is no priest at all, but a traitor to God and man"; and again, "I say that these words express the very pith and marrow of a priest's business; I say that they preach freedom, equality, and brotherhood to rich and poor for ever and ever." Then he goes on to warn his hearers how there is always a counterfeit in this world of the noblest message and teaching. Thus there are two freedoms--the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought. Two equalities--the false, which reduces all intellects and all characters, to a dead level, and gives the same power to the bad as to the good, to the wise as to the foolish, ending thus in practice in the grossest inequality; the true, wherein each man has equal power to educate and use whatever faculties or talents God has given him, be they less or more. This is the divine equality which the Church proclaims, and nothing else proclaims as she does. Two brotherhoods--the false, where a man chooses who shall be his brothers, and whom he will treat as such; the true, in which a man believes that all are his brothers, not by the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but by the will of God, whose children they all are alike. The Church has three special possessions and treasures. The Bible, which proclaims man's freedom, Baptism his equality, the Lord's Supper his brotherhood. At the end of this sermon (which would scarcely cause surprise to-day if preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Chapel Royal), the incumbent got up at the altar and declared his belief that great part of the doctrine of the sermon was untrue, and that he had expected a sermon of an entirely different kind. To a man of the preacher's vehement temperament it must have required a great effort not to reply at the moment. The congregation was keenly excited, and evidently expected him to do so. He only bowed his head, pronounced the blessing, and came down from the pulpit. I must go back a little to take up the thread of his connection with, and work for, the Society for Promoting Working Men's Associations. After it had passed the first difficulties of starting, he was seldom able to attend either Council or Central Board. Every one else felt how much more important and difficult work he was doing by fighting the battle in the press, down at Eversley, but he himself was eager to take part in the everyday business, and uneasy if he was not well informed as to what was going on. Sometimes, however, he would come up to the Council, when any matter specially interesting to him was in question, as in the following example, when a new member of the Council, an Eton master, had objected to some strong expressions in one of his letters on the Frimley murder, in the "Christian Socialist":-- 1849.--"The upper classes are like a Yankee captain sitting on the safety valve, and serenely whistling--but what will be will be. As for the worthy Eton parson, I consider it infinitely expedient that he be entreated to vent his whole dislike in the open Council forthwith, under a promise on my part not to involve him in any controversy or reprisals, or to answer in any tone except that of the utmost courtesy and respect. Pray do this. It will at once be a means of gaining him, and a good example, please God, to the working men; and for the Frimley letter, put it in the fire if you like, or send it back to have the last half re-written, or 'anything else you like, my pretty little dear.'" But his prevailing feeling was getting to be, that he was becoming an outsider-- "Nobody deigns to tell me," he wrote to me, "how things go on, and who helps, and whether I can help. In short, I know nothing, and begin to fancy that you, like some others, think me a lukewarm and timeserving aristocrat, after I have ventured more than many, because I had more to venture." The same feeling comes out in the following letter, which illustrates too, very well, both his deepest conviction as to the work, the mixture of playfulness and earnestness with which he handled it, and his humble estimate of himself. It refers to the question of the admission of a new association to the Union. It was necessary, of course, to see that the rules of a society, applying for admission to the Union, were in proper form, and that sufficient capital was forthcoming, and the decision lay with the Central Board, controlled in some measure by the Council of Promoters. An association of clay-pipe makers had applied for admission, and had been refused by the vote of the central board. The Council, however, thought there were grounds for reconsidering the decision, and to strengthen the case for admission, Kingsley's opinion was asked. He replied:-- "EVERSLEY, _May 31, 1850_. "The sight of your handwriting comforted me--for nobody takes any notice of me, not even the printers; so I revenge myself by being as idle as a dog, and fishing, and gardening, and basking in this glorious sun. But your letter set me thanking God that he has raised up men to do the work of which I am not worthy. As for the pipe-makers, give my compliments to the autocrats, and tell them it is a shame. The Vegetarians would have quite as much right to refuse the Butchers, because, forsooth, theirs is now discovered not to be a necessary trade. Bosh! The question is this--If association be a great Divine law and duty, the realization of the Church idea, no man has _a right_ to refuse any body of men, into whose heart God has put it to come and associate. It may be answered that these men's motives are self-interested. I say, 'Judge no man.' You dare not refuse a heathen baptism because you choose to think that his only motive for turning Christian is the selfish one of saving his own rascally soul. No more have you a right to refuse to men an entrance into the social Church. They must come in, and they will, because association is not men's dodge and invention but God's law for mankind and society, which He has made, and we must not limit. I don't know whether I am intelligible, but what's more important, I know I am right. Just read this to the autocrats, and tell them, with my compliments, they are Popes, Tyrants, Manichees, Ascetics, Sectarians, and everything else that is abominable; and if they used as many pipes as I do, they would know the blessing of getting them cheap, and start an associate baccy factory besides. Shall we try? But, this one little mistake excepted (though, if they repeat it, it will become a great mistake, and a wrong, and a ruinous wrong), they are much better fellows than poor I, and doing a great deal more good, and at every fresh news of their deeds I feel like Job's horse, when he scents the battle afar off." No small part of the work of the Council consisted in mediating and arbitrating in the disputes between the associates and their managers; indeed, such work kept the legal members of the board (none of whom were then overburdened with regular practice) pretty fully occupied. Some such dispute had arisen in one of the most turbulent of these associations, and had been referred to me for settlement. I had satisfied myself as to the facts, and considered my award, and had just begun to write out the draft, when I was called away from my chambers, and left the opening lines lying on my desk. They ran as follows:--"The Trustees of the Mile End Association of Engineers, seeing that the quarrels between the associates have not ceased"--at which word I broke off. On returning to my chambers a quarter of an hour later, I found a continuation in the following words:-- "And that every man is too much inclined to behave himself like a beast, In spite of our glorious humanity, which requires neither God nor priest, Yet is daily praised and plastered by ten thousand fools at least-- Request Mr. Hughes' presence at their jawshop in the East, Which don't they wish they may get it, for he goes out to-night to feast At the Rev. C. Kingsley's rectory, Chelsea, where he'll get his gullet greased With the best of Barto Valle's port, and will have his joys increased By meeting his old college chum, McDougal the Borneo priest-- So come you thief, and drop your brief, At six o'clock without relief; And if you won't may you come to grief, Says Parson Lot the Socialist Chief, Who signs his mark at the foot of the leaf--thus" and, at the end, a clenched fist was sketched in a few bold lines, and under it, "Parson Lot, his mark" written. I don't know that I can do better than give the history of the rest of the day. Knowing his town habits well, I called at Parker, the publisher's, after chambers, and found him there, sitting on a table and holding forth on politics to our excellent little friend, John Wm. Parker, the junior partner. We started to walk down to Chelsea, and a dense fog came on before we had reached Hyde Park Corner. Both of us knew the way well; but we lost it half a dozen times, and his spirit seemed to rise as the fog thickened. "Isn't this like life," he said, after one of our blunders: "a deep yellow fog all round, with a dim light here and there shining through. You grope your way on from one lamp to another, and you go up wrong streets and back again; but you get home at last--there's always light enough for that." After a short pause he said, quite abruptly, "Tom, do you want to live to be old?" I said I had never thought on the subject; and he went on, "I dread it more than I can say. To feel one's powers going, and to end in snuff and stink. Look at the last days of Scott and Wordsworth, and Southey." I suggested St. John. "Yes," he said, "that's the right thing, and will do for Bunsen, and great, tranquil men like him. The longer they live the better for all. But for an eager, fiery nature like mine, with fierce passions eating one's life out, it won't do. If I live twenty years I know what will happen to me. The back of my brain will soften, and I shall most likely go blind." The Bishop got down somehow by six. The dinner did not last long, for the family were away, and afterwards we adjourned to the study, and Parson Lot rose to his best. He stood before the fire, while the Bishop and I took the two fireside arm chairs, and poured himself out, on subject after subject, sometimes when much moved taking a tramp up and down the room, a long clay pipe in his right hand (at which he gave an occasional suck; it was generally out, but he scarcely noticed it), and his left hand passed behind his back, clasping the right elbow. It was a favourite attitude with him, when he was at ease with his company. We were both bent on drawing him out; and the first topic, I think, raised by the Bishop was, Fronde's history, then recently published. He took up the cudgels for Henry VIII., whom we accused of arbitrariness. Henry was not arbitrary; arbitrary men are the most obstinate of men? Why? Because they are weak. The strongest men are always ready to hear reason and change their opinions, because the strong man knows that if he loses an opinion to-day he can get just as good a one to-morrow in its place. But the weak man holds on to his opinion, because he can't get another, and he knows it. Soon afterwards he got upon trout fishing, which was a strong bond of union between him and me, and discoursed on the proper methods of fishing chalk streams. "Your flies can't be too big, but they must be on small gut, not on base viol fiddle strings, like those you brought down to Farnham last year. I tell you gut is the thing that does it. Trout know that flies don't go about with a ring and a hand pole through their noses, like so many prize bulls of Lord Ducie's." Then he got on the possible effect of association on the future of England, and from that to the first International Exhibition, and the building which was going up in Hyde Park. "I mean to run a muck soon," he said, "against all this talk about genius and high art, and the rest of it. It will be the ruin of us, as it has been of Germany. They have been for fifty years finding out, and showing people how to do everything in heaven and earth, and have done nothing. They are dead even yet, and will be till they get out of the high art fit. We were dead, and the French were dead till their revolution; but that brought us to life. Why didn't the Germans come to life too? Because they set to work with their arts, sciences, and how to do this, that, and the other thing, and doing nothing. Goethe was, in great part, the ruin of Germany. He was like a great fog coming down on the German people, and wrapping them up." Then he, in his turn, drew the Bishop about Borneo, and its people, and fauna and flora; and we got some delightful stories of apes, and converts, and honey bears, Kingsley showing himself, by his questions, as familiar with the Bornean plants and birds, as though he had lived there. Later on we got him on his own works, and he told us how he wrote. "I can't think, even on scientific subjects, except in the dramatic form. It is what Tom said to Harry, and what Harry answered him. I never put pen to paper till I have two or three pages in my head, and see them as if they were printed. Then I write them off, and take a turn in the garden, and so on again." We wandered back to fishing, and I challenged his keenness for making a bag. "Ah!" he said, "that's all owing to my blessed habit of intensity, which has been my greatest help in life. I go at what I am about as if there were nothing else in the world for the time being. That's the secret of all hard-working men; but most of them can't carry it into their amusements. Luckily for me I can stop from all work, at short notice, and turn head over heels in the sight of all creation, and say, I won't be good or bad, or wise, or anything, till two o'clock to-morrow." At last the Bishop would go, so we groped our way with him into the King's Road, and left him in charge of a link-boy. When we got back, I said something laughingly about his gift of talk, which had struck me more that evening than ever before. "Yes," he said, "I have it all in me. I could be as great a talker as any man in England, but for my stammering. I know it well; but it's a blessed thing for me. You must know, by this time, that I'm a very shy man, and shyness and vanity always go together. And so I think of what every fool will say of me, and can't help it. When a man's first thought is not whether a thing is right or wrong, but what will Lady A., or Mr. B. say about it, depend upon it he wants a thorn in the flesh, like my stammer. When I am speaking for God, in the pulpit, or praying by bedsides, I never stammer. My stammer is a blessed thing for me. It keeps me from talking in company, and from going out as much as I should do but for it." It was two o'clock before we thought of moving, and then, the fog being as bad as ever, he insisted on making me up a bed on the floor. While we were engaged in this process, he confided to me that he had heard of a doctor who was very successful in curing stammering, and was going to try him. I laughed, and reminded him of his thorn in the flesh, to which he replied, with a quaint twinkle of his eye, "Well, that's true enough. But a man has no right to be a nuisance, if he can help it, and no more right to go about amongst his fellows stammering, than he has to go about stinking." At this time he was already at work on another novel; and, in answer to a remonstrance from a friend, who was anxious that he should keep ail his strength for social reform, writes-- 1851.--"I know that He has made me a parish priest, and that that is the duty which lies nearest me, and that I may seem to be leaving my calling in novel writing. But has He not taught me all these very things _by my_ parish priest life? Did He, too, let me become a strong, daring, sporting, wild man of the woods for nothing? Surely the education He has given me so different from that which authors generally receive, points out to me a peculiar calling to preach on these points from my own experience, as it did to good old Isaac Walton, as it has done in our own day to that truly noble man, Captain Marryat. Therefore I must believe, '_si tu sequi la tua, stella_,' with Dante, that He who ordained my star will not lead me _into_ temptation, but _through_ it, as Maurice says. Without Him all places and methods of life are equally dangerous--with Him, all equally safe. Pray for me, for in myself I am weaker of purpose than a lost grey hound, lazier than a dog in rainy weather." While the co-operative movement was spreading in all directions, the same impulse was working amongst the trades unions, and the engineers had set the example of uniting all their branches into one society. In this winter they believed themselves strong enough to try conclusions with their employers. The great lock-out in January, 1852, was the consequence. The engineers had appealed to the Council of Promoters to help them in putting their case--which had been much misrepresented--fairly before the public, and Kingsley had been consulted as the person best able to do it. He had declined to interfere, and wrote me the following letter to explain his views. It will show how far he was an encourager of violent measures or views:-- "EVERSLEY, _January 28, 1852_. "You may have been surprised at my having taken no part in this Amalgamated Iron Trades' matter. And I think that I am bound to say why I have not, and how far I wish my friends to interfere in it. "I do think that we, the Council of Promoters, shall not be wise in interfering between masters and men; because--1. I question whether the points at issue between them can be fairly understood by any persons not conversant with the practical details of the trade... "2. Nor do I think they have put their case as well as they might. For instance, if it be true that they themselves have invented many, or most, of the improvements in their tools and machinery, they have an argument in favour of keeping out unskilled labourers, which is unanswerable, and yet, that they have never used--viz.: 'Your masters make hundreds and thousands by these improvements, while we have no remuneration for this inventive talent of ours, but rather lose by it, because it makes the introduction of unskilled labour more easy. Therefore, the only way in which we can get anything like a payment for this inventive faculty of which we make you a present over and above our skilled labour, for which you bargained, is to demand that we, who invent the machines, if we cannot have a share in the profits of them, shall at least have the exclusive privilege of using them, instead of their being, as now, turned against us.' That, I think, is a fair argument; but I have seen nothing of it from any speaker or writer. "3. I think whatever battle is fought, must be fought by the men themselves. The present dodge of the Manchester school is to cry out against us, as Greg did. 'These Christian Socialists are a set of mediæval parsons, who want to hinder the independence and self-help of the men, and bring them back to absolute feudal maxims; and then, with the most absurd inconsistency, when we get up a corporation workshop, to let the men work on the very independence and self-help of which they talk so fine, they turn round and raise just the opposite yell, and cry, The men can't be independent of capitalists; these associations will fail _because_ the men are helping themselves'--showing that what they mean is, that the men shall be independent of every one but themselves--independent of legislators, parsons, advisers, gentlemen, noblemen, and every one that tries to help them by moral agents; but the slaves of the capitalists, bound to them by a servitude increasing instead of lightening with their numbers. Now, the only way in which we can clear the cause of this calumny is to let the men fight their own battle; to prevent any one saying, 'These men are the tools of dreamers and fanatics,' which would be just as ruinously blackening to them in the public eyes, as it would be to let the cry get abroad, 'This is a Socialist movement, destructive of rights of property, communism, Louis Blanc and the devil, &c.' You know the infernal stuff which the devil gets up on such occasions--having no scruples about calling himself hard names, when it suits his purpose, to blind and frighten respectable old women. "Moreover, these men are not poor distressed needlewomen or slop-workers. They are the most intelligent and best educated workmen, receiving incomes often higher than a gentleman's son whose education has cost £1000, and if they can't fight their own battles, no men in England can, and the people are not ripe for association, and we must hark back into the competitive rot heap again. All, then, that we can do is, to give advice when asked--to see that they have, as far as we can get at them, a clear stage and no favour, but not by public, but by private influence. "But we can help them in another way, by showing them the way to associate. That is quite a distinct question from their quarrel with their masters, and we shall be very foolish if we give the press a handle for mixing up the two. We have a right to say to masters, men, and public, 'We know and care nothing about the iron strike. Here are a body of men coming to us, wishing to be shown how to do that which is a right thing for them to do--well or ill off, strike or no strike, namely, associate; and we will help and teach them to do _that_ to the very utmost of our power.' "The Iron Workers' co-operative shops will be watched with lynx eyes, calumniated shamelessly. Our business will be to tell the truth about them, and fight manfully with our pens for them. But we shall never be able to get the ears of the respectabilities and the capitalists, if we appear at this stage of the business. What we must say is, 'If you are needy and enslaved, we will fight for you from pity, whether you be associated or competitive. But you are neither needy, nor, unless you choose, enslaved; and therefore we will only fight for you in proportion as you become associates. Do that, and see if we can't stand hard knocks for your sake.'--Yours ever affectionate, C. KINGSLEY." In the summer of 1852 (mainly by the continued exertions of the members of the Council, who had supplied Mr. Slaney's committee with all his evidence, and had worked hard in other ways for this object) a Bill for legalizing Industrial Associations was about to be introduced into the House of Commons. It was supposed at one time that it would be taken in hand by the Government of Lord Derby, then lately come into office, and Kingsley had been canvassing a number of persons to make sure of its passing. On hearing that a Cabinet Minister would probably undertake it, he writes-- "Let him be assured that he will by such a move do more to carry out true Conservatism, and to reconcile the workmen with the real aristocracy, than any politician for the last twenty years has done. The truth is, we are in a critical situation here in England. Not in one of danger--which is the vulgar material notion of a crisis, but at the crucial point, the point of departure of principles and parties which will hereafter become great and powerful. Old Whiggery is dead, old true blue Toryism of the Robert Inglis school is dead too-and in my eyes a great loss. But as live dogs are better than dead lions, let us see what the live dogs are. "1.--The Peelites, who will ultimately, be sure, absorb into themselves all the remains of Whiggery, and a very large proportion of the Conservative party. In an effete unbelieving age, like this, the Sadducee and the Herodian will be the most captivating philosopher. A scientific laziness, lukewarmness, and compromise, is a cheery theory for the young men of the day, and they will take to it _con amore_. I don't complain of Peel himself. He was a great man, but his method of compromise, though useful enough in particular cases when employed by a great man, becomes a most dastardly "_schema mundi_" when taken up by a school of little men. Therefore the only help which we can hope for from the Peelites is that they will serve as ballast and cooling pump to both parties, but their very trimming and moderation make them fearfully likely to obtain power. It depends on the wisdom of the present government, whether they do or not. "2.--Next you have the Manchester school, from whom Heaven defend us; for of all narrow, conceited, hypocritical, and anarchic and atheistic schemes of the universe, the Cobden and Bright one is exactly the worst. I have no language to express my contempt for it, and therefore I quote what Maurice wrote me this morning. 'If the Ministry would have thrown Protection to the dogs (as I trust they have, in spite of the base attempts of the Corn Law Leaguers to goad them to committing themselves to it, and to hold them up as the people's enemies), and thrown themselves into social measures, who would not have clung to them, to avert that horrible catastrophe of a Manchester ascendency, which I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect, morality, and freedom, and will be more likely to move a rebellion among the working men than any Tory rule which can be conceived.' "Of course it would. To pretend to be the workmen's friends, by keeping down the price of bread, when all they want thereby is to keep down wages, and increase profits, and in the meantime to widen the gulf between the working man and all that is time-honoured, refined, and chivalrous in English society, that they may make the men their divided slaves, that is-perhaps half unconsciously, for there are excellent men amongst them--the game of the Manchester School." "I have never swerved from my one idea of the last seven years, that the real battle of the time is, if England is to be saved from anarchy and unbelief, and utter exhaustion caused by the competitive enslavement of the masses, not Radical or Whig against Peelite or Tory--let the dead bury their dead-but the Church, the gentlemen, and the workman, against the shop-keepers and the Manchester School. The battle could not have been fought forty years ago, because, on one side, the Church was an idle phantasm, the gentleman too ignorant, the workman too merely animal; while, on the other, the Manchester cotton-spinners were all Tories, and the shopkeepers were a distinct class interest from theirs. But now these two latter have united, and the sublime incarnation of shop-keeping and labour-buying in the cheapest market shines forth in the person of Moses & Son, and both cotton-spinners and shop-keepers say 'This is the man!'" and join in one common press to defend his system. Be it so: now we know our true enemies, and soon the working-men will know them also. But if the present Ministry will not see the possibility of a coalition between them, and the workmen, I see no alternative but just what we have been straining every nerve to keep off--a competitive United States, a democracy before which the work of ages will go down in a few years. A true democracy, such as you and I should wish to see, is impossible without a Church and a Queen, and, as I believe, without a gentry. On the conduct of statesmen it will depend whether we are gradually and harmoniously to develop England on her ancient foundations, or whether we are to have fresh paralytic governments succeeding each other in doing nothing, while the workmen and the Manchester School fight out the real questions of the day in ignorance and fury, till the '_culbute generale_' comes, and gentlemen of ancient family, like your humble servant, betake themselves to Canada, to escape, not the Amalgamated Engineers, but their 'masters,' and the slop-working savages whom their masters' system has created, and will by that time have multiplied tenfold. "I have got a Thames boat on the lake at Bramshill, and am enjoying vigorous sculls. My answer to 'Fraser' is just coming out; spread it where you can." In the next year or two the first excitement about the co-operative movement cooled down. Parson Lot's pen was less needed, and he turned to other work in his own name. Of the richness and variety of that work this is not the place to speak, but it all bore on the great social problems which had occupied him in the earlier years. The Crimean war weighed on him like a nightmare, and modified some of his political opinions. On the resignation of Lord Aberdeen's Government on the motion for inquiry into the conduct of the war, he writes, February 5, 1855, "It is a very bad job, and a very bad time, be sure, and with a laughing House of Commons we shall go to Gehenna, even if we are not there already--But one comfort is, that even Gehenna can burn nothing but the chaff and carcases, so we shall be none the poorer in reality. So as the frost has broken gloriously, I wish you would get me a couple of dozen of good flies, viz., cock a bondhues, red palmers with plenty of gold twist; winged duns, with bodies of hare's ear and yellow mohair mixed well; hackle duns with grey bodies, and a wee silver, these last tied as palmers, and the silver ribbed all the way down. If you could send them in a week I shall be very glad, as fishing begins early." In the midst of the war he was present one day at a council meeting, after which the manager of one of the associations referring to threatened bread riots at Manchester, asked Kingsley's opinion as to what should be done. "There never were but two ways," he said, "since the beginning of the world of dealing with a corn famine. One is to let the merchants buy it up and hold it as long as they can, as we do. And this answers the purpose best in the long run, for they will be selling corn six months hence when we shall want it more than we do now, and makes us provident against our wills. The other is Joseph's plan." Here the manager broke in, "Why didn't our Government step in then, and buy largely, and store in public granaries?" "Yes," said Kingsley, "and why ain't you and I flying about with wings and dewdrops hanging to our tails. Joseph's plan won't do for us. What minister would we trust with money enough to buy corn for the people, or power to buy where he chose." And he went on to give his questioner a lecture in political economy, which the most orthodox opponent of the popular notions about Socialism would have applauded to the echo. By the end of the year he had nearly finished "Westward Ho!"--the most popular of his novels, which the war had literally wrung out of him. He writes-- ? "_December 18, 1855_. "I am getting more of a Government man every day. I don't see how they could have done better in any matter, because I don't see but that _I_ should have done a thousand times worse in their place, and that is the only fair standard. "As for a ballad--oh! my dear lad, there is no use fiddling while Rome is burning. I have nothing to sing about those glorious fellows, except 'God save the Queen and them.' I tell you the whole thing stuns me, so I cannot sit down to make fiddle rhyme with diddle about it--or blundered with hundred like Alfred Tennyson. He is no Tyrtæus, though he has a glimpse of what Tyrtæus ought to be. But I have not even that; and am going rabbit shooting to-morrow instead. But every man has his calling, and my novel is mine, because I am fit for nothing better. The book" ('Westward Ho!') "will be out the middle or end of January, if the printers choose. It is a sanguinary book, but perhaps containing doctrine profitable for these times. My only pain is that I have been forced to sketch poor Paddy as a very worthless fellow then, while just now he is turning out a hero. I have made the deliberate _amende honorable_ in a note." Then, referring to some criticism of mine on 'Westward Ho!'--"I suppose you are right as to Amyas and his mother; I will see to it. You are probably right too about John Hawkins. The letter in Purchas is to me unknown, but your conception agrees with a picture my father says he has seen of Captain John (he thinks at Lord Anglesey's, at Beaudesert) as a prim, hard, terrier-faced, little fellow, with a sharp chin, and a dogged Puritan eye. So perhaps I am wrong: but I don't think _that_ very important, for there must have been sea-dogs of my stamp in plenty too." Then, referring to the Crimean war--"I don't say that the two cases are parallel. I don't ask England to hate Russia as she was bound to hate Spain, as God's enemy; but I do think that a little Tudor pluck and Tudor democracy (paradoxical as the word may seem, and inconsistently as it was carried out then) is just what we want now." "Tummas! Have you read the story of Abou Zennab, his horse, in Stanley's 'Sinai,' p. 67? What a myth! What a poem old Wordsworth would have writ thereon! If I didn't cry like a babby over it. What a brick of a horse he must have been, and what a brick of an old head-splitter Abou Zennab must have been, to have his commandments keeped unto this day concerning of his horse; and no one to know who he was, nor when, nor how, nor nothing. I wonder if anybody'll keep _our_ commandments after we be gone, much less say, 'Eat, eat, O horse of Abou Kingsley!'" By this time the success of "Westward Ho!" and "Hypatia" had placed him in the first rank of English writers. His fame as an author, and his character as a man, had gained him a position which might well have turned any man's head. There were those amongst his intimate friends who feared that it might be so with him, and who were faithful enough to tell him so. And I cannot conclude this sketch better than by giving his answer to that one of them with whom he had been most closely associated in the time when, as Parson Lot, every man's hand had been against him-- "MY DEAR LUDLOW, "And for this fame, &c., "I know a little of her worth. "And I will tell you what I know, "That, in the first place, she is a fact, and as such, it is not wise to ignore her, but at least to walk once round her, and see her back as well as her front. "The case to me seems to be this. A man feels in himself the love of praise. Every man does who is not a brute. It is a universal human faculty; Carlyle nicknames it the sixth sense. Who made it? God or the devil? Is it flesh or spirit? a difficult question; because tamed animals grow to possess it in a high degree; and our metaphysician does not yet allow them spirit. But, whichever it be, it cannot be for bad: only bad when misdirected, and not controlled by reason, the faculty which judges between good and evil. Else why has God put His love of praise into the heart of every child which is born into the world, and entwined it into the holiest filial and family affections, as the earliest mainspring of good actions? Has God appointed that every child shall be fed first with a necessary lie, and afterwards come to the knowledge of your supposed truth, that the praise of God alone is to be sought? Or are we to believe that the child is intended to be taught as delicately and gradually as possible the painful fact, that the praise of all men is not equally worth having, and to use his critical faculty to discern the praise of good men from the praise of bad, to seek the former and despise the latter? I should say that the last was the more reasonable. And this I will say, that if you bring up any child to care nothing for the praise of its parents, its elders, its pastors, and masters, you may make a fanatic of it, or a shameless cynic: but you will neither make it a man, an Englishman, or a Christian. "But 'our Lord's words stand, about not seeking the honour which comes from men, but the honour which comes from God only!' True, they do stand, and our Lord's fact stands also, the fact that He has created every child to be educated by an honour which comes from his parents and elders. Both are true. Here, as in most spiritual things, you have an antinomia, an apparent contradiction, which nothing but the Gospel solves. And it does solve it; and your one-sided view of the text resolves itself into just the same fallacy as the old ascetic one. 'We must love God alone, therefore we must love no created thing.' To which St. John answers pertinently 'He who loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?' If you love your brethren, you love Christ in them. If you love their praise, you love the praise of Christ in them. For consider this, you cannot deny that, if one loves any person, one desires that person's esteem. But we are bound to love all men, and that is our highest state. Therefore, in our highest state, we shall desire all men's esteem. Paradoxical, but true. If we believe in Christmas-day; if we believe in Whitsunday, we shall believe that Christ is in all men, that God's spirit is abroad in the earth, and therefore the dispraise, misunderstanding, and calumny of men will be exquisitely painful to us, and ought to be so; and, on the other hand, the esteem of men, and renown among men for doing good deeds will be inexpressibly precious to us. They will be signs and warrants to us that God is pleased with us, that we are sharing in that 'honour and glory' which Paul promises again and again, with no such scruples as yours, to those who lead heroic lives. We shall not neglect the voice of God within us; but we shall remember that there is also a voice of God without us, which we must listen to; and that in a Christian land, _vox populi_, patiently and discriminately listened to, is sure to be found not far off from the _vox Dei_. "Now, let me seriously urge this last fact on you. Of course, in listening to the voice of the man outside there is a danger, as there is in the use of any faculty. You may employ it, according to Divine reason and grace, for ennobling and righteous purposes; or you may degrade it to carnal and selfish ones; so you may degrade the love of praise into vanity, into longing for the honour which comes from men, by pandering to their passions and opinions, by using your powers as they would too often like to use theirs, for mere self-aggrandisement, by saying in your heart--_quam pulchrum digito monstrari el diceri hic est_. That is the man who wrote the fine poem, who painted the fine picture, and so forth, till, by giving way to this, a man may give way to forms of vanity as base as the red Indian who sticks a fox's tail on, and dances about boasting of his brute cunning. I know all about that, as well as any poor son of Adam ever did. But I know, too, that to desire the esteem of as many rational men as possible; in a word, to desire an honourable, and true renown for having done good in my generation, has nothing to do with that; and the more I fear and struggle against the former, the more I see the exceeding beauty and divineness, and everlasting glory of the latter as an entrance into the communion of saints. "Of course, all this depends on whether we do believe that Christ is in every man, and that God's spirit is abroad in the earth. Of course, again, it will be very difficult to know who speaks by God's spirit, and who sees by Christ's light in him; but surely the wiser, the humbler path, is to give men credit for as much wisdom and rightness as possible, and to believe that when one is found fault with, one is probably in the wrong. For myself, on Looking back, I see clearly with shame and sorrow, that the obloquy which I have brought often on myself and on the good cause, has been almost all of it my own fault--that I have given the devil and bad men a handle, not by caring what people would say, but by _not caring_--by fancying that I was a very grand fellow, who was going to speak what I knew to be true, in spite of all fools (and really did and do intend so to do), while all the while I was deceiving myself, and unaware of a canker at the heart the very opposite to the one against which you warn me. I mean the proud, self-willed, self-conceited spirit which made no allowance for other men's weakness or ignorance; nor again, for their superior experience and wisdom on points which I had never considered--which took a pride in shocking and startling, and defying, and hitting as hard as I could, and fancied, blasphemously, as I think, that the word of God had come to me only, and went out from me only. God forgive me for these sins, as well as for my sins in the opposite direction; but for these sins especially, because I see them to be darker and more dangerous than the others. "For there has been gradually revealed to me (what my many readings in the lives of fanatics and ascetics ought to have taught me long before), that there is a terrible gulf ahead of that not caring what men say. Of course it is a feeling on which the spirit must fall back in hours of need, and cry, 'Thou, God, knowest mine integrity. I have believed, and therefore I will speak; thou art true, though all men be liars!' But I am convinced that that is a frame in which no man can live, or is meant to live; that it is only to be resorted to in fear and trembling, after deepest self-examination, and self-purification, and earnest prayer. For otherwise, Ludlow, a man gets to forget that voice of God without him, in his determination to listen to nothing but the voice of God within him, and so he falls into two dangers. He forgets that there is a voice of God without him. He loses trust in, and charity to, and reverence for his fellow-men; he learns to despise, deny, and quench the Spirit, and to despise prophesyings, and so becomes gradually cynical, sectarian, fanatical. "And then comes a second and worse danger. Crushed into self, and his own conscience and _schema mundi_, he loses the opportunity of correcting his impression of the voice of God within, by the testimony of the voice of God without; and so he begins to mistake more and more the voice of that very flesh of his, which he fancies he has conquered, for the voice of God, and to become, without knowing it, an autotheist. And out of that springs eclecticism, absence of tenderness _for_ men, for want of sympathy _with_ men; as he makes his own conscience his standard for God, so he makes his own character the standard for men; and so he becomes narrow, hard, and if he be a man of strong will and feelings, often very inhuman and cruel. This is the history of thousands-of Jeromes, Lauds, Puritans who scourged Quakers, Quakers who cursed Puritans; nonjurors, who though they would die rather than offend their own conscience in owning William, would plot with James to murder William, or to devastate England with Irish Rapparees and Auvergne dragoons. This, in fact, is the spiritual diagnosis of those many pious persecutors, who though neither hypocrites or blackguards themselves, have used both as instruments of their fanaticism. "Against this I have to guard myself, you little know how much, and to guard my children still more, brought up, as they will be, under a father, who, deeply discontented with the present generation, cannot but express that discontent at times. To make my children '_banausoi_,' insolent and scoffing radicals, believing in nobody and nothing but themselves, would be perfectly easy in me if I were to make the watchword of my house, 'Never mind what people say.' On the contrary, I shall teach them that there are plenty of good people in the world; that public opinion has pretty surely an undercurrent of the water of life, below all its froth and garbage; and that in a Christian country like this, where, with all faults, a man (sooner or later) has fair play and a fair hearing, the esteem of good men, and the blessings of the poor, will be a pretty sure sign that they have the blessing of God also; and I shall tell them, when they grow older, that ere they feel called on to become martyrs, in defending the light within them against all the world, they must first have taken care most patiently, and with all self-distrust and humility, to make full use of the light which is around them, and has been here for ages before them, and would be here still, though they had never been born or thought of. The antinomy between this and their own conscience may be painful enough to them some day. To what thinking man is it not a life-long battle? but I shall not dream that by denying one pole of the antinomy I can solve it, or do anything but make them, by cynicism or fanaticism, bury their talent in the earth, and _not_ do the work which God has given them to do, because they will act like a parson who, before beginning his sermon, should first kick his congregation out of doors, and turn the key; and not like St. Paul, who became all things to all men, if by any means he might save some. "Yours ever affectionately, with all Christmas blessings, "C. KINGSLEY. "FARLY COURT, _December 26, 1855_. "I should be very much obliged to you to show this letter to Maurice." One more letter only I will add, dated about the end of the "Parson Lot" period. He had written to inform me that one of the old Chartist leaders, a very worthy fellow, was in great distress, and to ask me to do what I could for him. In my reply I had alluded somewhat bitterly to the apparent failure of the Association movement in London, and to some of our blunders, acknowledging how he had often seen the weak places, and warned us against them. His answer came by return of post:-- "EVERSLEY, _May, 1856_. "DEAR TOM,--It's an ill bird that fouls its own nest; and don't cry stinking fish, neither don't hollow till you're out of the wood--which you oughtn't to have called yourself Tom fool, and blasphemed the holy name thereby, till you knowed you was sich, which you wasn't, as appears by particulars. And I have heard from T---- twice to-day, and he is agreeable, which, if he wasn't, he is an ass, and don't know half a loaf is better than no bread, and you musn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but all is as right as a dog-fox down wind and vi. _millia passuum_, to the next gorse. But this £25 of his is a grueller, and I learnt with interest that you are inclined to get the fishes nose out of the weed. I have offered to lend him £10--hopes it may be lending--and have written a desperate begging letter to R. Monckton Milnes, Esq., which 'evins prosper. Poor T---- says to-night that he has written to Forster about it--which he must have the small of his back very hard against the ropes so to do, so the sooner we get the ginger-beer bottle out the longer he'll fight, or else he'll throw up the sponge at once; for I know his pride. I think we can raise it somehow. I have a last card in old ----, the judge who tried and condemned him, and is the dearest old soul alive, only he will have it T---- showed dunghill, and don't carry a real game nackle. If I am to tackle he you must send me back those letters to appeal to his piety and 'joys as does abound,' as your incomparable father remarks. When _will_ you give me that canticle? He says Tom Taylor (I believe all the world is called Thomas) has behaved to him like a brother, which, indeed, was to be expexed, and has promised him copying at a shilling an hour, and _will_ give him a chop daily free gracious; but the landlord won't wait, which we musn't neither. "Now, business afore pleasure. You are an old darling, and who says no, I'd kick him, if it warn't for my cloth; but you are green in cottoning to me about our '48 mess. Because why? I lost nothing--I risked nothing. You fellows worked like bricks, spent money, and got midshipman's half-pay (nothing a-day and find yourself), and monkey's allowance (more kicks than halfpence). I risked no money; 'cause why, I had none; but _made_ money out of the movement, and fame too. I've often thought what a dirty beast I was. I made £150 by Alton Locke, and never lost a farthing; and I got, not in spite of, but by the rows, a name and a standing with many a one who would never have heard of me otherwise, and I should have been a stercoraceous mendicant if I had hollowed when I got a facer, while I was winning by the cross, though I didn't mean to fight one. No. And if I'd had £100,000, I'd have, and should have, staked and lost it all in 1848-50. I should, Tom, for my heart was and is in it, and you'll see it will beat yet; but we ain't the boys. We don't see but half the bull's eye yet, and don't see _at all_ the policeman which is a going on his beat behind the bull's eye, and no thanks to us. Still, _some_ somedever, it's in the fates, that Association is the pure caseine, and must be eaten by the human race if it would save its soul alive, which, indeed, it will; only don't you think me a good fellow for not crying out, when I never had more to do than scratch myself and away went the fleas. But you all were real bricks; and if you were riled, why let him that is without sin cast the first stone, or let me cast it for him, and see if I don't hit him in the eye. "Now to business; I have had a sortér kindèr sample day. Up at 5, to see a dying man; ought to have been up at 2, but Ben King the rat-catcher, who came to call me, was taken nervous!!! and didn't make row enough; was from 5.30 to 6.30 with the most dreadful case of agony--insensible to me, but not to his pain. Came home, got a wash and a pipe, and again to him at 8. Found him insensible to his own pain, with dilated pupils, dying of pressure of the brain--going any moment. Prayed the commendatory prayers over him, and started for the river with West. Fished all the morning in a roaring N.E. gale, with the dreadful agonized face between me and the river, pondering on THE mystery. Killed eight on 'March brown' and 'governor,' by drowning the flies, and taking _'em out gently to see_ if ought was there--which is the only dodge in a north-easter. 'Cause why? The water is warmer than the air--_ergo_, fishes don't like to put their noses out o' doors, and feeds at home down stairs. It is the only wrinkle, Tom. The captain fished a-top, and caught but three all day. They weren't going to catch a cold in their heads to please him or any man. Clouds burn up at 1 P.M. I put on a minnow, and kill three more; I should have had lots, but for the image of the dirty hickory stick, which would 'walk the waters like a thing of life,' just ahead of my minnow. Mem.--Never fish with the sun in your back; it's bad enough with a fly, but with a minnow it's strichnine and prussic acid. My eleven weighed together four and a-half pounds--three to the pound; not good, considering I had spased many a two-pound fish, I _know_. "Corollary.--Brass minnow don't suit the water. Where is your wonderful minnow? Send him me down, or else a _horn_ one, which I believes in desperate; but send me something before Tuesday, and I will send you P.O.O. Horn minnow looks like a gudgeon, which is the pure caseine. One pounder I caught to-day on the 'March brown' womited his wittles, which was rude, but instructive; and among worms was a gudgeon three inches long and more. Blow minnows--gudgeon is the thing. "Came off the water at 3. Found my man alive, and, thank God, quiet. Sat with him, and thought him going once or twice. What a mystery that long, insensible death-struggle is! Why should they be so long about it? Then had to go Hartley Row for an Archdeacon's Sunday-school meeting--three hours useless (I fear) speechifying and 'shop'; but the Archdeacon is a good man, and works like a brick beyond his office. Got back at 10:30, and sit writing to you. So goes one's day. All manner of incongruous things to do--and the very incongruity keeps one beany and jolly. Your letter was delightful. I read part of it to West, who says, you are the best fellow on earth, to which I agree. "So no more from your sleepy and tired--C. KINGSLEY." This was almost the last letter I ever received from him in the Parson Lot period of his life, with which alone this notice has to do. It shows, I think, very clearly that it was not that he had deserted his flag (as has been said) or changed his mind about the cause for which he had fought so hard and so well. His heart was in it still as warmly as ever, as he says himself. But the battle had rolled away to another part of the field. Almost all that Parson Lot had ever striven for was already gained. The working-classes had already got statutory protection for their trade associations, and their unions, though still outside the law, had become strong enough to fight their own battles. And so he laid aside his fighting name and his fighting pen, and had leisure to look calmly on the great struggle more as a spectator than an actor. A few months later, in the summer of 1856, when he and I were talking over and preparing for a week's fishing in the streams and lakes of his favourite Snowdonia, he spoke long and earnestly in the same key. I well remember how he wound it all up with, "the long and short of it is, I am becoming an optimist. All men, worth anything, old men especially, have strong fits of optimism--even Carlyle has--because they can't help hoping, and sometimes feeling, that the world is going right, and will go right, not your way, or my way, but its own way. Yes; we've all tried our Holloway's Pills, Tom, to cure all the ills of all the world--and we've all found out I hope by this time that the tough old world has more in its inside than any Holloway's Pills will clear out." A few weeks later I received the following invitation to Snowdon, and to Snowdon we went in the autumn of 1856. THE INVITATION. Come away with me, Tom, Term and talk is done; My poor lads are reaping, Busy every one. Curates mind the parish, Sweepers mind the Court, We'll away to Snowdon For our ten days' sport, Fish the August evening Till the eve is past, Whoop like boys at pounders Fairly played and grassed. When they cease to dimple, Lunge, and swerve, and leap, Then up over Siabod Choose our nest, and sleep. Up a thousand feet, Tom, Round the lion's head, Find soft stones to leeward And make up our bed. Bat our bread and bacon, Smoke the pipe of peace, And, ere we be drowsy, Give our boots a grease. Homer's heroes did so, Why not such as we? What are sheets and servants? Superfluity. Pray for wives and children Safe in slumber curled, Then to chat till midnight O'er this babbling world. Of the workmen's college, Of the price of grain, Of the tree of knowledge, Of the chance of rain; If Sir A. goes Romeward, If Miss B. sings true, If the fleet comes homeward, If the mare will do,-- Anything and everything-- Up there in the sky Angels understand us, And no "_saints_" are by. Down, and bathe at day-dawn, Tramp from lake to lake, Washing brain and heart clean Every step we take. Leave to Robert Browning Beggars, fleas, and vines; Leave to mournful Ruskin Popish Apennines, Dirty Stones of Venice And his Gas-lamps Seven; We've the stones of Snowdon And the lamps of heaven. Where's the mighty credit In admiring Alps? Any goose sees "glory" In their "snowy scalps." Leave such signs and wonders For the dullard brain, As æsthetic brandy, Opium, and cayenne; Give me Bramshill common (St. John's harriers by), Or the vale of Windsor, England's golden eye. Show me life and progress, Beauty, health, and man; Houses fair, trim gardens, Turn where'er I can. Or, if bored with "High Art," And such popish stuff, One's poor ears need airing, Snowdon's high enough. While we find God's signet Fresh on English ground, Why go gallivanting With the nations round? Though we try no ventures Desperate or strange; Feed on common-places In a narrow range; Never sought for Franklin Round the frozen Capes; Even, with Macdougall, Bagged our brace of apes; Never had our chance, Tom, In that black Redan; Can't avenge poor Brereton Out in Sakarran; Tho' we earn our bread, Tom, By the dirty pen, What we can we will be, Honest Englishmen. Do the work that's nearest, Though it's dull at whiles; Helping, when we meet them Lame dogs over stiles; See in every hedgerow Marks of angels' feet, Epics in each pebble Underneath our feet; Once a-year, like schoolboys, Robin-Hooding go. Leaving fops and fogies A thousand feet below. T. H. CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY. King Ryence, says the legend of Prince Arthur, wore a paletot trimmed with kings' beards. In the first French Revolution (so Carlyle assures us) there were at Meudon tanneries of human skins. Mammon, at once tyrant and revolutionary, follows both these noble examples--in a more respectable way, doubtless, for Mammon hates cruelty; bodily pain is his devil--the worst evil of which he, in his effeminacy, can conceive. So he shrieks benevolently when a drunken soldier is flogged; but he trims his paletots, and adorns his legs, with the flesh of men and the skins of women, with degradation, pestilence, heathendom, and despair; and then chuckles self-complacently over the smallness of his tailors' bills. Hypocrite!--straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! What is flogging, or hanging, King Ryence's paletot, or the tanneries of Meudon, to the slavery, starvation, waste of life, year-long imprisonment in dungeons narrower and fouler than those of the Inquisition, which goes on among thousands of free English clothes-makers at this day? "The man is mad," says Mammon, smiling supercilious pity. Yes, Mammon; mad as Paul before Festus; and for much the same reason, too. Much learning has made us mad. From two articles in the "Morning Chronicle" of Friday, Dec. 14th, and Tuesday, Dec. 18th, on the Condition of the Working Tailors, we learnt too much to leave us altogether masters of ourselves. But there is method in our madness; we can give reasons for it--satisfactory to ourselves, perhaps also to Him who made us, and you, and all tailors likewise. Will you, freshly bedizened, you and your footmen, from Nebuchadnezzar and Co.'s "Emporium of Fashion," hear a little about how your finery is made? You are always calling out for facts, and have a firm belief in salvation by statistics. Listen to a few. The Metropolitan Commissioner of the "Morning Chronicle" called two meetings of the Working Tailors, one in Shadwell, and the other at the Hanover Square Rooms, in order to ascertain their condition from their own lips. Both meetings were crowded. At the Hanover Square Rooms there were more than one thousand men; they were altogether unanimous in their descriptions of the misery and slavery which they endured. It appears that there are two distinct tailor trades--the "honourable" trade, now almost confined to the West End, and rapidly dying out there, and the "dishonourable" trade of the show-shops and slop-shops--the plate-glass palaces, where gents--and, alas! those who would be indignant at that name--buy their cheap-and-nasty clothes. The two names are the tailors' own slang; slang is true and expressive enough, though, now and then. The honourable shops in the West End number only sixty; the dishonourable, four hundred and more; while at the East End the dishonourable trade has it all its own way. The honourable part of the trade is declining at the rate of one hundred and fifty journeymen per year; the dishonourable increasing at such a rate that, in twenty years it will have absorbed the whole tailoring trade, which employs upwards of twenty-one thousand journeymen. At the honourable shops the work is done, as it was universally thirty years ago, on the premises and at good wages. In the dishonourable trade, the work is taken home by the men, to be done at the very lowest possible prices, which decrease year by year, almost month by month. At the honourable shops, from 36s. to 24s. is paid for a piece of work for which the dishonourable shop pays from 22s. to 9s. But not to the workmen; happy is he if he really gets two-thirds, or half of that. For at the honourable shops, the master deals directly with his workmen; while at the dishonourable ones, the greater part of the work, if not the whole, is let out to contractors, or middle-men--"_sweaters_," as their victims significantly call them--who, in their turn, let it out again, sometimes to the workmen, sometimes to fresh middlemen; so that out of the price paid for labour on each article, not only the workmen, but the sweater, and perhaps the sweater's sweater, and a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, have to draw their profit. And when the labour price has been already beaten down to the lowest possible, how much remains for the workmen after all these deductions, let the poor fellows themselves say! One working tailor (at the Hanover Square Rooms Meeting) "mentioned a number of shops, both at the east and west ends, whose work was all taken by sweaters; and several of these shops were under royal and noble patronage. There was one notorious sweater who kept his carriage. He was a Jew, and, of course, he gave a preference to his own sect. Thus, another Jew received it from him second hand and at a lower rate; then it went to a third--till it came to the unfortunate Christian at perhaps the eighth rate, and he performed the work at barely living prices; this same Jew required a deposit of 5_l_. in money before he would give out a single garment to be made. He need not describe the misery which this system entailed upon the workmen. It was well known, but it was almost impossible, except for those who had been at the two, to form an idea of the difference between the present meeting and one at the East-end, where all who attended worked for slop-shops and sweaters. The present was a highly respectable assembly; the other presented no other appearance but those of misery and degradation." Another says--"We have all worked in the honourable trade, so we know the regular prices from our own personal experience. Taking the bad work with the good work we might earn 11s. a week upon an average. Sometimes we do earn as much as 15s.; but, to do this, we are obliged to take part of our work home to our wives and daughters. We are not always fully employed. We are nearly half our time idle. Hence, our earnings are, upon an average throughout the year, not more than 5s. 6d. a week." "Very often I have made only 3s. 4d. in the week," said one. "That's common enough with us all, I can assure you," said another. "Last week my wages was 7s. 6d.," declared one. "I earned 6s. 4d.," exclaimed the second. "My wages came to 9s. 2d. The week before I got 6s. 3d." "I made 7s. 9d.," and "I 7s. or 8s., I can't exactly remember which." "This is what we term the best part of our winter season. The reason why we are so long idle is because more hands than are wanted are kept on the premises, so that in case of a press of work coming in, our employers can have it done immediately. Under the day work system no master tailor had more men on the premises than he could keep continually going; but since the change to the piecework system, masters made a practice of engaging double the quantity of hands that they have any need for, so that an order may be executed 'at the shortest possible notice,' if requisite. A man must not leave the premises when, unemployed,--if he does, he loses his chance of work coming in. I have been there four days together, and had not a stitch of work to do." "Yes; that is common enough." "Ay, and then you're told, if you complain, you can go, if you don't like it. I am sure twelve hands would do all they have done at home, and yet they keep forty of us. It's generally remarked that, however strong and healthy a man may be when he goes to work at that shop, in a month's time he'll be a complete shadow, and have almost all his clothes in pawn. By Sunday morning, he has no money at all left, and he has to subsist till the following Saturday upon about a pint of weak tea, and four slices of bread and butter per day!!!" "Another of the reasons for the sweaters keeping more hands than they want is, the men generally have their meals with them. The more men they have with them the more breakfasts and teas they supply, and the more profit they make. The men usually have to pay 4d., and very often, 5d. for their breakfast, and the same for their tea. The tea or breakfast is mostly a pint of tea or coffee, and three to four slices of bread and butter. _I worked for one sweater who almost starved the men; the smallest eater there would not have had enough if he had got three times as much. They had only three thin slices of bread and butter, not sufficient for a child, and the tea was both weak and bad. The whole meal could not have stood him in 2d. a head, and what made it worse was, that the men who worked there couldn't afford to have dinners, so that they were starved to the bone._ The sweater's men generally lodge where they work. A sweater usually keeps about six men. These occupy two small garrets; one room is called the kitchen, and the other the workshop; and here the whole of the six men, and the sweater, his wife, and family, live and sleep. One sweater _I worked with had four children and six men, and they, together with his wife, sister-in-law, and himself, all lived in two rooms, the largest of which was about eight feet by ten. We worked in the smallest room and slept there as well--all six of us. There were two turnup beds in it, and we slept three in a bed. There was no chimney, and, indeed, no ventilation whatever. I was near losing my life there--the foul air of so many people working all day in the place, and sleeping there at night, was quite suffocating. Almost all the men were consumptive, and I myself attended the dispensary for disease of the lungs. The room in which we all slept was not more than six feet square. We were all sick and weak, and loth to work._ Each of the six of us paid 2s. 6d. a week for our lodging, or 15s. altogether, and I am sure such a room as we slept and worked in might be had for 1s. a week; you can get a room with a fire-place for 1s. 6d. a week. The usual sum that the men working for sweaters pay for their tea, breakfasts, and lodging is 6s. 6d. to 7s. a week, and they seldom earn more money in the week. Occasionally at the week's end they are in debt to the sweater. This is seldom for more than 6d., for the sweater will not give them victuals if he has no work for them to do. Many who live and work at the sweater's are married men, and are obliged to keep their wives and children in lodgings by themselves. Some send them to the workhouse, others to their friends in the country. Besides the profit of the board and lodging, the sweater takes 6d. out of the price paid for every garment under 10s.; some take 1s., and I do know of one who takes as much as 2s. This man works for a large show-shop at the West End. The usual profit of the sweater, over and above the board and lodging, is 2s. out of every pound. Those who work for sweaters soon lose their clothes, and are unable to seek for other work, because they have not a coat to their back to go and seek it in. _Last week, I worked with another man at a coat for one of her Majesty's ministers, and my partner never broke his fast while he was making his half of it._ The minister dealt at a cheap West End show-shop. All the workman had the whole day-and-a-half he was making the coat was a little tea. But sweaters' work is not so bad as government work after all. At that, we cannot make more than 4s. or 5s. a week altogether--that is, counting the time we are running after it, of course. _Government contract work is the worst of all, and the starved-out and sweated-out tailor's last resource._ But still, government does not do the regular trade so much harm as the cheap show and slop shops. These houses have ruined thousands. They have cut down the prices, so that men cannot live at the work; and the masters who did and would pay better wages, are reducing the workmen's pay every day. They say they must either compete with the large show shops or go into the 'Gazette.'" Sweet competition! Heavenly maid!--Now-a-days hymned alike by penny-a-liners and philosophers as the ground of all society--the only real preserver of the earth! Why not of Heaven, too? Perhaps there is competition among the angels, and Gabriel and Raphael have won their rank by doing the maximum of worship on the minimum of grace? We shall know some day. In the meanwhile, "these are thy works, thou parent of all good!" Man eating man, eaten by man, in every variety of degree and method! Why does not some enthusiastic political economist write an epic on "The Consecration of Cannibalism"? But if any one finds it pleasant to his soul to believe the poor journeymen's statements exaggerated, let him listen to one of the sweaters themselves:-- "I wish," says he, "that others did for the men as decently as I do. I know there are many who are living entirely upon them. Some employ as many as fourteen men. I myself worked in the house of a man who did this. The chief part of us lived, and worked, and slept together in two rooms, on the second floor. They charged 2s. 6d. per head for the lodging alone. Twelve of the workmen, I am sure, lodged in the house, and these paid altogether 30s. a week rent to the sweater. I should think the sweater paid 8s. a week for the rooms--so that he gained at least 22s. clear out of the lodging of these men, and stood at no rent himself. For the living of the men he charged--5d. for breakfasts, and the same for teas, and 8d. for dinner--or at the rate of 10s. 6d. each per head. Taking one with the other, and considering the manner in which they lived, I am certain that the cost for keeping each of them could not have been more than 5s. This would leave 5s. 6d. clear profit on the board of each of the twelve men, or, altogether, £3, 6s. per week; and this, added to the £1, 2s. profit on the rent, would give £4, 8s. for the sweater's gross profit on the board and lodging of the workmen in his place. But, besides this, he got 1s. out of each coat made on his premises, and there were twenty-one coats made there, upon an average, every week; so that, altogether, the sweater's clear gains out of the men were £5, 9s. every week. Each man made about a coat and a half in the course of the seven days (_for they all worked on a Sunday--they were generally told to 'borrow a day off the Lord_.') For this coat and a half each hand got £1, 2s. 6d., and out of it he had to pay 13s. for board and lodging; so that there was 9s. 6d. clear left. These are the profits of the sweater, and the earnings of the men engaged under him, when working for the first rate houses. But many of the cheap houses pay as low as 8s. for the making of each dress and frock coat, and some of them as low as 6s. Hence the earnings of the men at such work would be from 9s. to 12s. per week, and the cost of their board and lodging without dinners, for these they seldom have, would be from 7s. 6d. to 8s. per week. Indeed, the men working under sweaters at such prices generally consider themselves well off if they have a shilling or two in their pockets for Sunday. The profits of the sweater, however, would be from £4 to £5 out of twelve men, working on his premises. The usual number of men working under each sweater is about six individuals; and the average rate of profit, about £2, 10s., without the sweater doing any work himself. It is very often the case that a man working under a sweater is obliged to pawn his own coat to get any pocket-money that he may require. Over and over again the sweater makes out that he is in his debt from 1s. to 2s. at the end of the week, and when the man's coat is in pledge, he is compelled to remain imprisoned in the sweater's lodgings for months together. In some sweating places, there is an old coat kept called a "reliever," and this is borrowed by such men as have none of their own to go out in. There are very few of the sweaters' men who have a coat to their backs or a shoe to their feet to come out into the streets on Sunday. Down about Fulwood's Rents, Holborn, I am sure I would not give 6d. for the clothes that are on a dozen of them; and it is surprising to me, working and living together in such numbers and in such small close rooms, in narrow close back courts as they do, that they are not all swept off by some pestilence. I myself have seen half-a-dozen men at work in a room that was a little better than a bedstead long. It was as much as one could do to move between the wall and the bedstead when it was down. There were two bedsteads in this room, and they nearly filled the place when they were down. The ceiling was so low, that I couldn't stand upright in the room. There was no ventilation in the place. There was no fireplace, and only a small window. When the window was open, you could nearly touch the houses at the back, and if the room had not been at the top of the house, the men could not have seen at all in the place. The staircase was so narrow, steep, and dark, that it was difficult to grope your way to the top of the house--it was like going up a steeple. This is the usual kind of place in which the sweater's men are lodged. The reason why there are so many Irishmen working for the sweaters is, because they are seduced over to this country by the prospect of high wages and plenty of work. They are brought over by the Cork boats at 10s. a-head, and when they once get here, the prices they receive are so small, that they are unable to go back. In less than a week after they get here, their clothes are all pledged, and they are obliged to continue working under the sweaters. "The extent to which this system of 'street kidnapping' is carried on is frightful. Young tailors, fresh from the country, are decoyed by the sweaters' wives into their miserable dens, under extravagant promises of employment, to find themselves deceived, imprisoned, and starved, often unable to make their escape for months--perhaps years; and then only fleeing from one dungeon to another as abominable." In the meantime, the profits of the beasts of prey who live on these poor fellows--both masters and sweaters--seem as prodigious as their cruelty. Hear another working tailor on this point:--"In 1844, I belonged to the honourable part of the trade. Our house of call supplied the present show-shop with men to work on the premises. The prices then paid were at the rate of 6d. per hour. For the same driving capes that they paid 18s. then, they give only 12s. for now. For the dress and frock coats they gave 15s. then, and now they are 14s. The paletots and shooting coats were 12s.; there was no coat made on the premises under that sum. At the end of the season, they wanted to reduce the paletots to 9s. The men refused to make them at that price, when other houses were paying as much as 15s. for them. The consequence of this was, the house discharged all the men, and got a Jew middle-man from the neighbourhood of Petticoat-lane, to agree to do them all at 7s. 6d. a piece. The Jew employed all the poor people who were at work for the slop warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This Jew makes on an average 500 paletots a week. The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit out of each, and having no sewing trimmings allowed to him, he makes the work-people find them. The saving in trimmings alone to the firm, since the workmen left the premises, must have realized a small fortune to them. Calculating men, women, and children, I have heard it said that the cheap house at the West End employs 1,000 hands. The trimmings for the work done by these would be about 6d. a week per head, so that the saving to the house since the men worked on the premises has been no less than £1,300 a year, and all this taken out of the pockets of the poor. The Jew who contracts for making the paletots is no tailor at all. A few years ago he sold sponges in the street, and now he rides in his carriage. The Jew's profits are 500 half-crowns, or £60 odd, per week--that is upwards of £3,000 a-year. Women are mostly engaged at the paletot work. When I came to work for the cheap show-shop I had £5, 10s. in the saving bank; now I have not a half-penny in it. All I had saved went little by little to keep me and my family. I have always made a point of putting some money by when I could afford it, but since I have been at this work it has been as much as I could do to _live_, much more to _save_. One of the firm for which I work has been heard publicly to declare that he employed 1,000 hands constantly. Now the earnings of these at the honourable part of the trade would be upon an average, taking the skilful with the unskilful, 15s. a week each, or £39,000 a year. But since they discharged the men from off their premises, they have cut down the wages of the workmen one-half--taking one garment with another--_though the selling prices remain the same to the public_, so that they have saved by the reduction of the workmen's wages no less than £19,500 per year. Every other quarter of a year something has been 'docked' off our earnings, until it is almost impossible for men with families to live decently by their labour; and now, for the first time, they pretend to feel for them. They even talk of erecting a school for the children of their workpeople; but where is the use of erecting schools, when they know as well as we do, that at the wages they pay, the children must be working for their fathers at home? They had much better erect workshops, and employ the men on the premises at fair living wages, and then the men could educate their own children, without being indebted to their charity." On this last question of what the master-cannibals had "much better do," we have somewhat to say presently. In the meantime, hear another of the things which they had much better _not_ do. "Part of the fraud and deception of the slop trade consists in the mode in which the public are made believe that the men working for such establishments earn more money than they really do. The plan practised is similar to that adopted by the army clothier, who made out that the men working on his establishment made per week from 15s. to 17s. each, whereas, on inquiry, it was found that a considerable sum was paid out of that to those who helped to do the looping for those who took it home. When a coat is given to me to make, a ticket is handed to me with the garment, similar to this one which I have obtained from a friend of mine. +--------------------------------------------+ | 448 | | Mr. _Smith_ 6,675 Made by _M_ | | _Ze_ = 12s. = _lined lustre | | quilted double stitched | | each side seams_ | | | | 448. No. 6,675. | | o'clock _Friday_ | | | | Mr. _Smith_ | +--------------------------------------------+ On this you see the price is marked at 12s.," continued my informant, "and supposing that I, with two others, could make three of these garments in the week, the sum of thirty-six shillings would stand in the books of the establishment as the amount earned by me in that space of time. This would be sure to be exhibited to the customers, immediately that there was the least outcry made about the starvation price they paid for their work, as a proof that the workpeople engaged on their establishment received the full prices; whereas, of that 36s. entered against my name, _I should have had to pay 24s. to those who assisted me_; besides this, my share of the trimmings and expenses would have been 1s. 6d., and probably my share of the fires would be 1s. more; so that the real fact would be, that I should make 9s. 6d. clear, and this it would be almost impossible to do, if I did not work long over hours. I am obliged to keep my wife continually at work helping me, in order to live." In short, the condition of these men is far worse than that of the wretched labourers of Wilts or Dorset. Their earnings are as low and often lower; their trade requires a far longer instruction, far greater skill and shrewdness; their rent and food are more expensive; and their hours of work, while they have work, more than half as long again. Conceive sixteen or eighteen hours of skilled labour in a stifling and fetid chamber, earning not much more than 6s. 6d. or 7s. a week! And, as has been already mentioned in one case, the man who will earn even that, must work all Sunday. He is even liable to be thrown out of his work for refusing to work on Sunday. Why not? Is there anything about one idle day in seven to be found among the traditions of Mammon? When the demand comes, the supply must come; and will, in spite of foolish auld-warld notion about keeping days holy--or keeping contracts holy either, for, indeed, Mammon has no conscience--right and wrong are not words expressible by any commercial laws yet in vogue; and therefore it appears that to earn this wretched pittance is by no means to get it. "For," says one, and the practice is asserted to be general, almost universal, "there is at our establishment a mode of reducing the price of our labour even lower than we have mentioned. The prices we have stated are those _nominally_ paid for making the garments; but it is not an uncommon thing in our shop for a man to make a garment, and receive nothing at all for it. I remember a man once having a waistcoat to do, the price of making which was 2s., and when he gave the job in he was told that he owed the establishment 6d. The manner in which this is brought about is by a system of fines. We are fined if we are behind time with our job, 6d. the first hour, and 3d. for each hour that we are late." "I have known as much as 7s. 6d. to be deducted off the price of a coat on the score of want of punctuality," one said; "and, indeed, very often the whole money is stopped. It would appear, as if our employers themselves strove to make us late with our work, and so have an opportunity of cutting down the price paid for our labour. They frequently put off giving out the trimmings to us till the time at which the coat is due has expired. If to the trimmer we return an answer that is considered 'saucy,' we are find 6d. or 1s., according to the trimmer's temper." "I was called a thief," another of the three declared, "and because I told the man I would not submit to such language, I was fined 6d. These are the principal of the in-door fines. The out-door fines are still more iniquitous. There are full a dozen more fines for minor offences; indeed, we are fined upon every petty pretext. We never know what we have to take on a Saturday, for the meanest advantages are taken to reduce our wages. If we object to pay these fines, we are told that we may leave; but they know full well that we are afraid to throw ourselves out of work." Folks are getting somewhat tired of the old rodomontade that a slave is free the moment he sets foot on British soil! Stuff!--are these tailors free? Put any conceivable sense you will on the word, and then say--are they free? We have, thank God, emancipated the black slaves; it would seem a not inconsistent sequel to that act to set about emancipating these white ones. Oh! we forgot; there is an infinite difference between the two cases--the black slaves worked for our colonies; the white slaves work for _us_. But, indeed, if, as some preach, self-interest is the mainspring of all human action, it is difficult to see who will step forward to emancipate the said white slaves; for all classes seem to consider it equally their interest to keep them as they are; all classes, though by their own confession they are ashamed, are yet not afraid to profit by the system which keeps them down. Not only the master tailors and their underlings, but the retail tradesmen, too, make their profit out of these abominations. By a method which smacks at first sight somewhat of benevolence, but proves itself in practice to be one of those "precious balms which break," not "the head" (for that would savour of violence, and might possibly give some bodily pain, a thing intolerable to the nerves of Mammon) but the heart--an organ which, being spiritual, can of course be recognized by no laws of police or commerce. The object of the State, we are told, is "the conservation of body and goods"; there is nothing in that about broken hearts; nothing which should make it a duty to forbid such a system as a working-tailor here describes-- "Fifteen or twenty years ago, such a thing as a journeyman tailor having to give security before he could get work was unknown; but now I and such as myself could not get a stitch to do first handed, if we did not either procure the security of some householder, or deposit £5 in the hands of the employer. The reason of this is, the journeymen are so badly paid, that the employers know they can barely live on what they get, and consequently they are often driven to pawn the garments given out to them, in order to save themselves and their families from starving. If the journeyman can manage to scrape together £5, he has to leave it in the hands of his employer all the time that he is working for the house. I know one person who gives out the work for a fashionable West End slop-shop that will not take household security, and requires £5 from each hand. I am informed by one of the parties who worked for this man that he has as many as 150 hands in his employ, and that each of these has placed £5 in his hands, so that altogether the poor people have handed over £750 to increase the capital upon which he trades, and for which he pays no interest whatsoever." This recalls a similar case (mentioned by a poor stay-stitcher in another letter, published in the "Morning Chronicle"), of a large wholesale staymaker in the City, who had amassed a large fortune by beginning to trade upon the 5s. which he demanded to be left in his hands by his workpeople before he gave them employment. "Two or three years back one of the slopsellers at the East End became bankrupt, and the poor people lost all the money that had been deposited as security for work in his hands. The journeymen who get the security of householders are enabled to do so by a system which is now in general practice at the East End. Several bakers, publicans, chandler-shop keepers, and coal-shed keepers, make a trade of becoming security for those seeking slop-work. They consent to be responsible for the workpeople upon the condition of the men dealing at their shops. The workpeople who require such security are generally very good customers, from the fact of their either having large families, all engaged in the same work, or else several females or males working under them, and living at their house. The parties becoming securities thus not only greatly increase their trade, but furnish a second-rate article at a first-rate price. It is useless to complain of the bad quality or high price of the articles supplied by the securities, for the shopkeepers know, as well as the workpeople, that it is impossible for the hands to leave them without losing their work. I know one baker whose security was refused at the slop-shop because he was already responsible for so many, and he begged the publican to be his deputy, so that by this means the workpeople were obliged to deal at both baker's and publican's too. I never heard of a butcher making a trade of becoming security, _because the slopwork people cannot afford to consume much meat_. "The same system is also pursued by lodging-house keepers. They will become responsible if the workmen requiring security will undertake to lodge at their house." But of course the men most interested in keeping up the system are those who buy the clothes of these cheap shops. And who are they? Not merely the blackguard gent--the butt of Albert Smith and Punch, who flaunts at the Casinos and Cremorne Gardens in vulgar finery wrung out of the souls and bodies of the poor; not merely the poor lawyer's clerk or reduced half-pay officer who has to struggle to look as respectable as his class commands him to look on a pittance often no larger than that of the day labourer--no, strange to say--and yet not strange, considering our modern eleventh commandment--"Buy cheap and sell dear," the richest as well as the poorest imitate the example of King Ryence and the tanners of Meudon, At a great show establishment--to take one instance out of many--the very one where, as we heard just now, "however strong and healthy a man may be when he goes to work at that shop, in a month's time he will be a complete shadow, and have almost all his clothes in pawn"-- "We have also made garments for Sir ---- ----, Sir ---- ----, Alderman ----, Dr. ----, and Dr. ----. We make for several of the aristocracy. We cannot say whom, because the tickets frequently come to us as Lord ---- and the Marquis of ----. This could not be a Jew's trick, because the buttons on the liveries had coronets upon them. And again, we know the house is patronized largely by the aristocracy, clergy, and gentry, by the number of court-suits and liveries, surplices, regimentals, and ladies' riding-habits that we continually have to make up. _There are more clergymen among the customers than any other class, and often we have to work at home upon the Sunday at their clothes, in order to get a living._ The customers are mostly ashamed of dealing at this house, for the men who take the clothes to the customers' houses in the cart have directions to pull up at the corner of the street. We had a good proof of the dislike of gentlefolks to have it known that they dealt at that shop for their clothes, for when the trousers buttons were stamped with the name of the firm, we used to have the garments returned, daily, to have other buttons put on them, and now the buttons are unstamped"!!! We shall make no comment on this extract. It needs none. If these men know how their clothes are made, they are past contempt. Afraid of man, and not afraid of God! As if His eye could not see the cart laden with the plunder of the poor, because it stopped round the corner! If, on the other hand, they do _not_ know these things, and doubtless the majority do not,--it is their sin that they do not know it. Woe to a society whose only apology to God and man is, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Men ought to know the condition of those by whose labour they live. Had the question been the investment of a few pounds in a speculation, these gentlemen would have been careful enough about good security. Ought they to take no security when they invest their money in clothes, that they are not putting on their backs accursed garments, offered in sacrifice to devils, reeking with the sighs of the starving, tainted--yes, tainted, indeed, for it comes out now that diseases numberless are carried home in these same garments from the miserable abodes where they are made. Evidence to this effect was given in 1844; but Mammon was too busy to attend to it. These wretched creatures, when they have pawned their own clothes and bedding, will use as substitutes the very garments they are making. So Lord ----'s coat has been seen covering a group of children blotched with small-pox. The Rev. D---- finds himself suddenly unpresentable from a cutaneous disease, which it is not polite to mention on the south of Tweed, little dreaming that the shivering dirty being who made his coat has been sitting with his arms in the sleeves for warmth while he stitched at the tails. The charming Miss C---- is swept off by typhus or scarlatina, and her parents talk about "God's heavy judgment and visitation"--had they tracked the girl's new riding-habit back to the stifling undrained hovel where it served as a blanket to the fever-stricken slopworker, they would have seen _why_ God had visited them, seen that His judgments are true judgments, and give His plain opinion of the system which "speaketh good of the covetous whom God abhorreth"--a system, to use the words of the "Morning Chronicle's" correspondent, "unheard of and unparalleled in the history of any country--a scheme so deeply laid for the introduction and supply of under-paid labour to the market, that it is impossible for the working man not to sink and be degraded, by it into the lowest depths of wretchedness and infamy--a system which is steadily and gradually increasing, and sucking more and more victims out of the honourable trade, who are really intelligent artizans, living in comparative comfort and civilization, into the dishonourable or sweating trade in which the slopworkers are generally almost brutified by their incessant toil, wretched pay, miserable food, and filthy homes." But to us, almost the worse feature in the whole matter is, that the government are not merely parties to, but actually the originators of this system. The contract system, as a working tailor stated, in the name of the rest, "had been mainly instrumental in destroying the living wages of the working man. Now, the government were the sole originators of the system of contracts and of sweating. Forty years ago, there was nothing known of contracts, except government contracts; and at that period the contractors were confined to making slops for the navy, the army, and the West India slaves. It was never dreamt of then that such a system was to come into operation in the better classes of trade, till ultimately it was destructive of masters as well as men. The government having been the cause of the contract system, and consequently of the sweating system, he called upon them to abandon it. The sweating system had established the show shops and the ticket system, both of which were countenanced by the government, till it had become a fashion to support them. "Even the court assisted to keep the system in fashion, and the royal arms and royal warrants were now exhibited common enough by slopsellers." Government said its duty was to do justice. But was it consistent with justice to pay only 2s. 6d. for making navy jackets, which would be paid 10s. for by every 'honourable' tradesman? Was it consistent with justice for the government to pay for Royal Marine clothing (private's coat and epaulettes) 1s. 9d.? Was it consistent with justice for the government to pay for making a pair of trousers (four or five hours' work) only 2-1/2d? And yet, when a contractor, noted for paying just wages to those he employed, brought this under the consideration of the Admiralty, they declared they had nothing to do with it. Here is their answer:-- "Admiralty, March 19, 1847. "Sir,--Having laid before my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, your letter of the 8th inst., calling their attention to the extremely low prices paid for making up articles of clothing, provided for Her Majesty's naval service, I am commanded by their lordships to acquaint you, that they have no control whatever over the wages paid for making up contract clothing. Their duty is to take care that the articles supplied are of good quality, and well made: the cost of the material and the workmanship are matters which rest with the contractor; and if the public were to pay him a higher price than that demanded, it would not ensure any advantage to the men employed by him, as their wages depend upon the amount of competition for employment amongst themselves. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, "H. G. WARD. "W. Shaw, Esq." Oh most impotent conclusion, however officially cautious, and "philosophically" correct! Even if the wages did depend entirely on the amount of competition, on whom does the amount of competition depend? Merely on the gross numbers of the workmen? Somewhat, too, one would think, on the system according to which the labour and the wages are distributed. But right or wrong, is it not a pleasant answer for the poor working tailors, and one likely to increase their faith, hope, and charity towards the present commercial system, and those who deny the possibility of any other? "The government," says another tailor at the same meeting, "had really been the means of reducing prices in the tailoring trade to so low a scale that no human being, whatever his industry, could live and be happy in his lot. The government were really responsible for the first introduction of female labour. He would clearly prove what he had stated. He would refer first to the army clothing. Our soldiers were comfortably clothed, as they had a right to be; but surely the men who made the clothing which was so comfortable, ought to be paid for their labour so as to be able to keep themselves comfortable and their families virtuous. But it was in evidence, that the persons working upon army clothing could not, upon an average, earn more than 1s. a-day. Another government department, the post-office, afforded a considerable amount of employment to tailors; but those who worked upon the post-office clothing earned, at the most, only 1s. 6d. a-day. The police clothing was another considerable branch of tailoring; this, like the others, ought to be paid for at living prices; but the men at work at it could only earn 1s. 6d. a-day, supposing them to work hard all the time, fourteen or fifteen hours. The Custom House clothing gave about the same prices. Now, all these sorts of work were performed by time workers, who, as a natural consequence of the wages they received, were the most miserable of human beings. Husband, wife, and family all worked at it; they just tried to breathe upon it; to live it never could be called. _Yet the same Government which paid such wretched wages, called upon the wretched people to be industrious, to be virtuous, and happy_, How was it possible, whatever their industry, to be virtuous and happy? The fact was, the men who, at the slack season, had been compelled to fall back upon these kinds of work, became so beggared and broken down by it, notwithstanding the assistance of their wives and families, that they were never able to rise out of it." And now comes the question--What is to be done with these poor tailors, to the number of between fifteen and twenty thousand? Their condition, as it stands, is simply one of ever-increasing darkness and despair. The system which is ruining them is daily spreading, deepening. While we write, fresh victims are being driven by penury into the slopworking trade, fresh depreciations of labour are taking place. Like Ulysses' companions in the cave of Polyphemus, the only question among them is, to scramble so far back as to have _a chance of being eaten at last_. Before them is ever-nearing slavery, disease, and starvation. What can be done? First--this can be done. That no man who calls himself a Christian--no man who calls himself a man--shall ever disgrace himself by dealing at any show-shop or slop-shop. It is easy enough to know them. The ticketed garments, the impudent puffs; the trumpery decorations, proclaim them,--every one knows them at first sight, He who pretends not to do so, is simply either a fool or a liar. Let no man enter them--they are the temples of Moloch--their thresholds are rank with human blood. God's curse is on them, and on those who, by supporting them, are partakers of their sins. Above all, let no clergyman deal at them. Poverty--and many clergymen are poor--doubly poor, because society often requires them to keep up the dress of gentlemen on the income of an artizan; because, too, the demands on their charity are quadruple those of any other class--yet poverty is no excuse. The thing is damnable--not Christianity only, but common humanity cries out against it. Woe to those who dare to outrage in private the principles which they preach in public! God is not mocked; and his curse will find out the priest at the altar, as well as the nobleman in his castle. But it is so hard to deprive the public of the luxury of cheap clothes! Then let the public look out for some other means of procuring that priceless blessing. If that, on experiment, be found impossible--if the comfort of the few be for ever to be bought by the misery of the many--if civilization is to benefit every one except the producing class--then this world is truly the devil's world, and the sooner so ill-constructed and infernal a machine is destroyed by that personage, the better. But let, secondly, a dozen, or fifty, or a hundred journeymen say to one another: "It is competition that, is ruining us, and competition is division, disunion, every man for himself, every man against his brother. The remedy must be in association, co-operation, self-sacrifice for the sake of one another. We can work together at the honourable tailor's workshop--we can work and live together in the sweater's den for the profit of our employers; why should we not work and live together in our own workshops, or our own homes, for our own profit? The journeymen of the honourable trade are just as much interested as the slopworkers in putting down sweaters and slopsellers, since their numbers are constantly decreasing, so that their turn must come some day. Let them, if no one else does, lend money to allow us to set up a workshop of our own, a shop of our own. If the money be not lent, still let us stint and strain ourselves to the very bone, if it were only to raise one sweater's security-money, which one of us should pay into the slopseller's hands, in his own name, but on behalf of all: that will at least save one sweater's profit out of our labour, and bestow it upon ourselves; and we will not spend that profit, but hoard it, till we have squeezed out all the sweaters one by one. Then we will open our common shop, and sell at as low a price as the cheapest of the show shops. We _can_ do this,--by the abolition of sweaters' profits,--by the using, as far as possible, of one set of fires, lights, rooms, kitchens, and washhouses,--above all, by being true and faithful to one another, as all partners should be. And, then, all that the master slopsellers had better do, will be simply to vanish and become extinct." And again, let one man, or half-a-dozen men arise, who believe that the world is not the devil's world at all, but God's: that the multitude of the people is not, as Malthusians aver, the ruin, but as Solomon believed, "the strength of the rulers"; that men are not meant to be beasts of prey, eating one another up by competition, as in some confined pike pond, where the great pike having despatched the little ones, begin to devour each other, till one overgrown monster is left alone to die of starvation. Let a few men who have money, and believe that, arise to play the man. Let them help and foster the growth of association by all means. Let them advise the honourable tailors, while it is time, to save themselves from being degraded into slopsellers by admitting their journeymen to a share in profits. Let them encourage the journeymen to compete with Nebuchadnezzar & Co. at their own game. Let them tell those journeymen that the experiment is even now being tried, and, in many instances successfully, by no less than one hundred and four associations of journeymen in Paris. Let them remind them of that Great Name which the Parisian "ouvrier" so often forgets--of Him whose everlasting Fatherhood is the sole ground of all human brotherhood, whose wise and loving will is the sole source of all perfect order and government. Let them, as soon as an association is formed, provide for them a properly ventilated workshop, and let it out to the associate tailors at a low, fair rent. I believe that they will not lose by it--because it is right. God will take care of their money. The world, it comes out now, is so well ordered by Him, that model lodging-houses, public baths, wash-houses, insurance offices, all pay a reasonable profit to those who invest money in them--perhaps associate workshops may do the same. At all events, the owners of these show-shops realize a far higher profit than need be, while the buildings required for a tailoring establishment are surely not more costly than those absurd plate-glass fronts, and brass scroll-work chandeliers, and puffs, and paid poets. A large house might thus be taken, in some central situation, the upper floors of which might be fitted up as model lodging-rooms for the tailor's trade alone. The drawing-room floor might be the work-room; on the ground floor the shop; and, if possible, a room of call or registration office for unemployed journeymen, and a reading-room. Why should not this succeed, if the owners of the house and the workers who rent it are only true to one another? Every tyro in political economy knows that association involves a saving both of labour and of capital. Why should it not succeed, when every one connected with the establishment, landlords and workmen, will have an interest in increasing its prosperity, and none whatever in lowering the wages of any party employed? But above all, so soon as these men are found working together for common profit, in the spirit of mutual self-sacrifice, let every gentleman and every Christian, who has ever dealt with, or could ever have dealt with, Nebuchadnezzar and Co., or their fellows, make it a point of honour and conscience to deal with the associated workmen, and get others to do the like. _It is by securing custom, far more than by gifts or loans of money, that we can help the operatives._ We should but hang a useless burthen of debt round their necks by advancing capital, without affording them the means of disposing of their produce. Be assured, that the finding of a tailors' model lodging house, work rooms, and shop, and the letting out of the two latter to an association, would be a righteous act to do. If the plan does not pay, what then? only a part of the money can be lost; and to have given that to an hospital or an almshouse would have been called praiseworthy and Christian charity; how much more to have spent it not in the cure, but in the prevention of evil--in making almshouses less needful, and lessening the number of candidates for the hospital! Regulations as to police order, and temperance, the workmen must, and, if they are worthy of the name of free men, they can organize for themselves. Let them remember that an association of labour is very different from an association of capital. The capitalist only embarks his money on the venture; the workman embarks his time--that is, much at least of his life. Still more different is the operatives' association from the single capitalist, seeking only to realize a rapid fortune, and then withdraw. The association knows no withdrawal from business; it must grow in length and in breadth, outlasting rival slopsellers, swallowing up all associations similar to itself, and which might end by competing with it. "Monopoly!" cries a free-trader, with hair on end. Not so, good friend; there will be no real free trade without association. Who tells you that tailors' associations are to be the only ones? Some such thing, as I have hinted, might surely be done. Where there is a will there is a way. No doubt there are difficulties--Howard and Elizabeth Fry, too, had their difficulties. Brindley and Brunel did not succeed at the first trial. It is the sluggard only who is always crying, "There is a lion in the streets." Be daring--trust in God, and He will fight for you; man of money, whom these words have touched, godliness has the promise of this life, as well as of that to come. The thing must be done, and speedily; for if it be not done by fair means, it will surely do itself by foul. The continual struggle of competition, not only in the tailors' trade, but in every one which is not, like the navigator's or engineer's, at a premium from its novel and extraordinary demand, will weaken and undermine more and more the masters, who are already many of them speculating on borrowed capital, while it will depress the workmen to a point at which life will become utterly intolerable; increasing education will serve only to make them the more conscious of their own misery; the boiler will be strained to bursting pitch, till some jar, some slight crisis, suddenly directs the imprisoned forces to one point, and then-- What then? Look at France, and see. PARSON LOT. PREFACE _To the UNDERGRADUATES of CAMBRIDGE._ I have addressed this preface to the young gentlemen of the University, first, because it is my duty to teach such of them as will hear me, Modern History; and I know no more important part of Modern History than the condition and the opinions of our own fellow-countrymen, some of which are set forth in this book. Next, I have addressed them now, because I know that many of them, at various times, have taken umbrage at certain scenes of Cambridge life drawn in this book. I do not blame them for having done so. On the contrary, I have so far acknowledged the justice of their censure, that while I have altered hardly one other word in this book, I have re-written all that relates to Cambridge life. Those sketches were drawn from my own recollections of 1838-1842. Whether they were overdrawn is a question between me and men of my own standing. But the book was published in 1849; and I am assured by men in whom I have the most thorough confidence, that my sketches had by then at least become exaggerated and exceptional, and therefore, as a whole, untrue; that a process of purification was going on rapidly in the University; and that I must alter my words if I meant to give the working men a just picture of her. Circumstances took the property and control of the book out of my hand, and I had no opportunity of reconsidering and of altering the passages. Those circumstances have ceased, and I take the first opportunity of altering all which my friends tell me should be altered. But even if, as early as 1849, I had not been told that I must do so, I should have done so of my own accord, after the experiences of 1861. I have received at Cambridge a courtesy and kindness from my elders, a cordial welcome from my co-equals, and an earnest attention from the undergraduates with whom I have come in contact, which would bind me in honour to say nothing publicly against my University, even if I had aught to say. But I have nought. I see at Cambridge nothing which does not gain my respect for her present state and hope for her future. Increased sympathy between the old and young, increased intercourse between the teacher and the taught, increased freedom and charity of thought, and a steady purpose of internal self-reform and progress, seem to me already bearing good fruit, by making the young men regard their University with content and respect. And among the young men themselves, the sight of their increased earnestness and high-mindedness, increased sobriety and temperance, combined with a manliness not inferior to that of the stalwart lads of twenty years ago, has made me look upon my position among them as most noble, my work among them as most hopeful, and made me sure that no energy which I can employ in teaching them will ever have been thrown away. Much of this improvement seems to me due to the late High-Church movement; much to the influence of Dr. Arnold; much to that of Mr. Maurice; much to the general increase of civilization throughout the country: but whatever be the causes of it, the fact is patent; and I take delight in thus expressing my consciousness of it. Another change I must notice in the tone of young gentlemen, not only at Cambridge, but throughout Britain, which is most wholesome and most hopeful. I mean their altered tone in speaking to and of the labouring classes. Thirty years ago, and even later, the young men of the labouring classes were "the cads," "the snobs," "the blackguards"; looked on with a dislike, contempt, and fear, which they were not backward to return, and which were but too ready to vent themselves on both sides in ugly words and deeds. That hateful severance between the classes was, I believe, an evil of recent growth, unknown to old England. From the middle ages, up to the latter years of the French war, the relation between the English gentry and the labourers seems to have been more cordial and wholesome than in any other country of Europe. But with the French Revolution came a change for the worse. The Revolution terrified too many of the upper, and excited too many of the lower classes; and the stern Tory system of repression, with its bad habit of talking and acting as if "the government" and "the people" were necessarily in antagonism, caused ever increasing bad blood. Besides, the old feudal ties between class and class, employer and employed, had been severed. Large masses of working people had gathered in the manufacturing districts in savage independence. The agricultural labourers had been debased by the abuses of the old Poor-law into a condition upon which one looks back now with half-incredulous horror. Meanwhile, the distress of the labourers became more and more severe. Then arose Luddite mobs, meal mobs, farm riots, riots everywhere; Captain Swing and his rickburners, Peterloo "massacres," Bristol conflagrations, and all the ugly sights and rumours which made young lads, thirty or forty years ago, believe (and not so wrongly) that "the masses" were their natural enemies, and that they might have to fight, any year, or any day, for the safety of their property and the honour of their sisters. How changed, thank God! is all this now. Before the influence of religion, both Evangelical and Anglican; before the spread of those liberal principles, founded on common humanity and justice, the triumph of which we owe to the courage and practical good sense of the Whig party; before the example of a Court, virtuous, humane, and beneficent; the attitude of the British upper classes has undergone a noble change. There is no aristocracy in the world, and there never has been one, as far as I know, which has so honourably repented, and brought forth fruits meet for repentance; which has so cheerfully asked what its duty was, that it might do it. It is not merely enlightened statesmen, philanthropists, devotees, or the working clergy, hard and heartily as they are working, who have set themselves to do good as a duty specially required of them by creed or by station. In the generality of younger laymen, as far as I can see, a humanity (in the highest sense of the word) has been awakened, which bids fair, in another generation, to abolish the last remnants of class prejudices and class grudges. The whole creed of our young gentlemen is becoming more liberal, their demeanour more courteous, their language more temperate. They inquire after the welfare, or at least mingle in the sports of the labouring man, with a simple cordiality which was unknown thirty years ago; they are prompt, the more earnest of them, to make themselves of use to him on the ground of a common manhood, if any means of doing good are pointed out to them; and that it is in any wise degrading to "associate with low fellows," is an opinion utterly obsolete, save perhaps among a few sons of squireens in remote provinces, or of parvenus who cannot afford to recognize the class from whence they themselves have risen. In the army, thanks to the purifying effect of the Crimean and Indian wars, the same altered tone is patent. Officers feel for and with their men, talk to them, strive to instruct and amuse them more and more year by year; and--as a proof that the reform has not been forced on the officers by public opinion from without, but is spontaneous and from within, another instance of the altered mind of the aristocracy--the improvement is greatest in those regiments which are officered by men of the best blood; and in care for and sympathy with their men, her Majesty's Footguards stands first of all. God grant that the friendship which exists there between the leaders and the led may not be tested to the death amid the snow-drift or on the battle-field; but if it be so, I know too that it will stand the test. But if I wish for one absolute proof of the changed relation between the upper and the lower classes, I have only to point to the volunteer movement. In 1803, in the face of the most real and fatal danger, the Addington ministry was afraid of allowing volunteer regiments, and Lord Eldon, while pressing the necessity, could use as an argument that if the people did not volunteer for the Government, they would against it. So broad was even then the gulf between the governed and the governors. How much broader did it become in after years! Had invasion threatened us at any period between 1815 and 1830, or even later, would any ministry have dared to allow volunteer regiments? Would they have been justified in doing so, even if they had dared? And now what has come to pass, all the world knows: but all the world should know likewise, that it never would have come to pass save for--not merely the late twenty years of good government in State, twenty years of virtue and liberality in the Court, but--the late twenty years of increasing right-mindedness in the gentry, who have now their reward in finding that the privates in the great majority of corps prefer being officered by men of a rank socially superior to their own. And as good always breeds fresh good, so this volunteer movement, made possible by the goodwill between classes, will help in its turn to increase that goodwill. Already, by the performance of a common duty, and the experience of a common humanity, these volunteer corps are become centres of cordiality between class and class; and gentleman, tradesman, and workman, the more they see of each other, learn to like, to trust, and to befriend each other more and more; a good work in which I hope the volunteers of the University of Cambridge will do their part like men and gentlemen; when, leaving this University, they become each of them, as they ought, an organizing point for fresh volunteers in their own districts. I know (that I may return to Cambridge) no better example of the way in which the altered tone of the upper classes and the volunteer movement have acted and reacted upon each other, than may be seen in the Cambridge Working Men's College, and its volunteer rifle corps, the 8th Cambridgeshire. There we have--what perhaps could not have existed, what certainly did not exist twenty years ago--a school of a hundred men or more, taught for the last eight years gratuitously by men of the highest attainments in the University; by a dean--to whom, I believe, the success of the attempt is mainly owing; by professors, tutors, prizemen, men who are now head-masters of public schools, who have given freely to their fellow-men knowledge which has cost them large sums of money and the heavy labour of years. Without insulting them by patronage, without interfering with their religious opinions, without tampering with their independence in any wise, but simply on the ground of a common humanity, they have been helping to educate these men, belonging for the most part, I presume, to the very class which this book sets forth as most unhappy and most dangerous--the men conscious of unsatisfied and unemployed intellect. And they have their reward in a practical and patent form. Out of these men a volunteer corps is organized, officered partly by themselves, partly by gentlemen of the University; a nucleus of discipline, loyalty, and civilization for the whole population of Cambridge. A noble work this has been, and one which may be the parent of works nobler still. It is the first instalment of, I will not say a debt, but a duty, which the Universities owe to the working classes. I have tried to express in this book, what I know were, twenty years ago, the feelings of clever working men, looking upon the superior educational advantages of our class. I cannot forget, any more than the working man, that the Universities were not founded exclusively, or even primarily, for our own class; that the great mass of students in the middle ages were drawn from the lower classes, and that sizarships, scholarships, exhibitions, and so forth, were founded for the sake of those classes, rather than of our own. How the case stands now, we all know. I do not blame the Universities for the change. It has come about, I think, simply by competition. The change began, I should say, in the sixteenth century. Then, after the Wars of the Roses, and the revival of letters, and the dissolution of the monasteries, the younger sons of gentlemen betook themselves to the pursuit of letters, fighting having become treasonable, and farming on a small scale difficult (perhaps owing to the introduction of large sheep-farms, which happened in those days), while no monastic orders were left to recruit the Universities, as they did continually through the middle ages, from that labouring-class to which they and their scholars principally belonged. So the gentlemen's sons were free to compete against the sons of working men; and by virtue of their superior advantages they beat them out of the field. We may find through the latter half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth centuries, bequest after bequest for the purpose of stopping this change, and of enabling poor men's sons to enter the Universities; but the tendency was too strong to be effectually resisted then. Is it too strong to be resisted now? Does not the increased civilization and education of the working classes call on the Universities to consider whether they may not now try to become, what certainly they were meant to be, places of teaching and training for genius of every rank, and not merely for that of young gentlemen? Why should not wealthy Churchmen, in addition to the many good deeds in which they employ their wealth now-a-days, found fresh scholarships and exhibitions, confined to the sons of working men? If it be asked, how can they be so confined? What simpler method than that of connecting them with the National Society, and bestowing them exclusively on lads who have distinguished themselves in our National Schools? I believe that money spent in such a way, would be well spent both for the Nation, the Church, and the University. As for the introduction of such a class of lads lowering the tone of the University, I cannot believe it. There is room enough in Cambridge for men of every rank. There are still, in certain colleges, owing to circumstances which I should be very sorry to see altered, a fair sprinkling of young men who, at least before they have passed through a Cambridge career, would not be called well-bred. But they do not lower the tone of the University; the tone of the University raises them. Wherever there is intellectual power, good manners are easily acquired; the public opinion of young men expresses itself so freely, and possibly coarsely, that priggishness and forwardness (the faults to which a clever National School pupil would be most prone) are soon hammered out of any Cambridge man; and the result is, that some of the most distinguished and most popular men in Cambridge, are men who have "risen from the ranks." All honour to them for having done so. But if they have succeeded so well, may there not be hundreds more in England who would succeed equally? and would it not be as just to the many, as useful to the University, in binding her to the people and the people to her, to invent some method for giving those hundreds a fair chance? I earnestly press this suggestion (especially at the present time of agitation among Churchmen on the subject of education) upon the attention, not of the University itself, but of those wealthy men who wish well both to the University and to the people. Not, I say, of the University: it is not from her that the proposal must come, but from her friends outside. She is doing her best with the tools which she has; fresh work will require fresh tools, and I trust that such will be some day found for her. I have now to tell those of them who may read this book, that it is not altogether out of date. Those political passions, the last outburst of which it described, have, thank God, become mere matter of history by reason of the good government and the unexampled prosperity of the last twelve years: but fresh outbursts of them are always possible in a free country, whenever there is any considerable accumulation of neglects and wrongs; and meanwhile it is well--indeed it is necessary--for every student of history to know what manner of men they are who become revolutionaries, and what causes drive them to revolution; that they may judge discerningly and charitably of their fellow-men, whenever they see them rising, however madly, against the powers that be. As for the social evils described in this book, they have been much lessened in the last few years, especially by the movement for Sanatory Reform: but I must warn young men that they are not eradicated; that for instance, only last year, attention was called by this book to the working tailors in Edinburgh, and their state was found, I am assured, to be even more miserable than that of the London men in 1848. And I must warn them also that social evils, like dust and dirt, have a tendency to re-accumulate perpetually; so that however well this generation may have swept their house (and they have worked hard and honestly at it), the rising generation will have assuredly in twenty years' time to sweep it over again. One thing more I have to say, and that very earnestly, to the young men of Cambridge. They will hear a "Conservative Reaction" talked of as imminent, indeed as having already begun. They will be told that this reaction is made more certain by the events now passing in North America; they will be bidden to look at the madnesses of an unbridled democracy, to draw from them some such lesson as the young Spartans were to draw from the drunken Helots, and to shun with horror any further attempts to enlarge the suffrage. But if they have learnt (as they should from the training of this University) accuracy of thought and language, they will not be content with such vague general terms as "Conservatism" and "Democracy": but will ask themselves--If this Conservative Reaction is at hand, what things is it likely to conserve; and still more, what ought it to conserve? If the violences and tyrannies of American Democracy are to be really warnings to, then in what points does American Democracy coincide with British Democracy?--For so far and no farther can one be an example or warning for the other. And looking, as they probably will under the pressure of present excitement, at the latter question first, they will surely see that no real analogy would exist between American and English Democracy, even were universal suffrage to be granted to-morrow. For American Democracy, being merely arithmocratic, provides no representation whatsoever for the more educated and more experienced minority, and leaves the conduct of affairs to the uneducated and inexperienced many, with such results as we see. But those results are, I believe, simply impossible in a country which possesses hereditary Monarchy and a House of Lords, to give not only voice, but practical power to superior intelligence and experience. Mr. J. S. Mill, Mr. Stapleton, and Mr. Hare have urged of late the right of minorities to be represented as well as majorities, and have offered plans for giving them a fair hearing. That their demands are wise, as well as just, the present condition of the Federal States proves but too painfully. But we must not forget meanwhile, that the minorities of Britain are not altogether unrepresented. In a hereditary Monarch who has the power to call into his counsels, private and public, the highest intellect of the land; in a House of Lords not wholly hereditary, but recruited perpetually from below by the most successful (and therefore, on the whole, the most capable) personages; in a free Press, conducted in all its most powerful organs by men of character and of liberal education, I see safeguards against any American tyranny of numbers, even if an enlargement of the suffrage did degrade the general tone of the House of Commons as much as some expect. As long, I believe, as the Throne, the House of Lords, and the Press, are what, thank God, they are, so long will each enlargement of the suffrage be a fresh source not of danger, but of safety; for it will bind the masses to the established order of things by that loyalty which springs from content; from the sense of being appreciated, trusted, dealt with not as children, but as men. There are those who will consider such language as this especially ill-timed just now, in the face of Strikes and Trades' Union outrages. They point to these things as proofs of the unfitness of workmen for the suffrage; they point especially to the late abominable murder at Sheffield, and ask, not without reason, would you give political power to men who would do that? Now that the Sheffield murder was in any wise planned or commanded by the Trades' Unions in general, I do not believe; nor, I think, does any one else who knows aught of the British workman. If it was not, as some of the Sheffield men say, a private act of revenge, it was the act of only one or two Trades' Unions of that town, which are known; and their conduct has been already reprobated and denounced by the other Trades' Unions of England, But there is no denying that the case as against the Trades' Unions is a heavy one. It is notorious that they have in past years planned and commanded illegal acts of violence. It is patent that they are too apt, from a false sense of class-honour, to connive at such now, instead of being, as they ought to be, the first to denounce them. The workmen will not see, that by combining in societies for certain purposes, they make those societies responsible for the good and lawful behaviour of all their members, in all acts tending to further those purposes, and are bound to say to every man joining a Trades' Union: "You shall do nothing to carry out the objects which we have in view, save what is allowed by British Law." They will not see that they are outraging the first principles of justice and freedom, by dictating to any man what wages he should receive, what master he shall work for, or any other condition which interferes with his rights as a free agent. But, in the face of these facts (and very painful and disappointing they are to me), I will ask the upper classes: Do you believe that the average of Trades' Union members are capable of such villanies as that at Sheffield? Do you believe that the average of them are given to violence or illegal acts at all, even though they may connive at such acts in their foolish and hasty fellows, by a false class-honour, not quite unknown, I should say, in certain learned and gallant professions? Do you fancy that there are not in these Trades' Unions, tens of thousands of loyal, respectable, rational, patient men, as worthy of the suffrage as any average borough voter? If you do so, you really know nothing about the British workman. At least, you are confounding the workman of 1861 with the workman of 1831, and fancying that he alone, of all classes, has gained nothing by the increased education, civilization, and political experience of thirty busy and prosperous years. You are unjust to the workman; and more, you are unjust to your own class. For thirty years past, gentlemen and ladies of all shades of opinion have been labouring for and among the working classes, as no aristocracy on earth ever laboured before; and do you suppose that all that labour has been in vain? That it has bred in the working classes no increased reverence for law, no increased content with existing institutions, no increased confidence in the classes socially above them? If so, you must have as poor an opinion of the capabilities of the upper classes, as you have of those of the lower. So far from the misdoings of Trades' Unions being an argument against the extension of the suffrage, they are, in my opinion, an argument for it. I know that I am in a minority just now. I know that the common whisper is now, not especially of those who look for a Conservative reaction, that these Trades' Unions must be put down by strong measures: and I confess that I hear such language with terror. Punish, by all means, most severely, all individual offences against individual freedom, or personal safety; but do not interfere, surely, with the Trades' Unions themselves. Do not try to bar these men of their right as free Englishmen to combine, if they choose, for what they consider their own benefit. Look upon these struggles between employers and employed as fair battles, in which, by virtue of the irreversible laws of political economy, the party who is in the right is almost certain to win; and interfere in no wise, save to see fair play, and lawful means used on both sides alike. If you do more; if you interfere in any wise with the Trades' Unions themselves, you will fail, and fail doubly. You will not prevent the existence of combinations: you will only make them secret, dark, revolutionary: you will demoralize the working man thereby as surely as the merchant is demoralized by being converted into a smuggler; you will heap up indignation, spite, and wrath against the day of wrath; and finally, to complete your own failure, you will drive the working man to demand an extension of the suffrage, in tones which will very certainly get a hearing. He cares, or seems to care, little about the suffrage now, just because he thinks that he can best serve his own interests by working these Trades' Unions. Take from him that means of redress (real or mistaken, no matter); and he will seek redress in a way in which you wish him still less to seek it; by demanding a vote and obtaining one. That consummation, undesirable as it may seem to many, would perhaps be the best for the peace of the trades. These Trades' Unions, still tainted with some of the violence, secrecy, false political economy which they inherit from the evil times of 1830-40, last on simply, I believe, because the workman feels that they are his only organ, that he has no other means of making his wants and his opinions known to the British Government. Had he a vote, he believes (and I believe with him) he could send at least a few men to Parliament who would state his case fairly in the House of Commons, and would not only render a reason for him, but hear reason against him, if need were. He would be content with free discussion if he could get that. It is the feeling that he cannot get it that drives him often into crooked and dark ways. If any answer, that the representatives, whom he would choose would be merely noisy demagogues, I believe them to be mistaken. No one can have watched the Preston strike, however much he may have disapproved, as I did, of the strike itself, without seeing from the temper, the self-restraint, the reasonableness, the chivalrous honour of the men, that they were as likely to choose a worthy member for the House of Commons as any town constituency in England; no one can have watched the leaders of the working men for the last ten years without finding among them men capable of commanding the attention and respect of the House of Commons, not merely by their eloquence, surprising as that is, but by their good sense, good feeling, and good breeding. Some training at first, some rubbing off of angles, they might require: though two at least I know, who would require no such training, and who would be ornaments to any House of Commons; the most inexperienced of the rest would not give the House one-tenth the trouble which is given by a certain clique among the representatives of the sister Isle; and would, moreover, learn his lesson in a week, instead of never learning it at all, like some we know too well. Yet Catholic emancipation has pacified Ireland, though it has brought into the House an inferior stamp of members: and much more surely would an extension of the suffrage pacify the trades, while it would bring into the House a far superior stamp of member to those who compose the clique of which I have spoken. But why, I hear some one say impatiently, talk about this subject of all others at this moment, when nobody, not even the working classes, cares about a Reform Bill? Because I am speaking to young men, who have not yet entered public life; and because I wish them to understand, that just because the question of parliamentary reform is in abeyance now, it will not be in abeyance ten years or twenty years hence. The question will be revived, ere they are in the maturity of their manhood; and they had best face that certain prospect, and learn to judge wisely and accurately on the subject, before they are called on, as they will be, to act upon it. If it be true that the present generation has done all that it can do, or intends to do, towards the suffrage (and I have that confidence in our present rulers, that I would submit without murmuring to their decision on the point), it is all the more incumbent on the rising generation to learn how to do (as assuredly they will have to do) the work which their fathers have left undone. The question may remain long in abeyance, under the influence of material prosperity such as the present; or under the excitement of a war, as in Pitt's time; but let a period of distress or disaster come, and it will be re-opened as of yore. The progress towards institutions more and more popular may be slow, but it is sure. Whenever any class has conceived the hope of being fairly represented, it is certain to fulfil its own hopes, unless it employs, or provokes, violence impossible in England. The thing will be. Let the young men of Britain take care that it is done rightly when it is done. And how ought it to be done? That will depend upon any circumstances now future and uncertain. It will depend upon the pace at which sound education spreads among the working classes. It will depend, too, very much--I fear only too much--upon the attitude of the upper classes to the lower, in this very question of Trades' Unions and of Strikes. It will depend upon their attitude toward the unrepresented classes during the next few years, upon this very question of extended suffrage. And, therefore, I should advise, I had almost said entreat, any young men over whom I have any influence, to read and think freely and accurately upon the subject; taking, if I may propose to them a text-book, Mr. Mill's admirable treatise on "Representative Government." As for any theory of my own, if I had one I should not put it forward. How it will not be done, I can see clearly enough. It will not be done well by the old charter. It will not be done well by merely lowering the money qualification of electors. But it may be done well by other methods beside; and I can trust the freedom and soundness of the English mind to discover the best method of all, when it is needed. Let therefore this "Conservative Reaction" which I suspect is going on in the minds of many young men at Cambridge, consider what it has to conserve. It is not asked to conserve the Throne. That, thank God, can take good care of itself. Let it conserve the House of Lords; and that will be conserved, just in proportion as the upper classes shall copy the virtues of Royalty; both of him who is taken from us, and of her who is left. Let the upper classes learn from them, that the just and wise method of strengthening their political power, is to labour after that social power, which comes only by virtue and usefulness. Let them make themselves, as the present Sovereign has made herself, morally necessary to the people; and then there is no fear of their being found politically unnecessary. No other course is before them, if they wish to make their "Conservative Reaction" a permanent, even an endurable fact. If any young gentlemen fancy (and some do) that they can strengthen their class by making any secret alliance with the Throne against the masses, then they will discover rapidly that the sovereigns of the House of Brunswick are grown far too wise, and far too noble-hearted, to fall once more into that trap. If any of them (and some do) fancy that they can better their position by sneering, whether in public or in their club, at a Reformed House of Commons and a Free Press, they will only accelerate the results which they most dread, by forcing the ultra-liberal party of the House, and, what is even worse, the most intellectual and respectable portion of the Press, to appeal to the people against them; and if again they are tempted (as too many of them are) to give up public life as becoming too vulgar for them, and prefer ease and pleasure to the hard work and plain-speaking of the House of Commons; then they will simply pay the same penalty for laziness and fastidiousness which has been paid by the Spanish aristocracy; and will discover that if they think their intellect unnecessary to the nation, the nation will rapidly become of the same opinion, and go its own way without them. But if they are willing to make themselves, as they easily can, the best educated, the most trustworthy, the most virtuous, the most truly liberal-minded class of the commonweal; if they will set themselves to study the duties of rank and property, as of a profession to which they are called by God, and the requirements of which they must fulfil; if they will acquire, as they can easily, a sound knowledge both of political economy, and of the social questions of the day; if they will be foremost with their personal influence in all good works; if they will set themselves to compete on equal terms with the classes below them, and, as they may, outrival them: then they will find that those classes will receive them not altogether on equal terms; that they will accede to them a superiority, undefined perhaps, but real and practical enough to conserve their class and their rank, in every article for which a just and prudent man would wish. But if any young gentlemen look forward (as I fear a few do still) to a Conservative Reaction of any other kind than this; to even the least return to the Tory maxims and methods of George the Fourth's time; to even the least stoppage of what the world calls progress--which I should define as the putting in practice the results of inductive science; then do they, like king Picrochole in Rabelais, look for a kingdom which shall be restored to them at the coming of the Cocqcigrues. The Cocqcigrues are never coming; and none know that better than the present able and moderate leaders of the Conservative party; none will be more anxious to teach that fact to their young adherents, and to make them swim with the great stream, lest it toss them contemptuously ashore upon its banks, and go on its way unheeding. Return to the system of 1800--1830, is, I thank God, impossible. Even though men's hearts should fail them, they must onward, they know not whither: though God does know. The bigot, who believes in a system, and not in the living God; the sentimentalist, who shrinks from facts because they are painful to his taste; the sluggard, who hates a change because it disturbs his ease; the simply stupid person, who cannot use his eyes and ears; all these may cry feebly to the world to do what it has never done since its creation--stand still awhile, that they may get their breaths. But the brave and honest gentleman--who believes that God is not the tempter and deceiver, but the father and the educator of man--he will not shrink, even though the pace may be at moments rapid, the path be at moments hid by mist; for he will believe that freedom and knowledge, as well as virtue, are the daughters of the Most High; and he will follow them and call on the rest to follow them, whithersoever they may lead; and will take heart for himself and for his class, by the example of that great Prince who is of late gone home. For if, like that most royal soul, he and his shall follow with single eye and steadfast heart, freedom, knowledge, and virtue; then will he and his be safe, as Royalty is safe in England now; because both God and man have need thereof. PREFACE. _Written in 1854._ ADDRESSED TO THE WORKING MEN OF GREAT BRITAIN. My Friends,--Since I wrote this book five years ago, I have seen a good deal of your class, and of their prospects. Much that I have seen has given me great hope; much has disappointed me; nothing has caused me to alter the opinions here laid down. Much has given me hope; especially in the North of England. I believe that there, at least, exists a mass of prudence, self-control, genial and sturdy manhood, which will be England's reserve-force for generations yet to come. The last five years, moreover, have certainly been years of progress for the good cause. The great drag upon it--namely, demagogism--has crumbled to pieces of its own accord; and seems now only to exhibit itself in anilities like those of the speakers who inform a mob of boys and thieves that wheat has lately been thrown into the Thames to keep up prices, or advise them to establish, by means hitherto undiscovered, national granaries, only possible under the despotism of a Pharaoh. Since the 10th of April, 1848 (one of the most lucky days which the English workman ever saw), the trade of the mob-orator has dwindled down to such last shifts as these, to which the working man sensibly seems merely to answer, as he goes quietly about his business, "Why will you still keep talking, Signor Benedick? Nobody marks you." But the 10th of April, 1848, has been a beneficial crisis, not merely in the temper of the working men, so called, but in the minds of those who are denominated by them "the aristocracy." There is no doubt that the classes possessing property have been facing, since 1848, all social questions with an average of honesty, earnestness, and good feeling which has no parallel since the days of the Tudors, and that hundreds and thousands of "gentlemen and ladies" in Great Britain now are saying, "Show what we ought to do to be just to the workman, and we will do it, whatsoever it costs." They may not be always correct (though they generally are so) in their conceptions of what ought to be done; but their purpose is good and righteous; and those who hold it are daily increasing in number. The love of justice and mercy toward the handicraftsman is spreading rapidly as it never did before in any nation upon earth; and if any man still represents the holders of property, as a class, as the enemies of those whom they employ, desiring their slavery and their ignorance, I believe that he is a liar and a child of the devil, and that he is at his father's old work, slandering and dividing between man and man. These words may be severe: but they are deliberate; and working men are, I hope, sufficiently accustomed to hear me call a spade a spade, when I am pleading for them, to allow me to do the same when I am pleading to them. Of the disappointing experiences which I have had I shall say nothing, save in as far as I can, by alluding to them, point out to the working man the causes which still keep him weak: but I am bound to say that those disappointments have strengthened my conviction that this book, in the main, speaks the truth. I do not allude, of course, to the thoughts, and feelings of the hero. They are compounded of right and wrong, and such as I judged (and working men whom I am proud to number among my friends have assured me that I judged rightly) that a working man of genius would feel during the course of his self-education. These thoughts and feelings (often inconsistent and contradictory to each other), stupid or careless, or ill-willed persons, have represented as my own opinions, having, as it seems to me, turned the book upside down before they began to read it. I am bound to pay the working men, and their organs in the press, the compliment of saying that no such misrepresentations proceeded from them. However deeply some of them may have disagreed with me, all of them, as far as I have been able to judge, had sense to see what I meant; and so, also, have the organs of the High-Church party, to whom, differing from them on many points, I am equally bound to offer my thanks for their fairness. But, indeed, the way in which this book, in spite of its crudities, has been received by persons of all ranks and opinions, who instead of making me an offender for a word, have taken the book heartily and honestly, in the spirit and not in the letter, has made me most hopeful for the British mind, and given me a strong belief that, in spite of all foppery, luxury, covetousness, and unbelief, the English heart is still strong and genial, able and willing to do and suffer great things, as soon as the rational way of doing and suffering them becomes plain. Had I written this book merely to please my own fancy, this would be a paltry criterion, at once illogical and boastful; but I wrote it, God knows, in the fear of God, that I might speak what seems to me the truth of God. I trusted in Him to justify me, in spite of my own youth, inexperience, hastiness, clumsiness; and He has done it; and, I trust, will do it to the end. And now, what shall I say to you, my friends, about the future? Your destiny is still in your own hands. For the last seven years you have let it slip through your fingers. If you are better off than you were in 1848, you owe it principally to those laws of political economy (as they are called), which I call the brute natural accidents of supply and demand, or to the exertions which have been made by upright men of the very classes whom demagogues taught you to consider as your natural enemies. Pardon me if I seem severe; but, as old Aristotle has it, "Both parties being my friends, it is a sacred duty to honour truth first." And is this not the truth? How little have the working men done to carry out that idea of association in which, in 1848-9, they were all willing to confess their salvation lay. Had the money which was wasted in the hapless Preston strike been wisely spent in relieving the labour market by emigration, or in making wages more valuable by enabling the workman to buy from co-operative stores and mills his necessaries at little above cost price, how much sorrow and heart-burning might have been saved to the iron-trades. Had the real English endurance and courage which was wasted in that strike been employed in the cause of association, the men might have been, ere now, far happier than they are ever likely to be, without the least injury to the masters. What, again, has been done toward developing the organization of the Trades' Unions into its true form, Association for distribution, from its old, useless, and savage form of Association for the purpose of resistance to masters--a war which is at first sight hopeless, even were it just, because the opposite party holds in his hand the supplies of his foe as well as his own, and therefore can starve him out at his leisure? What has been done, again, toward remedying the evils of the slop system, which this book especially exposed? The true method for the working men, if they wished to save their brothers and their brothers' wives and daughters from degradation, was to withdraw their custom from the slopsellers, and to deal, even at a temporary increase of price, with associate workmen. Have they done so? They can answer for themselves. In London (as in the country towns), the paltry temptation of buying in the cheapest market has still been too strong for the labouring man. In Scotland and in the North of England, thank God, the case has been very different; and to the North I must look still, as I did when I wrote Alton Locke, for the strong men in whose hands lies the destiny of the English handicraftsman. God grant that the workmen of the South of England may bestir themselves ere it be too late, and discover that the only defence against want is self-restraint; the only defence against slavery, obedience to rule; and that, instead of giving themselves up, bound hand and foot, by their own fancy for a "freedom" which is but selfish and conceited license, to the brute accidents of the competitive system, they may begin to organize among themselves associations for buying and selling the necessaries of life, which may enable them to weather the dark season of high prices and stagnation, which is certain sooner or later, to follow in the footsteps of war. On politics I have little to say. My belief remains unchanged that true Christianity, and true monarchy also, are not only compatible with, but require as their necessary complement, true freedom for every man of every class; and that the Charter, now defunct, was just as wise and as righteous a "Reform Bill" as any which England had yet had, or was likely to have. But I frankly say that my experience of the last five years gives me little hope of any great development of the true democratic principle in Britain, because it gives me little sign that the many are fit for it. Remember always that Democracy means a government not merely by numbers of isolated individuals, but by a Demos--by men accustomed to live in Demoi, or corporate bodies, and accustomed, therefore, to the self-control, obedience to law, and self-sacrificing public spirit, without which a corporate body cannot exist: but that a "democracy" of mere numbers is no democracy, but a mere brute "arithmocracy," which is certain to degenerate into an "ochlocracy," or government by the mob, in which the numbers have no real share: an oligarchy of the fiercest, the noisiest, the rashest, and the most shameless, which is surely swallowed up either by a despotism, as in France, or as in Athens, by utter national ruin, and helpless slavery to a foreign invader. Let the workmen of Britain train themselves in the corporate spirit, and in the obedience and self-control which it brings, as they easily can in associations, and bear in mind always that _only he who can obey is fit to rule_; and then, when they are fit for it, the Charter may come, or things, I trust, far better than the Charter; and till they have done so, let them thank the just and merciful Heavens for keeping out of their hands any power, and for keeping off their shoulders any responsibility, which they would not be able to use aright. I thank God heartily, this day, that I have no share in the government of Great Britain; and I advise my working friends to do the same, and to believe that, when they are fit to take their share therein, all the powers of earth cannot keep them from taking it; and that, till then, happy is the man who does the duty which lies nearest him, who educates his family, raises his class, performs his daily work as to God and to his country, not merely to his employer and himself; for it is only he that is faithful over a few things who will be made, or will be happy in being made, ruler over many things. Yours ever, C. K. ALTON LOCKE, TAILOR AND POET. CHAPTER I. A POET'S CHILDHOOD. I am a Cockney among Cockneys. Italy and the Tropics, the Highlands and Devonshire, I know only in dreams. Even the Surrey Hills, of whose loveliness I have heard so much, are to me a distant fairy-land, whose gleaming ridges I am worthy only to behold afar. With the exception of two journeys, never to be forgotten, my knowledge of England is bounded by the horizon which encircles Richmond Hill. My earliest recollections are of a suburban street; of its jumble of little shops and little terraces, each exhibiting some fresh variety of capricious ugliness; the little scraps of garden before the doors, with their dusty, stunted lilacs and balsam poplars, were my only forests; my only wild animals, the dingy, merry sparrows, who quarrelled fearlessly on my window-sill, ignorant of trap or gun. From my earliest childhood, through long nights of sleepless pain, as the midnight brightened into dawn, and the glaring lamps grew pale, I used to listen, with pleasant awe, to the ceaseless roll of the market-waggons, bringing up to the great city the treasures of the gay green country, the land of fruits and flowers, for which I have yearned all my life in vain. They seemed to my boyish fancy mysterious messengers from another world: the silent, lonely night, in which they were the only moving things, added to the wonder. I used to get out of bed to gaze at them, and envy the coarse men and sluttish women who attended them, their labour among verdant plants and rich brown mould, on breezy slopes, under God's own clear sky. I fancied that they learnt what I knew I should have learnt there; I knew not then that "the eye only sees that which it brings with it the power of seeing." When will their eyes be opened? When will priests go forth into the highways and the hedges, and preach to the ploughman and the gipsy the blessed news, that there too, in every thicket and fallow-field, is the house of God,--there, too, the gate of Heaven? I do not complain that I am a Cockney. That, too, is God's gift. He made me one, that I might learn to feel for poor wretches who sit stifled in reeking garrets and workrooms, drinking in disease with every breath,--bound in their prison-house of brick and iron, with their own funeral pall hanging over them, in that canopy of fog and poisonous smoke, from their cradle to their grave. I have drunk of the cup of which they drink. And so I have learnt--if, indeed, I have learnt--to be a poet--a poet of the people. That honour, surely, was worth buying with asthma, and rickets, and consumption, and weakness, and--worst of all to me--with ugliness. It was God's purpose about me; and, therefore, all circumstances combined to imprison me in London. I used once, when I worshipped circumstance, to fancy it my curse, Fate's injustice to me, which kept me from developing my genius, asserting my rank among poets. I longed to escape to glorious Italy, or some other southern climate, where natural beauty would have become the very element which I breathed; and yet, what would have come of that? Should I not, as nobler spirits than I have done, have idled away my life in Elysian dreams, singing out like a bird into the air, inarticulately, purposeless, for mere joy and fulness of heart; and taking no share in the terrible questionings, the terrible strugglings of this great, awful, blessed time--feeling no more the pulse of the great heart of England stirring me? I used, as I said, to call it the curse of circumstance that I was a sickly, decrepit Cockney. My mother used to tell me that it was the cross which God had given me to bear. I know now that she was right there. She used to say that my disease was God's will. I do not think, though, that she spoke right there also. I think that it was the will of the world and of the devil, of man's avarice and laziness and ignorance. And so would my readers, perhaps, had they seen the shop in the city where I was born and nursed, with its little garrets reeking with human breath, its kitchens and areas with noisome sewers. A sanitary reformer would not be long in guessing the cause of my unhealthiness. He would not rebuke me--nor would she, sweet soul! now that she is at rest and bliss--for my wild longings to escape, for my envying the very flies and sparrows their wings that I might flee miles away into the country, and breathe the air of heaven once, and die. I have had my wish. I have made two journeys far away into the country, and they have been enough for me. My mother was a widow. My father, whom I cannot recollect, was a small retail tradesman in the city. He was unfortunate; and when he died, my mother came down, and lived penuriously enough, I knew not how till I grew older, down in that same suburban street. She had been brought up an Independent. After my father's death she became a Baptist, from conscientious scruples. She considered the Baptists, as I do, as the only sect who thoroughly embody the Calvinistic doctrines. She held it, as I do, an absurd and impious thing for those who believe mankind to be children of the devil till they have been consciously "converted," to baptise unconscious infants and give them the sign of God's mercy on the mere chance of that mercy being intended for them. When God had proved by converting them, that they were not reprobate and doomed to hell by His absolute and eternal will, then, and not till then, dare man baptise them into His name. She dared not palm a presumptuous fiction on herself, and call it "charity." So, though we had both been christened during my father's lifetime, she purposed to have us rebaptised, if ever that happened--which, in her sense of the word, never happened, I am afraid, to me. She gloried in her dissent; for she was sprung from old Puritan blood, which had flowed again and again beneath the knife of Star-Chamber butchers, and on the battle-fields of Naseby and Sedgemoor. And on winter evenings she used to sit with her Bible on her knee, while I and my little sister Susan stood beside her and listened to the stories of Gideon and Barak, and Samson and Jephthah, till her eye kindled up, and her thoughts passed forth from that old Hebrew time home into those English times which she fancied, and not untruly, like them. And we used to shudder, and yet listen with a strange fascination, as she told us how her ancestor called his seven sons off their small Cambridge farm, and horsed and armed them himself to follow behind Cromwell, and smite kings and prelates with "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." Whether she were right or wrong, what is it to me? What is it now to her, thank God? But those stories, and the strict, stern Puritan education, learnt from the Independents and not the Baptists, which accompanied them, had their effect on me, for good and ill. My mother moved by rule and method; by God's law, as she considered, and that only. She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. She never commanded twice, without punishing. And yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense and insight. But she thought herself as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some ascetic of the middle ages--so do extremes meet! It was "carnal," she considered. She had as yet no right to have any "spiritual affection" for us. We were still "children of wrath and of the devil,"--not yet "convinced of sin," "converted, born again." She had no more spiritual bond with us, she thought, than she had with a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even pray for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on every other subject. For though the majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been decided from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her prayers alter that? If He had chosen us, He would call us in His own good time: and, if not,--. Only again and again, as I afterwards discovered from a journal of hers, she used to beseech God with agonized tears to set her mind at rest by revealing to her His will towards us. For that comfort she could at least rationally pray. But she received no answer. Poor, beloved mother! If thou couldst not read the answer, written in every flower and every sunbeam, written in the very fact of our existence here at all, what answer would have sufficed thee. And yet, with all this, she kept the strictest watch over our morality. Fear, of course, was the only motive she employed; for how could our still carnal understandings be affected with love to God? And love to herself was too paltry and temporary to be urged by one who knew that her life was uncertain, and who was always trying to go down to the deepest eternal ground and reason of everything, and take her stand upon that. So our god, or gods rather, till we were twelve years old, were hell, the rod, the ten commandments, and public opinion. Yet under them, not they, but something deeper far, both in her and us, preserved us pure. Call it natural character, conformation of the spirit,--conformation of the brain, if you like, if you are a scientific man and a phrenologist. I never yet could dissect and map out my own being, or my neighbour's, as you analysts do. To me, I myself, ay, and each person round me, seem one inexplicable whole; to take away a single faculty whereof, is to destroy the harmony, the meaning, the life of all the rest. That there is a duality in us--a lifelong battle between flesh and spirit--we all, alas! know well enough; but which is flesh and which is spirit, what philosophers in these days can tell us? Still less bad we two found out any such duality or discord in ourselves; for we were gentle and obedient children. The pleasures of the world did not tempt us. We did not know of their existence; and no foundlings educated in a nunnery ever grew up in a more virginal and spotless innocence--if ignorance be such--than did Susan and I. The narrowness of my sphere of observation only concentrated the faculty into greater strength. The few natural objects which I met--and they, of course, constituted my whole outer world (for art and poetry were tabooed both by my rank and my mother's sectarianism, and the study of human beings only develops itself as the boy grows into the man)--these few natural objects, I say, I studied with intense keenness. I knew every leaf and flower in the little front garden; every cabbage and rhubarb plant in Battersea fields was wonderful and beautiful to me. Clouds and water I learned to delight in, from my occasional lingerings on Battersea bridge, and yearning westward looks toward the sun setting above rich meadows and wooded gardens, to me a forbidden El Dorado. I brought home wild-flowers and chance beetles and butterflies, and pored over them, not in the spirit of a naturalist, but of a poet. They were to me God's angels shining in coats of mail and fairy masquerading dresses. I envied them their beauty, their freedom. At last I made up my mind, in the simple tenderness of a child's conscience, that it was wrong to rob them of the liberty for which I pined,--to take them away from the beautiful broad country whither I longed to follow them; and I used to keep them a day or two, and then, regretfully, carry them back, and set them loose on the first opportunity, with many compunctions of heart, when, as generally happened, they had been starved to death in the mean time. They were my only recreations after the hours of the small day-school at the neighbouring chapel, where I learnt to read, write, and sum; except, now and then, a London walk, with my mother holding my hand tight the whole way. She would have hoodwinked me, stopped my ears with cotton, and led me in a string,--kind, careful soul!--if it had been reasonably safe on a crowded pavement, so fearful was she lest I should be polluted by some chance sight or sound of the Babylon which she feared and hated--almost as much as she did the Bishops. The only books which I knew were the Pilgrim's Progress and the Bible. The former was my Shakespeare, my Dante, my Vedas, by which I explained every fact and phenomenon of life. London was the City of Destruction, from which I was to flee; I was Christian; the Wicket of the Way of Life I had strangely identified with the turnpike at Battersea-bridge end; and the rising ground of Mortlake and Wimbledon was the Land of Beulah--the Enchanted Mountains of the Shepherds. If I could once get there I was saved: a carnal view, perhaps, and a childish one; but there was a dim meaning and human reality in it nevertheless. As for the Bible, I knew nothing of it really, beyond the Old Testament. Indeed, the life of Christ had little chance of becoming interesting to me. My mother had given me formally to understand that it spoke of matters too deep for me; that "till converted, the natural man could not understand the things of God": and I obtained little more explanation of it from the two unintelligible, dreary sermons to which I listened every dreary Sunday, in terror lest a chance shuffle of my feet, or a hint of drowsiness,--natural result of the stifling gallery and glaring windows and gas lights,--should bring down a lecture and a punishment when I returned home. Oh, those "sabbaths!"--days, not of rest, but utter weariness, when the beetles and the flowers were put by, and there was nothing to fill up the long vacuity but books of which I could not understand a word: when play, laughter, or even a stare out of window at the sinful, merry, sabbath-breaking promenaders, were all forbidden, as if the commandment had run, "In it thou shalt take no manner of amusement, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter." By what strange ascetic perversion has _that_ got to mean "keeping holy the sabbath-day"? Yet there was an hour's relief in the evening, when either my mother told us Old Testament stories, or some preacher or two came in to supper after meeting; and I used to sit in the corner and listen to their talk; not that I understood a word, but the mere struggle to understand--the mere watching my mother's earnest face--my pride in the reverent flattery with which the worthy men addressed her as "a mother in Israel," were enough to fill up the blank for me till bed-time. Of "vital Christianity" I heard much; but, with all my efforts, could find out nothing. Indeed, it did not seem interesting enough to tempt me to find out much. It seemed a set of doctrines, believing in which was to have a magical effect on people, by saving them from the everlasting torture due to sins and temptations which I had never felt. Now and then, believing, in obedience to my mother's assurances, and the solemn prayers of the ministers about me, that I was a child of hell, and a lost and miserable sinner, I used to have accesses of terror, and fancy that I should surely wake next morning in everlasting flames. Once I put my finger a moment into the fire, as certain Papists, and Protestants too, have done, not only to themselves, but to their disciples, to see if it would be so very dreadfully painful; with what conclusions the reader may judge.... Still, I could not keep up the excitement. Why should I? The fear of pain is not the fear of sin, that I know of; and, indeed, the thing was unreal altogether in my case, and my heart, my common sense, rebelled against it again and again; till at last I got a terrible whipping for taking my little sister's part, and saying that if she was to die,--so gentle, and obedient, and affectionate as she was,--God would be very unjust in sending her to hell-fire, and that I was quite certain He would do no such thing--unless He were the Devil: an opinion which I have since seen no reason to change. The confusion between the King of Hell and the King of Heaven has cleared up, thank God, since then! So I was whipped and put to bed--the whipping altering my secret heart just about as much as the dread of hell-fire did. I speak as a Christian man--an orthodox Churchman (if you require that shibboleth). Was I so very wrong? What was there in the idea of religion which was represented to me at home to captivate me? What was the use of a child's hearing of "God's great love manifested in the scheme of redemption," when he heard, in the same breath, that the effects of that redemption were practically confined only to one human being out of a thousand, and that the other nine hundred and ninety-nine were lost and damned from their birth-hour to all eternity--not only by the absolute will and reprobation of God (though that infernal blasphemy I heard often enough), but also, putting that out of the question, by the mere fact of being born of Adam's race? And this to a generation to whom God's love shines out in every tree and flower and hedge-side bird; to whom the daily discoveries of science are revealing that love in every microscopic animalcule which peoples the stagnant pool! This to working men, whose craving is only for some idea which shall give equal hopes, claims, and deliverances, to all mankind alike! This to working men, who, in the smiles of their innocent children, see the heaven which they have lost--the messages of baby-cherubs, made in God's own image! This to me, to whom every butterfly, every look at my little sister, contradicted the lie! You may say that such thoughts were too deep for a child; that I am ascribing to my boyhood the scepticism of my manhood; but it is not so; and what went on in my mind goes on in the minds of thousands. It is the cause of the contempt into which not merely sectarian Protestantism, but Christianity altogether, has fallen in the minds of the thinking workmen. Clergymen, who anathematize us for wandering into Unitarianism--you, you have driven us thither. You must find some explanation of the facts of Christianity more in accordance with the truths which we do know, and will live and die for, or you can never hope to make us Christians; or, if we do return to the true fold, it will be as I returned, after long, miserable years of darkling error, to a higher truth than most of you have yet learned to preach. But those old Jewish heroes did fill my whole heart and soul. I learnt from them lessons which I never wish to unlearn. Whatever else I saw about them, this I saw,--that they were patriots, deliverers from that tyranny and injustice from which the child's heart,--"child of the devil" though you may call him,--instinctively, and, as I believe, by a divine inspiration, revolts. Moses leading his people out of Egypt; Gideon, Barak, and Samson, slaying their oppressors; David, hiding in the mountains from the tyrant, with his little band of those who had fled from the oppressions of an aristocracy of Nabals; Jehu, executing God's vengeance on the kings--they were my heroes, my models; they mixed themselves up with the dim legends about the Reformation martyrs, Cromwell and Hampden, Sidney and Monmouth, which I had heard at my mother's knee. Not that the perennial oppression of the masses, in all ages and countries, had yet risen on me as an awful, torturing, fixed idea. I fancied, poor fool! that tyranny was the exception, and not the rule. But it was the mere sense of abstract pity and justice which was delighted in me. I thought that these were old fairy tales, such as never need be realized again. I learnt otherwise in after years. I have often wondered since, why all cannot read the same lesson as I did in those old Hebrew Scriptures--that they, of all books in the world, have been wrested into proofs of the divine right of kings, the eternal necessity of slavery! But the eye only sees what it brings with it the power of seeing. The upper classes, from their first day at school, to their last day at college, read of nothing but the glories of Salamis and Marathon, of freedom and of the old republics. And what comes of it? No more than their tutors know will come of it, when they thrust into the boys' hands books which give the lie in every page to their own political superstitions. But when I was just turned of thirteen, an altogether new fairy-land was opened to me by some missionary tracts and journals, which were lent to my mother by the ministers. Pacific coral islands and volcanoes, cocoa-nut groves and bananas, graceful savages with paint and feathers--what an El Dorado! How I devoured them and dreamt of them, and went there in fancy, and preached small sermons as I lay in my bed at night to Tahitians and New Zealanders, though I confess my spiritual eyes were, just as my physical eyes would have been, far more busy with the scenery than with the souls of my audience. However, that was the place for me, I saw clearly. And one day, I recollect it well, in the little dingy, foul, reeking, twelve foot square back-yard, where huge smoky party-walls shut out every breath of air and almost all the light of heaven, I had climbed up between the water-butt and the angle of the wall for the purpose of fishing out of the dirty fluid which lay there, crusted with soot and alive with insects, to be renewed only three times in the seven days, some of the great larvæ and kicking monsters which made up a large item in my list of wonders: all of a sudden the horror of the place came over me; those grim prison-walls above, with their canopy of lurid smoke; the dreary, sloppy, broken pavement; the horrible stench of the stagnant cesspools; the utter want of form, colour, life, in the whole place, crushed me down, without my being able to analyse my feelings as I can now; and then came over me that dream of Pacific Islands, and the free, open sea; and I slid down from my perch, and bursting into tears threw myself upon my knees in the court, and prayed aloud to God to let me be a missionary. Half fearfully I let out my wishes to my mother when she came home. She gave me no answer; but, as I found out afterwards,--too late, alas! for her, if not for me,--she, like Mary, had "laid up all these things, and treasured them in her heart." You may guess, then, my delight when, a few days afterwards, I heard that a real live missionary was coming to take tea with us. A man who had actually been in New Zealand!--the thought was rapture. I painted him to myself over and over again; and when, after the first burst of fancy, I recollected that he might possibly not have adopted the native costume of that island, or, if he had, that perhaps it would look too strange for him to wear it about London, I settled within myself that he was to be a tall, venerable-looking man, like the portraits of old Puritan divines which adorned our day-room; and as I had heard that "he was powerful in prayer," I adorned his right hand with that mystic weapon "all-prayer," with which Christian, when all other means have failed, finally vanquishes the fiend--which instrument, in my mind, was somewhat after the model of an infernal sort of bill or halbert--all hooks, edges, spikes, and crescents--which I had passed, shuddering, once, in the hand of an old suit of armour in Wardour Street. He came--and with him the two ministers who often drank tea with my mother; both of whom, as they played some small part in the drama of my after-life, I may as well describe here. The elder was a little, sleek, silver-haired old man, with a blank, weak face, just like a white rabbit. He loved me, and I loved him too, for there were always lollipops in his pocket for me and Susan. Had his head been equal to his heart!--but what has been was to be--and the dissenting clergy, with a few noble exceptions among the Independents, are not the strong men of the day--none know that better than the workmen. The old man's name was Bowyer. The other, Mr. Wigginton, was a younger man; tall, grim, dark, bilious, with a narrow forehead, retreating suddenly from his eyebrows up to a conical peak of black hair over his ears. He preached "higher doctrine," _i.e._, more fatalist and antinomian than his gentler colleague,--and, having also a stentorian voice, was much the greater favourite at the chapel. I hated him--and if any man ever deserved hatred, he did. Well, they came. My heart was in my mouth as I opened the door to them, and sank back again to the very lowest depths of my inner man when my eyes fell on the face and figure of the missionary--a squat, red-faced, pig-eyed, low-browed man, with great soft lips that opened back to his very ears: sensuality, conceit, and cunning marked on every feature--an innate vulgarity, from which the artisan and the child recoil with an instinct as true, perhaps truer, than that of the courtier, showing itself in every tone and motion--I shrank into a corner, so crestfallen that I could not even exert myself to hand round the bread and butter, for which I got duly scolded afterwards. Oh! that man!--how he bawled and contradicted, and laid down the law, and spoke to my mother in a fondling, patronizing way, which made me, I knew not why, boil over with jealousy and indignation. How he filled his teacup half full of the white sugar to buy which my mother had curtailed her yesterday's dinner--how he drained the few remaining drops of the threepennyworth of cream, with which Susan was stealing off to keep it as an unexpected treat for my mother at breakfast the next morning--how he talked of the natives, not as St. Paul might of his converts, but as a planter might of his slaves; overlaying all his unintentional confessions of his own greed and prosperity, with cant, flimsy enough for even a boy to see through, while his eyes were not blinded with the superstition that a man must be pious who sufficiently interlards his speech with a jumble of old English picked out of our translation of the New Testament. Such was the man I saw. I don't deny that all are not like him. I believe there are noble men of all denominations, doing their best according to their light, all over the world; but such was the one I saw--and the men who were sent home to plead the missionary cause, whatever the men may be like who stay behind and work, are, from my small experience, too often such. It appears to me to be the rule that many of those who go abroad as missionaries, go simply because they are men of such inferior powers and attainments that if they stayed in England they would starve. Three parts of his conversation, after all, was made up of abuse of the missionaries of the Church of England, not for doing nothing, but for being so much more successful than his own sect; accusing them, in the same breath, of being just of the inferior type of which he was himself, and also of being mere University fine gentlemen. Really, I do not wonder, upon his own showing, at the savages preferring them to him; and I was pleased to hear the old white-headed minister gently interpose at the end of one of his tirades--"We must not be jealous, my brother, if the Establishment has discovered what we, I hope, shall find out some day, that it is not wise to draft our missionaries from the offscouring of the ministry, and serve God with that which costs us nothing except the expense of providing for them beyond seas." There was somewhat of a roguish twinkle in the old man's eye as he said it, which emboldened me to whisper a question to him. "Why is it, Sir, that in olden times the heathens used to crucify the missionaries and burn them, and now they give them beautiful farms, and build them houses, and carry them about on their backs?" The old man seemed a little puzzled, and so did the company, to whom he smilingly retailed my question. As nobody seemed inclined to offer a solution, I ventured one myself. "Perhaps the heathens are grown better than they used to be?" "The heart of man," answered the tall, dark minister, "is, and ever was, equally at enmity with God." "Then, perhaps," I ventured again, "what the missionaries preach now is not quite the same as what the missionaries used to preach in St. Paul's time, and so the heathens are not so angry at it?" My mother looked thunder at me, and so did all except my white-headed friend, who said, gently enough, "It may be that the child's words come from God." Whether they did or not, the child took very good care to speak no more words till he was alone with his mother; and then finished off that disastrous evening by a punishment for the indecency of saying, before his little sister, that he thought it "a great pity the missionaries taught black people to wear ugly coats and trousers; they must have looked so much handsomer running about with nothing on but feathers and strings of shells." So the missionary dream died out of me, by a foolish and illogical antipathy enough; though, after all, it was a child of my imagination only, not of my heart; and the fancy, having bred it, was able to kill it also. And David became my ideal. To be a shepherd-boy, and sit among beautiful mountains, and sing hymns of my own making, and kill lions and bears, with now and then the chance of a stray giant--what a glorious life! And if David slew giants with a sling and a stone, why should not I?--at all events, one ought to know how; so I made a sling out of an old garter and some string, and began to practise in the little back-yard. But my first shot broke a neighbour's window, value sevenpence, and the next flew back in my face, and cut my head open; so I was sent supperless to bed for a week, till the sevenpence had been duly saved out of my hungry stomach--and, on the whole, I found the hymn-writing side of David's character the more feasible; so I tried, and with much brains-beating, committed the following lines to a scrap of dirty paper. And it was strangely significant, that in this, my first attempt, there was an instinctive denial of the very doctrine of "particular redemption," which I had been hearing all my life, and an instinctive yearning after the very Being in whom I had been told I had "no part nor lot" till I was "converted." Here they are. I am not ashamed to call them--doggerel though they be--an inspiration from Him of whom they speak. If not from Him, good readers, from whom? Jesus, He loves one and all; Jesus, He loves children small; Their souls are sitting round His feet, On high, before His mercy-seat. When on earth He walked in shame, Children small unto Him came; At His feet they knelt and prayed, On their heads His hands He laid. Came a spirit on them then, Greater than of mighty men; A spirit gentle, meek, and mild, A spirit good for king and child. Oh! that spirit give to me, Jesus, Lord, where'er I be! So-- But I did not finish them, not seeing very clearly what to do with that spirit when I obtained it; for, indeed, it seemed a much finer thing to fight material Apollyons with material swords of iron, like my friend Christian, or to go bear and lion hunting with David, than to convert heathens by meekness--at least, if true meekness was at all like that of the missionary whom I had lately seen. I showed the verses in secret to my little sister. My mother heard us singing them together, and extorted, grimly enough, a confession of the authorship. I expected to be punished for them (I was accustomed weekly to be punished for all sorts of deeds and words, of the harmfulness of which I had not a notion). It was, therefore, an agreeable surprise when the old minister, the next Sunday evening, patted my head, and praised me for them. "A hopeful sign of young grace, brother," said he to the dark tall man. "May we behold here an infant Timothy!" "Bad doctrine, brother, in that first line--bad doctrine, which I am sure he did not learn from our excellent sister here. Remember, my boy, henceforth, that Jesus does _not_ love one and all--not that I am angry with you. The carnal mind cannot be expected to understand divine things, any more than the beasts that perish. Nevertheless, the blessed message of the Gospel stands true, that Christ loves none but His Bride, the Church. His merits, my poor child, extend to none but the elect. Ah! my dear sister Locke, how delightful to think of the narrow way of discriminating grace! How it enhances the believer's view of his own exceeding privileges, to remember that there be few that be saved!" I said nothing. I thought myself only too lucky to escape so well from the danger of having done anything out of my own head. But somehow Susan and I never altered it when we sang it to ourselves. * * * * * I thought it necessary, for the sake of those who might read my story, to string together these few scattered recollections of my boyhood,--to give, as it were, some sample of the cotyledon leaves of my young life-plant, and of the soil in which it took root, ere it was transplanted--but I will not forestall my sorrows. After all, they have been but types of the woes of thousands who "die and give no sign." Those to whom the struggles of every, even the meanest, human being are scenes of an awful drama, every incident of which is to be noted with reverent interest, will not find them void of meaning; while the life which opens in my next chapter is, perhaps, full enough of mere dramatic interest (and whose life is not, were it but truly written?) to amuse merely as a novel. Ay, grim and real is the action and suffering which begins with my next page,--as you yourself would have found, high-born reader (if such chance to light upon this story), had you found yourself at fifteen, after a youth of convent-like seclusion, settled, apparently for life--in a tailor's workshop. Ay--laugh!--we tailors can quote poetry as well as make your court-dresses: You sit in a cloud and sing, like pictured angels, And say the world runs smooth--while right below Welters the black fermenting heap of griefs Whereon your state is built.... CHAPTER II. THE TAILOR'S WORKROOM. Have you done laughing! Then I will tell you how the thing came to pass. My father had a brother, who had steadily risen in life, in proportion as my father fell. They had both begun life in a grocer's shop. My father saved enough to marry, when of middle age, a woman of his own years, and set up a little shop, where there were far too many such already, in the hope--to him, as to the rest of the world, quite just and innocent--of drawing away as much as possible of his neighbours' custom. He failed, died--as so many small tradesmen do--of bad debts and a broken heart, and left us beggars. His brother, more prudent, had, in the meantime, risen to be foreman; then he married, on the strength of his handsome person, his master's blooming widow; and rose and rose, year by year, till, at the time of which I speak, he was owner of a first-rate grocery establishment in the City, and a pleasant villa near Herne Hill, and had a son, a year or two older than myself, at King's College, preparing for Cambridge and the Church--that being now-a-days the approved method of converting a tradesman's son into a gentleman,--whereof let artisans, and gentlemen also, take note. My aristocratic readers--if I ever get any, which I pray God I may--may be surprised at so great an inequality of fortune between two cousins; but the thing is common in our class. In the higher ranks, a difference in income implies none in education or manners, and the poor "gentleman" is a fit companion for dukes and princes--thanks to the old usages of Norman chivalry, which after all were a democratic protest against the sovereignty, if not of rank, at least of money. The knight, however penniless, was the prince's equal, even his superior, from whose hands he must receive knighthood; and the "squire of low degree," who honourably earned his spurs, rose also into that guild, whose qualifications, however barbaric, were still higher ones than any which the pocket gives. But in the commercial classes money most truly and fearfully "makes the man." A difference in income, as you go lower, makes more and more difference in the supply of the common necessaries of life; and worse--in education and manners, in all which polishes the man, till you may see often, as in my case, one cousin a Cambridge undergraduate, and the other a tailor's journeyman. My uncle one day came down to visit us, resplendent in a black velvet waistcoat, thick gold chain, and acres of shirt-front; and I and Susan were turned to feed on our own curiosity and awe in the back-yard, while he and my mother were closeted together for an hour or so in the living-room. When he was gone, my mother called me in; and with eyes which would have been tearful had she allowed herself such a weakness before us, told me very solemnly and slowly, as if to impress upon me the awfulness of the matter, that I was to be sent to a tailor's workrooms the next day. And an awful step it was in her eyes, as she laid her hands on my head and murmured to herself, "Behold, I send you forth as a lamb in the midst of wolves. Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves." And then, rising hastily to conceal her own emotion, fled upstairs, where we could hear her throw herself on her knees by the bedside, and sob piteously. That evening was spent dolefully enough, in a sermon of warnings against all manner of sins and temptations, the very names of which I had never heard, but to which, as she informed me, I was by my fallen nature altogether prone: and right enough was she in so saying, though as often happens, the temptations from which I was in real danger were just the ones of which she had no notion--fighting more or less extinct Satans, as Mr. Carlyle says, and quite unconscious of the real, modern, man-devouring Satan close at her elbow. To me, in spite of all the terror which she tried to awaken in me, the change was not unwelcome; at all events, it promised me food for my eyes and my ears,--some escape from the narrow cage in which, though I hardly dare confess it to myself, I was beginning to pine. Little I dreamt to what a darker cage I was to be translated! Not that I accuse my uncle of neglect or cruelty, though the thing was altogether of his commanding. He was as generous to us as society required him to be. We were entirely dependent on him, as my mother told me then for the first time, for support. And had he not a right to dispose of my person, having bought it by an allowance to my mother of five-and-twenty pounds a year? I did not forget that fact; the thought of my dependence on him rankled in me, till it almost bred hatred in me to a man who had certainly never done or meant anything to me but in kindness. For what could he make me but a tailor--or a shoemaker? A pale, consumptive, rickety, weakly boy, all forehead and no muscle--have not clothes and shoes been from time immemorial the appointed work of such? The fact that that weakly frame is generally compensated by a proportionally increased activity of brain, is too unimportant to enter into the calculations of the great King Laissez-faire. Well, my dear Society, it is you that suffer for the mistake, after all, more than we. If you do tether your cleverest artisans on tailors' shopboards and cobblers' benches, and they--as sedentary folk will--fall a thinking, and come to strange conclusions thereby, they really ought to be much more thankful to you than you are to them. If Thomas Cooper had passed his first five-and-twenty years at the plough tail instead of the shoemaker's awl, many words would have been left unsaid which, once spoken, working men are not likely to forget. With a beating heart I shambled along by my mother's side next day to Mr. Smith's shop, in a street off Piccadilly; and stood by her side, just within the door, waiting till some one would condescend to speak to us, and wondering when the time would come when I, like the gentleman who skipped up and down the shop, should shine glorious in patent-leather boots, and a blue satin tie sprigged with gold. Two personages, both equally magnificent, stood talking with their backs to us; and my mother, in doubt, like myself, as to which of them was the tailor, at last summoned up courage to address the wrong one, by asking if he were Mr. Smith. The person addressed answered by a most polite smile and bow, and assured her that he had not that honour; while the other he-he'ed, evidently a little flattered by the mistake, and then uttered in a tremendous voice these words: "I have nothing for you, my good woman--go. Mr. Elliot! how did you come to allow these people to get into the establishment?" "My name is Locke, sir, and I was to bring my son here this morning." "Oh--ah!--Mr. Elliot, see to these persons. As I was saying, my lard, the crimson velvet suit, about thirty-five guineas. By-the-by, that coat ours? I thought so--idea grand and light--masses well broken--very fine chiaroscuro about the whole--an aristocratic wrinkle just above the hips--which I flatter myself no one but myself and my friend Mr. Cooke really do understand. The vapid smoothness of the door dummy, my lard, should be confined to the regions of the Strand. Mr. Elliot, where are you? Just be so good as to show his lardship that lovely new thing in drab and _blue foncé_. Ah! your lardship can't wait.--Now, my good woman, is this the young man?" "Yes," said my mother: "and--and--God deal so with you, sir, as you deal with the widow and the orphan." "Oh--ah--that will depend very much, I should say, on how the widow and the orphan deal with me. Mr. Elliot, take this person into the office and transact the little formalities with her, Jones, take the young man up-stairs to the work-room." I stumbled after Mr. Jones up a dark, narrow, iron staircase till we emerged through a trap-door into a garret at the top of the house. I recoiled with disgust at the scene before me; and here I was to work--perhaps through life! A low lean-to room, stifling me with the combined odours of human breath and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less disgusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a mingled look of care and recklessness that made me shudder. The windows were tight closed to keep out the cold winter air; and the condensed breath ran in streams down the panes, chequering the dreary outlook of chimney-tops and smoke. The conductor handed me over to one of the men. "Here, Crossthwaite, take this younker and make a tailor of him. Keep him next you, and prick him up with your needle if he shirks." He disappeared down the trap-door, and mechanically, as if in a dream, I sat down by the man and listened to his instructions, kindly enough bestowed. But I did not remain in peace two minutes. A burst of chatter rose as the foreman vanished, and a tall, bloated, sharp-nosed young man next me bawled in my ear,-- "I say, young'un, fork out the tin and pay your footing at Conscrumption Hospital." "What do you mean?" "Aint he just green?--Down with the stumpy--a tizzy for a pot of half-and-half." "I never drink beer." "Then never do," whispered the man at my side; "as sure as hell's hell, it's your only chance." There was a fierce, deep earnestness in the tone which made me look up at the speaker, but the other instantly chimed in-- "Oh, yer don't, don't yer, my young Father Mathy? then yer'll soon learn it here if yer want to keep yer victuals down." "And I have promised to take my wages home to my mother." "Oh criminy! hark to that, my coves! here's a chap as is going to take the blunt home to his mammy." "T'aint much of it the old'un'll see," said another. "Ven yer pockets it at the Cock and Bottle, my kiddy, yer won't find much of it left o' Sunday mornings." "Don't his mother know he's out?" asked another, "and won't she know it-- "Ven he's sitting in his glory Half-price at the Victory. "Oh! no, ve never mentions her--her name is never heard. Certainly not, by no means. Why should it?" "Well, if yer won't stand a pot," quoth the tall man, "I will, that's all, and blow temperance. 'A short life and a merry one,' says the tailor-- "The ministers talk a great deal about port, And they makes Cape wine very dear, But blow their hi's if ever they tries To deprive a poor cove of his beer. "Here, Sam, run to the Cock and Bottle for a pot of half-and-half to my score." A thin, pale lad jumped up and vanished, while my tormentor turned to me: "I say, young'un, do you know why we're nearer heaven here than our neighbours?" "I shouldn't have thought so," answered I with a _naïveté_ which raised a laugh, and dashed the tall man for a moment. "Yer don't? then I'll tell yer. A cause we're a top of the house in the first place, and next place yer'll die here six months sooner nor if yer worked in the room below. Aint that logic and science, Orator?" appealing to Crossthwaite. "Why?" asked I. "A cause you get all the other floors' stinks up here as well as your own. Concentrated essence of man's flesh, is this here as you're a breathing. Cellar workroom we calls Rheumatic Ward, because of the damp. Ground-floor's Fever Ward--them as don't get typhus gets dysentery, and them as don't get dysentery gets typhus--your nose'd tell yer why if you opened the back windy. First floor's Ashmy Ward--don't you hear 'um now through the cracks in the boards, a puffing away like a nest of young locomotives? And this here most august and upper-crust cockloft is the Conscrumptive Hospital. First you begins to cough, then you proceeds to expectorate--spittoons, as you see, perwided free gracious for nothing--fined a kivarten if you spits on the floor-- "Then your cheeks they grows red, and your nose it grows thin, And your bones they stick out, till they comes through your skin: "and then, when you've sufficiently covered the poor dear shivering bare backs of the hairystocracy-- "Die, die, die, Away you fly, Your soul is in the sky! "as the hinspired Shakspeare wittily remarks." And the ribald lay down on his back, stretched himself out, and pretended to die in a fit of coughing, which last was, alas! no counterfeit, while poor I, shocked and bewildered, let my tears fall fast upon my knees. "Fine him a pot!" roared one, "for talking about kicking the bucket. He's a nice young man to keep a cove's spirits up, and talk about 'a short life and a merry one.' Here comes the heavy. Hand it here to take the taste of that fellow's talk out of my mouth." "Well, my young'un," recommenced my tormentor, "and how do you like your company?" "Leave the boy alone," growled Crossthwaite; "don't you see he's crying?" "Is that anything good to eat? Give me some on it if it is--it'll save me washing my face." And he took hold of my hair and pulled my head back. "I'll tell you what, Jemmy Downes," said Crossthwaite, in a voice which made him draw back, "if you don't drop that, I'll give you such a taste of my tongue as shall turn you blue." "You'd better try it on then. Do--only just now--if you please." "Be quiet, you fool!" said another. "You're a pretty fellow to chaff the orator. He'll slang you up the chimney afore you can get your shoes on." "Fine him a kivarten for quarrelling," cried another; and the bully subsided into a minute's silence, after a _sotto voce_--"Blow temperance, and blow all Chartists, say I!" and then delivered himself of his feelings in a doggerel song: "Some folks leads coves a dance, With their pledge of temperance, And their plans for donkey sociation; And their pockets full they crams By their patriotic flams, And then swears 'tis for the good of the nation. "But I don't care two inions For political opinions, While I can stand my heavy and my quartern; For to drown dull care within, In baccy, beer, and gin, Is the prime of a working-tailor's fortin! "There's common sense for yer now; hand the pot here." I recollect nothing more of that day, except that I bent myself to my work with assiduity enough to earn praises from Crossthwaite. It was to be done, and I did it. The only virtue I ever possessed (if virtue it be) is the power of absorbing my whole heart and mind in the pursuit of the moment, however dull or trivial, if there be good reason why it should be pursued at all. I owe, too, an apology to my readers for introducing all this ribaldry. God knows, it is as little to my taste as it can be to theirs, but the thing exists; and those who live, if not by, yet still besides such a state of things, ought to know what the men are like to whose labour, ay, lifeblood, they own their luxuries. They are "their brothers' keepers," let them deny it as they will. Thank God, many are finding that out; and the morals of the working tailors, as well as of other classes of artisans, are rapidly improving: a change which has been brought about partly by the wisdom and kindness of a few master tailors, who have built workshops fit for human beings, and have resolutely stood out against the iniquitous and destructive alterations in the system of employment. Among them I may, and will, whether they like it or not, make honourable mention of Mr. Willis, of St. James's Street, and Mr. Stultz, of Bond Street. But nine-tenths of the improvement has been owing, not to the masters, but to the men themselves; and who among them, my aristocratic readers, do you think, have been the great preachers and practisers of temperance, thrift, charity, self-respect, and education. Who?--shriek not in your Belgravian saloons--the Chartists; the communist Chartists: upon whom you and your venal press heap every kind of cowardly execration and ribald slander. You have found out many things since Peterloo; add that fact to the number. It may seem strange that I did not tell my mother into what a pandemonium I had fallen, and got her to deliver me; but a delicacy, which was not all evil, kept me back; I shrank from seeming to dislike to earn my daily bread, and still more from seeming to object to what she had appointed for me. Her will had been always law; it seemed a deadly sin to dispute it. I took for granted, too, that she knew what the place was like, and that, therefore, it must be right for me. And when I came home at night, and got back to my beloved missionary stories, I gathered materials enough to occupy my thoughts during the next day's work, and make me blind and deaf to all the evil around me. My mother, poor dear creature, would have denounced my day-dreams sternly enough, had she known of their existence; but were they not holy angels from heaven? guardians sent by that Father, whom I had been taught _not_ to believe in, to shield my senses from pollution? I was ashamed, too, to mention to my mother the wickedness which I saw and heard. With the delicacy of an innocent boy, I almost imputed the very witnessing of it as a sin to myself; and soon I began to be ashamed of more than the mere sitting by and hearing. I found myself gradually learning slang-insolence, laughing at coarse jokes, taking part in angry conversations; my moral tone was gradually becoming lower; but yet the habit of prayer remained, and every night at my bedside, when I prayed to "be converted and made a child of God," I prayed that the same mercy might be extended to my fellow-workmen, "if they belonged to the number of the elect." Those prayers may have been answered in a wider and deeper sense than I then thought of. But, altogether, I felt myself in a most distracted, rudderless state. My mother's advice I felt daily less and less inclined to ask. A gulf was opening between us; we were moving in two different worlds, and she saw it, and imputed it to me as a sin; and was the more cold to me by day, and prayed for me (as I knew afterwards) the more passionately while I slept. But help or teacher I had none. I knew not that I had a Father in heaven. How could He be my Father till I was converted? I was a child of the Devil, they told me; and now and then I felt inclined to take them at their word, and behave like one. No sympathizing face looked on me out of the wide heaven--off the wide earth, none. I was all boiling with new hopes, new temptations, new passions, new sorrows, and "I looked to the right hand and to the left, and no man cared for my soul." I had felt myself from the first strangely drawn towards Crossthwaite, carefully as he seemed to avoid me, except to give me business directions in the workroom. He alone had shown me any kindness; and he, too, alone was untainted with the sin around him. Silent, moody, and preoccupied, he was yet the king of the room. His opinion was always asked, and listened to. His eye always cowed the ribald and the blasphemer; his songs, when he rarely broke out into merriment, were always rapturously applauded. Men hated, and yet respected him. I shrank from him at first, when I heard him called a Chartist; for my dim notions of that class were, that they were a very wicked set of people, who wanted to kill all the soldiers and policemen and respectable people, and rob all the shops of their contents. But, Chartist or none, Crossthwaite fascinated me. I often found myself neglecting my work to study his face. I liked him, too, because he was as I was--small, pale, and weakly. He might have been five-and-twenty; but his looks, like those of too many a working man, were rather those of a man of forty. Wild grey eyes gleamed out from under huge knitted brows, and a perpendicular wall of brain, too large for his puny body. He was not only, I soon discovered, a water-drinker, but a strict "vegetarian" also; to which, perhaps, he owed a great deal of the almost preternatural clearness, volubility, and sensitiveness of his mind. But whether from his ascetic habits, or the un-healthiness of his trade, the marks of ill-health were upon him; and his sallow cheek, and ever-working lip, proclaimed too surely-- The fiery soul which, working out its way, Fretted the pigmy body to decay; And o'er informed the tenement of clay. I longed to open my heart to him. Instinctively I felt that he was a kindred spirit. Often, turning round suddenly in the workroom, I caught him watching me with an expression which seemed to say, "Poor boy, and art thou too one of us? Hast thou too to fight with poverty and guidelessness, and the cravings of an unsatisfied intellect, as I have done!" But when I tried to speak to him earnestly, his manner was peremptory and repellent. It was well for me that so it was--well for me, I see now, that it was not from him my mind received the first lessons in self-development. For guides did come to me in good time, though not such, perhaps, as either my mother or my readers would have chosen for me. My great desire now was to get knowledge. By getting that I fancied, as most self-educated men are apt to do, 1 should surely get wisdom. Books, I thought, would tell me all I needed. But where to get the books? And which? I had exhausted our small stock at home; I was sick and tired, without knowing why, of their narrow conventional view of everything. After all, I had been reading them all along, not for their doctrines but for their facts, and knew not where to find more, except in forbidden paths. I dare not ask my mother for books, for I dare not confess to her that religious ones were just what I did not want; and all history, poetry, science, I had been accustomed to hear spoken of as "carnal learning, human philosophy," more or less diabolic and ruinous to the soul. So, as usually happens in this life--"By the law was the knowledge of sin"--and unnatural restrictions on the development of the human spirit only associated with guilt of conscience, what ought to have been an innocent and necessary blessing. My poor mother, not singular in her mistake, had sent me forth, out of an unconscious paradise into the evil world, without allowing me even the sad strength which comes from eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; she expected in me the innocence of the dove, as if that was possible on such an earth as this, without the wisdom of the serpent to support it. She forbade me strictly to stop and look into the windows of print shops, and I strictly obeyed her. But she forbade me, too, to read any book which I had not first shown her; and that restriction, reasonable enough in the abstract, practically meant, in the case of a poor boy like myself, reading no books at all. And then came my first act of disobedience, the parent of many more. Bitterly have I repented it, and bitterly been punished. Yet, strange contradiction! I dare not wish it undone. But such is the great law of life. Punished for our sins we surely are; and yet how often they become our blessings, teaching us that which nothing else can teach us! Nothing else? One says so. Rich parents, I suppose, say so, when they send their sons to public schools "to learn life." We working men have too often no other teacher than our own errors. But surely, surely, the rich ought to have been able to discover some mode of education in which knowledge may be acquired without the price of conscience, Yet they have not; and we must not complain of them for not giving such a one to the working man when they have not yet even given it to their own children. In a street through which I used to walk homeward was an old book shop, piled and fringed outside and in with books of every age, size, and colour. And here I at last summoned courage to stop, and timidly and stealthily taking out some volume whose title attracted me, snatch hastily a few pages and hasten on, half fearful of being called on to purchase, half ashamed of a desire which I fancied every one else considered as unlawful as my mother did. Sometimes I was lucky enough to find the same volume several days running, and to take up the subject where I had left it off; and thus I contrived to hurry through a great deal of "Childe Harold," "Lara," and the "Corsair"--a new world of wonders to me. They fed, those poems, both my health and my diseases; while they gave me, little of them as I could understand, a thousand new notions about scenery and man, a sense of poetic melody and luxuriance as yet utterly unknown. They chimed in with all my discontent, my melancholy, my thirst after any life of action and excitement, however frivolous, insane, or even worse. I forgot the Corsair's sinful trade in his free and daring life; rather, I honestly eliminated the bad element--in which, God knows, I took no delight--and kept the good one. However that might be, the innocent--guilty pleasure grew on me day by day. Innocent, because human--guilty, because disobedient. But have I not paid the penalty? One evening, however, I fell accidentally on a new book--"The Life and Poems of J. Bethune." I opened the story of his life--became interested, absorbed--and there I stood, I know not how long, on the greasy pavement, heedless of the passers who thrust me right and left, reading by the flaring gas-light that sad history of labour, sorrow, and death.--How the Highland cotter, in spite of disease, penury, starvation itself, and the daily struggle to earn his bread by digging and ditching, educated himself--how he toiled unceasingly with his hands--how he wrote his poems in secret on dirty scraps of paper and old leaves of books--how thus he wore himself out, manful and godly, "bating not a jot of heart or hope," till the weak flesh would bear no more; and the noble spirit, unrecognized by the lord of the soil, returned to God who gave it. I seemed to see in his history a sad presage of my own. If he, stronger, more self-restrained, more righteous far than ever I could be, had died thus unknown, unassisted, in the stern battle with social disadvantages, what must be my lot? And tears of sympathy, rather than of selfish fear, fell fast upon the book. A harsh voice from the inner darkness of the shop startled me. "Hoot, laddie, ye'll better no spoil my books wi' greeting ower them." I replaced the book hastily, and was hurrying on, but the same voice called me back in a more kindly tone. "Stop a wee, my laddie. I'm no angered wi' ye. Come in, and we'll just ha' a bit crack thegither." I went in, for there was a geniality in the tone to which I was unaccustomed, and something whispered to me the hope of an adventure, as indeed it proved to be, if an event deserves that name which decided the course of my whole destiny. "What war ye greeting about, then? What was the book?" "'Bethune's Life and Poems,' sir," I said. "And certainly they did affect me very much." "Affect ye? Ah, Johnnie Bethune, puir fellow! Ye maunna take on about sic like laddies, or ye'll greet your e'en out o' your head. It's mony a braw man beside Johnnie Bethune has gane Johnnie-Bethune's gate." Though unaccustomed to the Scotch accent, I could make out enough of this speech to be in nowise consoled by it. But the old man turned the conversation by asking me abruptly my name, and trade, and family. "Hum, hum, widow, eh? puir body! work at Smith's shop, eh? Ye'll ken John Crossthwaite, then? ay? hum, hum; an' ye're desirous o' reading books? vara weel--let's see your cawpabilities." And he pulled me into the dim light of the little back window, shoved back his spectacles, and peering at me from underneath them, began, to my great astonishment, to feel my head all over. "Hum, hum, a vara gude forehead--vara gude indeed. Causative organs large, perceptive ditto. Imagination superabundant--mun be heeded. Benevolence, conscientiousness, ditto, ditto. Caution--no that large--might be developed," with a quiet chuckle, "under a gude Scot's education. Just turn your head into profile, laddie. Hum, hum. Back o' the head a'thegither defective. Firmness sma'--love of approbation unco big. Beware o' leeing, as ye live; ye'll need it. Philoprogenitiveness gude. Ye'll be fond o' bairns, I'm guessing?" "Of what?" "Children, laddie,--children." "Very," answered I, in utter dismay at what seemed to me a magical process for getting at all my secret failings. "Hum, hum! Amative and combative organs sma'--a general want o' healthy animalism, as my freen' Mr. Deville wad say. And ye want to read books?" I confessed my desire, without, alas! confessing that my mother had forbidden it. "Vara weel; then books I'll lend ye, after I've had a crack wi' Crossthwaite aboot ye, gin I find his opinion o' ye satisfactory. Come to me the day after to-morrow. An' mind, here are my rules:--a' damage done to a book to be paid for, or na mair books lent; ye'll mind to take no books without leave; specially ye'll mind no to read in bed o' nights,--industrious folks ought to be sleeping' betimes, an' I'd no be a party to burning puir weans in their beds; and lastly, ye'll observe not to read mair than five books at once." I assured him that I thought such a thing impossible; but he smiled in his saturnine way, and said-- "We'll see this day fortnight. Now, then, I've observed ye for a month past over that aristocratic Byron's poems. And I'm willing to teach the young idea how to shoot--but no to shoot itself; so ye'll just leave alane that vinegary, soul-destroying trash, and I'll lend ye, gin I hear a gude report of ye, 'The Paradise Lost,' o' John Milton--a gran' classic model; and for the doctrine o't, it's just aboot as gude as ye'll hear elsewhere the noo. So gang your gate, and tell John Crossthwaite, privately, auld Sandy Mackaye wad like to see him the morn's night." I went home in wonder and delight. Books! books! books! I should have my fill of them at last. And when I said my prayers at night, I thanked God for this unexpected boon; and then remembered that my mother had forbidden it. That thought checked the thanks, but not the pleasure. Oh, parents! are there not real sins enough in the world already, without your defiling it, over and above, by inventing new ones? CHAPTER III. SANDY MACKAYE. That day fortnight came,--and the old Scotchman's words came true. Four books of his I had already, and I came in to borrow a fifth; whereon he began with a solemn chuckle: "Eh, laddie, laddie, I've been treating ye as the grocers do their new prentices. They first gie the boys three days' free warren among the figs and the sugar-candy, and they get scunnered wi' sweets after that. Noo, then, my lad, ye've just been reading four books in three days--and here's a fifth. Ye'll no open this again." "Oh!" I cried, piteously enough, "just let me finish what I am reading. I'm in the middle of such a wonderful account of the Hornitos of Jurullo." "Hornets or wasps, a swarm o' them ye're like to have at this rate; and a very bad substitute ye'll find them for the Attic bee. Now tak' tent. I'm no in the habit of speaking without deliberation, for it saves a man a great deal of trouble in changing his mind. If ye canna traduce to me a page o' Virgil by this day three months, ye read no more o' my books. Desultory reading is the bane o' lads. Ye maun begin with self-restraint and method, my man, gin ye intend to gie yoursel' a liberal education. So I'll just mak' you a present of an auld Latin grammar, and ye maun begin where your betters ha' begun before you." "But who will teach me Latin?" "Hoot, man! who'll teach a man anything except himsel'? It's only gentlefolks and puir aristocrat bodies that go to be spoilt wi' tutors and pedagogues, cramming and loading them wi' knowledge, as ye'd load a gun, to shoot it all out again, just as it went down, in a college examination, and forget all aboot it after." "Ah!" I sighed, "if I could have gone to college!" "What for, then? My father was a Hieland farmer, and yet he was a weel learned man: and 'Sandy, my lad,' he used to say, 'a man kens just as much as he's taught himsel', and na mair. So get wisdom; and wi' all your getting, get understanding.' And so I did. And mony's the Greek exercise I've written in the cowbyres. And mony's the page o' Virgil, too, I've turned into good Dawric Scotch to ane that's dead and gane, poor hizzie, sitting under the same plaid, with the sheep feeding round us, up among the hills, looking out ower the broad blue sea, and the wee haven wi' the fishing cobles--" There was a long solemn pause. I cannot tell why, but I loved the man from that moment; and I thought, too, that he began to love me. Those few words seemed a proof of confidence, perhaps all the deeper, because accidental and unconscious. I took the Virgil which he lent me, with Hamilton's literal translation between the lines, and an old tattered Latin grammar; I felt myself quite a learned man--actually the possessor of a Latin book! I regarded as something almost miraculous the opening of this new field for my ambition. Not that I was consciously, much less selfishly, ambitious. I had no idea as yet to be anything but a tailor to the end; to make clothes--perhaps in a less infernal atmosphere--but still to make clothes and live thereby. I did not suspect that I possessed powers above the mass. My intense longing after knowledge had been to me like a girl's first love--a thing to be concealed from every eye--to be looked at askance even by myself, delicious as it was, with holy shame and trembling. And thus it was not cowardice merely, but natural modesty, which put me on a hundred plans of concealing my studies from my mother, and even from my sister. I slept in a little lean-to garret at the back of the house, some ten feet long by six wide. I could just stand upright against the inner wall, while the roof on the other side ran down to the floor. There was no fireplace in it, or any means of ventilation. No wonder I coughed all night accordingly, and woke about two every morning with choking throat and aching head. My mother often said that the room was "too small for a Christian to sleep in, but where could she get a better?" Such was my only study. I could not use it as such, however, at night without discovery; for my mother carefully looked in every evening, to see that my candle was out. But when my kind cough woke me, I rose, and creeping like a mouse about the room--for my mother and sister slept in the next chamber, and every sound was audible through the narrow partition--I drew my darling books out from under a board of the floor, one end of which I had gradually loosened at odd minutes, and with them a rushlight, earned by running on messages, or by taking bits of work home, and finishing them for my fellows. No wonder that with this scanty rest, and this complicated exertion of hands, eyes, and brain, followed by the long dreary day's work of the shop, my health began to fail; my eyes grew weaker and weaker; my cough became more acute; my appetite failed me daily. My mother noticed the change, and questioned me about it, affectionately enough. But I durst not, alas! tell the truth. It was not one offence, but the arrears of months of disobedience which I should have had to confess; and so arose infinite false excuses, and petty prevarications, which embittered and clogged still more my already overtasked spirit. About my own ailments--formidable as I believed they were--I never had a moment's anxiety. The expectation of early death was as unnatural to me as it is, I suspect, to almost all. I die? Had I not hopes, plans, desires, infinite? Could I die while they were unfulfilled? Even now, I do not believe I shall die yet. I will not believe it--but let that pass. Yes, let that pass. Perhaps I have lived long enough--longer than many a grey-headed man. There is a race of mortals who become Old in their youth, and die ere middle age. And might not those days of mine then have counted as months?--those days when, before starting forth to walk two miles to the shop at six o'clock in the morning, I sat some three or four hours shivering on my bed, putting myself into cramped and painful postures, not daring even to cough, lest my mother should fancy me unwell, and come in to see me, poor dear soul!--my eyes aching over the page, my feet wrapped up in the bedclothes, to keep them from the miserable pain of the cold; longing, watching, dawn after dawn, for the kind summer mornings, when I should need no candlelight. Look at the picture awhile, ye comfortable folks, who take down from your shelves what books you like best at the moment, and then lie back, amid prints and statuettes, to grow wise in an easy-chair, with a blazing fire and a camphine lamp. The lower classes uneducated! Perhaps you would be so too, if learning cost you the privation which it costs some of them. But this concealment could not last. My only wonder is, that I continued to get whole months of undiscovered study. One morning, about four o'clock, as might have been expected, my mother heard me stirring, came in, and found me sitting crosslegged on my bed, stitching away, indeed, with all my might, but with a Virgil open before me. She glanced at the book, clutched it with one hand and my arm with the other, and sternly asked, "Where did you get this heathen stuff?" A lie rose to my lips; but I had been so gradually entangled in the loathed meshes of a system of concealment, and consequent prevarication, that I felt as if one direct falsehood would ruin for ever my fast-failing self-respect, and I told her the whole truth. She took the book and left the room. It was Saturday morning, and I spent two miserable days, for she never spoke a word to me till the two ministers had made their appearance, and drank their tea on Sunday evening: then at last she opened: "And now, Mr. Wigginton, what account have you of this Mr. Mackaye, who has seduced my unhappy boy from the paths of obedience?" "I am sorry to say, madam," answered the dark man, with a solemn snuffle, "that he proves to be a most objectionable and altogether unregenerate character. He is, as I am informed, neither more nor less than a Chartist, and an open blasphemer." "He is not!" I interrupted, angrily. "He has told me more about God, and given me better advice, than any human being, except my mother." "Ah! madam, so thinks the unconverted heart, ignorant that the god of the Deist is not the God of the Bible--a consuming fire to all but His beloved elect; the god of the Deist, unhappy youth, is a mere self-invented, all-indulgent phantom--a will-o'-the-wisp, deluding the unwary, as he has deluded you, into the slough of carnal reason and shameful profligacy." "Do you mean to call me a profligate?" I retorted fiercely, for my blood was up, and I felt I was fighting for all which I prized in the world: "if you do, you lie. Ask my mother when I ever disobeyed her before? I have never touched a drop of anything stronger than water; I have slaved over-hours to pay for my own candle, I have!--I have no sins to accuse myself of, and neither you nor any person know of any. Do you call me a profligate because I wish to educate myself and rise in life?" "Ah!" groaned my poor mother to herself, "still unconvinced of sin!" "The old Adam, my dear madam, you see,--standing, as he always does, on his own filthy rags of works, while all the imaginations of his heart are only evil continually. Listen to me, poor sinner--" "I will not listen to you," I cried, the accumulated disgust of years bursting out once and for all, "for I hate and despise you, eating my poor mother here out of house and home. You are one of those who creep into widows' houses, and for pretence make long prayers. You, sir, I will hear," I went on, turning to the dear old man who had sat by shaking his white locks with a sad and puzzled air, "for I love you." "My dear sister Locke," he began, "I really think sometimes--that is, ahem--with your leave, brother--I am almost disposed--but I should wish to defer to your superior zeal--yet, at the same time, perhaps, the desire for information, however carnal in itself, may be an instrument in the Lord's hands--you know what I mean. I always thought him a gracious youth, madam, didn't you? And perhaps--I only observe it in passing--the Lord's people among the dissenting connexions are apt to undervalue human learning as a means--of course, I mean, only as a means. It is not generally known, I believe, that our reverend Puritan patriarchs, Howe and Baxter, Owen and many more, were not altogether unacquainted with heathen authors; nay, that they may have been called absolutely learned men. And some of our leading ministers are inclined--no doubt they will be led rightly in so important a matter--to follow the example of the Independents in educating their young ministers, and turning Satan's weapons of heathen mythology against himself, as St. Paul is said to have done. My dear boy, what books have you now got by you of Mr. Mackaye's?" "Milton's Poems and a Latin Virgil." "Ah!" groaned the dark man; "will poetry, will Latin save an immortal soul?" "I'll tell you what, sir; you say yourself that it depends on God's absolute counsel whether I am saved or not. So, if I am elect, I shall be saved whatever I do; and if I am not, I shall be damned whatever I do; and in the mean time you had better mind your own business, and let me do the best I can for this life, as the next is all settled for me." This flippant, but after all not unreasonable speech, seemed to silence the man; and I took the opportunity of running up-stairs and bringing down my Milton. The old man was speaking as I re-entered. "And you know, my dear madam, Mr. Milton was a true converted man, and a Puritan." "He was Oliver Cromwell's secretary," I added. "Did he teach you to disobey your mother?" asked my mother. I did not answer; and the old man, after turning over a few leaves, as if he knew the book well, looked up. "I think, madam, you might let the youth keep these books, if he will promise, as I am sure he will, to see no more of Mr. Mackaye." I was ready to burst out crying, but I made up my mind and answered, "I must see him once again, or he will think me so ungrateful. He is the best friend that I ever had, except you, mother. Besides, I do not know if he will lend me any, after this." My mother looked at the old minister, and then gave a sullen assent. "Promise me only to see him once--but I cannot trust you. You have deceived me once, Alton, and you may again!" "I shall not, I shall not," I answered proudly. "You do not know me"--and I spoke true. "You do not know yourself, my poor dear foolish child!" she replied--and that was true too. "And now, dear friends," said the dark man, "let us join in offering up a few words of special intercession." We all knelt down, and I soon discovered that by the special intercession was meant a string of bitter and groundless slanders against poor me, twisted into the form of a prayer for my conversion, "if it were God's will." To which I responded with a closing "Amen," for which I was sorry afterwards, when I recollected that it was said in merely insolent mockery. But the little faith I had was breaking up fast--not altogether, surely, by my own fault. [Footnote: The portraits of the minister and the missionary are surely exceptions to their class, rather than the average. The Baptists have had their Andrew Fuller and Robert Hall, and among missionaries Dr. Carey, and noble spirits in plenty. But such men as those who excited Alton Locke's disgust are to be met with, in every sect; in the Church of England, and in the Church of Rome. And it is a real and fearful scandal to the young, to see such men listened to as God's messengers, in spite of their utter want of any manhood or virtue, simply because they are "orthodox," each according to the shibboleths of his hearers, and possess that vulpine "discretion of dulness," whose miraculous might Dean Swift sets forth in his "Essay on the Fates of Clergymen." Such men do exist, and prosper; and as long as they are allowed to do so, Alton Lockes will meet them, and be scandalized by them.--ED.] At all events, from that day I was emancipated from modern Puritanism. The ministers both avoided all serious conversation with me; and my mother did the same; while, with a strength of mind, rare among women, she never alluded to the scene of that Sunday evening. It was a rule with her never to recur to what was once done and settled. What was to be, might be prayed over. But it was to be endured in silence; yet wider and wider ever from that time opened the gulf between us. I went trembling the next afternoon to Mackaye and told my story. He first scolded me severely for disobeying my mother. "He that begins o' that gate, laddie, ends by disobeying God and his ain conscience. Gin ye're to be a scholar, God will make you one--and if not, ye'll no mak' yoursel' ane in spite o' Him and His commandments." And then he filled his pipe and chuckled away in silence; at last he exploded in a horse-laugh. "So ye gied the ministers a bit o' yer mind? 'The deil's amang the tailors' in gude earnest, as the sang says. There's Johnnie Crossthwaite kicked the Papist priest out o' his house yestreen. Puir ministers, it's ill times wi' them! They gang about keckling and screighing after the working men, like a hen that's hatched ducklings, when she sees them tak' the water. Little Dunkeld's coming to London sune, I'm thinking. "Hech! sic a parish, a parish, a parish; Hech! sic a parish as little Dunkeld! They hae stickit the minister, hanged the precentor, Dung down the steeple, and drucken the bell." "But may I keep the books a little while, Mr. Mackaye?" "Keep them till ye die, gin ye will. What is the worth o' them to me? What is the worth o' anything to me, puir auld deevil, that ha' no half a dizen years to live at the furthest. God bless ye, my bairn; gang hame, and mind your mither, or it's little gude books'll do ye." CHAPTER IV. TAILORS AND SOLDIERS. I was now thrown again utterly on my own resources. I read and re-read Milton's "Poems" and Virgil's "Æneid" for six more months at every spare moment; thus spending over them, I suppose, all in all, far more time than most gentlemen have done. I found, too, in the last volume of Milton, a few of his select prose works: the "Areopagitica," the "Defence of the English People," and one or two more, in which I gradually began to take an interest; and, little of them as I could comprehend, I was awed by their tremendous depth and power, as well as excited by the utterly new trains of thought into which they led me. Terrible was the amount of bodily fatigue which I had to undergo in reading at every spare moment, while walking to and fro from my work, while sitting up, often from midnight till dawn, stitching away to pay for the tallow-candle which I burnt, till I had to resort to all sorts of uncomfortable contrivances for keeping myself awake, even at the expense of bodily pain--Heaven forbid that I should weary my readers by describing them! Young men of the upper classes, to whom study--pursue it as intensely as you will--is but the business of the day, and every spare moment relaxation; little you guess the frightful drudgery undergone by a man of the people who has vowed to educate himself,--to live at once two lives, each as severe as the whole of yours,--to bring to the self-imposed toil of intellectual improvement, a body and brain already worn out by a day of toilsome manual labour. I did it. God forbid, though, that I should take credit to myself for it. Hundreds more have done it, with still fewer advantages than mine. Hundreds more, an ever-increasing army of martyrs, are doing it at this moment: of some of them, too, perhaps you may hear hereafter. I had read through Milton, as I said, again and again; I had got out of him all that my youth and my unregulated mind enabled me to get. I had devoured, too, not without profit, a large old edition of "Fox's Martyrs," which the venerable minister lent me, and now I was hungering again for fresh food, and again at a loss where to find it. I was hungering, too, for more than information--for a friend. Since my intercourse with Sandy Mackaye had been stopped, six months had passed without my once opening my lips to any human being upon the subjects with which my mind was haunted day and night. I wanted to know more about poetry, history, politics, philosophy--all things in heaven and earth. But, above all, I wanted a faithful and sympathizing ear into which to pour all my doubts, discontents, and aspirations. My sister Susan, who was one year younger than myself, was growing into a slender, pretty, hectic girl of sixteen. But she was altogether a devout Puritan. She had just gone through the process of conviction of sin and conversion; and being looked upon at the chapel as an especially gracious professor, was either unable or unwilling to think or speak on any subject, except on those to which I felt a growing distaste. She had shrunk from me, too, very much, since my ferocious attack that Sunday evening on the dark minister, who was her special favourite. I remarked it, and it was a fresh cause of unhappiness and perplexity. At last I made up my mind, come what would, to force myself upon Crossthwaite. He was the only man whom I knew who seemed able to help me; and his very reserve had invested him with a mystery, which served to heighten my imagination of his powers. I waylaid him one day coming out of the workroom to go home, and plunged at once desperately into the matter. "Mr. Crossthwaite, I want to speak to you. I want to ask you to advise me." "I have known that a long time." "Then why did you never say a kind word to me?" "Because I was waiting to see whether you were worth saying a kind word to. It was but the other day, remember, you were a bit of a boy. Now, I think, I may trust you with a thing or two. Besides, I wanted to see whether you trusted me enough to ask me. Now you've broke the ice at last, in with you, head and ears, and see what you can fish out." "I am very unhappy--" "That's no new disorder that I know of." "No; but I think the reason I am unhappy is a strange one; at least, I never read of but one person else in the same way. I want to educate myself, and I can't." "You must have read precious little then, if you think yourself in a strange way. Bless the boy's heart! And what the dickens do you want to be educating yourself for, pray?" This was said in a tone of good-humoured banter, which gave me courage. He offered to walk homewards with me; and, as I shambled along by his side, I told him all my story and all my griefs. I never shall forget that walk. Every house, tree, turning, which we passed that day on our way, is indissolubly connected in my mind with some strange new thought which arose in me just at each spot; and recurs, so are the mind and the senses connected, as surely as I repass it. I had been telling him about Sandy Mackaye. He confessed to an acquaintance with him; but in a reserved and mysterious way, which only heightened my curiosity. We were going through the Horse Guards, and I could not help lingering to look with wistful admiration on the huge mustachoed war-machines who sauntered about the court-yard. A tall and handsome officer, blazing in scarlet and gold, cantered in on a superb horse, and, dismounting, threw the reins to a dragoon as grand and gaudy as himself. Did I envy him? Well--I was but seventeen. And there is something noble to the mind, as well as to the eye, in the great strong man, who can fight--a completeness, a self-restraint, a terrible sleeping power in him. As Mr. Carlyle says, "A soldier, after all, is--one of the few remaining realities of the age. All other professions almost promise one thing, and perform--alas! what? But this man promises to fight, and does it; and, if he be told, will veritably take out a long sword and kill me." So thought my companion, though the mood in which he viewed the fact was somewhat different from my own. "Come on," he said, peevishly clutching me by the arm; "what do you want dawdling? Are you a nursery-maid, that you must stare at those red-coated butchers?" And a deep curse followed. "What harm have they done you?" "I should think I owed them turn enough." "What?" "They cut my father down at Sheffield,--perhaps with the very swords he helped to make,--because he would not sit still and starve, and see us starving around him, while those who fattened on the sweat of his brow, and on those lungs of his, which the sword-grinding dust was eating out day by day, were wantoning on venison and champagne. That's the harm they've done me, my chap!" "Poor fellows!--they only did as they were ordered, I suppose." "And what business have they to let themselves be ordered? What right, I say--what right has any free, reasonable soul on earth, to sell himself for a shilling a day to murder any man, right or wrong--even his own brother or his own father--just because such a whiskered, profligate jackanapes as that officer, without learning, without any god except his own looking-glass and his opera-dancer--a fellow who, just because he is born a gentleman, is set to command grey-headed men before he can command his own meanest passions. Good heavens! that the lives of free men should be entrusted to such a stuffed cockatoo; and that free men should be such traitors to their country, traitors to their own flesh and blood, as to sell themselves, for a shilling a day and the smirks of the nursery-maids, to do that fellow's bidding!" "What are you a-grumbling here about, my man?--gotten the cholera?" asked one of the dragoons, a huge, stupid-looking lad. "About you, you young long-legged cut-throat," answered Crossthwaite, "and all your crew of traitors." "Help, help, coomrades o' mine!" quoth the dragoon, bursting with laughter; "I'm gaun be moorthered wi' a little booy that's gane mad, and toorned Chartist." I dragged Crossthwaite off; for what was jest to the soldiers, I saw, by his face, was fierce enough earnest to him. We walked on a little, in silence. "Now," I said, "that was a good-natured fellow enough, though he was a soldier. You and he might have cracked many a joke together, if you did but understand each other;--and he was a countryman of yours, too." "I may crack something else besides jokes with him some day," answered he, moodily. "'Pon my word, you must take care how you do it. He is as big as four of us." "That vile aristocrat, the old Italian poet--what's his name?--Ariosto--ay!--he knew which quarter the wind was making for, when he said that fire-arms would be the end of all your old knights and gentlemen in armour, that hewed down unarmed innocents as if they had been sheep. Gunpowder is your true leveller--dash physical strength! A boy's a man with a musket in his hand, my chap!" "God forbid," I said, "that I should ever be made a man of in that way, or you either. I do not think we are quite big enough to make fighters; and if we were, what have we got to fight about?" "Big enough to make fighters?" said he, half to himself; "or strong enough, perhaps?--or clever enough?--and yet Alexander was a little man, and the Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Cæsar, too; and so was Saul of Tarsus, and weakly he was into the bargain. Æsop was a dwarf, and so was Attila; Shakspeare was lame; Alfred, a rickety weakling; Byron, clubfooted;--so much for body _versus_ spirit--brute force _versus_ genius--genius." I looked at him; his eyes glared like two balls of fire. Suddenly he turned to me. "Locke, my boy, I've made an ass of myself, and got into a rage, and broken a good old resolution of mine, and a promise that I made to my dear little woman--bless her! and said things to you that you ought to know nothing of for this long time; but those red-coats always put me beside myself. God forgive me!" And he held out his hand to me cordially. "I can quite understand your feeling deeply on one point," I said, as I took it, "after the sad story you told me; but why so bitter on all? What is there so very wrong about things, that we must begin fighting about it?" "Bless your heart, poor innocent! What is wrong?--what is not wrong? Wasn't there enough in that talk with Mackaye, that you told me of just now, to show anybody that, who can tell a hawk from a hand-saw?" "Was it wrong in him to give himself such trouble about the education of a poor young fellow, who has no tie on him, who can never repay him?" "No; that's just like him. He feels for the people, for he has been one of us. He worked in a printing-office himself many a year, and he knows the heart of the working man. But he didn't tell you the whole truth about education. He daren't tell you. No one who has money dare speak out his heart; not that he has much certainly; but the cunning old Scot that he is, he lives by the present system of things, and he won't speak ill of the bridge which carries him over--till the time comes." I could not understand whither all this tended, and walked on silent and somewhat angry, at hearing the least slight cast on Mackaye. "Don't you see, stupid?" he broke out at last. "What did he say to you about gentlemen being crammed by tutors and professors? Have not you as good a right to them as any gentleman?" "But he told me they were no use--that every man must educate himself." "Oh! all very fine to tell you the grapes are sour, when you can't reach them. Bah, lad! Can't you see what comes of education?--that any dolt, provided he be a gentleman, can be doctored up at school and college, enough to make him play his part decently--his mighty part of ruling us, and riding over our heads, and picking our pockets, as parson, doctor, lawyer, member of parliament--while we--you now, for instance--cleverer than ninety-nine gentlemen out of a hundred, if you had one-tenth the trouble taken with you that is taken with every pig-headed son of an aristocrat--" "Am I clever?" asked I, in honest surprise. "What! haven't you found that out yet? Don't try to put that on me. Don't a girl know when she's pretty, without asking her neighbours?" "Really, I never thought about it." "More simpleton you. Old Mackaye has, at all events; though, canny Scotchman that he is, he'll never say a word to you about it, yet he makes no secret of it to other people. I heard him the other day telling some of our friends that you were a thorough young genius." I blushed scarlet, between pleasure and a new feeling; was it ambition? "Why, hav'n't you a right to aspire to a college education as any do-nothing canon there at the abbey, lad?" "I don't know that I have a right to anything." "What, not become what Nature intended you to become? What has she given you brains for, but to be educated and used? Oh! I heard a fine lecture upon that at our club the other night. There was a man there--a gentleman, too, but a thorough-going people's man, I can tell you, Mr. O'Flynn. What an orator that man is to be sure! The Irish Æschines, I hear they call him in Conciliation Hall. Isn't he the man to pitch into the Mammonites? 'Gentlemen and ladies,' says he, 'how long will a diabolic society'--no, an effete society it was--'how long will an effete, emasculate, and effeminate society, in the diabolic selfishness of its eclecticism, refuse to acknowledge what my immortal countryman, Burke, calls the "Dei voluntatem in rebus revelatam"--the revelation of Nature's will in the phenomena of matter? The cerebration of each is the prophetic sacrament of the yet undeveloped possibilities of his mentation. The form of the brain alone, and not the possession of the vile gauds of wealth and rank, constitute man's only right to education--to the glories of art and science. Those beaming eyes and roseate lips beneath me proclaim a bevy of undeveloped Aspasias, of embryo Cleopatras, destined by Nature, and only restrained by man's injustice, from ruling the world by their beauty's eloquence. Those massive and beetling brows, gleaming with the lambent flames of patriotic ardour--what is needed to unfold them into a race of Shakspeares and of Gracchi, ready to proclaim with sword and lyre the divine harmonies of liberty, equality, and fraternity, before a quailing universe?'" "It sounds very grand," replied I, meekly; "and I should like very much certainly to have a good education. But I can't see whose injustice keeps me out of one if I can't afford to pay for it." "Whose? Why, the parson's to be sure. They've got the monopoly of education in England, and they get their bread by it at their public schools and universities; and of course it's their interest to keep up the price of their commodity, and let no man have a taste of it who can't pay down handsomely. And so those aristocrats of college dons go on rolling in riches, and fellowships, and scholarships, that were bequeathed by the people's friends in old times, just to educate poor scholars like you and me, and give us our rights as free men." "But I thought the clergy were doing so much to educate the poor. At least, I hear all the dissenting ministers grumbling at their continual interference." "Ay, educating them to make them slaves and bigots. They don't teach them what they teach their own sons. Look at the miserable smattering of general information--just enough to serve as sauce for their great first and last lesson of 'Obey the powers that be'--whatever they be; leave us alone in our comforts, and starve patiently; do, like good boys, for it's God's will. And then, if a boy does show talent in school, do they help him up in life? Not they; when he has just learnt enough to whet his appetite for more, they turn him adrift again, to sink and drudge--to do his duty, as they call it, in that state of life to which society and the devil have called him." "But there are innumerable stories of great Englishmen who have risen from the lowest ranks." "Ay; but where are the stories of those who have not risen--of all the noble geniuses who have ended in desperation, drunkenness, starvation, suicide, because no one would take the trouble of lifting them up, and enabling them to walk in the path which Nature had marked out for them? Dead men tell no tales; and this old whited sepulchre, society, ain't going to turn informer against itself." "I trust and hope," I said, sadly, "that if God intends me to rise, He will open the way for me; perhaps the very struggles and sorrows of a poor genius may teach him more than ever wealth and prosperity could." "True, Alton, my boy! and that's my only comfort. It does make men of us, this bitter battle of life. We working men, when we do come out of the furnace, come out, not tinsel and papier mache, like those fops of red-tape statesmen, but steel and granite, Alton, my boy--that has been seven times tried in the fire: and woe to the papier mache gentleman that runs against us! But," he went on, sadly, "for one who comes safe through the furnace, there are a hundred who crack in the burning. You are a young bear, my lad, with all your sorrows before you; and you'll find that a working man's training is like the Red Indian children's. The few who are strong enough to stand it grow up warriors; but all those who are not fire-and-water-proof by nature--just die, Alton, my lad, and the tribe thinks itself well rid of them." So that conversation ended. But it had implanted in my bosom a new seed of mingled good and evil, which was destined to bear fruit, precious perhaps as well as bitter. God knows, it has hung on the tree long enough. Sour and harsh from the first, it has been many a year in ripening. But the sweetness of the apple, the potency of the grape, as the chemists tell us, are born out of acidity--a developed sourness. Will it be so with my thoughts? Dare I assert, as I sit writing here, with the wild waters slipping past the cabin windows, backwards and backwards ever, every plunge of the vessel one forward leap from the old world--worn-out world I had almost called it, of sham civilization and real penury--dare I hope ever to return and triumph? Shall I, after all, lay my bones among my own people, and hear the voices of freemen whisper in my dying ears? Silence, dreaming heart! Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof--and the good thereof also. Would that I had known that before! Above all, that I had known it on that night, when first the burning thought arose in my heart, that I was unjustly used; that society had not given me my rights. It came to me as a revelation, celestial-infernal, full of glorious hopes of the possible future in store for me through the perfect development of all my faculties; and full, too, of fierce present rage, wounded vanity, bitter grudgings against those more favoured than myself, which grew in time almost to cursing against the God who had made me a poor untutored working man, and seemed to have given me genius only to keep me in a Tantalus' hell of unsatisfied thirst. Ay, respectable gentlemen and ladies, I will confess all to you--you shall have, if you enjoy it, a fresh opportunity for indulging that supreme pleasure which the press daily affords you of insulting the classes whose powers most of you know as little as you do their sufferings. Yes; the Chartist poet is vain, conceited, ambitious, uneducated, shallow, inexperienced, envious, ferocious, scurrilous, seditious, traitorous.--Is your charitable vocabulary exhausted? Then ask yourselves, how often have you yourself honestly resisted and conquered the temptation to any one of these sins, when it has come across you just once in a way, and not as they came to me, as they come to thousands of the working men, daily and hourly, "till their torments do, by length of time, become their elements"? What, are we covetous too? Yes! And if those who have, like you, still covet more, what wonder if those who have nothing covet something? Profligate too? Well, though that imputation as a generality is utterly calumnious, though your amount of respectable animal enjoyment per annum is a hundred times as great as that of the most self-indulgent artizan, yet, if you had ever felt what it is to want, not only every luxury of the senses, but even bread to eat, you would think more mercifully of the man who makes up by rare excesses, and those only of the limited kinds possible to him, for long intervals of dull privation, and says in his madness, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die!" We have our sins, and you have yours. Ours may be the more gross and barbaric, but yours are none the less damnable; perhaps all the more so, for being the sleek, subtle, respectable, religious sins they are. You are frantic enough, if our part of the press calls you hard names, but you cannot see that your part of the press repays it back to us with interest. _We_ see those insults, and feel them bitterly enough; and do not forget them, alas! soon enough, while they pass unheeded by your delicate eyes as trivial truisms. Horrible, unprincipled, villanous, seditious, frantic, blasphemous, are epithets, of course, when applied to--to how large a portion of the English people, you will some day discover to your astonishment. When will that come, and how? In thunder, and storm, and garments rolled in blood? Or like the dew on the mown grass, and the clear shining of the sunlight after April rain? Yes, it was true. Society had not given me my rights. And woe unto the man on whom that idea, true or false, rises lurid, filling all his thoughts with stifling glare, as of the pit itself. Be it true, be it false, it is equally a woe to believe it; to have to live on a negation; to have to worship for our only idea, as hundreds of thousands of us have this day, the hatred, of the things which are. Ay, though, one of us here and there may die in faith, in sight of the promised land, yet is it not hard, when looking from the top of Pisgah into "the good time coming," to watch the years slipping away one by one, and death crawling nearer and nearer, and the people wearying themselves in the fire for very vanity, and Jordan not yet passed, the promised land not yet entered? While our little children die around us, like lambs beneath the knife, of cholera and typhus and consumption, and all the diseases which the good time can and will prevent; which, as science has proved, and you the rich confess, might be prevented at once, if you dared to bring in one bold and comprehensive measure, and not sacrifice yearly the lives of thousands to the idol of vested interests, and a majority in the House. Is it not hard to men who smart beneath such things to help crying aloud--"Thou cursed Moloch-Mammon, take my life if thou wilt; let me die in the wilderness, for I have deserved it; but these little ones in mines and factories, in typhus-cellars, and Tooting pandemoniums, what have they done? If not in their fathers' cause, yet still in theirs, were it so great a sin to die upon a barricade?" Or after all, my working brothers, is it true of our promised land, even as of that Jewish one of old, that the _priests'_ feet must first cross the mystic stream into the good land and large which God has prepared for us? Is it so indeed? Then in the name of the Lord of Hosts, ye priests of His, why will ye not awake, and arise, and go over Jordan, that the people of the Lord may follow you? CHAPTER V. THE SCEPTIC'S MOTHER. My readers will perceive from what I have detailed, that I was not likely to get any positive ground of comfort from Crossthwaite; and from within myself there was daily less and less hope of any. Daily the struggle became more intolerable between my duty to my mother and my duty to myself--that inward thirst for mental self-improvement, which, without any clear consciousness of its sanctity or inspiration, I felt, and could not help feeling, that I _must_ follow. No doubt it was very self-willed and ambitious of me to do that which rich men's sons are flogged for not doing, and rewarded with all manner of prizes, scholarships, fellowships for doing. But the nineteenth year is a time of life at which self-will is apt to exhibit itself in other people besides tailors; and those religious persons who think it no sin to drive their sons on through classics and mathematics, in hopes of gaining them a station in life, ought not to be very hard upon me for driving myself on through the same path without any such selfish hope of gain--though perhaps the very fact of my having no wish or expectation of such advantage will constitute in their eyes my sin and folly, and prove that I was following the dictates merely of a carnal lust, and not of a proper worldly prudence. I really do not wish to be flippant or sneering. I have seen the evil of it as much as any man, in myself and in my own class. But there are excuses for such a fault in the working man. It does sour and madden him to be called presumptuous and ambitious for the very same aspirations which are lauded up to the skies in the sons of the rich--unless, indeed, he will do one little thing, and so make his peace with society. If he will desert his own class; if he will try to become a sham gentleman, a parasite, and, if he can, a Mammonite, the world will compliment him on his noble desire to "_rise in life_." He will have won his spurs, and be admitted into that exclusive pale of knighthood, beyond which it is a sin to carry arms even in self-defence. But if the working genius dares to be true to his own class--to stay among them--to regenerate them--to defend them--to devote his talents to those among whom God placed him and brought him up--then he is the demagogue, the incendiary, the fanatic, the dreamer. So you would have the monopoly of talent, too, exclusive worldlings? And yet you pretend to believe in the miracle of Pentecost, and the religion that was taught by the carpenter's Son, and preached across the world by fishermen! I was several times minded to argue the question out with my mother, and assert for myself the same independence of soul which I was now earning for my body by my wages. Once I had resolved to speak to her that very evening; but, strangely enough, happening to open the Bible, which, alas! I did seldom at that time, my eye fell upon the chapter where Jesus, after having justified to His parents His absence in the Temple, while hearing the doctors and asking them questions, yet went down with them to Nazareth after all, and was subject unto them. The story struck me vividly as a symbol of my own duties. But on reading further, I found more than one passage which seemed to me to convey a directly opposite lesson, where His mother and His brethren, fancying Him mad, attempted to interfere with His labours, and asserting their family rights as reasons for retaining Him, met with a peremptory rebuff. I puzzled my head for some time to find out which of the two cases was the more applicable to my state of self-development. The notion of asking for teaching from on high on such a point had never crossed me. Indeed, if it had, I did not believe sufficiently either in the story or in the doctrines connected with it, to have tried such a resource. And so, as may be supposed, my growing self-conceit decided for me that the latter course was the fitting one. And yet I had not energy to carry it out. I was getting so worn out in body and mind from continual study and labour, stinted food and want of sleep, that I could not face the thought of an explosion, such as I knew must ensue, and I lingered on in the same unhappy state, becoming more and more morose in manner to my mother, while I was as assiduous as ever in all filial duties. But I had no pleasure in home. She seldom spoke to me. Indeed, there was no common topic about which we could speak. Besides, ever since that fatal Sunday evening, I saw that she suspected me and watched me. I had good reason to believe that she set spies upon my conduct. Poor dear mother! God forbid that I should accuse thee for a single care of thine, for a single suspicion even, prompted as they all were by a mother's anxious love. I would never have committed these things to paper, hadst thou not been far beyond the reach or hearing of them; and only now, in hopes that they may serve as a warning, in some degree to mothers, but ten times more to children. For I sinned against thee, deeply and shamefully, in thought and deed, while thou didst never sin against me; though all thy caution did but hasten the fatal explosion which came, and perhaps must have come, under some form or other, in any case. I had been detained one night in the shop till late; and on my return my mother demanded, in a severe tone, the reason of my stay; and on my telling her, answered as severely that she did not believe me; that she had too much reason to suspect that I had been with bad companions. "Who dared to put such a thought into your head?" She "would not give up her authorities, but she had too much reason to believe them." Again I demanded the name of my slanderer, and was refused it. And then. I burst out, for the first time in my life, into a real fit of rage with her. I cannot tell how I dared to say what I did, but I was weak, nervous, irritable--my brain excited beyond all natural tension. Above all, I felt that she was unjust to me; and my good conscience, as well as my pride, rebelled. "You have never trusted me," I cried, "you have watched me--" "Did you not deceive me once already?" "And if I did," I answered, more and more excited, "have I not slaved for you, stinted myself of clothes to pay your rent? Have I not run to and fro for you like a slave, while I knew all the time you did not respect me or trust me? If you had only treated me as a child and an idiot, I could have borne it. But you have been thinking of me all the while as an incarnate fiend--dead in trespasses and sins--a child of wrath and the devil. What right have you to be astonished if I should do my father's works?" "You may be ignorant of vital religion," she answered; "and you may insult me. But if you make a mock of God's Word, you leave my house. If you can laugh at religion, you can deceive me." The pent-up scepticism of years burst forth. "Mother," I said, "don't talk to me about religion, and election, and conversion, and all that--I don't believe one word of it. Nobody does, except good kind people--(like you, alas! I was going to say, but the devil stopped the words at my lips)--who must needs have some reason to account for their goodness. That Bowyer--he's a soft heart by nature, and as he is, so he does--religion has had nothing to do with that, any more than it has with that black-faced, canting scoundrel who has been telling you lies about me. Much his heart is changed. He carries sneak and slanderer written in his face--and sneak and slanderer he will be, elect or none. Religion? Nobody believes in it. The rich don't; or they wouldn't fill their churches up with pews, and shut the poor out, all the time they are calling them brothers. They believe the gospel? Then why do they leave the men who make their clothes to starve in such hells on earth as our workroom? No more do the tradespeople believe in it; or they wouldn't go home from sermon to sand the sugar, and put sloe-leaves in the tea, and send out lying puffs of their vamped-up goods, and grind the last farthing out of the poor creatures who rent their wretched stinking houses. And as for the workmen--they laugh at it all, I can tell you. Much good religion is doing for them! You may see it's fit only for women and children--for go where you will, church or chapel, you see hardly anything but bonnets and babies! I don't believe a word of it,--once and for all. I'm old enough to think for myself, and a free-thinker I will be, and believe nothing but what I know and understand." I had hardly spoken the words, when I would have given worlds to recall them--but it was to be--and it was. Sternly she looked at me full in the face, till my eyes dropped before her gaze. Then she spoke steadily and slowly: "Leave this house this moment. You are no son of mine henceforward. Do you think I will have my daughter polluted by the company of an infidel and a blasphemer?" "I will go," I answered fiercely; "I can get my own living at all events!" And before I had time to think, I had rushed upstairs, packed up my bundle, not forgetting the precious books, and was on my way through the frosty, echoing streets, under the cold glare of the winter's moon. I had gone perhaps half a mile, when the thought of home rushed over me--the little room where I had spent my life--the scene of all my childish joys and sorrows--which I should never see again, for I felt that my departure was for ever. Then I longed to see my mother once again--not to speak to her--for I was at once too proud and too cowardly to do that--but to have a look at her through the window. One look--for all the while, though I was boiling over with rage and indignation, I felt that it was all on the surface--that in the depths of our hearts I loved her and she loved me. And yet I wished to be angry, wished to hate her. Strange contradiction of the flesh and spirit! Hastily and silently I retraced my steps to the house. The gate was padlocked. I cautiously stole over the palings to the window--the shutter was closed and fast. I longed to knock--I lifted my hand to the door, and dare not: indeed, I knew that it was useless, in my dread of my mother's habit of stern determination. That room--that mother I never saw again. I turned away; sickened at heart, I was clambering back again, looking behind me towards the window, when I felt a strong grip on my collar, and turning round, had a policeman's lantern flashed in my face. "Hullo, young'un, and what do you want here?" with a strong emphasis, after the fashion of policemen, on all his pronouns. "Hush! or you'll alarm my mother!" "Oh! eh! Forgot the latch-key, you sucking Don Juan, that's it, is it? Late home from the Victory?" I told him simply how the case stood, and entreated him to get me a night's lodging, assuring him that my mother would not admit me, or I ask to be admitted. The policeman seemed puzzled, but after scratching his hat in lieu of his head for some seconds, replied, "This here is the dodge--you goes outside and lies down on the kerb-stone; whereby I spies you a-sleeping in the streets, contrary to Act o' Parliament; whereby it is my duty to take you to the station-house; whereby you gets a night's lodging free gracious for nothing, and company perwided by her Majesty." "Oh, not to the station-house!" I cried in shame and terror. "Werry well; then you must keep moving all night continually, whereby you avoids the hact; or else you goes to a twopenny-rope shop and gets a lie down. And your bundle you'd best leave at my house. Twopenny-rope society a'n't particular. I'm going off my beat; you walk home with me and leave your traps. Everybody knows me--Costello, V 21, that's my number." So on I went with the kind-hearted man, who preached solemnly to me all the way on the fifth commandment. But I heard very little of it; for before I had proceeded a quarter of a mile, a deadly faintness and dizziness came over me, I staggered, and fell against the railings. "And have you been drinking arter all?" "I never--a drop in my life--nothing but bread-and-water this fortnight." And it was true. I had been paying for my own food, and had stinted myself to such an extent, that between starvation, want of sleep, and over-exertion, I was worn to a shadow, and the last drop had filled the cup; the evening's scene and its consequences had been too much for me, and in the middle of an attempt to explain matters to the policeman, I dropped on the pavement, bruising my face heavily. He picked me up, put me under one arm and my bundle under the other, and was proceeding on his march, when three men came rollicking up. "Hullo, Poleax--Costello--What's that? Work for us? A demp unpleasant body?" "Oh, Mr. Bromley, sir! Hope you're well, sir! Werry rum go this here, sir! I finds this cove in the streets. He says his mother turned him out o' doors. He seems very fair spoken, and very bad in he's head, and very bad in he's chest, and very bad in he's legs, he does. And I can't come to no conclusions respecting my conduct in this here case, nohow!" "Memorialize the Health of Towns Commission," suggested one. "Bleed him in the great toe," said the second. "Put a blister on the back of his left eye-ball," said a third. "Case of male asterisks," observed the first. "Rj. Aquæ pumpis puræ quantum suff. Applicatur exterò pro re natâ. J. Bromley, M.D., and don't he wish he may get through!"-- "Tip us your daddle, my boy," said the second speaker. "I'll tell you what, Bromley, this fellow's very bad. He's got no more pulse than the Pimlico sewer. Run in into the next pot'us. Here--you lay hold of him, Bromley--that last round with the cabman nearly put my humerus out." The huge, burly, pea-jacketed medical student--for such I saw at once he was--laid hold of me on the right tenderly enough, and walked me off between him and the policeman. I fell again into a faintness, from which I was awakened by being shoved through the folding-doors of a gin-shop, into a glare of light and hubbub of blackguardism, and placed on a settle, while my conductor called out-- "Pots round, Mary, and a go of brandy hot with, for the patient. Here, young'un, toss it off, it'll make your hair grow." I feebly answered that I never had drunk anything stronger than water. "High time to begin, then; no wonder you're so ill. Well, if you won't, I'll make you--" And taking my head under his arm, he seized me by the nose, while another poured the liquor down my throat--and certainly it revived me at once. A drunken drab pulled another drunken, drab off the settle to make room for the "poor young man"; and I sat there with a confused notion that something strange and dreadful had happened to me, while the party drained their respective quarts of porter, and talked over the last boat-race with the Leander. "Now then, gen'l'men," said the policeman, 'if you think he's recovered, we'll take him home to his mother; she ought for to take him in, surely." "Yes, if she has as much heart in her as a dried walnut." But I resisted stoutly; though I longed to vindicate my mother's affection, yet I could not face her. I entreated to be taken to the station-house; threatened, in my desperation, to break the bar glasses, which, like Doll Tearsheet's abuse, only elicited from the policeman a solemn "Very well"; and under the unwonted excitement of the brandy, struggled so fiercely, and talked so incoherently, that the medical students interfered. "We shall have this fellow in phrenitis, or laryngitis, or dothenenteritis, or some other itis, before long, if he's aggravated." "And whichever it is, it'll kill him. He has no more stamina left than a yard of pump water." "I should consider him chargeable to the parish," suggested the bar-keeper. "Exactually so, my Solomon of licensed victuallers. Get a workhouse order for him, Costello." "And I should consider, also, sir," said the licensed victualler, with increased importance, "having been a guardian myself, and knowing the hact, as the parish couldn't refuse, because they're in power to recover all hexpenses out of his mother." "To be sure; it's all the unnatural old witch's fault." "No, it is not," said I, faintly. "Wait till your opinion's asked, young'un. Go kick up the authorities, policeman." "Now, I'll just tell you how that'll work, gemmen," answered the policeman, solemnly. "I goes to the overseer--werry good sort o' man--but he's in bed. I knocks for half an hour. He puts his nightcap out o' windy, and sends me to the relieving-officer. Werry good sort o' man he too; but he's in bed. I knocks for another half-hour. He puts his nightcap out o' windy--sends me to the medical officer for a certificate. Medical officer's gone to a midwifery case. I hunts him for an hour or so. He's got hold of a babby with three heads, or summat else; and two more women a-calling out for him like blazes. 'He'll come to-morrow morning.' Now, I just axes your opinion of that there most procrastinationest go." The big student, having cursed the parochial authorities in general, offered to pay for my night's lodging at the public-house. The good man of the house demurred at first, but relented on being reminded of the value of a medical student's custom: whereon, without more ado, two of the rough diamonds took me between them, carried me upstairs, undressed me, and put me to bed, as tenderly as if they had been women. "He'll have the tantrums before morning, I'm afraid," said one. "Very likely to turn to typhus," said the other. "Well, I suppose--it's a horrid bore, but "What must be must; man is but dust, If you can't get crumb, you must just eat crust. "Send me up a go of hot with, and I'll sit up with him till he's asleep, dead, or better." "Well, then, I'll stay too; we may just as well make a night of it here as well as anywhere else." And he pulled a short black pipe out of his pocket, and sat down to meditate with his feet on the hobs of the empty grate; the other man went down for the liquor; while I, between the brandy and exhaustion, fell fast asleep, and never stirred till I woke the next morning with a racking headache, and saw the big student standing by my bedside, having, as I afterwards heard, sat by me till four in the morning. "Hallo, young'un, come to your senses? Headache, eh? Slightly comato-crapulose? We'll give you some soda and salvolatile, and I'll pay for your breakfast." And so he did, and when he was joined by his companions on their way to St. George's, they were very anxious, having heard my story, to force a few shillings on me "for luck," which, I need not say, I peremptorily refused, assuring them that I could and would get my own living, and never take a farthing from any man. "That's a plucky dog, though he's a tailor," I heard them say, as, after overwhelming them with thanks, and vowing, amid shouts of laughter, to repay them every farthing I had cost them, I took my way, sick and stunned, towards my dear old Sandy Mackaye's street. Rough diamonds indeed! I have never met you again, but I have not forgotten you. Your early life may be a coarse, too often a profligate one--but you know the people, and the people know you: and your tenderness and care, bestowed without hope of repayment, cheers daily many a poor soul in hospital wards and fever-cellars--to meet its reward some day at the people's hands. You belong to us at heart, as the Paris barricades can tell. Alas! for the society which stifles in after-life too many of your better feelings, by making you mere flunkeys and parasites, dependent for your livelihood on the caprices and luxuries of the rich. CHAPTER VI. THE DULWICH GALLERY. Sandy Mackaye received me in a characteristic way--growled at me for half an hour for quarrelling with my mother, and when I was at my wit's end, suddenly offered me a bed in his house and the use of his little sitting-room--and, bliss too great to hope! of his books also; and when I talked of payment, told me to hold my tongue and mind my own business. So I settled myself at once; and that very evening he installed himself as my private tutor, took down a Latin book, and set me to work on it. "An' mind ye, laddie," said he, half in jest and half in earnest, "gin I find ye playing truant, and reading a' sorts o' nonsense instead of minding the scholastic methods and proprieties, I'll just bring ye in a bill at the year's end o' twa guineas a week for lodgings and tuition, and tak' the law o' ye; so mind and read what I tell ye. Do you comprehend noo?" I did comprehend, and obeyed him, determining to repay him some day--and somehow--how I did not very clearly see. Thus I put myself more or less into the old man's power; foolishly enough the wise world will say. But I had no suspicion in my character; and I could not look at those keen grey eyes, when, after staring into vacancy during some long preachment, they suddenly flashed round at me, and through me, full of fun and quaint thought, and kindly earnestness, and fancy that man less honest than his face seemed to proclaim him. By-the-by, I have as yet given no description of the old eccentric's abode--an unpardonable omission, I suppose, in these days of Dutch painting and Boz. But the omission was correct, both historically and artistically, for I had as yet only gone to him for books, books, nothing but books; and I had been blind to everything in his shop but that fairy-land of shelves, filled, in my simple fancy, with inexhaustible treasures, wonder-working, omnipotent, as the magic seal of Solomon. It was not till I had been settled and at work for several nights in his sanctum, behind the shop, that I began to become conscious what a strange den that sanctum was. It was so dark, that without a gaslight no one but he could see to read there, except on very sunny days. Not only were the shelves which covered every inch of wall crammed with books and pamphlets, but the little window was blocked up with them, the floor was piled with bundles of them, in some places three feet deep, apparently in the wildest confusion--though there was some mysterious order in them which he understood, and symbolized, I suppose, by the various strange and ludicrous nicknames on their tickets--for he never was at fault a moment if a customer asked for a book, though it were buried deep in the chaotic stratum. Out of this book alluvium a hole seemed to have been dug near the fireplace, just big enough to hold his arm-chair and a table, book-strewn like everything else, and garnished with odds and ends of MSS., and a snuffer-tray containing scraps of half-smoked tobacco, "pipe-dottles," as he called them, which were carefully resmoked over and over again, till nothing but ash was left. His whole culinary utensils--for he cooked as well as eat in this strange hole--were an old rusty kettle, which stood on one hob, and a blue plate which, when washed, stood on the other. A barrel of true Aberdeen meal peered out of a corner, half buried in books, and a "keg o' whusky, the gift o' freens," peeped in like case out of another. This was his only food. "It was a' poison," he used to say, "in London. Bread full o' alum and bones, and sic filth--meat over-driven till it was a' braxy--water sopped wi' dead men's juice. Naething was safe but gude Scots parrich and Athol brose." He carried his water-horror so far as to walk some quarter of a mile every morning to fill his kettle at a favourite pump. "Was he a cannibal, to drink out o' that pump hard-by, right under the kirkyard?" But it was little he either ate or drank--he seemed to live upon tobacco. From four in the morning till twelve at night, the pipe never left his lips, except when he went into the outer shop. "It promoted meditation, and drove awa' the lusts o' the flesh. Ech! it was worthy o' that auld tyrant, Jamie, to write his counter-blast to the poor man's freen! The hypocrite! to gang preaching the virtues o' evil-savoured smoke 'ad dæmones abigendos,--and then rail again tobacco, as if it was no as gude for the purpose as auld rags and horn shavings!" Sandy Mackaye had a great fancy for political caricatures, rows of which, there being no room for them on the walls, hung on strings from the ceiling--like clothes hung out to dry--and among them dangled various books to which he had taken an antipathy, principally High Tory and Benthamite, crucified, impaled through their covers, and suspended in all sorts of torturing attitudes. Among them, right over the table, figured a copy of Icon Basilike dressed up in a paper shirt, all drawn over with figures of flames and devils, and surmounted by a peaked paper cap, like a victim at an _auto-da-fé_. And in the midst of all this chaos grinned from the chimney-piece, among pipes and pens, pinches of salt and scraps of butter, a tall cast of Michael Angelo's well-known skinless model--his pristine white defaced by a cap of soot upon the top of his scalpless skull, and every muscle and tendon thrown into horrible relief by the dirt which had lodged among the cracks. There it stood, pointing with its ghastly arm towards the door, and holding on its wrist a label with the following inscription:-- Here stand I, the working man, Get more off me if you can. I questioned Mackaye one evening about those hanged and crucified books, and asked him if he ever sold any of them. "Ou, ay," he said; "if folks are fools enough to ask for them, I'll just answer a fool according to his folly." "But," I said, "Mr. Mackaye, do you think it right to sell books of the very opinions of which you disapprove so much?" "Hoot, laddie, it's just a spoiling o' the Egyptians; so mind yer book, and dinna tak in hand cases o' conscience for ither folk. Yell ha' wark eneugh wi' yer ain before ye're dune." And he folded round his knees his Joseph's coat, as he called it, an old dressing-gown with one plaid sleeve, and one blue one, red shawl-skirts, and a black broadcloth back, not to mention, innumerable patches of every imaginable stuff and colour, filled his pipe, and buried his nose in "Harrington's Oceana." He read at least twelve hours every day of his life, and that exclusively old history and politics, though his favourite books were Thomas Carlyle's works. Two or three evenings in the week, when he had seen me safe settled at my studies, he used to disappear mysteriously for several hours, and it was some time before I found out, by a chance expression, that he was attending some meeting or committee of working-men. I begged him to take me there with him. But I was stopped by a laconic answer-- "When ye're ready." "And when shall I be ready, Mr. Mackaye?" "Read yer book till I tell ye." And he twisted himself into his best coat, which had once been black, squeezed on his little Scotch cap, and went out. * * * * * I now found myself, as the reader may suppose, in an element far more congenial to my literary tastes, and which compelled far less privation of sleep and food in order to find time and means for reading; and my health began to mend from the very first day. But the thought of my mother haunted me; and Mackaye seemed in no hurry to let me escape from it, for he insisted on my writing to her in a penitent strain, informing her of my whereabouts, and offering to return home if she should wish it. With feelings strangely mingled between the desire of seeing her again and the dread of returning to the old drudgery of surveillance, I sent the letter, and waited the whole week without any answer. At last, one evening, when I returned from work, Sandy seemed in a state of unusual exhilaration. He looked at me again and again, winking and chuckling to himself in a way which showed me that his good spirits had something to do with my concerns: but he did not open on the subject till I had settled to my evening's reading. Then, having brewed himself an unusually strong mug of whisky-toddy, and brought out with great ceremony a clean pipe, he commenced. "Alton, laddie, I've been fiechting Philistines for ye the day." "Ah! have you heard from my mother?" "I wadna say that exactly; but there's been a gran bailie body wi' me that calls himsel' your uncle, and a braw young callant, a bairn o' his, I'm thinking." "Ah! that's my cousin--George; and tell me--do tell me, what you said to them." "Ou--that'll be mair concern o' mine than o' yourn. But ye're no going back to your mither." My heart leapt up with--joy; there is no denying it--and then I burst into tears. "And she won't see me? Has she really cast me off?" "Why, that'll be verra much as ye prosper, I'm thinking. Ye're an unaccreedited hero, the noo, as Thomas Carlyle has it. 'But gin ye do weel by yoursel', saith the Psalmist, 'ye'll find a' men speak well o' ye'--if ye gang their gate. But ye're to gang to see your uncle at his shop o' Monday next, at one o'clock. Now stint your greeting, and read awa'." On the next Monday I took a holiday, the first in which I had ever indulged myself; and having spent a good hour in scrubbing away at my best shoes and Sunday suit, started, in fear and trembling, for my uncle's "establishment." I was agreeably surprised, on being shown into the little back office at the back of the shop, to meet with a tolerably gracious reception from the good-natured Mammonite. He did not shake hands with me, it is true;--was I not a poor relation? But he told me to sit down, commended me for the excellent character which he had of me both from my master and Mackaye, and then entered on the subject of my literary tastes. He heard I was a precious clever fellow. No wonder, I came of a clever stock; his poor dear brother had plenty of brains for everything but business. "And you see, my boy" (with a glance at the big ledgers and busy shop without), "I knew a thing or two in my time, or I should not have been here. But without capital, _I_ think brains a curse. Still we must make the best of a bad matter; and if you are inclined to help to raise the family name--not that I think much of book writers myself--poor starving devils, half of them--but still people do talk about them--and a man might get a snug thing as newspaper editor, with interest; or clerk to something or other--always some new company in the wind now--and I should have no objection, if you seemed likely to do us credit, to speak a word for you. I've none of your mother's confounded puritanical notions, I can tell you; and, what's more, I have, thank Heaven, as fine a city connexion as any man. But you must mind and make yourself a good accountant--learn double entry on the Italian method--that's a good practical study; and if that old Sawney is soft enough to teach you other things gratis, he may as well teach you that too. I'll bet he knows something about it--the old Scotch fox. There now--that'll do--there's five shillings for you--mind you don't lose them--and if I hear a good account of you, why, perhaps--but there's no use making promises." At this moment a tall handsome young man, whom I did not at first recognize as my cousin George, swung into the office, and shook me cordially by the hand. "Hullo, Alton, how are you? Why, I hear you're coming out as a regular genius--breaking out in a new place, upon my honour! Have you done with him, governor?" "Well, I think I have. I wish you'd have a talk with him, my boy. I'm sorry I can't see more of him, but I have to meet a party on business at the West-end at two, and Alderman Tumbril and family dine with us this evening, don't they? I think our small table will be full." "Of course it will. Come along with me, and we'll have a chat in some quiet out-of-the-way place. This city is really so noisy that you can't hear your own ears, as our dean says in lecture." So he carried me off, down back streets and alleys, a little puzzled at the extreme cordiality of his manner. Perhaps it sprung, as I learned afterward to suspect, from his consistent and perpetual habit of ingratiating himself with every one whom he approached. He never cut a chimney-sweep if he knew him. And he found it pay. The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. Perhaps it sprung also, as I began to suspect in the first hundred yards of our walk, from the desire of showing off before me the university clothes, manners, and gossip, which he had just brought back with him from Cambridge. I had not seen him more than three or four times in my life before, and then he appeared to me merely a tall, handsome, conceited, slangy boy. But I now found him much improved--in all externals at least. He had made it his business, I knew, to perfect himself in all athletic pursuits which were open to a Londoner. As he told me that day--he found it pay, when one got among gentlemen. Thus he had gone up to Cambridge a capital skater, rower, pugilist--and billiard player. Whether or not that last accomplishment ought to be classed in the list of athletic sports, he contrived, by his own account, to keep it in that of paying ones. In both these branches he seemed to have had plenty of opportunities of distinguishing himself at college; and his tall, powerful figure showed the fruit of these exercises in a stately and confident, almost martial, carriage. Something jaunty, perhaps swaggering, remained still in his air and dress, which yet sat not ungracefully on him; but I could see that he had been mixing in society more polished and artificial than that to which we had either of us been accustomed, and in his smart Rochester, well-cut trousers, and delicate French boots, he excited, I will not deny it, my boyish admiration and envy. "Well," he said, as soon as we were out of the shop, "which way? Got a holiday? And how did you intend to spend it?" "I wanted very much," I said, meekly, "to see the pictures at the National Gallery." "Oh! ah! pictures don't pay; but, if you like--much better ones at Dulwich--that's the place to go to--you can see the others any day--and at Dulwich, you know, they've got--why let me see--" And he ran over half-a-dozen outlandish names of painters, which, as I have never again met with them, I am inclined on the whole to consider as somewhat extemporaneous creations. However, I agreed to go. "Ah! capital--very nice quiet walk, and convenient for me--very little out of my way home. I'll walk there with you." "One word for your neighbour and two for yourself," thought I; but on we walked. To see good pictures had been a long cherished hope of mine. Everything beautiful in form or colour was beginning of late to have an intense fascination for me. I had, now that I was emancipated, gradually dared to feed my greedy eyes by passing stares into the print-shop windows, and had learnt from them a thousand new notions, new emotions, new longings after beauties of Nature, which seemed destined never to be satisfied. But pictures, above all, foreign ones, had been in my mother's eyes, Anathema Maranatha, as vile Popish and Pagan vanities, the rags of the scarlet woman no less than the surplice itself--and now, when it came to the point, I hesitated at an act of such awful disobedience, even though unknown to her. My cousin, however, laughed down my scruples, told me I was out of leading-strings now, and, which was true enough, that it was "a * * * * deal better to amuse oneself in picture galleries without leave, than live a life of sneaking and lying under petticoat government, as all home-birds were sure to do in the long-run." And so I went on, while my cousin kept up a running fire of chat the whole way, intermixing shrewd, bold observations upon every woman who passed, with sneers at the fellows of the college to which we were going--their idleness and luxury--the large grammar-school which they were bound by their charter to keep up, and did not--and hints about private interest in high quarters, through which their wealthy uselessness had been politely overlooked, when all similar institutions in the kingdom were subject to the searching examination of a government commission. Then there were stories of boat-races and gay noblemen, breakfast parties, and lectures on Greek plays flavoured with a spice of Cambridge slang, all equally new to me--glimpses into a world of wonders, which made me feel, as I shambled along at his side, trying to keep step with his strides, more weakly and awkward and ignorant than ever. We entered the gallery. I was in a fever of expectation. The rich sombre light of the rooms, the rich heavy warmth of the stove-heated air, the brilliant and varied colouring and gilded frames which embroidered the walls, the hushed earnestness of a few artists, who were copying, and the few visitors who were lounging from picture to picture, struck me at once with mysterious awe. But my attention was in a moment concentrated on one figure opposite to me at the furthest end. I hurried straight towards it. When I had got half-way up the gallery I looked round for my cousin. He had turned aside to some picture of a Venus which caught my eye also, but which, I remember now, only raised in me then a shudder and a blush, and a fancy that the clergymen must be really as bad as my mother had taught me to believe, if they could allow in their galleries pictures of undressed women. I have learnt to view such things differently now, thank God. I have learnt that to the pure all things are pure. I have learnt the meaning of that great saying--the foundation of all art, as well as all modesty, all love, which tells us how "the man and his wife were both naked, and not ashamed." But this book is the history of my mental growth; and my mistakes as well as my discoveries are steps in that development, and may bear a lesson in them. How I have rambled! But as that day was the turning-point of my whole short life, I may be excused for lingering upon every feature of it. Timidly, but eagerly, I went up to the picture, and stood entranced before it. It was Guido's St. Sebastian. All the world knows the picture, and all the world knows, too, the defects of the master, though in this instance he seems to have risen above himself, by a sudden inspiration, into that true naturalness, which is the highest expression of the Spiritual. But the very defects of the picture, its exaggeration, its theatricality, were especially calculated to catch the eye of a boy awaking out of the narrow dulness of Puritanism. The breadth and vastness of light and shade upon those manly limbs, so grand and yet so delicate, standing out against the background of lurid night, the helplessness of the bound arms, the arrow quivering in the shrinking side, the upturned brow, the eyes in whose dark depths enthusiastic faith seemed conquering agony and shame, the parted lips, which seemed to ask, like those martyrs in the Revelations, reproachful, half-resigned, "O Lord, how long?"--Gazing at that picture since, I have understood how the idolatry of painted saints could arise in the minds even of the most educated, who were not disciplined by that stern regard for fact which is--or ought to be--the strength of Englishmen. I have understood the heart of that Italian girl, whom some such picture of St. Sebastian, perhaps this very one, excited, as the Venus of Praxiteles the Grecian boy, to hopeless love, madness, and death. Then I had never heard of St. Sebastian. I did not dream of any connexion between that, or indeed any picture, and Christianity; and yet, as I stood before it, I seemed to be face to face with the ghosts of my old Puritan forefathers, to see the spirit which supported them on pillories and scaffolds--the spirit of that true St. Margaret, the Scottish maiden whom Claverhouse and his soldiers chained to a post on the sea-sands to die by inches in the rising tide, till the sound of her hymns was slowly drowned in the dash of the hungry leaping waves. My heart swelled within me, my eyes seemed bursting from my head with the intensity of my gaze, and great tears, I knew not why, rolled slowly down my face. A woman's voice close to me, gentle yet of deeper tone than most, woke me from my trance. "You seem to be deeply interested in that picture?" I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes before they could meet hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet beheld. And what--what--have I seen equal to her since? Strange, that I should love to talk of her. Strange, that I fret at myself now because I cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful loveliness of which--. But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold self-consciousness, what volumes of similes and conceits I might pour out, connecting that peerless face and figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth contain. As it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat to the end again and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond all statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen--slight but rounded, a masque and features delicate and regular, as if fresh from the chisel of Praxiteles--I must try to describe after all, you see--a skin of alabaster (privet-flowers, Horace and Ariosto would have said, more true to Nature), stained with the faintest flush; auburn hair, with that peculiar crisped wave seen in the old Italian pictures, and the warm, dark hazel eyes which so often accompany it; lips like a thread of vermillion, somewhat too thin, perhaps--but I thought little of that then; with such perfect finish and grace in every line and hue of her features and her dress, down to the little fingers and nails, which showed through her thin gloves, that she seemed to my fancy fresh from the innermost chamber of some enchanted palace, "where no air of heaven could visit her cheek too roughly." I dropped my eyes quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a lady who stood with her, whose face I remarked then--as I did to the last, alas!--too little; dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps because so utterly unaccustomed to it. "It is indeed a wonderful picture," I said, timidly. "May I ask what is the subject of it?" "Oh! don't you know?" said the young beauty, with a smile that thrilled through me. "It is St. Sebastian." "I--I am very much ashamed," I answered, colouring up, "but I do not know who St. Sebastian was. Was he a Popish saint?" A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two ladies, laughed kindly. "No, not till they made him one against his will; and at the same time, by putting him into the mill which grinds old folks young again, converted him from a grizzled old Roman tribune into the young Apollo of Popery." "You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle," said the same deep-toned woman's voice which had first spoken to me. "As you volunteered the saint's name, Lillian, you shall also tell his history." Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to send through me a fresh thrill of delighted interest, without trenching the least on the most stately reserve, she told me the well known history of the saint's martyrdom. If I seem minute in my description, let those who read my story remember that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all my little sister's careless ease. "What a beautiful poem the story would make!" said I, as soon as I recovered my thoughts. "Well spoken, young man," answered the old gentleman. "Let us hope that your seeing a subject for a good poem will be the first step towards your writing one." As he spoke, he bent on me two clear grey eyes, full of kindliness, mingled with practised discernment. I saw that he was evidently a clergyman; but what his tight silk stockings and peculiar hat denoted I did not know. There was about him the air of a man accustomed equally to thought, to men, and to power. And I remarked somewhat maliciously, that my cousin, who had strutted up towards us on seeing me talking to two ladies, the instant he caught sight of those black silk stockings and that strange hat, fell suddenly in countenance, and sidling off somewhat meekly into the background, became absorbed in the examination of a Holy Family. I answered something humbly, I forget what, which led to a conversation. They questioned me as to my name, my mother, my business, my studies; while I revelled in the delight of stolen glances at my new-found Venus Victrix, who was as forward as any of them in her questions and her interest. Perhaps she enjoyed, at least she could not help seeing, the admiration for herself which I took no pains to conceal. At last the old man cut the conversation short by a quiet "Good morning, sir," which astonished me. I had never heard words whose tone was so courteous and yet so chillingly peremptory. As they turned away, he repeated to himself once or twice, as if to fix them in his mind, my name and my master's, and awoke in me, perhaps too thoughtlessly, a tumult of vain hopes. Once and again the beauty and her companion looked back towards me, and seemed talking of me, and my face was burning scarlet, when my cousin swung up in his hard, off-hand way. "By Jove, Alton, my boy! you're a knowing fellow. I congratulate you! At your years, indeed! to rise a dean and two beauties at the first throw, and hook them fast!" "A dean!" I said, in some trepidation. "Ay, a live dean--didn't you see the cloven foot sticking out from under his shoe-buckle? What news for your mother! What will the ghosts of your grandfathers to the seventh generation say to this, Alton? Colloquing in Pagan picture galleries with shovel-hatted Philistines! And that's not the worst, Alton," he ran on. "Those daughters of Moab--those daughters of Moab--." "Hold your tongue," I said, almost crying with vexation. "Look there, if you want to save your good temper. There, she is looking back again--not at poor me, though. What a lovely girl she is!--and a real lady--_l'air noble_--the real genuine grit, as Sam Slick says, and no mistake. By Jove, what a face! what hands! what feet! what a figure--in spite of crinolines and all abominations! And didn't she know it? And didn't she know that you knew it too?" And he ran on descanting coarsely on beauties which I dared not even have profaned by naming, in a way that made me, I knew not why, mad with jealousy and indignation. She seemed mine alone in all the world. What right had any other human being, above all, he, to dare to mention her? I turned again to my St. Sebastian. That movement only brought on me a fresh volley of banter. "Oh, that's the dodge, is it, to catch intellectual fine ladies?--to fall into an ecstatic attitude before a picture--But then we must have Alton's genius, you know, to find out which the fine pictures are. I must read up that subject, by-the-by. It might be a paying one among the dons. For the present, here goes in for an attitude. Will this do, Alton?" And he arranged himself admiringly before the picture in an attitude so absurd and yet so graceful, that I did not know whether to laugh at him or hate him. "At all events," he added, dryly, "it will be as good as playing the Evangelical at Carus's tea-parties, or taking the sacrament regularly for fear one's testimonials should be refused." And then he looked at me, and through me, in his intense, confident way, to see that his hasty words had not injured him with me. He used to meet one's eye as boldly as any man I ever saw; but it was not the simple gaze of honesty and innocence, but an imperious, searching look, as if defying scrutiny. His was a true mesmeric eye, if ever there was one. No wonder it worked the miracles it did. "Come along," he said, suddenly seizing my arm. "Don't you see they're leaving? Out of the gallery after them, and get a good look at the carriage and the arms upon it. I saw one standing there as we came in. It may pay us--you, that is--to know it again." We went out, I holding him back, I knew not why, and arrived at the outer gate just in time to see them enter the carriage and drive off. I gazed to the last, but did not stir. "Good boy," he said, "knowing still. If you had bowed, or showed the least sign of recognition, you would have broken the spell." But I hardly heard what he said, and stood gazing stupidly after the carriage as it disappeared. I did not know then what had happened to me. I know now, alas! too well. CHAPTER VII. FIRST LOVE. Truly I said, I did not know what had happened to me. I did not attempt to analyse the intense, overpowering instinct which from that moment made the lovely vision I had seen the lodestar of all my thoughts. Even now, I can see nothing in those feelings of mine but simple admiration--idolatry, if you will--of physical beauty. Doubtless there was more--doubtless--I had seen pretty faces before, and knew that they were pretty, but they had passed from my retina, like the prints of beauties which I saw in the shop windows, without exciting a thought--even a conscious emotion of complacency. But this face did not pass away. Day and night I saw it, just as I had seen it in the gallery. The same playful smile--the same glance alternately turned to me, and the glowing picture above her head--and that was all I saw or felt. No child ever nestled upon its mother's shoulder with feelings more celestially pure, than those with which I counted over day and night each separate lineament of that exceeding loveliness. Romantic? extravagant? Yes; if the world be right in calling a passion romantic just in proportion as it is not merely hopeless, but pure and unselfish, drawing its delicious power from no hope or faintest desire of enjoyment, but merely from simple delight in its object--then my passion was most romantic. I never thought of disparity in rank. Why should I? That could not blind the eyes of my imagination. She was beautiful, and that was all, and all in all to me; and had our stations been exchanged, and more than exchanged; had I been King Cophetua, or she the beggar-maid, I should have gloried in her just as much. Beloved sleepless hours, which I spent in picturing that scene to myself, with all the brilliance of fresh recollection! Beloved hours! how soon you pass away! Soon--soon my imagination began to fade; the traces of her features on my mind's eye became confused and dim; and then came over me the fierce desire to see her again, that I might renew the freshness of that charming image. Thereon grew up an agony of longing--an agony of weeks, and months, and years. Where could I find that face again? was my ruling thought from morning till eve. I knew that it was hopeless to look for her at the gallery where I had first seen her. My only hope was, that at some place of public resort at the West End I might catch, if but for a moment, an inspiring glance of that radiant countenance. I lingered round the Burton Arch and Hyde Park Gate--but in vain. I peered into every carriage, every bonnet that passed me in the thoroughfares--in vain. I stood patiently at the doors of exhibitions and concerts, and playhouses, to be shoved back by policemen, and insulted by footmen--but in vain. Then I tried the fashionable churches, one by one; and sat in the free seats, to listen to prayers and sermons, not a word of which, alas! I cared to understand, with my eyes searching carefully every pew and gallery, face by face; always fancying, in self-torturing waywardness, that she might be just in the part of the gallery which I could not see. Oh! miserable days of hope deferred, making the heart sick! Miserable gnawing of disappointment with which I returned at nightfall, to force myself down to my books! Equally miserable rack of hope on which my nerves were stretched every morning when I rose, counting the hours till my day's work should be over, and my mad search begin again! At last "my torment did by length of time become my element." I returned steadily as ever to the studies which I had at first neglected, much to Mackaye's wonder and disgust; and a vain hunt after that face became a part of my daily task, to be got through with the same dull, sullen effort, with which all I did was now transacted. Mackaye, I suppose, at first, attributed my absences and idleness to my having got into bad company. But it was some weeks before he gently enough told me his suspicions, and they were answered by a burst of tears, and a passionate denial, which set them at rest forever. But I had not courage to tell him what was the matter with me. A sacred modesty, as well as a sense of the impossibility of explaining my emotions, held me back. I had a half-dread, too, to confess the whole truth, of his ridiculing a fancy, to say the least, so utterly impracticable; and my only confidant was a picture in the National Gallery, in one of the faces of which I had discovered some likeness to my Venus; and there I used to go and stand at spare half hours, and feel the happier for staring and staring, and whispering to the dead canvas the extravagances of my idolatry. But soon the bitter draught of disappointment began to breed harsher thoughts in me. Those fine gentlemen who rode past me in the park, who rolled by in carriages, sitting face to face with ladies, as richly dressed, if not as beautiful, as she was--they could see her when they liked--why not I? What right had their eyes to a feast denied to mine? They, too, who did not appreciate, adore that beauty as I did--for who could worship her like me? At least they had not suffered for her as I had done; they had not stood in rain and frost, fatigue, and blank despair--watching--watching--month after month; and I was making coats for them! The very garment I was stitching at, might, in a day's time, be in her presence--touching her dress; and its wearer bowing, and smiling, and whispering--he had not bought that bliss by watching in the ram. It made me mad to think of it. I will say no more about it. That is a period of my life on which I cannot even now look back without a shudder. At last, after perhaps a year or more, I summoned up courage to tell my story to Sandy Mackaye, and burst out with complaints more pardonable, perhaps, than reasonable. "Why have I not as good a right to speak to her, to move in the same society in which she moves, as any of the fops of the day? Is it because these aristocrats are more intellectual than I? I should not fear to measure brains against most of them now; and give me the opportunities which they have, and I would die if I did not outstrip them. Why have I not those opportunities? Is that fault of others to be visited on me? Is it because they are more refined than I? What right have they, if this said refinement be so necessary a qualification, a difference so deep--that, without it, there is to be an everlasting gulf between man and man--what right have they to refuse to let me share in it, to give me the opportunity of acquiring it?" "Wad ye ha' them set up a dancing academy for working men, wi' 'manners tocht here to the lower classes'? They'll no break up their ain monopoly; trust them for it! Na: if ye want to get amang them, I'll tell ye the way o't. Write a book o' poems, and ca' it 'A Voice fra' the Goose, by a working Tailor'--and then--why, after a dizen years or so of starving and scribbling for your bread, ye'll ha' a chance o' finding yoursel' a lion, and a flunkey, and a licker o' trenchers--ane that jokes for his dinner, and sells his soul for a fine leddy's smile--till ye presume to think they're in earnest, and fancy yoursel' a man o' the same blude as they, and fa' in love wi' one o' them--and then they'll teach you your level, and send ye off to gauge whusky like Burns, or leave ye' to die in a ditch as they did wi' puir Thom." "Let me die, anywhere or anyhow, if I can but be near her--see her--" "Married to anither body?--and nursing anither body's bairns. Ah boy, boy--do ye think that was what ye were made for; to please yersel wi' a woman's smiles, or e'en a woman's kisses--or to please yersel at all? How do ye expect ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at a', as long as ye go on looking to enjoy yersel--yersel? I ha' tried it. Mony was the year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it was a' "Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye, There he sits singing the lang simmer's day; Lassies gae to him, And kiss him, and woo him-- Na bird is sa merry as Sandy Mackaye. "An' muckle good cam' o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and there's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I think: 'a universal liars--rock substrawtum,' as Mr. Carlyle says. I'm a great liar often mysel, especially when I'm praying. Do ye think I'd live on here in this meeserable crankit auld bane-barrel o' a body, if it was not for The Cause, and for the puir young fellows that come in to me whiles to get some book-learning about the gran' auld Roman times, when folks didna care for themselves, but for the nation, and a man counted wife and bairns and money as dross and dung, in comparison wi' the great Roman city, that was the mither o' them a', and wad last on, free and glorious, after they and their bairns were a' dead thegither? Hoot, man! If I had na The Cause to care for and to work for, whether I ever see it triumphant on earth or no--I'd just tak' the cauld-water-cure off Waterloo-bridge, and mak' mysel a case for the Humane Society." "And what is The Cause?" I asked. "Wud I tell ye? We want no ready-made freens o' The Cause. I dinna hauld wi' thae French indoctrinating pedants, that took to stick free opinions into a man as ye'd stick pins into a pincushion, to fa' out again the first shake. Na--The Cause must find a man, and tak' hauld o' him, willy-nilly, and grow up in him like an inspiration, till he can see nocht but in the light o't. Puir bairn!" he went on, looking with a half-sad, half-comic face at me--"puir bairn--like a young bear, wi' a' your sorrows before ye! This time seven years ye'll ha' no need to come speering and questioning what The Cause is, and the Gran' Cause, and the Only Cause worth working for on the earth o' God. And noo gang your gate, and mak' fine feathers for foul birds. I'm gaun whar ye'll be ganging too, before lang." As I went sadly out of the shop, he called me back. "Stay a wee, bairn; there's the Roman History for ye. There ye'll read what The Cause is, and how they that seek their ain are no worthy thereof." I took the book, and found in the legends of Brutus, and Cocles, and Scævola, and the retreat to the Mons Sacer, and the Gladiator's war, what The Cause was, and forgot awhile in those tales of antique heroism and patriotic self-sacrifice my own selfish longings and sorrows. * * * * * But, after all, the very advice which was meant to cure me of those selfish longings, only tended, by diverting me from my living outward idol, to turn my thoughts more than ever inward, and tempt them to feed on their own substance. I passed whole days on the workroom floor in brooding silence--my mind peopled with an incoherent rabble of phantasms patched up from every object of which I had ever read. I could not control my daydreams; they swept me away with them over sea and land, and into the bowels of the earth. My soul escaped on every side from my civilized dungeon of brick and mortar, into the great free world from which my body was debarred. Now I was the corsair in the pride of freedom on the dark blue sea. Now I wandered in fairy caverns among the bones of primæval monsters. I fought at the side of Leonidas, and the Maccabee who stabbed the Sultan's elephant, and saw him crushed beneath its falling bulk. Now I was a hunter in tropic forests--I heard the parrots scream, and saw the humming birds flit on from gorgeous flower to flower. Gradually I took a voluntary pleasure in calling up these images, and working out their details into words with all the accuracy and care for which my small knowledge gave me materials. And as the self-indulgent habit grew on me, I began to live two lives--one mechanical and outward, one inward and imaginative. The thread passed through my fingers without my knowing it; I did my work as a machine might do it. The dingy stifling room, the wan faces of my companions, the scanty meals which I snatched, I saw dimly, as in a dream. The tropics, and Greece, the imaginary battles which I fought, the phantoms into whose mouths I put my thoughts, were real and true to me. They met me when I woke--they floated along beside me as I walked to work--they acted their fantastic dramas before me through the sleepless hours of night. Gradually certain faces among them became familiar--certain personages grew into coherence, as embodiments of those few types of character which had struck me the most, and played an analogous part in every fresh fantasia. Sandy Mackaye's face figured incongruously enough as Leonidas, Brutus, a Pilgrim Father; and gradually, in spite of myself, and the fear with which I looked on the recurrence of that dream, Lillian's figure re-entered my fairy-land. I saved her from a hundred dangers; I followed her through dragon-guarded caverns and the corridors of magic castles; I walked by her side through the forests of the Amazon.... And now I began to crave for some means of expressing these fancies to myself. While they were mere thoughts, parts of me, they were unsatisfactory, however delicious. I longed to put them outside me, that I might look at them and talk to them as permanent independent things. First I tried to sketch them on the whitewashed walls of my garret, on scraps of paper begged from Mackaye, or picked up in the workroom. But from my ignorance of any rules of drawing, they were utterly devoid of beauty, and only excited my disgust. Besides, I had thoughts as well as objects to express--thoughts strange, sad, wild, about my own feelings, my own destiny, and drawing could not speak them for me. Then I turned instinctively to poetry: with its rules I was getting rapidly conversant. The mere desire of imitation urged me on, and when I tried, the grace of rhyme and metre covered a thousand defects. I tell my story, not as I saw it then, but as I see it now. A long and lonely voyage, with its monotonous days and sleepless nights--its sickness and heart-loneliness, has given me opportunities for analysing my past history which were impossible then, amid the ceaseless in-rush of new images, the ceaseless ferment of their re-combination, in which my life was passed from sixteen to twenty-five. The poet, I suppose, must be a seer as long as he is a worker, and a seer only. He has no time to philosophize--to "think about thinking," as Goethe, I have somewhere read, says that he never could do. It is too often only in sickness and prostration and sheer despair, that the fierce veracity and swift digestion of his soul can cease, and give him time to know himself and God's dealings with him; and for that reason it is good for him, too, to have been afflicted. I do not write all this to boast of it; I am ready to bear sneers at my romance--my day-dreams--my unpractical habits of mind, for I know that I deserve them. But such was the appointed growth of my uneducated mind; no more unhealthy a growth, if I am to believe books, than that of many a carefully trained one. Highborn geniuses, they tell me, have their idle visions as well as we working-men; and Oxford has seen of late years as wild Icarias conceived as ever were fathered by a red Republic. For, indeed, we have the same flesh and blood, the same God to teach us, the same devil to mislead us, whether we choose to believe it or not. But there were excuses for me. We Londoners are not accustomed from our youth to the poems of a great democratic genius, as the Scotchmen are to their glorious Burns. We have no chance of such an early acquaintance with poetic art as that which enabled John Bethune, one of the great unrepresented--the starving Scotch day-labourer, breaking stones upon the parish roads, to write at the age of seventeen such words as these:-- Hail, hallow'd evening! sacred hour to me! Thy clouds of grey, thy vocal melody, Thy dreamy silence oft to me have brought A sweet exchange from toil to peaceful thought. Ye purple heavens! how often has my eye, Wearied with its long gaze on drudgery, Look'd up and found refreshment in the hues That gild thy vest with colouring profuse! O, evening grey! how oft have I admired Thy airy tapestry, whose radiance fired The glowing minstrels of the olden time, Until their very souls flow'd forth in rhyme. And I have listened, till my spirit grew Familiar with their deathless strains, and drew From the same source some portion of the glow Which fill'd their spirits, when from earth below They scann'd thy golden imagery. And I Have consecrated _thee_, bright evening sky My fount of inspiration; and I fling My spirit on thy clouds--an offering To the great Deity of dying day. Who hath transfused o'er thee his purple ray. * * * * * After all, our dreams do little harm to the rich. Those who consider Chartism as synonymous with devil-worship, should bless and encourage them, for the very reason for which we working men ought to dread them; for, quickened into prurient activity by the low, novel-mongering press, they help to enervate and besot all but the noblest minds among us. Here and there a Thomas Cooper, sitting in Stafford gaol, after a youth spent in cobbling shoes, vents his treasures of classic and historic learning in a "Purgatory of Suicides"; or a Prince becomes the poet of the poor, no less for having fed his boyish fancy with "The Arabian Nights" and "The Pilgrim's Progress." But, with the most of us, sedentary and monotonous occupations, as has long been known, create of themselves a morbidly-meditative and fantastic turn of mind. And what else, in Heaven's name, ye fine gentlemen--what else can a working man do with his imagination, but dream? What else will you let him do with it, oh ye education-pedants, who fancy that you can teach the masses as you would drill soldiers, every soul alike, though you will not bestir yourselves to do even that? Are there no differences of rank--God's rank, not man's--among us? You have discovered, since your schoolboy days, the fallacy of the old nomenclature which civilly classed us altogether as "the snobs," "the blackguards"; which even--so strong is habit--tempted Burke himself to talk of us as "the swinish multitude." You are finding yourselves wrong there. A few more years' experience not in mis-educating the poor, but in watching the poor really educate themselves, may teach you that we are not all by nature dolts and idiots; that there are differences of brain among us, just as great as there is between you; and that there are those among us whose education ought not to end, and will not end, with the putting off of the parish cap and breeches; whom it is cruelty, as well as folly, to toss back into the hell of mere manual drudgery, as soon as you have--if, indeed, you have been even so bountiful as that--excited in them a new thirst of the intellect and imagination. If you provide that craving with no wholesome food, you at least have no right to blame it if it shall gorge itself with poison. Dare for once to do a strange thing, and let yourself be laughed at; go to a workman's meeting--a Chartist meeting, if you will; and look honestly at the faces and brows of those so-called incendiaries, whom your venal caricaturists have taught you to believe a mixture of cur-dog and baboon--we, for our part, shall not be ashamed to show foreheads against your laughing House of Commons--and then say, what employment can those men find in the soulless routine of mechanical labour for the mass of brain which they almost universally possess? They must either dream or agitate; perhaps they are now learning how to do both to some purpose. But I have found, by sad experience, that there is little use in declamation. I had much better simply tell my story, and leave my readers to judge of the facts, if, indeed, they will be so far courteous as to believe them. CHAPTER VIII. LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE. So I made my first attempt at poetry--need I say that my subject was the beautiful Lillian? And need I say, too, that I was as utterly disgusted at my attempt to express her in words, as I had been at my trial with the pencil? It chanced also, that after hammering out half a dozen verses, I met with Mr. Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled sketches of women that I found there, while they had, with the rest of the book, a new and abiding influence on my mind, were quite enough to show me my own fatal incompetency in that line. I threw my verses away, never to resume them. Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affection. Our mightiest feelings, are always those which remain most unspoken. The most intense lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I think, written very little personal love-poetry, while they have shown in fictitious characters a knowledge of the passion too painfully intimate to be spoken of in the first person. But to escape from my own thoughts, I could not help writing something; and to escape from my own private sorrows, writing on some matter with which I had no personal concern. And so, after much casting about for subjects, Childe Harold and the old missionary records contrived to celebrate a spiritual wedding in my brain, of which anomalous marriage came a proportionately anomalous offspring. My hero was not to be a pirate, but a pious sea-rover, who, with a crew of saints, or at least uncommonly fine fellows, who could be very manly and jolly, and yet all be good Christians, of a somewhat vague and latitudinarian cast of doctrine (for my own was becoming rapidly so), set forth under the red-cross flag to colonize and convert one of my old paradises, a South Sea Island. I forget most of the lines--they were probably great trash, but I hugged them to my bosom as a young mother does her first child. 'Twas sunset in the lone Pacific world, The rich gleams fading in the western sky; Within the still Lagoon the sails were furled, The red-cross flag alone was flaunting high. Before them was the low and palm-fringed shore, Behind, the outer ocean's baffled roar. After which valiant plunge _in medias res_, came a great lump of deception, after the manner of youths--of the island, and the whitehouses, and the banana groves, and above all, the single volcano towering over the whole, which Shaking a sinful isle with thundering shocks, Reproved the worshippers of stones and stocks. Then how a line of foam appears on the Lagoon, which is supposed at first to be a shoal of fish, but turns out to be a troop of naked island beauties, swimming out to the ship. The decent missionaries were certainly guiltless of putting that into my head, whether they ever saw it or not--a great many things happening in the South Seas of which they find it convenient to say nothing. I think I picked it up from Wallis, or Cook, or some other plain spoken voyager. The crew gaze in pardonable admiration, but the hero, in a long speech, reproves them for their lightmindedness, reminds them of their sacred mission, and informs them that, The soldiers of the cross should turn their eyes From carnal lusts and heathen vanities; beyond which indisputable assertion I never got; for this being about the fiftieth stanza, I stopped to take breath a little; and reading and re-reading, patching and touching continually, grew so accustomed to my bantling's face, that, like a mother, I could not tell whether it was handsome or hideous, sense or nonsense. I have since found out that the true plan, for myself at least, is to write off as much as possible at a time, and then lay it by and forget it for weeks--if I can, for months. After that, on returning to it, the mind regards it as something altogether strange and new, and can, or rather ought to, judge of it as it would of the work of another pen. But really, between conceit and disgust, fancying myself one day a great new poet, and the next a mere twaddler, I got so puzzled and anxious, that I determined to pluck up courage, go to Mackaye, and ask him to solve the problem for me. "Hech, sirs, poetry! I've been expecting it. I suppose it's the appointed gate o' a workman's intellectual life--that same lust o' versification. Aweel, aweel,--let's hear." Blushing and trembling, I read my verses aloud in as resonant and magniloquent a voice as I could command. I thought Mackaye's upper lip would never stop lengthening, or his lower lip protruding. He chuckled intensely at the unfortunate rhyme between "shocks" and "stocks." Indeed, it kept him in chuckling matter for a whole month afterwards; but when I had got to the shoal of naked girls, he could bear no more, and burst out-- "What the deevil! is there no harlotry and idolatry here in England, that ye maun gang speering after it in the Cannibal Islands? Are ye gaun to be like they puir aristocrat bodies, that wad suner hear an Italian dog howl, than an English nightingale sing, and winna harken to Mr. John Thomas till he calls himself Giovanni Thomasino; or do ye tak yourself for a singing-bird, to go all your days tweedle-dumdeeing out into the lift, just for the lust o' hearing your ain clan clatter? Will ye be a man or a lintic? Coral Islands? Pacific? What do ye ken about Pacifics? Are ye a Cockney or a Cannibal Islander? Dinna stand there, ye gowk, as fusionless as a docken, but tell me that! Whaur do ye live?" "What do you mean, Mr. Mackaye?" asked I, with a doleful and disappointed visage. "Mean--why, if God had meant ye to write aboot Pacifics, He'd ha' put ye there--and because He means ye to write aboot London town, He's put ye there--and gien ye an unco sharp taste o' the ways o't; and I'll gie ye anither. Come along wi' me." And he seized me by the arm, and hardly giving me time to put on my hat, marched me out into the streets, and away through Clare Market to St. Giles's. It was a foul, chilly, foggy Saturday night. From the butchers' and greengrocers' shops the gas lights flared and flickered, wild and ghastly, over haggard groups of slip-shod dirty women, bargaining for scraps of stale meat and frost-bitten vegetables, wrangling about short weight and bad quality. Fish-stalls and fruit-stalls lined the edge of the greasy pavement, sending up odours as foul as the language of sellers and buyers. Blood and sewer-water crawled from under doors and out of spouts, and reeked down the gutters among offal, animal and vegetable, in every stage of putrefaction. Foul vapours rose from cowsheds and slaughter houses, and the doorways of undrained alleys, where the inhabitants carried the filth out on their shoes from the back-yard into the court, and from the court up into the main street; while above, hanging like cliffs over the streets--those narrow, brawling torrents of filth, and poverty, and sin,--the houses with their teeming load of life were piled up into the dingy, choking night. A ghastly, deafening sickening sight it was. Go, scented Belgravian! and see what London is! and then go to the library which God has given thee--one often fears in vain--and see what science says this London might be! "Ay," he muttered to himself, as he strode along, "sing awa; get yoursel wi' child wi' pretty fancies and gran' words, like the rest o' the poets, and gang to hell for it." "To hell, Mr. Mackaye?" "Ay, to a verra real hell, Alton Locke, laddie--a warse ane than ony fiends' kitchen, or subterranean Smithfield that ye'll hear o' in the pulpits--the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a humbug, and a useless peacock, wasting God's gifts on your ain lusts and pleasures--and kenning it--and not being able to get oot o' it, for the chains o' vanity and self-indulgence. I've warned ye. Now look there--" He stopped suddenly before the entrance of a miserable alley-- "Look! there's not a soul down that yard but's either beggar, drunkard, thief, or warse. Write anent that! Say how you saw the mouth o' hell, and the twa pillars thereof at the entry--the pawnbroker's shop o' one side, and the gin palace at the other--twa monstrous deevils, eating up men, and women, and bairns, body and soul. Look at the jaws o' the monsters, how they open and open, and swallow in anither victim and anither. Write anent that." "What jaws, Mr. Mackaye?" "They faulding-doors o' the gin shop, goose. Are na they a mair damnable man-devouring idol than ony red-hot statue o' Moloch, or wicker Gogmagog, wherein thae auld Britons burnt their prisoners? Look at thae bare-footed bare-backed hizzies, with their arms roun' the men's necks, and their mouths full o' vitriol and beastly words! Look at that Irishwoman pouring the gin down the babbie's throat! Look at that rough o' a boy gaun out o' the pawn shop, where he's been pledging the handkerchief he stole the morning, into the gin shop, to buy beer poisoned wi' grains o' paradise, and cocculus indicus, and saut, and a' damnable, maddening, thirst-breeding, lust-breeding drugs! Look at that girl that went in wi' a shawl on her back and cam' out wi'out ane! Drunkards frae the breast!--harlots frae the cradle! damned before they're born! John Calvin had an inkling o' the truth there, I'm a'most driven to think, wi' his reprobation deevil's doctrines!" "Well--but--Mr. Mackaye, I know nothing about these poor creatures." "Then ye ought. What do ye ken anent the Pacific? Which is maist to your business?--thae bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot o' the other side o' the warld, or these--these thousands o' bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot o' your ain side--made out o' your ain flesh and blude? You a poet! True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at hame. If ye'll be a poet at a', ye maun be a cockney poet; and while the cockneys be what they be, ye maun write, like Jeremiah of old, o' lamentation and mourning and woe, for the sins o' your people. Gin you want to learn the spirit o' a people's poet, down wi' your Bible and read thae auld Hebrew prophets; gin ye wad learn the style, read your Burns frae morning till night; and gin ye'd learn the matter, just gang after your nose, and keep your eyes open, and ye'll no miss it." "But all this is so--so unpoetical." "Hech! Is there no the heeven above them there, and the hell beneath them? and God frowning, and the deevil grinning? No poetry there! Is no the verra idea of the classic tragedy defined to be, man conquered by circumstance? Canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man conquering circumstance?--and I'll show you that, too--in mony a garret where no eye but the gude God's enters, to see the patience, and the fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the luve stronger than death, that's shining in thae dark places o' the earth. Come wi' me, and see." We went on through a back street or two, and then into a huge, miserable house, which, a hundred years ago, perhaps, had witnessed the luxury, and rung to the laughter of some one great fashionable family, alone there in their glory. Now every room of it held its family, or its group of families--a phalanstery of all the fiends;--its grand staircase, with the carved balustrades rotting and crumbling away piecemeal, converted into a common sewer for all its inmates. Up stair after stair we went, while wails of children, and curses of men, steamed out upon the hot stifling rush of air from every doorway, till, at the topmost story, we knocked at a garret door. We entered. Bare it was of furniture, comfortless, and freezing cold; but, with the exception of the plaster dropping from the roof, and the broken windows, patched with rags and paper, there was a scrupulous neatness about the whole, which contrasted strangely with the filth and slovenliness outside. There was no bed in the room--no table. On a broken chair by the chimney sat a miserable old woman, fancying that she was warming her hands over embers which had long been cold, shaking her head, and muttering to herself, with palsied lips, about the guardians and the workhouse; while upon a few rags on the floor lay a girl, ugly, small-pox marked, hollow eyed, emaciated, her only bed clothes the skirt of a large handsome new riding-habit, at which two other girls, wan and tawdry, were stitching busily, as they sat right and left of her on the floor. The old woman took no notice of us as we entered; but one of the girls looked up, and, with a pleased gesture of recognition, put her finger up to her lips, and whispered, "Ellen's asleep." "I'm not asleep, dears," answered a faint, unearthly voice; "I was only praying. Is that Mr. Mackaye?" "Ay, my lassies; but ha' ye gotten na fire the nicht?" "No," said one of them, bitterly, "we've earned no fire to-night, by fair trade or foul either." The sick girl tried to raise herself up and speak, but was stopped by a frightful fit of coughing and expectoration, as painful, apparently, to the sufferer as it was, I confess, disgusting even to me. I saw Mackaye slip something into the hand of one of the girls, and whisper, "A half-hundred of coals;" to which she replied, with an eager look of gratitude that I never can forget, and hurried out. Then the sufferer, as if taking advantage of her absence, began to speak quickly and eagerly. "Oh, Mr. Mackaye--dear, kind Mr. Mackaye--do speak to her; and do speak to poor Lizzy here! I'm not afraid to say it before her, because she's more gentle like, and hasn't learnt to say bad words yet--but do speak to them, and tell them not to go the bad Way, like all the rest. Tell them it'll never prosper. I know it is want that drives them to it, as it drives all of us--but tell them it's best to starve and die honest girls, than to go about with the shame and the curse of God on their hearts, for the sake of keeping this poor, miserable, vile body together a few short years more in this world o' sorrow. Do tell them, Mr. Mackaye." "I'm thinking," said he, with the tears running down his old withered face, "ye'll mak a better preacher at that text than I shall, Ellen." "Oh, no, no; who am I, to speak to them?--it's no merit o' mine, Mr. Mackaye, that the Lord's kept me pure through it all. I should have been just as bad as any of them, if the Lord had not kept me out of temptation in His great mercy, by making me the poor, ill-favoured creature I am. From that time I was burnt when I was a child, and had the small-pox afterwards, oh! how sinful I was, and repined and rebelled against the Lord! And now I see it was all His blessed mercy to keep me out of evil, pure and unspotted for my dear Jesus, when He comes to take me to Himself. I saw Him last night, Mr. Mackaye, as plain as I see you now, ail in a flame of beautiful white fire, smiling at me so sweetly; and He showed me the wounds in His hands and His feet, and He said, 'Ellen, my own child, those that suffer with me here, they shall be glorified with me hereafter, for I'm coming very soon to take you home.'" Sandy shook his head at all this with a strange expression of face, as if he sympathized and yet disagreed, respected and yet smiled at the shape which her religious ideas had assumed; and I remarked in the meantime that the poor girl's neck and arm were all scarred and distorted, apparently from the effects of a burn. "Ah," said Sandy, at length, "I tauld ye ye were the better preacher of the two; ye've mair comfort to gie Sandy than he has to gie the like o' ye. But how is the wound in your back the day?" Oh, it was wonderfully better! the doctor had come and given her such blessed ease with a great thick leather he had put under it, and then she did not feel the boards through so much. "But oh, Mr. Mackaye, I'm so afraid it will make me live longer to keep me away from my dear Saviour. And there's one thing, too, that's breaking my heart, and makes me long to die this very minute, even if I didn't go to Heaven at all, Mr. Mackaye." (And she burst out crying, and between her sobs it came out, as well as I could gather, that her notion was, that her illness was the cause of keeping the girls in "_the bad ivay_," as she called it.) "For Lizzy here, I did hope that she had repented of it after all my talking to her; but since I've been so bad, and the girls have had to keep me most o' the time, she's gone out of nights just as bad as ever." Lizzy had hid her face in her hands the greater part of this speech. Now she looked up passionately, almost fiercely-- "Repent--I have repented--I repent of it every hour--I hate myself, and hate all the world because of it; but I must--I must; I cannot see her starve, and I cannot starve myself. When she first fell sick she kept on as long as she could, doing what she could, and then between us we only earned three shillings a week, and there was ever so much to take off for fire, and twopence for thread, and fivepence for candles; and then we were always getting fined, because they never gave us out the work till too late on purpose, and then they lowered prices again; and now Ellen can't work at all, and there's four of us with the old lady, to keep off two's work that couldn't keep themselves alone." "Doesn't the parish allow the old lady anything?" I ventured to ask. "They used to allow half-a-crown for a bit; and the doctor ordered Ellen things from the parish, but it isn't half of 'em she ever got; and when the meat came, it was half times not fit to eat, and when it was her stomach turned against it. If she was a lady she'd be cockered up with all sorts of soups and jellies, and nice things, just the minute she fancied 'em, and lie on a water bed instead of the bare floor--and so she ought; but where's the parish'll do that? And the hospital wouldn't take her in because she was incurable; and, besides, the old'un wouldn't let her go--nor into the union neither. When she's in a good-humour like, she'll sit by her by the hour, holding her hand and kissing of it, and nursing of it, for all the world like a doll. But she won't hear of the workhouse; so now, these last three weeks, they takes off all her pay, because they says she must go into the house, and not kill her daughter by keeping her out--as if they warn't a killing her themselves." "No workhouse--no workhouse!" said the old woman, turning round suddenly, in a clear, lofty voice. "No workhouse, sir, for an officer's daughter!" And she relapsed into her stupor. At that moment the other girl entered with the coals--but without staying to light the fire, ran up to Ellen with some trumpery dainty she had bought, and tried to persuade her to eat it. "We have been telling Mr. Mackaye everything," said poor Lizzy. "A pleasant story, isn't it? Oh! if that fine lady, as we're making that riding-habit for, would just spare only half the money that goes to dressing her up to ride in the park, to send us out to the colonies, wouldn't I be an honest girl there?--maybe an honest man's wife! Oh, my God, wouldn't I slave my fingers to the bone to work for him! Wouldn't I mend my life then! I couldn't help it--it would be like getting into heaven out of hell. But now--we must--we must, I tell you. I shall go mad soon, I think, or take to drink. When I passed the gin-shop down there just now, I had to run like mad for fear I should go in; and if I once took to that--Now then, to work again. Make up the fire, Mrs. * * * *, please do." And she sat down, and began stitching frantically at the riding-habit, from which the other girl had hardly lifted her hands or eyes for a moment during our visit. We made a motion, as if to go. "God bless you," said Ellen; "come again soon, dear Mr. Mackaye." "Good-bye," said the elder girl; "and good-night to you. Night and day's all the same here--we must have this home by seven o'clock to-morrow morning. My lady's going to ride early, they say, whoever she may be, and we must just sit up all night. It's often we haven't had our clothes off for a week together, from four in the morning till two the next morning sometimes--stitch, stitch, stitch. Somebody's wrote a song about that--I'll learn to sing it--it'll sound fitting-like up here." "Better sing hymns," said Ellen. "Hymns for * * * * * *?" answered the other, and then burst out into that peculiar, wild, ringing, fiendish laugh--has my reader never heard it? I pulled out the two or three shillings which I possessed, and tried to make the girls take them, for the sake of poor Ellen. "No; you're a working man, and we won't feed on you--you'll want it some day--all the trade's going the same way as we, as fast as ever it can!" Sandy and I went down the stairs. "Poetic element? Yon lassie, rejoicing in her disfigurement and not her beauty--like the nuns of Peterborough in auld time--is there na poetry there? That puir lassie, dying on the bare boards, and seeing her Saviour in her dreams, is there na poetry there, callant? That auld body owre the fire, wi' her 'an officer's dochter,' is there na poetry there? That ither, prostituting hersel to buy food for her freen--is there na poetry there?--tragedy-- "With hues as when some mighty painter dips His pen in dyes of earthquake and eclipse. "Ay, Shelley's gran'; always gran'; but Fact is grander--God and Satan are grander. All around ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are God and Satan at death grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained; and will ye think it beneath ye to be the 'People's Poet?'" CHAPTER IX. POETRY AND POETS. In the history of individuals, as well as in that of nations, there is often a period of sudden blossoming--a short luxuriant summer, not without its tornadoes and thunder-glooms, in which all the buried seeds of past observation leap forth together into life, and form, and beauty. And such with me were the two years that followed. I thought--I talked poetry to myself all day long. I wrote nightly on my return from work. I am astonished, on looking back, at the variety and quantity of my productions during that short time. My subjects were intentionally and professedly cockney ones. I had taken Mackaye at his word. I had made up my mind, that if I had any poetic powers I must do my duty therewith in that station of life to which it had pleased God to call me, and look at everything simply and faithfully as a London artizan. To this, I suppose, is to be attributed the little geniality and originality for which the public have kindly praised my verses--a geniality which sprung, not from the atmosphere whence I drew, but from the honesty and single-mindedness with which, I hope, I laboured. Not from the atmosphere, indeed,--that was ungenial enough; crime and poverty, all-devouring competition, and hopeless struggles against Mammon and Moloch, amid the roar of wheels, the ceaseless stream of pale, hard faces, intent on gain, or brooding over woe; amid endless prison walls of brick, beneath a lurid, crushing sky of smoke and mist. It was a dark, noisy, thunderous element that London life; a troubled sea that cannot rest, casting up mire and dirt; resonant of the clanking of chains, the grinding of remorseless machinery, the wail of lost spirits from the pit. And it did its work upon me; it gave a gloomy colouring, a glare as of some Dantean "Inferno," to all my utterances. It did not excite me or make me fierce--I was too much inured to it--but it crushed and saddened me; it deepened in me that peculiar melancholy of intellectual youth, which Mr. Carlyle has christened for ever by one of his immortal nicknames--"Werterism"; I battened on my own melancholy. I believed, I loved to believe, that every face I passed bore the traces of discontent as deep as was my own--and was I so far wrong? Was I so far wrong either in the gloomy tone of my own poetry? Should not a London poet's work just now be to cry, like the Jew of old, about the walls of Jerusalem, "Woe, woe to this city!" Is this a time to listen to the voices of singing men and singing women? or to cry, "Oh! that my head were a fountain of tears, that I might weep for the sins of my people"? Is it not noteworthy, also, that it is in this vein that the London poets have always been greatest? Which of poor Hood's lyrics have an equal chance of immortality with "The Song of the Shirt" and "The Bridge of Sighs," rising, as they do, right out of the depths of that Inferno, sublime from their very simplicity? Which of Charles Mackay's lyrics can compare for a moment with the Eschylean grandeur, the terrible rhythmic lilt of his "Cholera Chant"-- Dense on the stream the vapours lay, Thick as wool on the cold highway; Spungy and dim each lonely lamp Shone o'er the streets so dull and damp; The moonbeams could not pierce the cloud That swathed the city like a shroud; There stood three shapes on the bridge alone, Three figures by the coping-stone; Gaunt and tall and undefined, Spectres built of mist and wind. * * * * * I see his footmarks east and west-- I hear his tread in the silence fall-- He shall not sleep, he shall not rest-- He comes to aid us one and all. Were men as wise as men might be, They would not work for you, for me, For him that cometh over the sea; But they will not hear the warning voice: The Cholera comes,--Rejoice! rejoice! He shall be lord of the swarming town! And mow them down, and mow them down! * * * * * Not that I neglected, on the other hand, every means of extending the wanderings of my spirit into sunnier and more verdant pathways. If I had to tell the gay ones above of the gloom around me, I had also to go forth into the sunshine, to bring home if it were but a wild-flower garland to those that sit in darkness and the shadow of death. That was all that I could offer them. The reader shall judge, when he has read this book throughout, whether I did not at last find for them something better than even all the beauties of nature. But it was on canvas, and not among realities, that I had to choose my garlands; and therefore the picture galleries became more than ever my favourite--haunt, I was going to say; but, alas! it was not six times a year that I got access to them. Still, when once every May I found myself, by dint of a hard saved shilling, actually within the walls of that to me enchanted palace, the Royal Academy Exhibition--Oh, ye rich! who gaze round you at will upon your prints and pictures, if hunger is, as they say, a better sauce than any Ude invents, and fasting itself may become the handmaid of luxury, you should spend, as I did perforce, weeks and months shut out from every glimpse of Nature, if you would taste her beauties, even on canvas, with perfect relish and childish self-abandonment. How I loved and blessed those painters! how I thanked Creswick for every transparent shade-chequered pool; Fielding, for every rain-clad down; Cooper, for every knot of quiet cattle beneath the cool grey willows; Stanfield, for every snowy peak, and sheet of foam-fringed sapphire--each and every one of them a leaf out of the magic book which else was ever closed to me. Again, I say, how I loved and blest those painters! On the other hand, I was not neglecting to read as well as to write poetry; and, to speak first of the highest, I know no book, always excepting Milton, which at once so quickened and exalted my poetical view of man and his history, as that great prose poem, the single epic of modern days, Thomas Carlyle's "French Revolution." Of the general effect which his works had on me, I shall say nothing: it was the same as they have had, thank God, on thousands of my class and of every other. But that book above all first recalled me to the overwhelming and yet ennobling knowledge that there was such a thing as Duty; first taught me to see in history not the mere farce-tragedy of man's crimes and follies, but the dealings of a righteous Ruler of the universe, whose ways are in the great deep, and whom the sins and errors, as well as the virtues and discoveries of man, must obey and justify. Then, in a happy day, I fell on Alfred Tennyson's poetry, and found there, astonished and delighted, the embodiment of thoughts about the earth around me which I had concealed, because I fancied them peculiar to myself. Why is it that the latest poet has generally the greatest influence over the minds of the young? Surely not for the mere charm of novelty? The reason is that he, living amid the same hopes, the same temptations, the same sphere of observation as they, gives utterance and outward form to the very questions which, vague and wordless, have been exercising their hearts. And what endeared Tennyson especially to me, the working man, was, as I afterwards discovered, the altogether democratic tendency of his poems. True, all great poets are by their office democrats; seers of man only as man; singers of the joys, the sorrows, the aspirations common to all humanity; but in Alfred Tennyson there is an element especially democratic, truly levelling; not his political opinions, about which I know nothing, and care less, but his handling of the trivial every-day sights and sounds of nature. Brought up, as I understand, in a part of England which possesses not much of the picturesque, and nothing of that which the vulgar call sublime, he has learnt to see that in all nature, in the hedgerow and the sandbank, as well as in the alp peak and the ocean waste, is a world of true sublimity,--a minute infinite,--an ever fertile garden of poetic images, the roots of which are in the unfathomable and the eternal, as truly as any phenomenon which astonishes and awes the eye. The descriptions of the desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan floated, the hint of the silvery marsh mosses by Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations. I always knew there was something beautiful, wonderful, sublime, in those flowery dykes of Battersea Fields; in the long gravelly sweeps of that lone tidal shore; and here was a man who had put them into words for me! This is what I call democratic art--the revelation of the poetry which lies in common things. And surely all the age is tending in that direction: in Landseer and his dogs--in Fielding and his downs, with a host of noble fellow-artists--and in all authors who have really seized the nation's mind, from Crabbe and Burns and Wordsworth to Hood and Dickens, the great tide sets ever onward, outward, towards that which is common to the many, not that which is exclusive to the few--towards the likeness of Him who causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, and His sun to shine on the evil and the good; who knoweth the cattle upon a thousand hills, and all the beasts of the field are in His sight. Well--I must return to my story. And here some one may ask me, "But did you not find this true spiritual democracy, this universal knowledge and sympathy, in Shakspeare above all other poets?" It may be my shame to have to confess it; but though I find it now, I did not then. I do not think, however, my case is singular: from what I can ascertain, there is, even with regularly educated minds, a period of life at which that great writer is not appreciated, just on account of his very greatness; on account of the deep and large experience which the true understanding of his plays requires--experience of man, of history, of art, and above all of those sorrows whereby, as Hezekiah says, and as I have learnt almost too well--"whereby men live, and in all which, is the life of the spirit." At seventeen, indeed, I had devoured Shakspeare, though merely for the food to my fancy which his plots and incidents supplied, for the gorgeous colouring of his scenery: but at the period of which I am now writing, I had exhausted that source of mere pleasure; I was craving for more explicit and dogmatic teaching than any which he seemed to supply; and for three years, strange as it may appear, I hardly ever looked into his pages. Under what circumstances I afterwards recurred to his exhaustless treasures, my readers shall in due time be told. So I worked away manfully with such tools and stock as I possessed, and of course produced, at first, like all young writers, some sufficiently servile imitations of my favourite poets. "Ugh!" said Sandy, "wha wants mongrels atween Burns and Tennyson? A gude stock baith: but gin ye'd cross the breed ye maun unite the spirits, and no the manners, o' the men. Why maun ilk a one the noo steal his neebor's barnacles, before he glints out o' windows? Mak a style for yoursel, laddie; ye're na mair Scots hind than ye are Lincolnshire laird: sae gang yer ain gate and leave them to gang theirs; and just mak a gran', brode, simple, Saxon style for yoursel." "But how can I, till I know what sort of a style it ought to be?" "Oh! but yon's amazing like Tom Sheridan's answer to his father. 'Tom,' says the auld man, 'I'm thinking ye maun tak a wife.' 'Verra weel, father,' says the puir skellum; 'and wha's wife shall I tak?' Wha's style shall I tak? say all the callants the noo. Mak a style as ye would mak a wife, by marrying her a' to yoursel; and ye'll nae mair ken what's your style till it's made, than ye'll ken what your wife's like till she's been mony a year by your ingle." "My dear Mackaye," I said, "you have the most unmerciful way of raising difficulties, and then leaving poor fellows to lay the ghost for themselves." "Hech, then, I'm a'thegither a negative teacher, as they ca' it in the new lallans. I'll gang out o' my gate to tell a man his kye are laired, but I'm no obligated thereby to pu' them out for him. After a', nae man is rid o' a difficulty till he's conquered it single-handed for himsel: besides, I'm na poet, mair's the gude hap for you." "Why, then?" "Och, och! they're puir, feckless, crabbit, unpractical bodies, they poets; but if it's your doom, ye maun dree it; and I'm sair afeard ye ha' gotten the disease o' genius, mair's the pity, and maun write, I suppose, willy-nilly. Some folks' booels are that made o' catgut, that they canna stir without chirruping and screeking." However, _æstro percitus_, I wrote on; and in about two years and a half had got together "Songs of the Highways" enough to fill a small octavo volume, the circumstances of whose birth shall be given hereafter. Whether I ever attained to anything like an original style, readers must judge for themselves--the readers of the same volume I mean, for I have inserted none of those poems in this my autobiography; first, because it seems too like puffing my own works; and next, because I do not want to injure the as yet not over great sale of the same. But, if any one's curiosity is so far excited that he wishes to see what I have accomplished, the best advice which I can give him is, to go forth, and buy all the working-men's poetry which has appeared during the last twenty years, without favour or exception; among which he must needs, of course, find mine, and also, I am happy to say, a great deal which is much better and more instructive than mine. CHAPTER X. HOW FOLKS TURN CHARTISTS. Those who read my story only for amusement, I advise to skip this chapter. Those, on the other hand, who really wish to ascertain what working men actually do suffer--to see whether their political discontent has not its roots, not merely in fanciful ambition, but in misery and slavery most real and agonizing--those in whose eyes the accounts of a system, or rather barbaric absence of all system, which involves starvation, nakedness, prostitution, and long imprisonment in dungeons worse than the cells of the Inquisition, will be invested with something at least of tragic interest, may, I hope, think it worth their while to learn how the clothes which they wear are made, and listen to a few occasional statistics, which, though they may seem to the wealthy mere lists of dull figures, are to the workmen symbols of terrible physical realities--of hunger, degradation, and despair. [Footnote: Facts still worse than those which Mr. Locke's story contains have been made public by the _Morning Chronicle_ in a series of noble letters on "Labour and the Poor"; which we entreat all Christian people to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." "That will be better for them," as Mahomet, in similar cases, used to say.] Well: one day our employer died. He had been one of the old sort of fashionable West-end tailors in the fast decreasing honourable trade; keeping a modest shop, hardly to be distinguished from a dwelling-house, except by his name on the window blinds. He paid good prices for work, though not as good, of course, as he had given twenty years before, and prided himself upon having all his work done at home. His workrooms, as I have said, were no elysiums; but still, as good, alas! as those of three tailors out of four. He was proud, luxurious, foppish; but he was honest and kindly enough, and did many a generous thing by men who had been long in his employ. At all events, his journeymen could live on what he paid them. But his son, succeeding to the business, determined, like Rehoboam of old, to go ahead with the times. Fired with the great spirit of the nineteenth century--at least with that one which is vulgarly considered its especial glory--he resolved to make haste to be rich. His father had made money very slowly of late; while dozens, who had begun business long after him, had now retired to luxurious ease and suburban villas. Why should he remain in the minority? Why should he not get rich as fast as he could? Why should he stick to the old, slow-going, honourable trade? Out of some four hundred and fifty West-end tailors, there were not one hundred left who were old-fashioned and stupid enough to go on keeping down their own profits by having all their work done at home and at first-hand. Ridiculous scruples! The government knew none such. Were not the army clothes, the post-office clothes, the policemen's clothes, furnished by contractors and sweaters, who hired the work at low prices, and let it out again to journeymen at still lower ones? Why should he pay his men two shillings where the government paid them one? Were there not cheap houses even at the West-end, which had saved several thousands a year merely by reducing their workmen's wages? And if the workmen chose to take lower wages, he was not bound actually to make them a present of more than they asked for? They would go to the cheapest market for anything they wanted, and so must he. Besides, wages had really been quite exorbitant. Half his men threw each of them as much money away in gin and beer yearly, as would pay two workmen at cheap house. Why was he to be robbing his family of comforts to pay for their extravagance? And charging his customers, too, unnecessarily high prices--it was really robbing the public! Such, I suppose, were some of the arguments which led to an official announcement, one Saturday night, that our young employer intended to enlarge his establishment, for the purpose of commencing business in the "show-trade"; and that, emulous of Messrs. Aaron, Levi, and the rest of that class, magnificent alterations were to take place in the premises, to make room for which our workrooms were to be demolished, and that for that reason--for of course it was only for that reason--all work would in future be given out, to be made up at the men's own homes. Our employer's arguments, if they were such as I suppose, were reasonable enough according to the present code of commercial morality. But, strange to say, the auditory, insensible to the delight with which the public would view the splendid architectural improvements--with taste too grovelling to appreciate the glories of plate-glass shop-fronts and brass scroll work--too selfish to rejoice, for its own sake, in the beauty of arabesques and chandeliers, which, though they never might behold, the astonished public would--with souls too niggardly to leap for joy at the thought that gents would henceforth buy the registered guanaco vest, and the patent elastic omni-seasonum paletot half-a-crown cheaper than ever--or that needy noblemen would pay three-pound-ten instead of five pounds for their footmen's liveries--received the news, clod-hearted as they were, in sullen silence, and actually, when they got into the street, broke out into murmurs, perhaps into execrations. "Silence!" said Crossthwaite; "walls have ears. Come down to the nearest house of call, and talk it out like men, instead of grumbling in the street like fish-fags." So down we went. Crossthwaite, taking my arm, strode on in moody silence--once muttering to himself, bitterly-- "Oh, yes; all right and natural! What can the little sharks do but follow the big ones?" We took a room, and Crossthwaite coolly saw us all in; and locking the door, stood with his back against it. "Now then, mind, 'One and all,' as the Cornishmen say, and no peaching. If any man is scoundrel enough to carry tales, I'll--" "Do what?" asked Jemmy Downes, who had settled himself on the table, with a pipe and a pot of porter. "You arn't the king of the Cannibal Islands, as I know of, to cut a cove's head off?" "No; but if a poor man's prayer can bring God's curse down upon a traitor's head--it may stay on his rascally shoulders till it rots." "If ifs and ans were pots and pans. Look at Shechem Isaacs, that sold penknives in the street six months ago, now a-riding in his own carriage, all along of turning sweater. If God's curse is like that--I'll be happy to take any man's share of it." Some new idea seemed twinkling in the fellow's cunning bloated face as he spoke. I, and others also, shuddered at his words; but we all forgot them a moment afterwards, as Crossthwaite began to speak. "We were all bound to expect this. Every working tailor must come to this at last, on the present system; and we are only lucky in having been spared so long. You all know where this will end--in the same misery as fifteen thousand out of twenty thousand of our class are enduring now. We shall become the slaves, often the bodily prisoners, of Jews, middlemen, and sweaters, who draw their livelihood out of our starvation. We shall have to face, as the rest have, ever decreasing prices of labour, ever increasing profits made out of that labour by the contractors who will employ us--arbitrary fines, inflicted at the caprice of hirelings--the competition of women, and children, and starving Irish--our hours of work will increase one-third, our actual pay decrease to less than one-half; and in all this we shall have no hope, no chance of improvement in wages, but ever more penury, slavery, misery, as we are pressed on by those who are sucked by fifties--almost by hundreds--yearly, out of the honourable trade in which we were brought up, into the infernal system of contract work, which is devouring our trade and many others, body and soul. Our wives will be forced to sit up night and day to help us--our children must labour from the cradle without chance of going to school, hardly of breathing the fresh air of heaven,--our boys, as they grow up, must turn beggars or paupers--our daughters, as thousands do, must eke out their miserable earnings by prostitution. And after all, a whole family will not gain what one of us had been doing, as yet, single-handed. You know there will be no hope for us. There is no use appealing to government or parliament. I don't want to talk politics here. I shall keep them for another place. But you can recollect as well as I can, when a deputation of us went up to a member of parliament--one that was reputed a philosopher, and a political economist, and a liberal--and set before him the ever-increasing penury and misery of our trade, and of those connected with it; you recollect his answer--that, however glad he would be to help us, it was impossible--he could not alter the laws of nature--that wages were regulated by the amount of competition among the men themselves, and that it was no business of government, or any one else, to interfere in contracts between the employer and employed, that those things regulated themselves by the laws of political economy, which it was madness and suicide to oppose. He may have been a wise man. I only know that he was a rich one. Every one speaks well of the bridge which carries him over. Every one fancies the laws which fill his pockets to be God's laws. But I say this, If neither government nor members of parliament can help us, we must help ourselves. Help yourselves, and heaven will help you. Combination among ourselves is the only chance. One thing we can do--sit still." "And starve!" said some one. "Yes, and starve! Better starve than sin. I say, it is a sin to give in to this system. It is a sin to add our weight to the crowd of artizans who are now choking and strangling each other to death, as the prisoners did in the black hole of Calcutta. Let those who will turn beasts of prey, and feed upon their fellows; but let us at least keep ourselves pure. It may be the law of political civilization, the law of nature, that the rich should eat up the poor, and the poor eat up each other. Then I here rise up and curse that law, that civilization, that nature. Either I will destroy them, or they shall destroy me. As a slave, as an increased burden on my fellow-sufferers, I will not live. So help me God! I will take no work home to my house; and I call upon every one here to combine, and to sign a protest to that effect." "What's the use of that, my good Mr. Crossthwaite?" interrupted some one, querulously. "Don't you know what came of the strike a few years ago, when this piece-work and sweating first came in? The masters made fine promises, and never kept 'em; and the men who stood out had their places filled up with poor devils who were glad enough to take the work at any price--just as ours will be. There's no use kicking against the pricks. All the rest have come to it, and so must we. We must live somehow, and half a loaf is better than no bread; and even that half loaf will go into other men's mouths, if we don't snap at it at once. Besides, we can't force others to strike. We may strike and starve ourselves, but what's the use of a dozen striking out of 20,000?" "Will you sign the protest, gentlemen, or not?" asked Crossthwaite, in a determined voice. Some half-dozen said they would if the others would. "And the others won't. Well, after all, one man must take the responsibility, and I am that man. I will sign the protest by myself. I will sweep a crossing--I will turn cress-gatherer, rag-picker; I will starve piecemeal, and see my wife starve with me; but do the wrong thing I will not! The Cause wants martyrs. If I must be one, I must." All this while my mind had been undergoing a strange perturbation. The notion of escaping that infernal workroom, and the company I met there--of taking my work home, and thereby, as I hoped, gaining more time for study--at least, having my books on the spot ready at every odd moment, was most enticing. I had hailed the proposed change as a blessing to me, till I heard Crossthwaite's arguments--not that I had not known the facts before; but it had never struck me till then that it was a real sin against my class to make myself a party in the system by which they were allowing themselves (under temptation enough, God knows) to be enslaved. But now I looked with horror on the gulf of penury before me, into the vortex of which not only I, but my whole trade, seemed irresistibly sucked. I thought, with shame and remorse, of the few shillings which I had earned at various times by taking piecework home, to buy my candles for study. I whispered my doubts to Crossthwaite, as he sat, pale and determined, watching the excited and querulous discussions among the other workmen. "What? So you expect to have time to read? Study after sixteen hours a day stitching? Study, when you cannot earn money enough to keep you from wasting and shrinking away day by day? Study, with your heart full of shame and indignation, fresh from daily insult and injustice? Study, with the black cloud of despair and penury in front of you? Little time, or heart, or strength, will you have to study, when you are making the same coats you make now, at half the price." I put my name down beneath Crossthwaite's, on the paper which he handed me, and went out with him. "Ay," he muttered to himself, "be slaves--what you are worthy to be, that you will be! You dare not combine--you dare not starve--you dare not die--and therefore you dare not be free! Oh! for six hundred men like Barbaroux's Marseillois--'who knew how to die!'" "Surely, Crossthwaite, if matters were properly represented to the government, they would not, for their own existence' sake, to put conscience out of the question, allow such a system to continue growing." "Government--government? You a tailor, and not know that government are the very authors of this system? Not to know that they first set the example, by getting the army and navy clothes made by contractors, and taking the lowest tenders? Not to know that the police clothes, the postmen's clothes, the convicts' clothes, are all contracted for on the same infernal plan, by sweaters, and sweaters' sweaters, and sweaters' sweaters' sweaters, till government work is just the very last, lowest resource to which a poor starved-out wretch betakes himself to keep body and soul together? Why, the government prices, in almost every department, are half, and less than half, the very lowest living price. I tell you, the careless iniquity of government about these things will come out some day. It will be known, the whole abomination, and future generations will class it with the tyrannies of the Roman emperors and the Norman barons. Why, it's a fact, that the colonels of the regiments--noblemen, most of them--make their own vile profit out of us tailors--out of the pauperism of the men, the slavery of the children, the prostitution of the women. They get so much a uniform allowed them by government to clothe the men with; and then--then, they let out the jobs to the contractors at less than half what government give them, and pocket the difference. And then you talk of appealing to government." "Upon my word," I said, bitterly, "we tailors seem to owe the army a double grudge. They not only keep under other artizans, but they help to starve us first, and then shoot us, if we complain too loudly." "Oh, ho! your blood's getting up, is it? Then you're in the humour to be told what you have been hankering to know so long--where Mackaye and I go at night. We'll strike while the iron's hot, and go down to the Chartist meeting at * * * * *. "Pardon me, my dear fellow," I said. "I cannot bear the thought of being mixed up in conspiracy--perhaps, in revolt and bloodshed. Not that I am afraid. Heaven knows I am not. But I am too much harassed, miserable, already. I see too much wretchedness around me, to lend my aid in increasing the sum of suffering, by a single atom, among rich and poor, even by righteous vengeance." "Conspiracy? Bloodshed? What has that to do with the Charter? It suits the venal Mammonite press well enough to jumble them together, and cry 'Murder, rape, and robbery,' whenever the six points are mentioned; but they know, and any man of common sense ought to know, that the Charter is just as much an open political question as the Reform Bill, and ten times as much as Magna Charter was, when it got passed. What have the six points, right or wrong, to do with the question whether they can be obtained by moral force, and the pressure of opinion alone, or require what we call ulterior measures to get them carried? Come along!" So with him I went that night. * * * * * "Well, Alton! where was the treason and murder? Your nose must have been a sharp one, to smell out any there. Did you hear anything that astonished your weak mind so very exceedingly, after all?" "The only thing that did astonish me was to hear men of my own class--and lower still, perhaps some of them--speak with such fluency and eloquence. Such a fund of information--such excellent English--where did they get it all?" "From the God who knows nothing about ranks. They're the unknown great--the unaccredited heroes, as Master Thomas Carlyle would say--whom the flunkeys aloft have not acknowledged yet--though they'll be forced to, some day, with a vengeance. Are you convinced, once for all?" "I really do not understand political questions, Crossthwaite." "Does it want so very much wisdom to understand the rights and the wrongs of all that? Are the people represented? Are you represented? Do you feel like a man that's got any one to fight your battle in parliament, my young friend, eh?" "I'm sure I don't know--" "Why, what in the name of common sense--what interest or feeling of yours or mine, or any man's you ever spoke to, except the shopkeeper, do Alderman A---- or Lord C---- D---- represent? They represent property--and we have none. They represent rank--we have none. Vested interests--we have none. Large capitals--those are just what crush us. Irresponsibility of employers, slavery of the employed, competition among masters, competition among workmen, that is the system they represent--they preach it, they glory in it.--Why, it is the very ogre that is eating us all up. They are chosen by the few, they represent the few, and they make laws for the many--and yet you don't know whether or not the people are represented!" We were passing by the door of the Victoria Theatre; it was just half-price time--and the beggary and rascality of London were pouring in to their low amusement, from the neighbouring gin palaces and thieves' cellars. A herd of ragged boys, vomiting forth slang, filth, and blasphemy, pushed past us, compelling us to take good care of our pockets. "Look there! look at the amusements, the training, the civilization, which the government permits to the children of the people! These licensed pits of darkness, traps of temptation, profligacy, and ruin, triumphantly yawning night after night--and then tell me that the people who see their children thus kidnapped into hell are represented by a government who licenses such things!" "Would a change in the franchise cure that?" "Household suffrage mightn't--but give us the Charter, and we'll see about it! Give us the Charter, and we'll send workmen, into parliament that shall soon find out whether something better can't be put in the way of the ten thousand boys and girls in London who live by theft and prostitution, than the tender mercies of the Victoria--a pretty name! They say the Queen's a good woman--and I don't doubt it. I wonder often if she knows what her precious namesake here is like." "But really, I cannot see how a mere change in representation can cure such things as that." "Why, didn't they tell us, before the Reform Bill, that extension of the suffrage was to cure everything? And how can you have too much of a good thing? We've only taken them at their word, we Chartists. Haven't all politicians been preaching for years that England's national greatness was all owing to her political institutions--to Magna Charta, and the Bill of Rights, and representative parliaments, and all that? It was but the other day I got hold of some Tory paper, that talked about the English constitution, and the balance of queen, lords, and commons, as the 'Talismanic Palladium' of the country. 'Gad, we'll see if a move onward in the same line won't better the matter. If the balance of classes is such a blessed thing, the sooner we get the balance equal, the better; for it's rather lopsided just now, no one can deny. So, representative institutions are the talismanic palladium of the nation, are they? The palladium of the classes that have them, I dare say; and that's the very best reason why the classes that haven't got 'em should look out for the same palladium for themselves. What's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, isn't it? We'll try--we'll see whether the talisman they talk of has lost its power all of a sudden since '32--whether we can't rub the magic ring a little for ourselves and call up genii to help us out of the mire, as the shopkeepers and the gentlemen have done." * * * * * From that night I was a Chartist, heart and soul--and so were a million and a half more of the best artisans in England--at least, I had no reason to be ashamed of my company. Yes; I too, like Crossthwaite, took the upper classes at their word; bowed down to the idol of political institutions, and pinned my hopes of salvation on "the possession of one ten-thousandth part of a talker in the national palaver." True, I desired the Charter, at first (as I do, indeed, at this moment), as a means to glorious ends--not only because it would give a chance of elevation, a free sphere of action, to lowly worth and talent; but because it was the path to reforms--social, legal, sanatory, educational--to which the veriest Tory--certainly not the great and good Lord Ashley--would not object. But soon, with me, and I am afraid with many, many more, the means became, by the frailty of poor human nature, an end, an idol in itself. I had so made up my mind that it was the only method of getting what I wanted, that I neglected, alas! but too often, to try the methods which lay already by me. "If we had but the Charter"--was the excuse for a thousand lazinesses, procrastinations. "If we had but the Charter"--I should be good, and free, and happy. Fool that I was! It was within, rather than without, that I needed reform. And so I began to look on man (and too many of us, I am afraid, are doing so) as the creature and puppet of circumstances--of the particular outward system, social or political, in which he happens to find himself. An abominable heresy, no doubt; but, somehow, it appears to me just the same as Benthamites, and economists, and high-churchmen, too, for that matter, have been preaching for the last twenty years with great applause from their respective parties. One set informs the world that it is to be regenerated by cheap bread, free trade, and that peculiar form of the "freedom of industry" which, in plain language, signifies "the despotism of capital"; and which, whatever it means, is merely some outward system, circumstance, or "dodge" _about_ man, and not _in_ him. Another party's nostrum is more churches, more schools, more clergymen--excellent things in their way--better even than cheap bread, or free trade, provided only that they are excellent--that the churches, schools, clergymen, are good ones. But the party of whom I am speaking seem to us workmen to consider the quality quite a secondary consideration, compared with the quantity. They expect the world to be regenerated, not by becoming more a Church--none would gladlier help them in bringing that about than the Chartists themselves, paradoxical as it may seem--but by being dosed somewhat more with a certain "Church system," circumstance, or "dodge." For my part, I seem to have learnt that the only thing to regenerate the world is not more of any system, good or bad, but simply more of the Spirit of God. About the supposed omnipotence of the Charter, I have found out my mistake. I believe no more in "Morison's-Pill-remedies," as Thomas Carlyle calls them. Talismans are worthless. The age of spirit-compelling spells, whether of parchment or carbuncle, is past--if, indeed, it ever existed. The Charter will no more make men good, than political economy, or the observance of the Church Calendar--a fact which we working men, I really believe, have, under the pressure of wholesome defeat and God-sent affliction, found out sooner than our more "enlightened" fellow-idolaters. But at that time, as I have confessed already, we took our betters at their word, and believed in Morison's Pills. Only, as we looked at the world from among a class of facts somewhat different from theirs, we differed from them proportionably as to our notions of the proper ingredients in the said Pill. * * * * * But what became of our protest? It was received--and disregarded. As for turning us off, we had, _de facto_, like Coriolanus, banished the Romans, turned our master off. All the other hands, some forty in number, submitted and took the yoke upon them, and went down into the house of bondage, knowing whither they went. Every man of them is now a beggar, compared with what he was then. Many are dead in the prime of life of consumption, bad food and lodging, and the peculiar diseases of our trade. Some have not been heard of lately--we fancy them imprisoned in some sweaters' dens--but thereby hangs a tale, whereof more hereafter. But it was singular, that every one of the six who had merely professed their conditional readiness to sign the protest, were contumeliously discharged the next day, without any reason being assigned. It was evident that there had been a traitor at the meeting; and every one suspected Jemmy Downes, especially as he fell into the new system with suspiciously strange alacrity. But it was as impossible to prove the offence against him, as to punish him for it. Of that wretched man, too, and his subsequent career, I shall have somewhat to say hereafter. Verily, there is a God who judgeth the earth! But now behold me and my now intimate and beloved friend, Crossthwaite, with nothing to do--a gentlemanlike occupation; but, unfortunately, in our class, involving starvation. What was to be done? We applied for work at several "honourable shops"; but at all we received the same answer. Their trade was decreasing--the public ran daily more and more to the cheap show-shops--and they themselves were forced, in order to compete with these latter, to put more and more of their work out at contract prices. _Facilis descensus Averni!_ Having once been hustled out of the serried crowd of competing workmen, it was impossible to force our way in again. So, a week or ten days past, our little stocks of money were exhausted. I was down-hearted at once; but Crossthwaite bore up gaily enough. "Katie and I can pick a crust together without snarling over it. And, thank God, I have no children, and never intend to have, if I can keep true to myself, till the good times come." "Oh! Crossthwaite, are not children a blessing?" "Would they be a blessing to me now? No, my lad.--Let those bring slaves into the world who will! I will never beget children to swell the numbers of those who are trampling each other down in the struggle for daily bread, to minister in ever deepening poverty and misery to the rich man's luxury--perhaps his lust." "Then you believe in the Malthusian doctrines?" "I believe them to be an infernal lie, Alton Locke; though good and wise people like Miss Martineau may sometimes be deluded into preaching them. I believe there's room on English soil for twice the number there is now; and when we get the Charter we'll prove it; we'll show that God meant living human heads and hands to be blessings and not curses, tools and not burdens. But in such times as these, let those who have wives be as though they had none--as St. Paul said, when he told his people under the Roman Emperor to be above begetting slaves and martyrs. A man of the people should keep himself as free from encumbrances as he can just now. He win find it all the more easy to dare and suffer for the people, when their turn comes--" And he set his teeth, firmly, almost savagely. "I think I can earn a few shillings, now and then, by writing for a paper I know of. If that won't do, I must take up agitating for a trade, and live by spouting, as many a Tory member as well as Radical ones do. A man may do worse, for he may do nothing. At all events, my only chance now is to help on the Charter; for the sooner it comes the better for me. And if I die--why, the little woman won't be long in coming after me, I know that well; and there's a tough business got well over for both of us!" "Hech," said Sandy, "To every man Death comes but once a life-- "as my countryman, Mr. Macaulay, says, in thae gran' Roman ballants o' his. But for ye, Alton, laddie, ye're owre young to start off in the People's Church Meelitant, sae just bide wi' me, and the barrel o' meal in the corner there winna waste, nae mair than it did wi' the widow o' Zareptha; a tale which coincides sae weel wi' the everlasting righteousness, that I'm at times no inclined to consider it a'thegither mythical." But I, with thankfulness which vented itself through my eyes, finding my lips alone too narrow for it, refused to eat the bread of idleness. "Aweel, then, ye'll just mind the shop, and dust the books whiles; I'm getting auld and stiff, and ha' need o' help i' the business." "No," I said; "you say so out of kindness; but if you can afford no greater comforts than these, you cannot afford to keep me in addition to yourself." "Hech, then! How do ye ken that the auld Scot eats a' he makes? I was na born the spending side o' Tweed, my man. But gin ye daur, why dinna ye pack up your duds, and yer poems wi' them, and gang till your cousin i' the university? he'll surely put you in the way o' publishing them. He's bound to it by blude; and there's na shame in asking him to help you towards reaping the fruits o' yer ain labours. A few punds on a bond for repayment when the addition was sauld, noo,--I'd do that for mysel; but I'm thinking ye'd better try to get a list o' subscribers. Dinna mind your independence; it's but spoiling the Egyptians, ye ken, and the bit ballants will be their money's worth, I'll warrant, and tell them a wheen facts they're no that weel acquentit wi'. Hech? Johnnie, my Chartist?" "Why not go to my uncle?" "Puir sugar-and-spice-selling bailie body! is there aught in his ledger about poetry, and the incommensurable value o' the products o' genius? Gang till the young scholar; he's a canny one, too, and he'll ken it to be worth his while to fash himsel a wee anent it." So I packed up my little bundle, and lay awake all that night in a fever of expectation about the as yet unknown world of green fields and woods through which my road to Cambridge lay. CHAPTER XI. "THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE." I may be forgiven, surely, if I run somewhat into detail about this my first visit to the country. I had, as I have said before, literally never been further afield than Fulham or Battersea Rise. One Sunday evening, indeed, I had got as far as Wandsworth Common; but it was March, and, to my extreme disappointment, the heath was not in flower. But, usually, my Sundays had been spent entirely in study; which to me was rest, so worn out were both my body and my mind with the incessant drudgery of my trade, and the slender fare to which I restricted myself. Since I had lodged with Mackaye certainly my food had been better. I had not required to stint my appetite for money wherewith to buy candles, ink, and pens. My wages, too, had increased with my years, and altogether I found myself gaining in strength, though I had no notion how much I possessed till I set forth on this walk to Cambridge. It was a glorious morning at the end of May; and when. I escaped from the pall of smoke which hung over the city, I found the sky a sheet of cloudless blue. How I watched for the ending of the rows of houses, which lined the road for miles--the great roots of London, running far out into the country, up which poured past me an endless stream of food and merchandise and human beings--the sap of the huge metropolitan life-tree! How each turn of the road opened a fresh line of terraces or villas, till hope deferred made the heart sick, and the country seemed--like the place where the rainbow touches the ground, or the El Dorado of Raleigh's Guiana settler--always a little farther off! How between gaps in the houses, right and left, I caught tantalizing glimpses of green fields, shut from me by dull lines of high-spiked palings! How I peeped through gates and over fences at trim lawns and gardens, and longed to stay, and admire, and speculate on the name of the strange plants and gaudy flowers; and then hurried on, always expecting to find something still finer ahead--something really worth stopping to look at--till the houses thickened again into a street, and I found myself, to my disappointment, in the midst of a town! And then more villas and palings; and then a village;--when would they stop, those endless houses? At last they did stop. Gradually the people whom I passed began to look more and more rural, and more toil-worn and ill-fed. The houses ended, cattle-yards and farm-buildings appeared; and right and left, far away, spread the low rolling sheet of green meadows and cornfields. Oh, the joy! The lawns with their high elms and firs, the green hedgerows, the delicate hue and scent of the fresh clover-fields, the steep clay banks where I stopped to pick nosegays of wild flowers, and became again a child,--and then recollected my mother, and a walk with her on the river bank towards the Red House--and hurried on again, but could not be unhappy, while my eyes ranged free, for the first time in my life, over the chequered squares of cultivation, over glittering brooks, and hills quivering in the green haze, while above hung the skylarks, pouring out their souls in melody. And then, as the sun grew hot, and the larks dropped one by one into the growing corn, the new delight of the blessed silence! I listened to the stillness; for noise had been my native element; I had become in London quite unconscious of the ceaseless roar of the human sea, casting up mire and dirt. And now, for the first time in my life, the crushing, confusing hubbub had flowed away, and left my brain calm and free. How I felt at that moment a capability of clear, bright meditation, which was as new to me, as I believe it would have been to most Londoners in my position. I cannot help fancying that our unnatural atmosphere of excitement, physical as well as moral, is to blame for very much of the working man's restlessness and fierceness. As it was, I felt that every step forward, every breath of fresh air, gave me new life. I had gone fifteen miles before I recollected that, for the first time for many months, I had not coughed since I rose. So on I went, down the broad, bright road, which seemed to beckon me forward into the unknown expanses of human life. The world was all before me, where to choose, and I saw it both with my eyes and my imagination, in the temper of a boy broke loose from school. My heart kept holiday. I loved and blessed the birds which flitted past me, and the cows which lay dreaming on the sward. I recollect stopping with delight at a picturesque descent into the road, to watch a nursery-garden, full of roses of every shade, from brilliant yellow to darkest purple; and as I wondered at the innumerable variety of beauties which man's art had developed from a few poor and wild species, it seemed to me the most delightful life on earth, to follow in such a place the primæval trade of gardener Adam; to study the secrets of the flower-world, the laws of soil and climate; to create new species, and gloat over the living fruit of one's own science and perseverance. And then I recollected the tailor's shop, and the Charter, and the starvation, and the oppression which I had left behind, and ashamed of my own selfishness, went hurrying on again. At last I came to a wood--the first real wood that I had ever seen; not a mere party of stately park trees growing out of smooth turf, but a real wild copse; tangled branches and grey stems fallen across each other; deep, ragged underwood of shrubs, and great ferns like princes' feathers, and gay beds of flowers, blue and pink and yellow, with butterflies flitting about them, and trailers that climbed and dangled from bough to bough--a poor, commonplace bit of copse, I dare say, in the world's eyes, but to me a fairy wilderness of beautiful forms, mysterious gleams and shadows, teeming with manifold life. As I stood looking wistfully over the gate, alternately at the inviting vista of the green-embroidered path, and then at the grim notice over my head, "All trespassers prosecuted," a young man came up the ride, dressed in velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, sufficiently bedrabbled with mud. A fishing-rod and basket bespoke him some sort of destroyer, and I saw in a moment that he was "a gentleman." After all, there is such a thing as looking like a gentleman. There are men whose class no dirt or rags could hide, any more than they could Ulysses. I have seen such men in plenty among workmen, too; but, on the whole, the gentlemen--by whom I do not mean just now the rich--have the superiority in that point. But not, please God, for ever. Give us the same air, water, exercise, education, good society, and you will see whether this "haggardness," this "coarseness," &c., &c., for the list is too long to specify, be an accident, or a property, of the man of the people. "May I go into your wood?" asked I at a venture, curiosity conquering pride. "Well! what do you want there, my good fellow?" "To see what a wood is like--I never was in one in my life." "Humph! well--you may go in for that, and welcome. Never was in a wood in his life--poor devil!" "Thank you!" quoth I. And I slowly clambered over the gate. He put his hand carelessly on the top rail, vaulted over it like a deer, and then turned to stare at me. "Hullo! I say--I forgot--don't go far in, or ramble up and down, or you'll disturb the pheasants." I thanked him again for what license he had given me--went in, and lay down by the path-side. Here, I suppose, by the rules of modern art, a picturesque description of the said wood should follow; but I am the most incompetent person in the world to write it. And, indeed, the whole scene was so novel to me, that I had no time to analyse; I could only enjoy. I recollect lying on my face and fingering over the delicately cut leaves of the weeds, and wondering whether the people who lived in the country thought them as wonderful and beautiful as I did;--and then I recollected the thousands whom I had left behind, who, like me, had never seen the green face of God's earth; and the answer of the poor gamin in St. Giles's, who, when he was asked what the country was, answered, "_The yard where the gentlemen live when they go out of town_"--significant that, and pathetic;--then I wondered whether the time would ever come when society would be far enough advanced to open to even such as he a glimpse, if it were only once a year, of the fresh, clean face of God's earth;--and then I became aware of a soft mysterious hum, above and around me, and turned on my back to look whence it proceeded, and saw the leaves gold-green and transparent in the sunlight, quivering against the deep heights of the empyrean blue; and hanging in the sunbeams that pierced the foliage, a thousand insects, like specks of fire, that poised themselves motionless on thrilling wings, and darted away, and returned to hang motionless again;--and I wondered what they eat, and whether they thought about anything, and whether they enjoyed the sunlight;--and then that brought back to me the times when I used to lie dreaming in my crib on summer mornings, and watched the flies dancing reels between me and the ceilings;--and that again brought the thought of Susan and my mother; and I prayed for them--not sadly--I could not be sad there;--and prayed that we might all meet again some day and live happily together; perhaps in the country, where I could write poems in peace; and then, by degrees, my sentences and thoughts grew incoherent, and in happy, stupid animal comfort, I faded away into a heavy sleep, which lasted an hour or more, till I was awakened by the efforts of certain enterprising great black and red ants, who were trying to found a small Algeria in my left ear. I rose and left the wood, and a gate or two on, stopped again to look at the same sportsman fishing in a clear silver brook. I could not help admiring with a sort of childish wonder the graceful and practised aim with which he directed his tiny bait, and called up mysterious dimples on the surface, which in a moment increased to splashings and stragglings of a great fish, compelled, as if by some invisible spell, to follow the point of the bending rod till he lay panting on the bank. I confess, in spite of all my class prejudices against "game-preserving aristocrats," I almost envied the man; at least I seemed to understand a little of the universally attractive charms which those same outwardly contemptible field sports possess; the fresh air, fresh fields and copses, fresh running brooks, the exercise, the simple freedom, the excitement just sufficient to keep alive expectation and banish thought.--After all, his trout produced much the same mood in him as my turnpike-road did in me. And perhaps the man did not go fishing or shooting every day. The laws prevented him from shooting, at least, all the year round; so sometimes there might be something in which he made himself of use. An honest, jolly face too he had--not without thought and strength in it. "Well, it is a strange world," said I to myself, "where those who can, need not; and those who cannot, must!" Then he came close to the gate, and I left it just in time to see a little group arrive at it--a woman of his own rank, young, pretty, and simply dressed, with a little boy, decked out as a Highlander, on a shaggy Shetland pony, which his mother, as I guessed her to be, was leading. And then they all met, and the little fellow held up a basket of provisions to his father, who kissed him across the gate, and hung his creel of fish behind the saddle, and patted the mother's shoulder, as she looked up lovingly and laughingly in his face. Altogether, a joyous, genial bit of--Nature? Yes, Nature. Shall I grudge simple happiness to the few, because it is as yet, alas! impossible for the many. And yet the whole scene contrasted so painfully with me--with my past, my future, my dreams, my wrongs, that I could not look at it; and with a swelling heart I moved on--all the faster because I saw they were looking at me and talking of me, and the fair wife threw after me a wistful, pitying glance, which I was afraid might develop itself into some offer of food or money--a thing which I scorned and dreaded, because it involved the trouble of a refusal. Then, as I walked on once more, my heart smote me. If they had wished to be kind, why had I grudged them the opportunity of a good deed? At all events, I might have asked their advice. In a natural and harmonious state, when society really means brotherhood, a man could go up to any stranger, to give and receive, if not succour, yet still experience and wisdom: and was I not bound to tell them what I knew? was sure that they did not know? Was I not bound to preach the cause of my class wherever I went? Here were kindly people who, for aught I knew, would do right the moment they were told where it was wanted; if there was an accursed artificial gulf between their class and mine, had I any right to complain of it, as long as I helped to keep it up by my false pride and surly reserve? No! I would speak my mind henceforth--I would testify of what I saw and knew of the wrongs, if not of the rights of the artisan, before whomsoever I might come. Oh! valiant conclusion of half an hour's self-tormenting scruples! How I kept it, remains to be shown. I really fear that I am getting somewhat trivial and prolix; but there was hardly an incident in my two days' tramp which did not give me some small fresh insight into the _terra incognita_ of the country; and there may be those among my readers, to whom it is not uninteresting to look, for once, at even the smallest objects with a cockney workman's eyes. Well, I trudged on--and the shadows lengthened, and I grew footsore and tired; but every step was new, and won me forward with fresh excitement for my curiosity. At one village I met a crowd of little, noisy, happy boys and girls pouring out of a smart new Gothic school-house. I could not resist the temptation of snatching a glance through the open door. I saw on the walls maps, music, charts, and pictures. How I envied those little urchins! A solemn, sturdy elder, in a white cravat, evidently the parson of the parish, was patting children's heads, taking down names, and laying down the law to a shrewd, prim young schoolmaster. Presently, as I went up the village, the clergyman strode past me, brandishing a thick stick and humming a chant, and joined a motherly-looking wife, who, basket on arm, was popping in and out of the cottages, looking alternately serious and funny, cross and kindly--I suppose, according to the sayings and doings of the folks within. "Come," I thought, "this looks like work at least." And as I went out of the village, I accosted a labourer, who was trudging my way, fork on shoulder, and asked him if that was the parson and his wife? I was surprised at the difficulty with which I got into conversation with the man; at his stupidity, feigned or real, I could not tell which; at the dogged, suspicious reserve with which he eyed me, and asked me whether I was "one of they parts"? and whether I was a Londoner, and what I wanted on the tramp, and so on, before he seemed to think it safe to answer a single question. He seemed, like almost every labourer I ever met, to have something on his mind; to live in a state of perpetual fear and concealment. When, however, he found I was both a cockney and a passer-by, he began to grow more communicative, and told me, "Ees--that were the parson, sure enough." "And what sort of a man was he?" "Oh! he was a main kind man to the poor; leastwise, in the matter of visiting 'em, and praying with 'em, and getting 'em to put into clubs, and such like; and his lady too. Not that there was any fault to find with the man about money--but 'twasn't to be expected of him." "Why, was he not rich?" "Oh, rich enough to the likes of us. But his own tithes here arn't more than a thirty pounds we hears tell; and if he hadn't summat of his own, he couldn't do not nothing by the poor; as it be, he pays for that ere school all to his own pocket, next part. All the rest o' the tithes goes to some great lord or other--they say he draws a matter of a thousand a year out of the parish, and not a foot ever he sot into it; and that's the way with a main lot o' parishes, up and down." This was quite a new fact to me. "And what sort of folks were the parsons all round." "Oh, some of all sorts, good and bad. About six and half a dozen. There's two or three nice young gentlemen come'd round here now, but they're all what's-'em-a-call it?--some sort o' papishes;--leastwise, they has prayers in the church every day, and doesn't preach the Gospel, no how, I hears by my wife, and she knows all about it, along of going to meeting. Then there's one over thereaway, as had to leave his living--he knows why. He got safe over seas. If he had been a poor man, he'd been in * * * * * gaol, safe enough, and soon enough. Then there's two or three as goes a-hunting--not as I sees no harm in that; if a man's got plenty of money, he ought to enjoy himself, in course: but still he can't be here and there too, to once. Then there's two or three as is bad in their healths, or thinks themselves so--or else has livings summer' else; and they lives summer' or others, and has curates. Main busy chaps is they curates, always, and wonderful hands to preach; but then, just as they gets a little knowing like at it, and folks gets to like 'em, and run to hear 'em, off they pops to summat better; and in course they're right to do so; and so we country-folks get nought but the young colts, afore they're broke, you see." "And what sort of a preacher was his parson?" "Oh, he preached very good Gospel, not that he went very often himself, acause he couldn't make out the meaning of it; he preached too high, like. But his wife said it was uncommon good Gospel; and surely when he come to visit a body, and talked plain English, like, not sermon-ways, he was a very pleasant man to heer, and his lady uncommon kind to nurse folk. They sot up with me and my wife, they two did, two whole nights, when we was in the fever, afore the officer could get us a nurse." "Well," said I, "there are some good parsons left." "Oh, yes; there's some very good ones--each one after his own way; and there'd be more on 'em, if they did but know how bad we labourers was off. Why bless ye, I mind when they was very different. A new parson is a mighty change for the better, mostwise, we finds. Why, when I was a boy, we never had no schooling. And now mine goes and learns singing and jobrafy, and ciphering, and sich like. Not that I sees no good in it. We was a sight better off in the old times, when there weren't no schooling. Schooling harn't made wages rise, nor preaching neither." "But surely," I said, "all this religious knowledge ought to give you comfort, even if you are badly off." "Oh! religion's all very well for them as has time for it; and a very good thing--we ought all to mind our latter end. But I don't see how a man can hear sermons with an empty belly; and there's so much to fret a man, now, and he's so cruel tired coming home o' nights, he can't nowise go to pray a lot, as gentlefolks does." "But are you so ill off?" "Oh! he'd had a good harvesting enough; but then he owed all that for he's rent; and he's club money wasn't paid up, nor he's shop. And then, with he's wages"--(I forget the sum--under ten shillings)--"how could a man keep his mouth full, when he had five children! And then, folks is so unmarciful--I'll just tell you what they says to me, now, last time I was over at the board--" And thereon he rambled off into a long jumble of medical-officers, and relieving-officers, and Farmer This, and Squire That, which indicated a mind as ill-educated as discontented. He cursed or rather grumbled at--for he had not spirit, it seemed, to curse anything--the New Poor Law; because it "ate up the poor, flesh and bone";--bemoaned the "Old Law," when "the Vestry was forced to give a man whatsomdever he axed for, and if they didn't, he'd go to the magistrates and make 'em, and so sure as a man got a fresh child, he went and got another loaf allowed him next vestry, like a Christian;"--and so turned through a gate, and set to work forking up some weeds on a fallow, leaving me many new thoughts to digest. That night, I got to some town or other, and there found a night's lodging, good enough for a walking traveller. CHAPTER XII. CAMBRIDGE. When I started again next morning, I found myself so stiff and footsore, that I could hardly put one leg before the other, much less walk upright. I was really quite in despair, before the end of the first mile; for I had no money to pay for a lift on the coach, and I knew, besides, that they would not be passing that way for several hours to come. So, with aching back and knees, I made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and ended by sitting down for a couple of hours, and looking about me, in a country which would have seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but a freshly-liberated captive, such as I was. At last I got up and limped on, stiffer than ever from my rest, when a gig drove past me towards Cambridge, drawn by a stout cob, and driven by a tall, fat, jolly-looking farmer, who stared at me as he passed, went on, looked back, slackened his pace, looked back again, and at last came to a dead stop, and hailed me in a broad nasal dialect-- "Whor be ganging, then, boh?" "To Cambridge." "Thew'st na git there that gate. Be'est thee honest man?" "I hope so," said I, somewhat indignantly. "What's trade?" "A tailor," I said. "Tailor!--guide us! Tailor a-tramp? Barn't accoostomed to tramp, then?" "I never was out of London before," said I, meekly--for I was too worn-out to be cross--lengthy and impertinent as this cross-examination seemed. "Oi'll gie thee lift; dee yow joomp in. Gae on, powney! Tailor, then! Oh! ah! tailor, saith he." I obeyed most thankfully, and sat crouched together, looking up out of the corner of my eyes at the huge tower of broad-cloth by my side, and comparing the two red shoulders of mutton which held the reins, with my own wasted, white, woman-like fingers. I found the old gentleman most inquisitive. He drew out of me all my story--questioned me about the way "Lunnon folks" lived, and whether they got ony shooting or "pattening"--whereby I found he meant skating--and broke in, every now and then, with ejaculations of childish wonder, and clumsy sympathy, on my accounts of London labour and London misery. "Oh, father, father!--I wonders they bears it. Us'n in the fens wouldn't stand that likes. They'd roit, and roit, and roit, and tak' oot the dook-gunes to un--they would, as they did five-and-twenty year agone. Never to goo ayond the housen!--never to go ayond the housen! Kill me in a three months, that would--bor', then!" "Are you a farmer?" I asked, at last, thinking that my turn for questioning was come. "I bean't varmer; I be yooman born. Never paid rent in moy life, nor never wool. I farms my own land, and my vathers avore me, this ever so mony hoondred year. I've got the swoord of 'em to home, and the helmet that they fut with into the wars, then when they chopped off the king's head--what was the name of um?" "Charles the First?" "Ees--that's the booy. We was Parliament side--true Britons all we was, down into the fens, and Oliver Cromwell, as dug Botsham lode, to the head of us. Yow coom down to Metholl, and I'll shaw ye a country. I'll shaw 'ee some'at like bullocks to call, and some'at like a field o' beans--I wool,--none o' this here darned ups and downs o' hills" (though the country through which we drove was flat enough, I should have thought, to please any one), "to shake a body's victuals out of his inwards--all so flat as a barn's floor, for vorty mile on end--there's the country to live in!--and vour sons--or was vour on 'em--every one on 'em fifteen stone in his shoes, to patten again' any man from Whit'sea Mere to Denver Sluice, for twenty pounds o' gold; and there's the money to lay down, and let the man as dare cover it, down with his money, and on wi' his pattens, thirteen-inch runners, down the wind, again' either a one o' the bairns!" And he jingled in his pockets a heavy bag of gold, and winked, and chuckled, and then suddenly checking himself, repeated in a sad, dubious tone, two or three times, "Vour on 'em there was--vour on 'em there was;" and relieved his feelings by springing the pony into a canter till he came to a public-house, where he pulled up, called for a pot of hot ale, and insisted on treating me. I assured him that I never drank fermented liquors. "Aw? Eh? How can yow do that then? Die o' cowd i' the fen, that gate, yow would. Love ye then! they as dinnot tak' spirits down thor, tak' their pennord o' elevation, then--women-folk especial." "What's elevation?" "Oh! ho! ho!--yow goo into druggist's shop o' market-day, into Cambridge, and you'll see the little boxes, doozens and doozens, a' ready on the counter; and never a ven-man's wife goo by, but what calls in for her pennord o' elevation, to last her out the week. Oh! ho! ho! Well, it keeps women-folk quiet, it do; and it's mortal good agin ago pains." "But what is it?" "Opium, bor' alive, opium!" "But doesn't it ruin their health? I should think it the very worst sort of drunkenness." "Ow, well, yow moi soy that-mak'th 'em cruel thin then, it do; but what can bodies do i' th'ago? Bot it's a bad thing, it is. Harken yow to me. Didst ever know one called Porter, to yowr trade?" I thought a little, and recollected a man of that name, who had worked with us a year or two before--a great friend of a certain scatter-brained Irish lad, brother of Crossthwaite's wife. "Well, I did once, but I have lost sight of him twelve months, or more." The old man faced sharp round on me, swinging the little gig almost over, and then twisted himself back again, and put on a true farmer-like look of dogged, stolid reserve. We rolled on a few minutes in silence. "Dee yow consider, now, that a mon mought be lost, like, into Lunnon?" "How lost?" "Why, yow told o' they sweaters--dee yow think a mon might get in wi' one o' they, and they that mought be looking for un not to vind un?" "I do, indeed. There was a friend of that man Porter got turned away from our shop, because he wouldn't pay some tyrannical fine for being saucy, as they called it, to the shopman; and he went to a sweater's--and then to another; and his friends have been tracking him up and down this six months, and can hear no news of him." "Aw! guide us! And what'n, think yow, be gone wi' un?" "I am afraid he has got into one of those dens, and has pawned his clothes, as dozens of them do, for food, and so can't get out." "Pawned his clothes for victuals! To think o' that, noo! But if he had work, can't he get victuals?" "Oh!" I said, "there's many a man who, after working seventeen or eighteen hours a day, Sundays and all, without even time to take off his clothes, finds himself brought in in debt to his tyrant at the week's end. And if he gets no work, the villain won't let him leave the house; he has to stay there starving, on the chance of an hour's job. I tell you, I've known half a dozen men imprisoned in that way, in a little dungeon of a garret, where they had hardly room to stand upright, and only just space to sit and work between their beds, without breathing the fresh air, or seeing God's sun, for months together, with no victuals but a few slices of bread-and-butter, and a little slop of tea, twice a day, till they were starved to the very bone." "Oh, my God! my God!" said the old man, in a voice which had a deeper tone of feeling than mere sympathy with others' sorrow was likely to have produced. There was evidently something behind all these inquiries of his. I longed to ask him if his name, too, was not Porter. "Aw yow knawn Billy Porter? What was a like? Tell me, now--what was a like, in the Lord's name! what was a like unto?" "Very tall and bony," I answered. "Ah! sax feet, and more? and a yard across?--but a was starved, a was a' thin, though, maybe, when yow sawn un?--and beautiful fine hair, hadn't a, like a lass's?" "The man I knew had red hair," quoth I. "Ow, ay, an' that it wor, red as a rising sun, and the curls of un like gowlden guineas! And thou knew'st Billy Porter! To think o' that, noo."-- Another long silence. "Could you find un, dee yow think, noo, into Lunnon? Suppose, now, there was a mon 'ud gie--may be five pund--ten pund--twenty pund, by * * *--twenty pund down, for to ha' him brocht home safe and soun'--Could yow do't, bor'? I zay, could yow do't?" "I could do it as well without the money as with, if I could do it at all. But have you no guess as to where he is?" He shook his head sadly. "We--that's to zay, they as wants un--hav'n't heerd tell of un vor this three year--three year coom Whitsuntide as ever was--" And he wiped his eyes with his cuff. "If you will tell me all about him, and where he was last heard of, I will do all I can to find him." "Will ye, noo? will ye? The Lord bless ye for zaying that." And he grasped my hand in his great iron fist, and fairly burst out crying. "Was he a relation of yours?" I asked, gently. "My bairn--my bairn--my eldest bairn. Dinnot yow ax me no moor--dinnot then, bor'. Gie on, yow powney, and yow goo leuk vor un." Another long silence. "I've a been to Lunnon, looking vor un." Another silence. "I went up and down, up and down, day and night, day and night, to all pot-houses as I could zee; vor, says I, he was a'ways a main chap to drink, he was. Oh, deery me! and I never cot zight on un--and noo I be most spent, I be."-- And he pulled up at another public-house, and tried this time a glass of brandy. He stopped, I really think, at every inn between that place and Cambridge, and at each tried some fresh compound; but his head seemed, from habit, utterly fire-proof. At last, we neared Cambridge, and began to pass groups of gay horsemen, and then those strange caps and gowns--ugly and unmeaning remnant of obsolete fashion. The old man insisted on driving me up to the gate of * * * College, and there dropped me, after I had given him my address, entreating me to "vind the bairn, and coom to zee him down to Metholl. But dinnot goo ax for Farmer Porter--they's all Porters there away. Yow ax for Wooden-house Bob--that's me; and if I barn't to home, ax for Mucky Billy--that's my brawther--we're all gotten our names down to ven; and if he barn't to home, yow ax for Frog-hall--that's where my sister do live; and they'll all veed ye, and lodge ye, and welcome come. We be all like one, doon in the ven; and do ye, do ye, vind my bairn!" And he trundled on, down the narrow street. I was soon directed, by various smart-looking servants, to my cousin's rooms; and after a few mistakes, and wandering up and down noble courts and cloisters, swarming with gay young men, whose jaunty air and dress seemed strangely out of keeping with the stem antique solemnity of the Gothic buildings around, I espied my cousin's name over a door; and, uncertain how he might receive me, I gave a gentle, half-apologetic knock, which, was answered by a loud "Come in!" and I entered on a scene, even more incongruous than anything I had seen outside. "If we can only keep away from Jesus as far as the corner, I don't care." "If we don't run into that first Trinity before the willows, I shall care with a vengeance." "If we don't it's a pity," said my cousin. "Wadham ran up by the side of that first Trinity yesterday, and he said that they were as well gruelled as so many posters, before they got to the stile." This unintelligible, and to my inexperienced ears, irreverent conversation, proceeded from half a dozen powerful young men, in low-crowned sailors' hats and flannel trousers, some in striped jerseys, some in shooting-jackets, some smoking cigars, some beating up eggs in sherry; while my cousin, dressed like "a fancy waterman," sat on the back of a sofa, puffing away at a huge meerschaum. "Alton! why, what wind on earth has blown you here?" By the tone, the words seemed rather an inquiry as to what wind would be kind enough to blow me back again. But he recovered his self-possession in a moment. "Delighted to see you! Where's your portmanteau? Oh--left it at the Bull! Ah! I see. Very well, we'll send the gyp for it in a minute, and order some luncheon. We're just going down to the boat-race. Sorry I can't stop, but we shall all be fined--not a moment to lose. I'll send you in luncheon as I go through the butteries; then, perhaps, you'd like to come down and see the race. Ask the gyp to tell you the way. Now, then, follow your noble captain, gentlemen--to glory and a supper." And he bustled out with his crew. While I was staring about the room, at the jumble of Greek books, boxing-gloves, and luscious prints of pretty women, a shrewd-faced, smart man entered, much better dressed than myself. "What would you like, sir? Ox-tail soup, sir, or gravy-soup, sir? Stilton cheese, sir, or Cheshire, sir? Old Stilton, sir, just now." Fearing lest many words might betray my rank--and, strange to say, though I should not have been afraid of confessing myself an artisan before the "gentlemen" who had just left the room, I was ashamed to have my low estate discovered, and talked over with his compeers, by the flunkey who waited on them--I answered, "Anything--I really don't care," in as aristocratic and off-hand a tone as I could assume. "Porter or ale, sir?" "Water," without a "thank you," I am ashamed to say for I was not at that time quite sure whether it was well-bred to be civil to servants. The man vanished, and reappeared with a savoury luncheon, silver forks, snowy napkins, smart plates--I felt really quite a gentleman. He gave me full directions as to my "way to the boats, sir;" and I started out much refreshed; passed through back streets, dingy, dirty, and profligate-looking enough; out upon wide meadows, fringed with enormous elms; across a ferry; through a pleasant village, with its old grey church and spire; by the side of a sluggish river, alive with wherries. I had walked down some mile or so, and just as I heard a cannon, as I thought, fire at some distance, and wondered at its meaning, I came to a sudden bend of the river, with a church-tower hanging over the stream on the opposite bank, a knot of tall poplars, weeping willows, rich lawns, sloping down to the water's side, gay with bonnets and shawls; while, along the edge of the stream, light, gaudily-painted boats apparently waited for the race,--altogether the most brilliant and graceful group of scenery which I had beheld in my little travels. I stopped to gaze; and among the ladies on the lawn opposite, caught sight of a figure--my heart leapt into my mouth! Was it she at last? It was too far to distinguish features; the dress was altogether different--but was it not she? I saw her move across the lawn, and take the arm of a tall, venerable-looking man; and his dress was the same as that of the Dean, at the Dulwich Gallery--was it? was it not? To have found her, and a river between us! It was ludicrously miserable--miserably ludicrous. Oh, that accursed river, which debarred me from certainty, from bliss! I would have plunged across--but there were three objections--first, that I could not swim; next, what could I do when I had crossed? and thirdly, it might not be she after all. And yet I was certain--instinctively certain--that it was she, the idol of my imagination for years. If I could not see her features under that little white bonnet, I could imagine them there; they flashed up in my memory as fresh as ever. Did she remember my features, as I did hers? Would she know me again? Had she ever even thought of me, from that day to this? Fool! But there I stood, fascinated, gazing across the river, heedless of the racing-boats, and the crowd, and the roar that was rushing up to me at the rate of ten miles an hour, and in a moment more, had caught me, and swept me away with it, whether I would or not, along the towing-path, by the side of the foremost boats. And yet, after a few moments, I ceased to wonder either at the Cambridge passion for boat-racing, or at the excitement of the spectators. "_Honi soit qui mal y pense_." It was a noble sport--a sight such as could only be seen in England--some hundred of young men, who might, if they had chosen, been lounging effeminately about the streets, subjecting themselves voluntarily to that intense exertion, for the mere pleasure of toil. The true English stuff came out there; I felt that, in spite of all my prejudices--the stuff which has held Gibraltar and conquered at Waterloo--which has created a Birmingham and a Manchester, and colonized every quarter of the globe--that grim, earnest, stubborn energy, which, since the days of the old Romans, the English possess alone of all the nations of the earth. I was as proud of the gallant young fellows as if they had been my brothers--of their courage and endurance (for one could see that it was no child's-play, from the pale faces, and panting lips), their strength and activity, so fierce and yet so cultivated, smooth, harmonious, as oar kept time with oar, and every back rose and fell in concert--and felt my soul stirred up to a sort of sweet madness, not merely by the shouts and cheers of the mob around me, but by the loud fierce pulse of the rowlocks, the swift whispering rush of the long snake-like eight oars, the swirl and gurgle of the water in their wake, the grim, breathless silence of the straining rowers. My blood boiled over, and fierce tears swelled into my eyes; for I, too, was a man, and an Englishman; and when I caught sight of my cousin, pulling stroke to the second boat in the long line, with set teeth and flashing eyes, the great muscles on his bare arms springing up into knots at every rapid stroke, I ran and shouted among the maddest and the foremost. But I soon tired, and, footsore as I was, began to find my strength fail me. I tried to drop behind, but found it impossible in the press. At last, quite out of breath, I stopped; and instantly received a heavy blow from behind, which threw me on my face; and a fierce voice shouted in my ear, "Confound you, sir! don't you know better than to do that?" I looked up, and saw a man twice as big as myself sprawling over me, headlong down the bank, toward the river, whither I followed him, but alas! not on my feet, but rolling head over heels. On the very brink he stuck his heels into the turf, and stopped dead, amid a shout of, "Well saved, Lynedale!" I did not stop; but rolled into some two-feet water, amid the laughter and shouts of the men. I scrambled out, and limped on, shaking with wet and pain, till I was stopped by a crowd which filled the towing-path. An eight-oar lay under the bank, and the men on shore were cheering and praising those in the boat for having "bumped," which word I already understood to mean, winning a race. Among them, close to me, was the tall man who had upset me; and a very handsome, high-bred looking man he was. I tried to slip by, but he recognized me instantly, and spoke. "I hope I didn't hurt you much, Really, when I spoke so sharply, I did not see that you were not a gownsman!" The speech, as I suppose now, was meant courteously enough. It indicated that though he might allow himself liberties with men of his own class, he was too well bred to do so with me. But in my anger I saw nothing but the words, "not a gownsman." Why should he see that I was not a gownsman? Because I was shabbier?--(and my clothes, over and above the ducking they had had, were shabby); or more plebeian in appearance (whatsoever that may mean)? or wanted something else, which the rest had about them, and I had not? Why should he know that I was not a gownsman? I did not wish, of course, to be a gentleman, and an aristocrat; but I was nettled, nevertheless, at not being mistaken for one; and answered, sharply enough-- "No matter whether I am hurt or not. It serves me right for getting among you cursed aristocrats." "Box the cad's ears, Lord Lynedale," said a dirty fellow with a long pole--a cad himself, I should have thought. "Let him go home and ask his mammy to hang him out to dry," said another. The lord (for so I understood he was) looked at me with an air of surprise and amusement, which may have been good-natured enough in him, but did not increase the good-nature in me. "Tut, tut, my good fellow. I really am very sorry for having upset you. Here's half-a-crown to cover damages." "Better give it me than a muff like that," quoth he of the long pole; while I answered, surlily enough, that I wanted neither him nor his money, and burst through the crowd toward Cambridge. I was so shabby and plebeian, then, that people actually dare offer me money! Intolerable! The reader may say that I was in a very unwholesome and unreasonable frame of mind. So I was. And so would he have been in my place. CHAPTER XIII. THE LOST IDOL FOUND. On my return, I found my cousin already at home, in high spirits at having, as he informed me, "bumped the first Trinity." I excused myself for my dripping state, simply by saying that I had slipped into the river. To tell him the whole of the story, while the fancied insult still rankled fresh in me, was really too disagreeable both to my memory and my pride. Then came the question, "What had brought me to Cambridge?" I told him all, and he seemed honestly to sympathize with my misfortunes. "Never mind; we'll make it all right somehow. Those poems of yours--you must let me have them and look over them; and I dare say I shall persuade the governor to do something with them. After all, it's no loss for you; you couldn't have got on tailoring--much too sharp a fellow for that;--you ought to be at college, if one could only get you there. These sizarships, now, were meant for--just such cases as yours--clever fellows who could not afford to educate themselves; if we could only help you to one of them, now-- "You forget that in that case," said I, with something like a sigh, "I should have to become a member of the Church of England." "Why, no; not exactly. Though, of course, if you want to get all out of the university which you ought to get, you must do so at last." "And pretend to believe what I do not; for the sake of deserting my own class, and pandering to the very aristocrats, whom--" "Hullo!" and he jumped with a hoarse laugh. "Stop that till I see whether the door is sported. Why, you silly fellow, what harm have the aristocrats, as you call them, ever done you? Are they not doing you good at this moment? Are you not, by virtue of their aristocratic institutions, nearer having your poems published, your genius recognized, etc. etc., than ever you were before?" "Aristocrats? Then you call yourself one?" "No, Alton, my boy; not yet," said he quietly and knowingly. "Not yet: but I have chosen the right road, and shall end at the road's end; and I advise you--for really, as my cousin, I wish you all success, even for the mere credit of the family, to choose the same road likewise." "What road?" "Come up to Cambridge, by hook or by crook, and then take orders." I laughed scornfully. "My good cousin, it is the only method yet discovered for turning a snob (as I am, or was) into a gentleman; except putting him into a heavy cavalry regiment. My brother, who has no brains, preferred the latter method. I, who flatter myself that I have some, have taken the former." The thought was new and astonishing to me, and I looked at him in silence while he ran on-- "If you are once a parson, all is safe. Be you who you may before, from that moment you are a gentleman. No one will offer an insult. You are good enough for any man's society. You can dine at any nobleman's table. You can be friend, confidant, father confessor, if you like, to the highest women in the land; and if you have person, manners, and common sense, marry one of them into the bargain, Alton, my boy." "And it is for that that you will sell your soul--to become a hanger-on of the upper classes, in sloth and luxury?" "Sloth and luxury? Stuff and nonsense! I tell you that after I have taken orders, I shall have years and years of hard work before me; continual drudgery of serving tables, managing charities, visiting, preaching, from morning till night, and after that often from night to morning again. Enough to wear out any but a tough constitution, as I trust mine is. Work, Alton, and hard work, is the only way now-a-days to rise in the Church, as in other professions. My father can buy me a living some day: but he can't buy me success, notoriety, social position, power--" and he stopped suddenly, as if he had been on the point of saying something more which should not have been said. "And this," I said, "is your idea of a vocation for the sacred ministry? It is for this, that you, brought up a dissenter, have gone over to the Church of England?" "And how do you know"--and his whole tone of voice changed instantly into what was meant, I suppose, for a gentle seriousness and reverent suavity--"that I am not a sincere member of the Church of England? How do you know that I may not have loftier plans and ideas, though I may not choose to parade them to everyone, and give that which is holy to the dogs?" "I am the dog, then?" I asked, half amused, for I was too curious about his state of mind to be angry. "Not at all, my dear fellow. But those great men to whom we (or at least I) owe our conversion to the true Church, always tell us (and you will feel yourself how right they are) not to parade religious feelings; to look upon them as sacred things, to be treated with that due reserve which springs from real reverence. You know, as well as I, whether that is the fashion of the body in which we were, alas! brought up. You know, as well as I, whether the religious conversation of that body has heightened your respect for sacred things." "I do, too well." And I thought of Mr. Wigginton and my mother's tea parties. "I dare say the vulgarity of that school has, ere now, shaken your faith in all that was holy?" I was very near confessing that it had: but a feeling came over me, I knew not why, that my cousin would have been glad to get me into his power, and would therefore have welcomed a confession of infidelity. So I held my tongue. "I can confess," he said, in the most confidential tone, "that it had for a time that effect on me. I have confessed it, ere now, and shall again and again, I trust. But I shudder to think of what I might have been believing or disbelieving now, if I had not in a happy hour fallen in with Mr. Newman's sermons, and learnt from them, and from his disciples, what the Church of England really was; not Protestant, no; but Catholic in the deepest and highest sense." "So you are one of these new Tractarians? You do not seem to have adopted yet the ascetic mode of life, which I hear they praise up so highly," "My dear Alton, if you have read, as you have, your Bible, you will recollect a text which tells you not to appear to men to fast. What I do or do not do in the way of self-denial, unless I were actually profligate, which I give you my sacred honour I am not, must be a matter between Heaven and myself." There was no denying that truth; but the longer my cousin talked the less I trusted in him--I had almost said, the less I believed him. Ever since the tone of his voice had changed so suddenly, I liked him less than when he was honestly blurting out his coarse and selfish ambition. I do not think he was a hypocrite. I think he believed what he said, as strongly as he could believe anything. He proved afterwards that he did so, as far as man can judge man, by severe and diligent parish work: but I cannot help doubting at times, if that man ever knew what believing meant. God forgive him! In that, he is no worse than hundreds more who have never felt the burning and shining flame of intense conviction, of some truth rooted in the inmost recesses of the soul, by which a man must live, for which he would not fear to die. And therefore I listened to him dully and carelessly; I did not care to bring objections, which arose thick and fast, to everything he said. He tried to assure me--and did so with a great deal of cleverness--that this Tractarian movement was not really an aristocratic, but a democratic one; that the Catholic Church had been in all ages the Church of the poor; that the clergy were commissioned by Heaven to vindicate the rights of the people, and to stand between them and the tyranny of Mammon. I did not care to answer him that the "Catholic Church" had always been a Church of slaves, and not of free men; that the clergy had in every age been the enemies of light, of liberty; the oppressors of their flocks; and that to exalt a sacerdotal caste over other aristocracies, whether of birth or wealth, was merely to change our tyrants. When he told me that a clergyman of the Established Church, if he took up the cause of the working classes, might be the boldest and surest of all allies, just because, being established, and certain of his income, he cared not one sixpence what he said to any man alive, I did not care to answer him, as I might--And more shame upon the clergy that, having the safe vantage-ground which you describe, they dare not use it like men in a good cause, and speak their minds, if forsooth no one can stop them from so doing. In fact, I was distrustful, which I had a right to be, and envious also; but if I had a right to be that, I was certainly not wise, nor is any man, in exercising the said dangerous right as I did, and envying my cousin and every man in Cambridge. But that evening, understanding that a boating supper, or some jubilation over my cousin's victory, was to take place in his rooms, I asked leave to absent myself--and I do not think my cousin felt much regret at giving me leave--and wandered up and down the King's Parade, watching the tall gables of King's College Chapel, and the classic front of the Senate House, and the stately tower of St. Mary's, as they stood, stern and silent, bathed in the still glory of the moonlight, and contrasting bitterly the lot of those who were educated under their shadow to the lot which had befallen me. [Footnote: It must be remembered that these impressions of, and comments on the universities, are not my own. They are simply what clever working men thought about them from 1845 to 1850; a period at which I had the fullest opportunities for knowing the thoughts of working men.] "Noble buildings!" I said to myself, "and noble institutions! given freely to the people, by those who loved the people, and the Saviour who died for them. They gave us what they had, those mediæval founders: whatsoever narrowness of mind or superstition defiled their gift was not their fault, but the fault of their whole age. The best they knew they imparted freely, and God will reward them for it. To monopolize those institutions for the rich, as is done now, is to violate both the spirit and the letter of the foundations; to restrict their studies to the limits of middle-aged Romanism, their conditions of admission to those fixed at the Reformation, is but a shade less wrongful. The letter is kept--the spirit is thrown away. You refuse to admit any who are not members of the Church of England, say, rather, any who will not sign the dogmas of the Church of England, whether they believe a word of them or not. Useless formalism! which lets through the reckless, the profligate, the ignorant, the hypocritical: and only excludes the honest and the conscientious, and the mass of the intellectual working men. And whose fault is it that THEY are not members of the Church of England? Whose fault is it, I ask? Your predecessors neglected the lower orders, till they have ceased to reverence either you or your doctrines, you confess that, among yourselves, freely enough. You throw the blame of the present wide-spread dislike to the Church of England on her sins during 'the godless eighteenth century.' Be it so. Why are those sins to be visited on us? Why are we to be shut out from the universities, which were founded for us, because you have let us grow up, by millions, heathens and infidels, as you call us? Take away your subterfuge! It is not merely because we are bad churchmen that you exclude us, else you would be crowding your colleges, now, with the talented poor of the agricultural districts, who, as you say, remain faithful to the church of their fathers. But are there six labourers' sons educating in the universities at this moment! No! the real reason for our exclusion, churchmen or not, is, because we are _poor_--because we cannot pay your exorbitant fees, often, as in the case of bachelors of arts, exacted for tuition which is never given, and residence which is not permitted--because we could not support the extravagance which you not only permit, but encourage--because by your own unblushing confession, it insures the university 'the support of the aristocracy.'" "But, on religious points, at least, you must abide by the statutes of the university." Strange argument, truly, to be urged literally by English Protestants in possession of Roman Catholic bequests! If that be true in the letter, as well as in the spirit, you should have given place long ago to the Dominicans and the Franciscans. In the spirit it is true, and the Reformers acted on it when they rightly converted the universities to the uses of the new faith. They carried out the spirit of the founders' statutes by making the universities as good as they could be, and letting them share in the new light of the Elizabethan age. But was the sum of knowledge, human and divine, perfected at the Reformation? Who gave the Reformers, or you, who call yourselves their representatives, a right to say to the mind of man, and to the teaching of God's Spirit, "Hitherto, and no farther"? Society and mankind, the children of the Supreme, will not stop growing for your dogmas--much less for your vested interests; and the righteous law of mingled development and renovation, applied in the sixteenth century, must be reapplied in the nineteenth; while the spirits of the founders, now purged from the superstitions and ignorances of their age, shall smile from heaven, and say, "So would we have had it, if we had lived in the great nineteenth century, into which it has been your privilege to be born." But such thoughts soon passed away. The image which I had seen that afternoon upon the river banks had awakened imperiously the frantic longings of past years; and now it reascended its ancient throne, and tyrannously drove forth every other object, to keep me alone with its own tantalizing and torturing beauty. I did not think about her--No; I only stupidly and steadfastly stared at her with my whole soul and imagination, through that long sleepless night; and, in spite of the fatigue of my journey, and the stiffness proceeding from my fall and wetting, I lay tossing till the early sun poured into my bedroom window. Then I arose, dressed myself, and went out to wander up and down the streets, gazing at one splendid building after another, till I found the gates of King's College open. I entered eagerly, through a porch which, to my untutored taste, seemed gorgeous enough to form the entrance to a fairy palace, and stood in the quadrangle, riveted to the spot by the magnificence of the huge chapel on the right. If I had admired it the night before, I felt inclined to worship it this morning, as I saw the lofty buttresses and spires, fretted with all their gorgeous carving, and "storied windows richly dight," sleeping in the glare of the newly-risen sun, and throwing their long shadows due westward down the sloping lawn, and across the river which dimpled and gleamed below, till it was lost among the towering masses of crisp elms and rose-garlanded chestnuts in the rich gardens beyond. Was I delighted? Yes--and yet no. There is a painful feeling in seeing anything magnificent which one cannot understand. And perhaps it was a morbid sensitiveness, but the feeling was strong upon me that I was an interloper there--out of harmony with the scene and the system which had created it; that I might be an object of unpleasant curiosity, perhaps of scorn (for I had not forgotten the nobleman at the boat-race), amid those monuments of learned luxury. Perhaps, on the other hand, it was only from the instinct which makes us seek for solitude under the pressure of intense emotions, when we have neither language to express them to ourselves, nor loved one in whose silent eyes we may read kindred feelings--a sympathy which wants no words. Whatever the cause was, when a party of men, in their caps and gowns, approached me down the dark avenue which led into the country, I was glad to shrink for concealment behind the weeping-willow at the foot of the bridge, and slink off unobserved to breakfast with my cousin. We had just finished breakfast, my cousin was lighting his meerschaum, when a tall figure passed the window, and the taller of the noblemen, whom I had seen at the boat-race, entered the room with a packet of papers in his hand. "Here, Locule mi! my pocket-book--or rather, to stretch a bad pun till it bursts, my pocket-dictionary--I require the aid of your benevolently-squandered talents for the correction of these proofs. I am, as usual, both idle and busy this morning; so draw pen, and set to work for me." "I am exceedingly sorry, my lord," answered George, in his most obsequious tone, "but I must work this morning with all my might. Last night, recollect, was given to triumph, Bacchus, and idleness." "Then find some one who will do them for me, my Ulysses polumechane, polutrope, panurge." "I shall be most happy (with a half-frown and a wince) to play Panurge to your lordship's Pantagruel, on board the new yacht." "Oh, I am perfect in that character, I suppose? And is she after all, like Pantagruel's ship, to be loaded with hemp? Well, we must try two or three milder cargoes first. But come, find me some starving genius--some græculus esuriens--" "Who will ascend to the heaven of your lordship's eloquence for the bidding?" "Five shillings a sheet--there will be about two of them, I think, in the pamphlet." "May I take the liberty of recommending my cousin here?" "Your cousin?" And he turned to me, who had been examining with a sad and envious eye the contents of the bookshelves. Our eyes met, and first a faint blush, and then a smile of recognition, passed over his magnificent countenance. "I think I had--I am ashamed that I cannot say the pleasure, of meeting him at the boat race yesterday." My cousin looked inquiringly and vexed at us both. The nobleman smiled. "Oh, the fault was mine, not his." "I cannot think," I answered, "that you have any reasons to remember with shame your own kindness and courtesy. As for me," I went on bitterly, "I suppose a poor journeyman tailor, who ventures to look on at the sports of gentlemen, only deserves to be run over." "Sir," he said, looking at me with a severe and searching glance, "your bitterness is pardonable--but not your sneer. You do not yourself think what you say, and you ought to know that I think it still less than yourself. If you intend your irony to be useful, you should keep it till you can use it courageously against the true offenders." I looked up at him fiercely enough, but the placid smile which had returned to his face disarmed me. "Your class," he went on, "blind yourselves and our class as much by wholesale denunciations of us, as we, alas! who should know better, do by wholesale denunciations of you. As you grow older, you will learn that there are exceptions to every rule." "And yet the exception proves the rule." "Most painfully true, sir. But that argument is two-edged. For instance, am I to consider it the exception or the rule, when I am told that you, a journeyman tailor, are able to correct these proofs for me?" "Nearer the rule, I think, than you yet fancy." "You speak out boldly and well; but how can you judge what I may please to fancy? At all events, I will make trial of you. There are the proofs. Bring them to me by four o'clock this afternoon, and if they are well done, I will pay you more than I should do to the average hack-writer, for you will deserve more." I took the proofs; he turned to go, and by a side-look at George beckoned him out of the room. I heard a whispering in the passage; and I do not deny that my heart beat high with new hopes, as I caught unwillingly the words-- "Such a forehead!--such an eye!--such a contour of feature as that!--Locule mi--that boy ought not to be mending trousers." My cousin returned, half laughing, half angry. "Alton, you fool, why did you let out that you were a snip?" "I am not ashamed of my trade." "I am, then. However, you've done with it now; and if you can't come the gentleman, you may as well come the rising genius. The self-educated dodge pays well just now; and after all, you've hooked his lordship--thank me for that. But you'll never hold him, you impudent dog, if you pull so hard on him"--He went on, putting his hands into his coat-tail pockets, and sticking himself in front of the fire, like the Delphic Pythoness upon the sacred tripod, in hopes, I suppose, of some oracular afflatus--"You will never hold him, I say, if you pull so hard on him. You ought to 'My lord' him for months yet, at least. You know, my good fellow, you must take every possible care to pick up what good breeding you can, if I take the trouble to put you in the way of good society, and tell you where my private birds'-nests are, like the green schoolboy some poet or other talks of." "He is no lord of mine," I answered, "in any sense of the word, and therefore I shall not call him so." "Upon my honour! here is a young gentleman who intends to rise in the world, and then commences by trying to walk through the first post he meets! Noodle! can't you do like me, and get out of the carts' way when they come by? If you intend to go ahead, you must just dodge in and out like a dog at a fair. 'She stoops to conquer' is my motto, and a precious good one too." "I have no wish to conquer Lord Lynedale, and so I shall not stoop to him." "I have, then; and to very good purpose, too. I am his whetstone, for polishing up that classical wit of his on, till he carries it into Parliament to astonish the country squires. He fancies himself a second Goethe, I hav'n't forgot his hitting at me, before a large supper party, with a certain epigram of that old turkeycock's about the whale having his unmentionable parasite--and the great man likewise. Whale, indeed! I bide my time, Alton, my boy--I bide my time; and then let your grand aristocrat look out! If he does not find the supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout holding harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long one, it's a pity, Alton my boy!" And he burst into a coarse laugh, tossed himself down on the sofa, and re-lighted his meerschaum. "He seemed to me," I answered, "to have a peculiar courtesy and liberality of mind towards those below him in rank." "Oh! he had, had he? Now, I'll just put you up to a dodge. He intends to come the Mirabeau--fancies his mantle has fallen on him--prays before the fellow's bust, I believe, if one knew the truth, for a double portion of his spirit; and therefore it is a part of his game to ingratiate himself with all pot-boy-dom, while at heart he is as proud, exclusive an aristocrat, as ever wore nobleman's hat. At all events, you may get something out of him, if you play your cards well--or, rather, help me to play mine; for I consider him as my property, and you only as my aide-de-camp." "I shall play no one's cards," I answered, sulkily. "I am doing work fairly, and shall be fairly paid for it, and keep my own independence." "Independence--hey-day! Have you forgotten that, after all, you are my--guest, to call it by the mildest term?" "Do you upbraid me with that?" I said, starting up. "Do you expect me to live on your charity, on condition of doing your dirty work? You do not know me, sir. I leave your roof this instant!" "You do not!" answered he, laughing loudly, as he sprang over the sofa, and set his back against the door. "Come, come, you Will-o'-the-Wisp, as full of flights, and fancies, and vagaries, as a sick old maid! can't you see which side your bread is buttered? Sit down, I say! Don't you know that I'm as good-natured a fellow as ever lived, although I do parade a little Gil Bias morality now and then, just for fun's sake? Do you think I should be so open with it, if I meant anything very diabolic? There--sit down, and don't go into King Cambyses' vein, or Queen Hecuba's tears either, which you seem inclined to do." "I know you have been very generous to me," I said, penitently; "but a kindness becomes none when you are upbraided with it." "So say the copybooks--I deny it. At all events, I'll say no more; and you shall sit down there, and write as still as a mouse till two, while I tackle this never-to-be-enough-by-unhappy-third-years'-men-execrated Griffin's Optics." * * * * * At four that afternoon, I knocked, proofs in hand, at the door of Lord Lynedale's rooms in the King's Parade. The door was opened by a little elderly groom, grey-coated, grey-gaitered, grey-haired, grey-visaged. He had the look of a respectable old family retainer, and his exquisitely neat groom's dress gave him a sort of interest in my eyes. Class costumes, relics though they are of feudalism, carry a charm with them. They are symbolic, definitive; they bestow a personality on the wearer, which satisfies the mind, by enabling it instantly to classify him, to connect him with a thousand stories and associations; and to my young mind, the wiry, shrewd, honest, grim old serving-man seemed the incarnation of all the wonders of Newmarket, and the hunting-kennel, and the steeple-chase, of which I had read, with alternate admiration and contempt, in the newspapers. He ushered me in with a good breeding which surprised me;--without insolence to me, or servility to his master; both of which I had been taught to expect. Lord Lynedale bade me very courteously sit down while he examined the proofs. I looked round the low-wainscoted apartment, with its narrow mullioned windows, in extreme curiosity. What a real nobleman's abode could be like, was naturally worth examining, to one who had, all his life, heard of the aristocracy as of some mythic Titans--whether fiends or gods, being yet a doubtful point--altogether enshrined on "cloudy Olympus," invisible to mortal ken. The shelves were gay with morocco, Russia leather, and gilding--not much used, as I thought, till my eye caught one of the gorgeously-bound volumes lying on the table in a loose cover of polished leather--a refinement of which poor I should never have dreamt. The walls were covered with prints, which soon turned my eyes from everything else, to range delighted over Landseers, Turners, Roberts's Eastern sketches, the ancient Italian masters; and I recognized, with a sort of friendly affection, an old print of my favourite St. Sebastian, in the Dulwich Gallery. It brought back to my mind a thousand dreams, and a thousand sorrows. Would those dreams be ever realized? Might this new acquaintance possibly open some pathway towards their fulfilment?--some vista towards the attainment of a station where they would, at least, be less chimerical? And at that thought, my heart beat loud with hope. The room was choked up with chairs and tables, of all sorts of strange shapes and problematical uses. The floor was strewed with skins of bear, deer, and seal. In a corner lay hunting-whips, and fishing-rods, foils, boxing-gloves, and gun-cases; while over the chimney-piece, an array of rich Turkish pipes, all amber and enamel, contrasted curiously with quaint old swords and daggers--bronze classic casts, upon Gothic oak brackets, and fantastic scraps of continental carving. On the centre table, too, reigned the same rich profusion, or if you will, confusion--MSS., "Notes in Egypt," "Goethe's Walverwandschaften," Murray's Hand-books, and "Plato's Republic." What was there not there? And I chuckled inwardly, to see how _Bell's Life in London_ and the _Ecclesiologist_ had, between them, got down "McCulloch on Taxation," and were sitting, arm-in-arm, triumphantly astride of him. Everything in the room, even to the fragrant flowers in a German glass, spoke of a travelled and cultivated luxury--manifold tastes and powers of self-enjoyment and self-improvement, which, Heaven forgive me if I envied, as I looked upon them. If I, now, had had one-twentieth part of those books, prints, that experience of life, not to mention that physical strength and beauty, which stood towering there before the fire--so simple; so utterly unconscious of the innate nobleness and grace which shone out from every motion of those stately limbs and features--all the delicacy which blood can give, combined, as one does sometimes see, with the broad strength of the proletarian--so different from poor me!--and so different, too, as I recollected with perhaps a savage pleasure, from the miserable, stunted specimens of over-bred imbecility whom I had often passed in London! A strange question that of birth! and one in which the philosopher, in spite of himself, must come to democratic conclusions. For, after all, the physical and intellectual superiority of the high-born is only preserved, as it was in the old Norman times, by the continual practical abnegation of the very caste-lie on which they pride themselves--by continual renovation of their race, by intermarriage with the ranks below them. The blood of Odin flowed in the veins of Norman William; true--and so did the tanner's of Falaise! At last he looked up and spoke courteously-- "I'm afraid I have kept you long; but now, here is for your corrections, which are capital. I have really to thank you for a lesson in writing English." And he put a sovereign into my hand. "I am very sorry," said I, "but I have no change." "Never mind that. Your work is well worth the money." "But," I said, "you agreed with me for five shillings a sheet, and--I do not wish to be rude, but I cannot accept your kindness. We working men make a rule of abiding by our wages, and taking nothing which looks like--" "Well, well--and a very good rule it is. I suppose, then, I must find out some way for you to earn more. Good afternoon." And he motioned me out of the room, followed me down stairs, and turned off towards the College Gardens. I wandered up and down, feeding my greedy eyes, till I found myself again upon the bridge where I had stood that morning, gazing with admiration and astonishment at a scene which I have often expected to see painted or described, and which, nevertheless, in spite of its unique magnificence, seems strangely overlooked by those who cater for the public taste, with pen and pencil. The vista of bridges, one after another spanning the stream; the long line of great monastic palaces, all unlike, and yet all in harmony, sloping down to the stream, with their trim lawns and ivied walls, their towers and buttresses; and opposite them, the range of rich gardens and noble timber-trees, dimly seen through which, at the end of the gorgeous river avenue, towered the lofty buildings of St. John's. The whole scene, under the glow of a rich May afternoon, seemed to me a fragment out of the "Arabian Nights" or Spencer's "Fairy Queen." I leaned upon the parapet, and gazed, and gazed, so absorbed in wonder and enjoyment, that I was quite unconscious, for some time, that Lord Lynedale was standing by my side, engaged in the same employment. He was not alone. Hanging on his arm was a lady, whose face, it seemed to me, I ought to know. It certainly was one not to be easily forgotten. She was beautiful, but with the face and figure rather of a Juno than a Venus--dark, imperious, restless--the lips almost too firmly set, the brow almost too massive and projecting--a queen, rather to be feared than loved--but a queen still, as truly royal as the man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight, as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape. Her dress was as plain as that of any Quaker; but the grace of its arrangement, of every line and fold, was enough, without the help of the heavy gold bracelet on her wrist, to proclaim her a fine lady; by which term, I wish to express the result of that perfect education in taste and manner, down to every gesture, which Heaven forbid that I, professing to be a poet, should undervalue. It is beautiful; and therefore I welcome it, in the name of the Author of all beauty. I value it so highly, that I would fain see it extend, not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa, but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the labourer's hovel, and the needlewoman's garret. Half in bashfulness, half in the pride which shrinks from anything like intrusion, I was moving away; but the nobleman, recognising me with a smile and a nod, made some observation on the beauty of the scene before us. Before I could answer, however, I saw that his companion's eyes were fixed intently on my face. "Is this," she said to Lord Lynedale, "the young person of whom you were speaking to me just now? I fancy that I recollect him, though, I dare say, he has forgotten me." If I had forgotten the face, that voice, so peculiarly rich, deep, and marked in its pronunciation of every syllable, recalled her instantly to my mind. It was the dark lady of the Dulwich Gallery! "I met you, I think," I said, "at the picture gallery at Dulwich, and you were kind enough, and--and some persons who were with you, to talk to me about a picture there." "Yes; Guido's St. Sebastian. You seemed fond of reading then. I am glad to see you at college." I explained that I was not at college. That led to fresh gentle questions on her part, till I had given her all the leading points of my history. There was nothing in it of which I ought to have been ashamed. She seemed to become more and more interested in my story, and her companion also. "And have you tried to write? I recollect my uncle advising you to try a poem on St. Sebastian. It was spoken, perhaps, in jest; but it will not, I hope, have been labour lost, if you have taken it in earnest." "Yes--I have written on that and on other subjects, during the last few years." "Then, you must let us see them, if you have them with you. I think my uncle, Arthur, might like to look over them; and if they were fit for publication, he might be able to do something towards it." "At all events," said Lord Lynedale, "a self-educated author is always interesting. Bring any of your poems, that you have with you, to the Eagle this afternoon, and leave them there for Dean Winnstay; and to-morrow morning, if you have nothing better to do, call there between ten and eleven o'clock." He wrote me down the dean's address, and nodding a civil good morning, turned away with his queenly companion, while I stood gazing after him, wondering whether all noblemen and high-born ladies were like them in person and in spirit--a question which, in spite of many noble exceptions, some of them well known and appreciated by the working men, I am afraid must be answered in the negative. I took my MSS. to the Eagle, and wandered out once more, instinctively, among those same magnificent trees at the back of the colleges, to enjoy the pleasing torment of expectation. "My uncle!" was he the same old man whom I had seen at the gallery; and if so, was Lillian with him? Delicious hope! And yet, what if she was with him--what to me? But yet I sat silent, dreaming, all the evening, and hurried early to bed--not to sleep, but to lie and dream on and on, and rise almost before light, eat no breakfast, and pace up and down, waiting impatiently for the hour at which I was to find out whether my dream, was true. And it was true! The first object I saw, when I entered the room, was Lillian, looking more beautiful than ever. The child of sixteen had blossomed into the woman of twenty. The ivory and vermilion of the complexion had toned down together into still richer hues. The dark hazel eyes shone with a more liquid lustre. The figure had become more rounded, without losing a line of that fairy lightness, with which her light morning-dress, with its delicate French semi-tones of colour, gay and yet not gaudy, seemed to harmonize. The little plump jewelled hands--the transparent chestnut hair, banded round the beautiful oval masque--the tiny feet, which, as Suckling has it, Underneath her petticoat Like little mice peeped in and out-- I could have fallen down, fool that I was! and worshipped--what? I could not tell then, for I cannot tell even now. The dean smiled recognition, bade me sit down, and disposed my papers, meditatively, on his knee. I obeyed him, trembling, choking--my eyes devouring my idol--forgetting why I had come--seeing nothing but her--listening for nothing but the opening of these lips. I believe the dean was some sentences deep in his oration, before I became conscious thereof. "--And I think I may tell you, at once, that I have been very much surprised and gratified with them. They evince, on the whole, a far greater acquaintance with the English classic-models, and with the laws of rhyme and melody, than could have been expected from a young man of your class--_macte virtute puer_. Have you read any Latin?" "A little." And I went on staring at Lillian, who looked up, furtively, from her work, every now and then, to steal a glance at me, and set my poor heart thumping still more fiercely against my side. "Very good; you will have the less trouble, then, in the preparation for college. You will find out for yourself, of course, the immense disadvantages of self-education. The fact is, my dear lord" (turning to Lord Lynedale), "it is only useful as an indication of a capability of being educated by others. One never opens a book written by working men, without shuddering at a hundred faults of style. However, there are some very tolerable attempts among these--especially the imitations of Milton's 'Comus.'" Poor I had by no means intended them as imitations; but such, no doubt, they were. "I am sorry to see that Shelley has had so much influence on your writing. He is a guide as irregular in taste, as unorthodox in doctrine; though there are some pretty things in him now and then. And you have caught his melody tolerably here, now--" "Oh, that is such a sweet thing!" said Lillian. "Do you know, I read it over and over last night, and took it up-stairs with me. How very fond of beautiful things you must be, Mr. Locke, to be able to describe so passionately the longing after them." That voice once more! It intoxicated me, so that I hardly knew what I stammered out--something about working men having very few opportunities of indulging the taste for--I forget what. I believe I was on the point of running off into some absurd compliment, but I caught the dark lady's warning eye on me. "Ah, yes! I forgot. I dare say it must be a very stupid life. So little opportunity, as he says. What a pity he is a tailor, papa! Such an unimaginative employment! How delightful it would be to send him to college and make him a clergyman!" Fool that I was! I fancied--what did I not fancy?--never seeing how that very "_he_" bespoke the indifference--the gulf between us. I was not a man--an equal; but a thing--a subject, who was to be talked over, and examined, and made into something like themselves, of their supreme and undeserved benevolence. "Gently, gently, fair lady! We must not be as headlong as some people would kindly wish to be. If this young man really has a proper desire to rise into a higher station, and I find him a fit object to be assisted in that praiseworthy ambition, why, I think he ought to go to some training college; St. Mark's, I should say, on the whole, might, by its strong Church principles, give the best antidote to any little remaining taint of _sansculottism_. You understand me, my lord? And, then, if he distinguished himself there, it would be time to think of getting him a sizarship." "Poor Pegasus in harness!" half smiled, half sighed, the dark lady. "Just the sort of youth," whispered Lord Lynedale, loud enough for me to hear, "to take out with us to the Mediterranean as secretary--s'il y avait là de la morale, of course--" Yes--and of course, too, the tailor's boy was not expected to understand French. But the most absurd thing was, how everybody, except perhaps the dark lady, seemed to take for granted that I felt myself exceedingly honoured, and must consider it, as a matter of course, the greatest possible stretch of kindness thus to talk me over, and settle everything for me, as if I was not a living soul, but a plant in a pot. Perhaps they were not unsupported by experience. I suppose too many of us would have thought it so; there are flunkeys in all ranks, and to spare. Perhaps the true absurdity was the way in which I sat, demented, inarticulate, staring at Lillian, and only caring for any word which seemed to augur a chance of seeing her again; instead of saying, as I felt, that I had no wish whatever to rise above my station; no intention whatever of being sent to training schools or colleges, or anywhere else at the expense of other people. And therefore it was that I submitted blindly, when the dean, who looked as kind, and was really, I believe, as kind as ever was human being, turned to me with a solemn authoritative voice-- "Well, my young friend, I must say that I am, on the whole, very much pleased with your performance. It corroborates, my dear lord, the assertion, for which I have been so often ridiculed, that there are many real men, capable of higher things, scattered up and down among the masses. Attend to me, sir!" (a hint which I suspect I very much wanted). "Now, recollect; if it should be hereafter in our power to assist your prospects in life, you must give up, once and for all, the bitter tone against the higher classes, which I am sorry to see in your MSS. As you know more of the world, you will find that the poor are not by any means as ill used as they are taught, in these days, to believe. The rich have their sorrows too--no one knows it better than I"--(and he played pensively with his gold pencil-case)--"and good and evil are pretty equally distributed among all ranks, by a just and merciful God. I advise you most earnestly, as you value your future success in life, to give up reading those unprincipled authors, whose aim is to excite the evil passions of the multitude; and to shut your ears betimes to the extravagant calumnies of demagogues, who make tools of enthusiastic and imaginative minds for their own selfish aggrandisement. Avoid politics; the workman has no more to do with them than the clergyman. We are told, on divine authority, to fear God and the king, and meddle not with those who are given to change. Rather put before yourself the example of such a man as the excellent Dr. Brown, one of the richest and most respected men of the university, with whom I hope to have the pleasure of dining this evening--and yet that man actually, for several years of his life, worked at a carpenter's bench!" I too had something to say about all that. I too knew something about demagogues and working men: but the sight of Lillian made me a coward; and I only sat silent as the thought flashed across me, half ludicrous, half painful, by its contrast, of another who once worked at a carpenter's bench, and fulfilled his mission--not by an old age of wealth, respectability, and port wine; but on the Cross of Calvary. After all, the worthy old gentleman gave me no time to answer. "Next--I think of showing these MSS. to my publisher, to get his opinion as to whether they are worth printing just now. Not that I wish you to build much on the chance. It is not necessary that you should be a poet. I should prefer mathematics for you, as a methodic discipline of the intellect. Most active minds write poetry, at a certain age--I wrote a good deal, I recollect, myself. But that is no reason for publishing. This haste to rush into print is one of the bad signs of the times--a symptom of the unhealthy activity which was first called out by the French revolution. In the Elizabethan age, every decently-educated gentleman was able, as a matter of course, to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eye-brow, or an epigram on his enemy; and yet he never dreamt of printing them. One of the few rational things I have met with, Eleanor, in the works of your very objectionable pet Mr. Carlyle--though indeed his style is too intolerable to have allowed me to read much--is the remark that 'speech is silver'--'silvern' he calls it, pedantically--'while silence is golden.'" At this point of the sermon, Lillian fled from the room, to my extreme disgust. But still the old man prosed-- "I think, therefore, that you had better stay with your cousin for the next week. I hear from Lord Lynedale that he is a very studious, moral, rising young man; and I only hope that you will follow his good example. At the end of the week I shall return home, and then I shall be glad to see more of you at my house at D * * * *, about * * * * miles from this place. Good morning." I went, in rapture at the last announcement--and yet my conscience smote me. I had not stood up for the working men. I had heard them calumniated, and held my tongue--but I was to see Lillian. I had let the dean fancy I was willing to become a pensioner on his bounty--that I was a member of the Church of England, and willing to go to a Church Training School--but I was to see Lillian. I had lowered myself in my own eyes--but I had seen Lillian. Perhaps I exaggerated my own offences: however that may be, love soon, silenced conscience, and I almost danced into my cousin's rooms on my return. * * * * * That week passed rapidly and happily. I was half amused with the change in my cousin's demeanour. I had evidently risen immensely in his eyes; and I could not help applying, in my heart, to him, Mr. Carlyle's dictum about the valet species--how they never honour the unaccredited hero, having no eye to find him out till properly accredited, and countersigned, and accoutred with full uniform and diploma by that great god, Public Opinion. I saw through the motive of his new-fledged respect for me--and yet encouraged it; for it flattered my vanity. The world must forgive me. It was something for the poor tailor to find himself somewhat appreciated at last, even outwardly. And besides, this sad respect took a form which was very tempting to me now--though the week before it was just the one which I should have repelled with scorn. George became very anxious to lend me money, to order me clothes at his own tailor's, and set me up in various little toilette refinements, that I might make a respectable appearance at the dean's. I knew that he consulted rather the honour of the family, than my good; but I did not know that his aim was also to get me into his power; and I refused more and more weakly at each fresh offer, and at last consented, in an evil hour, to sell my own independence, for the sake of indulging my love-dream, and appearing to be what I was not. I saw little of the University men; less than I might have done; less, perhaps, than I ought to have done. My cousin did not try to keep me from them; they, whenever I met them, did not shrink from me, and were civil enough: but I shrank from them. My cousin attributed my reserve to modesty, and praised me for it in his coarse fashion: but he was mistaken. Pride, rather, and something very like envy, kept me silent. Always afraid (at that period of my career) of young men of my own age, I was doubly afraid of these men; not because they were cleverer than I, for they were not, but because I fancied I had no fair chance with them; they had opportunities which I had not, read and talked of books of which I knew nothing; and when they did touch on matters which I fancied I understood, it was from a point of view so different from mine, that I had to choose, as I thought, between standing up alone to be baited by the whole party, or shielding myself behind a proud and somewhat contemptuous silence. I looked on them as ignorant aristocrats; while they looked on me, I verily believe now, as a very good sort of fellow, who ought to talk well, but would not; and went their way carelessly. The truth is, I did envy those men. I did not envy them their learning; for the majority of men who came into my cousin's room had no learning to envy, being rather brilliant and agreeable men than severe students; but I envied them their opportunities of learning; and envied them just as much their opportunities of play--their boating, their cricket, their foot-ball, their riding, and their gay confident carriage, which proceeds from physical health and strength, and which I mistook for the swagger of insolence; while Parker's Piece, with its games, was a sight which made me grind my teeth, when I thought of the very different chance of physical exercise which falls to the lot of a London artisan. And still more did I envy them when I found that many of them combined, as my cousin did, this physical exercise with really hard mental work, and found the one help the other. It was bitter to me--whether it ought to have been so or not--to hear of prizemen, wranglers, fellows of colleges, as first rate oars, boxers, foot-ball players; and my eyes once fairly filled with tears, when, after the departure of a little fellow no bigger or heavier than myself, but with the eye and the gait of a game-cock, I was informed that he was "bow-oar in the University eight, and as sure to be senior classic next year as he has a head on his shoulders." And I thought of my nights of study in the lean-to garret, and of the tailor's workshop, and of Sandy's den, and said to myself bitter words, which I shall not set down. Let gentlemen readers imagine them for themselves; and judge rationally and charitably of an unhealthy working-man like me, if his tongue be betrayed, at moments, to envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. However, one happiness I had--books. I read in my cousin's room from morning till night. He gave me my meals hospitably enough: but disappeared every day about four to "hall"; after which he did not reappear till eight, the interval being taken up, he said, in "wines" and an hour of billiards. Then he sat down to work, and read steadily and well till twelve, while I, nothing loth, did the same; and so passed, rapidly enough, my week at Cambridge. CHAPTER XIV. A CATHEDRAL TOWN. At length, the wished-for day had arrived; and, with my cousin, I was whirling along, full of hope and desire, towards the cathedral town of D * * * *--through a flat fen country, which though I had often heard it described as ugly, struck my imagination much. The vast height and width of the sky-arch, as seen from those flats as from an ocean--the grey haze shrouding the horizon of our narrow land-view, and closing us in, till we seemed to be floating through infinite space, on a little platform of earth; the rich poplar-fringed farms, with their herds of dappled oxen--the luxuriant crops of oats and beans--the tender green of the tall-rape, a plant till then unknown to me--the long, straight, silver dykes, with their gaudy carpets of strange floating water-plants, and their black banks, studded with the remains of buried forests--the innumerable draining-mills, with their creaking sails and groaning wheels--the endless rows of pollard willows, through which the breeze moaned and rung, as through the strings of some vast Æolian harp; the little island knolls in that vast sea of fen, each with its long village street, and delicately taper spire; all this seemed to me to contain an element of new and peculiar beauty. "Why!" exclaims the reading public, if perchance it ever sees this tale of mine, in its usual prurient longing after anything like personal gossip, or scandalous anecdote--"why, there is no cathedral town which begins with a D! Through the fen, too! He must mean either Ely, Lincoln, or Peterborough; that's certain." Then, at one of those places, they find there is dean--not of the name of Winnstay, true--"but his name begins with a W; and he has a pretty daughter--no, a niece; well, that's very near it;--it must be him. No; at another place--there is not a dean, true--but a canon, or an archdeacon-something of that kind; and he has a pretty daughter, really; and his name begins--not with W, but with Y; well, that's the last letter of Winnstay, if it is not the first: that must be the poor man! What a shame to have exposed his family secrets in that way!" And then a whole circle of myths grow up round the man's story. It is credibly ascertained that I am the man who broke into his house last year, after having made love to his housemaid, and stole his writing-desk and plate--else, why should a burglar steal family-letters, if he had not some interest in them?... And before the matter dies away, some worthy old gentleman, who has not spoken to a working man since he left his living, thirty years ago, and hates a radical as he does the Pope, receives two or three anonymous letters, condoling with him on the cruel betrayal of his confidence--base ingratitude for undeserved condescension, &c., &c.; and, perhaps, with an enclosure of good advice for his lovely daughter. But wherever D * * * * is, we arrived there; and with a beating heart, I--and I now suspect my cousin also--walked up the sunny slopes, where the old convent had stood, now covered with walled gardens and noble timber-trees, and crowned by the richly fretted towers of the cathedral, which we had seen, for the last twenty miles, growing gradually larger and more distinct across the level flat. "Ely?" "No; Lincoln!" "Oh! but really, it's just as much like Peterborough!" Never mind, my dear reader; the essence of the fact, as I think, lies not quite so much in the name of the place, as in what was done there--to which I, with all the little respect which I can muster, entreat your attention. It is not from false shame at my necessary ignorance, but from a fear lest I should bore my readers with what seems to them trivial, that I refrain from dilating on many a thing which struck me as curious in this my first visit to the house of an English gentleman. I must say, however, though I suppose that it will be numbered, at least, among trite remarks, if not among trivial ones, that the wealth around me certainly struck me, as it has others, as not very much in keeping with the office of one who professed to be a minister of the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. But I salved over that feeling, being desirous to see everything in the brightest light, with the recollection that the dean had a private fortune of his own; though it did seem at moments, that if a man has solemnly sworn to devote himself, body and soul, to the cause of the spiritual welfare of the nation, that vow might be not unfairly construed to include his money as well as his talents, time, and health: unless, perhaps, money is considered by spiritual persons as so worthless a thing, that it is not fit to be given to God--a notion which might seem to explain how a really pious and universally respected archbishop, living within a quarter of a mile of one of the worst _infernos_ of destitution, disease, filth, and profligacy--can yet find it in his heart to save £120,000 out of church revenues, and leave it to his family; though it will not explain how Irish bishops can reconcile it to their consciences to leave behind them, one and all, large fortunes--for I suppose from fifty to a hundred thousand pounds is something--saved from fees and tithes, taken from the pockets of a Roman Catholic population, whom they have been put there to convert to Protestantism for the last three hundred years--with what success, all the world knows. Of course, it is a most impertinent, and almost a blasphemous thing, for a working man to dare to mention such subjects. Is it not "speaking evil of dignities"? Strange, by-the-by, that merely to mention facts, without note or comment, should be always called "speaking evil"! Does not that argue ill for the facts themselves? Working men think so; but what matter what "the swinish multitude" think? When I speak of wealth, I do not mean that the dean's household would have been considered by his own class at all too luxurious. He would have been said, I suppose, to live in a "quiet, comfortable, gentlemanlike way"--"everything very plain and very good." It included a butler--a quiet, good-natured old man--who ushered us into our bedrooms; a footman, who opened the door--a sort of animal for which I have an extreme aversion--young, silly, conceited, over-fed, florid--who looked just the man to sell his soul for a livery, twice as much food as he needed, and the opportunity of unlimited flirtations with the maids; and a coachman, very like other coachmen, whom I saw taking a pair of handsome carriage-horses out to exercise, as we opened the gate. The old man, silently and as a matter of course, unpacked for me my little portmanteau (lent me by my cousin), and placed my things neatly in various drawers--went down, brought up a jug of hot water, put it on the washing-table--told me that dinner was at six--that the half-hour bell rang at half-past five--and that, if I wanted anything, the footman would answer the bell (bells seeming a prominent idea in his theory of the universe)--and so left me, wondering at the strange fact that free men, with free wills, do sell themselves, by the hundred thousand, to perform menial offices for other men, not for love, but for money; becoming, to define them strictly, bell-answering animals; and are honest, happy, contented, in such a life. A man-servant, a soldier, and a Jesuit, are to me the three great wonders of humanity--three forms of moral suicide, for which I never had the slightest gleam of sympathy, or even comprehension. * * * * * At last we went down to dinner, after my personal adornments had been carefully superintended by my cousin, who gave me, over and above, various warnings and exhortations as to my behaviour; which, of course, took due effect, in making me as nervous, constrained, and affected, as possible. When I appeared in the drawing-room, I was kindly welcomed by the dean, the two ladies, and Lord Lynedale. But, as I stood fidgeting and blushing, sticking my arms and legs, and head into all sorts of quaint positions--trying one attitude, and thinking it looked awkward, and so exchanged it for another, more awkward still--my eye fell suddenly on a slip of paper, which had conveyed itself, I never knew how, upon the pages of the Illustrated Book of Ballads, which I was turning over:-- "Be natural, and you will be gentlemanlike. If you wish others to forget your rank, do not forget it yourself. If you wish others to remember you with pleasure, forget yourself; and be just what God has made you." I could not help fancying that the lesson, whether intentionally or not, was meant for me; and a passing impulse made me take up the slip, fold it together, and put it into my bosom. Perhaps it was Lillian's handwriting! I looked round at the ladies; but their faces were each buried behind a book. We went in to dinner; and, to my delight, I sat next to my goddess, while opposite me was my cousin. Luckily, I had got some directions from him as to what to say and do, when my wonders, the servants, thrust eatables and drinkables over nay shoulders. Lillian and my cousin chatted away about church-architecture, and the restorations which were going on at the cathedral; while I, for the first half of dinner, feasted my eyes with the sight of a beauty, in which I seemed to discover every moment some new excellence. Every time I looked up at her, my eyes dazzled, my face burnt, my heart sank, and soft thrills ran through every nerve. And yet, Heaven knows, my emotions were as pure as those of an infant. It was beauty, longed for, and found at last, which I adored as a thing not to be possessed, but worshipped. The desire, even the thought, of calling her my own, never crossed my mind. I felt that I could gladly die, if by death I could purchase the permission to watch her. I understood, then, and for ever after, the pure devotion of the old knights and troubadours of chivalry. I seemed to myself to be their brother--one of the holy guild of poet-lovers. I was a new Petrarch, basking in the light-rays of a new Laura. I gazed, and gazed, and found new life in gazing, and was content. But my simple bliss was perfected, when she suddenly turned to me, and began asking me questions on the very points on which I was best able to answer. She talked about poetry, Tennyson and Wordsworth; asked me if I understood Browning's Sordello; and then comforted me, after my stammering confession that I did not, by telling me she was delighted to hear that; for she did not understand it either, and it was so pleasant to have a companion in ignorance. Then she asked me, if I was much struck with the buildings in Cambridge?--had they inspired me with any verses yet?--I was bound to write something about them--and so on; making the most commonplace remarks look brilliant, from the ease and liveliness with which they were spoken, and the tact with which they were made pleasant to the listener: while I wondered at myself, for enjoying from her lips the flippant, sparkling tattle, which had hitherto made young women to me objects of unspeakable dread, to be escaped by crossing the street, hiding behind doors, and rushing blindly into back-yards and coal-holes. The ladies left the room; and I, with Lillian's face glowing bright in my imagination, as the crimson orb remains on the retina of the closed eye, after looking intently at the sun, sat listening to a pleasant discussion between the dean and the nobleman, about some country in the East, which they had both visited, and greedily devouring all the new facts which, they incidentally brought forth out of the treasures of their highly cultivated minds. I was agreeably surprised (don't laugh, reader) to find that I was allowed to drink water; and that the other men drank not more than a glass or two of wine, after the ladies had retired. I had, somehow, got both lords and deans associated in my mind with infinite swillings of port wine, and bacchanalian orgies, and sat down at first, in much fear and trembling, lest I should be compelled to join, under penalties of salt-and-water; but I had made up my mind, stoutly, to bear anything rather than get drunk; and so I had all the merit of a temperance-martyr, without any of its disagreeables. "Well" said I to myself, smiling in spirit, "what would my Chartist friends say if they saw me here? Not even Crossthwaite himself could find a flaw in the appreciation of merit for its own sake, the courtesy and condescension--ah! but he would complain of it, simply for being condescension." But, after all, what else could it be? Were not these men more experienced, more learned, older than myself? They were my superiors; it was in vain for me to attempt to hide it from myself. But the wonder was, that they themselves were the ones to appear utterly unconscious of it. They treated me as an equal; they welcomed me--the young viscount and the learned dean--on the broad ground of a common humanity; as I believe hundreds more of their class would do, if we did not ourselves take a pride in estranging them from us--telling them that fraternization between our classes is impossible, and then cursing them for not fraternizing with us. But of that, more hereafter. At all events, now my bliss was perfect. No! I was wrong--a higher enjoyment than all awaited me, when, going into the drawing-room, I found Lillian singing at the piano. I had no idea that music was capable of expressing and conveying emotions so intense and ennobling. My experience was confined to street music, and to the bawling at the chapel. And, as yet, Mr. Hullah had not risen into a power more enviable than that of kings, and given to every workman a free entrance into the magic world of harmony and melody, where he may prove his brotherhood with Mozart and Weber, Beethoven and Mendelssohn. Great unconscious demagogue!--leader of the people, and labourer in the cause of divine equality!--thy reward is with the Father of the people! The luscious softness of the Italian airs overcame me with a delicious enervation. Every note, every interval, each shade of expression spoke to me--I knew not what: and yet they spoke to my heart of hearts. A spirit out of the infinite heaven seemed calling to my spirit, which longed to answer--and was dumb--and could only vent itself in tears, which welled unconsciously forth, and eased my heart from the painful tension of excitement. * * * * * Her voice is hovering o'er my soul--it lingers, O'ershadowing it with soft and thrilling wings; The blood and life within those snowy fingers Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings. My brain is wild, my breath comes quick. The blood is listening in my frame; And thronging shadows, fast and thick, Fall on my overflowing eyes. My heart is quivering like a flame; As morning-dew that in the sunbeam dies, I am dissolved in these consuming ecstacies. * * * * * The dark lady, Miss Staunton, as I ought to call her, saw my emotion, and, as I thought unkindly, checked the cause of it at once. "Pray do not give us any more of those die-away Italian airs, Lillian. Sing something manful, German or English, or anything you like, except those sentimental wailings." Lillian stopped, took another book, and commenced, after a short prelude, one of my own songs. Surprise and pleasure overpowered me more utterly than the soft southern melodies had done. I was on the point of springing up and leaving the room, when my raptures were checked by our host, who turned round, and stopped short in an oration on the geology of Upper Egypt. "What's that about brotherhood and freedom, Lillian? We don't want anything of that kind here." "It's only a popular London song, papa," answered she, with an arch smile. "Or likely to become so," added Miss Staunton, in her marked dogmatic tone. "I am very sorry for London, then." And he returned to the deserts. CHAPTER XV. THE MAN OF SCIENCE. After breakfast the next morning, Lillian retired, saying laughingly, that she must go and see after her clothing club and her dear old women at the almshouse, which, of course, made me look on her as more an angel than ever. And while George was left with Lord Lynedale, I was summoned to a private conference with the dean, in his study. I found him in a room lined with cabinets of curiosities, and hung all over with strange horns, bones, and slabs of fossils. But I was not allowed much time to look about me; for he commenced at once on the subject of my studies, by asking me whether I was willing to prepare myself for the university, by entering on the study of mathematics? I felt so intense a repugnance to them, that at the risk of offending him--perhaps, for what I knew, fatally--I dared to demur. He smiled-- "I am convinced, young man, that even if you intended to follow poetry as a profession--and a very poor one you will find it--yet you will never attain to any excellence therein, without far stricter mental discipline than any to which you have been accustomed. That is why I abominate our modern poets. They talk about the glory of the poetic vocation, as if they intended to be kings and world-makers, and all the while they indulge themselves in the most loose and desultory habits of thought. Sir, if they really believed their own grandiloquent assumptions, they would feel that the responsibility of their mental training was greater, not less, than any one's else. Like the Quakers, they fancy that they honour inspiration by supposing it to be only extraordinary and paroxysmic: the true poet, like the rational Christian, believing that inspiration is continual and orderly, that it reveals harmonious laws, not merely excites sudden emotions. You understand me?" I did, tolerably; and subsequent conversations with him fixed the thoughts sufficiently in my mind, to make me pretty sure that I am giving a faithful verbal transcript of them. "You must study some science. Have you read any logic?" I mentioned Watts' "Logic," and Locke "On the Use of the Understanding"--two books well known to reading artizans. "Ah," he said, "such books are very well, but they are merely popular. 'Aristotle,' 'Bitter on Induction,' and Kant's 'Prolegomena' and 'Logic'--when you had read them some seven or eight times over, you might consider yourself as knowing somewhat about the matter." "I have read a little about induction in Whately." "Ah, very good book, but popular. Did you find that your method of thought received any benefit from it?" "The truth is--I do not know whether I can quite express myself clearly--but logic, like mathematics, seems to tell me too little about things. It does not enlarge my knowledge of man or nature; and those are what I thirst for. And you must remember--I hope I am not wrong in saying it--that the case of a man of your class, who has the power of travelling, of reading what he will, and seeing what he will, is very different from that of an artisan, whose chances of observation are so sadly limited. You must forgive us, if we are unwilling to spend our time over books which tell us nothing about the great universe outside the shop-windows." He smiled compassionately. "Very true, my boy, There are two branches of study, then, before you, and by either of them a competent subsistence is possible, with good interest. Philology is one. But before you could arrive at those depths in it which connect with ethnology, history, and geography, you would require a lifetime of study. There remains yet another. I see you stealing glances at those natural curiosities. In the study of them, you would find, as I believe, more and more daily, a mental discipline superior even to that which language or mathematics give. If I had been blest with a son--but that is neither here nor there--it was my intention to have educated him almost entirely as a naturalist. I think I should like to try the experiment on a young man like yourself." Sandy Mackaye's definition of legislation for the masses, "Fiat experimentum in corpore vili," rose up in my thoughts, and, half unconsciously, passed my lips. The good old man only smiled. "That is not my reason, Mr. Locke. I should choose, by preference, a man of your class for experiments, not because the nature is coarser, or less precious in the scale of creation, but because I have a notion, for which, like many others, I have been very much laughed at, that you are less sophisticated, more simple and fresh from nature's laboratory, than the young persons of the upper classes, who begin from the nursery to be more or less trimmed up, and painted over by the artificial state of society--a very excellent state, mind, Mr. Locke. Civilization is, next to Christianity of course, the highest blessing; but not so good a state for trying anthropological experiments on." I assured him of my great desire to be the subject of such an experiment; and was encouraged by his smile to tell him something about my intense love for natural objects, the mysterious pleasure which I had taken, from my boyhood, in trying to classify them, and my visits to the British Museum, for the purpose of getting at some general knowledge of the natural groups. "Excellent," he said, "young man; the very best sign I have yet seen in you. And what have you read on these subjects?" I mentioned several books: Bingley, Bewick, "Humboldt's Travels," "The Voyage of the Beagle," various scattered articles in the Penny and Saturday Magazines, &c., &c. "Ah!" he said, "popular--you will find, if you will allow me to give you my experience--" I assured him that I was only too much honoured--and I truly felt so. I knew myself to be in the presence of my rightful superior--my master on that very point of education which I idolized. Every sentence which he spoke gave me fresh light on some matter or other; and I felt a worship for him, totally irrespective of any vulgar and slavish respect for his rank or wealth. The working man has no want for real reverence. Mr. Carlyle's being a "gentlemen" has not injured his influence with the people. On the contrary, it is the artisan's intense longing to find his real _lords_ and guides, which makes him despise and execrate his sham ones. Whereof let society take note. "Then," continued he, "your plan is to take up some one section of the subject, and thoroughly exhaust that. Universal laws manifest themselves only by particular instances. They say, man is the microcosm, Mr. Locke; but the man of science finds every worm and beetle a microcosm in its way. It exemplifies, directly or indirectly, every physical law in the universe, though it may not be two lines long. It is not only a part, but a mirror, of the great whole. It has a definite relation to the whole world, and the whole world has a relation to it. Really, by-the-by, I cannot give you a better instance of what I mean, than in my little diatribe on the Geryon Trifurcifer, a small reptile which I found, some years ago, inhabiting the mud of the salt lakes of Balkhan, which fills up a long-desired link between the Chelonia and the Perenni branchiate Batrachians, and, as I think, though Professor Brown differs from me, connects both with the Herbivorous Cetacea,--Professor Brown is an exceedingly talented man, but a little too cautious in accepting any one's theories but his own. "There it is," he said, as he drew out of a drawer a little pamphlet of some thirty pages--"an old man's darling. I consider that book the outcome of thirteen years' labour." "It must be very deep," I replied, "to have been worth such long-continued study." "Oh! science is her own reward. There is hardly a great physical law which I have not brought to bear on the subject of that one small animal; and above all--what is in itself worth a life's labour--I have, I believe, discovered two entirely new laws of my own, though one of them, by-the-by, has been broached by Professor Brown since, in his lectures. He might have mentioned my name in connection with the subject, for I certainly imparted my ideas to him, two years at least before the delivery of those lectures of his. Professor Brown is a very great man, certainly, and a very good man, but not quite so original as is generally supposed. Still, a scientific man must expect his little disappointments and injustices. If you were behind the scenes in the scientific world, I can assure you, you would find as much party-spirit, and unfairness, and jealousy, and emulation there, as anywhere else. Human nature, human nature, everywhere!" I said nothing, but thought the more; and took the book, promising to study it carefully. "There is Cuvier's 'Animal Kingdom,' and a dictionary of scientific terms to help you; and mind, it must be got up thoroughly, for I purpose to set you an examination or two in it, a few days hence. Then I shall find out whether you know what is worth all the information in the world." "What is that, sir?" "The art of getting information _artem discendi_, Mr. Locke, wherewith the world is badly provided just now, as it is overstocked with the _artem legendi_--the knack of running the eye over books, and fancying that it understands them, because it can talk about them. You cannot play that trick with my Geryon Trifurcifer, I assure you; he is as dry and tough as his name. But, believe me, he is worth mastering, not because he is mine, but simply because he is tough." I promised all diligence. "Very good. And be sure, if you intend to be a poet for these days (and I really think you have some faculty for it), you must become a scientific man. Science has made vast strides, and introduced entirely new modes of looking at nature, and poets must live up to the age. I never read a word of Goethe's verse, but I am convinced that he must be the great poet of the day, just because he is the only one who has taken the trouble to go into the details of practical science. And, in the mean time, I will give you a lesson myself. I see you are longing to know the contents of these cabinets. You shall assist me by writing out the names of this lot of shells, just come from Australia, which I am now going to arrange." I set to work at once, under his directions; and passed that morning, and the two or three following, delightfully. But I question whether the good dean would have been well satisfied, had he known, how all his scientific teaching confirmed my democratic opinions. The mere fact, that I could understand these things when they were set before me, as well as any one else, was to me a simple demonstration of the equality in worth, and therefore in privilege, of all classes. It may be answered, that I had no right to argue from myself to the mob; and that other working geniuses have no right to demand universal enfranchisement for their whole class, just because they, the exceptions, are fit for it. But surely it is hard to call such an error, if it be one, "the insolent assumption of democratic conceit," &c., &c. Does it not look more like the humility of men who are unwilling to assert for themselves peculiar excellence, peculiar privileges; who, like the apostles of old, want no glory, save that which they can share with the outcast and the slave? Let society among other matters, take note of that. CHAPTER XVI. CULTIVATED WOMEN. I was thus brought in contact, for the first time in my life, with two exquisite specimens of cultivated womanhood; and they naturally, as the reader may well suppose, almost entirely engrossed my thoughts and interest. Lillian, for so I must call her, became daily more and more agreeable; and tried, as I fancied, to draw me out, and show me off to the best advantage; whether from the desire of pleasing herself, or pleasing me, I know not, and do not wish to know--but the consequences to my boyish vanity were such as are more easy to imagine, than pleasant to describe. Miss Staunton, on the other hand, became, I thought, more and more unpleasant; not that she ever, for a moment, outstepped the bounds of the most perfect courtesy; but her manner, which was soft to no one except to Lord Lynedale, was, when she spoke to me, especially dictatorial and abrupt. She seemed to make a point of carping at chance words of mine, and of setting me, down suddenly, by breaking in with some severe, pithy observation, on conversations to which she had been listening unobserved. She seemed, too, to view with dislike anything like cordiality between me and Lillian--a dislike, which I was actually at moments vain enough (such a creature is man!) to attribute to--jealousy!!! till I began to suspect and hate her, as a proud, harsh, and exclusive aristocrat. And my suspicion and hatred received their confirmation, when, one morning, after an evening even more charming than usual, Lillian came down, reserved, peevish, all but sulky, and showed that that bright heaven of sunny features had room in it for a cloud, and that an ugly one. But I, poor fool, only pitied her, made up my mind that some one had ill-used her; and looked on her as a martyr--perhaps to that harsh cousin of hers. That day was taken up with writing out answers to the dean's searching questions on his pamphlet, in which, I believe, I acquitted myself tolerably; and he seemed far more satisfied with my commentary than I was with his text. He seemed to ignore utterly anything like religion, or even the very notion of God, in his chains of argument. Nature was spoken of as the wilier and producer of all the marvels which he describes; and every word in the book, to my astonishment, might have been written just as easily by an Atheist as by a dignitary of the Church of England. I could not help, that evening, hinting this defect, as delicately as I could, to my good host, and was somewhat surprised to find that he did not consider it a defect at all. "I am in no wise anxious to weaken the antithesis between natural and revealed religion. Science may help the former, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the latter. She stands on her own ground, has her own laws, and is her own reward. Christianity is a matter of faith and of the teaching of the Church. It must not go out of its way for science, and science must not go out of her way for it; and where they seem to differ, it is our duty to believe that they are reconcilable by fuller knowledge, but not to clip truth in order to make it match with doctrine." "Mr. Carlyle," said Miss Staunton, in her abrupt way, "can see that the God of Nature is the God of man." "Nobody denies that, my dear." "Except in every word and action; else why do they not write about Nature as if it was the expression of a living, loving spirit, not merely a dead machine?" "It may be very easy, my dear, for a Deist like Mr. Carlyle to see _his_ God in Nature; but if he would accept the truths of Christianity, he would find that there were deeper mysteries in them than trees and animals can explain." "Pardon me, sir," I said, "but I think that a very large portion of thoughtful working men agree with you, though, in their case, that opinion has only increased their difficulties about Christianity. They complain that they cannot identify the God of the Bible with the God of the world around them; and one of their great complaints against Christianity is, that it demands assent to mysteries which are independent of, and even contradictory to, the laws of Nature." The old man was silent. "Mr. Carlyle is no Deist," said Miss Staunton; "and I am sure, that unless the truths of Christianity contrive soon to get themselves justified by the laws of science, the higher orders will believe in them as little as Mr. Locke informs us that the working classes do." "You prophesy confidently, my darling." "Oh, Eleanor is in one of her prophetic moods to-night," said Lillian, slyly. "She has been foretelling me I know not what misery and misfortune, just because I choose to amuse myself in my own way." And she gave another sly pouting look at Eleanor, and then called me to look over some engravings, chatting over them so charmingly!--and stealing, every now and then, a pretty, saucy look at her cousin, which seemed to say, "I shall do what I like, in spite of your predictions." This confirmed my suspicions that Eleanor had been trying to separate us; and the suspicion received a further corroboration, indirect, and perhaps very unfair, from the lecture which I got from my cousin after I went up-stairs. He had been flattering me very much lately about "the impression" I was making on the family, and tormenting me by compliments on the clever way in which I "played my cards"; and when I denied indignantly any such intention, patting me on the back, and laughing me down in a knowing way, as much as to say that he was not to be taken in by my professions of simplicity. He seemed to judge every one by himself, and to have no notion of any middle characters between the mere green-horn and the deliberate schemer. But to-night, after commencing with the usual compliments, he went on: "Now, first let me give you one hint, and be thankful for it. Mind your game with that Eleanor--Miss Staunton. She is a regular tyrant, I happen to know: a strong-minded woman, with a vengeance. She manages every one here; and unless you are in her good books, don't expect to keep your footing in this house, my boy. So just mind and pay her a little more attention and Miss Lillian a little less. After all, it is worth the trouble. She is uncommonly well read; and says confounded clever things, too, when she wakes up out of the sulks; and you may pick up a wrinkle or two from her, worth pocketing. You mind what she says to you. You know she is going to be married to Lord Lynedale." I nodded assent. "Well, then, if you want to hook him, you must secure her first." "I want to hook no one, George; I have told you that a thousand times." "Oh, no! certainly not--by no means! Why should you?" said the artful dodger. And he swung, laughing, out of the room, leaving in my mind a strange suspicion, of which I was ashamed, though I could not shake it off, that he had remarked Eleanor's wish to cool my admiration for Lillian, and was willing, for some purpose of his own, to further that wish. The truth is, I had very little respect for him, or trust in him: and I was learning to look, habitually, for some selfish motive in all he said or did. Perhaps, if I had acted more boldly upon what I did see, I should not have been here now. CHAPTER XVII. SERMONS IN STONES. The next afternoon was the last but one of my stay at D * * *. We were to dine late, after sunset, and, before dinner, we went into the cathedral. The choir had just finished practising. Certain exceedingly ill-looking men, whose faces bespoke principally sensuality and self-conceit, and whose function was that of praising God, on the sole qualification of good bass and tenor voices, were coming chattering through the choir gates; and behind them a group of small boys were suddenly transforming themselves from angels into sinners, by tearing off their white surplices, and pinching and poking each other noisily as they passed us, with as little reverence as Voltaire himself could have desired. I had often been in the cathedral before--indeed, we attended the service daily, and I had been appalled, rather than astonished, by what I saw and heard: the unintelligible service--the irreverent gabble of the choristers and readers--the scanty congregation--the meagre portion of the vast building which seemed to be turned to any use: but never more than that evening, did I feel the desolateness, the doleful inutility, of that vast desert nave, with its aisles and transepts--built for some purpose or other now extinct. The whole place seemed to crush and sadden me; and I could not re-echo Lillian's remark: "How those pillars, rising story above story, and those lines of pointed arches, all lead the eye heavenward! It is a beautiful notion, that about pointed architecture being symbolic of Christianity." "I ought to be very much ashamed of my stupidity," I answered; "but I cannot feel that, though I believe I ought to do so. That vast groined roof, with its enormous weight of hanging stone, seems to crush one--to bar out the free sky above. Those pointed windows, too--how gloriously the western sun is streaming through them! but their rich hues only dim and deface his light. I can feel what you say, when I look at the cathedral on the outside; there, indeed, every line sweeps the eye upward--carries it from one pinnacle to another, each with less and less standing-ground, till at the summit the building gradually vanishes in a point, and leaves the spirit to wing its way, unsupported and alone, into the ether. "Perhaps," I added, half bitterly, "these cathedrals may be true symbols of the superstition which created them--on the outside, offering to enfranchise the soul and raise it up to heaven; but when the dupes had entered, giving them only a dark prison, and a crushing bondage, which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear." "You may sneer at them, if you will, Mr. Locke," said Eleanor, in her severe, abrupt way. "The working classes would have been badly off without them. They were, in their day, the only democratic institution in the world; and the only socialist one too. The only chance a poor man had of rising by his worth, was by coming to the monastery. And bitterly the working classes felt the want of them, when they fell. Your own Cobbett can tell you that." "Ah," said Lillian, "how different it must have been four hundred years ago!--how solemn and picturesque those old monks must have looked, gliding about the aisles!--and how magnificent the choir must have been, before all the glass and carving, and that beautiful shrine of St. * * * *, blazing with gold and jewels, were all plundered and defaced by those horrid Puritans!" "Say, reformer-squires," answered Eleanor; "for it was they who did the thing; only it was found convenient, at the Restoration, to lay on the people of the seventeenth century the iniquities which the country-gentlemen committed in the sixteenth." "Surely," I added, emboldened by her words, "if the monasteries were what their admirers say, some method of restoring the good of the old system, without its evil, ought to be found; and would be found, if it were not--" I paused, recollecting whose guest I was. "If it were not, I suppose," said Eleanor, "for those lazy, overfed, bigoted hypocrites, the clergy. That, I presume, is the description of them to which you have been most accustomed. Now, let me ask you one question. Do you mean to condemn, just now, the Church as it was, or the Church as it is, or the Church as it ought to be? Radicals have a habit of confusing those three questions, as they have of confusing other things when it suits them." "Really," I said--for my blood was rising--"I do think that, with the confessed enormous wealth of the clergy, the cathedral establishments especially, they might do more for the people." "Listen to me a little, Mr. Locke. The laity now-a-days take a pride in speaking evil of the clergy, never seeing that if they are bad, the laity have made them so. Why, what do you impute to them? Their worldliness, their being like the world, like the laity round them--like you, in short? Improve yourselves, and by so doing, if there is this sad tendency in the clergy to imitate you, you will mend them; if you do not find that after all, it is they who will have to mend you. 'As with the people, so with the priest,' is the everlasting law. When, fifty years ago, all classes were drunkards, from the statesman to the peasant, the clergy were drunken also, but not half so bad as the laity. Now the laity are eaten up with covetousness and ambition; and the clergy are covetous and ambitious, but not half so bad as the laity. The laity, and you working men especially, are the dupes of frothy, insincere, official rant, as Mr. Carlyle would call it, in Parliament, on the hustings, at every debating society and Chartist meeting; and, therefore, the clergyman's sermons are apt to be just what people like elsewhere, and what, therefore, they suppose people will like there." "If, then," I answered, "in spite of your opinions, you confess the clergy to be so bad, why are you so angry with men of our opinions, if we do plot sometimes a little against the Church?" "I do not think you know what my opinions are, Mr. Locke. Did you not hear me just now praising the monasteries, because they were socialist and democratic? But why is the badness of the clergy any reason for pulling down the Church? That is another of the confused irrationalities into which you all allow yourselves to fall. What do you mean by crying shame on a man for being a bad clergyman, if a good clergyman is not a good thing? If the very idea of a clergyman, was abominable, as your Church-destroyers ought to say, you ought to praise a man for being a bad one, and not acting out this same abominable idea of priesthood. Your very outcry against the sins of the clergy, shows that, even in your minds, a dim notion lies somewhere that a clergyman's vocation is, in itself, a divine, a holy, a beneficent one." "I never looked at it in that light, certainly," said I, somewhat staggered. "Very likely not. One word more, for I may not have another opportunity of speaking to you as I would on these matters. You working men complain of the clergy for being bigoted and obscurantist, and hating the cause of the people. Does not nine-tenths of the blame of that lie at your door? I took up, the other day, at hazard, one of your favourite liberty-preaching newspapers; and I saw books advertised in it, whose names no modest woman should ever behold; doctrines and practices advocated in it from which all the honesty, the decency, the common human feeling which is left in the English mind, ought to revolt, and does revolt. You cannot deny it. Your class has told the world that the cause of liberty, equality, and fraternity, the cause which the working masses claim as theirs, identifies itself with blasphemy and indecency, with the tyrannous persecutions of trades-unions, with robbery, assassinations, vitriol-bottles, and midnight incendiarism. And then you curse the clergy for taking you at your word! Whatsoever they do, you attack them. If they believe you, and stand up for common, morality, and for the truths which they know are all-important to poor as well as rich, you call them bigots and persecutors; while if they neglect, in any way, the very Christianity for believing which you insult them, you turn round and call them hypocrites. Mark my words, Mr. Locke, till you gain the respect and confidence of the clergy, you will never rise. The day will come when you will find that the clergy are the only class who can help you. Ah, you may shake your head. I warn you of it. They were the only bulwark of the poor against the mediæval tyranny of Rank; you will find them the only bulwark against the modern tyranny of Mammon." I was on the point of entreating her to explain herself further, but at that critical moment Lillian interposed. "Now, stay your prophetic glances into the future; here come Lynedale and papa." And in a moment, Eleanor's whole manner and countenance altered--the petulant, wild unrest, the harsh, dictatorial tone vanished; and she turned to meet her lover, with a look of tender, satisfied devotion, which transfigured her whole face. It was most strange, the power he had over her. His presence, even at a distance, seemed to fill her whole being with rich quiet life. She watched him with folded hands, like a mystic worshipper, waiting for the afflatus of the spirit; and, suspicious and angry as I felt towards her, I could not help being drawn to her by this revelation of depths of strong healthy feeling, of which her usual manner gave so little sign. This conversation thoroughly puzzled me; it showed me that there might be two sides to the question of the people's cause, as well as to that of others. It shook a little my faith in the infallibility of my own class, to hear such severe animadversions on them, from a person who professed herself as much a disciple of Carlyle as any working man; and who evidently had no lack either of intellect to comprehend or boldness to speak out his doctrines; who could praise the old monasteries for being democratic and socialist, and spoke far more severely of the clergy than I could have done--because she did not deal merely in trite words of abuse, but showed a real analytic insight into the causes of their short-coming. * * * * * That same evening the conversation happened to turn on dress, of which Miss Staunton spoke scornfully and disparagingly, as mere useless vanity and frippery--an empty substitute for real beauty of person as well as the higher beauty of mind. And I, emboldened by the courtesy with which I was always called on to take my share in everything that was said or done, ventured to object, humbly enough, to her notions. "But is not beauty," I said, "in itself a good and blessed thing, softening, refining, rejoicing the eyes of all who behold?" (And my eyes, as I spoke, involuntary rested on Lillian's face--who saw it, and blushed.) "Surely nothing which helps beauty is to be despised. And, without the charm of dress, beauty, even that of expression, does not really do itself justice. How many lovely and lovable faces there are, for instance, among the working classes, which, if they had but the advantages which ladies possess, might create delight, respect, chivalrous worship in the beholder--but are now never appreciated, because they have not the same fair means of displaying themselves which even the savage girl of the South Sea Islands possesses!" Lillian said it was so very true--she had really never thought of it before--and somehow I gained courage to go on. "Besides, dress is a sort of sacrament, if I may use the word--a sure sign of the wearer's character; according as any one is orderly, or modest, or tasteful, or joyous, or brilliant"--and I glanced again at Lillian--"those excellences, or the want of them, are sure to show themselves, in the colours they choose, and the cut of their garments. In the workroom, I and a friend of mine used often to amuse ourselves over the clothes we were making, by speculating from them on the sort of people the wearers were to be; and I fancy we were not often wrong." My cousin looked daggers at me, and for a moment I fancied I had committed a dreadful mistake in mentioning my tailor-life. So I had in his eyes, but not in those of the really well-bred persons round me. "Oh, how very amusing it must have been! I think I shall turn milliner, Eleanor, for the fun of divining every one's little failings from their caps and gowns!" "Go on, Mr. Locke," said the dean, who had seemed buried in the "Transactions of the Royal Society." "The fact is novel, and I am more obliged to any one who gives me that, than if he gave me a bank-note. The money gets spent and done with; but I cannot spend the fact: it remains for life as permanent capital, returning interest and compound interest _ad infinitum_. By-the-by, tell me about those same workshops. I have heard more about them than I like to believe true." And I did tell him all about them; and spoke, my blood rising as I went on, long and earnestly, perhaps eloquently. Now and then I got abashed, and tried to stop; and then the dean informed me that I was speaking well and sensibly, while Lillian entreated me to go on. She had never conceived such things possible--it was as interesting as a novel, &c., &c.; and Miss Staunton sat with compressed lips and frowning brow, apparently thinking of nothing but her book, till I felt quite angry at her apathy--for such it seemed to me to be. CHAPTER XVIII. MY FALL. And now the last day of our stay at D * * * had arrived, and I had as yet heard nothing of the prospects of my book; though, indeed, the company in which I had found myself had driven literary ambition, for the time being, out of my head, and bewitched me to float down the stream of daily circumstance, satisfied to snatch the enjoyment of each present moment. That morning, however, after I had fulfilled my daily task of arranging and naming objects of natural history, the dean settled himself back in his arm-chair, and bidding me sit down, evidently meditated a business conversation. He had heard from his publisher, and read his letter to me. "The poems were on the whole much liked. The most satisfactory method of publishing for all parties, would be by procuring so many subscribers, each agreeing to take so many copies. In consideration of the dean's known literary judgment and great influence, the publisher would, as a private favour, not object to take the risk of any further expenses." So far everything sounded charming. The method was not a very independent one, but it was the only one; and I should actually have the delight of having published a volume. But, alas! "he thought that the sale of the book might be greatly facilitated, if certain passages of a strong political tendency were omitted. He did not wish personally to object to them as statements of facts, or to the pictorial vigour with which they were expressed; but he thought that they were somewhat too strong for the present state of the public taste; and though he should be the last to allow any private considerations to influence his weak patronage of rising talent, yet, considering his present connexion, he should hardly wish to take on himself the responsibility of publishing such passages, unless with great modifications." "You see," said the good old man, "the opinion of respectable practical men, who know the world, exactly coincides with mine. I did not like to tell you that I could not help in the publication of your MSS. in their present state; but I am sure, from the modesty and gentleness which I have remarked in you, your readiness to listen to reason, and your pleasing freedom from all violence or coarseness in expressing your opinions, that you will not object to so exceedingly reasonable a request, which, after all, is only for your good. Ah! young man," he went on, in a more feeling tone than I had yet heard from him, "if you were once embroiled in that political world, of which you know so little, you would soon be crying like David, 'Oh that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest!' Do you fancy that you can alter a fallen world? What it is, it always has been, and will be to the end. Every age has its political and social nostrums, my dear young man, and fancies them infallible; and the next generation arises to curse them as failures in practice, and superstitious in theory, and try some new nostrum of its own." I sighed. "Ah! you may sigh. But we have each of us to be disenchanted of our dream. There was a time once when I talked republicanism as loudly as raw youth ever did--when I had an excuse for it, too; for when I was a boy, I saw the French Revolution; and it was no wonder if young, enthusiastic brains were excited by all sorts of wild hopes--'perfectibility of the species,' 'rights of man,' 'universal liberty, equality, and brotherhood.'--My dear sir, there is nothing new under the sun; all that is stale and trite to a septuagenarian, who has seen where it all ends. I speak to you freely, because I am deeply interested in you. I feel that this is the important question of your life, and that you have talents, the possession of which is a heavy responsibility. Eschew politics, once and for all, as I have done. I might have been, I may tell you, a bishop at this moment, if I had condescended to meddle again in those party questions of which my youthful experience sickened me. But I knew that I should only weaken my own influence, as that most noble and excellent man, Dr. Arnold, did, by interfering in politics. The poet, like the clergyman and the philosopher, has nothing to do with politics. Let them choose the better part, and it shall not be taken from them. The world may rave," he continued, waxing eloquent as he approached his favourite subject--"the world may rave, but in the study there is quiet. The world may change, Mr. Locke, and will; but 'the earth abideth for ever.' Solomon had seen somewhat of politics, and social improvement, and so on; and behold, then, as now, 'all was vanity and vexation of spirit. That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun? The thing which hath been, it is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under the sun. One generation passeth away, and another cometh; but the earth abideth for ever.' No wonder that the wisest of men took refuge from such experience, as I have tried to do, in talking of all herbs, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that groweth on the wall! "Ah! Mr. Locke," he went on, in a soft melancholy, half-abstracted tone--"ah! Mr. Locke, I have felt deeply, and you will feel some day, the truth of Jarno's saying in 'Wilhelm Meister,' when he was wandering alone in the Alps, with his geological hammer, 'These rocks, at least, tell me no lies, as men do.' Ay, there is no lie in Nature, no discord in the revelations of science, in the laws of the universe. Infinite, pure, unfallen, earth-supporting Titans, fresh as on the morning of creation, those great laws endure; your only true democrats, too--for nothing is too great or too small for them to take note of. No tiniest gnat, or speck of dust, but they feed it, guide it, and preserve it,--Hail and snow, wind and vapour, fulfilling their Maker's word; and like him, too, hiding themselves from the wise and prudent, and revealing themselves unto babes. Yes, Mr. Locke; it is the childlike, simple, patient, reverent heart, which science at once demands and cultivates. To prejudice or haste, to self-conceit or ambition, she proudly shuts her treasuries--to open them to men of humble heart, whom this world thinks simple dreamers--her Newtons, and Owens, and Faradays. Why should you not become such a man as they? You have the talents--you have the love for nature, you seem to have the gentle and patient spirit, which, indeed, will grow up more and more in you, if you become a real student of science. Or, if you must be a poet, why not sing of nature, and leave those to sing political squabbles, who have no eye for the beauty of her repose? How few great poets have been politicians!" I gently suggested Milton. "Ay! he became a great poet only when he had deserted politics, because they had deserted him. In blindness and poverty, in the utter failure of all his national theories, he wrote the works which have made him immortal. Was Shakespeare a politician? or any one of the great poets who have arisen during the last thirty years? Have they not all seemed to consider it a sacred duty to keep themselves, as far as they could, out of party strife?" I quoted Southey, Shelley, and Burns, as instances to the contrary; but his induction was completed already, to his own satisfaction. "Poor dear Southey was a great verse-maker, rather than a great poet; and I always consider that his party-prejudices and party-writing narrowed and harshened a mind which ought to have been flowing forth freely and lovingly towards all forms of life. And as for Shelley and Burns, their politics dictated to them at once the worst portions of their poetry and of their practice. Shelley, what little I have read of him, only seems himself when he forgets radicalism for nature; and you would not set Burns' life or death, either, as a model for imitation in any class. Now, do you know, I must ask you to leave me a little. I am somewhat fatigued with this long discussion" (in which, certainly, I had borne no great share); "and I am sure, that after all I have said, you will see the propriety of acceding to the publisher's advice. Go and think over it, and let me have your answer by post time." I did go and think over it--too long for my good. If I had acted on the first impulse, I should have refused, and been safe. These passages were the very pith and marrow of the poems. They were the very words which I had felt it my duty, my glory, to utter. I, who had been a working man, who had experienced all their sorrows and temptations--I, seemed called by every circumstance of my life to preach their cause, to expose their wrongs--I to squash my convictions, to stultify my book for the sake of popularity, money, patronage! And yet--all that involved seeing more of Lillian. They were only too powerful inducements in themselves, alas! but I believe I could have resisted them tolerably, if they had not been backed by love. And so a struggle arose, which the rich reader may think a very fantastic one, though the poor man will understand it, and surely pardon it also--seeing that he himself is Man. Could I not, just once in a way, serve God and Mammon at once?--or rather, not Mammon, but Venus: a worship which looked to me, and really was in my case, purer than all the Mariolatry in Popedom. After all, the fall might not be so great as it seemed--perhaps I was not infallible on these same points. (It is wonderful how humble and self-denying one becomes when one is afraid of doing one's duty.) Perhaps the dean might be right. He had been a republican himself once, certainly. The facts, indeed, which I had stated, there could be no doubt of; but I might have viewed them through a prejudiced and angry medium. I might have been not quite logical in my deductions from them--I might.... In short, between "perhapses" and "mights" I fell--a very deep, real, damnable fall; and consented to emasculate my poems, and become a flunkey and a dastard. I mentioned my consent that evening to the party; the dean purred content thereat. Eleanor, to my astonishment, just said, sternly and abruptly, "Weak!" and then turned away, while Lillian began: "Oh! what a pity! And really they were some of the prettiest verses of all! But of course my father must know best; you are quite right to be guided by him, and do whatever is proper and prudent. After all, papa, I have got the naughtiest of them all, you know, safe. Eleanor set it to music, and wrote it out in her book, and I thought it was so charming that I copied it." What Lillian said about herself I drank in as greedily as usual; what she said about Eleanor fell on a heedless ear, and vanished, not to reappear in my recollection till--But I must not anticipate. So it was all settled pleasantly; and I sat up that evening writing a bit of verse for Lillian, about the Old Cathedral, and "Heaven-aspiring towers," and "Aisles of cloistered shade," and all that sort of thing; which I did not believe or care for; but I thought it would please her, and so it did; and I got golden smiles and compliments for my first, though not my last, insincere poem. I was going fast down hill, in my hurry to rise. However, as I said, it was all pleasant enough. I was to return to town, and there await the dean's orders; and, most luckily, I had received that morning from Sandy Mackaye a characteristic letter: "Gowk, Telemachus, hearken! Item 1. Ye're fou wi' the Circean cup, aneath the shade o' shovel hats and steeple houses. "Item 2. I, cuif-Mentor that I am, wearing out a gude pair o' gude Scots brogues that my sister's husband's third cousin sent me a towmond gane fra Aberdeen, rinning ower the town to a' journals, respectable and ither, anent the sellin o' your 'Autobiography of an Engine-Boiler in the Vauxhall Road,' the whilk I ha' disposit o' at the last, to O'Flynn's _Weekly Warwhoop_; and gin ye ha' ony mair sic trash in your head, you may get your meal whiles out o' the same kist; unless, as I sair misdoubt, ye're praying already, like Eli's bairns, 'to be put into ane o' the priest's offices, that ye may eat a piece o' bread.' "Yell be coming the-morrow? I'm lane without ye; though I look for ye surely to come ben wi' a gowd shoulder-note, and a red nose." This letter, though it hit me hard, and made me, I confess, a little angry at the moment with my truest friend, still offered me a means of subsistence, and enabled me to decline safely the pecuniary aid which I dreaded the dean's offering me. And yet I felt dispirited and ill at ease. My conscience would not let me enjoy the success I felt I had attained. But next morning I saw Lillian; and I forgot books, people's cause, conscience, and everything. * * * * * I went home by coach--a luxury on which my cousin insisted--as he did on lending me the fare; so that in all I owed him somewhat more than eleven pounds. But I was too happy to care for a fresh debt, and home I went, considering my fortune made. My heart fell, as I stepped into the dingy little old shop! Was it the meanness of the place after the comfort and elegance of my late abode? Was it disappointment at not finding Mackaye at home? Or was it that black-edged letter which lay waiting for me on the table? I was afraid to open it; I knew not why. I turned it over and over several times, trying to guess whose the handwriting on the cover might be; the postmark was two days old; and at last I broke the seal. "Sir,--This is to inform you that your mother, Mrs. Locke, died this morning, a sensible sinner, not without assurance of her election: and that her funeral is fixed for Wednesday, the 29th instant. "The humble servant of the Lord's people, "J. WIGGINTON." CHAPTER XIX. SHORT AND SAD. I shall pass over the agonies of the next few days. There is self-exenteration enough and to spare in my story, without dilating on them. They are too sacred to publish, and too painful, alas! even to recall. I write my story, too, as a working man. Of those emotions which are common to humanity, I shall say but little--except when it is necessary to prove that the working man has feelings like the rest of his kind, But those feelings may, in this case, be supplied by the reader's own imagination. Let him represent them to himself as bitter, as remorseful as he will, he will not equal the reality. True, she had cast me off; but had I not rejoiced in that rejection which should have been my shame? True, I had fed on the hope of some day winning reconciliation, by winning fame; but before the fame had arrived, the reconciliation had become impossible. I had shrunk from going back to her, as I ought to have done, in filial humility, and, therefore, I was not allowed to go back to her in the pride of success. Heaven knows, I had not forgotten her. Night and day I had thought of her with prayers and blessings; but I had made a merit of my own love to her--my forgiveness of her, as I dared to call it. I had pampered my conceit with a notion that I was a martyr in the cause of genius and enlightenment. How hollow, windy, heartless, all that looked now. There! I will say no more. Heaven preserve any who read these pages from such days and nights as I dragged on till that funeral, and for weeks after it was over, when I had sat once more in the little old chapel, with all the memories of my childhood crowding up, and tantalizing me with the vision of their simple peace--never, never, to return! I heard my mother's dying pangs, her prayers, her doubts, her agonies, for my reprobate soul, dissected for the public good by my old enemy, Mr. Wigginton, who dragged in among his fulsome eulogies of my mother's "signs of grace," rejoicings that there were "babes span-long in hell." I saw my sister Susan, now a tall handsome woman, but become all rigid, sour, with coarse grim lips, and that crushed, self-conscious, reserved, almost dishonest look about the eyes, common to fanatics of every creed. I heard her cold farewell, as she put into my hands certain notes and diaries of my mother's, which she had bequeathed to me on her death-bed. I heard myself proclaimed inheritor of some small matters of furniture, which had belonged to her; told Susan carelessly to keep them for herself; and went forth, fancying that the curse of Cain was on my brow. I took home the diary; but several days elapsed before I had courage to open it. Let the words I read there be as secret as the misery which dictated them. I had broken my mother's heart!--no! I had not!--The infernal superstition which taught her to fancy that Heaven's love was narrower than her own--that God could hate his creature, not for its sins, but for the very nature which he had given it--that, that had killed her. And I remarked too, with a gleam of hope, that in several places where sunshine seemed ready to break through the black cloud of fanatic gloom--where she seemed inclined not merely to melt towards me (for there was, in every page, an under-current of love deeper than death, and stronger than the grave), but also to dare to trust God on my behalf--whole lines carefully erased page after page torn out, evidently long after the MSS. were written. I believe, to this day, that either my poor sister or her father-confessor was the perpetrator of that act. The _fraus pia_ is not yet extinct; and it is as inconvenient now as it was in popish times, to tell the whole truth about saints, when they dare to say or do things which will not quite fit into the formulæ of their sect. But what was to become of Susan? Though my uncle continued to her the allowance which he had made to my mother, yet I was her natural protector--and she was my only tie upon earth. Was I to lose her, too? Might we not, after all, be happy together, in some little hole in Chelsea, like Elia and his Bridget? That question was solved for me. She declined my offers; saying, that she could not live with any one whose religious opinions differed from her own, and that she had already engaged a room at the house of a Christian friend; and was shortly to be united to that dear man of God, Mr. Wigginton, who was to be removed to the work of the Lord in Manchester. I knew the scoundrel, but it would have been impossible for me to undeceive her. Perhaps he was only a scoundrel--perhaps he would not ill-treat her. And yet--my own little Susan! my play-fellow! my only tie on earth!--to lose her--and not only her, but her respect, her love!--And my spirit, deep enough already, sank deeper still into sadness; and I felt myself alone on earth, and clung to Mackaye as to a father--and a father indeed that old man was to me. CHAPTER XX. PEGASUS IN HARNESS. But, in sorrow or in joy, I had to earn my bread; and so, too, had Crossthwaite, poor fellow! How he contrived to feed himself and his little Katie for the next few years is more than I can tell; at all events he worked hard enough. He scribbled, agitated, ran from London to Manchester, and Manchester to Bradford, spouting, lecturing--sowing the east wind, I am afraid, and little more. Whose fault was it? What could such a man do, with that fervid tongue, and heart, and brain of his, in such a station as his, such a time as this? Society had helped to make him an agitator. Society has had, more or less, to take the consequences of her own handiwork. For Crossthwaite did not speak without hearers. He could make the fierce, shrewd, artisan nature flash out into fire--not always celestial, nor always, either, infernal. So he agitated and lived--how, I know not. That he did do so, is evident from the fact that he and Katie are at this moment playing chess in the cabin, before my eyes, and making love, all the while, as if they had not been married a week.... Ah, well! I, however, had to do more than get my bread; I had to pay off these fearful eleven pounds odd, which, now that all the excitement of my stay at D * * * had been so sadly quenched, lay like lead upon my memory. My list of subscribers filled slowly, and I had no power of increasing it by any canvassings of my own. My uncle, indeed, had promised to take two copies, and my cousin one; not wishing, of course, to be so uncommercial as to run any risk, before they had seen whether my poems would succeed. But, with those exceptions, the dean had it all his own way; and he could not be expected to forego his own literary labours for my sake; so, through all that glaring summer, and sad foggy autumn, and nipping winter, I had to get my bread as I best could--by my pen. Mackaye grumbled at my writing so much, and so fast, and sneered about the _furor scribendi_. But it was hardly fair upon me. "My mouth craved it of me," as Solomon says. I had really no other means of livelihood. Even if I could have gotten employment as a tailor, in the honourable trade, I loathed the business utterly--perhaps, alas! to confess the truth, I was beginning to despise it. I could bear to think of myself as a poor genius, in connection with my new wealthy and high-bred patrons; for there was precedent for the thing. Penniless bards and squires of low degree, low-born artists, ennobled by their pictures--there was something grand in the notion of mind triumphant over the inequalities of rank, and associating with the great and wealthy as their spiritual equal, on the mere footing of its own innate nobility; no matter to what den it might return, to convert it into a temple of the Muses, by the glorious creations of its fancy, &c., &c. But to go back daily from the drawing-room and the publisher's to the goose and the shopboard, was too much for my weakness, even if it had been physically possible, as, thank Heaven, it was not. So I became a hack-writer, and sorrowfully, but deliberately, "put my Pegasus into heavy harness," as my betters had done before me. It was miserable work, there is no denying it--only not worse than tailoring. To try and serve God and Mammon too; to make miserable compromises daily between the two great incompatibilities, what was true, and what would pay; to speak my mind, in fear and trembling, by hints, and halves, and quarters; to be daily hauling poor Truth just up to the top of the well, and then, frightened at my own success, let her plump down again to the bottom; to sit there trying to teach others, while my mind was in a whirl of doubt; to feed others' intellects while my own were hungering; to grind on in the Philistine's mill, or occasionally make sport for them, like some weary-hearted clown grinning in a pantomime in a "light article," as blind as Samson, but not, alas! as strong, for indeed my Delilah of the West-end had clipped my locks, and there seemed little chance of their growing again. That face and that drawing-room flitted before me from morning till eve, and enervated and distracted my already over-wearied brain. I had no time, besides, to concentrate my thoughts sufficiently for poetry; no time to wait for inspiration. From the moment I had swallowed my breakfast, I had to sit scribbling off my thoughts anyhow in prose; and soon my own scanty stock was exhausted, and I was forced to beg, borrow, and steal notions and facts wherever I could get them. Oh! the misery of having to read not what I longed to know, but what I thought would pay! to skip page after page of interesting matter, just to pick out a single thought or sentence which could be stitched into my patchwork! and then the still greater misery of seeing the article which I had sent to press a tolerably healthy and lusty bantling, appear in print next week after suffering the inquisition tortures of the editorial censorship, all maimed, and squinting, and one-sided, with the colour rubbed off its poor cheeks, and generally a villanous hang-dog look of ferocity, so different from its birth-smile that I often did not know my own child again!--and then, when I dared to remonstrate, however feebly, to be told, by way of comfort, that the public taste must be consulted! It gave me a hopeful notion of the said taste, certainly; and often and often I groaned in spirit over the temper of my own class, which not only submitted to, but demanded such one-sided bigotry, prurience, and ferocity, from those who set up as its guides and teachers. Mr. O'Flynn, editor of the _Weekly Warwhoop_, whose white slave I now found myself, was, I am afraid, a pretty faithful specimen of that class, as it existed before the bitter lesson of the 10th of April brought the Chartist working men and the Chartist press to their senses. Thereon sprang up a new race of papers, whose moral tone, whatever may be thought of their political or doctrinal opinions, was certainly not inferior to that of the Whig and Tory press. The _Commonwealth_, the _Standard of Freedom_, the _Plain Speaker_, were reprobates, if to be a Chartist is to be a reprobate: but none except the most one-sided bigots could deny them the praise of a stern morality and a lofty earnestness, a hatred of evil and a craving after good, which would often put to shame many a paper among the oracles of Belgravia and Exeter Hall. But those were the days of lubricity and O'Flynn. Not that the man was an unredeemed scoundrel. He was no more profligate, either in his literary or his private morals, than many a man who earns his hundreds, sometimes his thousands, a year, by prophesying smooth things to Mammon, crying in daily leaders "Peace! peace!" when there is no peace, and daubing the rotten walls of careless luxury and self-satisfied covetousness with the untempered mortar of party statistics and garbled foreign news--till "the storm shall fall, and the breaking thereof cometh suddenly in an instant." Let those of the respectable press who are without sin, cast the first stone at the unrespectable. Many of the latter class, who have been branded as traitors and villains, were single-minded, earnest, valiant men; and, as for even O'Flynn, and those worse than him, what was really the matter with them was, that they were too honest--they spoke out too much of their whole minds. Bewildered, like Lear, amid the social storm, they had determined, like him, to become "unsophisticated," "to owe the worm no silk, the cat no perfume"--seeing, indeed, that if they had, they could not have paid for them; so they tore off, of their own will, the peacock's feathers of gentility, the sheep's clothing of moderation, even the fig-leaves of decent reticence, and became just what they really were--just what hundreds more would become, who now sit in the high places of the earth, if it paid them as well to be unrespectable as it does to be respectable; if the selfishness and covetousness, bigotry and ferocity, which are in them, and more or less in every man, had happened to enlist them against existing evils, instead of for them. O'Flynn would have been gladly as respectable as they; but, in the first place, he must have starved; and in the second place, he must have lied; for he believed in his own radicalism with his whole soul. There was a ribald sincerity, a frantic courage in the man. He always spoke the truth when it suited him, and very often when it did not. He did see, which is more than all do, that oppression is oppression, and humbug, humbug. He had faced the gallows before now without flinching. He had spouted rebellion in the Birmingham Bullring, and elsewhere, and taken the consequences like a man; while his colleagues left their dupes to the tender mercies of broadswords and bayonets, and decamped in the disguise of sailors, old women, and dissenting preachers. He had sat three months in Lancaster Castle, the Bastille of England, one day perhaps to fall like that Parisian one, for a libel which he never wrote, because he would not betray his cowardly contributor. He had twice pleaded his own cause, without help of attorney, and showed himself as practised in every law-quibble and practical cheat as if he had been a regularly ordained priest of the blue-bag; and each time, when hunted at last into a corner, had turned valiantly to bay, with wild witty Irish eloquence, "worthy," as the press say of poor misguided Mitchell, "of a better cause." Altogether, a much-enduring Ulysses, unscrupulous, tough-hided, ready to do and suffer anything fair or foul, for what he honestly believed--if a confused, virulent positiveness be worthy of the name "belief"--to be the true and righteous cause. Those who class all mankind compendiously and comfortably under the two exhaustive species of saints and villains, may consider such a description garbled and impossible. I have seen few men, but never yet met I among those few either perfect saint or perfect villain. I draw men as I have found them--inconsistent, piece-meal, better than their own actions, worse than their own opinions, and poor O'Flynn among the rest. Not that there were no questionable spots in the sun of his fair fame. It was whispered that he had in old times done dirty work for Dublin Castle bureaucrats--nay, that he had even, in a very hard season, written court poetry for the _Morning Post_; but all these little peccadilloes he carefully veiled in that kindly mist which hung over his youthful years. He had been a medical student, and got plucked, his foes declared, in his examination. He had set up a savings-bank, which broke. He had come over from Ireland, to agitate for "repale" and "rint," and, like a wise man as he was, had never gone back again. He had set up three or four papers in his time, and entered into partnership with every leading democrat in turn; but his papers failed, and he quarrelled with his partners, being addicted to profane swearing and personalities. And now, at last, after Ulyssean wanderings, he had found rest in the office of the _Weekly Warwhoop_, if rest it could be called, that perennial hurricane of plotting, railing, sneering, and bombast, in which he lived, never writing a line, on principle, till he had worked himself up into a passion. I will dwell no more on so distasteful a subject. Such leaders, let us hope, belong only to the past--to the youthful self-will and licentiousness of democracy; and as for reviling O'Flynn, or any other of his class, no man has less right than myself, I fear, to cast stones at such as they. I fell as low as almost any, beneath the besetting sins of my class; and shall I take merit to myself, because God has shown me, a little earlier perhaps than to them, somewhat more of the true duties and destinies of The Many? Oh, that they could see the depths of my affection to them! Oh, that they could see the shame and self-abasement with which, in rebuking their sins, I confess my own! If they are apt to be flippant and bitter, so was I. If they lust to destroy, without knowing what to build up instead, so did I. If they make an almighty idol of that Electoral Reform, which ought to be, and can be, only a preliminary means, and expect final deliverance from "their twenty-thousandth part of a talker in the national palaver," so did I. Unhealthy and noisome as was the literary atmosphere in which I now found myself, it was one to my taste. The very contrast between the peaceful, intellectual luxury which I had just witnessed, and the misery of my class and myself, quickened my delight in it. In bitterness, in sheer envy, I threw my whole soul into it, and spoke evil, and rejoiced in evil. It was so easy to find fault! It pampered my own self-conceit, my own discontent, while it saved me the trouble of inventing remedies. Yes; it was indeed easy to find fault. "The world was all before me, where to choose." In such a disorganized, anomalous, grumbling, party-embittered element as this English society, and its twin pauperism and luxury, I had but to look straight before me to see my prey. And thus I became daily more and more cynical, fierce, reckless. My mouth was filled with cursing--and too often justly. And all the while, like tens of thousands of my class, I had no man to teach me. Sheep scattered on the hills, we were, that had no shepherd. What wonder if our bones lay bleaching among rocks and quagmires, and wolves devoured the heritage of God? Mackaye had nothing positive, after all, to advise or propound. His wisdom was one of apophthegms and maxims, utterly impracticable, too often merely negative, as was his creed, which, though he refused to be classed with any sect, was really a somewhat undefined Unitarianism--or rather Islamism. He could say, with the old Moslem, "God is great--who hath resisted his will?" And he believed what he said, and lived manful and pure, reverent and self-denying, by that belief, as the first Moslem did. But that was not enough. "Not enough? Merely negative?" No--_that_ was positive enough, and mighty; but I repeat it, it was not enough. He felt it so himself; for he grew daily more and more cynical, more and more hopeless about the prospects of his class and of all humanity. Why not? Poor suffering wretches! what is it to them to know that "God is great," unless you can prove to them God is also merciful? Did he indeed care for men at all?--was what I longed to know; was all this misery and misrule around us his will--his stern and necessary law--his lazy connivance? And were we to free ourselves from it by any frantic means that came to hand? or had he ever interfered himself? Was there a chance, a hope, of his interfering now, in our own time, to take the matter into his own hand, and come out of his place to judge the earth in righteousness? That was what we wanted to know; and poor Mackaye could give no comfort there. "God was great--the wicked would be turned into hell." Ay--the few wilful, triumphant wicked; but the millions of suffering, starving wicked, the victims of society and circumstance--what hope for them? "God was great." And for the clergy, our professed and salaried teachers, all I can say is--and there are tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of workmen who can re-echo my words--with the exception of the dean and my cousin, and one who shall be mentioned hereafter, a clergyman never spoke to me in my life. Why should he? Was I not a Chartist and an Infidel? The truth is, the clergy are afraid of us. To read the _Dispatch_, is to be excommunicated. Young men's classes? Honour to them, however few they are--however hampered by the restrictions of religious bigotry and political cowardice. But the working men, whether rightly or wrongly, do not trust them; they do not trust the clergy who set them on foot; they do not expect to be taught at them the things they long to know--to be taught the whole truth in them about history, politics, science, the Bible. They suspect them to be mere tubs to the whale--mere substitutes for education, slowly and late adopted, in order to stop the mouths of the importunate. They may misjudge the clergy; but whose fault is it if they do? Clergymen of England!--look at the history of your Establishment for the last fifty years, and say, what wonder is it if the artisan mistrust you? Every spiritual reform, since the time of John Wesley, has had to establish itself in the teeth of insult, calumny, and persecution. Every ecclesiastical reform comes not from within, but from without your body. Mr. Horsman, struggling against every kind of temporizing and trickery, has to do the work which bishops, by virtue of their seat in the House of Lords, ought to have been doing years ago. Everywhere we see the clergy, with a few persecuted exceptions (like Dr. Arnold), proclaiming themselves the advocates of Toryism, the dogged opponents of our political liberty, living either by the accursed system of pew-rents, or else by one which depends on the high price of corn; chosen exclusively from the classes who crush us down; prohibiting all free discussion on religious points; commanding us to swallow down, with faith as passive and implicit as that of a Papist, the very creeds from which their own bad example, and their scandalous neglect, have, in the last three generations, alienated us; never mixing with the thoughtful working men, except in the prison, the hospital, or in extreme old age; betraying, in every tract, in every sermon, an ignorance of the doubts, the feelings, the very language of the masses, which would be ludicrous, were it not accursed before God and man. And then will you show us a few tardy improvements here and there, and ask us, indignantly, why we distrust you? Oh! gentlemen, if you cannot see for yourselves the causes of our distrust, it is past our power to show you. We must leave it to God. * * * * * But to return to my own story. I had, as I said before, to live by my pen; and in that painful, confused, maimed way, I contrived to scramble on the long winter through, writing regularly for the _Weekly Warwhoop_, and sometimes getting an occasional scrap into some other cheap periodical, often on the very verge of starvation, and glad of a handful of meal from Sandy's widow's barrel. If I had had more than my share of feasting in the summer, I made the balance even, during those frosty months, by many a bitter fast. And here let me ask you, gentle reader, who are just now considering me ungentle, virulent, and noisy, did you ever, for one day in your whole life, literally, involuntarily, and in spite of all your endeavours, longings, and hungerings, _not get enough to eat_? If you ever have, it must have taught you several things. But all this while, it must not be supposed that I had forgotten my promise to good Farmer Porter, to look for his missing son. And, indeed, Crossthwaite and I were already engaged in a similar search for a friend of his--the young tailor, who, as I told Porter, had been lost for several months. He was the brother of Crossthwaite's wife, a passionate, kind-hearted Irishman, Mike Kelly by name, reckless and scatter-brained enough to get himself into every possible scrape, and weak enough of will never to get himself out of one. For these two, Crossthwaite and I had searched from one sweater's den to another, and searched in vain. And though the present interest and exertion kept us both from brooding over our own difficulties, yet in the long run it tended only to embitter and infuriate our minds. The frightful scenes of hopeless misery which we witnessed--the ever widening pit of pauperism and slavery, gaping for fresh victims day by day, as they dropped out of the fast lessening "honourable trade," into the ever-increasing miseries of sweating, piece-work, and starvation prices; the horrible certainty that the same process which was devouring our trade was slowly, but surely, eating up every other also; the knowledge that there was no remedy, no salvation for us in man, that political economists had declared such to be the law and constitution of society, and that our rulers had believed that message, and were determined to act upon it;--if all these things did not go far towards maddening us, we must have been made of sterner stuff than any one who reads this book. At last, about the middle of January, just as we had given up the search as hopeless, and poor Katie's eyes were getting red and swelled with daily weeping, a fresh spur was given to our exertions, by the sudden appearance of no less a person than the farmer himself. What ensued upon his coming must be kept for another chapter. CHAPTER XXI. THE SWEATER'S DEN. I was greedily devouring Lane's "Arabian Nights," which had made their first appearance in the shop that day. Mackaye sat in his usual place, smoking a clean pipe, and assisting his meditations by certain mysterious chironomic signs; while opposite to him was Farmer Porter--a stone or two thinner than when I had seen him last, but one stone is not much missed out of seventeen. His forehead looked smaller, and his jaws larger than ever, and his red face was sad, and furrowed with care. Evidently, too, he was ill at ease about other matters besides his son. He was looking out of the corners of his eyes, first at the skinless cast on the chimney-piece, then at the crucified books hanging over his head, as if he considered them not altogether safe companions, and rather expected something "uncanny" to lay hold of him from behind--a process which involved the most horrible contortions of visage, as he carefully abstained from stirring a muscle of his neck or body, but sat bolt upright, his elbows pinned to his sides, and his knees as close together as his stomach would permit, like a huge corpulent Egyptian Memnon--the most ludicrous contrast to the little old man opposite, twisted up together in his Joseph's coat, like some wizard magician in the stories which I was reading. A curious pair of "poles" the two made; the mesothet whereof, by no means a _"punctum indifferens,"_ but a true connecting spiritual idea, stood on the table--in the whisky-bottle. Farmer Porter was evidently big with some great thought, and had all a true poet's bashfulness about publishing the fruit of his creative genius. He looked round again at the skinless man, the caricatures, the books; and, as his eye wandered from pile to pile, and shelf to shelf, his face brightened, and he seemed to gain courage. Solemnly he put his hat on his knees, and began solemnly brushing it with his cuff. Then he saw me watching him, and stopped. Then he put his pipe solemnly on the hob, and cleared his throat for action, while I buried my face in the book. "Them's a sight o' larned beuks, Muster Mackaye?" "Humph!" "Yow maun ha' got a deal o' scholarship among they, noo?" "Humph!" "Dee yow think, noo, yow could find out my boy out of un, by any ways o' conjuring like?" "By what?" "Conjuring--to strike a perpendicular, noo, or say the Lord's Prayer backwards?" "Wadna ye prefer a meeracle or twa?" asked Sandy, after a long pull at the whisky-toddy. "Or a few efreets?" added I. "Whatsoever you likes, gentlemen. You're best judges, to be sure," answered Farmer Porter, in an awed and helpless voice. "Aweel--I'm no that disinclined to believe in the occult sciences. I dinna haud a'thegither wi' Salverte. There was mair in them than Magia naturalis, I'm thinking. Mesmerism and magic-lanterns, benj and opium, winna explain all facts, Alton, laddie. Dootless they were an unco' barbaric an' empiric method o' expressing the gran' truth o' man's mastery ower matter. But the interpenetration o' the spiritual an' physical worlds is a gran' truth too; an' aiblins the Deity might ha' allowed witchcraft, just to teach that to puir barbarous folk--signs and wonders, laddie, to mak them believe in somewhat mair than the beasts that perish: an' so ghaists an warlocks might be a necessary element o' the divine education in dark and carnal times. But I've no read o' a case in which necromancy, nor geomancy, nor coskinomancy, nor ony other mancy, was applied to sic a purpose as this. Unco gude they were, may be, for the discovery o' stolen spunes--but no that o' stolen tailors." Farmer Porter had listened to this harangue, with mouth and eyes gradually expanding between awe and the desire to comprehend; but at the last sentence his countenance fell. "So I'm thinking, Mister Porter, that the best witch in siccan a case is ane that ye may find at the police-office." "Anan?" "Thae detective police are gran' necromancers an' canny in their way: an' I just took the liberty, a week agone, to ha' a crack wi' ane o' 'em. An noo, gin ye're inclined, we'll leave the whusky awhile, an' gang up to that cave o' Trophawnius, ca'd by the vulgar Bow-street, an' speir for tidings o' the twa lost sheep." So to Bow-street we went, and found our man, to whom the farmer bowed with obsequiousness most unlike his usual burly independence. He evidently half suspected him to have dealings with the world of spirits: but whether he had such or not, they had been utterly unsuccessful; and we walked back again, with the farmer between us, half-blubbering-- "I tell ye, there's nothing like ganging to a wise 'ooman. Bless ye, I mind one up to Guy Hall, when I was a barn, that two Irish reapers coom down, and murthered her for the money--and if you lost aught she'd vind it, so sure as the church--and a mighty hand to cure burns; and they two villains coom back, after harvest, seventy mile to do it--and when my vather's cows was shrew-struck, she made un be draed under a brimble as growed together at the both ends, she a praying like mad all the time; and they never got nothing but fourteen shilling and a crooked sixpence; for why, the devil carried off all the rest of her money; and I seen um both a-hanging in chains by Wisbeach river, with my own eyes. So when they Irish reapers comes into the vens, our chaps always says, 'Yow goo to Guy Hall, there's yor brithren a-waitin' for yow,' and that do make um joost mad loike, it do. I tell ye there's nowt like a wise 'ooman, for vinding out the likes o' this." At this hopeful stage of the argument I left them to go to the Magazine office. As I passed through Covent Garden, a pretty young woman stopped me under a gas-lamp. I was pushing on when I saw it was Jemmy Downes's Irish wife, and saw, too, that she did not recognise me. A sudden instinct made me stop and hear what she had to say. "Shure, thin, and ye're a tailor, my young man?" "Yes," I said, nettled a little that my late loathed profession still betrayed itself in my gait. "From the counthry?" I nodded, though I dared not speak a white lie to that effect. I fancied that, somehow, through her I might hear of poor Kelly and his friend Porter. "Ye'll be wanting work, thin?" "I have no work." "Och, thin, it's I can show ye the flower o' work, I can. Bedad, there's a shop I know of where ye'll earn--bedad, if ye're the ninth part of a man, let alone a handy young fellow like the looks of you--och, ye'll earn thirty shillings the week, to the very least--an' beautiful lodgings; och, thin, just come and see 'em--as chape as mother's milk! Gome along, thin--och, it's the beauty ye are--just the nate figure for a tailor." The fancy still possessed me; and I went with her through one dingy back street after another. She seemed to be purposely taking an indirect road, to mislead me as to my whereabouts; but after a half-hour's walking, I knew, as well as she, that we were in one of the most miserable slop-working nests of the East-end. She stopped at a house door, and hurried me in, up to the first floor, and into a dirty, slatternly parlour, smelling infamously of gin; where the first object I beheld was Jemmy Downes, sitting before the fire, three-parts drunk, with a couple of dirty, squalling children on the hearthrug, whom he was kicking and cuffing alternately. "Och, thin, ye villain, beating the poor darlints whinever I lave ye a minute." And pouring out a volley of Irish curses, she caught up the urchins, one under each arm, and kissed and hugged them till they were nearly choked. "Och, ye plague o' my life--as drunk as a baste; an' I brought home this darlint of a young gentleman to help ye in the business." Downes got up, and steadying himself by the table, leered at me with lacklustre eyes, and attempted a little ceremonious politeness. How this was to end I did not see; but I was determined to carry it through, on the chance of success, infinitely small as that might be. "An' I've told him thirty shillings a week's the least he'll earn; and charge for board and lodgings only seven shillings." "Thirty!--she lies; she's always a lying; don't you mind her. Five-and-forty is the werry lowest figure. Ask my respectable and most piousest partner, Shemei Solomons. Why, blow me--it's Locke!" "Yes, it is Locke; and surely you're my old friend Jemmy Downes? Shake hands. What an unexpected pleasure to meet you again!" "Werry unexpected pleasure. Tip us your daddle! Delighted--delighted, as I was a saying, to be of the least use to yer. Take a caulker? Summat heavy, then? No? 'Tak' a drap o' kindness yet, for auld langsyne?" "You forget I was always a teetotaller." "Ay," with a look of unfeigned pity. "An' you're a going to lend us a hand? Oh, ah! perhaps you'd like to begin? Here's a most beautiful uniform, now, for a markis in her Majesty's Guards; we don't mention names--tarn't businesslike. P'r'aps you'd like best to work here to-night, for company--'for auld langsyne, my boys;' and I'll introduce yer to the gents up-stairs to-morrow." "No," I said; "I'll go up at once, if you've no objection." "Och, thin, but the sheets isn't aired--no--faix; and I'm thinking the gentleman as is a going isn't gone yet." But I insisted on going up at once; and, grumbling, she followed me. I stopped on the landing of the second floor, and asked which way; and seeing her in no hurry to answer, opened a door, inside which I heard the hum of many voices, saying in as sprightly a tone as I could muster, that I supposed that was the workroom. As I had expected, a fetid, choking den, with just room enough in it for the seven or eight sallow, starved beings, who, coatless, shoeless, and ragged, sat stitching, each on his truckle-bed. I glanced round; the man whom I sought was not there. My heart fell; why it had ever risen to such a pitch of hope I cannot tell; and half-cursing myself for a fool, in thus wildly thrusting my head into a squabble, I turned back and shut the door, saying-- "A very pleasant room, ma'am, but a leetle too crowded." Before she could answer, the opposite door opened; and a face appeared--unwashed, unshaven, shrunken to a skeleton. I did not recognise it at first. "Blessed Vargen! but that wasn't your voice, Locke?" "And who are you?" "Tear and ages! and he don't know Mike Kelly!" My first impulse was to catch him up in my arms, and run down-stairs with him. I controlled myself, however, not knowing how far he might be in his tyrant's power. But his voluble Irish heart burst out at once-- "Oh! blessed saints, take me out o' this! take me out for the love of Jesus! take me out o' this hell, or I'll go mad intirely! Och! will nobody have pity on poor sowls in purgatory--here in prison like negur slaves? We're starved to the bone, we are, and kilt intirely with cowld." And as he clutched my arm, with his long, skinny, trembling fingers, I saw that his hands and feet were all chapped and bleeding. Neither shoe nor stocking did he possess; his only garments were a ragged shirt and trousers; and--and, and in horrible mockery of his own misery, a grand new flowered satin vest, which to-morrow was to figure in some gorgeous shop-window! "Och! Mother of Heaven!" he went on, wildly, "when will I get out to the fresh air? For five months I haven't seen the blessed light of sun, nor spoken to the praste, nor ate a bit o' mate, barring bread-and-butter. Shure, it's all the blessed Sabbaths and saints' days I've been a working like a haythen Jew, an niver seen the insides o' the chapel to confess my sins, and me poor sowl's lost intirely--and they've pawned the relaver [Footnote: A coat, we understand, which is kept by the coatless wretches in these sweaters' dungeons, to be used by each of them in turn when they want to go out.--EDITOR.] this fifteen weeks, and not a boy of us iver sot foot in the street since." "Vot's that row?" roared at this juncture Downes's voice from below. "Och, thin," shrieked the woman, "here's that thief o' the warld, Micky Kelly, slandhering o' us afore the blessed heaven, and he owing £2. 14s. 1/2d. for his board an' lodging, let alone pawn-tickets, and goin' to rin away, the black-hearted ongrateful sarpent!" And she began yelling indiscriminately, "Thieves!" "Murder!" "Blasphemy!" and such other ejaculations, which (the English ones at least) had not the slightest reference to the matter in hand. "I'll come to him!" said Downes, with an oath, and rushed stumbling up the stairs, while the poor wretch sneaked in again, and slammed the door to. Downes battered at it, but was met with a volley of curses from the men inside; while, profiting by the Babel, I blew out the light, ran down-stairs, and got safe into the street. In two hours afterwards, Mackaye, Porter, Crossthwaite, and I were at the door, accompanied by a policeman, and a search-warrant. Porter had insisted on accompanying us. He had made up his mind that his son was at Downes's; and all representations of the smallness of his chance were fruitless. He worked himself up into a state of complete frenzy, and flourished a huge stick in a way which shocked the policeman's orderly and legal notions. "That may do very well down in your country, sir; but you arn't a goin' to use that there weapon here, you know, not by no hact o' Parliament as I knows on." "Ow, it's joost a way I ha' wi' me." And the stick was quiet for fifty yards or so, and then recommenced smashing imaginary skulls. "You'll do somebody a mischief, sir, with that. You'd much better a lend it me." Porter tucked it under his arm for fifty yards more; and so on, till we reached Downes's house. The policeman knocked: and the door was opened, cautiously, by an old Jew, of a most un-"Caucasian" cast of features, however "high-nosed," as Mr. Disraeli has it. The policeman asked to see Michael Kelly. "Michaelsh? I do't know such namesh--" But before the parley could go farther, the farmer burst past policeman and Jew, and rushed into the passage, roaring, in a voice which made the very windows rattle, "Billy Poorter! Billy Poorter! whor be yow? whor be yow?" We all followed him up-stairs, in time to see him charging valiantly, with his stick for a bayonet, the small person of a Jew-boy, who stood at the head of the stairs in a scientific attitude. The young rascal planted a dozen blows in the huge carcase--he might as well have thumped the rhinoceros in the Regent's Park; the old man ran right over him, without stopping, and dashed up the stairs; at the head of which--oh, joy!--appeared a long, shrunken, red-haired figure, the tears on its dirty cheeks glittering in the candle-glare. In an instant father and son were in each other's arms. "Oh, my barn! my barn! my barn! my barn!" And then the old Hercules held him off at arm's length, and looked at him with a wistful face, and hugged him again with "My barn! my barn!" He had nothing else to say. Was it not enough? And poor Kelly danced frantically around them, hurrahing; his own sorrows forgotten in his friend's deliverance. The Jew-boy shook himself, turned, and darted down stairs past us; the policeman quietly put out his foot, tripped him headlong, and jumping down after him, extracted from his grasp a heavy pocket-book. "Ah! my dear mothersh's dying gift! Oh, dear! oh dear! give it back to a poor orphansh!" "Didn't I see you take it out o' the old un's pocket, you young villain?" answered the maintainer of order, as he shoved the book into his bosom, and stood with one foot on his writhing victim, a complete nineteenth-century St. Michael. "Let me hold him," I said, "while you go up-stairs." "_You_ hold a Jew-boy!--you hold a mad cat!" answered the policeman, contemptuously--and with justice--for at that moment Downes appeared on the first-floor landing, cursing and blaspheming. "He's my 'prentice! he's my servant! I've got a bond, with his own hand to it, to serve me for three years. I'll have the law of you--I will!" Then the meaning of the big stick came out. The old man leapt down the stairs, and seized Downes. "You're the tyrant as has locked my barn up here!" And a thrashing commenced, which it made my bones ache only to look at. Downes had no chance; the old man felled him on his face in a couple of blows, and taking both hands to his stick, hewed away at him as if he had been a log. "I waint hit a's head! I waint hit a's head!"--whack, whack. "Let me be!"--whack, whack-puff. "It does me gude, it does me gude!"--puff, puff, puff--whack. "I've been a bottling of it up for three years, come Whitsuntide!"--whack, whack, whack--while Mackaye and Crossthwaite stood coolly looking on, and the wife shut herself up in the side-room, and screamed "Murder!" The unhappy policeman stood at his wits' end, between the prisoner below and the breach of the peace above, bellowing in vain, in the Queen's name, to us, and to the grinning tailors on the landing. At last, as Downes's life seemed in danger, he wavered; the Jew-boy seized the moment, jumped up, upsetting the constable, dashed like an eel between Crossthwaite and Mackaye, gave me a back-handed blow in passing, which I felt for a week after, and vanished through the street-door, which he locked after him. "Very well!" said the functionary, rising solemnly, and pulling out a note-book--"Scar under left eye, nose a little twisted to the right, bad chilblains on the hands. You'll keep till next time, young man. Now, you fat gentleman up there, have you done a qualifying of yourself for Newgate?" The old man had ran up-stairs again, and was hugging his son; but when the policeman lifted Downes, he rushed back to his victim, and begged, like a great school-boy, for leave to "bet him joost won bit moor." "Let me bet un! I'll pay un!--I'll pay all as my son owes un! Marcy me! where's my pooss?" And so on raged the Babel, till we got the two poor fellows safe out of the house. We had to break open the door to do it, thanks to that imp of Israel. "For God's sake, take us too!" almost screamed five or six other voices. "They're all in debt--every onesh; they sha'n't go till they paysh, if there's law in England," whined the old Jew, who had re-appeared. "I'll pay for 'em--I'll pay every farden, if so be as they treated my boy well. Here, you, Mr. Locke, there's the ten pounds as I promised you. Why, whor is my pooss?" The policeman solemnly handed it to him. He took it, turned it over, looked at the policeman half frightened, and pointed with his fat thumb at Mackaye. "Well, he said as you was a conjuror--and sure he was right." He paid me the money. I had no mind to keep it in such company; so I got the poor fellows' pawn-tickets, and Crossthwaite and I took the things out for them. When we returned, we found them in a group in the passage, holding the door open, in their fear lest we should be locked up, or entrapped in some way. Their spirits seemed utterly broken. Some three or four went off to lodge where they could; the majority went upstairs again to work. That, even that dungeon, was their only home--their only hope--as it is of thousands of "free" Englishmen at this moment. We returned, and found the old man with his new-found prodigal sitting on his knee, as if he had been a baby. Sandy told me afterwards, that he had scarcely kept him from carrying the young man all the way home; he was convinced that the poor fellow was dying of starvation. I think really he was not far wrong. In the corner sat Kelly, crouched together like a baboon, blubbering, hurrahing, invoking the saints, cursing the sweaters, and blessing the present company. We were afraid, for several days, that his wits were seriously affected. And, in his old arm-chair, pipe in mouth, sat good Sandy Mackaye, wiping his eyes with the many-coloured sleeve, and moralizing to himself, _sotto voce_: "The auld Romans made slaves o' their debitors; sae did the Anglo-Saxons, for a' good Major Cartwright has writ to the contrary. But I didna ken the same Christian practice was part o' the Breetish constitution. Aweel, aweel--atween Riot Acts, Government by Commissions, and ither little extravagants and codicils o' Mammon's making, it's no that easy to ken, the day, what is the Breetish constitution, and what isn't. Tak a drappie, Billy Porter, lad?" "Never again so long as I live. I've learnt a lesson and a half about that, these last few months." "Aweel, moderation's best, but abstinence better than naething. Nae man shall deprive me o' my leeberty, but I'll tempt nae man to gie up his." And he actually put the whisky-bottle by into the cupboard. The old man and his son went home next day, promising me, if I would but come to see them, "twa hundert acres o' the best partridge-shooting, and wild dooks as plenty as sparrows; and to live in clover till I bust, if I liked." And so, as Bunyan has it, they went on their way, and I saw them no more. CHAPTER XXII. AN EMERSONIAN SERMON. Certainly, if John Crossthwaite held the victim-of-circumstance doctrine in theory, he did not allow Mike Kelly to plead it in practice, as an extenuation of his misdeeds. Very different from his Owenite "it's-nobody's-fault" harangues in the debating society, or his admiration for the teacher of whom my readers shall have a glimpse shortly, was his lecture that evening to the poor Irishmen on "It's all your own fault." Unhappy Kelly! he sat there like a beaten cur, looking first at one of us, and then at the other, for mercy, and finding none. As soon as Crossthwaite's tongue was tired, Mackaye's began, on the sins of drunkenness, hastiness, improvidence, over-trustfulness, &c., &c., and, above all, on the cardinal offence of not having signed the protest years before, and spurned the dishonourable trade, as we had done. Even his most potent excuse that "a boy must live somehow," Crossthwaite treated as contemptuously as if he had been a very Leonidas, while Mackaye chimed in with-- "An' ye a Papist! ye talk o' praying to saints an' martyrs, that died in torments because they wad na do what they should na do? What ha' ye to do wi' martyrs?--a meeserable wretch that sells his soul for a mess o' pottage--four slices per diem o' thin bread-and-butter? Et propter veetam veevendi perdere causas! Dinna tell me o' your hardships--ye've had your deserts--your rights were just equivalent to your mights, an' so ye got them." "Faix, thin, Misther Mackaye, darlint, an' whin did I desarve to pawn me own goose an' board, an' sit looking at the spidhers for the want o' them?" "Pawn his ain goose! Pawn himsel! pawn his needle--gin it had been worth the pawning, they'd ha' ta'en it. An' yet there's a command in Deuteronomy, Ye shall na tak the millstone in pledge, for it's a man's life; nor yet keep his raiment ower night, but gie it the puir body back, that he may sleep in his ain claes, an' bless ye. O--but pawnbrokers dinna care for blessings--na marketable value in them, whatsoever." "And the shopkeeper," said I, "in 'the Arabian Nights,' refuses to take the fisherman's net in pledge, because he gets his living thereby." "Ech! but, laddie, they were puir legal Jews, under carnal ordinances, an' daur na even tak an honest five per cent interest for their money. An' the baker o' Bagdad, why he was a benighted heathen, ye ken, an' deceivit by that fause prophet, Mahomet, to his eternal damnation, or he wad never ha' gone aboot to fancy a fisherman was his brither." "Faix, an' ain't we all brothers?" asked Kelly. "Ay, and no," said Sandy, with an expression which would have been a smile, but for its depths of bitter earnestness; "brethren in Christ, my laddie." "An' ain't that all over the same?" "Ask the preachers. Gin they meant brothers, they'd say brothers, be sure; but because they don't mean brothers at a', they say brethren--ye'll mind, brethren--to soun' antiquate, an' professional, an' perfunctory-like, for fear it should be ower real, an' practical, an' startling, an' a' that; and then jist limit it down wi' a' in Christ,' for fear o' owre wide applications, and a' that. But "For a' that, and a' that. It's comin' yet, for a' that, When man an' man, the warld owre, Shall brothers be, for a' that-- "An' na brithren any mair at a'!" "An' didn't the blessed Jesus die for all?" "What? for heretics, Micky?" "Bedad, thin, an' I forgot that intirely!" "Of course you did! It's strange, laddie," said he, turning to me, "that that Name suld be everywhere, fra the thunderers o' Exeter Ha' to this puir, feckless Paddy, the watchword o' exclusiveness. I'm thinking ye'll no find the workmen believe in't, till somebody can fin' the plan o' making it the sign o' universal comprehension. Gin I had na seen in my youth that a brither in Christ meant less a thousand-fold than a brither out o' him, I might ha' believit the noo--we'll no say what. I've an owre great organ o' marvellousness, an' o' veneration too, I'm afeard." "Ah!" said Crossthwaite, "you should come and hear Mr. Windrush to-night, about the all-embracing benevolence of the Deity, and the abomination of limiting it by all those narrow creeds and dogmas." "An' wha's Meester Windrush, then?" "Oh, he's an American; he was a Calvinist preacher originally, I believe; but, as he told us last Sunday evening, he soon cast away the worn-out vestures of an obsolete faith, which were fast becoming only crippling fetters." "An' ran oot sarkless on the public, eh? I'm afeard there's mony a man else that throws awa' the gude auld plaid o' Scots Puritanism, an' is unco fain to cover his nakedness wi' ony cast popinjay's feathers he can forgather wi'. Aweel, aweel--a puir priestless age it is, the noo. We'll e'en gang hear him the nicht, Alton, laddie; ye ha' na darkened the kirk door this mony a day--nor I neither, mair by token." It was too true. I had utterly given up the whole problem of religion as insoluble. I believed in poetry, science, and democracy--and they were enough for me then; enough, at least, to leave a mighty hunger in my heart, I knew not for what. And as for Mackaye, though brought up, as he told me, a rigid Scotch Presbyterian, he had gradually ceased to attend the church of his fathers. "It was no the kirk o' his fathers--the auld God--trusting kirk that Clavers dragoonit down by burns and muirsides. It was a' gane dead an' dry; a piece of Auld-Bailey barristration anent soul-saving dodges. What did he want wi' proofs o' the being o' God, an' o' the doctrine o' original sin? He could see eneugh o' them ayont the shop-door, ony tide. They made puir Rabbie Burns an anything-arian, wi' their blethers, an' he was near gaun the same gate." And, besides, he absolutely refused to enter any place of worship where there were pews. "He wadna follow after a multitude to do evil; he wad na gang before his Maker wi' a lee in his right hand. Nae wonder folks were so afraid o' the names o' equality an' britherhood, when they'd kicked them out e'en o' the kirk o' God. Pious folks may ca' me a sinfu' auld Atheist. They winna gang to a harmless stage play--an' richt they--for fear o' countenancing the sin that's dune there, an' I winna gang to the kirk, for fear o' countenancing the sin that's dune there, by putting down my hurdies on that stool o' antichrist, a haspit pew!" I was, therefore, altogether surprised at the promptitude with which he agreed to go and hear Crossthwaite's new-found prophet. His reasons for so doing may be, I think, gathered from the conversation towards the end of this chapter. Well, we went; and I, for my part, was charmed with Mr. Windrush's eloquence. His style, which was altogether Emersonian, quite astonished me by its alternate bursts of what I considered brilliant declamation, and of forcible epigrammatic antithesis. I do not deny that I was a little startled by some of his doctrines, and suspected that he had not seen much, either of St. Giles's cellars or tailors' workshops either, when he talked of sin as "only a lower form of good. Nothing," he informed us, "was produced in nature without pain and disturbance; and what we had been taught to call sin was, in fact, nothing but the birth-throes attendant on the progress of the species.--As for the devil, Novalis, indeed, had gone so far as to suspect him to be a necessary illusion. Novalis was a mystic, and tainted by the old creeds. The illusion was not necessary--it was disappearing before the fast-approaching meridian light of philosophic religion. Like the myths of Christianity, it had grown up in an age of superstition, when men, blind to the wondrous order of the universe, believed that supernatural beings, like the Homeric gods, actually interfered in the affairs of mortals. Science had revealed the irrevocability of the laws of nature--was man alone to be exempt from them? No. The time would come when it would be as obsolete an absurdity to talk of the temptation of a fiend, as it was now to talk of the wehrwolf, or the angel of the thunder-cloud. The metaphor might remain, doubtless, as a metaphor, in the domain of poetry, whose office was to realize, in objective symbols, the subjective ideas of the human intellect; but philosophy, and the pure sentiment of religion, which found all things, even God himself, in the recesses of its own enthusiastic heart, must abjure such a notion." * * * * * "What!" he asked again, "shall all nature be a harmonious whole, reflecting, in every drop of dew which gems the footsteps of the morning, the infinite love and wisdom of its Maker, and man alone be excluded from his part in that concordant choir? Yet such is the doctrine of the advocates of free-will, and of sin--its phantom-bantling. Man disobey his Maker! disarrange and break the golden wheels and springs of the infinite machine! The thought were blasphemy!--impossibility! All things fulfil their destiny; and so does man, in a higher or lower sphere of being. Shall I punish the robber? Shall I curse the profligate? As soon destroy the toad, because my partial taste may judge him ugly; or doom to hell, for his carnivorous appetite, the muscanonge of my native lakes! Toad is not horrible to toad, or thief to thief. Philanthropists or statesmen may environ him with more genial circumstances, and so enable his propensities to work more directly for the good of society; but to punish him--to punish nature for daring to be nature!--Never! I may thank the Upper Destinies that they have not made me as other men are--that they have endowed me with nobler instincts, a more delicate conformation than the thief; but I have my part to play, and he has his. Why should we wish to be other than the All-wise has made us?" "Fine doctrine that," grumbled Sandy; "gin ye've first made up your mind wi' the Pharisee, that ye _are_ no like ither men." "Shall I pray, then? For what? I will coax none, natter none--not even the Supreme! I will not be absurd enough to wish to change that order, by which sun and stars, saints and sinners, alike fulfil their destinies. There is one comfort, my friends; coax and flatter as we will, he will not hear us." "Pleasant, for puir deevils like us!" quoth Mackaye. "What then remains? Thanks, thanks--not of words, but of actions. Worship is a life, not a ceremony. He who would honour the Supreme, let him cheerfully succumb to the destiny which the Supreme has allotted, and, like the shell or the flower--('Or the pickpocket,' added Mackaye, almost audibly)--become the happy puppet of the universal impulse. He who would honour Christ, let him become a Christ himself! Theodore of Mopsuestia--born, alas! before his time--a prophet for whom as yet no audience stood ready in the amphitheatre of souls--'Christ!' he was wont to say; 'I can become Christ myself, if I will.' Become thou Christ, my brother! He has an idea--the idea of utter submission--abnegation of his own fancied will before the supreme necessities. Fulfil that idea, and thou art he! Deny thyself, and then only wilt thou be a reality; for thou hast no self. If thou hadst a self, thou wouldst but lie in denying it--and would The Being thank thee for denying what he had given thee? But thou hast none! God is circumstance, and thou his creature! Be content! Fear not, strive not, change not, repent not! Thou art nothing! Be nothing, and thou becomest a part of all things!" And so Mr. Windrush ended his discourse, which Crossthwaite had been all the while busily taking down in short-hand, for the edification of the readers of a certain periodical, and also for those of this my Life. I plead guilty to having been entirely carried away by what I heard. There was so much which was true, so much more which seemed true, so much which it would have been convenient to believe true, and all put so eloquently and originally, as I then considered, that, in short, I was in raptures, and so was poor dear Crossthwaite; and as we walked home, we dinned Mr. Windrush's praises one into each of Mackaye's ears. The old man, however, paced on silent and meditative. At last-- "A hunder sects or so in the land o' Gret Britain; an' a hunder or so single preachers, each man a sect of his ain! an' this the last fashion! Last, indeed! The moon of Calvinism's far gone in the fourth quarter, when it's come to the like o' that. Truly, the soul-saving business is a'thegither fa'n to a low ebb, as Master Tummas says somewhere!" "Well, but," asked Crossthwaite, "was not that man, at least, splendid?" "An' hoo much o' thae gran' objectives an' subjectives did ye comprehen', then, Johnnie, my man?" "Quite enough for me," answered John, in a somewhat nettled tone. "An' sae did I." "But you ought to hear him often. You can't judge of his system from one sermon, in this way." "Seestem! and what's that like?" "Why, he has a plan for uniting all sects and parties, on the one broad fundamental ground of the unity of God as revealed by science--" "Verra like uniting o' men by just pu'ing aff their claes, and telling 'em, 'There, ye're a' brithers noo, on the one broad fundamental principle o' want o' breeks.'" "Of course," went on Crossthwaite, without taking notice of this interruption, "he allows full liberty of conscience. All he wishes for is the emancipation of intellect. He will allow every one, he says, to realize that idea to himself, by the representations which suit him best." "An' so he has no objection to a wee playing at Papistry, gin a man finds it good to tickle up his soul?" "Ay, he did speak of that--what did he call it? Oh! 'one of the ways in which the Christian idea naturally embodied itself in imaginative minds!' but the higher intellects, of course, would want fewer helps of that kind. 'They would see'--ay, that was it--'the pure white light of truth, without requiring those coloured refracting media.'" "That wad depend muckle on whether the light o' truth chose or not, I'm thinking. But, Johnnie, lad--guide us and save us!--whaur got ye a' these gran' outlandish words the nicht?" "Haven't I been taking down every one of these lectures for the press?" "The press gang to the father o't--and you too, for lending your han' in the matter--for a mair accursed aristocrat I never heerd, sin' I first ate haggis. Oh, ye gowk--ye gowk! Dinna ye see what be the upshot o' siccan doctrin'? That every puir fellow as has no gret brains in his head will be left to his superstition, an' his ignorance to fulfil the lusts o' his flesh; while the few that are geniuses, or fancy themselves sae, are to ha' the monopoly o' this private still o' philosophy--these carbonari, illuminati, vehmgericht, samothracian mysteries o' bottled moonshine. An' when that comes to pass, I'll just gang back to my schule and my catechism, and begin again wi' 'who was born o' the Virgin Mary, suffered oonder Pontius Pilate!' Hech! lads, there's no subjectives and objectives there, na beggarly, windy abstractions, but joost a plain fact, that God cam' down to look for puir bodies, instead o' leaving puir bodies to gang looking for Him. An' here's a pretty place to be left looking for Him in--between gin shops and gutters! A pretty Gospel for the publicans an' harlots, to tell 'em that if their bairns are canny eneugh, they may possibly some day be allowed to believe that there is one God, and not twa! And then, by way of practical application--'Hech! my dear, starving, simple brothers, ye manna be sae owre conscientious, and gang fashing yourselves anent being brutes an' deevils, for the gude God's made ye sae, and He's verra weel content to see you sae, gin ye be content or no.'" "Then, do you believe in the old doctrines of Christianity?" I asked. "Dinna speir what I believe in. I canna tell ye. I've been seventy years trying to believe in God, and to meet anither man that believed in him. So I'm just like the Quaker o' the town o' Redcross, that met by himself every First-day in his ain hoose." "Well, but," I asked again, "is not complete freedom of thought a glorious aim--to emancipate man's noblest part--the intellect--from the trammels of custom and ignorance?" "Intellect--intellect!" rejoined he, according to his fashion, catching one up at a word, and playing on that in order to answer, not what one said, but what one's words led to. "I'm sick o' all the talk anent intellect I hear noo. An' what's the use o' intellect? 'Aristocracy o' intellect,' they cry. Curse a' aristocracies--intellectual anes, as well as anes o' birth, or rank, or money! What! will I ca' a man my superior, because he's cleverer than mysel?--will I boo down to a bit o' brains, ony mair than to a stock or a stane? Let a man prove himsel' better than me, my laddie--honester, humbler, kinder, wi' mair sense o' the duty o' man, an' the weakness o' man--and that man I'll acknowledge--that man's my king, my leader, though he war as stupid as Eppe Dalgleish, that could na count five on her fingers, and yet keepit her drucken father by her ain hands' labour for twenty-three yeers." We could not agree to all this, but we made a rule of never contradicting the old sage in one of his excited moods, for fear of bringing on a week's silent fit--a state which generally ended in his smoking himself into a bilious melancholy; but I made up my mind to be henceforth a frequent auditor of Mr. Windrush's oratory. "An' sae the deevil's dead!" said Sandy, half to himself, as he sat crooning and smoking that night over the fire. "Gone at last, puir fallow!--an' he sae little appreciated, too! Every gowk laying his ain sins on Nickie's back, puir Nickie!--verra like that much misunderstood politeecian, Mr. John Cade, as Charles Buller ca'd him in the Hoose o' Commons--an' he to be dead at last! the warld'll seem quite unco without his auld-farrant phizog on the streets. Aweel, aweel--aiblins he's but shammin'.-- "When pleasant Spring came on apace, And showers began to fa', John Barleycorn got up again, And sore surprised them a'. "At ony rate, I'd no bury him till he began smell a wee strong like. It's a grewsome thing, is premature interment, Alton, laddie!" CHAPTER XXIII. THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. But all this while, my slavery to Mr. O'Flynn's party-spirit and coarseness was becoming daily more and more intolerable--an explosion was inevitable; and an explosion came. Mr. O'Flynn found out that I had been staying at Cambridge, and at a cathedral city too; and it was quite a godsend to him to find any one who knew a word about the institutions at which he had been railing weekly for years. So nothing would serve him but my writing a set of articles on the universities, as a prelude to one on the Cathedral Establishments. In vain I pleaded the shortness of my stay there, and the smallness of my information. "Och, were not abuses notorious? And couldn't I get them up out of any Radical paper--and just put in a little of my own observations, and a dashing personal cut or two, to spice the thing up, and give it an original look? and if I did not choose to write that--why," with an enormous oath, "I should write nothing." So--for I was growing weaker and weaker, and indeed my hack-writing was breaking down my moral sense, as it does that of most men--I complied; and burning with vexation, feeling myself almost guilty of a breach of trust toward those from whom I had received nothing but kindness, I scribbled off my first number and sent it to the editor--to see it appear next week, three-parts re-written, and every fact of my own furnishing twisted and misapplied, till the whole thing was as vulgar and commonplace a piece of rant as ever disgraced the people's cause. And all this, in spite of a solemn promise, confirmed by a volley of oaths, that I "should say what I liked, and speak my whole mind, as one who had seen things with his own eyes had a right to do." Furious, I set off to the editor; and not only my pride, but what literary conscience I had left, was stirred to the bottom by seeing myself made, whether I would or not, a blackguard and a slanderer. As it was ordained, Mr. O'Flynn was gone out for an hour or two; and, unable to settle down to any work till I had fought my battle with him fairly out, I wandered onward, towards the West End, staring into print-shop windows, and meditating on many things. As it was ordained, also, I turned up Regent Street, and into Langham Place; when, at the door of All-Souls Church, behold a crowd and a long string of carriages arriving, and all the pomp and glory of a grand wedding. I joined the crowd from mere idleness, and somehow found myself in the first rank, just as the bride was stepping out of the carriage--it was Miss Staunton; and the old gentleman who handed her out was no other than the dean. They were, of course, far too deeply engaged to recognise insignificant little me, so that I could stare as thoroughly to my heart's content as any of the butcher-boys and nursery-maids around me. She was closely veiled--but not too closely to prevent my seeing her magnificent lip and nostril curling with pride, resolve, rich tender passion. Her glorious black-brown hair--the true "purple locks" which Homer so often talks of--rolled down beneath her veil in great heavy ringlets; and with her tall and rounded figure, and step as firm and queenly as if she were going to a throne, she seemed to me the very ideal of those magnificent Eastern Zubeydehs and Nourmahals, whom I used to dream of after reading the "Arabian Nights." As they entered the doorway, almost touching me, she looked round, as if for some one. The dean whispered something in his gentle, stately way, and she answered by one of those looks so intense, and yet so bright, so full of unutterable depths of meaning and emotion, that, in spite of all my antipathy, I felt an admiration akin to awe thrill through me, and gazed after her so intently, that Lillian--Lillian herself--was at my side, and almost passed me before I was aware of it. Yes, there she was, the foremost among a bevy of fair girls, "herself the fairest far," all April smiles and tears, golden curls, snowy rosebuds, and hovering clouds of lace--a fairy queen;--but yet--but yet--how shallow that hazel, eye, how empty of meaning those delicate features, compared with the strength and intellectual richness of the face which had preceded her! It was too true--I had never remarked it before; but now it flashed across me like lightning--and like lightning vanished; for Lillian's eye caught mine, and there was the faintest spark of a smile of recognition, and pleased surprise, and a nod. I blushed scarlet with delight; some servant-girl or other, who stood next to me, had seen it too--quick-eyed that women are--and was looking curiously at me. I turned, I knew not why, in my delicious shame, and plunged through the crowd to hide I knew not what. I walked on--poor fool--in an ecstasy; the whole world was transfigured in my eyes, and virtue and wisdom beamed from every face I passed. The omnibus-horses were racers, and the drivers--were they not my brothers of the people? The very policemen looked sprightly and philanthropic. I shook hands earnestly with the crossing-sweeper of the Regent Circus, gave him my last twopence, and rushed on, like a young David, to exterminate that Philistine O'Flynn. Ah well! I was a great fool, as others too have been; but yet, that little chance-meeting did really raise me. It made me sensible that I was made for better things than low abuse of the higher classes. It gave me courage to speak out, and act without fear, of consequences, once at least in that confused facing-both-ways period of my life. O woman! woman! only true missionary of civilization and brotherhood, and gentle, forgiving charity; is it in thy power, and perhaps in thine only, to bind up the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives? One real lady, who should dare to stoop, what might she not do with us--with our sisters? If-- There are hundreds, answers the reader, who do stoop. Elizabeth Fry was a lady, well-born, rich, educated, and she has many scholars. True, my dear readers, true--and may God bless her and her scholars. Do you think the working men forget them? But look at St. Giles's, or Spitalfields, or Shadwell, and say, is not the harvest plentiful, and the labourers, alas! few? No one asserts that nothing is done; the question is, is enough done? Does the supply of mercy meet the demand of misery? Walk into the next court and see! * * * * * I found Mr. O'Flynn in his sanctum, busy with paste and scissors, in the act of putting in a string of advertisements--indecent French novels, Atheistic tracts, quack medicines, and slopsellers' puffs; and commenced with as much dignity as I could muster: "What on earth do you mean, sir, by re-writing my article?" "What--(in the other place)--do you mean by giving me the trouble of re-writing it? Me head's splitting now with sitting up, cutting out, and putting in. Poker o' Moses! but ye'd given it an intirely aristocratic tendency. What did ye mane" (and three or four oaths rattled out) "by talking about the pious intentions of the original founders, and the democratic tendencies of monastic establishments?" "I wrote it because I thought it." "Is that any reason ye should write it? And there was another bit, too--it made my hair stand on end when I saw it, to think how near I was sending the copy to press without looking at it--something about a French Socialist, and Church Property." "Oh! you mean, I suppose, the story of the French Socialist, who told me that church property was just the only property in England which he would spare, because it was the only one which had definite duties attached to it, that the real devourers of the people were not the bishops, who, however rich, were at least bound to work in return for their riches, but the landlords and millionaires, who refused to confess the duties of property, while they raved about its rights." "Bedad, that's it; and pretty doctrine, too!" "But it's true: it's an entirely new and a very striking notion, and I consider it my duty to mention it." "Thrue! What the devil does that matter? There's a time to speak the truth, and a time not, isn't there? It'll make a grand hit, now, in a leader upon the Irish Church question, to back the prastes against the landlords. But if I'd let that in as it stood, bedad, I'd have lost three parts of my subscribers the next week. Every soul of the Independents, let alone the Chartists, would have bid me good morning. Now do, like a good boy, give us something more the right thing next time. Draw it strong.--A good drunken supper-party and a police-row; if ye haven't seen one, get it up out of Pater Priggins--or Laver might do, if the other wasn't convanient. That's Dublin, to be sure, but one university's just like another. And give us a seduction or two, and a brace of Dons carried home drunk from Barnwell by the Procthors." "Really I never saw anything of the kind; and as for profligacy amongst the Dons, I don't believe it exists. I'll call them idle, and bigoted, and careless of the morals of the young men, because I know that they are so; but as for anything more, I believe them to be as sober, respectable a set of Pharisees as the world ever saw." Mr. O'Flynn was waxing warm, and the bully-vein began fast to show itself. "I don't care a curse, sir! My subscribers won't stand it, and they sha'n't! I am a man of business, sir, and a man of the world, sir, and faith that's more than you are, and I know what will sell the paper, and by J----s I'll let no upstart spalpeen dictate to me!" "Then I'll tell you what, sir," quoth I, waxing warm in my turn, "I don't know which are the greater rogues, you or your subscribers. You a patriot? You are a humbug. Look at those advertisements, and deny it if you can. Crying out for education, and helping to debauch the public mind with Voltaire's 'Candide,' and Eugène Sue--swearing by Jesus, and puffing Atheism and blasphemy--yelling at a quack government, quack law, quack priesthoods, and then dirtying your fingers with half-crowns for advertising Holloway's ointment and Parr's life pills--shrieking about slavery of labour to capital, and inserting Moses and Son's doggerel--ranting about searching investigations and the march of knowledge, and concealing every fact which cannot be made to pander to the passions of your dupes--extolling the freedom of the press, and showing yourself in your own office a tyrant and a censor of the press. You a patriot? You the people's friend? You are doing everything in your power to blacken the people's cause in the eyes of their enemies. You are simply a humbug, a hypocrite, and a scoundrel; and so I bid you good morning." Mr. O'Flynn had stood, during this harangue, speechless with passion, those loose lips of his wreathing like a pair of earthworms. It was only when I stopped that he regained his breath, and with a volley of incoherent oaths, caught up his chair and hurled it at my head. Luckily, I had seen enough of his temper already, to keep my hand on the lock of the door for the last five minutes. I darted out of the room quicker than I ever did out of one before or since. The chair took effect on the luckless door; and as I threw a flying glance behind me, I saw one leg sticking through the middle panel, in a way that augured ill for my skull, had it been in the way of Mr. O'Flynn's fury. I ran home to Mackaye in a state of intense self-glorification, and told him the whole story. He chuckled, he crowed, he hugged me to his bosom. "Leeze me o' ye! but I kenned ye were o' the true Norse blude after a'! "For a' that, an' a' that, A man's a man for a' that. "Oh, but I hae expeckit it this month an' mare! Oh, but I prophesied it, Johnnie!" "Then why, in Heaven's name, did you introduce me to such a scoundrel?" "I sent you to schule, lad, I sent you to schule. Ye wad na be ruled by me. Ye tuk me for a puir doited auld misanthrope; an' I thocht to gie ye the meat ye lusted after, an' fill ye wi' the fruit o' your ain desires. An' noo that ye've gane doon in the fire o' temptation, an' conquered, here's your reward standin' ready. Special prawvidences!--wha can doot them? I ha' had mony--miracles I might ca' them, to see how they cam' just when I was gaun daft wi' despair." And then he told me that the editor of a popular journal, of the Howitt and Eliza Cook school, had called on me that morning, and promised me work enough, and pay enough, to meet all present difficulties. I did indeed accept the curious coincidence, if not as a reward for an act of straightforwardness, in which I saw no merit, at least as proof that the upper powers had not altogether forgotten me. I found both the editor and his periodical, as I should have wished them, temperate and sunny--somewhat clap-trap and sentimental, perhaps, and afraid of speaking out, as all parties are, but still willing to allow my fancy free range in light fictions, descriptions of foreign countries, scraps of showy rose-pink morality and such like; which, though they had no more power against the raging mass of crime, misery, and discontent, around, than a peacock's feather against a three-decker, still were all genial, graceful, kindly, humanizing, and soothed my discontented and impatient heart in the work of composition. CHAPTER XXIV. THE TOWNSMAN'S SERMON TO THE GOWNSMAN. One morning in February, a few days after this explosion, I was on the point of starting to go to the dean's house about that weary list of subscribers, which seemed destined never to be filled up, when my cousin George burst in upon me. He was in the highest good spirits at having just taken a double first-class at Cambridge; and after my congratulations, sincere and hearty enough, were over, he offered to accompany me to that reverend gentleman's house. He said in an off-hand way, that he had no particular business there, but he thought it just as well to call on the dean and mention his success, in case the old fellow should not have heard of it. "For you see," he said, "I am a sort of _protégé_, both on my own account and on Lord Lynedale's--Ellerton, he is now--you know he is just married to the dean's niece, Miss Staunton--and Ellerton's a capital fellow--promised me a living as soon as I'm in priest's orders. So my cue is now," he went on as we walked down the Strand together, "to get ordained as fast as ever I can." "But," I asked, "have you read much for ordination, or seen much of what a clergyman's work should be?" "Oh! as for that--you know it isn't one out of ten who's ever entered a school, or a cottage even, except to light a cigar, before he goes into the church: and as for the examination, that's all humbug; any man may cram it all up in a month--and, thanks to King's College, I knew all I wanted to know before I went to Cambridge. And I shall be three-and-twenty by Trinity Sunday, and then in I go, neck or nothing. Only the confounded bore is, that this Bishop of London won't give one a title--won't let any man into his diocese, who has not been ordained two years; and so I shall be shoved down into some poking little country-curacy, without a chance of making play before the world, or getting myself known at all. Horrid bore! isn't it?" "I think," I said, "considering what London is just now, the bishop's regulation seems to be one of the best specimens of episcopal wisdom that I've heard of for some time." "Great bore for me, though, all the same: for I must make a name, I can tell you, if I intend to get on. A person must work like a horse, now-a-days, to succeed at all; and Lynedale's a desperately particular fellow, with all sorts of _outré_ notions about people's duties and vocations and heaven knows what." "Well," I said, "my dear cousin, and have you no high notions of a clergyman's vocation? because we--I mean the working men--have. It's just their high idea of what a clergyman should be, which makes them so furious at clergymen for being what they are." "It's a queer way of showing their respect to the priesthood," he answered, "to do all they can to exterminate it." "I dare say they are liable, like other men, to confound the thing with its abuses; but if they hadn't some dim notion that the thing might be made a good thing in itself, you may depend upon it they would not rave against those abuses so fiercely." (The reader may see that I had not forgotten my conversation with Miss Staunton.) "And," thought I to myself, "is it not you, and such as you, who do so incorporate the abuses into the system, that one really cannot tell which is which, and longs to shove the whole thing aside as rotten to the core, and make a trial of something new?" "Well, but," I said, again returning to the charge, for the subject was altogether curious and interesting to me, "do you really believe the doctrines of the Prayer-book, George?" "Believe them!" he answered, in a tone of astonishment, "why not? I was brought up a Churchman, whatever my parents were; I was always intended for the ministry. I'd sign the Thirty-nine Articles now, against any man in the three kingdoms: and as for all the proofs out of Scripture and Church History, I've known them ever since I was sixteen--I'll get them all up again in a week as fresh as ever." "But," I rejoined, astonished in my turn at my cousin's notion of what belief was, "have you any personal faith?--you know what I mean--I hate using cant words--but inward experience of the truth of all these great ideas, which, true or false, you will have to preach and teach? Would you live by them, die for them, as a patriot would for his country, now?" "My dear fellow, I don't know anything about all those Methodistical, mystical, Calvinistical, inward experiences, and all that. I'm a Churchman, remember, and a High Churchman, too; and the doctrine of the Church is, that children are regenerated in holy baptism; and there's not the least doubt, from the authority both of Scripture and the fathers, that that's the--" "For Heaven's sake," I said, "no polemical discussions! Whether you're right or wrong, that's not what I'm talking about. What I want to know is this:--you are going to teach people about God and Jesus Christ. Do you delight in God? Do you love Jesus Christ? Never mind what I do, or think, or believe. What do you do, George?" "Well, my dear fellow, if you take things in that way, you know, of course"--and he dropped his voice into that peculiar tone, by which all sects seem to think they show their reverence; while to me, as to most other working men, it never seemed anything but a symbol of the separation and discrepancy between their daily thoughts and their religious ones--"of course, we don't any of us think of these things half enough, and I'm sure I wish I could be more earnest than I am; but I can only hope it will come in time. The Church holds that there's a grace given in ordination; and really--really, I do hope and wish to do my duty--indeed, one can't help doing it; one is so pushed on by the immense competition for preferment; an idle parson hasn't a chance now-a-days." "But," I asked again, half-laughing, half-disgusted, "do you know what your duty is?" "Bless you, my good fellow, a man can't go wrong there. Carry out the Church system; that's the thing--all laid down by rule and method. A man has but to work out that--and it's the only one for the lower classes I'm convinced." "Strange," I said, "that they have from the first been so little of that opinion, that every attempt to enforce it, for the last three hundred years, has ended either in persecution or revolution." "Ah! that was all those vile puritans' fault. They wouldn't give the Church a chance of showing her powers." "What! not when she had it all her own way, during the whole eighteenth century?" "Ah! but things are very different now. The clergy are awakened now to the real beauty of the Catholic machinery; and you have no notion how much is doing in church-building and schools, and societies of every sort and kind. It is quite incredible what is being done now for the lower orders by the Church." "I believe," I said, "that the clergy are exceedingly improved; and I believe, too, that the men to whom they owe all their improvement are the Wesleys and Whitfields--in short, the very men whom they drove one by one out of the Church, from persecution or disgust. And I do think it strange, that if so much is doing for the lower classes, the working men, who form the mass of the lower classes, are just those who scarcely feel the effects of it; while the churches seem to be filled with children, and rich and respectable, to the almost entire exclusion of the adult lower classes. A strange religion this!" I went on, "and, to judge by its effects, a very different one from that preached in Judea 1800 years ago, if we are to believe the Gospel story." "What on earth do you mean? Is not the Church of England the very purest form of Apostolic Christianity?" "It may be--and so may the other sects. But, somehow, in Judea, it was the publicans and harlots who pressed into the kingdom of heaven; and it was the common people who heard Christ gladly. Christianity, then, was a movement in the hearts of the lower order. But now, my dear fellow, you rich, who used to be told, in St. James's time, to weep and howl, have turned the tables upon us poor. It is _you_ who are talking, all day long, of converting _us_. Look at any place of worship you like, orthodox and heretical.--Who fill the pews?--the outcast and the reprobate? No! the Pharisees and the covetous, who used to deride Christ, fill His churches, and say still, 'This people, these masses, who know not the Gospel are accursed.' And the universal feeling, as far as I can judge, seems to be, not 'how hardly shall they who have,' but how hardly shall they who have _not_, 'riches, enter into the kingdom of heaven!'" "Upon my word," said he, laughing, "I did not give you credit for so much eloquence: you seem to have studied the Bible to some purpose, too. I didn't think that so much Radicalism could be squeezed out of a few texts of Scripture. It's quite a new light to me. I'll just mark that card, and play it when I get a convenient opportunity. It may be a winning one in these democratic times." And he did play it, as I heard hereafter; but at present he seemed to think that the less that was said further on clerical subjects the better, and commenced quizzing the people whom we passed, humorously and neatly enough; while I walked on in silence, and thought of Mr. Bye-Ends, in the "Pilgrim's Progress." And yet I believe the man was really in earnest. He was really desirous to do what was right, as far as he knew it; and all the more desirous, because he saw, in the present state of society, what was right would pay him. God shall judge him, not I. Who can unravel the confusion of mingled selfishness and devotion that exists even in his own heart, much less in that of another? The dean was not at home that day, having left town on business. George nodded familiarly to the footman who opened the door. "You'll mind and send me word the moment your master comes home--mind now!" The fellow promised obedience, and we walked away. "You seem to be very intimate here," said I, "with all parties?" "Oh! footmen are useful animals--a half-sovereign now and then is not altogether thrown away upon them. But as for the higher powers, it is very easy to make oneself at home in the dean's study, but not so much so as to get a footing in the drawing-room above. I suspect he keeps a precious sharp eye upon the fair Miss Lillian." "But," I asked, as a jealous pang shot through my heart, "how did you contrive to get this same footing at all? When I met you at Cambridge, you seemed already well acquainted with these people." "How?--how does a hound get a footing on a cold scent? By working and casting about and about, and drawing on it inch by inch, as I drew on them for years, my boy; and cold enough the scent was. You recollect that day at the Dulwich Gallery? I tried to see the arms on the carriage, but there were none; so that cock wouldn't fight." "The arms! I should never have thought of such a plan." "Dare say you wouldn't. Then I harked back to the doorkeeper, while you were St. Sebastianizing. He didn't know their names, or didn't choose to show me their ticket, on which it ought to have been; so I went to one of the fellows whom I knew, and got him to find out. There comes out the value of money--for money makes acquaintances. Well, I found who they were.--Then I saw no chance of getting at them. But for the rest of that year at Cambridge, I beat every bush in the university, to find some one who knew them; and as fortune favours the brave, at last I hit off this Lord Lynedale; and he, of course, was the ace of trumps--a fine catch in himself, and a double catch because he was going to marry the cousin. So I made a dead set at him; and tight work I had to nab him, I can tell you, for he was three or four years older than I, and had travelled a good deal, and seen life. But every man has his weak side; and I found his was a sort of a High-Church Radicalism, and that suited me well enough, for I was always a deuce of a radical myself; so I stuck to him like a leech, and stood all his temper, and his pride, and those unpractical, windy visions of his, that made a common-sense fellow like me sick to listen to; but I stood it, and here I am." "And what on earth induced you to stoop to all this--" meanness I was on the point of saying. "Surely you are in no want of money--your father could buy you a good living to-morrow." "And he will, but not the one I want; and he could not buy me reputation, power, rank, do you see, Alton, my genius? And what's more, he couldn't buy me a certain little tit-bit, a jewel, worth a Jew's eye and a half, Alton, that I set my heart on from the first moment I set my eye on it." My heart beat fast and fierce, but he ran on-- "Do you think I'd have eaten all this dirt if it hadn't lain in my way to her? Eat dirt! I'd drink blood, Alton--though I don't often deal in strong words--if it lay in that road. I never set my heart on a thing yet, that I didn't get it at last by fair means or foul--and I'll get her! I don't care for her money, though that's a pretty plum. Upon my life, I don't. I worship her, limbs and eyes. I worship the very ground she treads on. She's a duck and a darling," said he, smacking his lips like an Ogre over his prey, "and I'll have her before I've done, so help me--" "Whom do you mean?" I stammered out. "Lillian, you blind beetle." I dropped his arm--"Never, as I live!" He started back, and burst into a horse-laugh. "Hullo! my eye and Betty Martin! You don't mean to say that I have the honour of finding a rival in my talented cousin?" I made no answer. "Come, come, my dear fellow, this is too ridiculous. You and I are very good friends, and we may help each other, if we choose, like kith and kin in this here wale. So if you're fool enough to quarrel with me, I warn you I'm not fool enough to return the compliment. Only" (lowering his voice), "just bear one little thing in mind--that I am, unfortunately, of a somewhat determined humour; and if folks will get in my way, why it's not my fault if I drive over them. You understand? Well, if you intend to be sulky, I don't. So good morning, till you feel yourself better." And he turned gaily down a side-street and disappeared, looking taller, handsomer, manfuller than ever. I returned home miserable; I now saw in my cousin not merely a rival, but a tyrant; and I began to hate him with that bitterness which fear alone can inspire. The eleven pounds still remained unpaid. Between three and four pounds was the utmost which I had been able to hoard up that autumn, by dint of scribbling and stinting; there was no chance of profit from my book for months to come--if indeed it ever got published, which I hardly dare believe it would; and I knew him too well to doubt that neither pity nor delicacy would restrain him from using his power over me, if I dared even to seem an obstacle in his way. I tried to write, but could not. I found it impossible to direct my thoughts, even to sit still; a vague spectre of terror and degradation crushed me. Day after day I sat over the fire, and jumped up and went into the shop, to find something which I did not want, and peep listlessly into a dozen books, one after the other, and then wander back again to the fireside, to sit mooning and moping, starting at that horrible incubus of debt--a devil which may give mad strength to the strong, but only paralyses the weak. And I was weak, as every poet is, more or less. There was in me, as I have somewhere read that there is in all poets, that feminine vein--a receptive as well as a creative faculty--which kept up in me a continual thirst after beauty, rest, enjoyment. And here was circumstance after circumstance goading me onward, as the gadfly did Io, to continual wanderings, never ceasing exertions; every hour calling on me to do, while I was only longing to be--to sit and observe, and fancy, and build freely at my own will. And then--as if this necessity of perpetual petty exertion was not in itself sufficient torment--to have that accursed debt--that knowledge that I was in a rival's power, rising up like a black wall before me, to cripple, and render hopeless, for aught I knew, the very exertions to which it compelled me! I hated the bustle--the crowds; the ceaseless roar of the street outside maddened me. I longed in vain for peace--for one day's freedom--to be one hour a shepherd-boy, and lie looking up at the blue sky, without a thought beyond the rushes that I was plaiting! "Oh! that I had wings as a dove!--then would I flee away, and be at rest!"-- And then, more than once or twice either, the thoughts of suicide crossed me; and I turned it over, and looked at it, and dallied with it, as a last chance in reserve. And then the thought of Lillian came, and drove away the fiend. And then the thought of my cousin came, and paralysed me again; for it told me that one hope was impossible. And then some fresh instance of misery or oppression forced itself upon me, and made me feel the awful sacredness of my calling, as a champion of the poor, and the base cowardice of deserting them for any selfish love of rest. And then I recollected how I had betrayed my suffering brothers.--How, for the sake of vanity and patronage, I had consented to hide the truth about their rights--their wrongs. And so on through weary weeks of moping melancholy--"a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways?" At last, Mackaye, who, as I found afterwards, had been watching all along my altered mood, contrived to worm my secret out of me. I had dreaded, that whole autumn, having to tell him the truth, because I knew that his first impulse would be to pay the money instantly out of his own pocket; and my pride, as well as my sense of justice, revolted at that, and sealed my lips. But now this fresh discovery--the knowledge that it was not only in my cousin's power to crush me, but also his interest to do so--had utterly unmanned me; and after a little innocent and fruitless prevarication, out came the truth with tears of bitter shame. The old man pursed up his lips, and, without answering me, opened his table drawer, and commenced fumbling among accounts and papers. "No! no! no! best, noblest of friends! I will not burden you with the fruits of my own vanity and extravagance. I will starve, go to gaol sooner than take your money. If you offer it me I will leave the house, bag and baggage, this moment." And I rose to put my threat into execution. "I havena at present ony sic intention," answered he, deliberately, "seeing that there's na necessity for paying debits twice owre, when ye ha' the stampt receipt for them." And he put into my hands, to my astonishment and rapture, a receipt in full for the money, signed by my cousin. Not daring to believe my own eyes, I turned it over and over, looked at it, looked at him--there was nothing but clear, smiling assurance in his beloved old face, as he twinkled, and winked, and chuckled, and pulled off his spectacles, and wiped them, and put them on upside-down; and then relieved himself by rushing at his pipe, and cramming it fiercely with tobacco till he burst the bowl. Yes; it was no dream!--the money was paid, and I was free! The sudden relief was as intolerable as the long burden had been; and, like a prisoner suddenly loosed from off the rack, my whole spirit seemed suddenly to collapse, and I sank with my head upon the table to faint even for gratitude. * * * * * But who was my benefactor? Mackaye vouchsafed no answer, but that I "suld ken better than he." But when he found that I was really utterly at a loss to whom to attribute the mercy, he assured me, by way of comfort, that he was just as ignorant as myself; and at last, piecemeal, in his circumlocutory and cautious Scotch method, informed me, that some six weeks back he had received an anonymous letter, "a'thegither o' a Belgravian cast o' phizog," containing a bank note for twenty pounds, and setting forth the writer's suspicions that I owed my cousin money, and their desire that Mr. Mackaye, "o' whose uprightness and generosity they were pleased to confess themselves no that ignorant," should write to George, ascertain the sum, and pay it without my knowledge, handing over the balance, if any, to me, when he thought fit--"Sae there's the remnant--aucht pounds, sax shillings, an' saxpence; tippence being deduckit for expense o' twa letters anent the same transaction." "But what sort of handwriting was it?" asked I, almost disregarding the welcome coin. "Ou, then--aiblins a man's, aiblins a maid's. He was no chirographosophic himsel--an' he had na curiosity anent ony sic passage o' aristocratic romance." "But what was the postmark of the letter?" "Why for suld I speired? Gin the writers had been minded to be beknown, they'd ha' sign't their names upon the document. An' gin they didna sae intend, wad it be coorteous o' me to gang speiring an' peering ower covers an' seals?" "But where is the cover?" "Ou, then," he went on, with the same provoking coolness, "white paper's o' geyan use, in various operations o' the domestic economy. Sae I just tare it up--aiblins for pipe-lights--I canna mind at this time." "And why," asked I, more vexed and disappointed than I liked to confess--"why did you not tell me before?" "How wad I ken that you had need o't? An' verily, I thocht it no that bad a lesson for ye, to let ye experiment a towmond mair on the precious balms that break the head--whereby I opine the Psalmist was minded to denote the delights o' spending borrowed siller." There was nothing more to be extracted from him; so I was fain to set to work again (a pleasant compulsion truly) with a free heart, eight pounds in my pocket, and a brainful of conjectures. Was it the dean? Lord Lynedale? or was it--could it be--Lillian herself? That thought was so delicious that I made up my mind, as I had free choice among half a dozen equally improbable fancies, to determine that the most pleasant should be the true one; and hoarded the money, which I shrunk from spending as much as I should from selling her miniature or a lock of her beloved golden hair. They were a gift from her--a pledge--the first fruits of--I dare not confess to myself what. Whereat the reader will smile, and say, not without reason, that I was fast fitting myself for Bedlam; if, indeed, I had not proved my fitness for it already, by paying the tailors' debts, instead of my own, with the ten pounds which Farmer Porter had given me. I am not sure that he would not be correct; but so I did, and so I suffered. CHAPTER XXV. A TRUE NOBLEMAN. At last my list of subscribers was completed, and my poems actually in the press. Oh! the childish joy with which I fondled my first set of proofs! And how much finer the words looked in print than they ever did in manuscript!--One took in the idea of a whole page so charmingly at a glance, instead of having to feel one's way through line after line, and sentence after sentence.--There was only one drawback to my happiness--Mackaye did not seem to sympathize with it. He had never grumbled at what I considered, and still do consider, my cardinal offence, the omission of the strong political passages; he seemed, on the contrary, in his inexplicable waywardness, to be rather pleased at it than otherwise. It was my publishing at all at which he growled. "Ech," he said, "owre young to marry, is owre young to write; but it's the way o' these puir distractit times. Nae chick can find a grain o' corn, but oot he rins cackling wi' the shell on his head, to tell it to a' the warld, as if there was never barley grown on the face o' the earth before. I wonder whether Isaiah began to write before his beard was grown, or Dawvid either? He had mony a long year o' shepherding an' moss-trooping, an' rugging an' riving i' the wilderness, I'll warrant, afore he got thae gran' lyrics o' his oot o' him. Ye might tak example too, gin ye were minded, by Moses, the man o' God, that was joost forty years at the learning o' the Egyptians, afore he thocht gude to come forward into public life, an' then fun' to his gran' surprise, I warrant, that he'd begun forty years too sune--an' then had forty years mair, after that, o' marching an' law-giving, an' bearing the burdens o' the people, before he turned poet." "Poet, sir! I never saw Moses in that light before." "Then ye'll just read the 90th Psalm--'the prayer o' Moses, the man o' God'--the grandest piece o' lyric, to my taste, that I ever heard o' on the face o' God's earth, an' see what a man can write that'll have the patience to wait a century or twa before he rins to the publisher's. I gie ye up fra' this moment; the letting out o' ink is like the letting out o' waters, or the eating o' opium, or the getting up at public meetings.--When a man begins he canna stop. There's nae mair enslaving lust o' the flesh under the heaven than that same _furor scribendi_, as the Latins hae it." But at last my poems were printed, and bound, and actually published, and I sat staring at a book of my own making, and wondering how it ever got into being! And what was more, the book "took," and sold, and was reviewed in People's journals, and in newspapers; and Mackaye himself relaxed into a grin, when his oracle, the _Spectator_, the only honest paper, according to him, on the face of the earth, condescended, after asserting its impartiality by two or three searching sarcasms, to dismiss me, grimly-benignant, with a paternal pat on the shoulder. Yes--I was a real live author at last, and signed myself, by special request, in the * * * * Magazine, as "the author of Songs of the Highways." At last it struck me, and Mackaye too, who, however he hated flunkeydom, never overlooked an act of discourtesy, that it would be right for me to call upon the dean, and thank him formally for all the real kindness he had shown me. So I went to the handsome house off Harley-street, and was shown into his study, and saw my own book lying on the table, and was welcomed by the good old man, and congratulated on my success, and asked if I did not see my own wisdom in "yielding to more experienced opinions than my own, and submitting to a censorship which, however severe it might have appeared at first, was, as the event proved, benignant both in its intentions and effects?" And then I was asked, even I, to breakfast there the next morning. And I went, and found no one there but some scientific gentlemen, to whom I was introduced as "the young man whose poems we were talking of last night." And Lillian sat at the head of the table, and poured out the coffee and tea. And between ecstasy at seeing her, and the intense relief of not finding my dreaded and now hated cousin there, I sat in a delirium of silent joy, stealing glances at her beauty, and listening with all my ears to the conversation, which turned upon the new-married couple. I heard endless praises, to which I could not but assent in silence, of Lord Ellerton's perfections. His very personal appearance had been enough to captivate my fancy; and then they went on to talk of his magnificent philanthropic schemes, and his deep sense, of the high duties of a landlord; and how, finding himself, at his father's death, the possessor of two vast but neglected estates, he had sold one in order to be able to do justice to the other, instead of laying house to house, and field to field, like most of his compeers, "till he stood alone in the land, and there was no place left;" and how he had lowered his rents, even though it had forced him to put down the ancestral pack of hounds, and live in a corner of the old castle; and how he was draining, claying, breaking up old moorlands, and building churches, and endowing schools, and improving cottages; and how he was expelling the old ignorant bankrupt race of farmers, and advertising everywhere for men of capital, and science, and character, who would have courage to cultivate flax and silk, and try every species of experiment; and how he had one scientific farmer after another, staying in his house as a friend; and how he had numbers of his books rebound in plain covers, that he might lend them to every one on his estate who wished to read them; and how he had thrown open his picture gallery, not only to the inhabitants of the neighbouring town, but what (strange to say) seemed to strike the party as still more remarkable, to the labourers of his own village; and how he was at that moment busy transforming an old unoccupied manor-house into a great associate farm, in which all the labourers were to live under one roof, with a common kitchen and dining-hall, clerks and superintendents, whom they were to choose, subject only to his approval, and all of them, from the least to the greatest, have their own interest in the farm, and be paid by percentage on the profits; and how he had one of the first political economists of the day staying with him, in order to work out for him tables of proportionate remuneration, applicable to such an agricultural establishment; and how, too, he was giving the spade-labour system a fair-trial, by laying out small cottage-farms, on rocky knolls and sides of glens, too steep to be cultivated by the plough; and was locating on them the most intelligent artisans whom he could draft from the manufacturing town hard by-- And at that notion, my brain grew giddy with the hope of seeing myself one day in one of those same cottages, tilling the earth, under God's sky, and perhaps--. And then a whole cloud-world of love, freedom, fame, simple, graceful country luxury steamed up across my brain, to end--not, like the man's in the "Arabian Nights," in my kicking over the tray of China, which formed the base-point of my inverted pyramid of hope--but in my finding the contents of my plate deposited in my lap, while I was gazing fixedly at Lillian. I must say for myself, though, that such accidents happened seldom; whether it was bashfulness, or the tact which generally, I believe, accompanies a weak and nervous body, and an active mind; or whether it was that I possessed enough relationship to the monkey-tribe to make me a first-rate mimic, I used to get tolerably well through on these occasions, by acting on the golden rule of never doing anything which I had not seen some one else do first--a rule which never brought me into any greater scrape than swallowing something intolerably hot, sour, and nasty (whereof I never discovered the name), because I had seen the dean do so a moment before. But one thing struck me through the whole of this conversation--the way in which the new-married Lady Ellerton was spoken of, as aiding, encouraging, originating--a helpmeet, if not an oracular guide, for her husband--in all these noble plans. She had already acquainted herself with every woman on the estate; she was the dispenser, not merely of alms--for those seemed a disagreeable necessity, from which Lord Ellerton was anxious to escape as soon as possible--but of advice, comfort, and encouragement. She not only visited the sick, and taught in the schools--avocations which, thank God, I have reason to believe are matters of course, not only in the families of clergymen, but those of most squires and noblemen, when they reside on their estates--but seemed, from the hints which I gathered, to be utterly devoted, body and soul, to the welfare of the dwellers on her husband's land. "I had no notion," I dared at last to remark, humbly enough, "that Miss--Lady Ellerton cared so much for the people." "Really! One feels inclined sometimes to wish that she cared for anything beside them," said Lillian, half to her father and half to me. This gave a fresh shake to my estimate of that remarkable woman's character. But still, who could be prouder, more imperious, more abrupt in manner, harsh, even to the very verge of good-breeding? (for I had learnt what good-breeding was, from the debating society as well as from the drawing-room;) and, above all, had she not tried to keep me from Lillian? But these cloudy thoughts melted rapidly away in that sunny atmosphere of success and happiness, and I went home as merry as a bird, and wrote all the morning more gracefully and sportively, as I fancied, than I had ever yet done. But my bliss did not end here. In a week or so, behold one morning a note--written, indeed, by the dean--but directed in Lillian's own hand, inviting me to come there to tea, that I might see a few, of the literary characters of the day. I covered the envelope with kisses, and thrust it next my fluttering heart. I then proudly showed the note to Mackaye. He looked pleased, yet pensive, and then broke out with a fresh adaptation of his favourite song, --and shovel hats and a' that-- A man's a man for a' that. "The auld gentleman is a man and a gentleman; an' has made a verra courteous, an' weel considerit move, gin ye ha' the sense to profit by it, an' no turn it to yer ain destruction." "Destruction?" "Ay--that's the word, an' nothing less, laddie!" And he went into the outer shop, and returned with a volume of Bulwer's "Ernest Maltravers." "What! are you a novel reader, Mr. Mackaye?" "How do ye ken what I may ha' thocht gude to read in my time? Yell be pleased the noo to sit down an' begin at that page--an read, mark, learn, an' inwardly digest, the history of Castruccio Cesarini--an' the gude God gie ye grace to lay the same to heart." I read that fearful story; and my heart sunk, and my eyes were full of tears, long ere I had finished it. Suddenly I looked up at Mackaye, half angry at the pointed allusion to my own case. The old man was watching me intently, with folded hands, and a smile of solemn interest and affection worthy of Socrates himself. He turned his head as I looked up, but his lips kept moving. I fancied, I know not why, that he was praying for me. CHAPTER XXVI. THE TRIUMPHANT AUTHOR. So to the party I went, and had the delight of seeing and hearing the men with whose names I had been long acquainted, as the leaders of scientific discovery in this wondrous age; and more than one poet, too, over whose works I had gloated, whom I had worshipped in secret. Intense was the pleasure of now realizing to myself, as living men, wearing the same flesh and blood as myself, the names which had been to me mythic ideas. Lillian was there among them, more exquisite than ever; but even she at first attracted my eyes and thoughts less than did the truly great men around her. I hung on every word they spoke, I watched every gesture, as if they must have some deep significance; the very way in which they drank their coffee was a matter of interest to me. I was almost disappointed to see them eat and chat like common men. I expected that pearls and diamonds would drop from their lips, as they did from those of the girl, in the fairy-tale, every time they opened their mouths; and certainly, the conversation that evening was a new world to me--though I could only, of course, be a listener. Indeed, I wished to be nothing more. I felt that I was taking my place there among the holy guild of authors--that I too, however humbly, had a thing to say, and had said it; and I was content to sit on the lowest step of the literary temple, without envy for those elder and more practised priests of wisdom, who had earned by long labour the freedom of the inner shrine. I should have been quite happy enough standing there, looking and listening--but I was at last forced to come forward. Lillian was busy chatting with grave, grey-headed men, who seemed as ready to flirt, and pet and admire the lovely little fairy, as if they had been as young and gay as herself. It was enough for me to see her appreciated and admired. I loved them for smiling on her, for handing her from her seat to the piano with reverent courtesy: gladly would I have taken their place: I was content, however, to be only a spectator; for it was not my rank, but my youth, I was glad to fancy, which denied me that blissful honour. But as she sang, I could not help stealing up to the piano; and, feasting my greedy eyes with every motion of those delicious lips, listen and listen, entranced, and living only in that melody. Suddenly, after singing two or three songs, she began fingering the keys, and struck into an old air, wild and plaintive, rising and falling like the swell of an Æolian harp upon a distant breeze. "Ah! now," she said, "if I could get words for that! What an exquisite lament somebody might write to it, if they could only thoroughly take in the feeling and meaning of it." "Perhaps," I said, humbly, "that is the only way to write songs--to let some air get possession of ones whole soul, and gradually inspire the words for itself; as the old Hebrew prophets had music played before them, to wake up the prophetic spirit within them." She looked up, just as if she had been unconscious of my presence till that moment. "Ah! Mr. Locke!--well, if you understand my meaning so thoroughly, perhaps you will try and write some words for me." "I am afraid that I do not enter sufficiently into the meaning of the air." "Oh! then, listen while I play it over again. I am sure _you_ ought to appreciate anything so sad and tender." And she did play it, to my delight, over again, even more gracefully and carefully than before--making the inarticulate sounds speak a mysterious train of thoughts and emotions. It is strange how little real intellect, in women especially, is required for an exquisite appreciation of the beauties of music--perhaps, because it appeals to the heart and not the head. She rose and left the piano, saying archly, "Now, don't forget your promise;" and I, poor fool, my sunlight suddenly withdrawn, began torturing my brains on the instant to think of a subject. As it happened, my attention was caught by hearing two gentlemen close to me discuss a beautiful sketch by Copley Fielding, if I recollect rightly, which hung on the wall--a wild waste of tidal sands, with here and there a line of stake-nets fluttering in the wind--a grey shroud of rain sweeping up from the westward, through which low red cliffs glowed dimly in the rays of the setting sun--a train of horses and cattle splashing slowly through shallow desolate pools and creeks, their wet, red, and black hides glittering in one long line of level light. They seemed thoroughly conversant with art; and as I listened to their criticisms, I learnt more in five minutes about the characteristics of a really true and good picture, and about the perfection to which our unrivalled English landscape-painters have attained, than I ever did from all the books and criticisms which I had read. One of them had seen the spot represented, at the mouth of the Dee, and began telling wild stories of salmon-fishing, and wildfowl shooting--and then a tale of a girl, who, in bringing her father's cattle home across the sands, had been caught by a sudden flow of the tide, and found next day a corpse hanging among the stake-nets far below. The tragedy, the art of the picture, the simple, dreary grandeur of the scenery, took possession of me; and I stood gazing a long time, and fancying myself pacing the sands, and wondering whether there were shells upon it--I had often longed for once only in my life to pick up shells--when Lady Ellerton, whom I had not before noticed, woke me from my reverie. I took the liberty of asking after Lord Ellerton. "He is not in town--he has stayed behind for one day to attend a great meeting of his tenantry--you will see the account in the papers to-morrow morning--he comes to-morrow." And as she spoke her whole face and figure seemed to glow and heave, in spite of herself, with pride and affection. "And now, come with me, Mr. Locke--the * * * ambassador wishes to speak to you." "The * * * ambassador!" I said, startled; for let us be as democratic as we will, there is something in the name of great officers which awes, perhaps rightly, for the moment, and it requires a strong act of self-possession to recollect that "a man's a man for a' that." Besides, I knew enough of the great man in question to stand in awe of him for his own sake, having lately read a panegyric of him, which perfectly astounded me, by its description of his piety and virtue, his family affection, and patriarchal simplicity, the liberality and philanthropy of all his measures, and the enormous intellectual powers, and stores of learning, which enabled him, with the affairs of Europe on his shoulders, to write deeply and originally on the most abstruse questions of theology, history, and science. Lady Ellerton seemed to guess my thoughts. "You need not be afraid of meeting an aristocrat, in the vulgar sense of the word. You will see one who, once perhaps as unknown as yourself, has risen by virtue and wisdom to guide the destinies of nations--and shall I tell you how? Not by fawning and yielding to the fancies of the great; not by compromising his own convictions to suit their prejudices--" I felt the rebuke, but she went on-- "He owes his greatness to having dared, one evening, to contradict a crown-prince to his face, and fairly conquer him in argument, and thereby bind the truly royal heart to him for ever." "There are few scions of royalty to whose favour that would be a likely path." "True; and therefore the greater honour is due to the young student who could contradict, and the prince who could be contradicted." By this time we had arrived in the great man's presence; he was sitting with a little circle round him, in the further drawing-room, and certainly I never saw a nobler specimen of humanity. I felt myself at once before a hero--not of war and bloodshed, but of peace and civilization; his portly and ample figure, fair hair and delicate complexion, and, above all, the benignant calm of his countenance, told of a character gentle and genial--at peace with himself and all the world; while the exquisite proportion of his chiselled and classic features, the lofty and ample brain, and the keen, thoughtful eye, bespoke, at the first glance, refinement and wisdom-- The reason firm, the temperate will-- Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill. I am not ashamed to say, Chartist as I am, that I felt inclined to fall upon my knees, and own a master of God's own making. He received my beautiful guide with a look of chivalrous affection, which I observed that she returned with interest; and then spoke in a voice peculiarly bland and melodious: "So, my dear lady, this is the _protégé_ of whom you have so often spoken?" So she had often spoken of me! Blind fool that I was, I only took it in as food for my own self-conceit, that my enemy (for so I actually fancied her) could not help praising me. "I have read your little book, sir," he said, in the same soft, benignant voice, "with very great pleasure. It is another proof, if I required any, of the under-current of living and healthful thought which exists even in the less-known ranks of your great nation. I shall send it to some young friends of mine in Germany, to show them that Englishmen can feel acutely and speak boldly on the social evils of their country, without indulging in that frantic and bitter revolutionary spirit, which warps so many young minds among us. You understand the German language at all?" I had not that honour. "Well, you must learn it. We have much to teach you in the sphere of abstract thought, as you have much to teach us in those of the practical reason and the knowledge of mankind. I should be glad to see you some day in a German university. I am anxious to encourage a truly spiritual fraternization between the two great branches of the Teutonic stock, by welcoming all brave young English spirits to their ancient fatherland. Perhaps hereafter your kind friends here will be able to lend you to me. The means are easy, thank God! You will find in the Germans true brothers, in ways even more practical than sympathy and affection." I could not but thank the great man, with many blushes, and went home that night utterly _"tête montée,"_ as I believe the French phrase is--beside myself with gratified vanity and love; to lie sleepless under a severe fit of asthma--sent perhaps as a wholesome chastisement to cool my excited spirits down to something like a rational pitch. As I lay castle-building, Lillian's wild air rang still in my ears, and combined itself somehow with that picture of the Cheshire sands, and the story of the drowned girl, till it shaped itself into a song, which, as it is yet unpublished, and as I have hitherto obtruded little or nothing of my own composition on my readers, I may be excused for inserting it here. I. "O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee;" The western wind was wild and dank wi' foam, And all alone went she. II. The creeping tide came up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see; The blinding mist came down and hid the land-- And never home came she. III. "Oh, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair-- A tress o' golden hair, O' drowned maiden's hair, Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair, Among the stakes on Dee." IV. They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the sands o' Dee. There--let it go!--it was meant as an offering for one whom it never reached. About mid-day I took my way towards the dean's house, to thank him for his hospitality--and, I need not say, to present my offering at my idol's shrine; and as I went, I conned over a dozen complimentary speeches about Lord Ellerton's wisdom, liberality, eloquence--but behold! the shutters of the house were closed. What could be the matter? It was full ten minutes before the door was opened; and then, at last, an old woman, her eyes red with weeping, made her appearance. My thoughts flew instantly to Lillian--something must have befallen her. I gasped out her name first, and then, recollecting myself, asked for the dean. "They had all left town that morning," "Miss--Miss Winnstay--is she ill?" "No." "Thank God!" I breathed freely again. What matter what happened to all the world beside? "Ay, thank God, indeed; but poor Lord Ellerton was thrown from his horse last night and brought home dead. A messenger came here by six this morning, and they're all gone off to * * * *. Her ladyship's raving mad.--And no wonder." And she burst out crying afresh, and shut the door in my face. Lord Ellerton dead! and Lillian gone too! Something whispered that I should have cause to remember that day. My heart sunk within me. When should I see her again? That day was the 1st of June, 1845. On the 10th of April, 1848, I saw Lillian Winnstay again. Dare I write my history between those two points of time? Yes, even that must be done, for the sake of the rich who read, and the poor who suffer. CHAPTER XXVII. THE PLUSH BREECHES TRAGEDY. My triumph had received a cruel check enough when just at its height, and more were appointed to follow. Behold! some two days after, another--all the more bitter, because my conscience whispered that it was not altogether undeserved. The people's press had been hitherto praising and petting me lovingly enough. I had been classed (and heaven knows that the comparison was dearer to me than all the applause of the wealthy) with the Corn-Law Rhymer, and the author of the "Purgatory of Suicides." My class had claimed my talents as their own--another "voice fresh from the heart of nature," another "untutored songster of the wilderness," another "prophet arisen among the suffering millions,"--when, one day, behold in Mr. O'Flynn's paper a long and fierce attack on me, my poems, my early history! How he could have got at some of the facts there mentioned, how he could have dared to inform his readers that I had broken my mother's heart by my misconduct, I cannot conceive; unless my worthy brother-in-law, the Baptist preacher, had been kind enough to furnish him with the materials. But however that may be, he showed me no mercy. I was suddenly discovered to be a time-server, a spy, a concealed aristocrat. Such paltry talent as I had, I had prostituted for the sake of fame. I had deserted The People's Cause for filthy lucre--an allurement which Mr. O'Flynn had always treated with withering scorn--_in print_. Nay, more, I would write, and notoriously did write, in any paper, Whig, Tory, or Radical, where I could earn a shilling by an enormous gooseberry, or a scrap of private slander. And the working men were solemnly warned to beware of me and my writings, till the editor had further investigated certain ugly facts in my history, which he would in due time report to his patriotic and enlightened readers. All this stung me in the most sensitive nerve of my whole heart, for I knew that I could not altogether exculpate myself; and to that miserable certainty was added the dread of some fresh exposure. Had he actually heard of the omissions in my poems?--and if he once touched on that subject, what could I answer? Oh! how bitterly now I felt the force of the critic's careless lash! The awful responsibility of those written words, which we bandy about so thoughtlessly! How I recollected now, with shame and remorse, all the hasty and cruel utterances to which I, too, had given vent against those who had dared to differ from me; the harsh, one-sided judgments, the reckless imputations of motive, the bitter sneers, "rejoicing in evil rather than in the truth." How I, too, had longed to prove my victims in the wrong, and turned away, not only lazily, but angrily, from many an exculpatory fact! And here was my Nemesis come at last. As I had done unto others, so it was done unto me! It was right that it should be so. However indignant, mad, almost murderous, I felt at the time, I thank God for it now. It is good to be punished in kind. It is good to be made to feel what we have made others feel. It is good--anything is good, however bitter, which shows us that there is such a law as retribution; that we are not the sport of blind chance or a triumphant fiend, but that there is a God who judges the earth--righteous to repay every man according to his works. But at the moment I had no such ray of comfort--and, full of rage and shame, I dashed the paper down before Mackaye. "How shall I answer him? What shall I say?" The old man read it all through, with a grim saturnine smile. "Hoolie, hoolie, speech, is o' silver--silence is o' gold says Thomas Carlyle, anent this an' ither matters. Wha'd be fashed wi' sic blethers? Ye'll just abide patient, and haud still in the Lord, until this tyranny be owerpast. Commit your cause to him, said the auld Psalmist, an' he'll mak your righteousness as clear as the light, an' your just dealing as the noonday." "But I must explain; I owe it as a duty to myself; I must refute these charges; I must justify myself to our friends." "Can ye do that same, laddie?" asked he, with one of his quaint, searching looks. Somehow I blushed, and could not altogether meet his eye, while he went on, "--An' gin ye could, whaur would ye do 't? I ken na periodical whar the editor will gie ye a clear stage an' no favour to bang him ower the lugs." "Then I will try some other paper." "An' what for then? They that read him, winna read the ither; an' they that read the ither, winna read him. He has his ain set o' dupes like every ither editor; an' ye mun let him gang his gate, an' feed his ain kye with his ain hay. He'll no change it for your bidding." "What an abominable thing this whole business of the press is then, if each editor is to be allowed to humbug his readers at his pleasure, without a possibility of exposing or contradicting him!" "An' ye've just spoken the truth, laddie. There's na mair accursed inquisition, than this of thae self-elected popes, the editors. That puir auld Roman ane, ye can bring him forat when ye list, bad as he is. 'Fænum habet in cornu;' his name's ower his shop-door. But these anonymies--priests o' the order of Melchisedec by the deevil's side, without father or mither, beginning o' years nor end o' days--without a local habitation or a name-as kittle to baud as a brock in a cairn--" "What do you mean, Mr. Mackaye?" asked I, for he was getting altogether unintelligibly Scotch, as was his custom when excited. "Ou, I forgot; ye're a puir Southern body, an' no sensible to the gran' metaphoric powers o' the true Dawric. But it's an accursit state a'thegither, the noo, this, o' the anonymous press--oreeginally devised, ye ken, by Balaam the son o' Beor, for serving God wi'out the deevil's finding it out--an' noo, after the way o' human institutions, translated ower to help folks to serve the deevil without God's finding it out. I'm no' astonished at the puir expiring religious press for siccan a fa'; but for the working men to be a' that's bad--it's grewsome to behold. I'll tell ye what, my bairn, there's na salvation for the workmen, while they defile themselves this fashion, wi' a' the very idols o' their ain tyrants--wi' salvation by act o' parliament--irresponsible rights o' property--anonymous Balaamry--fechtin' that canny auld farrant fiend, Mammon, wi' his ain weapons--and then a' fleyed, because they get well beaten for their pains. I'm sair forfaughten this mony a year wi' watching the puir gowks, trying to do God's wark wi' the deevil's tools. Tak tent o' that." And I did "tak tent o' it." Still there would have been as little present consolation as usual in Mackaye's unwelcome truths, even if the matter had stopped there. But, alas! it did not stop there. O'Flynn seemed determined to "run a muck" at me. Every week some fresh attack appeared. The very passages about the universities and church property, which had caused our quarrel, were paraded against me, with free additions and comments; and, at last, to my horror, out came the very story which I had all along dreaded, about the expurgation of my poems, with the coarsest allusions to petticoat influence--aristocratic kisses--and the Duchess of Devonshire canvassing draymen for Fox, &c., &c. How he got a clue to the scandal I cannot conceive. Mackaye and Crossthwaite, I had thought, were the only souls to whom I had ever breathed the secret, and they denied indignantly the having ever betrayed my weakness. How it came out, I say again, I cannot conceive; except because it is a great everlasting law, and sure to fulfil itself sooner or later, as we may see by the histories of every remarkable, and many an unremarkable, man--"There is nothing secret, but it shall be made manifest; and whatsoever ye have spoken in the closet, shall be proclaimed upon the house-tops." For some time after that last exposure, I was thoroughly crest-fallen--and not without reason. I had been giving a few lectures among the working men, on various literary and social subjects. I found my audience decrease--and those who remained seemed more inclined to hiss than to applaud me. In vain I ranted and quoted poetry, often more violently than my own opinions justified. My words touched no responsive chord in my hearers' hearts; they had lost faith in me. At last, in the middle of a lecture on Shelley, I was indulging, and honestly too, in some very glowing and passionate praise of the true nobleness of a man, whom neither birth nor education could blind to the evils of society; who, for the sake of the suffering many, could trample under foot his hereditary pride, and become an outcast for the People's Cause. I heard a whisper close to me, from one whose opinion I valued, and value still--a scholar and a poet, one who had tasted poverty, and slander, and a prison, for The Good Cause: "Fine talk: but it's 'all in his day's work.' Will he dare to say that to-morrow to the ladies at the West-end?" No--I should not. I knew it; and at that instant I felt myself a liar, and stopped short--my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. I fumbled at my papers--clutched the water-tumbler--tried to go on--stopped short again--caught up my hat, and rushed from the room, amid peals of astonished laughter. It was some months after this that, fancying the storm blown over, I summoned up courage enough to attend a political meeting of our party; but even there my Nemesis met full face. After some sanguinary speech, I really forgot from whom, and, if I recollected, God forbid that I should tell now, I dared to controvert, mildly enough, Heaven knows, some especially frantic assertion or other. But before I could get out three sentences, O'Flynn flew at me with a coarse invective, hounded on, by-the-by, by one who, calling himself a gentleman, might have been expected to know better. But, indeed, he and O'Flynn had the same object in view, which was simply to sell their paper; and as a means to that great end, to pander to the fiercest passions of their readers, to bully and silence all moderate and rational Chartists, and pet and tar on the physical-force men, till the poor fellows began to take them at their word. Then, when it came to deeds and not to talk, and people got frightened, and the sale of the paper decreased a little, a blessed change came over them--and they awoke one morning meeker than lambs; "ulterior measures" had vanished back into the barbarous ages, pikes, vitriol-bottles, and all; and the public were entertained with nothing but homilies on patience and resignation, the "triumphs of moral justice," the "omnipotence of public opinion," and the "gentle conquests of fraternal love"--till it was safe to talk treason and slaughter again. But just then treason happened to be at a premium. Sedition, which had been floundering on in a confused, disconsolate, underground way ever since 1842, was supposed by the public to be dead; and for that very reason it was safe to talk it, or, at least, back up those who chose to do so. And so I got no quarter--though really, if the truth must be told, I had said nothing unreasonable. Home I went disgusted, to toil on at my hack-writing, only praying that I might be let alone to scribble in peace, and often thinking, sadly, how little my friends in Harley-street could guess at the painful experience, the doubts, the struggles, the bitter cares, which went to the making of the poetry which they admired so much! I was not, however, left alone to scribble in peace, either by O'Flynn or by his readers, who formed, alas! just then, only too large a portion of the thinking artizans; every day brought some fresh slight or annoyance with it, till I received one afternoon, by the Parcels Delivery Company, a large unpaid packet, containing, to my infinite disgust, an old pair of yellow plush breeches, with a recommendation to wear them, whose meaning could not be mistaken. Furious, I thrust the unoffending garment into the lire, and held it there with the tongs, regardless of the horrible smell which accompanied its martyrdom, till the lady-lodger on the first floor rushed down to inquire whether the house was on fire. I answered by hurling a book at her head, and brought down a volley of abuse, under which I sat in sulky patience, till Mackaye and Crossthwaite came in, and found her railing in the doorway, and me sitting over the fire, still intent on the frizzling remains of the breeches. "Was this insult of your invention, Mr. Crossthwaite?" asked I, in a tone of lofty indignation, holding up the last scrap of unroasted plush. Roars of laughter from both of them made me only more frantic, and I broke out so incoherently, that it was some time before the pair could make out the cause of my fury. "Upon my honour, Locke," quoth John, at last, holding his sides, "I never sent them; though, on the whole--you've made my stomach ache with laughing. I can't speak. But you must expect a joke or two, after your late fashionable connexions." I stood, still and white with rage. "Really, my good fellow, how can you wonder if our friends suspect you? Can you deny that you've been off and on lately between flunkeydom and The Cause, like a donkey between two bundles of hay? Have you not neglected our meetings? Have you not picked all the spice out of your poems? And can you expect to eat your cake and keep it too? You must be one thing or the other; and, though Sandy, here, is too kind-hearted to tell you, you have disappointed us both miserably--and there's the long and short of it." I hid my face in my hands, and sat moodily over the fire; my conscience told me that I had nothing to answer. "Whisht, Johnnie! Ye're ower sair on the lad. He's a' right at heart still, an he'll do good service. But the deevil a'ways fechts hardest wi' them he's maist 'feard of. What's this anent agricultural distress ye had to tell me the noo?" "There is a rising down in the country, a friend of mine writes me. The people are starving, not because bread is dear, but because it's cheap; and, like sensible men, they're going to have a great meeting, to inquire the rights and wrong of all that. Now, I want to send a deputation down, to see how far they are inclined to go, and let them know we up in London are with them. And then we might get up a corresponding association, you know. It's a great opening for spreading the principles of the Charter." "I sair misdoubt, it's just bread they'll be wanting, they labourers, mair than liberty. Their God is their belly, I'm thinking, and a verra poor empty idol he is the noo; sma' burnt offerings and fat o' rams he gets to propitiate him. But ye might send down a canny body, just to spy out the nakedness o' the land." "I will go," I said, starting up. "They shall see that I do care for The Cause. If it's a dangerous mission, so much the better. It will prove my sincerity. Where is the place?" "About ten miles from D * * * *." "D * * * *!" My heart sank. If it had been any other spot in England! But it was too late to retract. Sandy saw what was the matter, and tried to turn the subject; but I was peremptory, almost rude with him. I felt I must keep up my present excitement, or lose my heart, and my caste, for ever; and as the hour for the committee was at hand, I jumped up and set off thither with them, whether they would or not. I heard Sandy whisper to Crossthwaite, and turned quite fiercely on him. "If you want to speak about me, speak out. If you fancy that I shall let my connexion with that place" (I could not bring myself to name it) "stand in the way of my duty, you do not know me." I announced my intention at the meeting. It was at first received coldly; but I spoke energetically--perhaps, as some told me afterwards, actually eloquently. When I got heated, I alluded to my former stay at D * * * *, and said (while my heart sunk at the bravado which I was uttering) that I should consider it a glory to retrieve my character with them, and devote myself to the cause of the oppressed, in the very locality whence had first arisen their unjust and pardonable suspicions. In short, generous, trusting hearts as they were, and always are, I talked them round; they shook me by the hand one by one, bade me God speed, told me that I stood higher than ever in their eyes, and then set to work to vote money from their funds for my travelling expenses, which I magnanimously refused, saying that I had a pound or two left from the sale of my poems, and that I must be allowed, as an act of repentance and restitution, to devote it to The Cause. My triumph was complete. Even O'Flynn, who, like all Irishmen, had plenty of loose good-nature at bottom, and was as sudden and furious in his loves as in his hostilities, scrambled over the benches, regardless of patriots' toes, to shake me violently by the hand, and inform me that I was "a broth of a boy," and that "any little disagreements between us had vanished like a passing cloud from the sunshine of our fraternity"--when my eye was caught by a face which there was no mistaking--my cousin's! Yes, there he sat, watching me like a basilisk, with his dark, glittering, mesmeric eyes, out of a remote corner of the room--not in contempt or anger, but there was a quiet, assured, sardonic smile about his lips, which chilled me to the heart. The meeting was sufficiently public to allow of his presence, but how had he found out its existence? Had he come there as a spy on me? Had he been in the room when my visit to D * * * * was determined on? I trembled at the thought; and I trembled, too, lest he should be daring enough--and I knew he could dare anything--to claim acquaintance with me there and then. It would have ruined my new-restored reputation for ever. But he sat still and steady: and I had to go through the rest of the evening's business under the miserable, cramping knowledge that every word and gesture was being noted down by my most deadly enemy; trembling whenever I was addressed, lest some chance word of an acquaintance would implicate me still further--though, indeed, I was deep enough already. The meeting seemed interminable; and there I fidgeted, with my face scarlet--always seeing those basilisk eyes upon me--in fancy--for I dared not look again towards the corner where I knew they were. At last it was over--the audience went out; and when I had courage to look round, my cousin had vanished among them. A load was taken off my breast, and I breathed freely again--for five minutes;--for I had not made ten steps up the street, when an arm was familiarly thrust through mine, and I found myself in the clutches of my evil genius. "How are you, my dear fellow? Expected to meet you there. Why, what an orator you are! Really, I haven't heard more fluent or passionate English this month of Sundays. You must give me a lesson in sermon-preaching. I can tell you, we parsons want a hint or two in that line. So you're going down to D * * * *, to see after those poor starving labourers? 'Pon my honour, I've a great mind to go with you." So, then, he knew all! However, there was nothing for it but to brazen it out; and, besides, I was in his power, and however hateful to me his seeming cordiality might be, I dared not offend him at that moment. "It would be well if you did. If you parsons would show yourselves at such places as these a little oftener, you would do more to make the people believe your mission real, than by all the tracts and sermons in the world." "But, my dear cousin" (and he began to snuffle and sink his voice), "there is so much sanguinary language, so much unsanctified impatience, you frighten away all the meek apostolic men among the priesthood--the very ones who feel most for the lost sheep of the flock. "Then the parsons are either great Pharisees or great cowards, or both." "Very likely. I was in a precious fright myself, I know, when I saw you recognized me. If I had not felt strengthened, you know, as of course one ought to be in all trials, by the sense of my holy calling, I think I should have bolted at once. However, I took the precaution of bringing my Bowie and revolver with me, in case the worst came to the worst." "And a very needless precaution it was," said I, half laughing at the quaint incongruity of the priestly and the lay elements in his speech. "You don't seem to know much of working men's meetings, or working men's morals. Why, that place was open to all the world. The proceedings will be in the newspaper to-morrow. The whole bench of bishops might have been there, if they had chosen; and a great deal of good it would have done them!" "I fully agree with you, my dear fellow. No one hates the bishops more than we true high-churchmen, I can tell you--that's a great point of sympathy between us and the people. But I must be off. By-the-by, would you like me to tell our friends at D * * * * that I met you? They often ask after you in their letters, I assure you." This was a sting of complicated bitterness. I felt all that it meant at once. So he was in constant correspondence with them, while I--and that thought actually drove out of my head the more pressing danger of his utterly ruining me in their esteem, by telling them, as he had a very good right to do, that I was going to preach Chartism to discontented mobs. "Ah! well! perhaps you wouldn't wish it mentioned? As you like, you know. Or, rather," and he laid an iron grasp on my arm, and dropped his voice--this time in earnest--"as you behave, my wise and loyal cousin! Good night." I went home--the excitement of self-applause, which the meeting had called up, damped by a strange weight of foreboding. And yet I could not help laughing, when, just as I was turning into bed, Crossthwaite knocked at my door, and, on being admitted, handed over to me a bundle wrapped up in paper. "There's a pair of breeks for you--not plush ones, this time, old fellow--but you ought to look as smart as possible. There's so much in a man's looking dignified, and all that, when he's speechifying. So I've just brought you down my best black trousers to travel in. We're just of a size, you know; little and good, like a Welshman's cow. And if you tear them, why, we're not like poor, miserable, useless aristocrats; tailors and sailors can mend their own rents." And he vanished, whistling the "Marseillaise." I went to bed and tossed about, fancying to myself my journey, my speech, the faces of the meeting, among which Lillian's would rise, in spite of all the sermons which I preached to myself on the impossibility of her being there, of my being known, of any harm happening from the movement; but I could not shake off the fear. If there were a riot, a rising!--If any harm were to happen to her! If--Till, mobbed into fatigue by a rabble of such miserable hypothetic ghosts, I fell asleep, to dream that I was going to be hanged for sedition, and that the mob were all staring and hooting at me, and Lillian clapping her hands and setting them on; and I woke in an agony, to find Sandy Mackaye standing by my bedside with a light. "Hoolie, laddie! ye need na jump up that way. I'm no' gaun to burke ye the nicht; but I canna sleep; I'm sair misdoubtful o' the thing. It seems a' richt, an' I've been praying for us, an' that's mickle for me, to be taught our way; but I dinna see aught for ye but to gang. If your heart is richt with God in this matter, then he's o' your side, an' I fear na what men may do to ye. An' yet, ye're my Joseph, as it were, the son o' my auld age, wi' a coat o' many colours, plush breeks included; an' gin aught take ye, ye'll bring down my grey haffets wi' sorrow to the grave!" The old man gazed at me as be spoke, with a deep, earnest affection I had never seen in him before; and the tears glistened in his eyes by the flaring candlelight, as he went on: "I ha' been reading the Bible the nicht. It's strange how the words o't rise up, and open themselves whiles, to puir distractit bodies; though, maybe, no' always in just the orthodox way. An' I fell on that, 'Behold I send ye forth as lambs in the midst o' wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents an' harmless as doves;' an' that gave me comfort, laddie, for ye. Mind the warning, dinna gang wud, whatever ye may see an' hear; it's an ill way o' showing pity, to gang daft anent it. Dinna talk magniloquently; that's the workman's darling sin. An' mind ye dinna go too deep wi' them. Ye canna trust them to understand ye; they're puir foolish sheep that ha' no shepherd--swine that ha' no wash, rather. So cast na your pearls before swine, laddie, lest they trample them under their feet, an' turn again an' rend ye." He went out, and I lay awake tossing till morning, making a thousand good resolutions--like the rest of mankind. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE MEN WHO ARE EATEN. With many instructions from our friends, and warnings from Mackaye, I started next day on my journey. When I last caught sight of the old man, he was gazing fixedly after me, and using his pocket-handkerchief in a somewhat suspicious way. I had remarked how depressed he seemed, and my own spirits shared the depression. A presentiment of evil hung over me, which not even the excitement of the journey--to me a rare enjoyment--could dispel. I had no heart, somehow, to look at the country scenes around, which in general excited in me so much interest, and I tried to lose myself in summing up my stock of information on the question which I expected to hear discussed by the labourers. I found myself not altogether ignorant. The horrible disclosures of S.G.O., and the barbarous abominations of the Andover Workhouse, then fresh in the public mind, had had their due effect on mine; and, like most thinking artizans, I had acquainted myself tolerably from books and newspapers with the general condition of the country labourers. I arrived in the midst of a dreary, treeless country, whose broad brown and grey fields were only broken by an occasional line of dark, doleful firs, at a knot of thatched hovels, all sinking and leaning every way but the right, the windows patched with paper, the doorways stopped with filth, which surrounded a beer-shop. That was my destination--unpromising enough for any one but an agitator. If discontent and misery are preparatives for liberty--and they are--so strange and unlike ours are the ways of God--I was likely enough to find them there. I was welcomed by my intended host, a little pert, snub-nosed shoemaker, who greeted me as his cousin from London--a relationship which it seemed prudent to accept. He took me into his little cabin, and there, with the assistance of a shrewd, good-natured wife, shared with me the best he had; and after supper commenced, mysteriously and in trembling, as if the very walls might have ears, a rambling, bitter diatribe on the wrongs and sufferings of the labourers; which went on till late in the night, and which I shall spare my readers: for if they have either brains or hearts, they ought to know more than I can tell them, from the public prints, and, indeed, from their own eyes--although, as a wise man says, there is nothing more difficult than to make people see first the facts which lie under their own nose. Upon one point, however, which was new to me, he was very fierce--the customs of landlords letting the cottages with their farms, for the mere sake of saving themselves trouble; thus giving up all power of protecting the poor man, and delivering him over, bound hand and foot, even in the matter of his commonest home comforts, to farmers, too penurious, too ignorant, and often too poor, to keep the cottages in a state fit for the habitation of human beings. Thus the poor man's hovel, as well as his labour, became, he told me, a source of profit to the farmer, out of which he wrung the last drop of gain. The necessary repairs were always put off as long as possible--the labourers were robbed of their gardens--the slightest rebellion lost them not only work, but shelter from the elements; the slavery under which they groaned penetrated even to the fireside and to the bedroom. "And who was the landlord of this parish?" "Oh! he believed he was a very good sort of man, and uncommon kind to the people where he lived, but that was fifty miles away in another country; and he liked that estate better than this, and never came down here, except for the shooting." Full of many thoughts, and tired out with my journey, I went up to bed, in the same loft with the cobbler and his wife, and fell asleep, and dreamt of Lillian. * * * * * About eight o'clock the next morning I started forth with my guide, the shoemaker, over as desolate a country as men can well conceive. Not a house was to be seen for miles, except the knot of hovels which we had left, and here and there a great dreary lump of farm-buildings, with its yard of yellow stacks. Beneath our feet the earth was iron, and the sky iron above our heads. Dark curdled clouds, "which had built up everywhere an under-roof of doleful grey," swept on before the bitter northern wind, which whistled through the low leafless hedges and rotting wattles, and crisped the dark sodden leaves of the scattered hollies, almost the only trees in sight. We trudged on, over wide stubbles, with innumerable weeds; over wide fallows, in which the deserted ploughs stood frozen fast; then over clover and grass, burnt black with frost; then over a field of turnips, where we passed a large fold of hurdles, within which some hundred sheep stood, with their heads turned from the cutting blast. All was dreary, idle, silent; no sound or sign of human beings. One wondered where the people lived, who cultivated so vast a tract of civilized, over-peopled, nineteenth-century England. As we came up to the fold, two little boys hailed us from the inside--two little wretches with blue noses and white cheeks, scarecrows of rags and patches, their feet peeping through bursten shoes twice too big for them, who seemed to have shared between them a ragged pair of worsted gloves, and cowered among the sheep, under the shelter of a hurdle, crying and inarticulate with cold. "What's the matter, boys?" "Turmits is froze, and us can't turn the handle of the cutter. Do ye gie us a turn, please?" We scrambled over the hurdles, and gave the miserable little creatures the benefit of ten minutes' labour. They seemed too small for such exertion: their little hands were purple with chilblains, and they were so sorefooted they could scarcely limp. I was surprised to find them at least three years older than their size and looks denoted, and still more surprised, too, to find that their salary for all this bitter exposure to the elements--such as I believe I could not have endured two days running--was the vast sum of one shilling a week each, Sundays included. "They didn't never go to school, nor to church nether, except just now and then, sometimes--they had to mind the shop." I went on, sickened with the contrast between the highly-bred, over-fed, fat, thick-woolled animals, with their troughs of turnips and malt-dust, and their racks of rich clover-hay, and their little pent-house of rock-salt, having nothing to do but to eat and sleep, and eat again, and the little half-starved shivering animals who were their slaves. Man the master of the brutes? Bah! As society is now, the brutes are the masters--the horse, the sheep, the bullock, is the master, and the labourer is their slave. "Oh! but the brutes are eaten!" Well; the horses at least are not eaten--they live, like landlords, till they die. And those who are eaten, are certainly not eaten by their human servants. The sheep they fat, another kills, to parody Shelley; and, after all, is not the labourer, as well as the sheep, eaten by you, my dear Society?--devoured body and soul, not the less really because you are longer about the meal, there being an old prejudice against cannibalism, and also against murder--except after the Riot Act has been read. "What!" shriek the insulted respectabilities, "have we not paid him his wages weekly, and has he not lived upon them?" Yes; and have you not given your sheep and horses their daily wages, and have they not lived on them? You wanted to work them; and they could not work, you know, unless they were alive. But here lies your iniquity: you gave the labourer nothing but his daily food--not even his lodgings; the pigs were not stinted of their wash to pay for their sty-room, the man was; and his wages, thanks to your competitive system, were beaten down deliberately and conscientiously (for was it not according to political economy, and the laws thereof?) to the minimum on which he could or would work, without the hope or the possibility of saving a farthing. You know how to invest your capital profitably, dear Society, and to save money over and above your income of daily comforts; but what has he saved?--what is he profited by all those years of labour? He has kept body and soul together--perhaps he could have done that without you or your help. But his wages are used up every Saturday night. When he stops working, you have in your pocket the whole real profits of his nearly fifty years' labour, and he has nothing. And then you say that you have not eaten him! You know, in your heart of hearts, that you have. Else, why in Heaven's name do you pay him poor's rates? If, as you say, he has been duly repaid in wages, what is the meaning of that half-a-crown a week?--you owe him nothing. Oh! but the man would starve--common humanity forbids? What now, Society? Give him alms, if you will, on the score of humanity; but do not tax people for his support, whether they choose or not--that were a mere tyranny and robbery. If the landlord's feelings will not allow him to see the labourer starve, let him give, in God's name; but let him not cripple and drain, by compulsory poor-rates, the farmer who has paid him his "just remuneration" of wages, and the parson who probably, out of his scanty income, gives away twice as much in alms as the landlord does out of his superfluous one. No, no; as long as you retain compulsory poor-laws, you confess that it is not merely humane, but just, to pay the labourer more than his wages. You confess yourself in debt to him, over and above an uncertain sum, which it suits you not to define, because such an investigation would expose ugly gaps and patches in that same snug competitive and property world of yours; and, therefore, being the stronger party, you compel your debtor to give up the claim which you confess, for an annuity of half-a-crown a week--that being the just-above-starving-point of the economic thermometer. And yet you say you have not eaten the labourer! You see, we workmen too have our thoughts about political economy, differing slightly from yours, truly--just as the man who is being hanged may take a somewhat different view of the process from the man who is hanging him. Which view is likely to be the more practical one? With some such thoughts I walked across the open down, toward a circular camp, the earthwork, probably, of some old British town. Inside it, some thousand or so of labouring people were swarming restlessly round a single large block of stone, some relic of Druid times, on which a tall man stood, his dark figure thrown out in bold relief against the dreary sky. As we pushed through the crowd, I was struck with the wan, haggard look of all faces; their lacklustre eyes and drooping lips, stooping shoulders, heavy, dragging steps, gave them a crushed, dogged air, which was infinitely painful, and bespoke a grade of misery more habitual and degrading than that of the excitable and passionate artisan. There were many women among them, talking shrilly, and looking even more pinched and wan than the men. I remarked, also, that many of the crowd carried heavy sticks, pitchforks, and other tools which might be used as fearful weapons--an ugly sign, which I ought to have heeded betimes. They glared with sullen curiosity at me and my Londoner's clothes, as, with no small feeling of self-importance, I pushed my way to the foot of the stone. The man who stood on it seemed to have been speaking some time. His words, like all I heard that day, were utterly devoid of anything like eloquence or imagination--a dull string of somewhat incoherent complaints, which derived their force only from the intense earnestness, which attested their truthfulness. As far as I can recollect, I will give the substance of what I heard. But, indeed, I heard nothing but what has been bandied about from newspaper to newspaper for years--confessed by all parties, deplored by all parties, but never an attempt made to remedy it. --"The farmers makes slaves on us. I can't hear no difference between a Christian and a nigger, except they flogs the niggers and starves the Christians; and I don't know which I'd choose. I served Farmer * * * * seven year, off and on, and arter harvest he tells me he's no more work for me, nor my boy nether, acause he's getting too big for him, so he gets a little 'un instead, and we does nothing; and my boy lies about, getting into bad ways, like hundreds more; and then we goes to board, and they bids us go and look for work; and we goes up next part to London. I couldn't get none; they'd enough to do, they said, to employ their own; and we begs our way home, and goes into the Union; and they turns us out again in two or three days, and promises us work again, and gives us two days' gravel-picking, and then says they has no more for us; and we was sore pinched, and laid a-bed all day; then next board-day we goes to 'em and they gives us one day more--and that threw us off another week, and then next board-day we goes into the Union again for three days, and gets sent out again: and so I've been starving one-half of the time, and they putting us off and on o' purpose like that; and I'll bear it no longer, and that's what I says." He came down, and a tall, powerful, well-fed man, evidently in his Sunday smock-frock and clean yellow leggings, got up and began: "I hav'n't no complaint to make about myself. I've a good master, and the parson's a right kind 'un, and that's more than all can say, and the squire's a real gentleman; and my master, he don't need to lower his wages. I gets my ten shillings a week all the year round, and harvesting, and a pig, and a 'lotment--and that's just why I come here. If I can get it, why can't you?" "Cause our masters baint like yourn." "No, by George, there baint no money round here like that, I can tell you." "And why ain't they?" continued the speaker. "There's the shame on it. There's my master can grow five quarters where yourn only grows three; and so he can live and pay like a man; and so he say he don't care for free trade. You know, as well as I, that there's not half o' the land round here grows what it ought. They ain't no money to make it grow more, and besides, they won't employ no hands to keep it clean. I come across more weeds in one field here, than I've seen for nine year on our farm. Why arn't some of you a-getting they weeds up? It 'ud pay 'em to farm better--and they knows that, but they're too lazy; if they can just get a living off the land, they don't care; and they'd sooner save money out of your wages, than save it by growing more corn--it's easier for 'em, it is. There's the work to be done, and they won't let you do it. There's you crying out for work, and work crying out for you--and neither of you can get to the other. I say that's a shame, I do. I say a poor man's a slave. He daren't leave his parish--nobody won't employ him, as can employ his own folk. And if he stays in his parish, it's just a chance whether he gets a good master or a bad 'un. He can't choose, and that's a shame, it is. Why should he go starving because his master don't care to do the best by the land? If they can't till the land, I say let them get out of it, and let them work it as can. And I think as we ought all to sign a petition to government, to tell 'em all about it; though I don't see as how they could help us, unless they'd make a law to force the squires to put in nobody to a farm as hasn't money to work it fairly." "I says," said the next speaker, a poor fellow whose sentences were continually broken by a hacking cough, "just what he said. If they can't till the land, let them do it as can. But they won't; they won't let us have a scrap on it, though we'd pay 'em more for it nor ever they'd make for themselves. But they says it 'ud make us too independent, if we had an acre or so o' land; and so it 'ud for they. And so I says as he did--they want to make slaves on us altogether, just to get the flesh and bones off us at their own price. Look you at this here down.--If I had an acre on it, to make a garden on, I'd live well with my wages, off and on. Why, if this here was in garden, it 'ud be worth twenty, forty times o' that it be now. And last spring I lays out o' work from Christmas till barley-sowing, and I goes to the farmer and axes for a bit o' land to dig and plant a few potatoes--and he says, 'You be d--d! If you're minding your garden after hours, you'll not be fit to do a proper day's work for me in hours--and I shall want you by-and-by, when the weather breaks'--for it was frost most bitter, it was. 'And if you gets potatoes you'll be getting a pig--and then you'll want straw, and meal to fat 'un--and then I'll not trust you in my barn, I can tell ye;' and so there it was. And if I'd had only one half-acre of this here very down as we stands on, as isn't worth five shillings a year--and I'd a given ten shillings for it--my belly wouldn't a been empty now. Oh, they be dogs in the manger, and the Lord'll reward 'em therefor! First they says they can't afford to work the land 'emselves, and then they wain't let us work it ether. Then they says prices is so low they can't keep us on, and so they lowers our wages; and then when prices goes up ever so much, our wages don't go up with 'em. So, high prices or low prices, it's all the same. With the one we can't buy bread, and with the other we can't get work. I don't mind free trade--not I: to be sure, if the loaf's cheap, we shall be ruined; but if the loafs dear, we shall be starved, and for that, we is starved now. Nobody don't care for us; for my part, I don't much care for myself. A man must die some time or other. Only I thinks if we could some time or other just see the Queen once, and tell her all about it, she'd take our part, and not see us put upon like that, I do." "Gentlemen!" cried my guide, the shoemaker, in a somewhat conceited and dictatorial tone, as he skipped up by the speaker's side, and gently shouldered him down--"it ain't like the ancient times, as I've read off, when any poor man as had a petition could come promiscuously to the King's royal presence, and put it direct into his own hand, and be treated like a gentleman. Don't you know as how they locks up the Queen now-a-days, and never lets a poor soul come a-near her, lest she should hear the truth of all their iniquities? Why they never lets her stir without a lot o' dragoons with drawn swords riding all around her; and if you dared to go up to her to ax mercy, whoot! they'd chop your head off before you could say, 'Please your Majesty.' And then the hypocrites say as it's to keep her from being frightened--and that's true--for it's frightened she'd be, with a vengeance, if she knowed all that they grand folks make poor labourers suffer, to keep themselves in power and great glory. I tell ye, 'tarn't per-practicable at all, to ax the Queen for anything; she's afeard of her life on 'em. You just take my advice, and sign a round-robin to the squires--you tell 'em as you're willing to till the land for 'em, if they'll let you. There's draining and digging enough to be done as 'ud keep ye all in work, arn't there?" "Ay, ay; there's lots o' work to be done, if so be we could get at it. Everybody knows that." "Well, you tell 'em that. Tell 'em here's hundreds, and hundreds of ye starving, and willing to work; and then tell 'em, if they won't find ye work, they shall find ye meat. There's lots o' victuals in their larders now; haven't you as good a right to it as their jackanapes o' footmen? The squires is at the bottom of it all. What do you stupid fellows go grumbling at the farmers for? Don't they squires tax the land twenty or thirty shillings an acre; and what do they do for that? The best of 'em, if he gets five thousand a year out o' the land, don't give back five hundred in charity, or schools, or poor-rates--and what's that to speak of? And the main of 'em--curse 'em!--they drains the money out o' the land, and takes it up to London, or into foreign parts, to spend on fine clothes and fine dinners; or throws it away at elections, to make folks beastly drunk, and sell their souls for money--and we gets no good on it. I'll tell you what it's come to, my men--that we can't afford no more landlords. We can't afford 'em, and that's the truth of it!" The crowd growled a dubious assent. "Oh, yes, you can grumble at the farmers, acause you deals with them first-hand; but you be too stupid to do aught but hunt by sight. I be an old dog, and I hunts cunning. I sees farther than my nose, I does, I larnt politics to London when I was a prentice; and I ain't forgotten the plans of it. Look you here. The farmers, they say they can't live unless they can make four rents, one for labour, and one for stock, and one for rent, and one for themselves; ain't that about right? Very well; just now they can't make four rents--in course they can't. Now, who's to suffer for that?--the farmer as works, or the labourer as works, or the landlord as does nothing? But he takes care on himself. He won't give up his rent--not he. Perhaps he might give back ten per cent, and what's that?--two shillings an acre, maybe. What's that, if corn falls two pound a load, and more? Then the farmer gets a stinting; and he can't stint hisself, he's bad enough off already; he's forty shillings out o' pocket on every load of wheat--that's eight shillings, maybe, on every acre of his land on a four-course shift--and where's the eight shillings to come from, for the landlord's only given him back two on it? He can't stint hisself, he daren't stint his stock, and so he stints the labourers; and so it's you as pays the landlord's rent--you, my boys, out o' your flesh and bones, you do--and you can't afford it any longer, by the look of you--so just tell 'em so!" This advice seemed to me as sadly unpractical as the rest. In short, there seemed to be no hope, no purpose among them--and they felt it; and I could hear, from the running comment of murmurs, that they were getting every moment more fierce and desperate at the contemplation of their own helplessness--a mood which the next speech was not likely to soften. A pale, thin woman scrambled up on the stone, and stood there, her scanty and patched garments fluttering in the bitter breeze, as, with face sharpened with want, and eyes fierce with misery, she began, in a querulous, 'scornful falsetto: "I am an honest woman. I brought up seven children decently; and never axed the parish for a farden, till my husband died. Then they tells me I can support myself and mine--and so I does. Early and late I hoed turmits, and early and late I rep, and left the children at home to mind each other; and one on 'em fell into the fire, and is gone to heaven, blessed angel! and two more it pleased the Lord to take in the fever; and the next, I hope, will soon be out o' this miserable sinful world. But look you here: three weeks agone, I goes to the board. I had no work. They say they could not relieve me for the first week, because I had money yet to take.--The hypocrites! they knowing as I couldn't but owe it all, and a lot more beside. Next week they sends the officer to inquire. That was ten days gone, and we starving. Then, on board-day, they gives me two loaves. Then, next week, they takes it off again. And when I goes over (five miles) to the board to ax why--they'd find me work--and they never did; so we goes on starving for another week--for no one wouldn't trust us; how could they when we was in debt already a whole lot?--you're all in debt!" "That we are." "There's some here as never made ten shillings a week in their lives, as owes twenty pounds at the shop!" "Ay, and more--and how's a man ever to pay that?" "So this week, when I comes, they offers me the house. Would I go into the house? They'd be glad to have me, acause I'm strong and hearty and a good nurse. But would I, that am an honest woman, go to live with they offscourings--they"--(she used a strong word)--"would I be parted from my children? Would I let them hear the talk, and keep the company as they will there, and learn all sorts o' sins that they never heard on, blessed be God! I'll starve first, and see them starve too--though, Lord knows, it's hard.--Oh! it's hard," she said, bursting into tears, "to leave them as I did this morning, crying after their breakfasts, and I none to give 'em. I've got no bread--where should I? I've got no fire--how can I give one shilling and sixpence a hundred for coals? And if I did, who'd fetch 'em home? And if I dared break a hedge for a knitch o' wood, they'd put me in prison, they would, with the worst. What be I to do? What be you going to do? That's what I came here for. What be ye going to do for us women--us that starve and stint, and wear our hands off for you men and your children, and get hard words, and hard blows from you? Oh! if I was a man, I know what I'd do, I do! But I don't think you be men three parts o' you, or you'd not see the widow and the orphan starve as you do, and sit quiet and grumble, as long as you can keep your own bodies and souls together. Eh! ye cowards!" What more she would have said in her excitement, which had risen to an absolute scream, I cannot tell; but some prudent friend pulled her down off the stone, to be succeeded by a speaker more painful, if possible; an aged blind man, the worn-out melancholy of whose slow, feeble voice made my heart sink, and hushed the murmuring crowd into silent awe. Slowly he turned his grey, sightless head from side to side, as if feeling for the faces below him--and then began: "I heard you was all to be here--and I suppose you are; and I said I would come--though I suppose they'll take off my pay, if they hear of it. But I knows the reason of it, and the bad times and all. The Lord revealed it to me as clear as day, four years agone come Easter-tide. It's all along of our sins, and our wickedness--because we forgot Him--it is. I mind the old war times, what times they was, when there was smuggled brandy up and down in every public, and work more than hands could do. And then, how we all forgot the Lord, and went after our own lusts and pleasures--squires and parsons, and farmers and labouring folk, all alike. They oughted to ha' knowed better--and we oughted too. Many's the Sunday I spent in skittle-playing and cock-fighting, and the pound I spent in beer, as might ha' been keeping me now. We was an evil and perverse generation--and so one o' my sons went for a sodger, and was shot at Waterloo, and the other fell into evil ways, and got sent across seas--and I be left alone for my sins. But the Lord was very gracious to me and showed me how it was all a judgment on my sins, he did. He has turned his face from us, and that's why we're troubled. And so I don't see no use in this meeting. It won't do no good; nothing won't do us no good, unless we all repent of our wicked ways, our drinking, and our dirt, and our love-children, and our picking and stealing, and gets the Lord to turn our hearts, and to come back again, and have mercy on us, and take us away speedily out of this wretched world, where there's nothing but misery and sorrow, into His everlasting glory, Amen! Folks say as the day of judgment's a coming soon--and I partly think so myself. I wish it was all over, and we in heaven above; and that's all I have to say." It seemed a not unnatural revulsion, when a tall, fierce man, with a forbidding squint, sprung jauntily on the stone, and setting his arms a-kimbo, broke out: "Here be I, Blinkey, and I has as good a right to speak as ere a one. You're all blamed fools, you are. So's that old blind buffer there. You sticks like pigs in a gate, hollering and squeeking, and never helping yourselves. Why can't you do like me? I never does no work--darned if I'll work to please the farmers. The rich folks robs me, and I robs them, and that's fair and equal. You only turn poachers--you only go stealing turmits, and fire-ud, and all as you can find--and then you'll not need to work. Arn't it yourn? The game's no one's, is it now?--you know that. And if you takes turmits or corn, they're yourn--you helped to grow 'em. And if you're put to prison, I tell ye, it's a darned deal warmer, and better victuals too, than ever a one of you gets at home, let alone the Union. Now I knows the dodge. Whenever my wife's ready for her trouble, I gets cotched; then I lives like a prince in gaol, and she goes to the workus; and when it's all over, start fair again. Oh, you blockheads'--to stand here shivering with empty bellies.--You just go down to the farm and burn they stacks over the old rascal's head; and then they that let you starve now, will be forced to keep you then. If you can't get your share of the poor-rates, try the county-rates, my bucks--you can get fat on them at the Queen's expense--and that's more than you'll do in ever a Union as I hear on. Who'll come down and pull the farm about the folks' ears? Warn't he as turned five on yer off last week? and ain't he more corn there than 'ud feed you all round this day, and won't sell it, just because he's waiting till folks are starved enough, and prices rise? Curse the old villain!--who'll help to disappoint him 'o that? Come along!" A confused murmur arose, and a movement in the crowd. I felt that now or never was the time to speak. If once the spirit of mad aimless riot broke loose, I had not only no chance of a hearing, but every likelihood of being implicated in deeds which I abhorred; and I sprung on the stone and entreated a few minutes' attention, telling them that I was a deputation from one of the London Chartist committees. This seemed to turn the stream of their thoughts, and they gaped in stupid wonder at me as I began hardly less excited than themselves. I assured them of the sympathy of the London working men, made a comment on their own speeches--which the reader ought to be able to make for himself--and told them that I had come to entreat their assistance towards obtaining such a parliamentary representation as would secure them their rights. I explained the idea of the Charter, and begged for their help in carrying it out. To all which they answered surlily, that they did not know anything about politics--that what they wanted was bread. I went on, more vehement than ever, to show them how all their misery sprung (as I then fancied) from being unrepresented--how the laws were made by the rich for the poor, and not by all for all--how the taxes bit deep into the necessaries of the labourer, and only nibbled at the luxuries of the rich--how the criminal code exclusively attacked the crimes to which the poor were prone, while it dared not interfere with the subtler iniquities of the high-born and wealthy--how poor-rates, as I have just said, were a confession on the part of society that the labourer was not fully remunerated. I tried to make them see that their interest, as much as common justice, demanded that they should have a voice in the councils of the nation, such as would truly proclaim their wants, their rights, their wrongs; and I have seen no reason since then to unsay my words. To all which they answered, that their stomachs were empty, and they wanted bread. "And bread we will have!" "Go, then," I cried, losing my self-possession between disappointment and the maddening desire of influence--and, indeed, who could hear their story, or even look upon their faces, and not feel some indignation stir in him. unless self-interest had drugged his heart and conscience--"go," I cried, "and get bread! After all, you have a right to it. No man is bound to starve. There are rights above all laws, and the right to live is one. Laws were made for man, not man for laws. If you had made the laws yourselves, they might bind you even in this extremity; but they were made in spite of you--against you. They rob you, crash you; even now they deny you bread. God has made the earth free to all, like the air and sunshine, and you are shut out from off it. The earth is yours, for you till it. Without you it would be a desert. Go and demand your share of that corn, the fruit of your own industry. What matter, if your tyrants imprison, murder you?--they can but kill your bodies at once, instead of killing them piecemeal, as they do now; and your blood will cry against them from the ground:--Ay, Woe!"--I went on, carried away by feelings for which I shall make no apology; for, however confused, there was, and is, and ever will be, a God's truth in them, as this generation will find out at the moment when its own serene self-satisfaction crumbles underneath it--"Woe unto those that grind the faces of the poor! Woe unto those who add house to house, and field to field, till they stand alone in the land, and there is no room left for the poor man! The wages of their reapers, which they have held back by fraud, cry out against them; and their cry has entered into the ears of the God of heaven--" But I had no time to finish. The murmur swelled into a roar for "Bread! Bread!" My hearers had taken me at my word. I had raised the spirit; could I command him, now he was abroad? "Go to Jennings's farm!" "No! he ain't no corn, he sold un' all last week." "There's plenty at the Hall farm! Rouse out the old steward!" And, amid yells and execrations, the whole mass poured down the hill, sweeping me away with them. I was shocked and terrified at their threats. I tried again and again to stop and harangue them. I shouted myself hoarse about the duty of honesty; warned them against pillage and violence; entreated them to take nothing but the corn which they actually needed; but my voice was drowned in the uproar. Still I felt myself in a measure responsible for their conduct; I had helped to excite them, and dare not, in honour, desert them; and trembling, I went on, prepared to see the worst; following, as a flag of distress, a mouldy crust, brandished on the point of a pitchfork. Bursting through the rotting and half-fallen palings, we entered a wide, rushy, neglected park, and along an old gravel road, now green with grass, we opened on a sheet of frozen water, and, on the opposite bank, the huge square corpse of a hall, the close-shuttered windows of which gave it a dead and ghastly look, except where here and there a single one showed, as through a black empty eye-socket, the dark unfurnished rooms within. On the right, beneath us, lay, amid tall elms, a large mass of farm-buildings, into the yard of which the whole mob rushed tumultuously--just in time to see an old man on horseback dart out and gallop hatless up the park, amid the yells of the mob. "The old rascal's gone! and he'll call up the yeomanry. We must be quick, boys!" shouted one, and the first signs of plunder showed themselves in an indiscriminate chase after various screaming geese and turkeys; while a few of the more steady went up to the house-door, and knocking, demanded sternly the granary keys. A fat virago planted herself in the doorway, and commenced railing at them, with the cowardly courage which the fancied immunity of their sex gives to coarse women; but she was hastily shoved aside, and took shelter in an upper room, where she stood screaming and cursing at the window. The invaders returned, cramming their mouths with bread, and chopping asunder flitches of bacon. The granary doors were broken open, and the contents scrambled for, amid immense waste, by the starving wretches. It was a sad sight. Here was a poor shivering woman, hiding scraps of food under her cloak, and hurrying out of the yard to the children she had left at home. There was a tall man, leaning against the palings, gnawing ravenously at the same loaf as a little boy, who had scrambled up behind him. Then a huge blackguard came whistling up to me, with a can of ale. "Drink, my beauty! you're dry with hollering by now!" "The ale is neither yours nor mine; I won't touch it." "Darn your buttons! You said the wheat was ourn, acause we growed it--and thereby so's the beer--for we growed the barley too." And so thought the rest; for the yard was getting full of drunkards, a woman or two among them, reeling knee-deep in the loose straw among the pigs. "Thresh out they ricks!" roared another. "Get out the threshing-machine!" "You harness the horses!" "No! there bain't no time. Yeomanry'll be here. You mun leave the ricks." "Darned if we do. Old Woods shan't get naught by they." "Fire 'em, then, and go on to Slater's farm!" "As well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb," hiccuped Blinkey, as he rushed through the yard with a lighted brand. I tried to stop him, but fell on my face in the deep straw, and got round the barns to the rick-yard just in time to here a crackle--there was no mistaking it; the windward stack was in a blaze of fire. I stood awe-struck--I cannot tell how long--watching how the live flame-snakes crept and hissed, and leapt and roared, and rushed in long horizontal jets from stack to stack before the howling wind, and fastened their fiery talons on the barn-eaves, and swept over the peaked roofs, and hurled themselves in fiery flakes into the yard beyond--the food of man, the labour of years, devoured in aimless ruin!--Was it my doing? Was it not? At last I recollected myself, and ran round again into the straw-yard, where the fire was now falling fast. The only thing which saved the house was the weltering mass of bullocks, pigs, and human beings drunk and sober, which, trampled out unwittingly the flames as fast as they caught. The fire had seized the roofs of the cart-stables, when a great lubberly boy blubbered out:-- "Git my horses out! git my horses out o' the fire! I be so fond o' mun!" "Well, they ain't done no harm, poor beasts!" And a dozen men ran in to save them; but the poor wretches, screaming with terror, refused to stir. I never knew what became of them-but their shrieks still haunt my dreams.... The yard now became a pandemonium. The more ruffianly part of the mob--and alas! there were but too many of them--hurled the furniture out of the windows, or ran off with anything that they could carry. In vain I expostulated, threatened; I was answered by laughter, curses, frantic dances, and brandished plunder. Then I first found out how large a portion of rascality shelters itself under the wing of every crowd; and at the moment, I almost excused the rich for overlooking the real sufferers, in indignation at the rascals. But even the really starving majority, whose faces proclaimed the grim fact of their misery, seemed gone mad for the moment. The old crust of sullen, dogged patience had broken up, and their whole souls had exploded into reckless fury and brutal revenge--and yet there was no hint of violence against the red fat woman, who, surrounded with her blubbering children, stood screaming and cursing at the first-floor window, getting redder and fatter at every scream. The worst personality she heard was a roar of laughter, in which, such is poor humanity, I could not but join, as her little starved drab of a maid-of-all-work ran out of the door, with a bundle of stolen finery under her arm, and high above the roaring of the flames, and the shouts of the rioters, rose her mistress's yell. "O Betsy! Betsy! you little awdacious unremorseful hussy!--a running away with my best bonnet and shawl!" The laughter soon, however, subsided, when a man rushed breathless into the yard, shouting, "The yeomanry!" At that sound; to my astonishment, a general panic ensued. The miserable wretches never stopped to enquire how many, or how far off, they were--but scrambled to every outlet of the yard, trampling each other down in their hurry. I leaped up on the wall, and saw, galloping down the park, a mighty armament of some fifteen men, with a tall officer at their head, mounted on a splendid horse. "There they be! there they be! all the varmers, and young Squire Clayton wi' mun, on his grey hunter! O Lord! O Lord! and all their swords drawn!" I thought of the old story in Herodotus--how the Scythian masters returned from war to the rebel slaves who had taken possession of their lands and wives, and brought them down on their knees with terror, at the mere sight of the old dreaded dog-whips. I did not care to run. I was utterly disgusted, disappointed with myself--the people. I longed, for the moment, to die and leave it all; and left almost alone, sat down on a stone, buried my head between my hands, and tried vainly to shut out from my ears the roaring of the fire. At that moment "Blinkey" staggered out past me and against me, a writing-desk in his hands, shouting, in his drunken glory, "I've vound ut at last! I've got the old fellow's money! Hush! What a vule I be, hollering like that!"--And he was going to sneak off, with a face of drunken cunning, when I sprung up and seized him by the throat. "Rascal! robber! lay that down! Have you not done mischief enough already?" "I wain't have no sharing. What? Do you want un yourself, eh? Then we'll see who's the stronger!" And in an instant he shook me from him, and dealt me a blow with the corner of the desk, that laid me on the ground.... I just recollect the tramp of the yeomanry horses, and the gleam and jingle of their arms, as they galloped into the yard. I caught a glimpse of the tall young officer, as his great grey horse swept through the air, over the high yard-pales--a feat to me utterly astonishing. Half a dozen long strides--the wretched ruffian, staggering across the field with his booty, was caught up.--The clear blade gleamed in the air--and then a fearful yell--and after that I recollect nothing. * * * * * Slowly I recovered my consciousness. I was lying on a truckle-bed--stone walls and a grated window! A man stood over me with a large bunch of keys in his hand. He had been wrapping my head with wet towels. I knew, instinctively, where I was. "Well, young man," said he, in a not unkindly tone--"and a nice job you've made of it! Do you know where you are?". "Yes," answered I, quietly; "in D * * * * gaol." "Exactly so!" CHAPTER XXIX. THE TRIAL. The day was come--quickly, thank Heaven; and I stood at the bar, with four or five miserable, haggard labourers, to take my trial for sedition, riot, and arson. I had passed the intervening weeks half stupified with the despair of utter disappointment; disappointment at myself and my own loss of self-possession, which had caused all my misfortune,--perhaps, too, and the thought was dreadful, that of my wretched fellow-sufferers:--disappointment with the labourers, with The Cause; and when the thought came over me, in addition, that I was irreparably disgraced in the eyes of my late patrons, parted for ever from Lillian by my own folly, I laid down my head and longed to die. Then, again, I would recover awhile, and pluck up heart. I would plead my cause myself--I would testify against the tyrants to their face--I would say no longer to their besotted slaves, but to the men themselves, "Go to, ye rich men, weep and howl! The hire of your labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them that have reaped hath entered into the ears of the Lord God of Hosts." I would brave my fate--I would die protesting, and glory in my martyrdom. But-- "Martyrdom?" said Mackaye, who had come down to D * * * *, and was busy night and day about my trial. "Ye'll just leave alone the martyr dodge, my puir bairn. Ye're na martyr at a', ye'll understand, but a vera foolish callant, that lost his temper, an' cast his pearls before swine--an' very questionable pearls they, too, to judge by the price they fetch i' the market." And then my heart sank again. And a few days before the trial a letter came, evidently in my cousin's handwriting, though only signed with his initials: "SIR,--You are in a very great scrape--you will not deny that. How you will get out of it depends on your own common sense. You probably won't be hanged--for nobody believes that you had a hand in burning the farm; but, unless you take care, you will be transported. Call yourself John Nokes; entrust your case to a clever lawyer, and keep in the background. I warn you, as a friend--if you try to speechify, and play the martyr, and let out who you are, the respectable people who have been patronizing you will find it necessary for their own sakes to clap a stopper on you for good and all, to make you out an impostor and a swindler, and get you out of the way for life: while, if you are quiet, it will suit them to be quiet too, and say nothing about you, if you say nothing about them; and then there will be a chance that they, as well as your own family, will do everything in their power to hush the matter up. So, again, don't let out your real name; and instruct your lawyers to know nothing about the W.'s; and then, perhaps, the Queen's counsel will know nothing about them either. Mind--you are warned, and woe to you if you are fool enough not to take the warning. "G.L." Plead in a false name! Never, so help me Heaven! To go into court with a lie in my mouth--to make myself an impostor--probably a detected one--it seemed the most cunning scheme for ruining me, which my evil genius could have suggested, whether or not it might serve his own selfish ends. But as for the other hints, they seemed not unreasonable, and promised to save me trouble; while the continued pressure of anxiety and responsibility was getting intolerable to my over-wearied brain. So I showed the letter to Mackaye, who then told me that he had taken it for granted that I should come to my right mind, and had therefore already engaged an old compatriot as attorney, and the best counsel which money could procure. "But where did you get the money? You have not surely been spending your own savings on me?" "I canna say that I wadna ha' so dune, in case o' need. But the men in town just subscribit; puir honest fellows." "What! is my folly to be the cause of robbing them of their slender earnings? Never, Mackaye! Besides, they cannot have subscribed enough to pay the barrister whom you just mentioned. Tell me the whole truth, or, positively, I will plead my cause myself." "Aweel, then, there was a bit bank-note or twa cam' to hand--I canna say whaur fra'. But they that sent it direckit it to be expendit in the defence o' the sax prisoners--whereof ye make ane." Again a world of fruitless conjecture. It must be the same unknown friend who had paid my debt to my cousin--Lillian? * * * * * And so the day was come. I am not going to make a long picturesque description of my trial--trials have become lately quite hackneyed subjects, stock properties for the fiction-mongers--neither, indeed, could I do so, if I would. I recollect nothing of that day, but fragments--flashes of waking existence, scattered up and down in what seemed to me a whole life of heavy, confused, painful dreams, with the glare of all those faces concentrated on me--those countless eyes which I could not, could not meet--stony, careless, unsympathizing--not even angry--only curious. If they had but frowned on me, insulted me, gnashed their teeth on me, I could have glared back defiance; as it was, I stood cowed and stupified, a craven by the side of cravens. Let me see--what can I recollect? Those faces--faces--everywhere faces--a faint, sickly smell of flowers--a perpetual whispering and rustling of dresses--and all through it, the voice of some one talking, talking--I seldom knew what, or whether it was counsel, witness, judge, or prisoner, that was speaking. I was like one asleep at a foolish lecture, who hears in dreams, and only wakes when the prosing stops. Was it not prosing? What was it to me what they said? They could not understand me--my motives--my excuses; the whole pleading, on my side as well as the crown's, seemed one huge fallacy--beside the matter altogether--never touching the real point at issue, the eternal moral equity of my deeds or misdeeds. I had no doubt that it would all be conducted quite properly, and fairly, and according to the forms of law; but what was law to me--I wanted justice. And so I let them go on their own way, conscious of but one thought--was Lillian in the court? I dared not look and see. I dared not lift up my eyes toward the gaudy rows of ladies who had crowded to the "interesting trial of the D * * * * rioters." The torture of anxiety was less than that of certainty might be, and I kept my eyes down, and wondered how on earth the attorneys had found in so simple a case enough to stuff those great blue bags. When, however, anything did seem likely to touch on a reality, I woke up forthwith, in spite of myself. I recollect well, for instance, a squabble about challenging the jurymen; and my counsel's voice of pious indignation, as he asked, "Do you call these agricultural gentlemen, and farmers, however excellent and respectable--on which point Heaven forbid that I, &c., &c.--the prisoner's 'pares,' peers, equals, or likes? What single interest, opinion, or motive, have they in common, but the universal one of self-interest, which, in this case, happens to pull in exactly opposite directions? Your Lordship has often animadverted fully and boldly on the practice of allowing a bench of squires to sit in judgment on a poacher; surely it is quite as unjust that agricultural rioters should be tried by a jury of the very class against whom they are accused of rebelling." "Perhaps my learned brother would like a jury of rioters?" suggested some Queen's counsel. "Upon my word, then, it would be much the fairer plan." I wondered whether he would have dared to say as much in the street outside--and relapsed into indifference. I believe there was some long delay, and wrangling about law-quibbles, which seemed likely at one time to quash the whole prosecution, but I was rather glad than sorry to find that it had been overruled. It was all a play, a game of bowls--the bowls happening to be human heads--got up between the lawyers, for the edification of society; and it would have been a pity not to play it out, according to the rules and regulations thereof. As for the evidence, its tenor may be easily supposed from my story. There were those who could swear to my language at the camp. I was seen accompanying the mob to the farm, and haranguing them. The noise was too great for the witnesses to hear all I said, but they were certain I talked about the sacred name of liberty. The farmer's wife had seen me run round to the stacks when they were fired--whether just before or just after, she never mentioned. She had seen me running up and down in front of the house, talking loudly, and gesticulating violently; she saw me, too, struggling with another rioter for her husband's desk;--and the rest of the witnesses, some of whom I am certain I had seen, busy plundering, though they were ready to swear that they had been merely accidental passers-by, seemed to think that they proved their own innocence, and testified their pious indignation, by avoiding carefully any fact which could excuse me. But, somehow, my counsel thought differently; and cross-examined, and bullied, and tormented, and misstated--as he was bound to do; and so one witness after another, clumsy and cowardly enough already, was driven by his engines of torture, as if by a pitiless spell, to deny half that he had deposed truly, and confess a great deal that was utterly false--till confusion became worse confounded, and there seemed no truth anywhere, and no falsehood either, and "naught was everything, and everything was naught;" till I began to have doubts whether the riot had ever occurred at all--and, indeed, doubts of my own identity also, when I had heard the counsel for the crown impute to me personally, as in duty bound, every seditious atrocity which, had been committed either in England or France since 1793. To him, certainly, I did listen tolerably; it was "as good as a play." Atheism, blasphemy, vitriol-throwing, and community of women, were among my lighter offences--for had I not actually been engaged in a plot for the destruction of property? How did the court know that I had not spent the night before the riot, as "the doctor" and his friends did before the riots of 1839, in drawing lots for the estates of the surrounding gentlemen, with my deluded dupes and victims?--for of course I, and not want of work, had deluded them into rioting; at least, they never would have known that they were starving, if I had not stirred up their evil passions by daring to inform them of that otherwise impalpable fact. I, the only Chartist there? Might there not have been dozens of them?--emissaries from London, dressed up as starving labourers, and rheumatic old women? There were actually traces of a plan for seizing all the ladies in the country, and setting up a seraglio of them in D * * * * Cathedral. How did the court know that there was not one? Ay, how indeed? and how did I know either? I really began to question whether the man might not be right after all. The whole theory seemed so horribly coherent--possible, natural. I might have done it, under possession of the devil, and forgotten it in excitement--I might--perhaps I did. And if there, why not elsewhere? Perhaps I had helped Jourdan Coupe-tête at Lyons, and been king of the Munster Anabaptists--why not? What matter? When would this eternity of wigs, and bonnets, and glaring windows, and ear-grinding prate and jargon, as of a diabolic universe of street organs, end--end--end--and I get quietly hanged, and done with it all for ever? Oh, the horrible length of that day! It seemed to me as if I had been always on my trial, ever since I was born. I wondered at times how many years ago it had all begun. I felt what a far stronger and more single-hearted patriot than I, poor Somerville, says of himself under the torture of the sergeant's cat, in a passage, whose horrible simplicity and unconscious pathos have haunted me ever since I read it; how, when only fifty out of his hundred lashes had fallen on the bleeding back, "_The time since they began was like a long period of life: I felt as if I had lived all the time of my real life in torture, and, that the days when existence had a pleasure, in it were a dream long, long gone by._" The reader may begin to suspect that I was fast going mad; and I believe I was. If he has followed my story with a human heart, he may excuse me of any extreme weakness, if I did at moments totter on the verge of that abyss. What saved me, I believe now, was the keen, bright look of love and confidence which flashed on me from Crossthwaite's glittering eyes, when he was called forward as a witness to my character. He spoke out like a man, I hear, that day. But the counsel for the crown tried to silence him triumphantly, by calling on him to confess himself a Chartist; as if a man must needs be a liar and a villain because he holds certain opinions about the franchise! However that was, I heard, the general opinion of the court. And then Crossthwaite lost his temper and called the Queen's counsel a hired bully, and so went down; having done, as I was told afterwards, no good to me. And then there followed a passage of tongue fence between Mackaye and some barrister, and great laughter at the barrister's expense; and then. I heard the old man's voice rise thin and clear: "Let him that is without sin amang ye, cast the first stane!" And as he went down he looked at me--a look full of despair. I never had had a ray of hope from the beginning; but now I began to think whether men suffered much when they were hung, and whether one woke at once into the next life, or had to wait till the body had returned to the dust, and watch the ugly process of one's own decay. I was not afraid of death--I never experienced that sensation. I am not physically brave. I am as thoroughly afraid of pain as any child can be; but that next world has never offered any prospect to me, save boundless food for my insatiable curiosity. * * * * * But at that moment my attorney thrust into my hand a little dirty scrap of paper. "Do you know this man?" I read it. "SIR,--I wull tell all truthe. Mr. Locke is a murdered man if he be hanged. Lev me spek out, for love of the Lord. "J. DAVIS." No. I never had heard of him; and I let the paper fall. A murdered man? I had known that all along. Had not the Queen's counsel been trying all day to murder me, as was their duty, seeing that they got their living thereby? A few moments after, a labouring man was in the witness-box; and to my astonishment, telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I will not trouble the reader with his details, for they were simply and exactly what I have already stated. He was badgered, bullied, cross-examined, but nothing could shake him. With that dogged honesty, and laconic dignity, which is the good side of the English peasant's character, he stood manfully to his assertion--that I had done everything that words or actions could do to prevent violence, even to the danger of my own personal safety. He swore to the words which I used when trying to wrest the desk from the man who had stolen it; and when the Queen's counsel asked him, tauntingly, who had set him on bringing his new story there at the eleventh hour, he answered, equally to the astonishment of his questioner, and of me, "Muster Locke, hisself." "What! the prisoner?" almost screamed the counsellor, who fancied, I suppose, that he had stumbled on a confession of unblushing bribery. "Yes, he; he there. As he went up over hill to meeting he met my two boys a shep-minding; and, because the cutter was froze, he stop and turn the handle for 'em for a matter of ten minutes; and I was coming up over field, and says I, I'll hear what that chap's got to say--there can't be no harm in going up arter the likes of he; for, says I to myself, a man can't have got any great wickedness a plotting in he's head, when he'll stop a ten minutes to help two boys as he never sot eyes on afore in his life; and I think their honours'll say the same." Whether my reader will agree or not with the worthy fellow, my counsel, I need not say, did, and made full use of his hint. All the previous evidence was now discovered to have corroborated the last witness, except where it had been notoriously overthrown. I was extolled as a miracle of calm benevolence; and black became grey, and grey became spotless white, and the whole feeling of the court seemed changed in my favour; till the little attorney popped up his head and whispered to me: "By George! that last witness has saved your life." To which I answered, "Very well"--and turned stupidly back upon that nightmare thought--was Lillian in the court? * * * * * At last, a voice, the judge's I believe, for it was grave, gentle, almost compassionate, asked us one by one whether we had anything to say in our own defence. I recollect an indistinct murmur from one after another of the poor semi-brutes on my left; and then my attorney looking up to me, made me aware that I was expected to speak. On the moment, somehow, my whole courage returned to me. I felt that I must unburden my heart, now or never. With a sudden effort I roused myself, and looking fixedly and proudly at the reverend face opposite, began: "The utmost offence which has been proved against me is a few bold words, producing consequences as unexpected as illogical. If the stupid ferocity with which my words were misunderstood, as by a horde of savages rather than Englishmen;--if the moral and physical condition of these prisoners at my side;--of those witnesses who have borne testimony against me, miserable white slaves, miscalled free labourers;--ay, if a single walk through the farms and cottages on which this mischief was bred, affords no excuse for one indignant sentence--" There she was! There she had been all the time--right opposite to me, close to the judge--cold, bright, curious--smiling! And as our eyes met, she turned away, and whispered gaily something to a young man who sat beside her. Every drop of blood in my body rushed into my forehead; the court, the windows, and the faces, whirled round and round, and I fell senseless on the floor of the dock. * * * * * I next recollect some room or other in the gaol, Mackaye with both my hands in his; and the rough kindly voice of the gaoler congratulating me on having "only got three years." "But you didn't show half a good pluck," said some one. "There's two on 'em transported, took it as bold as brass, and thanked the judge for getting 'em out 'o this starving place 'free gracious for nothing," says they." "Ah!" quoth the little attorney, rubbing his hands, "you should have seen * * * * and * * * * after the row in '42! They were the boys for the Bull Ring! Gave a barrister as good as he brought, eh, Mr. Mackaye? My small services, you remember, were of no use, really no use at all--quite ashamed to send in my little account. Managed the case themselves, like two patriotic parties as they were, with a degree of forensic acuteness, inspired by the consciousness of a noble cause--Ahem! You remember, friend M.? Grand triumphs those, eh?" "Ay," said Sandy, "I mind them unco weel--they cost me a' my few savings, mair by token; an' mony a braw fallow paid for ither folks' sins that tide. But my puir laddie here's no made o' that stuff. He's ower thin-skinned for a patriot." "Ah, well--this little taste of British justice will thicken his hide for him, eh?" And the attorney chuckled and winked. "He'll come out again as tough as a bull dog, and as surly too. Eh, Mr. Mackaye?--eh?" "'Deed, then, I'm unco sair afeard that your opeenion is no a'thegither that improbable," answered Sandy with a drawl of unusual solemnity. CHAPTER XXX. PRISON THOUGHTS. I was alone in my cell. Three years' imprisonment! Thirty-six months!--one thousand and ninety-five days--and twenty-four whole hours in each of them! Well--I should sleep half the time: one-third at least. Perhaps I should not be able to sleep! To lie awake, and think--there! the thought was horrible--it was all horrible. To have three whole years cut out of my life, instead of having before me, as I had always as yet had, a mysterious Eldorado of new schemes and hopes, possible developments, possible triumphs, possible bliss--to have nothing, nothing before me but blank and stagnation, dead loss and waste: and then to go out again, and start once more where I had left off yesterday! It should not be! I would not lose these years! I would show myself a man; they should feel my strength just when they fancied they had crushed me utterly! They might bury me, but I should rise again!--I should rise again more glorious, perhaps to be henceforth immortal, and live upon the lips of men. I would educate myself; I would read--what would I not read? These three years should be a time of sacred retirement and contemplation, as of Thebaid Anchorite, or Mahomet in his Arabian cave. I would write pamphlets that should thunder through the land, and make tyrants tremble on their thrones! All England--at least all crushed and suffering hearts--should break forth at my fiery words into one roar of indignant sympathy. No--I would write a poem; I would concentrate all my experience, my aspirations, all the hopes, and wrongs, and sorrows of the poor, into one garland of thorns--one immortal epic of suffering. What should I call it? And I set to work deliberately--such a thing is man--to think of a title. I looked up, and my eye caught the close bars of the little window; and then came over me, for the first time, the full meaning of that word--Prison; that word which the rich use so lightly, knowing well that there is no chance, in these days, of there ever finding themselves in one; for the higher classes never break the laws--seeing that they have made them to fit themselves. Ay, I was in prison. I could not go out or come in at will. I was watched, commanded at every turn. I was a brute animal, a puppet, a doll, that children put away in a cupboard, and there it lies. And yet my whole soul was as wide, fierce, roving, struggling as ever. Horrible contradiction! The dreadful sense of helplessness, the crushing weight of necessity, seemed to choke me. The smooth white walls, the smooth white ceiling, seemed squeezing in closer and closer on me, and yet dilating into vast inane infinities, just as the merest knot of mould will transform itself, as one watches it, and nothing else, into enormous cliffs, long slopes of moor, and spurs of mountain-range. Oh, those smooth white walls and ceilings! If there had but been a print--a stain of dirt--a cobweb, to fleck their unbroken ghastliness! They stared at me, like grim, impassive, featureless formless fiends; all the more dreadful for their sleek, hypocritic cleanliness--purity as of a saint-inquisitor watching with spotless conscience the victim on the rack. They choked me--I gasped for breath, stretched out my arms, rolled shrieking on the floor--the narrow chequered glimpse of free blue sky, seen through the window, seemed to fade dimmer and dimmer, farther and farther off. I sprang up, as if to follow it--rushed to the bars, shook and wrenched at them with my thin, puny arms--and stood spell-bound, as I caught sight of the cathedral towers, standing out in grand repose against the horizontal fiery bars of sunset, like great angels at the gates of Paradise, watching in stately sorrow all the wailing and the wrong below. And beneath, beneath--the well-known roofs--Lillian's home, and all its proud and happy memories! It was but a corner of a gable, a scrap of garden, that I could see beyond intervening roofs and trees--but could I mistake them? There was the very cedar-tree; I knew its dark pyramid but too well! There I had walked by her; there, just behind that envious group of chestnuts, she was now. The light was fading; it must be six o'clock; she must be in her room now, dressing herself for dinner, looking so beautiful! And as I gazed, and gazed, all the intervening objects became transparent and vanished before the intensity of my imagination. Were my poems in her room still? Perhaps she had thrown them away--the condemned rioter's poems! Was she thinking of me? Yes--with horror and contempt. Well, at least she was thinking of me. And she would understand me at last--she must. Some day she would know all I had borne for love of her--the depth, the might, the purity of my adoration. She would see the world honouring me, in the day of my triumph, when I was appreciated at last; when I stood before the eyes of admiring men, a people's singer, a king of human spirits, great with the rank which genius gives, then she would find out what a man had loved her: then she would know the honour, the privilege of a poet's worship. --But that trial scene. Ay--that trial scene. That cold unmoved smile!--when she knew me, must have known me, not to be the wretch which those hired slanderers had called me. If she had cared for me--if she had a woman's heart in her at all, any pity, any justice, would she not have spoken? Would she not have called on others to speak, and clear me of the calumny? Nonsense! Impossible! She--so frail, tender, retiring--how could she speak? How did I know that she had not felt for me? It was woman's nature--duty, to conceal her feelings; perhaps that after all was the true explanation of that smile. Perhaps, too, she might have spoken--might be even now pleading for me in secret; not that I wished to be pardoned--not I--but it would be so delicious to have her, her, pleading for me! Perhaps--perhaps I might hear of her--from her! Surely she could not leave me here so close, without some token! And I actually listened, I know not how long, expecting the door to open, and a message to arrive; till, with my eyes riveted on that bit of gable, and my ears listening behind me like a hare's in her form, to catch every sound in the ward outside, I fell fast asleep, and forgot all in the heavy dreamless torpor of utter mental and bodily exhaustion. I was awakened by the opening of my cell door and the appearance of the turnkey. "Well, young man, all right again? You've had a long nap; and no wonder, you've had a hard time of it lately; and a good lesson, to you, too." "How long have I slept? I do not recollect going to bed. And how came I to lie down without undressing?" "I found you, at lock-up hours, asleep there kneeling on the chair, with your head on the window-sill; and a mercy you hadn't tumbled off and broke your back. Now, look here.--You seems a civil sort of chap; and civil gets as civil gives with me. Only don't you talk no politics. They ain't no good to nobody, except the big 'uns, wot gets their living thereby; and I should think you'd had dose enough on 'em to last for a month of Sundays. So just get yourself tidy, there's a lad, and come along with me to chapel." I obeyed him, in that and other things; and I never received from him, or, indeed, from any one else there, aught but kindness. I have no complaint to make--but prison is prison. As for talking politics, I never, during those three years, exchanged as many sentences with any of my fellow-prisoners. What had I to say to them? Poachers and petty thieves--the scum of misery, ignorance, and rascality throughout the country. If my heart yearned toward them at times, it was generally shut close by the exclusive pride of superior intellect and knowledge. I considered it, as it was, a degradation to be classed with such; never asking myself how far I had brought that degradation on myself; and I loved to show my sense of injustice by walking, moody and silent, up and down a lonely corner of the yard; and at last contrived, under the plea of ill health (and, truly, I never was ten minutes without coughing), to confine myself entirely to my cell, and escape altogether the company of a class whom I despised, almost hated, as my betrayers, before whom I had cast away my pearls--questionable though they were according to Mackaye. Oh! there is in the intellectual workman's heart, as in all others, the root of Pharisaism--the lust after self-glorifying superiority, on the ground of "genius." We too are men; frail, selfish, proud as others. The days are past, thank God, when the "gentlemen button-makers," used to insist on a separate tap-room from the mere "button-makers," on the ground of earning a few more shillings per week. But we are not yet thorough democrats, my brothers; we do not yet utterly believe our own loud doctrine of equality; nor shall we till--But I must not anticipate the stages of my own experience. * * * * * I complain of no one, again I say--neither of judge, jury, gaolers, or chaplain. True, imprisonment was the worst possible remedy for my disease that could have been devised, if, as the new doctrine is, punishments are inflicted only to reform the criminal. What could prison do for me, but embitter and confirm all my prejudices? But I do not see what else they could have done with me while law is what it is, and perhaps ever will be; dealing with the overt acts of the poor, and never touching the subtler and more spiritual iniquities of the rich respectable. When shall we see a nation ruled, not by the law, by the Gospel; not in the letter which kills, but in the spirit which is love, forgiveness, life? When? God knows! And God does know. * * * * * But I did work, during those three years, for months at a time, steadily and severely; and with little profit, alas! to my temper of mind. I gorged my intellect, for I could do nothing else. The political questions which I longed to solve in some way or other, were tabooed by the well-meaning chaplain. He even forbid me a standard English work on political economy, which I had written to Mackaye to borrow for me; he was not so careful, it will be seen hereafter, with foreign books. He meant, of course, to keep my mind from what he considered at once useless and polluting; but the only effect of his method was, that all the doubts and questions remained, rankling and fierce, imperiously demanding my attention, and had to be solved by my own moody and soured meditations, warped and coloured by the strong sense of universal wrong. Then he deluged me with tracts, weak and well-meaning, which informed me that "Christians," being "not of this world," had nothing to do with politics; and preached to me the divine right of kings, passive obedience to the powers--or impotences--that be, &c., &c., with such success as may be imagined. I opened them each, read a few sentences, and laid them by. "They were written by good men, no doubt; but men who had an interest in keeping up the present system;" at all events by men who knew nothing of my temptations, my creed, my unbelief; who saw all heaven and earth from a station antipodal to my own; I had simply nothing to do with them. And yet, excellent man! pious, benignant, compassionate! God forbid that I should, in writing these words, allow myself a desire so base as that of disparaging thee! However thy words failed of their purpose, that bright, gentle, earnest face never appeared without bringing balm to the wounded spirit. Hadst thou not recalled me to humanity, those three years would have made a savage and madman of me. May God reward thee hereafter! Thou hast thy reward on earth in the gratitude of many a broken heart bound up, of drunkards sobered, thieves reclaimed, and outcasts taught to look for a paternal home denied them here on earth! While such thy deeds, what matter thine opinions? But alas! (for the truth must be told, as a warning to those who have to face the educated working men,) his opinions did matter to himself. The good man laboured under the delusion, common enough, of choosing his favourite weapons from his weakest faculty; and the very inferiority of his intellect prevented him from seeing where his true strength lay. He _would_ argue; he would try and convert me from scepticism by what seemed to him reasoning, the common figure of which was, what logicians, I believe, call begging the question; and the common method, what they call _ignoratio elenchi_--shooting at pigeons, while crows are the game desired. He always started by demanding my assent to the very question which lay at the bottom of my doubts. He would wrangle and wrestle blindly up and down, with tears of earnestness in his eyes, till he had lost his temper, as far as it was possible for one so angel-guarded as he seemed to be; and then, when he found himself confused, contradicting his own words, making concessions at which he shuddered, for the sake of gaining from me assents which he found out the next moment I understood in quite a different sense from his, he would suddenly shift his ground, and try to knock me down authoritatively with a single text of Scripture; when all the while I wanted proof that Scripture had any authority at all. He carefully confined himself, too, throughout, to the dogmatic phraseology of the pulpit; while I either did not understand, or required justification for, the strange, far-fetched, technical meanings, which he attached to his expressions. If he would only have talked English!--if clergymen would only preach in English!--and then they wonder that their sermons have no effect! Their notion seems to be, as my good chaplain's was, that the teacher is not to condescend to the scholar, much less to become all things to all men, if by any means he may save some; but that he has a right to demand that the scholar shall ascend to him before he is taught; that he shall raise himself up of his own strength into the teacher's region of thought as well as feeling; to do for himself, in short, under penalty of being called an unbeliever, just what the preacher professes to do for him. At last, he seemed dimly to discover that I could not acquiesce in his conclusions, while I denied his premises; and so he lent me, in an ill-starred moment, "Paley's Evidences," and some tracts of the last generation against Deism. I read them, and remained, as hundreds more have done, just where I was before. "Was Paley," I asked, "a really good and pious man?" The really good and pious man hemmed and hawed. "Because, if he was not, I can't trust a page of his special pleading, let it look as clever as the whole Old Bailey in one." Besides, I never denied the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, or his apostles. I doubted the myths and doctrines, which I believed to have been gradually built up round the true story. The fact was, he was, like most of his class, "attacking extinct Satans," fighting manfully against Voltaire, Volney, and Tom Paine; while I was fighting for Strauss, Hennell, and Emerson. And, at last, he gave me up for some weeks as a hopeless infidel, without ever having touched the points on which I disbelieved. He had never read Strauss--hardly even heard of him; and, till clergymen make up their minds to do that, and to answer Strauss also, they will, as he did, leave the heretic artisan just where they found him. The bad effect which all this had on my mind may easily be conceived. I felt myself his intellectual superior. I tripped him up, played with him, made him expose his weaknesses, till I really began to despise him. May Heaven forgive me for it! But it was not till long afterwards that I began, on looking back, to see how worthless was any superior cleverness of mine before his superior moral and spiritual excellence. That was just what he would not let me see at the time. I was worshipping intellect, mere intellect; and thence arose my doubts; and he tried to conquer them by exciting the very faculty which had begotten them. When will the clergy learn that their strength is in action, and not in argument? If they are to reconvert the masses, it must be by noble deeds, as Carlyle says; "not by noisy theoretic laudation of _a_ Church, but by silent practical demonstration of _the_ Church." * * * * * But, the reader may ask, where was your Bible all this time? Yes--there was a Bible in my cell--and the chaplain read to me, both privately and in chapel, such portions of it as he thought suited my case, or rather his utterly-mistaken view thereof. But, to tell the truth, I cared not to read or listen. Was it not the book of the aristocrats--of kings and priests, passive obedience, and the slavery of the intellect? Had I been thrown under the influence of the more educated Independents in former years, I might have thought differently. They, at least, have contrived, with what logical consistence I know not, to reconcile orthodox Christianity with unflinching democratic opinions. But such was not my lot. My mother, as I said in my first chapter, had become a Baptist; because she believed that sect, and as I think rightly, to be the only one which logically and consistently carries out the Calvinistic theory; and now I looked back upon her delight in Gideon and Barak, Samson and Jehu, only as the mystic application of rare exceptions to the fanaticism of a chosen few--the elect--the saints, who, as the fifth-monarchy men held, were one day to rule the world with a rod of iron. And so I fell--willingly, alas!--into the vulgar belief about the politics of Scripture, common alike--strange unanimity!--to Infidel and Churchman. The great idea that the Bible is the history of mankind's deliverance from all tyranny, outward as well as inward; of the Jews, as the one free constitutional people among a world of slaves and tyrants; of their ruin, as the righteous fruit of a voluntary return to despotism; of the New Testament, as the good news that freedom, brotherhood, and equality, once confided only to Judæa and to Greece, and dimly seen even there, was henceforth to be the right of all mankind, the law of all society--who was there to tell me that? Who is there now to go forth and tell it to the millions who have suffered, and doubted, and despaired like me, and turn the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come? Again I ask--who will go forth and preach that Gospel, and save his native land? But, as I said before, I read, and steadily. In the first place, I, for the first time in my life, studied Shakspeare throughout; and found out now the treasure which I had overlooked. I assure my readers I am not going to give a lecture on him here, as I was minded to have done. Only, as I am asking questions, who will write us a "People's Commentary on Shakspeare"? Then I waded, making copious notes and extracts, through the whole of Hume, and Hallam's "Middle Ages," and "Constitutional History," and found them barren to my soul. When (to ask a third and last question) will some man, of the spirit of Carlyle--one who is not ashamed to acknowledge the intervention of a God, a Providence, even of a devil, in the affairs of men--arise, and write a "People's History of England"? Then I laboured long months at learning French, for the mere purpose of reading French political economy after my liberation. But at last, in my impatience, I wrote to Sandy to send me Proudhon and Louis Blanc, on the chance of their passing the good chaplain's censorship--and behold, they passed! He had never heard their names! He was, I suspect, utterly ignorant of French, and afraid of exposing his ignorance by venturing to criticise. As it was, I was allowed peaceable possession of them till within a few months of my liberation, with such consequences as may be imagined: and then, to his unfeigned terror and horror, he discovered, in some periodical, that he had been leaving in my hands books which advocated "the destruction of property," and therefore, in his eyes, of all which is moral or sacred in earth or heaven! I gave them up without a struggle, so really painful was the good soul's concern and the reproaches which he heaped, not on me--he never reproached me in his life--but on himself, for having so neglected his duty. Then I read hard for a few months at physical science--at Zoology and Botany, and threw it aside again in bitterness of heart. It was too bitter to be tantalized with the description of Nature's wondrous forms, and I there a prisoner between those four white walls. Then I set to work to write an autobiography--at least to commit to paper in regular order the most striking incidents and conversations which I could recollect, and which I had noted down as they occurred in my diary. From that source I have drawn nearly the whole of my history up to this point. For the rest I must trust to memory--and, indeed, the strange deeds and sufferings, and yet stranger revelations, of the last few months, have branded themselves deep enough upon my brain. I need not hope, or fear, that aught of them should slip my memory. * * * * * So went the weary time. Week after week, month after month, summer after summer, I scored the days off, like a lonely school boy, on the pages of a calendar; and day by day I went to my window, and knelt there, gazing at the gable and the cedar-tree. That was my only recreation. Sometimes, at first, my eyes used to wander over the wide prospect of rich lowlands, and farms, and hamlets, and I used to amuse myself with conjectures about the people who lived in them, and walked where they liked on God's earth: but soon I hated to look at the country; its perpetual change and progress mocked the dreary sameness of my dungeon. It was bitter, maddening, to see the grey boughs grow green with leaves, and the green fade to autumnal yellow, and the grey boughs reappear again, and I still there! The dark sleeping fallows bloomed with emerald blades of corn, and then the corn grew deep and crisp, and blackened before the summer breeze, in "waves of shadow," as Mr. Tennyson says in one of his most exquisite lyrics; and then the fields grew white to harvest day by day, and I saw the rows of sheaves rise one by one, and the carts crawling homeward under their load. I could almost hear the merry voices of the children round them--children that could go into the woods, and pick wild flowers, and I still there! No--I would look at nothing but the gable and the cedar-tree, and the tall cathedral towers; there was no change in them--they did not laugh at me. But she who lived beneath them? Months and seasons crawled along, and yet no sign or hint of her! I was forgotten, forsaken! And yet I gazed, and gazed. I could not forget her; I could not forget what she had been to me. Eden was still there, though I was shut out from it for ever: and so, like a widower over the grave of her he loves, morning and evening I watched the gable and the cedar-tree. And my cousin? Ah, that was the thought, the only thought, which made my life intolerable! What might he not be doing in the meantime? I knew his purpose, I knew his power. True, I had never seen a hint, a glance, which could have given him hope; but he had three whole years to win her in--three whole years, and I fettered, helpless, absent! "Fool! could I have won her if I had been free? At least, I would have tried: we would have fought it fairly out, on even ground; we would have seen which was the strongest, respectability and cunning, or the simplicity of genius. But now!"--And I tore at the bars of the window, and threw myself on the floor of my cell, and longed to die. CHAPTER XXXI. THE NEW CHURCH. In a poor suburb of the city, which I could see well enough from my little window, a new Gothic church was building. When I first took up my abode in the cell, it was just begun--the walls had hardly risen above the neighbouring sheds and garden-fences. But month after month I had watched it growing; I had seen one window after another filled with tracery, one buttress after another finished off with its carved pinnacle; then I had watched the skeleton of the roof gradually clothed in tiling; and then the glazing of the windows--some of them painted, I could see, from the iron network which was placed outside them the same day. Then the doors were put up--were they going to finish that handsome tower? No: it was left with its wooden cap, I suppose for further funds. But the nave, and the deep chancel behind it, were all finished, and surmounted by a cross,--and beautifully enough the little sanctuary looked, in the virgin-purity of its spotless freestone. For eighteen months I watched it grow before my eyes--and I was still in my cell! And then there was a grand procession of surplices and lawn sleeves; and among them I fancied I distinguished the old dean's stately figure, and turned my head away, and looked again, and fancied I distinguished another figure--it must have been mere imagination--the distance was far too great for me to identify any one; but I could not get out of my head the fancy--say rather, the instinct--that it was my cousin's; and that it was my cousin whom I saw daily after that, coming out and going in--when the bell rang to morning and evening prayers--for there were daily services there, and saint's day services, and Lent services, and three services on a Sunday, and six or seven on Good Friday and Easter-day. The little musical bell above the chancel-arch seemed always ringing: and still that figure haunted me like a nightmare, ever coming in and going out about its priestly calling--and I still in my cell! If it should be he!--so close to her! I shuddered at the thought; and, just because it was so intolerable, it clung to me, and tormented me, and kept me awake at nights, till I became utterly unable to study quietly, and spent hours at the narrow window, watching for the very figure I loathed to see. And then a Gothic school-house rose at the churchyard end, and troops of children poured in and out, and women came daily for alms; and when the frosts came on, every morning I saw a crowd, and soup carried away in pitchers, and clothes and blankets given away; the giving seemed endless, boundless; and I thought of the times of the Roman Empire and the "sportula," when the poor had got to live upon the alms of the rich, more and more, year by year--till they devoured their own devourers, and the end came; and I shuddered. And yet it was a pleasant sight, as every new church is to the healthy-minded man, let his religious opinions be what they may. A fresh centre of civilization, mercy, comfort for weary hearts, relief from frost and hunger; a fresh centre of instruction, humanizing, disciplining, however meagre in my eyes, to hundreds of little savage spirits; altogether a pleasant sight, even to me there in my cell. And I used to wonder at the wasted power of the Church--her almost entire monopoly of the pulpits, the schools, the alms of England; and then thank Heaven, somewhat prematurely, that she knew and used so little her vast latent power for the destruction of liberty. Or for its realization? Ay, that is the question! We shall not see it solved--at least, I never shall. But still that figure haunted me; all through that winter I saw it, chatting with old women, patting children's heads, walking to the church with ladies; sometimes with a tiny, tripping figure.--I did not dare to let myself fancy who that might be. * * * * * December passed, and January came. I had now only two months more before my deliverance. One day I seemed to myself to have passed a whole life in that narrow room; and the next, the years and months seemed short and blank as a night's sleep on waking; and there was no salient point in all my memory, since that last sight of Lillian's smile, and the faces and the window whirling round me as I fell. At last a letter came from Mackaye. "Ye speired for news o' your cousin--an' I find he's a neebour o' yours; ca'd to a new kirk i' the city o' your captivity--an' na stickit minister he makes, forbye he's ane o' these new Puseyite sectarians, to judge by your uncle's report. I met the auld bailie-bodie on the street, and was gaun to pass him by, but he was sae fou o' good news he could na but stop an' ha' a crack wi' me on politics; for we ha' helpit thegither in certain municipal clamjamfries o' late. An' he told me your cousin wins honour fast, an' maun surely die a bishop--puir bairn! An' besides that he's gaun to be married the spring. I dinna mind the leddy's name; but there's tocher wi' lass o' his I'll warrant. He's na laird o' Cockpen, for a penniless lass wi' a long pedigree." As I sat meditating over this news--which made the torment of suspicion and suspense more intolerable than ever--behold a postscript added some two days after. "Oh! Oh! Sic news! gran news! news to make baith the ears o' him that heareth it to tingle. God is God, an' no the deevil after a'! Louis Philippe is doun!--doun, doun, like a dog, and the republic's proclaimed, an' the auld villain here in England, they say, a wanderer an' a beggar. I ha' sent ye the paper o' the day. Ps.--73, 37, 12. Oh, the Psalms are full o't! Never say the Bible's no true, mair. I've been unco faithless mysel', God forgive me! I got grieving to see the wicked in sic prosperity. I did na gang into the sanctuary eneugh, an' therefore I could na see the end of these men--how He does take them up suddenly after all, an' cast them doun: vanish they do, perish, an' come to a fearful end. Yea, like as a dream when one awaketh, so shalt thou make their image to vanish out of the city. Oh, but it's a day o' God! An' yet I'm sair afraid for they puir feckless French. I ha' na faith, ye ken, in the Celtic blude, an' its spirit o' lees. The Saxon spirit o' covetize is a grewsome house-fiend, and sae's our Norse speerit o' shifts an' dodges; but the spirit o' lees is warse. Puir lustful Reubens that they are!--unstable as water, they shall not excel. Well, well--after all, there is a God that judgeth the earth; an' when a man kens that, he's learnt eneugh to last him till he dies." CHAPTER XXXII. THE TOWER OF BABEL. A glorious people vibrated again The lightning of the nations; Liberty From heart to heart, from tower to tower, o'er France, Scattering contagious fire into the sky, Gleamed. My soul spurned the chains of its dismay; And in the rapid plumes of song Clothed itself sublime and strong. Sublime and strong? Alas! not so. An outcast, heartless, faithless, and embittered, I went forth from my prison.--But yet Louis Philippe had fallen! And as I whirled back to Babylon and want, discontent and discord, my heart was light, my breath came thick and fierce.--The incubus of France had fallen! and from land to land, like the Beacon-fire which leaped from peak to peak proclaiming Troy's downfall, passed on the glare of burning idols, the crash of falling anarchies. Was I mad, sinful? Both--and yet neither. Was I mad and sinful, if on my return to my old haunts, amid the grasp of loving hands and the caresses of those who called me in their honest flattery a martyr and a hero--what things, as Carlyle says, men will fall down and worship in their extreme need!--was I mad and sinful, if daring hopes arose, and desperate words were spoken, and wild eyes read in wild eyes the thoughts they dare not utter? "Liberty has risen from the dead, and we too will be free!" Yes, mad and sinful; therefore are we as we are. Yet God has forgiven us--perhaps so have those men whose forgiveness is alone worth having. Liberty? And is that word a dream, a lie, the watchword only of rebellious fiends, as bigots say even now? Our forefathers spoke not so-- The shadow of her coming fell On Saxon Alfred's olive-tinctured brow. Had not freedom, progressive, expanding, descending, been the glory and the strength of England? Were Magna Charta and the Habeas Corpus Act, Hampden's resistance to ship-money, and the calm, righteous might of 1688--were they all futilities and fallacies? Ever downwards, for seven hundred years, welling from the heaven-watered mountain peaks of wisdom, had spread the stream of liberty. The nobles had gained their charter from John; the middle classes from William of Orange: was not the time at hand, when from a queen, more gentle, charitable, upright, spotless, than had ever sat on the throne of England, the working masses in their turn should gain their Charter? If it was given, the gift was hers: if it was demanded to the uttermost, the demand would be made, not on her, but on those into whose hands her power had passed, the avowed representatives neither of the Crown nor of the people, but of the very commercial class which was devouring us. Such was our dream. Insane and wicked were the passions which accompanied it; insane and wicked were the means we chose; and God in his mercy to us, rather than to Mammon, triumphant in his iniquity, fattening his heart even now for a spiritual day of slaughter more fearful than any physical slaughter which we in our folly had prepared for him--God frustrated them. We confess our sins. Shall the Chartist alone be excluded from the promise, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness"? And yet, were there no excuses for us? I do not say for myself--and yet three years of prison might be some excuse for a soured and harshened spirit--but I will not avail myself of the excuse; for there were men, stancher Chartists than ever I had been--men who had suffered not only imprisonment, but loss of health and loss of fortune; men whose influence with the workmen was far wider than my own, and whose temptations were therefore all the greater, who manfully and righteously kept themselves aloof from all those frantic schemes, and now reap their reward, in being acknowledged as the true leaders of the artizans, while the mere preachers of sedition are scattered to the winds. But were there no excuses for the mass? Was there no excuse in the spirit with which the English upper classes regarded the continental revolutions? No excuse in the undisguised dislike, fear, contempt, which they expressed for that very sacred name of Liberty, which had been for ages the pride of England and her laws-- The old laws of England, they Whose reverend heads with age are grey-- Children of a wiser day-- And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo, Liberty! for which, according to the latest improvements, is now substituted a bureaucracy of despotic commissions? Shame upon those who sneered at the very name of her to whom they owed the wealth they idolize! who cry down liberty because God has given it to them in such priceless abundance, boundless as the sunshine and the air of heaven, that they are become unconscious of it as of the elements by which they live! Woe to those who despise the gift of God! Woe to those who have turned His grace into a cloak for tyranny; who, like the Jews of old, have trampled under foot His covenant at the very moment that they were asserting their exclusive right to it, and denying his all-embracing love! And were there no excuses, too, in the very arguments which nineteen-twentieths of the public press used to deter us from following the example of the Continent? If there had been one word of sympathy with the deep wrongs of France, Germany, Italy, Hungary--one attempt to discriminate the righteous and God-inspired desire of freedom, from man's furious and self-willed perversion of it, we would have listened to them. But, instead, what was the first, last, cardinal, crowning argument?--"The cost of sedition!" "Revolutions interfered with trade!" and therefore they were damnable! Interfere with the food and labour of the millions? The millions would take the responsibility of that upon themselves. If the party of order cares so much for the millions, why had they left them what they are? No: it was with the profits of the few that revolutions interfered; with the Divine right, not so much of kings, but of money-making. They hampered Mammon, the very fiend who is devouring the masses. The one end and aim of existence was, the maintenance of order--of peace and room to make money in. And therefore Louis' spies might make France one great inquisition-hell; German princelets might sell their country piecemeal to French or Russian! the Hungarian constitution, almost the counterpart of our own, might be sacrificed at the will of an idiot or villain; Papal misgovernment might continue to render Rome a worse den of thieves than even Papal superstition could have made it without the addition of tyranny; but Order must be maintained, for how else could the few make money out of the labour of the many? These were their own arguments. Whether they were likely to conciliate the workman to the powers that be, by informing him that those powers were avowedly the priests of the very system which was crushing him, let the reader judge. The maintenance of order--of the order of disorder--that was to be the new God before whom the working classes were to bow in spell-bound awe; an idol more despicable and empty than even that old divine right of tyrants, newly applied by some well-meaning but illogical personages, not merely as of old to hereditary sovereigns, but to Louis Philippes, usurers, upstarts--why not hereafter to demagogues? Blindfold and desperate bigots! who would actually thus, in the imbecility of terror, deify that very right of the physically strongest and cunningest, which, if anything, is antichrist itself. That argument against sedition, the workmen heard; and, recollecting 1688, went on their way, such as it was, unheeding. One word more, even at the risk of offending many whom I should be very sorry to offend, and I leave this hateful discussion. Let it ever be remembered that the working classes considered themselves deceived, cajoled, by the passers of the Reform Bill; that they cherished--whether rightly or wrongly it is now too late to ask--a deep-rooted grudge against those who had, as they thought, made their hopes and passions a stepping-stone towards their own selfish ends. They were told to support the Reform Bill, not only on account of its intrinsic righteousness--which God forbid that I should deny--but because it was the first of a glorious line of steps towards their enfranchisement; and now the very men who told them this, talked peremptorily of "finality," showed themselves the most dogged and careless of conservatives, and pooh-poohed away every attempt at further enlargement of the suffrage. They were told to support it as the remedy for their own social miseries; and behold those miseries were year by year becoming deeper, more wide-spread, more hopeless; their entreaties for help and mercy, in 1842, and at other times, had been lazily laid by unanswered; and almost the only practical efforts for their deliverance had been made by a Tory nobleman, the honoured and beloved Lord Ashley. They found that they had, in helping to pass the Reform Bill, only helped to give power to the two very classes who crushed them--the great labour kings, and the small shopkeepers; that they had blindly armed their oppressors with the additional weapon of an ever-increasing political majority. They had been told, too (let that never be forgotten), that in order to carry the Reform Bill, sedition itself was lawful; they had seen the master-manufacturers themselves give the signal for the plug-riots by stopping their mills. Their vanity, ferocity, sense of latent and fettered power, pride of numbers, and physical strength, had been nattered and pampered by those who now only talked of grape-shot and bayonets. They had heard the Reform Bill carried by the threats of men of rank and power, that "Manchester should march upon London." Were their masters, then, to have a monopoly in sedition, as in everything else? What had been fair in order to compel the Reform Bill, must surely be fairer still to compel the fulfilment of Reform Bill pledges? And so, imitating the example of those whom they fancied had first used and then deserted them, they, in their madness, concocted a rebellion, not primarily against the laws and constitution of their land, but against Mammon--against that accursed system of competition, slavery of labour, absorption of the small capitalists by the large ones, and of the workman by all, which is, and was, and ever will be, their internecine foe. Silly and sanguinary enough were their schemes, God knows! and bootless enough had they succeeded; for nothing nourishes in the revolutionary atmosphere but that lowest embodiment of Mammon, "the black pool of Agio," and its money-gamblers. But the battle remains still to be fought; the struggle is internecine; only no more with weapons of flesh and blood, but with a mightier weapon--with that association which is the true bane of Mammon--the embodiment of brotherhood and love. We should have known that before the tenth of April? Most true, reader--but wrath is blindness. You too surely have read more wisdom than you have practised yet; seeing that you have your Bible, and perhaps, too, Mill's "Political Economy." Have you perused therein the priceless Chapter "On the Probable Futurity of the Labouring Classes"? If not, let me give you the reference--vol. ii, p. 315, of the Second Edition. Read it, thou self-satisfied Mammon, and perpend; for it is both a prophecy and a doom! * * * * * But, the reader may ask, how did you, with your experience of the reason, honesty, moderation, to be expected of mobs, join in a plan which, if it had succeeded, must have let loose on those "who had" in London, the whole flood of those "who had not"? The reader shall hear. My story may be instructive, as a type of the feelings of thousands beside me. It was the night after I had returned from D * * * *; sitting in Crossthwaite's little room, I had heard with mingled anxiety and delight the plans of my friends. They were about to present a monster petition in favour of the Charter; to accompany it _en masse_ to the door of the House of Commons; and if it was refused admittance--why, then, ulterior measures were the only hope. "And they will refuse it," said Crossthwaite; "they're going, I hear, to revive some old law or other, that forbids processions within such and such a distance of the House of Commons. Let them forbid! To carry arms, to go in public procession, to present petitions openly, instead of having them made a humbug of by being laid on the table unopened by some careless member--they're our rights, and we'll have them. There's no use mincing the matter: it's just like the old fable of the farmer and his wheat--if we want it reaped, we must reap it ourselves. Public opinion, and the pressure from without, are the only things which have carried any measure in England for the last twenty years. Neither Whigs nor Tories deny it: the governed govern their governors--that's the 'ordre du jour' just now--and we'll have our turn at it! We'll give those House of Commons oligarchs--those tools of the squires and shopkeepers--we'll give them a taste of pleasure from without, as shall make the bar of the house crack again. And then to be under arms, day and night, till the Charter's granted." "And if it is refused?" "Fight! that's the word, and no other. There's no other hope. No Charter,--No social reforms! We must give them ourselves, for no one else will. Look there, and judge for yourself!" He pulled a letter out from among his papers, and threw it across to me. "What's this?" "That came while you were in gaol. There don't want many words about it. We sent up a memorial to government about the army and police clothing. We told 'em how it was the lowest, most tyrannous, most ill-paid of all the branches of slop-making; how men took to it only when they were starved out of everything else. We entreated them to have mercy on us--entreated them to interfere between the merciless contractors and the poor wretches on whose flesh and blood contractors, sweaters, and colonels, were all fattening: and there's the answer we got. Look at it; read it! Again and again I've been minded to placard it on the walls, that all the world might see the might and the mercies of the government. Read it! 'Sorry to say that it is utterly out of the power of her Majesty's * * * *s to interfere--as the question of wages rests entirely between the contractor and the workmen.'" "He lies!" I said. "If it did, the workmen might put a pistol to the contractor's head, and say--'You shall not tempt the poor, needy, greedy, starving workers to their own destruction, and the destruction of their class; you shall not offer these murderous, poisonous prices. If we saw you offering our neighbour a glass of laudanum, we would stop you at all risks--and we will stop you now.' No! no! John, the question don't lie between workman and contractor, but between workman and contractor-plus-grape-and-bayonets!" "Look again. There's worse comes after that. 'If government did interfere, it would not benefit the workman, as his rate of wages depends entirely on the amount of competition between the workmen themselves.' Yes, my dear children, you must eat each other; we are far too fond parents to interfere with so delightful an amusement! Curse them--sleek, hard-hearted, impotent do-nothings! They confess themselves powerless against competition--powerless against the very devil that is destroying us, faster and faster every year! They can't help us on a single point. They can't check population; and if they could, they can't get rid of the population which exists. They daren't give us a comprehensive emigration scheme. They daren't lift a finger to prevent gluts in the labour market. They daren't interfere between slave and slave, between slave and tyrant. They are cowards, and like cowards they shall fall!" "Ay--like cowards they shall fall!" I answered; and from that moment I was a rebel and a conspirator. "And will the country join us?" "The cities will; never mind the country. They are too weak to resist their own tyrants--and they are too weak to resist us. The country's always drivelling in the background. A country-party's sure to be a party of imbecile bigots. Nobody minds them." I laughed. "It always was so, John. When Christianity first spread, it was in the cities--till a pagan, a villager, got to mean a heathen for ever and ever." "And so it was in the French revolution; when Popery had died out of all the rest of France, the priests and the aristocrats still found their dupes in the remote provinces." "The sign of a dying system that, to be sure. Woe to Toryism and the Church of England, and everything else, when it gets to boasting that its stronghold is still the hearts of the agricultural poor. It is the cities, John, the cities, where the light dawns first--where man meets man, and spirit quickens spirit, and intercourse breeds knowledge, and knowledge sympathy, and sympathy enthusiasm, combination, power irresistible; while the agriculturists remain ignorant, selfish, weak, because they are isolated from each other. Let the country go. The towns shall win the Charter for England! And then for social reform, sanitary reform, ædile reform, cheap food, interchange of free labour, liberty, equality, and brotherhood for ever!" Such was our Babel-tower, whose top should reach to heaven. To understand the allurement of that dream, you must have lain, like us, for years in darkness and the pit. You must have struggled for bread, for lodging, for cleanliness, for water, for education--all that makes life worth living for--and found them becoming, year by year, more hopelessly impossible, if not to yourself, yet still to the millions less gifted than yourself; you must have sat in darkness and the shadow of death, till you are ready to welcome any ray of light, even though it should be the glare of a volcano. CHAPTER XXXIII. A PATRIOT'S REWARD. I never shall forget one evening's walk, as Crossthwaite and I strode back together from the Convention. We had walked on some way arm in arm in silence, under the crushing and embittering sense of having something to conceal--something, which if those who passed us so carelessly in the street had known--! It makes a villain and a savage of a man, that consciousness of a dark, hateful secret. And it was a hateful one!--a dark and desperate necessity, which we tried to call by noble names, that faltered on our lips as we pronounced them; for the spirit of God was not in us; and instead of bright hope, and the clear fixed lodestar of duty, weltered in our imaginations a wild possible future of tumult, and flame, and blood. "It must be done!--it shall be done!--it will be done!" burst out John, at last, in that positive, excited tone, which indicated a half disbelief of his own words. "I've been reading Macerone on street-warfare; and I see the way as clear as day." I felt nothing but the dogged determination of despair. "It must be tried, if the worst comes to the worst--but I have no hope. I read Somerville's answer to that Colonel Macerone. Ten years ago he showed it was impossible. We cannot stand against artillery; we have no arms." "I'll tell you where to buy plenty. There's a man, Power, or Bower, he's sold hundreds in the last few days; and he understands the matter. He tells us we're certain, safe. There are hundreds of young men in the government offices ready to join, if we do but succeed at first. It all depends on that. The first hour settles the fate of a revolution." "If we succeed, yes--the cowardly world will always side with the conquering party; and we shall have every pickpocket and ruffian in our wake, plundering in the name of liberty and order." "Then we'll shoot them like dogs, as the French did! 'Mort aux voleurs' shall be the word!" "Unless they shoot us. The French had a national guard, who had property to lose, and took care of it. The shopkeepers here will be all against us; they'll all be sworn in special constables, to a man; and between them and the soldiers, we shall have three to one upon us." "Oh! that Power assures me the soldiers will fraternize. He says there are three regiments at least have promised solemnly to shoot their officers, and give up their arms to the mob." "Very important, if true--and very scoundrelly, too, I'd sooner be shot myself by fair fighting, than see officers shot by cowardly treason." "Well, it's ugly. I like fair play as well as any man. But it can't be done. There must be a surprise, a _coup de main_, as the French say" (poor Crossthwaite was always quoting French in those days). "Once show our strength--burst upon the tyrants like a thunderclap; and then!-- "Men of England, heirs of glory, Heroes of unwritten story, Rise, shake off the chains like dew Which in sleep have fallen on you! Ye are many, they are few!" "That's just what I am afraid they are not. Let's go and find out this man Power, and hear his authority for the soldier-story. Who knows him?" "Why, Mike Kelly and he had been a deal together of late, Kelly's a true heart now--a true Irishman ready for anything. Those Irish are the boys, after all--though I don't deny they do bluster and have their way a little too much in the Convention. But still Ireland's wrongs are England's. We have the same oppressors. We must make common cause against the tyrants." "I wish to Heaven they would just have stayed at home, and ranted on the other side of the water; they had their own way there, and no Mammonite middle-class to keep them down; and yet they never did an atom of good. Their eloquence is all bombast, and what's more, Crossthwaite, though there are some fine fellows among them, nine-tenths are liars--liars in grain, and you know it--" Crossthwaite turned angrily to me. "Why, you are getting as reactionary as old Mackaye himself!" "I am not--and he is not. I am ready to die on a barricade to-morrow, if it comes to that. I haven't six months' lease of life--I am going into consumption; and a bullet is as easy a death as spitting up my lungs piecemeal. But I despise these Irish, because I can't trust them--they can't trust each other--they can't trust themselves. You know as well as I that you can't get common justice done in Ireland, because you can depend upon no man's oath. You know as well as I, that in Parliament or out, nine out of ten of them will stick at no lie, even if it has been exposed and refuted fifty times over, provided it serves the purpose of the moment; and I often think that, after all, Mackaye's right, and what's the matter with Ireland is just that and nothing else--that from the nobleman in his castle to the beggar on his dunghill, they are a nation of liars, John Crossthwaite!" "Sandy's a prejudiced old Scotchman." "Sandy's a wiser man than you or I, and you know it." "Oh, I don't deny that; but he's getting old, and I think he has been failing in his mind of late." "I'm afraid he's failing in his health; he has never been the same man since they hooted him down in John Street. But he hasn't altered in his opinions one jot; and I'll tell you what--I believe he's right. I'll die in this matter like a man, because it's the cause of liberty; but I've fearful misgivings about it, just because Irishmen are at the head of it." "Of course they are--they have the deepest wrongs; and that makes them most earnest in the cause of right. The sympathy of suffering, as they say themselves, has bound them to the English working man against the same oppressors." "Then let them fight those oppressors at home, and we'll do the same: that's the true way to show sympathy. Charity begins at home. They are always crying 'Ireland for the Irish'; why can't they leave England for the English?" "You're envious of O'Connor's power!" "Say that again, John Crossthwaite, and we part for ever!" And I threw off his arm indignantly. "No--but--don't let's quarrel, my dear old fellow--now, that perhaps, perhaps we may never meet again--but I can't bear to hear the Irish abused. They're noble, enthusiastic, generous fellows. If we English had half as warm hearts, we shouldn't be as we are now; and O'Connor's a glorious man, I tell you. Just think of him, the descendant of the ancient kings, throwing away his rank, his name, all he had in the world, for the cause of the suffering millions!" "That's a most aristocratic speech, John," said I, smiling, in spite of my gloom. "So you keep a leader because he's descended from ancient kings, do you? I should prefer him just because he was not--just because he was a working man, and come of workmen's blood. We shall see whether he's stanch after all. To my mind, little Cuffy's worth a great deal more, as far as earnestness goes." "Oh! Cuffy's a low-bred, uneducated fellow." "Aristocrat again, John!" said I, as we went up-stairs to Kelly's room. And Crossthwaite did not answer. There was so great a hubbub inside Kelly's room, of English, French, and Irish, all talking at once, that we knocked at intervals for full five minutes, unheard by the noisy crew; and I, in despair, was trying the handle, which was fast, when, to my astonishment, a heavy blow was struck on the panel from the inside, and the point of a sharp instrument driven right through, close to my knees, with the exclamation-- "What do you think o' that, now, in a policeman's bread-basket?" "I think," answered I, as loud as I dare, and as near the dangerous door, "if I intended really to use it, I wouldn't make such a fool's noise about it." There was a dead silence; the door was hastily opened, and Kelly's nose poked out; while we, in spite of the horribleness of the whole thing, could not help laughing at his face of terror. Seeing who we were he welcomed us in at once, into a miserable apartment, full of pikes and daggers, brandished by some dozen miserable, ragged, half-starved artizans. Three-fourths, I saw at once, were slop-working tailors. There was a bloused and bearded Frenchman or two; but the majority were, as was to have been expected, the oppressed, the starved, the untaught, the despairing, the insane; "the dangerous classes," which society creates, and then shrinks in horror, like Frankenstein, from the monster her own clumsy ambition has created. Thou Frankenstein Mammon! hast thou not had warnings enough, either to make thy machines like men, or stop thy bungling, and let God make them for Himself? I will not repeat what I heard there. There is many a frantic ruffian of that night now sitting "in his right mind"--though not yet "clothed"--waiting for God's deliverance, rather than his own. We got Kelly out of the room into the street, and began inquiring of him the whereabouts of this said Bower or Power. "He didn't know,"--the feather-headed Irishman that he was!--"Faix, by-the-by, he'd forgotten--an' he went to look for him at the place he tould him, and they didn't know sich a one there--" "Oh, oh! Mr. Power has an _alibi_, then? Perhaps an _alias_ too?" "He didn't know his name rightly. Some said it was Brown; but he was a broth of a boy--a thrue people's man. Bedad, he gov' away arms afthen and afthen to them that couldn't buy 'em. An' he's as free-spoken--och, but he's put me into the confidence! Come down the street a bit, and I'll tell yees--I'll be Lord-Lieutenant o' Dublin Castle meself, if it succades, as shure as there's no snakes in ould Ireland, an' revenge her wrongs ankle deep in the bhlood o' the Saxon! Whirroo! for the marthyred memory o' the three hundred thousint vargens o' Wexford!" "Hold your tongue, you ass!" said Crossthwaite, as he clapped his hand over his mouth, expecting every moment to find us all three in the Rhadamanthine grasp of a policeman; while I stood laughing, as people will, for mere disgust at the ridiculous, which almost always intermingles with the horrible. At last, out it came-- "Bedad! we're going to do it! London's to be set o' fire in seventeen places at the same moment, an' I'm to light two of them to me own self, and make a holycrust--ay, that's the word--o' Ireland's scorpions, to sting themselves to death in circling flame--" "You would not do such a villanous thing?" cried we, both at once. "Bedad! but I won't harm a hair o' their heads! Shure, we'll save the women and childer alive, and run for the fire-ingins our blessed selves, and then out with the pikes, and seize the Bank and the Tower-- "An' av' I lives, I lives victhorious, An' av' I dies, my soul in glory is; Love fa--a--are--well!" I was getting desperate: the whole thing seemed at once so horrible and so impossible. There must be some villanous trap at the bottom of it. "If you don't tell me more about this fellow Power, Mike," said I, "I'll blow your brains out on the spot: either you or he are villains." And I valiantly pulled out my only weapon, the door key, and put it to his head. "Och! are you mad, thin? He's a broth of a boy; and I'll tell ye. Shure he knows all about the red-coats, case he's an arthillery man himself, and that's the way he's found out his gran' combustible." "An artilleryman?" said John. "He told me he was a writer for the press." "Bedad, thin, he's mistaken himself intirely; for he tould me with his own mouth. And I'll show you the thing he sowld me as is to do it. Shure, it'll set fire to the stones o' the street, av' you pour a bit vitriol on it." "Set fire to the stones? I must see that before I believe it." "Shure an' ye shall then. Where'll I buy a bit? Sorra a shop is there open this time o' night; an' troth I forgot the name o' it intirely! Poker o' Moses, but here's a bit in my pocket!" And out of his tattered coat-tail he lugged a flask of powder and a lump of some cheap chemical salt, whose name I have, I am ashamed to say, forgotten. "You're a pretty fellow to keep such things in the same pocket with gunpowder!" "Come along to Mackaye's," said Crossthwaite. "I'll see to the bottom of this. Be hanged, but I think the fellow's a cursed _mouchard_--some government spy!" "Spy is he, thin? Och, the thief o' the world! I'll stab him! I'll murther him! an' burn the town afterwards, all the same." "Unless," said I, "just as you've got your precious combustible to blaze off, up he comes from behind the corner and gives you in charge to a policeman. It's a villanous trap, you miserable fool, as sure as the moon's in heaven." "Upon my word, I am afraid it is--and I'm trapped too." "Blood and turf! thin, it's he that I'll trap, thin. There's two million free and inlightened Irishmen in London, to avenge my marthyrdom wi' pikes and baggonets like raving salviges, and blood for blood!" "Like savages, indeed!" said I to Crossthwaite, "And pretty savage company we are keeping. Liberty, like poverty, makes a man acquainted with strange companions!" "And who's made 'em savages? Who has left them savages? That the greatest nation of the earth has had Ireland in her hands three hundred years--and her people still to be savages!--if that don't justify a revolution, what does? Why, it's just because these poor brutes are what they are, that rebellion becomes a sacred duty. It's for them--for such fools, brutes, as that there, and the millions more like him, and likely to remain like him, and I've made up my mind to do or die to-morrow!" There was a grand half-truth, distorted, miscoloured in the words, that silenced me for the time. We entered Mackaye's door; strangely enough at that time of night, it stood wide open. What could be the matter? I heard loud voices in the inner room, and ran forward calling his name, when, to my astonishment, out past me rushed a tall man, followed by a steaming kettle, which, missing him, took full effect on Kelly's chest as he stood in the entry, filling his shoes with boiling water, and producing a roar that might have been heard at Temple Bar. "What's the matter?" "Have I hit him?" said the old man, in a state of unusual excitement. "Bedad! it was the man Power! the cursed spy! An' just as I was going to slate the villain nately, came the kittle, and kilt me all over!" "Power? He's as many names as a pickpocket, and as many callings, too, I'll warrant. He came sneaking in to tell me the sogers were a' ready to gie up their arms if I'd come forward to them to-morrow. So I tauld him, sin' he was so sure o't, he'd better gang and tak the arms himsel; an' then he let out he'd been a policeman--" "A policeman!" said both Crossthwaite and Kelly, with strong expletives. "A policeman doon in Manchester; I thought I kenned his face fra the first. And when the rascal saw he'd let out too much, he wanted to make out that he'd been a' along a spy for the Chartists, while he was makin' believe to be a spy o' the goovernment's. Sae when he came that far, I just up wi' the het water, and bleezed awa at him; an' noo I maun gang and het some mair for my drap toddy." Sandy had a little vitriol in the house, so we took the combustible down into the cellar, and tried it. It blazed up: but burnt the stone as much as the reader may expect. We next tried it on a lump of wood. It just scorched the place where it lay, and then went out; leaving poor Kelly perfectly frantic with rage, terror, and disappointment. He dashed up-stairs, and out into the street, on a wild-goose chase after the rascal, and we saw no more of him that night. I relate a simple fact. I am afraid--perhaps, for the poor workmen's sake, I should say I am glad, that it was not an unique one. Villains of this kind, both in April and in June, mixed among the working men, excited their worst passions by bloodthirsty declamations and extravagant promises of success, sold them arms; and then, like the shameless wretch on whose evidence Cuffy and Jones were principally convicted, bore witness against their own victims, unblushingly declaring themselves to have been all along the tools of the government. I entreat all those who disbelieve this apparently prodigious assertion, to read the evidence given on the trial of the John Street conspirators, and judge for themselves. * * * * * "The petition's filling faster than ever!" said Crossthwaite, as that evening we returned to Mackaye's little back room. "Dirt's plenty," grumbled the old man, who had settled himself again to his pipe, with his feet on the fender, and his head half way up the chimney. "Now, or never!" went on Crossthwaite, without minding him; "now, or never! The manufacturing districts seem more firm than ever." "An' words cheap," commented Mackaye, _sotto voce_. "Well," I said, "Heaven keep us from the necessity of ulterior measures! But what must be, must." "The government expect it, I can tell you. They're in a pitiable funk, I hear. One regiment is ordered to Uxbridge already, because they daren't trust it. They'll find soldiers are men, I do believe, after all." "Men they are," said Sandy; "an' therefore they'll no be fools eneugh to stan' by an' see ye pu' down a' that is, to build up ye yourselves dinna yet rightly ken what. Men? Ay, an' wi' mair common sense in them than some that had mair opportunities." "I think I've settled everything," went on Crossthwaite, who seemed not to have heard the last speech--"settled everything--for poor Katie, I mean. If anything happens to me, she has friends at Cork--she thinks so at least--and they'd get her out to service somewhere--God knows!" And his face worked fearfully a minute. "Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori!" said I. "There are twa methods o' fulfilling that saw, I'm thinkin'. Impreemis, to shoot your neebour; in secundis, to hang yoursel." "What do you mean by grumbling at the whole thing in this way, Mr. Mackaye? Are you, too, going to shrink back from The Cause, now that liberty is at the very doors?" "Ou, then, I'm stanch eneuch. I ha' laid in my ain stock o' weapons for the fecht at Armageddon." "You don't mean it? What have you got?" "A braw new halter, an' a muckle nail. There's a gran' tough beam here ayont the ingle, will haud me a' crouse and cantie, when the time comes." "What on earth do you mean?" asked we both together. "Ha' ye looked into the monster-petition?" "Of course we have, and signed it too!" "Monster? Ay, ferlie! Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne. Leeberty, the bonnie lassie, wi' a sealgh's fud to her! I'll no sign it. I dinna consort wi' shoplifters, an' idiots, an' suckin' bairns--wi' long nose, an' short nose, an' pug nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington, let alone a baker's dizen o' Queens. It's no company, that, for a puir auld patriot!" "Why, my dear Mackaye," said I, "you know the Reform Bill petitions were just as bad." "And the Anti-Corn-law ones, too, for that matter," said Crossthwaite. "You know we can't help accidents; the petition will never be looked through." "It's always been the plan with Whigs and Tories, too!" "I ken that better than ye, I guess." "And isn't everything fair in a good cause?" said Crossthwaite. "Desperate men really can't be so dainty." "How lang ha' ye learnit that deil's lee, Johnnie? Ye were no o' that mind five years agone, lad. Ha' ye been to Exeter Hall the while? A's fair in the cause o' Mammon; in the cause o' cheap bread, that means cheap wages; but in the cause o' God--wae's me, that ever I suld see this day ower again! ower again! Like the dog to his vomit--just as it was ten, twenty, fifty year agone. I'll just ha' a petition a' alane to mysel--I, an' a twa or three honest men. Besides, ye're just eight days ower time wi' it." "What do you mean?" "Suld ha' sent it in the 1st of April, an' no the 10th; a' fool's day wud ha' suited wi' it ferlie!" "Mr. Mackaye," said Crossthwaite, in a passion, "I shall certainly inform the Convention of your extraordinary language!" "Do, laddie! do, then! An' tell 'em this, too"--and, as he rose, his whole face and figure assumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen before in him--"tell them that ha' driven out * * * * and * * * *, an' every one that daur speak a word o' common sense, or common humanity--them that stone the prophets, an' quench the Spirit o' God, and love a lie, an' them that mak the same--them that think to bring about the reign o' love an' britherhood wi' pikes an' vitriol bottles, murther an' blasphemy--tell 'em that ane o' fourscore years and mair--ane that has grawn grey in the people's cause--that sat at the feet o' Cartwright, an' knelt by the death-bed o' Rabbie Burns--ane that cheerit Burdett as he went to the Touer, an' spent his wee earnings for Hunt an' Cobbett--ane that beheld the shaking o' the nations in the Ninety-three, and heard the birth-shriek o' a newborn world--ane that while he was yet a callant saw Liberty afar off, an' seeing her was glad, as for a bonny bride, an' followed her through the wilderness for threescore weary waeful years--sends them the last message that e'er he'll send on airth: tell 'em that they're the slaves o' warse than priests and kings--the slaves o' their ain lusts an' passions--the slaves o' every loud-tongued knave an' mountebank that'll pamper them in their self-conceit; and that the gude God'll smite 'em down, and bring 'em to nought, and scatter 'em abroad, till they repent, an' get clean hearts and a richt speerit within them, and learn His lesson that he's been trying to teach 'em this threescore years--that the cause o' the people is the cause o' Him that made the people; an' wae to them that tak' the deevil's tools to do his wark wi'! Gude guide us!--What was yon, Alton, laddie?" "What?" "But I saw a spunk o' fire fa' into your bosom! I've na faith in siccan heathen omens; but auld carlins wud say it's a sign o' death within the year--save ye from it, my puir misguidit bairn! Aiblins a fire-flaught o' my een, it might be--I've had them unco often, the day--" And he stooped down to the fire, and began to light his pipe, muttering to himself-- "Saxty years o' madness! saxty years o' madness! How lang, O Lord, before thou bring these puir daft bodies to their richt mind again?" We stood watching him, and interchanging looks--expecting something, we knew not what. Suddenly he sank forward on his knees, with his hands on the bars of the grate; we rushed forward, and caught him up. He turned his eyes up to me, speechless, with a ghastly expression; one side of his face was all drawn aside--and helpless as a child, he let us lift him to his bed, and there he lay staring at the ceiling. * * * * * Four weary days passed by--it was the night of the ninth of April. In the evening of that day his speech returned to him on a sudden--he seemed uneasy about something, and several times asked Katie the day of the month. "Before the tenth--ay, we maun pray for that. I doubt but I'm ower hearty yet--I canna bide to see the shame o' that day-- * * * * * "Na--I'll tak no potions nor pills--gin it were na for scruples o' conscience, I'd apocartereeze a'thegither, after the manner o' the ancient philosophers. But it's no' lawful, I misdoubt, to starve onesel." "Here is the doctor," said Katie. "Doctor? Wha ca'd for doctors? Canst thou administer to a mind diseased? Can ye tak long nose, an' short nose, an' snub nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington out o' my puddins? Will your castor oil, an' your calomel, an' your croton, do that? D'ye ken a medicamentum that'll put brains into workmen--? Non tribus Anti-cyrus! Tons o' hellebore--acres o' strait waistcoats--a hall police-force o' head-doctors, winna do it. Juvat insanire--this their way is their folly, as auld Benjamin o' Tudela saith of the heathen. Heigho! 'Forty years lang was he grevit wi' this generation, an' swore in his wrath that they suldna enter into his rest.' Pulse? tongue? ay, shak your lugs, an' tak your fee, an' dinna keep auld folk out o' their graves. Can ye sing?" The doctor meekly confessed his inability. "That's pity--or I'd gar ye sing Auld-lang-syne,-- "We twa hae paidlit in the burn-- "Aweel, aweel, aweel--" * * * * * Weary and solemn was that long night, as we sat there, with the crushing weight of the morrow on our mind, watching by that death-bed, listening hour after hour to the rambling soliloquies of the old man, as "he babbled of green fields"; yet I verily believe that to all of us, especially to poor little Katie, the active present interest of tending him kept us from going all but mad with anxiety and excitement. But it was weary work:--and yet, too, strangely interesting, as at times there came scraps of old Scotch love-poetry, contrasting sadly with the grim withered lips that uttered them--hints to me of some sorrow long since suffered, but never healed. I had never heard him allude to such an event before but once, on the first day of our acquaintance. "I went to the kirk, My luve sat afore me; I trow my twa een Tauld him a sweet story. "Aye wakin o'-- Wakin aye and weary-- I thocht a' the kirk Saw me and my deary. "'Aye wakin o'!'--Do ye think, noo, we sall ha' knowledge in the next warld o' them we loved on earth? I askit that same o' Rab Burns ance; an' he said, puir chiel, he 'didna ken ower well, we maun bide and see';--bide and see--that's the gran' philosophy o' life, after a'. Aiblins folk'll ken their true freens there; an' there'll be na mair luve coft and sauld for siller-- "Gear and tocher is needit nane I' the country whaur my luve is gane. * * * * * "Gin I had a true freen the noo! to gang down the wynd, an' find if it war but an auld Abraham o' a blue-gown, wi' a bit crowd, or a fizzle-pipe, to play me the Bush aboon Traquair! Na, na, na; it's singing the Lord's song in a strange land, that wad be; an' I hope the application's no irreverent, for ane that was rearit amang the hills o' God, an' the trees o' the forest which he hath planted. "Oh the broom, and the bonny yellow broom, The broom o' the Cowden-knowes. "Hech, but she wud lilt that bonnily! * * * * * "Did ye ever gang listering saumons by nicht? Ou, but it's braw sport, wi' the scars an' the birks a' glowering out blude-red i' the torchlight, and the bonnie hizzies skelping an' skirling on the bank-- * * * * * "There was a gran' leddy, a bonny leddy, came in and talked like an angel o' God to puir auld Sandy, anent the salvation o' his soul. But I tauld her no' to fash hersel. It's no my view o' human life, that a man's sent into the warld just to save his soul, an' creep out again. An' I said I wad leave the savin' o' my soul to Him that made my soul; it was in richt gude keepin' there, I'd warrant. An' then she was unco fleyed when she found I didna haud wi' the Athanasian creed. An' I tauld her, na; if He that died on cross was sic a ane as she and I teuk him to be, there was na that pride nor spite in him, be sure, to send a puir auld sinful, guideless body to eternal fire, because he didna a'thegither understand the honour due to his name." "Who was this lady?" He did not seem to know; and Katie had never heard of her before--"some district visitor" or other. * * * * * "I sair misdoubt but the auld creeds are in the right anent Him, after a'. I'd gie muckle to think it--there's na comfort as it is. Aiblins there might be a wee comfort in that, for a poor auld worn-out patriot. But it's ower late to change. I tauld her that, too, ance. It's ower late to put new wine into auld bottles. I was unco drawn to the high doctrines ance, when I was a bit laddie, an' sat in the wee kirk by my minnie an' my daddie--a richt stern auld Cameronian sort o' body he was, too; but as I grew, and grew, the bed was ower short for a man to stretch himsel thereon, an' the plaidie ower strait for a man to fauld himself therein; and so I had to gang my gate a' naked in the matter o' formulæ, as Maister Tummas has it." "Ah! do send for a priest, or a clergyman!" said Katie, who partly understood his meaning. "Parson? He canna pit new skin on auld scars. Na bit stickit curate-laddie for me, to gang argumentin' wi' ane that's auld enough to be his gran'father. When the parsons will hear me anent God's people, then I'll hear them anent God. "--Sae I'm wearing awa, Jean, To the land o' the leal-- "Gin I ever get thither. Katie, here, hauds wi' purgatory, ye ken! where souls are burnt clean again--like baccy pipes-- "When Bazor-brigg is ower and past, Every night and alle; To Whinny Muir thou comest at last, And God receive thy sawle. "Gin hosen an' shoon thou gavest nane Every night and alle; The whins shall pike thee intil the bane, And God receive thy sawle. "Amen. There's mair things aboon, as well as below, than are dreamt o' in our philosophy. At least, where'er I go, I'll meet no long nose, nor short nose, nor snub nose patriots there; nor puir gowks stealing the deil's tools to do God's wark wi'. Out among the eternities an' the realities--it's no that dreary outlook, after a', to find truth an' fact--naught but truth an' fact--e'en beside the worm that dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched!" "God forbid!" said Katie. "God do whatsoever shall please Him, Katie--an' that's aye gude like Himsel'. Shall no the Judge of all the earth do right--right--right?" And murmuring that word of words to himself, over and over, more and more faintly, he turned slowly over, and seemed to slumber-- Some half hour passed before we tried to stir him. He was dead. And the candles waned grey, and the great light streamed in through every crack and cranny, and the sun had risen on the Tenth of April. What would be done before the sun had set? What would be done? Just what we had the might to do; and therefore, according to the formula on which we were about to act, that mights are rights, just what we had a right to do--nothing. Futility, absurdity, vanity, and vexation of spirit. I shall make my next a short chapter. It is a day to be forgotten--and forgiven. CHAPTER XXXIV. THE TENTH OF APRIL. And he was gone at last! Kind women, whom his unknown charities had saved from shame, laid him out duly, and closed his eyes, and bound up that face that never would beam again with genial humour, those lips that would never again speak courage and counsel to the sinful, the oppressed, the forgotten. And there he lay, the old warrior, dead upon his shield; worn out by long years of manful toil in The People's Cause; and, saddest thought of all, by disappointment in those for whom he spent his soul. True, he was aged; no one knew how old. He had said, more than eighty years; but we had shortened his life, and we knew it. He would never see that deliverance for which he had been toiling ever since the days when as a boy he had listened to Tooke and Cartwright, and the patriarchs of the people's freedom. Bitter, bitter were our thoughts, and bitter were our tears, as Crossthwaite and I stood watching that beloved face, now in death refined to a grandeur, to a youthful simplicity and delicacy, which we had never seen on it before--calm and strong--the square jaws set firm even in death--the lower lip still clenched above the upper, as if in a divine indignation and everlasting protest, even in the grave, against the devourers of the earth. Yes, he was gone--the old lion, worn out with many wounds, dead in his cage. Where could we replace him? There were gallant men amongst us, eloquent, well-read, earnest--men whose names will ring through this land ere long--men who had boon taught wisdom, even as he, by the sinfulness, the apathy, the ingratitude, as well as by the sufferings of their fellows. But where should we two find again the learning, the moderation, the long experience, above all the more than women's tenderness of him whom we had lost? And at that time, too, of all others! Alas! we had despised his counsel: wayward and fierce we would have none of his reproof; and now God has withdrawn him from us; the righteous was taken away from the evil to come. For we knew that evil was coming. We felt all along that we should _not_ succeed. But we were desperate; and his death made us more desperate; still at the moment it drew us nearer to each other. Yes--we were rudderless upon a roaring sea, and all before us blank with lurid blinding mist: but still we were together, to live and die; and as we looked into each other's eyes, and clasped each other's hands above the dead man's face, we felt that there was love between us, as of Jonathan and David, passing the love of woman. Few words passed. Even our passionate artizan-nature, so sensitive and voluble in general, in comparison with the cold reserve of the field-labourer and the gentleman, was hushed in silent awe between the thought of the past and the thought of the future. We felt ourselves trembling between two worlds. We felt that to-morrow must decide our destiny--and we felt rightly, though little we guessed what that destiny would be! But it was time to go. We had to prepare for the meeting, We must be at Kennington Common within three hours at furthest; and Crossthwaite hurried away, leaving Katie and me to watch the dead. And then came across me the thought of another deathbed--my mother's--How she had lain and lain, while I was far away--And then I wondered whether she had suffered much, or faded away at last in a peaceful sleep, as he had--And then I wondered how her corpse had looked; and pictured it to myself, lying in the little old room day after day, till they screwed the coffin down--before I came!--Cruel! Did she look as calm, as grand in death as he who lay there? And as I watched the old man's features, I seemed to trace in them the strangest likeness to my mother's. The strangest likeness! I could not shake it off. It became intense--miraculous. Was it she, or was it he, who lay there? I shook myself and rose. My loins ached, my limbs were heavy; my brain and eyes swam round. I must be over fatigued by excitement and sleeplessness. I would go down stairs into the fresh air, and shake it off. As I came down the passage, a woman, dressed in black, was standing at the door, speaking to one of the lodgers. "And he is dead! Oh, if I had but known sooner that he was even ill!" That voice--that figure-surely, I knew them!--them, at least, there was no mistaking! Or, was it another phantom of my disordered brain! I pushed forward to the door, and as I did so, she turned and our eyes met full. It was she--Lady Ellerton! sad, worn, transformed by widow's weeds, but that face was like no other's still. Why did I drop my eyes and draw back at the first glance like a guilty coward? She beckoned me towards her, went out into the street, and herself began the conversation, from which I shrank, I know not why. "When did he die?" "Just at sunrise this morning. But how came you here to visit him? Were you the lady who, as he said, came to him a few days since?" She did not answer my question. "At sunrise this morning?--A fitting time for him to die, before he sees the ruin and disgrace of those for whom he laboured. And you, too, I hear, are taking your share in this projected madness and iniquity?" "What right have you," I asked, bristling up at a sudden suspicion that crossed me, "to use such words about me?" "Recollect," she answered, mildly but firmly, "your conduct, three years ago, at D * * * *." "What," I said, "was it not proved upon my trial, that I exerted all my powers, endangered my very life, to prevent outrage in that case?" "It was proved upon your trial," she replied, in a marked tone; "but we were informed, and alas! from authority only too good, namely, from that of an ear-witness, of the sanguinary and ferocious language which you were not afraid to use at the meeting in London, only two nights before the riot." I turned white with rage and indignation. "Tell me," I said--"tell me, if you have any honour, who dared to forge such an atrocious calumny! No! you need not tell me. I see well enough now. He should have told you that I exposed myself that night to insult, not by advocating, but by opposing violence, as I have always done--as I would now, were not I desperate--hopeless of any other path to liberty. And as for this coming struggle, have I not written to my cousin, humiliating as it was to me, to beg him to warn you all from me, lest--" I could not finish the sentence. "You wrote? He has warned us, but he never mentioned your name. He spoke of his knowledge as having been picked up by himself at personal risk to his clerical character." "The risk, I presume, of being known to have actually received a letter from a Chartist; but I wrote--on my honour I wrote--a week ago; and received no word of answer!" "Is this true?" she asked. "A man is not likely to deal in useless falsehoods, who knows not whether he shall live to see the set of sun!" "Then you are implicated in this expected insurrection?" "I am implicated," I answered, "with the people; what they do I shall do. Those who once called themselves the patrons of the tailor-poet, left the mistaken enthusiast to languish for three years in prison, without a sign, a hint of mercy, pity, remembrance. Society has cast me off; and, in casting me off, it has sent me off to my own people, where I should have stayed from the beginning. Now I am at my post, because I am among my class. If they triumph peacefully, I triumph with them. If they need blood to gain their rights, be it so. Let the blood be upon the head of those who refuse, not those who demand. At least, I shall be with my own people. And if I die, what better thing on earth can happen to me?" "But the law?" she said. "Do not talk to me of law! I know it too well in practice to be moved by any theories about it. Laws are no law, but tyranny, when the few make them, in order to oppress the many by them." "Oh!" she said, in a voice of passionate earnestness, which I had never heard from her before, "stop--for God's sake, stop! You know not what you are saying--what you are doing. Oh! that I had met you before--that I had had more time to speak to poor Mackaye! Oh! wait, wait--there is a deliverance for you! but never in this path--never. And just while I, and nobler far than I, are longing and struggling to find the means of telling you your deliverance, you, in the madness of your haste, are making it impossible!" There was a wild sincerity in her words--an almost imploring tenderness in her tone. "So young!" said she; "so young to be lost thus!" I was intensely moved. I felt, I knew, that she had a message for me. I felt that hers was the only intellect in the world to which I would have submitted mine; and, for one moment, all the angel and all the devil in me wrestled for the mastery. If I could but have trusted her one moment.... No! all the pride, the spite, the suspicion, the prejudice of years, rolled back upon me. "An aristocrat! and she, too, the one who has kept me from Lillian!" And in my bitterness, not daring to speak the real thought within me, I answered with a flippant sneer-- "Yes, madam! like Cordelia, so young, yet so untender!--Thanks to the mercies of the upper classes!" Did she turn away in indignation? No, by Heaven! there was nothing upon her face but the intensest yearning pity. If she had spoken again she would have conquered; but before those perfect lips could open, the thought of thoughts flashed across me. "Tell me one thing! Is my cousin George to be married to ----" and I stopped. "He is." "And yet," I said, "you wish to turn me back from dying on a barricade!" And without waiting for a reply, I hurried down the street in all the fury of despair. * * * * * I have promised to say little about the Tenth of April, for indeed I have no heart to do so. Every one of Mackaye's predictions came true. We had arrayed against us, by our own folly, the very physical force to which we had appealed. The dread of general plunder and outrage by the savages of London, the national hatred of that French and Irish interference of which we had boasted, armed against us thousands of special constables, who had in the abstract little or no objection to our political opinions. The practical common sense of England, whatever discontent it might feel with the existing system, refused to let it be hurled rudely down, on the mere chance of building up on its ruins something as yet untried, and even undefined. Above all, the people would not rise. Whatever sympathy they had with us, they did not care to show it. And then futility after futility exposed itself. The meeting which was to have been counted by hundreds of thousands, numbered hardly its tens of thousands; and of them a frightful proportion were of those very rascal classes, against whom we ourselves had offered to be sworn in as special constables. O'Connor's courage failed him after all. He contrived to be called away, at the critical moment, by some problematical superintendent of police. Poor Cuffy, the honestest, if not the wisest, speaker there, leapt off the waggon, exclaiming that we were all "humbugged and betrayed"; and the meeting broke up pitiably piecemeal, drenched and cowed, body and soul, by pouring rain on its way home--for the very heavens mercifully helped to quench our folly--while the monster-petition crawled ludicrously away in a hack cab, to be dragged to the floor of the House of Commons amid roars of laughter--"inextinguishable laughter," as of Tennyson's Epicurean Gods-- Careless of mankind. For they lie beside their nectar, and their bolts are hurled Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curled Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world. There they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, _and praying hands. But they smile, they find a music, centred in a doleful song, Steaming up, a lamentation, and an ancient tale of wrong, Like a tale of little meaning, though the words are strong_ Chanted by an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, Sow the seed and reap the harvest with enduring toil, Storing little yearly dues of wheat, and wine, and oil; Till they perish, and they suffer--some, 'tis whispered, down in hell Suffer endless anguish!-- Truly--truly, great poets' words are vaster than the singers themselves suppose! CHAPTER XXXV. THE LOWEST DEEP. Sullen, disappointed, desperate, I strode along the streets that evening, careless whither I went. The People's Cause was lost--the Charter a laughing-stock. That the party which monopolizes wealth, rank, and, as it is fancied, education and intelligence, should have been driven, degraded, to appeal to brute force for self-defence--that thought gave me a savage joy; but that it should have conquered by that last, lowest resource!--That the few should be still stronger than the many, or the many still too cold-hearted and coward to face the few--that sickened me. I hated the well-born young special constables whom I passed, because they would have fought. I hated the gent and shop-keeper special constables, because they would have run away. I hated my own party, because they had gone too far--because they had not gone far enough. I hated myself, because I had not produced some marvellous effect--though what that was to have been I could not tell--and hated myself all the more for that ignorance. A group of effeminate shop-keepers passed me, shouting, "God save the Queen!" "Hypocrites!" I cried in my heart--"they mean 'God save our shops!' Liars! They keep up willingly the useful calumny, that their slaves and victims are disloyal as well as miserable!" I was utterly abased--no, not utterly; for my self-contempt still vented itself--not in forgiveness, but in universal hatred and defiance. Suddenly I perceived my cousin, laughing and jesting with a party of fashionable young specials: I shrank from him; and yet, I know not why, drew as near him as I could, unobserved--near enough to catch the words. "Upon my honour, Locke, I believe you are a Chartist yourself at heart." "At least I am no Communist," said he, in a significant tone. "There is one little bit of real property which I have no intention of sharing with my neighbours." "What, the little beauty somewhere near Cavendish Square?" "That's my business." "Whereby you mean that you are on your way to her now? Well, I am invited to the wedding, remember." He pushed on laughingly, without answering. I followed him fast--"near Cavendish Square!"--the very part of the town where Lillian lived! I had had, as yet, a horror of going near it; but now an intolerable suspicion scourged me forward, and I dogged his steps, hiding behind pillars, and at the corners of streets, and then running on, till I got sight of him again. He went through Cavendish Square, up Harley Street--was it possible? I gnashed my teeth at the thought. But it must be so. He stopped at the dean's house, knocked, and entered without parley. In a minute I was breathless on the door-step, and knocked. I had no plan, no object, except the wild wish to see my own despair. I never thought of the chances of being recognized by the servants, or of anything else, except of Lillian by my cousin's side. The footman came out smiling, "What did I want?" "I--I--Mr. Locke." "Well you needn't be in such a hurry!" (with a significant grin). "Mr. Locke's likely to be busy for a few minutes yet, I expect." Evidently the man did not know me. "Tell him that--that a person wishes to speak to him on particular business." Though I had no more notion what that business was than the man himself. "Sit down in the hall." And I heard the fellow, a moment afterwards, gossiping and laughing with the maids below about the "young couple." To sit down was impossible; my only thought was--where was Lillian? Voices in an adjoining room caught my ear. His! yes--and hers too--soft and low. What devil prompted me to turn eavesdropper? to run headlong into temptation? I was close to the dining-room door, but they were not there--evidently they were in the back room, which, as I knew, opened into it with folding-doors. I--I must confess all.--Noiselessly, with craft like a madman's, I turned the handle, slipped in as stealthily as a cat--the folding-doors were slightly open. I had a view of all that passed within. A horrible fascination seemed to keep my eyes fixed on them, in spite of myself. Honour, shame, despair, bade me turn away, but in vain. I saw them.--How can I write it? Yet I will.--I saw them sitting together on the sofa. Their arms were round each other. Her head lay upon his breast; he bent over her with an intense gaze, as of a basilisk, I thought; how do I know that it was not the fierceness of his love? Who could have helped loving her? Suddenly she raised her head, and looked up in his face--her eyes brimming with tenderness, her cheeks burning with mingled delight and modesty--their lips met, and clung together.... It seemed a life--an eternity--before they parted again. Then the spell was broken, and I rushed from the room. Faint, giddy, and blind, I just recollect leaning against the wall of the staircase. He came hastily out, and started as he saw me. My face told all. "What? Eavesdropping?" he said, in a tone of unutterable scorn. I answered nothing, but looked stupidly and fixedly in his face, while he glared at me with that keen, burning, intolerable eye. I longed to spring at his throat, but that eye held me as the snake's holds the deer. At last I found words. "Traitor! everywhere--in everything--tricking me--supplanting me--in my friends--in my love!" "Your love? Yours?" And the fixed eye still glared upon me. "Listen, cousin Alton! The strong and the weak have been matched for the same prize: and what wonder, if the strong man conquers? Go and ask Lillian how she likes the thought of being a Communist's love!" As when, in a nightmare, we try by a desperate effort to break the spell, I sprang forward, and struck at him, he put my hand by carelessly, and felled me bleeding to the ground. I recollect hardly anything more, till I found myself thrust into the street by sneering footmen, and heard them call after me "Chartist" and "Communist" as I rushed along the pavement, careless where I went. I strode and staggered on through street after street, running blindly against passengers, dashing under horses' heads, heedless of warnings and execrations, till I found myself, I know not how, on Waterloo Bridge. I had meant to go there when I left the door. I knew that at least--and now I was there. I buried myself in a recess of the bridge, and stared around and up and down. I was alone--deserted even by myself. Mother, sister, friends, love, the idol of my life, were all gone. I could have borne that. But to be shamed, and know that I deserved it; to be deserted by my own honour, self-respect, strength of will--who can bear that? I could have borne it, had one thing been left--faith in my own destiny--the inner hope that God had called me to do a work for him. "What drives the Frenchman to suicide?" I asked myself, arguing ever even in the face of death and hell--"His faith in nothing but his own lusts and pleasures; and when they are gone, then comes the pan of charcoal--and all is over. What drives the German? His faith in nothing but his own brain. He has fallen down and worshipped that miserable 'Ich' of his, and made that, and not God's will, the centre and root of his philosophy, his poetry, and his self-idolizing æsthetics; and when it fails him, then for prussic acid, and nonentity. Those old Romans, too--why, they are the very experimentum crucis of suicide! As long as they fancied that they had a calling to serve the state, they could live on and suffer. But when they found no more work left for them, then they could die--as Porcia died--as Cato--as I ought. What is there left for me to do? outcast, disgraced, useless, decrepit--" I looked out over the bridge into the desolate night. Below me the dark moaning river-eddies hurried downward. The wild west-wind howled past me, and leapt over the parapet downward. The huge reflexion of Saint Paul's, the great tap-roots of light from lamp and window that shone upon the lurid stream, pointed down--down--down. A black wherry shot through the arch beneath me, still and smoothly downward. My brain began to whirl madly--I sprang upon the step.--A man rushed past me, clambered on the parapet, and threw up his arms wildly.--A moment more, and he would have leapt into the stream. The sight recalled me to my senses--say, rather, it reawoke in me the spirit of manhood. I seized him by the arm, tore him down upon the pavement, and held him, in spite of his frantic struggles. It was Jemmy Downes! Gaunt, ragged, sodden, blear-eyed, drivelling, the worn-out gin-drinker stood, his momentary paroxysm of strength gone, trembling and staggering. "Why won't you let a cove die? Why won't you let a cove die? They're all dead--drunk, and poisoned, and dead! What is there left?"--he burst out suddenly in his old ranting style--"what is there left on earth to live for? The prayers of liberty are answered by the laughter of tyrants; her sun is sunk beneath the ocean wave, and her pipe put out by the raging billows of aristocracy! Those starving millions of Kennington Common--where are they? Where? I axes you," he cried fiercely, raising his voice to a womanish scream--"where are they?" "Gone home to bed, like sensible people; and you had better go too." "Bed! I sold ours a month ago; but we'll go. Come along, and I'll show you my wife and family; and we'll have a tea-party--Jacob's Island tea. Come along! "Flea, flea, unfortunate flea! Bereft of his wife and his small family!" He clutched my arm, and dragging me off towards the Surrey side, turned down Stamford Street. I followed half perforce; and the man seemed quite demented--whether with gin or sorrow I could not tell. As he strode along the pavement, he kept continually looking back, with a perplexed terrified air, as if expecting some fearful object. "The rats!--the rats! don't you see 'em coming out of the gullyholes, atween the area railings--dozens and dozens?" "No; I saw none." "You lie; I hear their tails whisking; there's their shiny hats a glistening, and every one on 'em with peelers' staves! Quick! quick! or they'll have me to the station-house." "Nonsense!" I said; "we are free men! What are the policemen to us?" "You lie!" cried he, with a fearful oath, and a wrench at my arm which almost threw me down. "Do you call a sweater's man a free man?" "You a sweater's man?" "Ay!" with another oath. "My men ran away--folks said I drank, too; but here I am; and I, that sweated others, I'm sweated myself--and I'm a slave! I'm a slave--a negro slave, I am, you aristocrat villain!" "Mind me, Downes; if you will go quietly, I will go with you; but if you do not let go of my arm, I give you in charge to the first policeman I meet." "Oh, don't, don't!" whined the miserable wretch, as he almost fell on his knees, gin-drinkers' tears running down his face, "or I shall be too late.--And then, the rats'll get in at the roof, and up through the floor, and eat 'em all up, and my work too--the grand new three-pound coat that I've been stitching at this ten days, for the sum of one half-crown sterling--and don't I wish I may see the money? Come on, quick; there are the rats, close behind!" And he dashed across the broad roaring thoroughfare of Bridge Street, and hurrying almost at a run down Tooley Street, plunged into the wilderness of Bermondsey. He stopped at the end of a miserable blind alley, where a dirty gas-lamp just served to make darkness visible, and show the patched windows and rickety doorways of the crazy houses, whose upper stories were lost in a brooding cloud of fog; and the pools of stagnant water at our feet; and the huge heap of cinders which filled up the waste end of the alley--a dreary, black, formless mound, on which two or three spectral dogs prowled up and down after the offal, appearing and vanishing like dark imps in and out of the black misty chaos beyond. The neighbourhood was undergoing, as it seemed, "improvements" of that peculiar metropolitan species which consists in pulling down the dwellings of the poor, and building up rich men's houses instead; and great buildings, within high temporary palings, had already eaten up half the little houses; as the great fish, and the great estates, and the great shopkeepers, eat up the little ones of their species--by the law of competition, lately discovered to be the true creator and preserver of the universe. There they loomed up, the tall bullies, against the dreary sky, looking down, with their grim, proud, stony visages, on the misery which they were driving out of one corner, only to accumulate and intensify it in another. The house at which we stopped was the last in the row; all its companions had been pulled down; and there it stood, leaning out with one naked ugly side into the gap, and stretching out long props, like feeble arms and crutches, to resist the work of demolition. A group of slatternly people were in the entry, talking loudly, and as Downes pushed by them, a woman seized him by the arm. "Oh! you unnatural villain!--To go away after your drink, and leave all them poor dear dead corpses locked up, without even letting a body go in to stretch them out!" "And breeding the fever, too, to poison the whole house!" growled one. "The relieving officer's been here, my cove," said another, "and he's gone for a peeler and a search warrant to break open the door, I can tell you!" But Downes pushed past unheeding, unlocked a door at the end of the passage, thrust me in, locked it again, and then rushed across the room in chase of two or three rats, who vanished into cracks and holes. And what a room! A low lean-to with wooden walls, without a single article of furniture; and through the broad chinks of the floor shone up as it were ugly glaring eyes, staring at us. They were the reflexions of the rushlight in the sewer below. The stench was frightful--the air heavy with pestilence. The first breath I drew made my heart sink, and my stomach turn. But I forgot everything in the object which lay before me, as Downes tore a half-finished coat off three corpses laid side by side on the bare floor. There was his little Irish wife:--dead--and naked; the wasted white limbs gleamed in the lurid light; the unclosed eyes stared, as if reproachfully, at the husband whose drunkenness had brought her there to kill her with the pestilence; and on each side of her a little, shrivelled, impish, child-corpse,--the wretched man had laid their arms round the dead mother's neck--and there they slept, their hungering and wailing over at last for ever; the rats had been busy already with them--but what matter to them now? "Look!" he cried; "I watched 'em dying! Day after day I saw the devils come up through the cracks, like little maggots and beetles, and all manner of ugly things, creeping down their throats; and I asked 'em, and they said they were the fever devils." It was too true; the poisonous exhalations had killed them. The wretched man's delirium tremens had given that horrible substantiality to the poisonous fever gases. Suddenly Downes turned on me, almost menacingly. "Money! money! I want some gin!" I was thoroughly terrified--and there was no shame in feeling fear, locked up with a madman far my superior in size and strength, in so ghastly a place. But the shame and the folly too, would have been in giving way to my fear; and with a boldness half assumed, half the real fruit of excitement and indignation at the horrors I beheld, I answered-- "If I had money, I would give you none. What do you want with gin? Look at the fruits of your accursed tippling. If you had taken my advice, my poor fellow," I went on, gaining courage as I spoke, "and become a water-drinker, like me--" "Curse you and your water-drinking! If you had had no water to drink or wash with for two years but that--that," pointing to the foul ditch below--"if you had emptied the slops in there with one hand, and filled your kettle with the other--" "Do you actually mean that that sewer is your only drinking water?" "Where else can we get any? Everybody drinks it; and you shall, too--you shall!" he cried, with a fearful oath, "and then see if you don't run off to the gin-shop, to take the taste of it out of your mouth. Drink? and who can help drinking, with his stomach turned with such hell-broth as that--or such a hell's blast as this air is here, ready to vomit from morning till night with the smells? I'll show you. You shall drink a bucket full of it, as sure as you live, you shall." And he ran out of the back door, upon a little balcony, which hung over the ditch. I tried the door, but the key was gone, and the handle too. I beat furiously on it, and called for help. Two gruff authoritative voices were heard in the passage. "Let us in; I'm the policeman!" "Let me out, or mischief will happen!" The policeman made a vigorous thrust at the crazy door; and just as it burst open, and the light of his lantern streamed into the horrible den, a heavy splash was heard outside. "He has fallen into the ditch!" "He'll be drowned, then, as sure as he's a born man," shouted one of the crowd behind. We rushed out on the balcony. The light of the policeman's lantern glared over the ghastly scene--along the double row of miserable house-backs, which lined the sides of the open tidal ditch--over strange rambling jetties, and balconies, and sleeping-sheds, which hung on rotting piles over the black waters, with phosphorescent scraps of rotten fish gleaming and twinkling out of the dark hollows, like devilish grave-lights--over bubbles of poisonous gas, and bloated carcases of dogs, and lumps of offal, floating on the stagnant olive-green hell-broth--over the slow sullen rows of oily ripple which were dying away into the darkness far beyond, sending up, as they stirred, hot breaths of miasma--the only sign that a spark of humanity, after years of foul life, had quenched itself at last in that foul death. I almost fancied that I could see the haggard face staring up at me through the slimy water; but no, it was as opaque as stone. I shuddered and went in again, to see slatternly gin-smelling women stripping off their clothes--true women even there--to cover the poor naked corpses; and pointing to the bruises which told a tale of long tyranny and cruelty; and mingling their lamentations with stories of shrieks and beating, and children locked up for hours to starve; and the men looked on sullenly, as if they too were guilty, or rushed out to relieve themselves by helping to find the drowned body. Ugh! it was the very mouth of hell, that room. And in the midst of all the rout, the relieving officer stood impassive, jotting down scraps of information, and warning us to appear the next day, to state what we knew before the magistrates. Needless hypocrisy of law! Too careless to save the woman and children from brutal tyranny, nakedness, starvation!--Too superstitious to offend its idol of vested interests, by protecting the poor man against his tyrants, the house-owning shopkeepers under whose greed the dwellings of the poor become nests of filth and pestilence, drunkenness and degradation. Careless, superstitious, imbecile law!--leaving the victims to die unhelped, and then, when the fever and the tyranny has done its work, in thy sanctimonious prudishness, drugging thy respectable conscience by a "searching inquiry" as to how it all happened--lest, forsooth, there should have been "foul play!" Is the knife or the bludgeon, then, the only foul play, and not the cesspool and the curse of Rabshakeh? Go through Bermondsey or Spitalfields, St. Giles's or Lambeth, and see if _there_ is not foul play enough already--to be tried hereafter at a more awful coroner's inquest than thou thinkest of! CHAPTER XXXVI. DREAMLAND. It must have been two o'clock in the morning before I reached my lodgings. Too much exhausted to think, I hurried to my bed. I remember now that I reeled strangely as I went up-stairs. I lay down, and was asleep in an instant. How long I had slept I know not, when I awoke with a strange confusion and whirling in my brain, and an intolerable weight and pain about my back and loins. By the light of the gas-lamp I saw a figure standing at the foot of my bed. I could not discern the face, but I knew instinctively that it was my mother. I called to her again and again, but she did not answer. She moved slowly away, and passed out through the wall of the room. I tried to follow her, but could not. An enormous, unutterable weight seemed to lie upon me. The bedclothes grew and grew before me, and upon me, into a vast mountain, millions of miles in height. Then it seemed all glowing red, like the cone of a volcano. I heard the roaring of the fires within, the rattling of the cinders down the heaving slope. A river ran from its summit; and up that river-bed it seemed I was doomed to climb and climb for ever, millions and millions of miles upwards, against the rushing stream. The thought was intolerable, and I shrieked aloud. A raging thirst had seized me. I tried to drink the river-water: but it was boiling hot--sulphurous--reeking of putrefaction. Suddenly I fancied that I could pass round the foot of the mountain; and jumbling, as madmen will, the sublime and the ridiculous, I sprang up to go round the foot of my bed, which was the mountain. I recollect lying on the floor. I recollect the people of the house, who had been awoke by my shriek and my fall, rushing in and calling to me. I could not rise or answer. I recollect a doctor; and talk about brain fever and delirium. It was true. I was in a raging fever. And my fancy, long pent-up and crushed by circumstances, burst out in uncontrollable wildness, and swept my other faculties with it helpless away over all heaven and earth, presenting to me, as in a vast kaleidoscope, fantastic symbols of all I had ever thought, or read, or felt. That fancy of the mountain returned; but I had climbed it now. I was wandering along the lower ridge of the Himalaya. On my right the line of snow peaks showed like a rosy saw against the clear blue morning sky. Raspberries and cyclamens were peeping through the snow around me. As I looked down the abysses, I could see far below, through the thin veils of blue mist that wandered in the glens, the silver spires of giant deodars, and huge rhododendrons glowing like trees of flame. The longing of my life to behold that cradle of mankind was satisfied. My eyes revelled in vastness, as they swept over the broad flat jungle at the mountain foot, a desolate sheet of dark gigantic grasses, furrowed with the paths of the buffalo and rhinoceros, with barren sandy water-courses, desolate pools, and here and there a single tree, stunted with malaria, shattered by mountain floods; and far beyond, the vast plains of Hindostan, enlaced with myriad silver rivers and canals, tanks and rice-fields, cities with their mosques and minarets, gleaming among the stately palm-groves along the boundless horizon. Above me was a Hindoo temple, cut out of the yellow sandstone. I climbed up to the higher tier of pillars among monstrous shapes of gods and fiends, that mouthed and writhed and mocked at me, struggling to free themselves from their bed of rock. The bull Nundi rose and tried to gore me; hundred-handed gods brandished quoits and sabres round my head; and Kali dropped the skull from her gore-dripping jaws, to clutch me for her prey. Then my mother came, and seizing the pillars of the portico, bent them like reeds: an earthquake shook the hills--great sheets of woodland slid roaring and crashing into the valleys--a tornado swept through the temple halls, which rocked and tossed like a vessel in a storm: a crash--a cloud of yellow dust which filled the air--choked me--blinded me--buried me-- * * * * * And Eleanor came by, and took my soul in the palm of her hand, as the angels did Faust's, and carried it to a cavern by the seaside, and dropped it in; and I fell and fell for ages. And all the velvet mosses, rock flowers, and sparkling spars and ores, fell with me, round me, in showers of diamonds, whirlwinds of emerald and ruby, and pattered into the sea that moaned below, and were quenched; and the light lessened above me to one small spark, and vanished; and I was in darkness, and turned again to my dust. * * * * * And I was at the lowest point of created life; a madrepore rooted to the rock, fathoms below the tide-mark; and worst of all, my individuality was gone. I was not one thing, but many things--a crowd of innumerable polypi; and I grew and grew, and the more I grew the more I divided, and multiplied thousand and ten thousandfold. If I could have thought, I should have gone mad at it; but I could only feel. And I heard Eleanor and Lillian talking, as they floated past me through the deep, for they were two angels; and Lillian said, "When will he be one again?" And Eleanor said, "He who falls from the golden ladder must climb through ages to its top. He who tears himself in pieces by his lusts, ages only can make him one again. The madrepore shall become a shell, and the shell a fish, and the fish a bird, and the bird a beast; and then he shall become a man again, and see the glory of the latter days." * * * * * And I was a soft crab, under a stone on the sea-shore. With infinite starvation, and struggling, and kicking, I had got rid of my armour, shield by shield, and joint by joint, and cowered, naked and pitiable, in the dark, among dead shells and ooze. Suddenly the stone was turned up; and there was my cousin's hated face laughing at me, and pointing me out to Lillian. She laughed too, as I looked up, sneaking, ashamed, and defenceless, and squared up at him with my soft useless claws. Why should she not laugh? Are not crabs, and toads, and monkeys, and a hundred other strange forms of animal life, jests of nature--embodiments of a divine humour, at which men are meant to laugh and be merry? But, alas! my cousin, as he turned away, thrust the stone back with his foot, and squelched me flat. * * * * * And I was a remora, weak and helpless, till I could attach myself to some living thing; and then I had power to stop the largest ship. And Lillian was a flying fish, and skimmed over the crests of the waves on gauzy wings. And my cousin was a huge shark, rushing after her, greedy and open-mouthed; and I saw her danger, and clung to him, and held him back; and just as I had stopped him, she turned and swam back into his open jaws. * * * * * Sand--sand--nothing but sand! The air was full of sand drifting over granite temples, and painted kings and triumphs, and the skulls of a former world; and I was an ostrich, flying madly before the simoon wind, and the giant sand pillars, which stalked across the plains, hunting me down. And Lillian was an Amazon queen, beautiful, and cold, and cruel; and she rode upon a charmed horse, and carried behind her on her saddle a spotted ounce, which, was my cousin; and, when I came near her, she made him leap down and course me. And we ran for miles and for days through the interminable sand, till he sprung on me, and dragged me down. And as I lay quivering and dying, she reined in her horse above me, and looked down at me with beautiful, pitiless eyes; and a wild Arab tore the plumes from my wings, and she took them and wreathed them in her golden hair. The broad and blood-red sun sank down beneath the sand, and the horse and the Amazon and the ostrich plumes shone blood-red in his lurid rays. * * * * * I was a mylodon among South American forests--a vast sleepy mass, my elephantine limbs and yard-long talons contrasting strangely with the little meek rabbit's head, furnished with a poor dozen of clumsy grinders, and a very small kernel of brains, whose highest consciousness was the enjoyment of muscular strength. Where I had picked up the sensation which my dreams realized for me, I know not: my waking life, alas! had never given me experience of it. Has the mind power of creating sensations for itself? Surely it does so, in those delicious dreams about flying which haunt us poor wingless mortals, which would seem to give my namesake's philosophy the lie. However that may be, intense and new was the animal delight, to plant my hinder claws at some tree-foot deep into the black rotting vegetable-mould which steamed rich gases up wherever it was pierced, and clasp my huge arms round the stem of some palm or tree-fern; and then slowly bring my enormous weight and muscle to bear upon it, till the stem bent like a withe, and the laced bark cracked, and the fibres groaned and shrieked, and the roots sprung up out of the soil; and then, with a slow circular wrench, the whole tree was twisted bodily out of the ground, and the maddening tension of my muscles suddenly relaxed, and I sank sleepily down upon the turf, to browse upon the crisp tart foliage, and fall asleep in the glare of sunshine which streamed through the new gap in the green forest roof. Much as I had envied the strong, I had never before suspected the delight of mere physical exertion. I now understood the wild gambols of the dog, and the madness which makes the horse gallop and strain onwards till he drops and dies. They fulfil their nature, as I was doing, and in that is always happiness. But I did more--whether from mere animal destructiveness, or from the spark of humanity which was slowly rekindling in me, I began to delight in tearing up trees for its own sake. I tried my strength daily on thicker and thicker boles. I crawled up to the high palm-tops, and bowed them down by my weight. My path through the forest was marked, like that of a tornado, by snapped and prostrate stems and withering branches. Had I been a few degrees more human, I might have expected a retribution for my sin. I had fractured my own skull three or four times already. I used often to pass the carcases of my race, killed, as geologists now find them, by the fall of the trees they had overthrown; but still I went on, more and more reckless, a slave, like many a so-called man, to the mere sense of power. One day I wandered to the margin of the woods, and climbing a tree, surveyed a prospect new to me. For miles and miles, away to the white line of the smoking Cordillera, stretched a low rolling plain; one vast thistle-bed, the down of which flew in grey gauzy clouds before a soft fitful breeze; innumerable finches fluttered and pecked above it, and bent the countless flower-heads. Far away, one tall tree rose above the level thistle-ocean. A strange longing seized me to go and tear it down. The forest leaves seemed tasteless; my stomach sickened at them; nothing but that tree would satisfy me; and descending, I slowly brushed my way, with half-shut eyes, through the tall thistles which buried even my bulk. At last, after days of painful crawling, I dragged my unwieldiness to the tree-foot. Around it the plain was bare, and scored by burrows and heaps of earth, among which gold, some in dust, some in great knots and ingots, sparkled everywhere in the sun, in fearful contrast to the skulls and bones which lay bleaching round. Some were human, some were those of vast and monstrous beasts. I knew (one knows everything in dreams) that they had been slain by the winged ants, as large as panthers, who snuffed and watched around over the magic treasure. Of them I felt no fear; and they seemed not to perceive me, as I crawled, with greedy, hunger-sharpened eyes, up to the foot of the tree. It seemed miles in height. Its stem was bare and polished like a palm's, and above a vast feathery crown of dark green velvet slept in the still sunlight. But wonders of wonders! from among the branches hung great sea-green lilies, and, nestled in the heart of each of them, the bust of a beautiful girl. Their white bosoms and shoulders gleamed rosy-white against the emerald petals, like conch-shells half-hidden among sea-weeds, while their delicate waists melted mysteriously into the central sanctuary of the flower. Their long arms and golden tresses waved languishingly downward in the breeze; their eyes glittered like diamonds; their breaths perfumed the air. A blind ecstasy seized me--I awoke again to humanity, and fiercely clasping the tree, shook and tore at it, in the blind hope of bringing nearer to me the magic beauties above: for I knew that I was in the famous land of Wak-Wak, from which the Eastern merchants used to pluck those flower-born beauties, and bring them home to fill the harems of the Indian kings. Suddenly I heard a rustling in the thistles behind me, and looking round saw again that dreaded face--my cousin! He was dressed--strange jumble that dreams are!--like an American backwoodsman. He carried the same revolver and bowie-knife which he had showed me the fatal night that he intruded on the Chartist club. I shook with terror; but he, too, did not see me. He threw himself on his knees, and began fiercely digging and scraping for the gold. The winged ants rushed on him, but he looked up, and "held them with his glittering eye," and they shrank back abashed into the thistle covert; while I strained and tugged on, and the faces of the dryads above grew sadder and older, and their tears fell on me like a fragrant rain. Suddenly the tree-bole cracked--it was tottering. I looked round, and saw that my cousin knelt directly in the path of its fall. I tried to call to him to move; but how could a poor edentate like myself articulate a word? I tried to catch his attention by signs--he would not see. I tried, convulsively, to hold the tree up, but it was too late; a sudden gust of air swept by, and down it rushed, with a roar like a whirlwind, and leaving my cousin untouched, struck me full across the loins, broke my backbone, and pinned me to the ground in mortal agony. I heard one wild shriek rise from the flower fairies, as they fell each from the lily cup, no longer of full human size, but withered, shrivelled, diminished a thousand-fold, and lay on the bare sand, like little rosy humming-birds' eggs, all crushed and dead. The great blue heaven above me spoke, and cried, "Selfish and sense-bound! thou hast murdered beauty!" The sighing thistle-ocean answered, and murmured, "Discontented! thou hast murdered beauty!" One flower fairy alone lifted up her tiny cheek from the gold-strewn sand, and cried, "Presumptuous! thou hast murdered beauty!" It was Lillian's face--Lillian's voice! My cousin heard it too, and turned eagerly; and as my eyes closed in the last death-shiver, I saw him coolly pick up the little beautiful figure, which looked like a fragment of some exquisite cameo, and deliberately put it away in his cigar-case, as he said to himself, "A charming tit-bit for me, when I return from the diggings"! * * * * * When I awoke again, I was a baby-ape in Bornean forests, perched among fragrant trailers and fantastic orchis flowers; and as I looked down, beneath the green roof, into the clear waters paved with unknown water-lilies on which the sun had never shone, I saw my face reflected in the pool--a melancholy, thoughtful countenance, with large projecting brow--it might have been a negro child's. And I felt stirring in me, germs of a new and higher consciousness--yearnings of love towards the mother ape, who fed me and carried me from tree to tree. But I grew and grew; and then the weight of my destiny fell upon me. I saw year by year my brow recede, my neck enlarge, my jaw protrude; my teeth became tusks; skinny wattles grew from my cheeks--the animal faculties in me were swallowing up the intellectual. I watched in myself, with stupid self-disgust, the fearful degradation which goes on from youth to age in all the monkey race, especially in those which approach nearest to the human form. Long melancholy mopings, fruitless stragglings to think, were periodically succeeded by wild frenzies, agonies of lust and aimless ferocity. I flew upon my brother apes, and was driven off with wounds. I rushed howling down into the village gardens, destroying everything I met. I caught the birds and insects, and tore them to pieces with savage glee. One day, as I sat among the boughs, I saw Lillian coming along a flowery path--decked as Eve might have been, the day she turned from Paradise. The skins of gorgeous birds were round her waist; her hair was wreathed with fragrant tropic flowers. On her bosom lay a baby--it was my cousin's. I knew her, and hated her. The madness came upon me. I longed to leap from the bough and tear her limb from limb; but brutal terror, the dread of man which is the doom of beasts, kept me rooted to my place. Then my cousin came--a hunter missionary; and I heard him talk to her with pride of the new world of civilization and Christianity which he was organizing in that tropic wilderness. I listened with a dim jealous understanding--not of the words, but of the facts. I saw them instinctively, as in a dream. She pointed up to me in terror and disgust, as I sat gnashing and gibbering overhead. He threw up the muzzle of his rifle carelessly, and fired--I fell dead, but conscious still. I knew that my carcase was carried to the settlement; and I watched while a smirking, chuckling surgeon dissected me, bone by bone, and nerve by nerve. And as he was fingering at my heart, and discoursing sneeringly about Van Helmont's dreams of the Archæus, and the animal spirit which dwells within the solar plexus, Eleanor glided by again, like an angel, and drew my soul out of the knot of nerves, with one velvet finger-tip. * * * * * Child-dreams--more vague and fragmentary than my animal ones; and yet more calm, and simple, and gradually, as they led me onward through a new life, ripening into detail, coherence, and reflection. Dreams of a hut among the valleys of Thibet--the young of forest animals, wild cats, and dogs, and fowls, brought home to be my playmates, and grow up tame around me. Snow-peaks which glittered white against the nightly sky, barring in the horizon of the narrow valley, and yet seeming to beckon upwards, outwards. Strange unspoken aspirations; instincts which pointed to unfulfilled powers, a mighty destiny. A sense, awful and yet cheering, of a wonder and a majesty, a presence and a voice around, in the cliffs and the pine forests, and the great blue rainless heaven. The music of loving voices, the sacred names of child and father, mother, brother, sister, first of all inspirations.--Had we not an All-Father, whose eyes looked down upon us from among those stars above; whose hand upheld the mountain roots below us? Did He not love us, too, even as we loved each other? * * * * * The noise of wheels crushing slowly through meadows of tall marigolds and asters, orchises and fragrant lilies. I lay, a child, upon a woman's bosom. Was she my mother, or Eleanor, or Lillian? Or was she neither, and yet all--some ideal of the great Arian tribe, containing in herself all future types of European women? So I slept and woke, and slept again, day after day, week after week, in the lazy bullock-waggon, among herds of grey cattle, guarded by huge lop-eared mastiffs; among shaggy white horses, heavy-horned sheep, and silky goats; among tall, bare-limbed men, with stone axes on their shoulders, and horn bows at their backs. Westward, through the boundless steppes, whither or why we knew not; but that the All-Father had sent us forth. And behind us the rosy snow-peaks died into ghastly grey, lower and lower as every evening came; and before us the plains spread infinite, with gleaming salt-lakes, and ever fresh tribes of gaudy flowers. Behind us dark lines of living beings streamed down the mountain slopes; around us dark lines crawled along the plains--all westward, westward ever.--The tribes of the Holy Mountain poured out like water to replenish the earth and subdue it--lava-streams from the crater of that great soul-volcano--Titan babies, dumb angels of God, bearing with them in their unconscious pregnancy the law, the freedom, the science, the poetry, the Christianity of Europe and the world. Westward ever--who could stand against us? We met the wild asses on the steppe, and tamed them, and made them our slaves. We slew the bison herds, and swam broad rivers on their skins. The Python snake lay across our path; the wolves and the wild dogs snarled at us out of their coverts; we slew them and went on. The forest rose in black tangled barriers: we hewed our way through them and went on. Strange giant tribes met us, and eagle-visaged hordes, fierce and foolish; we smote them hip and thigh, and went on, westward ever. Days and weeks and months rolled on, and our wheels rolled on with them. New alps rose up before us; we climbed and climbed them, till, in lonely glens, the mountain walls stood up, and barred our path. Then one arose and said, "Rocks are strong, but the All-Father is stronger. Let us pray to Him to send the earthquakes, and blast the mountains asunder." So we sat down and prayed, but the earthquake did not come. Then another arose and said, "Rocks are strong, but the All-Father is stronger. If we are the children of the All-Father, we, too, are stronger than the rocks. Let us portion out the valley, to every man an equal plot of ground; and bring out the sacred seeds, and sow, and build, and come up with me and bore the mountain." And all said, "It is the voice of God. We will go up with thee, and bore the mountain; and thou shalt be our king, for thou art wisest, and the spirit of the All-Father is on thee; and whosoever will not go up with thee shall die as a coward and an idler." So we went up; and in the morning we bored the mountain, and at night we came down and tilled the ground, and sowed wheat and barley, and planted orchards. And in the upper glens we met the mining dwarfs, and saw their tools of iron and copper, and their rock-houses and forges, and envied them. But they would give us none of them: then our king said-- "The All-Father has given all things and all wisdom. Woe to him who keeps them to himself: we will teach you to sow the sacred seeds; and do you teach us your smith-work or you die." Then the dwarf's taught us smith-work; and we loved them, for they were wise; and they married our sons and daughters; and we went on boring the mountain. Then some of us arose and said, "We are stronger than our brethren, and can till more ground than they. Give us a greater portion of land, to each according to his power." But the king said, "Wherefore? that ye may eat and drink more than your brethren? Have you larger stomachs, as well as stronger arms? As much as a man needs for himself, that he may do for himself. The rest is the gift of the All-Father, and we must do His work therewith. For the sake of the women and the children, for the sake of the sick and the aged, let him that is stronger go up and work the harder at the mountain." And all men said, "It is well spoken." So we were all equal--for none took more than he needed; and we were all free, because we loved to obey the king by whom the spirit spoke; and we were all brothers, because we had one work, and one hope, and one All-Father. But I grew up to be a man; and twenty years were past, and the mountain was not bored through; and the king grew old, and men began to love their flocks and herds better than quarrying, and they gave up boring through the mountain. And the strong and the cunning said, "What can we do with all this might of ours?" So, because they had no other way of employing it, they turned it against each other, and swallowed up the heritage of the weak: and a few grew rich, and many poor; and the valley was filled with sorrow, for the land became too narrow for them. Then I arose and said, "How is this?" And they said, "We must make provision for our children." And I answered, "The All-Father meant neither you nor your children to devour your brethren. Why do you not break up more waste ground? Why do you not try to grow more corn in your fields?" And they answered, "We till the ground as our forefathers did: we will keep to the old traditions." And I answered, "Oh ye hypocrites! have ye not forgotten the old traditions, that each man should have his equal share of ground, and that we should go on working at the mountain, for the sake of the weak and the children, the fatherless and the widow?" And they answered nought for a while. Then one said, "Are we not better off as we are? We buy the poor man's ground for a price, and we pay him his wages for tilling it for us--and we know better how to manage it than he." And I said, "Oh ye hypocrites! See how your lie works! Those who were free are now slaves. Those who had peace of mind are now anxious from day to day for their daily bread. And the multitude gets poorer and poorer, while ye grow fatter and fatter. If ye had gone on boring the mountain, ye would have had no time to eat up your brethren." Then they laughed and said, "Thou art a singer of songs, and a dreamer of dreams. Let those who want to get through the mountain go up and bore it; we are well enough here. Come now, sing us pleasant songs, and talk no more foolish dreams, and we will reward thee." Then they brought out a veiled maiden, and said, "Look! her feet are like ivory, and her hair like threads of gold; and she is the sweetest singer in the whole valley. And she shall be thine, if thou wilt be like other people, and prophesy smooth things unto us, and torment us no more with talk about liberty, equality, and brotherhood; for they never were, and never will be, on this earth. Living is too hard work to give in to such fancies." And when the maiden's veil was lifted, it was Lillian. And she clasped me round the neck, and cried, "Come! I will be your bride, and you shall be rich and powerful; and all men shall speak well of you, and you shall write songs; and we will sing them together, and feast and play from dawn to dawn." And I wept; and turned me about, and cried, "Wife and child, song and wealth, are pleasant; but blessed is the work which the All-Father has given the people to do. Let the maimed and the halt and the blind, the needy and the fatherless, come up after me, and we will bore the mountain." But the rich drove me out, and drove back those who would have followed me. So I went up by myself, and bored the mountain seven years, weeping; and every year Lillian came to me, and said, "Come, and be my husband, for my beauty is fading, and youth passes fast away." But I set my heart steadfastly to the work. And when seven years were over, the poor were so multiplied, that the rich had not wherewith to pay their labour. And there came a famine in the land, and many of the poor died. Then the rich said, "If we let these men starve, they will turn on us, and kill us, for hunger has no conscience, and they are all but like the beasts that perish." So they all brought, one a bullock, another a sack of meal, each according to his substance, and fed the poor therewith; and said to them, "Behold our love and mercy towards you!" But the more they gave, the less they had wherewithal to pay their labourers; and the more they gave, the less the poor liked to work; so that at last they had not wherewithal to pay for tilling the ground, and each man had to go and till his own, and knew not how; so the land lay waste, and there was great perplexity. Then I went down to them and said, "If you had hearkened to me, and not robbed your brethren of their land, you would never have come into this strait; for by this time the mountain would have been bored through." Then they cursed the mountain, and me, and Him who made them, and came down to my cottage at night, and cried, "One-sided and left-handed! father of confusion, and disciple of dead donkeys, see to what thou hast brought the land, with thy blasphemous doctrines! Here we are starving, and not only we, but the poor misguided victims of thy abominable notions!" "You have become wondrous pitiful to the poor," said I, "since you found that they would not starve that you might wanton." Then once more Lillian came to me, thin and pale, and worn. "See, I, too, am starving! and you have been the cause of it; but I will forgive all if you will help us but this once." "How shall I help you?" "You are a poet and an orator, and win over all hearts with your talk and your songs. Go down to the tribes of the plain, and persuade them to send us up warriors, that we may put down these riotous and idle wretches; and you shall be king of all the land, and I will be your slave, by day and night." But I went out, and quarried steadfastly at the mountain. And when I came back the next evening, the poor had risen against the rich, one and all, crying, "As you have done to us, so will we do to you;" and they hunted them down like wild beasts, and slew many of them, and threw their carcases on the dunghill, and took possession of their land and houses, and cried, "We will be all free and equal as our forefathers were, and live here, and eat and drink, and take our pleasure." Then I ran out, and cried to them, "Fools I will you do as these rich did, and neglect the work of God? If you do to them as they have done to you, you will sin as they sinned, and devour each other at the last, as they devoured you. The old paths are best. Let each man, rich or poor, have his equal share of the land, as it was at first, and go up and dig through the mountain, and possess the good land beyond, where no man need jostle his neighbour, or rob him, when the land becomes too small for you. Were the rich only in fault? Did not you, too, neglect the work which the All-Father had given you, and run every man after his own comfort? So you entered into a lie, and by your own sin raised up the rich man to be your punishment. For the last time, who will go up with me to the mountain?" Then they all cried with one voice, "We have sinned! We will go up and pierce the mountain, and fulfil the work which God set to our forefathers." We went up, and the first stroke that I struck a crag fell out; and behold, the light of day! and far below us the good land and large, stretching away boundless towards the western sun. * * * * * I sat by the cave's mouth at the dawning of the day. Past me the tribe poured down, young and old, with their waggons, and their cattle, their seeds, and their arms, as of old--yet not as of old--wiser and stronger, taught by long labour and sore affliction. Downward they streamed from the cave's mouth into the glens, following the guidance of the silver water-courses; and as they passed me, each kissed my hands and feet, and cried, "Thou hast saved us--thou hast given up all for us. Come and be our king!" "Nay," I said, "I have been your king this many a year; for I have been the servant of you all." I went down with them into the plain, and called them round me. Many times they besought me to go with them and lead them. "No," I said, "I am old and grey-headed, and I am not as I have been. Choose out the wisest and most righteous among you, and let him lead you. But bind him to yourselves with an oath, that whenever he shall say to you, 'Stay here, and let us sit down and build, and dwell here for ever,' you shall cast him out of his office, and make him a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, and choose one who will lead you forwards in the spirit of God." The crowd opened, and a woman came forward into the circle. Her face was veiled, but we all knew her for a prophetess. Slowly she stepped into the midst, chanting a mystic song. Whether it spoke of past, present, or future, we knew not; but it sank deep into all our hearts. "True freedom stands in meekness-- True strength in utter weakness-- Justice in forgiveness lies-- Riches in self-sacrifice-- Own no rank but God's own spirit-- Wisdom rule!--and worth inherit! Work for all, and all employ-- Share with all, and all enjoy-- God alike to all has given, Heaven as Earth, and Earth as Heaven, When the laud shall find her king again, And the reign of God is come." We all listened, awe-struck. She turned to us and continued: "Hearken to me, children of Japhet, the unresting! "On the holy mountain of Paradise, in the Asgard of the Hindoo-Koh, in the cup of the four rivers, in the womb of the mother of nations, in brotherhood, equality, and freedom, the sons of men were begotten, at the wedding of the heaven and the earth. Mighty infants, you did the right you knew not of, and sinned not, because there was no temptation. By selfishness you fell, and became beasts of prey. Each man coveted the universe for his own lusts, and not that he might fulfil in it God's command to people and subdue it. Long have you wandered--and long will you wander still. For here you have no abiding city. You shall build cities, and they shall crumble; you shall invent forms of society and religion, and they shall fail in the hour of need. You shall call the lands by your own names, and fresh waves of men shall sweep you forth, westward, westward ever, till you have travelled round the path of the sun, to the place from whence you came. For out of Paradise you went, and unto Paradise you shall return; you shall become once more as little children, and renew your youth like the eagle's. Feature by feature, and limb by limb, ye shall renew it; age after age, gradually and painfully, by hunger and pestilence, by superstitions and tyrannies, by need and blank despair, shall you be driven back to the All-Father's home, till you become as you were before you fell, and left the likeness of your father for the likeness of the beasts. Out of Paradise you came, from liberty, equality, and brotherhood, and unto them you shall return again. You went forth in unconscious infancy--you shall return in thoughtful manhood.--You went forth in ignorance and need--you shall return in science and wealth, philosophy and art. You went forth with the world a wilderness before you--you shall return when it is a garden behind you. You went forth selfish-savages--you shall return as the brothers of the Son of God. "And for you," she said, looking on me, "your penance is accomplished. You have learned what it is to be a man. You have lost your life and saved it. He that gives up house, or land, or wife, or child, for God's sake, it shall be repaid him an hundred-fold. Awake!" Surely I knew that voice. She lifted her veil. The face was Lillian's? No!--Eleanor's! Gently she touched my hand--I sank down into soft, weary happy sleep. The spell was snapped. My fever and my dreams faded away together, and I woke to the twittering of the sparrows, and the scent of the poplar leaves, and the sights and sounds of childhood, and found Eleanor and her uncle sitting by my bed, and with them Crossthwaite's little wife. I would have spoken, but Eleanor laid her finger on her lips, and taking her uncle's arm, glided from the room. Katie kept stubbornly a smiling silence, and I was fain to obey my new-found guardian angels. What need of many words? Slowly, and with relapses into insensibility, I passed, like one who recovers from drowning, through the painful gate of birth into another life. The fury of passion had been replaced by a delicious weakness. The thunder-clouds had passed roaring down the wind, and the calm bright holy evening was come. My heart, like a fretful child, had stamped and wept itself to sleep. I was past even gratitude; infinite submission and humility, feelings too long forgotten, absorbed my whole being. Only I never dared meet Eleanor's eye. Her voice was like an angel's when she spoke to me--friend, mother, sister, all in one. But I had a dim recollection of being unjust to her--of some bar between us. Katie and Crossthwaite, as they sat by me, tender and careful nurses both, told me, in time, that to Eleanor I owed all my comforts. I could not thank her--the debt was infinite, inexplicable. I felt as if I must speak all my heart or none; and I watched her lavish kindness with a sort of sleepy, passive wonder, like a new-born babe. At last, one day, my kind nurses allowed me to speak a little. I broached to Crossthwaite the subject which filled my thoughts. "How came I here? How came you here? and Lady Ellerton? What is the meaning of it all?" "The meaning is, that Lady Ellerton, as they call her, is an angel out of heaven. Ah, Alton! she was your true friend, after all, if you had but known it, and not that other one at all." I turned my head away. "Whisht--howld then, Johnny darlint! and don't go tormenting the poor dear sowl, just when he's comin' round again." "No, no! tell me all. I must--I ought--I deserve to bear it. How did she come here?" "Why then, it's my belief, she had her eye on you ever since you came out of that Bastille, and before that, too; and she found you out at Mackaye's, and me with you, for I was there looking after you. If it hadn't been for your illness, I'd have been in Texas now, with our friends, for all's up with the Charter, and the country's too hot, at least for me. I'm sick of the whole thing together, patriots, aristocrats, and everybody else, except this blessed angel. And I've got a couple of hundred to emigrate with; and what's more, so have you." "How's that?" "Why, when poor dear old Mackaye's will was read, and you raving mad in the next room, he had left all his stock-in-trade, that was, the books, to some of our friends, to form a workmen's library with, and £400 he'd saved, to be parted between you and me, on condition that we'd G.T.T., and cool down across the Atlantic, for seven years come the tenth of April." So, then, by the lasting love of my adopted father, I was at present at least out of the reach of want! My heart was ready to overflow at my eyes; but I could not rest till I had heard more of Lady Ellerton. What brought her here, to nurse me as if she had been a sister? "Why, then, she lives not far off by. When her husband died, his cousin got the estate and title, and so she came, Katie tells me, and lived for one year down somewhere in the East-end among the needlewomen; and spent her whole fortune on the poor, and never kept a servant, so they say, but made her own bed and cooked her own dinner, and got her bread with her own needle, to see what it was really like. And she learnt a lesson there, I can tell you, and God bless her for it. For now she's got a large house here by, with fifty or more in it, all at work together, sharing the earnings among themselves, and putting into their own pockets the profits which would have gone to their tyrants; and she keeps the accounts for them, and gets the goods sold, and manages everything, and reads to them while they work, and teaches them every day." "And takes her victuals with them," said Katie, "share and share alike. She that was so grand a lady, to demane herself to the poor unfortunate young things! She's as blessed a saint as any a one in the Calendar, if they'll forgive me for saying so." "Ay! demeaning, indeed! for the best of it is, they're not the respectable ones only, though she spends hundreds on them--" "And sure, haven't I seen it with my own eyes, when I've been there charing?" "Ay, but those she lives with are the fallen and the lost ones--those that the rich would not set up in business, or help them to emigrate, or lift them out of the gutter with a pair of tongs, for fear they should stain their own whitewash in handling them." "And sure they're as dacent as meself now, the poor darlints! It was misery druv 'em to it, every one; perhaps it might hav' druv me the same way, if I'd a lot o' childer, and Johnny gone to glory--and the blessed saints save him from that same at all at all!" "What! from going to glory?" said John. "Och, thin, and wouldn't I just go mad if ever such ill luck happened to yees as to be taken to heaven in the prime of your days, asthore?" And she began sobbing and hugging and kissing the little man; and then suddenly recollecting herself, scolded him heartily for making such a "whillybaloo," and thrust him out of my room, to recommence kissing him in the next, leaving me to many meditations. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE TRUE DEMAGOGUE. I used to try to arrange my thoughts, but could not; the past seemed swept away and buried, like the wreck of some drowned land after a flood. Ploughed by affliction to the core, my heart lay fallow for every seed that fell. Eleanor understood me, and gently and gradually, beneath her skilful hand, the chaos began again to bloom with verdure. She and Crossthwaite used to sit and read to me--from the Bible, from poets, from every book which could suggest soothing, graceful, or hopeful fancies. Now out of the stillness of the darkened chamber, one or two priceless sentences of à Kempis, or a spirit-stirring Hebrew psalm, would fall upon my ear: and then there was silence again; and I was left to brood over the words in vacancy, till they became a fibre of my own soul's core. Again and again the stories of Lazarus and the Magdalene alternated with Milton's Penseroso, or with Wordsworth's tenderest and most solemn strains. Exquisite prints from the history of our Lord's life and death were hung one by one, each for a few days, opposite my bed, where they might catch my eye the moment that I woke, the moment before I fell asleep. I heard one day the good dean remonstrating with her on the "sentimentalism" of her mode of treatment. "Poor drowned butterfly!" she answered, smiling, "he must be fed with honey-dew. Have I not surely had practice enough already?" "Yes, angel that you are!" answered the old man. "You have indeed had practice enough!" And lifting her hand reverentially to his lips, he turned and left the room. She sat down by me as I lay, and began to read from Tennyson's Lotus-Eaters. But it was not reading--it was rather a soft dreamy chant, which rose and fell like the waves of sound on an Æolian harp. "There is sweet music here that softer falls Than petals from blown roses on the grass, Or night dews on still waters between wails Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; Music that gentler on the spirit lies Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies. Here are cool mosses deep, And through the moss the ivies creep, And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep. "Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, And utterly consumed with sharp distress, While all things else have rest from weariness? All things have rest: why should we toil alone? We only toil, who are the first of things, And make perpetual moan, Still from one sorrow to another thrown: Nor ever fold our wings. And cease from wanderings; Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm, Nor hearken what the inner spirit sings, 'There is no joy but calm!' Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?" She paused-- My soul was an enchanted boat Which, like a sleeping swan, did float Upon the silver waves of her sweet singing. Half-unconscious, I looked up. Before me hung a copy of Raffaelle's cartoon of the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. As my eye wandered over it, it seemed to blend into harmony with the feelings which the poem had stirred. I seemed to float upon the glassy lake. I watched the vista of the waters and mountains, receding into the dreamy infinite of the still summer sky. Softly from distant shores came the hum of eager multitudes; towers and palaces slept quietly beneath the eastern sun. In front, fantastic fishes, and the birds of the mountain and the lake, confessed His power, who sat there in His calm godlike beauty, His eye ranging over all that still infinity of His own works, over all that wondrous line of figures, which seemed to express every gradation of spiritual consciousness, from the dark self-condemned dislike of Judas's averted and wily face, through mere animal greediness to the first dawnings of surprise, and on to the manly awe and gratitude of Andrew's majestic figure, and the self-abhorrent humility of Peter, as he shrank down into the bottom of the skiff, and with convulsive palms and bursting brow seemed to press out from his inmost heart the words, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!" Truly, pictures are the books of the unlearned, and of the mis-learned too. Glorious Raffaelle! Shakspeare of the South! Mighty preacher, to whose blessed intuition it was given to know all human hearts, to embody in form and colour all spiritual truths, common alike to Protestant and Papist, to workman and to sage--oh that I may meet thee before the throne of God, if it be but to thank thee for that one picture, in which thou didst reveal to me, in a single glance, every step of my own spiritual history! She seemed to follow my eyes, and guess from them the workings of my heart; for now, in a low, half-abstracted voice, as Diotima may have talked of old, she began to speak of rest and labour, of death and life; of a labour which is perfect rest--of a daily death, which is but daily birth--of weakness, which is the strength of God; and so she wandered on in her speech to Him who died for us. And gradually she turned to me. She laid one finger solemnly on my listless palm, as her words and voice became more intense, more personal. She talked of Him, as Mary may have talked just risen from His feet. She spoke of Him as I had never heard Him spoken of before--with a tender passionate loyalty, kept down and softened by the deepest awe. The sense of her intense belief, shining out in every lineament of her face, carried conviction to my heart more than ten thousand arguments could do. It must be true!--Was not the power of it around her like a glory? She spoke of Him as near us--watching us--in words of such vivid eloquence that I turned half-startled to her, as if I expected to see Him standing by her side. She spoke of Him as the great Reformer; and yet as the true conservative; the inspirer of all new truths, revealing in His Bible to every age abysses of new wisdom, as the times require; and yet the vindicator of all which is ancient and eternal--the justifier of His own dealings with man from the beginning. She spoke of Him as the true demagogue--the champion of the poor; and yet as the true King, above and below all earthly rank; on whose will alone all real superiority of man to man, all the time-justified and time-honoured usages of the family, the society, the nation, stand and shall stand for ever. * * * * * And then she changed her tone; and in a voice of infinite tenderness she spoke of Him as the Creator, the Word, the Inspirer, the only perfect Artist, the Fountain of all Genius. She made me feel--would that His ministers had made me feel it before, since they say that they believe it--that He had passed victorious through my vilest temptations, that He sympathized with my every struggle. She told me how He, in the first dawn of manhood, full of the dim consciousness of His own power, full of strange yearning presentiments about His own sad and glorious destiny, went up into the wilderness, as every youth, above all every genius, must, there to be tempted of the devil. She told how alone with the wild beasts, and the brute powers of nature, He saw into the open secret--the mystery of man's twofold life, His kingship over earth, His sonship under God: and conquered in the might of His knowledge. How He was tempted, like every genius, to use His creative powers for selfish ends--to yield to the lust of display and singularity, and break through those laws which He came to reveal and to fulfil--to do one little act of evil, that He might secure thereby the harvest of good which was the object of His life: and how He had conquered in the faith that He was the Son of God. She told me how He had borne the sorrows of genius; how the slightest pang that I had ever felt was but a dim faint pattern of His; how He, above all men, had felt the agony of calumny, misconception, misinterpretation; how He had fought with bigotry and stupidity, casting His pearls before swine, knowing full well what it was to speak to the deaf and the blind; how He had wept over Jerusalem, in the bitterness of disappointed patriotism, when He had tried in vain to awaken within a nation of slavish and yet rebellious bigots the consciousness of their glorious calling.... It was too much--I hid my face in the coverlet, and burst out into long, low, and yet most happy weeping. She rose and went to the window, and beckoned Katie from the room within. "I am afraid," she said, "my conversation has been too much for him." "Showers sweeten the air," said Katie; and truly enough, as my own lightened brain told me. Eleanor--for so I must call her now--stood watching me for a few minutes, and then glided back to the bedside, and sat down again. "You find the room quiet?" "Wonderfully quiet. The roar of the city outside is almost soothing, and the noise of every carriage seems to cease suddenly just as it becomes painfully near." "We have had straw laid down," she answered, "all along this part of the street." This last drop of kindness filled the cup to overflowing: a veil fell from before my eyes--it was she who had been my friend, my guardian angel, from the beginning! "You--you--idiot that I have been! I see it all now. It was you who laid that paper to catch my eye on that first evening at D * * *!--you paid my debt to my cousin!--you visited Mackaye in his last illness!" She made a sign of assent. "You saw from the beginning my danger, my weakness!--you tried to turn me from my frantic and fruitless passion!--you tried to save me from the very gulf into which I forced myself!--and I--I have hated you in return--cherished suspicions too ridiculous to confess, only equalled by the absurdity of that other dream!" "Would that other dream have ever given you peace, even if it had ever become reality?" She spoke gently, slowly, seriously; waiting between each question for the answer which I dared not give. "What was it that you adored? a soul or a face? The inward reality or the outward symbol, which is only valuable as a sacrament of the loveliness within?" "Ay!" thought I, "and was that loveliness within? What was that beauty but a hollow mask?" How barren, borrowed, trivial, every thought and word of hers seemed now, as I looked back upon them, in comparison with the rich luxuriance, the startling originality, of thought, and deed, and sympathy, in her who now sat by me, wan and faded, beautiful no more as men call beauty, but with the spirit of an archangel gazing from those clear, fiery eyes! And as I looked at her, an emotion utterly new to me arose; utter trust, delight, submission, gratitude, awe--if it was love, it was love as of a dog towards his master.... "Ay," I murmured, half unconscious that I spoke aloud, "her I loved, and love no longer; but you, you I worship, and for ever!" "Worship God," she answered. "If it shall please you hereafter to call me friend, I shall refuse neither the name nor its duties. But remember always, that whatsoever interest I feel in you, and, indeed, have felt from the first time I saw your poems, I cannot give or accept friendship upon any ground so shallow and changeable as personal preference. The time was when I thought it a mark of superior intellect and refinement to be as exclusive in my friendships as in my theories. Now I have learnt that that is most spiritual and noble which is also most universal. If we are to call each other friends, it must be for a reason which equally includes the outcast and the profligate, the felon, and the slave." "What do you mean?" I asked, half disappointed. "Only for the sake of Him who died for all alike." Why did she rise and call Crossthwaite from the next room where he was writing? Was it from the womanly tact and delicacy which feared lest my excited feelings might lead me on to some too daring expression, and give me the pain of a rebuff, however gentle; or was it that she wished him, as well as me, to hear the memorable words which followed, to which she seemed to have been all along alluring me, and calling up in my mind, one by one, the very questions to which she had prepared the answers? "That name!" I answered. "Alas! has it not been in every age the watchword, not of an all-embracing charity, but of self-conceit and bigotry, excommunication and persecution?" "That is what men have made it; not God, or He who bears it, the Son of God. Yes, men have separated from each other, slandered each other, murdered each other in that name, and blasphemed it by that very act. But when did they unite in any name but that? Look all history through--from the early churches, unconscious and infantile ideas of God's kingdom, as Eden was of the human race, when love alone was law, and none said that aught that he possessed was his own, but they had all things in common--Whose name was the, bond of unity for that brotherhood, such as the earth had never seen--when the Roman lady and the Negro slave partook together at the table of the same bread and wine, and sat together at the feet of the Syrian tent-maker?--'One is our Master, even Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, and in Him we are all brothers.' Not self-chosen preference for His precepts, but the overwhelming faith in His presence, His rule, His love, bound those rich hearts together. Look onward, too, at the first followers of St. Bennet and St. Francis, at the Cameronians among their Scottish hills, or the little persecuted flock who in a dark and godless time gathered around Wesley by pit mouths and on Cornish cliffs--Look, too, at the great societies of our own days, which, however imperfectly, still lovingly and earnestly do their measure of God's work at home and abroad; and say, when was there ever real union, co-operation, philanthropy, equality, brotherhood, among men, save in loyalty to Him--Jesus, who died upon the cross?" And she bowed her head reverently before that unseen Majesty; and then looked up at us again--Those eyes, now brimming full of earnest tears, would have melted stonier hearts than ours that day. "Do you not believe me? Then I must quote against you one of your own prophets--a ruined angel--even as you might have been. "When Camille Desmoulins, the revolutionary, about to die, as is the fate of such, by the hands of revolutionaries, was asked his age, he answered, they say, that it was the same as that of the 'bon sans-culotte Jesus.' I do not blame those who shrink from that speech as blasphemous. I, too, have spoken hasty words and hard, and prided myself on breaking the bruised reed, and quenching the smoking flax. Time was when I should have been the loudest in denouncing poor Camille; but I have long since seemed to see in those words the distortion of an almighty truth--a truth that shall shake thrones, and principalities, and powers, and fill the earth with its sound, as with the trump of God; a prophecy like Balaam's of old--'I shall see Him, but not nigh; I shall behold Him, but not near.'... Take all the heroes, prophets, poets, philosophers--where will you find the true demagogue--the speaker to man simply as man--the friend of publicans and sinners, the stern foe of the scribe and the Pharisee--with whom was no respect of persons--where is he? Socrates and Plato were noble; Zerdusht and Confutzee, for aught we know, were nobler still; but what were they but the exclusive mystagogues of an enlightened few, like our own Emersons and Strausses, to compare great with small? What gospel have they, or Strauss, or Emerson, for the poor, the suffering, the oppressed? The People's Friend? Where will you find him, but in Jesus of Nazareth?" "We feel that; I assure you, we feel that," said Crossthwaite. "There are thousands of us who delight in His moral teaching, as the perfection of human excellence." "And what gospel is there in a moral teaching? What good news is it to the savage of St. Giles, to the artizan, crushed by the competition of others and his own evil habits, to tell him that he can be free--if he can make himself free?--That all men are his equals--if he can rise to their level, or pull them down to his?--All men his brothers--if he can only stop them from devouring him, or making it necessary for him to devour them? Liberty, equality, and brotherhood? Let the history of every nation, of every revolution--let your own sad experience speak--have they been aught as yet but delusive phantoms--angels that turned to fiends the moment you seemed about to clasp them? Remember the tenth of April, and the plots thereof, and answer your own hearts!" Crossthwaite buried his face in his hands. "What!" I answered, passionately, "will you rob us poor creatures of our only faith, our only hope on earth? Let us be deceived, and deceived again, yet we will believe! We will hope on in spite of hope. We may die, but the idea lives for ever. Liberty, equality, and fraternity must come. We know, we know, that they must come; and woe to those who seek to rob us of our faith!" "Keep, keep your faith," she cried; "for it is not yours, but God's, who gave it! But do not seek to realize that idea for yourselves." "Why, then, in the name of reason and mercy?" "Because it is realized already for you. You are free; God has made you free. You are equals--you are brothers; for He is your king who is no respecter of persons. He is your king, who has bought for you the rights of sons of God. He is your king, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; who reigns, and will reign, till He has put all enemies under His feet. That was Luther's charter,--with that alone he freed half Europe. That is your charter, and mine; the everlasting ground of our rights, our mights, our duties, of ever-gathering storm for the oppressor, of ever-brightening sunshine for the oppressed. Own no other. Claim your investiture as free men from none but God. His will, His love, is a stronger ground, surely, than abstract rights and ethnological opinions. Abstract rights? What ground, what root have they, but the ever-changing opinions of men, born anew and dying anew with each fresh generation?--while the word of God stands sure--'You are mine, and I am yours, bound to you in an everlasting covenant.' "Abstract rights? They are sure to end, in practice, only in the tyranny of their father--opinion. In favoured England here, the notions of abstract right among the many are not so incorrect, thanks to three centuries of Protestant civilization; but only because the right notions suit the many at this moment. But in America, even now, the same ideas of abstract right do not interfere with the tyranny of the white man over the black. Why should they? The white man is handsomer, stronger, cunninger, worthier than the black. The black is more like an ape than the white man--he is--the fact is there; and no notions of an abstract right will put that down: nothing but another fact--a mightier, more universal fact--Jesus of Nazareth died for the negro as well as for the white. Looked at apart from Him, each race, each individual of mankind, stands separate and alone, owing no more brotherhood to each other than wolf to wolf, or pike to pike--himself a mightier beast of prey--even as he has proved himself in every age. Looked at as he is, as joined into one family in Christ, his archetype and head, even the most frantic declamations of the French democrat, about the majesty of the people, the divinity of mankind, become rational, reverent, and literal. God's grace outrivals all man's boasting--'I have said, ye are gods, and ye are all the children of the Most Highest:'--'children of God, members of Christ, of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones,'--'kings and priests to God,'--free inheritors of the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of prudence and courage, of reverence and love, the spirit of Him who has said, 'Behold, the days come, when I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and no one shall teach his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know Him, from the least even unto the greatest. Ay, even on the slaves and on the handmaidens in those days will I pour out my spirit, saith the Lord!'" "And that is really in the Bible?" asked Crossthwaite. "Ay"--she went on, her figure dilating, and her eyes flashing, like an inspired prophetess--"that is in the Bible! What would you more than that? That is your charter; the only ground of all charters. You, like all mankind, have had dim inspirations, confused yearnings after your future destiny, and, like all the world from the beginning, you have tried to realize, by self-willed methods of your own, what you can only do by God's inspiration, by God's method. Like the builders of Babel in old time, you have said, 'Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top shall reach to heaven'--And God has confounded you as he did them. By mistrust, division, passion, and folly, you are scattered abroad. Even in these last few days, the last dregs of your late plot have exploded miserably and ludicrously--your late companions are in prison, and the name of Chartist is a laughing-stock as well as an abomination." "Good Heavens! Is this true?" asked I, looking at Crossthwaite for confirmation. "Too true, dear boy, too true: and if it had not been for these two angels here, I should have been in Newgate now!" "Yes," she went on. "The Charter seems dead, and liberty further off than ever." "That seems true enough, indeed," said I, bitterly. "Yes. But it is because Liberty is God's beloved child, that He will not have her purity sullied by the touch of the profane. Because He loves the people, He will allow none but Himself to lead the people. Because He loves the people, He will teach the people by afflictions. And even now, while all this madness has been destroying itself, He has been hiding you in His secret place from the strife of tongues, that you may have to look for a state founded on better things than acts of parliament, social contracts, and abstract rights--a city whose foundations are in the eternal promises, whose builder and maker is God." She paused.--"Go on, go on," cried Crossthwaite and I in the same breath. "That state, that city, Jesus said, was come--was now within us, had we eyes to see. And it is come. Call it the church, the gospel, civilization, freedom, democracy, association, what you will--I shall call it by the name by which my Master spoke of it--the name which includes all these, and more than these--the kingdom of God. 'Without observation,' as he promised, secretly, but mightily, it has been growing, spreading, since that first Whitsuntide; civilizing, humanizing, uniting this distracted earth. Men have fancied they found it in this system or in that, and in them only. They have cursed it in its own name, when they found it too wide for their own narrow notions. They have cried, 'Lo here!' and 'Lo there!' 'To this communion!' or 'To that set of opinions.' But it has gone its way--the way of Him who made all things, and redeemed all things to Himself. In every age it has been a gospel to the poor, In every age it has, sooner or later, claimed the steps of civilization, the discoveries of science, as God's inspirations, not man's inventions. In every age, it has taught men to do that by God which they had failed in doing without Him. It is now ready, if we may judge by the signs of the times, once again to penetrate, to convert, to reorganize, the political and social life of England, perhaps of the world; to vindicate democracy as the will and gift of God. Take it for the ground of your rights. If, henceforth, you claim political enfranchisement, claim it not as mere men, who may be villains, savages, animals, slaves of their own prejudices and passions; but as members of Christ, children of God, inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and therefore bound to realize it on earth. All other rights are mere mights--mere selfish demands to become tyrants in your turn. If you wish to justify your Charter, do it on that ground. Claim your share in national life, only because the nation is a spiritual body, whose king is the Son of God; whose work, whose national character and powers, are allotted to it by the Spirit of Christ. Claim universal suffrage, only on the ground of the universal redemption of mankind--the universal priesthood of Christians. That argument will conquer, when all have failed; for God will make it conquer. Claim the disenfranchisement of every man, rich or poor, who breaks the laws of God and man, not merely because he is an obstacle to you, but because he is a traitor to your common King in heaven, and to the spiritual kingdom of which he is a citizen. Denounce the effete idol of property-qualification, not because it happens to strengthen class interests against you, but because, as your mystic dream reminded you, and, therefore, as you knew long ago, there is no real rank, no real power, but worth; and worth consists not in property, but in the grace of God. Claim, if you will, annual parliaments, as a means of enforcing the responsibility of rulers to the Christian community, of which they are to be, not the lords, but the ministers--the servants of all. But claim these, and all else for which you long, not from man, but from God, the King of men. And therefore, before you attempt to obtain them, make yourselves worthy of them--perhaps by that process you will find some of them have become less needful. At all events, do not ask, do not hope, that He will give them to you before you are able to profit by them. Believe that he has kept them from you hitherto, because they would have been curses, and not blessings. Oh! look back, look back, at the history of English Radicalism for the last half century, and judge by your own deeds, your own words; were you fit for those privileges which you so frantically demanded? Do not answer me, that those who had them were equally unfit; but thank God, if the case be indeed so, that your incapacity was not added to theirs, to make confusion worse confounded! Learn a new lesson. Believe at last that you are in Christ, and become new creatures. With those miserable, awful farce tragedies of April and June, let old things pass away, and all things become new. Believe that your kingdom is not of this world, but of One whose servants must not fight. He that believeth, as the prophet says, will not make haste. Beloved suffering brothers! are not your times in the hand of One who loved you to the death, who conquered, as you must do, not by wrath, but by martyrdom? Try no more to meet Mammon with his own weapons, but commit your cause to Him who judges righteously, who is even now coming out of His place to judge the earth, and to help the fatherless and poor unto their right, that the man of the world may be no more exalted against them--the poor man of Nazareth, crucified for you!" She ceased, and there was silence for a few moments, as if angels were waiting, hushed, to carry our repentance to the throne of Him we had forgotten. Crossthwaite had kept his face fast buried in his hands; now he looked up with brimming eyes-- "I see it--I see it all now. Oh, my God! my God! what infidels we have been!" CHAPTER XXXVIII. MIRACLES AND SCIENCE. Sunrise, they say, often at first draws up and deepens the very mists which it is about to scatter: and even so, as the excitement of my first conviction cooled, dark doubts arose to dim the new-born light of hope and trust within me. The question of miracles had been ever since I had read Strauss my greatest stumbling-block--perhaps not unwillingly, for my doubts pampered my sense of intellectual acuteness and scientific knowledge; and "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." But now that they interfered with nobler, more important, more immediately practical ideas, I longed to have them removed--I longed even to swallow them down on trust--to take the miracles "into the bargain" as it were, for the sake of that mighty gospel of deliverance for the people which accompanied them. Mean subterfuge! which would not, could not, satisfy me. The thing was too precious, too all-important, to take one tittle of it on trust. I could not bear the consciousness of one hollow spot--the nether fires of doubt glaring through, even at one little crevice. I took my doubts to Lady Ellerton--Eleanor, as I must now call her, for she never allowed herself to be addressed by her title--and she referred me to her uncle-- "I could say somewhat on that point myself. But since your doubts are scientific ones, I had rather that you should discuss them with one whose knowledge of such subjects you, and all England with you, must revere." "Ah, but--pardon me; he is a clergyman." "And therefore bound to prove, whether he believes in his own proof or not. Unworthy suspicion!" she cried, with a touch of her old manner. "If you had known that man's literary history for the last thirty years, you would not suspect him, at least, of sacrificing truth and conscience to interest, or to fear of the world's insults." I was rebuked; and not without hope and confidence, I broached the question to the good dean when he came in--as he happened to do that very day. "I hardly like to state my difficulties," I began--"for I am afraid that I must hurt myself in your eyes by offending your--prejudices, if you will pardon so plain-spoken an expression." "If," he replied, in his bland courtly way, "I am so unfortunate as to have any prejudices left, you cannot do me a greater kindness than by offending them--or by any other means, however severe--to make me conscious of the locality of such a secret canker." "But I am afraid that your own teaching has created, or at least corroborated, these doubts of mine." "How so?" "You first taught me to revere science. You first taught me to admire and trust the immutable order, the perfect harmony of the laws of Nature." "Ah! I comprehend now!" he answered, in a somewhat mournful tone--"How much we have to answer for! How often, in our carelessness, we offend those little ones, whose souls are precious in the sight of God! I have thought long and earnestly on the very subject which now distresses you; perhaps every doubt which has passed through your mind, has exercised my own; and, strange to say, you first set me on that new path of thought. A conversation which passed between us years ago at D * * * * on the antithesis of natural and revealed religion--perhaps you recollect it?" Yes, I recollected it better than he fancied, and recollected too--I thrust the thought behind me--it was even yet intolerable. "That conversation first awoke in me the sense of an hitherto unconscious inconsistency--a desire to reconcile two lines of thought--which I had hitherto considered as parallel, and impossible to unite. To you, and to my beloved niece here, I owe gratitude for that evening's talk; and you are freely welcome to all my conclusions, for you have been, indirectly, the originator of them all." "Then, I must confess, that miracles seem to me impossible, just because they break the laws of Nature. Pardon me--but there seems something blasphemous in supposing that God can mar His own order: His power I do not call in question, but the very thought of His so doing is abhorrent to me." "It is as abhorrent to me as it can be to you, to Goethe, or to Strauss; and yet I believe firmly in our Lord's miracles." "How so, if they break the laws of Nature?" "Who told you, my dear young friend, that to break the customs of Nature, is to break her laws? A phenomenon, an appearance, whether it be a miracle or a comet, need not contradict them because it is rare, because it is as yet not referable to them. Nature's deepest laws, her only true laws, are her invisible ones. All analyses (I think you know enough to understand my terms), whether of appearances, of causes, or of elements, only lead us down to fresh appearances--we cannot see a law, let the power of our lens be ever so immense. The true causes remain just as impalpable, as unfathomable as ever, eluding equally our microscope and our induction--ever tending towards some great primal law, as Mr. Grove has well shown lately in his most valuable pamphlet--some great primal law, I say, manifesting itself, according to circumstances, in countless diverse and unexpected forms--till all that the philosopher as well as the divine can say, is--the Spirit of Life, impalpable, transcendental, direct from God, is the only real cause. 'It bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.' What, if miracles should be the orderly result of some such deep, most orderly, and yet most spiritual law?" "I feel the force of your argument, but--" "But you will confess, at least, that you, after the fashion of the crowd, have begun your argument by begging the very question in dispute, and may have, after all, created the very difficulty which torments you." "I confess it; but I cannot see how the miracles of Jesus--of our Lord--have anything of order in them." "Tell me, then--to try the Socratic method--is disease, or health, the order and law of Nature?" "Health, surely; we all confess that by calling diseases disorders." "Then, would one who healed diseases be a restorer, or a breaker of order?" "A restorer, doubtless; but--" "Like a patient scholar, and a scholarly patient, allow me to 'exhibit' my own medicines according to my own notion of the various crises of your distemper. I assure you I will not play you false, or entrap you by quips and special pleading. You are aware that our Lord's miracles were almost exclusively miracles of healing--restorations of that order of health which disease was breaking--that when the Scribes and Pharisees, superstitious and sense-bound, asked him for a sign from heaven, a contra-natural prodigy, he refused them as peremptorily as he did the fiend's 'Command these stones that they be made bread.' You will quote against me the water turned into wine, as an exception to this rule. St. Augustine answered that objection centuries ago, by the same argument as I am now using. Allow Jesus to have been the Lord of Creation, and what was he doing then, but what he does in the maturing of every grape--transformed from air and water even as that wine in Cana? Goethe, himself, unwittingly, has made Mephistopheles even say as much as that-- "Wine is sap, and grapes are wood, The wooden board yields wine as good." "But the time?--so infinitely shorter than that which Nature usually occupies in the process?" "Time and space are no Gods, as a wise German says; and as the electric telegraph ought already to have taught you. They are customs, but who has proved them to be laws of Nature? No; analyse these miracles one by one, fairly, carefully, scientifically, and you will find that if you want prodigies really blasphemous and absurd, infractions of the laws of Nature, amputated limbs growing again, and dead men walking away with their heads under their arms, you must go to the Popish legends, but not to the miracles of the Gospels. And now for your 'but'--" "The raising of the dead to life? Surely death is the appointed end of every animal--ay, of every species, and of man among the rest." "Who denies it? But is premature death?--the death of Jairus's daughter, of the widow's son at Nain, the death of Jesus himself, in the prime of youth and vigour--or rather that gradual decay of ripe old age, through which I now, thank God, so fast am travelling? What nobler restoration of order, what clearer vindication of the laws of Nature from the disorder of diseases, than to recall the dead to their natural and normal period of life?" I was silent a few moments, having nothing to answer; then-- "After all, these may have been restorations of the law of Nature. But why was the law broken in order to restore it? The Tenth of April has taught me, at least, that disorder cannot cast disorder out." "Again I ask, why do you assume the very point in question? Again I ask, who knows what really are the laws of Nature? You have heard Bacon's golden rule--'Nature is conquered by obeying her?'" "I have." "Then who more likely, who more certain, to fulfil that law to hitherto unattained perfection, than He who came to obey, not outward nature merely, but, as Bacon meant, the inner ideas, the spirit of Nature, which is the will of God?--He who came to do utterly, not His own will, but the will of the Father who sent Him? Who is so presumptuous as to limit the future triumphs of science? Surely no one who has watched her giant strides during the last century. Shall Stephenson and Faraday, and the inventors of the calculating machine, and the electric telegraph, have fulfilled such wonders by their weak and partial obedience to the 'Will of God expressed in things'--and He who obeyed, even unto the death, have possessed no higher power than theirs?" "Indeed," I said, "your words stagger me. But there is another old objection which they have reawakened in my mind. You will say I am shifting my ground sadly. But you must pardon me" "Let us hear. They need not be irrelevant. The unconscious logic of association is often deeper and truer than any syllogism." "These modern discoveries in medicine seem to show that Christ's miracles may be attributed to natural causes." "And thereby justify them. For what else have I been arguing. The difficulty lies only in the rationalist's shallow and sensuous view of Nature, and in his ambiguous, slip-slop trick of using the word natural to mean, in one sentence, 'material,' and in the next, as I use it, only 'normal and orderly.' Every new wonder in medicine which this great age discovers--what does it prove, but that Christ need have broken no natural laws to do that of old, which can be done now without breaking them--if you will but believe that these gifts of healing are all inspired and revealed by Him who is the Great Physician, the Life, the Lord of that vital energy by whom all cures are wrought. "The surgeons of St. George's make the boy walk who has been lame from his mother's womb. But have they given life to a single bone or muscle of his limbs? They have only put them into that position--those circumstances in which the God-given life in them can have its free and normal play, and produce the cure which they only assist. I claim that miracle of science, as I do all future ones, as the inspiration of Him who made the lame to walk in Judea, not by producing new organs, but by His creative will--quickening and liberating those which already existed. "The mesmerist, again, says that he can cure a spirit of infirmity, an hysteric or paralytic patient, by shedding forth on them his own vital energy; and, therefore he will have it, that Christ's miracles were but mesmeric feats. I grant, for the sake of argument, that he possesses the power which he claims; though I may think his facts too new, too undigested, often too exaggerated, to claim my certain assent. But, I say, I take you on your own ground; and, indeed, if man be the image of God, his vital energy may, for aught I know, be able, like God's, to communicate some spark of life--But then, what must have been the vital energy of Him who was the life itself; who was filled without measure with the spirit, not only of humanity, but with that of God the Lord and Giver of life? Do but let the Bible tell its own story; grant, for the sake of argument, the truth of the dogmas which it asserts throughout, and it becomes a consistent whole. When a man begins, as Strauss does, by assuming the falsity of its conclusions, no wonder if he finds its premises a fragmentary chaos of contradictions." "And what else?" asked Eleanor, passionately--"what else is the meaning of that highest human honour, the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but a perennial token that the same life-giving spirit is the free right of all?" And thereon followed happy, peaceful, hopeful words, which the reader, if he call himself a Christian, ought to be able to imagine for himself. I am afraid that writing from memory, I should do as little justice to them as I have to the dean's arguments in this chapter. Of the consequences which they produced in me, I will speak anon. CHAPTER XXXIX. NEMESIS. It was a month or more before I summoned courage to ask after my cousin. Eleanor looked solemnly at me. "Did you not know it? He is dead." "Dead!" I was almost stunned by the announcement. "Of typhus fever. He died three weeks ago; and not only he, but the servant who brushed his clothes, and the shopman, who had a few days before, brought him a new coat home." "How did you learn all this?" "From Mr. Crossthwaite. But the strangest part of the sad story is to come. Crossthwaite's suspicions were aroused by some incidental circumstance, and knowing of Downes's death, and the fact that you most probably caught your fever in that miserable being's house, he made such inquiries as satisfied him that it was no other than your cousin's coat--" "Which covered the corpses in that fearful chamber?" "It was indeed." Just, awful God. And this was the consistent Nemesis of all poor George's thrift and cunning, of his determination to carry the buy-cheap-and-sell-dear commercialism, in which he had been brought up, into every act of life! Did I rejoice? No; all revenge, all spite had been scourged out of me. I mourned for him as for a brother, till the thought flashed across me--Lillian was free. Half unconscious, I stammered her name inquiringly. "Judge for yourself," answered Eleanor, mildly, yet with a deep, severe meaning in her tone. I was silent. * * * * * The tempest in my heart was ready to burst forth again; but she, my guardian angel, soothed it for me. "She is much changed; sorrow and sickness--for she, too, has had the fever, and, alas! less resignation or peace within, than those who love her would have wished to see--have worn her down. Little remains now of that loveliness--" "Which I idolized in my folly!" "Thank God, thank God! that you see that at last: I knew it all along. I knew that there was nothing there for your heart to rest upon--nothing to satisfy your intellect--and, therefore, I tried to turn you from your dream. I did it harshly, angrily, too sharply, yet not explicitly enough. I ought to have made allowances for you. I should have known how enchanting, intoxicating, mere outward perfections must have been to one of your perceptions, shut out so long as you had been from the beautiful in art and nature. But I was cruel. Alas! I had not then learnt to sympathize; and I have often since felt with terror that I, too, may have many of your sins to answer for; that I, even I, helped to drive you on to bitterness and despair." "Oh, do not say so! You have done to me, meant to me, nothing but good." "Be not too sure of that. You little know me. You little know the pride which I have fostered--even the mean anger against you, for being the protégé of any one but myself. That exclusiveness, and shyness, and proud reserve, is the bane of our English character--it has been the bane of mine--daily I strive to root it out. Come--I will do so now. You wonder why I am here. You shall hear somewhat of my story; and do not fancy that I am showing you a peculiar mark of honour or confidence. If the history of my life can be of use to the meanest, they are welcome to the secrets of my inmost heart. "I was my parents' only child, an heiress, highly born, and highly educated. Every circumstance of humanity which could pamper pride was mine, and I battened on the poison. I painted, I sang, I wrote in prose and verse--they told me, not without success. Men said that I was beautiful--I knew that myself, and revelled and gloried in the thought. Accustomed to see myself the centre of all my parents' hopes and fears, to be surrounded by flatterers, to indulge in secret the still more fatal triumph of contempt for those I thought less gifted than myself, self became the centre of my thoughts. Pleasure was all I thought of. But not what the vulgar call pleasure. That I disdained, while, like you, I worshipped all that was pleasurable to the intellect and the taste. The beautiful was my God. I lived, in deliberate intoxication, on poetry, music, painting, and every anti-type of them which I could find in the world around. At last I met with--one whom you once saw. He first awoke in me the sense of the vast duties and responsibilities of my station--his example first taught me to care for the many rather than for the few. It was a blessed lesson: yet even that I turned to poison, by making self, still self, the object of my very benevolence. To be a philanthropist, a philosopher, a feudal queen, amid the blessings and the praise of dependent hundreds--that was my new ideal; for that I turned the whole force of my intellect to the study of history, of social and economic questions. From Bentham and Malthus to Fourier and Proudhon, I read them all. I made them all fit into that idol-temple of self which I was rearing, and fancied that I did my duty, by becoming one of the great ones of the earth. My ideal was not the crucified Nazarene, but some Hairoun Alraschid, in luxurious splendour, pampering his pride by bestowing as a favour those mercies which God commands as the right of all. I thought to serve God, forsooth, by serving Mammon and myself. Fool that I was! I could not see God's handwriting on the wall against me. 'How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven!'... "You gave me, unintentionally, a warning hint. The capabilities which I saw in you made me suspect that those below might be more nearly my equals than I had yet fancied. Your vivid descriptions of the misery among whole classes of workmen--misery caused and ever increased by the very system of society itself--gave a momentary shock to my fairy palace. They drove me back upon the simple old question, which has been asked by every honest heart, age after age, 'What right have I to revel in luxury while thousands are starving? Why do I pride myself on doling out to them small fractions of that wealth, which, if sacrificed utterly and at once, might help to raise hundreds to a civilization as high as my own?' I could not face the thought; and angry with you for having awakened it, however unintentionally, I shrank back behind the pitiable, worn-out fallacy, that luxury was necessary to give employment. I knew that it was a fallacy; I knew that the labour spent in producing unnecessary things for one rich man may just as well have gone in producing necessaries for a hundred poor, or employ the architect and the painter for public bodies as well as private individuals. That even for the production of luxuries, the monopolizing demand of the rich was not required--that the appliances of real civilization, the landscapes, gardens, stately rooms, baths, books, pictures, works of art, collections of curiosities, which now went to pamper me alone--me, one single human soul--might be helping, in an associate society, to civilize a hundred families, now debarred from them by isolated poverty, without robbing me of an atom of the real enjoyment or benefit of them. I knew it, I say, to be a fallacy, and yet I hid behind it from the eye of God. Besides, 'it always had been so--the few rich, and the many poor. I was but one more among millions.'" She paused a moment as if to gather strength, and then continued: "The blow came. My idol--for he, too, was an idol--To please him I had begun--To please myself in pleasing him, I was trying to become great--and with him went from me that sphere of labour which was to witness the triumph of my pride. I saw the estate pass into other hands; a mighty change passed over me, as impossible, perhaps, as unfitting, for me to analyse. I was considered mad. Perhaps I was so: there is a divine insanity, a celestial folly, which conquers worlds. At least, when that period was past, I had done, and suffered so strangely, that nothing henceforth could seem strange to me. I had broken the yoke of custom and opinion. My only ground was now the bare realities of human life and duty. In poverty and loneliness I thought out the problems of society, and seemed to myself to have found the one solution--self-sacrifice. Following my first impulse, I had given largely to every charitable institution I could hear of--God forbid that I should regret those gifts--yet the money, I soon found, might have been better spent. One by one, every institution disappointed me; they seemed, after all, only means for keeping the poor in their degradation, by making it just not intolerable to them--means for enabling Mammon to draw fresh victims into his den, by taking off his hands those whom he had already worn out into uselessness. Then I tried association among my own sex--among the most miserable and degraded of them. I simply tried to put them into a position in which they might work for each other, and not for a single tyrant; in which that tyrant's profits might be divided among the slaves themselves. Experienced men warned me that I should fail; that such a plan would be destroyed by the innate selfishness and rivalry of human nature; that it demanded what was impossible to find, good faith, fraternal love, overruling moral influence. I answered, that I knew that already; that nothing but Christianity alone could supply that want, but that it could and should supply it; that I would teach them to live as sisters, by living with them as their sister myself. To become the teacher, the minister, the slave of those whom I was trying to rescue, was now my one idea; to lead them on, not by machinery, but by precept, by example, by the influence of every gift and talent which God had bestowed upon me; to devote to them my enthusiasm, my eloquence, my poetry, my art, my science; to tell them who had bestowed their gifts on me, and would bestow, to each according to her measure, the same on them; to make my workrooms, in one word, not a machinery, but a family. And I have succeeded--as others will succeed, long after my name, my small endeavours, are forgotten amid the great new world--new Church I should have said--of enfranchised and fraternal labour." And this was the suspected aristocrat! Oh, my brothers, my brothers! little you know how many a noble soul, among those ranks which you consider only as your foes, is yearning to love, to help, to live and die for you, did they but know the way! Is it their fault if God has placed them where they are? Is it their fault, if they refuse to part with their wealth, before they are sure that such a sacrifice would really be a mercy to you? Show yourselves worthy of association. Show that you can do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God, as brothers before one Father, subjects of one crucified King--and see then whether the spirit of self-sacrifice is dead among the rich! See whether there are not left in England yet seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Mammon, who will not fear to "give their substance to the free," if they find that the Son has made you free--free from your own sins, as well as from the sins of others! CHAPTER XL. PRIESTS AND PEOPLE. "But after all," I said one day, "the great practical objection still remains unanswered--the clergy? Are we to throw ourselves into their hands after all? Are we, who have been declaiming all our lives against priestcraft, voluntarily to forge again the chains of our slavery to a class whom we neither trust nor honour?" She smiled. "If you will examine the Prayer-Book, you will not find, as far as I am aware, anything which binds a man to become the slave of the priesthood, voluntarily or otherwise. Whether the people become priest-ridden or not, hereafter, will depend, as it always has done, utterly on themselves. As long as the people act upon their spiritual liberty, and live with eyes undimmed by superstitious fear, fixed in loving boldness on their Father in heaven, and their King, the first-born among many brethren, the priesthood will remain, as God intended them, only the interpreters and witnesses of His will and His kingdom. But let them turn their eyes from Him to aught in earth or heaven beside, and there will be no lack of priestcraft, of veils to hide Him from them, tyrants to keep them from Him, idols to ape His likeness. A sinful people will be sure to be a priest-ridden people; in reality, though not in name; by journalists and demagogues, if not by class-leaders and popes: and of the two, I confess I should prefer a Hildebrand to an O'Flynn." "But," I replied, "we do not love, we do not trust, we do not respect the clergy. Has their conduct to the masses for the last century deserved that we should do so? Will you ask us to obey the men whom we despise?" "God forbid!" she answered. "But you must surely be aware of the miraculous, ever-increasing improvement in the clergy." "In morals," I said, "and in industry, doubtless; but not upon those points which are to us just now dearer than their morals or their industry, because they involve the very existence of our own industry and our own morals--I mean, social and political subjects. On them the clergy seem to me as ignorant, as bigoted, as aristocratic as ever." "But, suppose that there were a rapidly-increasing class among the clergy, who were willing to help you to the uttermost--and you must feel that their help would be worth having--towards the attainment of social reform, if you would waive for a time merely political reform?" "What?" I said, "give up the very ideas for which we have struggled, and sinned, and all but died? and will struggle, and, if need be, die for still, or confess ourselves traitors to the common weal?" "The Charter, like its supporters, must die to itself before it lives to God. Is it not even now farther off than ever?" "It seems so indeed--but what do you mean?" "You regarded the Charter as an absolute end. You made a selfish and a self-willed idol of it. And therefore God's blessing did not rest on it or you." "We want it as a means as well as an end--as a means for the highest and widest social reform, as well as a right dependent on eternal justice." "Let the working classes prove that, then," she replied, "in their actions now. If it be true, as I would fain believe it to be, let them show that they are willing to give up their will to God's will; to compass those social reforms by the means which God puts in their way, and wait for His own good time to give them, or not to give them, those means which they in their own minds prefer. This is what I meant by saying that Chartism must die to itself before it has a chance of living to God. You must feel, too, that Chartism has sinned--has defiled itself in the eyes of the wise, the good, the gentle. Your only way now to soften the prejudice against it is to show that you can live like men and brothers and Christians without it. You cannot wonder if the clergy shall object awhile to help you towards that Charter, which the majority of you demanded for the express purpose of destroying the creed which the clergy do believe, however badly they may have acted upon it." "It is all true enough--bitterly true. But yet, why do we need the help of the clergy?" "Because you need the help of the whole nation; because there are other classes to be considered beside yourselves; because the nation is neither the few nor the many, but the all; because it is only by the co-operation of all the members of a body, that any one member can fulfil its calling in health and freedom; because, as long as you stand aloof from the clergy, or from any other class, through pride, self-interest, or wilful ignorance, you are keeping up those very class distinctions of which you and I too complain, as 'hateful equally to God and to his enemies;' and, finally, because the clergy are the class which God has appointed to unite all others; which, in as far as it fulfils its calling, and is indeed a priesthood, is above and below all rank, and knows no man after the flesh, but only on the ground of his spiritual worth, and his birthright in that kingdom which is the heritage of all." "Truly," I answered, "the idea is a noble one--But look at the reality! Has not priestly pandering to tyrants made the Church, in every age, a scoff and a byword among free men?" "May it ever do so," she replied, "whenever such a sin exists! But yet, look at the other side of the picture. Did not the priesthood, in the first ages, glory not in the name, but, what is better, in the office, of democrats? Did not the Roman tyrants hunt them down as wild beasts, because they were democrats, proclaiming to the slave and to the barbarian a spiritual freedom and a heavenly citizenship, before which the Roman well knew his power must vanish into naught? Who, during the invasion of the barbarians, protected the poor against their conquerors? Who, in the middle age, stood between the baron and his serfs? Who, in their monasteries, realized spiritual democracy,--the nothingness of rank and wealth, the practical might of co-operation and self-sacrifice? Who delivered England from the Pope? Who spread throughout every cottage in the land the Bible and Protestantism, the book and the religion which declares that a man's soul is free in the sight of God? Who, at the martyr's stake in Oxford, 'lighted the candle in England that shall never be put out?' Who, by suffering, and not by rebellion, drove the last perjured Stuart from his throne, and united every sect and class in one of the noblest steps in England's progress? You will say these are the exceptions; I say nay; they are rather a few great and striking manifestations of an influence which has been, unseen though not unfelt, at work for ages, converting, consecrating, organizing, every fresh invention of mankind, and which is now on the eve of christianizing democracy, as it did Mediæval Feudalism, Tudor Nationalism, Whig Constitutionalism; and which will succeed in christianizing it, and so alone making it rational, human, possible; because the priesthood alone, of all human institutions, testifies of Christ the King of men, the Lord of all things, the inspirer of all discoveries; who reigns, and will reign, till He has put all things under His feet, and the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of God and of His Christ. Be sure, as it always has been, so will it be now. Without the priesthood there is no freedom for the people. Statesmen know it; and, therefore, those who would keep the people fettered, find it necessary to keep the priesthood fettered also. The people never can be themselves without co-operation with the priesthood; and the priesthood never can be themselves without co-operation with the people. They may help to make a sect-Church for the rich, as they have been doing, or a sect-Church for paupers (which is also the most subtle form of a sect-Church for the rich), as a party in England are trying now to do--as I once gladly would have done myself: but if they would be truly priests of God, and priests of the Universal Church, they must be priests of the people, priests of the masses, priests after the likeness of Him who died on the cross." "And are there any men," I said, "who believe this? and, what is more, have courage to act upon it, now in the very hour of Mammon's triumph?" "There are those who are willing, who are determined, whatever it may cost them, to fraternize with those whom they take shame to themselves for having neglected; to preach and to organize, in concert with them, a Holy War against the social abuses which are England's shame; and, first and foremost, against the fiend of competition. They do not want to be dictators to the working men. They know that they have a message to the artizan, but they know, too, that the artizan has a message to them; and they are not afraid to hear it. They do not wish to make him a puppet for any system of their own; they only are willing, if he will take the hand they offer him, to devote themselves, body and soul, to the great end of enabling the artizan to govern himself; to produce in the capacity of a free man, and not of a slave; to eat the food he earns, and wear the clothes he makes. Will your working brothers co-operate with these men? Are they, do you think, such bigots as to let political differences stand between them and those who fain would treat them as their brothers; or will they fight manfully side by side with them in the battle against Mammon, trusting to God, that if in anything they are otherwise minded, He will, in His own good time, reveal even that unto them? Do you think, to take one instance, the men of your own trade would heartily join a handful of these men in an experiment of associate labour, even though there should be a clergyman or two among them?" "Join them?" I said. "Can you ask the question? I, for one, would devote myself, body and soul, to any enterprise so noble. Crossthwaite would ask for nothing higher, than to be a hewer of wood and a drawer of water to an establishment of associate workmen. But, alas! his fate is fixed for the New World; and mine, I verily believe, for sickness and the grave. And yet I will answer for it, that, in the hopes of helping such a project, he would give up Mackaye's bequest, for the mere sake of remaining in England; and for me, if I have but a month of life, it is at the service of such men as you describe." "Oh!" she said, musingly, "if poor Mackaye had but had somewhat more faith in the future, that fatal condition would perhaps never have been attached to his bequest. And yet, perhaps, it is better as it is. Crossthwaite's mind may want quite, as much as yours does, a few years of a simpler and brighter atmosphere to soften and refresh it again. Besides, your health is too weak, your life, I know, too valuable to your class, for us to trust you on such a voyage alone. He must go with you." "With me?" I said. "You must be misinformed; I have no thought of leaving England." "You know the opinion of the physicians?" "I know that my life is not likely to be a long one; that immediate removal to a southern, if possible to a tropical climate, is considered the only means of preserving it. For the former I care little; _non est tanti vivere_. And, indeed, the latter, even if it would succeed, is impossible. Crossthwaite will live and thrive by the labour of his hands; while, for such a helpless invalid as I to travel, would be to dissipate the little capital which Mackaye has left me. "The day will come, when society will find it profitable, as well as just, to put the means of preserving life by travel within the reach of the poorest. But individuals must always begin by setting the examples, which the state too slowly, though surely (for the world is God's world after all), will learn to copy. All is arranged for you. Crossthwaite, you know, would have sailed ere now, had it not been for your fever. Next week you start with him for Texas, No; make no objections. All expenses are defrayed--no matter by whom." "By you! By you! Who else?" "Do you think that I monopolize the generosity of England? Do you think warm hearts beat only in the breasts of working men? But, if it were I, would not that be only another reason for submitting? You must go. You will have, for the next three years, such an allowance as will support you in comfort, whether you choose to remain stationary, or, as I hope, to travel southward into Mexico. Your passage-money is already paid." Why should I attempt to describe my feelings? I gasped for breath, and looked stupidly at her for a minute or two.--The second darling hope of my life within my reach, just as the first had been snatched from me! At last I found words. "No, no, noble lady! Do not tempt me! Who am I, the slave of impulse, useless, worn out in mind and body, that you should waste such generosity upon me? I do not refuse from the honest pride of independence; I have not man enough left in me even for that. But will you, of all people, ask me to desert the starving suffering thousands, to whom my heart, my honour are engaged; to give up the purpose of my life, and pamper my fancy in a luxurious paradise, while they are slaving here?" "What? Cannot God find champions for them when you are gone? Has he not found them already? Believe me, that Tenth of April, which you fancied the death-day of liberty, has awakened a spirit in high as well as in low life, which children yet unborn will bless." "Oh, do not mistake me! Have I not confessed my own weakness? But if I have one healthy nerve left in me, soul or body, it will retain its strength only as long as it thrills with devotion to the people's cause. If I live, I must live among them, for them. If I die, I must die at my post. I could not rest, except in labour. I dare not fly, like Jonah, from the call of God. In the deepest shade of the virgin forests, on the loneliest peak of the Cordilleras, He would find me out; and I should hear His still small voice reproving me, as it reproved the fugitive patriot-seer of old--What doest thou here, Elijah?" I was excited, and spoke, I am afraid, after my custom, somewhat too magniloquently. But she answered only with a quiet smile: "So you are a Chartist still?" "If by a Chartist you mean one who fancies that a change in mere political circumstances will bring about a millennium, I am no longer one. That dream is gone--with others. But if to be a Chartist is to love my brothers with every faculty of my soul--to wish to live and die struggling for their rights, endeavouring to make them, not electors merely, but fit to be electors, senators, kings, and priests to God and to His Christ--if that be the Chartism of the future, then am I sevenfold a Chartist, and ready to confess it before men, though I were thrust forth from every door in England." She was silent a moment. "'The stone which the builders rejected is become the head of the corner.' Surely the old English spirit has cast its madness, and begins to speak once more as it spoke in Naseby fights and Smithfield fires!" "And yet you would quench it in me amid the enervating climate of the tropics." "Need it be quenched there? Was it quenched in Drake, in Hawkins, in the conquerors of Hindostan? Weakness, like strength, is from within, of the spirit, and not of sunshine. I would send you thither, that you may gain new strength, new knowledge to carry out your dream and mine. Do not refuse me the honour of preserving you. Do not forbid me to employ my wealth in the only way which reconciles my conscience to the possession of it. I have saved many a woman already; and this one thing remained--the highest of all my hopes and longings--that God would allow me, ere I die, to save a man. I have longed to find some noble soul, as Carlyle says, fallen down by the wayside, and lift it up, and heal its wounds, and teach it the secret of its heavenly birthright, and consecrate it to its King in heaven. I have longed to find a man of the people, whom I could train to be the poet of the people." "Me, at least, you have saved, have taught, have trained! Oh that your care had been bestowed on some more worthy object!" "Let me, at least, then, perfect my own work. You do not--it is a sign of your humility that you do not--appreciate the value of this rest. You underrate at once your own powers, and the shock which they have received." "If I must go, then, why so far? Why put you to so great expense? If you must be generous, send me to some place nearer home--to Italy, to the coast of Devon, or the Isle of Wight, where invalids like me are said to find all the advantages which are so often, perhaps too hastily, sought in foreign lands." "No," she said, smiling; "you are my servant now, by the laws of chivalry, and you must fulfil my quest. I have long hoped for a tropic poet; one who should leave the routine imagery of European civilization, its meagre scenery, and physically decrepit races, for the grandeur, the luxuriance, the infinite and strongly-marked variety of tropic nature, the paradisiac beauty and simplicity of tropic humanity. I am tired of the old images; of the barren alternations between Italy and the Highlands. I had once dreamt of going to the tropics myself; but my work lay elsewhere. Go for me, and for the people. See if you cannot help to infuse some new blood into the aged veins of English literature; see if you cannot, by observing man in his mere simple and primeval state, bring home fresh conceptions of beauty, fresh spiritual and physical laws of his existence, that you may realize them here at home--(how, I see as yet but dimly; but He who teaches the facts will surely teach their application)--in the cottages, in the play-grounds, the reading-rooms, the churches of working men." "But I know so little--I have seen so little!" "That very fact, I flatter myself, gives you an especial vocation for my scheme. Your ignorance of cultivated English scenery, and of Italian art, will enable you to approach with a more reverend, simple, and unprejudiced eye the primeval forms of beauty--God's work, not man's. Sin you will see there, and anarchy, and tyranny, but I do not send you to look for society, but for nature. I do not send you to become a barbarian settler, but to bring home to the realms of civilization those ideas of physical perfection, which as yet, alas! barbarism, rather than civilization, has preserved. Do not despise your old love for the beautiful. Do not fancy that because you have let it become an idol and a tyrant, it was not therefore the gift of God. Cherish it, develop it to the last; steep your whole soul in beauty; watch it in its most vast and complex harmonies, and not less in its most faint and fragmentary traces. Only, hitherto you have blindly worshipped it; now you must learn to comprehend, to master, to embody it; to show it forth to men as the sacrament of Heaven, the finger-mark of God!" Who could resist such pleading from those lips? I at least could not. CHAPTER XLI. FREEDOM, EQUALITY, AND BROTHERHOOD. Before the same Father, the same King, crucified for all alike, we had partaken of the same bread and wine, we had prayed for the same spirit. Side by side, around the chair on which I lay propped up with pillows, coughing my span of life away, had knelt the high-born countess, the cultivated philosopher, the repentant rebel, the wild Irish girl, her slavish and exclusive creed exchanged for one more free and all-embracing; and that no extremest type of human condition might be wanting, the reclaimed Magdalene was there--two pale worn girls from Eleanor's asylum, in whom I recognized the needlewomen to whom Mackaye had taken me, on a memorable night, seven years before. Thus--and how better?--had God rewarded their loving care of that poor dying fellow-slave. Yes--we had knelt together: and I had felt that we were one--that there was a bond between us, real, eternal, independent of ourselves, knit not by man, but God; and the peace of God, which passes understanding, came over me like the clear sunshine after weary rain. One by one they shook me by the hand, and quitted the room; and Eleanor and I were left alone. "See!" she said, "Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood are come; but not as you expected." Blissful, repentant tears blinded my eyes, as I replied, not to her, but to Him who spoke by her-- "Lord! not as I will, but as thou wilt!" "Yes," she continued, "Freedom, Equality, and Brotherhood are here. Realize them in thine own self, and so alone thou helpest to make them realities for all. Not from without, from Charters and Republics, but from within, from the Spirit working in each; not by wrath and haste, but by patience made perfect through suffering, canst thou proclaim their good news to the groaning masses, and deliver them, as thy Master did before thee, by the cross, and not the sword. Divine paradox!--Folly to the rich and mighty--the watchword of the weak, in whose weakness is God's strength made perfect. 'In your patience possess ye your souls, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.' Yes--He came then, and the Babel-tyranny of Rome fell, even as the more fearful, more subtle, and more diabolic tyranny of Mammon shall fall ere long--suicidal, even now crumbling by its innate decay. Yes--Babylon the Great--the commercial world of selfish competition, drunken with the blood of God's people, whose merchandise is the bodies and souls of men--her doom is gone forth. And then--then--when they, the tyrants of the earth, who lived delicately with her, rejoicing in her sins, the plutocrats and bureaucrats, the money-changers and devourers of labour, are crying to the rocks to hide them, and to the hills to cover them, from the wrath of Him that sitteth on the throne--then labour shall be free at last, and the poor shall eat and be satisfied, with things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which God has prepared for those who love Him. Then the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea, and mankind at last shall own their King--Him. in whom they are all redeemed into the glorious liberty of the Sons of God, and He shall reign indeed on earth, and none but His saints shall rule beside Him. And then shall this sacrament be an everlasting sign to all the nations of the world, as it has been to you this day, of freedom, equality, brotherhood, of Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good-will toward men. Do you believe?" Again I answered, not her, but Him who sent her-- "Lord, I believe! Help thou mine unbelief!" "And now farewell. I shall not see you again before you start--and ere you return--My health has been fast declining lately." I started--I had not dared to confess to myself how thin her features had become of late. I had tried not to hear the dry and hectic cough, or see the burning spot on either cheek--but it was too true; and with a broken voice I cried: "Oh that I might die, and join you!" "Not so--I trust that you have still a work to do. But if not, promise me that, whatever be the event of your voyage, you will publish, in good time, an honest history of your life; extenuating nothing, exaggerating nothing, ashamed to confess or too proclaim nothing. It may perhaps awaken some rich man to look down and take pity on the brains and hearts more noble than his own, which lie struggling in poverty and misguidance among these foul sties, which civilization rears--and calls them cities. Now, once again, farewell!" She held out her hand--I would have fallen at her feet, but the thought of that common sacrament withheld me. I seized her hand, covered it with adoring kisses--Slowly she withdrew it, and glided from the room-- What need of more words? I obeyed her--sailed--and here I am. * * * * * Yes! I have seen the land! Like a purple fringe upon the golden sea, "while parting day dies like the dolphin," there it lay upon the fair horizon--the great young free new world! and every tree, and flower, and insect on it new!--a wonder and a joy--which I shall never see.... No,--I shall never reach the land. I felt it all along. Weaker and weaker, day by day, with bleeding lungs and failing limbs, I have travelled the ocean paths. The iron has entered too deeply into my soul.... Hark! Merry voices on deck are welcoming their future home. Laugh on, happy ones!--come out of Egypt and the house of bondage, and the waste and howling wilderness of slavery and competition, workhouses and prisons, into a good land and large, a land flowing with milk and honey, where you will sit every one under his own vine and his own fig-tree, and look into the faces of your rosy children--and see in them a blessing and not a curse! Oh, England! stern mother-land, when wilt thou renew thy youth?--Thou wilderness of man's making, not God's!... Is it not written, that the days shall come when the forest shall break forth into singing, and the wilderness shall blossom like the rose? Hark! again, sweet and clear, across the still night sea, ring out the notes of Crossthwaite's bugle--the first luxury, poor fellow, he ever allowed himself; and yet not a selfish one, for music, like mercy, is twice blessed-- "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes." There is the spirit-stirring marching air of the German workmen students Thou, thou, thou, and thou, Sir Master, fare thee well.-- Perhaps a half reproachful hint to the poor old England he is leaving. What a glorious metre! warming one's whole heart into life and energy! If I could but write in such a metre one true people's song, that should embody all my sorrow, indignation, hope--fitting last words for a poet of the people--for they will be my last words--Well--thank God! at least I shall not be buried in a London churchyard! It may be a foolish fancy--but I have made them promise to lay me up among the virgin woods, where, if the soul ever visits the place of its body's rest, I may snatch glimpses of that natural beauty from which I was barred out in life, and watch the gorgeous flowers that bloom above my dust, and hear the forest birds sing around the Poet's grave. Hark to the grand lilt of the "Good Time Coming!"--Song which has cheered ten thousand hearts; which has already taken root, that it may live and grow for ever--fitting melody to soothe my dying ears! Ah! how should there not be A Good Time Coming?--Hope, and trust, and infinite deliverance!--a time such as eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive!--coming surely, soon or late, to those for whom a God did not disdain to die! * * * * * Our only remaining duty is to give an extract from a letter written by John Crossthwaite, and dated "GALVESTON, TEXAS, _October, 1848_. ... "I am happy. Katie is happy, There is peace among us here, like 'the clear downshining after rain.' But I thirst and long already for the expiration of my seven years' exile, wholesome as I believe it to be. My only wish is to return and assist in the Emancipation of Labour, and give my small aid in that fraternal union of all classes which I hear is surely, though slowly, spreading in my mother-land. "And now for my poor friend, whose papers, according to my promise to him, I transmit to you. On the very night on which he seems to have concluded them--an hour after we had made the land--we found him in his cabin, dead, his head resting on the table as peacefully as if he had slumbered. On a sheet of paper by him were written the following verses; the ink was not yet dry: "'MY LAST WORDS. "'I. "'Weep, weep, weep, and weep, For pauper, dolt, and slave; Hark! from wasted moor and fen, Feverous alley, workhouse den, Swells the wail of Englishmen: "Work! or the grave!" "'II. "'Down, down, down, and down, With idler, knave, and tyrant; Why for sluggards stint and moil He that will not live by toil Has no right on English soil; God's word's our warrant! "'III. "'Up, up, up, and up, Face your game, and play it! The night is past--behold the sun!-- The cup is full, the web is spun, The Judge is set, the doom begun; Who shall stay it?'"